Conservatives are taking legal action against public and private organizations that aim to aid women and people of color

Last year’s supreme court decision to ban affirmative action in college and university admissions was a watershed moment for far-right conservative activists and groups, who have used the momentum to target not only public institutions, but also private organizations that aim to aid women and people of color.

Many of the targeted groups are being sued by complainants who allege that they have been discriminated against because they do not fit diversity requirements. In some cases, the would-be applicants are engaging in presumptive suing – alleging the organizations have engaged in discriminatory behavior without even applying.

Ex-president who boasts about Roe’s fall say matter is ‘about states’ rights’ but concedes revived 160-year-old ban goes too far

Insisting abortion rights should be left to state governments, Donald Trump nonetheless said the rightwing Arizona supreme court went too far when it ruled on Tuesday that a 160-year-old near-total ban could be enforced.

“Yeah, they did [go too far],” Trump said on Wednesday to reporters at an airport in Atlanta, Georgia. “That’ll be straightened out, and as you know it’s all about states’ rights.”

Three men granted early releases but review of legality of a federal charge against them could see them ordered to return to prison

Several January 6 rioters have won early release from their sentences ahead of a key supreme court review of the legality of a specific federal charge against them – a review that could, in turn, see them ordered to return to prison.

A decision on the legal issue, which revolves around how January 6 prosecutors distinguished between conduct qualifying as “obstructing an official proceeding” of Congress and misdemeanor offenses, including shouting to interrupt a congressional hearing, is not expected until the summer, according to the Washington Post .

The UK branch of the Alliance Defending Freedom has increased its spending and is forging ties with key MPs

A rightwing Christian lobby group that wants abortion to be banned has forged ties with an adviser to the prime minister and is drawing up ­policy briefings for politicians.

The UK branch of the US-based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has more than doubled its spending since 2020 and been appointed a stakeholder in a parliamentary group on religious freedoms in a role that grants it direct access to MPs.

The conservative obsession with purity and control is being achieved by increasingly punitive means

The US supreme court justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas cited the Comstock Act, named after the 19th-century anti-vice campaigner Anthony Comstock, in last week’s case about access to the abortion pill mifepristone. If you don’t know who Anthony Comstock was or what his law did, that might not have alarmed you. But it should have.

The Comstock Law has come up a lot lately, and it’s part of the Republican war on sex, and to put it that way might sound overly dramatic. But there is such a war, and parts of it – against sex education, against access to birth control, against the healthcare provider Planned Parenthood and of course against abortion – have long been out in the open along with a war against the rights of women and on the rights and very existence of queer and trans people.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

Three women share their stories of getting medication abortions, and their thoughts on that access being curtailed

Mercy’s periods had always been very regular, so when she missed one in 2016, she immediately took a pregnancy test. It was positive, and she managed to get an appointment at an abortion clinic the next day.

Despite being able to act quickly, she was in her seventh week of pregnancy by the time she could take abortion pills in Ohio – a state that was, at the time, debating banning abortion from the moment fetal cardiac activity is detected (usually around six weeks). Ohio has since enshrined abortion rights in its state constitution following a referendum.

The anti-choice case relies on outlandish legal leaps. And if they can’t win there, they’ll redouble efforts to win the White House

It is a testament to how weak the plaintiffs’ case is that the justices seemed so skeptical. Erin Hawley, a lawyer for the far-right antifeminist litigation shop Alliance Defending Freedom and the spouse of conservative US senator Josh Hawley, usually gets a much warmer reception at One First Street. But in Tuesday’s oral arguments in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v FDA – a lawsuit which seeks to challenge FDA approval of the abortion drug mifepristone, and specifically to reverse regulatory changes that made the drug more easily accessible – she was on the defensive.

The three Democratic appointees, along with Republican justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Roberts, all signaled at least some skepticism of her clients’ claims to legal standing. Amy Coney Barrett, the Trump appointee known for her maximalist religious commitments, struggled to help Hawley establish a convincing merits case to restrict access to the drug. And the far-right extremists Sam Alito and Thomas Gorsuch spent their question time signalling their support for the Comstock Act, a long-obscure and once-forgotten 1871 statute that some anti-choice lawyers say could be used to ban abortion nationwide by executive order.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Decision in anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply across US and would likely make the drug more difficult to acquire

The supreme court on Tuesday seemed skeptical of arguments made by anti-abortion doctors asking it to roll back the availability of mifepristone, a drug typically used in US medication abortion. The arguments were part of the first major abortion case to reach the justices since a 6-3 majority ruled in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and end the national right to abortion.

The rightwing groups that brought the case argued that the justices should roll back measures taken since 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the drug’s availability. A decision in the anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply nationwide, including in states that protect abortion access, and would likely make the drug more difficult to acquire.

Protesters gather outside court as justices set to hear arguments in first major abortion case since Roe v Wade was overturned

• Supreme court to hear mifepristone case
• Where laws stand in every state

It’s not just access to medication abortion that could be upended by a supreme court ruling tightening access to mifepristone. As the Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports, the conservative challengers to the drug have targeted decisions made by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make it easier to prescribe.

But if the supreme court agrees with their complaint, it opens up the possibility of a wave of challenges to other medications that treat a range of issues. Doctors and pharmaceutical companies have become so concerned about the case that they’ve filed briefs defending the FDA against the conservative challenge.

A supreme court case about one little pill – mifepristone – has the medical and pharmaceutical world on edge. The pill, at the heart of a case that will be argued on Tuesday, is part of a two-drug regimen used to treat miscarriage and end early pregnancies.

Despite a more than 20-year track record of safe real-world use, backed up by more than 100 peer-reviewed studies , a group of anti-abortion doctors is seeking to roll back US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decisions that changed and relaxed some prescribing rules.

Joe Biden has been briefed on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. We have a live blog covering the latest news on the disaster, and you can find it here.

Is the GOP surrendering in their push to impeach Biden? Reports have emerged that the Republican architect of the attempt to bring charges against the president now says he’ll settle for a criminal referral to the justice department.

The White House press briefing will take place on Air Force One as Biden heads to campaign in North Carolina, sometime after 1pm.