By JEFF AMY and GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — A pregnant woman in Georgia was declared brain-dead after a medical emergency and has been kept on life support for three months by doctors to allow enough time for the baby to be born and comply with Georgia’s strict anti-abortion law, family members say.

The case is the latest consequence of abortion bans introduced in some states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade three years ago.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old mother and nurse, was declared brain-dead — meaning she is legally dead — in February, her mother, April Newkirk, told Atlanta TV station WXIA.

Newkirk said her daughter had intense headaches more than three months ago and went to Atlanta’s Northside Hospital, where she received medication and was released. The next morning, her boyfriend woke to her gasping for air and called 911. Emory University Hospital determined she had blood clots in her brain and she was later declared brain-dead.

Newkirk said Smith is now 21 weeks pregnant. Removing breathing tubes and other life-saving devices would likely kill the fetus.

Neither hospital immediately responded to emails Thursday from The Associated Press.

Georgia’s abortion ban

Smith’s family says Emory doctors have told them they are not allowed to stop or remove the devices that are keeping her breathing because of a provision in state law that bans abortion after cardiac activity can be detected — generally around six weeks into pregnancy.

The law was adopted in 2019 but not enforced until after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, opening the door to state abortion bans. Georgia’s ban includes an exception if an abortion is necessary to maintain the life of the woman.

Smith’s family, including her five-year-old son, still visit her in the hospital.

Newkirk said doctors told the family that the fetus has fluid on the brain and that they’re concerned about his health.

“She’s pregnant with my grandson. But he may be blind, may not be able to walk, may not survive once he’s born,” Newkirk said. Newkirk has not commented on whether the family wants Smith removed from life support.

Who has the right to make these decisions?

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, which is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s strict abortion law, said the situation is problematic.

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“Her family deserved the right to have decision-making power about her medical decisions,” Simpson said in a statement. “Instead, they have endured over 90 days of retraumatization, expensive medical costs, and the cruelty of being unable to resolve and move toward healing.”

Lois Shepherd, a bioethicist and law professor at the University of Virginia, said she does not believe Georgia’s law requires life support in this case.

But she said whether a state could insist Smith remains on the breathing and other devices is uncertain since the 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned all the parts of the Roe ruling, including the finding that fetuses do not have the rights of people.

“Pre-Dobbs, a fetus didn’t have any rights,” Shepherd said. “And the state’s interest in fetal life could not be so strong as to overcome other important rights, but now we don’t know.”

A spotlight on Georgia’s abortion law

Georgia’s law confers personhood on a fetus. Those who favor personhood say fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses should be considered people with the same rights as those already born.

Georgia state Sen. Ed Setzler, a Republican who sponsored the 2019 law, said he supported Emory’s interpretation.

“I think it is completely appropriate that the hospital do what they can to save the life of the child,” Setzler said. “I think this is an unusual circumstance, but I think it highlights the value of innocent human life. I think the hospital is acting appropriately.”

Setzler said he believes it is sometimes acceptable to remove life support from someone who is brain dead, but said the law is “an appropriate check” because the mother is pregnant.

“I think there’s a valuable human life that we have an opportunity to save and I think it’s the right thing to save it,” he said. “To suggest otherwise is to declare the child as being other than human.”

Setzler said the woman’s relatives do have “good choices,” including keeping the child or offering it for adoption.

Georgia’s abortion ban has been in the spotlight before.

Last year, ProPublica reported that two Georgia women died after they did not get proper medical treatment for complications from taking abortion pills. The stories of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller entered into the presidential race, with Democrat Kamala Harris saying the deaths were the result of the abortion bans that went into effect in Georgia and elsewhere after Dobbs.

Abortion bans in other states

The situation echoes a case in Texas more than a decade ago when a brain-dead woman was kept on maintenance measures for about two months because she was pregnant. A judge eventually ruled that the hospital keeping her alive against her family’s wishes was misapplying state law, and life support was removed.

Twelve states are enforcing abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions. Georgia is one of four with a ban that kicks in at or around six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.

Last year, the Texas Supreme Court ruled unanimously against a group of women who challenged that state’s abortion ban, saying the exceptions were being interpreted so narrowly that they were denied abortion access as they dealt with serious pregnancy complications. This year, the state Senate has passed a bill that seeks to clarify when abortions are allowed.

South Dakota produced a video to inform doctors about when exceptions should apply. Abortion rights groups have blasted it.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in December over whether the federal law that requires hospitals to provide abortion in emergency medical situations should apply. A ruling is expected in coming months.

Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press journalists Kate Brumback, Sharon Johnson and Charlotte Kramon contributed.

Air traffic controllers in Denver lost communications with planes around that major airport for 90 seconds earlier this week and had to scramble to use backup frequencies in the latest Federal Aviation Administration equipment failure.

The outage at Denver International Airport happened Monday afternoon and affected communications, not radar, the FAA’s head of air traffic control, Frank McIntosh, said during a House hearing Thursday. This communications failure follows two high-profile outages of radar and communications in the past 2 1/2 weeks at a facility that directs planes in and out of the Newark, New Jersey, airport.

The FAA said in a statement that the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center lost communications for approximately 90 seconds. McIntosh said both the primary and main backup frequencies went down, so the controllers had to turn to an emergency frequency to communicate.

“Controllers used another frequency to relay instructions to pilots. Aircraft remained safely separated and there were no impacts to operations,” the FAA said.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California told McIntosh during the hearing that “anytime there’s these outages which are happening now more regularly, it’s very concerning.”

“We know that there are staffing and equipment problems at air traffic control,” Garcia said. “We know that the problems have gone back decades in some cases, but it’s still an absolutely shocking system failure and we need immediate solutions.”

The Denver communications failure is the latest troubling equipment failure in the system that keeps planes safe. Last week, the Trump administration announced a multibillion-dollar plan to overhaul an air traffic control system that relies on antiquated equipment.

The Newark airport has generally led the nation in flight cancellations and delays ever since its first radar outage on April 28 that also lasted about 90 seconds. A second outage happened on May 9. In both those instances controllers lost both radar and communications.

The FAA was in the middle of a second day Thursday of meetings with the airlines that fly out of Newark about cutting flights because there aren’t enough controllers to handle all the flights on the schedule now. More than 100 flights have been canceled at Newark Thursday.

Officials developed the plan to upgrade the system after a deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed 67 people in the skies over Washington, D.C. Several other crashes this year also put pressure on officials to act.

Actor Joe Don Baker, whose star turn in “Walking Tall” and appearances in three Bond films endeared him to legions of fans, has died.

The character actor known for his versatility was 89.

Baker’s family confirmed his death of undisclosed causes on Tuesday.

“Joe Don was a beacon of kindness and generosity,” his family wrote in an obituary revealing his May 7 death. “His intellectual curiosity made him a voracious reader, inspiring a great love of nature and animals, particularly cats.”

Baker joined the Bond universe as megalomaniacal arms dealer Brad Whitaker in 1987’s “The Living Daylights” opposite Timothy Dalton’s 007. He resurfaced as standup CIA agent Jack Wade in “GoldenEye” in 1995 and “Tomorrow Never Dies,” in 1997, both opposite Pierce Brosnan as Bond.

Baker was born on Feb. 12, 1936, growing up in Groesbeck, Texas, where his prowess in high school football and basketball netted him an athletic scholarship at North Texas State College, his family said. He earned a business degree there, enlisted in the U.S. Army for two years, and then moved to New York City to study acting, joining the Actors’ Studio in the early 1960s.

He graced the Broadway stage for a year or so before moving to Los Angeles to launch what would be a decades-long career in television and film. Starting with guest appearances on the likes of “Gunsmoke,” “Mission Impossible” and “The Streets of San Francisco,” he jumped to film with an uncredited part in “Cool Hand Luke” and another bit part in “The Valachi Papers.” He went on to appear in 57 movies and scores of TV shows over a career that lasted until he retired in 2012, his family said.

The broad-shouldered, 6’3” actor was as ideally suited to playing the tough guy — on either side of the law — as he was charging opponents on the football field. He made a mark alongside Steve McQueen in Junior Bonner in 1972, according to IMDb. He then portrayed a sadistic mob assassin in “Charley Varrick” in 1973. These helped him snag his true breakout role, as hickory-club-wielding Sheriff Buford Pusser in 1973’s “Walking Tall.”

The 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s saw Baker in numerous character roles in “The Natural,” “Cape Fear” with Robert DeNiro, “Reality Bites,” “Mars Attacks!” and “The Dukes of Hazzard,” among many others. His last role was in “Mud,” in 2012.

Baker’s sole 11-year marriage yielded no children, his family said.

“He is survived by relations in his native Groesbeck, who will forever cherish his memory,” the obituary read. “He is mourned by a small but very close circle of friends who will miss him eternally.”

By STEPHANY MATAT and KATE PAYNE

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a measure Thursday prohibiting local governments from adding fluoride to their water systems, making it the second state in the country after Utah to implement a statewide ban on the mineral.

DeSantis signed the bill at a public event in Dade City, Florida, over the concerns of dentists and public health advocates.

“We have other ways where people can get access to fluoride,” DeSantis said at a public event earlier this month. “When you do this in the water supply, you’re taking away a choice of someone who may not want to have overexposure to fluoride.”

State lawmakers approved the bill last month, requiring the mineral and some other additives be removed from water sources across the state. Utah was the first state to ban fluoride in late March, and its prohibition went into effect last week, while Florida’s provision is effective July 1.

Some local governments in Florida have already voted to remove fluoride from their water, ahead of the statewide ban. Earlier this month, Miami-Dade County commissioners voted to override a veto by Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and move forward with plans to remove fluoride from the county’s drinking water.

“Water fluoridation is a safe, effective, and efficient way to maintain dental health in our county – and halting it could have long-lasting health consequences, especially for our most vulnerable families,” Levine Cava said in a statement defending her veto.

Some Republican-led states have sought to impose bans following a push by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop fluoridating water. Earlier this month, DeSantis pledged to sign the bill and was flanked by the state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, who has attracted national scrutiny over his opposition to policies embraced by public health experts, including COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Fluoride is a mineral that has been added to drinking water for generations to strengthen teeth and reduce cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

Excess fluoride intake has been associated with streaking or spots on teeth. And studies also have traced a link between excess fluoride and brain development.

Payne, who reported from Tallahassee, Florida, is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.