Good morning.
The most important abortion rights case in decades, which will decide the future of abortion access across the country, begins today.
The US supreme court is is scheduled to convene at 10am ET and is expected to begin hearing oral arguments in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which centers on whether the state of Mississippi can ban abortion at 15 weeks gestation.
Campaigners warn the case poses a direct threat to the legal underpinnings of Roe v Wade, a landmark 1973 decision that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion.
Presently, Roe v Wade protects the right to terminate a pregnancy up to the point a fetus can survive outside the womb, widely regarded as 24 weeks. A full term pregnancy is 39 weeks.
Who is the case named for? It’s named for Dr Thomas Dobbs, the head of Mississippi’s health department, and Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the last abortion clinic in Mississippi.
When will a decision be made? The court is not expected to issue a decision on the case until June 2022, but oral arguments may offer clues to the justices’ thinking ahead of the ruling.
Why is the Mississippi abortion rights case so important? It could lead to weakening or overturning of Roe v Wade. If that were to happen, tens of millions people of reproductive age across the country would be affected.
Trump tested positive for Covid few days before Biden debate, chief of staff says in new book
Donald Trump tested positive for Covid-19 three days before his first debate against Joe Biden, the former president’s fourth and last chief of staff has revealed in a new book.
Mark Meadows also writes that though he knew each candidate was required “to test negative for the virus within 72 hours of the start time … Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there”.
Trump, Meadows says in the book, returned a negative result from a different test shortly after the positive.
Nonetheless, the stunning revelation of an unreported positive test follows a year of speculation about whether Trump, then 74 years old, had the potentially deadly virus when he faced Biden, 77, in Cleveland on 29 September – and what danger that might have presented.
When did Trump admit he had Covid? Not until 2 October. The White House said he announced that result within an hour of receiving it. He went to hospital later that day.
When will the memoir be out? Meadows’ memoir, The Chief’s Chief, will be published next week by All Seasons Press, a conservative outlet.
Meanwhile, Meadows has agreed to testify before the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack.
Ghislaine Maxwell was present when Epstein abused me, accuser testifies
The first accuser in Ghislaine Maxwell’s child sex trafficking trial testified in Manhattan federal court yesterday that she was just 14 when the British socialite allegedly lured her into Jeffrey Epstein’s abusive orbit.
This accuser, who used the name “Jane” in court, alleged that Maxwell was sometimes present when this abuse occurred and participated on some occasions.
Epstein, a New York financier and convicted sex offender who counted Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew among his acquaintances, killed himself at a New York City jail in August 2019, while he was awaiting his own sex-trafficking trial. Maxwell, 59, the daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, was arrested in New Hampshire in July 2020.
Maxwell is on trial for six counts related to her alleged involvement in Epstein’s sexual abuse of minor teenagers. She has pleaded not guilty.
How did Jane meet Maxwell? Jane told the court she attended a renowned youth arts camp in Michigan, Interlochen Center for the Arts, in summer 1994 and was approached by Maxwell while eating ice-cream. A man, who turned out to be Epstein, came and joined Maxwell.
Michigan school shooting leaves three students dead and eight wounded
A 15-year-old student opened fire at his Michigan high school on Tuesday, killing three other students and wounding eight other people, authorities say.
Oakland county undersheriff Mike McCabe identified the three students who were killed as a 16-year-old boy and two girls aged 14 and 17. He said two of the wounded were undergoing surgery as of Tuesday evening and six others were in stable condition. One of the people wounded was a teacher, authorities said.
The suspect’s motives for the attack at Oxford high school in Oxford Township, near Detroit, were not yet known, McCabe said at a news conference. The suspect’s parents advised their son not to talk to investigators, as is his right.
The teenager’s father bought the gun – a 9mm pistol – on Black Friday, four days before the shooting, according to Detroit Free Press.
Who was killed in the shooting? The victims have been named as Tate Myre, 16, Hana St Juliana, 14 and Madisyn Baldwin, 17, the sheriff’s office said.
What do we know about the suspect? He is a sophomore from the Village of Oxford and was in class during the day, McCabe said.
What has been said about the possible motive? Some of the parents of students at the school said their children had reported there had been rumors of possible violence at the school “for a long time”.
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In other news …
The author Alice Sebold apologized on Tuesday to the man who was exonerated last week of the 1981 rape that was the basis for her memoir Lucky. Sebold said she was struggling with the role she played “within a system that sent an innocent man to jail”.
The World Health Organization has said those not fully vaccinated who are vulnerable to Covid-19, including over-60s, should delay travel to areas with community transmission, as more countries imposed curbs to combat the spread of the new Omicron variant.
Some Republican states are expanding unemployment benefits for employees who have been fired or quit over vaccine mandates, a move critics say in effect pays people for not getting vaccinated. Four states – Iowa, Tennessee, Florida, and Kansas – have recently changed their rules on unemployment.
Saudi Arabia used “incentives and threats” as part of a lobbying campaign to shut down a UN investigation of human right violations committed by all sides in the Yemen conflict, according to sources with close knowledge of the matter. The Saudi effort ultimately succeeded.
Don’t miss this: how Pearl Harbor stopped the birth of the LA Browns and changed baseball history
Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor 80 years ago not only ensured the US’s entry into the second world war. It inadvertently but categorically changed baseball history. One day after the attack, Major League Baseball’s owners were expected to approve the move of the American League’s St Louis Browns to Los Angeles for 1942. But in the aftermath of the attack, the owners unanimously rejected the move. Had the owners approved it, it would have changed the landscape of American professional sports, and might have generated more sweeping social, cultural and economic shifts.
Climate check: renewable energy has ‘another record year of growth’ says IEA
It has been another record year for renewable energy, despite the Covid-19 pandemic and rising costs for raw materials around the world, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). About 290GW of new renewable energy generation capacity, mostly in the form of wind turbines and solar panels, has been installed around the world this year, beating the previous record last year. On current trends, renewable energy generating capacity will exceed that of fossil fuels and nuclear energy combined by 2026.
Last Thing: Japan’s party season loses lustre as workers dread drinking with the boss
Not everyone in Japan is looking forward to observing the time-honoured tradition of the bonenkai (forget-the-year) party season – a period where groups of colleagues get together to drink, eat and drink some more, even as the country begins to rediscover its gregarious side after 18 months of the coronavirus pandemic. Many workers have said they will be mounting silent protest when they imbibe alongside their colleagues, and, crucially, their bosses. Respondents to a survey said they dreaded the tradition, while one described bonenkai as nothing but “utter torment”.
