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CVS, Walmart limiting morning-after pill purchases

(NEXSTAR) — Several major pharmacies are imposing purchase limits on emergency contraception — also known as “morning-after pills” — after a surge in demand following last week’s overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Both CVS and Rite Aid confirmed three-per-customer purchase limits to NBC News on Tuesday morning. Limits include Plan B One-Step and Aftera, which are brand-name products for the drug Levonorgestrel. CVS told NBC it has “ample supply” of the medications but that the company wants to ensure “equitable access” and a consistent supply.

Meanwhile, Walmart is limiting emergency contraception medication purchases to 4-6 per-customer, Wall Street Journal explains. Walmart is, however, offering some unlimited purchases, but only on pills that don’t ship until next month.

Walgreens isn’t currently limiting purchases, though the company says home delivery isn’t available at this time due to demand.

Doctors and pharmacies urge that emergency contraception is not intended for regular use. Plan B and similar brands are not abortion-inducing drugs and are intended to prevent ovulation if taken with 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Source: TEST FEED1

Michigan court rules grand jury improperly indicted officials in Flint water case

Michigan’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the indictment of former Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and several other officials in connection with the contamination of water in Flint was improper because the grand jury consisted of a single judge. 

The high court unanimously overturned the indictments against Snyder and eight others, including former health director Nick Lyon. The one-judge Genesee County grand jury overstepped its legal authority by issuing the indictments, the court wrote.  

While state statutes “authorize the use of a one-man grand jury to investigate, subpoena witnesses, and issue arrest warrants, those statutes do not authorize that one-man grand jury to issue an indictment initiating a criminal prosecution,” the court wrote in a 6-0 decision.

One justice, Elizabeth Clement, recused herself due to her earlier work as chief legal counsel to Snyder. 

The decision remands the case against the nine officials to the Genesee Circuit Court. Snyder is due to testify separately in a lawsuit against two companies that advised the city during the water crisis. The former governor is expected to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination 

Snyder and the other officials were indicted in January 2021, with the former governor charged on two misdemeanor counts of willful neglect in connection with the Flint water crisis.

In 2014, Snyder appointees approved changing the water source for the predominantly-black city from Lake Huron and the Detroit River to the Flint River. Over an 18-month period, the city was supplied with contaminated water, exposing up to 12,000 children to elevated levels of lead. 

The crisis has also been linked to a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak that caused 12 deaths. 

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), upon taking office in 2019, dismissed a number of pending criminal cases relating to the Flint cases, citing prosecutorial overreach, and announced the criminal investigation would be handled by Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Nessel’s office told The Hill “The prosecution team is reviewing the opinion from the court.” 

The Hill has reached out to Worthy’s office for comment. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Pandemic saw spike in US maternal mortality, especially among Hispanic mothers

On the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which secured a woman’s right to an abortion under federal law, new data released today show maternal mortality increased by 33 percent from 2018 through March of 2020, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In the wider U.S. population, COVID-19 was associated with a much smaller 22 percent increase in overall excess death. 

The new estimate surpasses the previous total that showed an 18 percent increase in maternal mortality in 2020. Maternal mortality is defined as any death during pregnancy or within 42 days of childbirth. 

However, the new data show late maternal deaths, or those that occur any time between 42 days and one year post-childbirth, increased by 41 percent during this time. 

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Researchers stratified deaths by month (2018-March 2020 and April-December 2020) and saw the majority took place at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, there were around 19 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births recorded. During the pandemic, that total rose to around 25 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. 

Published in JAMA Network Open, the data revealed sharp racial disparities in maternal mortality rates.

During the months studied, the death rate for Hispanic women increased by 74 percent. A 40 percent jump was seen among non-Hispanic Black women, and the lowest increase was measured among non-Hispanic white women. 

“For the first time in more than a decade, the maternal mortality rate for Hispanic women during the pandemic was higher than that for non-Hispanic white women, a shift that may be related to COVID and deserves greater attention moving forward,” said co-author Eugene Declercq in a statement. 

Data revealed Hispanic women tended to die from COVID-19-related factors at a higher rate than non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White women, while indirect causes accounted for the largest relative increase in all maternal deaths. 

Researchers were unable to determine exact causes of death but hypothesized conditions exacerbated by COVID-19 could have played a role in increased mortality rates. 

Health system interruptions at the beginning of the pandemic might have also contributed, as disjointed care could have resulted in undetected risk factors or complications.

More research is needed to understand whether the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines or increased Medicaid coverage under the American Rescue Plan improved maternal death rates throughout 2021, authors concluded. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Live coverage: Meadows aide Cassidy Hutchinson to testify in last-minute Jan. 6 hearing

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, is the mystery guest who will speak on Tuesday at a last-minute hearing organized by the select House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Hutchinson has already provided a wealth of information to the panel, sitting with its investigators over the course of four separate interviews.

Hutchinson will be the first White House employee to testify publicly before the committee.

Follow The Hill’s live coverage below:

Who is Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Meadows aide testifying on Jan. 6?

11:00 a.m.

Cassidy Hutchinson on Tuesday will appear before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol in a last-minute session convened to hear new evidence.

Hutchinson served as a special assistant to former President Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, and her appearance is a big get for the committee — she will be the first White House employee to publicly testify.

She’s already sat with the committee’s investigators four times, providing some 20 hours of testimony.

As an aide to Meadows — who himself was at the center of efforts between the campaign, Congress and the Justice Department to undo the results of the 2020 presidential election — Hutchinson has provided insight on activities happening across the White House.

It was a taped deposition with Hutchinson that the committee used to detail which Republican lawmakers had sought pardons from Trump. It was her testimony that indicated that Meadows had been warned about the potential for violence on Jan. 6. And Hutchinson also told investigators that White House lawyers had advised against the Trump campaign’s alternate elector scheme.

Her testimony has even offered details on Trump’s reactions the day of the riot. It was Hutchinson who detailed Trump’s indifference to chants of “Hang Mike Pence” unfolding at the riot, suggesting the supporters “have the right idea.”

–Rebecca Beitsch

Get caught up while you’re waiting for hearing to begin

10:55 a.m.

Tuesday’s hearing is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Get caught up on The Hill’s latest coverage while you are waiting.

Former Meadows aide to testify at last-minute Jan. 6 hearing

Jan. 6 committee announces last-minute hearing for Tuesday

Jan. 6 hearings archive

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Biden’s ‘Summit of the Americas’ commitments on immigration more show than substance

Former President Bill Clinton established the Summit of the Americas in 1994, to bring all of the countries in the Western Hemisphere — except Cuba — together for discussions on trade, immigration, and democracy. President Joe Biden hosted the event this year. 

The participants recorded their immigration agreements in the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection. It represents a regional partnership to address historic migration flows affecting most of the countries in the region. 

The declaration was signed by 20 countries in the region that are committed to protecting the safety and dignity of all migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, and respecting their human rights and fundamental freedoms. They intend to cooperate to facilitate safe, orderly, humane, and regular migration, consistent with national legislation, the principle of non-refoulement, and their respective obligations under international law.

But will they keep their commitments?

The last line in the declaration acknowledges that its commitments are not legally binding.

Yael Schacher, deputy director of Refugees International, says, “summits have traditionally been a parade of promises that are never fulfilled.”

According to Georgetown Law immigration professor, Paul Schmidt, the declaration is just “more empty rhetoric.”

Highlights

International financial assistance may be needed by the countries the migrants come from and the countries that host large numbers of them after they have left their own countries.

A fact sheet summarizes financial contribution commitments. For instance, the United States commits to making a contribution of an additional $25 million to the Global Concessional Financing Facility, which assists Latin American countries with programs for providing refuge to displaced migrant and refugee populations.

The United States also commits to contributing $314 million in additional funding for humanitarian and development assistance for refugees and other vulnerable migrants.

The United States will establish a $65 million pilot program to support U.S. farmers hiring temporary agricultural workers under the H-2A program.

And the United States commits to expanding its efforts to address the root causes of irregular migration throughout the hemisphere. The Biden administration previously had proposed allocating $4 billion to Central America over four years, including $860.6 million in fiscal 2022.

Canada commits to investing $26.9 million in additional funding for migration-and protection-related capacity in the Americas.

The declaration also commits to conducting migrant removals in a manner that is consistent with international human rights and refugee laws, that provides safeguards to prevent refoulement, and that promotes the return of children to safe conditions.

It commits to providing coordinated emergency and humanitarian assistance in situations of mass migration and refugee movements. This includes information sharing, enhancing early warning systems, and defining a set of triggers that will activate a coordinated response.

The declarants say they will work together to improve access to public and private services for all migrants, refugees, and stateless persons — and to expand access to regular pathways for migrants and refugees.

The United States also promises to resettle 20,000 refugees from the Americas during fiscal 2023 and 2024, and to continue a process begun in May to expedite the processing of asylum applications from migrants who establish a credible fear of persecution in expedited removal proceedings.

Problems

According to Schmidt, “[i]f you ‘add up’ all of the numbers and commitments from all the countries contained in the ‘Fact Sheet,’ it wouldn’t even come close to solving the current flow at our Southern Border, let alone make a dent in the Hemisphere-wide movement of individuals.”

Schmidt, a former immigration judge at the U.S. Immigration Court in Arlington, Va., acknowledges that dealing with “root causes” is a great idea — but he observes that many of the sending countries, such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, and Venezuela, are functionally failed states. The elimination of root causes in these countries could take decades.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, at the Bipartisan Policy Center, has observed that, “Our immigration systems are already overtaxed and overburdened — everything from border operations, asylum and legal visa adjudications, to immigration courts, to visa offices abroad, all have serious, record-level backlogs and no end in sight.”

This is particularly true of our system for processing asylum applications. Biden is addressing this problem with a new asylum process that assigns asylum applications to USCIS asylum officers to be adjudicated in non-adversarial interviews instead of by immigration judges in adversarial removal proceedings. It is not apparent how USCIS will be able to handle this new responsibility. USCIS Ombudsman Phyllis Coven says that USCIS has a backlog of nearly 5.2 million cases and 8.5 million pending cases that are not in the backlog yet because they aren’t ready for adjudication — but they will be added to the backlog when they are ready.

USCIS is struggling to hire more staff, but it takes time to find, hire, process, and train the people they need. In fiscal 2020, the average time to get a new hire ready for adjudications was 97 to 118 days.

Leaving these cases with the immigration court isn’t a solution either. As of the end of May, it had a backlog of more than 1.8 million cases. The average wait for a hearing was 840 days.

Lastly, the Title 42 order will be terminated eventually, which is expected to greatly increase the number of asylum seekers.

Unintended consequences

The commitments in the declaration are focused primarily on providing care and assistance for asylum seekers as opposed to discouraging applicants who do not have legitimate persecution claims. This may have the unintended consequence of encouraging more migrants to come with applications that are going to be denied, and the success rate for asylum applications is low already. 

In fiscal 2021, the immigration court only granted 7,359 asylum applications (16.01 percent).

How many asylum seekers will remain in the United States indefinitely without ever having an opportunity to have their applications adjudicated, either by an immigration judge or an asylum officer? 

Nolan Rappaport was detailed to the House Judiciary Committee as an Executive Branch Immigration Law Expert for three years. He subsequently served as an immigration counsel for the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims for four years. Prior to working on the Judiciary Committee, he wrote decisions for the Board of Immigration Appeals for 20 years. Follow him at https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/2306123393080132994

Source: TEST FEED1

Watch live: Former Meadows aide testifies at last-minute Jan. 6 hearing

Cassidy Hutchinson, a former special assistant to former President Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, will testify Tuesday at a hearing announced just 24-hours before by the House Jan. 6 committee.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET.

Watch the live video above.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden to meet Mexican president after summit snub, official says

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard on Tuesday confirmed that President Biden will meet with his Mexican counterpart President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in July.

Ebrard confirmed the news on Twitter and added that the meeting between López Obrador, also known by his initials AMLO, and Biden will take place on July 12.

He shared that the agenda for the meeting has already been agreed upon with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the White House team.

The meeting will come a month after López Obrador’s snub of the U.S.-led Summit of the Americas; the Mexican president pulled out of the event after the U.S.’s refusal to invite the leaders of Cuba and Nicaragua and representatives of the Maduro government in Venezuela.

“There can be no Summit of the Americas if all the countries of the American continent do not participate,” López Obrador said in May. “Or there can be, but we believe that means continuing of old politics of interventionism, of a lack of respect of their communities.”

López Obrador, who shared a positive rhetoric toward former President Trump, has had a tense relationship with Biden since he took office. He had initially refused to recognize the results of the U.S. presidential election and said he would hold off on recognizing Biden’s win until it was officially announced.

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

Source: TEST FEED1

G-7 nations must reject China’s Taiwan Strait claim

History will record that the United States and NATO, after repeatedly encouraging Ukraine’s membership, failed abysmally to deter or defeat Russia’s ongoing aggression and the consequent death, destruction and loss of Ukrainian sovereignty.

China has learned important lessons in pursuing its own ambitions against Taiwan, including the critical role of maritime domain control. Russia’s domination of the Black Sea is a model for China’s designs on the Taiwan Strait. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is claiming the strait as exclusively Chinese waters, just as Russian President Vladimir Putin effectively has made the Black Sea a Russian lake.

As Russia blockades the Ukrainian ports of Mariupol and Odessa, preventing the export of life-sustaining grain to Africa and the Mideast, China will seek to close off Taiwan’s key ports, Kaohsiung and Keelung, and potentially strangle the island’s economy.

President Biden set the tone for NATO’s response when he declared that America will neither intervene directly, such as by imposing a no-fly zone, nor provide the most effective defensive arms Ukraine urgently needs. He fears that either would lead to direct Russia-U.S.conflict, saying “that’s called World War III.”  

On three occasions, however, Biden stated that the U.S. would directly intervene to protect Taiwan against nuclear-armed China. Yet, each time, administration officials have disavowed any change in the decades-long U.S. policy of “strategic ambiguity” on defending Taiwan.

Given China’s increasingly aggressive actions and rhetoric against Taiwan, and the emerging evolution under both the Trump and Biden administrations to a one China/one Taiwan policy, Beijing and Washington are on a collision course. Avoiding military conflict requires a multinational, multidimensional campaign to prevent a Chinese miscalculation.

As with Russia on Ukraine, China’s challenge is not just to Taiwan but to the entire rules-based international order and the survival of regional democracies. China’s missile firings to protest Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996 closed the Taiwan Strait, a long-established international waterway, to commercial shipping and aviation.

Now, Beijing is arrogating to itself the right to control the strait, connecting the East and South China Seas, on a permanent basis. Seagoing nations, and countries that depend on their commerce, need to oppose China’s fabricated assertion of maritime sovereignty. In addition to mobilizing a collective diplomatic, information and sanctions campaign, Washington and its allies must implement two legal initiatives for contesting illegal maritime claims — one through direct action, and the other using the established international dispute mechanism.

Contrasting with Western passivity in the face of Russia’s control of the Black Sea, the G-7, at its meeting this week, should call for NATO and the European Union to organize a regime of collective Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS) to assert international access to the Taiwan Strait. Since the U.S. Navy has conducted such FONOPS regularly for several years, it is well-suited to lead the exercises. It also could provide escort services, similar to what it did during the Iran-Iraq war for commercial oil tankers defying Iran’s claim of sovereignty over the Persian Gulf.

At the same time, nations that have been conducting their own transits through the strait — such as the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia — should join with other affected parties and file a legal action before the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea seeking arbitration of China’s Taiwan Strait claim. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) “obligat[es] State Parties … to settle their disputes peacefully,” as does the U.N. Security Council, but the Chinese and Russian vetoes prevent meaningful council action.

While not itself an UNCLOS member, America fully supports its principles and decisions — in direct contrast to China, which has ratified the convention but flagrantly flouts its rules. Washington applauded the tribunal’s 2016 ruling in favor of the Philippines and against China’s illegal South China Sea claims that are akin to its present assertion over the Taiwan Strait. 

This two-track legal/operational strategy is consistent with the U.S. position that Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out last month: “We’ll continue to oppose Beijing’s aggressive and unlawful activities in the South and East China Seas. … We’ll support the region’s coastal states in upholding their maritime rights. We’ll work with allies and partners to uphold freedom of navigation and overflight. … And we’ll continue to fly and sail wherever international law allows.”

The approach also implements the principle that Adm. Timothy Keating, commander of the Pacific Command, declared he took the USS Kitty Hawk Battle Group through the strait over Beijing’s vehement objections in 2007: “We don’t need China’s permission to go through the Taiwan Straits in international waters.”

Unfortunately, however, that was the last transit by a U.S. carrier and the first since the 1995 Taiwan Strait Crisis, making only two such passages in the 50 years since President Nixon pulled the Seventh Fleet out in a preemptive concession to Mao Zedong, paving the way for Nixon’s visit to Beijing and more U.S. concessions. Years later, Nixon rued that his flawed opening to China “may have created a Frankenstein,” and he concluded that China and Taiwan “are permanently separated politically.”

Now, Beijing has expanded its posture beyond a China-Taiwan or China-U.S. issue, and is asserting an expansive claim against the entire commercial world that utilizes, or benefits from, the Taiwan Strait — just as it did earlier in the South China Sea. The Biden administration should respond by organizing a multinational Freedom of Navigation Flotilla through the Strait, led by a Navy carrier strike force.

Washington will enhance its credibility in leading other nations to stand up to Chinese aggression when it finally dispenses with its ambiguous, counterproductive policy on defending Taiwan.  When Chinese military officers directly asked the question in 1996, the Clinton administration’s lead China official answered, “We don’t know; it would depend on the circumstances.” He did not mention the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).  

A decade later, U.S. administrations began invoking the TRA’s mandate that Washington provide defensive arms, but without reference to a direct U.S. role. Blinken mentioned for the first time the TRA requirement that the U.S. “maintain the capacity … to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion” against Taiwan, but didn’t address Biden’s pledge to do so.

As the U.S. moves closer to recognizing Taiwan’s separate political identity, there remains another critical TRA provision that has gone unnoted for 43 years, with the potential to revolutionize a half-century of U.S.-China relations — that recognition of China “rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.” 

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA.

Source: TEST FEED1

Pediatricians warn Roe v. Wade reversal has 'grave consequences' for teens

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) warned that without the constitutional right to an abortion there could be grave consequences for adolescents nationwide, a population that already faces barriers to accessing comprehensive reproductive health care services — including abortion. 

With limited or no access to abortion services, teenagers may end up with delays in their health care that could increase volatility within a family, limit pregnancy options or even cause someone to seek an unsafe abortion.  

That’s a reality AAP is voicing concern over, after the Supreme Court issued an opinion Friday that overturned Roe v. Wade, a nearly 50-year precedent that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion access. Following the opinion, more than a dozen states are expected to restrict or ban abortion, including 13 states with “trigger laws” that are designed to take effect immediately or through quick state action. 

Under AAP’s established policy, The Adolescent’s Right to Confidential Care When Considering Abortion, it affirms that adolescents under the age of 18, “should have the right to receive legal and confidential medical and surgical abortion care and counseling.” 

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“Today’s ruling means that in many places in the United States, this evidence-based care will be difficult or impossible to access, threatening the health and safety of our patients and jeopardizing the patient-physician relationship,” said Moira Szilagyi, president of AAP, in a statement last week. 

AAP stresses that adolescents should be allowed to make their own health care decisions regarding undesired pregnancy, including the right to obtain an abortion. Timely access to medical care is especially important for pregnant teenagers because of the significant medical, personal and social consequences of adolescent childbearing. 

Early childbearing can lead to a range of negative outcomes for the teenage mother and her child, including lower rates of school completion, higher rates of single motherhood, higher rates of preterm birth and low birth weight, increased rates of incarceration among male children and more. 

AAP also stressed thar minors should have the right to obtain an abortion without parental consent, though many states laws mandate minors seek parental consent or notification in order to move forward with an abortion. 

According to abortion policy group Guttmacher Institute, 37 states require parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion but of those states, 36 also have a judicial bypass in place for minors to request an abortion without involving a parent. 

In 2020, the U.S. teen birth rate was 15.4 births for every 1,000 females aged 15 to 19 — which is down 8 percent from 2019 and down 75 percent from the 1991 peak of 61.8, according to Health and Human Services (HHS). 

However, the teen birth rate in the U.S. is still considered higher than that in many other developed countries including Canada and the U.K. 

Source: TEST FEED1