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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Texas to suspend the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., calling it an "offensive deprivation" of a constitutional right by banning most abortions in the nation's second-most populous state since September.

The order by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman is the first legal blow to the Texas law known as Senate Bill 8, which until now had withstood a wave of early challenges. In the weeks since the restrictions took effect, Texas abortion providers say the impact has been "exactly what we feared."

In a 113-page opinion, Pitman took Texas to task over the law, saying Republican lawmakers had "contrived an unprecedented and transparent statutory scheme" by leaving enforcement solely in the hands of private citizens, who are entitled to collect $10,000 in damages if they bring successful lawsuits against abortion providers who violate the restrictions.

The law, signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May, prohibits abortions once cardiac activity is detected, which is usually around six weeks, before some women even know they are pregnant.

"From the moment S.B. 8 went into effect, women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution," wrote Pitman, who was appointed to the bench by former President Barack Obama.

"That other courts may find a way to avoid this conclusion is theirs to decide; this Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right."

But even with the law on hold, abortion services in Texas may not instantly resume because doctors still fear that they could be sued without a more permanent legal decision. Planned Parenthood said it was hopeful the order would allow clinics to resume abortion services as soon as possible.

Texas officials swiftly told the court of their intention to seek a reversal from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously allowed the restrictions to take effect.

The lawsuit was brought by the Biden administration, which has said the restrictions were enacted in defiance of the U.S. Constitution. Attorney General Merrick Garland called the order "a victory for women in Texas and for the rule of law."

The law had been in effect since Sept. 1.

"For more than a month now, Texans have been deprived of abortion access because of an unconstitutional law that never should have gone into effect. The relief granted by the court today is overdue, and we are grateful that the Department of Justice moved quickly to seek it," said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Texas Right to Life, the state's largest anti-abortion group, said the order was not unexpected.

"This is ultimately the legacy of Roe v. Wade, that you have activist judges bending over backwards, bending precedent, bending the law, in order to cater to the abortion industry," said Kimberlyn Schwartz, a spokeswoman for the group. "These activist judges will create their conclusion first: that abortion is a so-called constitutional right and then work backwards from there."

Abortion providers say their fears have become reality in the short time the law has been in effect. Planned Parenthood says the number of patients from Texas at its clinics in the state decreased by nearly 80% in the two weeks after the law took effect.

Some providers have said that Texas clinics are now in danger of closing while neighboring states struggle to keep up with a surge of patients who must drive hundreds of miles. Other women, they say, are being forced to carry pregnancies to term.

Other states, mostly in the South, have passed similar laws that ban abortion within the early weeks of pregnancy, all of which judges have blocked. A 1992 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court prevented states from banning abortion before viability, the point at which a fetus can survive outside the womb, around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

But Texas' version had so far outmaneuvered the courts because it leaves enforcement to private citizens to file suits, not prosecutors, which critics say amounts to a bounty.

"This is not some kind of vigilante scheme," said Will Thompson, counsel for the Texas Attorney General's Office, while defending the law to Pitman last week. "This is a scheme that uses the normal, lawful process of justice in Texas."

The Texas law is just one that has set up the biggest test of abortion rights in the U.S. in decades, and it is part of a broader push by Republicans nationwide to impose new restrictions on abortion.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court began a new term, which in December will include arguments in Mississippi's bid to overturn 1973's landmark Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion.

Last month, the court did not rule on the constitutionality of the Texas law in allowing it to remain in place. But abortion providers took that 5-4 vote as an ominous sign about where the court might be heading on abortion after its conservative majority was fortified with three appointees of former President Donald Trump.

Ahead of the new Supreme Court term, Planned Parenthood on Friday released a report saying that if Roe v. Wade were overturned, 26 states are primed to ban abortion. This year alone, nearly 600 abortion restrictions have been introduced in statehouses nationwide, with more than 90 becoming law, according to Planned Parenthood.

Texas officials argued in court filings that even if the law were put on hold temporarily, providers could still face the threat of litigation over violations that might occur in the time between a permanent ruling.

At least one Texas abortion provider has admitted to violating the law and been sued - but not by abortion opponents. Former attorneys in Illinois and Arkansas say they sued a San Antonio doctor in hopes of getting a judge who would invalidate the law.

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Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report

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Judge orders Texas to suspend new law banning most abortions | AP News

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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered Texas to suspend the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., calling it an "offensive deprivation" of a constitutional right by banning most abortions in the nation's second-most populous state since September .

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https://forms.gle/9nyiGQXTtESRdRmb8

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Please answer these questions about the two guests we saw and heard in class last Tuesday.

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A summer of labor unrest at U.S. food manufacturers has stretched into fall, as pandemic-weary workers continue to strike for better pay.

Around 1,400 workers at Kellogg Co.'s U.S. cereal plants walked off the job this week, saying negotiations with the company over pay and benefits are at an impasse. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, a strike by 420 workers against Heaven Hill Distillery is in its fourth week.

The actions come on top of strikes earlier this summer by 600 workers at a Frito-Lay plant in Topeka, Kansas, and 1,000 workers at five Nabisco plants across the U.S. In June, Smithfield Foods narrowly avoided a strike by thousands of workers at a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

The number of actions is unusual. Kellogg says this is the first time its U.S. cereal workers have gone on strike since 1972. Nabisco workers last walked off the job in 1969.

But after a difficult 18 months, which saw many workers putting in 12-hour shifts and mandatory overtime to meet pandemic demand, employees are in no mood to compromise.

"We're drawing a line in the sand," said Rob Long, a production mechanic who has worked at Kellogg's Omaha plant for 11 years. Kellogg workers are also striking in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Long said he and others are upset about a two-tiered system of employees that gives fewer benefits and less pay to newer workers, creating a wedge within the ranks. Long said the company wants to get rid of a provision that currently caps the lower tier of workers at 30% of the workforce.

After decades of watching companies chip away at pay and benefits, food workers sense that they have a rare upper hand in the wake of the pandemic, says Patricia Campos-Medina, the executive director of The Worker Institute at ILR Cornell.

Labor shortages mean companies can't easily find replacements for food-production workers, she said. And the pandemic put a spotlight on the essential __ and sometimes dangerous __ nature of their work.

"Workers in general are demanding that companies invest more in the workforce and not just use the profits for the shareholders," she said.

Campos-Medina said the trend is not only happening with unionized workers like those at Kellogg, who are members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union. Non-union fast food workers have walked off the job in dozens of U.S. cities seeking a $15 minimum wage. And workers at three Starbucks stores in Buffalo, New York, are trying to unionize.

The strikes come as food companies are still trying to get back to normal levels of production. Kellogg's cereal sales had been anemic for years, for example, as families shifted to portable breakfast items like nutrition bars. But when schools closed and kids were home last year, U.S. cereal sales shot up 7%. So far this year, they're down 7.7%.

Kris Bahner, Kellogg's senior vice president for global corporate affairs, says the company's compensation and benefits are already among the industry's best. The company, which is based in Battle Creek, Michigan, says its longer-term employees made an average of $120,000 last year and $118,000 in 2019, and its proposed contract would shift newer workers to those higher wage rates over six years.

"We are disappointed by the union's decision to strike," she said. Kellogg began negotiating a new four-year contract on Sept. 8.

But workers on the picket line in Omaha say they're routinely working 74- to 84-hour weeks to earn that money. Some workers said they've endured 12-hour shifts seven days a week throughout the pandemic, with only a few minutes' notice about mandatory overtime.

"We do make good money, but we've given up a lot," said Dan Jourdan, a packing machine operator who has worked at Kellogg since 2001. "If we worked just 40 hours a week, we'd make nowhere near that kind of wage."

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Durbin reported from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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Fed up by pandemic, US food workers launch rare strikes

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A summer of labor unrest at U.S. food manufacturers has stretched into fall, as pandemic-weary workers continue to strike for better pay. Around 1,400 workers at Kellogg Co.'s U.S. cereal plants walked off the job this week, saying negotiations with the company over pay and benefits are at an impasse.

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Eighteen former NBA players were arrested and charged Thursday with defrauding the NBA's Health and Welfare Benefit Plan out of $4 million, officials said.

The defendants include Terrence Williams, Alan Anderson, Anthony Allen, Desiree Allen, Shannon Brown, William Bynum, Ronald Glen "Big Baby" Davis, Christopher Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Jamario Moon, Darius Miles, Milton Palacio, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Gregory Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Charles Watson Jr., Antoine Wright, and Anthony Wroten.

Those charged face a count of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud.
This is a developing story, please refresh here for updates.

David K. Li contributed.

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18 former NBA players arrested by federal authorities in alleged health care scam

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Eighteen former NBA players were arrested and charged Thursday with defrauding the NBA's Health and Welfare Benefit Plan out of $4 million, officials said. The defendants include Terrence Williams, Alan Anderson, Anthony Allen, Desiree Allen, Shannon Brown, William Bynum, Ronald Glen "Big Baby" Davis, Christopher Douglas-Roberts, Melvin Ely, Jamario Moon, Darius Miles, Milton Palacio, Ruben Patterson, Eddie Robinson, Gregory Smith, Sebastian Telfair, Charles Watson Jr., Antoine Wright, and Anthony Wroten.

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Pfizer asked the U.S. government Thursday to allow use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 -- and if regulators agree, shots could begin within a matter of weeks.

Many parents and pediatricians are clamoring for protection for children younger than 12, today's age cutoff for the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. Not only can youngsters sometimes get seriously ill, but keeping them in school can be a challenge with the coronavirus still raging in poorly vaccinated communities.

Pfizer announced in a tweet that it had formally filed its application with the Food and Drug Administration.

Now the FDA will have to decide if there's enough evidence that the shots are safe and will work for younger children like they do for teens and adults. An independent expert panel will publicly debate the evidence on Oct. 26.

One big change: Pfizer says its research shows the younger kids should get a third of the dose now given to everyone else. After their second dose, the 5- to 11-year-olds developed virus-fighting antibody levels just as strong as teens and young adults get from regular-strength shots.

While kids are at lower risk of severe illness or death than older people, COVID-19 does sometimes kill children and cases in youngsters have skyrocketed as the extra-contagious delta variant has swept through the country

"It makes me very happy that I am helping other kids get the vaccine," said Sebastian Prybol, 8, of Raleigh, North Carolina. He is enrolled in Pfizer's study at Duke University and doesn't yet know if he received the vaccine or dummy shots.

"We do want to make sure that it is absolutely safe for them," said Sebastian's mother, Britni Prybol. But she said she will be "overjoyed" if the FDA clears the vaccine.

Pfizer studied the lower dose in 2,268 volunteers ages 5 to 11, and has said there were no serious side effects. The study isn't large enough to detect any extremely rare side effects, such as the heart inflammation that sometimes occurs after the second dose of the regular-strength vaccine, mostly in young men.

If the FDA authorizes emergency use of the kid-sized doses, there's another hurdle before vaccinations in this age group can begin. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will decide whether to recommend the shots for youngsters, and the CDC will make a final decision.

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AP journalist Emma Tobin contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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Pfizer asks US to allow COVID shots for kids ages 5 to 11

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Pfizer asked the U.S. government Thursday to allow use of its COVID-19 vaccine in children ages 5 to 11 -- and if regulators agree, shots could begin within a matter of weeks. Many parents and pediatricians are clamoring for protection for children younger than 12, today's age cutoff for the vaccine made by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech.