Voters in Ohio reject GOP-backed proposal that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation’s latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned nationwide protections last year.
The defeat of Issue 1 keeps in place a simple majority threshold for passing future constitutional amendments. It would have raised that to a 60% supermajority, which supporters said would protect the state’s foundational document from outside interest groups.
Opposition to the proposal was widespread, even spreading into Republican territory. In fact, in early returns, support for the measure fell far short of former President Donald Trump’s performance during the 2020 election in nearly every county.
Dennis Willard, a spokesperson for the opposition campaign One Person One Vote, called Issue 1 a “deceptive power grab” that was intended to diminish the influence of the state’s voters.
“Tonight is a major victory for democracy in Ohio,” Willard told a jubilant crowd at the opposition campaign’s watch party. “The majority still rules in Ohio.”
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Mississippi GOP Gov. Tate Reeves will face Democrat Brandon Presley in the November election
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves on Tuesday won the Republican nomination as he seeks a second term, setting up a general election contest against Democrat Brandon Presley in the heavily conservative state.
Reeves defeated two first-time candidates: John Witcher, a physician who has criticized COVID-19 vaccinations, and David Hardigree, a military veteran. Presley, a cousin of rock ’n’ roll icon Elvis Presley, ran unopposed.
“The national Democrats think Mississippi is theirs for the taking,” Reeves told supporters Tuesday night in Jackson. “They've circled our state, and they've hand-picked their candidate. ... These national Democrats think they can use him to inject their liberal ideology into Mississippi under the guise of being a moderate."
Presley said the Nov. 7 general election would come down to which candidate, "and I believe that’s me, has got guts and the backbone to stand up for the people of Mississippi and which candidate has consistently showed us that he will do whatever his lobbyist buddies want him to do and will not stand up for the people of Mississippi.”
Mississippi is one of three states holding races for governor in an off-year election. Despite Republicans holding all statewide offices, including the governorship for the past 20 years, Democratic Governors Association chair Phil Murphy has predicted the contest could be a “sleeper” — a state where the right Democrat could win.
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Trump vows to keep talking about criminal cases despite prosecutors pushing for protective order
WINDHAM, N.H. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday kept up his attacks on special counsel Jack Smith and vowed to continue talking about his criminal cases even as prosecutors sought a protective order to limit the evidence that Trump and his team could share.
In the early voting state of New Hampshire, Trump assailed Smith as a “thug prosecutor” and a “deranged guy” a week after being indicted on felony charges for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The former president lobbed the insults at Smith just days after the Department of Justice asked a judge to approve a protective order stopping Trump from publicly disclosing evidence. Federal prosecutors contend that Trump is seeking to “try the case in the media rather than in the courtroom."
The judge overseeing the case has scheduled a hearing over the protective order for Friday morning. Trump, after his rally on Tuesday, made a post on his social media network attacking the judge, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the prospective order is too broad and would restrict his First Amendment rights of free speech, something Trump echoed on stage Tuesday.
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Supreme Court reinstates regulation of ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is reinstating a regulation aimed at reining in the proliferation of ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers that have been turning up at crime scenes across the nation in increasing numbers.
The court on Tuesday voted 5-4 to put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in Texas that invalidated the Biden administration's regulation of ghost gun kits. The regulation will be in effect while the administration appeals the ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans — and potentially the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined with the court's three liberal members to form the majority. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas would have kept the regulation on hold during the appeals process. Neither side provided an explanation.
The Justice Department had told the court that local law enforcement agencies seized more than 19,000 ghost guns at crime scenes in 2021, a more than tenfold increase in just five years.
"The public-safety interests in reversing the flow of ghost guns to dangerous and otherwise prohibited persons easily outweighs the minor costs that respondents will incur," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, wrote in a court filing.
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Tory Lanez gets 10 years in prison for shooting Megan Thee Stallion
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A judge sentenced rapper Tory Lanez to 10 years in prison Tuesday for shooting and wounding hip-hop superstar Megan Thee Stallion in the feet, bringing a conclusion to a three-year legal and cultural saga that saw two careers, and lives, thrown into turmoil.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Herriford handed down the sentence to the 31-year-old Lanez, who was convicted in December of three felonies: assault with a semiautomatic firearm; having a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle and discharging a firearm with gross negligence.
From the initial incident in the Hollywood Hills in July of 2020, to the marathon two-day sentencing hearing, the case created a firestorm in the hip-hop community, churning up issues including the reluctance of Black victims to speak to police, gender politics in hip-hop, online toxicity, protecting Black women and the ramifications of misogynoir, a particular brand of misogyny Black women experience.
Herriford said it was “difficult to reconcile” the portrait Lanez's friends and family painted during the hearing of a kind, charitable person and good father to a 6-year-old son with the person who fired the gun at Megan.
“Sometimes good people do bad things,” Herriford said. “Actions have consequences, and there are no winners in this case.”
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Massachusetts governor declares state of emergency amid influx of migrants seeking shelter
BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey declared a state of emergency Tuesday, citing an influx of migrants seeking shelter at a time when the cost of housing — already in short supply — continues to rise.
There are nearly 5,600 families or more than 20,000 people – many of whom are migrants -- currently living in state shelters, including infants, young children and pregnant women. That is up from around 3,100 families a year ago, about an 80% increase, Healey said.
Many of the migrants are arriving by plane from other states. In the past 48 hours alone, she said, 50 migrant families have landed in the state in need of shelter.
“It's exponentially more than our state has ever served in our emergency assistance program,” she said. “These numbers are being driven by a surge in new arrivals in our country who have been through some of the hardest journeys imaginable.”
The migrants arriving in Massachusetts are the face of the international migrant crisis and are coming at a time when the state is already experiencing a housing crunch, Healey said.
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After a glacial dam outburst destroyed homes in Alaska, a look at the risks of melting ice masses
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — People in Alaska's capital have lived for more than a decade with periodic glacial dam outbursts like the one that destroyed at least two homes over the weekend.
But the most recent flood was surprising for how quickly the water moved as the surging Mendenhall River devoured riverbanks, undermining and damaging homes, and prompted some residents to flee.
Here are some issues surrounding glaciers and the floods that result from the bursting of snow-and-ice dams.
WHAT CAUSED THE FLOODING IN JUNEAU?
The water came from a side basin of the spectacular but receding Mendenhall Glacier that is known as the Suicide Basin. The glacier acts as a dam for precipitation and melt from the nearby Suicide Glacier that collects in the basin during the spring and summer. Eventually the water gushes out from under the Mendenhall Glacier and into Mendenhall Lake, from which it flows down the Mendenhall River.
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COVID-19 hospitalizations in the US are on the rise again, but not like before
Here we go again: COVID-19 hospital admissions have inched upward in the United States since early July in a small-scale echo of the three previous summers.
With an updated vaccine still months away, this summer bump in new hospitalizations might be concerning, but the number of patients is far lower than before. A look at what we know:
HOW BAD IS THE SPIKE?
For the week ending July 29, COVID-19 hospital admissions were at 9,056. That's an increase of about 12% from the previous week.
But it's a far cry from past peaks, like the 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, the nearly 45,000 in late July 2022, or the 150,000 admissions during the omicron surge of January 2022.
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In Mexico, accusations of 'communism' and 'fascism' mark school textbook debate
MEXICO CITY (AP) — There are few places where the debate over school textbooks has gone so ballistic in such a short time as in Mexico, where opponents are hurling cries of “communist” and "fascist’ at each other.
The series of about three dozen government-written, free textbooks will be required reading for first through ninth grades in every school nationwide, starting on Aug. 28.
News anchor Javier Alatorre claimed the new schoolbooks written by the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador are trying to inject “the virus of communism” into kids.
Government supporters, meanwhile, have compared the opposition to Hitler, after opposition party leader Marko Cortes suggested some of the texts should be destroyed. Temperatures have run so high that López Obrador has instructed officials to hold a series of news conferences to answer questions about the new texts.
The debate reveals how starkly divided Mexico is between die-hard supporters of López Obrador, and those who hate him.
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From upsets to record attendances, these are the trends that have emerged at the Women's World Cup
SYDNEY (AP) — The traditional elite have been cut down to size at the Women's World Cup.
That has been the standout theme as a tournament that has already set records for attendance and goals scored enters the quarterfinals stage, and it has made for high drama.
“It’s been absolutely incredible and a great testament to some of the work that is happening around the world,” FIFA's head of women's football, Sarai Bareman, told The Associated Press. “To see the results of this World Cup brings so much meaning to the work that we do.
"It’s really special, not only for the players and the teams, but for those of us who are working on the game day in and day out.”
Soccer's world governing body FIFA is trying to grow the women's game at pace, and it seems to be having an impact.
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