The city’s mayor unveiled ambitious plans to renovate historic Soldier Field. But Bears ownership sees better commercial opportunities elsewhereThe city of Chicago has thrown its considerable weight this week behind an attempt to keep the Bears at Soldier Field, the NFL team’s base since 1971. The historic stadium, the oldest in the NFL, may very well be in its finals days as the Bears’ home.Last fall, the team’s ownership reached a purchase agreement on a sprawling 326-acre site in the Chicago suburbs. The Bears’ purchase is essentially pending although before it becomes final, there are a litany of logistical, financial, and legal loops both sides will need to shore up. Continue reading...
World record holder has to deal with the difficult feelings that come with knowing she is a figment of the ambition of othersIt’s 2022. Sydney McLaughlin is 22. She crosses the line and sits down on the track. There are no wild celebrations or overt displays of emotion. Maybe she’s simply stunned at the fact that she’s just run a world 400m hurdles final in a time that would have earned seventh place in the final of the 400m flat. Maybe she’s reflecting on the mathematical improbability of lowering the world record from 52.16 to 50.68 in the space of 13 months. Maybe she’s just thinking about the lactic acid still burning inside her legs.At the press conference, the focus is not on what she has just achieved but what she might yet achieve. More world records? The 50-second barrier? A switch of events? The world has seen a miracle, and all it wants to know about is her next trick. “The sky’s the limit, for sure,” she says. “I need to ask my coach about our next goal. He calls the shots.” She doesn’t say what she wants for herself. Continue reading...
Ex-president to give keynote address at rightwing thinktank, days after January 6 panel exposed his inaction during Capitol attackMr Trump is going (back) to Washington. The former president will return to the nation’s capital on Tuesday, marking his first visit to the city since leaving office last year.Trump will deliver the keynote address at a summit held by the America First Policy Institute, a thinktank formed by some of his former White House advisers. Continue reading...
In forthcoming memoir Donald Trump’s son-in-law writes that he had treatment while involved in trade negotiations with ChinaJared Kushner, a former senior aide to then-president Donald Trump who is married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, wrote in a memoir to be published next month that he had a bout with thyroid cancer in 2019 that was previously undisclosed.According to excerpts of the book seen by Reuters, Kushner wrote that White House physician Sean Conley pulled him aside on Air Force One as Trump flew to Texas to tell him his test results from Walter Reed Medical Center showed he had cancer and “we need to schedule a surgery right away”. Continue reading...
Brain tricks and toothbrush squats might seem crazy, but it’s all part of getting into a healthy routineOn Saturday, I did my local parkrun. For the unfamiliar, that means I walked to my local park and ran around it for 5km with about 100 other people, cheered on by volunteers who were cheering for nothing and who had set it up for nothing.I should have been delighted: this was my first run since I got Covid two weeks ago. The sun was shining, the park at Potternewton in Leeds is beautiful. Instead, I watched a lithe and fit-looking woman running in front of me and thought: “I’d like to run like her.” And then corrected myself. No, I’d like to run like me. The fitter, faster version of me from 2019, when I got personal bests in every race I did and was at peak health.Rose George is the author of The Big Necessity: Adventures in the World of Human Waste Continue reading...
Lamor Miller-Whitehead, known for his flamboyant style, was delivering a livestreamed service when three robbers walked inA New York City preacher was robbed of more than $1m worth of jewellery while delivering a livestreamed sermon on Sunday when armed bandits crashed his Brooklyn church.Bishop Lamor Miller-Whitehead, a Rolls-Royce-driving preacher known for his flamboyant style and friendship with Mayor Eric Adams, was delivering a sermon at his Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries when police say three robbers walked in. They flashed guns and demanded property from Miller-Whitehead and his wife, Asia K DosReis-Whitehead, police said. Continue reading...
The blaze forced more than 3,000 people to evacuate and exploded to 17,000 acres seemingly overnight – what made it so devastating?The raging Oak fire burning near Yosemite national park has forced the evacuation of more than 3,000 people and offered an alarming look at what could be another devastating year for wildfire in California.The state had been experiencing a slower start to the traditional fire season, but the Oak fire – which has exploded to 17,000 acres since breaking out on Friday – appears to have brought an end to that, tweeted Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA. Continue reading...
Appearance of Marc Short indicates justice department has penetrated inner circle of Trump White House in criminal inquiryFormer vice-president Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short appeared last week before a federal grand jury investigating events connected to the January 6 Capitol attack, indicating the justice department has penetrated the inner circle of the Trump White House in its criminal inquiry.The appearance by Short – the top adviser to the former vice president who was also by Pence’s side on the day of the Capitol attack – makes him the highest-ranking Trump White House official known to have testified before the grand jury in Washington. Continue reading...
Katherine Perkins, 73, taken to hospital after attack by sailfish, which moved so fast Perkins did not have time to reactA Maryland woman on a fishing trip off the Florida coast was taken to hospital after a 100lb sailfish leaped from the water on to her boat and impaled her with its bill.Katherine Perkins, 73, was wounded in the groin in the attack, which happened last week. According to a report from the Martin county sheriff’s department which the Guardian obtained on Monday, she said the fish moved so fast she did not have time to react. Continue reading...
Former NSA contractor says in interview ‘I knew it was secret … but I also knew that I had pledged service to the American people’A former intelligence contractor who was imprisoned for leaking a report about Russian interference in the US presidential election that Donald Trump won in 2016 has insisted she acted out of love for a nation that was “being lied to”.“I am not a traitor – I am not a spy,” Reality Winner said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes. “I am somebody who only acted out of love for what this country stands for.” Continue reading...
West Virginia senator, 74, who has thwarted Joe Biden on key policy goals, is fully vaccinated and has only mild symptomsSenator Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has thwarted many of Joe Biden’s most ambitious policy goals, has tested positive for Covid.The 74-year-old senator is fully vaccinated and said on Twitter on Monday he was experiencing mild symptoms. Continue reading...
Thanks to Desert Island Discs, we finally know what the supermodel sounds like – and it’s magnificentSo many things Kate Moss said on Desert Island Discs were shocking and yet not shocking, but before any of that, just the sound of her voice was absolutely arresting. For over 30 years, she has been the sphinx at the very centre of the culture: no chat shows, no panel games; no podcasts or voiceovers; no Simpsons cameo, no gentle segue into the kind of familiarity where someone who sounds a bit like her could make a decent living doing voiceovers for radio ads. She has been, at various points, just about the most famous person in the country, without anyone who didn’t know her being able to say with certainty what she sounded like. And maybe it’s because she’s really shy, as she told Lauren Laverne on Sunday, or maybe it’s because she made a decision, at the age of 14, that she wouldn’t become public property – in which case, she’s just about the wisest person, famous or otherwise, who ever lived.It’s terrifically sad to hear what it was like to be a model in 1990, partly because it’s probably exactly the same today. Moss described going to a casting for a bra catalogue when she was 15, and some garden-variety predator asking her to take her bra off. It’s such a low move. An equal could retort, “Why do you need to see me without a bra, when you’re specifically hiring me to wear a bra?” It’s a pure leverage of shabby, middle-ranking power.Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Steven Lopez, now 48, pleaded guilty to lesser charge in case of attacked jogger then seen as emblematic of New York lawlessnessA forgotten co-defendant of the so-called “Central Park Five”, whose convictions in a notorious 1989 rape in New York City were thrown out more than a decade later, is set have his conviction on a related charge overturned.A hearing was scheduled for Monday afternoon in the case of Steven Lopez, who was arrested along with five other Black and Latino teenagers in the rape and assault on Trisha Meili but reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to the lesser charge of robbing a male jogger. Continue reading...
For the deal to work and global food supplies to get moving again, Ukraine’s ports and ships need Nato protectionOver the weekend, Russia signed a deal with Ukraine to allow grain exports to resume from three Ukrainian ports, thereby easing the global food crisis. Before the ink was dry, Russian forces fired precision missiles into the port of Odesa as grain was being readied for export.This is clearly the behaviour of a tyrannical despot, one whose word cannot be trusted. But it may also be an act of desperation: Richard Moore, the head of MI6, told a US security conference last week that the Russian army is about to “run out of steam”.Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a chemical and biological weapons expert and a fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge Continue reading...
Luke Lucyszyn and Bryan Young were US citizens killed during ambush by Russian tank in July, says Ukrainian commanderTwo Americans who were killed alongside a pair of Canadian and Swedish nationals while volunteering to defend Ukraine from Russia’s invasion earlier this month have now been identified.Luke Lucyszyn and Bryan Young were the US citizens killed during an ambush by a Russian tank on 18 July, their Ukrainian commander said on Facebook. The attack in which they died also killed Emile-Antoine Roy-Sirois of Canada and Edvard Selander Patrignani, according to the commander, Ruslan Miroshnichenko. Continue reading...
Platform was largest US pay-TV provider still carrying OAN, which is facing billion-dollar lawsuits over election fraud claimsVerizon Fios will no longer carry One America News (OAN) at the end of this month, dealing a major blow to the far-right television network that has become a hotbed of misinformation.Verizon was the largest pay-TV provider still carrying the OAN, according to the Daily Beast, which first reported the network was getting dropped. Verizon and OAN were unable to reach an agreement to continue providing the network and customers will not be able to access the service after 30 July. Continue reading...
Disgraced socialite serving 20-year sentence for procuring teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuseGhislaine Maxwell has been sent to a low-security prison to serve her 20-year prison sentence for procuring teenage girls to be abused by the financier Jeffrey Epstein.The 60-year-old has been moved to FCI Tallahassee in Florida, according to the Bureau of Prisons. She will be eligible for release on 17 July 2037. Continue reading...
The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe has created a vast new public health crisis, as abortion bans complicate once-standard care for pregnant womenThe worst-case scenarios arrived with alarming speed. In the weeks since the US supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, the case that overturned Roe v Wade and eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, American women have faced a radical reordering of their lives. A right essential to their dignity and self-determination has been stripped away after nearly 50 years – and with it, the gains women have made in professional, political and social life are newly and gravely endangered. But in addition to this moral and civic crisis, the supreme court’s decision has also created a vast and acute new public health crisis, as abortion bans complicate once-standard care for pregnant women – and place the health of even those who are not pregnant into new and arbitrary danger.For one thing, there are the miscarriages. Care for patients experiencing spontaneous pregnancy loss has been dramatically reshaped in hospitals across Republican states. The treatment for a miscarriage is to evacuate the contents of the uterus, either with a minimally invasive surgery or with medication, and these interventions, as it happens, are identical to those used in voluntary abortions. But with ambiguous, as-yet-uninterpreted but strongly worded laws now in effect in anti-choice states, providers don’t know what they are permitted to do for miscarrying patients. Many bans have so-called “life of the mother” exemptions, but these are vaguely worded, and carry strong penalties for providers if they get it wrong. How sick does a patient need to be before a doctor can abort the pregnancy that is killing her? Does she need to be dying? How close does she need to be to death?Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Cheney and Kinzinger suggest wife of supreme court justice Clarence Thomas could be compelled to testify. Plus, how to learn to handle rejectionGood morning.The House January 6 committee could subpoena Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, if she will not testify voluntarily about her involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.Why does the committee want to speak to Thomas? She corresponded with Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff, and John Eastman, a law professor who shaped the congressional side of a push that culminated in the deadly Capitol attack. She also corresponded with Arizona Republicans about attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory there.What can we learn from the January 6 hearings? Trump’s efforts to subvert the elections laid bare the system’s weaknesses, exposing it to greater exploitation.Have any homes been destroyed? At least 10 homes and other structures had been destroyed, with thousands remaining at risk in its path.Is it the only fire raging? No. The fire is one of dozens burning across the American west as the region braces for peak fire-risk months that still lie ahead. More than 5.5 million acres have already burned in the US this year, roughly 70% more than the 10-year average. Continue reading...
In the month since the supreme court’s decision, states have embraced the ability to ban abortion, with both chaotic and predictable consequencesSevere new restrictions upend reproductive care across whole regions of the US. Patients report delays for procedures that were once common and routine, as doctors fear vague new laws with criminal penalties. A 10-year-old rape victim was forced to travel out of state to terminate a pregnancy. And activists promise more draconian restrictions to come.In the month since the supreme court bombshell that ended the right to abortion, this picture is the new American reality, as states across the south and midwest embrace their new ability to ban abortion – at times without exception. The consequences have been both chaotic and predictable. Continue reading...
Seven people taken to hospital after gunfire erupts at informal car show in Peck Park in San Pedro areaAt least two people were killed and several others injured in a shooting at a park in Los Angeles, officials said.Seven people were taken to local hospitals after gunfire erupted at an informal car show at Peck Park in the San Pedro neighborhood on Sunday, the Los Angeles fire department said.
Millions have missed out on education during the pandemic, and school meals programmes are another Covid casualtyMore than 100 years have passed since social reformer Margaret McMillan fought for free school meals in Britain. As a primary school inspector in Bradford, she had seen hunger render poor children unable to learn, robbing the promise that came with universal education. The landmark 1906 Education Act provided public funds for meals where children were “unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided”.That phrase should be at the heart of the agenda for the UN’s Transforming Education summit scheduled for September. This is the world’s opportunity to tackle a hunger crisis jeopardising recovery from learning lost during Covid-19 school closures. Yet UN agencies, the World Bank, and governments shaping the summit have failed to grasp the nettle. Continue reading...
A blaze erupted in California on Friday and quickly grew to 11,900 acres (4,800 hectares) in size as the state's governor, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency for the Yosemite area. More than 2,000 people were fighting the Oak fire along with helicopters, other aircraft and bulldozers. The blaze blocked one of the main routes into Yosemite, where this month a stand of huge, ancient sequoias was threatened by a wildfire that began near the Washburn Trail. That fire burned 4,857 acres and is now about 80% contained. The Oak fire was already more than twice the size of the Washburn blaze
Dan Cox won the Republican nomination for Maryland governor, but the current governor, Larry Hogan, says that was thanks to Democrats promoting extremist opponents they think will be easier preyDan Cox, an extremist pro-Trump Republican, won his party’s nomination for governor in Maryland last week thanks to “collusion between Trump and the national Democrats”, the current Republican governor said.“I don’t think there’s any chance that [Cox] can win,” Larry Hogan added, speaking to CNN’s State of the Union. Continue reading...
by Gabrielle Canon in Mariposa, Edward Helmore in New on (#61RE7)
Blaze exploded on Friday and quickly grew to 11,900 acres in size as Gavin Newsom declares state of emergency for Yosemite areaThe governor of California, Gavin Newsom, declared a state of emergency for an area close to Yosemite national park, mobilizing thousands to tackle a wildfire that exploded on Friday, grew to more than 15,600 acres and on Sunday remained entirely uncontained.Discussing the ferocity and fast-growing nature of the blaze, the former vice-president Al Gore, long a campaigner for action on the climate crisis, warned: “The survival of our civilization is at stake.” Continue reading...
The 10-time All-Star has plenty of individual accolades but has never claimed an NBA championship. His latest contract decision is as unselfish as it is wiseWhen James Harden entered the NBA in 2009, the league’s highest-paid player, Kobe Bryant, made just over $23m a year. Now, there are 50 players making more than that sum, and the highest-paid among them, Steph Curry, will make a hair over $48m in 2022-23.But when Harden declined his player-option of $47.3m next season to sign a new two-year contract (with a player-option in Year 2) worth $68.6m that will see him take a $14m discount next year, he became the first star player to take a pay cut of that magnitude in the modern history of the league. After all, this isn’t Dirk Nowitzki taking a team-friendly deal at 39-years-old or Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh losing out on a couple million in the prime of their careers. Harden took a big pay cut with the aim of helping his Philadelphia 76ers build a championship contender around himself and co-star Joel Embiid, reportedly telling Sixers’ president of basketball operations Daryl Morey “to improve the roster, sign who we needed to sign and give me whatever is left over.” Continue reading...
As Washington seeks to shore up alliances in the Pacific, Gen Mark Milley says Beijing’s attempts to expand its influence are ‘not benign’The Chinese military has become significantly more aggressive and dangerous over the past five years, the United States’ top military officer said during a trip to the Indo-Pacific that included a stop in Indonesia.Gen Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said on Sunday that the number of intercepts by Chinese aircraft and ships in the Pacific region with US and other partner forces had increased significantly over that time, and the number of unsafe interactions has risen by similar proportions. Continue reading...
One heat-related death reported in New York while authorities in Philadelphia extend health emergency declarationFrom the Pacific north-west to the southern Great Plains and on to the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor, more than 85 million Americans were on Sunday under excessive heat warnings or heat advisories issued by the National Weather Service (NWS).The agency warned of “extremely oppressive” conditions from Washington to Boston. Continue reading...
Ashish Jha, coronavirus response coordinator, and physician Kevin O’Connor say president contracted BA.5 variantJoe Biden is “feeling well” and “doing just fine” after testing positive for Covid, the White House coronavirus response coordinator said.Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ashish Jha said: “So it is the BA.5 variant, which is about 80% of infections. But thank goodness, our vaccines and therapeutics work well against it, which is why I think the president’s doing well. Continue reading...
Senate Democrats hope at least 10 Republicans will support Respect for Marriage Act after 157 in House voted against itThe US transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has delivered an emotional appeal for Republicans to support a law protecting same-sex marriage as it heads for the Senate.Democrats who control Congress aim to protect same-sex marriage amid uncertainty over which privacy based rights the conservative-dominated supreme court might target next, having overturned the right to abortion last month. Continue reading...
Why are older people often so irritable? How long have you got?The world is on fire, literally and figuratively, but to young people who think that their lives are terrible because of the time we are living in, I say: well, at least you are not old. At 57, I defer to Cher, who said pithily of ageing: “I think it sucks.”I know there are people out there – blessed with age-defying genetics or the foresight not to have got hammered on a regular basis – who show few signs of deterioration (there must be a picture in an attic somewhere of Jennifer Lopez with grey hair), but for most humans ageing is inexorable. And annoying, at best. Continue reading...
The prospect of the far right taking power underlines the failure of technocratic government – and the need for true alternativesIn a summer overshadowed by war in Europe, a pandemic, an energy and cost of living crisis and climate chaos, Italy has decided to follow the UK and trigger a government collapse.Mario Draghi, the internationally admired former head of the European Central Bank, was never elected but was called upon in 2021 to lead a temporary government of national unity. That unity ended last week.Lorenzo Marsili is an Italian philosopher, the founder of the European Alternatives movement and author of Citizens of Nowhere Continue reading...
The committee has produced history’s most detailed account of an American president’s cruel and seditious pursuit of power. Even now, Trump continues to push states to alter the outcomes of the 2020 electionThe House of Representatives’ select committee investigating the January 6 attack has finished its hearings, at least for now.But Trump’s attempted coup continues.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com Continue reading...
The US baby formula crisis isn’t really about whether or not a person can breastfeed, because they shouldn’t have to live in a society where that’s their only optionIn the US today, states that have banned abortion can force you to give birth against your will. Yet in those same states – and the whole country – there is a severe shortage of baby formula. The baby formula shortage is just one of the many crises facing American parents: there is still no national pre-K, no guaranteed parental leave, and few protections for people who lose their jobs when they give birth or become pregnant.But rather than blame the government for failing to protect children and parents, some Americans are blaming parents. Since news of the US baby formula shortage broke, there’s been a tidal wave of news and social media commentary yelling at desperate parents to “just breastfeed”.Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...
Boston recently put together the worst three-game stretch in modern MLB history. Is it a sign of a franchise that has stopped prioritizing winning?Things have gotten so bleak in Red Sox Nation in recent days that Saturday afternoon’s 4-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays counted as a bright spot. Yes, Boston once again lost to an AL East opponent and fell further away from an increasingly unlikely playoff spot, but at least this time it wasn’t the most embarrassing regular season loss in franchise history.It wasn’t just that the Red Sox did something they had never done before on Friday night, namely give up 28 runs in nine innings. No, it was the manner in which it happened. Their 28-5 loss to the Blue Jays was a clinic in how not to play baseball. It came complete with a starting pitcher getting knocked out early, an overworked bullpen failing to get outs and fielders brutally botching defensive plays. Continue reading...
The principle of ‘universal jurisdiction’ is gaining ground, a real boon for survivorsThere was no fear, no defeat in the eyes of Valentina (not her real name) – only quiet determination. She spoke calmly about the Russian soldiers, her younger son’s age, who raped her and her friend in a small village outside of Kyiv. When her friend’s husband tried to stop them, they shot him dead. I asked whether she wanted to pursue the case in court, and she did not hesitate. “To be able to live, I need to see him either dead or behind bars,” she said.I have been documenting war crimes in different parts of the world for more than two decades, and every time I agonise about how to ask survivors whether they want to pursue justice. At what is probably the most traumatic moment of their lives, offering up an abstract concept like justice as a solution seems insensitive. But, every time, people like Valentina prove me wrong.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
Henrik Stenson has not won since 2017 and like García, Poulter, Mickelson and Westwood is being paid on name not formSportswashing is not supposed to make commercial sense. Therein lies the reason that no normally functioning business saw fit to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at a disruption plan for golf. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) can attempt to rebrand a kingdom for which the murder of a journalist and human rights atrocities are typical reference points with the benefit of an apparently bottomless pit of cash. If the PGA and DP World Tours find themselves embroiled in a commercial long game with the Saudi-backed LIV Series, they know they will be outmuscled.Events of recent days did, however, serve as a reminder of what advantage players of a certain vintage have taken of Saudis bearing gifts. There is cause to ponder the point at which the PIF – which is by very definition answerable to somebody – reflects on the value of golfers who have slipped towards irrelevance. That day of reckoning will arrive. It is merely a question of when. Continue reading...
Britain and the EU responded dismally to the 2015 migrant crisis. The number of ‘irregular entries’ is up by 84% this year – and the ways to deal with the issue now range from limited to bizarreIn a week when Russia threatened to annex more territory in Ukraine, gas shortages loomed, and inflation and Covid surged across Europe, it seems almost unkind to remind EU and UK leaders of another crisis that is unfolding, largely unremarked, right under their noses. As Claudius laments in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, / But in battalions.”As if defeating Russian aggression was not enough of a challenge, Europe now also faces rapidly rising new “waves” of undocumented asylum seekers. Given the sociopolitical upheavals that ensued after 1 million refugees, mostly Syrians, arrived on Europe’s shores in 2015, the EU and UK might be expected to be better prepared this time.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk Continue reading...
Trump’s efforts to subvert the elections laid bare the system’s weaknesses, exposing it to greater exploitationThey promised the January 6 hearings would “blow the roof off the house”, presenting America with the truth about Donald Trump’s attack on democracy culminating in the US Capitol insurrection. In the end, the roof of the House, where the summer season of hearings reached their finale on Thursday night, remained intact, though mightily shaken.It will take time for historians to assess whether the eight public sessions were comparable to the 1973 Watergate hearings, as Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the January 6 committee, predicted. Yet it’s already clear that after 19 hours and 11 minutes of testimony, filmed depositions, documentary evidence and raw footage of the Capitol attack the hearings have generated a mountain of words and images that will linger long in the collective memory. Continue reading...
Letters warning of felony charges for firms who offer funds could set up a showdown over constitutional rightsRepublican lawmakers have sent legal threats to Texas organizations that offer to fund out-of-state travel for abortions, potentially setting up a showdown between abortion law and long-held constitutional rights such as freedom of association and freedom of travel.The Texas Freedom Caucus, a conservative faction of Republicans in the state legislature, sent a letter on 7 July to a law firm that offered to cover employees’ expenses if they travelled for abortion. It threatened Sidley LLP with felony charges, claiming Texas can criminalize anyone who “furnishes the means” for an abortion, regardless of where the abortion occurs. The letter cites a 1925 law which was not formally repealed after the supreme court codified the right to abortion in Roe v Wade in 1973; last week, the Texas supreme court confirmed the 1925 law can be applied. Continue reading...
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