May, 2019 | últimas notícias

Ohio State Doctor Sexually Abused At Least 177 Male Students, Investigation Finds – NPR

Richard Strauss was employed as a doctor at Ohio State University from 1978 until he retired in 1998.

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Richard Strauss was employed as a doctor at Ohio State University from 1978 until he retired in 1998.

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For nearly two decades, a doctor at The Ohio State University sexually abused at least 177 male students, according to an exhaustive independent investigation commissioned by the university. Most of the doctor’s abuse happened under the auspices of providing the students with medical treatment.

Richard Strauss worked at OSU from September 1978 through March 1998, primarily as a doctor with the Athletic Department and the Student Health Center. The investigation found that university personnel became aware of Strauss’ abuse as early as 1979.

However, “despite the persistence, seriousness, and regularity of such complaints, no meaningful action was taken by the University to investigate such concerns until January 1996,” when they were first elevated to officials beyond Student Health or the Athletics Department, the report reads.

As a result, Strauss was suspended from working as a treating physician at OSU. The school eventually removed him from his departments, but it kept him on as a tenured faculty member. He voluntarily retired in 1998 with “emeritus” status from the university. Strauss took his own life in 2005.

“The findings are shocking and painful to comprehend,” current OSU President Michael Drake said in a message emailed to the OSU community.

“On behalf of the university, we offer our profound regret and sincere apologies to each person who endured Strauss’ abuse,” said Drake, who became the school’s president in 2014. “Our institution’s fundamental failure at the time to prevent this abuse was unacceptable — as were the inadequate efforts to thoroughly investigate complaints raised by students and staff members.”

Drake added that the university has started the process of revoking Strauss’ emeritus status and “will take additional action as appropriate.”

“Dreams were broken, relationships with loved ones were damaged, and the harm now carries over to our children as many of us have become so overprotective that it strains the relationship with our kids,” Kent Kilgore, a survivor of Strauss’ abuse, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

OSU said it launched the independent investigation last April, after a former student came forward with allegations of abuse and “indicated … that there may have been others who experienced sexual misconduct by Strauss.”

The investigation carried out by the law firm Perkins Coie was led by a former federal prosecutor and a former federal government ethics attorney. Both had experience in investigations involving male sexual abuse survivors.

They interviewed 520 people, among them the 177 men who said they had been abused by Strauss.

The report, which runs more than 230 pages, contains a litany of painful stories of abuse from former students who went to Strauss for medical care.

The instances of abuse often involved inappropriate touching of a students’ genitals during exams in ways that weren’t medically useful. A number of students said Strauss “would routinely touch their genitals at every visit, regardless of the medical ailment presented, including for a sore throat,” the report states.

The report also states that members of 15 university athletic teams were abused. Strauss most frequently targeted wrestlers — 48 of them, according to the report. And the abuse often became more explicit over multiple visits.

“We observed that, in many cases, a student’s most egregious experience of abuse did not occur during the student’s first encounter with Strauss; rather, the abuse escalated over time, in a series of examinations with the student,” the report states.

Other students reported that Strauss would frequently shower with teams, appearing to loiter and gawp at students as they were naked in locker rooms and making them uncomfortable.

A former soccer player told investigators that Strauss would sometimes run a single lap just as the team was finishing up practice. “The student noted that it was a commonly-held perception among the players that Strauss was exercising as a pretext to shower with the team, and the student-athletes would try to shower as quickly as possible,” the report reads.

Dozens of people who worked as coaches or athletic trainers told investigators that they had been aware of rumors and complaints against Strauss. The abuse was so widely known that it left some students with the idea that it was simply accepted by other university personnel.

“Many of the students felt that Strauss’ behavior was an ‘open secret,’ as it appeared to them that their coaches, trainers, and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it,” the report states. Students, it adds, said they had the impression the abuse was a form of hazing or a rite of passage.

The university took disciplinary action against Strauss only after a series of student complaints in the mid-1990s. Even after that, he opened an off-campus private men’s health clinic near the university — where he continued to abuse patients — and kept his title as a tenured faculty professor.

As Gabe Rosenberg and Adora Namigadde of member station WOSU reported:

“At least 50 students have filed lawsuits against Ohio State, arguing the university knew about and declined to act in response to complaints about Strauss. Their case is headed to mediation.

” ‘It’s what we’ve been saying—they’ve failed to act—investigate or act, and now we have validation,’ said Brian Garrett, one of the lead plaintiffs, in an interview Friday.

“The university has referred the report to Columbus Police, the Franklin County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.”

The investigators and the university’s president thanked the survivors for coming forward to share their stories.

“This independent investigation was completed because of the strength and courage of survivors,” Drake said.

Read the investigative report here:

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2019/05/17/724343147/ohio-state-doctor-sexually-abused-at-least-177-male-students-investigation-finds

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Trump will suspend year-old steel, aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico – USA TODAY

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President Donald Trump’s new immigration proposal would create a system to prioritize highly skilled immigrants.
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WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump will suspend tariffs on steel and aluminum that were imposed on Canada and Mexico a year ago in an effort to gain leverage in broader trade negotiations, the White House said Friday.

Trump was poised to lift the tariffs in coming days, said two sources familiar with the deal who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details of an announcement not yet made public. The president announced a deal in broad outlines during a previously scheduled speech in Washington on Friday.

“I’m pleased to announce that we’ve just reached an agreement with Canada and Mexico and we’ll be selling our products into those countries without the imposition of tariffs, or major tariffs,” Trump said during an address to the National Association of Realtors. “Big difference.”

Trump drew howls from allies last May when he used an obscure provision of a 1962 law to claim a trade imbalance in metals presented a national security risk to the U.S. In one of the first concrete steps Trump took on trade, the president levied a 25% tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum from Canada, Mexico and the European Union.

A spokesman for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Trudeau spoke with Trump Friday about the tariffs. Trudeau has scheduled a news conference at a steel factory on Friday afternoon.

Trump negotiated a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada last year, which Trump dubbed the USMCA, and the existing tariffs were considered a roadblock to getting that deal to Congress. The new trade agreement is intended to replace the controversial NAFTA deal that was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.

Last Slide Next Slide

The decision to pull back metal tariffs was the latest in a series of moves the White House made late in the week to pump the brakes on the president’s more aggressive trade position.

Trump separately backed down from a threat Friday to impose a tariff as high as 25% on foreign cars made in Japan and the European Union. Facing a deadline to address those imports, which the administration said also poses a national security threat, Trump signed a proclamation Friday to delay the decision for six months.

Trump announced a daily earlier he would reduce tariffs that had been imposed on steel made in Turkey.

On the other hand, the president has ratcheted up pressure on China. As talks continue with Beijing, Trump allowed higher tariffs to kick on $200 billion in Chinese imports and is moving to increase tariffs on another $325 billion in goods.

Mexico and Canada had responded to Trump’s metal tariffs last year by threatening retaliatory tariffs of their own. The Mexican economic ministry, for instance, said it would move to place new tariffs on U.S.-made pork, flat steel, apples, cheese and other products.

Detroit’s three automakers each paid billions in 2018 because of the increased duties on metal. At GM, for example, tariffs and commodity costs dinged its 2018 earnings by about $1 billion. Ford reported a similar impact and Fiat Chrysler reported about a $500 million hit.

The American Automotive Policy Council, which represents FCA, Ford and GM, praised the agreement.

“We are hopeful that the agreement will effectively resolve the issue between the three trade partners,” the group said in a statement.

Contributing: Detroit Free Press

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Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/17/donald-trump-set-lift-aluminum-steel-tariffs-canada-mexico/3705159002/

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To Contain Iran, Trump’s Newest Line in the Sand Looks a Lot Like Obama’s – The New York Times

That, of course, was the central dilemma facing the Obama administration making its first, secret approach to Iran six years ago. At first, Mr. Obama’s aides insisted Iran would have to give up everything, but that the Tehran government could produce no material that might ultimately be diverted to a bomb.

Eventually, American negotiators concluded after years of running into walls that it would be better to leave Iran with a face-saving token capability for 15 years, and vigorous international inspections, than walk away with no agreement and the real prospect of war.

Many of Mr. Obama’s critics, including some Democrats, have said the negotiators gave up too much. During the 2016 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump quickly honed in on the nuclear agreement’s most glaring weakness: After 15 years, the Iranians could resume unlimited fuel production.

Mr. Obama’s essential bet was that in 15 years Iran will have different leadership, perhaps more interested in integrating with the world than keeping a bomb-making capability. So he brought into the negotiation a nuclear scientist in his cabinet, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Mr. Moniz, the former head of the M.I.T. nuclear physics lab, sat for months with his Iranian counterpart, who had done his graduate studies at M.I.T. They bonded, and emerged with an agreement that Energy Department scientists certified would assure Iran would need a year or more to “break out” and manufacture the fuel needed for a nuclear weapon — until the 15-year clock ran out.

Now Mr. Trump’s negotiators have decided they need the same thing — but it must be permanent.

The schedule that Mr. Rouhani announced to his nation last week would put Iran back on the path of nuclear fuel production. Sooner or later, it would cross that one-year threshold. Iran has never enriched at the level of purity needed to produce a weapon, inspectors say, but they have come close.

“If you want to keep Iran more than a year away from the capability to build a bomb, the way to do it is to go back into the deal,” said Jake Sullivan, a former Obama administration national security official who helped open the negotiations with Tehran. “Because that’s exactly what the deal does.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/us/politics/trump-iran-nuclear-deal.html

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Trump admin planning to fly immigrants to U.S. cities away from the border – NBC News

The Department of Homeland Security is laying the groundwork for a plan to transport recent border crossers by plane to cities around the U.S. and release them after processing, according to two DHS officials familiar with the plan.

Florida officials expressed anger on Thursday after learning that the Trump administration was planning to release hundreds of migrants in Broward and Palm Beach counties each month.

Beyond South Florida, DHS is considering other areas around the country where immigrants can be released, the two officials told NBC News. A Customs and Border Protection official, who held a conference call with reporters Friday afternoon, said the agency is primarily interested in communities along the northern border and on the coast, where there is already a border patrol presence.

A DHS official said previously the agency was looking at places with the capacity to process large numbers of immigrants, but declined to give further specifics on cities or regions under consideration.

Central American migrants who cross the U.S.-Mexico border must be processed before they can be released. Many make a claim for asylum, seeking the right to stay in the country to avoid persecution back home.

Customs and Border Protection would be responsible for identifying which migrants to put on planes bound for the interior of the country, and the agency would rely primarily on Immigration and Customs Enforcement airplanes. The CBP official said on Friday that ICE would contract the planes and not look for additional federal assistance.

There are no plans to detain migrants in the cities where they are released, the officials said. Officials in Broward County, Florida have expressed concern about migrants being released without “designated shelters or funding to house them, feed them, and keep them safe,” according to a statement released Thursday.

A similar program is in place in Del Rio, Texas where immigrants have been airlifted from the Rio Grande Valley. CBP has said that the hundreds of immigrants released there are non-criminal families.

The CBP official said the plan to fly immigrants to cities across the country is a contingency “if the flow [of immigrants] continues to increase.”

In both March and April, more than 100,000 undocumented immigrants crossed the border over the span of a month, numbers not seen in over 12 years.

Following news reports last month, President Donald Trump said he would consider sending immigrants specifically to so-called “sanctuary cities” — often led by Democrats — where officials have limited cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. The officials said the decisions being made now on where to transport migrants are not political and would not specifically target sanctuary cities.

Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the plan to send immigrants to South Florida. They did not respond to a request for comment about a broader plan to fly immigrants to cities across the country.

Julia Ainsley

Julia Ainsley is a national security reporter for NBC News.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/trump-admin-planning-fly-immigrants-u-s-cities-away-border-n1007061

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Prosecutors: Woman plotted killing pregnant teen for weeks – ABC Action News

Editor’s note: This article contains graphic descriptions of what prosecutors say happened in the killing of a pregnant woman.

A Chicago woman accused of strangling a pregnant teen and cutting out her unborn baby had planned the killing for weeks, having first lied that she was expecting a child, and then using Facebook to find and lure her target, authorities said Friday.

Clarisa Figueroa, 46, strangled 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez at Figueroa’s Chicago home last month, then removed the teen’s baby from her body and pretended it was hers, authorities say.

Figueroa and her daughter, Desiree Figueroa — who police say helped in the strangulation — were arrested this week after investigators found the teen’s body in a trash can in Figueroa’s yard Tuesday.

Clarisa and Desiree Figueroa, 24, were charged Thursday with first-degree murder and aggravated battery of a child less than 13 years old. Clarisa Figueroa’s boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, 40, has been charged with concealing the death of a person and one felony count of concealing a homicidal death.

Police have said Ochoa-Lopez, a high school student, went to Figueroa’s home at least twice this year after connecting on a Facebook group for mothers, where the teen accepted Figueroa’s offer of baby items.

The baby boy is hospitalized in grave condition, and was on life support Friday, Chicago police said.

Also Friday, assistant state’s attorney James Murphy, standing in the lobby of a Cook County court building, revealed the following allegations:

• Clarisa Figueroa lost a 20-year-old son, Xander, in 2018.

• In October, she announced she was pregnant — a surprise to her family, because she had her fallopian tubes tied.

• In December, Figueroa posted an ultrasound photo on Facebook of a baby she claimed to be carrying.

• In February, she posted on a “Help a Mother Out” Facebook page that she would name her baby Xander, and posted a photo of a crib and a decorated baby room.

• On March 5, Figueroa posted to the Facebook group: “Who is due in May? Where is the May mammas at?”

• That same day, she connected on that page with Ochoa-Lopez, then seven months pregnant. Figueroa offered new clothes for the teen’s baby, and suggested that she contact her in a private message.

• Sometime before April 1, Figueroa told her daughter that “she needed help killing a pregnant woman and taking a baby.”

• On April 1, Ochoa-Lopez went to Figueroa’s home for the first time, and left.

How prosecutors say the killing happened

On April 23, Murphy said, Ochoa-Lopez returned and sat on a couch. While Desiree Figueroa distracted the teen with a photo album, the elder Figueroa wrapped a cable around the teen’s neck from behind, Murphy said.

When the teen was able to put her fingers between her neck and the cable, the elder Figueroa told her daughter that she wasn’t doing her job, Murphy said.

Desiree “then stepped up and began to peel the victim’s fingers from the cable one by one,” Murphy said.

Clarisa Figueroa then got on top of the teen and strangled her for about four to five minutes, the prosecutor said.

When Ochoa-Lopez was dead, the elder Figueroa cut the teen’s baby from her womb, and then called 911 and said she’d just delivered a baby that wasn’t breathing, according to Murphy. Both were hospitalized.

Ochoa-Lopez’s husband reported her missing on April 24, police say.

But it would take nearly three weeks before police unraveled what happened, culminating in investigators finding Ochoa-Lopez’s remains in a trash can in the backyard of Clarisa Figueroa’s home, authorities say.

The victim’s family alleges police should have made the arrests much sooner, saying that investigators didn’t immediately act on leads that the family and community members were providing.

‘A nightmare, a horror film’

The defendants were expected to appear in court for a bond hearing Friday. Before the hearing, Ochoa-Lopez’s family publicly asked that the suspects not be granted bond.

Julie Contreras, speaking on the family’s behalf, said the relatives were living “a nightmare, a horror film.”

“Giving (the suspects) no bond not only helps this family, it helps the public security in the city of Chicago, the nation and probably even the world,” Contreras, of the

League of United Latin American Citizens

, said Friday at a Cook County court building.

Police say their break in the case came last week

Police say a break in the case came May 7 when a friend of the victim told detectives about her Facebook exchanges with Figueroa before she vanished.

Detectives visited the Figueroa home that day. Desiree Figueroa told them her mother was in the hospital for problems with her legs. Then she revealed that her mother had just delivered a baby, authorities said.

The investigators searched the area and found Ochoa-Lopez’s vehicle “not far away,” Chicago police Deputy Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan told reporters Thursday,

That same day, detectives interviewed the elder Figueroa at a hospital. She denied Ochoa-Lopez came to her house April 23 but admitted to meeting her in the past, Deenihan said.

Suspicious, detectives spent the next several days subpoenaing hospital records and collecting DNA samples from the baby and Figueroa.

“We determined that Clarisa (Figueroa) was not the mother through DNA,” Deenihan said.

DNA testing did show that Ochoa-Lopez’s husband, Yovani Lopez, was the father, Deenihan said.

The woman’s body was found in a trash can this week

Tuesday, armed with a search warrant, crime lab officers searched Figueroa’s house.

Detectives discovered bleach and cleaning solutions in the home, along with evidence of burned clothing and blood on the floors of the living room, bathroom and a hallway, according to Deenihan.

“They are finding remains of burned clothes, they are finding some blood indication on the living room carpet, some blood indication on the hallway, some blood indication on the bathroom floor,” Deenihan said.

Ochoa-Lopez’s body was found in a garbage can in the back yard, along with a cable used to strangle her and other evidence, police said.

A medical examiner determined that Ochoa-Lopez died of strangulation. Early Thursday, Desiree Figueroa told detectives she helped her mother strangle Ochoa-Lopez, police said.

The motive for the killing is under investigation, but Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said Thursday he believes Clarisa Figueroa wanted to raise the child as her own.

Family says police had opportunities to learn what happened sooner

Ochoa-Lopez’s family said they notified authorities about her interaction with the woman much sooner that May 7.

Her husband tried to immediately report her missing to the police, but was told to come back in 72 hours, according to Jacobita Cortes, a pastor of a Chicago church that the family had asked for help.

The husband did, and the family hired a private investigator who Cortes says helped to find Ochoa-Lopez’s car near the Figueroa home.

They also turned to the church for help in reaching out to the community at large, plastering the neighborhood with fliers.

Residents last week started calling the church to report that they had seen the young mother enter the house where she was found dead. They said that one of the women who lived there, in her 40s, suddenly had a baby without ever appearing to be pregnant, according to Cortes.

Ochoa-Lopez’s father, Arnulfo Ochoa, said there were opportunities to find his daughter sooner.

“(The private detective) went into that (Facebook) page and found all the information, and he gave it to the police. But even then, they took too long to get there,” Ochoa said at a news conference Thursday.

“There’s going to be anger associated,” Johnson, the police superintendent, said Thursday. “When things of this nature occur, the first thing people do is look in retrospect, what could we have done to maybe prevent this? I know our detectives do the best they can.”

Source Article from https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/national/prosecutors-woman-accused-of-killing-a-pregnant-teen-and-taking-her-baby-plotted-it-for-weeks

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Trump administration defies tax return subpoena – AOL

WASHINGTON ― Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Friday that the administration will not comply with a subpoena for copies of President Donald Trump’s tax returns, setting up yet another legal showdown with Democrats.

Democrats’ request “lacks a legitimate legislative purpose” and the Treasury Department is therefore “not authorized” to hand over the documents, Mnuchin said in a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.).

The tax returns are just one part of a broader standoff between the Trump administration and Congress. Lawmakers have a constitutional right to oversee the executive branch, but the White House has been stonewalling demands for testimony and documents.

Democrats will probably be at the mercy of federal courts to enforce their subpoenas, although some lawmakers have talked about dusting off the legislature’s own power to force compliance through jail or fines.

Neal requested six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns last month and followed through with the subpoena last week after Mnuchin refused the initial request.

“I didn’t think that they would turn it over,” Neal told HuffPost on Thursday, before Mnuchin had officially defied the subpoena.

RELATED: Take a look at some of the things Trump could’ve purchased with the amount he allegedly paid in taxes:

190 initiation fees
for Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach

Cost per member initiation: $200K

Photo credit: Getty

2,715 annual memberships
to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach

Cost per membership: $14K/year

Photo credit: Getty

190 sets of diamonds
That Ivanka Trump wore to her wedding

Cost of Ivanka Trump’s wedding day jewelry: $200K

Photo credit: Getty

26 engagement rings
That Donald Trump proposed to Melania with

Cost of Melania Trump’s engagement ring: $1.5M

Photo credit: Getty

845 annual tuitions
To the high school that Barron Trump attends, Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School

Tuition cost: $45K/Year

Photo credit: Getty

543 annual tuitions
To the university that Tiffany Trump attended, University of Pennsylvania

Tuition cost: $70K/year

Photo credit: Getty

10,556 Gucci jackets
That Kellyanne Conway wore to the 2017 Presidential Inauguration

Cost of jacket: $3.6K

Photo credit: Reuters

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Neal declined to discuss next steps but has previously said he would sue in federal court and ask a judge to enforce the subpoena. Courts have repeatedly ordered executive branch officials to cooperate with subpoenas, but the process typically takes longer than election cycles, meaning Trump could be out of office before Democrats can win.

Neal’s subpoena is just one of 10 that Democrats have issued. A subpoena is a legally enforceable demand for information.

“I’m concerned that we want to get this done as rapidly as possible and that we want to figure out how to expedite the court fights as rapidly as possible,” House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who subpoenaed for an unredacted copy of the special counsel investigation into the president’s 2016 campaign and subsequent efforts to obstruct investigations, said Thursday.

One difference between the other subpoenas and the request for the tax returns is that there’s a federal law explicitly stating the Treasury Department is supposed to hand over any tax returns requested by chairs of congressional committees that write tax laws. The statute should give Democrats an even stronger position in court.

Mnuchin said Tuesday during a hearing on the Treasury Department’s budget that he would be glad to let a court deal with the tax return request, ostensibly because he didn’t want to “set a precedent” of politicians seizing private tax information to damage their enemies. Another possibility is that Mnuchin just doesn’t want to hand over documents that his boss would like to keep secret, and would prefer if a court forced his hand.

“If this issue goes through the courts, I think it’s better that we have the court’s interpretation,” Mnuchin said.

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Source Article from https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2019/05/17/trump-administration-defies-tax-return-subpoena/23728731/

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Missouri’s House passes bill banning abortions at 8 weeks of pregnancy – NBC News

Missouri’s Republican-led House passed a bill banning abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy with an exception for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson is likely to sign the bill, following the governors of Alabama, Georgia and several other states who have also recently signed stringent abortion legislation.

“Until the day that we no longer have abortions in this country, I will never waver in the fight for life,” Parson said during a rally Wednesday.

Under the bill, which passed in the House by 110 to 44, doctors who perform an abortion after the eight-week cutoff could face five to 15 years in prison. Women who receive abortions would not be criminally penalized.

The debate before the vote Friday was briefly interrupted by abortion-rights supporters chanting “when you lie, people die” and “women’s rights are human rights.” They were escorted from the chamber, but following the vote shouted “shame, shame, shame” while marching through the Capitol.

Missouri’s Republican-led Senate passed the bill, called Missouri Stands With the Unborn, by a vote of 24-10 on Thursday morning. Friday was Missouri lawmakers’ last day for the current session.

Debate Friday in the House was spirited and emotional.

“I am a woman. It is my body, it is my choice. I am pro-life. Pro-life means when they start breathing we make sure they make it to adulthood,” said Democratic Rep. Barbara Washington.

“Laundry, bleach, acid bitter, concoction, knitting needles, bicycle spokes, ballpoint pens, jumping from the top of the stairs or the roof,” said Democratic Rep. Sarah Unsicker. “These are ways that women around the world who don’t have access to legal abortions perform their own.”

Once enacted, the law will only kick in if Roe v. Wade is overturned, and Planned Parenthood was assuring women in the state that facilities that provide abortions are still open in Missouri and neighboring Illinois.

“Today, the Missouri House stood for the unborn,” said House Speaker Elijah Haahr in a statement following the passage of the bill. “The bold legislation we sent to the governor’s desk is the strongest and most comprehensive pro-life bill in the country.”

Anti-abortion advocates across the U.S. are pushing for new restrictions on the procedure in hopes that the now more-conservative U.S. Supreme Court will overturn more than 40 years of federal abortion protection under Roe v. Wade.

The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Nicholas B. Schroer, said Friday that the purpose of the bill wasn’t to provoke court challenges.

“This legislation has one goal, and that is to save lives … to withstand judicial challenges and not cause them,” he said.

If the courts block the eight-week ban, the bill has built-in concessions of less-restrictive time limits that would prohibit abortions at 14, 18 or 20 weeks or pregnancy.

“While others are zeroing in on ways to overturn Roe v. Wade and navigate the courts as quickly as possible, that is not our goal,” Schroer said. “However, if and when that fight comes we will be fully ready.”

Democratic representatives challenged the claim that passage of the bill was not in an effort to challenge established law.

“This is nothing but an affront not to Roe v. Wade … to what it stands for, to the U.S. Constitution itself,” said Democratic Rep. Ian Mackey. “Women brought all of us into this world, and I sure hope they vote all of us out,” he said.

“This is a terrifying time for women in America,” Leana Wen, the president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund said in a statement Friday. “Planned Parenthood will not sit by and watch as politicians take our rights and freedoms to women’s health care away. We will fight in Missouri, Georgia, Alabama, and everywhere else politicians interfere with medical care, because women’s health care is health care and health care is a human right.”

In the past two weeks, both Alabama and Georgia have passed strict abortion laws, although they have not yet taken effect, and may never be implemented, depending on results of court challenges.

Alabama

Alabama’s law, signed by Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday, makes it a felony for a doctor to perform or attempt an abortion during any stage of pregnancy.

The state’s House approved the bill with an exception for cases when a mother’s health is at serious risk. The Senate considered but rejected also adding exemptions for when the pregnancy results from rape and incest.

The law is not due to go into effect for six months after the signing. Under current law, abortions can be performed up to 21 weeks and six days. As it is, there are only three abortion clinics left in the state of Alabama.

Georgia

Georgia’s law, signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, bans abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected — which can happen as early as six weeks, before many women are aware they are pregnant.

The law includes rape and incest exceptions, if the woman filed a police report. It also includes exceptions to save the mother’s life and if a fetus is determined to not be viable because of serious medical issues.

Under current law, abortions can be performed during the first 20 weeks of a pregnancy. The new ban is not due to go into effect until Jan. 1, 2020.

Kentucky, Mississippi and Ohio have also approved bans on abortion once fetal cardiac activity can be detected. Some of those laws already have been challenged in court, and similar restrictions in North Dakota and Iowa previously were struck down by judges.

Elisha Fieldstadt

Elisha Fieldstadt is a breaking news reporter for NBC News.

Source Article from https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-s-house-passes-bill-banning-abortions-8-weeks-pregnancy-n1006871

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US reaches deal to lift steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico – CNBC

Pennsylvania, Vermont and Wisconsin just set new lows for…

Vermont’s 2.2%, Pennsylvania’s 3.8% and Wisconsin’s 2.8% set new lows for state unemployment rates, as indicated by records that go back to 1976.

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Was Michael Flynn targeted?

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We’ve detected unusual activity from your computer network

Was Michael Flynn targeted?

Finger-pointing over who pushed the anti-Trump dossier