President Joe Biden discussed efforts to address the unprecedented flow of migration along the U.S. southern border in a Friday afternoon call with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

Biden and the Mexican leader spoke for 52 minutes, the White House said. Press secretary Jen Psaki called the conversation was "very constructive" and said it focused on coordination around migration and economic issues.

The planned end on May 23 of the public health ban on asylum seekers could lead to a rush of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border. Lopez Obrador tweeted that the conversation was "cordial" and focused on "issues of interest to the bilateral relationship."

López Obrador said, “It’s important that there’s this communication, to listen to President Biden who has treated us with respect, as President Trump also treated us with respect, and we have to ensure a good relationship."

López Obrador is scheduled to visit Central American countries along with Cuba next week. He plans to speak to counterparts about economic development and social programs.

Iowa’s ban on most abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy was signed into law Friday by Gov. Kim Reynolds, but a judge is still considering abortion advocates’ request to put the restrictions on hold.

The new legislation prohibits almost all abortions once cardiac activity can be detected, which is usually around six weeks of pregnancy and before many women know they are pregnant. That’s a dramatic shift for women in Iowa, where abortion had been legal up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Reynolds signed the measure into law in front of 2,000 conservative Christians barely a mile away from where a court hearing for the request to postpone the state’s new ban took place. The ACLU of Iowa, Planned Parenthood North Central States and the Emma Goldman Clinic filed the legal challenge Wednesday and representatives spoke at the court hearing Friday.

That hearing ended with the judge saying a decision on whether to put a hold on the new ban may be made next week.

District Court Judge Joseph Seidlin said he could not imagine “anything that would be more insulting to either side” than for him to “flippantly” rule from the bench Friday.

The split screen punctuates a bitter battle between abortion advocates and opponents in Iowa that has dragged on for years and will likely, for now, remain unresolved as the courts assess the law’s constitutionality.

“As we gather here today, at this very moment, the abortion industry is in the court trying to prevent this law from taking effect and stop once again the will of the people,” Reynolds said before bringing people on the stage to sign the law. “But the passage of this legislation by even a wider margin this times sends an unmistakable message.”

The bill passed with exclusively Republican support late on Tuesday at the conclusion of a rare, 14-hour special legislative session.

The new measure will be considered in the context of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and Iowa’s Supreme Court last year, when both reversed themselves on rulings that had affirmed a woman’s fundamental constitutional right to abortion.

Those decisions prompted Reynolds to ask the court to reinstate her blocked 2018 law, which is nearly identical to the new one. The state’s high court deadlocked last month, prompting Reynolds to call lawmakers back to the Iowa Capitol.

“Patients’ lives are deeply impacted every day that this law is allowed to stand,” said Ruth Richardson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood North Central States. “Iowans will be harmed as they’ve lost the right to control their bodies and futures. Iowans must have the freedom to make the best medical decisions for themselves and their families. We stand at the ready for our patients as we await the Court’s decision and are prepared to help them get the reproductive health care they need regardless of the outcome.”

Planned Parenthood North Central States was planning to refer patients to other states, but remained hopeful there would not be a long interruption in services. As of Wednesday, 200 patients were scheduled for abortions at Iowa Planned Parenthood or the Emma Goldman Clinic this week and next, according to the court filings. Most of them past the six-week mark in their pregnancies.

One Planned Parenthood clinic stayed open until about 9:30 p.m. Thursday in an effort to provide abortion care before the new restrictions, their attorney said.

“I can only hope that all patients who had appointments this morning have gotten the care that they need and that they’re not sitting at a health center right now,” the clinics’ attorney Peter Im said during Friday's court arguments.

Iowa lawmakers passed the law in less time “than the 24 hour time period that’s required for patients to wait before they get an abortion in Iowa," he said, adding that the status quo for the last 50 years has been for abortion pre-viability to be legal in Iowa.

“This law, which on Tuesday the General Assembly passed in the dead of night after less than a day of deliberation, will violate Iowans constitutional rights and alter that status quo and have devastating consequences for Iowans," he said.

There are limited circumstances under the measure that would allow for abortion after the point in a pregnancy where cardiac activity is detected: rape, if reported to law enforcement or a health provider within 45 days; incest, if reported within 145 days; if the fetus has a fetal abnormality “incompatible with life”; or if the pregnancy is endangering the life of the pregnant woman.

Most Republican-led states have drastically limited abortion access in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and handed authority on abortion law to the states. More than a dozen states have bans with limited exceptions and one state, Georgia, bans abortion after cardiac activity is detected. Several other states have similar restrictions that are on hold pending court rulings.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre put out an immediate statement saying Iowa's newly signed law is “an extreme abortion ban that will take away a woman’s right to choose."

“While Republican elected officials advance dangerous laws, President Biden and Vice President Harris stand with the majority of Americans who believe personal health care decisions should be between a woman and her doctor, not politicians, and will continue to call on Congress to codify the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law,” the statement said.
__

Ballentine contributed from Columbia, Missouri.

The National Spelling Bee is back and in full swing after last year's part in-person, part virtual competition because of the pandemic.

This is a tradition that goes back almost a century, and a lot has changed in that time.

The Bee has been around since 1925. Back then, nine newspapers got together to sponsor the first event. The first winner was an 11-year-old from Kentucky who spelled the word "gladiolus" correctly. He knew the word because he had raised the flower back home and won $500 worth of gold pieces as an award.

Nowadays, the semifinalists get a $500 gift card. The finalists get a few thousand dollars. The champion gets $50,000, the trophy, more money and a reference library from Merriam-Webster, and more gifts from Encyclopædia Britannica, including a 1768 Replica Set.

There have been a few times when the Bee did not buzz.

From 1943 to 1945, there was no Bee because of World War II, and it was canceled in 2020 when the pandemic first began.

In 2019, the Bee had to deal with an 8-way tie because the judges quite literally ran out of words.

Since then, the Bee has added a lightning round. If there are still multiple spellers left standing by the final round, they'll be given 90 seconds to spell out as many words as possible from a prepared list. Whoever spells the most words correctly wins.

After a yearlong hiatus because of the pandemic, the Bee returned last year with another first: Zaila Avant-Garde became the first Black American to be crowned winner of the Bee. She won in round 18 for spelling the word “Murraya” right. In case you were wondering, it’s a genus of tropical Asiatic and Australian trees having pinnate leaves and flowers with imbricated petals.

So, it’s a plant, but Zaila was picturing something different when she won.

“Bill Murray’s face," Avant-Garde said. "I just got 'Murraya' and I just thought of his face, and it was so funny to me."

Millions of kids fight for the chance to make it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This year, it began with 234. By the end of day one, 88 spellers remained.

The first few rounds consist of oral competition and one round of multiple-choice word meaning. As it turns out, it’s not just spelling.

An incorrect answer in any of those rounds will get you an automatic elimination — and a ding.

The Bee has become more than just a competition. Today, it is live-streamed and tweeted about, which is very different than when it first started. Now, it's a national spectacle.

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President Vladimir Putin has said at Russia's showpiece investment conference that the country's economy will overcome sanctions that he called "reckless and insane."

Putin began his address Friday to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum with a lengthy denunciation of countries that he contends want to weaken Russia, including the United States. He says the U.S. "declared victory in the Cold War and later came to think of themselves as God's own messengers on planet Earth."

Russia came under a wide array of sanctions after sending troops into Ukraine in February. Putin said trying to damage the Russian economy "didn't work."

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Friday that it's still "absolutely necessary" for some leaders to talk directly to Russian President Vladimir Putin amid efforts to end the war in Ukraine. He told German news agency DPA on Friday that he and France's president will continue to do so.

Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have held several telephone conversations with Putin, separately and together, since Russia's invasion began in late February. Those contacts have drawn some criticism — including from Poland's president, who said recently that they achieve nothing and serve only to legitimize the Russian leader.

Scholz said some leaders need to talk to Putin "and it is necessary that they are clear."

Sen. Susan Collins is being criticized for the Supreme Court ruling allowing states to ban abortion because the moderate Republican voted to confirm two of the justices who were in the majority opinion.

Critics attacked the Maine senator on social media, and some called for her resignation. The Maine Democratic Party and others cast some of the blame on Collins because her vote was crucial in confirming Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Collins also voted to confirm Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also sided with the majority opinion.

Collins says in a statement that the overturning of Roe is a "sudden and radical jolt to the country" that will sow division.

Collins is a Republican and has been a supporter of a woman’s right to an abortion. She has also crossed the aisle on key issues like splitting with Republicans on former President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from several Muslim countries, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, and on whether to convict Trump after his impeachment following the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

The senator said in a statement Friday that she had received assurances from Kavanaugh and Gorsuch that Roe v. Wade was an established legal precedent, the Associated Press reported.

“Throwing out a precedent overnight that the country has relied upon for half a century is not conservative,” she said. “It is a sudden and radical jolt to the country that will lead to political chaos, anger, and a further loss of confidence in our government.”

A federal court has put a temporary hold on the government's order for Juul to stop selling its electronic cigarettes.

Juul filed the emergency motion so it can appeal the sales ban from the Food and Drug Administration. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington granted the request later Friday. A day earlier, the FDA said Juul must stop selling its vaping device and its cartridges. The agency said Juul didn't give it enough information to evaluate the potential health risks of its e-cigarettes.

In its court filing, the company disagreed, saying it provided enough.

To stay on the market, companies must show that their e-cigarettes benefit public health. In practice, that means proving that adult smokers who use them are likely to quit or reduce their smoking, while teens are unlikely to get hooked on them.

Berlina Arreola continues to visit an impromptu shrine of a tragedy that struck her family personally.

A gunman shot and killed her granddaughter, Amerie Jo Garza, 18 other Robb Elementary School students, and two teachers on May 24 in Uvalde, Texas.

"It's getting harder and harder as the days go by missing our loved ones," Arreola said. "I mean, I miss Amerie dearly."

The road ahead is still tough for families.

Jessie Rodriguez's daughter, Annabell, was another victim.

"The last time I talked to her, I was waiting for a big job to come in so I could pick her up and go shopping, you know," Rodriguez said. "She took my phone and said, 'Let's do a selfie daddy.'"

Rodriguez, who is self-employed, finds it hard to motivate himself to get back to work.

"It kills me every day, you know?" Rodriguez said. "I mean, I'm not the man I was, just not the same."

Victims' families have needs, whether they be emotional, medical, or financial.

State Sen. Roland Gutierrez says strangers have opened their pocketbooks to Uvalde, donating nearly $14 million to date.

"We saw already there are initial efforts, but we want to be able to get an idea of when families are going to get disbursements," Sen. Gutierrez said. "I'm bringing in some folks that are going to advocate for them to maximize those funds as best we can."

He said he's learned lessons from past relief efforts after mass shootings, like the Sutherland Springs church attack in 2017.

"I hope that we can get these organizations, these funds, that have been collected, people that are running these organizations, to understand that we need to be able to do at least try to change the lives of these parents," Sen. Gutierrez said.

The tragedy struck an already vulnerable community. Census data says close to 25% of people in the county are uninsured. Much live pay check to pay check, and paying for medical bills for survivors is simply a bridge too far. That's where these funds fit in.

"In 2012 after the Aurora theater shooting, survivors of that event came to us at the National Center for Victims of Crime and said that they didn't like how their fund was being administered, and they asked us to set up a new fund for them," Jeff Dion, executive director of the National Compassion Fund, said.

The National Compassion Fund, or NCF, is a group founded after a gunman murdered 12 and injured 70 in the Aurora, Colorado theater shooting almost 10 years ago.

One of those victims was Micayla Medek. When donations did not reach families in need, her cousin was moved to action.

"The first $200,000 went to 10 area nonprofits, and we found out that they were a victim relief fund; [it] was not actually going to go directly to the victims," Anita Busch with Victims First said. "We had kids with brain injuries and no insurance, and we have 12 people to bury."

Busch works alongside the NCF. The foundation says its role is to make sure victims and survivors get direct assistance from every dollar donated.

"But nobody really is planning for donation management, and we know that this happens just about every time," Dion said.

The foundation has overseen collection efforts for 23 mass casualty events and helped disburse more than $100 million.

"So we had to get up off our knees in grief and fight so that the donations would actually get to the victims," Busch said.

These echos the sentiment Arreola has — that there is no price tag on bringing back loved ones.

"The bills don't stop... for a broken, unfortunately," Arreola said.

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California will start requiring gun makers and sellers to follow a whole new set of guidelines, a new precedent aimed at keeping guns out of the wrong hands. 

Starting July 2023, gun makers and sellers in California will have to implement what the state calls "reasonable precautions against theft or selling guns to someone who could use it illegally or harm someone else." 

That requirement is subjective, and gun rights groups argue it's too vague. 

But amid a rash of mass shootings and popular demand for tighter gun laws, it's a state measure that goes beyond current background check standards.

It adds to restrictions in a state where lawmakers are trying to limit concealed carry permitting after a Supreme Court ruling upended current laws. 

"We don't want a proliferation of weapons in sensitive areas, and we don't want the wrong people to have guns. That makes sense. They all work together. And California's safer because of it," state senator Anthony Portantino said.  

After a bipartisan law passed by Congress to strengthen so-called red-flag laws, President Biden is readily admitting its shortcomings. 

"We will not save every life from the epidemic of gun violence, but if this law had been in place years ago, even this last year, lives would have been saved," President Biden said. 

He's calling on states to go further than the federal government. 

That's exactly what California is doing, following in the footsteps of states like New York, New Jersey and Delaware, which have all enacted similar laws. 

"What legislatures are looking at is limitations around who, limitations around where and limitations around just what kinds of weapons are we talking about?" Portantino said.  

The California law also gives gun violence victims and their families more leverage to sue gun makers.

That skirts a 2005 federal law that protected gun manufacturers from lawsuits. 

The law allows an exemption when a manufacturer has violated state law. 

It allows California to add restrictions to the country's most restrictive state on guns.

"Now is the time to galvanize this movement. Because that's our duty to the people of this nation," President Biden said. 

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Wall Street capped a choppy day of trading with a mixed finish for stock indexes Monday, as investors brace for another sharp interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve this week as the central bank combats inflation.

The S&P 500 edged up 0.1% after fluctuating between gains and losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.4%.

Smaller company stocks fared better than the broader market, sending the Russell 2000 0.6% higher.

The major indexes are coming off solid gains last week following a mix of mostly better-than-expected reports on corporate profits. Falling yields in the bond market also helped, easing the pressure on stocks after expectations for rate hikes by the Fed sent yields soaring much of this year.

On Wednesday, most economists expect the Fed to announce a three-quarter percentage point hike in its short-term rate, a second consecutive hefty increase that it hasn't otherwise implemented since 1994. It would put the Fed's benchmark rate in a range of 2.25% to 2.5%, the highest since 2018.

Wall Street will closely watch a news conference by Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday to get a sense of policymakers' next steps.

"The only question is will Powell sound a little less hawkish in his press conference, which could allow the market to continue to breathe a sigh of relief," said Sam Stovall, chief investment strategist at CFRA.

The U.S. economy is slowing, but healthy hiring shows it isn't yet in recession, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." She spoke ahead of a slew of economic reports due this week that will shed light on an economy currently besieged by rampant inflation.

Since the Fed last met in June, the government has reported that inflation accelerated to a 9.1% annual rate, the most since 1981.

Still, some early signs suggest that inflation may be cooling from red-hot levels. Auto club AAA said on its website as of Monday that the average price of a gallon of regular gas is $4.36 per gallon. That's down 16 cents from a week ago, and 55 cents cheaper than late June, when the average price was $4.91 per gallon. Crude oil prices have fallen nearly 10% this month alone.

Even so, elevated inflation is increasingly prompting consumers to reprioritize their spending.

Walmart's shares fell nearly 10% in after-hours trading Monday after the retail giant lowered its profit outlook for the second quarter and full year. The company blamed surging inflation on basics like food that are forcing shoppers to cut back on discretionary items, particularly clothing, that carry higher profit margins.

Outside of the Fed meeting, the week's highest-profile report will likely be Thursday, when the Commerce Department releases its first estimate of the economy's output in the April-June quarter. Some economists forecast it may show a contraction for the second quarter in a row. The economy shrank 1.6% in the January-March quarter. Two straight negative readings is informally considered a recession.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 5.21 points to close at 3,966.84 Monday. The Dow gained 90.75 points to 31,990.04, and the Nasdaq fell 51.45 points to 11,782.67. The Russell 2000 added 10.89 points to 1,817.77.

Energy companies, banks and health care stocks helped lift the market Monday. Exxon Mobil rose 3.3% and Bank of America added 0.9%. UnitedHealth Group gained 1.5%.

Losses by technology and communications stocks kept indexes' gains in check. Chipmaker Nvidia fell 1.7% and Meta closed 1.6% lower.

Restaurant chains, retailers and other companies that rely on direct consumer spending also fell. Olive Garden owner Darden Restaurants dropped 2.1%, while Dollar Tree fell 2.1%.

World Wrestling Entertainment jumped 8.4% after CEO Vince McMahon retired Friday amid an investigation into alleged misconduct.

Weber slumped 12.6% after the Illinois-based grill maker announced the departure of CEO Chris Scherzinger. It also pulled its 2022 forecast and suspended its dividend.

Newmont slid 13.2% for the biggest decline in the S&P 500 after the gold miner's second-quarter earnings fell sharply from a year earlier amid higher costs and weaker gold prices.

Bond yields rose. The two-year Treasury yield, which tends to move with expectations for the Fed, rose to 3.04% from 2.97% late Friday. The 10-year yield, which influences mortgage rates, rose to 2.81% from 2.78%.

Earnings were mostly quiet, but pick up later this week when technology heavyweights like Apple, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon all report their results. Other big companies reporting this week include Coca-Cola and McDonald's, where investors may look to see the impact of inflation on these inflation-conscious, consumer-facing companies.

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's no reason for China and the U.S. "to come to blows" should House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visit Taiwan during an Asia trip she is expected to make soon, the White House said Friday, underscoring the international tensions surrounding her travel plans.

The remarks by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby came as Pelosi, D-Calif., offered a rationale for a visit to Asia that she had yet to publicly acknowledge. Kirby was asked Friday if the U.S. has noticed any Chinese military preparations due to her travel plans.

"There's no reason for it to come to that, to come to blows, to come to increased physical tension," Kirby said at the White House. "There's no reason for that because there's been no change in American policy with respect to One China."

Seeming to stop just short of saying she would travel there, Pelosi said, "I'm very excited that should we go to the countries, that you'll be hearing about along the way about the conversations" she would have there.

She noted President Joe Biden's focus on Asia and referenced his recent trip to South Korea and Japan, telling reporters, "He has visited there, his vice president has visited, the secretary of commerce and others. And we want the Congress of the United States to be part of that initiative."

Pelosi and her aides have not confirmed her travel plans or named the countries she might visit, citing security concerns. China considers Taiwan its own territory and has said it might reclaim the island democracy by force.

For more than four decades, the U.S. has followed a "one China" policy in which it recognizes Beijing as the government of China yet maintains informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan.

China has objected strenuously to any Taiwan visit by Pelosi, warning of "resolute and strong measures" if she does.

Biden said earlier this month that the Pentagon thinks a Pelosi trip to Taiwan is "not a good idea right now." Senior defense officials who briefed reporters on Friday declined to discuss any potential preparations for a trip.

Biden has designed his foreign policy in part around countering China's growing economic and military might. Pelosi's itinerary has also become a domestic political issue, with some Republicans urging her to visit Taiwan as a show of standing up to Beijing.

Kirby said Friday that Pelosi "does not need nor nor do we offer approval or disapproval" for travel. And he said, "The speaker is entitled to travel aboard a military aircraft."

The military routinely supplies aircraft for travel by lawmakers, which presidents have the rarely used authority to deny. In a highly unusual move, then-President Donald Trump blocked Pelosi and other lawmakers from using a military plane to visit Afghanistan during a 2019 battle over a government shutdown and after she told him to delay his State of the Union address.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With inflation raging near its highest level in four decades, Congress is poised to approve President Joe Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act. Its title raises a tantalizing question: Will the measure actually tame the price spikes that have inflicted hardships on American households?

Economic analyses of the proposal suggest that the answer is likely no — not anytime soon, anyway.

The legislation, which is headed for final approval Friday in the House and will then be signed into law, won't directly address some of the main drivers of surging prices — from gas and food to rents and restaurant meals.

Still, the bill could save money for some Americans by lessening the cost of prescription drugs for the elderly, extending health insurance subsidies and reducing energy prices. It would also modestly cut the government's budget deficit, which might slightly lower inflation by the end of this decade.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office concluded last week that the changes would have a "negligible" impact on inflation this year and next. And the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model concluded that, over the next decade, "the impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero."

Such forecasts also undercut the arguments that some Republicans, such as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy have made, that the bill would "cause inflation," as McCarthy said in a speech on the House floor last month.

Biden himself, in speaking of the legislation's effect on inflation, has cautiously referred to potentially lower prices in individual categories rather than to lower inflation as a whole. This week, the president said the bill would "bring down the cost of prescription drugs, health insurance premiums and energy costs."

At the same time, the White House has trumpeted a letter signed by more than 120 economists, including several Novel Prize winners and former Treasury secretaries, that asserts that the bill's reduction in the government's budget deficit — by an estimated $300 billion over the next decade, according to the CBO — would put "downward pressure on inflation."

In theory, lower deficits can reduce inflation. That's because lower government spending or higher taxes, which help shrink the deficit, reduce demand in the economy, thereby easing pressure on companies to raise prices.

Jason Furman, a Harvard economist who served as a top economic adviser in the Obama administration, wrote in an opinion column for The Wall Street Journal: "Deficit reduction is almost always inflation-reducing."

Yet Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was a top economic adviser to President George W. Bush and later a director of the CBO, noted that the lower deficits won't kick in until five years from now and won't be very large over the next decade considering the size of the economy.

"$30 billion a year in a $21 trillion economy isn't going to move the needle," Holtz-Eakin said, referring to the estimated amount of deficit reduction spread over 10 years.

He also noted that Congress has recently passed other legislation to subsidize semiconductor production in the U.S. and expand veterans' health care, and suggested that those laws will spend more than the Inflation Reduction Act will save.

In addition, Kent Smetters, director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, said the bill's health care subsidies could send inflation up. The legislation would spend $70 billion over a decade to extend tax credits to help 13 million Americans pay for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Those subsidies would free up money for recipients to spend elsewhere, potentially increasing inflation, although Smetters said he thought the effect would likely be very small.

While the bill could have the benefit of increasing the savings of millions of households on pharmaceutical and energy costs, it's unlikely to have much effect on overall inflation. Prescription drugs account for only 1% of the spending in the U.S. consumer price index; spending on electricity and natural gas makes up just 3.6%.

Starting in 2025, the act will cap the amount Medicare recipients would pay for their prescription drugs at $2,000 a year. It will authorize Medicare to negotiate the cost of some high-priced pharmaceuticals — a long-sought goal that President Donald Trump had also floated. It would also limit Medicare recipients' out-of-pocket costs for insulin at $35 a month. Insulin prescriptions averaged $54 in 2020, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"This is a historic change," said Leigh Purvis, director of health care costs at the AARP Public Policy Institute. "This is allowing Medicare to protect beneficiaries from high drug prices in a way that was not there before."

A study by Kaiser found that in 2019, 1.2 million Medicare recipients spent an average of $3,216 on drug prescriptions. Purvis said recipients who use the most expensive drugs can spend as much as $10,000 or $15,000 a year.

The legislation authorizes Medicare to negotiate prices of 10 expensive pharmaceuticals, starting next year, though the results won't take effect until 2026. Up to 60 drugs could be subject to negotiation by 2029.

Holtz-Eakin argued that while the provision may lower the cost of some Medicare drugs, it would discourage the development of new drugs or reduce new venture capital investment in start-up pharmaceutical companies.

The Inflation Reduction Act's energy provisions could also create savings, though the amounts are likely to be much smaller.

The bill will provide a $7,500 tax credit for new purchases of electric vehicles, though most EVs won't qualify because the legislation requires them to include batteries with U.S. materials.

And the legislation also significantly expands a tax credit for homeowners who invest in energy-efficient equipment, from a one-time $500 credit to $1,200 that a homeowner could claim each year. Vincent Barnes, senior vice president for policy at the Alliance to Save Energy, said this would allow homeowners to make new energy-efficient investments over several years.

But for all Americans, including those who aren't homeowners, the impact will likely be limited. The Rhodium Group estimates that by 2030 the bill's provisions will save households an average of up to $112 a year as gas and electricity becomes cheaper as more Americans drive EVs and houses become more energy- efficient.

If a person has to go to the bathroom while out in public, it may be difficult to find a toilet without some sort of catch. Often, it’s in a coffee shop, a convenience store, a pharmacy, or another private building, so it’s not a true public toilet.

The U.S. has eight public toilets per 100,000 people. That number is comparable with the rate in Botswana and far behind Iceland’s world-leading 56 public toilets per 100,000.

So why is it so hard to find a public toilet in the U.S.?

It’s a question with a complicated answer, and that has a long history. Surprisingly, it relates to many different issues, including public health, social services, and almost every form of discrimination imaginable.

Public toilets were a fact of life in the U.S. and elsewhere for centuries — at least as far back as the Roman Empire. But they were pretty public, without any walls or barriers between them. The expectation for privacy while going to the bathroom in a public space emerged in the 19th century, with the industrial revolution and houses with modern plumbing.

Later on, in the 19th century and into the early decades of the 20th century, sanitation became a greater priority. As leaders began understanding sanitation's role in containing outbreaks of waterborne diseases, cities built and celebrated their public toilets.

Temple University history professor Bryant Simon, who has studied and is writing an upcoming book on the history of toilets, shared more about how toilets used to be a big deal.

"City officials get on their soapboxes and brag about how much they spend on public bathrooms," Simon said. "They brag about the touch points in these bathrooms. They brag about the brass fittings. They brag about the marble countertops. They brag about the floors. They're proud of their accomplishment."

Bathrooms quickly became points where people were segregated. Bathrooms were split up by gender, as they still frequently are. But the splits can be broader than that and lead to discrimination against many different groups.

For example, public toilets started closing as early as the 1930s, with the LGBTQ community as a target.

"Beginning in the 1930s, 1940s, that early, public officials begin to complain about perversions," Simon said. "They begin to complain about same-sex sex in bathrooms. As there are fears about gay sex in bathrooms, there's fear about people drinking in bathrooms. It's not a very popular city sort of thing to build anymore."

In the first half of the 20th century, bathrooms often were segregated by race, with Black Americans, or Latinos in the Southwest, having their own separate facilities.

"The bathroom sort of operates as a kind of hardware of inequality because, essentially, you needed a public bathroom or a bathroom of some sort in order to be out and in public," Simon said.

Racial segregation in toilets may sound like a distant thing or a footnote, but that legacy extends into the present.

In 2018, two Black men were blocked from using the restroom at a Starbucks location in Philadelphia’s Center City. The incident prompted Starbucks to act as America's de facto public toilet. It changed its policy to allow people to use the restrooms at its more than 15,000 U.S. locations without buying anything.

While money can be a barrier to private toilets in stores, historically, it’s limited access to public standalone toilets. By the 1960s and '70s, public toilets requiring small payments sprung up, but those ended up closing after concerns about gender discrimination.

The other big push to remove public toilets came in the 1980s as part of a broader push to drive unhoused people to the edges of cities by taking away their access to public spaces and aggressively enforcing public urination laws.

Now if you don’t have a home of your own, it can put access to a restroom pretty far away.

"Most of us are used to having our own bathroom," said Raven Drake, Street Roots ambassador program manager. "Where I lived when I was unhoused, the nearest bathroom was a one-mile walk away. Imagine walking a mile to the bathroom, and most of us can't fathom walking 50 feet to our bathroom, much less a mile."

Drake works with unhoused people in Portland as part of the local newspaper Street Roots. She’s an advocate for bathroom access as a central part of addressing homelessness, and she was unhoused herself in late 2019 and early 2020 during some of the strictest shutdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We ran a survey around bathrooms, around the importance of bathrooms and access to clean water with the Joint Office of Homeless Services, and a resounding amount of people answered that they had no access to public restrooms," Drake said. "So we took forth on this initiative of placing throughout the city 172 port-a-potties."

Underinvestment has been a major concern, too. If public toilets aren’t funded or attended to, they can fall into disrepair. They can potentially become unsafe or unhygienic.

Starbucks announced in July that it would close 16 stores due to safety concerns. CEO Howard Schultz said in June that the coffee giant might restrict its currently public restrooms to customers only as part of its broader push for store safety.

So, if Starbucks decides to no longer serve as America’s public restroom, where will people be able to go? Even if a person isn't homeless, bathroom access advocates like American Restroom Association president Steven Soifer point out this is an issue.

"For everyone, for people with shy bladder, for people with incontinence, for people with bladder issues of different sorts," Soifer said. "People who had health issues and families with children who often struggle to find a place."

Soifer is calling on government officials to step up here, but it may have to be local officials taking the lead.

"There are going to be fewer and fewer options for people to be able to relieve themselves, and that becomes a public health issue as well," Soifer said.

The consequences can be deadly for communities if no bathrooms are available. In 2017, at least 16 people died, and hundreds more got sick in San Diego in an outbreak of hepatitis A.

The disease spread largely due to contact with fecal matter and public defecation.

The city acknowledged that a lack of public restrooms, especially for unhoused people, was part of the issue and helped contain the outbreak by installing public toilets and handwashing stations.

But even then, a lack of funding or upkeep can quickly lead to toilets disappearing. Earlier this year, San Diego State University researchers reported that many toilets were closed after the COVID-19 pandemic. That nearly half the county’s census tracts, home to 40% of the population, had no public restrooms.

Other cities are moving ahead with plans to install new public toilet facilities, including Portland, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. But there’s still a shortage of public toilets in the U.S., and it’s pretty dire.

In 2011, a United Nations independent expert, Catarina de Albuquerque, studied water and sanitation rights on a mission to the U.S. Her report found an instance in Sacramento, California, where public restroom closures and enforcement of public urination and defecation laws led to a homeless person traveling miles to dump a whole community’s human waste.

In the report, she indicated that the laws had a discriminatory effect and led to "a violation of human rights that may amount to cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment.”

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here.

Liz Cheney conceded defeat to rival Harriet Hageman in Wyoming's Republican primary on Tuesday.

Hageman's win would surely see former President Donald Trump gloat amid his continued campaign to remove his critics from the Republican Party persists.

While Cheney brought the fundraising prowess along with a higher profile as the public Jan. 6 hearings continued, Hageman, a lawyer in Wyoming's capital city Cheyenne, was boosted by a coveted endorsement from Trump, helping her beat the daughter of a former vice-president to win the state's House seat.

"We must be very clear-eyed about the threat we face, and about what is required to defeat it," Cheney said. "I have said since January six that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the oval office, and I mean it."

As Rep. Cheney braced for a loss to Trump-backed Hageman in the race for Wyoming's Congressional seat, the story seemed to focus heavily on the perceived consequences of leading public Jan. 6 hearings on former President Donald Trump, which is a story that her team optimistically brushed to the side.

A Cheney ally said, "This race is the first battle in a much larger and longer war that Liz is going to win because the future of the country depends on it,” Axios reported.

The election has been seen as a dramatic wrench in Cheney's larger plan after she was widely praised for her defiant spirit to do what she had considered an honorable task, attempting to hold former President Trump responsible for his actions on the day of the Jan. 6 riot on the U.S. Capitol involving his supporters.

Some Republicans have supported Cheney in her mission. Still, many in the GOP have not broken away from their party's support for Trump to join in a bipartisan effort to closely examine the timeline of events in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

As the New York Times reported, surveys have shown that even though Cheney was able to fundraise far beyond Hageman and had spent much more on her campaign than her opponent, she stagnated well behind in the race.

Cheney told CBS News earlier on Tuesday, “Today, no matter what the outcome is, [it] is certainly the beginning of a battle that is going to continue.”

Cheney said after casting her vote, “We’re facing a moment where our democracy really is under attack and under threat. And those of us across the board — Republicans, Democrats and Independents who believe deeply in freedom and who care about the Constitution and the future of the country — have an obligation to put that above party.”

Hageman's campaign adviser Tim Murtaugh said they felt good about the election, "which is the culmination of nearly a year and almost 40,000 miles traveled within Wyoming," Axios reported.

The polls, which closed at 7 p.m. MT, 9 p.m. ET on Tuesday, had more than just Wyoming on edge in the hours leading up to the final results. Cheney awaited her fate from Jackson, a town on Wyoming's western side with popular ski resorts. Hageman and her team watched from the state capital of Cheyenne in the southeast corner near Colorado's border, where she would ultimately give her speech after the win.

Murtaugh pushed back on Cheney's message and her team's optimism about their path, criticizing their focus on Jan. 6.

"Liz Cheney made the race all about her and her war on President Trump, but it was always about the people of Wyoming, who haven’t had the representation they deserve for the last 18 months," Murtaugh said.

Donald Trump responded to the win on his Truth Social platform, writing, "This is a wonderful result for America and a complete rebuke of the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs. Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others."

In another race in Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski, who was one of seven Republicans to vote to convict former President Trump of inciting an insurrection, was in a re-election battle of her own against Kelly Tshibaka, who is a former official in Alaska endorsed by Trump.

WASHINGTON (AP) — As Republican-led states continue to ban nearly all abortions, President Joe Biden said Friday that such restrictions were "beyond the pale."

Biden and Democrats are trying to harness outrage over the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide, in this year's midterm elections.

"You're going to hear women roar on this issue, and it's going to be consequential," he said.

Biden made the comments at a White House meeting of state and local officials to talk about ways to expand access to abortion and to mark Women's Equality Day.

Biden reiterated his desire for Congress to codify Roe v. Wade into law, but "we're short a handful of votes," he said.

Democrats would need 10 Republican votes to overcome a filibuster and get a bill through the 50-50 Senate, but only two GOP senators have publicly backed abortion rights. And even though they narrowly control the Senate, Democrats don't have enough votes to sidestep the filibuster.

"The only way it's going to happen if the American people make it happen in November," Biden said.

In the meantime, Biden has been looking for ways to protect abortion access. But his options are limited.

Idaho, Tennessee and Texas are the latest Republican-led states to tighten their restrictions. They've been implementing so-called "trigger laws" that were put on the books to severely limit abortions if Roe was overturned, which happened in June.

Lina Hidalgo, the county judge from Harris County, Texas, called her state's law a "slap in the face."

"I think you speak for the majority of the American people," Biden responded.

NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank more than 1,000 points Friday after the head of the Federal Reserve dashed Wall Street's hopes that it may soon ease up on high-interest rates in its effort to tame inflation.

The S&P 500 lost 3.4%, its biggest drop since mid-June, after Jerome Powell said the Fed will likely need to keep interest rates high enough to slow the economy "for some time" in order to beat back the high inflation sweeping the country.

The Dow dropped 3% and the Nasdaq composite ended 3.9% lower, reflecting a broad sell-off led by technology stocks. Higher rates help corral inflation, but they also hurt asset prices.

The Fed has indicated it will raise rates into next year as it tries to quell demand and bring down prices for goods and services. But some investors speculated the central bank might pause or even reverse course next year if inflation subsides, leading to a rally for stocks in July and early August.

Some analysts expected Powell to bat down that talk in Friday's speech, and he delivered. His speech followed up remarks by several other Fed officials, who also pushed back on speculation the Fed might act less aggressively or even "pivot."

"He basically said there will be pain and that they won't stop and can't stop hiking until inflation moves a lot lower," said Brian Jacobsen, senior investment strategist at Allspring Global Investments.

Powell acknowledged the increases will hurt U.S. households and businesses, in perhaps an unspoken nod to the potential for a recession. But he also said the pain would be far greater if inflation were allowed to fester and that "we must keep at it until the job is done."

He was speaking at an annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which has been the setting for market-moving Fed speeches in the past.

The sell-off capped a week of choppy trading that left major indexes down 4% or more for the week.

All told, the S&P 500 fell 141.46 points to 4,057.66. The benchmark index is now down almost 15% for the year.

The Dow lost 1,008.38 points to close at 32,283.40. The last time the blue-chip average had a 1,000-point drop was in May.

The Nasdaq slid 497.56 points to 12,141.71, its biggest drop since June.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 64.81 points, or 3.3%, to finish at 1,899.83.

Stocks are still showing solid gains for the third quarter, with the S&P 500 up more than 7% and the Nasdaq up 10%. Recent earnings reports were better than some analysts had expected, and there are signs that inflation may have peaked although it remains at sharply elevated levels.

Still, Powell's speech made clear the Fed will accept weaker growth for a while for the sake of getting inflation under control, analysts said.

"Powell reiterated that the Fed is worried about rising prices, and getting inflation under control is emphatically job number one," said Jeff Klingelhofer, co-head of investments at Thornburg Investment Management.

Perhaps giving some hope to investors, some analysts said Powell seemed to indicate expectations for future inflation aren't taking off. If that were to happen, it could cause a self-perpetuating cycle that worsens inflation.

A report on Friday said U.S. consumers are expecting 2.9% annual inflation over the long run, which is at the lower end of the 2.9% to 3.1% range seen in the University of Michigan's survey over the last year.

For now, the debate on Wall Street is whether the Fed will raise short-term rates by either half a percentage point next month, double the usual margin, or by three-quarters of a point. The Fed's last two hikes have been by 0.75 points, and a slight majority of bets on Wall Street are favoring a third such increase in September, according to CME Group.

A report Friday morning showed that the Fed's preferred gauge of inflation decelerated last month and wasn't as bad as many economists expected. It's a potentially encouraging signal, which may embolden more of Wall Street to say that the worst of inflation has already passed or will soon.

Other data showed that incomes for Americans rose less last month than expected, while consumer spending growth slowed.

Following the reports and Powell's comments, the two-year Treasury yield rose for much of the day, but slipped by late afternoon to 3.36% from 3.37% late Thursday. It tends to track expectations for Fed action.

The 10-year Treasury yield, which follows expectations for longer-term economic growth and inflation, initially rose then slipped to 3.02% from 3.03% late Thursday.

The Fed has already hiked its key overnight interest rate four times this year in hopes of slowing the worst inflation in decades. The hikes have already hurt the housing industry, where more expensive mortgage rates have slowed activity. But the job market has remained strong, helping to prop up the economy.

Investors got a fresh set of warnings from companies about the persistent impact from inflation and a slowing economy. Computer maker Dell slumped 13.5% after it said weaker demand will hurt revenue. Chipmaker Marvell Technology fell 8.9% after giving investors a disappointing earnings forecast.

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AP Business Writer Joe McDonald contributed. Veiga reported from Los Angeles.

Microsoft recently advised against longstanding, conventional cybersecurity logic on required password changes. It turns out forced switches made users select more predictable and easy-to-breach passwords.

"The pattern that humans use, particularly when they're not using a password manager, is they come up with, sort of, this rubric," said Pedro Canahuati, chief technology officer at 1Password. "If that's really very complex, it makes it difficult for people to gain access to it. But the reality is, humans are not good at randomness."

"The previous advice for people to rotate their passwords so frequently led to some really bad habits: people writing passwords down, only changing maybe the last digit," said Lisa Plaggemier, executive director of the National Cybersecurity Alliance.

"Changing that one character at the end of your password is not enough when you're up against a bot who's just cycling away at different passwords and switching out letters and numbers."

Humans are notoriously bad at passwords. NordPass' research of commonly used passwords across 50 countries in 2021 found the most popular were strings of letters or numbers, like 123456 and qwerty or words like a password. Most could be cracked in less than one second.

Still, if you search online for advice on how often you should change passwords, you'll still find many results saying you should change them routinely.

Newsy spoke to four cybersecurity experts about best rotation practices. While all noted that there are times when passwords should be changed — like when your data is implicated in a breach — other, more important security features can be used to strengthen data protection.

"People just need to understand that passwords only go so far, and you need multifactor authentication," said Ed Skoudis, president of SANS Technology Institute. "Password management organizations also have an obligation to keep their users secure and safe."

"The simple solution at the end of the day is to use strong and unique passwords with a password manager because nobody can create them as strong as they can with the password manager," said Craig Lurey, chief technology officer at Keeper Security. "This is hundreds of engineers, solely focused on protecting passwords in an encrypted vault that's highly secure and protected from access, and all the years of implementation that went into that versus whatever you think you can do with your notepad."

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election for Alaska's only U.S. House seat on Wednesday, besting a field that included Republican Sarah Palin, who was seeking a political comeback in the state where she was once governor.

Peltola, who is Yup'ik and turned 49 on Wednesday, will become the first Alaska Native to serve in the House and the first woman to hold the seat. She will serve the remaining months of the late Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young's term. Young held the seat for 49 years before his death in March.

"I'm honored and humbled by the support I have received from across Alaska," Peltola said in a statement. "I look forward to continuing Don Young's legacy of bipartisanship, serving all Alaskans and building support for Alaska's interests in DC."

Peltola's victory, coming in Alaska's first statewide ranked choice voting election, is a boon for Democrats, particularly coming off better-than-expected performances in special elections around the country this year following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. She will be the first Democrat to hold the seat since the late U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, who was seeking reelection in 1972 when his plane disappeared. Begich was later declared dead and Young in 1973 was elected to the seat.

Peltola ran as a coalition builder while her two Republican opponents — Palin and Begich's grandson, also named Nick Begich — at times went after each other. Palin also railed against the ranked voting system, which was instituted by Alaska voters.

All three are candidates in the November general election, seeking a two-year House term, which would start in January.

The results came 15 days after the Aug. 16 election, in line with the deadline for state elections officials to receive absentee ballots mailed from outside the U.S. Ranked choice tabulations took place Wednesday after no candidate won more than 50% of the first choice votes. Peltola was in the lead heading into the tabulations.

Wednesday's results were a disappointment for Palin, who was looking to make a political comeback 14 years after she was vaulted onto the national stage when John McCain selected her to be his running mate in the 2008 presidential election. In her run for the House seat, she had widespread name recognition and won the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

After Peltola's victory was announced, Palin slammed the ranked voting process as "crazy, convoluted, confusing."

"Though we're disappointed in this outcome, Alaskans know I'm the last one who'll ever retreat," Palin said in a statement.

During the campaign, critics questioned Palin's commitment to Alaska, citing her decision to resign as governor in July 2009, partway through her term. Palin went on to become a conservative commentator on TV and appeared in reality television programs, among other pursuits.

Palin has insisted her commitment to Alaska never wavered and said ahead of the special election that she had "signed up for the long haul."

Peltola, a former state lawmaker who most recently worked for a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources on the Kuskokwim River, cast herself as a "regular" Alaskan. "I'm not a millionaire. I'm not an international celebrity," she said.

Peltola has said she was hopeful that the new system would allow more moderate candidates to be elected.

During the campaign, she emphasized her support of abortion rights and said she wanted to elevate issues of ocean productivity and food security. Peltola said she got a boost after the June special primary when she won endorsements from Democrats and independents who had been in the race. She said she believed her positive messaging also resonated with voters.

"It's been very attractive to a lot of people to have a message of working together and positivity and holding each other up and unity and as Americans none of us are each other's enemy," she said. "That is just a message that people really need to hear right now."

Alaska voters in 2020 approved an elections process that replaced party primaries with open primaries. Under the new system, ranked voting is used in general elections.

Under ranked voting, ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright with more than 50% of the vote in the first round. If no one hits that threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their next choice. Rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes wins.

In Alaska, voters last backed a Democrat for president in 1964. But the state also has a history of rewarding candidates with an independent streak. The state has more registered unaffiliated voters than registered Republicans or Democrats combined.

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Follow AP coverage of 2022 Midterm Elections: https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — During a primary debate in May, Iowa Republican Zach Nunn and his two rivals were asked to raise their hand if they thought all abortions should be illegal. "All abortions, no exceptions," the moderator clarified.

Nunn's left hand went up.

The image has shadowed the Iowa state senator as he seeks to unseat U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne, one of the most vulnerable House Democrats this election season. The two-term congresswoman has featured video of Nunn from the debate in TV ads she's been running since early August.

Nunn is among well more than a dozen strictly anti-abortion Republicans running in competitive House, Senate and governor's races this fall in Minnesota, Nevada, Kansas, Arizona and elsewhere who are trying to distance themselves from their past statements.

In newspaper op-eds, during interviews and on their campaign websites, Republican challengers who expressed support for banning most or all abortions — some in cases of rape, incest and to protect the life and health of the mother — are at a minimum downplaying those positions and at most backtracking at a time when abortion rights have complicated Republicans' focus on the economy heading into the November midterm elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision recognizing a federal right to abortion, has prompted a backlash from abortion rights supporters and shined a light on politicians whose anti-abortion positions were only hypothetical when Roe was the law of the land.

"I think that the bait and switch will matter for those for whom abortion rights is a very important voting issue, which is an expanded group since Roe was overturned," Christine Matthews, a pollster who has worked for Republicans, said of GOP candidates trying to soften their profile on the issue. "And it may matter to a wider group if it appears that they are deceptive."

Accusing Axne of misrepresenting his position, Nunn wrote in an op-ed published in The Des Moines Register last month that he supported exceptions for rape, incest and the life and health of the mother when he voted in 2018 for a ban on abortions after six weeks — a measure that was blocked by the courts.

Asked in an Associated Press interview why he raised his hand to the "no exceptions" question during the debate, Nunn misstated the question as "Do you support life?" instead of the actual wording, "In your mind, should all abortions be illegal in this country? Hand up if you say yes."

"Let me be perfectly clear. I believe life begins at conception," Nunn said in the interview. "I recognize the viability of a child. I recognize the health of the mother."

Still, in 2017, Nunn voted for a measure requiring women seeking an abortion to wait 72 hours, which included an exception to protect the life of the mother but made no mention of rape or incest.

In Kansas, Republican Amanda Adkins — who is running against two-term Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids — wrote in a Kansas City Star op-ed published last week, "I don't support a federal ban on abortion."

The mention came after months of silence by Adkins after the May leak of a draft Supreme Court opinion signaling Roe was in jeopardy. A decade earlier as Kansas' Republican chair, Adkins had supported a strict abortion ban in the party's platform.

Adkins' Star piece also followed close on the heels of Kansas voters' decisive rejection of a constitutional amendment that would have nullified a state Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right to an abortion. Notably, the referendum failed in Johnson County — the teeming, suburban heart of Davids' district — by more than 2-to-1. Adkins publicly supported the amendment.

Nunn's and Adkins' efforts to deemphasize their previous conservative stances on abortion are conspicuous. Others have been more subtle.

In a northwest Indiana district that includes working-class cities outside Chicago, Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green answered "none" in a 2022 online questionnaire before the Supreme Court overturned Roe that asked under "what circumstances should abortion be allowed?"

Yet, as the GOP nominee facing Democratic Rep. Frank Mrvan, Green says she supports an anti-abortion measure passed by the Indiana legislature in August that includes exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother.

In suburban Minneapolis, Republican Tyler Kistner, who lost narrowly to two-term Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in 2020, is challenging her again. In 2020, his website included a section on abortion that stated he wanted to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. In this year's campaign, his website does not mention abortion.

Republicans running statewide in battleground races have undertaken similar efforts.

Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters called abortion "demonic" during the GOP primary and called for a federal personhood law that would give fetuses the rights of people. He's toned down his rhetoric more recently, deleting references to a personhood law from his campaign website and dropping language describing himself as "100% pro-life."

In Nevada, where a 1990 referendum guarantees the right to abortion, Republican gubernatorial candidate Joe Lombardo said during a May primary debate that he would consider signing a ban on the Plan B pill. The pill, which is different from the abortion pill, can significantly lower the chance of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. But in late July, a month after the Dobbs decision, Lombardo's campaign said he had no plans to ban contraception.

In August, after Justice Clarence Thomas indicated in the Roe reversal that other high court rulings, including ones protecting the use of contraceptives, should also be reconsidered, Lombardo said he would not block contraceptives and has since noted on his website that he would "ensure that contraceptives stay accessible to Nevadans."

In the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs v. Mississippi decision overturning Roe, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll showed 22% of U.S. adults named abortion or women's rights, in an open-ended question, as one of up to five problems they wanted the government to address. That's more than doubled since December, when an AP-NORC poll found a notable uptick in mentions of abortion from years before, likely in anticipation of the Dobbs ruling.

In Iowa, 60% of adults say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, according to a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll taken in July, higher still in the suburbs.

That would seem to be a consideration for Nunn, running in Iowa's 3rd Congressional District, which includes the metro area surrounding the capital Des Moines and its booming suburbs to the north and west, as well as vast tracts of more conservative, rural southwestern Iowa.

"While it's a small group on both sides, it energizes them because it's an important issue," Nunn said, adding that Axne is "not even willing to have a conversation about where she's been on this."

The counterpunch is a veiled reference to bills including one passed in July in the Democratic-controlled House with Axne's support that block limits on abortions late in a pregnancy — a position Republicans have characterized as extreme.

Republican pollster Whit Ayres said Dobbs has reversed earlier Republican momentum by increasing enthusiasm among abortion rights advocates.

"Clearly there's been movement in the Democrats' favor," said Ayres, who is an adviser for a super PAC supporting Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's campaign. "The Dobbs decision gave them a reason to get engaged, and that's evident in increased Democratic enthusiasm."

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Associated Press writers Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix, Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, N.C., and Gabe Stern in Reno, Nev., contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP for full coverage of the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter,

For AP's full coverage on abortion, go to https://apnews.com/hub/abortion

WASHINGTON (AP) — A gold judicial collar made of glass beads that belonged to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is being auctioned to benefit a charity, the first time any of the her signature neckwear will be available for purchase.

The piece is part of a collection of about 100 items being sold in an online auction that begins Wednesday. It concludes Sept. 16, just days before the two-year anniversary of the liberal icon's death at 87.

In addition to the collar, the items being auctioned include a pair of Ginsburg's opera glasses, a wooden gavel and artwork that hung in her Washington apartment.

There are quirky items too. Her son, James, said in an interview that in talking about the collection "it's hard not to mention about the cake topper. " The fondant sculpture was commissioned by friends for one of the justice's birthdays and depicts her standing in a judicial robe with her arms outstretched on the bow of a battleship dubbed "The Notorious RBG," the justice's nickname. Ginsburg said it reminds him a little bit of a scene from the movie "Titanic."

The auction also includes other Ginsburg fashion pieces: a white handbag, a shawl, scarves and two sets of fishnet lace gloves. She began wearing gloves in the the late 1990s after undergoing colon cancer treatment. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the Supreme Court's first female justice, suggested them as a way to prevent illness while shaking hands, but Ginsburg liked gloves so much she just kept wearing them.

But it was Ginsburg's collars — which she wore on the bench as an accessory to her black robe — that were her most notable fashion item. She had dozens, her son and daughter-in-law said. The family donated several to the Smithsonian, including a sparkly black one she wore on the bench when she dissented in a case. Speaking at an event in 2020, Ginsburg — who became a pop culture figure in later years — said that at the time she was getting a collar "at least once a week" from fans worldwide.

The auction had initially been planned to include two of Ginsburg's collars. The other, made of fabric, was a gift from her law clerks. Stitched inside is a family motto: "It's not sacrifice, it's family." But the family said in a statement Tuesday that they had decided to keep the collar and permanently loan it to "an appropriate institution where it can be displayed for all to see." The family did not provide additional details.

The auction is the third this year of items owned by the justice, and her son said that it will be the last. In April, some 150 items — including art Ginsburg displayed in her home and office — raised more than $800,000 for Washington National Opera, one of the late justice's passions.

Bonhams, which is conducting the latest auction, estimated the current group of objects as selling for a total of just under $50,000. In January, however, an online auction of her books also conducted by Bonhams brought in $2.3 million, almost 30 times the pre-sale estimate.

Bonhams said it expects the collar to sell for $3,000 to $5,000. In the earlier book auction, however, a copy of the Harvard Law Review from 1957-58 with Ginsburg's annotations sold for more than $100,000, shattering Bonhams' estimate of $2,500 to $3,500.

Proceeds from the current sale will fund an endowment in Ginsburg's honor benefitting SOS Children's Villages, a organization that supports vulnerable children around the world. Ginsburg's daughter-in-law, Patrice Michaels, is on the organization's advisory board. Michaels, a composer and singer, said the gavel being auctioned is one Ginsburg gave her to use while performing a composition she had written about Ginsburg's dissents. The gold beaded collar was also one she chose from Ginsburg's collection.

"I thought it was just literally so beautiful," Michaels said. "The aesthetic of it and the feel of it being as elegant as my mother-in-law was appealed to me very much."

Cheese is always "grate." I mean, when you have cheese, it's the sign you're having a "gouda" day, and you could "disa-brie" ... I mean, disagree.

But everything is always "cheddar" — excuse me — better, with cheese.

Okay, okay, a little cheesy, I know.

When it comes to Swiss cheese, it feels like something is missing.

Why does it have holes?

First off, the cheese experts actually call those holes "eyes."

SEE MORE: Why Do We Have An Appendix?

And they're caused by carbon dioxide bubbles that form in the cheese.

Time to put on our scientist cap and put Swiss cheese under the microscope.

Bacterial culture called "propionibacterium"— or "props" for short, are behind the eyes.

This bacteria is in hay, grass and soil and ends up in milk from cows.

That milk makes its way to a cheese factory where it's standardized, pasteurized, and brined.

After that, the cheese sits in a warm room which helps the props form those carbon dioxide bubbles.

Those bubbles are left alone while the cheese ferments, resulting in its eyes.

The holes used to be seen as a deformity, and cheesemakers tried to eliminate them.

But today, they're a distinct part of Swiss cheese.

In fact, the cheese industry even pays the government to rate its cheese.

Grade-A Swiss cheese has eyes that are between three-eights of an inch and thirteen-sixteenths of an inch in diameter.

And with more than 300 million pounds of Swiss cheese produced annually in the U.S. — that's a lot of eyes.

Newsy is the nation’s only free 24/7 national news network. You can find Newsy using your TV’s digital antenna or stream for free. See all the ways you can watch Newsy here. 

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon utilities shut down power to tens of thousands of customers on Friday as dry easterly winds swept into the region in a bid to lessen the risk of wildfires in extremely dry and hot conditions.

Power shut-offs due to extreme fire weather, common in California, are relatively new to the Pacific Northwest. The plans, which were part of permanent rules approved in May to manage wildfire danger in high-risk areas, mark the new reality in a region better known for its rain and temperate rainforests.

Portland General Electric halted power to about 30,000 customers in 12 service areas — including the post West Hills neighborhood of Portland — and a second power company was poised to initiate its own shutoff. More than 40,000 customers were expected to lose power by late Friday in planned shutoffs as winds of up to 60 mph hit and temperatures hovered in the high 80s and low 90s.

Schools in the areas with planned power outages canceled classes and authorities urged residents to charge cellphones and be ready to evacuate at a moment's notice.

Climate change is bringing drier conditions to the Pacific Northwest and that requires strategies that have been common in fire-prone California for the past decade or more, said Erica Fleishman, director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.

Wind patterns haven't changed, but those winds are now coinciding more frequently with drier vegetation and hotter temperatures — a toxic mix for fire ignition, rapid spread and extreme fire behavior, she said.

"I don't know whether this is the solution, but it's an interim effort to manage wildfire risk," Fleishman said. "People are going, 'Oh my gosh!' The areas we thought were safe, they're realizing those are not immune to fire anymore. The fire likelihood is changing."

The proactive power shutoffs were just the second for Portland General Electric ever. The utility shut down power to 5,000 customers in 2020 near Mount Hood during firestorms that ravaged the state. Extreme winds over Labor Day weekend led to wildfires that burned more than 1 million acres (405,000 hectares), destroyed 4,000 homes and killed at least 11 people — and utilities were blamed for some of those fire starts.

Pacific Power, another major utility in Oregon, said if it shuts off power to customers in six counties later Friday, as anticipated, it will be first time the company has done so since putting a wildfire mitigation plan in place in Oregon in 2018.

The utility was sued last year by residents in two towns that burned to ashes in the 2020 wildfires who blamed the company for not shutting down power in advance of the devastating wind storm.

Pacific Power has since hired a team of meteorologists to make fire weather forecasts and is spending more than $500 million to "harden" its electric grid in high-risk areas by replacing wooden poles with carbonized ones and encasing power lines and conductor boxes to reduce the chances of a spark, said Drew Hanson, a Pacific Power spokesman.

"You can look at the West in general and climate change has impacted areas from Southern California, and then Northern California and now up into this region as well, we're seeing those same conditions," he said.

"It's something we are taking very seriously. We realize the changing landscape. We've been changing and evolving along with it."

A number of blazes are burning in Oregon. The largest is the Double Creek Fire burning in northeastern Oregon near the Idaho border. The fire grew by nearly 47 square miles (122 square kilometers) Wednesday because of wind gusts up to 50 mph (80 kph) and as of Thursday had burned a total of nearly 158 square miles (409 square kilometers). It's threatening about 100 homes near the community of Imnaha.

In Central Oregon, the Cedar Creek Fire east of Oakridge has burned nearly 47 square miles (122 square kilometers). That fire prompted new mandatory evacuations Thursday for several recreational areas and campgrounds in Linn, Deschutes and Klamath counties and for residents in greater Oakridge and Westfir areas to be ready to evacuate.

The Van Meter Fire, which started Wednesday, is burning on Stukel Mountain about 13 miles (21 kilometers) southeast of Klamath Falls. One home and four structures have been destroyed and about 260 structures are threatened by that blaze, Medema said on Thursday.

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Associated Press reporter Andrew Selsky in Salem, Oregon contributed to this report.

After shipping giant FedEx released new forecast details Friday, the company's FedEx Corp stock saw share prices plunge amid fears of a slowdown.

Companies and investors are anxiously planning a possible slowdown in global demand amid rising inflation going into the holiday shopping season.

The news puts even more pressure on the company's new Chief Operating Officer, Raj Subramaniam, as he takes on a company recovering after a volatile period of months.

FedEx Corp stock dropped 24% during Wall Street trading on Friday.

Helane Becker, an analyst with Cowen, said, "We suspect that headwinds from an inflation-fatigued U.S. economy, a resource-constrained European economy, and second-order effects from lockdowns in China proved too much to overcome."

Analysts had also noted several internal issues with the company that has spooked investors before and after Subramaniam was brought in earlier this year to try and smooth out worries.

Credit Suisse analysts released an assessment that said, "We have noted high levels of investor skepticism directed at management's ability to reach its long-term targets. With earnings misses like this, that skepticism seems increasingly warranted."

Public health has been top of mind for many the last couple of years, but a public health problem has largely flown under the radar: a growing rate of sexually transmitted diseases and infections.

The number of STD and STI cases among Americans has been rising steadily each year since 2014. Even the pandemic, which trapped millions inside their homes, didn't make a dent in those numbers, and it might have worsened.

These rising numbers have led many health officials to raise an alarm and urge action. Many experts believe one of the causes behind this problem is the lack of knowledge about the basic principles of safe sex, typically taught in sex education classes.

In fact, a Centers for Disease Control survey from 2019 showed that nearly 46% of sexually active high school students did not use a condom the last time they had sex. That's a huge problem considering the fact that out of all new STDs reported to the CDC each year, half were among young people aged 15 to 24.

The numbers show there were 2.4 million cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in 2020, which is the most recent year of data.

Chlamydia is currently the most common STD in the U.S., with 1.6 million cases reported to the CDC that year. While its numbers saw a slight drop from 2016, the CDC notes that the drops are probably not really because of an actual drop in infections. Since chlamydia is usually asymptomatic, case rates are heavily influenced by screening coverage, which the pandemic worsened.

Although overall cases of STDs and STIs fell in the pandemic's early months, the CDC acknowledges that's likely due to the reduced frequency of in-person health care services, resulting in fewer screenings. STD test and lab supply shortages, the diversion of health workers to pandemic response teams, and lapses in health insurance due to unemployment also contributed. Plus, the pandemic came after years of cuts to public health funding.

As anticipated by many experts, numbers picked up again at the end of 2020, with other diseases like gonorrhea and syphilis surpassing 2019 levels, according to CDC data. Preliminary data from 2021 shows there were more than 2.5 million reported cases of chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in that year, meaning STDs and STIs continued to increase during the second year of the pandemic too, with no signs of slowing.

The CDC says it's likely, "...we may never know the full impact of the pandemic on STDs. What is clear, however, is the state of STDs did not improve in the United States. Prevention and control efforts remain as important as ever."

But, the country's prevention and control methods need work. Comprehensive sex ed programs would be a start on prevention among the most commonly affected age group, but robust public testing and information campaigns could help all Americans. Public health funding, however, has faced slashes for years, taking a toll on STD screening and prevention efforts.

"Public funding cuts will prevent the public health system, the safety net, of being able to track down people's partners so that your index patient doesn't get reinfected because their partner was also treated appropriately," said Dr. Anna Maya Powell, co-director of the Johns Hopkins HIV Women's Program. "It's easy to say, 'People should take personal responsibility and come in for care,' but I think the picture is much more complex than that."

Only 2.5% of all U.S. health spending— about $3.8 trillion — is spent on public health and prevention programs. Last year, the Biden administration did announce a $1.13 billion investment to strengthen the disease intervention specialists (DIS) workforce at the CDC. Still, much of that funding seems to be for the agency's pandemic response.

Still, there's a reason for some optimism: There has been progressing on STDs and STIs since the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 90s. The STI spread rapidly in the country then, especially among certain groups, like men who have sex with other men.

Years of public information campaigns and research into treatment brought numbers down through the early 2000s and to a stable level by 2013. More recent figures may seem to hint at further progress on the overall HIV cases during the early pandemic, but those figures are also misleading because of the sharp drop in testing.

Plus, many experts have criticized the focus of historic HIV treatment and prevention efforts as largely being focused on treating rich, white, gay men and transgender groups, leaving out many lower-income Americans, people of color and women.

Women generally face a greater burden when it comes to sexual health. Many studies have established that women have a higher biological risk for contracting many STIs and HIV than men, with a higher probability of transmission from men to women.

"Women tend to be more asymptomatic for a lot of a lot of the conditions we're talking about," Dr. Powell said. "Not having symptoms maybe gives people a false sense of security, and then they don't come in to get the routine screening that they might have otherwise if things were open and accessible."

Black women, in particular, suffer higher numbers of both HIV and other STDs like herpes, and many experts say public prevention efforts have failed to address these groups adequately. Overall, inconsistent access to health care and prevention programs across different demographics throughout the country has affected our national battle against STDs and STIs.

"We have had data that shows consistently what we need to be doing in the sexually transmitted infections, those cases in reproductive health," said Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, director of health for the city of St. Louis, Missouri. "We need to make sure that those policies are as standardized as possible so that they're easily implementable and therefore easy to track data, data that then feeds back into the funding."

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Russia's setbacks and stretched resources in Ukraine show its forces are incapable of achieving President Vladimir Putin's initial aims in invading the country as things stand now, the Pentagon's intelligence chief said Friday.

"We're coming to a point right now where I think Putin is going to have to revise what his objectives are for this operation," Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told an intelligence and national security conference outside Washington. "Because "it's pretty clear right now that he's ... not going to be able to do what he initially intended to do."

Putin sent troops into neighboring Ukraine in February with what U.S. officials say was the objective of unseating Ukraine's Western-friendly government. Ukrainian forces drove Russian fighters from their positions around Ukraine's capital earlier in the war. And Russia suffered another major setback last week, when a Ukrainian counteroffensive forced its troops back from large swaths of Ukraine's northeast.

"The Russians planned for an occupation, not necessarily an invasion, and that has set them back," Berrier said, citing Putin's reluctance so far to fully mobilize Russian forces to get more manpower into the fight.

President Joe Biden and other administration officials have taken care not to call Russia's latest retreat a Ukrainian victory or turning point in the war, and analysts caution it's impossible to assess what may lie ahead.

"He's coming to a decision" point," Berrier said of Putin. "What that decision will be we don't know. But that will largely drive how long this conflict lasts."

Berrier spoke at a panel with other senior officials at the intelligence community's Intelligence and National Security Summit at National Harbor in Maryland just outside Washington.

Asked about concerns that Putin could unleash weapons of mass destruction if he's thwarted on the battlefield by U.S. and NATO-backed Ukrainian forces, CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said, "I don't think we should underestimate Putin's adherence to his original agenda, which was to control Ukraine. I don't think we've seen any reason to believe he has moved off that."

Nor should the U.S. underestimate Putin's "risk appetite," Cohen said. Putin and his officials early in the war made allusions to Russia's nuclear arsenal and to massive retaliation in warning NATO not to get involved in the conflict.

"That being said, we have not seen concrete evidence of planning for the use of WMD,'' Cohen said. The more likely form of any Russian retaliation against the United States would be more attempts at interfering with the U.S. political system, other security and intelligence officials said.

Separately, in a major regional summit in Uzbekistan on Friday, Putin vowed to press the attack on Ukraine and warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the country's infrastructure if Ukrainian forces target facilities in Russia.

The conference included the leaders of China, India, Turkey and several other countries.

Putin said the "liberation" of Ukraine's entire eastern Donbas region was Russia's main military goal and that he saw no need to revise it.

"We aren't in a rush," the Russian leader said.