TV News LIES

A Pennsylvania court on Monday said that the state’s constitution guarantees a right to abortion while striking down a decades-long law banning the use of state Medicaid funds to cover abortion costs.

The ruling by a divided seven-judge panel of the appellate-level commonwealth court is a major victory for Planned Parenthood and abortion clinic operators who first sued Pennsylvania over its Medicaid funding restrictions in 2019.

While the case initially centered over state Medicaid limitations, the stakes significantly expanded after the US supreme court in 2022 ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v Wade.

The court’s finding on Monday marks the first time that the right to an abortion is protected by the Pennsylvania constitution, joining a handful of states where reproductive rights advocates have found success in protecting abortion access by pointing to state constitutions.

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When Bug got home from school one winter afternoon in late 2024, his mother was on the couch, watching 30 Rock re-runs. Bug sat down next to her; he had an announcement to make.

Bug, who was assigned female at birth, told his mother he was a boy — and would be using he/him pronouns.

"OK, cool," his mother, J, remembers saying. Bug, who was in sixth grade at the time, had previously come out as non-binary, but this felt like an even bigger step.

"We started talking about, like, 'What are you wanting to have happen? What do you need to be supported?'" J said. "And he asked to get health care."

Bug is a nickname, and his mother asked NPR to identify Bug that way, and identify her by her first initial, J, because the family fears harassment.

This was the kind of moment J had been anticipating for a while. She felt immensely grateful that the family had left Texas in 2024, and resettled in western Massachusetts, a state with laws that she felt were more supportive of bodily autonomy, and a culture more welcoming of diverse lifestyles.

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Donald Trump has selected Erica Schwartz to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bringing to an end a months-long search for a permanent head of the troubled public health agency.

Trump revealed his choice on Truth Social, saying: “I am pleased to announce the new leadership of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is my Honor to nominate the incredibly talented Dr Erica Schwartz, MD, JD, MPH, as my Director of the CDC,” he wrote. “She is a STAR!”

Schwartz must receive confirmation from the Senate before taking the role.

A rear admiral in the US Coast Guard, Schwartz previously served as deputy surgeon general during Trump’s first administration. Over more than two decades, she has held positions in the US navy, the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps and the US Coast Guard. Her tenure as deputy surgeon general lasted from 2019 to 2021.

Schwartz is a physician with a background that includes a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering and a medical degree from Brown University. She also has a master’s degree in public health from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, as well as a law degree from the University of Maryland.

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More than 3.1 million bottles of eye drops sold at major retailers, including Walgreens and CVS, are being recalled due to concerns about their sterility, according to a notice from the Food and Drug Administration.

The eyedrops have been recalled by their manufacturer, K.C. Pharmaceuticals, according to the March 3 alert. The products were sold under a number of brand names, including Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops and Artificial Tears Sterile Lubricant Eye Drops. 

The recall was classified as "Class II" by the FDA, which describes products that may cause "temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote." Another major eye drops recall in 2023 involved a different manufacturer whose products may have contained bacteria.

The latest eye drops recall involves eight brands manufactured by K.C. Pharmaceuticals, with the largest lot involving more than 1 million bottles sold under the Dry Eye Relief Eye Drops brand at stores including Rite Aid, H-E-B and Harris Teeter.

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The Supreme Court sided with a Christian counselor on Tuesday in her free speech challenge to Colorado’s ban on counselors attempting to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the 8-1 majority, said lower courts used too lenient a standard in upholding the ban.

The law regulates counselors’ speech in an attempt to silence a certain viewpoint, Gorsuch wrote.

“Fortunately, that is not the world the First Amendment envisions for us,” the justice wrote.

The court’s decision is poised to have ripple effects across the country, with more than 20 states having enacted similar measures. But two of the court’s liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, signaled that states that write more tailored laws could still prevail.

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The abortion rate is holding steady in the US despite total and partial bans in some states – largely because of travel across state lines and a significant increase in telehealth appointments, a new report says.

US regulatory officials are weighing changes to the ways mifepristone, an abortion medication, may be dispensed, but they have reportedly pushed their review until after the midterm elections, given the widespread support for abortion across the US.

The number of abortions in the US increased slightly last year, from 1.124m to 1.126m, according to a Guttmacher Institute report. There’s also a shift away from traveling and toward telehealth, in which providers may prescribe mail-order pills.

One major change in this report is the provision of telehealth for patients in states with total bans – with clinicians in states such as New York or Massachusetts, which have shield laws to protect providers, seeing and prescribing remotely to patients living in states such as Texas or Alabama.

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