Florida will ban abortion past six weeks of pregnancy starting next month matching Georgia as the most permissive abortion laws in the south eastern United States. The Florida state supreme court upheld a 15-week abortion ban, a move that removed the barriers for a separate, six-week ban that takes effect on 1 May. In a separate ruling, the court also agreed to let Florida residents settle the issue through a November ballot measure.
More than 53,000 people fled Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince in just three weeks of March as conflict between powerful armed gangs wreaked havoc for civilians, with the state largely absent and a path out of the chaos yet to be established by politicians.
More than a dozen homes were damaged in one West Virginia community and more than 100,000 customers in the state were without power this week as a powerful system of thunderstorms with damaging winds, dangerous hail and the potential for destructive tornadoes swept through parts of the Ohio Valley.
LSU star Angel Reese, who is known for her eyelash extensions, painted fingernails and ferocious play in the paint, formally declared for the WNBA draft on Wednesday. Her announcement comes two days after the Tigers’ season ended with a loss to Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the Elite Eight round of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
Monday’s total solar eclipse will make landfall along Mexico’s Pacific coast and cross into Texas and 14 other U.S. states, before exiting over Canada. It will last almost twice as long, with an even wider audience, than the total solar eclipse that stretched coast-to-coast in the U.S. in 2017. The moon will shroud the sun for up to 4 minutes, 28 seconds, a spectacle normally unfolding in remote corners of the globe but this time passing over major cities like Dallas, Indianapolis and Cleveland. An estimated 44 million people live within the path of totality, with another couple hundred million within 200 miles (320 kilometers), guaranteeing the continent’s biggest eclipse crowd ever.
Ukraine lowered its draft-eligible age for men from 27 to 25 on Wednesday, reflecting the strain that more than two years of war with Russia has put on its military and the need to infuse its depleted ranks with new conscripts. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed three bills into law aimed at strengthening the country’s beleaguered forces, which are trying to hold the front lines in fighting that has sapped Ukraine’s ranks and stores of weapons and ammunition. The new laws, which will also do away with some draft exemptions and create an online registry for recruits, might add around 50,000 troops to the military, said Oksana Zabolotna, an analyst with the Center for United Actions, a government watchdog in Kyiv.
A poultry facility in Michigan and egg producer in Texas both reported outbreaks of avian flu this week. The latest developments on the virus also include infected dairy cows and the first known instance of a human catching bird flu from a mammal. Although health officials say the risk to the public remains low, there is rising concern, emerging in part from news that the largest producer of fresh eggs in the U.S. reported an outbreak.