Republican Sen. Susan Collins said she does not regret her tie-breaking vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, even after the Supreme Court voted to reverse Roe v. Wade, ending the right to an abortion at the federal level. She said that the decision did not affect her state.

Speaking to reporter Randy Billings fo the Portland Press Herald, Collins said that she disagreed with the Roe decision, but pointed out that she also supported Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who all dissented from the decision.

“Obviously, I’m disappointed in that decision, which turned abortion issues back to the states. It has not had an impact on the state of Maine in that name actually expanded its law,” Collins said, according to WCSH-TV.

READ MORE: ‘She Knew What Brett Kavanaugh Was Going to Do’: Morning Joe Calls Out Susan Collins Over Abortion Ruling

In explaining her vote to confirm Kavanaugh, she said “When I look at a justice, I look at their qualifications, their integrity, their background, their experience in reaching a decision.” During Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, he dodged questions from senators on whether he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade calling it “settled law.”

“One of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992,” Kavanaugh said at the time.

When pressed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) over a 2003 email he wrote where he said he was “not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level,” Kavanaugh said he was merely referring to the positions of such scholars.

“But the broader point was simply that I think it was overstating something about legal scholars. And I am always concerned with accuracy, and I thought that was not quite accurate description of legal, all legal scholars because it referred to ‘all,'” he said. “To your point, your broader point, Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed many times… That makes Casey precedent on precedent. It has been relied on. Casey itself has been cited as authority in subsequent cases such as Glucksberg and other cases. So that precedent on precedent is quite important as you think about stare decisis in this context.”

Following the 2022 ruling that overturned Roe, Collins admitted that the decision was “completely inconsistent with what Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh said in their hearings and in our meetings in my office.”

Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing also hinged on accusations of sexual assault. Christine Blasey Ford testified before Congress that Kavanaugh had attempted to rape her while they were in high school, allegations Kavanaugh denies. During the hearings, sexual assault survivors met with Republican senators Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, urging them not to confirm, according to Time magazine.

Murkowski ultimately was the lone Republican vote against confirming Kavanaugh.

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Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) accused Major League Baseball of a “pattern of discrimination” after the league punished three players for their protest during a recent Pride Night celebration.

Hawley released the letter Tuesday afternoon following MLB issuing three San Francisco Giants pitchers for writing references to the Bible on their hats, a special Pride Night variant of the standard Giants hat featuring a rainbow version of the team logo.

“I write with grave concern over your reported decision to issue a formal warning to three Major League Baseball (MLB) players for publicly expressing their Christian faith. This follows a high-profile undercover investigation that revealed at least one MLB team discriminated against a player based on his Catholic faith. You must answer for what appears to be a pattern of discrimination within MLB against baseball players who profess their Christian faith,” Hawley wrote.

READ MORE: Baseball Commissioner Says Pride Jerseys Make Some Players ‘Uncomfortable’

Hawley was not the only Republican politician to condemn the MLB. Vice President JD Vance tweeted “Trump won we don’t have to do this anymore,” alongside a retweet of Sports Illustrated’s coverage of the warning. Rep. Nancy Mace from South Carolina wrote “So it’s okay when they’re forced into wearing pride hats for social propaganda, but Bible verses are an issue?” Mace made a name for herself attacking the first transgender representative Sarah McBride (D-DE), and recently came in fifth in her district’s primary election.

Pitcher Landen Roupp wrote Gen 9:12-16 on his cap next to the rainbow logo. Two relief pitchers, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker, wrote similar references to the same Bible verse on their hats. The verse refers to the rainbow symbolizing the covenant between God and all creatures that he would not flood the earth again, however many anti-LGBTQ Christians have used the verse to accuse the queer community of co-opting the rainbow symbol.

MLB says that the warning came not over the content or meaning of the messages, but instead was a violation of the league’s rules about uniform integrity.

“To be clear, this routine verbal warning not to wear the hat in future games is not disciplinary and had absolutely nothing to do with the content of the message,” the league said in a follow. “We respect players’ right to free expression. However, writing of any kind, with any message, is prohibited per Major League Baseball’s uniform regulations which provides in part that, ‘(a) player may not write, attach, affix, embroider or otherwise display nicknames or messages on apparel or playing equipment,'” MLB said in a statement, according to the New York Times, adding that similar warnings had been issued to players who wrote the names of family members on uniforms.

Another relief pitcher, Sam Hentges, wore the standard version of the Giants hat. He did not receive any warning from MLB.

The Giants have a long history of supporting the LGBTQ community. It was the first team to wear rainbow versions of its logo during Pride games. It was also the first team to raise money for HIV/AIDS research in 1994.

The team apologized for the pitchers’ protest, sending a statement to the San Francisco Standard, that  it was “proud to support Pride Night and the LGBTQ+ community.”

“Baseball should be a place where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued. We also respect that individuals may make personal choices about participating in team activations. We understand that the choices by individual players have caused pain and anger to many in the LGBTQ+ community and we are sorry for that.  Those choices do not change our organization’s commitment to inclusion, belonging, and creating a welcoming environment for all. We remain grateful to our fans, partners, employees, players, and coaches who help make Pride Night a meaningful celebration.”

Image via Shutterstock

All three states considered to be the Pacific Northwest of the United States are ranked in the top 10 when it comes to anti-Black hate crimes.

The new study produced by the Mendoza Law Firm, which specializes in immigration, ranked all 50 states based on the average number of anti-Black hate crimes per 100,000 members of the Black population. While Vermont ranked No. 1 in the study with 240.6 crimes per 100,000 people, there are only 7,316 Black residents of the state.

Of the Pacific Northwest states, Oregon ranked the highest—No. 2 overall—with 121 crimes per 100,000 people. Idaho ranked No. 4 with 91 crimes per 100,000 people, and Washington state ranked No. 9 with 44.4 crimes. However, Washington had the highest Black population out of the top 10 states with 311,435 residents. Oregon has the second-highest of the top 10 with 82,453 residents.

READ MORE: DeSantis Using Same White Nationalist Rhetoric as El Paso Mass Shooter Who Slaughtered 23 in Anti-Hispanic Hate Crime

Conversely, many southern states ranked at the bottom. Mississippi has the lowest number of anti-Black hate crimes with just 0.9 crimes per 100,000 people, followed by Arkansas and Florida with 1.6, and Georgia and Louisiana with 1.7. Though these southern states have much larger Black populations—for example, of the bottom five, all but Arkansas have well over 1 million Black residents with Georgia and Florida both having over 3 million—the number of hate crimes in those states is also lower than both Washington and Oregon.

The study looked at FBI anti-Black hate crime statistics between 2021 and 2025. The number of hate crimes over these five years was then averaged and compared versus the average Black population between 2020 and 2024.

While things may look bleak for the Pacific Northwest, it’s worth noting that in Washington, the number of hate crimes has steadily dropped over the past five years. Washington had 185 crimes in 2021, which dropped to 107 crimes in 2025. Oregon and Idaho’s numbers stayed relatively steady, however; Oregon had between 94 and 105 crimes during that five-year span. Idaho had a low of 7 crimes in 2021, but that jumped up to between 13 and 18 for the following four years.

Washington state is in the process of starting a hate crime hotline. The service will fully launch at the start of 2027, however, the pilot program launched in July 2025 will continue until the end of this year, according to Cleveland Jewish News. The hotline is designed to provide support to victims rather than receive incident reports. It’s under the purview of the state’s Attorney General’s Office, which does not have the authority to investigate crimes. However, it can provide victims assistance in reporting hate crimes to police. Police are also compelled to provide victims the hotline’s number and website for support.

Image by Seattle Department of Transportation via Flickr.