JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court opened the door Tuesday to abortions being halted again in a tumultuous legal saga after voters struck down the state’s abortion ban last November.

The state’s top court ruled that a district judge applied the wrong standard in rulings in December and February that allowed abortions to resume in the state for the first time since they were nearly completely halted under a ban that took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

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In Tuesday’s two-page ruling, the court ordered Judge Jerri Zhang to vacate her earlier orders and re-evaluate the case using the standards the court laid out.

The state emphasized in their petition filed to the state Supreme Court in March that Planned Parenthood didn’t sufficiently prove women were harmed without the temporary blocks on the broad swath of laws and regulations on abortion services and providers. On the contrary, the state said Zhang’s decisions left abortion facilities “functionally unregulated” and women with “no guarantee of health and safety.”

Sam Lee, director of Campaign Life Missouri, said he was “extremely excited” by the Supreme Court order.

“This means that our pro-life laws, which include many health and safety protections for women, will remain in place,” Lee said. “How long they will remain we will have to see. But for right now, we would expect that Planned Parenthood would stop doing any abortions until the court rules otherwise.”

“Let’s be clear: a 436-foot medical tower has no place in Lenox Hill or any residential neighborhood. This is a community defined by its human-scale architecture, its walkability, and its residential character.”

An illustration of the proposed redevelopment. (Image via Northwell Health)

As a long-time resident of the Upper East Side, I’ve watched with growing concern as Northwell Health pushes forward a controversial proposal to redevelop Lenox Hill Hospital into a monstrous 436-foot tower in a residential neighborhood—a Midtown office building on a residential block!

While the hospital markets this as a much-needed modernization effort, the reality is starkly different. This project is not about better patient care—it’s about maximizing profits at the expense of a community’s quality of life. It is a corporate ego trip and a market share move that is overwhelmingly opposed by our community.

I am a member of the Committee to Protect Our Lenox Hill Neighborhood, a group formed to stand against this outsized and inappropriate development. Our concerns aren’t abstract—they are immediate and real. Northwell’s proposal would lead to a decade of heavy construction in a densely populated residential neighborhood. Families, toddlers, students, seniors in wheelchairs and walkers will face constant noise, dust pollution, traffic chaos, and pose serious safety concerns. The livability of Lenox Hill would be irreparably damaged by a massive tower—forever.

Our opposition isn’t isolated. Manhattan Community Board 8 has voted “no” to Northwell’s proposal by a margin of 2:1, rejecting the zoning changes that call for 250 to 500 percent zoning increases in what is allowed today by carefully thought out and long standing zoning laws. The precedent Northwell wants to establish would allow 12.5 Floor Area Ratio (FAR) zoning that is only found in Midtown and Hudson Yard office areas—never in residential neighborhoods. What does that mean for your neighborhood?

Another Perspective: Investing in New York’s Healthcare Future is a Sacred Duty (Opinion)

Now, we’re asking for broader public support to ensure that the City Planning Commission and the City Council listen to the people most directly affected and consider the larger healthcare equity needs across the entire city. Over 6,000 people have signed our petition against this project and more than 400 people turn out for every local meeting on it—a huge show of anger, frustration and fear of what we are facing. 

Let’s be clear: a 436-foot medical tower has no place in Lenox Hill or any residential neighborhood. This is a community defined by its human-scale architecture, its walkability, and its residential character. Allowing a structure of this magnitude would not only overwhelm the area, but it would set a dangerous precedent for overdevelopment across the city. It threatens to turn our community, and possibly yours next, into a corridor of corporate campuses.

And here’s the irony: Lenox Hill doesn’t need this kind of expansion. The East Side is already surrounded by world-class institutions: New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell, Memorial Sloan Kettering, HSS, and Mount Sinai. What the city needs is smarter, more equitable healthcare planning.

Why not consider areas that are actually underserved? The Upper East Side—or “Bedpan Alley”—has 10 beds per every 1,000 residents, while the Lower East Side has .5 beds/1,000. Does that make sense to you? We read daily about hospital closings and medical deserts throughout our city, yet Northwell wants to spend $2 billion to create just 25 more beds in one of the most concentrated hospital areas. That is madness!

Ultimately, this is about priorities. New York’s healthcare system should be shaped by public need, not developer ambition. City officials must stop rubber-stamping glossy proposals. They must ask harder questions: Who benefits? Who is burdened? And what kind of city are we building?

No one should be steamrolled by huge corporations for their profit at our expense.

Andrew Gaspar is an Upper East Side resident and a member of the Committee to Protect Our Lenox Hill Neighborhood.

The post Opinion: Lenox Hill Hospital Expansion is About Profits, Not Care appeared first on City Limits.

By MARGERY A. BECK, Associated Press

Family and friends of Sarah Milgrim, one of two Israeli Embassy staffers fatally shot last week in an apparently politically motivated ambush in Washington, D.C., gathered for her funeral Tuesday in the Kansas community where she grew up.

Milgrim, a 26-year-old from the Kansas City suburb of Prairie Village, Kansas, was leaving a reception for young diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum alongside 30-year-old Yaron Lischinsky on May 21 when they were shot to death. A suspect, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was arrested and shouted “Free Palestine” as he was led away. Charging documents said he later told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”

Lischinsky had bought an engagement ring before the shooting and was planning to propose to Milgrim in the coming days, those who knew the couple have said.

A funeral procession leaves Congregation Beth Torah after a funeral for Sarah Milgrim, a staffer at the Israeli Embassy who was killed last week outside a Washington Jewish museum, Tuesday, May 27, 2025, in Overland Park, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Instead of an upcoming wedding, those close to Milgrim prepared to eulogize her at a private service Tuesday at Congregation Beth Torah in Overland Park, Kansas, the temple she attended through high school with her family.

Milgrim earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Kansas in 2021. She was remembered as a warm, uplifting presence at Shabbat dinners and holiday gatherings at the Chabad Center for Jewish Life on campus.

“She believed in connections, in building community and bringing people together,” Rabbi Zalman Tiechtel said in the days after her death. He also recalled that she “was filled with so much love.”

FILE – People gather to light candles in a makeshift memorial to honor Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim who were killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, during a candlelight vigil outside of the White House in Washington, Thursday, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)

After graduating, Milgrim worked at at a Tel Aviv-based organization centered on technology training and conflict dialogue for young Palestinians and Israelis, according to her LinkedIn profile. She had been trained in religious engagement and peacebuilding by the United States Institute of Peace, an organization that promotes conflict resolution and was created by the U.S. Congress.

After earning a master’s degree in international affairs from American University in 2023, she went to work at the Israeli Embassy, where her job involved organizing events and missions to Israel.

A vigil held in her hometown last week drew a standing-room only crowd, including her college roommate, Amanda Birger. Birger described Milgrim as an animal lover and a passionate advocate for the environment.

“She was very tactful about how she used her voice, which sometimes came off as cautious,” Birger said. “But when it looked like she wasn’t speaking up, it’s because she was trying to keep the peace.”

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Milgrim would have been teenager when her Kansas community was rocked by another deadly antisemitic attack in 2014. Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., an avowed anti-Semite and white supremacist, fatally shot three people at two Jewish sites in Overland Park in April of that year. At his trial, Miller openly stated that he targeted Jews for death — though none of his victims were Jewish. Miller was convicted in August 2015 and later sentenced to death.

Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, lauded Milgrim as a point person for her organization with women’s groups, LGBTQ communities and multi-faith groups.

“She accomplished so much in her short life, and she deserves to be remembered for all the things she brought to this world,” she said.

Before her work at the embassy, Milgrim was studying whether friendships between Arabs and Israelis could promote peace, Katz said.

“We knew something like this could happen,” she said. “I just don’t think we thought it would happen to her.”

By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — They were just playfighting.

That was French President Emmanuel Macron’s explanation Monday for video images that showed his wife, Brigitte, pushing her husband away with both hands on his face before they disembarked from their plane to start a tour of Southeast Asia this weekend.

The moment quickly made headlines in France, with media trying to decipher the interaction that cameras spotted through the just-opened door of the plane. The headline of a story on the website of the daily Le Parisien newspaper asked: “Slap or ‘squabble’? The images of Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron disembarking in Vietnam trigger a lot of comment.”

Macron later told reporters that the couple — married since 2007 after meeting at the high school where he was a student and she was a teacher — were simply joking around.

“We are squabbling and, rather, joking with my wife,” he said, adding that the incident was being overblown into “a sort of geo-planetary catastrophe.”

In video taken by The Associated Press as the Macrons arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Sunday, a uniformed man can be seen pulling open the plane door and revealing the president standing inside, dressed in a suit and talking to someone who wasn’t visible.

Brigitte Macron’s arms — in red — were seen reaching out and pushing Macron away, with one hand covering his mouth and part of his nose while the other was on his jaw. The French leader recoiled, turning his head away. Then, apparently realizing that he was on camera, he broke into a smile and gave a little wave.

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In subsequent images, Macron and his wife, wearing a red jacket, appeared at the top of the stairs. He offered an arm but she didn’t take it. They walked down the carpeted stairs side by side.

The French leader argued that the images and reaction to them offered a cautionary tale about disinformation in the social media age, noting that in recent weeks, other videos had been used to circulate made-up stories about him.

“Everyone needs to calm down,” he said.

His office also downplayed the interaction.

“It was a moment where the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by horsing around. It’s a moment of complicity. It was all that was needed to give ammunition to the conspiracy theorists,” his office said.

Brigitte Macron was Brigitte Auzière, a married mother of three children, when they met at his high school. A teacher, she supervised the drama club where Emmanuel Macron, a literature lover, was a member.

He moved to Paris for his last year of high school, but promised to marry Brigitte. She later moved to the French capital to join him and divorced before they finally married.