Wyoming has become the first US state to ban abortion pills.
Those who “prescribe, dispense, distribute, sell or use any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion” will face up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $9,000 (£7,300).
However, the law adds that women “upon whom a chemical abortion is performed or attempted shall not be criminally prosecuted”.
Wyoming’s Republican Governor Mark Gordon signed the bill into law after it was approved by state legislators earlier this month.
It comes in the wake of a US Supreme Court ruling last year that overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade judgment, which granted the constitutional right of American women to have abortions.
Under Wyoming’s new law, “morning-after” pills, prescription contraceptive medication used after sex but before a pregnancy can be confirmed, will be exempted from the ban.
There will also be an exemption for treatment necessary to protect a woman “from an imminent peril that substantially endangers her life or health”, as well as any treatment of a “natural miscarriage according to currently accepted medical guidelines”.
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As well as the ban on abortion pills, Governor Gordon allowed a separate and more sweeping measure restricting abortion to become law without his signature.
He said signing the bill would result in a lawsuit that will “delay any resolution to the constitutionality of the abortion ban in Wyoming”.
The state is currently pushing for more sweeping laws banning abortions, with an early abortion ban bill currently at the centre of a court battle.
The previous bill was blocked by the courts after providers claimed that the law violated the Wyoming state constitution’s guarantee of freedom in health care decisions.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Texas is considering ordering a nationwide ban on the abortion pill mifepristone in response to a lawsuit by anti-abortion groups.
Wyoming American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) advocacy director Antonio Serrano criticised Governor Gordon’s decision to sign the abortion pill law.
“A person’s health, not politics, should guide important medical decisions – including the decision to have an abortion,” Mr Serrano said.
Fifteen states already have limited access to abortion pills, including six that require an in-person physician visit, in the wake of the Roe v Wade judgment.
Since the reversal of the judgment, abortion restrictions have been up to states to set their own legislation, instead of the right to abortion being enshrined as a constitutional right.
Lebanon is balanced as though on an earthquake faultline right now – whatever Israel decides to do next will have massive repercussions throughout the entire region.
That’s how critical the situation is in Lebanon and the surrounding countries, as described by one seasoned Lebanese political analyst.
Khodor Taleb is also the former adviser to three different Lebanese prime ministers, so knows a thing or two about what is at stake.
Mr Taleb is not an isolated voice in warning that an Israeli attack could tip the region into all-out war.
“It will be a huge risk for Israel because it will lead to a big war in the region,” he said.
“It will not be limited to Lebanon. It will definitely spread to Yemen and most probably to the Syrian Golan and the situation will be totally out of control of any international power,” he continued.
“It will be damaging to the whole region.”
His point: Any large-scale Israeli attack against the Lebanese Hezbollah or Iran risks drawing the entire so-called Axis of Resistance into war – and that would involve the Yemeni Houthis, the Iraqi Hezbollah and the various Syrian militias – all of which have links to Iran or Hezbollah.
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3:47
Why the crisis in Yemen is getting worse
‘Revenge will end up with a bigger war’
While Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron was in Israel urging restraint, his Lebanese counterpart was telling us how he is willing him on to succeed.
“I hope the foreign ministers in Tel Aviv or in Jerusalem, wherever they are, they succeed with them [and persuade them not to retaliate]… to take it easy, and not to start a war with Iranians,” Abdullah Bou Habib told Sky News.
“And they started it,” he added. “They were hitting Iran in many Syrian areas and Iran was not retaliating but now after you hit its consulate, you can’t stop them.”
Mr Habib issued his own dire warnings to try to avert a potentially disastrous attack by Israel.
“Any kind of revenge from Israel is going to end up with a bigger war,” he said.
He blamed the inaction by the United Nations (UN) for not definitively condemning the earlier suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus – viewed as the first direct assault by Israel against Iran in more than six months of war in Gaza.
“We are very worried,” the Lebanese foreign minister said.
“We pray for a ceasefire but the UN is not moving in this direction and we are left not able to do anything.”
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3:37
Comparing Israel and Iran’s weapons
Asked whether, like Hezbollah, the Lebanese government welcomed the Iranian drone and missile attack against Israel, he responded: “We don’t welcome it nor do we denounce it.
“We are in a very difficult position because Israel started it. We really want peace – 90% of Lebanese really want peace.”
When questioned about just how much influence the Lebanese government has over Hezbollah, which has a powerful military wing believed to be stronger than the Lebanese army plus a political wing including elected MPs, the foreign minister was brutally frank.
“We don’t have influence with them [Hezbollah] in fighting over Israelis,” he admitted. “And when that happens, we support Hezbollah.”
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But he went on to focus on the nub of the issue: “And other countries… Syria, Jordan… also have problems because of what Israel is doing.
“The UN asked for a two-state solution in 1947, a long time ago, and this is the solution for all the problems in the Middle East.”
Without a two-state solution, he predicted, the Palestinians will never stop fighting.
‘Help us’
In Beirut’s Shatila refugee camp, which is filled with tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced from previous wars with Israel, there is not so much fear of retaliation as frustration at what they view as Western double standards.
Many mentioned to us the lack of Western condemnation of the direct attack on diplomatic soil at the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital – widely accepted to be the work of Israel, though the IDF has never confirmed its responsibility.
“Let them respond,” said political activist Ahed Bahar, referring to an Israeli response to Iran’s attack.
“The Israelis are only a tool of the Americans and take their orders from the US, UK and France,” he said.
The upheaval and high number of casualties in Gaza – caused by Israel’s response to Hamas’s attacks on Israel on 7 October – has drawn together not just Sunnis and Shi’ites in Lebanon but also many of the fractured political parties.
Kazem Hasan, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) chief in the camp, urged the British people to put more pressure on the UK government to help Palestinians.
“I tell to Britain that the struggle [in Gaza] isn’t against terrorism. It’s about Palestinian rights. We need our own state. Put right what you did wrong so many years ago and help us now.”
Lebanon is waiting on tenterhooks to see what unfolds over the coming hours, days and weeks.
Additional reporting from cameraman Jake Britton, specialist producer Chris Cunningham and Lebanon producer Jihad Jneid.
In a military base near the coast, we were shown the fuel tank for an Emad or ‘Pillar of Strength’ missile intercepted as it entered Israeli airspace that night.
It is 11 metres long, but with a warhead the size of a small car, it would have been even bigger at launch.
It has a range of 1,000 miles, a payload of half a tonne of explosives, is accurate to 10 metres and on Saturday was fired by the dozen at Israel.
Standing next to it, suddenly the claims that Iran‘s attack was in any way a token effort or symbolic seem absurd.
If any one of those ballistic missiles had reached an Israeli population centre it would have been devastating.
Showing the rocket to journalists, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the attack would not go unpunished.
He said: “Firing 110 ballistic missiles, directly to Israel, will not get off scot-free. We will respond. In our time. In our place. The way that we will choose.”
There is reportedly intense debate in the Israeli government about how that will happen.
But others fear that could jeopardise the coalition of allies and neighbours which helped protect Israel that night.
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5:05
Iran’s attack on Israel and what happened next
David Horovitz, editor of the Times of Israel and one of its most seasoned observers of the country’s international relations, told Sky News: “There’s concern that if you hit back, you risk shattering that coalition, you potentially prompt a further Iranian response and therefore a regional war, even potentially a world war.”
There is an opportunity. A chance to build on that coalition to create real international pressure on Iran not least to stop its alleged nuclear weapons programme.
But there is jeopardy too – with a huge amount at stake.
Iran’s ambassador to the UN has told Sky News that Israel’s promise of a significant response to Saturday’s attack is “a threat, not an action”.
Amir Saeid Iravani was speaking exclusively to Sky’s James Matthews after an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Sunday.
The day before, his country launched more than 300 drones and missiles into Israel in response to a strike on an Iranian consular building in Syria earlier this month which killed two Iranian generals. That strike has been widely blamed on Israel.
Israel’s war cabinet met on Sunday to discuss possible retaliation against Iran, with the country’s broadcaster Channel 12 quoting an unnamed official as vowing a “significant response”.
Mr Iravani said Israel “would know what our second retaliation would be… they understand the next one will be most decisive”.
But he said he believed a conclusion had been reached, adding: “I think there should be no military response from Israel.”
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The weekend brought long-simmering tensions between the two countries to boiling point, sparking fears that the conflict could spread more widely across the Middle East region.
When asked if his country’s actions had risked escalation towards a wider war, Iranian ambassador Mr Iravani said: “It was our legitimate right to respond because they started aggression against our diplomatic premises.”
Israel managed to repel most of Iran’s weekend attack, with the help of its Iron Dome defence system and forces from the US, UK, Jordan and France.
Ahead of Israel’s war cabinet meeting, centrist minister and war cabinet member Benny Gantz said: “We will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us.”
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who, like Mr Gantz, has decision-making powers in the war cabinet, also spoke of forming an alliance “against this grave threat by Iran, which is threatening to mount nuclear explosives on these missiles, which could be an extremely grave threat”.
Late on Sunday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined G7 leaders and Arab nations in calling for calm, telling the UN Security Council: “The Middle East is on the brink.
“The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict – now is the time to refuse and de-escalate.”
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Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood threatened additional measures at the global body to hold Iran accountable, warning: “If Iran or its proxies take actions against the United States or further action against Israel, Iran will be held responsible.”
The US has already said that, while it does not seek to escalate the conflict, it will continue to defend Israel.