Democratic officials across the nation hope to harness their party's collective outrage and sadness to improve their political outlook this fall after the Supreme Court's stunning decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Abortion was an afterthought for much of the year for many voters. It was overshadowed by record gas prices, surging inflation and President Joe Biden’s low popularity. But on Friday, a Supreme Court majority of conservative justices ensured that abortion would be a central issue in U.S. politics for the foreseeable future. Polling shows that relatively few Americans wanted to see Roe overturned.

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; states can ban abortion

Today in History

Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade; states can ban abortion

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that had provided a constitutional right to abortion. Friday's ruling is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. In anticipation of the decision, several states led by Democrats have taken steps to protect abortion access. The decision also sets up the potential for legal fights between the states over whether providers and those who help women obtain abortions can be sued or prosecuted.

Abortion bans that were put on the books in some states in the event Roe v. Wade was overturned have started automatically going into effect, while clinics elsewhere — including Alabama, Texas and West Virginia — have stopped performing abortions for fear of prosecution, sending women away in tears. America was convulsed with anger, joy, fear and confusion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe. The canyon-like divide across the U.S. over the right to terminate a pregnancy was on full display, with abortion rights supporters calling it a dark day in history, while abortion foes welcomed the ruling as the answer to their prayers.

With an eye on the upcoming July Fourth weekend, airlines are stepping up their criticism of federal officials over recent widespread flight delays and cancellations. The industry trade group Airlines for America said Friday that understaffing at the Federal Aviation Administration is crippling traffic along the East Coast. The airlines say they are doing everything they can to keep customers happy, including hiring more pilots and customer-service agents. The airlines are pushing back a week after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called them to a virtual meeting and threatened to punish carriers that fail to meet consumer-protection standards.

The former Minneapolis police officer who fatally shot an unarmed woman who called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home in 2017 is scheduled to be released from prison next week. Mohamed Noor is scheduled to be released from custody Monday. He received a new sentence in October of nearly five years in prison after the Minnesota Supreme Court overturned a third-degree murder conviction against him for killing Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a dual U.S.-Australian citizen. The decision vacated a prison term of 12 ½ years that Noor had been serving. Damond's father, John Ruszczyk, said in an email to The Associated Press that his release after a “trivial sentence” shows disrespect to the wishes of the jury that convicted him.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing states to ban abortion is stirring alarm among LGBTQ advocates. They fear that the ruling could someday allow a rollback of legal protections for gay relationships, including the right for same-sex couples to marry. In the majority opinion issued Friday that overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, Justice Samuel Alito said the decision applied only to abortion. But critics discounted that statement. In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should review other precedents, including decisions legalizing same-sex marriage and striking down laws criminalizing gay sex. A protester at a Topeka, Kansas, abortion-rights rally said conservatives would not stop with abortion.

Democratic leaders across the nation are vowing to help women who travel to seek abortions. They also pledged Friday to shield patients and medical professionals from being pursued by authorities in states where the procedure becomes outlawed after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. On the West Coast, the Democratic governors of California, Washington and Oregon issued a joint “multi-state commitment,” saying they will work together to defend patients and care providers. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, also a Democrat, emphasized the importance of the November election. In that state, the GOP controls the Legislature but lacks veto-proof majorities to outlaw abortion.

A federal court has put a temporary hold on the government's order for Juul to stop selling its electronic cigarettes. Juul filed the emergency motion so it can appeal the sales ban from the Food and Drug Administration. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington granted the request later Friday. A day earlier, the FDA said Juul must stop selling its vaping device and its cartridges. The agency said Juul didn't give it enough information to evaluate the potential health risks of its e-cigarettes. In its court filing, the company disagreed, saying it provided enough.

Pilots at United Airlines are in line to get pay raises over the next 18 months. Their union, the Air Line Pilots Association, said Friday that it has reached a tentative agreement for raises totaling more than 14.5%. The deal would be retroactive the the start of 2022 and run through the end of next year. Rank-and-file pilots will hold a ratification vote through mid-July. If approved, the deal could set the stage for similar raises by pilots at American, Delta and Southwest. Pilots have leverage in contract talks because they are in short supply as travel recovers from the worst of the pandemic.

Stocks rallied on Wall Street Friday, sending the S&P 500 up 3.1% for its best gain in two years. The benchmark index also ended the week 6.4% higher, erasing the brutal loss it took a week earlier. It was just the second winning week for the benchmark index in the last 12. Stocks climbed this week as pressure from rising Treasury yields let up somewhat and investors speculate the Federal Reserve may not have to be as aggressive about raising interest rates as earlier thought as it fights to control inflation. It’s been a reprieve from Wall Street’s tumble through most of the year.

A year has passed since the oceanfront condo building collapse that killed 98 people in Surfside, Florida. The 12-story Champlain Towers building came down with a thunderous roar and left a giant pile of rubble in one of the deadliest collapses in U.S. history. Its victims are being honored Friday at events on the ground where the grueling two-week search and rescue unfolded. Only two teenagers and a woman survived the collapse. Others escaped from the part of the building that initially remained standing. First Lady Jill Biden was among speakers at Friday's event.

Congress has passed a bill that aims to keep up the expanded, pandemic-era distribution of free meals for all students this summer. Final passage Friday of the Keep Kids Fed Act in the U.S. House came less than a week before rule changes for child nutrition programs were set to expire June 30. The bill now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature. The legislation is intended to extend the rules that were adopted soon after COVID-19 disrupted schools nationwide. The rules allow summer meal distribution sites to operate in any community with need, rather than just where there’s a high concentration of low-income children.

Millions of people who've been immersed in the anti-abortion movement for the past half-century are rejoicing after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Among them is 70-year-old Tanya Britton of Tupelo, Mississippi, who came to see her own abortion as a teenager as wrong and spent decades hoisting signs outside of clinics, cajoling lawmakers at the statehouse and spreading her anti-abortion gospel to anyone who’d listen. She sees the court's action as the answer to decades of prayers. Around the country, many others mourned the decision, seeing it as one that robs a basic human right, inordinately affects poor people, and could lead to needless deaths of desperate women.

LGBTQ Pride commemorations that sometimes felt like victory parties for civil rights gains are now grappling with an environment of ramped-up legislative and rhetorical battles over sexual orientation and gender identity. There are also fears that a Supreme Court ruling on abortion opens the door to their rights being taken away. Crowds are expected this weekend at Pride events in New York City and other places including San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and Toronto to wrap up Pride month. But it’s a month that’s been marked by disruption at other Pride and LGBTQ-affirming events around the country, from protests and harsh language to violent threats.

PHOENIX (AP) — Hundreds of blue, green and grey tents are pitched under the sun’s searing rays in downtown Phoenix, a jumble of flimsy canvas and plastic along dusty sidewalks. Here, in the hottest big city in America, thousands of homeless people swelter as the summer’s triple digit tempera…

NEW YORK, N.Y., June 24, 2022 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — PlusCupid is a new dating app designed for plus-size people that launched 3 months ago. Nonetheless, it got more than 500,000 downloads on the United States App Store after its first release. Why can a dating app for plus-size singles to …

A Black DoorDash driver no longer faces charges in a traffic stop for speeding in which a police officer shot him with a stun gun. The exchange involving Delane Gordon and Collegedale Officer Evan Driskill was largely made public by a video Gordon recorded on his cellphone, as he declined to leave his car and requested a police supervisor. The Collegedale Police Department last month cleared the white officer of wrongdoing in the encounter and sharply criticized prosecutors for their handling of the case. Gordon's attorney, Ryan Wheeler, said last month that the only investigation that matters was the one by the district attorney's office that cleared Gordon.

Filipino Americans are expressing a range of emotions after voters in their homeland overwhelmingly elected the son of the nation’s former dictator as president. Rochelle Solanoy in Alaska says she voted for Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. because she believes he can bring a return to the country’s “golden years.” But Susan Tagle in California voted for his primary rival, outgoing Philippine Vice President Leni Robredo. She said the election makes her question if the grassroots movement that ousted Marcos’ father in the 1980s was in vain. Marcos Jr. won in a landslide, but his victory was much narrower among eligible Filipino voters in the U.S.

The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years. The decision by its conservative majority to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. The ruling came more than a month after the stunning leak of a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito indicating the court was preparing to take this momentous step. Three of the court's liberal justices wrote in a joint dissent that the decision would bring “sorrow” for the many millions of American women will be losing a “fundamental constitutional protection.”

Social media users shared a range of false claims this week. Here are the facts: A photo of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in front of a green screen was taken in Kyiv for a virtual conference address, not outside of the country. A video claiming to show a Russian missile was created using visual effects. A man who was charged with child pornography didn’t work for Drag Queen Story Hour. A video shows dead sheep in the country of Georgia, not Idaho. And an image purporting to show a headline from The Atlantic about “Biden’s bike fall” is fabricated.

For two years, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords allowed a film crew to shadow her and husband Sen. Mark Kelly. The result is a film titled “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down." An intimate look at Giffords’ recovery after the 2011 shooting that changed her life. But it's also an insider view of how the couple navigated gun control campaigns and a Senate campaign during a pandemic. The movie could not be any timelier on the heels of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting. Gun reform debates have been raging in government, schools and the U.S. Supreme Court. The documentary is from the same team behind Academy Award-nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary “RBG." The Giffords film arrives in theaters July 15.

A heat wave that's already lasted more than a week keeps on baking the US, Asia and even the Arctic. At least nine US states Thursday hit 100 degrees, that's after 12 did that on Wednesday. Records keep falling. A city in the Russian Arctic hit nearly 90 degrees. This early summer heat wave looks and feels more like August. Scientists say it has all the hallmarks of climate change. In Macon, Georgia, the temperature ramped from 64 to 105 degrees on Wednesday and then hit 104, a further record, on Thursday.

In her first week on the job at a Philadelphia abortion clinic, Amanda Kifferly was taught how to search for bombs. About a year later, protesters blocked the entrances and exits of The Women’s Centers, at one point pulling Kifferly into something resembling a mosh pit, where they surrounded…

A national firm, ProNova Partners, has been selected to assist in the sale of an innovative, patented, medical technology

ATLANTA, Ga., June 24, 2022 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Inspired by remarkable women business leaders and innovators, entrepreneur Sherri J. White launched the Galentines Day Gala in 2021 to award and celebrate standout women across industries and professions. After witnessing nearly 50 percent …

Governors, lawmakers and attorneys general in states with strict gun-permitting laws are strategizing over how to shore up their restrictions after Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision expanded gun rights in a New York case. They also are bracing themselves for a longer fight as gun rights groups prepare to challenge a range of other gun control laws. The justices said that a New York state law in place since 1913 that restricted who could obtain a permit to carry a gun in public conflicts with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have similar laws.

Today in History

A man accused of driving his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee has served notice that he'll try to convince a jury that he was mentally ill during the incident and shouldn't go to prison. Prosecutors say Darrell Brooks Jr. drove into the parade in Waukesha on Nov. 21, killing six people. On Monday he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect to more than 80 charges. He'll undergo a mental evaluation and then go through a two-part trial. A jury will determine whether he is guilty of the crimes and, if so,  determine whether he knew his behavior was illegal. That could be a tough sell for a Waukesha County jury.

Senate OKs landmark gun violence bill, House passage is next

Scientists estimate that nearly 20 million lives were saved worldwide by COVID-19 vaccines during their first year. In a study published Thursday, they say even more deaths could have been prevented if global targets for vaccines had been reached. Scientists at Imperial College London used data from 185 countries to estimate how many deaths were prevented by the vaccination effort. They excluded China because of uncertainty around the pandemic’s effect on deaths there and its huge population. There are a lot of limitations in modeling studies, but independent experts agree that vaccines saved millions of lives.

The sister of a 9-year-old girl killed in the Uvalde school shooting rampage has tearfully pleaded with Texas lawmakers to pass tougher gun laws and questioned why so many security measures failed. Jazmin Cazares on Thursday begged lawmakers to do something. Her young sister Jacklyn was one of 19 children shot dead inside Robb Elementary School on May 24 before police stormed the classroom and killed the gunman. Two teachers also died. The gunman was a former student, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos. Cazares' testimony came as the U.S. Supreme Court announced a decision allowing a major expansion of gun rights, saying Americans have a right to carry firearms in public.

Stocks shook off a midday slump and ended higher Thursday, keeping the market on track for its first weekly gain after three weeks of punishing losses. Trading was wobbly throughout the day as investors remained focused on another day of testimony before Congress by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The S&P 500 rose 1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.6% and the Nasdaq rose 1.6%. Powell reaffirmed the central bank's goal of “keeping inflation expectations well and truly anchored” as the Fed tries to rein in surging prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which helps set mortgage rates, fell to 3.09%.

The Biden administration has agreed to cancel $6 billion in student loans for about 200,000 former students who say they were defrauded by their colleges. The action is part of a proposed settlement in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration in 2019. The deal would automatically erase federal student debt for students who enrolled at one of more than 150 colleges and later applied for federal debt cancellation because of alleged misconduct by the schools. Almost all of the schools involved are for-profit colleges. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona says the settlement would resolve the claims “in a manner that is fair and equitable for all parties.”

Michigan has agreed to destroy more than 3 million dried blood spots taken from babies and kept in storage. It's all part of a partial settlement in an ongoing lawsuit over consent and privacy in the digital age. Hospitals routinely prick the heels of newborns to draw blood to check for more than 50 rare diseases. That practice isn’t being challenged. The dispute in Michigan is over leftover samples. A blood spot from each child is stored in Lansing while more are stored in Detroit for possible use by scientists. Michigan must get permission from parents to use spots for health research. But attorney Philip Ellison argues that the program might not be constitutional. And the agreement to destroy some blood spots doesn’t end the lawsuit.

A rural New Mexico county’s initial refusal to certify its primary election results sent ripples across the country last week. It was a symbol of how even the most elemental functions of democracy have become politicized pressure points amid the swirl of lies stemming from the 2020 presidential outcome. After the Otero County Commission finally relented, one question persisted: Why New Mexico, a state that has not been a political battleground and where Joe Biden beat Donald Trump handily two years ago? The seeds of the short-lived election crisis had been planted months before, when conspiracy theories and false claims about the last presidential election began to dominate political discussion in the heavily Republican county.

A judge has given final approval to a settlement of more than $1 billion for victims of the collapse of a Florida beachfront condominium. Ninety-eight people died when the 12-story Champlain Towers South suddenly collapsed. It was one of the deadliest building failures in U.S. history. The decision by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Michael Hanzman on Thursday comes one day before the one-year anniversary of the disaster in the Miami suburb of Surfside. Most of the money goes to people who lost family members. About $100 million is earmarked for legal fees, and $96 million set aside for owners of the building's 136 units.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The first week of school was supposed to mark a triumphant return to classrooms at San Francisco’s Everett Middle School after more than a year of distance learning.

SURFSIDE, Fla. (AP) — Jonah Handler’s miraculous rescue from one of the deadliest building collapses in U.S. history might seem to have an obvious parallel, given his name.

A coalition of former and current service members is holding the first-ever conference for Black veterans in the nation’s capital Thursday. The groups plan to collaborate on a legislative agenda to address longstanding racial, economic and social inequities facing more than 2 million Black American veterans. In addition to disparities in the military justice system, homelessness, and unemployment, federal veterans benefits data show that Black service members’ post-Sept. 11 disability claims have been approved at lower rates than their white counterparts. Advocates say racial inequality in access to veterans benefits can upend the lives of Black people who proudly served their country.

How does Rick Astley handle one of his songs being part of the biggest internet meme of all time? He rolls with it, obviously. He says he's “ever so grateful for it.” ”Never Gonna Give You Up" turns 35 this year and is still very much alive, buoyed by a second chapter as a gentle joke wherein someone baits you with an enticing online link, which points instead to the video for this 1987 dance-pop smash. Thirty-five years later, Astley is still singing it, this summer on tour with New Kids on the Block, Salt-N-Pepa, and En Vogue for the 57-date “The Mixtape Tour 2022.”

The show features families learning landscaping principles that can create beautiful yards while protecting Florida's waterways

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. and HARRISBURG, Pa., June 23, 2022 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — EPIC Insurance Brokers & Consultants, a retail property and casualty insurance brokerage and employee benefits consultant, announced today it has hired a team of producers to support regional expansion in Pe…

Millions of Americans who rely on their cars for work are changing their habits, signing up for carpools or even ditching their cars for bicycles as gas prices recently hit $5 per gallon for the first time ever. This week, it’s averaging $4.95 per gallon nationwide, up from $3.06 per gallon a year ago, according to AAA. Some help could be on the way. On Wednesday, President Joe Biden asked Congress to suspend federal gas taxes for three months, which would shave 18.4 cents per gallon off the price of gas. He also called on states to suspend their own gas taxes. But in the meantime, gas is straining budgets.

NEPTUNE CITY, N.J., June 23, 2022 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) — Mazza Recycling, an award-winning, family-owned and operated company specializing in waste & recycling services, and Move For Hunger, a national hunger relief non-profit organization, teamed up to host their first annual truck pul…

After more than six decades of making bicycles soar, sending swimmers panicking and other spellbinding close encounters, John Williams is putting the final notes on what may be his last film score. In an interview with The Associated Press, Williams says the fifth “Indiana Jones” film will probably be his last film. The 90-year-old composer is instead devoting most of his time to writing concert pieces, including a piano concerto. Still, Williams says he doesn't want to “categorically eliminate any activity" — even biking. The Kennedy Center and Tanglewood are planning celebrations this summer in honor of Williams' 90th birthday.