Nebraska is the latest state to add abortion to November ballots. What would the measures do?

Competing abortion measures to expand or limit abortion rights will be on the November ballot in Nebraska after election officials on Friday confirmed each side had turned in enough signatures.

The move makes Nebraska the first state to carry competing abortion amendments on the same ballot since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, launching a national push to have voters decide.

Measures to protect access have already qualified to go before voters this year in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nevada and South Dakota. New York also has a ballot measure that proponents say would protect abortion rights, though there’s a dispute about its impact.

Still, there also have been legal fights across the country over whether to allow voters to decide these questions — and the exact words used on the ballots and explanatory material. Earlier this week, Arkansas' highest court upheld a decision to keep an abortion rights ballot initiative off the state’s November ballot, agreeing with election officials that the group behind the measure did not properly submit documentation regarding the signature gatherers it hired.

Most Republican-controlled states have passed abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, including 14 that ban abortion at every stage of pregnancy. Most Democratic-led states have laws or executive orders to protect access.

Voters in all seven states that have had abortion questions before voters since 2022 have sided with abortion rights supporters.

NEBRASKA

Nebraska's secretary of state announced Friday that the state's November ballot will include two competing abortion measures.

One of the initiatives, like measures on ballots elsewhere in the U.S., would enshrine in the state constitution the right to have an abortion until viability or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman.

The other measure would write into the constitution the current 12-week ban, with exceptions for rape, incest and to save the life of the pregnant woman.

MONTANA

Montana’s secretary of state has confirmed that an abortion question qualified for its ballot.

If it passes, it would amend the state constitution to bar the government from denying the right to abortion before viability — generally considered to be about 23 or 24 weeks’ gestational age — or when it is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person.

Abortion is already legal until viability in the state under a 1999 Montana Supreme Court opinion.

ARIZONA

Voters in Arizona will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to add the right to an abortion up to about 24 weeks into pregnancy. The Arizona secretary of state’s office said on Aug. 12 that it had certified enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot.

The state’s top court has weighed in on the details multiple times. It ruled that an informational pamphlet can refer to an embryo or fetus as an “unborn human being” even though that language isn’t in the amendment and won’t appear on the ballot itself.

The amendment would prevent Arizona from banning abortions before a fetus can survive outside the womb and would allow later abortions to protect a woman’s physical or mental health. Opponents say this goes too far and could lead to unlimited and unregulated abortions in Arizona. Supporters say it would keep abortion access free from political interference.

Abortion is currently legal for the first 15 weeks of pregnancy in Arizona.

COLORADO

Colorado’s top election official confirmed in May that a measure to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, along with requirements that Medicaid and private health insurers cover abortion, made the ballot for the fall election.

Amending the state constitution requires the support of 55% of voters.

Abortion is already legal at all stages of pregnancy in Colorado.

FLORIDA

The state Supreme Court ruled in April that a measure to legalize abortion until viability could go on the ballot despite a legal challenge from the state. Attorney General Ashley Moody had argued that there are differing views on the meaning of “viability” and that some key terms in the proposed measure are not properly defined.

To pass, the measure needs support from at least 60% of voters, a high threshold that supporters hope to reach after collecting nearly a million signatures on the petition to get it on the ballot.

Abortion is currently illegal in Florida after the first six weeks of pregnancy under a law that took effect May 1.

MARYLAND

Maryland voters also will be asked this year to enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. Abortion is already allowed in Maryland until viability.

MISSOURI

Missouri voters will decide whether to guarantee a right to abortion with a constitutional amendment that would reverse the state’s near-total ban.

The secretary of state’s office certified on Aug. 13 that an initiative petition received more than enough signatures from registered voters to qualify. It will need approval from a majority of voters to become enshrined in the state constitution.

The Missouri ballot measure would create a right to abortion until “there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’s sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.” The ballot measure would allow abortions after fetal viability if a health care professional determines it’s necessary to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

NEVADA

The Nevada Secretary of State’s office announced in June that a ballot question to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution met all the requirements to appear in front of voters in November.

This amendment would ensure abortion access for the first 24 weeks of pregnancy — or later to protect the health of the pregnant woman. To change the constitution, voters would need to approve it in 2024 and again in 2026.

Abortion up until viability is already allowed in Nevada under a law passed in 1990.

SOUTH DAKOTA

South Dakota voters will decide this fall on a constitutional amendment that would prevent any restrictions on abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy.

The measure would allow the state in the second trimester to “regulate the pregnant woman’s abortion decision and its effectuation only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” Abortion could be prohibited in the third trimester, provided there are exceptions for the life and health of the woman.

Opponents have sued to try to take the initiative off the ballot or block results from being counted. A trial on the challenge could be held in September.

While not preserving a right to abortion by name, a reproductive rights question is on the ballot in New York.

The measure would bar unequal treatment based on “pregnancy outcomes” and “reproductive healthcare and autonomy,” along with sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin and disability.

Proponents say it would protect abortion access, which is currently allowed in New York until fetal viability. Democrats sued to have the word “abortion” added to a description of the ballot measure given to voters, but a judge on Friday declined to do so, saying that it isn’t clear yet how the amendment, if passed, will be interpreted by the courts.

The Board of Elections must certify what’s on the ballot by Sept. 11.

There have been twists and turns to get the question before voters. It was on the ballot, then removed in May by a judge who found lawmakers missed a procedural step when they put it there. An appeals court reinstated it in June.

FILE - Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen attends the summer conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State in Baton Rouge, La., July 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)

FILE - Patrons of the Gallatin County Fairgrounds wait in line to cast their ballots in Bozeman, Mont., Nov. 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Tommy Martino, File)

FILE - The Montana State Capitol is shown on July 13, 2020, in Helena, Mont. (Thom Bridge/Independent Record via AP, File)

FILE - Arizona abortion-rights supporters gather for a news conference prior to delivering more than 800,000 petition signatures to the state Capitol to get abortion rights on the November general election ballot, July 3, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

FILE - Abortion-rights supporters take part in a protest, May 30, 2019, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File)

Arizona and Missouri will join 5 other states with abortion on the ballot. Who are the others?

Arizona and Missouri will join 5 other states with abortion on the ballot. Who are the others?

U.S. stocks are drifting in early trading after leaping to records the day before as part of a worldwide rally. The S&P 500 was down 0.2% Friday but still on track for its fifth winning week in the last six. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 63 points, or 0.2% after likewise setting its own all-time high the day before. The Nasdaq composite was flat. FedEx slumped after its profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. Nike jumped after naming Elliott Hill as its chief executive. Treasury yields rose in the bond market.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Wall Street pointed lower Friday as a rally driven by the Federal Reserve’s big cut to interest rates faded and markets' focus turned to earnings and other corporate news.

Futures for the S&P 500 shed 0.2% before the bell, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were essentially unchanged.

Fedex tumbled more than 13% in after-hours trading after the package delivery company's first-quarter earnings came up woefully short of Wall Street expectations. FedEx's profit per share came in 20% below forecasts and a nearly a dollar short of the same period a year ago. The company blamed flagging demand for certain services and higher operating expenses.

Nike shares got a boost from news that the athletic shoe company named Elliott Hill as its president and CEO, replacing John Donahoe. Its shares rose 6.6% as investors applauded the change that will bring Hill, who retired from the company in 2020, back to run the show.

Shares in Trump Media and Technology Group slid 5.7% to all-time lows as the lockup period for the company's biggest shareholder, former President Donald Trump, ended.

Trump owns more than half of the $3 billion company behind the Truth Social platform. But Trump and other insiders in the company have been, until today, unable to cash in because a “lock-up agreement” has prevented them from selling any of their shares. Trump has said he's in no rush to sell.

U.S. indices rose to record highs on Thursday after the Federal Reserve delivered its first cut to interest rates in more than four years a day earlier.

That closed the door on a run where the Fed kept its main interest rate at a two-decade high in hopes of slowing the U.S. economy enough to stamp out high inflation. Now that inflation has fallen from its peak two summers ago, Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed can focus more on keeping the job market solid and the economy out of a recession.

The Fed is still under pressure because the job market and hiring have begun to slow under the weight of higher interest rates. Some critics say the central bank waited too long to cut rates and may have damaged the economy.

Elsewhere, in Europe at midday, Germany’s DAX, the CAC 40 in Paris and London's FTSE 100 were all down in the neighborhood of 0.8%.

The Bank of Japan ended a two-day monetary policy meeting by announcing it would keep its benchmark rate unchanged at 0.25%.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index soared 1.5% to close at 37,723.91 after the nation's key inflation data in August accelerated for a fourth consecutive month. The core consumer price index rose 2.8% year-on-year in August, exceeding the central bank’s 2% target and leaving room for further rate hikes.

Markets are closely watching for hints on the pace of future rate hikes from BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda.

“For the BOJ, given current economic conditions and recent central bank rhetoric, further policy adjustments are not expected until later this year or early 2025,” Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said in a commentary.

The U.S. dollar rebounded against the Japanese currency, rising to 144.14 yen from 142.62 yen late Thursday. The euro rose to $1.1167 from $1.1161.

China refrained from further monetary stimulus as the central bank left key lending rates unchanged on Friday. The 1-year loan prime rate (LPR), the benchmark for most corporate and household loans, stays at 3.45%, and the 5-year rate, a reference for property mortgages, was held at 3.85%.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 1.4% to 18,258.57 and the Shanghai Composite index edged up less than 0.1% to 2,736.81.

Elsewhere in the region, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2% at 8,209.50. South Korea's Kospi advanced 0.5% to 2,593.37.

India's Sensex gained 0.9% and Taiwan's Taiex was up 0.5%.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury ticked down to 3.71% from 3.73% late Thursday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, ticked up to 3.61% from 3.59%.

In other dealings early Friday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 32 cents to $70.84 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 31 cents to $74.56 per barrel.

On Thursday, the S&P 500 jumped 1.7% to 5,713.64 for one of its best days of the year and topped its last all-time high set in July. The Dow leaped 1.3% to 42,025.19, and the Nasdaq composite led the market with a 2.5% spurt to 18,013.98.

A bus passes the Wall St. subway station on Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

Trader Michale Conlon, right, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's news conference appears on a television screen behind him, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index and Japanese Yen exchange rate at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person stands in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

People ride bicycles in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)

A person rides a bicycle in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Friday, Sept. 20, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)