Tag: Texas

Reward offered as manhunt continues for Texas shooting suspect

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Investigators found clothes and a phone while combing a rural area that includes dense layers of forest, but tracking dogs lost the scent, Capers said. Authorities were able to identify Oropesa by an identity card issued by Mexican authorities to citizens who reside outside the country, as well as doorbell camera footage. He said police have also interviewed the suspect’s wife.
Police recovered the AR-15-style rifle that Oropesa allegedly used in the shootings but authorities were not sure if he was carrying another weapon, the sheriff said. There were other weapons in the suspect’s home, he said.
“He could be anywhere now,” Capers said on Saturday.
The attack happened near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say neighbors often unwind by firing off guns.
It was a much quieter scene Sunday. Police crime scene tape had been removed from around the victims’ home. Some people stopped by to leave flowers.
An FBI agent, several Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and other officers could be seen walking around the neighborhood, going door-to-door and trying to speak with neighbors. The agent and officers declined to comment about what they were doing.
As the troopers were speaking to residents at one house, a red truck pulling a travel trailer drove through the neighborhood. One trooper stopped the truck and asked the driver, “Mind if I take a look inside the truck?” The driver agreed and allowed the trooper to go inside the vehicle. After inspecting the trailer, the trooper let the driver continue on his way.
Veronica Pineda, 34, who lives across the street from the suspect’s home, said authorities asked if they could search her property to see if he might be hiding there.

“That’s good for them to do that,” said the mother of five, adding that she remained fearful because the gunman hasn’t yet been captured.
“It is kind of scary. You never know where he can be. I don’t think he will be here anymore,” she said.
She said she didn’t know Oropesa well but occasionally saw him, his wife and son ride their horses on the street and believes the family have lived there five or six years. Pineda said neighbors have called authorities in the past to complain about the firing of weapons.
The victims of Friday’s shooting were between the ages of 8 and 31 years old and all were believed to be from Honduras, Capers said. All were shot “from the neck up,” he said. A GoFundMe page was set up to repatriate the bodies of two victims, a mother and son, to their native country.
Enrique Reina, Honduras’ secretary of foreign affairs and international cooperation, said on Twitter that the Honduran Consulate in Houston was contacting the families in connection with the repatriation of remains as well as U.S. authorities to keep apprised of the investigation.
The suspect’s last name was originally given as Oropeza by authorities, but the FBI in Houston said in a Tweet on Sunday that it was now referring to him as Oropesa to “better reflect his identity in law enforcement systems.” The FBI said the case “remains a fluid investigation.”
The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.
Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.
A total of three children found covered in blood in the home were taken to a hospital but found to be uninjured, Capers said.
FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe those at the home were members of a single family. The victims were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8.
The confrontation came after the neighbors walked up to a fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. He said the suspect responded by telling them that it was his property. Doorbell video captured him walking up to the front door with a rifle.
The shooting took place on a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on 1-acre lots and are surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. A horse could be seen behind the victims’ home, while in the front yard of Oropesa’s house a dog and chickens wandered about.
Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think anything of it.
“It’s a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work,” Arevalo said. “They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 1, 2023
Search for Texas man wanted in mass shooting comes up empty

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Oropeza likely is still carrying the AR-15 he allegedly used in the shootings, the sheriff said.
“He could be anywhere now,” Capers said.
The attack happened near the town of Cleveland, north of Houston, on a street where some residents say neighbors often unwind by firing off guns.
Capers said the victims were between the ages of 8 and 31 years old and that all were believed to be from Honduras. All were shot “from the neck up,” he said.
The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.
The mass killings have played out in a variety of places — a Nashville school, a Kentucky bank, a Southern California dance hall, and now a rural Texas neighborhood inside a single-story home.
Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom had just moved there earlier in the week — but that that no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.
A total of three children found covered in blood in the home were taken to a hospital but found to be uninjured, Capers said.

FBI spokesperson Christina Garza said investigators do not believe everyone at the home were members of a single family. The victims were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8.
The confrontation followed the neighbors walking up to the fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. The suspect responded by telling them that it was his property, Capers said, and one person in the house got a video of the suspect walking up to the front door with the rifle.
The shooting took place on a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on wide 1-acre lots and are surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. A horse could be seen behind the victim’s home, while in the front yard of Oropeza’s house a dog and chickens wandered.
Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think anything of it.
“It’s a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work,” Arevalo said. “They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there.”
Capers said his deputies had been to Oropeza’s home at least once before and spoken with him about “shooting his gun in the yard.” It was not clear whether any action was taken at the time. At a news conference Saturday evening, the sheriff said firing a gun on your own property can be illegal, but he did not say whether Oropeza had previously broken the law.
Capers said the new arrivals in the home had moved from Houston earlier in the week, but he said he did not know whether they were planning to stay there.
Across the U.S. since Jan. 1, there have been at least 18 shootings that left four or more people dead, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. The violence is sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings; and workplace vendettas.
Texas has confronted multiple mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde; a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a gunman opening fire at a church in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.
Republican leaders in Texas have continually rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families whose children were killed in Uvalde.
A few months ago, Arevalo said Oropeza threatened to kill his dog after it got loose in the neighborhood and chased the pit bull in his truck.
“I tell my wife all the time, ‘Stay away from the neighbors. Don’t argue with them. You never know how they’re going to react,’” Arevalo said. “I tell her that because Texas is a state where you don’t know who has a gun and who is going to react that way.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 30, 2023
Biden DOJ wins transfer of lawsuit challenging student loan rule away from conservative Texas court

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Critics have accused conservative opponents of Biden policies of filing their lawsuits in particular divisions in the district, seeking to guarantee they’re heard by a sympathetic judge. The Biden administration, for example, has accused Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton of “judge shopping” in recent cases he’s filed in the district challenging various administration policies.
The lawsuit that Pittman agreed to transfer on Monday was brought by a for-profit college trade association that wants to block a new Biden administration policy that makes it easier for student loan borrowers to have their debts forgiven when they are misled or defrauded by their college.
Career Colleges & Schools of Texas, which filed the case in February, is trying to block the Education Department’s rewrite of federal standards — known as “borrower defense to repayment” — that govern when the agency discharges a student loan based on a college’s misconduct. The group argues that the policy, which is set to take effect July 1, is an illegal and unfair effort by the Biden administration to provide more loan forgiveness to borrowers while sticking colleges with the bill.
In a six-page decision, Pittman rejected arguments by the Austin-based association that it should be able to pursue the case in the Fort Worth division of the Northern District of Texas on behalf of member schools in that area that would be affected by the new policy even though the group itself doesn’t have any office or employees there.
Pittman ruled that connection to the district was too far removed. Career Colleges & Schools of Texas “may have an interest in assisting various burdened parties in the division, but it does not have any presence,” Pittman wrote, concluding that “venue is improper” in his district.
The Biden administration had asked that the case be moved either to Austin where the college group is based or federal district court in Washington, D.C. Pittman ruled that Austin would be the “more appropriate” venue because it still “affords some ‘respect’ to Plaintiff’s original choice of forum — even though it was an incorrect one.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. An attorney representing Career Colleges & Schools of Texas said that the organization would not comment on pending litigation.
The Northern District of Texas is widely seen a one of the nation’s most conservative with GOP appointed judges who have demonstrated a willingness to strike down major Democratic policies.

Pittman, for example, was the judge who first blocked Biden’s sweeping student debt relief program last fall. His colleague Judge Reed O’Connor is a George W. Bush appointee who notably struck down the Affordable Care Act in 2018.
More recently, another judge in the district, Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee, authored the controversial ruling earlier this month that overturned the Food and Drug Administration’s decades-old approval of a common abortion pill. That decision is on pause while the Supreme Court hears an emergency appeal.
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 18, 2023
Democrats are prepping an amicus brief asking for an appeals court to stay a Texas court’s ruling suspending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone.

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The effort is being led by Democratic leaders in both chambers.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 10, 2023
Ignore the courts? Some Democrats say Texas abortion pill ruling demands it.

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Now, senators, representatives, state officials and advocacy groups are calling on President Joe Biden to defy the U.S. District Court judge and use his executive powers to protect the drugs’ availability even before the case is heard by the conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I believe the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to ignore this ruling, which is why I’m again calling on President Biden and the FDA to do just that,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said Friday. “The FDA, doctors, and pharmacies can and must go about their jobs like nothing has changed and keep mifepristone accessible to women across America. If they don’t, the consequences of banning the most common method of abortion in every single state will be devastating.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) backed Wyden’s call in a CNN interview Friday, arguing that the “deeply partisan and unfounded nature” of the court’s decision undermines its own legitimacy and the White House should “ignore” it.
But the Biden administration is afraid any public defiance of the Friday-night ruling could hurt its position while the case moves through the appeals process.
A person who is advising the White House on legal strategy, granted anonymity to discuss the ongoing litigation, said administration officials think it would be “premature” and “pretty risky” to take the step Wyden is calling for, because it’s possible a higher court would reverse the decision by Texas U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmayrk.
“They’re able to present themselves right now as the adults in the room who care about the rule of law,” the person said. “But that posture would come under pressure if they jumped out of the gate and said they wouldn’t abide by the ruling.”
The person added that the White House sees limited benefit in publicly defying the court’s ruling at this juncture for three reasons:
First, ignoring a lower court ruling stripping FDA approval of the pills wouldn’t stop GOP-controlled states from imposing their own restrictions and prosecuting those who violate them. Second, a future Republican president could reverse any decision on enforcement discretion and choose to aggressively prosecute those who sell or prescribe the pills. And third, even in the short term, the president defying the court could leave doctors across the country afraid to dispense the pills.

“It’s a very, very loose Band Aid that wouldn’t actually ensure access to medication abortion,” the person said. “And when you have another option on the table like the appeals process, it’s a pretty risky strategy.”
Additionally, the person said, because the Texas judge put his ruling on hold for one week to give the Biden administration time to appeal, the pills can still be legally prescribed in much of the country, limiting the urgency to take such a drastic action.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told reporters on a call Saturday that while she is sympathetic to Wyden’s position, she doesn’t endorse anything that could jeopardize the administration’s fight to overturn the district court ruling.
“I get the sentiment, because this is a truly infuriating situation,” she said. “This outrageous decision had nothing to do with the facts or science or the law. But the key thing that needs to happen right now is making sure this decision is quickly appealed and reversed in court.”
Murray and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday signaled their intent to use the decision to mobilize their base in the 2024 elections — arguing that flipping the House and passing a law restoring Roe v. Wade is the best path to achieving more permanent protections for the pills than whatever temporary protections the Biden administration could offer through executive actions.
“This battle is going to be fought with public opinion and with our votes at the ballot box, from here until we move forward in 2024,” Murray said.
Schumer suggested Democrats will force votes in Senate in the coming months that “put Republicans on the record” on the issue.
“The American people will see for themselves the stark contrast between Democrats who are relentlessly fighting for women’s rights, to make decisions about their own bodies and MAGA Republicans who will stop at virtually nothing to enact a national abortion ban with no exceptions,” Schumer told reporters on Saturday.
Biden himself appeared to endorse this strategy in the hours after the ruling, saying in a statement that while the administration was appealing the case, “The only way to stop those who are committed to taking away women’s rights and freedoms in every state is to elect a Congress who will pass a law restoring Roe versus Wade.”
Even some abortion-rights leaders who have previously criticized the Biden administration for not doing enough to protect access say they support the wait-and-see strategy given the current judicial threats to the pills.
“They do tend to be cautious,” NARAL President Mini Timmaraju told POLITICO. “But with stakes like this, with these courts, they should be. They’re the defendant. We want them to be careful. Also, it has served them well in the past. So I feel confident the administration is doing what they need to do.”
Some legal experts are also warning the administration against defying the decision this early in the process, saying doing so could create a precedent that gives future presidents cover to ignore “future orders that would be more firmly rooted in the law.”
“It would not be advisable for the FDA to disregard a court order even if they believe it’s wrong,” said Joanne Rosen, an attorney and senior lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “They could appeal. They could re-initiate the approval process of mifepristone all over again to get it back on the market.”
Yet others in the legal community are urging the administration to play hardball, arguing that the FDA was given enforcement discretion by Congress and previous court rulings and the agency should use those to the fullest extent if it is ultimately ordered to rescind its approval of abortion pills.
Those in this camp are pointing to another court ruling Friday night out of Washington State ordering the FDA to maintain the status quo for abortion pills and forbidding the agency from rolling back access in the dozen blue states that brought the challenge. Those clashing decisions, they say, give the Biden administration cover to maintain access to the drugs in defiance of the Texas court if that ruling stands.
“These are not radical,” said David S. Cohen, a professor at the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law. “These are real strategies within the law.”
Other Senate Democrats, anticipating this ruling, have called on the Biden administration to “use every legal and regulatory tool in its power” to keep abortion pills on the market. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) recently petitioned the White House to use “any existing authorities, such as enforcement discretion, to allow mifepristone to remain available.
“FDA has previously used its authority to protect patients’ access to treatment and could do so again,” they wrote.
Timmaraju sees the mounting pressure from Democratic officials to ignore the court ruling as meaningful — even if they don’t ultimately goad the Biden administration into sweeping action.
“The senators are doing their jobs — it’s their job to push the White House and agencies like the FDA,” she said. “We need lawmakers from blue states getting out there and calling public attention to this case and raising awareness. For us, the biggest point people need to understand is that there is no state that is safe from these tactics.”
Adam Cancryn contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 8, 2023
7 questions from the Texas ruling on abortion pills

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What are abortion pills and why are they important?
The FDA first approved Mifeprex in 2000 and mifepristone, a generic version, in 2019. The drug, which blocks a hormone called progesterone needed for a viable pregnancy, is usually taken in combination with a medicine called misoprostol to end a pregnancy during the first 10 weeks. Numerous studies have found the pills to be safe and effective.
Republican lawmakers have outlawed most abortions in about a quarter of the country in the nine months since Roe v. Wade was overturned, often threatening doctors who perform abortions with jail. But a recent FDA decision, allowing the pills to be mailed and taken at home, offered a way around some of those laws and made the pills a prime target for anti-abortion advocates and conservative lawmakers.
Can I still obtain abortion pills?
Yes. U.S. District Court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, delayed the effect of his ruling for one week, and the Biden administration on Friday appealed the decision.
What was this case really about?
The most important implications of this ruling have to do with abortion. But the legal arguments centered on procedure and whether mifepristone received proper scrutiny from the FDA more than two decades ago.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that brought the case on behalf of providers who oppose abortion, argued that the FDA went beyond its authority when it approved the medication. Their lawyers also argued that a 19th century anti-obscenity law, the Comstock Act, prohibits the mailing of any medication used for abortion.
What did the judge say?
Kacsmaryk ruled that both the initial approval of the pills in 2000 and a more recent decision to allow them to be prescribed via telemedicine were unlawful.
“The Court does not second-guess FDA’s decision-making lightly,” he wrote. “But here, FDA acquiesced on its legitimate safety concerns — in violation of its statutory duty — based on plainly unsound reasoning and studies that did not support its conclusions. There is also evidence indicating FDA faced significant political pressure to forego its proposed safety precautions to better advance the political objective of increased ‘access’ to chemical abortion — which was the ‘whole idea of mifepristone.’”
The judge also agreed that mailing the pills likely violates the Comstock Act, writing the plaintiffs have a “substantial likelihood of prevailing on their claim that defendants’ decision to allow the dispensing of chemical abortion drugs through mail violates unambiguous federal criminal law.”

Why did the judge allow this to happen 23 years after a medicine was approved?
“Simply put, FDA stonewalled judicial review — until now,” Kacsmaryk wrote in his ruling. “Before Plaintiffs filed this case, FDA ignored their petitions for over sixteen years, even though the law requires an agency response within ‘180 days of receipt of the petition.’ … Had FDA responded to Plaintiffs’ petitions within the 360 total days allotted, this case would have been in federal court decades earlier. Instead, FDA postponed and procrastinated for nearly 6,000 days.”
How can a federal judge in Amarillo, Texas, prohibit access in blue states like California and New York?
Kacsmaryk issued a nationwide injunction, meaning the ruling will take effect across the country in a week unless a higher court issues a stay. These types of rulings have become increasingly common over the last 20 years, and judges have used them to halt former President Barack Obama’s plan to offer quasi-legal status to certain undocumented immigrants and former President Donald Trump’s ban on travelers from certain countries. The Department of Justice during the Bush, Obama and Trump administrations, argued that nationwide injunctions are overused and “inconsistent with constitutional limitations on judicial power.”
What will happen next?
The Department of Justice quickly appealed the ruling Friday night to conservative-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Kacsmaryk’s ruling came out the same day as a federal judge in Washington state ruled that the FDA is placing overly burdensome regulations on mifepristone. This will also likely be appealed to the more liberal-leaning 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco and possibly set up dueling circuit court rulings, teeing up a case over abortion pills for the Supreme Court.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 8, 2023
Texas judge halts FDA approval of abortion pill

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Meanwhile, a Washington State federal judge issued a conflicting order Friday night that blocks the FDA from rolling back access to the pills in the dozen blue states that brought the lawsuit.
The ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Thomas O. Rice, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, clashes with Kacsmaryk’s in that it orders the FDA to maintain the status quo, raising the likelihood that the issue could go before the Supreme Court.
Kacsmaryk’s decision, for its part, is a sweeping endorsement of arguments brought by anti-abortion groups and disputed by the government and major medical groups that the FDA failed to adequately consider the safety risks of the pills.
Hitting back at arguments that it was inappropriate to allow a challenge to a medication that have been approved for decades, he also wrote that “the FDA stonewalled judicial review” and “ignored” petitions from anti-abortion organizations to revisit the pill’s approval.
The judge’s decision includes language commonly used by anti-abortion advocates, describing the intent of the pill as one “to kill the unborn human,” referring to abortion providers as “abortionists,” and describing the “intense psychological trauma” of people who use the pills and then see “the remains of their aborted children.”
Roughly a quarter of states have banned nearly all abortions in the eight months since Roe v. Wade was overturned but this decision has the potential to affect pregnant people across the country — including in Democratic-controlled states that have prioritized abortion access.
The pills, which the FDA approved for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy more than two decades ago, recently became the most common method of abortion in the United States, and a way many people have circumvented state bans since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last June.
Both abortion-rights supporters and opponents have focused intensely on the pills in recent months — leading to clashes in state legislatures, regulatory agencies and the courts.

‘A dangerous precedent’
The Justice Department quickly appealed the case to the right-leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday night, and top members of the Biden administration said that defending the FDA’s authority and maintaining access to the pills is a top priority.
“If this ruling were to stand, then there will be virtually no prescription, approved by the FDA, that would be safe from these kinds of political, ideological attacks,” President Joe Biden said in a statement Friday night, referencing widespread concerns among medical providers that the decision would spur other legal challenges to long-approved medications, including vaccines and contraception. “My Administration will fight this ruling.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland also weighed in Friday evening, saying that while the Justice Department “strongly disagrees” with the Texas decision and is appealing it, the DOJ is still reviewing the Washington State ruling. In both cases, he stressed, the administration “is committed to protecting Americans’ access to legal reproductive care.”
The anti-abortion groups that brought the challenge, meanwhile, cheered Kacsmaryk’s ruling Friday night, calling it a “significant victory” and insisting on a call with reporters that if higher courts don’t intervene over the next week, the two pharmaceutical companies that make the pills “should cease production of this drug.”
Erik Baptist, a senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, who argued the case in Texas on behalf of anti-abortion medical groups, declined to comment on the ruling out of Washington State that protects access to the drugs, but said the issue “may be inevitably going to the Supreme Court.”
Baptist also pushed back on accusations that his organization engaged in “judge shopping” by filing the case where the group knew it would come before Kacsmaryk who — before being confirmed to the federal bench in 2019 — was an attorney for the First Liberty Institute, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group. He argued that some of the doctors he represented in the case are based in Amarillo, Texas, and have recently been impacted by the pills by having to divert resources to patients who took them and needed follow-up care.
At oral arguments in the case in March, the anti-abortion medical groups and individual doctors Baptist represented claimed that the FDA erred in its approval of the drug and didn’t adequately consider its safety risks — a position Kacsmaryk cited in his ruling.
“The adverse events from chemical abortion drugs can overwhelm the medical system and consume crucial limited medical resources, including blood for transfusions, physician time and attention, space in hospitals and medical centers, and other equipment and medicines,” the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists, Christian Medical & Dental Associations and other organizations claimed in their suit. “The more patients suffering emergency complications from chemical abortion drugs or seeking to reverse the effects of the drug regimen, the less time and attention Plaintiff doctors have to treat their other patients.”
The Justice Department asked Kacsmaryk to dismiss the case, saying the doctors and medical groups have no standing and are attempting to “upend [the FDA’s] longstanding scientific determination based on speculative allegations of harm.” The DOJ also argued that the groups are well past the statute of limitations for challenging the 2000 approval of the pills, saying they can only legally go after the more recent agency actions that have loosened restrictions on how patients obtain them.
The 2021 and 2023 rule changes that allowed patients with a prescription to receive the pills by mail and pick them up at retail pharmacies were based on “multiple studies that showed that administration of the drug was associated with exceedingly low rates of serious adverse events,” DOJ argued to the court. The FDA first allowed telemedicine prescription of the pills just for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic and later moved to make the rules permanent based on new safety data.
Danco, the maker of the drug, has also intervened as a party in the case, arguing that the suit threatens “the company’s economic health.” The company said it would immediately appeal the ruling, calling it “a dark day for public health.”
Democratic state attorneys general joined forces with the Biden administration in the Texas case but a dozen of them faced off with government lawyers for the FDA in the Washington State case, arguing that the remaining federal restrictions on the pills are unsupported by science and hamper states’ ability to care for patients who need the medication.
Washington’s Bob Ferguson and Oregon’s Ellen Rosenblum co-led the lawsuit, joined by the Democratic attorneys general representing Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Judge Rice has not yet ruled on their challenge of the REMS — or Risk Evaluation & Mitigation Strategies — that the FDA places on a narrow class of drugs, including requirements that patients sign a “Patient Agreement Form” acknowledging the risks of the medication and that health care providers who prescribe the drug first obtain certification and prove they can accurately date pregnancies, diagnose ectopic pregnancies and provide or arrange for a follow-up care if needed.
Potential impact of Texas ruling
If the ban ordered by Kacsmaryk ultimately takes effect, some parts of the country could be hit particularly hard. An analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights think tank, found that abortion clinics in 2 percent of U.S. counties only offer abortion pills and don’t have a procedural option. Some of the states set to be most impacted — including Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Mexico — are serving their own residents and a large influx of patients from neighboring states with more restrictions. Guttmacher estimates the decision could impede access for at least 2.4 million people.
Some abortion providers have announced that they plan to pivot to prescribing just the second pill in the two-pill regimen — misoprostol — in the event that mifepristone is banned. The drug is subject to fewer restrictions because it’s used for many non-abortion purposes, including treating stomach ulcers. Misoprostol-only abortions are also common in other countries, but they have a slightly higher rate of patients requiring follow-up surgery to complete the abortion than the two pills used together.
“We’ve been preparing for the last few weeks, putting together updated policies and procedures that will go into effect should the ruling make mifepristone unavailable,” Ashley Brink, the director of the Trust Women abortion clinic in Wichita, Kansas, told reporters in February. “We’ve held trainings for our doctors on how to counsel patients on what to expect and we’ve met with our attorneys about our legal exposure.”
“However,” she stressed, “not every clinic may be able to pivot as quickly to a misoprostol-only protocol.”
If the decision banning mifepristone is allowed to stand, the FDA could move to approve it again if it receives a new application from the pharmaceutical company — a process that could take months if not years.
Abortion-rights advocacy groups also warn the decision could open the door to a wide range of ideologically motivated challenges to anything from birth control to vaccines.
“It basically puts at risk people’s access to medication that they rely on,” Carrie Flaxman, an attorney for Planned Parenthood, said in an interview. “This would allow anyone to come back decades later and claim a medication is unsafe.”
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 8, 2023
DOJ reaches $144.5M tentative settlement over 2017 Texas mass shooting

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Devin Patrick Kelley, a former Air Force service member, opened fire during a Sunday service at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs in November 2017. The shooter died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“No words or amount of money can diminish the immense tragedy of the mass shooting in Sutherland Springs,” Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said in a press release. “Today’s announcement brings the litigation to a close, ending a painful chapter for the victims of this unthinkable crime.”
The tentative settlements will resolve claims by more than 75 plaintiffs arising out of the shooting, DOJ said.
DOJ reached a $127.5 million settlement with the victims of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in 2018 and a $88 million settlement to the families of those killed in the South Carolina church shooting in 2015.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023
Texas judge strikes down free HIV drugs, cancer screenings under Obamacare

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The employers and individuals had standing to sue, O’Connor wrote, because “compulsory coverage for those services violates their religious beliefs by making them complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior, drug use, and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman.”
The employers argued that recommendations made by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force can’t be enforced because its members are private medical experts who advise the government, not government employees.
“The Appointments Clause says major policy decisions have to be made by an ‘officer of the United States,’ and can’t be made by just somebody off the street,” explained Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan whose research focuses on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
Judge O’Connor agreed, in part, but did not grant two other requests — one based on religious rights and another based on secular cost concerns — to block the ACA’s contraception mandate. The challengers have said they plan to appeal that decision.
The decision also does not affect access to free vaccines, which are covered under a different piece of the law.
The ruling comes four years after the same judge found all of Obamacare unconstitutional, a decision that was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. It is also the latest salvo in a years-long fight by conservatives to undo the former president’s signature health law by chipping away at its requirements.
The Biden administration, which is expected to appeal to the conservative leaning 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, made several arguments in defense of the landmark health reform law that the judge dismissed, including that the accessibility of PrEP and other sexual health preventive services is key to the fight against the spread of HIV, particularly after the country lost ground on testing and treating patients during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Though he acknowledged that there is a “compelling government interest in inhibiting the spread of a potentially fatal infectious disease like HIV,” O’Connor said the government does not have to compel private insurance companies to cover drugs like PrEP in order to achieve its public health aims.

O’Connor also rejected the DOJ’s argument that the challengers can’t prove they were harmed by the preventive care mandate and thus don’t have standing to sue.
The decision notes that when Biden administration attorneys asked the challengers how much more the coverage of preventive services increased their insurance premiums, “Plaintiffs responded that they could not quantify the increased costs, but that they knew their premiums had become too expensive to afford.”
O’Connor had already sided with the challengers on preventive care and PrEP in September, but had not said whether his ruling would apply only to the people suing, to everyone in Texas, or nationwide, and requested a further briefing. O’Connor ultimately granted the pleas for a “universal” ruling, potentially upending the national insurance market.
While 15 states require insurance companies to cover these types of preventive services regardless of federal law, those rules don’t apply to self-insured employer plans, which cover most people who have private insurance.
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that the Justice and Health Departments are reviewing the decision and said the administration sees it “yet another attack on the Affordable Care Act” and “yet another attack on the ability of Americans to make their own health care choices.”
Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill pleaded with the administration to swiftly appeal what they called a “reckless decision,” warning that it “will put lives at risk if people are forced to forgo routine screenings and treatment.”
“I am also calling on all health care insurers to commit to continuing to cover all preventive services without cost-sharing while this case is litigated and until final disposition of the lawsuit,” said Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) ranking member of the Energy and Commerce committee.
Health insurance experts say that while the ruling is unlikely to have an immediate effect, patients could be deterred from seeking out services for fear of being hit with a medical bill.
“Most insurance plans are locked in through the end of the year and thus the impacts would not be felt immediately, but that doesn’t apply universally,” cautioned Bagley. “There’s a ton of uncertainty.”
Congress, he added, could easily rectify the situation with a one-line bill saying: “Whatever the USPTF recommends has to be covered, subject to approval by the HHS Secretary.” But prospects for passage are grim with the House currently under GOP control.
The case could ultimately reach the Supreme Court, which has upheld the Affordable Care Act multiple times but chipped away at significant portions of the law, including its contraception coverage requirements and Medicaid expansion.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 30, 2023
Trump all set to hold presidential campaign rally in Texas

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Texas: Former US President Donald Trump is all set to hold his Presidential campaign rally on Saturday in Waco, Texas, amid the multiple criminal probes going on which threaten his bid for the White House, CNN reported.
The rally at the Waco Regional Airport is very significant for Trump as he sees his chance to return to the White House as the Republican field for the 2024 presidential race begins to take shape.
Currently, Trump is facing investigations over a hush money payment, Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith over classified documents the FBI found at Mar-A-Lago, his attempts to steal the 2020 election and his role on January 6, 2021, insurrection.
In recent days, the former president has made increasingly bellicose remarks about those probes, including predicting last week his own indictment and arrest in Manhattan – something that has not come to pass — and urging supporters to protest, according to CNN.
Earlier, on Friday, raging against Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg on his Truth Social social media platform Friday, Trump said criminal charges could lead to “potential death and destruction” and “could be catastrophic for our Country.”
“PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT!,” Trump said in another post.
On Thursday, he said Bragg “would rather indict an innocent man and create years of hatred, chaos, and turmoil, than give him his well deserved ‘freedom.’ The whole Country sees what is going on, and they’re not going to take it anymore. They’ve had enough!” as per a report in CNN.
Last week, Trump claimed “he will be arrested on Tuesday” next week as part of a yearlong investigation into a hush-money scheme. He also asked his supporters to protest the move, reported CNN.

“THE FAR & AWAY LEADING REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE & FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, WILL BE ARRESTED ON TUESDAY OF NEXT WEEK. PROTEST, TAKE OUR NATION BACK!,” he thundered in an all-caps message to his followers on Truth Social, his social media platform on Saturday (local time).
According to CNN, meetings have been going on throughout the week between the city, state and federal law enforcement agencies in New York City about how to prepare for a possible indictment of Trump in connection with a yearlong investigation into a hush-money scheme involving adult film actor Stormy Daniels.
Any indictment of the former President, who is running for re-election in 2024, would mark a historic first and quickly change the political conversation around an already divisive figure. While Trump has an extensive history of civil litigation both before and after taking office, a criminal charge would represent a dramatic escalation of his legal woes as he works to recapture the White House.
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#Trump #set #hold #presidential #campaign #rally #Texas
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 25, 2023