Your Wednesday Briefing: The end of Roe?

May 4, 2022

By Amelia Nierenberg

Writer, Briefings

Good morning. We're covering the fate of abortion access in the U.S., the evacuation of survivors from a Mariupol steel plant and the Met Gala.

Abortion rights advocates surrounded anti-abortion activists in front of the Supreme Court yesterday.Leigh Vogel for The New York Times

The end of Roe v. Wade?

The U.S. Supreme Court confirmed the authenticity of a leaked draft ruling that would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, which established a constitutional right to abortion almost 50 years ago.

The court stressed that the draft opinion, which indicated that the court would let individual states determine abortion's legality, could change before it is finalized. On Monday night, after Politico broke the news, protesters gathered outside the court.

The disclosure set off a political earthquake. Chief Justice John Roberts ordered an investigation of the leak, which he called a "betrayal of the confidences of the court." The final decision is not expected for at least a month.

Resources: Follow live updates and read key passages from the leaked opinion.

What's next: If Roe is overturned, the U.S. could see a patchwork of different laws in different states. One estimate suggests that the number of legal abortions would decline by about 13 percent.

Reaction: Democrats blamed each other, while some Republicans celebrated with muted optimism. President Biden called for legislation to enshrine abortion rights and warned that the potential ruling could endanger other rights, including same-sex marriage.

Analysis: The decision would culminate a decades-long campaign by conservatives who argue that life begins at conception and that the Roe decision invented a right that did not exist in the Constitution.

Other updates:

Here's a guide to the Mississippi law at the center of the draft decision.
Abortion is widely available in Europe, though countries have taken different approaches to legalization. Elsewhere, restrictions are common.
Here's who generally receives abortions in the U.S.

Evacuees from Mariupol arrived in Zaporizhzhia, in southeastern Ukraine, yesterday.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Mariupol survivors reach safety

Just over 150 women and children who hid for weeks in bunkers below the Azovstal steel factory in Mariupol, Ukraine, arrived on buses in Ukrainian-held territory. The plant had been subject to an incessant Russian bombing campaign.

"They slammed us from all sides," an elderly woman said, adding that the sun burned her eyes after so many days underground.

Just after international negotiators left with the evacuees, Russian forces resumed its shelling of the steel plant and continued to bombard targets across parts of Ukraine's south and east. On Tuesday, missiles also hit Lviv, a city in the west, knocking out power.

Russia may also try to use sham elections to annex the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east and the Kherson region in the south, U.S. officials said. Here are live updates.

Energy: The E.U. could impose a once-unthinkable embargo on Russian oil this week. Western sanctions may foil Russian plans to sell more oil and coal to India and China — unless Moscow offers deep discounts.

Tactics: Russia could be doing more to interrupt weapons shipments, destroy infrastructure around Kyiv and inflict pain on the West. Noting Moscow's relative restraint, Western analysts wonder whether a bigger mobilization is to come.

Other updates:

Germany's chancellor promised to back Sweden and Finland if they decide to join NATO.
Fiji accepted a U.S. warrant to seize a superyacht believed to have links to a Russian oligarch.
Ukraine's surrogate pregnancy business has become a logistical and ethical mess — and hell for the women at the center of it.

Steve Johnson arrived at the Supreme Court in Sydney, Australia, on Monday with his sisters, Terry and Rebecca, and his wife, Rosemarie, second from right.Rick Rycroft/Associated Press

Sentence for an anti-gay murder

An Australian man who was convicted of an anti-gay killing was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Tuesday. It had taken a long time for the case to come to justice.

In 1988, Scott Johnson, a gay American graduate student, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff frequented by gay men. He had gone there with Scott White, the man who was convicted, after they met at a Sydney pub.

At first, the police ruled the case a suicide. But Johnson's brother, Steve, was skeptical.

After he became aware of a 2005 inquest into three similar deaths from the same period, Steve petitioned for further inquests, which overturned the suicide ruling and concluded that Scott was the victim of a hate crime.

Background: Between 1970 and 2010, at least 88 gay people were killed by local gangs. Former officials have said the police at that time were often hostile toward gay men and did not properly investigate their deaths.

What's next: Last year, the New South Wales government announced an inquiry into these deaths, and police investigations continue.

Continue reading the main story

THE LATEST NEWS

World News

The Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan sits in East Jerusalem, below the Old City walls.Amit Elkayam for The New York Times

A Jewish settler group is pushing to build showy tourism attractions in the politically tenuous "holy basin" around Jerusalem's Old City.
A record number of Cuban migrants are expected to come into the U.S. along its southern border, instead of by boat.
As extraordinary heat sweeps South Asia, climate scientists are arguing that extreme weather is the new norm.
In preparation for the summer tourism season, Italy eased mask and health-pass rules for bars, restaurants and shops.

What Else Is Happening

The U.S. midterm election season is heating up, as people in the states of Ohio and Indiana cast votes in primary elections on Tuesday. Here's a national guide.
Officials are exploring the possibility that a common adenovirus might be responsible for unexplained cases of pediatric hepatitis, which remain rare worldwide.
Democrats privately acknowledge that Senator Dianne Feinstein, 88, has serious memory problems.
New York City canceled plans for a second homeless shelter in Chinatown amid community pushback and fears of anti-Asian violence.

A Morning Read

Outside a "two dishes and rice" restaurant in the Sham Shui Po area of Hong Kong in February.Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

Hong Kong has always been a food city. Now people of all social classes are flocking to bare-bones "two dishes and rice" restaurants. The cheap Cantonese comfort food served up is a welcome respite from two years of political upheaval, economic downturn and seemingly endless pandemic restrictions.

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ARTS AND IDEAS

Kim Kardashian and Pete Davidson at the Met Gala.Nina Westervelt for The New York Times

A gilded Met Gala

On Monday, artistic elites flocked to New York City for the party of the year: The Met Gala, a black-tie fund-raiser for the museum's Costume Institute. (Here's a slide show.)

Gold, unsurprisingly, took center stage, as stars riffed on the theme of "gilded glamour." But designers also took inspiration from the late 19th century, an age of opulence, excess and morally dubious celebrity.

There were corsets, feathers and tiaras, capes, opera gloves and trains. Some paid homage to New York itself: Blake Lively, a co-host, unfurled a skirt adorned with constellations from the ceiling of Grand Central Terminal.

And Alicia Keys sported the soaring silhouettes of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building on her hem, "a nod to the equally soaring ambitions of the industrialists whose dicey legacy built this town," Vanessa Friedman, our chief fashion critic, writes in an appraisal.

But when it came to channeling history, Kim Kardashian, making the final entrance of the evening, topped them all by shoehorning herself into Marilyn Monroe's glittery, nude "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" dress. (She changed into a copy for dinner.)