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Campaign signs posted outside the early voting site at The Center of Deltona in favor of and opposed to Amendment 4 on the Florida ballot. The amendment failed in the Sunshine State.
Hard Numbers: Most US abortion amendments pass, Butter bandits strike again, Trump’s victory spooks Canadian exporters, Trump gambles pay off
1,200: Smooth like butter, these criminals were. Police in Ontario are looking for two men who made off with $1,200 worth of the stuff from a grocery store in Brantford. As it happens, more than half a dozen butter capers have occurred over the past year, leading authorities to suspect that the conspiracy could be more widely spread than they initially suspected.
1.77: Donald Trump’s victory gave a boost to most stock markets around the world, as investors expect more market-friendly policy from the world’s largest economy. But one big exception was the stocks of Canadian natural resources producers that saw their market caps dip by 1.77% over the course of the day, owing to fears that the tariffs that Trump has promised could hurt the country’s exports.
450 million: A lot of people gambled on a Trump win this year, many of them literally. Online gambling sites now have about $450 million worth of payouts for people who placed actual wagers on his ability to come back to the White House. A single investor in Paris, known as the “Polymarket whale” placed at least $40 million on Trump, and now stands to take a payout double that amount.
Supreme Court will rule on abortion rights once again. What’s at stake now?
“The [abortion pill case] affects women across the country, it’s not state by state,” Bazelon stresses, “It’s the FDA’s authority to allow pills to be shipped everywhere and other rules that have made abortion pills more accessible for women in blue as well as red states.”
A group of doctors is challenging the Food and Drug Administration's authority to allow doctors to prescribe abortion pills without an in-person visit with a patient and for those pills to be sent through the mail. Bazelon explains that this group of plaintiffs is unusual in that they haven’t yet experienced direct harm from the FDA’s ruling, which you usually need to prove has happened before a case makes it all the way up to the highest court in the land. Four female justices are also on the bench this year, a historic high-water mark. Could that make a difference in the way justices rule on either case?
Catch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and online.
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An organizer carries a clipboard with petitions for a ballot initiative to enshrine abortion into the Arizona state constitution during a small rally led by Women's March Tucson after Arizona's Supreme Court revived a law dating to 1864 that bans abortion in virtually all instances, in Tucson, Arizona, U.S. April 9, 2024.
High stakes in Arizona abortion ban
On Wednesday, Arizona Republicans blocked attempts by Democrats to repeal an 1864 total abortion ban that the state’s supreme court reinstated on Tuesday. The court’s move means the state must revert to the 123-year-old law making abortions almost entirely illegal except when it is necessary to save a pregnant person’s life.
That ruling came a week after a pro-choice group obtained enough signatures to put an amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution on the ballot in November – all but ensuring that abortion, a major motivating issue for Democratic voters, will play a big role in how the swing state votes later this year.
It is also having political fallout beyond the Grand Canyon State with Democrats wasting no time rallying opposition to abortion restrictions. Polling shows it is an effective issue for Democrats, particularly among young voters, with whom Joe Biden has struggled to connect.
In the upcoming, razor-close election against Trump, the struggle for battleground states that will allow the winner to carry the electoral college is intense. Abortion ballot initiatives could give the Democrats a boost in the presidential election and down-ballot races, since it may drive turnout. The issue is largely credited for helping the Democrats outperform in the 2022 midterms.
Abortion will likely be on the ballot in the battleground states of Arizona and Florida. Voters in blue states New York and Maryland will also have the opportunity to vote on abortion initiatives, and Democrats are trying to get it on the ballot elsewhere, including Nevada, which is seen as a crucial swing state.
Like the dog that caught the car, Republicans now look to be in disarray on the issue, trapped between wanting to take credit for restricting abortion and fears of alienating moderates and not wanting to fuel Democratic momentum on the issue. Trump, who likes to take credit for the Supreme Court appointments that ended Roe v. Wade, now seems to sense his vulnerability on this issue. He said Wednesday he would not sign a national abortion ban, preferring to leave the matter to the states.
It’s an issue that may gain salience north of the border, where abortion rights advocates can be expected to warn against Conservative plans for Canada during the election to come.