Â鶹ŮÓÅ

Abortions have increased 6% in California since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to a new national study released Tuesday. ... The new study outlines in stark detail how the United States has become a two-tiered world when it comes to abortion access after the June 2022 Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that rescinded the constitutional right to obtain the procedure and left regulation up to individual states. (Garofoli, 10/25)

Tennessee’s top legal chief says the federal government is wrongly withholding millions of dollars in family planning funds after the state refused to comply with federal rules requiring clinics to provide abortion referrals due to its current ban on the procedure. Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Knoxville earlier this week seeking to overturn the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decision. (Kruesi, 10/25)

About 125 miles of empty roads, forgotten small towns and cattle ranches separate Lubbock from its northern counterpart, Amarillo. The two biggest cities in the Texas High Plains share some similarities — they’re both majority conservative, reside in the far flung parts of the state, and share a focus on reviving their downtown areas. But they now have one striking difference: Lubbock County officials approved a legally dubious ban on people driving through their jurisdiction on the way out of the state to get an abortion. Amarillo city leaders did not — at least for now. (Carver, 10/25)

New data suggests that a looming six-week abortion ban in Florida — the nation’s third-most populous state — could cut the number of procedures performed there in half. The analysis released Tuesday, conducted by the Society of Family Planning, was the fourth installment in a series of reports tracking the impact of overturning Roe v. Wade. Researchers tracked abortions performed at clinics across the country in the year following the Supreme Court’s June 2022 ruling that allowed states to ban abortion if they chose. (Luthra, 10/25)

Florida Senate Democrat Leader Lauren Book has introduced two bills seeking to regulate crisis pregnancy centers and safeguard clinics that provide abortions. Crisis pregnancy centers are typically operated by anti-abortion groups and are not licensed by the state. That’s what Book’s first bill, SB 256, is aiming to change. (Majchrowicz, 10/25)

A month after the U.S. Supreme Court voided the constitutional right to abortion in 2022, Starbucks told workers trying to unionize in Wisconsin that they risked losing coverage of travel costs for the procedure. The coffee giant's threat to deny the benefit — Starbucks was among the first to add travel costs for the procedure to employee perks after the high court's leaked ruling — is among more than two dozen violations of federal labor law by Starbucks in its nearly two-year battle with unionizing workers, according to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). (Gibson, 10/25)

Senators are exploring a proposal that could unstick Tommy Tuberville’s military blockade — if it can pass the Senate. Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) and others are working on a resolution that would allow military promotions to move en bloc, according to a person familiar with the matter. It could be introduced sometime this month, though the timing remains fluid as senators in both parties try to find some way around Tuberville’s move to slow down military promotions in a protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policies. (Gould, O'Brien and Everett, 10/25)