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Wait times to get an abortion in Texas have grown in some metropolitan areas, a trend that could be felt statewide if the U.S. Supreme Court allows the strictest provision of the state’s 2013 abortion law to take effect. That's according to a new report by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project at the University of Texas at Austin. About half of Texas abortion clinics have closed their doors following the passage of House Bill 2, elements of which have been tangled up in court since lawmakers approved it. (Ura, 10/5)

The U.S. Supreme Court is back in session, and its upcoming term will feature at least two cases that have percolated up from Texas — on voting rights and affirmative action — and possibly a third if the justices end up hearing arguments over House Bill 2, the state's 2013 abortion law. (Rudner, 10/6)

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton on Monday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to turn away a legal challenge to the state's abortion restrictions filed by a coalition of abortion providers. The abortion providers appealed to the high court almost a month ago, and justices have not yet decided whether to hear the case. (Ura, 10/5)

Arkansas has filed its notice to appeal a decision from a federal judge that blocked the state from suspending Medicaid funding for three women who sued over the state’s cancellation of its contract with Planned Parenthood. (10/5)

Arkansas is fighting a federal judge’s decision that the state cannot defund Planned Parenthood by canceling its Medicaid contracts. The solicitor general of Arkansas announced Monday that he would appeal the judge’s ruling, which was handed down on Friday. The move escalates an ongoing national legal battle over allegations that Planned Parenthood has mishandled aborted fetal tissue. (Ferris, 10/5)

The Planned Parenthood clinic in Thousand Oaks reopened Monday after an arsonist set fire to the building last week. The West Hillcrest Drive facility had been closed since Wednesday, when an arsonist threw a stone into a window, then splashed gasoline inside and ignited it. The small fire was doused by the building's sprinkler system. (Rocha, 10/5)

Supporters of a controversial anti-abortion bill that has languished in the Ohio Senate for the better part of a year have started posting videos online that target individual senators they view as hypocrites. Their complaint: Republican lawmakers who say they are against abortion won't advance a bill that would ban abortion once a heartbeat has been detected in the fetus. (Higgs, 10/5)

[T]he largely symbolic [Planned Parenthood] fight betrays a pretty significant truth about the larger abortion debate. And that is this: Republicans have been winning this battle big-time at the state level...From 2011 to 2013, Republican-led state legislatures enacted more restrictions on abortion than in the entire previous decade. (Phillips, 10/5)