Down syndrome abortion bans gain traction after court ruling
It’s a ban that even supporters acknowledge will be hard to enforce. Yet 2021 has been a breakthrough year for legislation in several states seeking to prohibit abortions based solely on a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome.
Governors in Arizona and South Dakota recently signed such bills into law, and similar measures are pending in North Carolina and Texas. Most significantly, a federal appellate court said Ohio could begin to implement a 2017 law that has been on hold.
Although that ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals conflicted with other federal court decisions, anti-abortion activists say it increases the chances that the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to consider a case addressing the challenging issues the legislation poses. That could clear the path for bans to be enacted in some other states where courts are blocking them.
Just this week, the high court – with a 6-3 conservative majority resulting from three appointments by former President Donald Trump – signaled its willingness to reconsider the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a nationwide right to abortion. The justices agreed to consider a Mississippi law that seeks to ban abortions after 15 weeks. Roe essentially legalized any abortion taking place before a fetus could survive outside the mother’s womb, generally around 24 weeks.
Katherine Beck Johnson, a lawyer with the conservative Family Research Council, acknowledged that the Down syndrome laws might be easy to circumvent. Doctors could tell women not to share their specific reasons for wanting an abortion.
Cafe and bistro terraces reopen in France
PARIS — It’s a grand day for the French. Cafe and restaurant terraces reopened Wednesday after a six-month coronavirus shutdown deprived residents of the essence of French “joie de vivre” — sipping coffee and red wine with friends.
The French government is lifting restrictions incrementally to stave off a resurgence of COVID-19 and to give citizens back some of their world famous lifestyle. As part of the plan’s first stage, France’s 7 p.m. nightly curfew was pushed back to 9 p.m. and museums, theaters and cinemas reopened along with outdoor cafe terraces.
President Emmanuel Macron took a seat at a café terrace, chatting with customers. Prime Minister Jean Castex, who planned to attend a cinema later Wednesday, projected a mood of measured optimism.
“Let’s get used to try and live together,” Macron told reporters. “If we manage to get well organized collectively and continue vaccinating, have a common discipline as citizens, there’s no reason why we can’t continue moving forward.”
Seller of vaccine disinformation has YouTube channel removed
A major online seller of disinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines has had one of its channels removed from YouTube, days after an Associated Press investigation detailed how they work with other spreaders of false information to make money.
The Truth About Vaccines YouTube channel was taken down this week, Ty and Charlene Bollinger said in a post Tuesday on the messaging app Telegram. The Bollingers’ channel had about 75,000 subscribers but some of its videos had a much broader reach, including one that had over 1.5 million views and featured Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement.
A message that greets visitors to the channel says the account was “terminated for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” YouTube said it terminated the account because it violated its policies barring ”COVID-19 medical misinformation,” and had three strikes in a 90-day period. YouTube started banning anti-vaccine misinformation in October.
Stocks fall for 3rd day
Wall Street racked up more losses Wednesday as the stock market pulled back for the third consecutive day. The broad sell-off went beyond stocks, with the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies falling sharply.
The S&P 500 index dropped 0.3% after recovering from a 1.6% slide earlier in the day. The benchmark index is on track for its second weekly loss in a row.
Bank stocks were among the biggest decliners. Goldman Sachs fell 1.7% and Wells Fargo lost 1.5%. A range of retailers and other companies that rely directly on consumer spending also pulled the market lower. Home Depot slid 0.7%, Gap fell 3% and L Brands dropped 3.1%.
Energy sector stocks, the biggest gainers so far this year, bore the heaviest losses as the price of U.S. crude oil skidded 3.5%.
Digital currencies fell sharply after China’s banking association issued a warning over the risks associated with them.
The S&P 500 lost 12.15 points to 4,115.68. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 164.62 points, or 0.5%, to 33,896.04. The blue-chip index had been down 586 points. The Nasdaq shed only 3.90 points, or less than 0.1%, to 13,299.74.
Smaller company stocks also lost ground. The Russell 2000 index gave up 17.24 points, or 0.8%, to 2,193.64.
Bitcoin’s price was down 10.8% to $38,723, well below its all-time high of over $64,800 reached a month ago, according to the crypto news site Coindesk. It swung in a huge range of as low as $30,202 and as high as $43,621 over the course of the day.
Texas executes inmate who killed his great aunt in 1999
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas man convicted of fatally beating his 83-year-old great aunt more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday evening, despite requests from some of the victim’s family to spare his life.
Quintin Jones received the lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the September 1999 killing of Berthena Bryant. Prosecutors said after Bryant refused to lend Jones money, he beat her with a bat in her Forth Worth home then took $30 from her purse to buy drugs.
Reporters from The Associated Press and The Huntsville Item, the local newspaper, were scheduled as media witnesses to the punishment but never were escorted by corrections agency officials from an office across the street from the prison. There was no immediate explanation for the media exclusion. Jones became the 571st inmate to receive lethal injection in Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982 and the first without a media witness.
Typically,, the agency’s public information office receives a call from the prison warden’s office that all appeals have been exhausted, the execution is about to move forward and the media witnesses may be brought in. On Wednesday evening, that call never was made.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to halt the 41-year-old man’s execution.