A long-running battle to recover a "holy grail" shipwreck and claim its billion-dollar treasure is intensifying. The "fabulous cargo of gold, silver and precious stones" of the "San José," a Spanish galleon that sank off Colombia in the early 18th century, has "long been the stuff of treasure hunters' dreams," said Le Monde — and that has put it at the heart of a tug of war.

Three-way battle
The wreck of the San José was first located in the 1980s by a U.S.-based salvage company, but it is far from the only party with a claim on the bounty. Colombia has "no doubts about its rights to the wreck," which lies within its territorial waters, said Le Monde, and earlier this year began a $4.5 million recovery process.

Spain has also "staked its claim," said the BBC, arguing that the San José and its cargo remains state property, while Indigenous groups from Bolivia and Peru also say they are entitled to "at least a part of the booty," which might have been mined by their ancestors.

With so many competing claims, ownership of each item recovered will "probably have to be decided by independent experts," said Dr. Ann Coats from the University of Portsmouth. A case is before the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague.

The holy grail
Describing the potential haul as the "biggest treasure in the history of humanity," Rahim Moloo, the lawyer representing the U.S. salvage company Sea Search Armada, said it includes seven million pesos, 116 steel chests full of emeralds and 30 million gold coins. The company estimates its value at $7-18 billion, although Carla Rahn Phillips, a historian who has written a book about the San José, told the BBC it's "almost meaningless to try to come up with a number" so many centuries later.

Although the San José is "often described as the holy grail of shipwrecks," the United Nations believes it's "just one of around three million sunken vessels on our ocean floor," said the BBC. "There is often very little clarity over who owns them" and their treasure.

Donald Trump is attempting a tricky approach to abortion in the 2024 presidential race. As president, he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and opened the door to abortion bans in red states. As a candidate, he would rather downplay the issue.

Trump's allies this summer backed a Republican Party platform that "abandons the party's long-standing explicit support for national restrictions," said The Washington Post. The platform does leave open a path for courts to "grant fetuses additional legal rights" — which would narrow any remaining abortion protections — but the "watered-down language" infuriated the GOP's anti-abortion wing, said the Post.

The former president has instead made the case that "abortion rights should be left to the states," said CNN. He has refused to endorse a national abortion ban.

The return of a 'zombie law'?
Trump doesn't necessarily need to pass a new ban to restrict abortion at the federal level. The Comstock Act is a "zombie law" that has stood "unenforced for decades," Meghan Bartels said at Scientific American. Still on the books, it forbids sending "instruments of contraception or abortion" through the mail. Comstock Act enforcement is a key feature of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation blueprint that Trump has repudiated. (He has also said he won't enforce the Comstock Act.) Abortion rights activists are still alarmed, though. If enforced, the act "would preempt state laws that protect abortion rights," UC Davis' Mary Ziegler said to Mother Jones.

"Medication abortions" now account for most abortions in the United States. Trump in August suggested he is "open to curbing access to abortion pills through federal regulations," said the Post. 

'Less pro-abortion than Kamala Harris'
Trump's positions have produced a backlash from some of his supporters. Anti-abortion activist Lila Rose of Live Action told her audience it is "impossible" for her to support Trump, said the BBC, although it's clear he is "less pro-abortion than Kamala Harris." 

The policies of Trump's anti-abortion evangelical supporters "are not popular" — even red states have voted against restrictions — but he "needs those white evangelical voters to stick by his side," Anthea Butler said at MSNBC.