Arizona’s Republican-led house repeals strict abortion ban – as it happened

The supreme court heard from both sides in a dispute between the Biden administration and Idaho over whether federal law requires doctors in the state, where a strict abortion ban is in effect, to perform the procedure on women in emergency circumstances. The court’s three liberal justices were skeptical towards Republican-governed Idaho, as were some members of the conservative majority, but it is unclear if they will ultimately find against the state. A decision is expected in June, which could again raise the public’s awareness of the impacts of Roe v Wade’s downfall, just months before the November presidential election.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Arizona’s house passed legislation to repeal its near-total abortion ban, after three Republicans joined with all Democrats in the chamber. It now heads to the state senate, where it is set to be voted on next week.

• Joe Biden signed the $95b foreign aid bill passed by the Senate yesterday into law. It approves further military assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and threatens social media app TikTok with a nationwide ban unless its Chinese owner sells it in a year.

• The White House’s campaign against junk fees continued, with the transportation department debuting new regulations against hidden charges, and requirements that passengers receive automatic refunds in certain cases.

• The defense department announced a $1b weapons shipment to Ukraine shortly after the aid bill was signed that president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said would help them defend against Russia’s attacks.

• TikTok is in trouble in the US. The just-signed foreign aid bill requires its owner, Chinese firm ByteDance, to sell the popular social media app in a year, or be banned nationwide.

The Associated Press reports that the Arizona house finally passed a bill repealing its near-total abortion ban after three Republicans voted to advance the measure alongside all 29 Democrats in the chamber.

Previous attempts to pass the bill had failed for a lack of votes by Republicans, who hold a narrow majority in the house.

The divide in the Senate is similar small, with Republicans in the majority with 16 seats, and Democrats with 14.

Arizona’s state senate Democrats say the bill repealing the state’s abortion ban will be voted on 1 May:

Arizona lawmakers took a step towards repealing the strict, century-and-a-half old abortion ban that was set to go into effect due to a court decision earlier this month, Reuters reports, with the state house just now voting to repeal the law. However, the state senate must approve the repeal before it comes into effect.

Republican candidates who are hoping to win one of the swing state’s US Senate seat in November and its electoral votes for Donald Trump had denounced the revived near-total ban and asked the state legislature to repeal it, but previous efforts fell short in recent weeks.

Here’s more on the saga:

This post has been corrected to say the ban was set to go into effect, and was not currently in effect.

When it heard oral arguments earlier today over whether a federal law known as Emtala requires Idaho, a state with strict abortion ban, to allow the procedure in emergencies, the supreme court’s justices appeared split into three camps.

The court’s three-justice liberal minority was sympathetic to the Biden administration, which has championed reproductive health access and sued Idaho over its law. Of the court’s six-justice conservative supermajority, three – Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas – seemed partial to Idaho’s insistence that it had the authority to dramatically narrow when doctors may perform abortions, even during emergencies.

The other three conservative justices – John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh – asked questions that indicated they may at least be willing to consider the Biden administration’s positions. The latter two justices had voted in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade, setting the stage for Republican-led states to ban or restrict the procedure.

From the Guardian’s Carter Sherman, here’s a recap of arguments in the case, which will likely be decided in June – less than five months before a presidential election where abortion access is expected to be a key issue for voters:

Progressive group Indivisible hit out at the supreme court’s conservatives after they earlier today heard oral arguments in a dispute between the White House and Idaho over whether the conservative state’s abortion ban can prevent doctors from performing the procedure in an emergency.

The Biden administration argued that federal law requires abortion be performed in emergencies, an argument that the court’s three liberal justices appeared to agree with. But the six justices who form its conservative supermajority appeared either skeptical, or unsure of how they may rule.

In a statement, Indivisible’s managing director Mari Urbina linked the court’s stance on the case to Donald Trump’s appointment of three of the justices who make up its conservative bloc:

We must stress unequivocally: this case has no business being decided by these MAGA Supreme Court justices. Their decision to hear it and put the law into effect is a calculated move, aligned with their deeply misogynistic, twisted, anti-women MAGA agenda.

It’s a known fact, yet it remains profoundly disturbing that our fundamental rights—our very bodies and lives—are controlled by these MAGA, Trump-selected extremists.

Justice Alito’s remark that a woman is ‘an individual’ painfully exposes the core of their ideology. The fact that Republicans need to assert that women are indeed human beings blatantly reveals the depravity of their values and political agenda.

That last part is a dig justice Samuel Alito, a conservative stalwart who was appointed by George W Bush.

A billionaire TikTok investor has been linked to $16m in donations to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups, a new investigation has found.

Eli Clifton reports for the Guardian:

Top Republican donor and TikTok investor Jeff Yass is connected to over $16m in funding to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups that have advocated for a US war with Iran and other militaristic policies in the Middle East, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Responsible Statecraft.

Media reports on Yass, the billionaire co-founder of Susquehanna International Group, a trading and technology firm, have focused on his outsized role in the Republican party, to which he is now the largest political donor in the 2024 election cycle, contributing more than $46m thus far.

Yass has also emerged as the biggest funder of a group targeting progressive representative Summer Lee in her primary race, suggesting an interest in influencing Democratic primary outcomes, not just in boosting Republicans.

For the full story, click here:

The transportation department has issued a new set of rules to protect passengers from hidden airline fees.

In a video address on Wednesday, transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg said:

“The Biden-Harris administration is now going to require airlines to give passengers an automatic cash refund if your flight is cancelled or significantly delayed, and you’ll get your fee refunded if your bag doesn’t arrive in time or if you don’t get a service that you paid for like wifi.

No more refund runarounds and no defaulting to a travel credit that expires. We’re also eliminating hidden fees.”

Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democrat who ran for president in 2020, has repeated a false claim about Hillary Clinton and “grooming” in a new book.

The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:

Accusing Democrats of making up “a conspiracy theory that [Trump] was ‘colluding’ with the Russians to win the election” in 2016, Gabbard claims: “Hillary Clinton used a similar tactic against me when I ran for president in 2020, accusing me of being ‘groomed by the Russians’.”

Gabbard ran for the Democratic nomination. Clinton did not accuse her of being “groomed by the Russians”.

What Clinton said, in October 2019 and on a podcast hosted by the former Barack Obama adviser David Plouffe, was that she thought Republicans would encourage a third-party bid in 2020, aiming to syphon votes from the Democratic candidate in key states as Jill Stein, the Green candidate, and the Libertarian, Gary Johnson, did four years before.

For the full story, click here:

The supreme court heard from both sides in a dispute between the Biden administration and Idaho over whether federal law requires doctors in the state, where a strict abortion ban is in effect, to perform the procedure on women in emergency circumstances. The court’s three liberal justices were skeptical towards Republican-governed Idaho, as were some members of the conservative majority, but it is unclear if they will ultimately find against the state. A decision is expected in June, which could again raise the public’s awareness of the impacts of Roe v Wade’s downfall, just months before the November presidential election.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Joe Biden signed the $95b foreign aid bill passed by the Senate yesterday into law. It approves further military assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and threatens social media app TikTok with a nationwide ban unless its Chinese owner sells it in a year.

• Arizona’s Democratic lawmakers will try to get the state legislature to repeal its abortion ban, after two previous attempts failed.

• The defense department announced a $1b weapons shipment to Ukraine shortly after the aid bill was signed that president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said would help them defend against Russia’s attacks.