By Grace Panetta

Today’s guest writer is Grace Panetta, an outstanding reporter who works for The 19th.

Abortion in the House

House Majority PAC, the preeminent super PAC supporting Democratic U.S. House candidates, announced it plans to spend $100 million on abortion. The group’s Reproductive Freedom Accountability Fund intends to prioritize abortion-focused advertisements and voter engagement in swing districts, per a recent memo to donors. The PAC has placed upward of $168 million in total television and digital ads in 58 markets. Another Democratic PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, launched a three-week, $25 million ad blitz tying the loss of federal abortion rights to former President Donald Trump.

Natalie Andrews, The Wall Street Journal

Rising Veepstakes

Swing state voters are increasingly confident in Vice President Kamala Harris’ ability to serve as president. The latest battleground state tracking poll from Morning Consult and Bloomberg News showed that 48 percent of registered voters in seven swing states said they would trust Harris to assume the responsibilities of the presidency if President Joe Biden could no longer do so. In the same poll, 61 percent of voters said the presidential candidates’ running mates are more important than them in 2024 than in past election cycles because of the candidates' ages: Biden is 81, and Trump turns 78 next month. 

Akayla Gardner, Bloomberg News

Getting the Snip

The U.S. military saw a jump in service members seeking vasectomies after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion in June 2022. Between June and December of 2022, vasectomy rates among service members increased by 22.1 percent compared to average rates from 2018 to 2021, per a new study from the International Journal of Impotence Research. The study found that younger, unmarried and more junior-ranking service members, as well as dependents, were more likely to undergo the procedure. 

Patricia Kime, Military.com

A Historic Vote in Mexico

Mexico is on the cusp of electing its first woman president as frontrunners Claudia Sheinbaum and Xóchitl Gálvez vie for votes in Sunday’s election. The election has cast a spotlight on the gender and economic inequities in Mexican society, including the treatment of Mexico’s estimated 2.5 million domestic workers, who are primarily women and often face low pay, mistreatment and unequal access to benefits. While neither candidate has centered the rights of domestic workers in their campaigns, some workers are hopeful they’ll see improvements under a woman president.

Megan Janetsky, Associated Press

What Happens After A Doping Scandal?

The road to justice for athletes cheated by illicit drug use can be a long and frustrating one. In 2016, Ethiopian elite runner Buzunesh Deba was declared the rightful winner of the 2014 Boston Marathon, one of the world’s most prestigious, after tests caught first-place finisher Rita Jeptoo doping. But eight years later, Deba says she’s still waiting on $100,000 — $75,000 in prize winnings and $25,000 for setting a course record — as well as her trophy and medals. The Boston Athletic Association, which oversees the marathon, maintains that per international regulations, it must first recover the prize money it gave to Jeptoo. The years-long wait has left Deba, now a mother of two small children, in limbo. “I think they shouldn’t be mad at me, because I’ve been patient for eight years,” she says.

Michael Silverman, The Boston Globe

Leveling the Playing Field

Philanthropist Melinda French Gates has committed $1 billion toward advancing gender equity in the next two years as she prepares to step down as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and move into her next chapter. Less than 2 percent of charitable giving in the United States currently goes to organizations focused on women and girls, French Gates noted in a New York Times op-ed, a gap she’s helping fill with $200 million to 16 U.S.-based organizations. The 19th is thrilled to be among them with a multimillion-dollar grant from French Gates and her organization, Pivotal. 

Pivotal Ventures and Melinda French Gates, The New York Times

Bad Romance, Bad Taxes

Nikko D’Ambrosio made national headlines in January when he sued Meta and over two dozen women after he said he was disparaged in a “Are we dating the same guy?” Facebook group out of Chicago. (The lawsuit was later dismissed.) On Wednesday, D’Ambrosio was sentenced to a year in prison on federal tax fraud charges. D’Ambrosio was convicted of skirting paying $119,000 in federal taxes on his earnings from his work for a shady sweepstakes kiosk operation that has ties to Chicago organized crime, including claiming phony mileage expenses and charitable donations that the judge in his case called “outrageous.” 

Jason Meisner, Chicago Tribune

Follow Grace’s work at The 19th.

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