Raphael Stevens

The Tulsa Women’s Clinic was a safe haven for women fleeing Texas after the state banned most abortions.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, Oklahoma will make performing abortion a felony and the clinic will shut down.
26 U.S. states will ban abortion if Roe is overturned, leaving millions of women without access to the procedure in their home states, according to the Guttmacher Institute..

A surgical tech and recovery room staff member, walk a patient from Texas to the recovery room following her abortion at the Trust Women clinic in Oklahoma City, U.S., December 6, 2021.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

The Tulsa Women’s Clinic, one of four abortion providers in Oklahoma, might have to shut down completely as soon as this summer if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade as expected later this year.
A leaked draft opinion from the high court last week showed that the conservative majority is prepared to overturn the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. If the court follows through with the draft opinion, it would cause a schism between states where abortion remains legal and those where it is banned, leaving millions of women with little or no access to abortion.

Oklahoma is one of 26 states that plans to ban all abortions if Roe is overturned, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that supports abortion rights.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed legislation in April that makes performing an abortion a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison or a $100,000 fine. The law makes an exception for medical emergencies where the mother’s life is in danger but not for cases of rape or incest. The abortion ban goes into effect in August, after the Supreme Court’s current term ends and a ruling on Roe would have presumably been made.
“It would mean no abortion, so it means no clinic,” said Andrea Gallegos, executive administrator at the Tulsa Women’s Clinic. “We would not be able to continue to offer the service that we provide,” Gallegos said.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said overturning Roe would further cement inequality in the U.S. health-care system, primarily punishing lower-income women, including minority communities that already struggle to access quality health care. People with financial means who live in states where abortion faces a total ban will be able to travel to other states where the procedure remains legal, Benjamin said.
“Well-to-do women will not have this as a significant barrier. Lower-income women will,” he said.

Some women who need an abortion are already forced to cross state lines even with Roe in place. When Texas passed a law last year banning most abortions, patients began to flee to clinics in neighboring Oklahoma to receive care. The Tulsa Women’s Clinic saw its patients nearly triple as its sister facility in San Antonio, Alamo Women’s Reproductive Services, started referring patients there, according to Gallegos.
“We became a safe haven for Texas patients who were having to flee the state to seek care,” Gallegos said.
Oklahoma, however, is no longer a safe haven. The governor signed a law last week implementing the same restrictions as Texas. Abortions are now illegal after a heartbeat is detected in the embryo on an ultrasound, which occurs as early as the sixth week of pregnancy. The law, called the Oklahoma Heartbeat Act, makes no exceptions for rape or incest. It only allows abortions in medical emergencies, like if the mother’s life is at risk.
“Many women are just discovering they’re pregnant at about the same time, so the window to be able to access abortion has narrowed drastically,” Gallegos said.
The law bans most abortions in Oklahoma. In 2019, 56.4% of abortions in the state were performed after the sixth week of pregnancy, when a heartbeat is normally detected, while 43.6% were performed at or before week six, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The law empowers private individuals to sue virtually any person who performs or “aids and abets” an abortion within six years of the procedure. The defendant would face $10,000 in damages for each abortion performed. Patients seeking abortions cannot be sued.

CNBC Health & Science

Read CNBC’s latest global coverage of the Covid pandemic:

“It doesn’t make sense now for Texas women to travel to Oklahoma,” Gallegos said. Since the law passed, the Tulsa Women’s Clinic could not perform abortions on about half the patients seeking the procedure because they did not arrive before cardiac activity was detected in the embryo, Gallegos said.
Some women who are turned away in Oklahoma will likely cross state lines to get abortions at clinics in neighboring Arkansas and Kansas, where the laws aren’t as restrictive. However, if the Supreme Court overturns Roe, Arkansas also plans to outlaw abortion. That would leave just four clinics in Kansas, where the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of abortion rights in 2019, to serve millions of people in the region.
In that scenario, wait times at clinics in Kansas would increase substantially due to the influx of patients from neighboring states which would further limit access, according Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, spokesperson for Trust Women, which has clinics in Wichita, Kansas, and Oklahoma City that provide abortions.
“The clinic system in this region, it’s just not robust enough to take the loss of so many clinics,” said Gingrich-Gaylord.
Though the Food and Drug Administration now allows women to receive the abortion pill by mail, Oklahoma also bans doctors from using telemedicine appointments to prescribe the pill and monitor patients taking it. The pill, mifepristone, is approved for use up to 10 weeks into pregnancy. In 2019, about 54% of early pregnancy abortions were medical abortions with the pill, according to the CDC.
Dozens of the nation’s leading medical groups, in briefs filed before the Supreme Court last year, argued that abortion is a safe and essential component of health care. They included the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and numerous others. 
Benjamin with the public health group said overturning Roe creates an “enormous risk for women’s health.” 
“When the procedure is not done under proper guidance in a sterile and appropriate setting, there’s a risk of septic infection and death,” he said. “There’s a risk of sterility. There’s a risk of bleeding to death.”
Obstetricians and gynecologists are worried that proper medical training on how to safely perform abortions could plummet if Roe is overturned. The percentage of residents who receive abortion training could drop from 92% as of 2020 to 56% if state abortion bans go into effect, according to a study published last week in Obstetrics and Gynecology, a peer-reviewed medical journal. The authors said the training is important not just for abortion care, but for other medical skills such as managing miscarriages.
Dr. Jen Villavicencio, with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, called the draft Supreme Court ruling an unprecedented attack on women’s health care that will create fear, confusion and impede patients’ access to pregnancy care more generally. With many women now facing the reality of having to travel to get an abortion, Villavicencio said the group is working to create an expanded network of physicians to help patients access care wherever they live.
“It’s critical that we expand access in states where it is not restricted in order to help those who travel from where it is,” she told CNBC in a statement via email.
In the Northeast, Gov. Kathy Hochul has vowed that New York, which legalized abortion three years before Roe v. Wade, will offer safe harbor to anyone who needs one.
“This is a fundamental right under assault,” Hochul said Thursday. “Come to New York. This is the birthplace of the women’s rights movement.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

Virgin Orbit is assembling a fleet of rocket-launching 747 jets, the company announced, ordering two new modified cargo airframes that CEO Dan Hart says “unleashes us in a few ways.”
The added jets open “up all sorts of possibilities for supporting different customers in different places,” Hart said.
Virgin Orbit expects to take delivery of the first of the two new planes next year.

The modified 737 aircraft “Cosmic Girl” lifts off from Mojave Air and Space Port in California carrying a LauncherOne rocket on June 30, 2021.
Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit is assembling a fleet of modified 747 jets, the company announced Tuesday, ordering two new modified cargo airframes to help launch more rockets into space.
The company is acquiring the two additional airframes through L3Harris, which will modify the jets to carry and launch Virgin Orbit’s rockets. Virgin expects to take delivery of the first of the planes next year.

Virgin Orbit CEO Dan Hart said the delivery timing of the second plane will be “driven more by market demand” for launches. The deal “unleashes us in a few ways,” he said. “It eliminates one of the key chokepoints that we have in the system,” Hart told CNBC.
It also will help the company keep launches going in case one of their aircraft is undergoing maintenance, which will open up “all sorts of possibilities for supporting different customers in different places,” he added.
Virgin Orbit has a single aircraft, a customized Boeing 747-400 called “Cosmic Girl,” which has flown four missions of Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket to date. Through a method known as air launch, the company’s aircraft carries its rockets to about 45,000 feet of altitude and drops them just before they fire their engines and accelerate into space — a method the company touts as more flexible than ground-based systems.
Hart declined to specify the financial details of the deal with L3Harris, but noted that the upfront cost of a 747 airframe is in the “single digit millions.”
Virgin Orbit’s new 747s will also feature an improved layout, with L3Harris modifying the aircraft to carry up to two LauncherOne rockets, as well as all of the company’s ground support equipment, to a launch site.

“The ability to deploy two rockets and all the ground equipment in one airplane, fly somewhere, set it up, and all of a sudden you’ve got a launch base somewhere is a pretty unique,” Hart said. “It adds a certain level of unpredictability for the national security community [and] it’s better economics for spaceports.”
Virgin Orbit went public via a SPAC in December. The company’s stock has fallen about 44% from its debut as of Monday’s close at $4.51 a share.

First U.K. launch coming up

Virgin Orbit’s modified 747 jet “Cosmic Girl” releases the company’s LauncherOne rocket for a mission on January 13, 2022.
Virgin Orbit

Virgin Orbit’s next scheduled mission is for the Pentagon. It will carry seven government satellites, planned for no earlier than June 29.
Next, the company expects to fly its first international mission, launching from Cornwall in the United Kingdom. To prepare for that mission, which is planned for the third quarter of the year, Hart said the company will do a full wet dress rehearsal of the Cornwall rocket at the company’s current base of operations at Mojave Air and Space Port in California, before flying Cosmic Girl and shipping out its equipment to the U.K.
Adding more aircraft gives Virgin Orbit key flexibility to serve international demand. Outside the U.S., the company currently has launch agreements with the U.K., Japan and Brazil, as well as memorandums of understanding with Poland and Oman.
“We’re having discussions with on the order of a half a dozen other countries as well,” Hart said.
Virgin Orbit also is looking at governments owning the 747 aircraft themselves, with the company providing launch services for the countries. “That’s the best economics because the logistics tail is pretty simple, and that’s what we’re going for,” Hart said.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

The Marilyn, known as “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” was one of five versions in different color schemes that Warhol painted in 1964, two years after Marilyn Monroe’s death.
While slightly below the $200 million estimate, and well below the $250 million to $300 million whisper prices many dealers had been hoping for, the sale is still seen as a vote of confidence for art as a long-term store of value amidst volatile market cycles.
The buyer was not identified.

A woman takes a photo of Andy Warhol’s ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ during Christie’s 20th and 21st Century Art press preview at Christie’s New York on April 29, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Angela Weiss / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
Angela Weiss | Afp | Getty Images

Andy Warhol’s 1964 portrait of Marilyn Monroe sold for $195 million at Christie’s Monday night, becoming the most expensive work of American art ever sold.
The price suggests that the art market, at least at the very high end, is largely holding up to the pressures of falling stocks and rising interest rates. Christie’s and Sotheby’s plan to sell more than $2 billion worth of art in the next two weeks, and the historic price for the “Marilyn” could boost the confidence of wealthy buyers for other works.

While slightly below the $200 million estimate, and well below the $250 million to $300 million whisper prices many dealers had been hoping for, the sale is still seen as a vote of confidence for art as a long-term store of value amidst volatile market cycles. The buyer was not identified.
“This shows that quality and scarcity are always going to push the market forward,” said Andrew Fabricant, the chief operating officer of Gagosian galleries and a top dealer to the wealthy. “It will give a bump psychologically to everyone’s thinking.”
The Marilyn, known as “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” was one of five versions in different color schemes that Warhol painted in 1964, two years after Marilyn Monroe’s death. With its bright colors and captivating expression, the portraits became some of Warhol’s most iconic and famous images. An orange version recently sold to hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin for over $200 million.
“It’s the Mount Everest of its era,” Fabricant said. “Everyone in the world when these paintings were made knew the story of Marilyn Monroe, the epic loss and the epic achievement. And Warhol himself was beginning to become an icon. So it’s two icons at their height.”
The portraits were based on a promotional photo of Monroe from the film “Niagara.” The portraits became even more famous when, shortly after they were completed, a woman walked into Warhol’s Factory studio with a gun and shot at a stack of four of them. The “sage blue” painting escaped damaged and the others were repaired. But the shooting added to their allure and became part of their titles.

The version sold Monday was owned by a Swiss art dealer family, the Ammanns, who have owned it since the early 1980s. The proceeds will go to charity. The Thomas and Doris Ammann Foundation in Zurich said it will use the funds to support health and education programs for children worldwide.
Aside from breaking the record for the most expensive work of American art ever auctioned, it is the second-most expensive work of art ever sold at auction, behind Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” that sold at Christie’s in 2017 for $450 million and ahead of Picasso’s “Les Femmes d’Alger,” which sold for $179 million in 2015.
Unlike most hyper-priced works sold at auction, “Marilyn” was not sold with a guarantee, which is a minimum price at which a third party or the auction house agrees to purchase the work. Dealers say the sellers wanted to maximize the charitable proceeds, and guarantees typically require sellers to give up some of the price upside above the guaranteed amount.
“This was a once-in-a-generation chance,” Fabricant said. “Pieces like this just don’t come around that often.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

President Joe Biden urged Congress on Monday to quickly approve a multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine before trying to pass a new round of Covid-19 funding.
Biden had previously insisted that the military aid and the pandemic funding be bundled together.
He said funding for shipments to Ukraine was set to run out in 10 days’ time, and therefore he was “prepared to accept that these two measures move separately.”

President Joe Biden urged Congress on Monday to quickly approve a multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine before trying to pass a new round of Covid-19 funding, warning that U.S. aid for that country’s fighters has nearly been exhausted.
Biden’s new position marked a reversal from his insistence last month that the military aid and the pandemic funding be bundled together. Decoupling the two bills significantly increases the chances Congress will pass the $33 billion in requested Ukraine funding, while dimming hope for the $10 billion in Covid relief funds Biden said are necessary to supply updated vaccines and shots for the fall.

“Previously, I had recommended that Congress take overdue action on much-needed funding for COVID treatments, vaccines and tests, as part of the Ukraine Supplemental bill,” Biden said in a statement released by the White House.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a Rose Garden event at the White House in Washington, May 9, 2022.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters

“However, I have been informed by Congressional leaders in both parties that such an addition would slow down action on the urgently needed Ukrainian aid — a view expressed strongly by several Congressional Republicans,” Biden said.
“We cannot afford delay in this vital war effort,” he said. “Hence, I am prepared to accept that these two measures move separately, so that the Ukrainian aid bill can get to my desk right away.”
Biden on April 28 had asked Congress to allocate $33 billion intended to cover humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine through September. Under Biden’s proposal, nearly two-thirds of that sum would go toward security and military assistance for Ukraine as it fends off invading Russian forces.
In his statement Monday, Biden said the additional funding is both necessary and urgent, with money for shipments to Ukraine set to run out in 10 days’ time. “I have nearly exhausted the resources given to me by a bipartisan majority in Congress to support Ukraine’s fighters,” he said.

“This aid has been critical to Ukraine’s success on the battlefield. We cannot allow our shipments of assistance to stop while we await further Congressional action,” Biden said.
His statement acknowledged that while there appears to be bipartisan support for the aid package, there is no such consensus for more Covid funding. Republicans had opposed Democrats’ efforts to pair the money for Ukraine with the additional pandemic relief funding.
“So I call on Congress to pass the Ukrainian Supplemental funding bill immediately, and get it to my desk in the next few days. And then, I urge Congress to move promptly on the COVID funding bill,” Biden said.
He stressed that more congressional action is required to address the pandemic.
“Without timely COVID funding, more Americans will die needlessly,” he said. “In the fall, if we are hit by new variants, it will be too late to get the tools needed for protection — critical treatments that will be available in Europe, but not the United States.”

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More

U.S. stock futures were higher on Monday night after the S&P 500 fell to its lowest level in more than a year.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures rose by 92 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures climbed 0.3% and 0.4%, respectively. Shares of AMC and Novavax made moves after hours on the backs of their most recent quarterly reports.

Earlier in the day, the S&P 500 dropped below the 4,000 level, or as low as 3,975.48, to mark the index’s weakest point since March 2021. The broad market index dropped 17% from its 52-week high as Wall Street continued to struggle finding a bottom after last week’s losses.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.99%, down more than 12% from 52-week highs. The S&P 500 fell 3.2%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 4.29%, off more than 27% from 52-week highs.
Those moves came as inflation fears continued to hit markets on all sides. Tech stocks especially took a beating. Shares for Meta Platforms and Alphabet fell 3.7% and 2.8%, respectively. Shares for Tesla dropped more than 9%.
“The sentiment has been very bearish for the last few months, if not the last few weeks for sure, and an inability to rally…tells you everything that you need to know about the current state of the market, meaning the bears are in control,” said Adam Sarhan, founder and CEO of 50 Park Investments.

Stock picks and investing trends from CNBC Pro:

Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note climbed to its highest level since late 2018, topping 3%.

In after hours trading on Monday, AMC’s stock price jumped 4% after the entertainment company reported its “strongest first quarter in two full years” as consumers returned to movie theaters.
Novavax’s stock price tumbled 10% in extended trading after the biotech company missed earnings expectations despite also reporting its first profitable quarter.
Peloton Interactive and Fox are set to report earnings on Tuesday before the bell. Coinbase, Roblox, RealReal and Allbirds are expected to report earnings on Tuesday after market close.

WATCH LIVEWATCH IN THE APP More