Texas illegally curbs abortion clinics, Supreme Court rules
Texas illegally curbs abortion clinics, Supreme Court rules
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court issued its strongest defense of abortion rights in a quarter-century Monday, striking down Texas’ widely replicated rules that sharply reduced abortion clinics in the nation’s second-most-populous state.
By a 5-3 vote, the justices rejected the state’s arguments that its 2013 law and follow-up regulations were needed to protect women’s health. The rules required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forced clinics to meet hospital-like standards for outpatient surgery.
The clinics that challenged the law argued that it was merely a veiled attempt to make it harder for women to get abortions by forcing the closure of more than half the roughly 40 clinics that operated before the law took effect.
Justice Stephen Breyer’s majority opinion for the court held that the regulations are medically unnecessary and unconstitutionally limit women’s right to abortions.
Breyer wrote that “the surgical-center requirement, like the admitting privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions and constitutes an ‘undue burden’ on their constitutional right to do so.”
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Volkswagen reaches $14.7B emissions settlement
SAN FRANCISCO — Volkswagen would repair or buy back polluting vehicles and pay each owner as much as $10,000 under a $14.7 billion deal the car maker has reached to settle lawsuits stemming from its emissions cheating scandal, a person briefed on the settlement talks said Monday.
The deal sets aside $10 billion to repair or buy back roughly 475,000 polluting Volkswagen vehicles with 2-liter diesel engines, and to compensate each owner with an additional payment of between $5,100 and $10,000, the person said. The person asked not to be identified because the deal will not be filed in court until Tuesday, and a judge has ordered attorneys not to talk about it before then.
Owners who pick the buybacks would get the clean trade-in value of their cars from before the scandal became public on Sept. 18, 2015. The average value of a VW diesel has dropped 19 percent since just before the scandal began. In August of 2015, the average was $13,196, and this May it was $10,674, according to Kelley Blue Book.
The settlement still requires a judge’s approval before it can go into effect.
The scandal erupted in September when it was learned that the German automaker had fitted many of its cars with software to fool emissions tests and had put dirty vehicles on the road. Investigators determined that the cars emitted more than 40 times the legal limit of nitrogen oxide, which can cause respiratory problems in humans. Car owners and the U.S. Department of Justice sued.
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Judge blocks part of Mississippi LGBT marriage law
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge ruled Monday that Mississippi clerks cannot cite their own religious beliefs to recuse themselves from issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves’ ruling blocks the state from enforcing part of a religious objections bill that was supposed to become law Friday.
Reeves is extending his previous order that overturned Mississippi’s ban on same-sex marriage. He says circuit clerks are required to provide equal treatment for all couples, gay or straight.
Mississippi’s religious objections measure, House Bill 1523, was filed in response to last summer’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage nationwide. That ruling is called the Obergefell case, after the man who filed it.
“Mississippi’s elected officials may disagree with Obergefell, of course, and may express that disagreement as they see fit — by advocating for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision, for example,” Reeves wrote Monday. “But the marriage license issue will not be adjudicated anew after every legislative session.”
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France opens manslaughter inquiry into EgyptAir crash
PARIS — French authorities opened a manslaughter inquiry Monday into the May crash of an EgyptAir plane that killed 66 people, saying there is no evidence so far to link it to terrorism.
Prosecutor’s office spokesman Agnes Thibault-Lecuivre said the inquiry was launched as an accident investigation, not a terrorism investigation. She said French authorities are “not at all” favoring the theory that the plane was downed deliberately, though the status of the inquiry could eventually change if evidence emerges to that effect.
Investigators decided to start the probe before waiting to analyze the plane’s flight data and voice recorders, based on evidence gathered so far, she said, without elaborating.
EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 en route from Paris to Cairo, slammed into the Mediterranean on May 19. The reason for the crash remains unclear. The pilots made no distress call and no group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft.
An Egyptian official at the ministry of civil aviation said Egyptian authorities haven’t been notified of the French prosecutor’s decision and that all scenarios remain on the table.
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Warren: Clinton can be trusted to fight Donald Trump
CINCINNATI — Elizabeth Warren offered an impassioned endorsement of Hillary Clinton on Monday, vouching for her as someone who could be trusted to fight for workers and fend off Donald Trump.
The two most powerful women in the Democratic Party clasped hands and held them high overhead, offering a powerful visual and a preview of what could be a historic presidential ticket.
“Here’s what it boils down to. Hillary has brains. She has guts. She has thick skin and steady hands,” said Warren, a champion of the party’s liberal base, before 2,600 cheering supporters at the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. “But most of all, she has a good heart. And that’s what America needs.”
Later, in a speech in Chicago, Clinton turned to the issue that has dogged her for more than a quarter century: Her trustworthiness. She pledged to earn it and defended what some say are too-cautious statements that can sound calculated.
“I personally know I have work to do on this front. A lot of people tell pollsters they don’t trust me,” Clinton told the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, adding: “You can’t just talk someone into trusting you, you’ve got to earn it.”
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Recovery underway in West Virginia town ‘built to carry on’
RAINELLE, W.Va. — When the torrential rains stopped in the tiny West Virginia town of Rainelle, the volunteers started showing up.
By Monday, a small food line at a shopping plaza had ballooned from a couple of hundred hot dogs and hamburgers to a feast for flood victims — everything from bananas to cupcakes to nachos — and more hot dogs. Behind the food line, a large room was filled halfway to the ceiling with bags of donated clothing.
As volunteers sorted the items, the extent of last Thursday’s deluge came into clearer focus: Thousands of homes and businesses were damaged or destroyed and at least 23 people were killed when up to 9 inches of rain fell in a short span, causing perhaps the worst flooding the state has seen in three decades. More than 400 people were living in shelters across the state.
“We haven’t stopped feeding people,” volunteer Kelsi Shawver said inside the Park Center shopping plaza. “I don’t even know that I’d call it volunteering. I’m just here to help.”
Some of the worst destruction was in Rainelle, a town of about 1,500 people surrounded by hills, the Meadow River and several tributaries. Founded by the Rainelle brothers, Thomas and John, and once home to the largest hardwood lumber mill in the world, the town’s motto is “A town built to carry on … building great things since 1906,” according to its website .
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Homes burned, looted in Iraqi city after defeat of militants
FALLUJAH, Iraq — Dozens of homes were looted and burned as Fallujah was liberated from the Islamic State group, and Iraqi government forces Monday accused the retreating militants. Some provincial police, however, blamed the fires on Shiite militias operating with the federal police.
The allegations of sectarian incidents in Fallujah are on a much smaller scale than those that unfolded in another Sunni-majority city, Tikrit, after government-sanctioned Shiite militias helped retake it from the IS group. The Iraqi government had sought to try to prevent similar abuses in the Fallujah campaign.
Iraqi forces declared Sunday they had “fully liberated” Fallujah from the Sunni-led extremist group that took over the city 40 miles (65 kilometers) west of Baghdad more than two years ago. The operation, backed by airstrikes from a U.S.-led coalition, began May 22, and involved a number of different Iraqi security forces: elite special operations troops, federal police, Anbar provincial police, and an umbrella group of government-approved mostly Shiite militias.
Thick clouds of black smoke billowed over the Julan neighborhood in northwestern Fallujah, one of the last strongholds of the militants, from dozens of burning homes.
Special forces Lt. Gen. Abdul Wahab al-Saadi who led the operation to retake the city, said IS militants had torched hundreds of houses in Fallujah’s north and west as they fled Sunday, just as the fighters did in many other neighborhoods in the last five weeks.