(WASHINGTON) — Eli Lilly has announced the U.S. government is buying an additional 150,000 courses of the only monoclonal antibody therapy left that still holds up against all COVID-19 variants of concern, including BA.2.
The new purchase of the therapy, called bebtelovimab, is costing the government roughly $275 million.
This comes after the White House has repeatedly warned the money is running out to buy new vaccines and treatments, including antiviral therapies like Paxlovid and the monoclonal antibodies, without additional relief funds.
This new purchase was paid for out of the $10 billion in COVID funding, which the White House diverted earlier this month to pay for more vaccines and treatments.
Officials said at the time they were left with “no choice” but to shift those dollars, since Congress has not yet approved additional funding.
That redirected $10 billion included $300 million to buy more monoclonal antibody treatments — a cache now all but exhausted by Wednesday’s purchase.
The U.S.’s existing supply of this treatment, including the new purchase, is expected to meet present demand through late August, an Eli Lilly spokesperson told ABC.
Previously this spring, and before the White House diverted the $10 billion in funds, President Joe Biden said the U.S. could run out of monoclonal supplies “by the end of May,” if further funding wasn’t secured, and that planned orders would have to be canceled.
In March, ABC News obtained internal documents showing the administration planned to start significantly cutting the number of viral treatments available to states, and would begin reclaiming and reabsorbing unused doses for later redistribution, in light of the relief funding that had stalled in Congress.
Delivery of this new order of 150,000 courses is supposed to finish no later than Aug. 5, Eli Lilly said. That’s the date Lilly will get them to the Health and Human Services Department, which will then be responsible for allocating doses to states.
There is an option in this new purchase agreement for the government to order an additional 350,000 doses, which would need to be exercised “no later than Sept. 14,” Eli Lilly said.
“Lilly and its collaborators have partnered closely with the federal government throughout the pandemic to ensure broad and equitable access to our monoclonal antibodies,” Eli Lilly’s chair and CEO David Ricks said in a statement to ABC News. “While Congress works toward additional COVID-19 funding, Lilly and the U.S. government will continue to work together to support the availability of bebtelovimab to maximize equity and accessibility in the U.S. market.”
(NEW YORK) — This Fourth of July is expected to be the second-busiest for travel since 2000, with 47.9 million Americans taking trips, according to AAA.
Here’s what to know before you head to the airport or hit the highways.
Air travel
Friday, July 1 is shaping up to be the busiest day for air travel during the holiday weekend. Monday, July 4 will likely be the lightest, according to AAA booking data.
The top domestic destinations for the holiday this year are: Orlando; Seattle; New York; Anaheim, California; Anchorage, Alaska; Ft. Lauderdale; Las Vegas; Honolulu; Denver; and Chicago, according to AAA.
Fourth of July airfare is up 45% compared to 2019, now at an average of $437 for a domestic roundtrip, according to Hopper.
But the best prices for domestic trips can be found with a quick weekend trip, flying on Saturday, July 2 and returning on Monday, July 4, according to Hopper.
Road travel
The afternoons of Thursday, June 30 and Friday, July 1 are anticipated to be the most crowded days on the road as commuters leave work early and mix with holiday travelers, according to AAA.
If you’re going to brave the roads on Friday, before 10 a.m. or after 9 p.m. is best, according to analytics company INRIX. On Thursday, before 7 a.m. or after 8 p.m. is best.
July 3 and July 4 are expected to be the best days for traffic, according to INRIX.
(WASHINGTON) — Police have released images of a person of interest wanted in connection to a mass shooting in Washington, D.C., that killed a 15-year-old boy.
The June 19 shooting took place during a festival called “Moechella,” which was celebrating Juneteenth, officials said.
At about 8:48 p.m., as police were telling organizers to shut the event down, gunshots rang out, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department said.
Teenager Chase Poole was killed and three others, including a D.C. police officer, were shot and injured, police said.
On Thursday, the authorities posted video of a person of interest they said they’re looking to identify.
MPD seeks a Person of Interest in a Homicide offense that occurred on 6/19/22, in the 2000 block of 14th Street, NW.
— DC Police Department (@DCPoliceDept) June 30, 2022
“The young man in this photo, you may have run from U Street. But you cannot run from accountability, and you cannot hide from the citizens of the District of Columbia,” D.C. Police Chief Robert Contee said at a news conference Thursday. “I’m asking anyone who recognizes this young man to please reach out to us.”
Poole is one of 651 children ages 12 to 17 who have died from gun violence this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Another 176 children that were 11 years old or younger have died from guns.
ABC News’ Beatrice Peterson contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Toxic toads are returning to South Florida in growing numbers as the region falls back into its warm, rainy summer season, experts say, and they want people to be aware of the risk to pets.
The bufo toad, also known as the cane toad, is a common summer sight in South Florida, but experts in the area believe the species is returning in larger numbers than in previous years.
Jeannine Tilford, owner of local toad management company Toad Busters, said that the changing climate has impacted the population of bufo toads in the area.
Tilford told ABC News that because the region’s temperatures did not drop as consistently as they usually do in winter months, toads that usually would have been too weak or young to survive the winter in the past were able to make it to spring this year.
A main component of Toad Busters’ work is moving toads to habitats where they aren’t a danger to other animals, especially dogs, which can be killed by licking or eating the toads.
Tilford explained that the organization has been expanding west in Florida, and establishing more habitats with properly contained areas and lakes.
She said Toad Busters has shown over the last seven years that management is possible by safely collecting the toads.
The key to containment, Tilford said, is consistency.
“As long as you maintain it, we go from collecting hundreds one night to 30 the next. If you let it go for eight months, a couple cycles go by and they reproduce into large numbers,” Tilford told ABC News.
Tilford said that an influx of people relocating from states like California, New York and New Jersey to Florida has further contributed to dogs dying due to the poisonous toads.
“We had a lot more dog deaths this year,” Tilford said. “People don’t know about the toads, let their dogs out in the backyard and it only takes a couple of minutes.”
Tilford said the best thing for new residents is education.
“They need to understand what we have here, what [the toads] look like and what to do if you have a dog and a backyard,” she said.
Dogs are more likely than cats to try and attack or eat a bufo toad, which poisons the dog, data from the University of Florida showed. Depending on the amount of poison ingested, symptoms often include pink or red gums, drooling or frothing at the mouth, pawing at the mouth, seizures and sometimes cardiac arrest.
Tilford told ABC News that residents shouldn’t let their dogs loose in the backyard, especially during evening hours, as the toads are nocturnal.
She added that if a dog does have contact with a toad, immediately wipe out the dog’s mouth with a wet rag and take the dog to the nearest emergency animal hospital.
If there are bufo toads on a resident’s property, Tilford said the homeowner should reach out to have them removed from the area and they should install barrier fencing. While they aren’t deadly to humans, they can cause skin and eye irritation and should not be handled without gloves.
Bufo toads can be found in urban, suburban and agricultural areas, most commonly in yards, around buildings or near canals and ponds, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The commission added that bufo toads breed year-round in standing water, streams, canals and ditches.
(NEW YORK) — After a remarkable career spanning nearly 50 years, STEM trailblazer, physicist and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is retiring.
In 1973, Jackson graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a doctorate in theoretical elementary particle physics, making her the first Black woman to receive a doctorate in any field from the renowned university. She was also one of the first Black women to receive a bachelor’s degree from the school.
Her time at MIT set the stage for her professional life, putting her on the path to help others along the way, Jackson told ABC News. She described how the events of the last 50 years helped shape not only her work but also how to help be an example for others.
“I knew when I looked around, there weren’t very many African Americans when I was an undergrad, and especially as a graduate,” Jackson said. She added that doing the best work she could in her own career could help guide others.
Jackson said she looks back on her life through “windows in time” marked by historical events that led her to create some of her own.
Jackson recalls feeling close to the politics that so greatly influenced her childhood. Though she lived in a predominantly white neighborhood, she could not attend the segregated school closest to her home. The landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, however, changed that.
“It was an interesting experience,” she said. “One could say it was more competitive because it was a wider range of people with whom one competed.”
Just a few years later, the launch of Sputnik 1 intensified the Space Race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.
“That made the public policymakers and politicians nervous. And so the curriculum in the public schools was changed to give much more emphasis to science and math,” Jackson said of how she was further immersed in the field.
Her focus secured her two scholarships to MIT. Though she initially thought she’d pursue math, Latin and Greek, she soon became interested in quantum mechanics, where she excelled despite the social challenges she faced.
“At MIT, it wasn’t always friendly,” she said. “If I sat at a table alone, no one else would come and join many times, but if I went and joined the table, then people would suddenly be finishing up their meals…and so in that sense, it was very isolating.”
Undeterred, she found community in the regional chapter of the historically Black sorority Delta Sigma Theta. She would go on to serve as president of the sorority for two years. She said it taught her “resilience, inventiveness, resourcefulness” while giving her an outlet since MIT did not have its own chapter at the time.
Near the end of her senior year, in April 1968, Jackson was driving back from a graduate school visit when she learned Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot in Memphis. Hearing the news of his death made her think about how she could make a difference.
“I thought about how quiet I’ve been as an undergrad. And I felt there was something that I needed to do and should do at MIT to get more African American and minority students in and to become more hospitable for such students. And so in the end, I decided to stay at MIT,” Jackson told ABC News.
Taking action, Jackson co-founded the school’s Black Student Union, which was instrumental in starting Project Interphase, which is a summer program designed to help transition new students into life at MIT. The program, which still runs today, evolved from a task force on educational opportunities that sought to expand the applicant pool and promote diversity at MIT.
After years of making strides in her postdoctoral work at research and development company Bell Labs, and particle physics laboratory Fermilab, Jackson was appointed Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by President Bill Clinton in 1995.
She returned to academia in 1999 as the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s 18th president to create an institution with the “global reach and global impact” that it has today. In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Jackson as co-chair of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
From notable firsts to nuclear frameworks, Jackson has left her mark on the world. In reflecting on what it all has meant for her, she told ABC News that what she holds close is her father’s memory and the impact her work has had on others.
“It’s about being able to walk so you can carry someone else,” she said. “The more influential the positions I’ve had and the more powerful they’ve become, the more I’ve been able to help people develop open doors and help people step through. That is what’s meaningful to me.”
(NEW YORK) — Ten gun distributors sold tens of thousands of illegal, unfinished frames and receivers later fashioned into untraceable handguns and assault-style rifles in violation of a New York public nuisance law, a new lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.
The defendants include some of the nation’s leading gun distributors, including Brownells, Indie Guns, Primary Arms and Rock Slide.
The lawsuit, filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, accused the gun distributors of flooding the streets with ghost guns — firearms that come packaged in parts, which can be bought online and assembled without much of a trace.
“While families mourned loved ones lost to senseless gun violence, gun sellers avoided accountability for the illegal and dangerous weapons they sold,” James said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “Today’s lawsuit holds 10 gun sellers accountable for fueling the gun violence crisis and endangering New Yorkers.”
Law enforcement officials have said ghost guns, created using unfinished frames and receivers, are partially responsible for the surge in gun violence and gun-related crime, especially on the streets of American cities.
Unfinished frames and receivers lack serial numbers and can be used to make untraceable guns at home. Unfinished receivers hold together the upper, lower, and rear portions of a semiautomatic rifle. Purchasers of unfinished receivers need only to make a few changes with a common drill press to transform an unfinished receiver into an operational one.
In some instances, the defendants sold unfinished frames and receivers to consumers with criminal records or other disqualifying conditions, the lawsuit claims.
Brownells and two other gun distributors, 80 Percent Arms and KM Tactical, delivered orders to an individual living in New York who was a member of a far-right militia-style organization with a history of political violence, according to the attorney general’s office. New York Police Department investigators later recovered two unserialized completed guns, 11 high-capacity magazines, four additional unfinished frames and receivers, as well as other gunmaking tools, from where he was staying, the attorney general’s office said.
According to the lawsuit, in May, an individual with a criminal background, who was legally ineligible to own or operate a firearm, received shipments from Brownells, after previously receiving shipments from Glockstore and Primary Arms. That same month, that individual allegedly used a ghost gun in a triple shooting that killed one person and injured two others in the Bronx.
Several businesses named in the lawsuit tout that their products can be acquired without government registration or “oversight.”
80 Percent Arms, writes on its website, “This means no RED TAPE including: NO Registering an 80% Lower, NO Transfer fees like a typical firearm, NO FFL [Federal Firearms License] Required, Ships right to your door.”
Glockstore writes on its website, “You can build a completely legal handgun without any ‘government oversight’ aka interference…No fuss, no muss, no registration, no records.”
Christian Waugh, an attorney for Indie Guns, of Orlando, Florida, called the lawsuit a “groundless attempt to once again burden and limit the rights of New York City residents.”
“[This] is absolutely a politically-motivated effort to vilify a small business that has violated no federal, state, or municipal law,” Waugh said in a statement to ABC News. “Craft guns are not a problem. Like cars or baseball bats, they are almost always used for legal purposes. Sometimes, they can be misused by a person with bad intent.”
Pete Brownell, chairman of the Iowa-based Brownells, said in a statement to ABC News, “As one of the nation’s oldest, family-owned firearms retailers, Brownells has always taken its compliance obligations very seriously and we look forward to addressing these claims through the legal system.”
ABC News did not immediately receive a comment from the other eight defendants in response to email inquiries.
The lawsuit alleged that the distributors have endangered public health and safety and failed to make sure their products do not fall into improper hands. In addition to restitution and damages, the lawsuit is seeking to ban the defendants from selling, shipping and distributing unfinished frames or receivers in New York.
New York City also simultaneously filed a lawsuit against five of the defendants named in the state’s lawsuit seeking to halt the sale and delivery of illegal gun components into the city.
The lawsuits come days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a New York law limiting concealed handguns in public.
The state’s suit marks the first time the newly enacted Public Nuisance law is being invoked, according to the attorney general’s office. The statute allows gun distributors and manufacturers to be held liable for actions that harm public safety.
In December, the National Shooting Sports Foundation filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the new law from being enforced. A preliminary injunction was ultimately denied last month, and the plaintiffs have since filed a notice of appeal.
(NEW YORK) — Last week, the United States became one of the only Western countries to roll back abortion access in the 21st century after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The ruling means about half of American women may lose access to legal abortions.
Abortion rights groups and activists say women in the U.S. can look to Poland for a glimpse of what their futures might be — and what can happen in the direst of circumstances.
Poland has one of the strictest abortion laws of any European country, with exceptions only if the mother’s life or health is in danger, or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest.
“Because of the law, which is extremely restrictive in practice, we are facing almost a virtual ban on abortion,” Irene Donadio, senior lead on strategy and partnerships at the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network, told ABC News. “It’s really affecting the life and the health of all women.”
Poland’s abortion history
Prior to 1932, abortion was illegal in Poland with no exceptions. That same year, the Criminal Code was amended to legalize abortion for if the mother’s health was at risk or if the pregnancy was the result of a criminal act.
This law remained in place until 1956 — through World War II and Poland coming under Soviet occupation — after which abortion was decriminalized. Three years later, the country’s minister of health allowed abortion to be available upon request.
During this time, more than 100,000 abortions occurred annually in the country, for about 10 years, according to data from the Council of Ministers.
After the fall of communism, the Catholic Church began exhibiting pressure on Poland — a heavily Catholic country — to ban abortion.
The number of annual abortions began to fall and, in 1993, lawmakers tightened the abortion law, only allowing it for certain exceptions.
The year the law was law passed, abortions in Poland dropped to 1,240 per year, data shows.
In October 2020, Poland’s constitutional court found that abortion due to fetal malformations was unconstitutional, and a ban for abortion in these circumstances went into effect in January 2021.
“Doctors and providers are really scared to help women in need, and this means that even women who are experiencing a miscarriage or women who are discovering that they are pregnant and want prenatal care, they are denied proper, decent care,” Donadio said.
“They are abandoned by the system, so what we see is a terrible law that is harming women, harming families, and harming society,” she continued.
Annual abortions fell to their lowest point in 2001 at 124 but have since risen. In 2020, the latest year for which data is available, Poland recorded 1,076 annual abortions.
Further, local non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, such as the Foundation for Women and Family Planning FEDERA, estimate that between 80,000 and 200,000 Polish women have abortions every year, including those performed abroad or illegally.
“Just because we have such a law, it doesn’t make the number of abortions lower,” Jolanta Budzowska, a personal injury attorney based in Krakow who specializes in medical malpractice, told ABC News. “They’ll just go take care of it elsewhere.”
The case of Izabela Sajbor
Even though the law is supposed to allow for abortions to be performed if the woman’s life is in danger, women have died, activists say.
“The women who died in Poland, they didn’t die because of backstreet abortion, they died in hospitals, surrounded by doctors, by midwives and by nurses who were paralyzed by the law,” Donadio said.
This is perhaps no better highlighted than in the case of Izabela Sajbor, a 30-year-old pregnant woman who died in September 2021.
Budzowska, who represents the family, told ABC News that Sajbor was in her second trimester when she was told her baby had Edwards’ syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes physical growth delays and birth defects.
Most fetuses don’t survive full-term, and so the mothers either miscarry or give birth to stillborn babies, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
Additionally, the fetus had other severe defects, Budzowska said, but doctors refused to perform an abortion because a heartbeat could still be detected.
“Her fetus had no chance to live,” Budzowska said. “Everybody knew the fetus had no chance to live, and the doctors hesitated to do anything.”
Sajbor was admitted to the hospital when she was 22 weeks pregnant after her water broke prematurely. Doctors waited to perform a Cesarean section until the fetus’s heart stopped beating, Budzowska said.
By the time the fetus died and Sajbor was taken to the operating room, she had developed sepsis, according to Budzowska. She soon after went into cardiac arrest and died.
“This law has had a strong, cold, chilling effect on doctors,” Budzowska said, explaining that doctors often choose not to act because they are worried about losing their right to practice or facing criminal charges. “This legal situation leaves women in real danger. Izabela asked for help, and no one helped her.”
‘More women might die’
Activists say that since Sajbor’s death in 2021, at least two other women have died after being refused abortions and, although these deaths are rare, they say they are the result of what can happen in the worst-case scenarios.
“People shouldn’t die; that’s why [abortion] should be legal,” Marta Lempert, founder of the All-Poland Women’s Strike, who has been among the leaders for abortion rights in Poland, told ABC News. “The riskiest place in Poland you can go to is the hospital if you’re pregnant because you might not get out of there alive.”
Abortion rights supporters fear the same thing could occur in the U.S., either through illegal back-alley abortions or in hospitals by doctors too afraid to act.
“I am sorry to say, but I do believe that when you have such laws, women might die,” Donadio said. “And that is just the tip of the iceberg.”
“It will have a tragic impact not only leading to some women losing their lives, but [the laws are] terrorizing millions because the moment you become pregnant, there might be doctors that will not consider your life a priority if your health is at risk, because they will be too scared to be imprisoned,” she said.
“For me, that’s the most tragic effect of these laws that we will face in so many U.S. states,” Donadio added.
(WASHINGTON) — When word came that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was retiring, the spotlight immediately shifted to who might replace him with most attention focused on Ketanji Brown Jackson, who clerked for Breyer about 20 years ago.
That spotlight grew even brighter when it was revealed that President Joe Biden would nominate her as the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s high court.
Biden introduced Jackson to the American public back in February as “an exceptionally qualified and historic nominee.”
A Harvard Law School graduate who rose to become a federal appeals court judge, Jackson, despite her professional and academic accolades, has said she considers simply working hard throughout her life to be a main reason she’s gotten to where she is today.
She was born 51 years ago, in 1970, in Washington, D.C. Her parents, both public school teachers, had moved to Washington from Miami in the post-civil rights era.
She has recounted in a 2017 speech that her parents, wanting to show pride in their African ancestry, asked her aunt, who was then in the Peace Corps in Africa, for a list of African girl names.
Taking one of her suggestions, Jackson’s parents named her Ketanji Onyika, which she said they were told translates to “lovely one.”
In 2017, Jackson, in a lecture at the University of Georgia School of Law, revealed more of her personal side, reflecting not just on her legal career — but on dealing with motherhood at the same time.
“Right now, in fact, I’m in that peculiar stage of life when I experience near-daily whiplash from the jarring juxtaposition of my two most significant roles: U.S. district judge on the one hand and mother of teenage daughters on the other,” she said.
Jackson and her husband Patrick, a doctor, have two daughters, Talia who was 16 and Leila who was 12 years old at the time she told that story. During that same talk, Jackson said her family values include respecting everyone and making your best effort in everything you do.
“In our family, we have a mantra that emphasizes prioritization on work over play as one of our first principles,” Jackson said. “As the girls would testify, ‘do what you need to do before what you want to do’ is a constant refrain in our house.”
Jackson has served on the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, considered the most important federal court next to the Supreme Court. It has jurisdiction over cases involving Congress and the executive branch agencies.
During her confirmation hearing for that position, Republican senators grilled her on whether she thought race would play a factor in her decision-making.
Jackson said when she considers cases, she is looking at the facts and the law.
“I’m methodically and intentionally setting aside personal views, any other inappropriate considerations,” she said. “I would think that race would be the kind of thing that would be inappropriate to inject in an evaluation of a case.”
The Senate eventually made her the first Black woman confirmed to an appellate court in a decade. After her confirmation, there were only six Black women serving as judges on federal appeals courts.
She has noted she is “fairly certain” her ancestors were slaves on both sides of her family.
“It is the beauty and the majesty of this country, that someone who comes from a background like mine could find herself in this position,” Jackson said during her Senate confirmation hearing last year. “I’m just enormously grateful to have this opportunity to be a part of the law in this way, and I’m truly thankful for the president giving me the honor of this nomination.”
Former President Barack Obama interviewed Jackson in 2016 for the Supreme Court to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat after his death.
Before that, Jackson said during her speech at the University of Georgia, her youngest daughter, Leila, came to her and her husband and asked if they knew Justice Scalia had died, leading to a vacancy on the nation’s highest court. Jackson said Leila’s middle school friends decided she should apply.
“Getting to be on the Supreme Court isn’t really a job you apply for,” Jackson said she explained to Leila. “You just have to be lucky enough to have the president find you among the thousands of people who might want to do that job.”
Jackson then shared how her daughter decided to write President Obama, telling him to consider her mom for the Supreme Court.
She said her daughter’s handwritten note read, “she is determined, honest and never breaks a promise to anyone, even if there are other things she’d rather do. She can demonstrate commitment and is loyal and never brags.”
(NEW YORK) — A spike in internet searches for abortion pills may indicate women in the United States will try to obtain the medication without a doctor’s oversight, a new study finds.
Researchers from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and the University of California, San Diego examined online searches following a leaked draft opinion on May 2 from the Supreme Court indicating Roe v. Wade would be overturned. The court eventually did so on June 24.
The team analyzed Google search trends that mentioned “abortion pill” or “abortion medications” from Jan. 1, 2004 — when the search engine first began collecting data — through May 8, 2022.
Results showed the week following the leaked draft opinion corresponded with a record-high number of searches on Google in the U.S. with 350,000 searches from May 1 to May 8.
When the team looked at the data based on hourly trends, they found that in the 72 hours following the leaked opinion, there was a 162% increase in online searches relating to abortion medications.
At-home medication abortions involve someone taking two pills to end a pregnancy and are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use up to 10 weeks after conception.
The first pill is mifepristone, which was authorized by the FDA in 2000. It works by blocking the hormone progesterone, which the body needs to continue a pregnancy.
This causes the uterine lining to stop thickening and break down, detaching the embryo. The second drug, misoprostol, taken 24 to 48 hours later, causes the uterus to contract and dilates the cervix, which will expel the embryo.
Lawmakers in at least 12 states have introduced bans or restrictions on medication abortion in 2022, including barring the mailing of pills and preventing them from being accessed via telehealth, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that focuses on sexual and reproductive health, and further reporting.
Results also showed states with more restrictions on abortion had higher search volumes than states with fewer restrictions.
Nebraska had the highest search volume, followed by Iowa and Missouri, respectively.
The team said its study is limited because it cannot confirm any searches for these medications were linked to abortion attempts.
But residents of these restrictive states trying to obtain abortion medications that traditionally require a prescription is an alarming trend as it suggests that they will attempt unsafe abortions with potentially unregulated, counterfeit pills and without physician oversight.
“Elevated interest in abortion medications should alert physicians that many of their patients may pursue this option with or without them,” the authors wrote.
(NEW YORK) — As chaos in the nation’s airports and airspace continues to wreak havoc during the busy summer season, many travelers are left wondering what their rights are during extreme flight delays and cancellations.
Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights over Memorial Day weekend and 2,800 flights between June 15 to 17, blaming bad weather and staffing issues across the system. Tens of thousands of flights were delayed during the same periods, causing customers to miss connections and scrambling for alternative flights.
What are your rights?
Under federal law, consumers are entitled to a refund if the airline cancels a flight, regardless of the reason, and the consumer chooses not to travel.
Consumers are also entitled to a refund if an airline “made a significant schedule change and/or significantly delays a flight and the consumer chooses not to travel,” according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).
The hang-up — DOT has not defined what constitutes a “significant delay.” According to the agency, whether you are entitled to a refund depends on multiple factors, including the length of the delay, the length of the flight and “your particular circumstances.”
In most cases, airlines will first offer you a travel voucher for future travel, Scott Keyes, founder of Scott’s Cheap Flights, told ABC News.
“You do not have to click there and accept that travel voucher, because under federal law you’re entitled to a full cash refund,” Keyes said. “You may have to call the airline and demand to get that cash refund rather than the voucher.”
Keyes also said to contact the party you booked your travel with, whether that be the airline itself or a third-party like a travel agency.
“You have to go through whoever you booked your flight with. And so, if you booked it with a third party with an online travel agency, that’s who you’re going to have to chat with,” Keyes said. “The best practice is actually to book directly with the airline if the price is the same. Because when things go wrong, when they’re delays or cancelations, it’s far simpler.”
There are situations, however, where consumers are not entitled to a refund. According to DOT, travelers who purchase nonrefundable tickets, but are unable to travel for a personal reason, such as being sick or late to the airport, are not entitled to a refund.
What if your flight is oversold and you’re denied boarding?
On occasion, airlines may bump passengers from a trip when the flight is oversold. In cases such as this, airlines must first ask passengers to give up their seats voluntarily in exchange for compensation, according to DOT.
There is no limit on the amount of money or vouchers the airline can offer you, and passengers are free to negotiate.
If there aren’t enough volunteers in these situations, airlines can select passengers and involuntarily bump them off the flight. If you’re one of the unlucky few, the airline is required to compensate you in certain situations — including if the passenger had a confirmed reservation, the passenger checked into their flight on time, arrived to the gate on time, and if the airline cannot get you to your destination within one hour of your flight’s original arrival.
What if you decide to change your flight?
Consumers should know most U.S. carriers did away with change fees during the pandemic — meaning if you decide to change your flight, you’ll only have to pay the difference in fare.
For those flying this July 4th weekend — Delta Air Lines specifically is waiving all fare differences for travel between July 1 and 4 — meaning customers with flights booked on those dates can change their ticket at no extra cost.
Those customers will not incur any fare difference or change fee if they rebook flights between the same origin and destination and remain in the same cabin of service as originally booked, Delta said. The rebooked travel needs to take place by July 8, 2022.
