Justices signal they'll OK new abortion limits, may toss Roe

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the biggest challenge to abortion rights in decades, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday signaled they would allow states to ban abortion much earlier in pregnancy and may even overturn the nationwide right that has existed for nearly 50 years.

With hundreds of demonstrators outside chanting for and against, the justices led arguments that could decide the fate of the court's historic 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion throughout the United States and its 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe.

The outcome probably won't be known until next June. But after nearly two hours of arguments, all six conservative justices, including three appointed by former President Donald Trump, indicated they would uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

At the very least, such a decision would undermine Roe and Casey, which allow states to regulate but not ban abortion up until the point of fetal viability, at roughly 24 weeks.

And there was also substantial support among the conservative justices for getting rid of Roe and Casey altogether. Justice Clarence Thomas is the only member of the court who has openly called for overruling the two cases.

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US reports 1st case of omicron variant in returning traveler

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The U.S. recorded its first confirmed case of the omicron variant Wednesday — in a vaccinated traveler who returned to California after a trip to South Africa — as scientists around the world race to establish whether the new, mutant version of the coronavirus is more dangerous than previous ones.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top infectious-disease expert, announced the finding at the White House.

“We knew it was just a matter of time before the first case of omicron would be detected in the United States,” he said.

The infected person was identified as a traveler who had returned from South Africa on Nov. 22, developed mild symptoms and tested positive for COVID-19 Monday. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco obtained a sample from the patient Tuesday evening and worked feverishly overnight to assemble the genetic sequence.

The person, who had had the full two doses of the Moderna vaccine and wasn't yet due for a booster shot, is improving, California officials said.

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Michigan teen charged in Oxford High School shooting

OXFORD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) — A 15-year-old boy was charged with murder and terrorism for a shooting that killed four fellow students and injured more at a Michigan high school, authorities said Wednesday as they revealed additional details, including a meeting between troubled officials and his parents just a few hours before the bloodshed.

No motive was offered by Oakland County authorities, a day after violence at Oxford High School, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Detroit. But prosecutor Karen McDonald said the shooting was premeditated, based on a “mountain of digital evidence” against Ethan Crumbley.

“This was not just an impulsive act,” McDonald said.

Indeed, sheriff's Lt. Tim Willis told a judge that Crumbley recorded a video the night before the violence in which he discussed killing students.

Crumbley was charged as an adult with two dozen crimes, including murder, attempted murder and terrorism causing death. During his arraignment, he replied, “Yes, I do,” when asked if he understood the charges. Defense attorney Scott Kozak entered a plea of not guilty.

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A world ablaze, captured by AP photographers in 2021

“Some say the world will end in fire,” wrote the poet Robert Frost -- and for much of 2021, Associated Press photographers captured scenes of a world ablaze, amid rumblings of ruin.

In New Delhi, a man sprints amid the funeral pyres of COVID-19 victims -- too many fires, too much heat, too many victims. On a beach near the village of Limni, Greece, the horizon is lit by the flames of wildfires raging across the eastern Mediterranean.

And at La Palma in the Canary Islands, the inferno is in the Cumbre Vieja volcano. But more than 10,000 million cubic meters of ash turn the world into a negative, with black ash taking the place of white snow.

Not all of the combustion is so literal.

There is fury: the astonishing moment when police aimed their guns at rioters trying to break into the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol; Mexican demonstrators against gender violence, hurling themselves at barricades; an Ethiopian woman’s wrath as she fights for every split pea in starving, war-torn Tigray.

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Jan. 6 panel votes to hold former DOJ official in contempt

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House panel investigating the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection voted Wednesday to pursue contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official who refused to answer the committee's questions — but the panel agreed to let him come back for another try.

The committee voted 9-0 to pursue criminal charges against Clark, who aligned with Donald Trump ahead of the violent attack as the then-president tried to overturn his election defeat. Clark appeared for a deposition last month but refused to be interviewed, citing Trump’s legal efforts to block the committee’s investigation.

The Democratic chairman of the Jan. 6 panel, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said it had received a last-minute notification from Clark's lawyer that he now wants to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Thompson said the lawyer had offered “no specific basis for that assertion” and “no facts that would allow the committee to consider it,” but the committee will give Clark a second chance at a deposition scheduled for Saturday.

“This is, in my view, a last-ditch attempt to delay the Select Committee’s proceedings," Thompson said. “However, a Fifth Amendment privilege assertion is a weighty one. Even though Mr. Clark previously had the opportunity to make these claims on the record, the Select Committee will provide him another chance to do so."

Thompson said the committee was still proceeding with the contempt vote “as this is just the first step of the contempt process.”

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Mysteries of omicron variant could take weeks to untangle

A pandemic-weary world faces weeks of confusing uncertainty as countries restrict travel and take other steps to halt the newest potentially risky coronavirus mutant before anyone knows just how dangerous omicron really is.

Will it spread even faster than the already extra-contagious delta variant? Does it make people sicker? Does it evade vaccines’ protection or reinfect survivors? There are lots of guesses but little hard evidence as scientists race to find answers amid scrutiny from an anxious public.

“Pretty much the right level of freaking out,” is how Trevor Bedford, who studies evolution of the coronavirus at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, characterized health experts' reactions.

Omicron might not turn out “as bad as we’re perhaps imagining it could be but treating it as such at the moment I think is entirely appropriate,” he said.

Up to now, the world has been slow to react to each coronavirus curveball. This time an early warning from South Africa and Botswana might have offered important head start.

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Stacey Abrams launches 2nd campaign for Georgia governor

ATLANTA (AP) — Stacey Abrams, the Georgia Democrat and leading voting rights activist, said Wednesday that she will launch another campaign to become the nation's first Black woman governor.

Without serious competition in a Democratic primary, the announcement could set up a rematch between Abrams and incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. Their 2018 contest was one of the most narrowly decided races for governor that year and was dominated by allegations of voter suppression, which Kemp denied.

Yet Abrams' strong showing convinced national Democrats that Georgia should no longer be written off as a GOP stronghold. Her performance and subsequent organization convinced Joe Biden to invest heavily in the state in 2020, and he became the first Democratic presidential candidate to capture it since 1992. The party later won a narrow Senate majority after victories in two Georgia special elections.

The 2022 governor's race will test whether those gains were a one-time phenomenon driven by discomfort with then-President Donald Trump or marked the beginning of a more consequential political shift in a rapidly growing and diversifying South. The Democratic loss in the Virginia governor's election could raise questions about whether Abrams' straightforwardly liberal approach can be effective in a national environment currently trending against the Democrats.

In a video announcing her candidacy, Abrams said “opportunity and success in Georgia shouldn’t be determined by background or access to power.”

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Suspect in Waukesha parade carnage says he feels 'demonized'

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The man accused of driving his SUV through a Christmas parade in suburban Milwaukee, killing six people and injuring dozens, said Wednesday that he feels like he's being “demonized.”

Darrell Brooks Jr., in an interview with Fox News from the Waukesha County Jail, offered no details about a possible motive.

“I just feel like I’m being monster – demonized,” Brooks said, according to the Fox report.

According to a criminal complaint, Brooks drove his SUV into the parade in Waukesha on Nov. 21. Witnesses said he was swerving and appeared to be intentionally trying to hit people. He was arrested minutes later as he stood on the porch of a nearby house asking the homeowner to help him call a ride.

Police said he had fled the scene of a domestic disturbance when he turned into the parade, although officers were not pursuing him at the time. He’s been charged with six counts of first-degree intentional homicide.

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South Africa's new COVID cases double in 1 day amid omicron

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South Africa's new cases of COVID-19 nearly doubled in a day, authorities reported Wednesday, signaling a dramatic surge in the country where scientists detected the omicron variant last week.

New confirmed cases rose to 8,561 Wednesday from 4,373 a day earlier, according to official statistics.

Scientists in South Africa said they are bracing for a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases following the discovery of the new omicron variant.

“There is a possibility that really we’re going to be seeing a serious doubling or tripling of the cases as we move along or as the week unfolds,” Dr. Nicksy Gumede-Moeletsi, regional virologist for the World Health Organization, told The Associated Press. “There is a possibility that we are going to see a vast increase in number of cases being identified in South Africa.”

South Africa had seen a period of low transmission in early November with a 7-day average of about 200 new cases per day, but in the middle of November new cases began to rapidly increase. The new cases reported Wednesday represent a 16.5% positivity rate of cases tested, up from a 1% rate early in November.

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Dystopia, 'she-cession,' TikTok dances: We're over you, 2021

NEW YORK (AP) — The pandemic, politics, pervasive anxiety over the climate and the economy. Did 2021 leave us any time to ponder anything else? As we limp our way into a new year, there are a few more things we'd like to leave behind, from pop culture's obsession with all things apocalyptic to the well meaning but exhausting lay dancers on TikTok.

A list of what we're over as we look for renewal and hope in 2022:

DYSTOPIA PALOOZA

War, destruction, disaster: Popular entertainment has certainly reflected, expanded upon and imagined the very doom of it all. But must it continue at the same rapid clip? The latest, “Squid Game,” was a huge score for Netflix. Its creator can't imagine a future without a second season of the deadly Korean series. Fans rejoiced. Dystopia is merely one genre, however, one storytelling technique. Would we not benefit from an equally heavy dose of stories that focus on solutions and, dare we say it, inspiration? We're talking that middle ground between zombies and “The Great British Baking Show." Just think about it.

TIKTOK DANCEATHON

News from © The Associated Press, 2021