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 May 8, 2018, 5:33 PM GMT / Updated May 8, 2018, 8:32 PM GMT By Jonathan Allen, Alex Moe and Frank Thorp V

 WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he is withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal, reneging on a landmark pact and raising fears that Tehran might respond by resuming its frozen weapons program.

 "It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement," Trump said in a nationally televised statement from the White House. "The United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal."

 Trump further said that he would impose the "highest level" of sanctions, which would affect not only Iran but other countries that do business with it. The Treasury Department said a series of primary and secondary sanctions — those affecting American and foreign partners of Iran — would go back into effect after wind-down periods specified by law.

 In 2015, Iran agreed to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and to allow for international checks on its facilities — in exchange for moves by the U.S., several other countries and the United Nations to roll back sanctions that had crippled its economy. The accord was widely seen as the biggest foreign policy accomplishment of President Barack Obama's administration.

 But Trump has long been a critic of the agreement — calling it the "worst deal ever" — maintaining that Obama gave up too much for too little. His decision signals a dramatic reversal of U.S. policy, and his rhetoric was hawkish.

 The move also raises two important questions for the Trump administration and the international community: Whether Iran will respond by resuming its quest for nuclear weapons — and whether reneging on the Iran pact might affect North Korea's willingness to cut a denuclearization deal of its own with the president.

 U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in the air on his way to North Korea during the announcement, Trump said. Critics of Tuesday's move said Trump is giving North Korea little reason to trust him.

 "In a democracy, there will always be changes in policies and priorities from one Administration to the next," Obama said in a statement Tuesday calling Trump's actions "misguided" and harmful to America's standing in the world. "But the consistent flouting of agreements that our country is a party to risks eroding America's credibility, and puts us at odds with the world's major powers."

 Meanwhile, French President Emanuel Macron, who spoke with Trump Tuesday morning before the announcement, tweeted his "regret" over the president's decision. "The nuclear non-proliferation regime is at stake," he wrote.

 The withdrawal of the U.S. leaves a big hole at the negotiating table after Trump had sought over the past six months to force a new deal by threatening to scrap the existing one.

 Still, some in the administration and outside it were hopeful that his declaration would create pressure on Iran and America's partners in that deal — Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — to negotiate a new agreement in which Iran abandons its ballistic missile development, funding of terrorist groups, stated quest to destroy Israel and cyber-attacks on the U.S. and its allies.

 That group included some American critics of Trump's move, including members of his own party, who expressed hope that the U.S. would be a part of a renegotiated agreement in the coming months.

 "Without proof that Iran is in violation of the agreement, it is a mistake to fully withdraw from this deal," said Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. "Now, we need to work with our allies to fix this flawed agreement to ensure the world is not facing a nuclear Iran.”

 For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that his country would remain engaged with the other signatories to the original deal.

 "We've known for months that President Trump wouldn't be committed to this deal," he said. "The Iranian foreign ministry will continue talks with remaining countries in the deal."

 It is difficult to say exactly how Trump’s maneuver is likely to play out over time. The U.S. sanctions are complex, and only part of the international picture. Moreover, the reactions of each country involved in the original deal are difficult to predict precisely — including that of Iran itself: Even if Tehran doesn’t kick-start its nuclear weapons program, its leaders could banish inspectors.

 In the meantime, foreign countries and companies will be risking their ability to do business in the U.S. if they continue to buy Iranian oil.

 Iran initially came to the negotiating table because of the pain caused by economic sanctions imposed by Congress, a series of U.S. presidents, several foreign nations and the United Nations.

 Proponents of the deal say that it has worked — that Iran has kept its promises to halt the nuclear weapons program and to allow international vetting of its energy capabilities.

 But Trump campaigned on rewriting the pact, and in a speech to the U.N. last year, called it a major "embarrassment" and "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."

 Until Tuesday, though, he had taken a more measured approach to the deal. Last October, in declining to certify that Iran had lived up to its end of the bargain, Trump kicked a decision on whether to re-impose U.S. sanctions to Congress — which did not act.

 Trump pushed the call to Congress, even though he always has had the power to re-impose sanctions through executive action and perhaps because he knew it was unlikely Congress would be capable of agreeing to anything.

 Back then, his national security adviser was H.R. McMaster, who was considered a moderate on Iran. Now, though — with leading Iran critic John Bolton newly installed in McMaster's old role — Trump has decided to take on Tehran, a decision that has worried America's European allies.

 Trump's announcement did draw a positive response from some, including many congressional Republicans and the Saudi government — whose U.S. ambassador tweeted that it "fully supports the measures" — and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave a much-publicized presentation late last month in which he accused Iran of violating the deal because it hadn't shared pre-existing plans for nuclear weapons with the international community.

 In his remarks Tuesday, Trump pointed to thousands of documents detailing the program that Israeli intelligence operatives had spirited from Iran. In a televised address following Trump's speech, Netanyahu praised the president for his "courageous leadership." ||||| In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani attends a meeting with officials and industrialists, at a petroleum conference in Tehran,... (Associated Press)

 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump's decision on the Iran nuclear deal (all times local):

 2:25 p.m.

 President Donald Trump says the United States is withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, which he is calling "defective at its core."

 Trump on Tuesday signed a presidential memorandum withdrawing from the 2015 agreement and he is planning to reinstall sanctions on the Iranian regime. He says in an address to the nation that he will be reinstituting the highest level of sanctions and warning any country not to help the Iranian government.

 Trump says America "will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail" and will not allow "a regime that chants 'Death to America'" to get access to nuclear weapons.

 The president says he made the decision after consulting with U.S. allies.

 ___

 2:20 p.m.

 President Donald Trump is railing against the Iran nuclear agreement as "a horrible, one-sided deal" based on a lie.

 Trump's comments Tuesday come as he announces plans to follow through on his campaign threat to pull out of the landmark nuclear accord with Iran during a televised address at the White House.

 Trump says that if he allowed the deal to stand, there would soon be a nuclear arms race.

 He also says a constructive deal could easily have been struck at the time, but it wasn't.

 Trump is calling Iran a "regime of great terror."

 And he says that "no action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them."

 ___

 2:15 p.m.

 Israel's military says forces are on high alert and is urging civilians in the Golan Heights near Syria to prepare bomb shelters.

 The military directive Tuesday came "following the identification of irregular activity of Iranian forces in Syria." It said defense systems have been deployed.

 The statement came as President Donald Trump was set to announce Tuesday whether the U.S. will exit the 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers.

 The possibility of the nuclear deal collapsing has raised concerns it might embolden Iran to strike Israeli targets.

 Israel is believed to have been behind recent airstrikes on military bases in Syria that killed Iranian soldiers, prompting Tehran to vow retaliation. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. It has warned it will not tolerate archenemy Iran establishing itself militarily on its doorstep.

 ___

 1:40 p.m.

 Iran's state-run news agency is quoting an anonymous official saying President Hassan Rouhani (hah-SAHN' roh-HAH'-nee) will give a televised address after President Donald Trump announces his intention to pull America out of the Iran nuclear deal.

 IRNA filed the report late Tuesday, just ahead of Trump's speech from the White House's Diplomatic Room.

 IRNA offered no other immediate details.

 __

 12:55 p.m.

 President Donald Trump is following through on his campaign threat and withdrawing the U.S. from the landmark nuclear accord with Iran.

 That's according to two people familiar with the decision, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record. They did not have any details on how the withdrawal would unfold.

 Trump is expected to make the announcement Tuesday afternoon.

 It wasn't immediately clear which sanctions lifted under the deal that Trump plans to immediately re-impose. He has several options. A more limited move could leave Trump more room to potentially stay in the deal if other members agree to toughen it.

 The president has long criticized the 2015 agreement, which lifted most U.S. and international sanctions against the country. In return, Iran agreed to restrictions on its nuclear program making it impossible to produce a bomb, along with rigorous inspections.

 The decision deals a profound blow to some of America's closest allies — including Britain, France and Germany, who joined the U.S. only three years ago to sign the deal. |||||

– In a move he's been signalling for some time, President Trump on Tuesday withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, reports NBC News. “This is a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never ever been made," said the president in a televised news conference. "It didn't bring calm, it didn't bring peace, and it never will.” Trump, who accused Tehran of lying about its nuclear ambitions, also said the US would be reimposing the highest level of sanctions and warned other nations not to assist Iran, reports the AP. After his news conference, he signed a presidential memorandum to make the move official. The decision puts the US at odds with its European allies, which urged Trump to stick with the deal, and raises the possibility of tension with Russia and China, notes the New York Times. “We cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement,” Trump said in his remarks, adding that the agreement was "defective at its core" and an "embarrassment to me as a citizen and all citizens of the United States.” Doing away with what was considered President Obama's signature foreign policy achievement fulfills an oft-stated campaign pledge of Trump's, notes the Washington Post. Trump cited documents revealed last week by Israel suggesting that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in the 1990s, something it has repeatedly denied, and lied about that fact during negotiations for the 2015 accord. "At the heart of the Iran deal was a giant fiction," Trump asserted.


Article:

The posters appeared in several locations in Los Angeles.

 In posters that appeared in several locations in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Meryl Streep was seemingly depicted as a Harvey Weinstein enabler by anonymous street artists.

 Posters hung early in the morning, before the sun came up, feature an image of Streep next to Weinstein with a red strip across her face with the text “She knew,” an apparent reference to Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse of women over the course of decades.

 The posters are a riff on the work of artist Barbara Kruger, whose signature text in red banners has been adapted and copied for decades.

 The posters went up near Streep’s house in Pasadena, near the SAG-AFTRA building in Mid-Wilshire and across from the 20th Century Fox studio lot in Century City. Fox is behind the drama The Post, which stars Streep alongside Tom Hanks and opens on Jan. 11.

 The artists are referring to accusations (which Streep has denied) that she had knowledge of Weinstein's alleged predatory behavior and did not speak up. That claim has been promoted by actress Rose McGowan, who alleges she was raped by Weinstein.

 On Tuesday, Streep issued a response to McGowan. "I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the ‘90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others," Streep stated. "I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know." ||||| CLOSE Amber Tamblyn is not pleased with her friend Rose McGowan‘s decision to speak out against Hollywood actresses who plan to wear black to the Golden Globes in protest of sexual harassment Time

 Meryl Streep attends "The Post" Washington, DC premiere on December 14, 2017. (Photo: Paul Morigi, WireImage)

 As the Harvey Weinstein scandal continues to reverberate around Hollywood, Rose McGowan remains a vocal name, interviewing several accusers, and with anti-Meryl Streep posters showing up in Los Angeles following a recent Twitter diatribe against the actress.

 More developments as they happen:

 #SheKnew posters of Meryl Streep posted in L.A.

 On Wednesday, CBS Los Angeles shared footage of posters showing a photo of Meryl Streep with Harvey Weinstein, emblazoned with the text #SheKnew, near the SAG-AFTRA building in L.A. The posters also showed up in several other places around the city, and appear to have been installed before sunrise Wednesday morning.

 The posters follow McGowan's tweets this weekend calling out Streep for her professional relationship with Weinstein, and imply the Oscar-winner actress knew about Weinstein's alleged predatory behavior.

 In a tweet that appears to have been taken down, McGowan wrote that "actresses, like Meryl Streep, who happily worked for The Pig Monster, are wearing black @GoldenGlobes in a silent protest. YOUR SILENCE is THE problem. You’ll accept a fake award breathlessly & affect no real change. I despise your hypocrisy. Maybe you should all wear Marchesa."

 The clash originated over speculation that actresses, including Streep, plan to wear black gowns to the upcoming Golden Globes on Jan. 7 to protest sexual harassment of women.

 Streep responded in a letter sent to USA TODAY by her rep, Leslee Dart, writing, “It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the 90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others."

 More: Meryl Streep writes to Rose McGowan: 'It hurt to be attacked'

 More: Amber Tamblyn: 'I do not support' Rose McGowan's Meryl Streep-bashing

 McGowan interviews accusers for The Cut

 NBC’s Stephanie Gosk presented highlights from a roundtable about harassment, organized by New York Magazine and moderated by McGowan on Wednesday’s Today show.

 “My beef is really with all the people that are complicit,” McGowan said.

 The roundtable included accusers of President Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K. and John Hockenberry.

 “It’s tough being called a liar,” said Jessica Leeds, who has accused the president of groping her. “It’s very difficult to stand up and say, ‘This is what happened,’ and have an administration saying I’m lying.”

 Similarly, comedian Rebecca Corry, who says C.K. asked her to watch him masturbate, said she's faced severe backlash since coming forward. “I’m getting death threats, and I’m getting ripped apart,” she said. “I’m getting all this free hate every single day.”

 Weinstein accuser Dominique Huett (Hewitt) added that she found strength in the accusers that came before her. “I had a tremendous amount of self-blame until those women came forward and were published,” she said. “Then I kind of felt like wow, things are shifting. I can share this experience.”

 Ex-Weinstein assistant seeks to change gag laws

 In a Tuesday interview with the BBC, former Weinstein assistant Zelda Perkins says she broke the non-disclosure agreement she signed in hopes Great Britain will reform its gag laws.

 Perkins, one of the 80 plus women to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct, was one of two London-based Miramax assistants from the 1990s who received settlements written about in The New York Times’ Oct. 5 bombshell story.

 "I understand that non-disclosure agreements have a place in society for both sides, but it's really important that legislation is changed around how these agreements are regulated," she told BBC Newsnight. ”You cannot have a legal document that protects a criminal — this isn't someone who sold you a dodgy car."

 In her original October interview with The Financial Times, Perkins claimed Weinstein began harassing her the very first time they were alone together in his room at the Savoy Hotel, where he stayed while in London on business.

 Like many other accusers, Perkins said Weinstein would ask for massages or request that she be present while he bathed. But unlike other women who say he harassed or assaulted them once or twice, "this was his behavior on every occasion I was alone with him."

 She said she finally quit after Weinstein tried to rape her co-worker during a trip to the Venice Film Festival. But Perkins says she soon realized a financial settlement was her only recourse.

 "Once I realized this was my only (weapon) for preventing Harvey's behavior, to create an agreement that was as difficult for him as it was going to be for me," she explained. "He had to attend therapy for his behavior. I don't know if he attended therapy or not. I was not allowed to speak to a therapist without them signing a confidentiality agreement. I was not allowed to speak to my accountant with regard to the money (£125,000) that I received."

 Perkins continued, saying it was hard to know what counted as violating the agreement because she was forbidden to own a copy of it. Asked why this was, she told the BBC, "It's a smoking gun."

 On balance, Perkins was circumspect, saying, "You can't change the Harvey Weinsteins of the world. There are always going to be people who follow the darker side of their character. But if there rules and laws that we have to protect ourselves enable that, then there's no point in having them."

 “Mr. Weinstein categorically denies engaging in any non-consensual conduct or alleged threatening behavior,” his U.K.-based lawyer, Paul Tweed, told USA TODAY in a statement relayed by his American representatives.

 Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2BNxJYs ||||| LOS ANGELES -- Posters depicting Meryl Streep with the words "She knew" went up Tuesday around Los Angeles after the actress said she didn't know Harvey Weinstein was allegedly harassing and assaulting women when they worked together, CBS Los Angeles reports.

 Social media posts indicated posters were spotted near the SAG-AFTRA building, near Streep's Pasadena home, at the Hollywood and Highland complex, and across from the 20th Century Fox studio lot in Century City.

 It wasn't immediately clear who was responsible for the campaign, though street artist Sabo – who recently targeted Minnesota Sen. Al Franken after he was accused of misconduct – denied any responsibility.

 The posters followed a statement Monday from Streep saying Weinstein "needed me much more than I needed him and he made sure I didn't know." The Oscar winner says her association with him brought him credibility which, she says, he used "to lure young, aspiring women into circumstances where they would be hurt."

 CBS Los Angeles

 Streep says she composed the statement in response to a since-deleted tweet from Rose McGowan, who called out Streep for working with Weinstein. McGowan has alleged that Weinstein raped her.

 Getty Images

 McGowan had called Streep a hypocrite for a reported plan that she and other actresses would wear black at the Golden Globes to show unity with victims of sexual assault.

 Streep says she's sorry McGowan sees her as an adversary because, according to Streep, they are on the same side in the fight to eradicate the status quo power structure in Hollywood.

 Actress Amber Tamblyn, who says she is a friend of McGowan, also responded to her criticism by saying she does "not support any woman (or man) shaming or taunting the movements of other women who are trying to create change." |||||
What is a summary?

– In posters near the 20th Century Fox studio lot, the actors' union headquarters, and her home, Meryl Streep is accused of allowing Harvey Weinstein to allegedly prey on women for decades, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The posters feature a picture of Streep with Weinstein; a red bar across Streep's face reads "She Knew." CBS News reports it's unclear who is behind the posters, which went up in various locations around Los Angeles on Tuesday. The appearance of the posters follows allegations made against Streep by Rose McGowan over the weekend. McGowan, who says Weinstein raped her, claims Streep knew about Weinstein's alleged sexual misconduct and did nothing. McGowan called Streep a hypocrite over reports Streep plans to wear black to the Golden Globes in support of sexual assault victims, USA Today reports. In a statement Tuesday, Streep says she "did not know about Weinstein's crimes" and "wasn't deliberately silent."


Write an article based on this summary:

– As the Sochi Olympics kick off, Google has taken a swipe at Russia's record on gay rights with its latest doodle. The doodle features images of winter athletes on the rainbow colors of the gay pride flag, along with a pointed quote from the Olympic Charter, Business Insider reports. "The practice of sport is a human right," the quote reads. "Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity, and fair play." The doodle appears on Google homepages in every country, including Russia, Mashable notes.

One day ahead of the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Google has made a strong pro-LGBT statement with its latest homepage Google Doodle, which appears on every country's version of Google, including the Russian homepage.

 "The practice of sport is a human right," reads the quote from the Olympic Charter underneath a rainbow-colored sports doodle. "Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play." The rainbow flag, designed in San Francisco in 1978, has since been used to promote LGBT rights around the world.

 See also: Gay Rights Activists See Insult and Opportunity in Sochi

 Russia's practice of restricting the rights of gay citizens and banning anything it deems "homosexual propaganda," as well as President Vladimir Putin's discriminatory statements on the matter, have played a front-and-center role in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

 Olympic brands have been slow to show their support for the gay community, but AT&T and American Apparel waded into the debate this week. "Russia’s law is harmful to LGBT individuals and families, and it’s harmful to a diverse society," AT&T, which is a sponsor of Team USA, wrote on its blog. American Apparel, which has no official sponsorship ties to the games, launched a line of merchandise based on the charter’s Principle 6, which states that "Sport does not discriminate on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise.”

 None of the official sponsors of the games, though, including Coca-Cola, Visa, Samsung, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Omega, General Electric and Dow Chemical, have yet made any statements in favor of LGBT rights in Russia. The U.S.-based Human Rights Campaign has been putting pressure on them to speak out.

 If Putin uses Google, though, he'll presumably get the message. ||||| Google debuted its latest "doodle" on Thursday evening, just one day before the Sochi Olympics opening ceremonies, and the company seems to be taking a stand against Russia's anti-gay "propaganda" law.

 Featuring silhouettes of athletes above the letters, the coloring is the same pattern as the rainbow gay-pride flag. Clicking the image takes you to the search result of "Olympic Charter."

 The main point the company wants to make, it seems, is being against discrimination. Below the search box, Google has this text taken from the Olympic Charter:

 "The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play."

 Gay rights have become an issue at the Sochi games after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed off on the controversial law in July. Even the president of the IOC has weighed in, telling Los Angeles Times on Monday that "we stand against any kind of discrimination for whatever reason."

 We reached out, but Google declined to give a statement.

 The change isn't just to the U.S. homepage either. Even Google.ru is getting the message:

  |||||


– A Dutch organization that advises women on reproductive rights has now launched a website to help US women terminate pregnancies on their own. The Guardian reports on the "Self-Managed Abortion: Safe and Supported" portal, or SASS, set up by Women Help Women. Through it, 23 trained counselors will answer questions and give advice if women have already decided to take the drug misoprostol. The medication, which, when taken alone or in combination with mifepristone, keeps a pregnancy from happening, is only legal in the US at medical facilities, though it can be purchased OTC in Central American nations. A Women Help Women rep says the idea for the site came about after a Guardian story documenting a Texas woman's trip to Mexico to get the drug, and all the questions she had once she got it. The site won't provide pills, and organizers say they won't even suggest women take them—they're just there to keep women safe if they've already decided to. "It's worse to just remain silent," says a UC San Francisco obstetrics professor who calls misoprostol a "very safe and effective" drug (though it's more effective taken with mifepristone, which isn't as easy to obtain). For women who do have complications and must seek medical care, the Washington Post notes they'll be advised that drug-induced and spontaneous abortions typically look the same, and that the drug isn't detectable via drug test. Abortion foes note the meds can be dangerous if not taken correctly or if taken late in the gestation period, and that this site could put women at risk by providing info on taking them. Women Help Women is being cautious in case of legal ramifications: Its servers are located outside the US, as are its two dozen or so staffers.

Expand this summary.

With reproductive rights under threat, Women Help Women gives legal and medical advice to women who may be taking matters into their own hands

 New website offers US women help to perform their own abortions

 Fearful that Donald Trump’s presidency poses a once-in-a-generation threat to US reproductive rights, an international advocacy group this week is unveiling what is sure to be a controversial response: a web portal dedicated to helping US women terminate their own pregnancies with abortion-inducing drugs they have obtained outside of a medical setting.

 ‘Please, I am out of options’: inside the murky world of DIY abortions Read more

 The project, launched by Women Help Women, is a nod to the fact that many US women may already be taking matters into their own hands as abortion options in this country contract.

 “Women in the US have been and are using the pills without good guidance,” said Susan Yanow, the US spokeswoman for the group, Women Help Women. “If a woman is anxious and has the pills in her hand, and doesn’t know what to do … we can help her understand what to do. We can help her understand what signs to look for, and what’s going on.”

 Research suggests that there is a small but significant number of US women who attempt to induce their own abortions without any medical supervision.

 Several studies have shown that many of these women, particularly those living along the US-Mexico border, are using misoprostol, a miscarriage-causing drug that can be legally purchased over the counter in many Central American pharmacies. In the US, it is illegal to administer the drug outside of certain medical clinics.

 Rules for taking misoprostol are easy to find online. What Women Help Women has done differently is connect US women with counselors who can provide step-by-step instructions, and answer questions, in real time.

 Their counselors are trained by medical professionals to walk women through the process of using misoprostol for a DIY abortion. Counselors will also strive to connect women with abortion funds if payment is the main obstacle for getting an abortion in a clinic.

 But the main goal is to support the unknown numbers of women who are performing their abortions themselves.

 Part of the inspiration, Yanow said, came from an article the Guardian US published in November. The story followed a young Texas woman who, unable to afford an abortion in the US, traveled to Mexico to purchase an abortion-inducing drug over the counter.

 “There’s just so many questions,” the woman told the Guardian. “I would so much rather have a health professional help me in this and kind of guide me through it versus DIY.”

 New Brunswick becomes first Canada province to offer free abortion pill Read more

 Those words stuck in Yanow’s mind. And as she grappled for a way to respond to November’s election, it occurred to her that Women Help Women could tailor its services to the needs of women in the US.

 The project will be titled Self-managed Abortion, Safe and Supported, or SASS, and use the website abortionpillinfo.org.

 Women Help Women is already a longstanding provider of abortion pills and instructions in other countries. Every month, its staff members answer 5,000 emails from women around the globe seeking to end their own pregnancies.

 The group will not provide abortion-inducing drugs to women in the US. And it has made other changes to its methods because of the United States’ uniquely hostile, anti-abortion atmosphere.

 In the US, at least 18 women have been charged with a crime based on allegations that they attempted to induce their own abortion. A handful of states have made it explicitly illegal for anyone but certain medical professionals to administer abortion-inducing drugs.

 Enterprising prosecutors have found other, creative ways to levy charges, through the use of laws against child endangerment, practicing medicine without a license, or drug possession.

 Women Help Women counselors will inform clients of some of the legal risks that come with self-administering misoprostol, as well as some of the limitations.

 But the legal implications of the project are far from certain.

 “This area of the law is nothing if not complicated,” said Jill Adams, the chief strategist of the the Self-Induced Abortion Legal Team, a project associated with Berkeley Law. Her group has shared legal information about self-induced abortion with Women Help Women, but stopped short of legally vetting the information that counselors will provide to US women.

 In general, the act of looking for or giving out information about self-inducing an abortion is protected by law, Adams said. And she knows of no one who has been prosecuted merely for seeking information.

 Still, it could compound the risk of prosecution. Purvi Patel, the first US woman to receive a significant prison sentence for inducing her own abortion, was convicted after prosecutors obtained emails that showed her purchasing an abortion-inducing drug from a Chinese pharmacy.

 With those facts in mind, Women Help Women designed its portal to delete conversations between clients and counselors after seven days.Its servers are located abroad – out of easy reach for US prosecutors, the thinking goes – as are all 23 of its counselors.

 The legal risks are thought to loom larger than the medical risks.

 “In general, I would say there’s kind of a growing recognition that from a safety or a medical perspective, we have very few concerns about” women using abortion drugs on their own, said Daniel Grossman, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of California–San Francisco who researches self-induced abortion.

 “Especially if we’re talking about women using misoprostol on their own. It’s a very safe and effective medication,” he continued. “If women have information about how to use it, then women can safely use it on their own.”

 When women go to an abortion clinic, they are typically given two drugs: mifepristone, a drug that blocks hormones necessary to sustain a pregnancy administered in person, and misoprostol, which is taken many hours later and causes the uterus to contract and expel its contents. The Food and Drug administration permits women to leave the clinic and take misoprostol at home.

 Researchers believe that women who self-administer abortion drugs are most likely taking misoprostol by itself, because it is easy to obtain from foreign pharmacies. Misoprostol used without mifepristone is less likely to cause an abortion but still has a high success rate.

 There are certain medical risks in self-administering an abortion drug without the involvement of medical professionals. An ultrasound is often necessary to confirm a pregnancy and assess how many weeks a woman has been pregnant. Misoprostol is less effective and requires a different drug regimen later in the first trimester.

 Medical professionals will also inform women about how to recognize complications, like excessive bleeding, that could occur after they leave the clinic and require medical attention. And using the drug improperly – say, at a high dose in the second trimester – can lead to serious medical complications.

 Grossman argued that a project like Women Help Women’s could minimize those risks. “I think that it’s worse to just remain silent while we know women are doing this,” he said.

 But abortion rights opponents cite these safety concerns as reasons to oppose any project that makes abortion drugs available outside a clinical setting.

 In response to a study, first reported by the Guardian, that tests the efficacy of sending women abortion drugs by mail, a spokeswoman for Americans United for Life said, “We have grave concerns about handing out dangerous, life-ending drugs without medical supervision because women face great risks for chemical abortions.”

 Carol Tobias, president of the National Right to Life Committee, asked, “Who are they supposed to call if they have a problem?”

 Yanow says that’s exactly the point of Women Help Women’s new portal.

 “People are not being advised to use the pills,” she said. “They’re being advised if they’ve already decided to use the pills. What drives this project is the knowledge that women have been managing this on their own.” ||||| “Hello. I just found out that I am four weeks pregnant.

 “I cannot carry on with this pregnancy for numerous reasons and I want to have an abortion. Though it is an option for me in the United States, in reality, it is not really an option because the $600-$700 to have it done is simply out of the question.

 “I’m hoping you can advise me and are able to help. I am absolutely desperate.”

 Martina read through her email once again and hovered her finger over the send button. The message was addressed half a world away to Women on Web, a Dutch not-for-profit group that mails abortion drugs to pregnant women who live in countries where abortion is outlawed.

 Martina lives in Texas, where abortion is restricted but legal – making it one of the places where Women on Web refuses to mail the drugs. Still, Martina thought she would try her luck. She had lost her job to downsizing, and in its place she had found only part-time work. Her rent had gone up. Lately, she was borrowing money for gas.

 There was no question that she couldn’t afford to have a child. The question was whether she could even afford an abortion.

 Martina had an inkling that what she was asking for – help performing her own abortion – might not be fully legal. But she was out of answers. She hit send. Then she began to case the internet for other ways she could cause her own abortion.

 If this scene feels out of place in 2016, that may be because there was a time in this country’s history when thousands of back-alley and coat-hanger abortions prompted calls for the procedure to be legal. After the US supreme court established a right to a legal abortion, in the 1973 decision Roe v Wade, self-induced abortions were supposed to become a thing of the past.

 But almost as soon as the court legalized abortion, opponents of abortion rights began to whittle them away. Congress began prohibiting poor women from using Medicaid to cover abortions in September 1976. Obamacare, the largest healthcare expansion in decades, allowed insurers to continue to pick and choose the circumstances under which they would cover abortion and allowed states to ban the coverage altogether. The two decisions have ensured that millions of women who have sought an abortion have had to pay for it out of pocket. And a sweeping wave of anti-abortion laws has closed clinics in many states, cresting with an awesome force over the last five years.

 In such a hostile climate, it is no wonder that self-induced abortions are still a significant, if largely hidden phenomenon – one that even pro-abortion rights groups are only just beginning to grasp. One study of abortion patients found that 2.2% had tried to, at some point in their lives, induce their own abortions without professional medical assistance. Another estimated that potentially 4.1% of Texas women have tried to self-induce – or at least 100,000 women.

 There is no concrete data on how many women in the US have tried to self-induce. But there is some evidence – although it is inconclusive – to suggest that self-abortion attempts are on the rise. From 2008 to 2011, as the economy worsened and a wave of new restrictions choked abortion access around the country, online queries about self-induced abortion almost doubled, according to Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, an economist who analyzes Google searches.

 Into this crisis of reproductive rights now walks Donald Trump. As president, Trump has promised to restrict abortion even further. He has vowed to nominate justices to the supreme court who might overturn Roe v Wade. Roe, because the court is loath to reverse itself, has survived such threats before. But Trump has explicitly promised to nominate justices who might put Roe in their crosshairs.

 In his first major interview after winning office, Trump described – truthfully – what might happen to some women if Roe v Wade were overturned. “They’ll perhaps have to go, they’ll have to go to another state,” he said. “And that’s OK?” he was asked. Trump replied, “Well, we’ll see what happens.”

 But we don’t have to wait and see what happens. History has already shown us what happens when women in the US can’t access abortion. So has the present day.

 In 2015 alone, Women on Web, the Dutch not-for-profit, received more than 600 emails from US women looking for a way to end their own pregnancies. (The group does not send abortion drugs to the US, because the US does not outright ban abortion.) Women on Web agreed to share scores of these emails with the Guardian, providing an unprecedented window into the lives of women who feel they have no other option but to end their pregnancies themselves.

 Among the hundreds who wrote to Women on Web was Martina. She contacted the Guardian shortly after she found out about her unwanted pregnancy and shared every step of her journey, which eventually took her across an international border. (As corroboration, she provided photographs, including of her travel documents. Her name has been changed for her privacy.) She wasn’t sure if she faced a potential legal risk. And in fact, self-induction is in a legal gray area, and many enterprising prosecutors have charged women who carried out their own abortions with crimes. Nevertheless, Martina felt compelled to speak.

 “I feel like there’s such a negative stigma to this,” she said. “It’s kind of kept under the radar, hushed, so it needs to be talked about.” People needed to know, she added, that abortion restrictions had real victims. “You’re not really helping anyone. You’re not really protecting anyone. You’re just causing women who are in these situations who feel desperate to take desperate measures.”

 The letters to Women on Web form a uniform chorus of desperation. “Please” and “afford” and “help” and “fear” appear in dozens of places, signaling the nature of how these women became stranded.

 “now he is threatening me, saying I can never leave.” “I am afraid of what he is capable of.” “For a variety of reasons, an abortion must look like a miscarriage.” “this has to look like a miscarriage.” “I don’t have $600.” “Planned Parenthood wants $650. My bf and I live in our car.” “I can’t afford an abortion.” “I simply cannot afford an abortion.”

 A teenager in a state where minors need parental consent for an abortion said her parents were forcing her to have her baby.

 A woman in Missouri wrote to say that she had gone to her state’s only abortion clinic, “but the protestors shamed me into going back. I’m not a citizen and its a little scary coz I feel very lonely.”

 “I am beside myself,” read another woman’s email. One month before she wrote her email, she was raped. She received her coverage through Tricare, the insurance plan for military personnel and their families. Tricare’s policy is to cover abortion in cases of rape as long as a doctor has a “good faith belief” that the rape occurred, according to a spokesman. But this woman wrote that Tricare refused to pay for her abortion on the basis that she never reported the rape.

 “To end this nightmare,” she wrote, “it would cost me one-third of my family’s monthly income.” She continued, “I have seen a doctor. I have had a sonogram. Tricare covers that. I can give birth to my rapist’s baby for free.”

 “Please I am out of options,” the letters read.

 “Can u please.” “please please please.” “I cry and pray every night that the Lord take this child from me somehow.” “I will keep searching online for help.”

 What is striking about reading these emails one after another after another is the diversity of experiences that lead all these women down the same path. There are homeless women and middle-class women and married women and single women, women living in cities and women separated from the nearest abortion provider by an ocean: two wrote in from the big island of Hawaii, where the last clinic, a Planned Parenthood in Kailua-Kona, closed in 2014.

 “When people think about low-income women seeking abortion, they have this stereotypical vision of a single woman on welfare,” said Laurie Bertram Roberts, head of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund. Her group provides financial assistance for abortions. “But it’s also people who have two jobs. Six hundred dollars is a lot of fucking money. For a lot of the people who call us – not a majority, but many – those barriers are just too high. Even with our help.”

 Women on Web wrote back to Martina a few hours after she sent her message. “We’re sorry,” the reply came, “Women on Web cannot provide the service in any country with safe abortion services.” The email listed a few not-for-profit abortion funds Martina could call for financial assistance. Then it recommended another option: “If you live close to Mexico you can also travel to Mexico to buy misoprostol,” a drug that can induce a miscarriage early in a pregnancy.

 It sounded like a gamble. Martina felt a jolt of fear. “What if it’s incomplete? What if I do it wrong? What if I fuck up my organs somehow?” She pushed these thoughts aside. At least it was an option.

 Martina learned that her insurance would not cover her abortion and left messages with two abortion funds. She also found a world of websites describing ways to induce abortions with herbs or vitamins. Following advice from the sources that looked the most reputable, she began taking cinnamon capsules and several thousand milligrams of vitamin C per day.

 It’s not unheard of for women to turn to herbal concoctions, reproductive rights advocates said. “It’s considered an OK thing to do – this is just how they’ve handled it for years,” said Esther Priegue, the director of counseling at Choices Women’s Medical Center, an abortion clinic in Queens. Her patients occasionally use an herbal brew to try to induce a miscarriage.

 The internet resounds with such recipes. “What you probably have, in reality, is hundreds of people doing it hundreds of different ways,” said Beverly Winikoff, the president of Gynuity Health Projects, a reproductive rights research group. “The way it’s always been.”

 Of course, there weren’t supposed to be hundreds of different ways.

 Self-induced abortion was supposed to have all but disappeared after the supreme court established the right to an abortion throughout the country. In the run-up to Roe v Wade, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, abortion was restricted to a handful of major cities and the women with the means to travel there. Roughly 100,000 women crossed state lines for a legal abortion in New York state; in a single year, the number of women going to illegal providers or trying to self-induce was up to 12 times that. Some years, up to 200 women would die of complications from illegal or self-induced abortions. And compared with the number of women who survived horrific complications, that figure appears small. In 1968 alone, a single Los Angeles County hospital treated 701 women suffering from septic abortions.

 But just a few years after Roe, the country seemed to vanquish the coat-hanger abortion. In 1976, the Centers for Disease Control announced that only three women had died the previous year from abortion complications – a stunning reduction in deaths. When anti-abortion activists accused the centers of undercounting, the CDC, according to the book Inside the Outbreaks, put up a $100 bounty for proof of any abortion death the centers had failed to report. “We paid out zero money,” one official recalled proudly.

 But others realized that, even though women were no longer dying in scandalous numbers, illegal and self-induced abortions were still a serious problem.

 The CDC announcement came out the same year Dr Jason Doe began to do his medical residency. In the remote north-west corner of Louisiana, he rotated through an obstetrics ward that received many of the area’s most impoverished residents. The state’s only abortion clinic stood in the opposite corner of the state. “So even though abortion technically was legal” for those women, “it wasn’t available,” Doe said.

 One of his first patients had unraveled a wire coat hanger and used it to break her water. Another broke her water with a red rubber catheter her friend had stolen from a hospital.

 Doe’s memory of another patient is dominated by her screams. As she seized in pain, doctors removed an intact cotton boll – the husk was still attached – from her vagina. She had soaked the cotton fibers in turpentine and honey.

 “In three years, I suppose I saw a dozen cases,” said Doe. (Doe agreed to speak only under a pseudonym. He works as an abortion provider in Shreveport and has kept his identity hidden from the public.) He treated women who had gone to back-alley abortion providers and a woman who had shot herself in the stomach. Turpentine became a kind of harrowing motif. One woman used a syringe to inject it into her abdomen. The tide only ceased in 1980, when two abortion clinics opened a few months apart in nearby Bossier City and Shreveport. Roe v Wade was seven years old.

 “Just making it legal is not enough,” Doe said. “If it’s not available, if a woman really does feel that she needs to terminate her pregnancy, she may be willing to try just about anything.”

 His were not isolated experiences. In 1977, Rosie Jimenez became one of the first women to die from an illicit abortion after Roe v Wade. Jimenez had previously had one legal abortion, paid for using Medicaid. But in 1976, Congress passed the Hyde amendment, which banned the use of federal Medicaid funds to pay for abortion and which many advocates still consider the country’s biggest barrier to abortion access today. The next time Jimenez became pregnant, she sought out an unlicensed midwife in McAllen, Texas. She died of a bacterial infection.

 In fact, nearly every year after Roe v Wade brought isolated reports of a woman taking drastic steps to terminate her pregnancy. 1978: Three young women in Colorado poisoned their livers by drinking tiny amounts of aromatherapy oil to try to induce an abortion. 1984: A teenager injected herself with a local anesthetic and attempted to cut out her fetus. 1994: A Florida teenager placed a pillow over her abdomen and shot herself in the side.

 Earlier this month, a woman in Tennessee was charged with aggravated assault for trying to give herself an abortion with a coat hanger. She was found out after profuse bleeding sent her to the emergency room.

 It is against this backdrop of tragedies that some reproductive rights activists have argued for making the same abortion drugs used routinely in clinics available to women in their homes. “It would be phenomenal if people could receive this medication in the mail with all the instructions” and the right safety measures, said Yamani Hernandez, the executive director of the National Network of Abortion Funds. Already, she added, the internet is allowing untold numbers of to find and use the drug without medical supervision. Among the 700,000 searches on self-abortion Stephens-Davidowitz identified in 2015, some 160,000 were searches for a way to obtain the abortion pill through back channels.

 Is there a chance those searches could increase under a Trump presidency? “Yes,” said Hernandez. “That is something that one could reasonably predict in an environment where abortion becomes even illegal, or even more inaccessible than it has been. We will do anything in our power to get people the information and the care that they need.” Even now, her group posts instructions for self-administering misoprostol on its website – “For safety’s sake.”

 Not all advocates feel good about disseminating this information. But they consider it better than the alternatives.

 Recently, Roberts answered one of the “scariest calls” of her advocacy career. A young woman was on the line, saying her friend had given her a home remedy. Her friend claimed to have used this method to end four separate pregnancies, even though each time it sent her to the hospital.

 “Ultimately, we helped this woman go to a clinic” before she could do something dangerous, Roberts said. “Her friend had told her to drink turpentine with sugar.”

 At a crisis pregnancy center, an ultrasound confirmed that Martina’s home remedies hadn’t worked. She was still pregnant. The distress must have shown on her face, because the technician offered a flurry of reassurances. They see a lot of single moms who do it on their own. They have a store that sells baby clothes at a markdown. They help with discounts on daycare. Martina fumed. A baby is more than just buying clothes and food, she thought.

 In her head, she was already reviewing her plan. She had heard back from only one abortion fund, which had turned her down for assistance because she had a job. And so, for a quarter of what a US abortion clinic would charge, she had purchased a flight to Mexico City. The flight left the next day. She would stay with a friend. Abortion pills would cost about $20 at a pharmacy – if she could find a pharmacy that carried the drug and would sell it to a young woman.

 Then, she would take the drugs at her friend’s house. “I’m gonna say like, ‘Oh man, I’m on my period, I’m so sorry, I hate that this is ruining the trip, I feel so sick,’” she said, sounding perfectly unrehearsed.

 Martina had relied on this kind of subterfuge for the past several weeks. Friends had noticed she was distracted. Her boss had noticed she was nauseous. “This whole time that I’ve been pregnant, and that I’ve known I’ve been pregnant, that’s all I’ve thought about,” she said. “I’ve almost cried like five times today.” But you have to push that aside and act like you’re fine, she said: “Oh yeah, I’m sorry, I was zoned out for a sec.” “Oh yeah, sorry, just not feeling great.”

 The more difficult challenge was hiding her pregnancy from her boyfriend. She knew he would want to start a family. At home, she was taking so much anti-nausea medication to keep from vomiting in front of him that she no longer had enough to sustain her through the work day.

 “You feel alone, but you can’t do anything about it,” she said. “I just kind of have to put my feeling outside of it. You need to focus. What do you need to do in order to move forward?

 “It’s kind of like when you’re drowning. If you just flap around, you’re just going to drown. But if you focus on what the goal is, on what you need to do, stay calm, that’s how you’re going to survive.”

 It was the sixth pharmacy Martina went to in Mexico that sold her the misoprostol. The first five, a mix of big national chains and mom and pop shops, claimed they didn’t carry it. She felt at least one pharmacist was lying to her. Finally, she returned to the first store to ask, if not here, where could she buy it?

 A little while later, she paid $26 for a blue carton about the size of her hand. Misoprostol, it said. Caja con 28 tabletas.

 It wasn’t an exciting feeling, holding the box. It was scary, Martina said. “It’s just like a God-I-just-want-to-get-this-over-with” feeling. She was still too nauseous to take the pills while she was in Mexico City, so she would have to take them in the United States. It was a panicky moment, bringing pills back through customs. But there was a larger fear.

 “My biggest concern is, what happens if someone finds out? What happens if something goes wrong?” Martina had said a few days earlier. “What happens if my body doesn’t completely rid itself?” In most abortion clinics, she knew, a medication abortion was induced with two drugs: one drug to terminate the pregnancy, and misoprostol to expel the pregnancy. She would only be taking the misoprostol. “So basically, you’re half-assing the job.”

 She knew what symptoms would tell her something had gone wrong. But still. “There’s just so many questions. I would so much rather have a health professional help me in this and kind of guide me through it versus DIY. There’s some things aren’t meant for that, and this is definitely one of them.”

 It is impossible to know what happened to all the other women who reached out to Women on Web. But a study of women who were rejected because they were past the clinic’s gestational limit found that most of them carried their pregnancies to term.

 Roberts, the Mississippi activist, said that many women who struggle to pay for an abortion eventually get creative. Not long ago, she spoke to a mother who was weighing whether to raid her diaper fund to pay for her abortion. It was unlikely her parents would lend her money for an abortion, she reasoned, but they would probably help her buy more diapers.

 “There are no more creative problem solvers, and I mean this, than women with no money,” she said. “And I’m saying that with the utmost respect, because there are people who will think of all this as shady. And I’m not. I’ve seen people struggling, and being brilliant, brilliant, in coming up with ways to survive.” It’s a skill she fears more women might need in the future.

 Martina’s trip had cost a fraction of the money she needed to raise for an abortion in a US clinic – something her mind was still trying to grasp. “The whole time I was traveling, I couldn’t believe it was happening,” she said.

 We were speaking a few days after she returned from Mexico. An ultrasound had just confirmed that she was no longer pregnant, and her voice was sunny. “I am so relieved, to be honest.” She hadn’t realized, until she was no longer pregnant, how much stress she had placed on herself. Now, she felt like she could breathe, she said. Like she could step back on the path of her life and figure out where she had been when she diverged.

 Martina had taken the pills on a Saturday. She took the first dose. She set a timer on her phone. Then she took the second dose.

 The pills worked just like they were supposed to. She bled, but not too much. She felt the pregnancy pass. She felt exhausted.

 And then it was done. ||||| Share

 In the U.S., abortion is legal in every state, and every state has at least one clinic that provides abortion care. However, in many states the law requires that abortion pills be given by licensed health care clinicians, and a woman may be arrested for using abortion pills that were not obtained through a clinician.

 The contents of this webpage are for informational purposes only. The contents are not a substitute for advice from a medical provider.

 For information about how to keep your research about abortion private, please read here.

 Misoprostol alone, or in combination with mifepristone, is a safe and effective way to end a pregnancy in the first 12 weeks. It is approved by the World Health Organization as a safe abortion method when used by women themselves to 9 weeks and has been used successfully by millions of women* around the world, without a clinician.

 Please read all of the following information carefully. This information is based on protocols developed by the World Health Organization.

 For any questions use the secure contact form below - trained counselors will answer you within a few hours.

 * Women Help Women recognizes that gender-specific terms do not encompass the rights and identities of all people that may seek to end a pregnancy. We believe everyone has the right to feel supported and respected during their abortion experience.

 When should abortion pills not be used?

 What is important to know before using the abortion pills?

 How to use misoprostol for safe abortion before 12 weeks of pregnancy?

 How to use mifepristone plus misoprostol for safe abortion?

 What will happen after using mifepristone plus misoprostol, or misoprostol alone?

 What are the symptoms of complications?

 What if there is no bleeding after using the misoprostol?

 What happens after the abortion?

 How to check if the pills worked?

 Where can I find a clinic or help paying for my abortion?

 More Questions and Answers?

 Other sources of information |||||


Article:
Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director who served during the chaotic first year of the Trump administration, has been named head of corporate communications for New Fox, the company to emerge after 21st Century Fox completes the sale of assets to Disney early next year.

 Hicks has been named exec VP and chief communications officer for Fox. She will report to Viet Dinh, Fox’s chief legal and policy officer. Also appointed at New Fox on Monday was Danny O’Brien as exec VP and head of government relations. He comes to Fox after working in the same capacity for GE Transportation.

 “Hope and Danny are proven leaders and world-class public affairs professionals. Together they will define and project Fox’s voice to our relevant communities,” Dinh said.

 Hicks will succeed Julie Henderson as communications chief for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Henderson, exec VP and chief communications officer for 21st Century Fox, and communications senior VP Nathaniel Brown, have opted not to make the transition to the New Fox entity. Hicks will be based in Los Angeles.

 New Fox will be rooted in television and revolve around Fox Broadcasting Co., Fox News and Fox Sports. Disney is buying the 20th Century Fox studio, FX Networks, National Geographic Partners and other entertainment-focused assets for $71.3 billion.

 Related Lachlan Murdoch Talks Fox News, Megyn Kelly, Hope Hicks and Vision for New Fox Hope Hicks Hire Takes Fox Veterans by Surprise

 Hicks left the White House in February amid the expanding probes into the 2016 presidential election and questions about the depth of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian entities focused on influencing the bitter contest between Trump and his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. In February, just before her resignation from the White House, Hicks gave more than eight hours of private testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in connection with the House probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

 Hicks’ close association with Trump made her appointment at Fox an immediately hot topic of discussion on social media. Critics on the left cited it as more signs that Fox News aims to promote the Trump administration’s agenda with an eye toward the presidential campaign.

 “Hope Hicks’ presence at Fox will further align the Trump communications apparatus with the Fox News propaganda machine,” said Angelo Carusone, president of the watchdog group Media Matters for America.

 Hicks’ appointment was hailed via Twitter by her former colleague, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “Fox won’t find anyone smarter or more talented than Hope Hicks,” Sanders wrote.

 FOX won’t find anyone smarter or more talented than Hope Hicks. So happy for my friend. They are beyond lucky to have you and the East Coast misses you already. https://t.co/mUQUlip5oc — Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) October 8, 2018

 Hicks had been a close advisor to President Donald Trump, having joined his campaign in January 2015 after working as director of communications for the Trump Organization. Earlier in her career she worked for the PR firms Hiltzik Strategies and Zeno Group.

 O’Brien has deep ties on Capitol Hill. He previously served as chief of staff to three U.S. senators — Joe Biden, Robert Menendez and Robert Torricelli — and was staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.

 By Jason Abbruzzese

 Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director, will be joining Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox as chief communications officer, the company announced Monday.

 Hicks becomes the latest in a long line of people who have moved between Fox and the White House. In June, former Fox News president Bill Shine took Hicks' former role with the Trump administration after her resignation in February.

 Fox is in the midst of a major pivot, having sold off most of its entertainment assets to Disney in July for $71.3 billion. The company is now refocusing on its Fox broadcast network, Fox News and other news- and sports-heavy cable channels — which has come to be known in media circles as "New Fox."

 Fox also announced on Monday that Danny O'Brien has been hired to serve as head of government relations. O'Brien had most recently worked as government relations leader for General Electric's transportation operation.

 Sarah Sanders, White House press secretary, tweeted a message of congratulations to Hicks.

 "FOX won’t find anyone smarter or more talented than Hope Hicks," Sanders wrote.

 Hicks adds to the already close relationship between the Trump administration and Murdoch's media assets. President Donald Trump and Murdoch are known to be friendly, with The New York Times reporting in December that the two talked on the phone weekly.

 Hicks served as press secretary on Trump's 2016 campaign, having previously worked for the Trump Organization and Ivanka Trump's fashion label.

 Fox noted in its press release that Hicks will not start until the close of the Disney deal, at which time 21st Century Fox will also change its name to Fox. Fox said Hicks will be based in Los Angeles.

 Though she left the White House in February, Hicks was spotted on Air Force One in August.

 While it has become common in recent years for former White House staff to join media organizations, the addition of Hicks to Fox further ties the company's cable news operation to Trump. Trump's staff now includes national security adviser John Bolton, who had been a Fox News contributor; State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor; and White House communications adviser Mercedes Schlapp, who had also been a Fox News contributor, among others.

 Trump has made no secret of his affinity for Fox News, which features an evening roster of hosts that ardently back the president. In September, Trump sent eight tweets praising or pointing to Fox News coverage, with his most recent urging people to tune into the channel to watch a rally in West Virginia. ||||| But Disney is not buying Fox News, Fox Sports or the company's broadcast network or TV stations. So those assets will be spun off to form a slimmed-down version of Fox, officially named, you guessed it, FOX.

 Last week, the company announced the new all-caps name and confirmed that Lachlan Murdoch will be the CEO while his father Rupert Murdoch will be the co-chairman.

 Monday's hiring of Hicks is part of the executive transition. Her role will take effect when the spin-off is in place.

 The current PR chief at 21st Century Fox, Julie Henderson, is leaving when the deal is done, along with several other executives.

 Hicks will be moving to Los Angeles for the FOX role. She will report to Viet Dinh, FOX's chief legal and policy officer. Dinh, in turn, reports to Lachlan Murdoch.

 Hicks will work at the C-suite level. Fox News, based in New York, has its own PR operation. But Fox News -- with its highly-rated pro-Trump talk shows -- is one of the main assets of FOX.

 Hicks previously worked in New York for Donald Trump's presidential campaign, then moved to Washington at the start of the Trump presidency. Before she resigned in February, she was one of the president's longest-serving aides.

 Ever since then, there's been speculation that she would take a job in the corporate world, mixed with the occasional rumor about a return to the Trump White House.

 Hicks was spotted boarding Air Force One back in August, but has otherwise kept a low profile in her eight months since leaving the White House.

 Hicks' hiring stirred intrigue because President Trump and Rupert Murdoch have a complicated and mutually beneficial relationship. The two men are known to speak regularly. And Fox News is a key part of Trump's media machine.

 It's unknown if any of that factored into Hicks' decision.

 She declined to comment when the announcement was made on Monday.

 FOX also announced the hiring of Danny O'Brien, an executive at GE, to be the head of government relations.

 While Hicks has connections to Trump, O'Brien has roots in Democratic politics as a former chief of staff to several Democratic senators. |||||Summary:

– Hope Hicks has landed her post-White House gig. President Trump's former communications director, who left the administration earlier this year, is now the head of corporate communications for Fox. Hicks will assume the role for the new version of the company that will emerge after Disney purchases 21st Century Fox's assets next year; Disney is buying the entertainment-focused assets, leaving behind a streamlined company "rooted in television," as Variety puts it, and revolving around Fox News, Fox Sports, and Fox Broadcasting Co. (Variety says this new company will be called New Fox, though CNN says it will be renamed FOX from Fox, and NBC News explains that "New Fox" is simply how the company has become known in media circles.) Hicks, whose official title is executive VP and chief communications officer, succeeds Julie Henderson, who decided not to transition from 21st Century Fox. Rupert Murdoch will be co-chairman of the new company, it was announced last week, while his son Lachlan will be CEO. Also Monday, Danny O'Brien was named executive VP and head of government relations. "Hope and Danny are proven leaders and world-class public affairs professionals. Together they will define and project Fox’s voice to our relevant communities," said Fox’s chief legal and policy officer, Viet Dinh, in a statement.