By SAFIYAH RIDDLE, Associated Press/Report for America

A federal judge will hear arguments Wednesday about whether a spending law passed in July that ended Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood can remain in effect while legal challenges continue.

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President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cut bill targets organizations that both provide abortions and receive more than $800,000 a year in Medicaid reimbursements. Planned Parenthood has argued the law violates the Constitution, while anti-abortion activists applauded the legislation.

An appeals court ruled that the law could go into affect in September while a lower court considered Planned Parenthood’s claims.

In a report released Wednesday morning ahead of the hearing, Planned Parenthood said the legislation cost $45 million in September alone as clinics across the country paid for treatment for Medicaid patients out of pocket — a rate that the organization says is unsustainable.

Nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients rely on Medicaid for health care aside from abortions, which was already not covered by the federal insurance program that serves millions of low-income and disabled Americans.

Legal fight

Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member organizations in Massachusetts and Utah, as well as a major medical provider in Maine, filed lawsuits against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in July. The Maine provider has been forced to stop it’s primary care services while its lawsuit works its way through the courts.

In the meantime, seven states — California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Washington — have directed state funds to compensate for lost federal Medicaid reimbursements.

That has covered roughly $200 million of the $700 million that the organization spends annually on Medicaid patients, according to Planned Parenthood.

In light of the shortfall, some clinics will force Medicaid patients to pay out of pocket while others will close altogether, adding to the 20 Planned Parenthood affiliated clinics that have closed since July and the 50 total that have closed since the start of Trump’s second term.

“The consequence is for patients who are going to be forced to make impossible choices between essential services,” Planned Parenthood President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Abortion at the heart of the debate

Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, said Trump’s legislation is a step in the right direction. Even though federal tax dollars aren’t used for abortions directly, she said taxpayers are contributing to abortion services even if they are morally or religiously opposed since Medicaid reimbursements help organizations that provide them stay afloat.

“To be forced to pay for that is just very objectionable,” Tobias said.

FILE – Grand Rapids anti-abortion activist Jim Albright, center, leads fellow activists Robert “Doc” Kovaly, left, and Miguel Jomarron Fernandez, right, to pray the Rosary at Planned Parenthood, April 2, 2025, in Grand Rapids, Mich. (Arthur H. Trickett-Wile/MLive.com/The Grand Rapids Press via AP, File)

She suggested Planned Parenthood could stop offering abortions if it wanted to keep providing medical care to vulnerable populations.

Planned Parenthood’s president has doubled down on the organization’s commitment to providing abortions.

“The government should not play a role in determining any pregnancy outcomes,” Johnson said.

A range of services hit

Planned Parenthood is the country’s largest abortion provider, but abortions only constituted 4% of all medical services in 2024, according to the organization’s annual report. Testing for sexually transmitted infections and contraception services make up about 80%. The remaining 15% of services are cancer screenings, primary care services and behavioral health services.

Jenna Tosh, CEO of Planned Parenthood California Central Coast, said in an interview that the Medicaid cuts threaten abortion and non-abortion medical care in equal measure. Roughly 70% of patients who use Planned Parenthood California Central Coast rely on Medicaid, she said.

“Many of our patients, we are their primary provider of health care,” Tosh said. “You really start pulling at the thread of the entire health care safety net for the most vulnerable people.”

By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The longest government shutdown in history could conclude as soon as Wednesday, Day 43, with almost no one happy with the final result.

Democrats didn’t get the heath insurance provisions they demanded added to the spending deal. And Republicans, who control the levers of power in Washington, didn’t escape blame, according to polls and some state and local elections that went poorly for them.

The fallout of the shutdown landed on millions of Americans, including federal workers who went without paychecks and airline passengers who had their trips delayed or canceled. An interruption in nutrition assistance programs contributed to long lines at food banks and added emotional distress going into the holiday season.

People wait in security lines at O’Hare International Airport, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)

The agreement includes bipartisan bills worked out by the Senate Appropriations Committee to fund parts of government — food aid, veterans programs and the legislative branch, among other things. All other funding would be extended until the end of January, giving lawmakers more than two months to finish additional spending bills.

Here’s a look at how the shutdown started and is likely to end:

What led to the shutdown

Democrats made several demands to win their support for a short-term funding bill, but the central one was an extension of an enhanced tax credit that lowers the cost of health coverage obtained through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

The tax credit was boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic response, again through President Joe Biden’s big energy and health care bill, and it’s set to expire at the end of December. Without it, premiums on average will more than double for millions of Americans. More than 2 million people would lose health insurance coverage altogether next year, the Congressional Budget Office projected.

“Never have American families faced a situation where their health care costs are set to double — double in the blink of an eye,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

While Democrats called for negotiations on the matter, Republicans said a funding bill would need to be passed first.

“Republicans are ready to sit down with Democrats just as soon as they stop holding the government hostage to their partisan demands,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., speaks to reporters as he arrives at his office following a weekend vote to move forward with a stopgap funding bill to reopen the government through Jan. 30, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Thune eventually promised Democrats a December vote on the tax credit extension to help resolve the standoff, but many Democrats demanded a guaranteed fix, not just a vote that is likely to fail.

Thune’s position was much the same as the one Schumer took back in October 2013, when Republicans unsuccessfully sought to roll back parts of the Affordable Care Act in exchange for funding the government. “Open up all of the government, and then we can have a fruitful discussion,” Schumer said then.

Democratic leaders under pressure

The first year of President Donald Trump’s second term has seen more than 200,000 federal workers leave their job through firings, forced relocations or the Republican administration’s deferred resignation program, according to the Partnership for Public Service. Whole agencies that don’t align with the administration’s priorities have been dismantled. And billions of dollars previously approved by Congress have been frozen or canceled.

Democrats have had to rely on the courts to block some of Trump’s efforts, but they have been unable to do it through legislation. They were also powerless to stop Trump’s big tax cut and immigration crackdown bill that Republicans helped pay for by cutting future spending on safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

The Democrats’ struggles to blunt the Trump administration’s priorities has prompted calls for the party’s congressional leadership to take a more forceful response.

Schumer experienced that firsthand after announcing in March that he would support moving ahead with a funding bill for the 2025 budget year. There was a protest at his office, calls from progressives that he be primaried in 2028 and suggestions that the Democratic Party would soon be looking for new leaders.

Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks with reporters at the Capitol Subway on day 36th of the government shutdown, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

This time around, Schumer demanded that Republicans negotiate with Democrats to get their votes on a spending bill. The Senate rules, he noted, requires bipartisan support to meet the 60-vote threshold necessary to advance a spending bill.

But those negotiations did not occur, at least not with Schumer. Republicans instead worked with a small group of eight Democrats to tee up a short-term bill to fund the government generally at current levels and accused Schumer of catering to the party’s left flank when he refused to go along.

“The Senate Democrats are afraid that the radicals in their party will say that they caved,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at one of his many daily press conferences.

The blame game

The political stakes in the shutdown are huge, which is why leaders in both parties have held nearly daily press briefings to shape public opinion.

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Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say Trump and Republicans in Congress have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of responsibility for the shutdown, while 54% say the same about Democrats in Congress, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

At least three-quarters of Americans believe each deserves at least a “moderate” share of blame, underscoring that no one was successfully evading responsibility.

Both parties looked to the Nov. 4 elections in Virginia, New Jersey and elsewhere for signs of how the shutdown was influencing public opinion. Democrats took comfort in their overwhelming successes. Trump called it a “big factor, negative” for Republicans. But it did not change the GOP’s stance on negotiating. Instead, Trump ramped up calls for Republicans to end the filibuster in the Senate, which would pretty much eliminate the need for the majority party to ever negotiate with the minority.

Damage of the shutdown

The Congressional Budget Office says that the negative impact on the economy will be mostly recovered once the shutdown ends, but not entirely. It estimated the permanent economic loss at about $11 billion for a six-week shutdown.

Beyond the numbers, though, the shutdown created a cascade of troubles for many Americans. Federal workers missed paychecks, causing financial and emotional stress. Travelers had their flights delayed and at times canceled. People who rely on safety net programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program saw their benefits stopped, and Americans throughout the country lined up for meals at food banks.

“This dysfunction is damaging enough to our constituents and economy here at home, but it also sends a dangerous message to the watching world,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan. “It demonstrates to our allies that we are an unreliable partner, and it signals to our adversaries that we can’t work together to meet even the most fundamental responsibilities of Congress.”

Today is Wednesday, Nov. 12, the 316th day of 2025. There are 49 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Nov. 12, 1954, Ellis Island officially closed as an immigration station and detention center. More than 12 million immigrants arrived in the United States via Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954.

Also on this date:

In 1927, Josef Stalin became the undisputed ruler of the Soviet Union as Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Communist Party.

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In 1936, the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge opened as President Franklin D. Roosevelt pressed a telegraph key in Washington, D.C., and gave the green light to traffic.

In 1936, American playwright Eugene O’Neill received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1948, Japanese general and former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and several other World War II Japanese leaders were sentenced to death by a war crimes tribunal; he was executed in December 1948.

In 1970, the Bhola cyclone struck East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The deadliest tropical cyclone on record claimed the lives of an estimated 300,000-500,000 people.

In 2001, American Airlines Flight 587, en route to the Dominican Republic, crashed after takeoff from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, killing all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.

In 2019, Venice saw its worst flooding in more than 50 years, with the water reaching 6.14 feet (1.87 meters) above average sea level; damage was estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2021, a judge in Los Angeles ended the conservatorship that had controlled the life and money of pop star Britney Spears for nearly 14 years.

In 2024, a federal judge sentenced Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member, to 15 years in prison for leaking classified military documents about the war in Ukraine; Teixeira had pleaded guilty to willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act, nearly a year after his arrest in the most consequential national security breach in years.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor-playwright Wallace Shawn is 82.
Rock musician Booker T. Jones is 81.
Sportscaster Al Michaels is 81.
Singer-songwriter Neil Young is 80.
Author Tracy Kidder is 80.
Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island is 76.
Actor Megan Mullally is 67.
Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comăneci is 64.
Olympic gold medal swimmer Jason Lezak is 50.
Pakistani filmmaker and journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is 47.
Actor Ryan Gosling is 45.
Actor Anne Hathaway is 43.
Golfer Jason Day is 38.
NBA point guard Russell Westbrook is 37.

The best running back in the National Football League is on bye this week. And that’s bad news for about 10 percent of the nation’s fantasy football teams.

Indianapolis’ Jonathan Taylor is in the running for NFL Most Valuable Player, along with New England quarterback Drake Maye, Rams QB Matthew Stafford and a few others. He’s on pace for 25 touchdowns and could make a run at 2,000 yards for the AFC-leading Colts.

So many fantasy league leaders need a RB replacement for this week, and there aren’t many decent prospects left. Here’s the best you could probably do this week:

Sean Tucker (Buccaneers) — He has taken a bigger share of the workload since Bucky Irving’s injury. Over the past two games he has 21 rushes for 95 yards and one TD, outshining Tampa’s presumed No. 2 back, Rachaad White. And the Bills’ run defense he’ll see this week stinks.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Sean Tucker (44) runs the ball during an NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Tyler Kaufman)

Tyler Allgeier (Falcons) — Bijan Robinson is Atlanta’s star back, but this fellow is getting most of the goal-line work. This former Brigham Young standout tallied 11 carries for 57 yards and two TDs last Sunday.

Atlanta Falcons running back Tyler Allgeier (25) celebrates after scoring a touchdown against the Indianapolis Colts during an NFL football game in Berlin, Germany, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (Dave Shopland/AP Content Services for the NFL)

Emari Demercado (Cardinals) — With all of Arizona’s injuries, Demercado is probably now their best backfield option. He topped 100 yards last week on only seven touches, and he’ll get much more work than that if Zonovan Knight is still hobbled this week.

Seattle Seahawks cornerback Riq Woolen (27) lunges at Arizona Cardinals running back Emari Demercado (31) during an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025 in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ben VanHouten)

Devin Singletary (Giants) — The former New York starter is getting more work since Cam Skattebo’s season-ending injury. He had 11 touches last week for 73 yards. And since he’s still scoreless this season, he’s certainly due.

New York Giants running back Devin Singletary (26) reacts after getting a first down during the second half of an NFL football game against the Chicago Bears, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Blake Corum (Rams) — The former Michigan Wolverine is getting an increased workload for one of the league’s top offenses. Over the past three weeks he has 38 carries for 151 yards. He’ll see more work as Rams try to lighten workload for Kyren Williams.

Los Angeles Rams running back Blake Corum (22) runs the ball against the San Francisco 49ers in an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Jeff Lewis)

Sitting stars

Sure, it’s almost sacrilege, but we wouldn’t count on Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes against Denver with so many good QB options on waivers this week. … Same goes for Detroit’s Jared Goff versus that Philly defense. … The running will be tough for the Jets’ Breece Hall against New England and Rams’ Kyren Williams versus Seattle. … Vikings WR Jordan Addison will lose more market share to teammate Jalen Nailor against Chicago. … Now that Keenan Allen set the Chargers’ career receiving record, he’ll have a quiet week against the Jaguars. … And as bad as Packers QB Jordan Love looked Monday night against the Eagles, he won’t look a whole lot better against the Giants.

Buffalo Bills defensive ends Greg Rousseau, right, Michael Hoecht (55) and Joey Bosa (97) sack Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (15) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Matchup game

Packers will need to run to rebound against the Giants, and Josh Jacobs will have a big game. … Other RBs who will shine this week are Carolina’s Rico Dowdle vs. Atlanta and Steelers’ Jaylen Warren vs. Bengals. … Eagles will need WR A.J. Brown to regain his mojo in shootout against Detroit. … Taking advantage of meager pass defenses will be Arizona WR Marvin Harrison Jr. versus depleted Niners and Raiders tight end Brock Bowers against Dallas. … Also feasting on poor defenses will be two under-the-radar QBs: Cincinnati’s Joe Flacco versus Pittsburgh and Miami’s Tua Tagovailoa facing the Commanders in Spain.

Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs (8) runs with the ball during an NFL game against the Philadelphia Eagles,, Monday, Nov. 10, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps

Injury watch

The big injury this week was Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson, making a disappointing season even worse. … Could this be the week Brock Purdy returns as the 49ers’ QB? … The long list of questionables includes three running backs (Denver’s J.K. Dobbins, Patriots’ Tre’Veyon Henderson and Rhamondre Stevenson), seven pass catchers (Rams’ Davante Adams, Green Bay’s Romeo Doubs and Matthew Golden. Tennessee’s Calvin Ridley, New England’s Kayshon Boutte, Jacksonville’s Brian Thomas, Buffalo TE Dalton Kincaid) and three quarterbacks (Houston’s C.J. Stroud, Vegas’ Geno Smith and the Giants’ Jaxson Dart).

New York Jets wide receiver Garrett Wilson (5) in action against Dallas Cowboys cornerback Daron Bland (26) during an NFL football game on Sunday, Oct. 5, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (Brad Penner/AP Images for Panini)

Deepest sleeper

Among many surprises for first-place New England is wide receiver Mack Hollins. The eight-year veteran had six catches for 106 yards last Sunday, and he led the Patriots with 10 targets in their victory over Tampa Bay. He’ll be busy again Thursday night against what’s left of the New York Jets’ defense.

New England Patriots wide receiver Mack Hollins (13) makes a catch against Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Zyon McCollum (27) during the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

The Thursday pick

Jets at Patriots (-11½)

Pick: Patriots by 17

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (10) scrambles for yardage against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

You can hear Kevin Cusick on Thursdays on Bob Sansevere’s “BS Show” podcast on iTunes. You can follow Kevin on X– @theloopnow. He can be reached at kcusick@pioneerpress.com.

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