By LINDSAY WHITEHURST

WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided Supreme Court allowed states to cut off Medicaid money to Planned Parenthood in a ruling handed down Thursday amid a wider Republican-backed push to defund the country’s biggest abortion provider.

The case centers on funding for other health care services Planned Parenthood provides in South Carolina, but the ruling could have broader implications for Medicaid patients.

The court split 6-3 in the opinion, with the three liberal justices dissenting.

Public health care money generally can’t be used to pay for abortions. Medicaid patients go to Planned Parenthood for things like contraception, cancer screenings and pregnancy testing, in part because it can be tough to find a doctor who takes the publicly funded insurance, the organization has said.

South Carolina’s Republican governor says no taxpayer money should go the organization. The budget bill backed by President Donald Trump in Congress would also cut Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood. That could force the closure of about 200 centers, most of them in states where abortion is legal, the organization has said.

Gov. Henry McMaster first moved to cut off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood in 2018 but was blocked in court after a lawsuit from a patient named Julie Edwards. Edwards wanted to keep going there for birth control because her diabetes makes pregnancy potentially dangerous, so she sued over a provision in Medicaid law that allows patients to choose their own qualified provider.

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South Carolina, though, argued that patients shouldn’t be able to file those lawsuits. The state pointed to lower courts that have been swayed by similar arguments and allowed states such as Texas to block Medicaid funding from Planned Parenthood.

Public health groups like the American Cancer Society, by contrast, said in court papers that lawsuits are the only real way that Medicaid patients have been able to enforce their right to choose their own doctor. Losing that right would reduce access to health care for people on the program, which is estimated to include one-quarter of everyone in the country. Rural areas could be especially affected, advocates said in court papers.

In South Carolina, $90,000 in Medicaid funding goes to Planned Parenthood every year, a tiny fraction of the state’s total Medicaid spending. The state banned abortion at about six weeks’ gestation after the high court overturned it as a nationwide right in 2022.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

By LISA MASCARO, AP Congressional Correspondent

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a key Medicaid provider tax overhaul that is central to President Donald Trump’s big tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to procedural rules, delivering a crucial blow to Republicans rushing to finish the massive package this week.

The guidance Thursday from the parliamentarian is rarely ignored, and it forces GOP leaders to consider options. Senate leaders could try to revise it or strip it from the package. Otherwise, the provision could be challenged during floor votes, requiring a 60-vote threshold to keep it, a tall order in the narrowly split Senate. Democrats are unified against the Republican president’s bill.

Republican leaders are relying on the provider tax change to save billions of dollars from the Medicaid health care program for the massive tax cuts package. But they had been struggling to rally support because several GOP senators warn it would harm rural hospitals who depend on the funds.

The outcome is a setback as Senate Republicans hoped to launch votes on the package by the end of the week, to meet Trump’s Fourth of July deadline for passage.

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By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is drifting toward the brink of another record.

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The S&P 500 was 0.4% higher in early trading and just 0.5% below its all-time high, which was set in February. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 207 points, or 0.5%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% higher.

McCormick, the seller of cooking spices, helped lead the way and rallied 5.3% after delivering a better-than-expected profit report. The company also gave a forecast for profit over its full fiscal year that topped analysts’ expectations, including planned efforts to offset increased costs caused by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Over the longer term, it’s been big technology stocks that have led the market for years and since the S&P 500 fell roughly 20% below its record during the spring on worries about tariffs.

Micron Technology, which sells computer memory and data storage, rose 0.3% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said it’s seeing growing memory demand driven by artificial intelligence, and the company gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that topped analysts’ expectations.

Chip company Nvidia, which has been the poster child of the AI frenzy, added 0.5% to bring its gain for the year to 15.3%. It’s the most valuable company in the U.S. stock market.

Wall Street’s worries about Trump’s tariffs have receded since the president shocked the world in April with stiff proposed levies, but they have not disappeared. The wait is still on to see how big the tariffs will ultimately be, how much they will hurt the economy and how much they will push up inflation.

The economy so far seems to be holding up OK, and more reports arrived on Thursday bolstering that. One said that orders for washing machines and other manufactured goods that last at least three years grew by more last month than economists expected. A second said fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, a signal of fewer layoffs.

A third report said the U.S. economy shrank by more during the first three months of 2025 than earlier estimated. But many economists say those numbers got distorted by how many U.S. companies rushed early this year to buy foreign products ahead of tariffs, and they’re expecting better growth in upcoming months.

Following the reports, Treasury yields swiveled up and down in the bond market, but they ultimately did not move very much.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.26% from 4.29% late Wednesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do, edged down to 3.73% from 3.74%.

Analysts said yields may be feeling downward pressure because of a report from The Wall Street Journal saying Trump could name his nominee to replace Fed Chair Jerome Powell unusually early, in an attempt to undermine him.

Powell has been repeating recently that the Federal Reserve is waiting to see how tariffs will affect the economy before deciding when to resume cutting interest rates. It has been on pause this year because lower rates can help give inflation more fuel, along with giving the economy a boost.

Trump, though, has been adamant about wanting cuts to rates sooner and has insulted Powell repeatedly. Two of his appointees to the Fed have also said recently that they would consider cutting rates as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in about a month.

“Yields fell, the dollar weakened, and break evens rose, all suggesting that a puppet of the White House in the seat of the Chair could be bad for inflation,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. But Jacobsen said decisions on interest rates would still rest with a committee of Fed officials, not just the chair, and other officials could possibly keep the new leader “in check if needed.”

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across much of Europe and Asia.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.6%, and South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.9% for two of the bigger moves.

In the oil market, which has been the center of much of this week’s action, crude prices made up a bit more ground after plunging by roughly $10 per barrel earlier this week. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 1% to $65.55, though it still remains below where it was when Israel’s war with Iran began.

AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

LONDON (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the country is pulling its support from the vaccines alliance Gavi, saying the organization has “ignored the science” and “lost the public trust.”

A video of Kennedy’s speech was shown to participants at a Gavi meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, where the vaccines group was hoping to raise at least $9 billion for the next five years.

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Gavi is a public-private partnership including WHO, UNICEF, the Gates Foundation and the World Bank. It has paid for more than 1 billion children to be vaccinated through routine immunization programs, saving an estimated 18 million lives. The United States has long been one of its biggest supporters; before Donald Trump’s re-election, the country had pledged $1 billion through 2030.

Kennedy called on Gavi “to re-earn the public trust and to justify the $8 billion America has provided in funding since 2001,” saying officials must “consider the best science available, even when that science contradicts established paradigms.” Kennedy said until that happens, the U.S. won’t contribute further to Gavi.

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, said he and President Trump were concerned about how Gavi and the World Health Organization partnered together during the COVID-19 pandemic to work with social media companies “to silence dissenting views, to stifle free speech and legitimate questions” during a time when many people had questions about vaccine safety.

Kennedy said Gavi continues to make “questionable recommendations,” like advising pregnant women to get immunized against COVID-19 and funding the roll-out of a vaccine against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis in poorer countries.

WHO and other health authorities have recommended pregnant women get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying they are at higher risk of severe disease.

Kennedy said he has seen research that concluded that young girls vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis were more likely to die from all other causes than children who weren’t immunized.

Some observational studies have shown that vaccinated girls do have a higher death rate compared to unvaccinated children, but there is no evidence the deaths are caused by the vaccine.

Gavi said in a statement Thursday that its “utmost concern is the health and safety of children.” The organization said any decision it makes on vaccines to buy is done in accordance with recommendations issued by WHO’s expert vaccine group.

“This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities,” it said. Gavi said scientists had reviewed all available data, including any studies that raised concerns, and that the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine has “played a key role in helping halve childhood mortality.”

The British government said Wednesday it would give 1.25 billion pounds ($1.7 billion) between 2026 and 2030 to Gavi. It said the money would help Gavi protect up to 500 million children in some of the world’s poorest countries from diseases including meningitis, cholera and measles.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.