2 Jul 2025

Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority strikes down 176-year-old abortion ban

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By TODD RICHMOND

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban on Wednesday, ruling 4-3 that it was superseded by newer state laws regulating the procedure, including statutes that criminalize abortions only after a fetus can survive outside the womb.

The ban state lawmakers adopted in 1849 made it a felony when anyone other than the mother “intentionally destroys the life of an unborn child.”

It was in effect until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never officially repealed the ban, however, and conservatives argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe reactivated it.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, filed a lawsuit that year arguing that the ban was trumped by abortion restrictions legislators enacted during the nearly half-century that Roe was in effect. Kaul specifically cited a 1985 law that essentially permits abortions until viability. Some babies can survive with medical help after 21 weeks of gestation.

Sheboygan County District Attorney Joel Urmanski, a Republican, defended the 1849 ban in court, arguing that it could coexist with the newer abortion restrictions, just as different penalties for the same crime coexist.

Dane County Circuit Judge Diane Schlipper ruled in 2023 that the 1849 ban outlaws feticide — which she defined as the killing of a fetus without the mother’s consent — but not consensual abortions. Abortions have been available in the state since that ruling but the state Supreme Court decision gives providers and patients more certainty that abortions will remain legal in Wisconsin.

Urmanski had asked the state Supreme Court to overturn Schlipper’s ruling without waiting for a decision from a lower appellate court. It was expected as soon as the justices took the case that they would overturn the ban. Liberals hold a 4-3 majority on the court and one of them, Janet Protasiewicz, openly stated on the campaign trail that she supports abortion rights.

The justices concluded that “the legislature impliedly repealed” the ban “by enacting comprehensive legislation about virtually every aspect of abortion including where, when, and how healthcare providers may lawfully perform abortions,” Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote for the majority. “That comprehensive legislation so thoroughly covers the entire subject of abortion that it was clearly meant as a substitute for the 19th century near-total ban on abortion.”

In a dissent, Justice Annette Ziegler called the ruling “a jaw-dropping exercise of judicial will.” She said the liberal justices based the decision on their personal preference to allow abortions.

Urmanski’s attorney, Andrew Phillips, didn’t immediately respond to an email Wednesday morning seeking comment. Kaul’s spokesperson, Riley Vetterkind, also didn’t immediately return an email.

Democratic-backed Susan Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel for an open seat on the court in April, ensuring liberals will maintain their 4-3 edge until at least 2028. Crawford has not been sworn in yet and was not part of Wednesday’s ruling. She’ll play pivotal role, though, in a separate Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lawsuit challenging the 1849 ban’s constitutionality. The high court decided last year to take that case. It’s still pending.

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2 Jul 2025

Analysis shows Trump’s tariffs would cost US employers $82.3 billion

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By JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — An analysis finds that a critical group of U.S. employers would face a direct cost of $82.3 billion from President Donald Trump’s current tariff plans, a sum that could be potentially managed through price hikes, layoffs, hiring freezes or lower profit margins.

The analysis by the JPMorganChase Institute is among the first to measure the direct costs created by the import taxes on businesses with $10 million to $1 billion in annual revenue, a category that includes roughly a third of private-sector U.S. workers. These companies are more dependent than other businesses on imports from China, India and Thailand — and the retail and wholesale sectors would be especially vulnerable to the import taxes being levied by the Republican president.

The findings show clear trade-offs from Trump’s import taxes, contradicting his claims that foreign manufacturers would absorb the costs of the tariffs instead of U.S. companies that rely on imports. While the tariffs launched under Trump have yet to boost overall inflation, large companies such as Amazon, Costco, Walmart and Williams-Sonoma delayed the potential reckoning by building up their inventories before the taxes could be imposed.

FILE – A shopping cart filled with groceries sits in an aisle at an Asian grocery store in Rowland Heights, Calif., Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

The analysis comes just ahead of the July 9 deadline by Trump to formally set the tariff rates on goods from dozens of countries. Trump imposed that deadline after the financial markets panicked in response to his April tariff announcements, prompting him to instead schedule a 90-day negotiating period when most imports faced a 10% baseline tariff. China, Mexico and Canada face higher rates, and there are separate 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Had the initial April 2 tariffs stayed in place, the companies in the JPMorganChase Institute analysis would have faced additional direct costs of $187.6 billion. Under the current rates, the $82.3 billion would be equivalent on average to $2,080 per employee, or 3.1% of the average annual payroll. Those averages include firms that don’t import goods and those that do.

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Asked Tuesday how trade talks are faring, Trump said simply: “Everything’s going well.”

The president has indicated that he will set tariff rates given the logistical challenge of negotiating with so many nations. As the 90-day period comes to a close, only the United Kingdom has signed a trade framework with the Trump administration. India and Vietnam have signaled that they’re close to a trade framework.

There is a growing body of evidence suggesting that more inflation could surface. The investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a report that it expects companies to pass along 60% of their tariff costs onto consumers. The Atlanta Federal Reserve has used its survey of businesses’ inflation expectations to say that companies could on average pass along roughly half their costs from a 10% tariff or a 25% tariff without reducing consumer demand.

The JPMorganChase Institute findings suggest that the tariffs could cause some domestic manufacturers to strengthen their roles as suppliers of goods. But it noted that companies need to plan for a range of possible outcomes and that wholesalers and retailers already operate on such low profit margins that they might need to spread the tariffs costs to their customers.

The outlook for tariffs remains highly uncertain. Trump had stopped negotiations with Canada, only to restart them after the country dropped its plan to tax digital services. He similarly on Monday threatened more tariffs on Japan unless it buys more rice from the U.S.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a Tuesday interview that the concessions from the trade talks have impressed career officials at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and other agencies.

“People who have been at Treasury, at Commerce, at USTR for 20 years are saying that these are deals like they’ve never seen before,” Bessent said on Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends.”

The treasury secretary said the Trump administration plans to discuss the contours of trade deals next week, prioritizing the tax cuts package passed on Tuesday by the Republican majority in the Senate. Trump has set a Friday deadline for passage of the multitrillion-dollar package, the costs of which the president hopes to offset with tariff revenues.

2 Jul 2025

How Republicans Are Willfully Endangering Immigrant Kids

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Trudy Taylor Smith is senior administrator of policy and advocacy with Children’s Defense Fund-Texas.

I want you to imagine a toddler appearing in court to face off against a government-trained attorney trying to deport them. Think of their terror as they take their seat in the courtroom, legs swinging because they’re not long enough to reach the floor. Consider the plight of a teenage survivor of sexual violence, unable to speak English, or too traumatized to mention key facts about the experiences that could determine the outcome of their case.  

No state in America is home to more unaccompanied immigrant children than Texas. In Fiscal Year 2024 alone, over 13,000 children were released to sponsors across our state. Every day, many of these children face the kinds of traumatizing situations described above. Their lives hang in the balance, but, with no legal representation, they often have no one to defend their rights or ensure a fair process. 

Unfortunately, our representatives in Congress have backed the federal government’s efforts to ensure that the vast majority of unaccompanied immigrant children continue to face a harrowing and unfair process as they fight for their futures. Both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate have put forward proposals to allocate billions of dollars toward expanded immigration enforcement while blocking funding for legal representation of unaccompanied children targeted for detention or deportation. 

Despite warnings from advocates like me about the dire consequences for children, Republicans in Congress have continued to push forward policies that leave unaccompanied children without legal counsel or other services to ensure their safety. Congressional Republicans have also sought to dismantle core legal protections for detained immigrant children, fund strip searches of children as young as 12 years old by law enforcement officers, allow indefinite detention, and impose new barriers to children’s release. 

Our Congressional representatives’ indifference to children’s health and safety compounds the harm of other similarly callous attacks on immigrant children.

In March, the federal government canceled a $200 million contract with the Acacia Center for Justice, a nonprofit whose national affiliate network provided legal representation to 26,000 unaccompanied children. That decision left many children with no lawyer to represent them and no way to effectively engage in the legal process.

In early April, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order compelling the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to restore legal aid funding for two weeks, but officials never complied. Instead, through “expedited docketing,” the federal government sped up timelines for children’s immigration cases as it simultaneously slashed their access to legal counsel, forcing more children to face immigration court dates without a lawyer.

Then, in May, the U.S. Department of Justice asked a federal judge to end a longstanding settlement agreement that protects detained immigrant children by requiring the federal government to provide safe and sanitary conditions for them and setting limits on how long children can be held in detention. Child advocates have opposed that move, and litigation is ongoing.

Republican lawmakers often claim they want to protect children, but their policy decisions tell a different story. By cutting off access to counsel and seeking to reduce or eliminate existing legal protections, lawmakers aren’t just failing children, they’re willfully endangering them. Such cruelty is especially stark considering the circumstances of the children they affect. 

Children who arrive in our country without a parent or guardian often make the dangerous journey here to escape political instability, gang violence, persecution, abuse, or trafficking. Yet unaccompanied children frequently find themselves at risk of further exploitation or abuse after they arrive in the U.S. without a trusted adult to look out for their interests.  

We youth advocates know that children’s rights attorneys are vital to the children they serve. They help children understand the immigration court process, sometimes using puppets or dolls to prepare young children for hearings. They identify the forms of relief that children are entitled to, gather evidence to support their claims, and make sure children know they can tell immigration judges the painful parts of their stories that are central to their cases. 

Outside the courtroom, these attorneys also protect children from trafficking, exploitation, and abuse by building relationships of trust that encourage them to speak up if they experience harm. 

Without a lawyer by their side, unaccompanied immigrant children may be deported to a country where they face grave danger, even though they are entitled to legal protections that would allow them to remain here. 

The data is clear that having an attorney makes a huge difference in whether or not children receive the protection they need. From Fiscal Year 2005 to 2017, only 64 percent of unaccompanied children in immigration proceedings were ever represented by a lawyer, but those who are represented are over seven times more likely than unrepresented children to receive an outcome allowing them to stay in the United States.

Despite that, Republican lawmakers continue to promote measures that will make it increasingly difficult for the tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children in our state to access the legal help they need.  

All children deserve a childhood marked by safety, care, and opportunities to play and learn. As adults, we have a collective responsibility to protect all children in Texas and ensure they have access to the resources they need to thrive. This is why I continue to fight for their rights as a child advocate.

What does it say about us as a society when we tolerate—or even support—policies that traumatize, neglect, and abuse children? How much cruelty will we inflict—or passively allow our nation’s leaders, laws, and institutions to inflict on our behalf—on children? And how long can we claim to care about justice, compassion, fairness, or protecting human life while we sit back and watch this unfold?  

Whether we allow this institutional violence to continue out of sheer apathy or because we refuse to recognize the humanity of children born outside our country, our complicity is a mirror reflecting back to us our own diminished humanity. We cannot abandon these children without abandoning our values. As Texans, and as Americans, it’s time for us to ask ourselves who we really are and who we want to be.   

Now, I urge all of us to stand together against targeted attacks on some of the most marginalized children in Texas. We must oppose heartless policies that trample children’s rights and make a mockery of due process and the rule of law. We must refuse to allow trafficked and traumatized children to be placed back in harm’s way. Every unaccompanied immigrant child deserves to have a lawyer by their side and to be protected rather than endangered by our nation’s laws. If we want to live up to our own ideals, then now is the time to hold our leaders accountable for delivering policies that make this a reality.

Now is the moment for all Texans to say, “Not on our watch.”

The post How Republicans Are Willfully Endangering Immigrant Kids appeared first on The Texas Observer.

2 Jul 2025

Wall Street futures mixed ahead of crucial US jobs data and looming tariff deadline

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By TERESA CEROJANO and MATT OTT, Associated Press

Wall Street futures are largely unchanged Wednesday and with little corporate news or earnings reports during the holiday-shortened week. There may also be a pullback ahead of critical U.S. employment data that arrives Thursday, and a looming U.S. tariff deadline next week.

Futures for the S&P 500 are flat before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose just 0.1%. Nasdaq futures ticked down 0.1%.

Markets in Japan declined, anxious over a lack of progress in trade talks with the U.S. ahead of a July 9 deadline to make deals or face higher tariffs.

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Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management, pointed to President Donald Trump’s declaration that there will be no extension of his tariff pause.

“The message was blunt: if Tokyo won’t yield, it will pay. Tariffs of 30%, 35% or ‘whatever number we determine’ are now openly back on the table,” Innes said. “The negotiating table just became a pressure cooker.”

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo closed 0.6% lower at 39,762.48.

In Washington, Republican leaders in the House are hustling to get a Wednesday vote on Trump’s tax and spending cuts package. The bill passed the Senate 51-50 on Tuesday, thanks to Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote.

Some economists fear that if the bill becomes law, it would send the U.S. government’s debt spiraling higher, igniting another bout of inflation. That in turn could mean interest rates would remain elevated and drag down prices for bonds, stocks and other investments.

With markets closed on Friday for the Fourth of July, the June jobs report was moved up a day to Thursday and will coincide with the Labor Department’s weekly data release on layoffs.

In corporate news, Paramount Global has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Trump over the editing of CBS’ “ 60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris in October. Paramount shares were largely unaffected by the news, rising about 0.6% before the bell.

Paramount told media outlets the settlement did not include an apology and that the money will go to Trump’s future presidential library, not to the president himself.

Elsewhere, at midday in Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.5%, while the CAC 40 in Paris added 1.4%. Britain’s FTSE 100 inched up 0.1%.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.6% to 24,221.41, and the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% lower to 3,454.79.

South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.5% to 3,075.06 after the government reported that inflation rose in June.

Australia’s S&P ASX 200 climbed 0.7% to 8,597.70. Taiwan’s Taiex edged up 0.1% while the Sensex in India lost 0.3%.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 88 cents to $66.33 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 87 cents to $67.98 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 144.18 Japanese yen from 143.41 yen. The euro slid to $1.1751 from $1.1808.