By Rose Horowitch

(Reuters) – Annie England Noblin, a 40-year-old resident of rural Missouri, had never had a problem filling her monthly prescription for methotrexate until this week.

    On Monday, Noblin’s pharmacist said she could not give her the drug until she had confirmed with Noblin’s doctor that the medication would not be used to induce an abortion.

Missouri now bans nearly all abortions and methotrexate can be used to end a pregnancy. It also happens to be one of the first medicines prescribed by doctors to treat rheumatoid arthritis, which affects more than one million Americans.

The pharmacy ultimately filled the prescription, but Noblin said she will likely switch to a different, more expensive medication in case they refuse to fill her prescription in the future.

“It’s infuriating,” Noblin said. “It made me feel I couldn’t be trusted with the medication prescribed to me simply because I have a uterus.”

Dozens of women in states including Texas, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee also have had problems getting their methotrexate, either because of issues at pharmacies or because they say their doctors have suspended prescribing the drug, according to social media posts reviewed by Reuters and patient advocacy groups the Global Healthy Living Foundation and the Arthritis Foundation.

More than 30 states have enacted legislation that restricts access to medication that can be used to terminate a pregnancy. In Texas, it is now a felony to dispense methotrexate to someone more than seven weeks pregnant who uses it to end a pregnancy. Indiana bans medication abortion – including methotrexate – starting at 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Six other state laws specifically mention methotrexate as an abortion-inducing medication, said Steven Schultz, state legislative affairs director for the Arthritis Foundation.

These laws have a “chilling effect” on physicians and pharmacists, often leading them to not dispense drugs that also may cause abortion for fear of legal repercussions, Temple University Law Professor Rachel Rebouche said.

On Wednesday, the U.S. government health agency instructed retail pharmacies that they are required to fill prescriptions under federal civil rights laws, calling out the denial of methotrexate as possible discrimination.

    The government’s guidance underscores the broad potential impact of limiting such prescriptions, but may not be enough to override concerns about state bans.

“It goes some ways in getting the message out that there are federal rules that can be brought to bear,” Rebouche said. “We’ll have to wait and see what the federal government is willing to do to ensure people have the information they need.”

Pharmacists are caught in the “crossfire” between conflicting federal and state regulations, the National Community Pharmacists Association, which represents 19,000 independent pharmacists, said in a statement.

Spokespeople for two of the biggest U.S. pharmacy chains Walgreens Boots Alliance and CVS Health say they instruct their pharmacists to confirm methotrexate will not be used to terminate a pregnancy before dispensing it to people in states that ban abortion in many circumstances.

COMMONLY PRESCRIBED DRUG

Methotrexate, an inexpensive generic drug made by more than half a dozen companies, is commonly prescribed to treat autoimmune diseases like lupus and has been approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis for more than 30 years.

It is also used to treat cancer and, in much higher doses, can terminate pregnancies, complete miscarriages, or end a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy.

About 500,000 methotrexate prescriptions a month were written in the past year, according to pharmaceutical market research firm IQVIA.

Restrictions on medication abortion could become further enshrined into law. Drugmaker GenBioPro is currently challenging a Mississippi law that requires patients to see a doctor in person to obtain mifepristone, a drug used in medication abortion.

    Legislators who are not medically trained can open a “Pandora’s box,” with far-reaching effects on other areas of medicine, said Michele Goodwin, a global health policy professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.

“For a lot of women we’re going to see this reduced access,” Noblin said. “Ultimately it’s going to end up costing us money and costing us dignity.”

(Reporting by Rose Horowitch in Washington; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)

By Sergiy Karazy

VINNYTSIA, Ukraine – Russian missiles struck the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia far behind the frontlines on Thursday in an attack which Ukrainian officials called a war crime and said had killed at least 23 people, including three children.

The strike, which Ukraine said had been carried out with Kalibr cruise missiles launched from a Russian submarine in the Black Sea, came a day after a breakthrough in talks between Moscow and Kyiv to unblock Ukrainian grain exports and underscored how far the two sides remain from a peace settlement.

“What is this, if not an open act of terrorism?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “appalled” by the missile attack and “condemns any attacks against civilians or civilian infrastructure,” a spokesperson said.

The Russian defence ministry, which denies deliberately targeting civilians, did not immediately comment on the strike.

Ukraine’s state emergency service said on its Facebook page that 23 people including three children had been killed, with 66 hospitalized and 39 others still missing.

It posted a photograph on its Telegram channel of a toy kitten, a toy dog, and flowers lying in the grass. “The little girl Lisa, killed by the Russians today, has become a ray of sunshine,” it said, above a second image of a setting sun over ruined roofs. “Forgive us, little one, that we did not save you.”

Zelenskiy told an international conference aimed at prosecuting war crimes in Ukraine that the attack had been mounted on “an ordinary, peaceful city”.

“Cruise missiles hit two community facilities, houses were destroyed, a medical centre was destroyed, cars and trams were on fire,” he said.

Ukraine’s interior minister, Denys Monastyrskyi, said later two more missiles had been intercepted en route by air defences.

Russia, which launched what it called its “special military operation” against Ukraine on Feb. 24, says its it uses high-precision weapons to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure to protect its own security.

Vinnytsia, a city of 370,000 people about 200km (125 miles) southwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, hosts the command headquarters of the Ukrainian Air Force, according to an official Ukrainian military website, a target which Russia used cruise missiles to try to hit in March, the Ukrainian air force said at the time.

Video footage showed thick black smoke billowing out of a tall building, while photographs posted online by the State Emergency Service showed grey smoke rising later from the twisted remains of burnt-out cars and smouldering rubble.

One showed an abandoned, overturned pram lying on the street.

In comments on Twitter, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of committing “another war crime”.

“This is terrorism. Deliberate murder of civilians to spread fear. Russia is a terrorist state and must be legally recognised as such,” Kuleba wrote.

FIGHTING ON THE EASTERN FRONT

The United States and more 40 other countries agreed on Thursday to coordinate investigations into suspected Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Russia denies the accusations, and Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who is now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, has said that attempts by the West to punish a nuclear power such as Russia for the conflict in Ukraine risk endangering humanity.

The Kremlin has said that Russia is ready to halt what the West calls Moscow’s unprovoked war of aggression if Kyiv agrees to its conditions.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko said on Thursday that Moscow would respond positively should Kyiv be ready to resume peace negotiations, the Interfax news agency reported. Kyiv would have to affirm its non-aligned and non-nuclear status and formally recognise existing territorial realities, Rudenko was cited as saying.

Specifically, he said that would mean recognising that Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, was under Russian control, and that two self-proclaimed Russian-backed statelets in eastern Ukraine were no longer under Kyiv’s remit.

Ukraine has repeatedly said it is unwilling to concede any territory to a country it calls a hostile occupier and has said it plans to take back any land lost by force.

On the war’s frontlines hundreds of miles to the east of Vinnytsia, Ukraine said on Thursday it had repelled attempted Russian ground assaults after Moscow focused its fire on and around two towns there which it views as spring-boards to taking control of bigger cities.

Daniil Bezsonov, a Russian-backed official in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said on Thursday that the statelet’s armed forces and Russia were focusing their fire in eastern Ukraine on the towns of Siversk and Soledar.

The Russian plan, he said, was to seize the two towns and then move forward to attack the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the east.

The Ukrainian military, which reported Russian shelling of Siversk, Soledar and Kramatorsk, said it was holding the line on all fronts and repelling all attempted assaults.

Russian-backed separatist forces late on Thursday claimed control of the settlements of Stryapivka and Nova Kamianka east of Soledar, the LPR militia said on their Telegram channel.

Two people were killed when Ukrainian forces shelled a bus station in the separatist-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a separatist leader said on Thursday.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; writing by Andrew Osborn, Alexandra Hudson; editing by Nick Macfie and Andrew Heavens)

MEXICO CITY -The United States agreed to increase the number of work visas for Mexicans and Central Americans during high-level talks in Washington this week, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Thursday.

“The number of (temporary) work visas to enter the United States will be considerably expanded,” he told a regular news conference on his return from Washington where he met his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden on Tuesday.

Lopez Obrador did not give details.

Esteban Moctezuma, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, said in an interview with a local newspaper that visas for Mexicans will increase next year as a result of the Washington talks.

“Mexico, I imagine, it’s an assumption, will have about 260,000 H2A visas,” Moctezuma told newspaper Milenio, adding that final details are still being negotiated.

Mexico aims to boost the number of work permits every year, he added.

While in Washington, Lopez Obrador called on the United States to allow for more legal work visas, but Biden only went as far as highlighting existing programs used by Mexicans and Central Americans.

Washington did not confirm an increase in visas on Thursday, saying only that access to visas for Mexicans and Central Americans had already been ramped up, and that the Biden administration would keep working to expand access.

In a joint statement after the meeting, the governments said they would form a working group on labor migration pathways.

During his visit, Lopez Obrador also touted $40 billion worth of planned investments in Mexico by U.S. companies between now and 2024. On Thursday, he added that the spending would mostly go to the energy sector.

Billions of dollars in foreign investment in Mexico have been held up by disputes between companies and the government as Lopez Obrador tightens state control of the energy market.

(Reporting by Isabel Woodford, Kylie Madry and Daina Beth SolomonAdditional reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington;Editing by Christian Plumb, Frances Kerry and Stephen Coates)

(Reuters) – Russian missiles struck a Ukrainian city far behind the frontlines in an attack Kyiv officials said was a war crime that killed at least 23 people while there were more signs of progress in efforts to unblock Ukrainian grain exports.

ECONOMY/DIPLOMACY

* The United States sought to facilitate Russian food and fertilizer exports by reassuring banks, shipping and insurance companies that such transactions would not breach sanctions. This is part of attempts by UN and Turkish officials to broker a package deal that would also allow for shipments of Ukraine grain from the Black Sea port of Odesa to resume.* A Russian basketball club director gave evidence in support of U.S. Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) star Brittney Griner in her third appearance in a Russian court on drugs charges carrying a possible jail sentence of up to 10 years.* A top Russian official said on Thursday that Moscow would respond positively should Kyiv be ready to resume peace negotiations, but that Ukraine must accept the “territorial realities” of the situation, the Interfax news agency reported.

* The United States called on Russia to release Ukrainians it has forced out of their home country and allow outside observers, citing reports Moscow was putting Ukrainian children up for adoption and “disappearing” thousands of others.

* Ukraine’s top war crimes prosecutor and European judicial authorities met on Thursday to coordinate investigations into atrocities during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warning that a failure to do so would embolden autocrats.

FIGHTING

* Ukrainian forces hit two military checkpoints and a landing in the second strike this week on a Russian-held area in southern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said. The attack on Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson region killed 13 “occupiers”, Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Odesa regional administration, quoted the Operational Command South as saying.

* Two people were killed when Ukrainian forces shelled a bus station in the separatist-held city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, a separatist leader said.

* Ukraine is using Western-supplied long-range weapons and 155mm “smart” shells to hit Russian ammo dumps and supply lines, forcing Moscow to rethink how it supplies fuel and ammunition to the front line, a Ukrainian general said.

* Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.

(Compiled by Nick Macfie, Alexandra Hudson and Cynthia Osterman)

By David Lawder and Chris Gallagher

WASHINGTON -The United States and Kenya on Thursday launched a strategic trade and investment partnership to pursue commitments to boost economic growth, support African regional economic integration and deepen trade cooperation.

The U.S. and Kenyan governments will start work within three months to develop a road map for engagement in areas including agriculture safety and digital trade standards, climate change, regulatory practices, and customs procedures the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said in a statement.

Kenya has long sought a full free trade agreement with the United States, and negotiations for such a deal to lower bilateral tariffs were launched by the Trump administration with the east African country in 2020. But the Biden administration, which has shunned traditional trade deals, did not resume those talks.

Kenya enjoys substantial duty-free access to the U.S. market through the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade preference program for sub-Saharan African countries, but it expires in September 2025.

Kenya exported $685.1 million worth of goods to the United States in 2021, of which more than 75% entered duty free under AGOA, according to the Congressional Research Service — chiefly apparel, macadamia nuts, coffee, tea and titanium ores. The U.S. exported $561.6 million in goods to Kenya in 2021, with aircraft, plastics, machinery and wheat among the biggest categories.

The partnership announced by the two countries on Thursday made no mention of reducing tariffs or enhancing market access, in line with other recently launched U.S. trade dialogues with Britain, the European Union and Indo-Pacific nations.

The Kenya dialogue will include efforts to develop micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises and discussions on enforcement of labor laws and promoting workers’ rights – central components of the Biden administration’s other trade initiatives.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai, who launched the partnership with Kenyan Cabinet Secretary Betty Maina during a virtual meeting on Thursday, said in a statement that she wants the partnership to “grow our trade and investment relationship in a way that promotes resilience and facilitates sustainable and inclusive economic growth.”

“We also hope that this initiative can serve as a model for trade policy engagement in Africa, one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing regions in the world,” Tai added.

U.S. Representative Richard Neal, who chairs the trade and tax-focused House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, held out hope that the U.S.-Kenya talks could develop into a full trade deal. “This initiative will lay the groundwork for a comprehensive free trade agreement that includes market access, builds off AGOA, and complements both regional and continental integration,” he said in a statement.

Neal said the United States should “embrace” Kenya’s willingness to deepen its economic ties with the United States.

(Reporting by David Lawder and Chris Gallagher; editing by Kanishka Singh, Marguerita Choy and Leslie Adler)

By Uditha Jayasinghe, Alasdair Pal and Chen Lin

COLOMBO/SINGAPORE – Sri Lankan president Gotabaya Rajapaksa submitted a letter of resignation on Thursday, a spokesperson for the parliament speaker said, hours after fleeing to Singapore following mass protests over an economic meltdown.

The announcement triggered jubilation in the commercial capital Colombo where protesters massed outside the presidential secretariat, defying a city-wide curfew.

Crowds set off firecrackers, shouted slogans and danced ecstatically at the Gota Go Gama protest site, named mockingly after Rajapaksa’s first name.

“The whole country will celebrate today,” Damitha Abeyrathne, an activist, said. “It’s a big victory.”

“We never thought we would get this country free from them,” she added, referring to the Rajapaksa family who dominated the South Asian country’s politics for two decades.

Rajapaksa submitted his resignation by email late on Thursday and it would become official on Friday, once the document had been legally verified, the speaker’s spokesperson said.

Rajapaksa fled to the Maldives on Wednesday then headed on to Singapore on Thursday on a Saudi Arabian airline flight, according to a person familiar with the situation.

The Maldives government confirmed late on Thursday that the country had granted diplomatic clearance for a Sri Lanka Air Force aircraft that carried President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his spouse, on a transit visit.

A passenger on the flight, who declined to be named, told Reuters that Rajapaksa was met by a group of security guards and was seen leaving the airport VIP area in a convoy of black vehicles.

Airline staff on the flight told Reuters the president, dressed in black, flew business class with his wife and two bodyguards, describing him as “quiet” and “friendly”.

Singapore’s foreign ministry said Rajapaksa had entered the country on a private visit, and had not sought or been granted asylum.

Rajapaksa’s decision on Wednesday to make his ally Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe the acting president triggered more protests, with demonstrators storming parliament and the premier’s office demanding that he quit too.

“We want Ranil to go home,” Malik Perera, a 29-year-old rickshaw driver who took part in the parliament protests, said earlier on Thursday. “They have sold the country, we want a good person to take over, until then we won’t stop.”

GRAPHIC: The Rajapaksas in the Sri Lankan government (https://graphics.reuters.com/SRI%20LANKA-CRISIS/gdvzylqwqpw/graphic.jpg)

IMF TALKS INTERRUPTED

Protests against the economic crisis have simmered for months and came to a head last weekend when hundreds of thousands of people took over government buildings in Colombo, blaming the Rajapaksa family and allies for runaway inflation, shortages of basic goods, and corruption.

Sri Lanka had begun preliminary discussions with the International Monetary Fund about a potential bailout loan, but these have ben interrupted by the latest government chaos.

IMF spokesman Gerry Rice told reporters on Thursday that Fund staff were still in contact with technical-level government officials but hoped to resume high-level dialogue “as soon as possible.”

Inside the president’s residence early on Thursday, ordinary Sri Lankans wandered the halls, taking in the building’s extensive art collection, luxury cars and swimming pool.

“The fight is not over,” said Terance Rodrigo, a 26-year-old student who said he had been inside the compound since it was taken over by protesters on Saturday.

“We have to make society better than this. The government is not solving people’s problems.”

Protest organisers handed back the president and prime minister’s residences to the government on Thursday evening.

“With the president out of the country…, holding the captured places holds no symbolic value anymore,” Chameera Dedduwage, one of the organisers, told Reuters.

Another organiser, Kalum Amaratunga, said a crackdown could be imminent after Wickremesinghe branded some protesters “fascists” in an address the previous evening.

The government imposed a curfew in Colombo from noon (0630 GMT) on Thursday to early morning on Friday in a bid to prevent further unrest. Local media showed armoured vehicles with soldiers atop patrolling the city’s streets.

The military said troops were empowered to use force to protect people and public property.

ONE DEAD, 84 HURT IN CLASHES

Police said one person was killed and 84 injured in clashes between riot police and protesters on Wednesday near the parliament and prime minister’s office, as people demanded the ouster of both Rajapaksa and Wickremesinghe.

The army said two soldiers were seriously injured when they were attacked by protesters near parliament on Wednesday evening and that their weapons and magazines were snatched.

Police said the man who died was a 26-year-old protester who succumbed after he was injured near the premier’s office.

Former prime minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and former finance minister Basil Rajapaksa, both brothers of the president, informed the Supreme Court through their lawyer that they would remain in the country until at least Friday.

They were responding to a petition filed by anti-corruption body Transparency International seeking action “against persons responsible for the current economic crisis https://www.tisrilanka.org/tisl-asks-sc-to-issue-travel-restrictions-on-6-respondents-including-mahinda-rajapaksa-basil-rajapaksa-ajith-cabraal-and-s-r-attygala”.

Immigration officials had stopped Basil Rajapaksa from flying out of the country on Tuesday.

Parliament is expected to name a new full-time president on July 20 and a top ruling party source told Reuters that Wickremesinghe was the party’s first choice, although no decision had been taken. The opposition’s choice is their main leader, Sajith Premadasa, the son of a former president.

(Additional reporting by Edgar Su in Singapore, Sudarshan Varadhan in New Delhi, and Devjyot Ghoshal, Waruna Karunatilake and Adnan Abidi in Colombo, and David Lawder in Washington; Writing by Krishna N. Das; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan, Mark Heinrich and Raissa Kasolowsky)

By Tamara Corro and Jose Cortes

San Marcos Atexquilapan, Mexico – In small towns in eastern and western Mexico, hundreds of mourners gathered in the predawn hours on Thursday to hold the first funerals for migrants who died last month while being smuggled in a suffocating trailer in San Antonio, Texas.

More than 50 people perished in the incident, which was the deadliest human smuggling tragedy in the United States on record.

In the small town of Atexquilapan in the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz, more than one hundred mourners packed together to pray for three teenage victims: brothers Jair, 19, and Yovani Valencia, 16, and their cousin Misael Olivares, 16.

The boys had hoped to migrate to the United States in order to find better paying work than in the local shoemaking industry, in which their parents toiled.

“Making shoes is very tiring; there is work here but it is so poorly paid and the price of everything is rising,” said Yolanda Valencia, Jair and Yovani’s mother.

On an altar, perched in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, were three framed photographs of the boys surrounded by candles.

“They went to search for a better life but unfortunately they had the bad luck of suffering this tragedy, in which we lost them,” Valencia said.

In the western state of Oaxaca, families also held ceremonies in the towns of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, San Miguel Huautla and Tuxtepec to receive the bodies of victims Jozue Diaz Gallardo, Javier Flores, and Mariano Santiago.

Shortly after 2 a.m., mourners received a casket containing the body of Diaz Gallardo, a long awaited moment for his distraught family.

“This is what we were waiting for, this is what we’ve been asking for all this time,” said his brother, Francisco.

More of the deceased are expected to be repatriated to Mexico, as well as Guatemala and Honduras, in the coming days.

(Reporting by Tamara Corro in Veracruz and Jose Cortes in Oaxaca; writing by Laura Gottesdiener; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

By Tyler Clifford

(Reuters) -The man accused of shooting dead 10 Black people at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on May 14 has been indicted on 27 federal hate crimes and firearms offenses, the U.S. Justice Department announced on Thursday.

The indictment returned by a federal grand jury tacks on an additional hate crime count against Payton Gendron, 19, in a criminal complaint filed last month. He is now charged with 14 hate crimes violations and 13 firearms offenses.

Authorities say the suspect, who broadcast the attack in real time to the livestreaming service Twitch, is a white supremacist who targeted the store because it was the hub of a tight-knit, predominantly African-American neighborhood in Buffalo.

The indictment spares federal prosecutors the additional legal step of asking a judge to determine whether there is sufficient evidence against the defendant to bring the case to trial.

If convicted, the Conklin, New York, man could face life in prison or the death penalty. Prosecutors must notify the court prior to trial whether they will seek a death sentence.

Gendron, who was 18 at the time of the mass shooting, is currently in state custody facing 10 counts of first-degree murder and 10 counts of second-degree murder in state court.

The indictment came less than an hour before community members planned to gather at the Tops Friendly Markets store – the site of the shooting – for a moment of silence and prayer to commemorate the two-month anniversary of the May 14 attack.

The store, which has since been fully renovated with increased security systems and a victim memorial, is set to reopen on Friday.

Ten days after the massacre, a mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, left 19 children and two teachers dead. Seven weeks after the Buffalo massacre, seven people where shot dead at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois.

The attacks have reignited a longstanding national debate over U.S. gun laws.

Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said the Tops store reopening was a step forward in the community’s efforts to heal.

“It is important to move forward as a united and strong community. We will not let hate win,” he said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Tyler Clifford in New York; Editing by Josie Kao and Chizu Nomiyama)

By Alicia Powell

NEW YORK – Former Congresswomen and gun shooting survivor Gabby Giffords is sharing her story of recovery and determination in a new documentary released this week.

“Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” recounts the former Democractic Representative’s journey since she was seriously wounded in an attack at a gathering of constituents in Tucson, Arizona in January 2011 in which six people were killed.

Giffords stepped down from Congress after sustaining a serious head injury and has since become a leading activist for gun restrictions in the United States.

“Move ahead, do not look back. Fight, fight, fight everyday,” she told Reuters about her mission to end gun violence despite a recent rash of mass shootings in the United States, including at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois and at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

The documentary includes an interview with former U.S. president Barack Obama, footage filmed during Giffords’ recovery and an intimate look at her marriage to former astronaut and now Democratic Senator Mark Kelly.

It was directed by Julie Cohen and Betsy West, known for their 2018 Oscar-nominated film about late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“Gabby is yet another strong woman that we’ve had the opportunity to film and I would say really one of the most inspiring,” West said.Asked what the film’s message was, Giffords, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House last week, said: “For me it has been really important to move ahead, to not look back.

“I hope others are inspired to keep moving forward no matter what.””Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down” is released in U.S. theatres on Friday.

(Reporting by Alicia Powell, Editing by William Maclean)