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The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has thrown in the towel.  Texas' abortion law has been appealed to the state Supreme Court, extending the state's stringent restrictions. On Monday, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with Texas, sending a challenge to the state's privately enforced stringent abortion legislation to the Texas Supreme Court, where it is expected to languish as long as the law remains in existence. On Twitter, University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck commented, "This judgment now maintains the case in limbo — and abortion after 6 weeks in the nation's second-largest state — a dead-letter, indefinitely." The abortion clinics in Texas who are contesting the law had asked for their case to be referred to a federal district judge in Austin who had previously halted the bill before the conservative 5th Circuit appellate court reversed it. Judge Stephen A. Higginson, a Democ

As a beleaguered Boris Johnson signals to his backbenchers that he is willing to let the UK live with the virus, No 10 is working up measures to take off England's remaining pandemic restrictions as early as March. A senior government source revealed that the government was considering abolishing obligatory self-isolation for positive Covid cases, claiming that keeping the policy in place would be "perverse" in the long run. Guidance might take its place. The legal need to self-isolate, which carries fines of up to £10,000 if broken, is one of six pieces of Covid law set to expire in March, and the government is debating whether any of it is still essential. Giving your address to NHS test and track and listing members of your household are two more clauses that will expire or require renewal. Powers over government funding for sick pay, inquests, and emergency registration of medical workers are all still in place. Most of Plan B will be phased out. Working from home gui