As demand surges, retailers ration Plan B

Retailers limit the sale of emergency contraception; Japan swelters in a historic heatwave.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

The end of Roe sees soaring demand for Plan B

Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

• Some drugstores and online retailers are limiting sales of emergency contraceptive pills amid surging demand following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. [Yahoo / Amrita Khalid]
• Amazon and Rite Aid limited purchases to three pills per customer. Tuesday, CVS removed a temporary limit it put in place to ensure equitable access once sales stabilized. [CNN / Virginia Langmaid and Naomi Thomas]
• Several states have moved to ban abortion post-Roe. In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that the Court should revisit the right to contraception, though no other justice appeared to agree. [Washington Post / Christopher Rowland, Yiwen Lu, and Aaron Gregg]
• If taken within three days of intercourse, emergency contraceptive pills like Plan B can reduce the chance of pregnancy by stopping a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus and temporarily blocking ovulation. [BBC / Holly Honderich]
• Although time-sensitive emergency contraceptive pills are legal nationwide, they’re not always readily available in stores, raising the risk of pregnancy. [NPR / Maria Godoy]

Japan buckles under an unprecedented heatwave

• Japan’s residents and power grid are suffering under the country’s worst June heatwave since 1875, when records began. [AccuWeather / Renee Duff]
• For the fifth day in a row, temperatures in Tokyo were above 95°F on Wednesday. To the northwest, the city Isesaki hit 104°F — the hottest June temperature ever recorded in Japan. [BBC]
• On Monday, the Japanese government urged residents to save power to avoid outages and also to use air conditioning appropriately to prevent heatstroke among the elderly. [CNN / Heather Chen, Junko Ogura and Mayumi Maruyama]
• Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ordered companies to increase nuclear power output to meet energy demand. Temperatures in Tokyo won’t drop below 86°F until next week. [Reuters]

A French court convicted 20 men for the 2015 terrorist attacks that killed 130 people and injured hundreds more in and around Paris. [New York Times / Constant Méheut and Aurelien Breeden]

• Los Angeles officials voted on Tuesday to return oceanside property Bruce’s Beach to descendants of its Black owners nearly 100 years after it was seized. [BBC / David Molloy]
• US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi received communion at the Vatican on Wednesday. [Associated Press / Nicole Winfield]
• After 28 years, Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court Thursday at noon. Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will replace him. [NBC News / Pete Williams]

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“People are scrambling to feel like they can exercise control where things feel chaotic, and it is a way to try to plan where otherwise something that normally feels stable, like the rule of law, does not feel stable.”

[Nicole Huberfeld, a professor of law, ethics, and human rights at Boston University/ Washington Post, on the demand for Plan B]

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