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Contraception contretemps, Israeli influencers and our 'highway to climate hell'

 
Today's politics story

Senate GOP blocks birth control access bill

What happened
The Senate voted 51-39 on Wednesday to advance the Right to Contraception Act, short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster. Two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) joined all Democrats present to vote for the legislation, which would establish a nationwide right to "obtain contraceptives and to voluntarily engage in contraception," and for health care providers to distribute birth control.

Who said what
Republicans called the bill an unnecessary messaging "stunt" and said they understood it was an "effort to force them to take an unpopular vote," The New York Times said. "But the vast majority of them did so anyway, a sign of the strength of the anti-abortion lobby." In fact, "far-right conservatives have been trying to curtail birth control access" by falsely redefining certain types of contraception, notably the morning-after pill and IUDs, as "abortifacients," The Washington Post said.

"If it's a messaging bill, my message is I support a woman's access to contraception," Murkowski said.

What next?
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has scheduled a vote next week on a Democratic bill to protect in vitro fertilization, saying Democrats will continue to "put reproductive freedoms front and center" so voters "can see for themselves who will stand up to defend their fundamental liberties." IVF, also broadly popular, technically runs afoul of fetal "personhood" bills backed by many Republicans.

 
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Today's international story

Israel targets US in secret influence campaign

What happened
Israel organized and funded a covert influence campaign targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel and anti-Muslim messaging through fake news and social media accounts, The New York Times and Haaretz said Wednesday. Documents show Israel's Ministry of Diaspora Affairs hired the Tel Aviv marketing firm Stoic after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. Its campaign mainly targeted Black Democratic lawmakers and young progressives.  

Who said what
Stoic's AI-driven effort was "sloppy" and "didn’t have a widespread impact," but it "signals the lengths Israel was willing to go to sway American opinion on the war in Gaza," the Times said.

"Israel's role in this is reckless and probably ineffective," said Achiya Schatz at FakeReporter, the Israeli misinformation watchdog that uncovered the operation. The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs denied involvement. But one Israeli intelligence source told Haaretz "it's not surprising" that one of the subcontractors Israel hired to get "digital content up very fast" after Oct. 7 "was caught in the end."

What next?
Meta said last week it took down hundreds of Facebook and Instagram accounts tied to the operation, but it "remains active on the platform X," the Times said.

 
 
Today's CLIMATE Story

Earth broke heat records 12 months straight

What happened
The world just experienced a year of record-breaking heat, with average global temperatures surpassing all measurements since 1850 and likely any extended period since the end of the last ice age 125,000 years ago, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said Wednesday. 

Who said what
May was the 12th consecutive month during which "global average temperature reached a record value for the corresponding month," Copernicus said. The stretch is a "stark warning." In a separate study published Wednesday, a group of 57 scientists found that human activity was responsible for 92% of 2023's warming, which increased at a rate "unprecedented in the instrumental record."

While averting catastrophe is "still just about possible," the decisions made by global leaders "especially in the next 18 months" will determine whether the planet can be saved, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said in a special address. "We need an exit ramp off the highway to climate hell.”

What next?
Without serious efforts to reverse global warming, "this string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold," Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said.

 
 

It's not all bad

A new male contraceptive gel works faster than other hormone treatments, according to research by the National Institutes of Health. The gel combines segesterone acetate and testosterone to suppress sperm production. Men in the study applied the gel daily to their shoulder blades and reached sperm counts deemed effective for contraception within an average of eight weeks. "The development of a safe, highly effective and reliably reversible contraceptive method for men is an unmet need," said Diana Blithe, a senior researcher for the study.

 
 
Under the radar

Since 2022, at least eight states — Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, Texas, Utah and Virginia — have codified age verification restrictions for online pornography, and lawmakers are offering similar proposals in nearly two-dozen more, according to The Associated Press. Conservative Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been leading this charge against digital porn in recent months, suing multiple adult entertainment companies under a recently enacted state law. 

The "main difference between Texas and the other states is Paxton himself and Texas' novel strategy placing him in charge of compliance," Bloomberg Law said. While other states with similar laws rely on citizen-led lawsuits, Texas' empowerment of Paxton's office to sue pornography distributors has supercharged the enterprise and inspired other states to "soon sic their attorneys general on adult sites."

As one of the country's most vocal and controversial right-wing officeholders, Paxton is in a position to do things that "get more attention than other attorneys general," said Jonathan Saenz, the president of the conservative Texas Values group, to Bloomberg Law. In Indiana this past winter, lawmakers amended their age verification bill to grant the state's attorney general the authority to pursue suits because that office is "going to have the tools and the expertise to execute this kind of action if need be," State Sen. Mike Bohacek (R) said to NWI.com. While distributors have largely "called various states' bluff on verification laws enforced by the private suit model," the underlying calculation is "shifting" in states where attorneys general can levy hefty fines for noncompliance, Bloomberg Law said.

 
 
On this day

June 6, 2015

American Pharoah won the Belmont Stakes in Elmont, New York, becoming the first winner of horse racing's Triple Crown in 37 years. The 3-year-old thoroughbred had won the first two legs of the series, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, weeks earlier. The previous Triple Crown winner was Affirmed in 1978.

 
 
TODAY’S newspaperS

The remaining U.S. Army veterans who participated in the Allied invasion of Normandy 80 years ago have made what's probably their last trip to France, and the "visit stirs grim memories," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Thursday's front page. The Houston Chronicle features a photo of vets watching paratroopers land as part of the D-Day commemoration ceremonies, and USA Today tells the story through a French woman's diary that recorded "the Americans are landing." The New York Times recounts one "D-Day battle France chose to forget, until now," where thousands of French resistance fighters gathered inland to prevent the Nazis from sending reinforcements to Normandy's beaches before they were discovered by the Nazis, with dozens "hunted down and killed."

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Pop, stopped

A British man who stole 17 tubes of Pringles in one day during a weekslong "thieving spree" reasoned with police that "once you pop, you can't stop," referencing the snack brand's slogan. Police in Nottingham, England, finally tracked Adam Spencer down last week after the 40-year-old was linked to several supermarket burglaries in April and May. Spencer pleaded guilty last Wednesday, received a six-month suspended sentence and was ordered to pay $255 in compensation.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harold Maass, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz and Peter Weber, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Kent Nishimura / Getty Images; Roy Rochlin / WireImage; Justin Sullivan / Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images