5 things to know for May 13: Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Drug prices, Texas abortion, Sea levels

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President Donald Trump has appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to serve as the acting librarian of Congress. Blanche represented Trump during his 2024 criminal hush money trial, which ended with the then-former president being found guilty on 34 felony counts. He will replace Carla Hayden, the first woman and first Black person to serve as librarian of Congress and the former president of the American Library Association. Here’s what else you need to know to Get Up to Speed and On with Your Day. President Trump arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, overnight on his first visit to the region during his second term. Administration officials said the president hopes to spend the trip making deals with the Saudis, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates that will enhance their investments in America. The US has already announced a $1.4 billion weapons sale to the UAE that includes Chinook helicopters as well as parts and support for F-16 fighter jets. Today, Trump is attending a more formal arrival ceremony with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman; eating lunch with the CEOs of Amazon, NVIDIA, Google, Boeing and Tesla; attending bilateral meetings; and then taking part in an agreement signing of the Royal Court. Despite what the White House is calling a “historic return to the Middle East,” a visit to Israel is not on the itinerary. Dozens of White South Africans who were granted refugee status by the Trump administration for alleged discrimination arrived in the US on Monday. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, who met the 59 Afrikaners at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia, claimed they had been “subject to very serious, egregious and targeted threats” and likened them to “quality seeds” that would hopefully “bloom” in America. However, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he told President Trump that the persecution of the White minority group was not true. “They are leaving ostensibly because they don’t want to embrace the changes that are taking place in our country in accordance with our constitution,” Ramaphosa said. While the administration has expedited the processing of Afrikaners as refugees, it has suspended all other refugee resettlement, including for people fleeing war and famine. President Trump signed an executive order on Monday that he said will lower drug prices in the US by basing the cost of certain medicines on their prices in other countries. Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Services to come up with price targets within 30 days and ordered drugmakers to start offering US patients the lowest price paid for a drug in a peer country. If drug manufacturers do not lower prices, the executive order outlined some potential ramifications, including allowing more drug imports and having the FDA modify or revoke approvals granted for drugs that may be “unsafe, ineffective, or improperly marketed.” It’s unclear what authority Trump has to demand certain prices, particularly in the private market. It’s also unknown when — or if — Americans will see lower prices. The fate of a woman suffering from a miscarriage may depend not just on the state where she lives, but the location of the hospital she visits. Texas enacted its abortion law in 2021, banning the procedure even in pregnancies that were no longer viable. The state also threatened to imprison doctors and punish hospitals for providing such care unless there was a life-threatening emergency. Since then, medical personnel have been restricted from helping women who were miscarrying until they could figure out a way to document that the patients were in mortal peril. Now, a new analysis by ProPublica showed that where the hospitals were located often determined if these women ended up suffering from sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to infection. Sepsis cases across Texas shot up more than 50% for women who lost their pregnancies in the second trimester after the state enacted its abortion ban. When these women went to hospitals in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where doctors were empowered to intervene before it was too late, that number dropped to 29%. Whereas in Houston, where hospitals’ legal departments had advised doctors to delay treatment until they could document a serious infection, the sepsis rate surged to 63%.