The most far-reaching of Ohio’s laws restricting abortion was struck down on Thursday by a county judge who said last year’s voter-approved amendment enshrining reproductive rights renders the so-called heartbeat law unconstitutional.

Enforcement of the 2019 law banning most abortions once cardiac activity is detected — as early as six weeks into pregnancy, before many women know they’re pregnant — had been paused pending the challenge before Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins.

Jenkins said that when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned power over the abortion issue to the states, “Ohio’s Attorney General evidently didn’t get the memo.”

The judge said Republican Attorney General Dave Yost’s request to leave all but one provision of the law untouched even after a majority of Ohio’s voters passed an amendment protecting the right to pre-viability abortion “dispels the myth” that the high court’s decision simply gives states power over the issue.

“Despite the adoption of a broad and strongly worded constitutional amendment, in this case and others, the State of Ohio seeks not to uphold the constituional protection of abortion rights, but to diminish and limit it,” he wrote. Jenkins said his ruling upholds voters’ wishes.

Yost’s office said it was reviewing the order and would decide within 30 days whether to appeal.

Pentagon rebuts social media election claims

In a rare move, the Pentagon strongly pushed back Thursday against misinformation spread on social media that falsely suggests U.S. troops have been authorized to use force against American citizens during the election.

The misinformation — spread online by former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn and former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among others — suggests that a Defense Department policy revision released in late September was timed to interfere with the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Use of force by federal troops on U.S. soil against U.S. civilians is against the law — except in cases of self-defense — and is outlined in the Posse Comitatus Act.

Georgia GOP official appeals election order

A Republican official in the crucial presidential battleground of Georgia is appealing a judge’s order that she and other election leaders in the state’s most populous county must vote to certify results by the deadline set in law.

Julie Adams — a member of the election board in Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta and is a Democratic stronghold — had filed a lawsuit seeking a declaration that her duties as an election board member were discretionary and that she is entitled to “full access” to “election materials.”

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled this month that “no election superintendent (or member of a board of elections and registration) may refuse to certify or abstain from certifying election results under any circumstance.”

In letter, 82 U.S. Nobel laureates back Harris

More than 80 American Nobel Prize winners in physics, chemistry, medicine and economics have signed an open letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president.

“This is the most consequential presidential election in a long time, perhaps ever, for the future of science and the United States,” reads the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. “We, the undersigned, strongly support Harris.”

The letter praises Harris for understanding that “the enormous increases in living standards and life expectancies over the past two centuries are largely the result of advances in science and technology.” Former President Donald Trump, by contrast, would “jeopardize any advancements in our standards of living, slow the progress of science and technology and impede our responses to climate change,” the letter said.

Eighty-two Nobel laureates — from a physicist who helped discover leftover light from the Big Bang to an immunologist who paved the way for one type of COVID-19 vaccine — have signed the letter.

Argentina police raid Liam Payne’s hotel

Argentina’s police raided the Buenos Aires hotel where ex-One Direction singer Liam Payne stayed before dying last week after falling from a third-floor balcony, a government official said Thursday.

A police special investigations unit went to the Casa Sur hotel Wednesday night on orders from the public prosecutors’ office. Officers seized items including computer hard drives and footage from hotel cameras, a government official told The Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

The singer died Oct. 16 after falling from the third-floor balcony in the up-market, touristy Palermo district. According to the autopsy, Payne died from multiple injuries as well as both internal and external bleeding caused by the fall.

Haitian gangs shoot down U.N. helicopter

Gangs on Thursday opened fire and hit a U.N. helicopter, forcing it to land in Port-au-Prince in the latest attack in Haiti’s capital as violence surges once again.

No one was injured as several rounds of gunfire hit the helicopter that was carrying three crew members and 15 passengers, according to a U.N. source who was not authorized to confirm the incident. The helicopter, which had departed from Port-au-Prince before it was attacked, landed safely, the source said.

The attack comes five months after Haiti’s main international airport reopened following coordinated gang attacks that forced it to close for nearly three months.

Ship owner to pay for bridge collapse cleanup

The owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse have agreed to pay more than $102 million in cleanup costs to settle a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department, officials said Thursday.

The settlement does not cover any damages for rebuilding the bridge, officials said in a news release announcing the agreement. That construction project could cost close to $2 billion. The state of Maryland has filed its own claim seeking those damages, among others.

The settlement comes a month after the Justice Department sued the ship’s owner Grace Ocean Private Ltd. and manager Synergy Marine Group, both based in Singapore, seeking to recover funds from the cleanup.

Trudeau says he will seek a fourth term

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday that he will lead his Liberal Party into the next election, dismissing a request by some party members to not run for a fourth term.

Trudeau met with his Liberal members of Parliament for three hours Wednesday, where he learned that more than 20 lawmakers from his party signed a letter asking him to step down before the next election.

He said there were “robust conversations” ongoing about the best way forward, but “that will happen with me as leader going into the next election.”

No Canadian prime minister in more than a century has won four straight terms.

2 dozen now dead in Philippines storm

Widespread flooding and landslides set off by a tropical storm in the northeastern Philippines on Thursday left at least 24 people dead, swept away cars and prompted authorities to scramble for motorboats to rescue trapped villagers, some on roofs.

The government shut down schools and offices — except those urgently needed for disaster response — for the second day on the entire main island of Luzon to protect millions of people after Tropical Storm Trami slammed into the country’s northeastern province of Isabela after midnight.

The storm began to move away from the coast of the northwestern Philippine province of Ilocos Sur toward the South China Sea on Thursday afternoon with sustained winds of up to 60 mph and gusts up to 70 mph. It was blowing southwestward and could strengthen into a typhoon over the South China Sea.

Jack Jones, ‘Love Boat’ crooner, dies at 86

Jack Jones, a Grammy-winning crooner known for “The Love Boat” television show theme song, has died. He was 86.

Jones died Wednesday night at a hospital in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after battling leukemia for more than two years, according to a statement from his manager, Milt Suchin.

Jones began his singing career in the 1950s and in the 1960s won two Grammy Awards for best vocal performance, one on the song “Lollipops And Roses” and one on the song “Wives and Lovers.”

In 1980, his “Love Boat” television show theme song rose to No. 37 on the Billboard U.S. Adult Contemporary chart. Jones was also a frequent guest on the popular show in which guest stars, ranging from Gene Kelly to Janet Jackson, would come aboard for a cruise and fall in love.

— News service reports