Hospitals are facing questions about why they denied care to pregnant patients and whether state abortion bans have influenced how they treat those patients.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, sent inquiries to nine hospitals ahead of a hearing Tuesday looking at whether abortion bans have prevented or delayed pregnant women from getting help during their miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or other medical emergencies.

He is part of a Democratic effort to focus the nation’s attention on the stories of women who have faced horrible realities since some states tightened a patchwork of abortion laws. The strict laws are injecting chaos and hesitation into the emergency room, Wyden said during Tuesday’s hearing.

“Some states that have passed abortion bans into law claim that they contain exceptions if a woman’s life is at risk,” Wyden said. “In reality, these exceptions are forcing doctors to play lawyer. And lawyer to play doctor. Providers are scrambling to make impossible decisions between providing critical care or a potential jail sentence.”

Republicans on Tuesday assailed the hearing, with outright denials about the impact abortion laws have on the medical care women in the U.S. have received, and called the hearing a politically-motivated attack just weeks ahead of the presidential election. Republicans, who are noticeably nervous about how the new abortion laws will play into the presidential race, lodged repeated complaints about the hearing’s title, “How Trump Criminalized Women’s Health Care.”

State sues ship owners in Md. bridge collapse

The state of Maryland has added to the legal troubles facing the owner and operator of the container ship Dali, which caused the deadly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the massive vessel experienced an ill-timed electrical blackout and other failures.

Officials announced a new lawsuit Tuesday that echoes several other recent filings alleging the ship’s Singapore-based owner and manager, Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and Synergy Marine Group, knowingly sent an unseaworthy ship into U.S. waters.

Six construction workers were killed when the ship rammed into one off the bridge’s support columns, causing the span to topple into the water. Their families have also sued the companies.

Executions take place in Texas, Missouri

A Texas man who had waived his right to appeal his death sentence was put to death Tuesday evening for killing his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago, one of five executions scheduled within a week’s time in the U.S.

Travis Mullis, 38, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT. He was condemned for stomping to death his son Alijah in January 2008. T

Also Tuesday, the state of Missouri executed Marcellus Williams by lethal injection over the objections of the local prosecutor whose office obtained Williams’ murder conviction in 2003.

Williams, who for decades maintained his innocence, had in recent days sought clemency from the governor and a stay of execution from the state Supreme Court. But on Monday, both the governor, Mike Parson, and the state Supreme Court turned him down, and on Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court, his last hope, declined to intervene.

East Coast dock strike looms next week

The chief executive over Georgia’s two booming seaports said Tuesday that a strike next week by dockworkers across the U.S. East and Gulf coasts appears likely, though he’s hopeful the resulting shutdown would last only a few days.

“We should probably expect there to be a work stoppage and we shouldn’t get surprised if there is one,” Griff Lynch, CEO of the Georgia Ports Authority, told The Associated Press in an interview. “The question is: How long?”

U.S. ports from Maine to Texas are preparing for a potential shutdown in a week, when the union representing 45,000 dockworkers in that region has threatened to strike starting Oct. 1. That’s when the contract expires between the International Longshoremen’s Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports. Negotiations on a new contract halted in June.

A strike would shut down 36 ports that handle roughly half the nations’ cargo from ships.

Train chemical leak evacuates Ohio town

A dangerous chemical leak from a railcar has spurred an evacuation order in an Ohio town.

Hamilton County Emergency Management issued the order Tuesday for Grandview. It advised anyone within a half-mile of the area near U.S. Route 50 and the Great Miami River in Grandview, west of Cincinnati, to leave immediately.

Three nearby school buildings also were being evacuated, according to Lisa Whiteley, a spokesperson for the Three Rivers Local

School District.

Tom Ciuba, a spokesman for the Central Railroad of Indiana, said it was notified around 1 p.m. about a railcar in the area of Cleves that was venting styrene, which is used to make plastic and rubber. He said firefighters were at the site and environmental response agencies were mobilized.

Aerial video showed firefighters spraying down a railcar sitting upright on tracks between the highway and an asphalt plant.

Combs hit with another sexual assault lawsuit

Another woman sued Sean “Diddy” Combs on Tuesday, alleging that the music mogul and his head of security raped her and recorded it on video at his New York recording studio in 2001.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in New York, the latest of several similar suits against Combs, comes a week after he was was arrested and a federal sex trafficking indictment against him was unsealed.

Thalia Graves alleges that when she was 25 and dating an executive who worked for Combs in the summer of 2001, Combs and Joseph Sherman lured her to a meeting at Bad Boy Recording Studios. She said they picked her up in an SUV and during the ride gave her a drink “likely laced with a drug.”

According to the lawsuit, Graves lost consciousness and awoke to find herself bound inside Combs’ office and lounge at the studio. The two men raped her, slapped her, slammed her head against a pool table and ignored her screams and cries for help, the lawsuit alleges.

At a news conference in Los Angeles with one of her attorneys, Gloria Allred, Graves said she has suffered from “flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive thoughts” in the years since.

Combs remains jailed without bail in New York on federal charges alleging that he ran a vast network that facilitated sexual crimes and committed shocking acts of violence.

He pleaded not guilty. His representatives did not respond to an email seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Hurricane John weakens; 2 dead

Two people have died in their home from a landslide after Hurricane John swept through southern Mexico, authorities said on Tuesday.

Power outages, fallen trees and damaged roofs were also reported in the affected coastal areas of the southern states of Guerrero and Oaxaca.

The hurricane made landfall near the municipality of Marquelia in the state of Guerrero, with wind speeds of up to 120 miles per hour.

According to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, it has now weakened to a tropical storm, with winds of up to 50 mph now being measured.

— From news services