Mississippi imposes 15-week abortion ban; nation’s toughest
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi’s governor signed the nation’s most restrictive abortion law Monday — and was slapped with a lawsuit less than an hour later.
The law and responding challenge set up a confrontation sought by abortion opponents, who are hoping federal courts will ultimately prohibit abortions before a fetus is viable. Current federal law does not.
Some legal experts have said a change in the law is unlikely unless the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court changes in a way that favors abortion opponents.
Republican Gov. Phil Bryant signed House Bill 1510 , which bans most abortions after 15 weeks of gestation, on Monday in a closed ceremony attended by legislative supporters and abortion opponents.
“We are saving more of the unborn than any state in America and what better thing can we do?” Bryant said in a video his office posted on social media.
Turkish leader vows wider offensive against Kurdish militia
BEIRUT — Turkey’s president vowed Monday to keep up the pressure against a U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia after his troops captured the Syrian town of Afrin, threatening to expand the military offensive into other Kurdish-held areas across northern Syria and even into neighboring Iraq.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared set on forcing Washington to reconsider its partnership with the Syrian Kurdish fighters, the main U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Turkey first launched its military operation in Syria in 2016, and Erdogan has repeatedly said it will not allow a “terror corridor” along its border — a reference to territories controlled by the Kurdish forces, which Turkey views as terrorists because of their links to Kurdish insurgents fighting inside Turkey.
Emboldened by Sunday’s capture of Afrin, Erdogan went even further on Monday, asserting that Turkish troops and allied Syrian forces would press eastward, targeting territory that includes Kobani, a town that has become a symbol of the fight against the Islamic State militants, as well as Qamishli, where the Syrian government controls an airport and a security zone.
Also in the cross hairs is Manbij, a town jointly patrolled by U.S- and Kurdish forces and where U.S. bases are housed, triggering concerns over potential friction with U.S. troops. Erdogan even threatened to target Iraq’s Sinjar mountains, used by Kurdish fighters to move between Iraq and Syria, and which Turkey claims is a stronghold for the outlawed Kurdish rebels fighting an insurgency in its southeast.
Court rulings boost Democrats’ chances of retaking Congress
HARRISBURG, Pa. — Boosting the Democrats’ chances of retaking control of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections, the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal panel on Monday rejected Republican challenges to a newly redrawn congressional map imposed on Pennsylvania by the state’s high court.
The federal courts dismissed requests to throw out or halt use of the new district map, which the state court drafted after ruling that the preexisting map violated the state constitution’s guarantee of free and equal elections. That earlier map, drawn by the GOP in 2011, is considered among the most gerrymandered in the nation.
The pair of rulings Monday makes it highly likely that this year’s congressional elections in Pennsylvania will be conducted under district lines widely viewed as more favorable to Democrats than the 2011 map.
Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, 23 if Conor Lamb’s lead holds from last week’s special election in Pennsylvania’s 18th District.
Under the new map, Democrats have a good chance to pick up three seats in the Philadelphia suburbs, and a fighting chance of flipping Republican districts in Harrisburg, Allentown and outside Pittsburgh, said Franklin and Marshall College political scientist Terry Madonna.
How Facebook likes could profile voters for manipulation
NEW YORK — Facebook likes can tell a lot about a person. Maybe even enough to fuel a voter-manipulation effort like the one a Trump-affiliated data-mining firm stands accused of — and which Facebook may have enabled.
The social network is now under fire after The New York Times and The Guardian newspaper reported that former Trump campaign consultant Cambridge Analytica used data, including user likes, inappropriately obtained from roughly 50 million Facebook users to try to influence elections.
Facebook’s stock plunged 7 percent Monday in its worst one-day decline since 2014. Officials in the EU and the U.S. sought answers, while Britain’s information commissioner said she will seek a warrant to access Cambridge Analytica’s servers because the British firm had been “uncooperative” in her investigation. After two years of failing to disclose the harvesting, Facebook said Monday that it hired an outside firm to audit Cambridge.
Researchers in a 2013 study found that Facebook likes on hobbies, interests and other attributes can predict personal attributes such as sexual orientation and political affiliation. Computers analyze such data to look for patterns that might not be obvious, such as a link between a preference for curly fries and higher intelligence.
Chris Wylie, a Cambridge co-founder who left in 2014, said the firm used such techniques to learn about individuals and create an information cocoon to change their perceptions. In doing so, he said, the firm “took fake news to the next level.”