Latest news with #5thCircuit
Reuters
2 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Gilead shares rise after US top court ruling on preventative coverage
June 27 (Reuters) - Shares of Gilead (GILD.O), opens new tab rose nearly 3% after the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday preserved a key element of the Obamacare law that helps guarantee that health insurers cover preventive care at no cost to patients. At the heart of the case was whether the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), which determines which preventive services insurers must cover at no cost, was unconstitutionally structured because its members are appointed without Senate confirmation. The 5th Circuit ruled in 2024 that the task force's structure violates the Constitution. On Friday, the justices in a 6-3 decision reversed the lower court's ruling. This eased fears on insurance coverage for PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, drugs approved in the U.S. to prevent HIV infection, which can cause AIDS. "This ruling is a relief in maintaining the critical role of the U. S. Preventive Services Task Force to cover preventive care services under the Affordable Care Act, including HIV PrEP," said Mitchell Warren, AIDS nonprofit AVAC's executive director in an email. The drugs are made by Gilead and by ViiV Healthcare, a joint venture of GSK (GSK.L), opens new tab, Pfizer (PFE.N), opens new tab and Shionogi (4507.T), opens new tab. Analysts had warned ahead of the verdict that any adverse decision could reduce uptake among lower-income and younger patients, weighing on Gilead's HIV prevention revenues. Gilead's HIV franchise, including its PrEP products, is a significant revenue driver. Obamacare had fueled broad insurance coverage without cost-sharing, contributing to steady prescription volumes. Gilead's HIV business, which includes prominent PrEP drug Descovy, accounted for $4.6 billion in sales in the latest reported quarter. Total revenue during the said period was $6.6 billion.
Al Arabiya
2 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Supreme Court OKs Fee That Subsidizes Phone, Internet Services in Schools, Libraries and Rural Areas
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the fee that is added to phone bills to provide billions of dollars a year in subsidized phone and internet services in schools, libraries, and rural areas. The justices, by a 6–3 vote, reversed an appeals court ruling that had struck down as unconstitutional the Universal Service Fund, the charge that has been added to phone bills for nearly 30 years. At arguments in March, liberal and conservative justices alike expressed concerns about the potentially devastating consequences of eliminating the fund, which has benefited tens of millions of Americans. The Federal Communications Commission collects the money from telecommunications providers, which pass the cost on to their customers. A Virginia-based conservative advocacy group, Consumers' Research, had challenged the practice. The justices had previously denied two appeals from Consumers' Research after federal appeals courts upheld the program. But the full 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, among the nation's most conservative, ruled 9–7 that the method of funding is unconstitutional. The 5th Circuit held that Congress had given too much authority to the FCC, and the agency, in turn, had ceded too much power to a private entity or administrator. The last time the Supreme Court invoked what is known as the nondelegation doctrine to strike down a federal law was in 1935. But several conservative justices have suggested they are open to breathing new life into the legal doctrine. The conservative-led court also has reined in federal agencies in high-profile rulings in recent years. Last year, the court reversed a 40-year-old case that had been used thousands of times to uphold federal regulations. In 2022, the court ruled Congress has to act with specificity before agencies can address major questions in a ruling that limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to combat climate change. But the phone fee case turned out not to be the right one for finding yet another way to restrict federal regulators. President Donald Trump's Republican administration, which has moved aggressively to curtail administrative agencies in other areas, defended the FCC program. The appeal was initially filed by President Joe Biden's Democratic administration.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Business
- The Independent
Supreme Court OKs fee that subsidizes phone, internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas
The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the fee that is added to phone bills to provide billions of dollars a year in subsidized phone and internet services in schools, libraries and rural areas. The justices, by a 6-3 vote, reversed an appeals court ruling that had struck down as unconstitutional the Universal Service Fund, the charge that has been added to phone bills for nearly 30 years. At arguments in March, liberal and conservative justices alike expressed concerns about the potentially devastating consequences of eliminating the fund, which has benefited tens of millions of Americans. The Federal Communications Commission collects the money from telecommunications providers, which pass the cost on to their customers. A Virginia-based conservative advocacy group, Consumers' Research, had challenged the practice. The justices had previously denied two appeals from Consumers' Research after federal appeals courts upheld the program. But the full 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, among the nation's most conservative, ruled 9-7 that the method of funding is unconstitutional. The 5th Circuit held that Congress had given too much authority to the FCC and the agency in turn had ceded too much power to a private entity, or administrator. The last time the Supreme Court invoked what is known as the nondelegation doctrine to strike down a federal law was in 1935. But several conservative justices have suggested they are open to breathing new life into the legal doctrine. The conservative-led court also has reined in federal agencies in high-profile rulings in recent years. Last year, the court reversed a 40-year-old case that had been used thousands of times to uphold federal regulations. In 2022, the court ruled Congress has to act with specificity before agencies can address 'major questions,' in a ruling that limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to combat climate change. But the phone fee case turned out not to be the right one for finding yet another way to restrict federal regulators. President Donald Trump 's Republican administration, which has moved aggressively to curtail administrative agencies in other areas, defended the FCC program. The appeal was initially filed by President Joe Biden 's Democratic administration. ___
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
Live updates: Supreme Court decisions
Update: Date: 1 min ago Title: Can states require IDs for porn sites? Content: Everyone agrees that minors shouldn't have access to porn. The question for the Supreme Court in a key First Amendment case to be decided Friday is what happens when government regulations to protect young people wind up also making it harder for adults to access the material. Texas enacted a law in 2023 that requires any website that publishes a substantial amount of content that is 'harmful to minors' to verify the age of users. Groups representing the adult entertainment industry say the law forces adults to identify themselves – such as by providing an ID – before accessing pornography, which they say 'chills' free speech rights. Texas' law is similar to more than a dozen others across the country that require users to submit some proof of adulthood. During oral arguments in January, several of the justices signaled they might send the case back to the 5th Circuit to have the appeals court revisit it. But others made clear they ultimately supported Texas' effort. Update: Date: 1 min ago Title: How Louisiana's congressional map could have nationwide implications Content: Louisiana has been in court over its congressional map for years. Now, the Supreme Court will decide if state lawmakers violated the Constitution by creating a second Black-majority district. Federal courts initially ruled that the state had likely violated the Voting Rights Act by drawing only one majority Black district out of six. After the state legislature tried to correct that problem by drawing a second Black majority district, a group of White voters sued arguing that the state violated the Constitution by relying too much on race to meet the first court's demands. There's an inherent tension between the Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights law that prohibits states from curbing the power of minority voters, and the equal protection clause, which essentially bars states from considering race when they draw district boundaries. The question for the Supreme Court is how to strike that balance. The high court's conservative majority has grown increasingly skeptical of policies of any kind that, in the court's words, pick 'winners and losers' based on race. The Supreme Court has also in recent years chipped away at the power of the Voting Rights Act, including with a 2013 decision that ended the practice of requiring states with a history of racist policies to preclear changes to their voting rights laws with the Justice Department. The district lawmakers drew slashes diagonally for some 250 miles from Shreveport in the northwest of the state to Baton Rouge in the southeast to create a district where Black residents make up some 54% of voters – up from about 24% under the old lines. Rep. Cleo Fields, a Democrat, won the seat in last year's election – adding a second Democrat to the state's delegation. Update: Date: 14 min ago Title: Supreme Court tees up blockbuster final day of term Content: It's a blockbuster last day at the Supreme Court in which the justices will hand down six opinions in some of the biggest cases of the year, including those dealing with Trump's birthright citizenship order. Also on the docket: A challenge from religious parents who want to opt their children out of reading LGBTQ books in school and a First Amendment suit over a Texas law that requires people to verify their age before accessing porn online. The court will also decide the fate of a government task force that recommends which preventive health care services must be covered at no cost under Obamacare. And it will decide a challenge over Louisiana's congressional districts that questions how far states may go in considering race when they draw maps to fix a violation of the Voting Rights Act. Update: Date: 3 min ago Title: What to know about birthright citizenship, in charts Content: The US is among dozens of countries, mostly in the Americas, that grant unconditional birthright citizenship to anyone born in its territory under a legal principle known as jus soli, Latin for 'right of the soil.' More than 20 states, mostly led by Democrats, previously filed lawsuits in two different federal courts arguing that the president has no authority to change or override a constitutional amendment. Civil rights groups and expectant parents have brought similar legal action. Update: Date: 20 min ago Title: What is the birthright citizenship case about? Content: President Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court in March to allow him to move forward with plans to end birthright citizenship, elevating a fringe legal theory that several lower courts have resoundingly rejected. For more than a century, courts have understood the text of the 14th Amendment to guarantee 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States' to be US citizens, no matter the immigration status of their parents. In a series of emergency appeals, the Trump administration argued that lower courts had gone too far in handing down nationwide injunctions blocking the controversial policy, and it asked the justices to limit the impact of those orders. A federal judge in January described his executive order as 'blatantly unconstitutional' and blocked its implementation. Days later, a judge in Maryland said that Trump's plan 'runs counter to our nation's 250-year history of citizenship by birth.' Several conservative justices seemed open to backing the president on the issue of the nationwide orders, saying lower courts have gone too far. But they also didn't seem ready to endorse a departure from the longstanding precedent upholding birthright citizenship. Update: Date: 19 min ago Title: All about the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship Content: The 14th Amendment clearly states that American citizenship is a birthright for all people who are born on American soil. Its first section reads: 'All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' Before the Civil War, states didn't necessarily have to follow the provisions stated in the Bill of Rights; only Congress had to. The 14th Amendment changed that. 'Citizenship was a central question left open by the original Constitution,' says Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center. 'At the time it was written, the Constitution assumed citizenship, but it didn't provide any rules for it. In the infamous Dred Scott decision, the Chief Justice said African Americans can't be citizens of the US and 'had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.'' The US Supreme Court's ruling in the Dred Scott case, named for a slave who unsuccessfully sued for his freedom, has since been widely condemned. 'The 14th Amendment was designed to overturn this decision and define citizenship once and for all, and it was based on birthright,' Rosen says. 'It is really important that it's a vision of citizenship based on land rather than blood. It is an idea that anyone can be an American if they commit themselves to our Constitutional values.' Read more about the protections outlined in the amendment here.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Red states push religion in public schools. Supreme Court is their end game.
The creeping Christian nationalist plot to force religion into public schools ‒ calculated to provoke legal challenges that could allow the conservative U.S. Supreme Court supermajority to obliterate part of our First Amendment ‒ took one step forward and one step backward in the same week recently. For hard-right Republican state governors eager to upend America's long legacy of religious freedom, both steps probably feel like they point toward an eventual victory. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law on June 21 legislation mandating that public school classrooms display the Ten Commandments starting this fall. This is the same Greg Abbott who, just a day later, vetoed part of a different bill that would have accessed $450 million in federal funding for summer lunch programs for low-income children. Abbott prefers forcing religion down the throats of the children of Texas to actually feeding them. In Louisiana, on June 20, a three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a November ruling that found a similar law violated the opening line of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, known as the establishment clause, that prohibits our government from forcing religion on us in public places. Opinion: Louisiana's Ten Commandments push shows GOP doesn't care about the Constitution Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, who signed the legislation last June, vowed to appeal. And of course he did. Landry gave up the game a year ago when he said, "I can't wait to be sued" for his Ten Commandments mandate. Unconstitutional legislation and legal challenges set the path. The Supreme Court is the destination. In Arkansas, seven families filed a federal lawsuit on June 11 seeking to block that state's version of the Ten Commandments mandate in public school classrooms. The law, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is supposed to take effect in August. The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU state chapters, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation are now representing families opposing the mandates in Louisiana and Arkansas. And they have vowed to take Texas to court. Rachel Laser, who leads Americans United for Separation of Church and State, told me these Ten Commandments mandates are "an effort to turn America into a country that prefers European Christians over a country that's dedicated to a pluralistic democracy and equality for all." She said the mandate proponents in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas are designed to "raise a new generation of Americans who are indoctrinated in that Christian nationalist lie that America is a country for European Christians," all in an effort to "get the Supreme Court to allow the Christianization" of public schools. Opinion: Threats against judges nearly doubled under Trump. Republicans blame the victim. Annie Laurie Gaylor, cofounder of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, pointed to the First Commandment, taken by some literally, quoting God as saying, "You shall have no other gods before me." "No U.S. state or government ‒ whether Texas, Louisiana or Arkansas ‒ has the right to tell a captive audience of schoolchildren how many gods to worship, which gods to worship, or whether to worship any gods at all!" Gaylor told me. "The language of the First Commandment is the antithesis of our First Amendment." This is settled law that Christian nationalists want to unsettle. The Supreme Court in 1947 ruled that the Constitution's establishment clause applies to both the federal government and state governments. In a 1980 ruling, justices struck down a Kentucky law mandating the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. Our nation's highest court ruled the same way in a similar Kentucky case in 2005. Opinion: Supreme Court reminds Trump to follow the law, signaling concern that he won't So what's changed? The Supreme Court. It tilted rightward in a supermajority in 2020 due to three nominations by Donald Trump during his first term as president. But what do Americans want? The Pew Research Center, in an analysis released June 23, cited its 2023-24 Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed 37,000 American adults and found that 52% favored allowing teacher-led prayer in public schools while 46% opposed it. That was driven by strong support among Christians, especially evangelicals, matched by strong opposition from Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and agnostics. And opinions varied when the survey was broken down, state by state, and when Americans were asked whether the prayers were to God with no specific mention of religion, or if Jesus was mentioned. Opinion newsletter: Sign up for our newsletter on people, power and policies in the time of Trump from columnist Chris Brennan. Get it delivered to your inbox. Three-quarters of the adults surveyed in Arkansas and Louisiana favored prayer in public schools that specifically referred to Jesus, while 61% backed that in Texas. And that's why the very First Amendment in our Constitution ‒ written as a list of priorities ‒ was crafted to protect Americans from the religious overreach of their government. It was intended to keep politicians like Abbott from force-feeding us his system of values that favors performative religious gestures over real-world caring for children. Now we wait until this fight reaches the Supreme Court, where the justices will have to show us whether they revere our constitutional freedoms more than a mandate that our own Founding Fathers would have certainly rejected. Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here. You can read diverse opinions from our USA TODAY columnists and other writers on the Opinion front page, on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and in our Opinion newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas 10 Commandments law is about baiting Supreme Court | Opinion
