Many Americans were relieved when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act in place following the law's third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision permitted widely supported policies to continue, such as ensuring health coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, allowing coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents' plan, and removing annual and lifetime benefit limits. But millions are still at risk of losing access to lifesaving medicine and preventive services, following the Supreme Court's decision to hear another case ' Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. v. Braidwood ' that has been working its way through lower courts for several years. The case the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear in April 2025 was filed by Braidwood Management, a Christian for-profit corporation owned by Steven Hotze, a Texas physician and Republican activist who has previously filed multiple lawsuits against the Affordable Care Act. Braidwood and its co-plaintiffs, a group of conservative Christian employers, objected to providing their 70 employees free access to preexposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, a medicine that prevents HIV infection. Hotze claimed that PrEP 'facilitates and encourages homosexual behavior, intravenous drug use and sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman,' without citing scientific evidence to support this. He and his plaintiffs argue that religious beliefs prevent them from providing PrEP under their insurance plans....

What stands out most about this mission is that it featured the first all-female space crew since 1963, when Soviet astronaut Valentina Tereshkova completed her solo mission. This also marks the 31st trip of the rocket and its 11th mission with a crew on board. The crew for this launch included pop artist Katy Perry, 'CBS Mornings' anchor Gayle King, film producer Kerianne Flynn, Bezos' fiancee Lauren Sanchez, civil rights activist Amanda Nguyen, and aerospace engineer Aisha Bowe. While this trip aimed to highlight the roles of women in astronautics, Blue Origin has faced criticism for being an exclusive venture for the wealthy, especially during a time of economic hardship in the U.S. However, Perry offered a different perspective. In a CBS interview, she said, 'It won't be about me; it will be about the beautiful Earth we get to see. I think the perspective we're all going to walk away with is, 'Oh my gosh, we have to protect our mother.''...

On Feb. 24, 2025, members of the Puntland Defense Forces posed next to a sign in Arabic that proclaimed the mountain town of Sheebaab as a 'province' of the Islamic State group. The town, located in Somalia's autonomous northeastern region of Puntland, was one of numerous areas that soldiers from the regional government have taken back during Operation Hilaac, an ongoing campaign against fighters from the Islamic State in Somalia ' the local branch of the terrorist network ' which began in late November 2024. Puntland's success in combating a growing Islamic State group presence in the northeastern region is particularly notable given the relative lack of success of the central Somali government's confrontation with the al-Qaida-affiliated group Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin ' more commonly known as al-Shabab ' which for about two decades has waged war against federal forces. Islamic State in Somalia emerged in 2015 when a small group of al-Shabab members led by Abdulqadir Mumin ' an extremist Somali preacher who previously lived in Sweden and the United Kingdom, where he acquired citizenship ' pledged allegiance to then-Islamic State group leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Having formed as a local branch ' or 'province' in the group's self conception as a global entity intent on expanding territory ' Islamic State in Somalia launched its first major operation in October 2016, briefly seizing the port town of Qandala in Puntland....

If you filled out a March Madness bracket this month, you probably faced the same question with each college match-up: What gives one team an edge over another' Is it a team's record through the regular season' Or the chemistry among its players' Maybe it's the experience of its coaching staff or the buzz around a top scorer. All of these factors play some role in a team's chance to advance. But according to a new study by MIT researchers, there's one member who consistently boosts their team's performance: the data analyst. The new study, which was published this month in the Journal of Sports Economics, quantifies the influence of basketball analytics investment on team performance. The study's authors looked in particular at professional basketball and compared the investment in data analytics on each NBA team with the team's record of wins over 12 seasons. They found that indeed, teams that hired more analytics staff, and invested more in data analysis in general, tended to win more games....