| Just hours after the US Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, Republican-controlled states including Texas and Missouri moved to severely limit or ban the procedure while some two dozen other states are expected to do so. Reproductive rights activists exploded in protest as employers including JPMorgan, CVS and Disney said they would pay travel costs for employees seeking access. President Joe Biden warned that women’s rights and health are at risk under the GOP-appointed majority’s ruling, and pledged he would protect access to early-pregnancy abortion drugs. But next up for reconsideration by the six justice majority, which includes all three of Donald Trump’s appointees, could be contraception and gay marriage. Noah Feldman, writing in Bloomberg Opinion, says “it’s open season on fundamental rights.”  Abortion rights demonstrators react outside the US Supreme Court in Washington on June 24. The decision could eventually lead to abortion being severely restricted or illegal in half of the country. Photographer: Ting Shen/Bloomberg Earlier this week, the same six justices moved to radically expand a different right, overturning many laws that bar carrying a gun in public. In New York, officials are working to come up with new regulations that satisfy the decision while limiting its impact, which firearm restriction proponents warn will be more gun violence and deaths. Meanwhile, Congress passed new, bipartisan gun legislation, the first in decades but limited in scope. The bill, to be signed by Biden, doesn’t address the assault weapons, ammunition or minimum purchasing age that figured in recent massacres in an Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York. Though markets had a winning day Friday, overall this year stocks have been tanking, interest rates soaring and recession fears mounting. Now, the red-hot housing market is cooling. In the UK, Canada and the US, would-be buyers are turning to rentals, pushing demand—and rent, a key element of inflation—even higher. With mortgage rates north of 6% in the US, refinancing has screeched to a halt, leading to job cuts at some companies. Another wrinkle: A slowdown (or correction) in housing could create a ripple effect that would deepen any economic slump. “It all feels a little bit like standing on a precipice” writes Brooke Sample in Bloomberg Opinion.
Precision artillery systems arrived in Ukraine from the US as Russia’s war nears the four-month mark. The European Union granted Ukraine and Moldova candidate status, though joining the bloc could take years. And mystery surrounds the buyer of Russian gold imported to Switzerland for the first since February. The Jan. 6 committee this week laid out the “pure insanity” leading up to the insurrection, when Donald Trump and his aides allegedly scrambled to get the Justice Department to support his false claims of election fraud. Once considered Republican royalty, Liz Cheney’s starring role in the investigation of the 2021 attack and the attempt to keep Trump in power has made her a pariah in her home state Wyoming. Now she’s relying on Democrats to help keep her in office.  Liz Cheney Photographer: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg Children in Beijing must show a negative coronavirus PCR test to go to the park, with no loosening of China’s Covid zero policy in sight (though Macau won’t shutter casinos despite an outbreak there). South Africa, which has been hit hard during the pandemic, dropped its last restrictions. In the US, one fifth of infected people report symptoms of long Covid. Getting your greens in a cocktail usually means olives, but London watering holes are offering a fuller harvest: earthy and vegetable tipples with avocado, asparagus and even porcini mushroom. Two former Goldman Sachs bankers in New Jersey now make chocolates inspired by ayurveda, the Indian practice of natural medicine, and Mystic, Connecticut, is emerging as a chef’s “paradise,” moving beyond pizza to some of the US’s best seafood and other specialties.  Elements founders and former Goldman Sachs bankers Alak Vasa (left) and Kushal Choksi. Source: Bloomberg During the first few months of this year—back when buying digital tokens named after dog memes still seemed a reasonable way to participate in finance’s bright new future—the cryptocurrency exchange Binance promoted a new way to get in on the action. Now, Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao—crypto’s richest man—is staring down winter and a looming regulatory crackdown.  Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao Photographer: Laura Stevens for Bloomberg Businessweek Get Bloomberg’s Evening Briefing and Weekend Reading: If you were forwarded this newsletter, sign up here to get it every Saturday, along with Bloomberg’s Evening Briefing, our daily report on the biggest global news. Do you own an electric car? If you live in the US, Bloomberg Green wants to learn more about your experience with EVs. Take our brief survey at this link. | 
