By Makini Brice WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Democratic Senator Bob Menendez on Monday denied wrongdoing and vowed to stay in Congress

The day after the state’s Republican governor signed the ban into law, a judge in South Carolina has blocked a measure outlawing abortion at roughly six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion rights advocates and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit moments after Governor Henry McMaster announced his signature on the bill. South Carolina’s latest law – which could extend the sweeping restrictions and outright bans on abortion care across the entire US South, and threaten legal access to care for millions of Americans – is nearly identical to a bill that was blocked by the state Supreme Court last year. The decision on Friday means the state’s abortion regulations revert to previous rules that allow for abortion care up until about 20 weeks after after fertilization. “The status quo should be maintained until the Supreme Court reviews its decision,” Judge Clifton Newman said. “It’s going to end up there.” His decision on 26 May comes just four months after the state’s Supreme Court permanently struck down a similar measure, which the court determined ran afoul of the state’s constitution. Restrictions on abortion care “must be reasonable and it must be meaningful in that the time frames imposed must afford a woman sufficient time to determine she is pregnant and to take reasonable steps to terminate that pregnancy,” Justice Kaye Hearn wrote in the majority opinion on 5 January. More than a dozen states, mostly in the South, have outlawed most abortions or severely restricted access within the year after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which revoked a constitutional right to abortion care that was affirmed by the decision in Roe v Wade for nearly half a century. South Carolina remains the only state south of Virginia without severe restrictions or outright bans on abortion care past the 12th week of pregnancy. Most of those states have moved to ban abortion in nearly all cases with limited or no exceptions. Last year, lawmakers in South Carolina failed to adopt an anti-abortion law that would ban nearly all abortions in the state, but a six-week ban took effect shortly after the Supreme Court’s ruling on 24 June. In a statement following the governor’s signature on the latest six-week ban, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre lambasted Republican lawmakers who are “dismantling women’s rights across the South, putting their health and lives in jeopardy. “ South Carolina’s ban will cut off access to abortion for women in the state and those across the entire region for whom South Carolina is their closest option for care,” she added. This is a developing story Read More North Carolina Republicans approve 12-week abortion ban as sweeping restrictions spread across US South Senator who voted for anti-trans bill that passed by one vote admits she wasn’t paying attention From the Civil War to today's mattress sales, Memorial Day is full of contradiction GOP leaders in Kansas back off threat to sue Democratic governor over education funding DeSantis pushes past embarrassing campaign start, outlines travel schedule for early state visits

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Heavy weapons supplied by the west in the fierce battle raging outside Bakhmut are inflicting “hell” on Russian enemy lines, Ukraine has claimed. The claims come amid reports Kyiv’s army has broken through Russian lines in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to the general leading the southern counteroffensive. On Saturday, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov rubbished Ukraine’s 10 point peace plan and said the conflict would be resolved on the battlefield if the west stuck with it. He also dismissed the west as an “empire of lies” and said the latest U.N. proposals to revive the Black Sea grain initiative would not fly because they do not deliver on promises he says were made to Moscow. Lavrov spoke after a week of intense global diplomacy at the annual gathering of world leaders at U.N. headquarters in New York where Ukraine and its Western allies sought to drum up support for Kyiv as it fights against Russia’s invasion. Read More Why has Poland stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine? Biden pledges more support for Ukraine’s defence as he announces new arms package What are Abrams tanks and why is the US sending them to Ukraine? Zelensky gets standing ovation as he calls on Canada to ‘stay with’ Ukraine: ‘Moscow must lose’

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Former Congresswoman Liz Cheney spoke about the political test she faced in the immediate aftermath of January 6 during her address to graduates of Colorado College this weekend. Ms Cheney, once a member of Republican leadership and now a pariah in her own party, spoke to graduates on Sunday. She graduated from the school with a degree in political science in 1988. The ex-lawmaker has left open the possibility of running for office again in the future after her defeat in Wyoming’s GOP primary to now-Congresswoman Harriet Hageman last year. She has even hinted that she may run for president in 2024, setting herself up for a potential debate-stage clash with former President Donald Trump himself. “After the 2020 election and the attack of January 6th, my fellow Republicans wanted me to lie. They wanted me to say the 2020 election was stolen, the attack of January 6th wasn’t a big deal, and Donald Trump wasn’t dangerous,” she told students and families in her address Sunday, according to the Associated Press. “I had to choose between lying and losing my position in House leadership.” The former congresswoman also referenced recent comments by an adviser to Mr Trump, Cleta Mitchell, who recently told a Republican National Committee gathering that the GOP should work to make it harder for college students to vote, given the demographic’s progressive bent. The comments, Ms Cheney said, were an example of the Trump movement’s continued threat to American democracy. “Cleta Mitchell, an election denier and adviser to former President Trump, told a gathering of Republicans recently that it is crucially important to make sure that college students don’t vote,” Ms Cheney said. “Those who are trying to unravel the foundations of our republic, who are threatening the rule of law and the sanctity of our elections, know they can’t succeed if you vote.” She would be a longshot contender for the GOP nomination, given the Republican primary electorate’s continued support for Mr Trump. There’s little reason to suggest that any Cheney 2024 bid would end differently than her 2022 bid for re-election, where her refusal to support Mr Trump’s continued lies and conspiracies about his loss to Joe Biden cost her a seat in Congress. But she remains an active player on the national stage, maintaining her political profile, as she and other anti-Trump Republicans like Maryland’s Larry Hogan and New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu bide their time and hunt for openings and opportunities in a party that by and large no longer resembles them. Though Ms Cheney’s defeat marked a pattern of Trump rivals losing their races in 2022, the former president’s work to purge the GOP of his enemies was not without its own setbacks; in two key races in Georgia, where Mr Trump and his legal team sought to overturn the valid results of the 2020 election, the former president saw two Republican who had opposed those efforts, Gov Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, re-elected against his endorsement. Read More Trump says DeSantis to blame for Disney becoming ‘woke’ and ‘disgusting’ Trump's welcome of Scott into 2024 race shows his calculus: The more GOP rivals, the better for him Texas GOP attorney general Ken Paxton impeached by Republican-controlled Statehouse Donald Trump Jr shares doctored Office clip showing Ron DeSantis wearing a woman’s suit Kimberly Guilfoyle threatens DeSantis: ‘You’re going to get hurt, and damaged – badly’ Biden marks Memorial Day nearly 2 years after ending America's longest war, lauds troops' sacrifice

Fifty days into a strike, and about 1,000 Hollywood writers and their supporters have marched across Los Angeles for a new contract with studios that includes payment guarantees and job security

'Not ur mama's maternity bras...designed by @badgalriri, approved by baby RZA,' wrote Rihanna