Senate Democrats are leading a vote to pass a bill that would make Roe v. Wade national law – although they know it will fail. The formality is part of a larger effort to save abortion rights. Following a record-setting day for U.S. gas prices, the Labor Department will release its report on consumer prices for April. A Ukraine natural gas pipeline operator has stopped Russian shipments through a major hub in the east of the country. After North Korea tested a ballistic missile, the U.S. has scheduled an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. The Interior Department has promised to release the first part of a report on the federal government’s oversight of Native American boarding schools.
I’m Nicole, and here’s Wednesday’s news.
🌅 Up First: Charles Herbster, a Donald Trump-endorsed candidate who has been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct, lost the race to be the GOP nominee for Nebraska governor in the state’s Republican primary on Tuesday. In West Virginia’s congressional primary, Rep. Alex Mooney, R-W.Va., another Trump-backed House Republican, was victorious. West Virginia’s race demonstrated a clear win for a Trump-style Republican over a GOP lawmaker known for bipartisan outreach – but Nebraska’s race emphasized the ex-president’s endorsement is not an automatic ticket to victory.
Some news to know now:
⛽ U.S. gas prices hit an all-time record Tuesday, and the pump pain isn’t expected to ease soon.
👉 Authorities are investigating the cause of a fire that destroyed a Tallahassee center for Jewish life.
🌍 There’s a 50-50 chance Earth will reach critical climate change indicators within 5 years.
🔵 Here’s what we know about the Americans who died at a Bahamas resort.
🦈 A 1,000 pound great white shark is cruising the Atlantic Ocean from New Jersey to the Carolinas.
💥 NASA released stunning images of a neighboring satellite galaxy.
🩳 Picking an outfit can be hard for me, especially after over two years of working in sweatpants at home. But fear not – our product experts at Reviewed have assembled the ultimate guide to matching sets, from on-the-go-skirts to comfortable ensembles to rule any cozy uniform.
🎧 On today’s 5 Things podcast, we weigh the privacy concerns of apps that track your period. You can listen to the podcast every day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your smart speaker.
Senate Dems to vote on bill that would make abortion legal nationally
Senate Democrats will vote Wednesday on a bill that would make Roe v. Wade the law of the land and divert a Supreme Court decision that could leave states the sole authority on whether to restrict abortion. The Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022 would make abortion legal nationally, superseding legislation passed by states to severely restrict or completely ban the procedure. The decision to move swiftly on the legislation follows the leak of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court on May 2 that suggests the nation’s highest court will overturn the landmark case that guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion. “This is as real and as urgent as it gets,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week. The bill does not have enough votes to pass into law yet, but it marks Democrats’ first legislative attempt to enshrine the right to abortion into law since the leak.
🟣 Janet Yellen argues abortion access leads to positive economic outcomes for women.
🟣 Should you delete your period-tracking app? Experts explain the privacy risks.
How high will inflation go? Financial world eyes CPI report
Wall Street will get some fresh details on inflation Wednesday when the Labor Department releases its report on consumer prices for April. Last month, inflation hit a fresh 40-year high – 8.6% annually – driven in part by supply snarls, pandemic-related worker shortages that have boosted wages and strong consumer demand heightened by federal stimulus money. The higher prices are raising concerns that consumers will eventually cut spending, which would hurt economic growth. Last week, the Federal Reserve raised its key short-term interest rate by a half percentage point and signaled further big moves may lie ahead as officials scramble to throttle back the economy to curtail rising prices.
📈 Is it Biden’s fault? Did $1.9 trillion stimulus cause inflation, or save the economy?
📈 What to do now: As rates rise, you can still put your cash to work.
📈 Stocks are tanking but investors are eyeing CPI report for some stock market relief.
Just for subscribers:
🔴 1 million U.S. deaths to COVID: A pandemic legacy of grief, anger and frustration.
🟣 People in maternal health care ”deserts” will face greater medical and well-being risks if abortion is criminalized.
🔔 Opinion: Why men don’t yet know that overturning Roe v. Wade will change their lives, too.
⚾ MLB attendance so far this season is down slightly overall – USA TODAY Sports examines who’s up and who’s down.
🎤 What happened to Jon Bon Jovi’s voice? And can it be fixed?
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Ukrainians stop Russian gas shipments, make gains in east; House passes aid package
Ukraine’s natural gas pipeline operator has stopped Russian shipments through a key hub in the east of the country. Wednesday’s move was the first time natural gas supply has been affected by the war that began in February. It may force Russia to shift flows of gas through areas controlled by Ukraine to reach clients in Europe. On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the military was gradually pushing Russian troops away from Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian General Staff said its forces drove Russians out of four villages to the northeast of Kharkiv as it tries to push them back toward the Russian border. In other news, one U.S. official reports that Russia appears to be at least two weeks behind schedule in its attempt to wrest the eastern Donbas region from Ukraine. This progress comes as the House of Representatives on Tuesday night passed a package of about $40 billion in additional aid for Ukraine, $7 billion more than President Joe Biden’s request to Congress.
🟡 Confirmation hearing: Biden’s Ukraine ambassador nominee, Bridget Brink, calls challenges ”enormous.”
🟡 Fact check:False claim that photo shows Russian plane shot down in Ukraine war.
🟡 Evacuations, accusations and denials: Key events in Russia’s war in Ukraine in 5 graphics.
UN Security Council to meet on North Korea’s nuclear testing
The United States scheduled an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting Wednesday after North Korea tested a ballistic missile that was likely fired from a submarine last week. The test represented North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s recent vow to ramp up nuclear weapons development. The United States currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council, and it set the meeting to discuss North Korea’s latest launches. North Korea has fired missiles 15 times so far this year. North Korea’s launch came just ahead of Tuesday’s inauguration of South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk Yeol, who promised to take a tough approach toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
⚫ North Korea fires ballistic missile days after Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons vow.
⚡ Highlight from the USA TODAY newsroom: The Department of Education is expected to soon release its proposed regulations on Title IX. The federal rule helped increase the number of women competing in college athletics and is now at the center of two major debates involving transgender women’s ability to complete against other women in school sports, and how colleges should be required to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct on campus. But the ever-changing rule can be hard for education leaders to follow or consistently enforce, and a new administration by 2025 could start the process from scratch again.
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ICYMI: Some of our top stories yesterday
🔔 ”Fetishization isn’t appreciation”: The dangers of dating as an Asian American woman.
🥍 The women’s lacrosse team at an HCBU feels traumatized after its charter bus was stopped by police while traveling through Georgia.
😷 5 to 14 million Americans could lose Medicaid coverage when the pandemic ends.
🔴 Jacob Blake has dropped a civil rights lawsuit against the Kenosha police officer who shot him in the back in 2020.
👉 Rapper Young Thug was among 28 people charged for gang-related crimes.
Interior Department report will begin to reveal truths about Indigenous schools
The Interior Department says it will release the first volume of a report Wednesday that will begin to uncover the truth about the federal government’s past oversight of Native American boarding schools. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced an initiative last June to investigate the troubled legacy of boarding schools, which the government established and supported for decades. Indigenous children routinely were taken from their communities and forced into schools that sought to strip them of their language and culture. The Interior report was prompted by the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at former residential school sites in Canada that brought back painful memories for Indigenous communities. At least 367 boarding schools for Native Americans operated in the U.S., many of them in Oklahoma where tribes were relocated, Arizona, Alaska, New Mexico and South Dakota, according to research by the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
📰 From Oregon’s Salem Statesman Journal: Chemawa Indian School families seek answers, healing through federal investigation.
📰 ”Not in the history books”: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel coverage looks at what happened in Native American boarding schools under scrutiny.
📰 In Nebraska: Researchers uncover names of 102 Native Americans who died at a boarding school.
📷 Photo of the day: New Mexico wildfire blazes at southern tip of the Rocky Mountains 📷
The nation’s largest wildfire risks the destruction of many homes – and soaring long-term recovery costs, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in a briefing Tuesday. A force of nearly 1,800 firefighters and support personnel have been assigned to the wildfire, which has been spread by fierce winds. The cost of fighting the blaze and another smaller fire burning near Los Alamos National Laboratory has topped $65 million. The cost of reconstructing homes, preventing post-fire flooding and restoring the forest charred by the fire is likely to reach billions of dollars.
Click here to see photos of the wildfire in New Mexico.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism