US elections live: anger over two court abortion decisions; Trump taps into eugenics language in anti-migrant remarks

Kamala Harris, together with second gentleman Doug Emhoff, will in a few minutes hold a tree-planting ceremony to mark the one-year anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel.

The vice-president will then deliver remarks at the event held at her residence at the United States Naval Observatory, which is about three miles from the White House in Washington DC.

It’s Harris’s only scheduled public speech today, and we will let you know what she has to say.

Lauren Gambino

Reproductive freedom is a “deal-breaker” issue for voters, especially women, which is fueling Democratic candidates in races that will decide major offices from the state house to the White House.

That was the top line from a briefing to reporters by representatives from Emily’s List, the fundraising juggernaut that backs Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights.

“The question is not, will abortion drive votes in this election? It is, how far, how wide, how deep does that impact go?” said one senior member of the organization. The briefing was conducted without attribution to allow representatives to speak more freely.

She said the issue has allowed Democrats to compete in areas where they otherwise would not typically be competitive, like a seat in Wisconsin and one in Pennsylvania. She also said this election, women candidates who were not previously politically active have “entered the political ring arena because of the issue of abortion rights”. She pointed to Kristin Lyerly, an ob-gyn, who is running for a seat in Wisconsin.

Polls have consistently found that abortion is a top issue, often second to the economy. But what makes the issue so potent, she said, is how many voters, perhaps a decisive share of voters, view it.

“It is a deal-breaker issue,” she said. “When they learn information about a Republican who is on the wrong side of this issue that becomes a deal breaker for them, and they just won’t entertain it any further.”

Another official emphasized that Republicans’ efforts to re-cast their long-held positions on the issue underlined how important the issue would be this cycle.

“We are going through the collapse of 40 years of Republican branding around the phrase ‘pro-life,’”that official said. “Voters hear that now, and they assume that a ‘pro-life’ politician is for an abortion ban with no exceptions.”

In an interview earlier today with conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt, Donald Trump used terminology associated with eugenics to attack migrants.

The remark came as the former president discussed the alleged harm done by new arrivals to the United States, saying many were “murderers”.

“Now, a murderer, it’s in their genes,” Trump continued. “And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

It was language similar to the beliefs of eugenics, which emerged in the late 19th century and held that human ills could be combatted through selective breeding. The theory is today regarded as both inaccurate and racist.

Here’s audio of Trump’s remark:

At the ongoing White House press briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that the supreme court has effectively allowed Texas to deny women abortions even in emergencies, by refusing to take up a Biden administration lawsuit against the state today.

“Today we saw the supreme court decision and what it means that women in Texas could still be denied critical emergency medical care, because of the state’s dangerous and extreme abortion bans,” Jean-Pierre said. “We have seen and have heard the horrific stories of women being denied the care they need because of these laws.”

Jean-Pierre also noted that a Georgia court had allowed the state’s abortion ban to go back into effect, and said:

All of these laws were made possible when the former president handicapped three Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v Wade. They are creating chaos and confusion for women and doctors.

The administration has been clear that all patients, including women experiencing pregnancy loss and other pregnancy related emergency, must be able to access the emergency medical care they need, and that is required by federal law. The stories we hear of women being denied care they need in emergency situation [are] completely unacceptable.

Joanna Walters

The Georgia supreme court’s reinstatement a little earlier of a six-week abortion ban in the state is provoking reaction.

The ban was struck down a week ago and now revived while the court considers more fully the state’s appeal against the ban’s striking.

The Center for Reproductive Rights posted on X that: “Despite this devastating setback, we are prepared to fight like hell when the case goes before the Georgia Supreme Court. This is NOT over, and we are NOT backing down.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia decried today’s decision.

Andrew Young, executive director, said: “Elected officials in our state continue their disrespect of women, treating our bodies as state-owned property. We will persist, using all lawful means to restore dignity, full citizenship and a right to privacy for Georgia’s women.”

Joanna Walters

Here is some more detail on the new ruling by Georgia’s supreme court reviving the state’s six-week ban on abortions, a week after the ban was struck down.

The lawsuit challenging the ban was brought by Atlanta-based SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Today, the Georgia Supreme Court sided with anti-abortion extremists. Every minute this harmful six-week abortion ban is in place, Georgians suffer,” SisterSong’s executive director, Monica Simpson, said in a statement, Reuters reports.

The office of Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The law bans almost all abortions after what it labels a “human heartbeat” is detected, typically around six weeks. In fact, at six weeks a fetus has not yet developed a heart, but there may be rudimentary, pulse-like signals. This is before many women know they are pregnant.

The ban was passed in 2019 during Donald Trump’s presidency but did not take effect until the end of Roe v Wade in 2022.

Here’s Simpson speaking at an event last month.

Georgia supreme court reinstates abortion ban

Joanna Walters

Georgia’s highest court on has today reinstated a ban on nearly all abortions in the state after about six weeks of pregnancy while it considers the US state’s appeal of last week’s ruling by a lower court judge blocking the law.

The order from the Supreme Court of Georgia allows the ban to take effect at 5pm ET today, Reuters reports.

A week ago, Fulton county superior judge Robert McBurney struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that the ban is unconstitutional and blocking it from being enforced.

McBurney ruled that the state’s abortion laws must revert to what they were before the six-week ban – known as the Life Act – was passed in 2019. The ban was blocked as long as Roe v Wade was the law of the land, but went into effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022.

So for one week, abortions became legal in Georgia again up until about 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Kamala Harris is on a media blitz, with appearances planned on everything from The View to Howard Stern in the days to come. We will see her later tonight on 60 Minutes, one of the most watched news programs in the country, but based on what we have seen so far, the vice-president doesn’t seem interested in breaking new ground. In excerpts released by CBS, she sidestepped a question about how she would cajole Congress into approving higher taxes on the rich, and demurred when asked if she regarded Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “close ally”. Meanwhile, the supreme court began a new term with cases dealing with transgender rights and the Biden administration’s effort to curb ghost guns on its docket. It also declined to weigh in on a wrongful death lawsuit involving an Alabama clinic at the center of the controversy over IVF care, and a Biden administration challenge to Texas’s abortion ban and how it affects carrying out the procedure in an emergency.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• Donald Trump’s policies would add more to the national debt than Kamala Harris’s, an analysis by a nonpartisan budget watchdog found.

• Biden, Harris and Trump are all marking today’s one-year anniversary of the 7 October attack in Israel.

• Florida is bracing as Hurricane Milton, which has just been upgraded to a category 5 storm, churns towards it west coast, even as it continues to recover from Hurricane Helene.

The supreme court began a new term today, where the conservative-dominated body could issue major rulings on transgender rights, rules to curb the spread of ghost guns, and a high-profile death penalty case.

The court will hear cases in the months to come, and likely issue rulings next year. There is also the chance the justices could be drawn into disputes over the November elections.

From the Associated Press, here are some of the cases they will be considering, starting with ghost guns:

The justices will hear a case Tuesday on regulations for ghost guns, privately made weapons that are hard for police to track because they don’t have serial numbers.

The number of the firearms found at crime scenes has soared in recent years, from fewer than 4,000 in 2018 to nearly 20,000 recovered by law enforcement in 2021, according to Justice Department data.

The numbers have been declining in multiple cities since the Biden administration began requiring background checks and age verification for ghost gun kits that can be bought online.

But manufacturers and gun rights groups argue that the administration overstepped and the rule should be overturned.

The rights of transgender minors:

Perhaps the court’s most closely watched case so far this year is a fight over transgender rights.

The case over state bans on gender-affirming care comes as Republican-led states enact a variety of restrictions, including school sports participation, bathroom usage and drag shows.

The administration and Democratic-led states have extended protections for transgender people, though the Supreme Court has separately prohibited the administration from enforcing a new federal regulation that seeks to protect transgender students.

The justices will weigh a Tennessee law that restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The case does not yet have a hearing date but will likely be argued in December.

And the case of death row inmate Richard Glossip:

In the decades since Richard Glossip was sentenced to die over a 1997 murder-for-hire scheme, the case has become a rare one where prosecutors are conceding mistakes.

Oklahoma’s Republican attorney general has joined with Glossip in seeking to overturn his murder conviction and death sentence.

Despite those doubts, an Oklahoma appeals court has upheld Glossip’s conviction, and the state’s pardon and parole board deadlocked in a vote to grant him clemency.

Days after weathering Hurricane Helene, Florida is now in the path of Hurricane Milton, which has just been upgraded to a category 5 storm. The hurricane has the potential to become the latest crisis on Joe Biden’s plate just weeks before the 5 November election.

Here’s the latest on the approaching storm, from the Guardian’s Anna Betts: