NC legislators want 20-week abortion ban to be restored
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Republican legislative leaders want Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein to ask a federal court to restore a state law banning nearly all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Senate leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore wrote to Stein on Friday following the U.S. Supreme Court decision earlier in the day overturning abortion protections. A federal judge struck down the 20-week limit in 2019 and extended the abortion right to the point of fetal viability, which is generally between 24 and 28 weeks. Moore and Berger say they are ready to take action to get the injunction lifted if Stein is not.
SUPREME COURT-ABORTION-THE LATEST
Live updates | Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
WASHINGTON (AP) — In Alabama, where a disproportionately large number of Black women seek abortions, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People called the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade an “egregious assault on basic human rights.” Statistics from the Alabama Department of Public Health show more than twice as many Black women as whites sought abortions in 2020 despite Black people making up only about a quarter of the state’s population. Alabama’s three women’s clinics stopped performing abortions after the high court ruling Friday because of concerns about being prosecuted.
DEPUTY-SHOOTING-MAN SENTENCED
Felon who shot at NC deputy gets 10 years in prison
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal prosecutor says a man who shot at a North Carolina sheriff’s deputy has been sentenced to 10 years prison on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. U.S. Attorney Michael F. Easley Jr. says Rodriguez Crudup pleaded guilty to the charge in March and he was sentenced on Wednesday. Court documents and other information showed a deputy with the Warren County Sheriff’s Office responded to a domestic disturbance call in Warrenton in December. Crudup took a gun into the woods and fired a shot, which the deputy said he heard pass over his head. Crudup was apprehended and the gun was found in the woods where he had been.
FRAUD SCHEME-DOCTOR INDICTED
NC doctor indicted in medical equipment scheme
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — A U.S. attorney says a North Carolina doctor has been indicted in connection with a scheme that defrauded federal programs of more than $11 million. Dena J. King, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina, said in a news release that Sudipta Mazumder of Charlotte is charged with six counts of making false statements relating to health care matters and a single count of health care fraud. The indictment says that during 2019 and 2020, Mazumder was a doctor in Charlotte and allegedly signed fraudulent orders for knee braces, leading to the filing of thousands of fraudulent reimbursement claims to Medicare and TRICARE.
FIREARMS CHARGES-GANG MEMBERS
NC woman gets nearly 6 years for supplying guns to gang
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A federal prosecutor says a North Carolina woman has been sentenced to nearly six years in prison for trying to buy firearms on behalf of gang members who she helped sell drugs. U.S. Attorney Michael F. Easley Jr. says Vernisha Suggs of Rocky Mount, who pleaded guilty to multiple charges in February, was sentenced Thursday to 71 months in prison. Authorities say Suggs engaged in a conspiracy from 2018 through 2020 to purchase numerous firearms on behalf of Bloods gang members from federally licensed firearms dealers in Rocky Mount. Though she filled out paperwork saying she was buying the guns for herself, she gave the guns to local Bloods gang members.
BC-CLIMATE-CHANGE-HEAT-WAVE
Summer swelter: Persistent heat wave breaks records, spirits
A heat wave that’s already lasted more than a week keeps on baking the US, Asia and even the Arctic. At least nine US states Thursday hit 100 degrees, that’s after 12 did that on Wednesday. Records keep falling. A city in the Russian Arctic hit nearly 90 degrees. This early summer heat wave looks and feels more like August. Scientists say it has all the hallmarks of climate change. In Macon, Georgia, the temperature ramped from 64 to 105 degrees on Wednesday and then hit 104, a further record, on Thursday.
SUPREME COURT-NORTH CAROLINA-VOTER ID LAW
Supreme Court rules for GOP lawmakers in voter ID case
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is giving Republican legislative leaders in North Carolina a win in an ongoing fight over the state’s latest photo identification voting law. The 8-1 decision Thursday doesn’t end the more than three-year dispute over the voter ID law, which is not currently in effect and has been challenged in both state and federal court. The decision just means that Republican legislative leaders can intervene in the federal lawsuit to defend the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented. A lower court had ruled the lawmakers’ interests were already being adequately represented by the state’s attorney general, Democrat Josh Stein.
AP-US-TRANSGENDER-LAWSUIT
Trans people can correct sex on North Carolina birth records
Transgender people born in North Carolina may now correct the sex designation on their birth certificate without undergoing surgery after a consent judgment issued by a federal court. New York-based Lambda Legal announced the judgment Thursday. North Carolina’s requirement that transgender people undergo sex reassignment surgery as part of establishing their identity was at the center of a lawsuit filed in U.S. Middle District Court in North Carolina last November by three law firms on behalf of an adult and two minors.
