THE SUPREMES: The Supreme Court yesterday issued a unanimous decision to protect access to the abortion drug mifepristone, but only by a technicality what’s known as “standing.” The court ruled that the group of doctors who sued to block use of the drug suffered no injury from the drug’s widespread use to end unwanted pregnancies and therefore were not qualified to sue.

  Writing the opinion for the court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that the doctors and anti-abortion groups who sued do not have standing “simply because others are allowed to engage in certain activities — at least without the plaintiffs demonstrating how they would be injured by the government’s alleged under-regulation of others.”

  The decision is a blow to the anti-abortion movement but doesn’t block further litigation over abortion drugs.

  More than 60 percent of abortions are medically induced. The plaintiff doctors had claimed that they are sometimes forced to help end pregnancies in which women have taken the drug and have complications. Kavanaugh pointed out that federal law already protects doctors from being forced to carry out procedures that violate their personal conscience.

  The Supreme Court is still expected to rule on the issue of what can happen when pregnant women might require an abortion as a medical emergency in states with strict abortion bans.

THE WAR ROOM: The US and the other G7 countries agreed to loan Ukraine $50 billion to help it buy weapons and begin rebuilding damaged infrastructure just as Russia appears to have taken the upper hand at the battle front. 

The loan would be repaid using interest earned on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, held mostly in European banks.

  President Biden also signed a 10-year security agreement with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky in which the US would provide training, updated weapons, and help build Ukraine a self-sustaining military industrial base. The Achilles heel of that deal is that Donald Trump could cancel it at a whim if he is re-elected to the presidency. 

  Also yesterday, Japan agreed to provide $4.5 billion in aid for Ukraine this year, part of a 10-year security deal also signed by the two countries yesterday.

ORANGE ALERT: Punchbowl News reports that in a private meeting Donald Trump called Milwaukee, the site of this summer’s Republican National Convention, “a horrible city.”

  Trump spokespeople disputed the exact language and the degree to which he disparaged the city, but they are low on the credibility scale.

  Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said, “Well, if Donald Trump wants to talk about things that he thinks are horrible, all of us lived through his presidency, so right back at you, buddy.” 

  Trump is also reported to have complained that pop star Taylor Swift is not supporting him.

  The former president, who has mocked 81-year-old Joe Biden for his age, turns 78 today. He said last night, “There’s a certain point at which you don’t want to hear ‘Happy Birthday.’ You just want to pretend the day doesn’t exist.”

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL: Demolition is set to begin today at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida, the site of a shooting in which 14 students and three faculty members were killed in 2018. The building was preserved for trials of the shooter and the school’s police officer, who was acquitted on charges of failing to do his job.

  The building had been frozen in time with blood stains on the floors, bullet holes, and Valentine’s Day candy still on student desks.

THE OBIT PAGE: Warren Winiarski, whose 1973 Stag’s Leap cabernet sauvignon won a 1976 blind tasting in Paris, putting California wines in the world’s tables, has died at age 95.

  Winiarski wasn’t even present in Paris and is reported to have said merely “That’s nice” when he heard the news. But a reporter for Time magazine was there and his article “Judgment of Paris” told a tale of an unknown coming into the ring and beating the heavyweights. The Paris tasting became the inspiration for the 2008 move, “Bottle Shock.”

  Winiarski was 35 when he and his wife started working in wine, living with their children in a Napa Valley cabin with a woodstove. In 2007 he sold the winery for $185 million and a bottle of that 1973 cabernet now sells for $250.

THE SPIN RACK: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who has accepted millions of dollars’ worth of perks and favors that he previously did not disclose, also did not disclose three trips on the private jet of the Texas billionaire Harlan Crow, according to documents obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee. The documents list visits to a Montana city near Glacier National Park in 2017; another to his hometown, Savannah, in March 2019; and one to Northern California in 2021. — The number of people living in New York City’s streets and subways has reached its highest level in nearly 20 years, according to an annual one-night field survey that counted 4,140 homeless people. — The Phoenix police department has a pattern of civil rights violations, including unjustified deadly force, according to the Justice Department. The DOJ report also details excessive force and discrimination against black, Hispanic, and Native American residents as well as abuse of homeless people. — President Biden said he will not commute the sentence of his son Hunter for his federal firearms conviction. The younger Biden, 54, is expected to get off relatively lightly. When asked about commutation the President merely said, “No.”

BELOW THE FOLD: Fans of Taylor Swift danced so enthusiastically at her Edinburgh, Scotland concerts that seismic readings were detected four miles away. Her songs “Cruel Summer” and “Champagne Problems” moved the earth the most.

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