Mother Angelica’s cable television network has filed suit over the Obama administration’s new rule requiring it and some other religious-affiliated endeavors to provide employees with health insurance coverage that includes free birth control.

The Beck Fund for Religious Liberty filed the suit Wednesday in U.S. District Court on behalf of the Catholic nun’s Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN).

“We had no other option but to take this to the courts,” said EWTN President and CEO Michael Warsaw. “There is no question that this mandate violates our First Amendment rights.”

The new rule, part of the Obama healthcare law, requires religious-affiliated institutions to provide its employees with insurance that covers contraceptive services and sterilization. The Catholic Church and other religious groups say this is forcing them to pay for something their faith considers a sin.

Republican leaders, as well as some Democrats and members of other religious denominations, also insist that the rule violates religious freedom.

The suit names the Health and Human Services Department, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and other government agencies.

“Under the HHS mandate, EWTN is being forced by the government to make a choice,” Warsaw said. “Either we provide employees coverage for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs and violate our conscience or offer our employees and their families no health insurance coverage at all. Neither of those choices is acceptable.”

Mother Angelica, a member of the Poor Clares order, founded EWTN in 1981. She hosted her teaching shows on the network until she had a stroke in 2001. Now 88, she lives retired at a convent in Alabama. http://tinyurl.com/82klvsu

President Barack Obama will announce today that he’s freeing 10 states from requirements of the No Child Left Behind law as they pursue alternate means of judging student progress, an administration official said. The states obtaining a waiver from the law, pushed by former President George W. Bush, are Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. In exchange for the waiver, the states have agreed to raise standards, improve accountability and take steps to improve teacher effectiveness. An 11th state, New Mexico, has requested an exemption from the requirements of the 2002 law, and 28 other states, joined by Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, have alerted the Department of Education of their intent to seek waivers.

Almost half of U.S. public schools are labeled failing under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Obama and Education Secretary Arnie Duncan have said the figure is as high as 80 percent, citing it as a reason to offer schools more flexibility. The estimated percentage of schools that didn’t show adequate progress toward passing state standardized tests of math and reading was 48 percent in 2011, a record and an increase from 39 percent in 2010, according to a report in December by the Center on Education Policy, a Washington-based nonpartisan research group.

Under No Child Left Behind, each state establishes its own proficiency tests and determines what constitutes passing. That system penalized states with higher standards and gives them an incentive to dumb down tests, Duncan has said. In addition, high-performing schools can be labeled failing if a subgroup of students -- such as students with disabilities or those who speak English as a second language -- don’t pass tests.

The Obama administration, joined by many local educators, says the law labels too many schools as failing, dictates unworkable remedies and leads to a reduction of education standards, weakened accountability and a narrower curriculum.

The education law was due for an overhaul more than five years ago. The administration submitted suggestions in a “blueprint for reform” in March 2010 but Congress hasn’t acted. As a result, the administration is taking its own action to grant more flexibility and ease burdens, according to the administration official.

Under the new plans, the 10 states getting waivers would be exempt from 2014 targets of current law, though they still must take steps to boost student performance and close achievement gaps, with an emphasis on raising achievements in lowest- performing schools. They also would be granted more leeway in using federal education funds targeted at students from low-income families to close those gaps, the official said. http://tinyurl.com/79ha8ru

[Kelly Curry, CFO, Health Management Associates, at UBS Global Health Care Services Conference, Feb. 8, 2012]

[DaVincis are] pretty neat because you're taking about something that was less invasive, considerably less – now, even being less invasive. So, the technology opportunities that brings, you've reduced, by two sites, the place for an infection to enter, okay? That's one of the reasons why our quality scores are what they are--because of our focus on our technologies. In fact as a company, our numbers are through October 31 on this, so far, but in our 66 facilities we've had one central line infection all year--one.

Okay, I can tell you that is huge. Any time you have an infection situation, it's negative for your financial performance, but it's negative for the patient and what we want to do is to deliver the best quality healthcare. So, we want to reduce those. Also, if I do you on an outpatient basis for a knee, you're not there to get an infection because you're at home. So, we continue to develop our robotics programs. We presently have 20 deployed MAKOplasty units and as the physicians are trained and desirous, we're adding hip kits to those for that new aspect of surgery. We've done about nine hips so far through the end of the year. I don't know how many we've done in the last couple of months. But again, that's a less invasive, quicker recovery time, lower infection environment.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan called on Republican candidates Thursday to campaign this year “on a very specific, bold agenda,” saying the party cannot afford to win “by default” with “no mandate to actually fix the country’s problems.”  

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the Wisconsin Republican offered a preview of the keynote speech he plans to deliver to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) Thursday night in Washington, D.C.  

“What I’m going to be saying this evening at CPAC is we need to run on very specific, bold agenda and have an affirming election,” Ryan said. “If we just run against Barack Obama on the economy and how much we don’t like him and his policies — that’s not enough.”  

Ryan stressed that Republicans have what he called “a moral obligation” to offer concrete alternative proposals rather than just complain about the direction the country is taking under the president and Democrats in Congress.  

Voters, he said, need “a clear, definitive choice” in this year’s elections more than ever, given the debt crisis and other problems the nation is confronting.  

“And if we win that kind of election,” Ryan added, “then we have a mandate and the moral authority to fix these problems.”  

Asked about Congress’ all-time low approval ratings and whether Republicans bear some responsibility, Ryan was quick to defend House GOP efforts to pass a budget and suggested that the president and Senate Democratic leaders were dragging their feet on important issues as part of an election-year strategy.  

“They’re basically trying to make the Congress dysfunctional,” he said. “You have the Senate doing absolutely nothing. No budget for three years. No priorities, no restraints.   “But yes, it makes all of us look bad,” Ryan added. “So the president’s going to try and blame somebody else. It’s going to be a ‘it’s not my fault’ kind of an election strategy.”  

Ryan said he plans to present a budget by mid-April to address the growing debt, which he described as essentially the biggest problem facing the nation. He said something has to be done and it has to be soon — election year or not.  

“Quite frankly, it’s really a function of math. The decisions we make in the next few years will really determine the kind of country we’re going to be,” he said. “Are we going to be that kind of opportunity society with a safety net to help people get back on their feet, or are we going to be a European, debt crisis-laden, cradle-to-grave, social-welfare state?  

“I really think that’s kinda the fork in the road we’re at right now, and [Republicans] owe it to the country to show them how we will change that trajectory.” http://tinyurl.com/837lef8

Many Protestant and evangelical leaders are standing with the Roman Catholics bishops against the Obamacare mandate to compel religious hospitals, schools and charities to purchase insurance coverage for contraceptives, abortifacients, and sterilization. 

Although modern conservative Protestants have been accepting or ambivalent about birth control, they recognize a clear infringement on religious liberty. Mandatory coverage for abortion-inducing drugs is doubly troubling for pro-life Protestants.

"I'm not a Catholic but I stand in 100% solidarity with my brothers and sisters to practice their belief against government pressure," tweeted Rick Warren, a California Southern Baptist who is perhaps America's most popular megachurch pastor and religious author. He bracingly added: "I'd go to jail rather than cave in to a government mandate that violates what God commands us to do."

Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and National Association of Evangelicals have all denounced the Obamacare provision. "The Obama administration has declared war on religion and freedom of conscience," warned Southern Baptist officials. "This will not stand."

The head of Intervarsity, a large evangelical campus ministry, pronounced himself a political "moderate" who disagrees with Catholic teaching on contraception while having "grave concerns" about the morning after pill. But he focused on religious freedom. "I'm upset because the mandate compels a religious community to act contrarily to its understanding of Scripture," he said of the Obamacare policy. Noting threats to his own group on increasingly secular college campuses, he warned of a "new era where the majority will increasingly impose its views upon beliefs it regards as backward." And he concluded: "Let us stand in solidarity with our Catholic friends on the health care mandate."

A new religious coalition for the Obamacare mandate included mainly just radical caucus groups within liberal religious bodies, but almost no actual church officials, except for the presidents of the dwindling United Church of Christ and the Unitarian Universalist Association. Even the United Methodist lobby office evidently declined to sign. Two seminary presidents signed. The chief organizer, herself a Unitarian minister who heads the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing, boasted of having received a White House phone call one evening before their news release. Another coalition member was the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which touts abortion as a "religious" right.

For much of the Religious Left, the instrumentalities of the Sexual Revolution are themselves holy rites more sacred than any civil right or protection from government interference. And having largely denied the ethical teachings and historic doctrines of their own faith, these religious voices have largely distilled religion down to mandating, usually by government coercion, the fulfillment of various physical needs. They offer a religion without soul or transcendence. More disturbingly, their material demands ultimately entail suppressing or coercing more traditional religionists, not to mention all who cherish individual rights of speech and faith. If all their wishes were fulfilled, the ultimate result would be more authoritarian than any theocracy of the Middle Ages, unmediated by grace or charity. 

More promisingly, the much wider religious coalition against the Obamacare mandate overturns historic interfaith resentments, sets aside doctrinal differences over contraception, and prioritizes religious freedom and protection for the individual conscience. This interfaith coalition recognizes that liberty is more sacred than any government mandate.  http://tinyurl.com/6s58ucj

Man may not live by bread alone, but cancer in animals appears less resilient, judging by a study that found chemotherapy drugs work better when combined with cycles of short, severe fasting. Even fasting on its own effectively treated a majority of cancers tested in animals, including cancers from human cells. The study in Science Translational Medicine, part of the Science family of journals, found that five out of eight cancer types in mice responded to fasting alone: Just as with chemotherapy, fasting slowed the growth and spread of tumors.

And without exception, "the combination of fasting cycles plus chemotherapy was either more or much more effective than chemo alone," said senior author Valter Longo, professor of gerontology and biological sciences at the University of Southern California. For example, multiple cycles of fasting combined with chemotherapy cured 20 percent of mice with a highly aggressive type of children's cancer that had spread throughout the organism and 40 percent of mice with a more limited spread of the same cancer. No mice survived in either case if treated only with chemotherapy.

Only a clinical trial lasting several years can demonstrate whether humans would benefit from the same treatment, Longo cautioned.

Results from the first phase of a clinical trial with breast, urinary tract and ovarian cancer patients, conducted at the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and led by oncologists Tanya Dorff and David Quinn, in collaboration with Longo, have been submitted for presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Cancer Oncologists. The first phase tests only the safety of a therapy, in this case whether patients can tolerate short-term fasts of two days before and one day after chemotherapy.

"We don't know whether in humans it's effective," Longo said of fasting as a cancer therapy. "It should be off limits to patients, but a patient should be able to go to their oncologist and say, 'What about fasting with chemotherapy or without if chemotherapy was not recommended or considered?"

In a case report study with self-reported data published in the journal Aging in 2010, 10 cancer patients who tried fasting cycles perceived fewer side effects from chemotherapy.

Longo stressed that fasting may not be safe for everyone. The clinical trial did not enroll patients who already had lost more than 10 percent of their normal weight or who had other risk factors, such as diabetes. Fasting also can cause a drop in blood pressure and headaches, which could make driving and other activities dangerous for some patients.

In mice, the study found that fasting cycles without chemotherapy could slow the growth of breast cancer, melanoma, glioma and human neuroblastoma. In several cases, the fasting cycles were as effective as chemotherapy. Fasting also extended survival in mice bearing a human ovarian cancer. In the case of melanoma, the cancer cells became resistant to fasting alone after a single round, but the single cycle of fasting was as effective as chemotherapy in reducing the spread of cancer to other organs.

For all cancers tested, fasting combined with chemotherapy improved survival, slowed tumor growth and/or limited the spread of tumors. http://tinyurl.com/747eqd5

Obese Americans in the military are a national security hazard and first lady Michelle Obama wants to see that change. Obama, who has spearheaded a healthy eating and fitness program for children for two years, will lend her voice on Thursday to the military's efforts to overhaul the food it serves.

In an event in Little Rock, Arkansas, Obama will join top Pentagon officials to announce a new obesity and nutritional awareness campaign that will change nutrition standards across the services for the first time in 20 years.

The changes will bring more fruits, vegetables, whole grains and food choices that are lower in fat to 1,100 service member dining facilities in the coming months.

According to the White House, more than one quarter of 17- to 24-year-olds are too overweight to serve in the military. Active members of the military are also becoming more overweight, a Pentagon official said, and that causes a "readiness problem."

"The Department of Defense considers obesity not only a national problem but a national security issue," Assistant U.S. Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Jonathan Woodson told reporters in a call to discuss the first lady's visit to Arkansas and other states to promote healthy eating.

"Our primary focus is on the health and well-being of service members, their families, and our retirees," Woodson said in remarks to be delivered in Little Rock. "Obesity is a preventable problem which, if combated, can help prevent disease and ease the burden on our overall Military Health System."

There is a lot of money involved. Woodson says the U.S. military spends about $4.65 billion in food services each year. It also spends an estimated $1.1 billion a year on medical care associated with excess weight and obesity.

In an effort to promote good choices, the military will redesign menus and try to supply healthier foods in mess halls and on bases and in vending machines and snack bars on military bases. http://tinyurl.com/89wj46u

A reproductive rights group asked a federal judge to reopen a lawsuit over access to the emergency contraceptive Plan B, claiming the Food and Drug Administration acted in “bad faith” when it placed restrictions on the drug.

The Center for Reproductive Rights, in a filing today in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said reopening its 2005 case was the most efficient way for the group to overturn the FDA’s age restraints on the drug. The group urged the court to order the agency to make Plan B available within 30 days without a prescription or age restrictions.

“The FDA has continually treated emergency contraception completely different than it has any other medication,” Suzanne Novak, senior staff attorney for the New York-based center, said in a statement. “We are asking the court to recognize that the FDA has failed to meet its obligation to the public and make decisions based on science, rather than politics.”

The group previously supported Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) in a failed bid to make an emergency contraceptive, Plan B One-Step, available in stores to all ages.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius ordered the FDA to reject the application in December because of the “cognitive and behavioral” differences in girls of the youngest reproductive age. The reproductive rights group asked to add Sebelius as a defendant in the case.

The Center for Reproductive Rights sued the FDA in 2005 for not acting on a request for over-the-counter sales. In 2006, the FDA granted Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. permission to sell the pill without a prescription only to women 18 years of age or older. Teva, based in Petach Tikva, Israel, now owns Barr.

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in Brooklyn, New York said in 2009 that the age restrictions were arbitrary and based more on political pressure than safety. He ordered the pill be made available without a prescription to 17-year-olds as well.

The judge also ordered the agency to reconsider whether to approve Plan B and generics sold on drugstore shelves without age restrictions.

The case is Tummino v. Hamburg, 05-cv-366, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn). http://tinyurl.com/74y6jx7

U.S. insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc will revise the way it pays doctors and hospitals, a move which it expects will bring down expenses, a Wall Street Journal report said, citing documents sent by the company to employer clients.

UnitedHealth, the largest U.S. health insurer by market value, will create a "value-based" contract system to pay doctors and hospitals which will financially reward them for high-quality and efficient care and potentially withhold expected increases if they do not meet certain standards.

Providers will willingly enter into the new contracts, not be forced into them.

Fifty to 70 percent of the insurer's commercially insured members could be affected by these contracts by 2015, up from about 1 to 2 percent this year, UnitedHealth said in the documents, the Journal said. http://tinyurl.com/6rsztck

A new passenger screening program to make check-in more convenient for certain travelers is being expanded to 28 more major U.S. airports, the government said Wednesday. There will be no cost to eligible passengers, who would no longer have to remove their shoes and belts before they board flights. The airports include the three used by hijackers to launch the terror attacks in September 2001: Washington Dulles International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Boston's Logan International Airport.

The Transportation Security Administration’s program, already in a test phase in seven other airports, is the Obama administration’s first attempt at a passenger screening program responsive to frequent complaints that the government is not using common sense when it screens all passengers at airports in the same way. Under the new program, eligible travelers have the option to volunteer more personal information about themselves so that the government can vet them for security purposes before they arrive at airport checkpoints.

“Good, thoughtful, sensible security by its very nature facilitates lawful travel and legitimate commerce,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.

The program works this way: Participating travelers will walk through a dedicated lane at airport security checkpoints. They will provide the TSA officer with a specially marked boarding pass. A machine will read the barcode, and travelers deemed “low-risk,” will likely be allowed to keep on belts, shoes and jackets and leave laptops and liquids in bags when being screened.

Not everyone is eligible to participate in the program, which is already being tested at airports in Atlanta, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Eligible travelers are some of those who participate in American and Delta airlines’ frequent flier programs, as well as travelers in three other trusted traveler programs, which do charge fees to participate. About 336,000 passengers have been screened through the program since the testing began last year, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

By the end of 2012, the government expects select passengers in frequent flier programs for US Airways, United and Alaska Airlines to be eligible to participate. The program is expected to be operating in Reagan National Airport near Washington, Salt Lake City International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport by the end of March.

Pistole has said he hopes to eventually test the program at all airports and with all airlines around the country, but that might take years.

The program is expected to be operating in these airports by the end of 2012: Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, Denver International Airport, Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Honolulu International Airport, New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, Puerto Rico’s Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, Orlando International Airport, Philadelphia International Airport, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, Oregon’s Portland International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Florida’s Tampa International Airport and Alaska’s Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport. http://tinyurl.com/6qzhbhd