Peloton Cutting About 400 Jobs Worldwide; CEO Stepping Down

Peloton is cutting about 400 jobs worldwide as part of a restructuring effort and its CEO Barry McCarthy is stepping down after two years as the company continues to work on turning around its business.

Shares edged down about 2% in morning trading, to $3.16.

Peloton has been working on a significant rebranding since last year, shifting its identity as a seller of luxury exercise bikes and equipment to heath technology for all.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

The New York company experienced incredible sales growth during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Its share price multiplied by more than five times in 2020 amid lockdowns that made its pricey bikes and treadmills popular among customers who pay a monthly fee to participate in interactive workouts.

But sales began to slow in 2021 as vaccines allowed people to roam more freely from their homes, including visits to the gym.

The company lost $1.26 billion in the fiscal year ended in June and an additional $350 million in the six months ended in December. Free cash flow, or the money left over after paying the costs of running the business, was a negative $470 million in fiscal 2023.

The losses continue. Peloton reported Thursday that for the third quarter it lost $167.3 million, or 45 cents per share, While that’s better than the loss of $275.9 million, or 79 cents per share, that it reported a year earlier, the performance fell short of the loss of 39 cents per share that analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research expected. Revenue totaled $717.7 million, below Wall Street’s estimate of $719.9 million.

It lowered its full-year revenue guidance by $25 million to a range of $2.675 billion to $2.7 billion, a dip from last year’s $2.8 billion in revenue.

Read More: The Big Business of Being a Peloton Instructor

Peloton Interactive Inc. said Thursday that the job reductions amount to approximately 15% of its global headcount. The restructuring efforts, which are expected to lower its annual run-rate expenses by more than $200 million by fiscal 2025’s end, also include continuing to close retail showrooms.

The job cuts are just the latest round for the company, which announced in October 2022 that it was cutting about 500 jobs on top of the nearly 800 layoffs it made in August of that year.

McCarthy, who is also stepping down from his president and board member posts, will remain with Peloton as a strategic adviser through the end of the year.

McCarthy had taken over the CEO post from founder John Foley to right a business that had suffered from numerous stumbles, from marketing missteps to recalls. During his tenure, he made a hard push to shift Peloton’s focus from high-priced hardware, to software and a fee-based app.

In a note sent to Peloton’s team this morning, McCarthy said that the newly announced job cuts were a moment of “dealing with the world as it is and not as we want it to be.”

“Hard as the decision has been to make additional headcount cuts, Peloton simply had no other way to bring its spending in line with its revenue,” he wrote.

Peloton said that Chairperson Karen Boone and director Chris Bruzzo will serve as interim co-CEOs while a search is conducted for its next CEO. Board member Jay Hoag will become the new chairperson.

source https://time.com/6973935/peloton-ceo-barry-mccarthy-step-down-cut-jobs/

Artists From Universal Music Group Are Heading Back to TikTok as New Deal Is Reached

Artists from Universal Music Group, which include Drake, Adele, Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish, will be returning to TikTok as the two parties have struck a new licensing agreement following an approximately three-month long dispute.

The two sides said Thursday that they are “now working expeditiously to return music by artists represented by Universal Music Group and songwriters represented by Universal Music Publishing Group to TikTok in due course.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Taylor Swift, whose recently released album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” has hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, had some of her songs make a return to TikTok last month, but the details of how that exactly happened are unclear, according to Variety.

UMG said in January that it had not agreed to terms of a new deal with TikTok, and planned to stop licensing content from the artists it represents on the social media platform that is owned by ByteDance, as well as TikTok Music services.

At the time, UMG had been pressing TikTok on three issues: “appropriate compensation for our artists and songwriters, protecting human artists from the harmful effects of AI, and online safety for TikTok’s users.”

TikTok pushed back against the claims by UMG, saying that it had reached ‘artist-first’ agreements with every other label and publisher.

On Thursday the two sides announced that their new agreement would give significant benefits to UMG’s global stable of artists, songwriters and labels and would return their music to TikTok.

“Music is an integral part of the TikTok ecosystem and we are pleased to have found a path forward with Universal Music Group,” TikTok CEO Shou Chew said in a statement. “We are committed to working together to drive value, discovery and promotion for all of UMG’s amazing artists and songwriters, and deepen their ability to grow, connect and engage with the TikTok community.”

Part of the new deal includes UMG and TikTok working together to find new monetization opportunities. They will also will work together on campaigns supporting UMG’s artists across genres and territories globally.

In addition, the companies will put their combined efforts toward ensuring that AI development across the music industry will protect human artistry and payments for artists and songwriters. TikTok will also work with UMG to remove unauthorized AI-generated music from the platform, as well as on tools to improve artist and songwriter attribution.

TikTok plans to continue investing in building artist-centric tools that will help UMG artists realize their potential on the platform. Some tools include “Add to Music App”, enhanced data and analytics, and integrated ticketing capabilities.

“We’re gratified to renew our relationship with TikTok predicated on significant advancements in commercial and marketing opportunities as well as protections provided to our industry-leading roster on their platform,” Michael Nash, chief digital officer and executive vice president, Universal Music Group, said in a statement.

While TikTok has settled its dispute with UMG, the future of the platform remains uncertain. Last month President Joe Biden signed legislation requiring TikTok parent ByteDance to sell to a U.S. owner within a year or to shut down. It’s not clear whether that law will survive an expected legal challenge or that ByteDance would agree to sell.

source https://time.com/6973888/universal-music-group-artists-tiktok-return/

iPhone Users Are Raising Complaints About This Glitch. Some Think They’ve Solved It

Across social media, iPhone users have reported waking up to the scary realization that they had missed their alarm. “In the past six days of school, I’ve accumulated seven tardies,” said TikTok user CarterPCS. “I could’ve sworn it was because my alarm wasn’t going off.”

“I was literally late to work the other day because I slept through all four of my alarms that I had set,” TikTok user Charkaylotte recounted. “I was confused because I never sleep through my alarm.”

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

In a news report posted on Tuesday, Apple told the Today Show that it was in fact aware of a glitch that is causing alarms to not make noise for many users. The company says that it is working on a fix, but it’s not clear when exactly that will be ready. 

@charkaylotte

#stitch with @Elizabeth now wtf is this shit apple? 🤨 | #xyzbca #fyp #apple #greenscreen

♬ original sound – charlotte 💋

@carterpcs

Iphone Alarms ARENT GOING OFF #carterpcs #tech #techtok #gaming #techfacts #alarm #iphone #apple #ios

♬ Funny – Gold-Tiger

TIME has reached out to Apple for further information.

In the meantime, some social media users, including TikTok’s CarterPCS, have recommended changing settings to help fix the issue. Specifically, they have noted that Apple’s “Attention-Aware Features,” which make your phone automatically brighten its screen and lower the volume while you are looking at it, may be causing the problem.

To turn off the “Attention-Aware Features,” go to “Settings” and then select “Face ID & Passcode.” You will be prompted to enter your passcode, after which you should be able to scroll down and see the option to toggle the features on or off. Turn them off to see if it helps fix your alarm clock issues.

source https://time.com/6973669/apple-iphone-alarm-clock-glitch-users-solution/

Here Are the 14 New Books You Should Read in May

From Brittney Griner’s eagerly anticipated memoir to a long-awaited sequel to Colm Tóibín’s beloved novel Brooklyn, the best books coming in May offer a range of choices for every reader. Those looking for a good laugh should check out the latest high-society comedy from Crazy Rich Asians author Kevin Kwan or filmmaker Miranda July’s first novel in 10 years, which offers a profoundly humorous take on menopause and mortality. R.O. Kwon’s sensual followup to her 2018 best-seller The Incendiaries is sure to keep readers on their toes, while scholar Deborah Paredez’s tribute to America’s finest divas offers an important lesson in pop-culture etymology.    

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Here, the 14 new books to read this month.

Coming Home, Brittney Griner (May 7)

On Feb. 17, 2022, WNBA player Brittney Griner was detained in Russia, where she played professionally in the offseason, for possessing cannabis oil, a substance that is illegal in the country. (At the time, Griner’s Russian lawyers stated that she had been prescribed medical cannabis for pain management by her doctors in the U.S.) The celebrated athlete was sentenced to nine years in prison for drug smuggling and served in a Russian penal colony until the U.S. government was able to broker a prisoner swap in December 2022, trading her for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Griner’s memoir, Coming Home, which she co-authored with Michelle Burford, details all of this and more, offering a raw look at the harrowing experience that has turned her into an outspoken advocate for Americans who have been wrongfully detained abroad.

Buy Now: Coming Home on Bookshop | Amazon

Shanghailanders, Juli Min (May 7)

Juli Min’s ambitious debut novel, Shanghailanders, is a thrilling, futuristic family drama that captures the joys, disappointments, and inside jokes of one Shanghai family in reverse chronological order. Starting in 2040 and working its way back to 2014, the book unspools the shared and separate lives of the wealthy Yangs: Chinese real estate investor Leo, his elegant Japanese French wife Eko, their precocious eldest daughters Yumi and Yoko, and the baby of the family, aspiring actress Kiko. By giving readers the gift of hindsight, Min shows how one enigmatic family falls apart and comes back together over several decades.

Buy Now: Shanghailanders on Bookshop | Amazon

Long Island, Colm Tóibín (May 7)

Best-selling Irish author Colm Tóibín returns with Long Island, a well-observed sequel to his much loved 2009 novel Brooklyn, set 20 years after Eilis, the inscrutable heroine of the aforementioned book, emigrated from Ireland. Picking up in the spring of 1976, Eilis, now in her 40s, is still married to Italian American plumber Tony Fiorello and living in the titular suburbs outside of New York City with their two teenage children and her in-laws. All is well, if a little boring, until she is confronted by an irate Irishman who claims Tony has gotten his wife pregnant and he plans to leave the baby on Eilis’ doorstep once it’s born. Tóibín’s 11th novel offers an absorbing look at a middle-aged woman at a crossroads in not only her marriage, but also in a life she worries has gone unfulfilled.

Buy Now: Long Island on Bookshop | Amazon

The Skunks, Fiona Warnick (May 7)

In Fiona Warnick’s quirky debut, The Skunks, Isabel returns to her hometown after college graduation to take on a few odd jobs and figure out what she wants to do with her life. To take her mind off of her post-adolescent fears and anxieties, she starts thinking about the book’s titular creatures. Specifically, the three baby skunks that unexpectedly show up in the yard of the place she is house sitting. Their presence forces her to ponder life’s existential questions—and question her own romantic desires. The Skunks is a hilarious look at post-grad life and the loneliness, uncertainty, and occasional joy that comes with it.

Buy Now: The Skunks on Bookshop | Amazon

All Fours, Miranda July (May 14)

Filmmaker, artist, and best-selling author Miranda July’s first novel in a decade is an intimate, fearless, and sexy coming-of-middle-age story about a woman hellbent on reinventing herself. All Fours begins with the unnamed narrator, a 45-year-old semi-famous artist, learning that someone has been peering into her window with a telephoto lens. She decides to leave her husband and child behind to drive from Los Angeles to New York for a writing retreat. Unfortunately, she only makes it as far as Monrovia, Calif., less than an hour from home. It’s there she finds herself tackling fluctuating hormones, an increased libido, and a rather impractical motel room renovation in this wonderfully weird adventure.

Buy Now: All Fours on Bookshop | Amazon

Blue Ruin, Hari Kunzru (May 14)

Hari Kunzru’s seventh novel, Blue Ruin, is a provocative portrait of a once-promising artist as a disillusioned man of a certain age. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Jay, a 40-something undocumented performance artist, is living out of his car and delivering groceries to wealthy residents in upstate New York. On one of his runs, he finds himself face-to-face with Alice, a woman he dated nearly two decades earlier. Alice invites him to ride out the crisis in the luxurious home where she is quarantining with her painter husband, the art school rival for whom she ghosted Jay. The unexpected run-in leads to a possible big career break for Jay, who worries the deal may just cost him his soul.

Buy Now: Blue Ruin on Bookshop | Amazon

This Strange Eventful History, Claire Messud (May 14)

This Strange Eventful History is a sprawling yet intimate saga that draws inspiration from author Claire Messud’s own family history. (She has called this novel, her seventh, the “most significant work” of her life.) Spanning several decades, from 1940 to 2010, Messud follows the Cassar family, a fictional French Algerian clan first displaced by World War II, and again, nearly 20 years later, by Algeria’s war of independence. With great empathy, Messud shows the effects war, colonialism, and later sovereignty had on three generations of the Cassars, most notably, the family’s youngest member, aspiring writer Chloe, a stand-in for Messud, who believes the truth will finally set her relatives free.

Buy Now: This Strange Eventful History on Bookshop | Amazon

Very Bad Company, Emma Rosenblum (May 14)

With her latest novel, Very Bad Company, best-selling author and journalist Emma Rosenblum takes a page from Rian Johnson’s Knives Out playbook. Despite her lack of experience, former TV producer Caitlin Levy is hired as the new head of events at Aurora, a trendy ad-tech startup led by an eccentric CEO. To welcome her to the team, Caitlin is invited to take part in Aurora’s annual corporate retreat in Miami. This year, the company is preparing for an impending billion-dollar merger. But when one of Aurora’s high-level executives turns up dead, everyone on sight is forced to ignore the crisis so as to not sink the deal. What ensues is a darkly funny mystery about toxic corporate culture.

Buy Now: Very Bad Company on Bookshop | Amazon

In Tongues, Thomas Grattan (May 21)

In Thomas Grattan’s rollicking sophomore release, In Tongues, the charming if naive Gordon moves from Minnesota to New York City where he gets a job walking the dogs of Manhattan’s elite, including gallery owners Phillip and Nicola. Soon he is hobnobbing and bed-hopping with the high-powered couple, turning their lives upside down with little regard for the consequences of his actions. In this delightfully modern comedy of manners, Gordon wonders if he has the ability to change his ways as he begins to understand the damage his impulses have caused.

Buy Now: In Tongues on Bookshop | Amazon

Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan (May 21)

From Kevin Kwan, the author of Crazy Rich Asians, a high comedy sure to delight fans of Jane Austen. Rufus Leung Gresham, the protagonist of Lies and Weddings, is the future Earl of Greshambury (a clever nod to the fictional setting of Anthony Trollope’s 1858 novel Doctor Thorne) and son of a former Hong Kong supermodel. He’s also been buried underneath a mountain of debt thanks to his family’s reckless spending. To dig himself out, Rufus’ always scheming mother suggests he find a wealthy woman to marry at his sister’s upcoming high-society wedding. What could possibly go wrong?

Buy Now: Lies and Weddings on Bookshop | Amazon

Exhibit, R. O. Kwon (May 21)

R. O. Kwon’s Exhibit is a hypnotic queer love story full of lust and longing. The sultry novel follows two women, talented photographer Jin and injured prima ballerina Lidija, and the ancient familial curse that stands to keep them apart. Exhibit is a haunting romance about desire, obsession, and ambition that is sure to get your heart rate up.

Buy Now: Exhibit on Bookshop | Amazon

American Diva, Deborah Paredez (May 21)

Fifteen years ago, poet and cultural critic Deborah Paredez tackled the posthumous legacy of Selena Quintanilla with Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. Now, with American Diva, she has put together an insightful ode to the famous women—Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Serena Williams, to name a few—who have come to embody the often misconstrued term. Combining cultural criticism and memoir, Paredez shows how the word “diva,” once used to describe a powerhouse opera singer, evolved to become a condemnation of confident and powerful women, many of whom are women of color. American Diva is Paredez’s attempt to reclaim the word.

Buy Now: American Diva on Bookshop | Amazon

Accordion Eulogies, Noé Álvarez (May 28)

Growing up, Noé Álvarez’s working class Mexican immigrant parents rarely spoke of his larger-than-life grandfather. All Álvarez ever knew of the relative who was more myth than man was that he played the accordion and possibly put a curse on his descendents with his questionable behavior. In his poignant new memoir, Accordion Eulogies, Álvarez traces the history of the humble titular instrument in hopes of better understanding his own family’s mysterious lineage. With empathy and humor, the author dares to find the root cause of his generational trauma with the hope of finally breaking the cycle.

Buy Now: Accordion Eulogies on Bookshop | Amazon

In These Streets, Josiah Bates (May 28)

With In These Streets, journalist and former TIME reporter Josiah Bates takes a closer look at the recent surge in gun violence throughout the United States, particularly in marginalized communities. Bates travels the country speaking with those on the frontlines of what many have deemed a public health crisis that has only gotten worse since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. He interviews victims, perpetrators, activists, law enforcement, and academics in hopes of gaining new insight into the epidemic.

Buy Now: In These Streets on Bookshop | Amazon

source https://time.com/6972847/best-new-books-may-2024/

What Marijuana Reclassification Means for the United States

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The Justice Department proposal would recognize the medical uses of cannabis, but wouldn’t legalize it for recreational use.

The proposal would move marijuana from the “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”

So what does that mean, and what are the implications?

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

What has actually changed? What happens next?

Technically, nothing yet. The proposal must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget, and then undergo a public-comment period and review from an administrative judge, a potentially lengthy process.

Still, the switch is considered “paradigm-shifting, and it’s very exciting,” Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis and psychedelics attorney who runs well-known legal blogs on those topics, told The Associated Press when the federal Health and Human Services Department recommended the change.

“I can’t emphasize enough how big of news it is,” he said.

It came after President Joe Biden asked both HHS and the attorney general, who oversees the DEA, last year to review how marijuana was classified. Schedule I put it on par, legally, with heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy, among others.

Biden, a Democrat, supports legalizing medical marijuana for use “where appropriate, consistent with medical and scientific evidence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “That is why it is important for this independent review to go through.”

Read More: Where Marijuana Laws Stand in the U.S. as Biden Pardons Thousands

If marijuana gets reclassified, would it legalize recreational cannabis nationwide?

No. Schedule III drugs — which include ketamine, anabolic steroids and some acetaminophen-codeine combinations — are still controlled substances.

They’re subject to various rules that allow for some medical uses, and for federal criminal prosecution of anyone who traffics in the drugs without permission.

No changes are expected to the medical marijuana programs now licensed in 38 states or the legal recreational cannabis markets in 23 states, but it’s unlikely they would meet the federal production, record-keeping, prescribing and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.

There haven’t been many federal prosecutions for simply possessing marijuana in recent years, even under marijuana’s current Schedule I status, but the reclassification wouldn’t have an immediate impact on people already in the criminal justice system.

Read More: Do Americans Have a Constitutional Right to Use Drugs?

“Put simple, this move from Schedule I to Schedule III is not getting people out of jail,” said David Culver, senior vice president of public affairs at the U.S. Cannabis Council.

But rescheduling in itself would have some impact, particularly on research and marijuana business taxes.

What would this mean for research?

Because marijuana is on Schedule I, it’s been very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies that involve administering the drug. That has created something of a Catch-22: calls for more research, but barriers to doing it. (Scientists sometimes rely instead on people’s own reports of their marijuana use.)

Schedule III drugs are easier to study, though the reclassification wouldn’t immediately reverse all barriers to study.

“It’s going to be really confusing for a long time,” said Ziva Cooper, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoids. “When the dust has settled, I don’t know how many years from now, research will be easier.”

Among the unknowns: whether researchers will be able to study marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries and how the federal Food and Drug Administration might oversee that.

Some researchers are optimistic.

“Reducing the schedule to schedule 3 will open up the door for us to be able to conduct research with human subjects with cannabis,” said Susan Ferguson, director of University of Washington’s Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute in Seattle.

What about taxes (and banking)?

Under the federal tax code, businesses involved in “trafficking” in marijuana or any other Schedule I or II drug can’t deduct rent, payroll or various other expenses that other businesses can write off. (Yes, at least some cannabis businesses, particularly state-licensed ones, do pay taxes to the federal government, despite its prohibition on marijuana.) Industry groups say the tax rate often ends up at 70% or more.

The deduction rule doesn’t apply to Schedule III drugs, so the proposed change would cut cannabis companies’ taxes substantially.

They say it would treat them like other industries and help them compete against illegal competitors that are frustrating licensees and officials in places such as New York.

“You’re going to make these state-legal programs stronger,” says Adam Goers, an executive at medical and recreational cannabis giant Columbia Care. He co-chairs a coalition of corporate and other players that’s pushing for rescheduling.

It could also mean more cannabis promotion and advertising if those costs could be deducted, according to Beau Kilmer, co-director of the RAND Drug Policy Center.

Rescheduling wouldn’t directly affect another marijuana business problem: difficulty accessing banks, particularly for loans, because the federally regulated institutions are wary of the drug’s legal status. The industry has been looking instead to a measure called the SAFE Banking Act. It has repeatedly passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

Are there critics? What do they say?

Indeed, there are, including the national anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. President Kevin Sabet, a former Obama administration drug policy official, said the HHS recommendation “flies in the face of science, reeks of politics” and gives a regrettable nod to an industry “desperately looking for legitimacy.”

Some legalization advocates say rescheduling weed is too incremental. They want to keep the focus on removing it completely from the controlled substances list, which doesn’t include such items as alcohol or tobacco (they’re regulated, but that’s not the same).

Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said that simply reclassifying marijuana would be “perpetuating the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.” Minority Cannabis Business Association President Kaliko Castille said rescheduling just “re-brands prohibition,” rather than giving an all-clear to state licensees and putting a definitive close to decades of arrests that disproportionately pulled in people of color.

“Schedule III is going to leave it in this kind of amorphous, mucky middle where people are not going to understand the danger of it still being federally illegal,” he said.

___ Peltz reported from New York. Associated Press writers Colleen Long in Washington and Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.

source https://time.com/6973181/marijuana-reclassification-united-states/

Florida’s 6-Week Abortion Ban Takes Effect as Doctors Worry Women Will Lose Access to Health Care

(BOCA RATON, Fla.) — Florida’s ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they are pregnant, went into effect Wednesday, and some doctors are concerned that women in the state will no longer have access to needed health care.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]

Dr. Leah Roberts, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist with Boca Fertility in Boca Raton, said the anti-abortion laws being enacted by Florida and other red states are being vaguely written by people who don’t understand medical science. The rules are affecting not just women who want therapeutic abortions, meaning procedures to terminate viable pregnancies because of personal choice, but also nonviable pregnancies for women who want to have babies.

“We’re coming in between them and their doctors and preventing them from getting care until it’s literally saving their lives, sometimes at the expense of their fertility,” Roberts said.

The new ban has an exception for saving a woman’s life, as well as in cases involving rape and incest, but Roberts said health care workers are still prevented from performing an abortion on a nonviable pregnancy that they know may become deadly — such as when the fetus is missing organs or implanted outside the uterus — until it actually becomes deadly.

“We’re being told that we have to wait until the mother is septic to be able to intervene,” Roberts said.

Besides the physical danger, there’s also the psychological trauma of having to carry a fetus that the mother knows will never be a healthy baby, Roberts said.

“They’re feeling the kicks for months after they’re being told that they’re never going to have a live birth,” Roberts said. “And it’s just horrifying when you could take care of it at 20 weeks, and they could move on, and they could get pregnant with their next pregnancy and be able to hold their babies that much sooner.”

The Biden campaign quickly placed blame for the “extreme” six-week ban on former President Donald Trump.

“Trump is worried the voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He’s right. Trump ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America. This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with the women of America,” President Joe Biden said in a statement about the new abortion ban.

Vice President Kamala Harris will also criticize the six-week ban on abortions during an event Wednesday in Jacksonville.

She said a huge issue with the ban is that the doctors who perform emergency abortions have to learn the procedures by performing therapeutic abortions. So if most abortions are banned, the next generation of doctors won’t be able to develop the skills needed to perform an emergency abortion.

Roberts said she’s concerned the restrictions will also prompt veteran doctors to leave Florida, as they have in other states that have enacted abortion bans.

“We’re going to have less access to care for our general population, even if it’s just basic maternity care and normal OB-GYN care, because people are leaving,” Roberts said.

In addition, women are going to have to travel far from home to get abortions. Florida Access Network executive director Stephanie Pineiro said the organization, which helps provide funding for abortions, expects costs to increase dramatically. She estimates it will cost around $3,000 for a woman to travel to another state for an abortion. The closest place after 12 weeks would be Virginia or Illinois, but before 12 weeks would be North Carolina.

“It’s very emotionally draining and challenging to deal with these types of barriers and have to leave your home,” Pineiro said.

The Florida Supreme Court, with five of its seven members appointed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, ruled 6-1 last month to uphold the state’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which cleared the way for the six-week ban. The 15-week ban, signed by DeSantis in 2022, had been enforced while it was challenged in court. The six-week ban, passed by the Legislature a year later, was written so that it would not take effect until a month after the 2022 law was upheld.

Republican state Sen. Erin Grall, who sponsored the six-week ban, previously said bodily autonomy should not include abortions.

“We live in a time where the consequences of our actions are an afterthought and convenience has been substitution for responsibility,” Grall said, “and this is unacceptable when it comes to the protection of the most vulnerable.”

Voters may be able to enshrine abortion rights in Florida’s constitution after a separate state Supreme Court ruling allowed a proposed constitutional amendment to be on the November ballot. The proposal says, “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” It provides for one exception that is already in the state constitution: Parents must be notified before their minor children can get an abortion.

Florida Democrats hope young voters would vote to enshrine abortion rights, as a way to combat the 900,000 voter registration edge Republicans have over Democrats in the state. They hope moderate views of the ballot initiative will turn out younger voters to vote Democrat when faced with the binary choice between a six-week abortion ban or protecting abortion until viability.

Jayden D’Onofrio, chairman of the Florida Future Leaders political action committee, said young Florida voters have a “real opportunity to shape the electoral landscape.” Being that abortion rights have prevailed in elections nationwide, he thinks that Florida can engage young voters to register and vote for Democrats.

Nathan Mitchell, president of Florida Atlantic University College Republicans, said he would support a total abortion ban, and he hopes the amendment doesn’t pass. Mitchell said he’s seen most people want restrictions on abortion, usually for bans within 10 to 15 weeks of gestation.

Most Republican-controlled states have adopted bans or restrictions on abortions since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. A survey of abortion providers conducted for the Society of Family Planning, which advocates for abortion access, found that Florida had the second-largest increase in the total number of abortions provided since the decision. The state’s data shows that more than 7,700 women from other states received abortions in Florida in 2023.

Florida Democratic leaders are encouraging women to seek help from abortion funds and resources. On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Lauren Book encouraged women to access abortion travel funds and urged them to avoid “taking matters into your own hands.”

___

Matat reported from West Palm Beach, Florida. Nancy Benac contributed to this report from Washington.

source https://time.com/6973170/florida-six-week-abortion-ban-takes-effect/

Organic Walnuts Are Linked to a Dangerous E. Coli Outbreak

At least a dozen people in California and Washington have been sickened with E. coli food poisoning linked to organic walnuts sold in bulk in 19 states, U.S. health officials said Tuesday. The nuts were sold in natural food and co-op stores such as Whole Foods and Market of Choice.

Seven people have been hospitalized and two have developed a dangerous kidney disease known as hemolytic uremic syndrome, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Gibson Farms Inc. of Hollister, California, has recalled potentially affected walnuts with expiration dates between May 21, 2025 and June 7, 2025, the Food and Drug Administration said. Some stores may have repackaged bulk walnut pieces into clamshells or bags. The FDA has a list of stores where the walnuts were sold.

The nuts are potentially contaminated with dangerous E. coli bacteria that can cause severe stomach cramps, diarrhea, including bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Symptoms start three to four days after consuming the food. Most people recover within five to seven days.

Consumers who bought organic walnuts from bulk containers should check to see if they’re part of the recall. Recalled nuts should not be sold or served, the CDC said. Wash items and surfaces that may have come in contact with the nuts using hot soapy water or a dishwasher. Contact a health care provider about any symptoms.

source https://time.com/6973169/organic-walnuts-e-coli/