Author: Reporter

After sweeping through battles in statehouses across the country, the war against ESG investing is heating up in Congress. The Senate voted on March 1 to overturn a Labor Department rule allowing retirement plans to consider environmental, social and governance factors when making investment decisions, following a similar vote by House Republicans on previous day. It set the stage for a potential first veto by President Joe Biden. Critics say ESG investments allocate money based on political agendas, such as a drive against climate change, rather than on earning the best returns for savers. They say ESG is just...

The number of U.S. mass killings linked to extremism over the past decade was at least three times higher than the total from any other 10-year period since the 1970s, according to a report by the Anti-Defamation League. The report also found that all extremist killings identified in 2022 were linked to right-wing extremism, with an especially high number linked to white supremacy. They include a racist mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, that left 10 Black shoppers dead and a mass shooting that killed five people at an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “It...

A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment is upending gun laws across the country, dividing judges and sowing confusion over what firearm restrictions can remain on the books. The high court’s ruling that set new standards for evaluating gun laws left open many questions, experts say, resulting in an increasing number of conflicting decisions as lower court judges struggle to figure out how to apply it. The Supreme Court’s so-called Bruen decision changed the test that lower courts had long used for evaluating challenges to firearm restrictions. Judges should no longer consider whether the law serves...

Supporters of abortion rights filed separate lawsuits Wednesday challenging two states’ abortion pill restrictions, the opening salvo in what is expected to be a protracted legal battle over access to the medications. The lawsuits argue that limits on the drugs in North Carolina and West Virginia run afoul of the federal authority of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which has approved the abortion pill as a safe and effective method for ending pregnancy. The cases were brought by a North Carolina physician who prescribes the pill, mifepristone, and GenBioPro, which makes a generic version of the drug and...

Medication abortions in the United States usually involve two different drugs. In the latest effort to limit abortion access, opponents of the procedure are seeking to ban one of those medications. If they succeed, only one of the pills would be available, but women would still be able to get abortions. Here is a look at medications, efforts to curtail them and how clinics are responding. THE DRUGS The Food and Drug Administration regimen for medication abortions involves two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol. The drugs can be taken at home and are used in just over half of U.S....