SCOTUS punts abortion pill decision to Friday

The US Supreme Court delays its abortion pill decision until Friday; Asia swelters in a record-breaking heat wave.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Jariel Arvin.

The Supreme Court pauses abortion pill ruling

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

• US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito extended an order that pauses restrictions on access to a commonly used abortion pill until Friday at 11:59 pm ET.  [Vox / Ian Millhiser]
• The order follows a decision by a Trump-appointed judge, who withdrew FDA approval of mifepristone, effectively banning the pill nationwide. A US Court of Appeals kept the ban in place with restrictions. [Reuters / Andrew Chung]
• Wednesday’s temporary order gives the Court more time to consider the Biden administration's and pharmaceutical company’s challenge to the restrictions. [Washington Post / Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow]
• Access to abortion pills has come under increasing attacks from anti-abortion groups since the conservative-majority court overturned Roe v. Wade. [NBC / Lawrence Hurley]
• Meanwhile, the manufacturer of the generic brand mifepristone on Wednesday sued the FDA to keep the abortion pill on shelves. [Politico / Alice Miranda Ollstein]

📍 If you read just one story

Vox staff answers big questions raised by the debate over mifepristone and abortion access. [Vox]

Extreme heat wave scorches Asia

• Unusually early high temperatures have shattered records in more than a dozen countries as Asia experiences the worst April heat wave in its history. [Axios / Andrew Freedman]
• Saturday, Thailand recorded its hottest temperature ever of 113F. In China, 100 weather stations in 12 provinces broke records. And India issued warnings this week amid high temperatures that led to multiple deaths at an outdoor event. [Guardian / Rebecca Ratcliffe and Hannah Ellis-Petersen]
• Human-caused climate change is making heat waves more frequent and intense. Scientists have warned that additional warming will bring devastating impacts to humans and other creatures. [CNN / Taylor Ward and Helen Regan]
• Early heat waves can be especially deadly because the body has less time to adjust to hotter temperatures — especially in places that lack the infrastructure to help people cool off. [Vox / Rebecca Leber]

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Meta is laying off about 4,000 employees across its technical teams as CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues his “year of efficiency.” [Vox / Shirin Ghaffary]

• Two teens face reckless murder charges for the weekend mass shooting in Dadeville, Alabama, that left four people dead and dozens injured [Vox / Nicole Narea]
• The Florida Board of Education on Wednesday extended Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ban on classroom discussions of sexual orientation and gender to all grades. [Reuters / Joseph Ax]
• The Colorado River is drying up because farms use 79 percent of its water for crop irrigation. [Vox / Kenny Torrella]

"A heat wave in some part is a natural phenomenon, but there are political choices that have been made over decades and centuries that have withheld vital resources, infrastructure, disaster preparedness, green amenities from low-income communities of color."

[Michael Méndez, an environmental policy and planning assistant professor at the University of California Irvine, on heat wave disparities / Vox]

Mifepristone and the FDA’s exhaustive approval process, explained

A federal judge in Texas issued a ruling that nullified the 2000 Food and Drug Administration approval of mifepristone, the first medication in a two-pill combination for medication abortion. A confusing legal battle ensued, and now we are waiting to hear from the Supreme Court. But we still want to know: What does this mean for the future of FDA drug approval? Vox’s Keren Landman (@landmanspeaking) explains.

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