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      ‘Spare us your prayers’: Ted Cruz faces backlash after Texas mall shooting kills eight

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      Texas US senator Ted Cruz’s comment Saturday that he was “praying” for families of the eight victims killed in a shooting at a shopping mall in his state has sparked outrage as many critics say the Republican should advocate for meaningful gun control rather than repeatedly invoke prayer after mass, deadly violence.Cruz and other fellow Texas Republicans have faced similar backlash for citing general emotional support, thoughts, prayers, or a combination thereof after the slayings in Allen, Texas, on Saturday.Criticism of Cruz grew several hours after the shooting when he tweeted: “Heidi and I are praying for the families of the victims of the horrific mall shooting in Allen, Texas. We pray also for the broader Collin county community that’s in shock from this tragedy.”Shannon Watts, founder of gun safety group Moms Demand Action, said on Twitter: “YOU helped arm him with guns, ammo and tactical gear. He did exactly what you knew he’d do. Spare us your prayers and talk of justice for a gunman who is … dead”.“The only accountability we can hope for is that gun extremists like you are thrown into the ash heap of history.”Star Trek actor George Takei added: “You’re worse than useless.”Another Twitter user said thoughts and prayers “are nothing but blasphemy and evil”. Yet another quipped: “Have you tried turning the prayer machine off and back on again.”Cruz has received more than $442,000 from organization which support keeping guns as accessible as possible, according to Axios and Open Secrets. He has used language referring to thought and prayers rather than restrictions on guns in reaction to other previous mass shootings in his state.After a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at the Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on 24 May 2022, Cruz commented: “Heidi and I are lifting up in prayer the entire … community during this devastating time and we mourn the lives that were taken by this act of evil. None of us can imagine the anguish the parents in Uvalde are going through. Our hearts go out to them.”In response to a racist shooting at an El Paso Walmart that left 23 dead in August 2019, Cruz similarly said: “Heidi & I are praying for everyone in El Paso. As events continue to unfold, please heed any warnings from local authorities and law enforcement and stay safe. #Pray4ElPaso.”Cruz’s comment on a shooting that left two dead near one of his state’s universities a couple of months later was: “Heidi and I are lifting up in prayer those who were killed and injured in last night’s shooting at an off-campus party at Texas A&M Commerce @tamuc.”Cruz has offered more than prayers in response to certain mass shootings, though, such as commentary on immigration policy. After authorities said that a Mexican national who had previously been deported shot five neighbors to death last month, Cruz tweeted: “Thank you to the brave men and women of law enforcement who worked tirelessly to apprehend this mass murdering illegal alien who killed 5 innocent people. The victims deserve justice. And this monster when convicted deserves the death penalty.”In the hours and days leading up to Saturday’s shooting in Allen, Cruz touted his support of gun rights. Early Saturday afternoon, he retweeted a Senate Republicans post stating: “Ted Cruz’s challenger said he wishes the second amendment wasn’t written. Beto 2.0?”Early on Saturday, Cruz said of declared 2024 challenger Colin Allred, a Democratic congressman: “Wow. This guy wants to represent Texas??” quoting him saying “Would it be better if [the second amendment] had not been written? Of course. But there’s no chance that we’re going to repeal” it.Cruz used googly eyes in his tweet, which referred to the constitutional right for Americans to bear arms.Republican US congressman Keith Self, whose district includes Allen, bristled on Sunday when asked about invoking spirituality after mass shootings like the one a day earlier.Citing law enforcement sources, NBC News and CNN identified the shooter as 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia. NBC News described Garcia as a neo-Nazi sympathizer.“Those are people that don’t believe in an almighty God who is absolutely in control of our lives,” Self told CNN. “I’m a Christian – I believe that he is.”Self went on to argue that the US’s lack of adequate mental health treatment was to blame for mass shootings. And then he said that the country’s focus should be on praying for the Allen victims’ families.Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, also sought to redirect the public conversation about the Allen mall shooting to mental health. Eve“People want a quick solution,” Abbott said on Fox News Sunday. “The long-term solution here is to address the mental health issue.”Abbott’s comment on mental health came after host Shannon Bream noted that a Fox News poll revealed that 80% of participants supported gun control measures, such as raising the minimum age to buy a firearm and mental health checks. Fox News’s viewers are largely Republican.Neither Cruz, Abbott nor Self immediately responded to requests for comment.Despite Texas’s history of mass shootings, Abbott in 2021 signed a law which allowed the state’s residents to legally carry guns without a license or training. Meanwhile, a federal judge last year struck down one of Texas’s few remaining gun restrictions, which barred people younger than 21 from carrying a handgun. More

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      Rep. Colin Allred of Texas Will Challenge Ted Cruz for Senate

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      Mr. Allred, a Democrat and former N.F.L. linebacker, said he would try to unseat Mr. Cruz, who held off Beto O’Rourke in 2018.HOUSTON — Representative Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican to gain his seat in 2018, announced on Wednesday that he would challenge Senator Ted Cruz of Texas next year.In a three-minute video, Mr. Allred, 40, a former civil rights lawyer who played as a linebacker in the N.F.L., presented himself as a bipartisan politician whose working-class upbringing would enable him to overcome the long odds: No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since the 1990s.“We don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator,” he said, after describing Mr. Cruz as someone who “cheered on the mob” during the Capitol riot and who left Texas to go to the resort city of Cancun, Mexico, during the 2021 winter storm and power grid failure that killed hundreds of Texans. “We can get a new one.”Mr. Allred came into office riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm that nearly unseated Mr. Cruz during his last re-election fight, a 2018 victory over Beto O’Rourke, then a little-known representative from El Paso. Mr. O’Rourke lost by about 2.5 percentage points, a thin margin in the Republican-dominated state.The same year, Mr. Allred defeated Representative Pete Sessions, a Republican, in a Dallas-area district that has since been redrawn to become more favorable for Democrats.Almost from the start, Mr. Allred has shown an ability to attract interest from donors, outraising Mr. Sessions and continuing to demonstrate the kind of strong fund-raising ability that would be necessary in a statewide race in Texas.Mr. Cruz is highly unpopular among Texas Democrats, but he has so far survived all attempts to oust him.Enthusiasm is also low among many Texas Democrats, who watched Mr. O’Rourke lose badly to Gov. Greg Abbott last year despite his well-funded campaign.And Mr. Allred, whose decision to enter the race began emerging in news reports before Wednesday’s announcement, has seen expectations for his campaign set low: The magazine Texas Monthly suggested that he was a “replacement-level candidate.” In other words, as good as any other Democrat but not a star.Nick Maddux, a spokesman for Mr. Cruz’s campaign, described Mr. Allred as a “far-left radical” in a statement on Wednesday. “His voting record is completely out-of-touch with Texas,” he said. “For over a decade, Sen. Cruz has been leading the fight for jobs, freedom, and security in Texas.”Mr. Allred’s announcement video acknowledged that he was a long shot, presenting himself as an underdog who “never knew” his father, and pulled himself up into elite football, law school and Congress. He said he would focus on Texas issues, not divisive cultural ones, discussing rural hospital closures and prescription drug prices in his video.As for Mr. Cruz, he said: “All hat, no cattle.” More

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      Ex-NFL player Colin Allred launches challenge to Ted Cruz for Senate seat

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      The far-right Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz will be challenged for his seat next year by Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker who launched his campaign on Wednesday with a video referencing the January 6 attack on Congress by Trump supporters Cruz called “peaceful protesters”.“I’ve taken down a lot tougher guys than Ted Cruz,” Allred said.Allred, 40, played college football for Baylor in Texas then played 32 games for the Tennessee Titans between 2007 and 2010. He entered Congress in 2019, a rare Democrat in red Texas. He has increased his majority since.Democrats control the Senate but face a tough elections map in 2024. A pick-up in Texas would be a shock but would boost activists who insist the state is turning towards progressives.On 6 January 2021, Trump supporters urged on by the then president and Republican allies including Cruz attacked Congress in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win, which Trump baselessly claimed was the result of electoral fraud.In his announcement video, Allred took Cruz to task for being one of 147 Republicans who objected to election results even after the riot, which is now linked to nine deaths including law enforcement suicides, and for confessing to hiding in a closet during the attack.“When I left the NFL,” Allred said, walking on a football field, “I thought my days of putting people on the ground were over. Then, January 6 happened.“I remember hearing the glass breaking and the shouts coming closer. I texted my wife: ‘Whatever happens, I love you.’ Then I took off my jacket and got ready to take on anyone who came through that door.“And Ted Cruz? He cheered on the mob. Then hid in a supply closet when they stormed the Capitol. But that’s Ted for you. All hat, no cattle.”Allred also targeted Cruz for a famous flight to Cancun when Texas fell under a big freeze amid widespread power failures, and for perceived policy failings, before telling his own life story.On Twitter, Allred added: “I’ve taken down a lot tougher guys than Ted Cruz, but I can’t do this without your help.”Now 53, Cruz entered Congress in 2013. In 2016 he ran second to Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Initially a hold-out against the billionaire, who insulted his wife and father, like most of the rest of the party Cruz soon came onside. Paul Manafort, a former Trump aide, has said Trump gave Cruz a rare apology.In the usually collegial Senate, Cruz is famously unpopular. Al Franken, the former Democratic senator from Minnesota, once said: “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”In 2018, the last time Cruz ran for re-election, he faced a strong challenge from Beto O’Rourke, a former Democratic congressman. Cruz won by less than three points.Speaking to the Dallas Morning News, Allred said Texas “can’t afford six more years of Ted Cruz”.He added: “The political extremism that we are becoming increasingly known for is a real risk to our business community and our path forward. It’s making some folks say they don’t want to send their kids to school in our state. We can go in a different direction.” More

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      Texas governor decried for ‘disgusting’ rhetoric in wake of mass shooting

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      As he announced a reward for the capture of a 38-year-old Texas man accused of fatally shooting five people after some of them complained about his firing a rifle in his yard, the state’s governor, Greg Abbott, went out of his way to describe Francisco Oropeza and those he allegedly murdered as “illegal immigrants”.The Republican’s words drew ire from immigration advocates, state and federal lawmakers and other politicians as Abbott’s words hewed closely with his track record of using anti-immigrant rhetoric in the wake of mass shootings.They decried Abbott’s rhetoric as dehumanizing and indicative of an attempt to deflect attention from the role Republican lawmakers played in shaping Texas’s lax gun laws that Democrats say have created an unsafe environment for residents.As of Monday, law enforcement authorities had not confirmed the immigration status of the five people killed. The victims, which included a young boy and two women who were shielding children from gunfire, were all from Honduras. Oropeza, who remained at large on Monday morning as federal and local enforcement frantically searched for him, was a Mexican national who had reportedly been previously deported from the US.Political discussions of those facts prompted the local sheriff, Greg Capers of San Jacinto, to say they were irrelevant to investigators.“My heart is with this … boy,” Capers told reporters. “He was in my county, five people died in my county, and that is where my heart is – in my county, protecting my people to the best of our ability.”In his statements, Abbott also noted that he would tell state officials to “alert Operation Lone Star soldiers and troopers to be on the lookout for the criminal and any attempts to flee the country after taking the lives of five people”. The operation, which started in 2021, enabled Abbott to declare a security crisis at Texas’s border with Mexico – where crossings have risen in recent years – and deploy the state’s national guard there.Critics have decried how the operation has cost Texas taxpayers millions of dollars weekly while its participants make arrests that are physically distant from the border, not related to crimes there, and involve law enforcement agencies not directly part of Operation Lone Star, according to reporting from the Texas Tribune, ProPublica and the Marshall Project.Julián Castro, a former mayor of San Antonio who served as secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development before he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, criticized Abbott for using anti-immigrant rhetoric when “five human beings lost their lives”.State senator Roland Gutierrez – a Democratic lawmaker whose district includes Uvalde, where 19 elementary school students and two of their teachers were shot to death by an intruder last year – went on Twitter to call Abbott’s statement a “new low”.Abbott, Gutierrez maintained, continued to “do nothing to keep #Texas safe from #GunViolence”.Gutierrez, who is likely to run against the Republican Ted Cruz for his US Senate seat, told MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez on Sunday that the state’s GOP members were responsible for loosening gun laws, noting that there were more than 20 pieces of gun control legislation that have not moved.“They don’t get to have an immigration narrative today,” Guiterrez said. “They need to own the narrative that they have made this state more dangerous … An undocumented person was able to buy an AR-15 illegally somewhere because of their lax gun laws.”State Republicans have routinely rejected more gun restrictions, including in the wake of a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso that killed 23 and at the Uvalde school. Instead, they have loosened them, despite initially signaling they were open to some restrictions.In 2021, two years after the El Paso shooting, Abbott signed a so-called “constitutional carry” law that allows Texas residents to carry handguns without a license or training.Texas joins more than half the US in allowing the permitless carrying of firearms. In April, Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a law making his state the latest to allow the carrying of concealed firearms without a license or training, less than seven years after a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.Despite calls from the families of Uvalde victims for tougher gun laws, Republican Texas lawmakers have refused to act, and the state’s gun laws have gotten looser. Last August, a federal judge struck down a Texas law that raised the legal age for people to carry handguns from 18 to 21.Those acts came even as a poll commissioned by Fox News, whose viewers are largely Republican, found that American voters favor gun control measures and worry that firearms violence will victimize them.Police recovered an AR-15-style rifle that they say Oropeza used in Friday’s shooting. It is unclear how he obtained it.The Immigration Legal Resource Center tweeted that Abbott’s rhetoric amplified a “specific narrative” rather than focusing on the people involved.The Congressional Hispanic Caucus tweeted that Abbott, by centering the victims’ unconfirmed immigration status, decided to “dehumanize” and “delegitimize” their lives. Congressperson Chuy García of Illinois, one of the caucus’s members, added that Abbott would “take every chance he gets to dehumanize migrants. Even if they were murdered in a mass shooting.”Veronica Escobar, who represents El Paso in Congress, called Abbott’s rhetoric a “disgusting lack of compassion and humanity”. More

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      Texas state agency orders workers to dress ‘consistent to their biological gender’

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      A Texas state agency told its employees this month that they must dress in a manner that is “consistent with their biological gender”, a directive that seemed to be a thinly veiled attack on transgender employees.The state’s department of agriculture laid out the dress policy in a 13 April memo, which was first reported by the Texas Observer.The memo says that “Western business attire” is appropriate and lays out acceptable business casual items.“For men, business attire includes a long-sleeved dress shirt, tie, and sport coat worn with trousers and dress shoes or boots,” it says. “For women, business attire includes tailored pantsuits, business-like dresses, coordinated dressy separates worn with or without a blazer, and conservative, closed-toe shoes or boots.”It prohibits women from wearing clothing that allows for “excessive cleavage” as well as skirts that are shorter than four inches from the knees. It also bans certain footwear – Crocs, slippers and slides are all not allowed. Also not allowed are neon and fluorescent hair colors as well as lip and other facial piercings. Clothing that is “too tight or too revealing” is also not allowed. “You are a professional, look like one,” the memo says.The policy comes as Texas and a number of other US states have moved to attack transgender Americans. There was more anti-transgender legislation filed in Texas this year than in any other state, according to a tally by Axios.Proposed measures would restrict drag performances, impose new obstacles to gender-affirming care and limit teaching about gender and sexuality, the Texas Tribune reported.Texas’s department of agriculture is run by Sid Miller, a Republican who was first elected to his role in 2014. An outspoken supporter of former president Donald Trump, Miller has faced headwinds because of some scandals in recent years.The memo says agency supervisors can exercise “reasonable discretion” in assessing employees’ clothing. Employees’ refusal to comply with a request to change their clothing could result in their dismissal.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“If a staff member’s inappropriate attire, poor hygiene or use of offensive perfume/cologne is an issue, the supervisor should first discuss the problem with the staff member in private and should point out the specific areas to be corrected,” the memo says.The CEO of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Texas, Ricardo Martinez, told the Texas Tribune that the ambiguities in the policy could lead to confusion. “Are women no longer allowed to wear suits? Can men wear necklaces?” he said.An attorney with the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Brian Klosterboer, told the Texas Tribune that the policy violated federal law. Federal civil rights law also protects LGBTQ+ individuals from discrimination by their employers, the supreme court ruled in 2020. More

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      in Elections

      Another Texas Election Official Quits After Threats From Trump Supporters

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      Heider Garcia, the top election official in deep-red Tarrant County, had previously testified about being harassed by the former president’s right-wing supporters.Heider Garcia, the head of elections in Tarrant County, Texas, announced this week that he would resign after facing death threats, joining other beleaguered election officials across the nation who have quit under similar circumstances.Mr. Garcia oversees elections in a county where, in 2020, Donald J. Trump became only the second Republican presidential candidate to lose in more than 50 years. Right-wing skepticism of the election results fueled threats against him, even though the county received acclaim from state auditors for its handling of the 2020 voting. Why it’s importantWith Mr. Trump persistently repeating the lie that he won the 2020 election, many of his supporters and those in right-wing media have latched on to conspiracy theories and joined him in spreading disinformation about election security. Those tasked with running elections, even in deeply Republican areas that did vote for Mr. Trump in 2020, have borne the brunt of vitriol and threats from people persuaded by baseless claims of fraud.The threats made against himMr. Garcia detailed a series of threats as part of his written testimony last year to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he urged to pass better protections for election officials.One of the threats made online that he cited: “hang him when convicted from fraud and let his lifeless body hang in public until maggots drip out his mouth.”He testified that he had repeatedly been the target of a doxxing campaign, including the posting of his home address on Twitter after Sidney Powell, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, falsely accused him on television and social media of manipulating election results.Mr. Garcia also testified that he received direct messages on Facebook with death threats calling him a “traitor,” and one election denier used Twitter to urge others to “hunt him down.”Heider Garcia’s backgroundMr. Garcia, whose political affiliation is not listed on public voting records, has overseen elections in Tarrant County since 2018. Before that, he had a similar role outside Sacramento in Placer County, Calif.He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.Election deniers have fixated on Mr. Garcia’s previous employment with Smartmatic, an election technology company that faced baseless accusations of rigging the 2020 election and filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News that is similar to one brought by the voting machine company Dominion, which was settled on Tuesday. He had several roles with Smartmatic over more than a dozen years, ending in 2016, according to his LinkedIn profile. His work for the company in Venezuela, a favorite foil of the right wing because of its troubled socialist government, has been a focus of conspiracy theorists.What he said about the threats“I could not sleep that night, I just sat in the living room, until around 3:00 a.m., just waiting to see if anyone had read this and decided to act on it.”— From Mr. Garcia’s written testimony last year, describing the toll that the posting of his address online, along with other threats, had taken on him and his family.Other election officials who have quitAll three election officials resigned last year in another Texas county, Gillespie — at least one of whom cited repeated death threats and stalking.A rural Virginia county about 70 miles west of Richmond lost its entire elections staff this year after an onslaught of baseless voter fraud claims, NBC News reported.Read moreElection officials have resorted to an array of heightened security measures as threats against them have intensified, including hiring private security, fireproofing and erecting fencing around a vote tabulation center.The threats have led to several arrests by a Justice Department task force that was created in 2021 to focus on attempts to intimidate election officials. More

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      in US Politics

      Fate of US abortion drug hangs in balance ahead of Friday deadline

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      FDA authorization for a key abortion drug could be nullified after Friday, unless an appeals court acts on a Biden administration request to block last week’s ruling suspending approval of the drug.The drug, mifepristone, is used in more than half of all the abortions in the US. The ruling, issued by a federal judge in Texas, applies across the country.Writing that the ruling would “inflict grave harm on women, the medical system, and the public” if it went into effect, the Department of Justice on Monday requested the fifth US circuit court of appeals temporarily block Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling while the appeals process plays out.The issue may ultimately fall into the hands of the US supreme court and its conservative supermajority, which eradicated abortion rights last year by overturning Roe v Wade.Kacsmaryk stayed his decision for seven days to allow the Biden administration time to appeal. Shortly after the ruling from Texas, Obama-appointed Washington district judge Thomas Rice issued a contradictory ruling that directs the FDA to keep the drug available in 17 states.The dueling opinions set the stage for the supreme court to possibly intervene.“On one hand, you have a ruling that says to defer to the expertise of the FDA and keep the status quo while another says to second-guess the FDA with junk science,” says David S Cohen, law professor at Drexel University, who focuses on reproductive rights.“When you have different rulings from different federal courts it is more likely for the US supreme court to get involved.”The New Orleans-based appellate court is one of the most conservative in the US. Republican appointees comprise three-quarters of its bench, with six judges nominated by former President Donald Trump. The court has routinely ruled against the Biden administration and on behalf of Texas’s abortion laws.If the appeals court declines to put a hold on Kacsmaryk’s ruling, then the Biden administration would likely appeal to the high court.“It’s possible that the mifepristone issue makes its way to the [Supreme] Court this week, either because the Fifth Circuit refuses to even temporarily pause Kacsmaryk’s ruling, or because it takes too long to do anything,” writes Steve Vladeck, a constitutional law professor at The University of Texas.In his ruling, Kacsmaryk echoed the arguments of the anti-abortion groups that brought the case, writing that the FDA disregarded science that the drug causes harm, despite repeated studies finding it extremely safe. Legal experts say that the decision – the first time the judiciary has intervened to overturn FDA approval of a drug – could create a precedent that throws the entire drug approvals system into disarray.More than 250 pharmaceutical and biomedical companies who strongly denounced Kacsmaryk’s ruling in an open letter and warned that it could upend the FDA approval process as well as the entire US healthcare system.“Judicial activism will not stop here,” they cautioned. “If courts can overturn drug approvals without regard for science and evidence, or for the complexity required to fully vet the safety and efficacy of new drugs, any medicine is at risk for the same outcome as mifepristone.”Mifepristone is used for abortion, miscarriage management and other medical care. If access to the drug is upended, abortion providers have said they will continue to prescribe the second of the two-drug protocol for abortions. However, that drug, misoprostol, has been found to be somewhat less effective and associated with more painful side effects than the combination of pills.With the mifepristone in doubt, the Biden administration asked Rice, the district judge in Washington, for clarification on how to proceed if the Texas ruling goes into effect, given that his decision orders the government to take no action that would hinder its availability.Legal experts have argued that the FDA does not need to enforce Kacsmaryk’s ruling, even if it goes into effect.The ruling does not formally compel the FDA to seize the pills and take them off the market, Cohen says, and leaves the door open for the Biden administration to apply what’s called “enforcement discretion”, which would entail issuing guidance protecting the distribution of mifepristone. In the past, the FDA has granted drug manufacturers this type of safe harbor even in the absence of agency authorization, including for infant formula.“The ruling does not force the FDA to do anything,” says Cohen. “It’s up to the FDA to determine what to do next. They can use enforcement discretion to protect access to mifepristone. We shouldn’t read into Kacsmaryk’s ruling as having more power than it does – it is limited – and there’s a huge amount of authority the FDA can retain.” More

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      US appeals Texas judge’s ruling to suspend abortion pill approval

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      The US government on Monday appealed a Texas judge’s decision to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of a key abortion drug, saying the ruling endangered women’s health by blocking access to a pill long deemed safe.In a filing with the 5th US circuit court of appeals, the Department of Justice (DoJ) called judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s decision on the drug mifepristone “especially unwarranted” because it would undermine the FDA’s scientific judgment and harm women for whom the drug is medically necessary.The DoJ also said the anti-abortion groups that sought to overturn the FDA’s approval had no right to sue in the first place, saying they could not show they were harmed and had left the approval unchallenged for years.Kacsmaryk’s decision “upended decades of reliance by blocking FDA’s approval of mifepristone and depriving patients of access to this safe and effective treatment, based on the court’s own misguided assessment of the drug’s safety,” the department said.Lawyers for the anti-abortion groups did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Kacsmaryk, a district judge appointed by former Republican president Donald Trump, had ruled on Friday that the FDA exceeded its authority by ignoring mifepristone’s risks and relying on “plainly unsound reasoning” when approving it.The judge, who works in Amarillo, Texas, stayed his ruling for seven days to allow the Biden administration time to appeal.In Monday’s filing, the justice department asked that Kacsmaryk’s stay remain in place until all appeals, including if necessary to the US supreme court, are resolved.Mifepristone is part of a two-drug regimen, also including misoprostol, for medication abortions in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The drugs account for more than half of all US abortions.Kacsmaryk ruled just 18 minutes before a federal judge in Washington state issued a contradictory ruling that directed the FDA to keep the drug available in 17 states.In a Monday filing in that case, the justice department asked the judge there to clarify what should happen if Kacsmaryk’s order took effect.The conflicting rulings could foreshadow a resolution by the supreme court, which last June overturned the 1973 Roe v Wade decision, eliminating a constitutional right to abortion.The supreme court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The New Orleans-based fifth circuit also has a conservative reputation, with three-quarters of its active judges appointed by Republican presidents.“This administration stands by the FDA and is prepared for this legal fight, and we will continue our work to protect reproductive rights,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.Monday’s appeal came in a case brought by anti-abortion groups led by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which was formed last August.They accused the FDA of failing to consider during its approval process for mifepristone the drug’s safety when used by girls under age 18.The plaintiffs sought a sympathetic court by suing in Amarillo, where Kacsmaryk is the only federal district judge.Kacsmaryk had written critically about Roe v Wade, and the former Christian legal activist’s courtroom is a popular destination for conservatives challenging Biden policies.Twelve US states ban abortion, while 14 others ban it at some point after six to 22 weeks of pregnancy, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. More