US appeals court lets Texas resume ban on most abortions, Calif. oil spill: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of 5 Things: The court's decision came days after a U.S. district judge suspended Texas' law banning most abortions. Plus, officials now say the California pipeline that caused last week's oil spill may have been impacted by a ship's anchor months ago, hiring again slowed down dramatically last month, NASA temporarily stops sending signals to its Mars missions and Comic Con returns to New York City.
Hit play on the player above to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript below. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
Taylor Wilson:
Good morning, I'm Taylor Wilson, and this is Five Things You Need To Know Saturday, the 9th of October, 2021. Today, an appeals court has allowed Texas to continue its abortion ban, plus a ship's anchor may have damaged the California pipeline that caused an oil spill up to a year ago, and more.
Taylor Wilson:
Here are some of the top headlines.
The police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, paralyzing him, will not face Federal charges. The move comes after State prosecutors earlier this year also decided not to file charges against Rusten Chesky, a white officer who shot Blake, who was Black. The shooting also sparked protests that led to the deaths of two men.
Abolassan Banisadr, the first president of Iran after the 1970 revolution, has died. He later fled the capital after he was impeached for challenging the growing power of clerics as the country became a theocracy. He was 88.
And France will return 26 African works of art to the West African country of Benin later this month. France has long promised to give art back that was taken from Africa during the colonial era.
Taylor Wilson:
A Federal appeals court last night allowed Texas to again continue its ban on most abortions. That came just a day after clinics across the State began rushing to serve patients again, in most cases for the first time since early September. The law bans abortions once cardiac activity is detected, usually at around six weeks, often only a week or two after many know they're pregnant, and before some ever know. But earlier this week, US District Judge Robert Pittman, an appointee of President Barack Obama, suspended the law, saying it went against the Constitution. Then yesterday, a New Orleans based appeals court temporarily set aside Pittman's ruling while it considers a Texas appeal. The court also gave the Biden Administration, which brought the lawsuit, until Tuesday to respond. For its part, the Supreme Court last month refused to block enforcement of the Texas law, though the court said it was not ruling on its constitutionality. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which represents several Texas abortion clinics, again urged the court to step in. The organization's president, Nancy Northup, said, "Patients are being thrown back into a state of chaos and fear."
Taylor Wilson:
Texas had around two dozen abortion clinics before the law took effect on September 1st, and not all clinics resumed this week because they feared the exact appeals court reversal that came last night. The Texas law gets around the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme court decision allowing abortions by permitting private citizens to file lawsuits against people who help abortions happen. Those citizens are entitled to $10,000 in damages if successful. Additionally, a 1992 Supreme Court decision prevents states from banning abortion before the point a fetus can survive outside the womb, at around 24 weeks of pregnancy, but the Texas private citizen loophole also gets around that.
Taylor Wilson:
The Southern California pipeline that caused last weekend's oil spill was likely actually hit by an anchor several months or even a year ago, according to the US Coast Guard. Captain Jason Neubauer.
Jason Neubauer:
We're fairly certain that there was one, at least, initiating incident that occurred several months to a year ago of an anchor drag situation. We are confident now that it was a large vessel. Our Marine Safety Center at Headquarters has done an analysis of the metric force tons that would be required to move that pipeline 105 feet, and it could not be a fishing vessel type, smaller vessel like that. It's very possible that the initial strike just deflected the pipeline, with no fracture, and then additional stresses added later by another incident, or the geological events, maybe that either increased the fracture or caused the whole thing. It looks like a linear type fracture that's not from the actual anchor flukes digging in.
Taylor Wilson:
That longer timeline was partially based on marine growth that was spotted on the pipe in an underwater survey. The slow leak might have also mean it was initially difficult to detect, though there are still questions about whether Amplify Energy, who owns the pipeline, or the Coast Guard, acted quickly enough last weekend when a boat saw a sheen in the water. Federal pipeline safety regulators put the time of the incident at 2:30 AM last Saturday, but say the company did not shut down the pipeline until 6:01 AM, more than three hours after a low pressure alarm went off. Amplify said the pipeline had been shut down by 6:00 AM, before restarting for just five minutes for a meter reading.
Taylor Wilson:
Additionally, the Coast Guard may not have acted quickly enough after a foreign ship reported a sheen longer than two miles just after 6:00 PM Friday evening. Anchor strikes on pipelines are relatively rare, but have caused problems over the years. An Associated Press review of 10,000 reports submitted to federal regulators found at least 17 accidents on pipelines carrying crude oil or other hazardous liquids linked to suspected anchor strikes since 1986. As for the leak's impact, it may take months or years to fully digest. Over the last week, some birds have been affected and many have been cared for by the Oil Wildlife Care Network. It's Director, Mike Sacardi.
Mike Sacardi:
So to date, as of last night, we have collected 25 live birds and collected, unfortunately, 10 dead birds. They've all been brought to this facility. We actually have seven live snowy clovers, they're small shore birds that are federally threatened species, very sensitive species. On average, for spills where we can get out there quickly, we average about a 50 to 75% release rate for live animals that come in, actually releasing them back into their habitats.
Taylor Wilson:
Environmentalists caution that long term impacts from the spill could be far greater. Some beaches in the area in Orange County are reopening this weekend, though the public still is not allowed to go in the water.
Taylor Wilson:
Hiring again slowed down last month, the economy added just 194,000 jobs, though the unemployment rate did fall from 5.2% to 4.8, according to the Labor Department. That jobs number fell well short of an estimate by economists that nearly 500,000 jobs were added, which would've still been a disappointing total. That's compared to more than a million job gains in July, and nearly that number in June, when COVID 19 cases were dropping. So far, the US has recovered around 17.4 million jobs, or about 78% of the jobs lost during the heart of pandemic shutdowns in the spring of 2020. That leaves the country about five million jobs short of its pre-crisis level.
Taylor Wilson:
Tammy Browning, the president of Kelly Outsourcing and Consulting Group told the AP that the numbers continue to reflect pandemic related economic hits.
Tammy Browning:
We're seeing, still, major childcare issues. We're still seeing parents fearful to send their kids back to school, and so I think that's more of a contributing factor than some of the economic factors that are going on, is that people are learning to live with less in general. And in fact, I think if we really sit back and watch this next two months, we'll see a spike for traditional roles that are holiday or seasonal roles, so we'll see a traditional spike that's cyclical. But what we won't see is truly a flood into the marketplace from candidates until likely post the holidays. So I anticipate we're going to see this, not just for economic reasons, but the pandemic is playing a factor along with that perfect storm that I described earlier.
Taylor Wilson:
And Bank Rate Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick said there's plenty of misery to go around in the latest report.
Mark Hamrick:
To see payrolls coming in weaker than expected, really for a second straight month, indicates that this is an economy that's still very much being affected by the impacts of the pandemic, and the recovery of late has not been as robust as hoped. We've had two straight months of disappointing jobs creation, and I think that we would be hoping for better momentum. We would've hoped that we would've restored more of the jobs lost, remember 22 million jobs lost in March and April of last year, but the Delta variant is among the surprises that have emerged, as have supply chain disruptions, a record number of job openings, and yet difficulty for employers in finding and landing the workers that they want.
Mark Hamrick:
So there was plenty of, let's say, misery to go around in this jobs report in the sense of disappointing payrolls gains, but education and government were the big under producers there, and we'll see whether that's sustained in the coming months. I doubt that it is. One of the things that we've been watching, of course, is the fact that we had the expiration of the pandemic unemployment benefits or programs as Labor Day passed by. There had been hopes in some quarters, particularly in the business community, that that would've produced more ample supply of workers available to work. We're not seeing that as of yet, in fact we saw labor force participation off slightly in the latest month, that is a rate which measures those who are working or available for work.
Taylor Wilson:
For more on the economy, stay with usatoday.com/money.
Taylor Wilson:
NASA, today, will stop sending command signals to its Mars missions for the entire week. That's because of the Mars solar conjunction, when Mars and Earth are on opposite sides of the sun. It happens only once every two years and can interfere with signals sent between the two planets. The stoppage comes after the Perseverance Rover, or Percy, as it's nicknamed, collected its first rock samples last month. The Rover's main mission is to find signs of ancient microbial life by collecting information and samples from the red planet surface, and a picture of Percy recently made waves, taken by NASA's Mars reconnaissance orbiter. Percy will wait out the next few days in an area known as South Sitar before getting new commands next weekend.
Taylor Wilson:
Comic-Con returns to New York City this weekend. The event went virtual last year because of the pandemic, but returned to Manhattan's Javits Center yesterday, and runs through Sunday. Events include everything from Star Trek meetups, to John Cena photo ops, and even the future of NFTs. But things won't be exactly the same as before the pandemic, anyone 12 or older must show proof of vaccination, and kids 11 and under need a negative COVID-19 test.
Taylor Wilson:
Thanks for listening to Five Things. A reminder you can find us wherever you get your podcasts, including on Apple podcasts, where we ask for a rating and review. Thanks, as always, to Shannon Green and Claire Thornton for their work on the show, and Claire's back with the Sunday Edition right here on this feed. I'll be back Monday, with more of Five Things, from the USA Today network.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Federal court lets Texas law banning most abortion to resume: 5 Things podcast
