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Warning: This story contains details of a miscarriage which some people may find distressing.

“We broke Roe vs Wade,” president-elect Donald Trump said earlier this year, referring to the Supreme Court ruling in 2022 which stripped millions of American women of the legal right to abortion.

Some 36 days later, Ryan Hamilton, a radio host from Texas, found his wife passed out “in a huge pool of blood” on their toilet floor, their dead baby still inside her after she was denied abortion care.

“What I want is for people to understand that this is really happening and that abortion bans affect incomplete miscarriages, women like my wife,” Mr Hamilton told Sky News.

“Women have literally died and the thing I want the most is to make sure that my daughter’s future doesn’t include her bleeding out on a bathroom floor like her mum almost did.”

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Trump called out over ‘abortion lies’

‘She was tortured for four days by the state of Texas’

In 2021 Texas introduced stringent laws on abortion, banning it after five weeks of pregnancy.

But after Roe vs Wade was overturned the next year, it went a step further and banned abortion in any circumstance except to save a woman’s life or prevent “substantial impairment of a major bodily function”.

Although Texas allows this exception, doctors and women argued in court last year that the state’s law is so restrictive and vaguely worded that physicians are afraid of providing abortions for fear they could face potential criminal charges.

Mr Hamilton claims the law’s vagueness is what caused his wife to almost die from her miscarriage.

“There’s no clarification as to how close to dead a woman has to be for them to legally perform the abortion care that she needs,” he said.

With his first daughter, a one-year-old, cooing in the background, Mr Hamilton described how his wife, 37, was 13 weeks pregnant when she miscarried while carrying their second child.

When they first realised something was wrong, the couple went to a medical centre near their home in a rural area of Texas, where the baby was found to have no heartbeat.

Mr Hamilton’s wife, who has asked to remain anonymous, was prescribed the drug misoprostol, more commonly known as an abortion pill.

That was a Thursday, Mr Hamilton recalls, but as it was too late in the day to get hold of the pill, his wife had to spend a “torturous” night with their dead baby still in her womb.

When morning came, Mr Hamilton went to the pharmacy and got the pill. But after his wife took the first dose, the couple called the medical centre to report something was “really wrong” as she was bleeding a lot.

They asked for an alternative to the pill but the medic on the phone said they should try again with the second dose and monitor the colour of the blood.

Mr Hamilton said: “They asked me what colour the blood was, they said it needs to be brown blood… I said ‘it’s bright red’ and they said ‘that’s not right’.

“So in the middle of losing our baby… We are being instructed on focusing on the colour of the blood in the toilet.”

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Why could abortion pill be pulled in US?

After a night when Mr Hamilton’s wife experienced something akin to early labour, the situation hadn’t changed, so the couple went back to the centre in the hope of getting more support.

The doctor on shift, however, told them that “considering the current stance” he wouldn’t prescribe any more misoprostol – and also had no alternative to offer.

“We stood in the parking lot with our then nine-month-old daughter in the truck, trying to figure out what we were going to do because the risk of sepsis could have killed my wife… if we left our dead baby in there,” Mr Hamilton said.

They then decided to go to another hospital about an hour away. His wife was subjected to “more probing and prodding only to discover what we already knew, that our baby didn’t have a heartbeat”.

He said she was “bleeding profusely at this point… bleeding non-stop, bleeding through post-birth pads”.

Mr Hamilton said the doctors “disappeared for hours” only to come back and refuse to carry out dilation and curettage (D&C), a surgical procedure to remove the baby. The couple were sent home with a third dose of misoprostol instead.

Mr Hamilton said they were essentially saying “she’s not close enough to dead to perform this procedure as she has to reach the life of the mother exception under Texas law”.

“It’s nightmare stuff and my poor wife was tortured for four days by the state of Texas,” he said.

Sky News has approached Texas state authorities for comment.

According to online abortion service Women on Web, medical abortion is “effective and safe” up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. After that, the medicine will still be effective but the risk of complications increases, as does the chance of having to see a medical professional afterwards.

‘I thought she was going to die’

Mr Hamilton described how after taking the third dose of the abortion pill, his wife woke up on Sunday to even more bleeding.

“I wrapped her in the heating blanket, and she was cold, clammy cold. I propped her head up on the pillow and it was the first time I thought she was going to die.”

While checking on their daughter, he got a missed call from his wife, so he ran over and found she had “fallen off the toilet” and was lying in a “huge pool of blood”.

He picked her up and “put her unconscious body in the truck”, strapped their daughter in and drove to a third hospital in the hope of getting help.

As “she was close enough to dead”, she got life-saving care, regained consciousness and her body gradually recovered.

According to analysis shared with NBC, the number of women who died while pregnant, during labour or soon after giving birth skyrocketed following Texas’s five-week ban in 2021.

From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis of federal public health data by the Gender Equity Policy Institute.

“We will carry that torturous experience with us for the rest of our lives,” Mr Hamilton said.

What could happen to abortion rights under second Trump administration?

It is hard to say what Trump’s second administration, due to start once he is inaugurated on 20 January, could mean for the future of abortion rights in the US as the president-elect has flip-flopped on the issue.

As president, he backed a House bill which would’ve banned abortion in the whole country after 20 weeks.

In March, he suggested he would support a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation.

But in the final stages of his latest campaign, which saw his Republican Party take control of both Houses, the 78-year-old said he would not sign a federal ban on abortion and would leave it to the states to decide what policies to adopt.

At the end of August, Mr Trump, whose wife Melania recently published a memoir where she came out in support of abortion rights, told Sky News’ US partner network NBC he believed the six-week abortion ban adopted by his home state of Florida was “too short”.

But as he faced fierce backlash from anti-abortion advocates, Mr Trump came out a day later to say he would be voting “no” on an unsuccessful ballot measure which would have expanded abortion access until foetal viability, around the 24th week of pregnancy.

Read more:
‘My baby lived for just 93 minutes’
US Supreme Court preserves women’s access to abortion pill

Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said his re-election is a “deadly threat” to reproductive health.

She said that as a result of Roe vs Wade being overturned, abortion is nearly or completely banned in 17 of the 50 US states.

As the results of the presidential election became clear, there were reports of Americans stockpiling abortion pills, while Plan C, which promotes access to abortion medication online, said searches to its homepage following the landslide vote for Mr Trump surged from 500 to 80,000 in a day.

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Ms Northup said: “The unnecessary and cruel harm caused by the first Trump administration includes a reproductive healthcare crisis in vast swathes of the United States that has led to the deaths of numerous women who are likely the tip of the iceberg.

“A second Trump administration will compound these harms with new, potentially far worse ones.

“It will seek to stop the availability of medication abortion by mail, which has been a lifeline in post-Roe America,” she said.

There are also fears it will try to gag organisations based both in and outside of the US from advocating for abortion rights and providing care abroad, even with their non-US funds.

“Without Trump overturning Roe vs Wade then none of this starts to happen,” Mr Hamilton said, referring to the women who died or, like his wife, narrowly escaped death as a result of complications from being denied the care they needed.

“The priority is not my wife’s health, the priority becomes the legality of the procedure.”

At the heart of anti-abortionists’ campaigning is the belief in the sanctity of human life.

“In opposing abortion, we acknowledge the humanity of the child in the womb which fuels our effort to protect the pre-born child’s life,” Americans United for Life says.

Mr Trump’s campaign team has been approached for comment.

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Trump pauses higher tariffs for most countries for 90 days – but increases those on China to 125%

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Asianmarkets bounce back after Trump pauses higher tariffs for most countries - despite increasing those on China to 125%

Donald Trump has paused his so-called “reciprocal” tariffs on most of America’s trading partners for 90 days – while increasing those on China to 125%.

There have been fears of a global recession and stock markets around the world had plummeted after Mr Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on Wednesday 2 April.

However, the S&P 500 stock index jumped 9.5% and global markets bounced back following Mr Trump’s announcement on Wednesday that the increased tariffs on nearly all trading partners would now be paused.

Tariffs latest: Trump gives reasons for pausing some tariffs

In a post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump said the “90-day pause” was for the “more than 75 countries” who had not retaliated against his tariffs “in any way”.

He added that during this period they would still have to pay a “substantially lowered” 10% tariff, which is “effective immediately”.

It is lower than the 20% tariff that Mr Trump had set for goods from the European Union, 24% on imports from Japan and 25% on products from South Korea.

The UK was already going to face a blanket 10% tariff under the new system.

Mr Trump said the increased 125% tariff on imported goods from China was “effective immediately”.

He added: “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”

What’s in Trump’s tariff pause?

Here’s what Donald Trump’s tariff pause entails:

‘Reciprocal’ tariffs on hold

• Higher tariffs that took effect today on 57 trading partners will be paused for 90 days

• These include the EU, Japan and South Korea, all of which will face a baseline 10% duty instead

• Countries that already had a 10% levy imposed since last week – such as the UK – aren’t affected by the pause

China tariffs increased

• Trump imposed a higher 125% tariff on China

• That’s in addition to levies he imposed during his first term

• China had hit the US with 84% tariff earlier today, following tit-for-tat escalations

No change for Canada or Mexico

• Canadian and Mexican goods will remain subject to 25% fentanyl-related tariffs if they don’t comply with the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s rules of origin

• Compliant goods are exempt

Car and metal tariffs remain

• Trump’s pause doesn’t apply to the 25% tariffs he levied on steel and aluminium in March and on cars (autos) on 3 April

• This 25% tariff on car parts does not come into effect until 3 May

Sectors at risk

• Copper, lumber, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical minerals are expected to be subject to separate tariffs, in the same way autos are

Hours after Mr Trump announced the pause on tariffs for most countries, a White House official clarified that this did not apply to the 25% duties imposed on some US imports from Mexico and Canada.

The tariffs were first announced in February and Mexico and Canada were not included in the “Liberation Day” announcements.

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Donald Trump says China ‘wants to make a deal’

Hours before the 125% tariff on China was revealed, Beijing said it was increasing tariffs on US goods by 50%.

It meant tariffs of 84% would be enforced on US goods – up from the 34% China had previously planned.

Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Mr Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office. Pic: Reuters

China ‘want to make a deal’

Asked why he posted “BE COOL” on Truth Social hours before announcing his tariff pause, Mr Trump told reporters at the White House: “I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line.”

“They were getting yippy, you know, were getting a little bit yippy, a little bit afraid,” he added.

Mr Trump continued: “China wants to make a deal, they just don’t know how to go about it.

“[They’re] quite the proud people, and President Xi is a proud man. I know him very well, and they don’t know quite how to go about it, but they’ll figure it out.

“They’re in the process of figuring out, but they want to make a deal.”

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the walk back was part of a grand negotiating strategy by Mr Trump.

“President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” she said, adding that the news media “clearly failed to see what President Trump is doing here”.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also insisted Mr Trump had strengthened his hand through his tariffs.

“President Trump created maximum negotiating leverage for himself,” he said.

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Mr Bessent said Mr Trump decided to raise tariffs on China because Beijing hadn’t reached out to the US and instead increased its own levies on US goods.

Downing Street said that the UK will “coolly and calmly” continue its negotiations with the US.

A Number 10 spokeswoman said: “A trade war is in nobody’s interests. We don’t want any tariffs at all, so for jobs and livelihoods across the UK, we will coolly and calmly continue to negotiate in Britain’s interests.”

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Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre leaves hospital after saying she had ‘four days to live’ following car crash

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Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre leaves hospital after saying she had 'four days to live' following car crash

Prince Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre has reportedly left hospital after recently saying she had “four days to live”.

Her representative said she was discharged on Monday, according to US celebrity website People.

Photos in Australian media on Wednesday are said to show Ms Giuffre being driven in a vehicle north of Perth.

The 41-year-old appeared with a bruised face last week when she posted an Instagram video saying her car had been hit by a speeding school bus as she slowed for a turn.

She said: “I’ve gone into kidney renal failure, they’ve given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology.

“I’m ready to go, just not until I see my babies one last time…”

Police said they had received a report of a “minor crash” between a school bus and a car in Neergabby, about 12 miles from Perth, on 24 March.

More on Australia

“The collision was reported by the bus driver the following day,” said a spokeswoman. “There were no reported injuries as a result of the crash.”

A few days after the Instagram video, it emerged Ms Giuffre had been charged with allegedly breaching a family violence restraining order.

Ms Giuffre is reported to have separated from her husband.

The case was due back in court today (9 April).

File pic: AP
Image:
Ms Giuffre reached a settlement with the duke in 2022. File pic: AP

Ms Giuffre sued the Duke of York for sexual abuse in August 2021, saying Andrew had sex with her when she was 17 and had been trafficked by his friend, the billionaire paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The duke has repeatedly denied the claims, and he has not been charged with any criminal offences.

In March 2022, it was announced Ms Giuffre and Andrew had reached an out-of-court settlement – believed to include a “substantial donation to Ms Giuffre’s charity in support of victims’ rights”.

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What China could do next as Trump’s tariff war ramps up

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What China could do next as Trump's tariff war ramps up

The severity cannot be overstated, if an additional 50% tariffs are levied on all Chinese goods it will decimate trade between the world’s two biggest economies.

Remember, 50% would sit on top of what is already on the table: 34% announced last week, 20% announced at the start of US President Donald Trump’s term, and some additional tariffs left over from his first term in office.

In total, it means all Chinese goods would face tariffs of over 100%, some as high as 120%.

It’s a price that makes any trade almost impossible.

China is really the only nation in the world at the moment that is choosing to take a stand.

While others are publicly making concessions and sending delegations to negotiate, China has clearly calculated that not being seen to be bullied is worth the cost that retaliation will bring.

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Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump

The real question, though, is if the US does indeed impose this extra 50% tomorrow, what could or would China do next?

It has said it will “fight to the end”, but what does that mean?

In reality, there are few good options.

There are some obvious measures that China will almost certainly enact.

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Further export controls on rare earth minerals (crucial for the development of high-tech products) are one example. China controls a huge proportion of the world’s supply, but the US would likely find workarounds in time.

Hiking tariffs on high-impact US products such as agricultural goods is another option, but there is only so far this could go.

The potentially more impactful options have significant drawbacks for Beijing.

It could, for instance, target high-profile American companies such as Apple and Tesla, but this isn’t ideal at a time when China is trying to attract more foreign investment, and some devaluation of the currency is possible, but it would also come with adverse effects.

Other options are more political and come with the risk of escalation beyond the economic arena.

In an opinion piece this morning, the editor of Xinhua, China’s state news agency, speculated that China could cease all cooperation with the US on the war against fentanyl.

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This has been a major political issue for Mr Trump, and it’s hard to see it would not constitute some sort of red line for him.

Other options touted include banning the import of American films, or perhaps calling for the Chinese public to boycott all American products.

Anything like this comes with a sense that the world’s two most powerful superpowers might be teetering on the edge of not just a total economic decoupling, but cultural separation too.

There is understandably serious nervousness about how that could spiral and the precedent it sets.

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