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Monday, June 30, 2014

11:46 PM

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Tensions deepen after missing Israeli teens found dead in West Bank - CNN





  • Israeli forces destroy suspects homes and carry out airstrikes in Gaza

  • "It's just too sad to even imagine," victim's aunt tells CNN

  • "Hamas will pay" for the deaths, says the Israeli Prime Minister

  • A Hamas spokesman warns against escalation; the group has denied involvement




(CNN) -- Nineteen days ago, three Israeli teenagers, trying to hitchhike home from the southern West Bank, disappeared.


Monday afternoon, volunteers from a nearby Israeli settlement discovered their bodies in an open field not far from Hebron, a city in the southern West Bank.


The teens' disappearance -- which Israel blamed on Hamas -- had already worsened relations between Israel and the Palestinians.


The discovery threatens to make it worse.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the students had been "murdered in cold blood" by people he described as "animals."


"Hamas will pay," Netanyahu warned.


Hamas, the militant fundamentalist Islamic organization that operates in the West Bank and Gaza, denied it was behind the abductions.


If Netanyahu "brings a war on Gaza," the group warned, "the gates of hell will open to him."


Airstrikes hit Gaza


The Israeli government, which held an emergency security Cabinet meeting about the issue, already appears to be taking action.


The West Bank homes of the two suspects Israel has identified in the kidnapping case were destroyed. And Israeli security forces stepped up airstrikes on Gaza.


Overnight into Tuesday, more than 40 Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza, according to Palestinian security and medical sources. The strikes targeted Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups, the sources said.


The Israeli military later said that forces had carried out strikes against 34 targets in Gaza, targeting terror infrastructure, after the firing of 18 rockets at Israel since Sunday evening.


"The war on terror continues. It didn't begin now and it will not be over soon," Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon of the Israel Defense Forces said Monday, vowing to pursue those responsible for the teenagers' deaths.


Tense relations


The military said the identities of the dead still had to be officially confirmed, but a senior official expressed condolences to the families of the three youths: Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gilad Shaar, 16; and Naftali Frankel, a 16-year-old dual U.S.-Israeli citizen.


The Israel Security Agency said last week it believed that two "Hamas activists from Hebron" were behind the teens' disappearances. It identified them as Marwan Qawasmeh, 29, and Amar Abu-Isa, 32.


Within days of the teenagers' disappearance, Israeli security forces began conducting extensive hunts for them, searching homes and detaining large numbers of Palestinians.


Mark Regev, a spokesman for Netanyahu, suggested Monday that the Palestinian Authority also bore some responsibility for what happened.


"It's clear that the terrorists came from areas under Palestinian Authority control and returned to territories under Palestinian Authority control," he said.


Regev urged Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to annul his pact with Hamas.


Abbas called an emergency meeting of his own. The Palestinian leadership is expected to meet Tuesday to discuss the developments.


Calls for restraint


U.S. President Barack Obama, Pope Francis and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon were among world leaders condemning the killings Monday.


"As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth," Obama said in a statement.


"From the outset, I have offered our full support to Israel and the Palestinian Authority to find the perpetrators of this crime and bring them to justice," he said. "And I encourage Israel and the Palestinian Authority to continue working together in that effort. I also urge all parties to refrain from steps that could further destabilize the situation."


'I see his smile'


Among many Israelis, the heartbreaking end to the teenagers' disappearance has stirred strong emotions.


"It's a sad and tragic day for the people of Israel," said CNN Middle East Analyst Michael Oren.


"In addition to deep sadness in the Israeli public, there's a growing anger and demand for a response," he said.


An aunt of one of the victims told CNN she was still in shock.


"I'm holding his picture and I see his smile," said Leehy Shaar, Gilad Shaar's aunt. "He's so young and innocent ... It's just too sad to even imagine."


CNN's Ben Wedeman, Hala Gorani, Jake Tapper, Samira Said, Jason Hanna, Talia Kayali, Talal Abu Rahma and Michael Schwartz contributed to this report.









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11:45 PM

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How Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Limit Access to Birth Control - New York Times

HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:42:16 GMT Server: Apache Set-Cookie: NYT-S=deleted; expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:01 GMT; path=/; domain=www.stg.nytimes.com Set-Cookie: NYT-S=0Mc42gkxsqhiPDXrmvxADeHx5zQaacbEjrdeFz9JchiAIUFL2BEX5FWcV.Ynx4rkFI; expires=Thu, 31-Jul-2014 06:42:16 GMT; path=/; domain=.nytimes.com Location: http://ift.tt/V3XCdx Content-Length: 0 Cneonction: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache Cache-Control: no-cache Channels: NytNow Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 63493 Accept-Ranges: bytes Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:42:16 GMT X-Varnish: 718426617 Age: 0 Via: 1.1 varnish X-Cache: MISS X-API-Version: 5-5 X-PageType: article Connection: close






The Upshot |How Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Limit Access to Birth Control



http://nyti.ms/V3HuZr


Debate That Divides |​​NYT Now








Aaron E. Carroll


@aaronecarroll







The Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case raises at least two questions: How will it affect access to contraception, and what do the drugs and devices the company objected to on religious grounds actually do?


A growing body of evidence shows that it is already hard to obtain certain kinds of contraception, and the ruling seems likely to increase barriers. A significant number of pharmacists — 6 percent in one study — say they would refuse to dispense oral contraceptives or other medications to patients for moral reasons if they were permitted to do so.


This dynamic played out in a recent study by a health services researcher, Tracey Wilkinson, who had callers pose as adolescents to see if pharmacies had emergency contraception and would dispense it – legally – to them.



Related Coverage




  • Activists reacted Monday to the Hobby Lobby ruling outside of the Supreme Court.

    Justices Rule in Favor of Hobby LobbyJUNE 30, 2014




The first key finding was that in about 20 percent of pharmacies, no emergency contraception, like Plan B, was available at all. Even when it was, however, almost 20 percent of the time adolescents were told, incorrectly, that they couldn’t have it under any circumstances. They were told this significantly more often when calling pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods.




Various models of IUDs, circa 1960 to 1994. Inserted into the uterus, they provide long-lasting and effective birth control, but they are not without controversy. Image by Robert Estall/Corbis

As part of the study, Dr. Wilkinson also had physicians call the pharmacies. Misinformation was given to them only 3 percent of the time. For some reason, those in the pharmacies were more likely to make it harder for the patients themselves to get the emergency contraception they could legally obtain.


If other family-owned corporations choose to emulate Hobby Lobby and win an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for broad coverage of contraception, cost will become a higher barrier for more women. Emergency contraception costs, on average, $45 without insurance.


The cost of an IUD, one of the most effective forms of birth control, is considerable. It requires a visit to the doctor, and a procedure to have the device put in place. Medical exams, insertion, and follow-up visits can run upward of $1,000. Without insurance coverage, it’s likely that many women will be unable to use them.


The reason that contraception is covered at all is that the A.C.A. says that important preventive services must be covered by insurance. After an extensive review made at the request of the government, the Institute of Medicine made eight recommendations for such services, including “a fuller range of contraceptive education, counseling, methods, and services so that women can better avoid unwanted pregnancies and space their pregnancies to promote optimal birth outcomes.”


The owners of Hobby Lobby told the Court that they were willing to cover some forms of contraception but believed that the so-called morning-after pills and two kinds of IUDs can cause what they believe to be a type of abortion, by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall or causing an already implanted egg to fail to thrive.


As colleagues have noted, the scientific consensus is against this idea, and it’s worth reviewing some basics here. Even without contraception, fertilized eggs often fail to implant naturally.



Intrauterine devices are not often discussed in the lay media. That doesn’t mean they are uncommon. More than 15 percent of all women worldwide who are married or living with a partner use IUDs at the primary measure of birth control. Use in North America is lower, at around 2 percent.


IUDs come in a number of forms. They can be inert, or have copper or hormones embedded within them. Most scientists believe that they interfere with the ability of sperm to get to an egg in time to fertilize it before they die.


Research does not support the idea that they prevent fertilized eggs to implant. The journal Fertility and Sterility published a study in 1985 that followed three groups of women for 15 months. One group had an IUD, one group had their tubes tied, and one group was trying to get pregnant. They then measured hormone levels to see if fertilization occurred. It did so only in the group trying to get pregnant.


Another study found that a telltale sign of fertilization — a surge of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin — occurred in only 1 percent of 100 cycles in women using IUDs. This would be consistent with the failure rate of IUDs in general. In other words, IUDs do not appear to work by aborting a fertilized egg.


Emergency contraception, which is really just a large dose of the hormones in a birth control pill, works in a similar manner. The pills can thicken the mucus in the cervix to make it difficult for sperm to reach the egg, and they prevent ovulation from occurring in the first place. Because the doses of medication are very short-term, they probably cannot affect the uterine lining in such a way as to affect implantation.


Moreover, the fact that both of these forms of contraception can fail, and allow pregnancies to occur, provides evidence that if a fertilization occurs, it can move on to implant and grow.


Regardless of the data, or lack of it, many still believe that these forms of contraception are different than others. Today, the Supreme Court gave those beliefs weight. This seems likely to make it harder for women to get contraception in the future.



The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.




Site Index











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11:25 PM

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Bodies of 3 abducted Israeli teens found in West Bank - USA TODAY

Michele Chabin and Oren Dorell , USA TODAY 1:58 a.m. EDT July 1, 2014





Israelis hold a poster showing the three missing Israeli teens at a Tel Aviv rally under the slogan "Bring Our Boys Home" on June 29.(Photo: Lior Mizrahi, Getty Images)



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JERUSALEM — The bodies of three Israeli teenagers kidnapped more than two weeks ago on their way home from religious school were found shot to death Monday, Israeli officials said.


"They were found in a city called Halhul north of Hebron" in the West Bank, said Jonny Daniels, an adviser to Israel's deputy defense minister, Danny Danon.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting with his security Cabinet to discuss how Israel will respond, Daniels said.


"Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay," Netanyahu said in a statement. He added that the teenagers "were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by wild beasts."


Early Tuesday, Israel carried out a series of airstrikes in Gaza, saying it struck 34 targets across the Hamas-controlled territory. The military said the airstrikes were a response to a barrage of 18 rockets fired into Israel since late Sunday. There were no immediate reports of casualties.


"The IDF will continue to act in order to restore the peaceful living to the civilians of the state of Israel. The Hamas terror organization and its extensions are solely responsible for any terror activities emanating from the Gaza Strip," said Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, a military spokesman.


There were no further details on the targets, but in recent weeks Israel has repeatedly targeted launch sites and weapons storage areas in similar attacks.


One Palestinian was killed during an arrest raid after the teens' bodies were discovered, the Israeli military announced. The man was shot dead in the West Bank town of Jenin as he tried to throw a grenade at Israeli troops.


Danon called on the international community "to end all aid to the Palestinian Authority and its Hamas-backed government." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "cannot continue to claim to want peace with Israel, while at the same time partnering with Hamas as they kidnap and brutally murder teenagers," he said.


Tensions have been high between Israel and Hamas since the June 12 kidnappings, which came 10 days after Abbas and his Fatah Party that rule the West Bank formed a unity government with Hamas, which controls Gaza. Israel considers Hamas a terrorist group and strongly opposes the union.


Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri warned Israel against any broad offensive. Gaza militants possess thousands of rockets, and would almost certainly unleash heavy barrages at Israel if Israel attacks.


"Netanyahu should know that threats don't scare Hamas, and if he wages a war on Gaza, the gates of hell will open on him," he said.


In Washington, President Obama said, "As a father, I cannot imagine the indescribable pain that the parents of these teenage boys are experiencing. The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms this senseless act of terror against innocent youth."


The news of the teens' deaths gripped the nation.


"It really is a shock," Daniels said. "You can hear people even in the bars and clubs are turning off the World Cup to turn on the news."


The students, Naftali Fraenkel, who has dual Israeli-American citizenship, and Gilad Shaar, both 16, along with Eyal Yifrach, 19, disappeared while hitchhiking home, prompting the Israeli military to carry out one of the biggest sweeps of the West Bank in a decade.


For many Israelis, the teens' abduction and murder felt like a personal blow.


"I have three teenagers at home," said Malkie Cohen, an Orthodox Jerusalemite. "How could I not feel affected?"


Cohen said she hoped the Israeli military will "once and for all weed out the terrorists. We gave back Gaza and Hamas moved in, and now they're sending rockets into our cities," she said, referring to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005.


Watching the news on a TV in a Jerusalem café, Laine Katz said, "I'm the mother of a soldier who has been searching for them. But at the same time I believe this kidnapping didn't occur in a vacuum. I believe the occupation is wrong. That may sound cold, but that's how I feel."


Avi Menashe, whose face registered shock at the news broadcast, said the discovery of the bodies "will close a circle." He added: "I fear the the circle of violence will continue."


B'Tselem, a left-wing organization that opposes building Israeli settlements in the West Bank, renewed its call for the government to refrain from acts of vengeance for the teens' deaths. B'Tselem asked the security forces to avoid harming the innocent Palestinian population.


Israel's domestic security agency has already named two Palestinian suspects in the abductions — Marwan Kawasma and Amer Abu Aysha, who are described as operatives in the Islamist militant group Hamas.


"There is no mercy for the murderers of children. This is the time for action, not words," Naftali Bennett, the hawkish minister of finance and a supporter of building Israeli settlements, told IBA News.


Yuli Edelstein, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, said, "It's time for Israel to wage an unrelenting war against terror in general and Hamas in particular. The Palestinian Authority should realize Hamas will bring them to destruction."


A committee investigating the teens disappearance said earlier Monday that it found a "severe failure of conduct" by operators of the Judea and Samaria police emergency hotline on the night of the kidnappings.


Several officers were immediately dismissed over what the investigating committee described as a "mishandling of the telephone call received at the center,"Haaretz reported.


According to the committee's report, a telephone call was made to the police at around 10:25 p.m. by one of the abducted teens who said, in a soft voice, "I have been kidnapped."


The report says those on duty tried to speak with the teen and called back a traced number no less than eight times but, in the end, a manager and shift supervisor decided not to look into the call any further.


Israeli security forces searching for the teens have raided more than a 1,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank and rounded up hundreds of Palestinians, including senior Hamas leaders, and prisoners recently released to advance U.S.-brokered peace talks that later failed. Five Palestinians have died in clashes over the rescue operation.


Since June 27, militants have fired at least 30 rockets and mortar shells at southern Israel, including four intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, according to AFP. The Israeli air force has struck back killing three Palestinians.


At least 15 rockets were fired at Israel on Sunday night after Israel launched airstrikes against suspected Hamas rocket launchers in the Gaza Strip on Saturday and Sunday, killing a member of the Hamas military wing, according to the militant group. Rockets fired from the Palestinian territory into Israel damaged a home and set a fire Saturday in a plastics factory in the Israeli town of Sderot, according to the Jerusalem Post.


Dorell reported from Washington. Contributing: David Jackson in Washington; the Associated Press


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11:25 PM

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How Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Limit Access to Birth Control - New York Times

HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:03:12 GMT Server: Apache Set-Cookie: NYT-S=deleted; expires=Thu, 01-Jan-1970 00:00:01 GMT; path=/; domain=www.stg.nytimes.com Set-Cookie: NYT-S=0MRo05tkhn3WvDXrmvxADeHI5oF/h8xVCzdeFz9JchiAIUFL2BEX5FWcV.Ynx4rkFI; expires=Thu, 31-Jul-2014 06:03:12 GMT; path=/; domain=.nytimes.com Location: http://ift.tt/V3XCdx Content-Length: 0 Cneonction: close Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 HTTP/1.1 200 OK Server: Apache Cache-Control: no-cache Channels: NytNow Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 63494 Accept-Ranges: bytes Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:03:13 GMT X-Varnish: 2132111290 Age: 0 Via: 1.1 varnish X-Cache: MISS X-API-Version: 5-5 X-PageType: article Connection: close






The Upshot |How Hobby Lobby Ruling Could Limit Access to Birth Control



http://nyti.ms/V3HuZr


Debate That Divides |​​NYT Now








Aaron E. Carroll


@aaronecarroll







The Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case raises at least two questions: How will it affect access to contraception, and what do the drugs and devices the company objected to on religious grounds actually do?


A growing body of evidence shows that it is already hard to obtain certain kinds of contraception, and the ruling seems likely to increase barriers. A significant number of pharmacists — 6 percent in one study — say they would refuse to dispense oral contraceptives or other medications to patients for moral reasons if they were permitted to do so.


This dynamic played out in a recent study by a health services researcher, Tracey Wilkinson, who had callers pose as adolescents to see if pharmacies had emergency contraception and would dispense it – legally – to them.



Related Coverage




  • Activists reacted Monday to the Hobby Lobby ruling outside of the Supreme Court.

    Justices Rule in Favor of Hobby LobbyJUNE 30, 2014




The first key finding was that in about 20 percent of pharmacies, no emergency contraception, like Plan B, was available at all. Even when it was, however, almost 20 percent of the time adolescents were told, incorrectly, that they couldn’t have it under any circumstances. They were told this significantly more often when calling pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods.




Various models of IUDs, circa 1960 to 1994. Inserted into the uterus, they provide long-lasting and effective birth control, but they are not without controversy. Image by Robert Estall/Corbis

As part of the study, Dr. Wilkinson also had physicians call the pharmacies. Misinformation was given to them only 3 percent of the time. For some reason, those in the pharmacies were more likely to make it harder for the patients themselves to get the emergency contraception they could legally obtain.


If other family-owned corporations choose to emulate Hobby Lobby and win an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for broad coverage of contraception, cost will become a higher barrier for more women. Emergency contraception costs, on average, $45 without insurance.


The cost of an IUD, one of the most effective forms of birth control, is considerable. It requires a visit to the doctor, and a procedure to have the device put in place. Medical exams, insertion, and follow-up visits can run upward of $1,000. Without insurance coverage, it’s likely that many women will be unable to use them.


The reason that contraception is covered at all is that the A.C.A. says that important preventive services must be covered by insurance. After an extensive review made at the request of the government, the Institute of Medicine made eight recommendations for such services, including “a fuller range of contraceptive education, counseling, methods, and services so that women can better avoid unwanted pregnancies and space their pregnancies to promote optimal birth outcomes.”


The owners of Hobby Lobby told the Court that they were willing to cover some forms of contraception but believed that the so-called morning-after pills and two kinds of IUDs can cause what they believe to be a type of abortion, by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall or causing an already implanted egg to fail to thrive.


As colleagues have noted, the scientific consensus is against this idea, and it’s worth reviewing some basics here. Even without contraception, fertilized eggs often fail to implant naturally.



Intrauterine devices are not often discussed in the lay media. That doesn’t mean they are uncommon. More than 15 percent of all women worldwide who are married or living with a partner use IUDs at the primary measure of birth control. Use in North America is lower, at around 2 percent.


IUDs come in a number of forms. They can be inert, or have copper or hormones embedded within them. Most scientists believe that they interfere with the ability of sperm to get to an egg in time to fertilize it before they die.


Research does not support the idea that they prevent fertilized eggs to implant. The journal Fertility and Sterility published a study in 1985 that followed three groups of women for 15 months. One group had an IUD, one group had their tubes tied, and one group was trying to get pregnant. They then measured hormone levels to see if fertilization occurred. It did so only in the group trying to get pregnant.


Another study found that a telltale sign of fertilization — a surge of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin — occurred in only 1 percent of 100 cycles in women using IUDs. This would be consistent with the failure rate of IUDs in general. In other words, IUDs do not appear to work by aborting a fertilized egg.


Emergency contraception, which is really just a large dose of the hormones in a birth control pill, works in a similar manner. The pills can thicken the mucus in the cervix to make it difficult for sperm to reach the egg, and they prevent ovulation from occurring in the first place. Because the doses of medication are very short-term, they probably cannot affect the uterine lining in such a way as to affect implantation.


Moreover, the fact that both of these forms of contraception can fail, and allow pregnancies to occur, provides evidence that if a fertilization occurs, it can move on to implant and grow.


Regardless of the data, or lack of it, many still believe that these forms of contraception are different than others. Today, the Supreme Court gave those beliefs weight. This seems likely to make it harder for women to get contraception in the future.



The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.




Site Index











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11:25 PM

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Obama's immigration pivot - Politico


The White House’s immigration reform ceasefire is over.


President Barack Obama came to the Rose Garden Monday to lay out the case: he gave House Speaker John Boehner “space” to convince his members. He kept quiet about the Republicans he knew were open to an overhaul. He avoided talking about the issue much himself.



No more.


(Also on POLITICO: Obama: GOP failed to pass a 'darn' immigration bill)


Obama was one of the few people holding onto hope that a deal could squeak through Congress by the August recess. But even that evaporated when House Republicans reacted to Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary loss by moving firmly — and finally — away from immigration reform, and he began a crackdown on the influx of Central American children crossing the southern border, threatening to put him in opposition to immigration reform advocates.


The president’s shift to addressing immigration through executive action began last Tuesday when, according to the White House and Boehner’s office, the two leaders talked briefly before an event in the East Room honoring the golfers who won the President’s Cup. Boehner’s office says the speaker repeated his public line that people don’t trust the president to enforce written laws. The White House says Boehner told Obama that the House wouldn’t vote on reform this year.


White House aides say they then took the better part of a week to sort out the details of what Obama could and couldn’t announce right away, a debate that put the announcement smack in the middle of a day when the Supreme Court allowed a religious exemption to cut into Obamacare and the president announced his new pick for Veterans Affairs secretary and more troops going to Iraq.


(Also on POLITICO: Obama announces immigration executive action)


While the future of the nation’s immigration system remains up in the air, Obama’s line for November is settled. Immigration reform now fits snugly into the White House’s framing of the midterms as a choice between Democrats looking to get things done in people’s lives and Republicans refusing to do anything so they can score political points.


The House Republican opposition to reform “makes no sense. It’s not on the level. It’s just politics,” Obama said.


“The failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, bad for our economy, and it’s bad for our future,” he added. “Drop the excuses.”


(Also on POLITICO: Trade hangs over child-migrant fight)


Obama’s announcement comes just over a year after the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration overhaul by a wide margin. The president called the time since then a “lost year” —in resources that could have gone to secure the border, in talent that could have taken root, in economic growth, in the suffering of 11 million undocumented people and the heartbreak to their families.


“That’s what this obstruction has meant over the past year,” Obama said.


Obama said he would announce a slate of new executive actions on immigration by the end of the summer, kicking off with a naturalization ceremony he’ll hold Friday morning for members of the military who’ll be among those he hosts on the South Lawn for Independence Day fireworks. He veered off his prepared remarks several times to rebut Republican criticism that he’s abusing his authority, saying at one point that if the GOP is so concerned about his unilateral actions then Congress needs to pass bills.


Inside the White House, they’re aware of the risks of turning to executive authority. Republicans will complain that he’s going too far while progressives are likely to complain that he didn’t go far enough. And whatever happens, the burden will be on Obama—a focus that the White House didn’t want, at least in the short term.


But senior White House aides are clearly excited at the chance to go after Republicans again on this.


“Political reaction from Republicans is not part of our calculation on what administrative actions we’re going to pursue,” said White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri. As for the concern that the actions may not satisfy advocates, she said, “We’ll go as far as we think is good policy and is permitted under the law.”


Ahead of the announcement, Obama dropped by a meeting of immigration advocates, who were asked on Saturday to come to the White House for a conversation with chief domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.


Obama sat down with some of the same activists in March, soon after the immigrant advocacy community had turned its fire on the president, declaring him the “deporter-in-chief.” That last session was testy and uncomfortable, as the activists repeatedly urged Obama to act on his own and Obama urged them to stay focused on pushing for legislative action.


“Give me 90 days,” Obama told the group, according to attendees of the March meeting. “We will pivot together.”


On Monday, Obama made clear to immigration advocates in their private session that he would do just that, and that he wasn’t going to let reform advocates turn him into the bad guy again.


“Everybody was very happy to hear him say that he was going to take action,” said Eliseo Medina, chairman of the Service Employees International Union’s Immigrant Justice Campaign. “We sort of expected it but it is one thing to expect and another to hear. He just said he was going to wait for a decision form his attorneys.”


Obama did not indicate what he kind of relief he would provide through his executive authority, Medina said.


“We would like him to do as much as he could to provide the most benefit to the most people,” Medina said.


The advocates appeared pleased as they filtered into the Rose Garden and stood on the sidelines. Munoz, who has clashed with the advocates while defending the president’s deportation policy over the years, embraced several of the administration’s toughest critics while waiting for Obama’s announcement.


Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), chairman of the immigration task force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, did not attend the meeting, but he said in a statement that the president finally heeded the calls of immigrant advocates.


“The antidote for do-nothingism is doing something and the president is doing for the American people what the Republican-controlled Congress refused to do,” Gutierrez said. “This is the president I voted for.”


The White House has very carefully kept immigration reform out of the president’s public comments, especially as he began to hit the trail in the last few weeks to road-test themes for the fall. Now, they acknowledge that with the legislative process finished, it will reappear in the president’s remarks, and head right to the top of what he says.


Reform advocates say they’ll be making their own shift to the midterm campaigns.


“The strategy changes from lobbying to voting,” Medina said.


Obama’s pledge to act on his own “will make really clear who is who and who is for it and who is against,” Medina said. “The immigrant community will be very appreciative that the president is taking action. People will look at the Republican Party and say this is not a party for me.”


Democrats are counting on that to become a winner for them, illustrating Republican obstructionism in a way that specifically lights up the president’s progressive base.


After all, it worked for the president’s re-election campaign.


“Before 2012, the president took action on Dreamers and placed the blame for not getting a broader immigration reform bill done exactly where it belonged—at the feet of Republicans—and the Latino community responded by overwhelmingly supporting the president,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change. “ The president’s remarks today were spot on and are laying the groundwork to set up the exact same dynamic going into 2014—the president and Democrats getting credit for what action is taken and Republicans getting blamed for inaction on the rest—as well they should.”









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10:21 PM

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President Obama vows to unilaterally revise immigration laws - Kansas City Star


President Barack Obama plans to go it alone to revise the nation’s broken immigration laws, saying Monday that Republican obstructionism has left him no choice.


Obama said he would asked Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and Attorney General Eric Holder to recommend by summer’s end steps he can take unilaterally.


The move comes as the president is under fire from immigration advocates for record deportations and for pushing the speedier removal of Central American children, who have been overwhelming the Southwestern border.


But Obama said the crisis at the border only underscored the need to rewrite immigration laws.


“The problem is that our system is so broken, so unclear that folks don’t know what the rules are,” the president said.


The decision to move unilaterally came after House Speaker John Boehner made it clear that Republicans in the House of Representatives won’t take up immigration legislation this year, Obama said.


“I take executive action only when we have a serious problem, a serious issue, and Congress chooses to do nothing,” the president said from the Rose Garden. “And in this situation, the failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, it’s bad for our economy and it’s bad for our future.”


The Senate passed a sweeping immigration bill a year ago, and Obama said he wanted to give Boehner space to get his fellow Republicans on board to support the measure. But the president said Republicans had “proven again and again that they’re unwilling to stand up to the tea party” and Boehner told him last week that Republicans wouldn’t bring an immigration bill to the floor for at least the remainder of this year.


Boehner, an Ohio Republican, said he had told Obama the same thing he’d been telling him for months, that “the American people and their elected officials don’t trust him to enforce the law as written.”


Boehner said that the president’s decision two years ago to let some children of immigrants who were in the country illegally stay in the U.S. had led to the crisis at the border and that further executive orders would make the situation worse.


“It is sad and disappointing that — faced with this challenge — President Obama won’t work with us, but is instead intent on going it alone,” said Boehner, who said last week that he planned to sue Obama for what the House speaker contends is an overreach of presidential executive authority.


“As the Supreme Court reminded us this week, under our Constitution there are sharp limits to what the president can accomplish if he ignores the American people and their elected representatives,” Boehner said, referring to the Supreme Court’s decision Monday exempting certain companies from providing birth control services required under Obama’s 2010 health care law.


Changing immigration laws and providing a path to citizenship for about 11 million immigrants in the country illegally has been one of Obama’s top priorities as he sought to conclude his presidency with major second-term victory.


Obama’s remarks came several hours after the White House asked Congress for a “surge of resources” — estimated at $2 billion — to strengthen the border and more speedily process the thousands of unaccompanied children who’ve flooded over it, seeking refuge from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.


Obama, who has come under sharp criticism from immigration advocates who backed his political campaign, stopped in at a White House meeting of such advocates before his remarks, and several watched from the White House portico as he spoke.


But Presente.org Executive Director Arturo Carmona said Latinos “want more than words from President Obama.” He said his group wanted the president to stop deportations, and he criticized Obama for responding to the influx of children at the border “with a militarized border patrol and ramped-up deportations.”


The president has said he can’t stop deportations on his own, and he acknowledged Monday that his executive action has its limits.


“Even with aggressive steps on my part, administration action alone will not adequately address the problem,” he said. “The reforms that will do the most to strengthen our businesses, our workers and our entire economy will still require an act of Congress.”



The Associated Press contributed to this report.










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Israel Finds Bodies of Kidnapped Teenagers - Voice of America

JERUSALEM —

The hunt for three missing Israeli youths in the West Bank has come to a tragic end.


After a long and massive search, Israeli forces found the bodies of three Jewish seminary students who were kidnapped in the West Bank more than two weeks ago. The teenagers apparently were shot shortly after they were abducted while hitchhiking near the biblical town of Hebron.


An Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said the bodies were found in an open field under a pile of rocks.


"At 5 p.m. the IDF [Israel defense forces] exposed in an open field not far from here a pile of rocks, and beneath the rocks we found to begin with two bodies and then as we dug deeper we found a third body," he said.



Candles placed next to a picture of three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed, in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, June 30, 2014.Candles placed next to a picture of three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed, in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, June 30, 2014.



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Candles placed next to a picture of three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed, in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, June 30, 2014.

Candles placed next to a picture of three Israeli teenagers who were abducted and killed, in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square, June 30, 2014.


The kidnapping prompted the biggest Israeli military crackdown in the West Bank in a decade. More than 400 Palestinians have been arrested during the widespread search for the missing teens, mostly members of the Islamic militant group Hamas.


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blames Hamas for the murders and said the group will pay a heavy price. Before summoning his security cabinet for a special session Monday, he said the teenagers were killed by what he called "human animals."


General Nitzan Alon, the commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank, said the search for the two Hamas members believed to have carried out the kidnapping is continuing. He said thousands of troops are involved in the search.


“The war on terror did not begin today and it won’t end tomorrow,” the general said, adding that Israel will settle scores with Hamas.


But while Hamas has praised the kidnapping, it has not gone any further than that. Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri made a statement in the Gaza Strip, saying no Palestinian faction has claimed responsibility for the attack, including Hamas. Abu Zuhri also brushed off Israeli threats of retaliation, saying that if Israel wages war on Gaza, it will “open up the gates of hell.”


Since the teens' disappearance, Israeli-Palestinian tensions have spiked. Netanyahu has demanded that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas give up a reconciliation deal with Hamas.


In Washington, President Barack Obama issued a statement condemning what he called this "senseless act of terror against innocent youth." He said the U.S. has offered its full support to Israel and the Palestinian Authority to find those who committed the crime and bring them to justice. The White House statement also urged restraint, saying all parties should refrain from steps that could further destabilize the situation.


At the Vatican, Pope Francis called the killings "abominable" and said they are a grave obstacle to peace.


Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.









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Obama to expand safeguards for transgender workers - PallTimes.com (subscription)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is preparing an executive order offering transgender federal workers formal protection from discrimination at work, President Barack Obama announced Monday.


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Obama to expand safeguards for transgender workers - PallTimes.com (subscription)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is preparing an executive order offering transgender federal workers formal protection from discrimination at work, President Barack Obama announced Monday.


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8:28 PM

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Hobby Lobby Ruling Raises Question: What Does 'Closely Held' Mean? - Wall Street Journal


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8:28 PM

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Obama's immigration pivot - Politico


The White House’s immigration reform ceasefire is over.


President Barack Obama came to the Rose Garden Monday to lay out the case: he gave House Speaker John Boehner “space” to convince his members. He kept quiet about the Republicans he knew were open to an overhaul. He avoided talking about the issue much himself.



No more.


(Also on POLITICO: Obama: GOP failed to pass a 'darn' immigration bill)


Obama was one of the few people holding onto hope that a deal could squeak through Congress by the August recess. But even that evaporated when House Republicans reacted to Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary loss by moving firmly — and finally — away from immigration reform, and he began a crackdown on the influx of Central American children crossing the southern border, threatening to put him in opposition to immigration reform advocates.


The president’s shift to addressing immigration through executive action began last Tuesday when, according to the White House and Boehner’s office, the two leaders talked briefly before an event in the East Room honoring the golfers who won the President’s Cup. Boehner’s office says the speaker repeated his public line that people don’t trust the president to enforce written laws. The White House says Boehner told Obama that the House wouldn’t vote on reform this year.


White House aides say they then took the better part of a week to sort out the details of what Obama could and couldn’t announce right away, a debate that put the announcement smack in the middle of a day when the Supreme Court allowed a religious exemption to cut into Obamacare and the president announced his new pick for Veterans Affairs secretary and more troops going to Iraq.


(Also on POLITICO: Obama announces immigration executive action)


While the future of the nation’s immigration system remains up in the air, Obama’s line for November is settled. Immigration reform now fits snugly into the White House’s framing of the midterms as a choice between Democrats looking to get things done in people’s lives and Republicans refusing to do anything so they can score political points.


The House Republican opposition to reform “makes no sense. It’s not on the level. It’s just politics,” Obama said.


“The failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, bad for our economy, and it’s bad for our future,” he added. “Drop the excuses.”


(Also on POLITICO: Trade hangs over child-migrant fight)


Obama’s announcement comes just over a year after the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration overhaul by a wide margin. The president called the time since then a “lost year” —in resources that could have gone to secure the border, in talent that could have taken root, in economic growth, in the suffering of 11 million undocumented people and the heartbreak to their families.


“That’s what this obstruction has meant over the past year,” Obama said.


Obama said he would announce a slate of new executive actions on immigration by the end of the summer, kicking off with a naturalization ceremony he’ll hold Friday morning for members of the military who’ll be among those he hosts on the South Lawn for Independence Day fireworks. He veered off his prepared remarks several times to rebut Republican criticism that he’s abusing his authority, saying at one point that if the GOP is so concerned about his unilateral actions then Congress needs to pass bills.


Inside the White House, they’re aware of the risks of turning to executive authority. Republicans will complain that he’s going too far while progressives are likely to complain that he didn’t go far enough. And whatever happens, the burden will be on Obama—a focus that the White House didn’t want, at least in the short term.


But senior White House aides are clearly excited at the chance to go after Republicans again on this.


“Political reaction from Republicans is not part of our calculation on what administrative actions we’re going to pursue,” said White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri. As for the concern that the actions may not satisfy advocates, she said, “We’ll go as far as we think is good policy and is permitted under the law.”


Ahead of the announcement, Obama dropped by a meeting of immigration advocates, who were asked on Saturday to come to the White House for a conversation with chief domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.


Obama sat down with some of the same activists in March, soon after the immigrant advocacy community had turned its fire on the president, declaring him the “deporter-in-chief.” That last session was testy and uncomfortable, as the activists repeatedly urged Obama to act on his own and Obama urged them to stay focused on pushing for legislative action.


“Give me 90 days,” Obama told the group, according to attendees of the March meeting. “We will pivot together.”


On Monday, Obama made clear to immigration advocates in their private session that he would do just that, and that he wasn’t going to let reform advocates turn him into the bad guy again.


“Everybody was very happy to hear him say that he was going to take action,” said Eliseo Medina, chairman of the Service Employees International Union’s Immigrant Justice Campaign. “We sort of expected it but it is one thing to expect and another to hear. He just said he was going to wait for a decision form his attorneys.”


Obama did not indicate what he kind of relief he would provide through his executive authority, Medina said.


“We would like him to do as much as he could to provide the most benefit to the most people,” Medina said.


The advocates appeared pleased as they filtered into the Rose Garden and stood on the sidelines. Munoz, who has clashed with the advocates while defending the president’s deportation policy over the years, embraced several of the administration’s toughest critics while waiting for Obama’s announcement.


Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), chairman of the immigration task force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, did not attend the meeting, but he said in a statement that the president finally heeded the calls of immigrant advocates.


“The antidote for do-nothingism is doing something and the president is doing for the American people what the Republican-controlled Congress refused to do,” Gutierrez said. “This is the president I voted for.”


The White House has very carefully kept immigration reform out of the president’s public comments, especially as he began to hit the trail in the last few weeks to road-test themes for the fall. Now, they acknowledge that with the legislative process finished, it will reappear in the president’s remarks, and head right to the top of what he says.


Reform advocates say they’ll be making their own shift to the midterm campaigns.


“The strategy changes from lobbying to voting,” Medina said.


Obama’s pledge to act on his own “will make really clear who is who and who is for it and who is against,” Medina said. “The immigrant community will be very appreciative that the president is taking action. People will look at the Republican Party and say this is not a party for me.”


Democrats are counting on that to become a winner for them, illustrating Republican obstructionism in a way that specifically lights up the president’s progressive base.


After all, it worked for the president’s re-election campaign.


“Before 2012, the president took action on Dreamers and placed the blame for not getting a broader immigration reform bill done exactly where it belonged—at the feet of Republicans—and the Latino community responded by overwhelmingly supporting the president,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change. “ The president’s remarks today were spot on and are laying the groundwork to set up the exact same dynamic going into 2014—the president and Democrats getting credit for what action is taken and Republicans getting blamed for inaction on the rest—as well they should.”









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Obama's immigration pivot - Politico


The White House’s immigration reform ceasefire is over.


President Barack Obama came to the Rose Garden Monday to lay out the case: he gave House Speaker John Boehner “space” to convince his members. He kept quiet about the Republicans he knew were open to an overhaul. He avoided talking about the issue much himself.



No more.


(Also on POLITICO: Obama: GOP failed to pass a 'darn' immigration bill)


Obama was one of the few people holding onto hope that a deal could squeak through Congress by the August recess. But even that evaporated when House Republicans reacted to Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s surprise primary loss by moving firmly — and finally — away from immigration reform, and he began a crackdown on the influx of Central American children crossing the southern border, threatening to put him in opposition to immigration reform advocates.


The president’s shift to addressing immigration through executive action began last Tuesday when, according to the White House and Boehner’s office, the two leaders talked briefly before an event in the East Room honoring the golfers who won the President’s Cup. Boehner’s office says the speaker repeated his public line that people don’t trust the president to enforce written laws. The White House says Boehner told Obama that the House wouldn’t vote on reform this year.


White House aides say they then took the better part of a week to sort out the details of what Obama could and couldn’t announce right away, a debate that put the announcement smack in the middle of a day when the Supreme Court allowed a religious exemption to cut into Obamacare and the president announced his new pick for Veterans Affairs secretary and more troops going to Iraq.


(Also on POLITICO: Obama announces immigration executive action)


While the future of the nation’s immigration system remains up in the air, Obama’s line for November is settled. Immigration reform now fits snugly into the White House’s framing of the midterms as a choice between Democrats looking to get things done in people’s lives and Republicans refusing to do anything so they can score political points.


The House Republican opposition to reform “makes no sense. It’s not on the level. It’s just politics,” Obama said.


“The failure of House Republicans to pass a darn bill is bad for our security, bad for our economy, and it’s bad for our future,” he added. “Drop the excuses.”


(Also on POLITICO: Trade hangs over child-migrant fight)


Obama’s announcement comes just over a year after the Senate passed a comprehensive immigration overhaul by a wide margin. The president called the time since then a “lost year” —in resources that could have gone to secure the border, in talent that could have taken root, in economic growth, in the suffering of 11 million undocumented people and the heartbreak to their families.


“That’s what this obstruction has meant over the past year,” Obama said.


Obama said he would announce a slate of new executive actions on immigration by the end of the summer, kicking off with a naturalization ceremony he’ll hold Friday morning for members of the military who’ll be among those he hosts on the South Lawn for Independence Day fireworks. He veered off his prepared remarks several times to rebut Republican criticism that he’s abusing his authority, saying at one point that if the GOP is so concerned about his unilateral actions then Congress needs to pass bills.


Inside the White House, they’re aware of the risks of turning to executive authority. Republicans will complain that he’s going too far while progressives are likely to complain that he didn’t go far enough. And whatever happens, the burden will be on Obama—a focus that the White House didn’t want, at least in the short term.


But senior White House aides are clearly excited at the chance to go after Republicans again on this.


“Political reaction from Republicans is not part of our calculation on what administrative actions we’re going to pursue,” said White House communications director Jennifer Palmieri. As for the concern that the actions may not satisfy advocates, she said, “We’ll go as far as we think is good policy and is permitted under the law.”


Ahead of the announcement, Obama dropped by a meeting of immigration advocates, who were asked on Saturday to come to the White House for a conversation with chief domestic policy adviser Cecilia Munoz and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.


Obama sat down with some of the same activists in March, soon after the immigrant advocacy community had turned its fire on the president, declaring him the “deporter-in-chief.” That last session was testy and uncomfortable, as the activists repeatedly urged Obama to act on his own and Obama urged them to stay focused on pushing for legislative action.


“Give me 90 days,” Obama told the group, according to attendees of the March meeting. “We will pivot together.”


On Monday, Obama made clear to immigration advocates in their private session that he would do just that, and that he wasn’t going to let reform advocates turn him into the bad guy again.


“Everybody was very happy to hear him say that he was going to take action,” said Eliseo Medina, chairman of the Service Employees International Union’s Immigrant Justice Campaign. “We sort of expected it but it is one thing to expect and another to hear. He just said he was going to wait for a decision form his attorneys.”


Obama did not indicate what he kind of relief he would provide through his executive authority, Medina said.


“We would like him to do as much as he could to provide the most benefit to the most people,” Medina said.


The advocates appeared pleased as they filtered into the Rose Garden and stood on the sidelines. Munoz, who has clashed with the advocates while defending the president’s deportation policy over the years, embraced several of the administration’s toughest critics while waiting for Obama’s announcement.


Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), chairman of the immigration task force of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, did not attend the meeting, but he said in a statement that the president finally heeded the calls of immigrant advocates.


“The antidote for do-nothingism is doing something and the president is doing for the American people what the Republican-controlled Congress refused to do,” Gutierrez said. “This is the president I voted for.”


The White House has very carefully kept immigration reform out of the president’s public comments, especially as he began to hit the trail in the last few weeks to road-test themes for the fall. Now, they acknowledge that with the legislative process finished, it will reappear in the president’s remarks, and head right to the top of what he says.


Reform advocates say they’ll be making their own shift to the midterm campaigns.


“The strategy changes from lobbying to voting,” Medina said.


Obama’s pledge to act on his own “will make really clear who is who and who is for it and who is against,” Medina said. “The immigrant community will be very appreciative that the president is taking action. People will look at the Republican Party and say this is not a party for me.”


Democrats are counting on that to become a winner for them, illustrating Republican obstructionism in a way that specifically lights up the president’s progressive base.


After all, it worked for the president’s re-election campaign.


“Before 2012, the president took action on Dreamers and placed the blame for not getting a broader immigration reform bill done exactly where it belonged—at the feet of Republicans—and the Latino community responded by overwhelmingly supporting the president,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change. “ The president’s remarks today were spot on and are laying the groundwork to set up the exact same dynamic going into 2014—the president and Democrats getting credit for what action is taken and Republicans getting blamed for inaction on the rest—as well they should.”









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7:24 PM

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Court: Religious rights trump birth control rule - The Seattle Times

Originally published June 30, 2014 at 7:23 AM | Page modified June 30, 2014 at 7:04 PM


WASHINGTON —

A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that some companies with religious objections can avoid the contraceptives requirement in President Barack Obama's health care overhaul, the first time the high court has declared that businesses can hold religious views under federal law.


The justices' 5-4 decision, splitting conservatives and liberals, means the Obama administration must search for a different way of providing free contraception to women who are covered under the health insurance plans of objecting companies.


Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion, over a dissent from the four liberal justices, that forcing companies to pay for methods of women's contraception to which they object violates the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. He said the ruling is limited and there are ways for the administration to ensure women get the birth control they want.


But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the decision creates health risks for women, and he said Congress should take action to make sure they get coverage.


"President Obama believes that women should make personal health care decisions for themselves rather than their bosses deciding for them," Earnest said. "Today's decision jeopardizes the health of the women who are employed by these companies."


Contraception is among a range of preventive services that must be provided at no extra charge under the health care law that Obama signed in 2010. Nearly 30 million women receive birth control as a result of the health law, the government has said.


Benefits experts say they expect little impact from the ruling because employers use health benefits to recruit and retain workers. But one constitutional law scholar, Marci Hamilton of Yeshiva University, cautioned that more than 80 percent of U.S. corporations are closely held and she said they could "now be able to discriminate against their employees."


Two years ago, Chief Justice John Roberts cast the pivotal Supreme Court vote that saved the law in the midst of Obama's campaign for re-election. On Monday, Roberts sided with the four justices who would have struck down the law in its entirety, holding in favor of the religious rights of closely held corporations, like the Oklahoma-based Hobby Lobby chain of arts-and-craft stores that challenged the contraceptives provision.


Hobby Lobby is among roughly 50 businesses that have sued over covering contraceptives. Some, like the two involved in the Supreme Court case, are willing to cover most methods of contraception, as long as they can exclude drugs or devices that the government says may work after an egg has been fertilized.


But Monday's ruling would apply more broadly to other companies that do not want to pay for any of the 20 birth control methods and devices that have been approved by federal regulators.


Alito said the decision is limited to contraceptives. "Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance-coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer's religious beliefs," he said.


He suggested two ways the administration could deal with the birth control issue. The government could simply pay for pregnancy prevention, he said. Or it could provide the same kind of accommodation it has made available to religious-oriented, not-for-profit corporations.


Those groups can tell the government that providing the coverage violates their religious beliefs. At that point, creating a buffer, their insurer or a third-party administrator takes on the responsibility of paying for the birth control. The employer does not have to arrange the coverage or pay for it. Insurers get reimbursed by the government through credits against fees owed under other provisions of the health care law.


That accommodation is the subject of separate legal challenges, and the court said Monday that profit-seeking companies could not assert religious claims in such a situation.


Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was part of the majority, also wrote separately to say the administration can solve its problem easily. "The accommodation works by requiring insurance companies to cover, without cost sharing, contraception coverage for female employees who wish it," Kennedy said. He said that arrangement "does not impinge on the plaintiffs' religious beliefs."


Houses of worship and other religious institutions whose primary purpose is to spread the faith are exempt from the requirement to offer birth control.


In a dissent she read aloud from the bench, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision "potentially sweeping" because it minimizes the government's interest in uniform compliance with laws affecting the workplace. "And it discounts the disadvantages religion-based opt-outs impose on others, in particular, employees who do not share their employer's religious beliefs," Ginsburg said.


Leaders of women's rights groups blasted the decision by "five male justices," in the words of Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.


The administration said a victory for the companies would prevent women who work for them from making decisions about birth control based on what's best for their health, not whether they can afford it. The government's supporters pointed to research showing that nearly one-third of women would change their contraceptive if cost were not an issue; a very effective means of birth control, the intrauterine device, can cost up to $1,000.


The contraceptives at issue before the court were the emergency contraceptives Plan B and ella, and two IUDs.


A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found 85 percent of large American employers already had offered such coverage before the health care law required it.


Most working women will probably see no impact from the ruling, corporate health benefits consultants expect. Publicly traded companies are unlikely to inject religion into their employee benefit plans, said Mark Holloway, director of compliance services at the Lockton Companies, an insurance broker that serves medium-sized and growing employers.


"Most employers view health insurance as a tool to attract and retain employees," said Holloway. "Women employees want access to contraceptive coverage, and most employers don't have a problem providing that coverage. It is typically not a high-cost item."


It is unclear how many women potentially are affected by the high court ruling. Hobby Lobby is by far the largest employer of any company that has gone to court to fight the birth control provision.


The company has more than 15,000 full-time employees in more than 600 crafts stores in 41 states. Hobby Lobby is owned by the family of David Green, evangelical Christians who also own Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain.


The other company is Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. of East Earl, Pennsylvania, owned by a Mennonite family and employing 950 people in making wood cabinets.


___


Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Jessica Gresko and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.






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