The Supremes: The court edited a key provision of Obamacare this morning with a 5-4 majority saying an employer with religious objections does not have to provide free contraception under its healthcare plan. The ruling came in the case brought by the owners of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores and Conestoga Wood cabinetmakers, who said some forms of legal contraception are contrary to their religious beliefs.

The court specified that their ruling applies only to companies controlled by owners with religious beliefs, not merely executives with objections.

The Affordable Care Act says businesses must provide health insurance that includes free contraception. But Hobby Lobby and Conestoga said that in particular the IUD and morning after pill are forms of abortion because they interfere with a human egg after it has been fertilized.

Between Hobby Lobby and Conestoga, about 16,000 employees are affected by the decision. About 85 percent of employer health plans offered contraception before Obamacare became law.

New Turf: The Sunni Islamic militants who control territory in Syria and northern Iraq have declared the establishment of a new Islamic state, a caliphate. A spokesman for the Sunni extremists said, “The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph’s authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas.” said the spokesman, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, said in an audio statement posted online. “Listen to your caliph and obey him. Support your state, which grows every day.” He said the new country is being named simply the “Islamic State.”

World: Blade runner Oscar Pistorius had no mental disorder when he killed his girlfriend, according to a psychological evaluation revealed in court this morning. That means Pistorius can be held criminally responsible for killing Reeva Steenkamp.

>The father of the bride killed a Pakistani couple who married for love because he was embarrassed by the union. In Pakistani tribal culture a woman is not allowed to marry the man of her choice. Her family, who said they would bless the marriage, lured the 31-year-old man and 17-year-old wife to the wife’s home. There the girl’s father cut the throats of both with a scythe. The family has been arrested.

GM Pays: General Motors announced that it will pay a minimum of $1 million for each death caused by its faulty ignition switches. Added to that will be an estimation of lifetime earnings lost as well as $300,000 for a spouse and each dependent.

New Management: President Obama is expected today to appoint former Procter & Gamble executive Bob McDonald to run the troubled Veterans Affairs administration. The VA has 1700 facilities and serves eight million vets. At P&G, McDonald had 120,000 employees around the world. If confirmed by the Senate, McDonald’s job will be to cure what’s been described as the “corrosive culture” of management at the VA.

The Obit Page: Meshach Taylor, the lone man in the troupe on the long-running sitcom “Designing Women,” has died of cancer at age 67. Taylor also had a starring role in the sitcom “Dave’s World” and did a string of guest roles on other shows.

Kicks: Costa Rica beat Greece 5-3 on penalty kicks yesterday to advance to the quarterfinals in the World Cup. Greece had controlled the ball for 60 percent of the game, but overtime ended in a 1-1 tie. In a shootout, the Costa Rican goalie made a miraculous save. And, trailing Mexico 0-1 with the game in “stop time,” the Netherlands scored twice for one of the biggest upsets of the tournament.

Emojii: Facebook ran a secret experiment on 600,000 users to determine whether emotions are contagious. The study said, “When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred.” As a byproduct, the researchers also learned that hating Facebook is contagious.

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