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FDA has approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill,

WASHINGTON (AP) — FDA has approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, a long-awaited milestone that will expand access for U.S. women and girls.

The US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved the birth control pill Opill to be available over-the-counter — the first nonprescription birth control pill in the United States.

“Today’s approval marks the first time a nonprescription daily oral contraceptive will be an available option for millions of people in the United States,” said Dr. Patrizia Cavazzoni, the director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, in a statement. “When used as directed, daily oral contraception is safe and is expected to be more effective than currently available nonprescription contraceptive methods in preventing unintended pregnancy.”

Opill is a “mini-pill” that uses only the hormone progestin.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/health/f ... the%20Unit

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Judge puts newly signed Iowa abortion law on hold

DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) - On Monday, a judge placed a temporary injunction on the newly signed bill that would restrict abortion after roughly six weeks’ gestation, or whenever cardiac activity is detected.

In their ruling, the judge stated that the court must follow the Iowa Supreme Court precedent and preserve the status quo while litigation moves forward. The judge did however direct the Iowa Board of Medicine to adopt rulemaking under the bill’s new guidelines.

The injunction would last until a future court decision.

Governor Kim Reynolds signed what supporters called the “fetal heartbeat bill” into law Friday as Planned Parenthood and other petitioners were in court trying to stop the law from taking effect.

The Iowa State Senate passed the bill last week in a special session held just a couple of weeks after the Iowa Supreme Court failed to revive a 2018 law with similar wording. Planned Parenthood, the Emma Goldman Clinic, and others filed a lawsuit to try to stop this law from going into effect.

https://www.wowt.com/2023/07/17/judge-p ... -law-hold/

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Mitch McConnell freezes at press conference and is escorted away

July 26, 2023

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suddenly stopped speaking during a weekly Republican leadership press conference, appearing to freeze, and then went silent and was walked away. Ali Vitali reports on what happened after that.

https://www.msnbc.com/chris-jansing-reports/watch/mitch-mcconnell-freezes-at-press-conference-and-is-escorted-away-189328965894

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Biden chooses former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley to lead the Social Security Administration
Source: AP

President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley to lead the Social Security Administration.

If confirmed, O’Malley would run one of the biggest social programs in the nation and grapple with the surrounding uncertainty over its funding. Roughly 70 million people — including retirees, disabled people and children — receive Social Security benefits.

“Governor O’Malley is a lifelong public servant who has spent his career making government more accessible and transparent, while keeping the American people at the heart of his work,” Biden said in a statement. “As Governor, he made government work more effectively across his administration and enhanced the way millions of people accessed critical services.”

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/social-secur ... d252c97da9

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McConnell's office says he will serve through 2024 as GOP leader
Source: CNN

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to serve the rest of the 118th Congress as the GOP leader, the Kentucky Republican’s office said in a statement Friday.

Questions about the future of McConnell, 81, were swiftly raised this week after he froze for 30 seconds during a news conference. The statement doesn’t address his plans in the next Congress, which begins in 2025.

McConnell suffered a concussion and broken ribs from a fall he endured earlier this year. He was hospitalized and forced to go to rehab for several weeks before returning to the Senate in the spring. Following the news conference on Wednesday, CNN reported that McConnell has also suffered two other falls this year, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

McConnell declined to explain why he paused and left his news conference, though an aide said he was feeling light-headed.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/28/politics ... index.html

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New IRS paperless system will reduce deficit by $2.6 trillion over 10 years, Yellen says
Source: CNBC

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen praised a new initiative by the IRS that she said will reduce the federal deficit by $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years — an extension of the Biden administration’s pledged $1 trillion in deficit reduction from the Inflation Reduction Act.

The agency’s new “paperless processing” program will help reduce the burden of processing the 200 million paper documents received each year at a cost of around $40 million annually in storage costs by allowing customers to digitally submit documents to the IRS.

The initiative is a “key” to unlocking other system improvements, said Yellen, including error reductions in tax processing and secure data access for taxpayers. “I urge Congress to provide stable and sufficient annual appropriations for the IRS in order to sustain and build on this progress,” Yellen said.

She also applauded the Biden administration’s efforts to close the tax gap that, without intervention, would have reached $7 trillion over the next decade. The IRS has prioritized hiring personnel to assist in auditing large corporations, complex business partnerships and other wealthy taxpayers, a process that takes up to 50 times longer compared with simple audits. The agency has already recovered roughly $38 million from about 175 delinquent tax cases for millionaires, said Yellen.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/02/yellen- ... years.html

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DeSantis suspends elected Florida state attorney Monique Worrell accusing her of being soft on crime
Source: CNBC

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday suspended Monique Worrell, the state attorney for Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, accusing her of under-prosecuting criminals in her jurisdiction.

Worrell, a Democratic elected official who took office in 2021, has been “clearly and fundamentally derelict” in her duties, the Republican governor claimed at a press conference in Tallahassee.

An executive order signed by DeSantis and Secretary of State Cord Byrd accused Worrell of “systematically” allowing criminals to evade incarceration, either by dropping charges or declining to allege provable facts.

Her actions constitute “both neglect of duty and incompetence,” according to the executive order. DeSantis acknowledged that prosecutors like Worrell “do have a certain amount of discretion about which cases to bring and which not.” But Worrell has “abused that discretion,” he said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/09/desanti ... rrell.html

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Tommy Tuberville is prepared to burn the military down over abortion protest Democratic senator says
Source: USA Today

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., accused Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., on Tuesday of “being prepared to burn the military down” over Tuberville’s hold of military promotions that began in February. Tuberville has held up more than 200 military promotions for senior military jobs that require Senate confirmation, arguing that some Department of Defense abortion policies − such as provisions on paid leave and traveling expenses − violate federal law.

“I think everybody’s been hoping that Sen. Tuberville would back down, and I think we have to come to the conclusion that that is not happening and that he is prepared to burn the military down,” Murphy told reporters at the Capitol, according to The Hill. “Maybe Republicans were hopeful that leading up to the August break he would relent,” Murphy said. “He didn’t, and we now have to adjust our strategy.”

Murphy said that Senate Republicans need to find a “very targeted, temporary change in process” to bypass Tuberville’s hold, arguing that “there is no world” in which limited time on the Senate floor could be used to confirm these promotions individually, the outlet reported.

“I understand Republicans are not going to go for a permanent change in the rules, but I just think we have to start thinking creatively about breaking this logjam… Maybe when we get back in September there will be some openness to creative solutions,” Murphy said.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 557116007/

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Federal appeals court strikes down law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms
Source: CNN

(CNN) — A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down a decades-old law barring users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms – the latest blow to US gun regulations after the Supreme Court cleared the way last year for courts to reexamine the nation’s gun laws under a new legal standard.

In a unanimous judgement from a three-judge panel at the New Orleans-based appeals court, the court said the 1968 law is unconstitutional, citing a landmark 2022 Supreme Court decision that changes the framework that lower courts must use when analyzing gun restrictions.

“In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person’s right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage,” Circuit Judge Jerry Smith, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the panel. “Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.”

The ruling means that the man who brought the challenge to the regulation, Patrick Daniels, will have his July 2022 conviction under the law thrown out. Daniels had been sentenced to nearly four years in prison and three years of probation.

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Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/09/poli ... /index.htm

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Illinois Supreme Court finds assault weapons ban constitutional

Source: ABC News

The Illinois State Supreme Court found a strict assault weapons ban passed after the Highland Park shooting to be constitutional in a ruling issued Friday.

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit that claimed that the ban violated the equal protections clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court reversed a lower court finding and said that the law does not violate the equal protections clause. However, the Supreme Court did not comment on claims that the law also violated the Second Amendment.

In the ruling, which was 4-3, Justice Elizabeth Rochford wrote, "First, we hold that the exemptions neither deny equal protection nor constitute special legislation because plaintiffs have not sufficiently alleged that they are similarly situated to and treated differently from the exempt classes. Second, plaintiffs expressly waived in the circuit court any independent claim that the restrictions impermissibly infringe the second amendment. Third, plaintiffs’ failure to cross-appeal is a jurisdictional bar to renewing their three-readings claim."

She concluded, "Accordingly, we reverse the circuit court and enter judgment for defendants on the equal protection and special legislation claims."

Read more: https://abcnews.go.com/US/illinois-supr ... =102198069

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