And another day of SCOTUS signals, what abortion access currently looks like in the US, omicron in CA, treatment that rose to the level of torture, Epstein took 14-yr-old to meet Trump, dimming the sun, and a cool new dinosaur comes to a close:
“Here we go again. People making arbitrary decisions about reproduction without having to deal with any of the consequences.” — Steve Redmond
“It's wild that a third of the Supreme Court was appointed by a man who attempted to overthrow the United States government, and we just continue to let those judges hand down decisions.” — Ian Millhiser
“Never forget that a majority of Supreme Court justices were appointed by presidents who initially lost the popular vote. The court is now poised to overturn Roe v Wade, despite Americans supporting it by a roughly 2-to-1 margin. This is not how democracy is supposed to work.” — Robert Reich
Deaths
US: 805,004 (+1959)
World: 5,241,875 (+8829)
Cases
US: 49,573,122 (+144,209)
World: 263,734,933 (+699,190)
Justices signal they’ll OK new abortion limits, may toss Roe. In the biggest challenge to abortion rights in decades, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday signaled they would allow states to ban abortion much earlier in pregnancy and may even overturn the nationwide right that has existed for nearly 50 years.
We Always Knew Conservative Justices Would Tear Roe Down. Today Proved It. And it’s clearer than ever they’re not going to stop their fight with this one case. There has long been an expectation that the Supreme Court may try to be a bit subtle as it works to unravel abortion rights—that Chief Justice John Roberts’ concern for his legacy, or the other justices’ fear that the bench may appear to be too “political,” could prevent the outright reversal of the watershed Roe v. Wade precedent. Today, that illusion was thoroughly shattered...In summary, the conservatives were saying the quiet part out loud. Their questions and interjections today marked a real and significant shift in how explicit they’re willing to be in their disdain for the legal precedent to abortion rights. Naturally, this does not bode well for the future of people who can become pregnant...This isn’t just an obscure issue of philosophy or semantics. Bodily autonomy is on the line, and it’s not out of the question that this discussion could bleed over to affect what kind of contraception is deemed acceptable, or the outlawing of Plan B (which, despite a slew of right-wing misinformation, is not an abortifacient)...It takes three months on average for the Supreme Court to issue a decision in a scheduled case like this. Meanwhile, we wait not only for that, but also for a decision in the case that was heard a month ago today regarding the constitutionality of Texas’ six-week abortion ban, which is currently in effect. That the Supreme Court justices can sit and debate the freedoms of Americans’ bodily autonomy while continuing to deliberate an even more egregious ban is not just absurd, it’s deeply immoral.
As Supreme Court hears Mississippi case, just 24 percent of Americans want Roe v. Wade overturned. This suggests that while most Americans favor Roe v. Wade in theory, some of them are not necessarily wedded to what the court has previously characterized as the central holding of that ruling: that women have a constitutional right to abortion up to the moment of “viability,” when the fetus can survive outside the womb (i.e., around 23 weeks).
Sotomayor suggests Supreme Court won't 'survive the stench' of overturning Roe v. Wade. The liberal justice used her questions in a hearing on a Mississippi abortion case to urge her conservative colleagues to follow precedent, not politics.
What U.S. abortion access looks like, in graphics. States have also enacted the most restrictions in any single year since 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights research organization. This year, many of the laws ban abortion at a certain point in pregnancy, for a specific reason, or altogether.
“I hope y'all know, after abortion, gay marriage is next. The floodgates will open and they will roll back every civil right marginalized people in this country have.” -- Chris Evans
Editorial: And only a white privileged asshole would think otherwise.
US reports 1st case of omicron variant in returning traveler. The U.S. recorded its first confirmed case of the omicron variant Wednesday — in a vaccinated traveler who returned to California after a trip to South Africa — as scientists around the world race to establish whether the new, mutant version of the coronavirus is more dangerous than previous ones.
South Africa’s new COVID cases double in 1 day amid omicron. New confirmed cases rose to 8,561 Wednesday from 4,373 a day earlier, according to official statistics. Scientists in South Africa said they are bracing for a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases following the discovery of the new omicron variant.
World AIDS Day: Is the world closer to an HIV vaccine in the face of Covid-19? But as the anniversary of the first Covid-19 vaccine shots approaches, experts say the brisk development of the lifesaving and highly effective coronavirus vaccines may have brought researchers closer to cracking the code to develop an HIV vaccine.
Trump's border separations left children, parents with severe trauma, study finds. The Physicians for Human Rights study concluded that the treatment of 31 children and parents rose to the level of torture as defined by United Nations convention. -- Which was the point of the separations. The Republican Party explicitly gives people permission to hate others.
Stacey Abrams launches 2nd campaign for Georgia governor. Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat and leading voting rights activist, said Wednesday that she will launch another campaign to become the nation’s first Black woman governor.
Young Americans are raising alarms about the state of U.S. democracy in a new poll. The poll found that 52% of young people in the U.S. believe that the country's democracy is either "in trouble" or "a failed democracy." Just 7% said that democracy in the United States is "healthy." There are significant partisan divides. While young Democrats are roughly evenly split on whether U.S. democracy is functioning or in trouble, 70% of young Republicans reported tht the country was either a democracy in trouble, or a failed democracy.
One of the four women who say they were “groomed” for sex by Ghislaine Maxwell testified Wednesday that disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein took her to meet Donald Trump when she was just 14.
Twitter will no longer let users publish private images of other people without their consent, a policy meant to prevent abuse. Critics say it gives the company too much control over what's "public interest."
Debt collectors OK'd to use social media to reach borrowers. Debt collectors can now use social media to send direct messages to borrowers who owe, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has ruled. The agency says the updated rule, proposed last year and enacted this week, will clarify part of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, which governs the way agents may reach the indebted in order to collect.
Amazon Is Helping Researchers Study How to Dim the Sun. Research into blocking the Sun is one of those very uncomfortable topics. The studies that have been done suggest it could pose dangers, including unleashing crop die-offs and essentially being impossible to stop once a solar dimming program begins. Yet our current, unintended experiment of loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases is itself a risk, one that grows more dire with each passing year the world fails to wind down fossil fuel use. More research into dimming the Sun as a very, very last ditch option to turn down the heat could be vital.
New dinosaur species from Chile had a unique slashing tail. Some dinosaurs had spiked tails they could use as stabbing weapons and others had tails with clubs. The new species, described in a study in the journal Nature, has something never seen before on any animal: seven pairs of “blades” laid out sideways like a slicing weapon used by ancient Aztec warriors.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
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