IVF treatment faces ‘clear and present danger’ from US anti-abortion effort

Warning from reproductive rights advocate comes as US states pass or debate legislation that would give full rights to embryos

In vitro fertilization treatment is facing a “clear and present danger” and could be a “casualty” of some of the proposed anti-abortion laws that are emerging across the US, according to a key advocate of reproductive medicine.

The warning comes as US states, including Louisiana, have passed or are debating new proposed legislation that would give full rights to embryos, which in some cases means fertilized eggs, created in the process of IVF and not implanted in a woman, would have the same legal rights as children.

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Mississippi school district upholds teacher’s firing for reading I Need a New Butt! to kids

Toby Price, an assistant principal who plans to pursue an appeal with the chancery courts of Mississippi, was fired in March

The firing of a Mississippi assistant principal for reading pupils a humorous children’s book, I Need A New Butt!, has been upheld by his school district.

The book describes a boy who tries to find a new bottom after he sees a “crack” in his current bottom which makes him afraid it is broken.

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Pet dog’s barking leads rescuers to missing Texas woman with dementia

Black labrador Max attracted volunteers who had been searching for Sherry Noppe, who had been missing for three days

A Texas woman who suffers from dementia and was missing for three days was found in the early hours of last Friday, bruised and dehydrated but safe, after her dog’s barking helped rescuers track her down.

Sherry Noppe, 63, left her home in Houston, Texas last week, to take her black labrador, Max, for a stroll. The pair never returned.

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Victims of Florida condo collapse could receive nearly $1bn in settlement

The 12-story Champlain Towers South building in Surfside had collapsed abruptly in June 2021, killing 98 people

A nearly $1bn tentative settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit brought by families of victims and survivors of last June’s condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida, an attorney said Wednesday.

Harley S Tropin announced the $997m settlement during a hearing before Miami-Dade circuit court judge Michael Hanzman. Still pending final approval, the settlement involves insurance companies, developers of an adjacent building and other defendants.

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Sadiq Khan launches commission to examine cannabis legality

Mayor of London says panel of experts will consider effectiveness of UK policies on non-class A drugs

Sadiq Khan has announced a commission to examine the effectiveness of the UK’s drug laws, with a particular focus on those governing cannabis.

The London drugs commission, to be chaired by Lord Charlie Falconer QC, a former lord chancellor and justice secretary, was one of Khan’s manifesto pledges in his re-election bid last year.

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Democrats lose Senate vote to codify abortion rights into federal law

Final tally was 49-51, with all Republicans and one conservative Democrat, Joe Manchin, voting against the measure

The US Senate on Wednesday failed to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law, after it was blocked by Republicans.

It was a largely symbolic vote by Democrats to mobilize Americans around the issue ahead of a likely supreme court decision striking down the protections enshrined by Roe v Wade.

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Texas court ordered to reconsider decision to uphold prison sentence for woman who voted

Crystal Mason was sentenced to five years in prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election

A Texas appeals court must reconsider its decision to uphold a five-year conviction for Crystal Mason, the Texas woman sentenced to prison for casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election, the state’s highest criminal court ruled on Wednesday.

Mason showed up to the polls to vote in 2016, while on supervised release – which is similar to probation – for a federal tax felony. She cast a provisional ballot at the urging of election workers, which was ultimately rejected because people with felony convictions in Texas cannot vote while they are serving any part of a federal sentence.

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Democrat Joe Manchin says he will vote no on guaranteeing abortion rights – live

Majority leader Chuck Schumer says Senate vote is among most important of the century even though it will fail to pass

• Pro-choice states rush to pledge legal shield for out-of-state abortions

• Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans couldn’t pass abortion ban

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We’ve heard a lot about the “rival” abortion rights bill pushed by Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and they’ve just released a joint statement explaining why they believe their reproductive rights act is preferable to the Democratic Women’s Health Protection Act they’ll vote against in the Senate this afternoon.

“I support codifying the abortion rights established by Roe v Wade. That’s not what the women’s health protection act would do,” Collins, of Maine, said in the statement.

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US inflation rate slows but remains close to 40-year high

Consumer price index reveals costs rising by a monthly rate of 0.3% in April, down from 1.2% in March, the first fall since August 2021

Price rises slowed in the US in April but the annual inflation rate remained close to a 40-year high, leaving many Americans struggling to afford necessities including food, shelter and fuel.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) figures – which measure a broad range of goods and services – showed prices rising by a monthly rate of 0.3% in April, down from 1.2% in March, the first fall since August 2021.

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Delaware governor denounces police search of HBCU lacrosse bus in Georgia

John Carney says stop and search of bus carrying lacrosse team from Delaware State University ‘upsetting and concerning’

The governor of Delaware has publicly condemned authorities in Georgia who searched a bus carrying a lacrosse team from a historically Black college, in what many called an instance of racial profiling.

John Carney, a Democrat, released a statement about the incident, in which police officers searched the bus carrying the Delaware State University women’s lacrosse team after stopping the driver for a traffic violation.

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New Mexico wildfire spreading north toward mountain resort towns near Taos

Two more days of high winds and very dry conditions expected as fire warnings issued across much of the western US

Many houses near America’s largest wildfire survived the latest barrage of howling winds and erratic flames but New Mexico’s governor said on Tuesday the risk of more destruction is high and that the long-term costs of recovering from the huge blaze will soar.

Two more days of strong winds and dangerously bone-dry conditions are in the forecast before some relief is expected on Friday.

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Trump inquired if China could make hurricanes to harm US, ex-officials say

Former president also wanted to know if it would constitute an act of war and if hurricanes could be nuked to stop them

As president, Donald Trump repeatedly asked aides if China could be manufacturing hurricanes and sending them to damage the United States, three unnamed former senior officials told Rolling Stone on Tuesday.

Trump also reportedly wanted to know if using such a “hurricane gun” would constitute an act of war, and if so, whether the US could retaliate militarily.

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Rappers Young Thug and Gunna charged with racketeering in Atlanta

Indictment quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists

Atlanta rapper Young Thug co-founded a violent street gang that committed multiple murders, shootings and carjackings over roughly a decade and promoted its activities in songs and on social media, prosecutors allege in a sprawling indictment that charges him, rapper Gunna and 26 others with racketeering.

The 88-page indictment filed Monday in Georgia’s Fulton county quotes multiple music videos as evidence and accuses alleged gang members of targeting other high-profile rap artists.

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Joe Biden calls inflation his ‘top domestic priority’ but blames Covid and Putin – as it happened

President says he understands American’s frustration with Democrats, who control all three branches of government: ‘I don’t blame them’

After his remarks, Biden lingered at the podium to take a few questions on the topic of inflation. (He dismissed off-topic questions, including one about abortion rights.)

Asked whether he believed his agenda was to blame or had contributed to rising costs, he said his policies have “helped not hurt” the economy.

Americans have a choice right now between two paths, reflecting two very different sets of values. My plan attacks inflation and grows the economy by lowering the costs for working families, giving workers well-deserved raises, reducing the deficits by historic levels, and making big corporations and the very wealthiest Americans pay their fair share. The other path is the ‘ultra-MAGA’ plan put forward by Congressional republicans to raise taxes on American families , lower the income of American workers, threaten sacred programs Americans count on like social security, medicare and medicaid, and give break after break to big corporations and billionaires just like they did the last time in power when their top priority was the reckless $2tn tax cut the majority of that going to the wealthiest Americans which ballooned the deficit and not a penny of it was paid for,” the president said.

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Man charged with murder in alleged scheme to inherit his mother’s fortune

The man was rescued after his boat sank in 2016 but his mother was not. Investigators found the boat had been tampered with

A man found floating on a raft off the coast of Rhode Island in 2016 after his boat sank was charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday with killing his mother at sea to inherit the family’s estate.

The eight-count indictment released in federal court in Burlington, Vermont, also says Nathan Carman shot and killed his grandfather, John Chakalos, at his home in Windsor, Connecticut, in 2013 as part of an effort to defraud insurance companies, but he was not charged with that killing.

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Ex-Honduran leader seeks to subpoena Biden, Trump and Obama in drugs case

Former president Juan Orlando Hernández’s also suggests he may seek testimony from Mexican drug lord El Chapo in New York trial

Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to drug and weapons charges as his lawyer pledged to subpoena three former US presidents – and an imprisoned Mexican drug lord – to testify in his defence.

Hernández, who was extradited last month, wore shackles round his ankles at his arraignment in Manhattan on Tuesday, where he pleaded not guilty to three criminal counts, including conspiracy to import cocaine and weapons possession.

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Pro-choice group claims arson attack on Wisconsin anti-abortion office

Madison police investigate attack on Wisconsin Family Action after claim by group calling itself Jane’s revenge

Federal agents and detectives from the Madison police department are investigating a claim by a pro-choice group that it was behind a weekend arson attack on an anti-abortion office in Wisconsin.

The headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action in Madison was attacked in the early hours of Sunday, with a molotov cocktail thrown through a window, starting a small fire, and graffiti spray-painted on an exterior wall. Nobody was hurt.

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Judge rules chef Mario Batali not guilty of sexual misconduct

Batali’s accuser has filed a lawsuit against him that remains pending despite the verdict

Celebrity chef Mario Batali has been cleared of sexual misconduct after a criminal trial in Boston.

A woman had accused Batali of forcibly kissing and groping her while taking a selfie at a restaurant in 2017. Batali’s lawyer argued that the Boston assault never happened and said the accuser had a financial incentive to lie about the encounter.

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John Kerry warns a long Ukraine war would threaten climate efforts

Exclusive: US presidential envoy says limiting global heating to 1.5C could be made harder by conflict

The longer the war in Ukraine carries on, the worse the consequences will be for the climate, the US presidential envoy John Kerry has warned.

Many countries are struggling with an energy crisis while also urgently needing to cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global heating to 1.5C, he said.

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