Seven @ Seven

U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill ruled Thursday that Idaho's near-total abortion ban is unconstitutional because it permits abortions only when a pregnancy is immediately life-threatening — not when continuing a pregnancy poses serious risks to a woman's health. The 81-page opinion out of Boise blocks the state from prosecuting doctors who perform abortions to protect their patients' health.

The ban, one of the strictest in the country after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision, made providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to five years in prison, with a narrow exception only when necessary to save the pregnant woman's life. Winmill found that framework unworkable and unconstitutional, ruling that doctors cannot be forced to wait until a patient is on the brink of death before intervening. Physicians in Idaho have repeatedly described airlifting patients out of state to receive care they could not legally provide at home.

Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador is expected to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the case could ultimately return to the Supreme Court, which previously dismissed a related EMTALA challenge without resolving the underlying conflict between federal emergency care law and state abortion bans.

The ruling is the most significant judicial blow to a post-Dobbs abortion ban this year, and it lands as roughly a dozen states enforce similar near-total bans. Medical organizations have documented rising maternal complications and physician flight from restrictive states — evidence Winmill cited extensively in his opinion.

Hurricane Lala closed in on Hawaii's Big Island Saturday with 75 mph sustained winds, threatening to become the first hurricane to make direct landfall in the state in 34 years. The National Hurricane Center said the Category 1 storm was already lashing the island with tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rain, with forecasters warning of up to 25 inches of rainfall in the worst-case scenario.

Emergency management officials opened shelters across the island and urged residents in flood-prone and coastal areas to move to higher ground. Hawaii's steep volcanic terrain amplifies flood and landslide risks — even a Category 1 storm can produce catastrophic rainfall totals as moist air is forced up the slopes of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Power outages were already spreading across South Point and Kau district communities by Saturday afternoon.

The last hurricane to make direct landfall in Hawaii was Iniki in 1992, which slammed Kauai as a Category 4, killed seven people, and caused $1.8 billion in damage. Since then, most hurricanes approaching the islands have weakened or veered south — a pattern climatologists attribute partly to the state's typically cooler surrounding waters. Those waters are now well above normal, part of a broader trend of ocean warming that has extended hurricane seasons and increased maximum intensity across basins worldwide.

An unprecedented cyclospora outbreak has sickened nearly 14,000 Americans and killed at least two, with federal food-safety inspectors now scrutinizing a Taylor Farms processing plant in Guanajuato, Mexico that has been linked to contaminated iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants and other chains. The CDC counted 13,895 laboratory-confirmed cases across 47 states between May 1 and August 10 — a figure that lags state reporting and understates the true scale.

The outbreak has drawn sharp attention to the Trump administration's decision last year to delay the FDA's Food Traceability Rule, which would have required faster identification of contaminated batches through farm-to-shelf tracking. Former FDA deputy commissioner Frank Yiannas has called for a National Foodborne Outbreak Investigation Board modeled on the NTSB, arguing that the current fragmented system leaves regulators playing catch-up while people get sick.

Cyclosporiasis, caused by the parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis, produces watery diarrhea, cramping, nausea and fatigue that can persist for weeks. Agricultural water contamination is the most common source, FDA acting deputy commissioner for food Donald Prater told The Washington Post. Taylor Farms suspended iceberg lettuce processing at its central Mexico facility on July 17 and has separately recalled jalapeño-containing products tied to a salmonella outbreak.

Michigan, the hardest-hit state, has told residents they can resume normal consumption of lettuce. But outside experts, including New York Medical College's Dr. Dana Mordue, urge continued caution — particularly for children and older adults — because officials have not confirmed a single source for every case. The episode is the clearest test yet of how much slack the administration's deregulatory push has introduced into the U.S. food-safety system.

President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the U.S. Navy to revert from electromagnetic aircraft catapults to older steam-powered systems on its Ford-class carriers, a directive that will require redesigning ships already deep in construction — including the USS Doris Miller — at a cost the Navy estimates could reach billions of dollars.

The order flatly contradicts the Navy's own operational data. In a February 2026 release, Navy officials said preliminary results from the USS Gerald R. Ford's Sortie Generation Rate program showed the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear were producing higher aircraft launch rates than the steam catapults on Nimitz-class carriers. Trump has railed against EMALS as "too complicated" for years, favoring what he calls simpler mechanical systems.

Sen. Mark Kelly, a former Navy combat pilot, astronaut and aeronautical engineer, unloaded on the decision. "He's a marginally failed real estate developer with multiple bankruptcies. He shouldn't be weighing in on systems, on aircraft carriers," Kelly told MS NOW, adding that even with his own qualifications he would never dictate ship design to Navy engineers.

The episode comes amid mounting strain on the carrier fleet. The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for more than 240 days — a record — supporting operations against Iran, and sailors' families have publicly denounced conditions on board after Trump said the deployment was "not nearly long enough." The Navy has now pulled its last aircraft carrier from the western Pacific to backfill Middle East demand, leaving a strategic vacuum in Asia at a moment of rising tension with China.

Silver Lake is in talks to acquire Workday, the enterprise HR and finance software company, in what would rank among the largest private equity technology buyouts in history, Reuters reported Wednesday. Workday, whose cloud-based systems power payroll and financial operations for a large share of Fortune 500 companies, has a market capitalization near $60 billion.

Silver Lake has been one of the most aggressive tech-focused private equity firms of the last two decades, with prior deals including Dell, Skype and Endeavor. A take-private of Workday would give the firm control of a business whose entrenched enterprise contracts and subscription revenues look attractive as AI reshapes back-office automation. Workday itself has been racing to embed AI agents throughout its platform to defend against competitors like Rippling and newer AI-native rivals.

The talks come as private capital continues to hunt for public tech companies whose share prices have lagged the AI-fueled megacap rally. Enterprise SaaS names — steady cash generators trading well below their 2021 peaks — are prime targets. Neither Silver Lake nor Workday has confirmed the talks, and no deal price has been reported. Workday shares rose sharply on the report.

If completed, the transaction would test antitrust regulators' appetite for large private equity rollups of critical enterprise infrastructure, an area where the FTC under prior leadership had signaled skepticism.

Joshua Báez wrote himself into the record books Saturday, becoming the first player in Major League Baseball history to hit home runs in each of his first three career at-bats. The 23-year-old Cardinals outfielder, called up from Triple-A Memphis hours before first pitch, launched the very first pitch he saw at Wrigley Field into the left-center bleachers for a two-run shot in the first inning, then took Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd deep twice more.

Báez finished 3-for-3 with five RBIs in an 8-4 St. Louis victory. Blaze Jordan and Alec Burleson added solo homers, while starter Michael McGreevy allowed three unearned runs over six innings for his first win since July 8. Boyd, who entered 8-2, was chased in the sixth after surrendering seven runs on five hits.

Báez is the first Cardinals player to homer in his debut plate appearance since Lane Thomas in June 2019, and no player in the game's 150-year modern history had ever put together three in a row to start a career. Called up as the team continues to chase Milwaukee and Chicago in the NL Central, he immediately becomes a fixture in a Cardinals lineup that had been searching for offense.

The series concludes Sunday afternoon with Hunter Dobbins facing Cubs righty Edward Cabrera, who returns from the injured list after a left hamstring strain.