Concerned that faith-based “crisis pregnancy centers” in New Jersey were misleading women, the state’s attorney general in 2023 issued a subpoena seeking information from them, including the identities of their donors.

The centers sought to challenge the subpoenas in federal court on First Amendment grounds, relying on a 2021 Supreme Court decision that said California could not require all charities soliciting contributions in the state to report the identities of their major donors while leaving open the possibility of targeted subpoenas.

On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge from the New Jersey centers that may help clarify the scope of that exception.

Crisis pregnancy centers have been flash points in the abortion rights debate. Often operated by faith-based groups opposed to abortion, they offer counseling and other services to pregnant women, generally with a goal of persuading them to decide against an abortion.

In his Supreme Court brief urging the justices to deny review, Matthew Platkin, the state’s attorney general, said his subpoena was meant to gather information on whether the centers had “misled donors and potential clients, among others, into believing that” they were “providing certain reproductive health care services.”

The subpoena sought copies of ads and donor solicitations, substantiation for claims in them, and the identities of medical personnel at the centers and of donors who contributed using one of two websites.

“Identifying those donors,” the brief said, “would allow the state to determine if they were ultimately misled.”

The precise question the justices agreed to hear is a narrow one. The case will test whether First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, which runs five centers that say they “offer free medical services and material support to women facing unplanned pregnancies,” may object to the New Jersey subpoena in federal court. A federal appeals court ruled that the centers must first contest the subpoena in state court.

Britain’s MI6 gets first female chief

“Q” will be the new “C,” and that’s the least history-making part of the British government’s announcement Sunday that it had named Blaise Metreweli as chief of the Special Intelligence Service. Metreweli will be the first female chief of the spy agency, known as MI6, in its 116-year history.

A career member of MI6, Metreweli was most recently the director general of technology and innovation, a position commonly referred to as Q — familiar to fans of the James Bond series where he outfits 007 with weaponized wristwatches or ejector-seat-equipped Aston Martin sports cars.

This fall, Metreweli will succeed Richard Moore as MI6’s chief, a post that has been known by the letter C ever since the first chief of the Special Intelligence Service, Mansfield Cumming, signed his directives with C in the early 1900s. By tradition, the only publicly identified official in MI6 is the chief.

Metreweli joined the service in 1999 after studying anthropology at Cambridge University and served in operational roles in the Middle East and Europe, according to No. 10 Downing St., which announced the appointment as Prime Minister Keir Starmer was flying to Canada for a summit meeting of the Group of 7 leaders.

In a statement, Starmer hailed the appointment as “historic” and left no doubt about the stakes of Metreweli’s job.

W. Va., flooding death toll reaches 6

The death toll from weekend flooding in West Virginia rose to six as residents tried to clean up with the threat of more rain on the way.

At least two people remained missing in the state’s northern panhandle after torrential downpours Saturday night, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Monday. As much as 4 inches of rain fell in parts of Wheeling and Ohio County within 40 minutes. Among the dead was a 3-year-old child, the governor said.

About an hour to the southeast, heavy rains battered the Marion County community of Fairmont on Sunday, ripping off the outer wall of an apartment building and damaging bridges and roads. No injuries were reported.

Nigeria attack death toll raised to 150

The death toll from an attack by gunmen over the weekend in north-central Nigeria has climbed to 150, survivors said Monday as the villagers were still digging through burned homes, counting their dead and looking for dozens of people still missing.

Assailants stormed Benue state’s Yelewata community late on Friday night, opening fire on villagers who were asleep and setting their homes ablaze, survivors and the local farmers union said. Many of those killed were sheltering in a local market after fleeing violence in other parts of the state.

No one claimed responsibility for the killings, but such attacks are common in Nigeria’s northern region where local herders and farmers often clash over limited access to land and water. The prolonged conflict has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms.

N.J. gets go-ahead on church abuse probe

New Jersey can have a grand jury examine allegations of clergy sexually abusing children, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Monday, after a Catholic diocese that had tried for years to block such proceedings recently reversed course.

The Diocese of Camden previously had argued that a court rule prevents the state attorney general from impaneling a grand jury to issue findings in the state’s investigation into decades of allegations against church officials. But the diocese notified the court in early May that it would no longer oppose that. Camden Bishop Joseph Williams, who took over the diocese in March, said he’d met with stakeholders in the diocese and there was unanimous consent to end the church’s opposition to the grand jury.

The seven-member Supreme Court concluded such a grand jury inquiry is allowed.

The Camden Diocese is still committed to cooperating with the effort, it said in a statement.

Ireland begins id’ing infant remains

Officials in Ireland began work Monday to excavate the site of a former church-run home for unmarried women and their babies to identify the remains of around 800 infants and young children who died there.

The long-awaited excavation at the former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, County Galway in western Ireland, is part of a reckoning in an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country with a history of abuses in church-run institutions.

The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

A major inquiry into the mother-and-baby homes found that in total, about 9,000 children died in 18 different mother-and-baby homes, with major causes including respiratory infections and gastroenteritis, otherwise known as the stomach flu.

Doctor pleads guilty in Matthew Perry death

A doctor charged with giving Matthew Perry ketamine in the months leading up to the “Friends” star’s overdose death has agreed to plead guilty, authorities said Monday.

Dr. Salvador Plasencia has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They said the plea carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and Plascencia is expected to enter the plea in the coming weeks.

Plasencia and a woman accused of being a ketamine dealer had been the primary targets of the prosecution, after three other defendants, including another doctor, agreed to plead guilty in exchange for their cooperation.

Plasencia had been scheduled to start trial in August.

Perry died on Oct. 28, 2023 at age 54.

Cosmetic exec Leonard Lauder dies at 92

Leonard Lauder, a renowned philanthropist who expanded the family cosmetics business into a worldwide empire, has died at the age of 92.

Estee Lauders Cos. announced the news in a release on Sunday and said he died on Saturday surrounded by family.

Lauder, the oldest son of Estee and Joseph H. Lauder, who founded the company in 1946, formally joined the New York business in 1958. Over more than six decades, Lauder played a key role in transforming the business from a handful of products sold under a single brand in U.S. stores to a multi-brand global giant. He had held the title of chairman emeritus at the time of his death.

Estee Lauder’s products are sold in roughly 150 countries and territories under brand names including Clinique and Aveda, according to the company’s latest annual report. The company generated sales of nearly $16 billion in the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, the filing said.

Estee Lauder went public in 1995, but members of Lauder family still have about 84% of the voting power of common stock.

— From news services