Good morning.
The supreme court is poised to decide whether to preserve access to a widely used abortion medication, after extending its deadline to act until at least today.
Less than a year after the court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade and eliminated a constitutional right to an abortion, the justices are now weighing new legal questions in an escalating case in Texas with potentially sweeping implications for women’s reproductive health and the federal drug approval process.
For now, the court is not weighing the merits of a legal challenge brought by abortion opponents seeking to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of mifepristone. At issue before the court is whether to allow restrictions on the drug imposed by a lower court that would sharply limit access to the drug, including in states where abortion remains legal.
The justices had initially set a deadline of 11.59pm on Wednesday, but that afternoon Justice Samuel Alito issued a brief order extending the court’s deadline by 48 hours. The one-sentence order provided no explanation for the delay but indicated that the court expects to act before midnight on Friday.
Where it all began. The legal clash began in Texas, with the US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s ruling to revoke the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, a drug first approved more than two decades ago and used by more than 5 million women to end their pregnancies.
Two men set free after wrongly serving 17 years in prison
Two men who served nearly 17 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of attempted murder were declared innocent Thursday by a California judge. Under a new law, the state is required to pay them each $140 for every day they spent behind bars, equating to about $900,000.
The verdicts for Dupree Glass and Juan Rayford concluded a new trial that began in October after a state appeals court panel vacated their convictions and they were freed in 2020. The trial included a dramatic confession by the actual shooter, Chad Brandon McZeal, a gang member who is serving a life sentence for murder in an unrelated case.
Outside the courthouse, the men were cheered by family members and supporters. Rayford, clutching his baby daughter, called it an “amazing” feeling to have their records finally wiped clean and their reputations restored.
Glimmer of light for future injustices. Defense attorneys said the case was the first brought under a law that guarantees compensation for defendants who have their cases thrown out and also allows them to present evidence proving their innocence.
‘Cop City’ activist’s official autopsy reveals more than 50 bullet wounds
Official autopsy results for Manuel Paez Terán, an environmental activist whom police shot and killed three months ago during a raid in a Georgia public park, have revealed he had more than 50 bullet wounds.
Paez Terán, or “Tortuguita”, was one of the “forest defenders” camped throughout the public park less than a mile away from the planned site of police training center. The incident was the first time in US history that police have shot and killed an environmental activist while protesting, galvanizing a surging movement to protect the forest.
Who fired the first shot? The state’s narrative has been that Paez Terán fired first. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), charged with investigating the killing, has only publicly released evidence to date supporting the idea, including a photo of the firearm allegedly used by the activist, and a purchase record of the gun.
In other news …
It is not just humans that get the munchies: worms also display the same craving for their favourite snacks after consuming cannabis, research has found. In the study, published in the journal Current Biology, researchers managed to simulate worms getting stoned by soaking them in cannabinoid.
Areas of Khartoum that were once the most sought-after addresses in Sudan’s capital city are now so dangerous that residents cannot wait to flee. For almost a week, they have been the stage for a brutal power struggle that has trapped tens of thousands in their homes.
Germany plans to ban the installation of most oil and gas heating systems from next year, but the proposals have caused angry divisions in the cabinet. The plans are designed to transform Germany’s heating systems to meet net zero emission targets.
Suella Braverman, the UK home secretary, has been condemned by a group of MEPs over the arrest in London of a French publisher who was interrogated by counter-terrorism police about his political views and “anti-government” contacts.
Don’t miss this: Florida woman wins $2m lottery after helping daughter beat breast cancer
Early in November last year, Geraldine Dozier-Gimblet posted a horoscope on her Facebook account that predicted she would receive an answer to her prayers, a solution to one of her “biggest problems”, and “peace in the foreseeable future”. She bought a lottery ticket about eight weeks later that made her a millionaire, helping her recover the life savings that she had sacrificed to pay for her daughter’s successful cancer treatments.
Her story captured international attention after Florida state lottery officials issued a news release on 7 April that recounted her tale of dramatically improved fortunes. The 74-year-old resident of the Tampa-area community of Lakeland had gone to a local convenience store to buy a $10 scratch-off ticket offering a $2m jackpot on 5 January, the day after her daughter had received her final treatment for breast cancer. A store clerk had told Dozier-Gimblet that he thought he was out of tickets, but she convinced him to look more closely and he found one.
… or this: The wine intervention – Dutch nuns appeal for help
A Dutch convent is appealing to wine drinkers to support its endeavours as, thanks to an extremely hot and dry year, Sint-Catharinadal in Oosterhout has an excess of 64,000 bottles made from its vineyard. “We had a lovely summer last year, warm temperatures, and it promises to be an excellent harvest of more than 60,000 bottles,” said Sister Maria Magdalena, the prioress, in a video appeal.
With more knowledge of prayer than of online retail, they felt they had little hope of sharing this harvest. But with the help of local farmers groups, the nuns are now offering for sale online – or for pickup – cases of their 2022 white blend of auxerrois, pinot blanc and pinot gris, or a pinot noir/gamay rosé. The convent in the southern Netherlands started its vineyard in 2014. “We didn’t find beer in a convent so appropriate,” the sister explained to Dutch media. “Wine fits better, it is biblical and it points to Jesus.”
Climate check: Volcanic microbe eats CO2 ‘astonishingly quickly’
A microbe discovered in a volcanic hot spring gobbles up carbon dioxide “astonishingly quickly”, according to the scientists who found it. The researchers hope to utilise microbes that have naturally evolved to absorb CO2 as an efficient way of removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. The new microbe, a cyanobacterium, was discovered in September in volcanic seeps near the Italian island of Vulcano, where the water contains high levels of CO2.
In February, the team also explored hot springs in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, where levels of CO2 are even higher. Those results are now being analysed. “The project takes advantage of 3.6bn years of microbial evolution,” said Dr Braden Tierney, of Weill Cornell Medical College and Harvard Medical School. “The nice thing about microbes is that they are self-assembling machines. You don’t have that with a lot of the chemical approaches [to CO2 capture].”
Last Thing: inside the American spiritual warfare movement
Most spiritual warriors preach the idea that demons occupy “strategic” places and institutions, such as school boards and, of course, the Democratic party. Not Brother Mike. Instead, he focuses on the evil spirits inside the individual, writes Elle Hardy. Among evangelical Christians, deliverance is serious business – and it’s big business too. Commercially minded megachurches getting in on the act is a reliable indication that it has gained real popularity, and books on the topic are now mainstays in the $1.2bn religion publishing industry.
A deliverance map put together by the California preacher Isaiah Saldivar shows 1,402 practitioners operating in the US alone – an impressive feat for a concept that only reached mainstream Christianity in the 1980s. Deliverance warriors believe that problems such as illness and poverty are the result of spiritual sickness, not earthly afflictions. Healing is sought through people such as Brother Mike and his band of volunteer acolytes, who often have no theological training but welcome souls from all over the country.
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