Louisiana could become the first state in the country to categorize mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs used to induce an abortion — as controlled dangerous substances, threatening incarceration and fines if an individual possesses the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice.Legislators in Baton Rouge added the provision as a last-minute amendment to a Senate bill that would criminalize an abortion if someone gives a pregnant woman the pills without her consent, a scenario of “coerced criminal abortion” that nearly occurred with one senator’s sister.A pregnant woman obtaining the two drugs “for her own consumption” would not be at risk of prosecution. But, with the exception of a health-care practitioner, a person helping her get the pills would be.Louisiana already bans both medication and surgical abortions except to save a patient’s life or because a pregnancy is “medically futile.” Lawmakers just rejected adding exceptions for teenagers under 17 who become pregnant through rape or incest.

Proposal accepted by Hamas includes hostage release and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from GazaThe proposed agreement mediated by Qatar and Egypt and accepted by Hamas starts with the release of 33 Israeli hostages over 42 days and ends with the rebuilding of Gaza amid “a period of sustainable calm,” according to a document shared with CNN by a source in the region familiar with negotiations. The copy of the framework details that the agreement will be divided into three phases, each 42 days long. It will also include an eventual full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the second phase, according to the document and Hamas senior official Khalil Al-Hayya, who spoke to Al Jazeera. Here's a breakdown of each phase:The first phaseThis phase says Hamas will release 33 hostages — specifically women, children, elderly and those sick — in exchange for a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of Gaza, the halting of reconnaissance flights for 10 hours daily, the free movement of disarmed Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip and the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. In this phase, 30 Palestinian women and children will be released for every Israeli hostage released by Hamas, and 30 Palestinian prisoners over the age of 50 for every Israeli hostage over the age of 50. Female IDF soldiers are to be released as part of the 33 hostages, but for every Israel Defense Forces woman soldier released, Israel is to release 50 Palestinian prisoners, including 30 serving life sentences.Every week Hamas will release three hostages. On the sixth and final week, the rest of the hostages are to be released to fulfill the 33 number agreed upon, according to the document. The agreement also says that Hamas could include the bodies of dead hostages to reach the 33 number.   An extensive effort will begin for the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, including makeshift shelters and homes, and the rehabilitation of key infrastructure, including hospitals and the electric plant, the document says.  The second phaseThe document did not fully expand on the details of the second phase of the agreement, which is set to include a “sustainable period of calm” in Gaza and the release of the remaining hostages, including civilian men and IDF male soldiers.The third phaseA three-to-five-year Gaza rebuilding plan is to start in this phase, according to the document.

The latest surge in violence comes as the RSF encircles North Darfur’s capital, El Fasher.In the city and its surrounding localities, there have been “increasing arbitrary killings,” systematic “burning of entire villages” and “escalating air bombardments,” the UN deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Toby Hayward, said on Thursday.Hayward added that El Fasher is the only city in Darfur that has not been captured by the RSF and hosts thousands of people who have been displaced by the war. At least 500,000 of those sheltering in the city have been displaced from violence elsewhere in Sudan, according to the UN’s children’s agency (UNICEF).More than 36,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in El Fasher in recent weeks, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported.At least 43 people have been killed in and around the city since the escalation of fighting a little over two weeks ago, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said on Thursday.RELATED ARTICLESudan on brink of collapse and starvation as country marks one year of civil war“Recent attacks on more than a dozen villages in western El Fasher have resulted in horrific reports of violence, including sexual violence, children injured and killed, homes set on fire, and destruction of critical civilian supplies and infrastructure,” Russell detailed.Meanwhile, deliveries of food assistance in Darfur “have been intermittent due to fighting and endless bureaucratic hurdles” and at least 1.7 million people within the region are experiencing emergency levels of hunger, according to the World Food Programme.

16 people arrested after they took over and vandalized University of New Mexico building, official saysFrom CNN’s Amy SimonsonPolice arrested 16 people after taking over and vandalizing the University of New Mexico Student Union Building early Tuesday morning, according to university officials.Palestinian supporters had been protesting peacefully at the UNM Duck Pond since last week, according to UNM spokesperson Steve Carr in an email to CNN.More than two dozen protestors attempted to camp inside and occupy the Student Union Building (SUB) around 6:30 p.m. local time Monday night, according to Carr.“They remained unlawfully in the building past closing time and proceeded to vandalize the building, damaging furniture, walls, and doors, writing graffiti with markers, paint, and chalk, on the walls, on banisters, in bathrooms, and more,” he said in the email.According to Carr, some protesters barricaded doors with chairs and tables.“Beyond this property damage in the SUB, graffiti was spray-painted across campus. Students who were trying to study in the SUB were also verbally harassed,” he said.New Mexico State Police and UNM police began removing tents and escorting protestors out of the building around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, Carr said.CNN reached out to New Mexico State Police but has not heard back.In a university statement released Tuesday, officials said the “takeover” of the student union building is “not acceptable,” “What began as protest ended in criminal acts,” the statement said. “Those who occupied the building were not peacefully protesting, they were engaged in criminal activity by entering, remaining in, and damaging the SUB after its closing hours."

Find your 1 euro house in Italy!It’s true! You can buy a house in Italy for 1 euro! To support redevelopment, small towns across Italy are selling abandoned houses for the symbolic price of €1. We’ve compiled all the information you need to find and apply for one of these bargain homes. Click here to access our listings of houses for sale in Italy for €50,000 and less!

Pew Research Center has conducted many surveys about abortion over the years, providing a lens into Americans’ views on whether the procedure should be legal, among a host of other questions.In a Center survey conducted nearly a year after the Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion, 62% of U.S. adults said the practice should be legal in all or most cases, while 36% said it should be illegal in all or most cases. Another survey conducted a few months before the decision showed that relatively few Americans take an absolutist view on the issue.Find answers to common questions about abortion in America, based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, which have tracked these patterns for several decades:How many abortions are there in the U.S. each year?An exact answer is hard to come by. The CDC and the Guttmacher Institute have each tried to measure this for around half a century, but they use different methods and publish different figures.The last year for which the CDC reported a yearly national total for abortions is 2021. It found there were 625,978 abortions in the District of Columbia and the 46 states with available data that year, up from 597,355 in those states and D.C. in 2020. The corresponding figure for 2019 was 607,720.The last year for which Guttmacher reported a yearly national total was 2020. It said there were 930,160 abortions that year in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, compared with 916,460 in 2019.The figures reported by these organizations include only legal induced abortions conducted by clinics, hospitals or physicians’ offices, or those that make use of abortion pills dispensed from certified facilities such as clinics or physicians’ offices. They do not account for the use of abortion pills that were obtained.What are the demographics of women who have had abortions?In the District of Columbia and the 46 states that reported age data to the CDC in 2021, the majority of women who had abortions (57%) were in their 20s, while about three-in-ten (31%) were in their 30s. Teens ages 13 to 19 accounted for 8% of those who had abortions, while women ages 40 to 44 accounted for about 4%.The vast majority of women who had abortions in 2021 were unmarried (87%), while married women accounted for 13%, according to the CDC, which had data on this from 37 states.For 57% of U.S. women who had induced abortions in 2021, it was the first time they had ever had one, according to the CDC. For nearly a quarter (24%), it was their second abortion. For 11% of women who had an abortion that year, it was their third, and for 8% it was their fourth or more. These CDC figures include data from 41 states and New York City, but not the rest of New York.