Indiana appeals abortion-ban injunction
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana has appealed a judge's order that blocked the state's abortion ban from being enforced, seeking a stay and asking the state's high court to take up the case.
The appeal, filed Thursday night with the Indiana Court of Appeals, said the court "should stay the trial court's preliminary injunction pending appeal, and at the very least, should issue a temporary stay while this motion is briefed."
The appeal came as Indiana abortion clinics were preparing to see patients again Friday. It was filed hours after Owen County Judge Kelsey Hanlon issued a preliminary injunction against the abortion ban, putting the new law on hold as clinic operators argue in a lawsuit that it violates the state constitution.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana filed the lawsuit Aug. 31 and argued the ban would "prohibit the overwhelming majority of abortions in Indiana and, as such, will have a devastating and irreparable impact on the plaintiffs and, more importantly, their patients and clients."
Storm poised to scratch rocket launch
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- An approaching storm threatens to delay NASA's next launch attempt for its new moon rocket, already grounded for weeks by fuel leaks.
A tropical depression in the southern Caribbean is moving toward Florida and could become a major hurricane.
Managers on Friday declared that the rocket is now ready to blast off on its first test flight, after overcoming more hydrogen leaks during a fueling test earlier in the week. It will be the first time a crew capsule orbits the moon in 50 years; the spacecraft will carry mannequins but no astronauts.
Teams will keep monitoring the forecast and decide no later than today whether to not only delay the test flight, but haul the rocket off the pad and back to the hangar. It's unclear when the next launch attempt would be -- whether October or even November -- if the rocket must return indoors.
The preference is to remain at the launch pad and try for a Tuesday liftoff, "but there are still some uncertainties in the forecast," said NASA's Tom Whitmeyer, deputy associate administrator for exploration systems.
This would be the third launch attempt for the Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA. Fuel leaks and other technical problems scrapped the first two tries, in late August and early September.
Jan. 6 subpoena stands for GOP chief
PHOENIX -- A federal judge has rejected an effort by Arizona Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward and her husband to block a subpoena of their phone records issued by the House committee investigating the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The ruling from U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa issued late Thursday said none of the reasons the Wards cited for blocking the congressional demand passed legal muster. She noted that Congress is generally immune from lawsuits.
Their attorneys appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday.
The House committee is seeking phone records from just before the November 2020 election to Jan. 31, 2021 -- including a period in which Ward was pushing for former President Donald Trump's election defeat to be overturned and while Congress was set to certify the results.
Kelli Ward and Michael Ward were presidential electors who would have voted for Trump in the Electoral College had he won Arizona. Both signed a document falsely claiming they were Arizona's true electors, despite Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the state.
The Wards argued the subpoena should be quashed because it violated their First Amendment rights, violated House rules and exceeded the authority of the Jan. 6 committee. Humetewa rejected each argument in turn, and noted that the federal appeals court in Washington has rejected similar arguments raised by Trump during his unsuccessful effort to block a committee subpoena. The U.S. Supreme Court let those rulings stand.
Florida governor sued over migrant flight
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was sued by a state lawmaker who contends he wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds to fly dozens of Venezuelan migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Mass., in what critics have called a political stunt that tricked vulnerable immigrants.
Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat from Miami, says in the lawsuit that the Republican governor's contentious flights violated the state constitution by spending taxpayers' money on unapproved expenditures. Pizzo also asked the court to stop DeSantis from transporting any more migrants to other states.
"As a citizen and taxpayer of the State of Florida, plaintiff Jason Pizzo challenges the expenditure of funds appropriated by the Legislature to transport aliens from San Antonio, Texas, into Florida and then to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts," says the complaint, filed Thursday in state court in Tallahassee.
The governor has defended the flight and said it raised awareness of the immigration problem in the U.S.