A longer life for Diablo Canyon? 

Newsom touts nuke extension


This Nov. 3, 2008 file photo, shows one of Pacific Gas and Electric's Diablo Canyon Power Plant's nuclear reactors in Avila Beach, Calif. Facing possible electricity shortages, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday, April 29, 2022, raised the possibility that the state's sole remaining nuclear power plant might continue operating beyond a planned closing by 2025. Newsom has no direct authority over the operating license for the nuclear power plant, but Newsom spokeswoman Erin Mellon said "The Governor is in support keeping all options on the table to ensure we have a reliable (electricity) grid.(AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant, File)


MICHAEL R. BLOOD
Fri, April 29, 2022,

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Facing possible electricity shortages, California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday raised the possibility that the state’s sole remaining nuclear power plant might continue operating beyond a planned closing by 2025, an idea that could revive a decades-old fight over earthquake safety at the site.

The Democratic governor has no direct authority over the operating license for the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which sits on a seaside bluff above the Pacific midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. But the governor floated the idea that plant owner Pacific Gas & Electric could seek a share of $6 billion in federal funding the Biden administration established to rescue nuclear plants at risk of closing.

“The Governor is in support of keeping all options on the table to ensure we have a reliable (electricity) grid,” spokeswoman Erin Mellon said. “This includes considering an extension to Diablo Canyon, which continues to be an important resource as we transition to clean energy.”

PG&E, which in 2016 decided to shutter the plant by 2025, did not directly address Newsom’s suggestion or say whether the company would consider reversing course to seek federal dollars to remain open beyond the scheduled closing.

“We are always open to considering all options to ensure continued safe, reliable, and clean energy delivery to our customers,” PG&E spokeswoman Suzanne Hosn said in an email.

Newsom’s office stressed that “in the long term,” the governor continues to support the closure of Diablo Canyon as the state moves to renewable energy. Newsom first disclosed the idea to the Los Angeles Times editorial board.

PG&E announced the closing plan as part of a deal with environmentalists and union workers in 2016, citing a “recognition that California’s new energy policies will significantly reduce the need for Diablo Canyon’s electricity output.” But Newsom’s suggestion highlights that the thinking has shifted, as the state looks for reliable power sources amid a changing global climate, while California gradually shifts to solar, wind and other renewables.

Skeptics have questioned whether California’s all-in renewable plan can work in a state of nearly 40 million people.

Newsom's suggestion comes at a time when President Joe Biden's approval ratings have fallen sharply, and as the governor seeks a second term in Sacramento with widespread voter angst over inflation, homelessness and rising crime rates. Republicans routinely fault Newsom for the state’s power problems.

Any proposal to extend the operating life of the plant is certain to revive an extensive battle over the plant’s safety and would involve complex reviews by an array of state and federal agencies.

The issues in play at Diablo Canyon range from a long-running debate over the ability of structures to withstand earthquakes — one fault runs 650 yards (594 meters) from the reactors — to the possibility PG&E might be ordered by state regulators to spend potentially billions of dollars to modify or replace the plant’s cooling system, which sucks up ocean water and has been blamed for killing fish and other marine life.

Also unclear is the plant's capacity to store additional spent fuel from the reactors. The highly radioactive waste is kept at nuclear plants, since the nation does not have a long-term disposal site.

Even before the twin reactors produced a single watt of electricity, the plant had to be retrofitted after a submerged fault was discovered 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) offshore during construction.

In 2014, the former chief federal inspector at Diablo Canyon urged regulators to shut down the plant until they can determine whether the twin reactors can withstand powerful shaking from nearby earthquake faults. Regulators later rejected the request.

Erich Pica, president of the environmental group Friends of the Earth, which was part of the deal to phase out the plant, said he was “disappointed that he (Newsom) wants to reopen this conversation.”

Given that Newsom – then as lieutenant governor – was part of the effort to close the plant, “It’s surprising,” Pica added.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, which also was part of the agreement to close the plant, believes that Diablo Canyon would not be eligible for federal bail out funds.

“The widely supported agreement to retire and replace the plant ... has been affirmed by multiple state and federal regulators,” said NRDC's Ralph Cavanagh.

Newsom's idea was welcomed by the American Nuclear Society, which represents professionals in nuclear science and technology. Diablo Canyon “has an essential role to play in California’s clean and secure energy future,” the group said.

Research from scientists at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has concluded that delaying Diablo Canyon’s retirement to 2035 would save California $2.6 billion in power system costs, reduce the chances of brownouts and lower carbon emissions. When the research was presented in November, former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the nation is not positioned in the near-term to go to 100% renewable energy.

There are 55 commercial nuclear power plants with 93 nuclear reactors in 28 U.S. states. Nuclear power already provides about 20% of electricity in the U.S., or about half the nation’s carbon-free energy.

___

Associated Press writer Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed.

California promised to close its last nuclear plant. Now Newsom is reconsidering

Sammy Roth
Fri, April 29, 2022, 

Gov. Gavin Newsom is considering looking to delay the long-planned closure of Diablo Canyon, California's last nuclear power plant. 

(Joe Johnston / San Luis Obispo Tribune)

With the threat of power shortages looming and the climate crisis worsening, Gov. Gavin Newsom may attempt to delay the long-planned closure of California's largest electricity source: the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.

Newsom told the L.A. Times editorial board Thursday that the state would seek out a share of $6 billion in federal funds meant to rescue nuclear reactors facing closure, money the Biden administration announced this month. Diablo Canyon owner Pacific Gas & Electric is preparing to shutter the plant — which generated 6% of the state's power last year — by 2025.

"The requirement is by May 19 to submit an application, or you miss the opportunity to draw down any federal funds if you want to extend the life of that plant," Newsom said. "We would be remiss not to put that on the table as an option."

He said state officials could decide later whether to pursue that option. And a spokesperson for the governor clarified that Newsom still wants to see the facility shut down long term. It's been six years since PG&E agreed to close the plant near San Luis Obispo, rather than invest in expensive environmental and earthquake-safety upgrades.

But Newsom's willingness to consider a short-term reprieve reflects a shift in the politics of nuclear power after decades of public opposition fueled by high-profile disasters such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, as well as the Cold War.

Nuclear plants are America's largest source of climate-friendly power, generating 19% of the country's electricity last year. That's almost as much as solar panels, wind turbines, hydropower dams and all other zero-carbon energy sources combined.

A recent UC Berkeley poll co-sponsored by The Times found that 44% of California voters support building more nuclear reactors in in the Golden State, with 37% opposed and 19% undecided — a significant change from the 1980s and 1990s.

The poll also found that 39% of voters oppose shutting down Diablo Canyon, with 33% supporting closure and 28% unsure.

Pacific Gas & Electric's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is California's largest electricity source.

 (Michael A. Mariant / Associated Press)

Nuclear supporters say closing plants such as Diablo would make it far more difficult to achieve President Biden's goal of 100% clean energy by 2035, and to mostly eliminate planet-warming emissions by midcentury — which is necessary to avert the worst impacts of climate change, including more dangerous heat waves, wildfires and floods, according to scientists.

Nuclear plants can produce power around the clock. The stunning growth of lithium-ion battery storage has made it easier and cheaper for solar panels and wind turbines to do the same, but those renewables still play much less of a role when the sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing, at least for now.

The U.S. Commerce Department, meanwhile, is considering tariffs on imported solar panels, which could hinder construction of clean energy projects that California is counting on to avoid blackouts the next few summers, as Diablo and several gas-fired power plants shut down. Newsom said in a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo this week that her department's tariff inquiry has delayed at least 4,350 megawatts of solar-plus-storage projects — about twice the capacity of Diablo Canyon.

He urged Raimondo to "take immediate action to resolve this issue as soon as possible."

"This Department of Commerce tariff issue is one of the biggest stories in the country," Newsom told The Times' editorial board. "Looking at retroactive 250% tariffs for everything coming out of Malaysia or Vietnam, and Taiwan, elsewhere — this is serious."

The governor said he's been thinking about keeping Diablo open longer since August 2020, when California's main electric grid operator was forced to implement rolling blackouts during an intense heat wave. Temperatures stayed high after sundown, leaving the state without enough electricity to keep air conditioners humming after solar farms stopped producing.

A few hundred thousand homes and businesses lost power over two evenings, none of them for longer than 2½ hours at a time, officials said. The state only narrowly avoided more power shortfalls during another heat storm a few weeks later, highlighting the fragility of an electric grid undergoing a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

Newsom spokesperson Anthony York said the governor's decision to reconsider Diablo Canyon's closure timeline was driven by projections of possible power shortages in the next few years. Those projections, he said, came from the California Independent System Operator, which oversees the electric grid for most of the state.

Anne Gonzales, a spokesperson for the grid operator, couldn't immediately provide the projections. She said in an email that the agency supports "considering and exploring all options" for keeping the lights on, as doing so gets harder due to climate impacts including more extreme heat waves, more aggressive wildfires and hydropower supplies diminished by drought.

Newsom told the editorial board that reliable electricity is "profoundly important." He also acknowledged the growing number of scientists, activists and former U.S. energy secretaries who have pressed him to rescue Diablo for climate reasons.

"Some would say it's the righteous and right climate decision," Newsom said.

Extending the plant's closure deadline — PG&E is on track to shutter the first reactor in 2024, and the second in 2025 — wouldn't be easy even with funding from the Biden administration. The federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission would need to hurry to renew Diablo's operating license. Newsom suggested several state agencies would need to be involved, too — as well as the Legislature, which last year declined to even give a committee vote to a bill designed to keep Diablo Canyon open.

For Newsom to extend Diablo's life, he would also need PG&E's cooperation in applying for federal funds. The company committed to closing the plant in 2016, when it struck a deal with environmental groups and its own union workforce to get out of the nuclear business — a decision that was eventually endorsed by regulators and lawmakers.

Asked whether PG&E is open to changing course on Diablo, spokesperson Lynsey Paulo said in an email that the company is "always open to considering all options to ensure continued safe, reliable, and clean energy delivery to our customers."

"PG&E is committed to California’s clean energy future, and as a regulated utility, we are required to follow the energy policies of the state," Paulo said.

Newsom said he's asked PG&E to consider what it would take to keep Diablo Canyon open longer, including the possible role of federal funds.

"Based on the conversations we've been having with PG&E, it's not their happy place," he said.

An aerial view of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. 

(Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images)

The company declined to comment on how federal funds might be used to Diablo's benefit. State officials have previously told The Times that operating Diablo past 2025 would require billions of dollars of upgrades to comply with earthquake safety rules, and with environmental regulations governing the use of ocean water for power-plant cooling.

To Ralph Cavanagh — co-director of the clean energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and a key architect of the 2016 deal to shut down Diablo Canyon — applying for federal funds would be a fool's errand.

Cavanagh said it's his understanding that only certain types of power companies with specific economic challenges are eligible for the nuclear funding, and PG&E isn't one of them. The infrastructure bill approved by Congress last year — which set aside the money Newsom is interested in seeking — says funds are only available to nuclear plants that compete in a "competitive electricity market," which Diablo Canyon does not.

York, Newsom's spokesperson, acknowledged in a text message that there's "some question about whether Diablo is eligible" for the federal money, and that "PG&E would need to talk to" the federal Energy Department to get more clarity.

Cavanagh also said solar, storage and other clean energy resources could replace Diablo cheaply and reliably, as envisioned in the 2016 deal. As for the supply chain and tariff issues that have slowed solar and battery storage projects, he pointed out that both of Diablo's reactors will still be online through summer 2024, with the second sticking around until August 2025.

"We have time to get our arms around that," he said.

While NRDC supports keeping some nuclear plants operating where safety risks are lower, the technology's fiercest critics argue nuclear is fundamentally unsafe. They consider Diablo Canyon especially risky because it's near several seismic fault lines along California's Central Coast. As far back as the 1970s — when then-Gov. Jerry Brown protested the plant's construction — Diablo has stirred fears of an earthquake-driven meltdown spreading deadly radiation across the state.

Nuclear waste is another concern. In the absence of a permanent underground storage repository for spent fuel, radioactive waste is piling up at power plants across the country, including the shuttered San Onofre facility along the coast in San Diego County.

Nuclear waste canisters near the Pacific shoreline at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.

 (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Rescuing Diablo Canyon is far from California's only option for averting blackouts.

There are many other steps the state might take — and in many cases is actively taking — to keep the lights on after sundown the next few summers, such as adding batteries to the grid, paying homes to use less energy and coordinating electricity supplies more closely with other Western states. Longer-term options include investing in geothermal energy and offshore wind.

Newsom told The Times' editorial board he plans to announce a "resilience fund" in next month's update to his annual budget proposal, to pay for projects that would help avoid rolling blackouts the next few years.

But the governor also thinks keeping Diablo Canyon around at least a little while longer is worth considering, despite the political backlash it might provoke. He pointed to modeling by the state's Public Utilities Commission and Independent System Operator showing that worsening heat waves — fueled by climate change — are making it harder to keeps the light on.

"We threw out the old playbook. We're going to worst-case scenario," he said. "We are being very sober."

Supporting nuclear is a key climate priority for the Biden administration. But federal officials hadn't seemed optimistic PG&E would apply for a share of the Energy Department's $6-billion nuclear bailout fund. During a visit to Southern California last week, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters she's "not sure that the community [around] Diablo Canyon is on board yet."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

France’s Nuclear Shutdown Hits 50% of Reactors, Squeezing Supply



Jesper Starn
Fri, April 29, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- The halt of yet another nuclear unit in France means half of its reactors are now offline for maintenance, keeping power supplies tight in a country that is traditionally one of Europe’s biggest electricity exporters.

Twenty-eight reactors are offline as Electricite de France SA struggles with extended outages after corrosion issues were found at some sites, requiring lengthy checks and repairs. The extra works come on top of already scheduled halts for refueling and regular maintenance, and has brought French nuclear output to the lowest in more than decade for the time of year.

The nuclear fleet is crucial, and can supply more than two thirds of the country’s power, so the halts could potentially worsen Europe’s supply crisis. They’re also having a bigger impact on France’s electricity market than in Germany, which relies more on gas and coal to run plants. France’s daily power prices have averaged about 30% more than in its neighbor this year, and four times higher than in the same period in 2021.

The outages are also affecting the region’s power flows. France imported almost as much as it sent abroad in the first quarter, compared with net exports of roughly 8 terawatt-hours to U.K., Italy, Germany and Switzerland in the same period last year, data from research institute Fraunhofer ISE show.

EDF’s 1,300-megawatt Golfech-2 reactor in the south of France halted earlier on Friday for maintenance until Saturday, the company said in filing with grid operator RTE.

Exxon profits surge despite $3.4B hit from Russian exit


This April 28, 2021 photo shows an Exxon service station sign in Philadelphia. Exxon Mobil reported $5.48 billion in profits during the first quarter, Friday, April 29, 2022, as oil and gas prices rose steadily, more than doubling its profits compared to the same quarter last year.

 (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

CATHY BUSSEWITZ
Fri, April 29, 2022

NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil reported $5.48 billion in profits during the first quarter as oil and gas prices rose steadily, more than doubling its profits compared with the same quarter last year.

But the oil giant took a huge hit as it abandoned its Russian operations due to the war, writing down $3.4 billion.

Including that loss, the oil giant reported profits of $1.28 per share Friday, which was well below expectations of analysts polled by Factset, who were looking for $2.23 per share.

Revenue at the Irving, Texas company was $90.5 billion, which far exceeded the $59.15 billion in revenue during the same quarter a year ago.

The price of oil climbed steadily during the first quarter after Russia invaded Ukraine, sending European countries which rely heavily on Russia for energy and others scrambling to find alternative sources for fuel. A barrel of the U.S. benchmark crude rose from $76 to nearly $130 per barrel before ending the quarter at $100, and drivers were filling up with increasingly expensive gasoline.

Natural gas prices rose too, climbing from $3.50 per million British thermal units to about $5.60, inflating home heating bills and electricity prices.

“As we think about recent events, our job has never been clearer or more important,” said Darren Woods, CEO, in a conference call with investors Friday. “The need to meet society’s evolving needs reliably and affordably is what consumers and businesses across the globe are demanding and what we delivered this quarter.”

As energy prices rose, Exxon's stock price also was rising. The company announced Friday it's expanding a program to repurchase its own stock, telling investors that Exxon could buy back up to $30 billion worth of its shares through 2023. It repurchased shares totaling $2.1 billion during the quarter, shelling out cash to investors as its stock price rose.

Exxon’s production fell to 3.7 million barrels per day of oil-equivalent, down 4% from the fourth quarter of 2021 due to weather-related unscheduled downtime, planned maintenance and divestments, the company said. Production in the Permian Basin grew and the company was on track to deliver a 25% increase in production there in 2022 compared to last year.

Exxon said it plans to eliminate routine flaring, the process of burning off what it considers excess natural gas, in the Permian Basin by the end of the year. Exxon also announced progress on carbon-reduction initiatives. During the quarter, Exxon secured the financing to expand its carbon capture facility in LaBarge, Wyoming and it announced plans to produce renewable fuel.

Shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. fell slightly during morning trading.

Also on Friday, Chevron reported a quarterly profit $6.26 billion, more than four times its earnings in the same period last year. On a per-share basis, profits from the San Ramon, California energy producer were a nickel short of Wall Street expectations, according to a survey by Factset, but Chevron does not adjust its reported results based on one-time events such as asset sales. And revenue surged 41% to $54.37 billion.

Solomon Islands PM says won't accept

militarisation of Pacific

Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare attends a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing

Fri, April 29, 2022

SYDNEY (Reuters) - The Solomon Islands signed a security pact with China because a similar deal with Australia was inadequate, Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare said, adding his country knew the cost of war and would not be part of any militarisation of the Pacific.

Addressing parliament on Friday, Sogavare made his first public comments since talks with White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell, who visited Hoinara days after the security pact with China was announced.

China's attempts to extend its military influence in the Pacific have put Western allies on guard, and the security pact with the Solomons has roiled the Australian election campaign.

While details of the pact with China have not been disclosed, Sogavare has ruled out a military base and said it covers domestic policing.

Sogavare said on Friday the security agreement with China was needed because an agreement with traditional partner Australia was "inadequate".

Opposition parties have criticised the government's secrecy over the terms of the pact with Beijing, and Western allies are concerned that it could provide a gateway for a Chinese military presence.

Australia and New Zealand have warned the pact could upset long standing regional security cooperation.

Sogavare said Campbell and a separate Japanese delegation had warned him against allowing China to build a naval base because it was not in the region's interests. Sogavare, who has previously said that there were no such plans, said he agreed with the delegations.

"We don't need to be reminded of the cost of war," Sogavare told parliament.

He said the Solomon Islands would never accept the militarisation of the Pacific after what it experienced in World War Two, and criticised the United States for failing to include the islands in funding for post-war reconstruction.

Campbell had agreed to speed up the removal of unexploded World War Two ordnance, Sogavare said.

Echoing comments made by China's foreign ministry, Sogavare also criticised Australia's signing of the AUKUS defence alliance with the United States and Britain last year without consulting Pacific island nations.

"The AUKUS treaty will see nuclear submarines in Pacific waters. I learnt of the AUKUS treaty in the media. One would expect that as a member of the Pacific family, Solomon Islands... would have been consulted."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters on Friday he spoke to Sogavare the day after the announcement of AUKUS and he had not raised any objections.

(Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

China hits back at Australia over Solomon Islands 'red line', saying 'the Pacific is not someone's backyard'

Fri, April 29, 2022, 

China has slammed Australia for opposing its security pact with Solomon Islands, calling it a colonialist myth-driven violation of sovereignty and saying Canberra had no right to lay down any "red line".

This came as Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said a Chinese military base in the South Pacific nation would be a "red line" for his government, days after Beijing and Honiara confirmed the signing of the deal without revealing details.

Talk of China building a naval base on Solomon Islands was "purely fake news", Chinese defence ministry spokesman Tan Kefei said on Thursday, accusing the Australian government and media of intentionally distorting facts and creating tension.

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Cooperation under the new security pact would involve "maintaining social order, protecting people's lives and property, humanitarian assistance [and] natural disaster responses", Tan reiterated.

Addressing an online event with Pacific Island nations the same day, China's vice foreign minister Xie Feng said negotiating and signing a framework security cooperation agreement was "the sacred right of two sovereign countries" in line with international laws and norms, and no one had the right to point fingers at China.

"On what grounds can Australia draw a 'red line' for Solomon Islands, 2,000km [1,200 miles] away, and China, 10,000km away? If not an infringement of another country's sovereignty, interference in another country's internal affairs and a breach of international rules, what is this?"

Xie said Australia's stance amounted to "disinformation, defamation, coercion and intimidation", and proof that it was still "obsessed with colonialist myths, exercising coercive diplomacy, trying hard to control the Pacific islands to maintain a so-called sphere of influence".

"The Pacific is the common home of regional countries, not someone's 'backyard' or 'turf', and should be a stage for international cooperation, not a chessboard for geopolitical games," he declared.

The China-Solomon security agreement is "open and transparent [and] not targeted at third parties," Xie told a virtual event launching a cooperation centre on climate change for China and Pacific Island countries, in the eastern Chinese province of Shandong.

He said China understood the climate change challenges facing the island nations and was willing to provide help "as a good friend, partner and brother."

Attending the event virtually were officials from Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Micronesia, Kiribati, Fiji and Vanuatu.

Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Chinese ambassador Li Ming attend the opening ceremony for a China-funded national stadium complex in Honiara on April 22. Photo: AFP alt=Solomons Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare and Chinese ambassador Li Ming attend the opening ceremony for a China-funded national stadium complex in Honiara on April 22. Photo: AFP>

"China has no selfish interest in developing relations and cooperation with Pacific Island countries," Xie asserted. "[It] does not seek 'spheres of influence' or engage in bullying and coercion but is always a constructive force for peace and development."

Since being announced last week, the China-Solomon Islands security pact has sparked strong concerns from the United States and its Pacific allies.

The White House sent a high-level delegation to Honiara to warn Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare of unspecified action against his country. US ally Japan on Monday also dispatched a foreign vice-minister, saying the deal with Beijing could affect the security of the entire Asia-Pacific region, while fellow Pacific nation New Zealand has also questioned whether it will destabilise the region.

Australia, which is the Solomons' biggest aid donor and has security ties with it, reacted even more strongly. It had tried to pressure Sogavare into not signing the deal when the news first broke in March.

And while Morrison has reiterated his opposition to a Chinese naval base, other politicians have presented even stronger rhetoric on the impact of the deal on Australia's national security.

Sogavare has sought to reassure all that a Chinese base was not in the offing, urging critics to respect his country's sovereign interests and said that traditional partners, such as Australia and New Zealand, remained important.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Why Russia is using marine animals as sea defense in war against Ukraine

Niamh Cavanagh

·Producer

Fri, April 29, 2022, 

LONDON — After reviewing satellite images of a key port in Crimea, the U.S. Naval Institute assessed that Moscow had deployed trained dolphins to protect a naval base in the Black Sea from potential Ukrainian attacks. Submarine analyst H.I. Sutton said two transportable dolphin pens were moved into Sevastopol harbor in February, the same month Russia invaded Ukraine. The mammals, according to the analyst, may be used to prevent enemy divers from infiltrating the harbor and sabotaging Russian warships.

A satellite image on Friday shows dolphin pens that have been placed at the entrance to Sevastopol Bay, Crimea. (Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies/Handout via Reuters)

Has Russia used marine mammals for military purposes before?

According to the Moscow Times, Russia has been training sea mammals since the Soviet era. In the late 1960s, the Soviet Union used the port of Sevastopol as a base to train dolphins and whales to engage in activities like searching for mines and planting explosives, and it’s also believed that the Soviets trained the sea creatures to kill underwater targets. However, this program was thought to have been neglected when the Soviet Union fell in the 1990s. In 2012, Russia denied a report that claimed it was developing a military training program for dolphins to attack enemy divers with weapons attached to their heads.

A trainer works with a dolphin that used to belong to a top-secret division of the Soviet Navy in the military port of Sevastopol. (Reuters)

Before Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, the aquarium in Sevastopol — which at that time was part of Ukraine — had been training dolphins to swim with children with special needs and had been used in various therapy sessions. However, after the region was seized by Kremlin-led forces, one worker at the aquarium told the state-owned Russian news outlet RIA Novosti that the dolphins and seals were once again receiving military training. The employee reportedly said engineers had been working to develop the program, which would use sea mammals to find sunken objects and enemy divers using their sonar communications systems.

Viktor Baranets, a Russian reserve colonel, confirmed to a Russian broadcaster in 2019: "We have military dolphins for combat roles; we don't cover that up.

A member of the Ukrainian military trains a marine mammal in the Crimean Peninsula in 1992. (Wojtek Laski/Getty Images)

"In Sevastopol we have a center for military dolphins, trained to solve various tasks, from analyzing the seabed to protecting a stretch of water, killing foreign divers, attaching mines to the hulls of foreign ships.”

In 2016, the Russian Defense Ministry purchased five bottlenose dolphins. The mammals were bought for $26,000 — $5,200 each — and it was not disclosed what their role would be.

Two years later, a report by the Russian TV station Zvezda, owned by the Ministry of Defense, revealed that the navy had been training beluga whales, dolphins and seals in the Arctic waters, the Guardian reported. The report stated that belugas had been dropped from the program when they began to get sick after swimming for long periods in the freezing waters, according to the Siberian Times.

A dolphin plays with a ball during a training session in the dolphinarium in Sevastopol in 2014. (Sergei Ilnitsky/EFE/EPA/ZUMA Press)

But it appeared belugas had not been dropped by the Russian navy when, in 2019, a beluga was found off the coast of Norway. The whale, which was wearing a harness with a pouch to hold a GoPro that was inscribed with the words “Equipment of St. Petersburg,” was spotted by fishermen after it began harassing their boats. Marine experts believed the strange behavior of the beluga was due to its possible military training.

“If this whale comes from Russia, and there is great reason to believe it, then it is not Russian scientists but rather the navy that has done this,” Martin Biuw, of the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, told the Guardian.

But Baranets shot down the beluga’s link to Russia, saying at the time: “If we were using this animal for spying, do you really think we’d attach a mobile phone number with the message ‘Please call this number’?”

Have other countries done the same?

A bottlenose dolphin leaps out of the water while in training for mine clearing in the Arabian Gulf in 2003. (Brien Aho/U.S. Navy via Reuters)

There are two known military dolphin training facilities in the world, one in Sevastopol and the other at the NIWC Pacific, or the Naval Information Warfare Center, in San Diego. The U.S. Navy has been training dolphins and sea lions since the Vietnam War. In 1969, an experimental Navy project called Project Deep Ops saw two killer whales and a pilot whale trained to retrieve objects lost in the ocean that were inaccessible to machines and divers. Animals such as California sea lions and bottlenose dolphins have been used to detect mines on the seafloor.

Why use dolphins, sea lions and whales?

A marine mammal is fitted with a cage and instrument during training to search for mines and saboteurs in the Crimean Peninsula in 1992. (Wojtek Laski/ Getty Images)

There are a number of reasons why sea mammals such as dolphins, sea lions and whales would be used for military purposes. Due to their sonar communication systems and their ability to dive deep, the animals are far more effective than any recent technology.

“It’s not surprising that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin of all people would think that dolphins are a weapon of war,” Andrew Lambert, a professor of naval history at King’s College London, told NBC News. “Like so much of what we’re seeing in Ukraine, it’s the Soviet Union’s work being reenacted by the current Russian government.” He added about the dolphins: “This is their world, and they’re going to find you underwater very, very quickly.”

Maine governor thought Trump was having a 'nervous breakdown' during a call on which he complained about George Floyd protests: book


John L. Dorman
Sat, April 30, 2022

US Defense Secretary Mark Esper, left, President Donald Trump, center, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley, right, wait for a meeting with senior military leaders in the Cabinet Room of the White House on October 7, 2019

.BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Trump had a rather unusual call with the US governors in June 2020, per a forthcoming book.

In the call, Trump called on the governors to show dominance in the face of the Floyd protests.


Per the book, Maine Gov. Janet Mills said that she thought Trump was having a "nervous breakdown."

In the aftermath of George Floyd's death while in Minneapolis police custody in May 2020, millions of Americans took to the streets to protest the manner in which he was killed while calling for greater attention to criminal justice reform throughout the United States.

However, Trump was not keen on the protests surrounding Floyd's death, and in a phone call with governors stressed that they needed to display a show of force against the activism that was increasingly becoming a part of the national conversation, according to a forthcoming book by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

In the book, "This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America's Future," Martin and Burns wrote that during a June 2020 conversation with the governors who were in office at the time, one of them remarked that the then-president seemed to be having a "nervous breakdown."

"If the murder of George Floyd spurred Biden into a slightly more active mode of campaigning, it seemed to trigger something else entirely in Trump," Martin and Burns wrote, where they also mentioned his struggles in handling the coronavirus pandemic. "The president was tired, it seemed, of feeling like the victim of forces beyond his control. He wanted to be in charge, and he wanted the public to know he was in charge."

In the June call with the governors, Trump was joined by then-Attorney General Bill Barr and then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Martin and Burns wrote that it was "immediately clear" to the leaders that they would be attending a meeting unlike any other.

"Savaging the racial-justice protestors around the country as 'terrorists,' Trump urged the governors to exact 'retribution' while demanding a swift return to public order," Martin and Burns wrote. "Esper, a buttoned-down West Point graduate and former Raytheon executive, advised the governors that they should seek to 'dominate the battlespace' in their states. In the Rose Garden later that day, Trump threatened to deploy federal troops if the governors did not move swiftly enough."

They continued: "The executives were in shock. Up early at the governor's residence in Salem, Oregon, the Democratic governor, Kate Brown, called out her husband in a nearby room: You've got to hear what this guy is saying."

According to Martin and Burns, she added: "You can't make this shit up. You cannot believe that this is happening in the United States of America."

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills of Maine, who is currently in her first term, was sitting in her office at the State Capitol in Augusta during the call and was taken aback by the tone of Trump's conversation.

According to Martin and Burns, Mills called over her security guard to listen to the then-president.

"You gotta sit here and listen to this because I think the president of the United States is having a nervous breakdown or something, and it's scary," she said at the time.

Later that day, Trump, along with Gen. Mark Milley, Esper, and several other advisors, walked from the White House complex to nearby St. John's Episcopal Church.

The now-infamous photo op, which showed the president holding a bible in front of the church after protestors were violently cleared from Lafayette Park, immediately attracted criticism. However, the inspector general for the Interior Department determined in June 2021 that the US Park Police and Secret Service did not clear the park for a Trump photoshoot, but to install anti-scale fencing.

A representative for Trump did not immediately return Insider's request for comment.

Police arrest several in Canadian capital as bikers parade turns unruly






Fri, April 29, 2022,
By Jenna Zucker and Blair Gable

(Reuters) - Police in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, arrested several people on Friday, after a march by hundreds of bikers, pedestrians and cars waving Canadian flags through downtown Ottawa turned unruly, authorities said.

Friday's parade was a protest against claimed government overreach, and came less than three months after a truckers' movement paralyzed the capital for more than three weeks.

Ottawa Police said in a tweet on Friday that several people had been arrested and that officers remained on scene to maintain safety.

Organizers of Friday's convoy, which they call "Rolling Thunder Ottawa," say they are there in support of "freedom" and military veterans. Local media say several of the participants were in Ottawa during the previous protest, which was against a vaccine mandate for cross-border truckers.

Several honking truckers and protesters standing atop of pick-up vehicles and cars, shouting "freedom" marched through downtown Ottawa as police deployed additional officers to get the situation under control.

Ottawa Police said in a tweet that several vehicles attempted to occupy a downtown parking lot, though all but one left.

Ottawa Police, which came under criticism for their handling of February protests, had said they would not allow motor vehicles to stop or park on downtown streets. They had brought in additional personnel to bolster municipal authorities ahead of the Friday march.

In February, the government of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked seldom-used emergency powers to clear Ottawa protests and police arrested dozens of people who blocked the downtown core near parliament. The protesters had also blocked key border crossings to the United States.

A former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, Neil Sheard, is one the protest's main organizers of Friday's march.

In a video posted to YouTube, Sheard said his plan is to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial in a show of respect for veterans. Other groups that are participating are protesting more generally against the government and government mandates.

Sheard said he supports any group that wants to fight for the freedom of all Canadians, because in his view, freedom of speech was paid for by veterans.

"The rights and freedoms of Canadians are eroding, and we are going to work to sustain lawful, civic action in order to restore those fundamental rights," Andrew MacGillivray, a member of the Freedom Fighters Canada group that is also participating, told Reuters recently.

The events that started on Friday are due to end on Sunday.

(Reporting by Jenna Zucker in Toronto, Additional reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Writing by Denny Thomas; Editing by Steve Scherer, Matthew Lewis and Gerry Doyle)

Many Abortion Images Are Misleading Or Manipulative. These Photos Show The Reality.


Pia Peterson
Thu, April 28, 2022

Photographer Glenna Gordon has traveled the world, documenting everything from Nigerian weddings and abandoned oil tankers on the African coast to white supremacist groups and the rise of Donald Trump.

Her work in the United States has focused on the uneasy intersection between personal freedom and government oversight, including access to abortions. Traveling to clinics with a camera, Gordon realized that the graphic images that anti-abortion protesters often display were wildly misleading, and that she didn’t actually know where to go to see accurate photographs of abortions. She set out to make such images herself.

“One of the hardest thing about photographing abortion is that it's not high drama,” she told BuzzFeed News. “Someone goes to a doctor’s appointment, and then they come back.”

Her work documenting abortions led her across the US, sometimes following the doctors and patients who travel outside their home states to provide or seek abortion care.

“With all of these pictures, my goal as a photographer was always to show you something that you didn't know,” she added. "Most people don't know what a fetus looks like. Abortion takes place behind closed doors — for medical privacy and for safety — but I also believe something is gained by creating visuals for this process."

Since Gordon began her photo series, some states have passed even more restrictive laws. Texas outlawed abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, usually around the sixth week of a pregnancy, and an Oklahoma law will make performing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison starting this summer. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on a Mississippi law that bans abortion at 15 weeks, a decision that will have national implications and could overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal nationwide in 1973.

We spoke with Gordon in April about how her photography evolved from covering white supremacy to reproductive rights, and the misinformation she’s aiming to confront with her work.

What was the process of photographing abortion? It's not only controversial, but it happens behind closed doors.

It was hard to access, and it was hard to make dynamic pictures. The first time I did an abortion story was in Alabama in 2018. The Alabama legislature was pushing what was at the time the most prohibitive abortion legislation in the country. Now, it's not even the worst we have [as far as abortion laws in the country go]. The legislature was primarily white men making laws about women's bodies, and the governor at the time was Kay Ivey. Women are often complicit in white supremacy and the patriarchal agenda — it's all just so enmeshed. While I was in Alabama, I started reporting and photographing at a clinic that serves women from as far as Texas and Florida. Even when I took these pictures back in 2019, then there were already lots of people who crossed state lines for abortions. Working at the clinic in Montgomery, I was able to follow a doctor who traveled more than a thousand miles from New England to give abortions. Along with an acute shortage of OB-GYNs to provide women's healthcare in general, especially in the south, there are further restrictions on who can provide abortions and where, making access harder to come by, especially in rural areas.

The women were traveling as well?

When I photographed that first abortion story, I met women who were coming from a couple of hours away. I was learning more and more about what women went through to get abortions. This was all before our current legislative moment, so the need to travel for reproductive healthcare is only going to increase exponentially. The primary obstacles are time and money. While it's of course extremely expensive to have a child, it's also difficult to suddenly raise $1,000 or more (for the clinic bill and travel costs) and take time off of work. Most of the women I spoke to who had had abortions already had other children, and so they were also arranging childcare.

And once women arrive at the clinic, they’re walking a gauntlet to enter, there are folks yelling and screaming and telling women they are murderers, chanting things like, “Your baby has a name!” The anti-abortion protesters are incredibly aggressive. The clinics regularly have to get restraining orders, hire security, have volunteer escorts to help women get inside, etc. At the clinic in Montgomery, the volunteers even have to cover all the license plates in the parking lot with Post-it Notes because the anti-abortion protesters will literally photograph their license plates, try and find the names of the owners, and post them online.

There are also fake abortion clinics — directly next to the actual clinic, there will be another clinic, or RV, or office that looks almost like an abortion clinic, but is run by people whose goal is to convince the woman to keep the baby. They’ll show the woman her ultrasound and talk about the baby, and their ideas about life beginning at conception. It’s incredibly manipulative and preys on women who are scared, confused, or maybe even just accidentally went into Door B instead of Door A.

What was it like getting access to visuals to show people the process? Especially the images you took with Imani.

This young woman came from Texas to California to get an abortion. A lot of states during the early days of COVID used the pandemic as an excuse to introduce further abortion restrictions. Texas passed legislation that called abortions an elective procedure, which wasn’t allowed during early in the pandemic, and so they effectively outlawed it for a while. But this isn't knee surgery or a nose job — it's a very time-sensitive process. I worked closely with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles to identify someone who was traveling from out of state to get an abortion. PPLA has always served a client base from a huge geographic area, and that’s only growing. They notified me when they thought that someone might be open to being photographed. A few people fell through. It's a really hard moment when a woman decides to have an abortion, and then a whole other layer of stress to have a journalist who wants to follow you through the process. It’s a huge ask. Eventually they found someone who seemed open to this, and PPLA made sure she understood the process and that it was voluntary.

For this woman, traveling for an abortion was difficult for her financially — she was young, 22. The person who was sort of her boyfriend was paying for the abortion itself, but it was a complicated relationship. Her family were immigrants from a conservative country and did not approve of abortions, and the immigrant community she lived in was very small and tight-knit, and she was worried about them finding out. She had friends in Los Angeles, so she scheduled the abortion at PPLA. She really had to trust me not to out her in some way, and to let me accompany her during this whole process.

You photographed a fetus during your work on abortions — it was so different for me from the unfortunate images you see anti-abortion protesters use. What did that photo mean to you?

The anti-abortion movement uses incredibly manipulative imagery — often showing something that looks like a newborn baby inside a woman’s stomach along with text about murder.

I wanted to show with these pictures how wildly different these propaganda pictures are from physical reality. Most people don’t know what a fetus looks like, or what the medical reality of the procedure is like. I really wanted to show this contrast. The doctor who had traveled from the northeast was on board — she also was so frustrated with the propagandistic imagery — so she worked with me to make this picture. She isolated the fetus from other uterine tissue and put it on a lightbox so I could photograph it.

There is so much information out there that is purposely trying to confuse and emotionally manipulate women. And if they are putting this imagery into a vacuum where there’s no counter imagery, even women who want to have an abortion might not really know what it looks like. It’s really different when you think there's a full-grown baby in your uterus versus the reality of a clump of cells that is less than an inch long.

What were some of your main takeaways from this project?

There’s so much misinformation, and so much that is hidden and secretive. Healthcare is and should be private, but there is value in women like Imani who are willing to allow their process to be photographed so that others can understand what this looks like.

And so much of this is so emotionally manipulative. Take, for example, the “heartbeat” law in Alabama and elsewhere, that make abortions illegal after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Last year, fed up with some of my limitations as a photographer, I actually started working as an EMT. In my EMT classes, we learned about the electrical nodes in the heart. The heart is the only muscle with its own electrical impulse. People have different interpretations of what this means, but learning about the heart's automaticity added another layer for me.

My hope with this body of work is to show the day-to-day reality of abortion care, and just how hard it is for women to access it. And we all know it’s only going to get harder.
More on this

This Powerful Photo Series Asks Women To Talk About Their Abortion

Gabriel H. Sanchez · May 21, 2019

These Young People Who Managed Their Own Abortions Say The Option Is Even More Important After Texas’s Crackdown

Nicole Fallert · Nov. 1, 2021

Connecticut Senate passes abortion bill after emotional debate; Gov. Lamont pledges signature


John Woike/Hartford Courant/TNS

Christopher Keating, Hartford Courant
Fri, April 29, 2022,

With a major U.S. Supreme Court ruling months away, the state Senate debated emotionally Friday night before approving a key abortion bill that would be the most far-reaching in Connecticut in the past 32 years.

The bipartisan bill would increase the number of medical professionals allowed to perform abortions in Connecticut and expand abortion-related protections regarding lawsuits.

After three hours of debate, the Senate voted 25-9 with two Republicans absent shortly before midnight.

The often-emotional, personal and passionate debate included opposition by some members of the legislature’s Black and Puerto Rican Caucus, who said they were inspired by a freshman legislator, Rep. Trenee McGee of West Haven, who spoke passionately recently before voting against the bill.

The state House of Representatives had voted 87-60 recently for the measure, and Gov. Ned Lamont has pledged to sign it into law.

Lawmakers debated the detailed, seven-page bill late Friday night in a rare discussion at the Capitol as the state’s abortion law from 1990 has remained largely unchanged for three decades.

One of the major provisions in the bill would expand the medical specialists who are allowed to perform abortion services — allowing advanced practice registered nurses, physician assistants and nurse-midwives to provide medication and aspiration abortions in the first trimester.

Connecticut would become the 15th state to allow a wider range of medical professionals, including New York, California, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

Sen. Douglas McCrory, a Hartford Democrat who supported the bill, said he has been in the legislature for 17 years and has heard many speeches. One of the best, he said, was recently by a freshman legislator, Rep. Trenee McGee of West Haven, on abortion. He said she noted that Black women make up only 12% of the population but have 38% of abortions.

“She said it’s used as birth control in our community,’’ McCrory said. “I’m just giving you the facts. You make your own decision. ... Rep. McGee pulled the scab off something. Yes, she did.’'

Sen. Patricia Billie Miller, a Stamford Democrat, and others talked passionately on the Senate floor about Margaret Sanger, the founding of Planned Parenthood, and the history of abortion.

“Babies were ripped from Black mothers, African mothers, during slavery,’’ she said. “That’s the history that Black women and Native American women have had to endure. ... There’s no way that I can accept a system that would intentionally take a baby from a mother. ... Yes, they sterilized men, too. It wasn’t just women.’’

Miller noted that legislators often say that the brain is still developing until age 25 when they talk about issues like juvenile justice.

“We’re saying if an 18-year-old wants to have an abortion, she can do that. ... That gives me pause,’’ Miller said. “My friends who had abortions at 18 ... and it still bothers them. ... I will not stand here and support a system that was designed to take advantage of people who didn’t know any better.’’

She said that some women who are now in their 60s and 70s are still depressed about having an abortion decades earlier.

“I know I’m not going to be the most popular person after tonight,’’ Miller told her colleagues. “[McGee] said, in the black community, abortions are birth control. That’s true. ... I hear family planning - code word for abortion. Why can’t it be a code word for planning your family?’’

Miller added, “I agree it is her body to choose. ... I cannot support a system that has tried, systemically, to get rid of a race of people. ... Sorry, this is about racism, and that’s how I view this. ... I’m sorry if I’m emotional ... but this goes back to Africa for me. ... This goes deeper than just choice. ... Sometimes we don’t have the choice because we don’t have the money.’’

The next speaker, Sen. Marilyn Moore of Bridgeport, said that her heart was racing as she stood up to speak due to her emotions on the issue. An employee for Planned Parenthood for eight years, she said she helped women to get mammograms.

“I knew about Ms. Sanger,’’ she said. “What I learned at Planned Parenthood was how much racism and distrust there is in the medical system. ... People talk about why Black people don’t want to get vaccinated because we’ve had medical apartheid. ... Right now, I’m not feeling good about this bill.’’

Moore said, “Planned Parenthood will need to step up and say we need to do better.’’

At the start of the debate, Sen. Gary Winfield, a New Haven Democrat, said that Connecticut needs to act because of the pending Supreme Court action.

“We have to think about what we will do when that time comes,’' Winfield told colleagues in a debate that started at 8:48 p.m. Friday.

Sen. Saud Anwar, a South Windsor Democrat who is a medical doctor, said that if someone had told him five years ago that the state Senate would be debating abortion “I would be laughing at them ... but here we are.’'

As abortions are restricted in multiple states like Texas, Anwar predicted, “We will be a place of refuge for a lot of people.’'

Abortion rights advocates are highly concerned that the U.S. Supreme Court this year might overrule the 1973 landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling — meaning that all 50 states would individually decide the abortion rules in their jurisdiction.

Another key provision in the bill would allow Connecticut to protect the medical records of women who travel here from states like Texas or Louisiana. The information would also be protected from subpoenas in other states.

In addition, if a Connecticut resident is sued under a Texas-style abortion law, the bill would give them the right for a counter-suit in order to recover reimbursement, attorney’s fees and costs. A “clawback’' provision would protect Connecticut residents from Senate Bill 8 in Texas that allows private citizens in Texas to sue a doctor performing an abortion in Connecticut. The bill changes the state’s extradition statute so that Connecticut residents could not be summoned by other states, legislators said.

“What’s happening in other states is an attack on women’s health,’' said Senate majority leader Bob Duff of Norwalk. “What I see is mostly men, who look like me,’' offering bills to restrict abortion in other states.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, a longtime New Haven attorney, said the bill would lead to “a prevention of a chaotic legal situation that could happen in our country.’'

Sen. John Kissel of Enfield, the ranking Senate Republican on the legislature’s judiciary committee, said constituents in his district have strong views on both ends of the abortion spectrum.

“We could spend days debating when does life begin, but I will not do that,’' said Kissel, who has served 30 years in the Senate. “All of these are difficult moral questions, religious questions, technological questions, but I’m not going to get into that.’'

Kissel, who opposed the bill Friday night, said he once offered a bill on parental notification for minors who are getting an abortion, but the measure never passed.

“The advocates of the pro-choice notion were upset that we even had a public hearing,’' Kissel said. “People feel very passionately on both sides of this issue.’'

He added, “We’re sort of a live-and-let-live state right now, protecting women’s rights.’'

Sen. Heather Somers, the ranking Senate Republican on the public health committee, said the bill protects Connecticut’s medical professionals from being sued by another state.

“It is somewhat outrageous that another state thinks it can come into our state and sue clinicians,’' said Somers, who supported the bill.

Sen. Henri Martin, a Bristol Republican, said, “There are some here tonight to defend the right of the unborn. ... This is going to be an ongoing fight.’'

Sen. Dennis Bradley, a Bridgeport Democrat, said that only two medical professionals gave testimony at the judiciary committee and both questioned the bill. He said the legislature had not collected enough empirical data in the process to make its decision.

“By moving forward in this fashion and not flushing things out in the committee process ... I think we should all proceed with caution,’' Bradley said.

But Anwar said that about 100 people testified on the public health aspects of abortion under a separate bill that was merged into the final bill.

Amanda Skinner, a nurse-midwife who serves as chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, said recently that the bill was needed because some women now wait more than two weeks for a first-trimester abortion as there is a shortage of medical providers.

“Abortion access is on the line,” Skinner told reporters in Hartford. “Connecticut must be a state where abortion care is acceptable without shame, stigma or fear.

Democratic legislators say that some patients from Texas have already traveled to Planned Parenthood in Hartford’s North End, but they could not say how many out-of-state patients have arrived.

Besides the Catholic Conference, one of the leaders in the lobbying against the issue is the Family Institute of Connecticut. The institute was pushing against a constitutional amendment in favor of abortion rights, but insiders said the amendment is not expected to come up for a vote.

“Abortion is the most sacred of their unholy sacraments,” the institute told supporters in an email. “And please pray. Whatever victories we may have, should God grant them to us, belong ultimately to Him. Please pray for the defeat of all ... of these bills.”

After the vote, Rep. Jillian Gilchrest of West Hartford said Connecticut is stepping forward due to national trends.

“As states like Oklahoma continue to enact extreme anti-abortion laws and we anticipate the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June, Connecticut stands at the forefront of protecting reproductive rights,’' she said. “Although Roe is codified in our state law and abortion will remain legal here, that does not mean we are fully protected nor that everyone has access. This bill is critical as we prepare for a post-Roe America.”

Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com