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The Supreme Court hears its first abortion case since ending Roe

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Nearly two-thirds of the Americans who choose to end their pregnancies now do so using pills. Medication abortion has been an increasingly popular option since 2000, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first approved mifepristone as part of a two-drug regimen with misoprostol. More recently, the FDA widened the window during which the medicine may be used and eased dispensing requirements. But on March 26th the Supreme Court will consider whether these loosened regulations should be tightened back up.

FDA v Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine began as an assault on the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone. In April 2023 the district-court judge in Texas who heard the case invalidated the authorisation from 2000 and each of the subsequent liberalisations. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals kept mifepristone on the shelves when it pared back this extraordinary ruling last August. But the appeals court agreed that the 2016 and 2021 changes—allowing the drug to be used through ten weeks of pregnancy (up from seven) and to be sent to women by post with a remote prescription—had to go.

The plaintiffs will be represented at the Supreme Court by Erin Hawley, wife of Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. They contend that the FDA violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a law governing how agencies operate, when it expanded access to the purportedly “high risk” drug in 2016 and 2021. The changes in 2016 followed a “piecemeal analysis” of insufficient data, the Alliance writes, and the action of 2021 relied on “unreliable” information. Lifting “long-existing and common-sense safety standards” was “arbitrary and capricious” and thus “unreasonable”.

The federal government and Danco, which markets mifepristone as Mifeprex, paint the FDA’s decisions in a rosier light. The move in 2016 was based on “an enormous and highly reliable data set”, the government says. The decision to allow pills-by-post in 2021 was informed by “extensive published literature”, plus more than two decades of women safely using mifepristone. Emergencies arise in at most 0.7% of cases, making the medicine safer than Viagra or penicillin.

The two sides will surely debate the wisdom of the FDA’s moves in next week’s oral argument. But the question of standing could dominate the conversation: whether the challengers have the legal right to bring the case. The Supreme Court has held that fierce opposition to a policy is no grounds to sue the government. Litigants must show they have suffered a “concrete injury” with a clear causal link.

The plaintiffs advance a host of arguments to claim standing. Their main contention is reminiscent of a Rube Goldberg machine: pro-life doctors could be forced to violate their conscience if no one else is available to complete terminations for women rushed to the emergency room after complications from a medical abortion prescribed elsewhere. This “long chain of contingencies” stemming from “an exceedingly rare serious adverse event” is purely speculative, the government argues: the plaintiffs have not named “even a single doctor among their thousands of members who has ever been required to perform an abortion in the decades mifepristone has been on the market”.

The Supreme Court arguably bent the rules of standing last year in a case that dashed President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel student loans. But the winding argument from mifepristone’s foesand the legal adventurism of the lower courts—may stretch too far even for the five justices who dispatched Roe v Wade in 2022.

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Economics

Why the president must not be lexicographer-in-chief

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Who decides what legal terms mean? If it is Donald Trump, God help America

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Economics

Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

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Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.

Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%.

Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.

Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.

Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.

People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.

On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.

Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.

Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.

Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.

At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.

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Economics

German inflation May 2025

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19 May 2025, Berlin: Apricots are sold at a greengrocer for 7.98 euros per kilogram. Grapes and papaya are also on offer.

Photo by Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images

Germany’s annual inflation hit 2.1% in May approaching the European Central Bank’s 2% target but coming in slightly hotter than analyst estimates, preliminary data from statistics office Destatis showed Friday.

The print compares with a 2.2% reading in April and with a Reuters projection of 2%.

The print is harmonized across the euro zone for comparability.

So-called core inflation, which strips out more volatile food and energy prices, dipped slightly from April’s 2.8% to 2.9% in May. The closely watched services print meanwhile eased sharply, coming in at 3.4% compared to 3.9% in the previous month.

Energy prices fell markedly for the second month in a row, tumbling by 4.6% in May.

Germany’s consumer price index has been closing in on the European Central Bank’s 2% target over recent months, in a positive signal amid ongoing uncertainty about the economic outlook for Europe’s largest economy.

Domestic and global issues have mired expectations for Germany’s financial future.

One the one hand, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs could damage economic growth, given Germany’s status as an export-reliant country, though the potential impact of such duties on inflation remains unclear. But frequent policy shifts and developments have been muddying the picture.

On the other hand, Germany’s newly minted government is starting to get to work and has made the economy a top priority. Questions linger about when and to what extent the new Berlin administration’s policy plans might be realized.

The ECB is set to make its next interest rate decision on June 5, with traders last pricing in an over 96% chance of a quarter point interest rate reduction, according to LSEG data. Back in April, the central bank had cut its deposit facility rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%.

This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.

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