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Making good on a threat, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that California will cancel a $54 million contract with Walgreens as punishment for the pharmacy’s decision not to distribute abortion pills in states where attorneys general have warned it would be illegal. (Woolfolk, 3/8)

Walgreens will no longer provide medications to inmates in California’s sprawling correctional system as a result of the decision. A planned renewal of the contract was scheduled to take effect May 1. Newsom says this is just the first step in an “exhaustive review” of all of the state’s ties with Walgreens, some of which he may need to work with the state Legislature to terminate. (Ollstein and White, 3/8)

“California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” Newsom said in a news release. “California is on track to be the fourth largest economy in the world and we will leverage our market power to defend the right to choose.” Walgreens representative Fraser Engerman said the company was “deeply disappointed by the decision by the state of California not to renew our longstanding contract due to false and misleading information.” “Walgreens is facing the same circumstances as all retail pharmacies, and no other pharmacies have said that they would approach this situation differently, so it’s unclear where this contract would not be moved,” Engerman said. “Our position has always been that, once we are certified by the FDA, Walgreens plans to dispense Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so, including the state of California.” (Beam, 3/9)

Walgreens’s effort at damage control this week appeared to leave no one satisfied as it continued to attract criticism from both sides of the abortion divide, a stark lesson in the dangers ahead for the multibillion-dollar chain drugstore industry, which has been dragged headlong into the volatile issue. Drugstores have faced criticism from various quarters for selling cigarettes and unhealthy snacks and for shifting policies over sales of birth control. But the conflagration over dispensing abortion pills eclipses those controversies in scale and poses a threat to drug chains’ relationships with consumers, experts say. (Rowland, 3/8)

Pharmacies and medication abortion are emerging as contentious political battlegrounds in the increasingly complex issue of abortion access in the U.S. ... Kirsten Moore, director of the Expanding Medication Abortion Access Project, said she believes it will take time for pharmacies to get certified and for the FDA’s new policy to sort out. Antiabortion lawmakers and groups, she said, are throwing everything at the wall to see what can slow or prevent pharmacies from dispensing medication abortion. (Calfas, 3/8)

Alaska legislators urged Walgreens leadership to reconsider its decision not to sell the abortion drug mifepristone in the state after what they called “inappropriate pressure” from the state’s attorney general, Treg Taylor. Nearly two dozen members of the Alaska House and Senate signed on to the letter and enclosed a copy of the state’s constitution, encouraging Walgreens CEO Rosalind Taylor to review it. (Stremple, 3/7)