Happy Holidays From America

Something curious has happened since the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision in June 2022: More people have obtained abortions, despite increasing barriers to access. That’s one of the central findings of a new report released Tuesday, which found that there were nearly 86,000 average abortions per month in 2023, compared to about 82,000 a month in 2022.

The question of how many people have died in Gaza since Israel began a bombing and ground campaign in response to Hamas’s deadly Oct. 7 attack has taken on renewed urgency as President Biden tries to forestall a full assault by Israel against Hamas’ leadership and remaining battalions into the densely-populated city of Rafah.

On Thursday, purportedly on the advice of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott formally pardoned Daniel Perry for his 2020 murder of Garrett Foster at a Black Lives Matter protest in Austin. I say “purportedly” because Abbott never waited for the board before passing judgment in the case; he announced a little over a year ago that he was “working as swiftly as the law allows” to get Perry out of prison. “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney,” Abbott explained on X at the time.

Denver International Airport officials confirmed what some hawk-eyed H2O fans had already noticed — the filter status indicators on more than 100 water bottle-filling stations across DIA don’t work. That’s because DIA shut off the indicators about a year ago. The airport’s senior maintenance official said this week that the decision was made because the indicators were throwing off maintenance cycles. The filter indicator light is disabled on a water bottle filling station on Denver International Airport’s Concourse C on May 9, 2024, in Denver.

The NFL probably didn't expect this one.

Governor Abbott pardoned him with the full concurrence of the state parole board. Now it’s time to prosecute the prosecutor.