PBC News & Comment: As Ireland Legalizes Abortion, US Rolls Back Rights

Supreme Court declines to review pretextual Arkansas law that will shut clinics, ban medical abortion, chipping away at Roe v. Wade…..--SCOTUS takes strong stand for 4th Amendment rights in Virginia case about stolen motorcycle on private property
--today’s Starbucks nationwide shutdown for racial bias training is upstaged by Roseanne’s racist tweets that led ABC to cancel her comeback show
--Gaza tensions escalate as Palestinians launched 30 mortar shells into Israel, and the response is disproportionate, again
--Syria takes chair of chemical weapons monitoring group for 4 weeks
--Buzzfeed offers fact-free update on the Skripals, while repeating unproven claims as fact
--to its credit Buzzfeed has been skeptical of the low reported death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, and new study shows dramatic under reporting
--Trump summit with Kim Jong-un appears to be on track, as top North Korean diplomat flies to NY for meetings
--Trump zig zags into trade war with China, contradicting Mnuchin’s truce
--Trump tweets more than a dozen times about Mueller probe, using lies and distortion to obscure the “spygate” angle that had some merit
--NY Times reports on itself in frustrating episode of series “Fourth Estate” on Showtime
--Facebook announced it is working with the Atlantic Council to combat “fake news”, and FAIR exposes the Council’s funding, which MSM failed to do
--report that TrumpCo “lost track” of 1,500 immigrant children is exaggerated, but the plight of kids and family separation are serious issues
--Justice Dept. approves merger of Bayer and Monsanto, after spin off of seeds and other business lines