S. Korea President, Texas Abortion Lawsuit, Coffee Prices
15:17 Share

South Korea's president has been impeached. Earlier this month, he tried to impose martial law as he struggled against his political opponents in the government. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Ayesha Roscoe, and this is Up First from NPR News. Thousands of protesters outside the parliament building cheered when the measure was passed.

The impeachment has significant implications for U.S. foreign policy. We'll have more on that story. Plus, Texas sues a New York doctor for prescribing abortion medication to a Dallas woman. And coffee prices soar after a bad drought hits Brazil. Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.

This message comes from BetterHelp. This holiday season, do something for a special person in your life. You. Give yourself the gift of better mental health. BetterHelp Online Therapy connects you with a qualified therapist via phone, video, or live chat. It's convenient and affordable and can be done from the comfort of your own home. Having someone to talk to is truly a gift, especially during the holidays. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR to get 10% off your first month.

This message comes from Bombas. Their socks are super plush, designed to support your arches and support people in need. One purchase equals one donated to those experiencing homelessness. Go to bombas.com slash NPR and use code NPR for 20% off your first order.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Mint Mobile. From the gas pump to the grocery store, inflation is everywhere. So Mint Mobile is offering premium wireless starting at just $15 a month. To get your new phone plan for just $15, go to mintmobile.com slash switch.

South Korean President Yoon Sung-yeol declared martial law 11 days ago, only to reverse his order hours later in the face of public outrage. The political crisis threatened to pull an established democracy back to its days of military rule. And Bears Anthony Kuhn joined us now from Seoul. Anthony, thanks for being with us. My pleasure, Scott. Parliament has tried to impeach Yoon just a week ago. How did the vote go this time? Why was it different?

Well, this time, all lawmakers in South Korea's parliament called the National Assembly voted. The vote ended up 204 to 85. Here's what it sounded like when the vote was announced in the main chamber. Go! 204 votes!

Of course, there's a lot of celebrating in the streets as well. Now, Yoon's original rationale for martial law was that opposition politicians who were sympathetic or in league with North Korea were paralyzing the government. But he never really stood that charge up. It never really resonated beyond his base of conservative supporters. And it became clear that there was no war or breakdown of public order or anything that legally justified martial law.

And as his ministers and generals were arrested or questioned, it became clear that Yoon and not his subordinates was the one who was orchestrating martial law. Anthony, how does South Korea choose a new president now?

Well, Yoon's official duties have already been suspended, and South Korea's Prime Minister Han Deok-soo will stand in as acting president. Next, South Korea's Constitutional Court will have 180 days to reject or uphold the impeachment. If they uphold it, Yoon will be officially removed from office, and a new election for president will have to be held within 60 days.

Has South Korea's democracy passed a stress test? Is there lasting damage? It seems that way. One thing that happened was that Yoon tried to hand power over to his ruling party, said, I'm not going to manage things, they will. But experts said that's an unconstitutional arrangement. So for a while, people were not really sure who was leading South Korea.

And so many top generals were suspended from their duties. There was also concern about military vulnerability. The country technically remains at war with North Korea. I think South Korea's public image has taken somewhat of a beating. This is a country that, with the U.S., co-hosted a summit for democracy, and yet here was its leader trying to use the military to roll back people's civil rights. And, you know, a lot of people are celebrating right now, people who wanted Yoon impeached, but I think most of the people

The sense you get from living here is that this has been a very stressful, even traumatic 11 days for South Koreans. And how does it affect the U.S.-South Korean relationship and shared policy goals?

Well, publicly at least, the U.S. said it was relieved that Yoon's declaration of martial law was lifted. But I think privately, Biden administration officials have got to be absolutely exasperated that Yoon shot himself in the foot because Yoon was instrumental in forging a three-way coalition of the U.S., Japan, and South Korea to help deter North Korea, support Ukraine, enforce export controls on China, all these policy goals.

Then again, think about this. Yoon is likely to be replaced by a liberal North Korea-friendly administration. And if the Trump administration and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un want to do the diplomatic dance again, South Korea could help broker some diplomacy. NPR's Anthony Kuhn, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you, Scott. Thank you.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned two years ago, out-of-state doctors have been prescribing abortion medication to patients in states with strict abortion laws. A new lawsuit by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton challenges that practice, as well as the SHIELD laws that blue states pass to protect their doctors. And Pearsall, listen, Ed Worney covers reproductive rights and joins us now. Thanks for being with us. Good morning. What does the lawsuit say?

So the lawsuit accuses a New York doctor of violating Texas law by providing the two drugs used in an abortion to a pregnant patient living in the state. And the suit says this 20-year-old woman who received the pills ended up in a hospital with complications. They're

Aren't any criminal charges involved? It's a civil suit, but it seeks up to $250,000 and aims to stop the doctor from continuing to provide abortion medications to patients in Texas. In a statement, Ken Paxton, the Texas AG, said, quote,

The patient in question received pills under a shield law. Tell us more about that shield law. So at least eight Democrat-controlled states have enacted these shield laws, like the one in New York.

They give abortion providers some protection from criminal prosecution, civil claims, extradition, things like that. But the laws have yet to be tested. So this case essentially pits a state with a near total abortion ban against a state with laws that not just protect abortion rights, but specifically protect doctors in the state from prescribing pills to people in other states through telehealth.

So Texas is essentially trying to test what the state of New York is going to do with respect to defending the actions of this doctor who was providing legal care in the state of New York. And Alyssa, what is New York's position? Well, the New York attorney general released a statement saying that New York will, quote, protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job.

The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, who signed the state's shield law, said in a statement she will do everything in her power to enforce the laws of New York State. David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University who helped craft that New York law, talked to me yesterday. Here's his take on the legal wrangling between the states. The courts of Texas are going to try and force the doctor in New York to participate in the lawsuit.

And they don't have jurisdiction over her, so they have to get the New York courts to try and cooperate, and the New York courts are not going to cooperate. And yet, despite that, anti-abortion groups are already celebrating the legal challenge. And Alyssa, what do we know about the doctor in this case? So the New York doctor is one of the founders of an organization called Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine. They help pass shield laws and offer support for providers doing telehealth abortions.

In a statement, they said that the Texas Attorney General was, quote, prioritizing his anti-abortion agenda over the health and well-being of women. Now, Scott, it's worth noting that telehealth has made it much easier for people to access abortion medication. Like, even after the Supreme Court stopped decision, which struck down Roe v. Wade, the number of abortions in the U.S. has gone up.

About a fifth are now via telehealth. And then you break that down further, medication sent by shield law providers now accounts for as many as 12,000 prescriptions a month. And how could this case potentially affect women in getting access to abortion medications?

Well, you know, long-term worry for abortion rights supporters is that this case ends up in federal court and it has the possibility of making it harder for women in states with bans to get abortion pills by mail. But for now, nothing changes. I talked to Angel Foster about this. She runs the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project. They call it the MAP, to be more discreet. They operate under Massachusetts shield law. They have four OBGYNs that prescribe abortion medication to people no matter which state they live in. We knew it was coming.

Obviously, it's disappointing and it's a little scary and it's not unexpected. She says the only impact to her organization is that they're going to talk to their lawyers more. Just yesterday, they mailed about 150 pills to people all across the country. The largest number went to Texas. And they predict they'll end up sending about 3,000 pills to people mainly in states with bans this month alone. And Pierre's Alyssa Nedwurney, thanks so much. You bet. Scott, did you know?

Coffee is the second most popular beverage in the U.S. after water? To some of us, the only form of water I drink is in coffee, as a matter of fact, Aisha. And for me, I just drink a lot of Coca-Cola. But I am thinking of all the millions of coffee drinkers out there because this week coffee prices on the futures market hit their highest level in nearly half a century.

We invited NPR's Alina Selyuk here to explain what's going on. Welcome to the podcast. Hello, hello. Can you guess what I brought? Did you bring some coffee to keep you going? Brought my latte. Okay.

Okay, you brought your latte. What is happening with coffee prices? Yes, coffee prices have soared. And it all started with problems with harvests, first in Vietnam and then in Brazil. These are the two top growers of the most common types of coffee beans.

And the culprit was abnormal weather, which many in the industry attribute to climate change. I talked to some longtime importers of green coffee, that's raw beans. One of them is John Cassette from Royal Coffee in California. And he says, first you had Vietnam with a serious drought followed by heavier rains than usual. And that drove up prices for the bean that grows there. And already had people scrambling to switch to the bean that grows in Brazil. And then Brazil had one of the worst droughts on record.

Here's Cassette. Once they start harvesting the coffee, it's kind of nice to have dry weather when you're harvesting, but as soon as it's done, you want it to start raining, you know, get the soil moisture up and initiate flowering. And it just didn't happen. It really freaked people out. Eventually it did rain, but farmers later said a lot of the damage was irreversible. And so the price of the most common coffee, that's called Arabica, jumped 70% this year. The price of the other type of coffee called Robusta at one point doubled in price. Both cost

more than they ever did. Arabica and Robusta, how different are these? Yeah, so they have different flavor based on where they grow. What I have here in my cup is Arabica. It is the most common. Brazil is the biggest grower. And this coffee grows at higher altitudes. It has a softer, sweeter taste.

And that's what you find often in your roast coffee, your ground coffee. Robusta grows at lower elevation. Vietnam is the biggest grower. And this bean has a harsher, more bitter taste. It's used a lot for instant coffee. Oh, OK. I think my mom drinks something like that.

But back to the prices. Was it just the irreversible damage to harvest that drove up the cost? You know, coffee markets are complicated, like all commodities. Many of the traders actually need the physical coffee, the bags of beans. But many traders are just financial speculators. They're trying to game the price change, you know, buy cheaper, sell higher. And every

one bets on how much they think beans will cost in the future. And so when people think those beans won't grow or there won't be enough, those who need those beans scramble, speculators go nuts, and it all only spirals the price further, which is what's happened. And it doesn't help that this week, one of the world's biggest coffee traders made a forecast that Arabica, coffee like I have here, could see supply decline by nearly a

quarter in the next cycle. Okay, so now we've been talking about record prices on the futures market, but I don't buy coffee at the futures market, right? You buy it at the grocery store or at Starbucks. So how is this going to translate?

So I'm sorry to say those prices have already been rising. If you shop at the supermarket, brands like Nescafe, Maxwell House, Folgers, Dunkin', they've all had waves of price increases. They've cited higher cost of the green raw coffee. At your local coffee shop, it really depends. Depends on how they source their products. But yes, likely they're feeling the pressure to raise prices and they're just trying to assess how to do that without scaring away shoppers.

But fact of the matter is, as a world, we are drinking more and more and more coffee. So demand has not waned so far. People so far have been willing to pay those higher prices for their coffee habit.

The markets will probably eventually calm down. Importers I talked to pointed out historically adjusted for inflation. We've actually been paying pretty low prices for a pound of coffee. So maybe it's the days of cheap coffee that are over. That's probably bad news for coffee drinkers, but we got to give it to you straight. No cream and sugar here. That's NPR's Alina Selyuk. Thank you so much. Thank you.

And that's it first for Saturday, December 14th, 2024. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe. Our producer is Martin Patience, with help from Danny Hensel, Andrew Craig, Chris Thomas, and Gabe O'Connor. Our director is Michael Radcliffe. Our editors are Catherine Laidlaw, Emily Kopp, Shannon Rhodes, and Matthew Sherman.

Jay Ciz is our technical director with engineering support from Zach Coleman, David Greenberg, and author Holiday Laurent. Amy Stone is our senior supervising editor. Sarah Lucy Oliver is our executive producer. And Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor. He also did a lot of editing this week. Really? I wondered what he was doing. Tomorrow on the Sunday Story from Up First. The

The celebrated African-American poet Nikki Giovanni passed away this week at the age of 81. We remember her and her work with a conversation between her and NPR host Rachel Martin earlier this year. And for more news, interviews, sports, and music, you can tune in to Weekend Edition on your radio. You can go to stations.npr.org to find your local NPR station.

This message comes from Total Wine & More. Discover a new favorite Chardonnay, sparkling wine, or gin, and you'll discover something special. Total Wine & More. Love what you find. Drink responsibly. Be 21.

This message is brought to you by Lisa in collaboration with West Elm. Discover the new natural hybrid mattress, expertly crafted from natural latex and certified safe foams, designed with your health and the planet in mind. Visit leesa.com to learn more.

This message comes from NPR sponsor, Leesa. Good sleep should come naturally, and with the new Natural Hybrid mattress, it can. A collaboration between Leesa and West Elm, the Natural Hybrid is expertly crafted from natural latex, natural wool, and certified safe foams to elevate your sleep sanctuary and support a greener tomorrow. Plus, every purchase helps fuel Leesa's work with shelters and those in need.

Visit Lisa.com to learn more. That's L-E-E-S-A dot com.