I went up to Kansas to talk to folks at Trust Women clinic about the Texas abortion ban - including a woman who had to travel overnight. latimes.com/world-nation/s…
2/I also spoke with protesters outside the Wichita clinic who said they were encouraged by the Texas abortion ban.
3/“They told us to get ready because people are going to come from south and all over to get here,” said Joseph Elmore, 73, who was protesting outside the Kansas clinic.
4/Ashley Brink, director of the Wichita clinic, said they’re adding staff, supplies and renovating to serve more women from surrounding states.
5/The poster shows plants traditionally used to induce abortions.
6/Papaya is among plants traditionally used to induce abortions, and doctors also use it to train to perform them. The Wichita clinic director also has a papaya tattoo.
7/Ashley Brink, the Wichita abortion clinic director, talked about how she thinks abortion should be treated like any other medical procedure, without legal hurdles or shame. She wears abortion necklaces and has a sign in her office that sums up her view.
8/The “abortion desert” around #Texas is expanding. Here’s a map:
9/I also visited Trust Women abortion clinic last year to talk to Texas patients who had to travel due to bans there and in OK: latimes.com/world-nation/s…
10/And I talked to women at the Wichita clinic in 2016 when Texas laws meant they had to travel: latimes.com/nation/la-na-a…
11/What does the #Texas#AbortionBan mean for migrant women? Those along the border can’t travel north through @CBP checkpoints. In 2016, I visited Whole Woman’s Health, the only clinic in #RGV - and crossed to Mexico to ask about buying abortion meds. latimes.com/nation/la-na-b…
12/More to come on our @latimes podcast, where you’ll hear from all sides included in our story. Value our on the ground, inclusive coverage? Please subscribe!
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I spent time in small town #Texas with @AverieDanielle aka #MissTexas who handles rattlesnakes, eats Texas-shaped waffles and posts videos on her viral TikTok about her controversial platform: Diversity and inclusion. With @sflores photo, my video n links: washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/06…
2/Thanks to everyone who took time with us, especially folks in Fairfield, at Miss Texas and @AverieDanielle whose reign ends tomorrow. After watching prelims this week, I'll be watching the finals tomorrow livestreaming.
3/Can you spot the @washingtonpost reporter in her Fairfield TikTok? tiktok.com/t/ZT8efeUkL/
2/Some extra: In Minneapolis’s outer-ring suburbs, Matt Norris, 33, a lawyer and policy director at a statewide youth non-profit, ran for the first time and won with 51% of the vote, narrowly beating a Republican incumbent who belonged to the Oath Keepers militia.
3/In a district with a population of 42,000, Norris said his campaign knocked on 39,000 doors, telling voters how he successfully lobbied to recently pass bi-partisan bills that ensured unemployment assistance for youth/seniors during the pandemic and youth workforce training.
2/Dr. Alan Braid (right) and clinic executive administrator Andrea Gallegos (left) in the clinic lobby explaining what #SCOTUS ruling meant for patients: they could not get scheduled abortions today.
3/Clinic staff consoled patients, gave them handouts directing them to out of state clinics and web sites that distribute abortion medication by mail.
Thread: A day in the migrant camp of about 14,000, mainly Haitians, near the border bridge in Del Rio, Texas.
2/@CBP doesn’t allow press to enter the camp from the U.S. and closed the border bridge, so I crossed to the East, drove through Mexico and waded across the Rio Grande.
3/Haitian migrants I met spoke Creole to each other, but many also spoke Spanish, some French and English. These guys told me in French that they were deciding whether to return to the camp or stay in Mexico.
A year ago, I met transgender migrant Mayela Villegas, 27, in a Mexican border tent camp before she crossed legally to claim asylum in Texas. At the end of May, a friend contacted me to say Mayela had died. latimes.com/world-nation/s…
2/ Mayela’s friend had a question for me after she died: “Is there any way you can help us find what happened to her?” Here’s what I found. latimes.com/world-nation/s…
3/Mayela’s friend Deisy Polanco told me she had struggled since arriving in Houston. Mayela lived with conservative, religious family members who called her by her male birth name and male pronouns. “For me, you’re Mayela,” Polanco would tell her. “I don’t know any other name.”
@GregAbbott_TX reduced the number of locations where voters can drop mail-in ballots, claiming he was “enhancing ballot security.”
As of Friday, mail ballots can only be delivered by eligible voters to a single location in each of Texas’s 254 counties.
2/ #Texas#PollWatchers may observe in-person ballot deliveries at each county location.
“These enhanced security protocols will ensure greater transparency and will help stop attempts at illegal voting,” @GregAbbott_TX said
3/ Harris County, which includes Houston, is the third-largest county in the country by population with 2 million registered voters. Before Abbott’s announcement, the county had a dozen ballot drop-off locations. #TX is one of five states already barring widespread mail-in voting