Progressive leaders are staring down what they consider the biggest emergency for abortion rights in half a century — and they fear that both Democratic voters and elected officials are failing to appreciate the threat of a world without Roe v. Wade.

The ripple effects of an anticipated Supreme Court ruling scaling back or eliminating the right to an abortion would go beyond the most conservative parts of the country and also hit the blue states that have already become havens for people fleeing a host of new restrictive laws.

Since Texas’ near total abortion ban took effect in September, for example, thousands of people have traveled to neighboring states as well as places as far away as California, Illinois and Washington D.C. to have an abortion, overwhelming clinics and delaying timely care for people in those areas.

“People look at Texas and Mississippi and think: ‘I’m sitting pretty in my blue state. That’s their problem,’” said Kristin Ford, the vice president of communications and research at NARAL. “But when you have a wave of people coming across state lines, that’s going to strain the health care system in your state. Our fates are intertwined.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “met with a severe and a united response” following his meeting Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the latest round of diplomatic talks that Blinken said provided a “clearer path of understanding each others’ concerns.”

Blinken’s meeting with Lavrov came two days after President Joe Biden muddled the US message of severe consequences for Russia, saying at a press conference that a “minor incursion” might not trigger the same response from NATO as an invasion. Biden clarified Thursday that any Russian troops crossing Ukraine’s border would constitute an invasion.

Blinken held a 90-minute bilateral meeting Friday in Geneva with Lavrov, in which the US sought to convince Russia to de-escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops. Blinken said that the meeting was “not a negotiation,” just like last week’s talks between NATO and the West.

“We didn’t expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are on a clearer path in terms of understanding each other’s concerns, each others’ positions,” Blinken said at a press conference after the meeting. “Let’s see what the next days bring.”

Progressive leaders are staring down what they consider the biggest emergency for abortion rights in half a century — and they fear that both Democratic voters and elected officials are failing to appreciate the threat of a world without Roe v. Wade.

The ripple effects of an anticipated Supreme Court ruling scaling back or eliminating the right to an abortion would go beyond the most conservative parts of the country and also hit the blue states that have already become havens for people fleeing a host of new restrictive laws.

Since Texas’ near total abortion ban took effect in September, for example, thousands of people have traveled to neighboring states as well as places as far away as California, Illinois and Washington D.C. to have an abortion, overwhelming clinics and delaying timely care for people in those areas.

“People look at Texas and Mississippi and think: ‘I’m sitting pretty in my blue state. That’s their problem,’” said Kristin Ford, the vice president of communications and research at NARAL. “But when you have a wave of people coming across state lines, that’s going to strain the health care system in your state. Our fates are intertwined.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “met with a severe and a united response” following his meeting Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the latest round of diplomatic talks that Blinken said provided a “clearer path of understanding each others’ concerns.”

Blinken’s meeting with Lavrov came two days after President Joe Biden muddled the US message of severe consequences for Russia, saying at a press conference that a “minor incursion” might not trigger the same response from NATO as an invasion. Biden clarified Thursday that any Russian troops crossing Ukraine’s border would constitute an invasion.

Blinken held a 90-minute bilateral meeting Friday in Geneva with Lavrov, in which the US sought to convince Russia to de-escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops. Blinken said that the meeting was “not a negotiation,” just like last week’s talks between NATO and the West.

“We didn’t expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are on a clearer path in terms of understanding each other’s concerns, each others’ positions,” Blinken said at a press conference after the meeting. “Let’s see what the next days bring.”

Progressive leaders are staring down what they consider the biggest emergency for abortion rights in half a century — and they fear that both Democratic voters and elected officials are failing to appreciate the threat of a world without Roe v. Wade.

The ripple effects of an anticipated Supreme Court ruling scaling back or eliminating the right to an abortion would go beyond the most conservative parts of the country and also hit the blue states that have already become havens for people fleeing a host of new restrictive laws.

Since Texas’ near total abortion ban took effect in September, for example, thousands of people have traveled to neighboring states as well as places as far away as California, Illinois and Washington D.C. to have an abortion, overwhelming clinics and delaying timely care for people in those areas.

“People look at Texas and Mississippi and think: ‘I’m sitting pretty in my blue state. That’s their problem,’” said Kristin Ford, the vice president of communications and research at NARAL. “But when you have a wave of people coming across state lines, that’s going to strain the health care system in your state. Our fates are intertwined.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned that any Russian invasion of Ukraine would be “met with a severe and a united response” following his meeting Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, the latest round of diplomatic talks that Blinken said provided a “clearer path of understanding each others’ concerns.”

Blinken’s meeting with Lavrov came two days after President Joe Biden muddled the US message of severe consequences for Russia, saying at a press conference that a “minor incursion” might not trigger the same response from NATO as an invasion. Biden clarified Thursday that any Russian troops crossing Ukraine’s border would constitute an invasion.

Blinken held a 90-minute bilateral meeting Friday in Geneva with Lavrov, in which the US sought to convince Russia to de-escalate the situation at the Ukrainian border where Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops. Blinken said that the meeting was “not a negotiation,” just like last week’s talks between NATO and the West.

“We didn’t expect any major breakthroughs to happen today, but I believe we are on a clearer path in terms of understanding each other’s concerns, each others’ positions,” Blinken said at a press conference after the meeting. “Let’s see what the next days bring.”

Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell defended himself against what he called a “deeply offensive” and “outrageous mischaracterization” of his record on voting rights and race relations, after he had “inadvertently” omitted a word in a comment earlier this week, which sparked a massive backlash on social media.

“This outrageous mischaracterization of my record as a result of leaving one word out inadvertently the other day, which I just now supplied to you, is deeply offensive,” the Kentucky Republican said Friday in Louisville.

On Wednesday, at his weekly policy news conference at the US Capitol, McConnell was asked whether voters of color would be hurt if Democrats’ election legislation did not pass, and he replied: “The concern is misplaced, because if you look at the statistics, African American voters are voting in just as high a percentage as Americans.”

He again misspoke on Friday and incorrectly stated what the omitted word had been and had to come back to the mics to clean it up again. At first he said he had meant to say the word “almost” before Americans in his comment. At the end of his news conference, he returned to the mics after consulting with an aide, who seemed to tell him he had misstated it again, clarifying he had meant to say the omitted word was “all.”

Democrats were picking up the pieces Thursday following the collapse of their top-priority voting rights legislation, with some shifting their focus to a narrower bipartisan effort to repair laws Donald Trump exploited in his bid to overturn the 2020 election.

Though their bid to dramatically rewrite U.S. election law failed during a high-stakes Senate floor showdown late Wednesday, Democrats insisted their brinkmanship has made the new effort possible, forcing Republicans to relent, even if just a little, and engage in bipartisan negotiations.

The nascent push is focused on the Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that created the convoluted process for the certification of presidential election results by Congress. For more than 100 years, vulnerabilities in the law were an afterthought, until Trump’s unrelenting, false claims that voter fraud cost him the 2020 election culminated in a mob of his supporters storming the Capitol.