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A bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled Monday that family-owned corporations — such as Hobby Lobby, the plaintiff in the case — could not be forced to pay for insurance coverage for
contraception under the Affordable Care Act because it violated a federal law protecting religious freedom. In a dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said companies could now use
religion to justify denying health coverage of vaccines, or according women equal pay for similar work.
Israel bombed 34 sites in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Tuesday, hours after soldiers found the bodies of three Jewish seminary students abducted two weeks ago. Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the kidnappings — a charge the Palestinian Islamist group has neither confirmed nor denied. Netanyahu had vowed a swift response. "They were kidnapped and
murdered in cold blood by beasts...," he said Monday. "Hamas is responsible and Hamas will pay."
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in
2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News,
and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.