The decision by the Alabama Supreme Court last month raised concerns about civil liabilities for clinics and prompted an outcry from patients and other groups. Three major IVF providers paused services.

The new law protects providers from lawsuits and criminal prosecution for the “damage or death of an embryo” during IVF services.

Republicans in the state Legislature proposed the lawsuit immunity as a way to get clinics reopened. They refused, however, to take up a bill that would address the legal status of embryos.

The state’s three major IVF providers paused services after the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling last month.

The decision prompted an outcry from groups across the country. Patients in Alabama also shared stories about having upcoming embryo transfers abruptly canceled and their paths to parenthood put in doubt.

“I’m just elated to get these ladies back on schedule,” said Republican Sen. Tim Melson, the bill sponsor.

The state Supreme Court ruled that three couples who had frozen embryos destroyed in an accident at a storage facility could pursue wrongful death lawsuits for their “extrauterine children.” The ruling, treating an embryo the same as a child or gestating fetus under the wrongful death statute, raised concerns about civil liabilities for clinics.

Republicans in the GOP-dominated Alabama Legislature looked to the immunity proposal as a solution to clinics’ concerns. But they have shied away from proposals that would address the legal status of embryos created in IVF labs.

House Democrats proposed legislation last week stating that a human embryo outside a uterus can not be considered an unborn child or human being under state law. Democrats argued that was the most direct way to deal with the issue. Republicans have not brought the proposal up for a vote.

Lawmakers pushed the immunity proposal as a way to address clinic’s immediate concerns and get them open. But they did not take up any legislation that would address the legal status of embryos.

“I think there is too much difference of opinion on when actual life begins. A lot of people say conception. A lot of people say implantation. Others say heartbeat. I wish I had the answer,” Melson said. Melson, who is a doctor, said lawmakers may have to come back with additional legislation but said he said it should be based on “science not feelings.”

The court ruled that three couples whose frozen embryos were destroyed when a hospital patient got into the storage unit at a fertility clinic and dropped the embryos could pursue wrongful death lawsuits for their “extrauterine children.” The ruling, treating an embryo the same as a child or gestating fetus under the wrongful death statute, raised concerns about civil liabilities for clinics. A fourth couple filed a similar wrongful death lawsuit last week.

The court ruling recognizing embryos as children drew a backlash and patients saw appointments abruptly canceled or their paths to parenthood put in doubt.

The bill says that “no action, suit, or criminal prosecution for the damage to or death of an embryo shall be brought or maintained against any individual or entity when providing or receiving services related to in vitro fertilization.” The immunity would be retroactive but would exclude pending litigation. Civil lawsuits could be pursued against manufacturers of IVF-related goods, such as the nutrient-rich solutions used to grow embryos, but damages would be capped and criminal prosecution would be forbidden.

Dr. Michael C. Allemand with Alabama Fertility said Tuesday that the legislative proposal would allow the clinic to resume IVF services by returning “us to a normal state of affairs in terms of what the liability issues are.”

He said the past weeks have been difficult on patients and staff as procedures have been postponed.

“There’s been some truly heart-wrenching conversations that have taken place,” Allemand said.

The American Society for Reproductive Medicine, a group representing IVF providers across the country, said the legislation does not go far enough. Sean Tipton, a spokesperson for the organization, said Monday that the legislation does not correct the fundamental problem, which he said is the court ruling “conflating fertilized eggs with children.”

House Democrats proposed legislation that would put in state law or the state Constitution that a human embryo outside a uterus cannot be considered an unborn child or human being under state law. Democrats argued that was the most direct way to deal with the issue. Republicans have not brought the proposals up for a vote.

Republicans are also trying to navigate tricky political waters — torn between widespread popularity and support for IVF — and conflicts within their own party. Some Republicans have unsuccessfully sought to add Louisiana-style language to ban clinics from destroying unused or unwanted embryos.

State Republicans are reckoning with an IVF crisis they partly helped create with anti-abortion language added to the Alabama Constitution in 2018. The amendment, which was approved by 59% of voters, says it is state policy to recognize the “rights of unborn children.”

The phrase became the basis of the court’s ruling. At the time, supporters said it would allow the state to ban abortion if Roe v. Wade were overturned, but opponents argued it could establish “personhood” for fertilized eggs.

During debate in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, state Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said lawmakers were attempting to play “lawsuit whack-a-mole” instead of confronting the real issue — the implications of personhood-like language in the Alabama Constitution.

“The real solution to this is determining the definition of a child and having a real conversation about the implications of some of the decisions we’ve made,” England said.

The 38-year-old conductor was in her cab on the Manhattan-bound No. 4 train at the 167th St. station in Concourse when a man approached her around 11:50 a.m. and smashed her in the head with the bottle, police said.

The attacker took off, and the injured woman continued on with her job for two stops, until she spotted officers at the 149th St.-Grand Concourse station.

The conductor asked the cops for help, and they called her an ambulance. Medics took her to Lincoln Hospital in stable condition.

There were no arrests as police worked to track down the man who struck her.

The attack came just days after conductor Alton Scott, 59, was slashed at the Rockaway Ave. station in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on Thursday, according to police.

Scott was cut when he poked his head out of the conductor’s cab of the Far Rockaway-bound A train at around 3:30 a.m., cops said.

A doctor on the train applied pressure on the wound until medics arrived and rushed the injured man to Brookdale University Hospital, where he needed 34 stitches and nine sutures to close up the deep cut.

Police are still looking for that slasher.

Concerns about subway crime prompted Gov. Hochul on Wednesday to announce 750 members of the National Guard and 250 state and MTA police officers are heading to subway stations to inspect passengers’ bags.

After students and teachers were shut out of virtual classrooms the morning of Feb. 13, Mayor Adams and Schools Chancellor David Banks insisted the tech behemoth should have been prepared after the city warned them the day before.

“Knowing that we’ve done everything we can to make sure that this technology was working above and beyond what it was contracted to do, hearing it be summarized as an IBM technology problem was, of course, frustrating,” Vanessa Hunt, senior state executive for New York at IBM said at an oversight hearing Wednesday at City Hall.

As the city hunkered down for expected significant snowfall, public schools announced the day before that classes would shift online — the first systemwide test of remote learning since the pandemic. Despite the advance notice, the public schools’ user log-in authenticator, which it contracts through IBM, buckled when hundreds of thousands of users tried to log on at once.

The chancellor, summing up the fiasco, explained IBM was “not ready for prime time.” While the majority of students eventually got online, many families gave up and ventured outside to enjoy the snow but missed a day of learning.

Hunt explained that the city and IBM are working off a contract that predates the pandemic’s expansion of remote learning. She said IBM has repeatedly increased the capacity of the system, “far beyond” the contracted levels, at no added cost. On the snow day, the platform was handling capacity more than five times what the city is paying for.

“On Feb. 13, the Department of Education had a closet door when it needed a barn door,” Hunt said. “Everyone tried to rush through that door at once.”

Going into the remote day, education officials promised they were prepared. At a press conference and closed-door meeting with elected officials, Banks and his deputies touted “simulations” that schools participated in before the winter break to test run a pivot to online.

But the city’s public schools did not conduct a load test ahead of time, education officials confirmed Wednesday. Remote learning practices took place over two weeks from November to December, with the exact date determined by dozens of superintendents. They would not commit to stress-testing the system going forward.

“It is a heavy lift and a big ask to ask all of our families and teachers to take that on, so we’re thinking we’re thinking that through,” said public schools’ Chief Operating Officer Emma Vadehera, who described a stress-test as not “industry standard.”

Education officials are considering changes to the contract, including a provision that would automatically adjust system capacity to its scale of users. In the meantime, the city could stagger start times on remote days to avoid repeating last month’s technical failures. Students would take turns logging on by grade level, which could take over an hour to get everyone online, according to early estimates.

“I know how frustrating it was for many students and families who experienced delays when logging in for class,” said Scott Strickland, who until last week was the public schools’ acting Chief Information Officer. “We’re sorry we did not prevent this issue from arising.”

She was immediately remanded to custody pending sentencing. She faces up to 18 months in prison and a $5,000 fine, according to The Associated Press.

Gutierrez-Reed was tasked with ensuring firearm safety and storage on the New Mexico set of the western when she handed Baldwin a prop gun that contained live ammunition. Baldwin fired, striking and killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, and wounding director Joel Souza.

In connection with the shooting, Baldwin was indicted by a grand jury in January, also for involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty and is slated for trial in July.

Gutierrez-Reed was also charged with evidence tampering for allegedly transferring a small bag of narcotics to someone else on the day of the shooting, special prosecutors said at the time.

During Gutierrez-Reed’s two-week trial, prosecutors said the then-24-year-old had unknowingly brought live ammunition on the set while being lax at following basic gun-safety guidelines that were industry standard. Witness after witness described set safety protocols that were akin to playing Russian roulette.

After the shooting, state officials found “willful and serious violations” and fined the production $136,793, the maximum allowed.

Prosecutors built on such allegations, doubling down in detailing “constant, never-ending safety failures” on the set, as prosecutor Kari Morrissey described it in her closing arguments. She also said Gutierrez-Reed exhibited an “astonishing lack of diligence” when it came to gun safety.

The young armorer’s defense meanwhile argued that she could not have shown “willful disregard” if she didn’t know the rounds were live. It has never been made clear how live ammo made it onto the set.

Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys also argued she was being made a scapegoat, adding she was not the one ultimately in control of the pace of the production.

“You had a production company on a shoestring budget [and] an A-list actor that was really running the show,” her attorney, Jason Bowles, said. “At the end, they had somebody they could all blame.”

After the verdict was read, Bowles said they planed to appeal.

Wednesday’s verdict shifts blame for Hutchins’ death in the wake of assistant director David Halls’ no-contest plea last year. Halls served six months of probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor negligent use of a deadly weapon for declaring the gun “cold” before handing it to Baldwin.

Baldwin meanwhile has maintained that he did not pull the trigger and would never have pointed and fired a gun at another human. The FBI said otherwise. If found guilty, he could face up to 18 months behind bars in New Mexico.

With News Wire Services

The old Toddle Inn was set for demolition in two weeks, but burned down early Wednesday morning, News12 New Jersey reported.

Firefighting crews responded to 850 Broad Avenue just after 2:20 a.m. and put out the fire within an hour, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.

“There was no ability for us to get inside,” Ridgefield Battalion Chief Scott Russo told the Bergen Record.

After the fire was doused, only rubble remained on the property. As investigators searched through the remnants of the building, they discovered a body.

Authorities said it was unclear if the person died from the fire or was already dead before the building began to burn. They were not immediately identified.

The building had sat vacant for months with no gas or electricity, and the windows and doors had been boarded up, officials told the Bergen Record. No first responders were wounded in the blaze.

“Everybody worked together as a team and it was extinguished quickly, under control very fast,” Deputy Chief Gary Bonacci told the outlet.

Arson investigators with the Ridgefield Police Department and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office are examining the blaze and its causes.

The Toddle Inn had been standing for a century and was owned by former Ridgefield Councilman Angus Todd and his ancestors for seven decades, according to the Bergen Record. Todd died in 2020, and the site remains scheduled for redevelopment.

Daquan David, 29, is charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon in the Feb. 26 death of Nazim Berry.

David asked Berry for a free Black & Mild at the bodega on Franklin St. near Lincoln Place in Crown Heights but the employee said no, cops said.

David left and then returned with a gun, allegedly shooting Berry, 37, in the head.

Cops found Berry outside the Amin Deli about 4:15 p.m.. Medics rushed him to Kings County Hospital but he could not be saved.

David’s arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court was pending Wednesday afternoon.

Hochul is slated to attend as a guest of Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a Manhattan-Bronx Democrat. Last year, Espaillat brought Mayor Adams as his guest to the State of the Union.

In a statement, the governor said much in New York hinges on federal action, including “addressing immigration and border security” after Republicans upended a bipartisan deal to secure the southwestern border.

Hochul apparently would be the first sitting New York governor to attend a State of the Union speech since at least the early ’80s. She is the first woman to serve as New York’s governor, and Espaillat said he thought it would be fitting to bring her at the start of Women’s History Month.

“She also has been a strong visionary for the state,” Espaillat said by phone, praising her work to help secure federal funding for families.

Hochul, a Democrat, has fostered a warm public relationship with Biden, and she is set to serve as one of his campaign surrogates in his expected general election race with Donald Trump.

Though she has at times directed public criticism toward the White House over the city’s migrant crisis, she has had a far gentler touch than Adams on the issue.

The Democratic mayor was removed from the president’s surrogate squad last year after saying Biden had “failed” New York.

The State of the Union offers a chance for the 81-year-old president to turn popular perceptions as he tilts into campaign mode and tries to dispel widespread concern that he is too old for another term.

Polls show Trump leading Biden.

New York politicians sent an array of messages through their State of the Union guests.

Rep. Tom Suozzi, the Democrat who won a special election on Long Island last month, invited the parents of Omer Neutra, a member of the Israeli Army who was taken hostage in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and remains missing.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, an Albany Democrat, invited Billie Jean King, the trailblazing tennis legend.

And Sen. Chuck Schumer of Brooklyn, the Democratic majority leader, invited a 25-year-old Ukrainian soldier who lost one of his legs below the knee after he was injured by a landmine. The soldier came to New York City this winter for medical treatment.

Schumer said he hoped the presence of the soldier, Andrii Chevozorov, would bring attention to the need for American weapons and equipment in Ukraine, which is losing ground to Russia’s invasion. 

Legislation to provide more U.S. aid to Ukraine has been held up by House Republicans.

Schumer told the Daily News he was bringing Chevozorov to “make a point” to the Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

“If he doesn’t put the bill on the floor, he will regret it next year and the year after,” Schumer said, warning of the Ukrainians’ plight. “One of the American leaders told me that if we don’t give them armaments, Russian tanks could be at the border of Poland in a year.”

Chevozorov is expected to wear his uniform to the speech.

Last week, the company announced a social media campaign with Hudson, a recording artist known for toying with “gender, sex, and free-expression paradigms” and who was named Best Spanish Act at last year’s MTV Europe Music Awards.

The partnership included a 50-second promo called “Crunch Talks,” which the influencer had briefly shared on her own social media accounts.

But on Tuesday, the PespiCo subsidiary announced their partnership was over, following growing backlash against resurfaced posts Hudson allegedly shared on social media in the past.

In a since-deleted message from nearly a decade ago, Hudson allegedly wrote about making fun of victims of sexual assault and wanting to do inappropriate things with a 12-year-old girl, according to Rolling Stone.

Hudson had reportedly apologized for the message after she became known in Spain, but over the weekend, screenshots of the alleged messages resurfaced online, prompting a massive call for a boycott of the snack.

Several other people online also joined the #BoycottDoritos campaign taking offense at the company’s hiring of a transgender woman to represent the brand — much like BudLight’s controversial and consequential choice of Dylan Mulvaney for a social media campaign last year.

In a statement to Rolling Stone, the company said that after becoming aware of Hudson’s deleted tweets from around 2015, “we have ended the relationship and stopped all related campaign activity due to the comments. We strongly condemn words or actions that promote violence or sexism of any kind.”

On Tuesday, Hudson addressed the controversy on X, once again admitting the comments were  “absolutely out of place, disgusting and offensive,” adding she wrote them as a younger person “in a context in which the general tone on social media was to use black humor in the grossest and most exorbitant way possible, as a way to generate attention.”

She also pointed out that the screenshot of a particularly disturbing tweet attributed to her, which has been circulating online is “totally false,” since it was written in 2014 and she said she only joined the platform the following year.

Trump has been working for months to turn back primary challenges and get Republicans behind his comeback campaign for the White House after four years out of power.

That goal was sealed after he scored a sweeping victory in the Super Tuesday primaries.

President Biden was already the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee even before he brushed off nominal primary challenges to his reelection bid.

Now, Biden hopes to utilize Thursday night’s State of the Union address to kick off his presidential campaign against Trump, a contrast he hopes will rally voters behind him despite concerns about his age and other potential political weak spots.

Here are some takeaways:

What will Joe say in SOTU?

Biden has a rare national platform to make his opening argument to Americans for why he deserves four more years in the White House.

Look for Biden to boast about his achievements and to pitch himself as uniquely qualified to lead the country and the world through a challenging period — and paint a sharp contrast with the chaos under Trump.

The stakes are quite high.

With voters on both sides of the aisle concerned about Biden’s age, any perceived gaffe could harden pre-existing opinions that he is just too old to serve.

On the other hand, Biden has the opportunity to cut through the political noise and demonstrate his often-underrated political skills.

Who benefits from the general election matchup being set?

Pundits have been puzzled by the persistently high number of Americans who did not believe that Biden and Trump would actually be their parties’ candidates for the White House.

Democratic strategists in particular believe that Biden could benefit from the matchup between the two men now being set in stone.

Team Biden believes that Democratic voters may start focusing on Trump, a candidate many of them loathe and is perhaps the biggest motivator for them to get behind anyone running against him.

Can Trump rally Republican critics who backed Nikki Haley?

For Trump, the immediate challenge is to win over Republicans who supported Nikki Haley in the just-completed primary fight.

“Clearly there are a quarter to a third of the people who voted in the Republican primaries … who simply won’t accept him or don’t wan’t him back in the White House,” Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, said on CNN.

If past is prologue, Trump will likely seek to project strength with the Republican base as way to bring “traditional Republicans” back in the fold, Sabato added.

But Republican strategist Doug Heye noted that it won’t be a cakewalk for Trump, given that he deliberately sought to push away Haley supporters by declaring them “permanently banned” from his MAGA movement.

“That is dumb,” Heye told the News. “Anyone wearing a ‘Permanently Banned’ T-shirt is unlikely to return to the fold of the person insulting them.”

It appears that Trump’s mounting legal woes may not be the massive political headache they once seemed certain to pose.

So far, Trump’s indictment on 91 felonies and his four looming criminal trials have not damaged his political standing.

If anything, he has succeeded in using the trials to rally his supporters behind the idea that he is being unfairly targeted by liberal prosecutors.

Can Biden unify a fractured Democratic coalition?

The incumbent president has a unity problem of his own.

Biden is facing serious dissatisfaction with Democratic voters, some of whom are disenchanted over his handling of the economy or blame him for the influx of migrants across the southern border and into northern cities.

The most visible split is over Biden’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. Critics have mounted modestly successful campaigns to register opposition to the war in states like Michigan, where 13% of Democrats shunned him to vote for “uncommitted” delegates.

Polls show Biden suffering from relatively low approval with Latinos, Blacks and young voters, all key portions of the Democratic base.

That’s a flashing danger sign for the incumbent. But it’s also an opportunity for Biden to win back voters who traditionally back the Democrat in the end.

Sabato notes that the White House needs to do a much better job communicating his policy achievements on issues like the economy and abortion rights.

“They have got to use the campaign and the State of the Union address to make it clear what they have actually done,” he said.

A cluster of cases of the contagious virus quickly spread among an eight-person family in Hunterdon County, the state department of health said Tuesday.

The original infection could be tied to recent international travel, officials said.

No other details about the case were released due to privacy laws.

People with the mumps quickly start exhibiting symptoms, including fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness and loss of appetite.

After several days, the salivary glands can swell, causing puffy cheeks and other discomfort in the face. It can also cause swelling of the brain, testicles, ovaries or breast tissue, which could lead to a number of other complications including brain inflammation, infertility or deafness.

The New Jersey Department of Health advised residents to get vaccinated against mumps, measles and rubella if they hadn’t done so already.

“These viruses are incredibly contagious, so if you suspect you may have measles, mumps, or rubella, it is important to call ahead before visiting any health care provider or facility so they can take special precautions,” acting health commissioner Dr. Kaitlan Baston said in a statement.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of mumps cases fluctuates year-to-year. There were 436 cases reported in the country last year.

“As a physician and as a mom, I understand what it is like to try to keep your kids and your family healthy,” Baston said. “The best way to keep you and your loved ones safe is to get the MMR shot. If you or your family have not gotten the shot, now is the time.”