Sarah McCammon

With Missouri potentially on the verge of becoming the only state without a clinic that performs abortions, Democrats in Congress are holding a hearing Thursday to look into the regulation of clinics by state officials.

On a recent, cloudy fall afternoon, Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin stood outside the governor's mansion in Frankfort, flanked by a couple dozen activists in blue T-shirts, holding signs that read, "I Vote Pro-Life."

"It took me a while to figure out why I keep seeing these blue T-shirts," Bevin joked as he turned to the volunteers. "I wasn't sure who you were, but I'm just grateful to you."

These activists have been door-knocking across Kentucky on Bevin's behalf, to reach 200,000 voters before the election on Nov. 5.

With abortion-rights activists playing defense from statehouses to the Supreme Court, Planned Parenthood is unveiling a new campaign push focused on the 2020 elections.

The organization is announcing its largest electoral effort yet — with plans to spend at least $45 million backing candidates in local, state and national races who support abortion rights.

President Trump has won at least a temporary reprieve from a judge's order to release his tax records as part of a criminal investigation into his business dealings. Those records could be released to investigators as litigation continues.

Tax experts say the documents could reveal a lot — or not much at all — about Trump's financial history.

It has been a week since the disturbing discovery of thousands of fetal remains at the home of a former abortion provider, and authorities still don't know why he kept them.

Ulrich Klopfer had performed abortions at three clinics in Indiana but lived across the state line in Illinois.

When Arlen found out she was pregnant this year, she was still finishing college and knew she didn't want a child.

There's a clinic near her home, but Arlen faced other obstacles to getting an abortion.

"I started researching about prices, and I was like, 'Well, I don't have $500,' " said Arlen, who is in her 20s and lives in El Paso, Texas. We're not using her full name to protect her privacy.

"So I was like, 'OK, there's gotta be other ways.' "

Her research led her to information about self-induced abortion using pills.

Updated at 5 p.m. ET

A European doctor who prescribes abortion pills to American women over the Internet is suing the Food and Drug Administration in an effort to continue providing the medications to patients in the United States.

The lawsuit being filed Monday in federal court in Idaho names several federal officials, including U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.

Updated at 5:37 p.m. ET

Planned Parenthood is leaving the federal Title X family planning program rather than comply with new Trump administration rules regarding abortion counseling.

The new rules, issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year, prohibit Title X grantees from providing or referring patients for abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or medical emergency.

Updated at 5:41 p.m. ET

Planned Parenthood says it will formally withdraw from the nation's family planning program for low-income people within days, unless a federal court intervenes.

This is a story about two small-town Virginia churches with the same name, but two very different congregations. They've each found themselves caught up in controversy tied to President Trump's racist rhetoric. NPR's Sarah McCammon recently visited both congregations.

Joshua Harris, one of the most influential voices on sex and relationships for a generation of evangelical Christians, announced this past week that he and his wife are separating after 20 years of marriage.

Harris' book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, was published in 1997 when he was in his early 20s. It became a manual for young evangelicals looking for love.

In recent years, Harris has apologized for some of the ideas he promoted and publicly wrestled with them in a documentary.

Quinn Christopherson was named winner of 2019's Tiny Desk Contest and although the contest only has one winner, there were many impressive and touching performances submitted for the judges' consideration by the 6,000-plus contestants. This summer, Weekend Edition is highlighting some of the stand-out entries.

Updated at 5:10 p.m. ET

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is leaving the White House, President Trump tweeted on Thursday.

Updated at 12:32 p.m. ET

In the aftermath of a mass shooting that killed 12 people in Virginia Beach, Va., Gov. Ralph Northam is calling a special legislative session to address gun violence.

"We must do more than give our thoughts and prayers; we must give Virginians the action they deserve," Northam said during a news conference Tuesday morning in Richmond, Va.

With hours to go before the expiration of a state license that allows a Planned Parenthood health center in Missouri to perform abortions, clinics in neighboring states say they're preparing for an influx of additional patients.

Updated at 2:50 p.m. ET

Opponents of abortion rights have a long history of supporting abortion bans with three major exceptions: when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest, or when a woman's life is at risk.

But fueled by momentum from the passage of a restrictive abortion law in Alabama, a coalition of anti-abortion-rights groups released a letter Wednesday asking Republican officials to "reconsider decades-old talking points" on exceptions to such laws.

Now that they're married, Laura and Adam Hardin clearly have figured it out: their two toddlers were pattering around upstairs in their modest home in a Washington, D.C., suburb when NPR visited recently. And Laura's belly was bulging with their third baby — a daughter born last week.

But Adam remembers some anxious moments on their honeymoon almost five years ago — the first time either of them had sex.

"Mostly I think I was concerned with, like, not wanting to hurt her," he says.

Dana Weinstein was 31 weeks into her second pregnancy, preparing to welcome a daughter, when she and her husband were given horrible news: A critical piece of the brain had not developed properly.

"[We were told] that our baby would have seizures 70% of the time — that was a best-case scenario; that when we delivered her, that we'd need to have a resuscitation order in place because she would most likely seize to death," Weinstein said.