Which cardinals are seen as contenders to be the next pope?

• April 21, 2025

VATICAN CITY (AP) — A popular saying in Vatican circles is that if you “enter a conclave as pope, you leave as a cardinal.”

It implies the sacred and secretive process is no popularity contest or campaign, but rather the divinely inspired election of Christ’s Vicar on Earth by the princes of the church.

Still, there are always front-runners, known as “papabile,” who have at least some of the qualities considered necessary to be pope — much like those depicted in last year’s Oscar-nominated film “Conclave.”

Any baptized Catholic male is eligible, though only cardinals have been selected since 1378. The winner must receive at least two-thirds of the vote from those cardinals under age 80 and thus eligible to participate. Pope Francis, who died Monday, appointed the vast majority of electors, often tapping men who share his pastoral priorities, which suggests continuity rather than rupture.

Anyone trying to handicap the outcome should remember that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was considered too old to be elected pope in 2013 at age 76, and that Karol Wojtyla wasn’t on any front-runner lists going into the 1978 conclave that elected him Pope John Paul II.

Some possible candidates:

Cardinal Peter Erdo

Erdo, 72, the archbishop of Budapest and primate of Hungary, was twice elected head of the Council of European Episcopal Conferences, in 2005 and 2011, suggesting he enjoys the esteem of European cardinals who make up the biggest voting bloc of electors. In that capacity, Erdo got to know many African cardinals because the council hosts regular sessions with African bishops’ conferences. Erdo had even more exposure when he helped organize Francis’ 2014 and 2015 Vatican meetings on the family and delivered key speeches, as well as during papal visits to Budapest in 2021 and 2023.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx

Marx, 71, the archbishop of Munich and Freising, was chosen by Francis as a key adviser in 2013. Marx later was named to head the council overseeing Vatican finances during reforms and belt-tightening. The former president of the German bishops’ conference was a strong proponent of the controversial “synodal path” process of dialogue in the German church that began in 2020 as a response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal there. As a result, he is viewed with skepticism by conservatives who considered the process a threat to church unity, given it involved debating issues such as celibacy, homosexuality and women’s ordination. Marx made headlines in 2021 when he dramatically offered to resign as archbishop to atone for the German church’s dreadful abuse record, but Francis quickly rejected the resignation and told him to stay.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet

Ouellet, 80, of Canada, led the Vatican’s influential bishops office for over a decade, overseeing the key clearinghouse for potential candidates to head dioceses around the world. Francis kept Ouellet in the job until 2023, even though he was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI, and thus helped select the more doctrinaire bishops preferred by the German pontiff. Considered more of a conservative than Francis, Ouellet still selected pastorally minded bishops to reflect Francis’ belief that bishops should “smell like the sheep” of their flock. Ouellet defended priestly celibacy for the Latin Rite church and upheld the ban on women’s ordination but called for women to have a greater role in church governance. He has good contacts with the Latin American church, having headed the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Latin America for over a decade. Since 2019, his office has taken charge of investigating bishops accused of covering up for predator priests, a job that would have made him no friends among those sanctioned but also could have given him lots of otherwise confidential and possibly compromising information about fellow cardinals.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin

Parolin, 70, of Italy, has been Francis’ secretary of state since 2014 and is considered one of the main contenders to be pope, given his prominence in the Catholic hierarchy. The veteran diplomat oversaw the Holy See’s controversial deal with China over bishop nominations and was involved — but not charged — in the Vatican’s botched investment in a London real estate venture that led to a 2021 trial of another cardinal and nine others. A former ambassador to Venezuela, Parolin knows the Latin American church well. He would be seen as someone who would continue in Francis’ tradition but as a more sober and timid diplomatic insider, returning an Italian to the papacy after three successive outsiders: St. John Paul II (Poland); Benedict (Germany) and Francis (Argentina). But while Parolin has managed the Vatican bureaucracy, he has no real pastoral experience. His ties to the London scandal, in which his office lost of tens of millions of dollars to bad deals and shady businessmen, could count against him.

Cardinal Robert Prevost

The idea of an American pope has long been taboo, given the geopolitical power already wielded by the United States. But the Chicago-born Prevost, 69, could be a first. He has extensive experience in Peru, first as a missionary and then an archbishop, and he is currently prefect of the Vatican’s powerful dicastery for bishops, in charge of vetting nominations for bishops around the world. Francis clearly had an eye on him for years and sent him to run the diocese of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014. He held that position until 2023, when Francis brought him to Rome for his current role. Prevost is also president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, a job that keeps him in regular contact with the Catholic hierarchy in the part of the world that still counts the most Catholics. In addition to his nationality, Prevost’s comparative youth could count against him if his brother cardinals don’t want to commit to a pope who might reign for another two decades.

Cardinal Robert Sarah

Sarah, 79, of Guinea, the retired head of the Vatican’s liturgy office, was long considered the best hope for an African pope. Beloved by conservatives, Sarah would signal a return to the doctrinaire and liturgically minded papacies of John Paul II and Benedict. Sarah, who had previously headed the Vatican’s charity office Cor Unum, clashed on several occasions with Francis, none more seriously than when he and Benedict co-authored a book advocating the “necessity” of continued celibacy for Latin Rite priests. The book came out as Francis was weighing whether to allow married priests in the Amazon to address a priest shortage there. The implication was that Sarah had manipulated Benedict into lending his name and moral authority to a book that had all the appearances of being a counterweight to the Francis’ own teaching. Francis dismissed Benedict’s secretary and several months later retired Sarah after he turned 75. Even Sarah’s supporters lamented the episode hurt his papal chances.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn

Schoenborn, 80, the archbishop of Vienna, Austria, was a student of Benedict’s, and thus on paper seems to have the doctrinaire academic chops to appeal to conservatives. However, he became associated with one of Francis’ most controversial moves by defending his outreach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics as an “organic development of doctrine,” not the rupture that some conservatives contended. Schoenborn’s parents divorced when he was a teen, so the issue is personal. He also took heat from the Vatican when he criticized its past refusal to sanction high-ranking sexual abusers, including his predecessor as archbishop of Vienna. Schoenborn has expressed support for civil unions and women as deacons, and was instrumental in editing the 1992 update of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the handbook of the church’s teaching that Benedict had spearheaded when he headed the Vatican’s doctrine office.

Cardinal Luis Tagle

Tagle, 67, of the Philippines, would appear to be Francis’ pick for the first Asian pope. Francis brought the popular archbishop of Manila to Rome to head the Vatican’s missionary evangelization office, which serves the needs of the Catholic Church in much of Asia and Africa. His role took on greater weight when Francis reformed the Vatican bureaucracy and raised the importance of his evangelization office. Tagle often cites his Chinese lineage – his maternal grandmother was part of a Chinese family that moved to the Philippines — and he is known for becoming emotional when discussing his childhood. Though he has pastoral, Vatican and management experience — he headed the Vatican’s Caritas Internationalis federation of charity groups before coming to Rome permanently — Tagle would be on the young side to be elected pope for life, with cardinals perhaps preferring an older candidate whose papacy would be more limited.

Cardinal Matteo Zuppi

Zuppi, 69, the archbishop of Bologna and president of the Italian bishops conference, elected in 2022, is closely affiliated with the Sant’Egidio Community, a Rome-based Catholic charity that was influential under Francis, particularly in interfaith dialogue. Zuppi was part of Sant’Egidio’s team that helped negotiate the end of Mozambique’s civil war in the 1990s and was named Francis’ peace envoy for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Francis made him a cardinal in 2019 and later made clear he wanted him in charge of Italy’s bishops, a sign of his admiration for the prelate who, like Francis, is known as a “street priest.” In another sign of his progressive leanings and closeness to Francis, Zuppi wrote the introduction to the Italian edition of “Building a Bridge,” by the Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit, about the church’s need to improve its outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. Zuppi would be a candidate in Francis’ tradition of ministering to those on the margins, although his relative youth would count against him for cardinals seeking a short papacy. His family had strong institutional ties: Zuppi’s father worked for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, and his mother was the niece of Cardinal Carlo Confalonieri, dean of the College of Cardinals in the 1960s and 1970s.

​ Orange County Register 

Survivors of 2 Florida school shootings demand governor reject law lowering gun purchasing age

• April 21, 2025

By STEPHANY MATAT

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Days after a deadly shooting, Florida State University students who also survived a deadly mass shooting in Parkland from 2018 sent a letter Monday to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, demanding he squash efforts to lower the firearm purchase age back to 18 years old.

The law that raised the minimum gun purchase age to 21 was passed as part of a gun reform package following a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018, known as one of the deadliest shootings in the country. For these former Parkland and current FSU students who sent the letter to the governor, this is their second school shooting.

One of the founders for March For Our Lives, a group formed following the shooting in Parkland, led a group of these 28 students in writing this letter, calling it “unthinkable” and “dangerous” for the Legislature to consider reverting the gun purchase age to 18. Jacklyn Corin said many of the students who demanded action in 2018 after the Parkland shooting are now FSU students who experienced this tragedy a second time.

“There is no doubt that that law has saved lives over the past seven years, and so now it’s quite ironic that this is the very law that is being threatened in the aftermath of what is many of those same students who rose their voices, their second school shooting,” Corin said.

DeSantis and Republican lawmakers have backed the measure, saying that if they’re old enough to be in the military, they should be able to purchase a gun.

Despite having support from Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez, Senate President Ben Albritton has held more hesitation for the measure. In a conference with reporters in March, Albritton was emotional recounting his visit to the Parkland high school building where 17 people were killed in 2018. He said he is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, but that he has not made a decision on the measure.

The shooting at a university minutes away from the Florida Capitol may leave an uncertain future for this measure, since it has not yet been heard in the state Senate. Legislative session is scheduled to finalize at the end of next week.

“Rolling it back would dishonor the lives we lost in Parkland and Tallahassee, and amount to a slap in the face to survivors and to the countless lives that law has helped protect,” the letter read. “It ignores the trauma we carry. And it sends a clear message to students: the state of Florida sees our lives as expendable.”

The 2018 measure raising the age to 21 years old was in response to Parkland, where a 19-year-old shooter is currently facing life in prison for the deadly violence from that Valentines Day seven years ago.

On Thursday, a 20-year-old FSU student opened fire near the student union, using his deputy sheriff parent’s former service weapon. Two people were killed and six injured.

In a statement from Monday morning, Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare announced that three patients were discharged from the hospital, and that they anticipated two more being discharged later that day. The remaining sixth patient is in “good condition.”

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers look to play harder, be more organized in Game 2 vs. Timberwolves

• April 21, 2025

EL SEGUNDO — The rhythms and flows of the Lakers’ first-round playoff series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, in which they’re trailing 0-1, allowed for more reflecting time than teams usually get during the regular season – and most other playoff rounds – after Saturday night’s lopsided Game 1 loss at Crypto.com Arena.

With two days off between the series opener and Tuesday night’s Game 2, the Lakers had plenty of time to not only look at what went wrong, but also what they could do better to give themselves the best chance of pulling even in the best-of-seven series before Games 3 and 4 in Minneapolis.

“We just have to do a lot of things better,” Coach JJ Redick said after Tuesday’s practice. “And it starts with playing harder and being organized.”

The “playing harder” feedback was a talking point repeated by several Lakers, with the team having “our best practice … in months” on Tuesday, according to Redick, with the session featuring live play “for a very extended period.”

The effects of the practice were evident, with Austin Reaves and Dorian Finney-Smith both covered in sweat as they walked up to the microphone stand for their post-practice availabilities.

“Got a good lather,” Redick said.

But for the Lakers, “playing harder” isn’t just about how much a player sweats, how many miles they run or how quickly they move on the court.

“It’s how connected we are when everybody’s giving it everything they have on every possession,” Reaves said. “You’re more locked into every detail on both ends of the floor. And that’s what the playoffs are about – winning on small details. Unfortunately, we didn’t do it in the first game. But it’s first to win four games.”

And the Lakers didn’t succeed with those small details.

Whether it was boxing out to prevent the Timberwolves from grabbing offensive rebounds – they had 11, leading to 23 second-chance points.

Or getting back in transition, leading to Minnesota scoring 25 fast-break points – a figure that undersells how effective the Timberwolves were in the open court.

“We’re communicating, giving second and third efforts,” Finney-Smith responded when asked what it looks like when they’re playing hard. “Teams [are] getting one shot at the rim, not two.

“I wouldn’t say we [weren’t] playing hard because our first shot defense was good. We just [weren’t] getting those loose balls. They [were] first to the ball. They [were] just a little bit more into it. And we got to do the same.”

As for being more organized, Redick sees it as less of a play-calling issue but more of the team being more consistent with its on-court principles.

“It’s just all of the normal stuff that we try to do and when we do it, we’re really good,” he said. “Being organized is screening. Being organized is getting to the proper spacing. Being organized is getting the corners filled after makes and misses. That’s being organized.

“Our early offense stuff is like any team. It’s the same [expletive]. It’s remarkable how many possessions we had three to four guys at halfcourt with 15 [seconds] on the [shot] clock. Literally bunched up together at halfcourt.”

TIMBERWOLVES AT LAKERS

What: Western Conference playoffs, first round, Game 2

When: Tuesday, 7 p.m.

Where: Crypto.com Arena

TV/radio: TNT, Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Advanced cancers back at prepandemic levels, despite delay in screenings

• April 21, 2025

By CARLA K. JOHNSON

Many Americans were forced to postpone cancer screenings — colonoscopies, mammograms and lung scans — for several months in 2020 as COVID-19 overwhelmed doctors and hospitals.

But that delay in screening isn’t making a huge impact on cancer statistics, at least none that can be seen yet by experts who track the data.

Cancer death rates continue to decline, and there weren’t huge shifts in late diagnoses, according to a new report published Monday in the journal Cancer. It’s the broadest-yet analysis of the pandemic’s effect on U.S. cancer data.

In 2020, as the pandemic began, a greater share of U.S. cancers were caught at later stages, when they’re harder to treat. But in 2021, these worrisome diagnoses returned to prepandemic levels for most types of cancer.

“It is very reassuring,” said lead author Recinda Sherman of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. “So far, we haven’t seen an excess of late-stage diagnoses,” which makes it unlikely that there will be higher cancer death rates tied to the pandemic.

Similarly, the number of new cancer cases dropped in 2020, but then returned to prepandemic levels by 2021. The size of the 2020 decline in new cancers diagnosed was similar across states, despite variations in COVID-19 policy restrictions. The researchers note that human behavior and local hospital policies played more of a role than state policy restrictions.

Late-stage diagnoses of cervical cancer and prostate cancer did increase in 2021, but the shifts weren’t large. The data analysis goes only through 2021, so it’s not the final word.

“We didn’t see any notable shifts,” Sherman said. “So it’s really unlikely that people with aggressive disease were not diagnosed during that time period.”

The report was produced by the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries, the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

​ Orange County Register 

NCAA passes new rules to allow direct payments to players

• April 21, 2025

By EDDIE PELLS AP National Writer

The NCAA passed rules Monday that would upend decades of precedent by allowing colleges to pay their athletes per terms of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement expected to go into effect this summer.

The nine proposals passed by the NCAA board were largely expected but still mark a defining day in the history of college sports. An athlete’s ability to be paid directly by his or her university is on track to be enshrined in a rulebook that has forbidden that kind of relationship for decades.

For the NCAA rules to officially go into effect, the changes prescribed by the House settlement still have to be granted final approval by a federal judge, whose hearing earlier this month led to questions about potential tweaks before the new guidelines are supposed to go into play on July 1.

The changes will eliminate around 150 rules and alter many others in the NCAA’s sprawling rulebook. They essentially codify measures set up by the settlement, including:

• Modifying bylaws to allow schools to pay the athletes directly.

• Eliminating scholarship limits for teams, while also setting roster limits that are designed to replace the scholarship caps. Some details of the roster limits, which were a key sticking point in the April 7 hearing, will be finalized later.

• Establishing annual reporting requirements for schools that pay athletes; a payment pool is set to be approximately $20.5 million for the biggest schools beginning next academic year. (Not all Division I schools will choose to operate in the new system enabled by the settlement, as the Ivy League has chosen to opt out and continue to operate under the current structure.)

• Setting up a clearinghouse for all name, image and likeness (NIL) deals that come from third parties and are worth $600 or more.

• Granting authority to an enforcement body being developed by the conferences named as defendants in the lawsuit to enforce the new rules passed to implement terms of the settlement. This includes compliance with roster limits, payment of direct benefits to players and meeting requirements for the third-party deals.

One change allows for the creation of technology platforms for schools to monitor payments to athletes and for the athletes to report their third-party NIL deals.

Players will still be allowed to hire agents for NIL purposes, but the NCAA will still use certain eligibility rules that have been used to “distinguish Division I athletics from professional sports,” according to a document that summarizes the legislative changes. For the athletes to receive these benefits, the NCAA will require them to be enrolled full-time, meet Division I progress-toward-degree requirements and earn the benefits during their five-year eligibility period.

The board received updates from a working group designed to propose ways to streamline NCAA governance – a topic that has come up as the bigger conferences have sought more decision-making power in some areas.

​ Orange County Register 

Pope Francis was a source of controversy and spiritual guidance in his Argentine homeland

• April 21, 2025

By ISABEL DEBRE

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — The faithful in Pope Francis’ hometown lit candles in the church where he found God as a teenager, packed the cathedral where he spoke as archbishop and prayed Monday in the neighborhoods where he earned fame as the “slum bishop.”

For millions of Argentines, Francis — who died Monday at 88 — was a source of controversy and a spiritual north star whose remarkable life traced their country’s turbulent history.

Conservative detractors of the first Latin American pope criticized his support for social justice as an affinity for leftist leaders.

They pointed to his warm meetings with former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a divisive left-leaning populist figure whose unbridled state spending many Argentines blame for the nation’s economic decline. They compared their enthusiastic encounters to an unusually stern-faced Francis meeting center-right former President Mauricio Macri for a curt 22 minutes in 2016.

“Like every Argentine, I think he was a rebel,” said 23-year-old Catalina Favaro, who had come to pay her respects at the downtown cathedral. “He may have been contradictory, but that was nice, too.”

Kirchner on Monday paid tribute to her bond with Francis, saying he was “the face of a more humane church” and recalling their shared love of a prominent Argentine novelist who lionized the country’s populist left-leaning Peronist movement and its efforts to upend class structure in the 1940s and 50s.

Macri called Francis “a stern politician” but overall “a good pastor” whose name deserves “admiration and respect.”

Dedication to the needy

At his regular 8:30 a.m. Mass, Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Ignacio García Cuerva recalled Francis’ dedication to the less fortunate.

“The pope of the poor, of the marginalized, of those excluded, has passed away,” García Cuerva announced. Alluding to Francis’ contested legacy, he added: “He was the Pope the Argentines, whom we didn’t always understand, but whom we loved.”

Vatican observers have long described Francis’ decision never to visit his homeland after becoming pontiff as an aversion to his country’s polarizing politics.

Tensions reached a head under current libertarian President Milei, who insulted Francis as a “filthy leftist” and “the representative of the evil one on earth” before he took office in December 2023.

They appeared to reconcile during a meeting in Rome last year. But when Argentine police lashed out at retirees protesting for better pensions in Buenos Aires, Francis broke his customary silence to chide Milei on the impact of his government’s austerity program: “Instead of paying for social justice, they paid for pepper spray,” he said.

Milei couched his condolences with a nod to those tensions.

“Despite differences that seem minor today, having been able to know him in his kindness and wisdom was a true honor for me,” he wrote on social media.

Never traveled home as pope

Francis traveled the world — and even to neighboring Bolivia, Chile and Paraguay — but never set foot in his homeland after his election in March 2013, much to the chagrin of his compatriots.

“That’s a political decision, there’s no doubt,” Alejandra Renaldo, 64, said from Francis’ childhood church in the scruffy, middle-class neighborhood of Flores, less than half a mile from his first home.

“Can you believe he never went to his own land? I much prefer John Paul II, he went to Poland, his country, right after becoming pope. He didn’t have any political ideas.”

At the cathedral where Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, became archbishop in 1998, worshippers bowed their heads in silent prayer. Some wept, ashen. They left flowers and handwritten notes on the steps and affixed stickers for Francis’ favorite local soccer team, San Lorenzo, on the stone columns.

In Flores, where Bergoglio was born to an Italian immigrant father and a mother of Italian descent, Argentines stopped to gather around the confessional in the church where, at 16, Bergoglio had said he first heard the call to the priesthood.

“He was a father to us in Flores,” said Gabriela Lucero, 66, as she rose for morning Mass in the Basilica of San Jose de Flores. “His primary philosophy was that those church doors remain open to everyone, immigrants, the poor, the struggling, everyone.”

Grief in poor Argentine neighborhoods

With Milei declaring a week of mourning and lowering flags to half-staff, there was a strong sense of grief across the country. But nowhere was it more apparent than in the hardscrabble neighborhoods where Francis focused his outreach as archbishop.

His legacy can still be seen in the cadre of priests who have continued working, living and helping the poor in these districts long neglected by successive governments, where garbage spills onto sidewalks and the stench of sewage wafts over rutted dirt streets.

Residents of Villa 21-24, a neighborhood in southern Buenos Aires, grew emotional as they remembered Francis visiting regularly to share yerba maté, Argentina’s traditional herbal drink, with pious mothers and recovering cocaine addicts alike.

They said he led religious processions barefoot in the streets and helped grow their ramshackle church into a place of prayer and spiritual contemplation, a vibrant community center with a garden and a school.

‘Most humble person in Buenos Aires’

“He was the most humble person in all of Buenos Aires. We’ll never see a pope like him again,” said Sara Benitez Fernandez, 57, a devout member of the congregation in the district. She choked on her tears as she recalled how he always took the subway and walked, never arriving in a car.

“I have no words, it hurts so much, so much,” she said.

The leader of the church, the Rev. Lorenzo de Vedia, a charismatic, disheveled priest known to most simply as Padre Toto, said the death of his close friend and mentor on Monday left him with a swell of sorrow and whirlwind of other feelings.

“It’s a day of pain, but we’re not losing the spirit,” he said, as squealing children chased each other outside the rectory. “We carry on and we fulfill his legacy. We’re going ahead with the mission that he entrusted to us.”

Associated Press videojournalist Victor Caivano in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Abortions are resuming at a Wyoming clinic after judge suspends laws

• April 21, 2025

By MEAD GRUVER

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Wyoming’s only abortion clinic is resuming abortions after a judge on Monday suspended two state laws.

One suspended law would require clinics providing surgical abortions to be licensed as outpatient surgical centers. The other would require women to get an ultrasound before a medication abortion.

Wyoming Health Access in Casper had stopped providing abortions Feb. 28, the day after Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed the licensing requirement into effect.

The result: At least some women seeking abortions had to travel out of state. Now, women will once again be able to get abortions in central Wyoming while the two laws continue to be contested in court, Wellspring Health Access founder and president Julie Burkhart said Monday.

“We are immediately shouting it from the rooftop to make sure our patients know,” Burkhart said following the ruling. “We are back to seeing patients the way we were on Feb. 27.”

An abortion opponent questioned the need to contest the laws if the clinic was safe.

“The abortion business here in Casper could prove that they are providing safe services by complying with laws. Would that not make their point?” Ross Schriftman, president of Natrona County Right to Life, said in an email statement Monday.

Abortion has remained legal in Wyoming despite bans passed since 2022. The bans include the nation’s first explicit ban on abortion pills.

A judge in Jackson blocked the bans then struck them down in November on the grounds that abortion is allowed by a 2012 state constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right of competent adults to make their own health care decisions.

The Wyoming Supreme Court heard arguments in that case Wednesday and is unlikely to rule for at least several weeks.

Meanwhile, the same people challenging the bans — Wellspring Health Access, the abortion access advocacy group Chelsea’s Fund, and four women, including two obstetricians — have sued to block Wyoming’s most recent two abortion laws.

The surgical center licensing requirement would require costly renovations to make Wellspring Health Access compliant, the clinic said in its lawsuit.

Gordon vetoed the requirement for an ultrasound at least 48 hours before a pill abortion, calling it onerous in cases of abuse, rape, or when a woman’s health is at risk. State lawmakers voted to override the veto on March 5.

The ultrasound requirement did not significantly affect clinic operations but Wellspring Health Access also suspended offering pill abortions to avoid legal complications. The law stands to add to the cost and complications for women getting pill abortions.

Opponents call laws like Wyoming’s requirements “targeted restrictions on abortion providers” because they can regulate clinics and abortion access out of existence even if abortion remains legal.

In blocking the laws while the lawsuit proceeds, District Judge Thomas Campbell in Casper ruled that they too stand to violate the constitution.

Despite the new restrictions, Wellspring Health Access has remained open to consult with patients and provide hormone replacement therapy for transgender patients. The clinic opened in 2023, almost a year late after heavy damage from an arson attack.

​ Orange County Register 

Chipotle heads south of the border, opening 1st location in Mexico

• April 21, 2025

By Dee-Ann Durbin | The Associated Press

Chipotle Mexican Grill is coming to Mexico.

The Newport Beach-based chain said Monday it’s planning to open a restaurant in Mexico early next year, its first location south of the border in its 30-year history.

Chipotle is partnering with Alsea in Mexico City, a company that operates Domino’s, Starbucks, Burger King, Chili’s and other brands in South America and Europe. Alsea plans to explore additional expansion in Mexico and other locations in the region.

Nate Lawton, Chipotle’s chief business development officer, said the company is confident that its menu will resonate with Mexican diners.

“The country’s familiarity with our ingredients and affinity for fresh food make it an attractive growth market for our company,” Lawton said in a statement.

But at least one U.S.-based Mexican chain has struggled to make it in Mexico. Taco Bell opened a few outlets in Mexico City in 1992 but they closed within two years. The brand opened another store in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2007 which also didn’t last.

The expansion arrives as President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Mexican imports could increase costs for U.S. Chipotle locations.

Last week, the U.S. Commerce Department said it plans to withdraw from a 2019 agreement suspending an antidumping investigation into fresh tomato imports from Mexico. That termination, set to take effect July 14, means most tomatoes from Mexico will be subject to a 20.91% tariff.

Chipotle gets around half of its avocados from Mexico, but so far those are not subject to tariffs.

Chipotle, which was founded in Denver in 1993, has 3,700 restaurants and plans to open up to 345 new locations this year.

It has been focused on growing its international footprint. Last year, it partnered with Alshaya Group to open a restaurant in Kuwait, its first new market in a decade. It now has three restaurants in Kuwait and two in the United Arab Emirates.

​ Orange County Register