Tag Archives: Sexual and reproductive health

Minnesota governor signs bill codifying ‘fundamental right’ to abortion into law

February 1, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill into law Tuesday that enshrines the “fundamental right” to access abortion in the state.

Abortion is already legal in Minnesota, but in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, the Protect Reproductive Options Act goes a step further by outlining that every person has the fundamental right to make “autonomous decisions” about their own reproductive health as well as the right to refuse reproductive health care.

“This is very simple, very right to the point,” Walz said Tuesday on “CNN Tonight.” “We trust women in Minnesota, and that’s not what came out of the [Supreme Court’s] decision, so I think it’s critically important that we build a fire wall.”

With the passage of the bill, Minnesota is now the first state to codify abortion via legislative action since Roe v. Wade was reversed, the office of the bill’s lead author in Minnesota’s state Senate, told CNN.

“Last November, Minnesotans spoke loud and clear: They want their reproductive rights protected – not stripped away,” Walz said in a news release. “Today, we are delivering on our promise to put up a firewall against efforts to reverse reproductive freedom. No matter who sits on the Minnesota Supreme Court, this legislation will ensure Minnesotans have access to reproductive health care for generations to come. Here in Minnesota, your access to reproductive health care and your freedom to make your own health care decisions are preserved and protected.”

The bill states that local government cannot restrict a person’s ability to exercise the “fundamental right” to reproductive freedom. It also clarifies that this right extends to accessing contraception, sterilization, family planning, fertility services and counseling regarding reproductive health care.

“The Pro Act also goes beyond just granting those rights to abortion, it really says all reproductive healthcare decisions aren’t our business, including access to contraception, including access to really anything that is related to personal and private decisions about your reproductive life,” Megan Peterson, the executive director of pro-abortion rights campaign UnRestrict Minnesota, told CNN following Walz’s signing of the bill.

In a letter to Walz ahead of the signing, Republican legislature leaders argued that the bill went too far and urged the governor to veto what they called “an extreme law.”

“As the PRO Act was being rushed through the legislature, Republicans offered reasonable amendments with guardrails to protect women and children,” state Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson and House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth wrote, “Sadly, each of these amendments were struck down by a Democrat majority.”

In 1995, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in Doe v. Gomez that abortion was a fundamental right protected under the state’s constitution. The Protect Reproductive Options Act ensures that even in the event of a new state Supreme Court reversing the ruling, the right to abortion will be protected under state law.

“By passing this law, Minnesotans will have a second layer of protection for their existing reproductive rights. A future Minnesota Supreme Court could overturn Doe v. Gomez, but with the PRO Act now in State law, Minnesotans will still have a right to Reproductive healthcare,” Luke Bishop, a spokesperson for Democratic State Sen. Jennifer McEwen, the bill’s author in the Senate, told CNN over email.

Following the governor’s signature of the bill, the White House applauded Minnesota’s efforts, pointing to the popular support for women’s rights to make their own health care decisions.

“Americans overwhelmingly support a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, as so clearly demonstrated last fall when voters turned out to defend access to abortion – including for ballot initiatives in California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, and Vermont,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

“While Congressional Republicans continue their support for extreme policies including a national abortion ban, the President and Vice President are calling on Congress to restore the protections of Roe in federal law,” she wrote. “Until then, the Biden-Harris Administration will continue its work to protect access to abortion and support state leaders in defending women’s reproductive rights.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

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Health

First cases of gonorrhea resistant to several classes of antibiotics identified in the U.S.

January 19, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

Public health officials says they have found two cases of gonorrhea that appear to have reduced susceptibility to every kind of antibiotic available to treat them. It’s the first time strains of gonorrhea this resistant to antibiotics have been identified in the United States.

Increased sexual activity during the pandemic, coupled with fewer people getting routine health screenings, supercharged the spread of sexually transmitted infections around the world.

Those infections, including gonorrhea, are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics available to treat them, a problem that is becoming a dire threat to public health.

Globally, infections that are resistant to antibiotics kill approximately 700,000 people each year. That number is expected to rise to 10 million deaths per year by 2050 if steps aren’t taken to stop the spread of resistant organisms.

Experts say it was never a question of when this highly resistant gonorrhea strain would reach the US, but when.

“The concern is that this particular strain has been circulating around the world, so it was only a matter of time before it would hit the US,” says Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a clinical professor of public health at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

“It’s a reminder that gonorrhea is becoming increasingly resistant, increasingly hard to treat. We don’t have any new antibiotics. We haven’t had new antibiotics to treat gonorrhea for years and we really need a different treatment strategy,” said Klausner, who sits on the CDC workgroup for gonorrhea treatment.

Gonorrhea is sexually transmitted, and one of the most commonly diagnosed infections in the US. It is caused by the bacteria Niesseria gonorrhoeae, which can infect the mucous membranes in the genitals, rectum, throat and eyes.

People can be infected without having symptoms. Left untreated, the infection can cause pelvic pain and infertility in women and blindness in newborns.

In addition to reduced susceptibility to ceftriaxone, the strains of gonorrhea identified in Massachusetts also showed reduced susceptibility to cefixime and azithromycin; the strains were resistant to ciprofloxacin, penicillin and tetracycline, according to a clinical alert sent to physicians by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The MDPH says it hasn’t yet found any connection between the two cases.

In 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended giving a double dose of the antibiotic ceftriaxone in an effort to overcome the bacteria’s building resistance to this antibiotic, and that seems to have worked in these cases, but that antibiotic is the last line of defense against this infection, and experts say a new approach is needed.

Klausner is hoping to win FDA approval for a test that would tailor antibiotic treatment to the genetic susceptibilities of the particular strain of gonorrhea that is infecting a person. This is called resistance-guided treatment, and Klausner says it works for HIV, TB and some other hospital acquired infections, but it’s never really been tried for gonorrhea.

This strain of gonorrhea has been previously seen in Asia-Pacific countries and in the United Kingdom, but not in the US. A genetic marker common to these two Massachusetts residents was also previously seen in a case in Nevada, though that strain retained sensitivity to at least one class of antibiotics.

The first symptoms of gonorrhea are often painful urination, abdominal or pelvic pain, increased vaginal discharge, or bleeding between periods, but many infections are asymptomatic, according to the CDC, making routine screenings important for catching the infection.

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Women living in states with abortion bans suffer greater economic insecurity

January 18, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

New York
CNN
—

Women living in states that restrict or ban abortion face greater economic insecurity than those living in states where they have access, new research finds.

Since the nearly seven months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, half of all states – 26 in total – have implemented new abortion restrictions or all-out bans.

In nearly all 26 states, there are lower minimum wages, unionization levels, access to Medicaid and unemployment benefits, as well as higher rates of incarceration than states with more lenient abortion policies, according to new research by the Economic Policy Institute.

“These economic policies all compound on each other. And you add to that an abortion ban, it just compounds this financial stress, this economic insecurity,” said Asha Banerjee, an economic analyst with the institute and the author of the report.

Last year, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made a similar argument to the Financial Oversight Council.

“I believe that eliminating the right of women to make decisions about when and whether to have children would have very damaging effects on the economy and would set women back decades,” Yellen told lawmakers in May.

The lack of abortion access has the greatest economic impact on women of color, especially those already in dire financial conditions, according to Banerjee.

“In many of these states, especially the states which have banned abortion, many of the women who are facing economic challenges already are also women of color,” she said.

Raising the minimum wage is a powerful tool that has been known to have significant impact on closing racial income gaps. But nearly two-thirds of abortion restrictive states have a $7.25 minimum wage, the lowest legal hourly wage for most workers in the United States.

The average minimum wage across the 26 states is $8.17, lower than the average $11.92 for states with no restrictions. (Many of those states also have a higher cost of living, however.)

“If the person denied an abortion is also working a minimum wage job, the negative economic effect is compounded,” the report states.

Many of those low-wage jobs also do not offer benefits like health care, which is why access to Medicaid is critical.

“Medicaid is a lifeline for low-income families and low-income women when jobs might not offer adequate healthcare. Medicaid in the immediate postpartum period is especially important,” said Banerjee.

Just 12 states have not expanded Medicaid benefits since the 2010 Obamacare law, and all of them have restrictive abortion policies.

However, some states with total abortion bans, with few exceptions, have expanded Medicaid, including Missouri. And in five other abortion restrictive states (Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and South Dakota later this year) residents voted to expand the benefit.

Access to unemployment insurance is another key indicator of a state’s commitment to economic support for residents. Forty-two percent of residents have access to unemployment benefits in states that have abortion protections. Compare that to 30% in states with abortion restrictions.

Even if unemployment is accessible, the amount differs from state to state. For example, in Mississippi, a state with a total abortion ban with limited exceptions, weekly unemployment checks average $217. Meanwhile in Massachusetts, which has a more protective 24-week abortion ban – checks average $556 weekly.

“When you have unemployment insurance it helps create financial stability. These states which have abortion bans also have really terrible unemployment insurance systems with really low benefits which do not help one support oneself,” said Banerjee.

Although women make up a smaller percentage of those incarcerated than men, it is the economic category with the greatest difference between abortion protected and abortion-restricted states. The rate of incarceration in states with restrictive or total bans on abortion is more than one and a half times higher than the rate of incarceration for states with abortion protections.

“It’s very much a racial justice issue because Black and Hispanic women are very disproportionately incarcerated. And that has huge economic impacts on future earnings and the ability to get a job,” said Banerjee.

In some states with abortion restrictions and higher rates of incarceration – legislation has suggested also criminalizing women, doctors or anyone aiding a woman in seeking an abortion.

“The incarceration argument is especially important because in these states where abortion bans have come into play, there’s a huge criminalization aspect,” said Banerjee.

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Health

US cancer death rate drops 33% since 1991, partly due to advances in treatment, early detection and less smoking, new report says

January 12, 2023 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

The rate of people dying from cancer in the United States has continuously declined over the past three decades, according to a new report from the American Cancer Society.

The US cancer death rate has fallen 33% since 1991, which corresponds to an estimated 3.8 million deaths averted, according to the report, published Thursday in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The rate of lives lost to cancer continued to shrink in the most recent year for which data is available, between 2019 and 2020, by 1.5%.

The 33% decline in cancer mortality is “truly formidable,” said Karen Knudsen, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society.

The report attributes this steady progress to improvements in cancer treatment, drops in smoking and increases in early detection.

“New revelations for prevention, for early detection and for treatment have resulted in true, meaningful gains in many of the 200 diseases that we call cancer,” Knudsen said.

In their report, researchers from the American Cancer Society also pointed to HPV vaccinations as connected to reductions in cancer deaths. HPV, or human papillomavirus, infections can cause cervical cancer and other cancer types, and vaccination has been linked with a decrease in new cervical cancer cases.

Among women in their early 20s, there was a 65% drop in cervical cancer rates from 2012 through 2019, “which totally follows the time when HPV vaccines were put into use,” said Dr. William Dahut, the society’s chief scientific officer.

“There are other cancers that are HPV-related – whether that’s head and neck cancers or anal cancers – so there’s optimism this will have importance beyond this,” he said.

The lifetime probability of being diagnosed with any invasive cancer is estimated to be 40.9% for men and 39.1% for women in the US, according to the new report.

The report also includes projections for 2023, estimating that there could be nearly 2 million new cancer cases – the equivalent of about 5,000 cases a day – and more than 600,000 cancer deaths in the United States this year.

During the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, many people skipped regular medical exams, and some doctors have seen a rise in advanced cancer cases in the wake of pandemic-delayed screenings and treatment.

The American Cancer Society researchers were not able to track “that reduction in screening that we know we all observed across the country during the pandemic,” Knudsen said. “This time next year, I believe our report will give some initial insight into what the impact was in the pandemic of cancer incidence and cancer mortality.”

The new report includes data from national programs and registries, including those at the National Cancer Institute, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries.

Data showed that the US cancer death rate rose during most of the 20th century, largely due to an increase in lung cancer deaths related to smoking. Then, as smoking rates fell and improvements in early detection and treatments for some cancers increased, there was a decline in the cancer death rate from its peak in 1991.

Since then, the pace of the decline has slowly accelerated.

The new report found that the five-year relative survival rate for all cancers combined has increased from 49% for diagnoses in the mid-1970s to 68% for diagnoses during 2012-18.

The cancer types that now have the highest survival rates are thyroid at 98%, prostate at 97%, testis at 95% and melanoma at 94%, according to the report.

Current survival rates are lowest for cancers of the pancreas, at 12%.

The finding about a decreasing cancer death rate shows “the continuation of good news,” said Dr. Otis Brawley, an oncology professor at Johns Hopkins University who was not involved in the research.

“The biggest reason for the decline that started in 1991 was the prevalence of smoking in the United States started going down in 1965,” said Brawley, a former chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.

“That’s the reason why we started having a decline in 1991, and that decline has continued because the prevalence of people smoking in the United States has continued to go down,” he said. “Now, in certain diseases, our ability to treat has improved, and there are some people who are not dying because of treatment.”

Although the death rate for cancer has been on a steady decline, the new report also highlights that new cases of breast, uterine and prostate cancer have been “of concern” and rising in the United States.

Incidence rates of breast cancer in women have been increasing by about 0.5% per year since the mid-2000s, according to the report.

Uterine corpus cancer incidence has gone up about 1% per year since the mid-2000s among women 50 and older and nearly 2% per year since at least the mid-1990s in younger women.

The prostate cancer incidence rate rose 3% per year from 2014 through 2019, after two decades of decline.

Knudsen called prostate cancer “an outlier” since its previous decline in incidence has reversed, appearing to be driven by diagnoses of advanced disease.

On Thursday, the American Cancer Society announced the launch of the Impact initiative, geared toward improving prostate cancer incidence and death rates by funding new research programs and expanding support for patients, among other efforts.

“Unfortunately, prostate cancer remains the number one most frequently diagnosed malignancy amongst men in this country, with almost 290,000 men expected to be diagnosed with prostate cancer this year,” Knudsen said. Cancer diagnosed when it is confined to the prostate has a five-year survival rate of “upwards of 99%,” she said, but for metastatic prostate cancer, there is no durable cure.

“Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for men in this country,” she said. “What we’re reporting is not only an increase in the incidence of prostate cancer across all demographics but a 5% year-over-year increase in diagnosis of men with more advanced disease. So we are not catching these cancers early when we have an opportunity to cure men of prostate cancer.”

Breast, uterine and prostate cancers also have a wide racial disparity, in which communities of color have higher death rates and lower survival rates.

In 2020, the risk of overall cancer death was 12% higher in Black people compared with White people, according to the new report.

“Not every individual or every family is affected equally,” Knudsen said.

For instance, “Black men unfortunately have a 70% increase in incidence of prostate cancer compared to White men and a two- to four-fold increase in prostate cancer mortality as related to any other ethnic and racial group in the United States,” she said.

The data in the new report demonstrates “important and consistent” advances against cancer, Dr. Ernest Hawk, vice president of cancer prevention and population sciences at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said in an email.

“Cancer is preventable in many instances and detectable at an early stage with better outcomes in many others. When necessary, treatments are improving in both their efficacy and safety. That’s all great news,” Hawk wrote.

“However, it’s well past time for us to take health inequities seriously and make them a much greater national priority. Inequities in cancer risks, cancer care and cancer outcomes are intolerable, and we should not be complacent with these regular reminders of avoidable inequities,” he said. “With deliberate and devoted effort, I believe we can eliminate these disparities and make even greater progress to end cancer.”

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Early voting begins in some Georgia counties as Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker sprint to December 6 runoff

November 27, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

A week-long early voting period begins Saturday in some Georgia counties as Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker enter a week-and-a-half, post-Thanksgiving sprint to their December 6 runoff election.

Unlike the 2021 runoffs, control of the Senate is not on the line, with Democrats having won 50 seats already and Vice President Kamala Harris giving the party a tie-breaking vote.

However, the stakes remain high: A Warnock victory would give Democrats the majority outright, rather than requiring the power-sharing agreement that is now in place. Democrats would have the majority on committees, allowing them to advance President Joe Biden’s nominees more easily.

Georgia’s Supreme Court delivered Warnock a victory Wednesday, allowing counties to offer early voting on Saturday. Democrats said they expected as many as 22 counties to do so – some in heavily populated areas around Atlanta, including DeKalb and Fulton, as well as Chatham County, home of Savannah.

That ruling followed a legal battle triggered by Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s interpretation of the state’s 2021 voting law. He said the new law restricted weekend voting immediately after holidays.

That 2021 law cut in half the timeline for runoff elections, to four weeks, and limited the early voting window to a minimum of five days rather than the minimum of 16 days that had been in place when Democrats won two Senate runoffs in the state in January 2021.

As many as 22 of the state’s 159 counties let voters cast their ballots Saturday.

At a polling site in Atlanta, Boston College student Emma Demilio said she probably wouldn’t have been able to vote in person if the early voting sites hadn’t opened.

“This is kind of the only time that I’m in Georgia and able to vote. I leave tomorrow, so I was really happy I was able to get it in,” she said, adding that she may have tried to scramble for an absentee ballot.

Warnock continues to outraise Walker as they enter the final stretch.

Warnock raised nearly $52.2 million from October 20 through November 16, a period covering the end of the general election and roughly the first week of the runoff. Walker collected $20.9 million in that time, according to his campaign’s filings with the Federal Election Commission. Warnock ended the period with more than $29.7 million remaining in the bank, more than three times the $9.8 million left in the coffers of his rival.

Warnock is set to bring in a top Democratic surrogate: Former President Barack Obama is slated to travel to Atlanta on Thursday for a rally ahead of the final day of early voting.

So far, Obama is the only president past or present slated to visit Georgia ahead of the runoff.

Neither President Joe Biden, to whom Walker’s campaign has tried to latch Warnock, nor former President Donald Trump, who was in office when Republicans lost two Senate runoffs two years ago, have scheduled trips to the state. On Saturday, Warnock appeared with Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) at a rally in Sandy Springs, just outside of Atlanta.

Trump allies, including Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, have been out in force for Walker, the former president himself has not campaigned with the candidate he recruited.

Other Republicans, meanwhile, are rallying around Walker, with the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, pumping more than $10 million into the race since the general election.

In addition to the new influx of outside spending, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who cruised to re-election earlier this month, made his first appearance with Walker on the trail after stiff-arming the former football great throughout the fall.

Kemp defeated a primary challenger backed by Trump in May and then outpaced Walker by more than 200,000 votes in the general election – a sign both of his crossover appeal to moderate Democrats and Walker’s difficulties consolidating Republicans.

Still, Democrats said they doubted Kemp could rescue Walker in a runoff election in which Walker is the only Republican on the ballot.

“There’s tons of folks that voted for Raphael Warnock and Brian Kemp,” said Jason Carter, the 2014 Democratic nominee for governor and grandson of former President Jimmy Carter.

He called Warnock a “unique figure,” noting that he “got more votes than Herschel Walker and he got more votes than any other Democrat.”

“People appreciate him. And they think of him as Raphael Warnock first, and as his political party and all that other stuff second,” Carter said.

A new potential flashpoint in the runoff election emerged Wednesday. The Georgia Supreme Court, in a separate legal battle, also reinstated the state’s six-week abortion ban.

It was a policy victory for the Republicans who had enacted that ban and defended it in court, but one that could come at a political cost, reviving the backlash over the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade that energized Democrats and swung moderate voters in their favor on the party’s way to a surprisingly strong showing in this year’s midterm elections.

In the midterms, according to CNN exit polls, 28% of Georgia voters said abortion was the most important issue to their vote – second only to inflation at 37%.

Of those who identified abortion as the most important issue, 77% backed Warnock, compared to 21% who voted for Walker – a reversal of inflation, an issue that favored Walker by a 45 percentage point margin.

Fifty-three percent of Georgia voters said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and among those voters, 75% backed Warnock. Of the 43% who said it should be illegal in all or most cases, 87% backed Walker.

Already, both parties have pumped more than $40 million into television advertising in the runoff. Democratic groups have spent nearly $25 million, while GOP groups have spent nearly $16 million, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact.

In an effort to unite Republican factions, a Walker super PAC is sending out mailers touting Kemp’s support and trying to tie Warnock to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. “You stopped Stacey. Now reject Warnock,” they read.

“Who do you want to fight for you in the United States Senate? Do you want a guy that represents our values like Herschel Walker, or do you want a guy who’s stood with Joe Biden 96% of the time?,” said Kemp, borrowing a familiar attack from Walker, at a rally last weekend in Cobb County.

Kemp also echoes that line of attack in a new television ad launched by SLF. The governor and McConnell’s group have are also linking up for get out the vote efforts. SLF is boosting Kemp’s state operation, which has been pivoted to help Walker, with a $2 million cash injection.

Warnock’s campaign, too, is trying to win over Republicans who effectively chose Kemp over Trump.

A new ad from the Warnock campaign features a woman who says she voted for Kemp this year and describes herself as a lifelong Republican, but goes on to say she won’t support Walker in the runoff because of his “lack of character.”

Warnock has also campaigned on what should be some of Walker’s safest territory: his hometown. At an event in Wrightsville, where Walker played his high school football, Warnock asked voters to separate the sports hero from the political candidate.

“I saw what your favorite son did on the football field. I don’t mind giving credit where credit is due. That brother could razzle dazzle you on that football field. He created a lot of excitement and did a lot for the great University of Georgia. And he deserves credit for that,” Warnock said. “But tonight, we’re on a different field.”

At the same time, the Republican has faced some backlash over an ad of his own – alongside University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has appeared with Walker before and competed with transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who became a focus of debate surrounding trans women’s participation in sports and has frequently been attacked in conservative media.

“For more than a decade, I worked so hard. Four a.m. practices to be the best. But my senior year, I was forced to compete against a biological male,” Gaines says in the ad.

The spot was released in the days after a gunman allegedly targeted the LGBTQ community at a gay club in Colorado. One of the five people killed was a trans man.

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Entertainment

Tosca Musk, Elon’s sister, has a business venture of her own — and it’s all about romance and female sexuality

November 20, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

Atlanta, Georgia
CNN
—

Tosca Musk strides onto the red carpet at a Regal Cinemas, statuesque in a white pant suit and glistening burgundy silk top.

A hush comes over a group gathered outside the theater’s doors. Some whip out cell phones and start recording her every move.

It’s a chilly October night in Atlanta, and the fans are here for the premiere of “Torn,” the second in a trilogy of romantic fantasy movies based on books by author Jennifer Armentrout. The group of mostly female fans range in age from their twenties to their seventies, and some flew in from Boston, Detroit and other cities.

This is a big night for Musk and her five-year-old streaming service Passionflix, the backer of the movie. It’s their first public film premiere since the pandemic started.

She floats from one group to another, chatting effortlessly with Passionflix’s superfans, known as Passionistas. Her older brother, Elon Musk, may be the most famous sibling in the family, but he’s not the only one who’s founded a company.

Musk, 48, is the force behind Passionflix, which adapts romance novels into movies and streams them to a devoted niche audience. Romance novels are the most popular genre of books in the United States, and Musk is tapping into that market with stories about sultry, powerful female leads and handsome men with chiseled abs. She directs some of the films herself.

“Passionflix focuses on adapting romance novels exactly as the fan and the author envision it,” Musk says in a separate CNN interview. “We focus on connection, communication and compromise – and remove the shame from sexuality, specifically for women, because it empowers women to both acknowledge and ask for pleasure.”

Days earlier, on the set of a Passionflix movie, “The Secret Life of Amy Bensen,” Musk provides a few glimpses into life with her famous family.

Perched on a navy blue couch in a room tucked inside a warehouse in suburban Atlanta, she chooses her words carefully when asked about her older brother, who was on the verge of his Twitter acquisition.

The Musk children – Elon, Tosca and another brother, middle child Kimbal – were born in South Africa and spent time in Canada before coming to the United States. Their father, Errol, is an engineer and property developer, while their glamorous mother, Maye, is a model.

Tosca Musk attended film school at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and moved to California after graduation. For three months, she worked for one of Elon Musk’s companies, Zip2.

“I realized every time I stepped out of the film world, I was just not happy,” she says. “It just wasn’t my thing.”

After a brief stint at the Los Angeles office of Canadian media company Alliance Atlantis, she began directing and producing films while still in her twenties.

Musk produced romance films for the Lifetime and Hallmark channels and in 2005 launched a comic web series, Tiki Bar TV, which was hailed by Apple CEO Steve Jobs as ahead of its time in the emerging field of vodcasts – or video podcasting.

Then came Passionflix. Its origin story is a classic tale of when one door closes, another one opens.

About five years ago, Musk got an email from a woman who wanted her to turn her script into a movie. Musk loved the script, but there wasn’t much interest from production companies.

“People weren’t really that interested because it was too risque … It was an adult movie with a little bit of reincarnation, things like that,” she says. “It just wasn’t one of those things that regular network television wanted to do.”

But Musk met the woman, Joany Kane, in Los Angeles, and they bonded over their shared passion for romance novels. During that conversation, Kane brought up the idea of turning romance novels into movies and creating a streaming platform for them.

And with that, Passionflix was born – with Musk at the helm and Kane as a co-founder.

“We had no investors. We had to go out and find every investor. So it was a matter of going out and pitching every single person,” Musk says. “We pitched every friend, every family member, everybody just for that small bit of angel investment. It was hard. The first money in is always the hardest money.”

Musk declines to say whether her brother Elon was one of her original investors. But she says she can always count on her two brothers, including restaurateur Kimbal Musk, to give her advice on her business ventures. She tries not to ask unless she really needs to.

“I get advice from them to a certain degree when I ask for it. But no unsolicited advice,” she says. “If I ask for advice, I have no doubt that he (Elon) will give it to me. And then I have to take it, because he’s going to be right. So you have to really want to know what you want to ask. But most of the time when I’m with my family, we talk about family things.”

So what does she think about her brother’s new role as CEO of Twitter – and the flurry of headlines surrounding it?

No comment.

Passionflix’s first film was “Hollywood Dirt,” based on a best-selling novel by Alessandra Torre about a Southern woman who finds romance with a Hollywood star when he comes to her small town to film a movie.

“During that shooting of that movie, we were struggling,” Musk says. “Are we going to get money? Are we going to be able to finish it? We were not really sure. We basically were just sort of piecing the dollars together.”

In May 2017, Musk played a trailer of the movie at a romance novel convention and asked attendees to prepay $100, as founding members, for a two-year Passionflix subscription. About 4,000 people signed up, Musk says, and she and Kane used that to show potential investors they were onto something.

“Trying to raise money for a female-driven platform on romance was just not high on anybody’s priority list at the time,” she says. “But as soon as we showed there was that many people that would come on board, the investors just started flying in.”

Passionflix has since produced more than two dozen feature-length and short films, according to the Internet Movie Database.

The company remains lean – it has a core team of seven people who each wear a lot of hats. In addition to producing its own content, Passionflix also licenses films for its platform.

“I think the biggest challenge for Passionflix is we can’t produce enough content to satiate the fans,” Musk says. “It’s a struggle with so many streaming platforms, when people want original content all the time.”

With more than 200 streaming services now competing for viewers, such niche markets face a myriad of challenges, says Dan Rayburn, a streaming media expert and consultant.

Creating, licensing and marketing content is very costly, he said. And while romance is the biggest-selling genre of books in the US, that doesn’t necessarily mean its popularity translates to movies.

“That’s comparing apples to oranges. Books are different,” Rayburn says. “This business is beyond tough. It’s highly competitive and requires an absolute large sum of money.”

Passionflix charges a subscription fee of $5.99 a month. The company does not disclose its subscriber numbers. Musk says subscribers are in the “six figures,” but declines to offer specifics.

Rayburn says it’s hard to determine the company’s profitability without knowing its expenses, including production and licensing costs.

“OK, if you don’t have subscriber numbers, what’s the usage? How many hours per month do people watch it? How much are you spending on content licensing?”

A deep dive into Passionflix’s online movie catalog reveals a mix of contemporary romance, fantasy romance, paranormal romance, erotic fan fiction and related sub-genres.

The films, which stream on the Passionflix site and on Amazon Prime Video, are rated on an escalating steaminess scale Musk calls a “barometer of naughtiness.”

The five categories: Oh So Vanilla, for wholesome romcoms; Mildly Titillating; Passion and Romance; Toe Curling Yumminess; and NSFW (Not Safe for Work). The latter category has risque plot lines and more sex – think “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

But Musk says that even the naughtiest Passionflix movies don’t reach the soft-core porn threshold.

“When we first started Passionflix, somebody asked us if we’re going to rate using MPAA,” she says, referring to the Motion Picture Association of America’s movie ratings such as PG-13, R, etc. “I don’t actually like any of those ratings. They’re not specific to women. I wanted something that could rate our shows and create more of a tongue-in-cheek conversation.”

Musk says she’s a romantic at heart and is a big fan of the genre.

“Love is amazing, it’s incredibly powerful. I love to tell stories of love, all kinds of love,” she says. “So parental love, friend love, family love, and love between any kind of couple.”

That broad range of romantic genres, and its sexy content, are what sets Passionflix apart from channels such as Hallmark and Lifetime Movie Network, says romance novelist Tamara Lush. She believes the romance genre has been especially popular during the pandemic because people seek comfort in stories with happy-ever-after endings.

“Hallmark is romance-centered but the stories are very, very sweet. Passionflix tells a wider range of stories, and the ones romance readers want to watch,” Lush says.

“The popularity of ‘Bridgerton,’ ‘After’ and ’365 Days’ on Netflix should tell streaming services all they need to know: that romance is a lucrative and sure bet for viewers.”

Passionflix’s original subscribers, known as founding members, get access to movie premieres and filming sets.

Last month in Atlanta, about four dozen of them piled into the Regal theater for the premiere of “Torn.” Following the movie, Musk hosted a question-and-answer session with the lead actors, followed by an after-party at a bar across the street. Fans and actors mingled over drinks.

Debbie Parziale, 67, says she flew in from Boston for the event. One of the founding members, she says she spent the pandemic years curled up on her couch, watching Passionflix movies.

“I love Tosca’s premise of empowering women and making sex not such a taboo subject,” she says. “She’s so true to the romance novels. When you read a book and watch one of her movies, it’s the book you read.”

Amanda Cromer, 32, says she signed up for Passionflix at a romance book convention. She loves the camaraderie that comes with being part of the Passionistas. The group has a virtual book club, called Passion Squad.

As one of the original members, Cromer can visit sets and interact with the actors. Cromer, who lives in a suburb of Atlanta, says that during a visit to the set of “Torn” she became an extra in a cafe scene.

“I love the empowerment the movies bring,” says Cromer, who attended last month’s “Torn” premiere with her mother.

“They choose books with strong female leads. They’ve done such a good job of portraying the female persona as a strong independent female, and not a timid person.”

Back on the set of her latest romance movie, Tosca Musk moves from one sparsely furnished room to another.

Musk lives in suburban Atlanta with her two children, 9-year-old twins who were conceived through in vitro fertilization using an anonymous sperm donor.

She’s getting ready to fly to Italy with the twins to film “Gabriel’s Redemption,” the third book in a series by Sylvain Reynard about a Dante scholar and his passionate affair with a younger graduate student. She says they plan to enjoy lots of gelato in Florence and visit Oxford, England, so the kids can see some of the locations where the Harry Potter movies were filmed.

As a single mother, Musk says she marvels at the path that led her to a job she loves.

She hopes Passionflix will help convince the film industry’s big names that adopting romance novels into movies is a worthy investment.

“The entertainment world is controlled mostly by men. At the end of the day, the decisions tend to sway toward the male audience as opposed to the female audience,” she says. “They also tend to be more about the victimization of women than they are about sexually free or sexually empowered stories about women.”

And for Musk, there’s also a simpler reason for her filmmaking ventures.

“I’m a storyteller at heart,” she says. “I just want to be able to tell stories.”

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Exit polls: What voters are thinking as America goes to the polls

November 9, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

Read below for analysis of CNN’s preliminary 2022 national exit polls.

Georgia voters were more likely to say that Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has good judgment than they were to say the same of his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, according to the preliminary results of the Georgia exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research. But more said Warnock holds views that are too extreme than said the same about Walker.

Just shy of half, about 46%, said only Warnock shows good judgment, with about 28% saying only Walker does, and nearly a fifth that neither candidate does.

Voters in Georgia were close to evenly split on whether or not Warnock’s views were too extreme. Slightly more than 4 in 10 said Walker’s views were too extreme, with just over half saying they were not.

Asked which candidate quality mattered most to their Senate vote, 36% of Georgia voters said they wanted a candidate who shared their values, 32% a candidate who had honesty and integrity, 19% a candidate who cared about people like them, and 8% someone who had the right experience.

7:08 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

More than 4 in 10 of Pennsylvania voters approve of the way Joe Biden is handling his job, but a majority disapprove of the president, who was born and raised in Scranton, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Voters in the commonwealth did not have a high opinion of former President Donald Trump either. Just 4 in 10 had a favorable opinion, while nearly 6 in 10 had an unfavorable opinion.

Meanwhile, just over half of Pennsylvania voters said Biden was not a factor in their vote. For those who said the president was a factor, more than 1 in 10 said they support him, while nearly a third said they oppose him.

More than half of Pennsylvania voters also said that Trump was not a factor in their vote. For those who said the former president was a factor, close to 1 in 5 said they support him, while about a quarter oppose him.

6:52 p.m. ET / Tami Luhby

More voters trust Republicans than Democrats to handle inflation and crime, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Roughly half of voters said they trusted GOP candidates on those two issues, while more than 4 in 10 voters said they trusted Democratic candidates.

When it comes to the issue of abortion, however, roughly half of voters said they trusted Democratic candidates, compared with more than 4 in 10 voters who said they trusted Republican candidates.

6:30 p.m. ET / Tami Luhby

Roughly 8 in 10 of voters in this year’s midterms said they were at least somewhat confident that elections in their state are being conducted fairly and accurately, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research. About half said they were very confident. Only about 2 in 10 said they were not very or not at all confident.

But voters were also deeply concerned about the state of the country’s democracy. Slightly fewer than 3 in 10 said that they viewed democracy in the US today as at least somewhat secure, with about 7 in 10 feeling that democracy in the country is somewhat or very threatened.

Slightly over 6 in 10 voters accepted that Biden legitimately won the presidency in 2020, while about one-third denied the results of that election.

6:16 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

While voters in this year’s midterm election hold negative views of President Joe Biden, their views of his predecessor are even more negative, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Only about 37% of voters in this year’s midterms expressed a favorable view of former President Donald Trump, with around 6 in 10 viewing him unfavorably. About 16% of voters said their House vote this year was intended to express support for Trump, with just under 3 in 10 saying it’s intended to express opposition and the rest saying that Trump was not a factor.

Voters’ opinions of the GOP were slightly more positive than their views of Trump, with about 43% viewing the Republican Party favorably and just over half viewing it unfavorably. More than half, about 54%, say the GOP is too extreme.

6:00 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

There’s a significant partisan divide in voters’ priorities and attitudes this year, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Nearly half of voters who supported a GOP House candidate called inflation their top issue, with fewer than 15% picking any other issue as their priority. Among voters who backed a Democratic candidate, about 44% called abortion their top issue, with 15% or fewer picking any other issue.

Meanwhile, midterm voters were mostly opposed to the US Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to the preliminary national exit polls.

Slightly fewer than 4 in 10 said they felt enthusiastic or satisfied about the decision, while about 21% said they felt dissatisfied, and roughly 4 in 10 that they were angry.

About 60% of all voters said that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, up from 51% among voters who turned out for the 2020 general election.

5:52 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

Early indications suggest that this year’s midterm electorate may look older than the voters in the 2018 midterms, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Only about a tenth of voters in this election were under age 30, while roughly one-third were age 65 or older. In 2018, about 13% were under 30, and about 26% were 65 or older.

The electorate this year was split roughly between those who generally identify as Democrats (about 34%) and those who generally identify as Republicans (about 35%), with the remainder consisting of political independents and members of other parties. In 2018, Democrats made up a slightly larger voting bloc, about 37%.

About 76% of voters were White, and about 24% were voters of color. White voters with college degrees look to be a slightly larger share of the electorate this year – about 40% per the preliminary data, compared with 31% four years ago. By contrast, voters of color without a college degree look to have made up a slightly smaller share of the electorate this year.

5:29 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

Inflation tops voters’ list of concerns in this year’s midterm elections, with abortion a close second, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

Approximately one-third called inflation the most important issue to their vote, with about 27% citing abortion. The remainder were roughly divided between picking crime, gun policy and immigration as their chief concerns.

The electorate’s views of the economy are largely gloomy. Only about one-quarter of voters felt positively about the current condition of the economy, with roughly three-quarters viewing it negatively – and about 4 in 10 saying it’s downright poor.

That’s more pessimistic than in the 2018 midterms, when 68% of voters said the state of the economy was excellent or good, and the 2020 presidential election, when 49% said the same.

About 46% of voters in this election say that their family’s financial situation had worsened over the past two years, while only about 1 in 5 said it had improved.

More than three-quarters of voters in this year’s election say that inflation has caused hardship for them and their family over the past year, with about 20% saying it’s been a severe hardship. And about 6 in 10 say that gas prices, specifically, have recently been a hardship.

5:23 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

Voters in this year’s midterm elections are broadly unhappy with the state of the nation and hold largely negative views of President Joe Biden, according to the preliminary national results of the exit poll conducted for CNN and other news networks by Edison Research.

More than 7 in 10 said they were less than satisfied with the way things are going in the country, with about one-third saying they were not just dissatisfied but angry with the state of the nation.

Biden’s approval rating stands at about 45% among voters in this year’s election – nearly identical to then-Donald Trump’s 45% approval rating four years ago among 2018 midterm voters. And voters in this election were more than twice as likely to strongly disapprove of Biden as they were to strongly approve of him.

Just shy of half of voters this year said that Biden’s policies are mostly hurting the country, with about 36% saying his policies are mostly helping, and the rest that they’re making no difference.

Many voters didn’t see their congressional vote as a referendum on the president – close to half said that Biden was not a factor in their vote, while about 18% said their vote was to express support for Biden, and about one-third that it was to express opposition to him.

Updated 5:13 p.m. ET / Ariel Edwards-Levy

The 2022 national exit polls include interviews with thousands of voters, both those who cast a ballot on Election Day and those who voted early or absentee. That scope makes them a powerful tool for understanding the demographic profile and political views of voters in this year’s election. And their findings will eventually be weighted against the ultimate benchmark: the results of the elections themselves. Even so, exit polls are still polls, with margins for error – which means they’re most useful when treated as estimates, rather than precise measurements. That’s particularly true for the earliest exit poll numbers, which haven’t yet been adjusted to match final election results.

CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 250 polling locations. The results also include interviews with early and absentee voters conducted in-person at 72 early voting locations, by phone or online. Results for the full sample of 12,458 respondents have a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

The Pennsylvania Exit Poll is a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and telephone and online polls measuring the views of absentee by-mail and early voters. It was conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. In-person interviews on Election Day were conducted at a random sample of 45 polling locations in Pennsylvania among Election Day voters. The results also include interviews with early and absentee voters conducted by phone or online. Results for the full sample of 1,608 voters have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points; it is larger for subgroups.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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Business

Gepotidacin: New antibiotic appears to be effective against UTIs, company says

November 4, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

The first new type of antibiotic developed in more than 20 years to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) appears to be so effective that the pharmaceutical company stopped testing and will soon submit its data to the US Food and Drug Administration for approval.

Drug company GSK said Thursday the new antibiotic, called gepotidacin, works at least as well as nitrofurantoin, a current front-line medication used to treat UTIs.

The company said it would follow a recommendation from its independent data monitoring committee to stop the study early because the drug had already proven to be effective.

GSK said it would prepare its findings for publication in a medical journal and submit its data to the FDA for approval next year. That’s about a year ahead of the study’s anticipated completion date on the website clinicaltrials.gov.

“Stopping studies in such circumstances is a pretty rare occurrence in the industry. So it’s something I’m absolutely delighted about, both from public health and from a company perspective,” said GSK Chief Scientific Officer Tony Wood, on a call with reporters, Thursday.

Gepotidacin works by blocking enzymes that bacteria need to unzip their DNA – their operating instructions – so they can multiply in the body.

It was developed in partnership with the US government, as one of 19 projects currently funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, to combat antimicrobial resistance. Government investment was needed because new drugs are expensive to develop, and antibiotics tend not to turn large profits.

New antibiotics are desperately needed because over time, many kinds of bacteria have become resistant to the agents used to treat them. A 2021 report from the World Health Organization warned there are not enough new antibiotics in development to overcome the looming threat of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistant infections kill more than a million people globally each year.

“It’s definitely a big deal,” said Dr. Cindy Liu, chief medical officer at the Antibiotic Resistance Action Center at George Washington University.

“The antibiotic pipeline is what we would call pretty leaky, because, you know, you end up with antibiotics dropping out,” Liu said, meaning many of the drugs don’t make it from the first to second phase of human trials. Another round will drop out between the second and third phase, typically because companies run out of funds to develop them. ” And so this is something that we’ve been dealing with, at the same time when there are increasing numbers of infections that are harder and harder to treat with the drugs that we do have.”

Liu said getting marketing approval for gepotidacin was just the first hurdle. She said she’s seen drugs win approval, only to be abandoned by their manufacturers when they don’t turn a profit.

Antibiotics don’t generate large profits for pharmaceutical companies because patients only take them for a short time. They aren’t maintenance medications like drugs for cholesterol or depression. Eventually, if they are used enough, the bacteria they were developed to kill will develop resistance to them, and the drugs will stop working. So they have a limited lifespan.

“I think it will be really interesting and important to the field to see both how the drug companies sort of market this product and sort of how it does,” Liu said.

Urinary tract infections can happen to both men and women of any age, but are more common in women and girls, who have shorter urethras that are closer to the rectum, making it easier for bacteria to infect the urinary tract.

UTIs are one of the most common infections. Studies show they afflict 1 in 8 women each year and 1 in 5 women over age 65. Somewhere between 30% to 44% of UTIs are recurrent, meaning they come back after treatment. Most are caused by E. coli bacteria, which are becoming more resistant to the drugs used to treat them.

Symptoms of UTIs include frequent urination that is painful or burns, bloody urine, low stomach cramps and the need to urinate even after having just gone.

In clinical trials of 3,000 women, GSK said gepotidacin met its goals of both resolving the symptoms of a UTI as well as clearing the bacteria causing it. The study compared gepotidacin to nitrofurantoin, which is currently recommended as a first-line therapy.

Gepotidacin is taken as a pill. GSK is also testing it to treat the sexually transmitted infection gonorrhea. On Thursday, GSK said the study testing gepotidacin for gonorrhea was ongoing and had not yet progressed to the same stage as the UTI trial.

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Five takeaways from the second Georgia gubernatorial debate

October 31, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams faced off in their second and final gubernatorial debate Sunday night, with a little more than a week to go before Election Day amid record high early voting.

They sparred over the state’s economy, abortion rights and, in a sign of the race’s national implications, whose party should be blamed for the country’s woes.

Kemp has led in most polling of the race, but Abrams – who came within a few thousand votes of pushing their 2018 race to a run-off – has a strong base of support and has succeeded in helping to mobilize Democrats in her campaigns and those of other high-ranking Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden and Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in their 2020 campaigns.

There are 36 states voting for governor this year, with 20 – including Georgia – being defended by Republicans. The state legislature is controlled by Republicans, who, with Kemp’s sign-off, passed into law three years ago an abortion bill that bans the procedure as early as six weeks of pregnancy with some exceptions. Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned by the Supreme Court, that law is in effect and further restrictions could be on the way.

Abrams fiercely criticized Kemp on the issue, noting his refusal to state clearly whether he would sign off on new legislation from anti-abortion rights Republicans. Kemp, in turn, repeatedly sought to pivot the conversation back to the economy – specifically, inflation and Georgia’s relative prosperity in spite of it – while trying to portray Abrams as a progressive radical who wants to defund the police. (Her position is considerably more complicated.)

Here are five takeaways from the second gubernatorial debate in Georgia:

Is Georgia booming, as Kemp says, or nearing a calamitous bust, as Abrams argued?

The candidates painted vastly different portraits of the economic situation in the state, with Kemp pointing to higher wages and low unemployment – and blaming any pain on inflation, which he attributed to Democratic policies in Washington – while Abrams singled out a low minimum wage and Kemp’s refusal to accept Medicaid expansion funds under Obamacare as twin albatrosses being worn by Georgia’s working class.

Kemp summed up his view at the beginning and end of the debate. His closing statement cheered the “lowest unemployment rate in the history of our state,” “the most people ever working in in the history of our state” and “economic opportunity, no matter your zip code or your neighborhood because we’ve been focused on strengthening rural Georgia and many other things.”

Abrams saw something dramatically different.

“The economic pain people are feeling, it’s real,” Abrams said. “As governor I will not only lower costs, I will put more money into the pockets of working Georgians, of middle class Georgians, but I will not do is give tax cuts to the wealthy and the powerful.”

Kemp argued that the state’s one-off billion-dollar tax credit this year was only possible because of his maneuvering during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, when he was among the first to re-open businesses, and pointed to a recent gas tax holiday as emblematic of his work to make life more affordable for middle class voters.

Where that failed, he tried to shift the blame north – to the White House.

“The problem (facing Georgians) is, (wages are) not going up fast enough to keep up with Joe Biden’s inflation,” Kemp responded when Abrams challenged his depiction of the state’s economic situation.

In some sense, the abortion debate is at a standstill in Georgia. The state has a law on the books, passed three years ago, that bans the procedure after about six weeks. And with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, it’s now in effect.

But Abrams, and the debate moderators, had another question for Kemp: with no federal limits in place, would the Republican, if re-elected, sign further restrictions into law?

Kemp didn’t give a straight, yes or no answer, saying he didn’t want to pre-judge “any specific piece of legislation without actually seeing exactly what it’s doing,” before adding: “It’s not my desire to go back, to go move the needle any further.”

“He did not say he wouldn’t,” Abrams responded – underscoring the uncertainty that lingers around the issue, which, as the moderators noted, remains a divisive one in the state, where more than half of those polled in a recent survey support abortion rights.

Abrams framed her argument around concerns over privacy and women’s health, describing abortion as “a medical decision,” one that should only be made by “a doctor and a woman, not a politician.”

Kemp, in a back-and-forth over limits and exceptions, described his own wife’s miscarriage and difficulties they encountered in having children (he now has three daughters).

“It is a tragic, traumatic situation,” he said of miscarriages, pushing back against Abrams’ warning that the state could, under GOP control, end up investigating women who have them under suspicion they might have received an abortion. Kemp denied that women would ever be punished for undergoing the procedure.

Abrams, seeking to tie the issue to broader concerns over access to health care in the state, noted that under the current state law, the ban kicks in “before most women know they’re pregnant” – an especially troubling fact given the diminishing number of OB-GYNs in Georgia.

They’re not running for governor, but they are top of mind for many in Georgia.

For Democrats, it’s GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker, who has become a symbol of what his critics describe as Republican hypocrisy on issues like abortion, support for law enforcement and business acumen.

On the Republican side, President Joe Biden is the go-to boogeyman for most economic issues, with GOP candidates and their surrogates relentlessly trying to tie Democratic nominees to the President and the soaring inflation that’s occurred during his time in office.

“Americans are hurting right now because of a disastrous policy agenda by Joe Biden and the Democrats that have complete control of Washington DC,” Kemp said when his economic record came under attack.

Abrams, in turn, called out Kemp’s support for Walker during their abortion tussle.

“(Kemp) refuses to defend us and yet he defended Herschel Walker, saying that he didn’t want to be involved in the personal life of his running mate, but he doesn’t mind being involved in the personal medical choices of women in Georgia,” Abrams said.

Walker, who said repeatedly in the past that he favors a full abortion ban with no exceptions, faces allegations from two women who say he urged them get abortions. Walker has denied their claims.

During their first debate, Abrams said Kemp shouldn’t get too much credit for following the law and not giving in to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia.

There was less talk about two years ago this time – and hardly any mention of Trump throughout the night – but voting rights, in particular a new law known as SB 202, came under harsh scrutiny from Abrams.

“The right to vote is sacred to me. … It is an abomination, SB 202, that has allowed racists, White supremacists to challenge the legal authority of citizens to vote,” she said.

In response to news of record early voting turnout, Abrams argued that “the fact that people are voting is in spite of SB 202, not because of it.”

Kemp, like he did in their first debate, accused Abrams of trying to “manipulate and scare people at home” and defended the state as a place where it’s “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”

When asked, both candidates said they would accept the results of the November election, no matter the outcome – a question notable mostly because it has become a staple of campaign debates around the country in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

The crime debate, both nationally and in statewide races, tends to follow similar tracks.

Republicans blame Democrats for going soft on criminals and hard on police, often invoking the short-lived movement to “defund the police” against their opponents. Democrats push back, touting their support for law enforcement, before pivoting to GOP opposition to new gun restrictions.

And so it went in Georgia on Sunday night.

“Go check the record, because Ms. Abrams on CNN got asked the question, would she defund the police? And she said, yes, we have to reallocate resources. That means defunding the police,” Kemp said.

Abrams denied the claim, saying Kemp was “lying again” about her record – which, indeed, is more nuanced – before turning to the Republican’s record of loosening gun restrictions.

“Guns are the number one killer of our children. We have the ninth highest gun violence rate in the nation. Family violence with guns has gone up 18% under this governor, and his response was to weaken gun laws in the state of Georgia,” Abrams said.

In reality, both Abrams and Kemp have gone out of their way during this campaign to highlight their support for law enforcement. Abrams has proposed $25 million in state grants to local agencies that would go to raise wages for police officers, while Kemp repeatedly touts his support from leading law enforcement officials, the vast majority of whom have endorsed his campaign for a new term.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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John Fetterman’s performance post stroke during debate with Oz could impact narrow Pennsylvania Senate race lead

October 27, 2022 Admin Leave a comment

CNN
—

Democrat John Fetterman’s debate performance has intensified the focus on his recovery from a stroke, leading some supporters to worry that his current post-stroke limitations could affect his narrow lead in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race against Republican Mehmet Oz.

If Fetterman’s showing changes the trajectory of the race, the debate could have nationwide ramifications, with Pennsylvania representing the best chance for Democrats to pick up a Senate seat in the evenly divided chamber. A CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released earlier this week found that 51% of likely voters support Fetterman, compared to 45% for Oz, an advantage narrowly outside of the survey’s margin of error. And a CBS News poll also released this week found a tightening race, with 51% of likely voters in Pennsylvania backing Fetterman and 49% backing Oz.

Though the effects of Fetterman’s stroke dominated some post-debate conversations, Oz’s comments about abortion – saying “local politicians” should contribute to women’s medical decisions – also rocked the boat. Abortion rights have been a flashpoint across the country, including in the commonwealth, and Oz’s words could hurt him with the suburban women voters both campaigns believe could be decisive on Election Day.

Overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday, Fetterman’s campaign was doing double duty, explaining again the lingering auditory processing and speech issues from his May stroke that caused him to request closed captioning on Tuesday night – but ultimately provided only limited aid, as he dropped thoughts, pushed words together and, at times, repeated phrases. But the campaign was also making sure no Pennsylvania voters missed Oz’s comment, announcing within hours of the debate’s end a new ad highlighting them.

At a Pittsburgh rally Wednesday evening, Fetterman conceded, “To be honest, doing that debate wasn’t exactly easy.”

“I knew it wasn’t going to be easy having a stroke after five months. In fact, I don’t think that’s ever been done before in American political history,” he said.

To cheers from the crowd, Fetterman announced that his campaign raised more than $2 million following the debate, which campaign aides say they intend to invest into TV ads highlighting Oz’s comments on abortion.

“I may not get every word the right way, but I will always do the right thing in Washington, DC,” Fetterman said.

But as the Fetterman campaign seeks to change the subject to abortion rights, Pennsylvania voters are left to draw their own conclusions about the debate for the closing stretch of the race.

“Dr. Oz kind of picked on him, that’s how I looked at it,” said Craig Bischof, a fervent Fetterman supporter from Bedford. “He’s still having trouble from his stroke, so I thought he did a great job, I really did.”

Asked whether he demonstrated that he was ready to serve six years in the Senate, he said: “Oh, yes. He gets healthier every day. He’s come a long way. A stroke is a hard thing to get over.”

That was not a widely held view in lunchtime conversations with a half-dozen other residents of Bedford, a Republican-leaning town, in central Pennsylvania.

“It was embarrassing,” Jan Welsch said, offering a pointed critique of Fetterman’s performance on the debate stage. “Pennsylvania is in deep trouble, if they vote for Fetterman.”

While Welsch said she was uncertain about Oz’s candidacy before the debate, she said he demonstrated to her that he was a serious candidate, not just a former television celebrity.

“I really liked what Oz had to say,” Welsch said. “I had questions about Oz earlier, but after listening with him against Fetterman, it’s definitely Oz.”

In conversations with CNN, multiple Fetterman voters said that, while his performance made them anxious about his prospects with swing voters, they still planned to cast a ballot for him. In fact, none of the voters who entered the night planning to vote for the Democrat said they were planning to change their vote.

“It was tough,” said Karin Tatela, an educator from Chester County who was at the May event Fetterman had to cancel last minute because of his stroke. “I told my friend, I said, ‘I don’t really want to watch, it is kind of like looking at a car accident. You want to look, but you don’t want to look.’”

Tatela, however, said she still plans to vote for Fetterman.

“I cannot vote for that,” she said, talking a long pause to stop herself from attacking Oz. “I would never vote for Oz. I don’t care if they had to wheel Fetterman into the Senate in a hospital bed. But I think we could be in a little bit of trouble here.”

She is not alone.

“My opinion of who I am voting for hasn’t changed but I feel a little less comfortable in his ability to win the election because of how he performed,” said Andrew Charles, a Fetterman supporter who lives in Millersville, Pennsylvania, and works in manufacturing. “I just see a lot of red flags raising for people about his capabilities.”

Charles, who earlier this year attended a Fetterman event wearing a homemade T-shirt supporting the candidate, said he will still vote for Fetterman, but he found himself thinking about swing voters last night.

“If they were on the fence, they are probably not on the fence anymore,” he concluded, believing those voters will now back Oz.

Joe Pozzini, a union carpenter, said he had no concerns about Fetterman’s health when CNN spoke with him at a rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, earlier this month. But after the debate, Pozzini worried about how the Democrat’s health could impact the race.

“I know how I’m voting. I’m Fetterman all the way, but it was kind of worrisome,” the lifelong Pennsylvanian said. “His message is still there, he’s still a strong candidate, it’s just I was kind of worried about the on-the-fence people.”

He added: “He got his point across I think, but it’s just, it was rough, it was rough, and someone on the fence might lean the other way and that’s worrisome.”

Fetterman acknowledged his stroke at the outset of the debate, seeking to humanize his recovery.

“Let’s also talk about the elephant in the room. I had a stroke. He’s never let me forget that,” Fetterman said, referring to Oz and his campaign’s frequent commentary on his recovery. “And I might miss some words during this debate, mush two words together, but it knocked me down and I’m going to keep coming back up.”

Influential Fetterman supporters, like Ryan Boyer, the first Black leader of the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, called the Democrat’s performance “a profile in courage.”

“Particularly my people in the African American community, know all too well that people have strokes. I have an uncle who had one and he’s a very intelligent guy, but it took him about a year and a half to get all the thoughts that he had in his head out of his mouth,” Boyer said.

He also told CNN that the union’s political arm, in a meeting immediately after the debate, had a “brutally honest” call and discussion about the candidates’ performances.

“To a person, I mean, listen, it was hard to watch, but they said that they understood him. We asked the question, ‘Did you understand what he was saying?’ And that’s the most important thing. ‘Did you understand his feelings?’And yes, it came off,” Boyer said.

Meanwhile, Boyer said Oz’s statement that abortion policies should be left up to “women, doctors, local political leaders” stunned him.

“They talk about cringeworthy because of Fetterman? It was cringeworthy when I heard that (from Oz). But it was a window into his soul,” Boyer added. “It was really amazing … So, now I want my local ward leader deciding something that’s going on with my daughter?”

While Oz avoided attacking Fetterman’s stroke recovery explicitly – unlike many of his campaign aides, who have mocked Fetterman’s recovery – the Republican did sprinkle seemingly derisive comments into the debate.

“John, obviously I wasn’t clear enough for you to understand it,” Oz said during otherwise benign questions about vocational education.

Whether the debate will matter, however, is an open question.

Several Democratic operatives noted that very few undecided voters watch debates live, and while some will watch their local news coverage of the contest, most aren’t plugged into the day-to-day machinations of the Senate race, even less than two weeks out from Election Day.

“I thought he would have been better, but I don’t think it hurts him,” said Mike Mikus, a Democratic consultant in Pittsburgh who led Katie McGinty through the state’s Democratic Senate primary against Fetterman in 2016 before she lost to Republican Sen. Pat Toomey in the general election. “I think people understand that Fetterman had a stroke, and it affects his speech. But, they also think he’ll get better.”

He added: “At the same time, most swing voters are not very political and most likely didn’t watch … The undecideds at this stage of a campaign are completely unplugged.”

Additionally, ahead of the debate, almost 640,000 pre-election votes had already been cast in Pennsylvania, according to data from state election officials, and Democrats make up a wide majority of voters who have already cast a ballot in the Keystone State. As of Monday, 73% of Pennsylvania voters so far have been Democrats, while 19% have been Republicans. While the scale is smaller, the breakdown is similar to this point two years ago, according to data from Catalist.

To focus the post-debate coverage on Oz, Fetterman’s campaign announced minutes after the debate ended that it would put money behind an ad highlighting Oz saying that the debate over abortion should be left to “women, doctors, local political leaders.”

The Oz comment is a continuation of his argument that states, not the federal government, should decide the issue. But when pressed repeatedly during the debate about a bill proposed by South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham that would limit abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Oz dodged, arguing he didn’t support federal legislation on the issue but wouldn’t give a firm answer on how he would vote were he in the Senate.

Top Democrats saw the comment as an opening to link Oz with Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, a state senator who introduced a bill in 2019 prohibiting an abortion procedure if a heartbeat is detected.

Their argument: Oz thinks politicians like Mastriano – either as state senator or possibly as governor – should decide the issue.

“Our campaign will be putting money behind making sure as many women as possible hear Dr. Oz’s radical belief that ‘local political leaders’ should have as much say over a woman’s abortion decisions as women themselves and their doctors,” said Joe Calvello, campaign spokesman. “After months of trying to hide his extreme abortion position, Oz let it slip on the debate stage on Tuesday.”

The ad was out by midday Wednesday, telling voters, “Oz would let politicians like Doug Mastriano ban abortion without exceptions – even in cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother. Oz is too extreme for Pennsylvania.”

Oz, for his part, barely mentioned the debate at a Wednesday event.

But to Republicans – and even some doctors who specialize in cardiology – Fetterman’s performance was concerning and raised questions about how transparent he has been about the impact of his stroke.

“He disgraced himself and is unfit for office,” said Ryan Costello, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania. “He hasn’t demonstrated any ability to handle the physical and communication obligations of being a U.S. Senator.”

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN medical analyst and interventional cardiologist who has treated several high-profile politicians, said the debate was “difficult to watch.”

“Fetterman’s residual neurological injury is substantial,” Reiner said. “Much greater than his campaign has led the public to believe. It’s more than just processing hearing. It’s incredibly sad to watch.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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