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Trump says he called Schumer to broker deal with Democrats for ‘a great HealthCare Bill’

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President Trump meets Sept. 6 with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other congressional leaders in the Oval Office. (Evan Vucci/AP)

This post has been updated.

Frustrated by Republican inaction on health care, President Trump tweeted Saturday that he had reached out to the Senate Democratic leader in hopes of brokering a deal for a “great HealthCare Bill.”

Trump said that he had called Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Friday to ask whether Democrats would work with him on health care — and Trump indicated that he had not been entirely rebuffed.

In a Saturday morning tweet, Trump wrote, “I called Chuck Schumer yesterday to see if the Dems want to do a great HealthCare Bill. ObamaCare is badly broken, big premiums. Who knows!”

Schumer responded, saying he was willing to work with Trump to “improve the existing health care system” but not to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, former president Barack Obama’s signature 2010 health-care law.

“The president wanted to make another run at repeal and replace and I told the president that’s off the table,” Schumer said in a statement. “If he wants to work together to improve the existing health care system, we Democrats are open to his suggestions. A good place to start might be the Alexander-Murray negotiations that would stabilize the system and lower costs.”

Schumer was referring to a bipartisan health-care proposal by Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.).

On Friday, Democratic lawmakers condemned new rules issued by the Trump administration that widen the range of employers and insurers that can avoid the ACA requirement that birth control pills and other contraceptives be covered by insurance as part of preventive care because of religious beliefs.

“Particularly after the birth control decision yesterday, the administration has to stop sabotaging the law before anything real can happen,” a Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the aide was not authorized to be quoted by name, said Saturday.

Trump’s outreach to Schumer comes after the president infuriated fellow Republicans by negotiating a deal last month with Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government.

Trump’s dealings with “Chuck and Nancy,” as he affectionately called them, was seen by some congressional Republicans as an act of betrayal but have earned the president plaudits and framed him as the bipartisan dealmaker he said he would be.

Republicans control the House and Senate but have repeatedly failed to pass their health-care bill through the upper chamber. Their efforts to “repeal and replace Obamacare,” which for years has been the GOP’s campaign mantra, so far have garnered no Democratic support.

But Schumer and other Democrats have said they would be open to discussions with Trump and other Republicans to consider selective changes to the ACA. This summer, Schumer publicly offered to negotiate with Trump if Republicans were willing to drop what he called a “fundamentally flawed approach.”

“Let’s start over,” the Democratic leader said in June, challenging the president to invite Senate Democrats to Blair House for a meeting. “You think we’re not serious? Try us. Democrats are ready to turn the page on health care.”

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma sink US payrolls in September

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employment fell in September for the first time in seven years as Hurricanes Harvey and Irma left displaced workers temporarily unemployed and delayed hiring, the latest indication that the storms undercut economic activity in the third quarter.

The Labor Department said on Friday nonfarm payrolls decreased by 33,000 jobs last month amid a record drop in employment in the leisure and hospitality sector.

The decline in payrolls was the first since September 2010. The Department said its analysis suggested that the net effect of Harvey and Irma, which wreaked havoc in Texas and Florida in late August and early September, was to “reduce the estimate of total nonfarm payroll employment for September.”

“While nonfarm payrolls declined last month, investors will find solace in a whole host of other labor market indicators that reveal an underlying labor market that continues to show evidence of resilience and continued tightening,” said Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at Bank of the West in San Francisco.

Economists had forecast payrolls increasing by 90,000 jobs last month. Payrolls are calculated from a survey of employers, which treats any worker who was not paid for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th of the month as unemployed.

Many of the dislocated people will probably return to work. That, together with rebuilding and clean-up is expected to boost job growth in the coming months. Leisure and hospitality payrolls dived 111,000, the most since records started in 1939, after being unchanged in August.

There were also decreases in retail and manufacturing employment last month. Stripping out the effects of the hurricanes, the labor market remains strong. The government revised data for August to show 169,000 jobs created that month instead of the previously reported 156,000.

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Harvey and Irma did not have an impact on the unemployment rate, which fell two-tenths of a percentage point to 4.2 percent, the lowest since February 2001. The smaller survey of households from which the jobless rate is derived treats a person as employed regardless of whether they missed work during the reference week and were unpaid as result.

The decrease in the unemployment rate reflected a 906,000 surge in household employment, which offset a 575,000 increase in the labor force.

The dollar was trading higher against a basket of currencies after the data, while prices for U.S. Treasuries fell. Stocks on Wall Street fell marginally.

DISRUPTIONS BOOST WAGES

Underscoring the disruptive impact of the hurricanes, the household survey showed 1.5 million people stayed at home in September because of the bad weather, the most since January 1996. About 2.9 million people worked part-time, the largest number since February 2014.

The length of the average workweek was unchanged at 34.4 hours. With the hurricane-driven temporary unemployment concentrated in low-paying industries like retail and leisure and hospitality, average hourly earnings increased 12 cents or 0.5 percent in September after rising 0.2 percent in August.

That pushed the annual increase in wages to 2.9 percent, the largest gain since December 2016, from 2.7 percent in August.

The mixed employment report should not change views the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December. Fed Chair Janet Yellen cautioned last month that the hurricanes could “substantially” weigh on September job growth, but expected the effects would “unwind relatively quickly.”

“The Fed has been hyper-focused on wage growth, so the above-average increase will be a welcome relief, even if there is some storm impact embedded in the number,” said Marvin Loh, senior global markets strategist at BNY Mellon in Boston. “We think that the report strengthens the Fed’s December hike hand.”

The U.S. central bank said last month it expected “labor market conditions will strengthen somewhat further.” The Fed left interest rates unchanged in September, but signaled it expected one more hike by the end of the year. It has increased borrowing costs twice this year.

Annual wage growth of at least 3.0 percent is need to raise inflation to the Fed’s 2 percent target, analysts say.

The employment report added to August consumer spending, industrial production, homebuilding and home sales data in suggesting that the hurricanes will dent economic growth in the third quarter.

Economists estimate that the back-to-back storms, including Hurricane Maria which destroyed infrastructure in Puerto Rico last month, could shave at least six-tenths of a percentage point from third-quarter gross domestic product.

Growth estimates for the July-September period are as low as a 1.8 percent annualized rate. The economy grew at a 3.1 percent rate in the second quarter.

Private payrolls fell by 40,000 jobs, the biggest drop since February 2010. Manufacturing employment slipped by 1,000 jobs pulled down by declines at motor vehicle assembly and chemical plants as well as textile mills.

Retail employment fell by 2,900 jobs as food stores payrolls tumbled 6,900. There were also declines in employment at department stores. Construction payrolls rose 8,000 in September as a 3,900 drop in jobs at homebuilding sites was offset by increases elsewhere.

Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci

The world has nearly 15000 nuclear weapons. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize honors the quest to abolish all of them.

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BRUSSELS — An international group dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, a recognition of efforts to avoid nuclear conflict at a time  of greater atomic menace than any other period in recent memory.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was honored for its work to foster a global ban on the destructive weapons, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. The scrappy civil society movement was behind a successful push this summer for a U.N. treaty that prohibits nuclear weapons. It promotes nuclear disarmament around the world.

The award comes amid rising global alarm about a potential nuclear conflagration. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hurled threats of nuclear missile strikes against the United States, and President Trump has warned he could “totally destroy North Korea” if provoked. The barbed exchanges have raised fears among many global leaders of a miscalculation that could end in cataclysmic conflict.

Separately, Trump plans next week to “decertify” Iran’s compliance with an international agreement that limits its nuclear program, a step that European allies worry could lead to nuclear proliferation.

[Trump plans to declare Iran nuclear deal not in U.S. national interest]

“The risk of nuclear war has grown exceptionally in the last few years, and that’s why it makes this treaty and us receiving this award so important,” Beatrice Fihn, the Swedish executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, or ICAN, said in a telephone interview. “We do not have to accept this [risk]. We do not have to live with the kind of fear that Donald Trump could start a nuclear war that would destroy all of us. We should not base our security on whether or not his finger is on the trigger.”

ICAN recognizes that nuclear weapons will not disappear any time soon. But Fihn said a ban is still a realistic long-term goal, similar to the way an international taboo was created around the use of chemical weapons.

“Keeping nuclear weapons legal isn’t going to help things,” she said.

  The decade-old Geneva-based coalition, which was modeled on international efforts to ban land mines, has branches in more than 100 countries.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was approved by two-thirds of U.N. members in July, but it has not attracted support from any of the world’s nine nuclear powers, which together possess nearly 15,000 atomic weapons. The United States and others boycotted the U.N. discussions that led to the treaty.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said at the time that “we have to be realistic” about the nuclear threat of rogue nations such as North Korea, and she warned that the ban could actually increase the risk of nuclear war, not reduce it.

Nuclear powers around the world repeated their opposition to efforts to ban the weapons following the Nobel announcement Friday.

“The Nuclear Ban Treaty does not move us closer to the goal of a world without nuclear weapons,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. “In fact, it risks undermining the progress we have made over the years in disarmament and non-proliferation.”

The White House and leaders of other nuclear powers have instead endorsed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which limits but does not ban the powerful weapons. Russia and the United States hold the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

Signatories to the prohibition treaty would be banned from developing, testing and possessing nuclear weapons, as well as threatening to use them. The treaty will go into effect once 50 nations ratify it. Guyana, Thailand and the Vatican are the first three to do so.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized ICAN for “its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its groundbreaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons,” chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen of Norway said as she announced the prize in Oslo. 

“There is a popular belief among people all over the world that the world has become more dangerous, and that there is a tendency where we experience that the threats of nuclear conflict have come closer,” Reiss-Andersen said. The group has been successful in “engaging people in the world who are scared of the fact that they are supposed to be protected by atomic weapons,” she said.

[Trump’s decision on Iran deal could cause major breach with Europe]

The Nobel committee said it chose to honor ICAN because of the group’s concrete success in pushing the treaty forward. The idea of a nuclear-free world is broader, and an aging group of U.S. hawks gave it a prominent kick-start.

George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam Nunn, a bipartisan quartet of former U.S. officials with deep national security credentials, made headlines in 2007 when they endorsed ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Their ideas helped launch the anti-nuclear Global Zero movement.

 

 

Anti-nuclear campaigners say they recognize the challenge of persuading nuclear powers to agree to give up their weapons.  

But the advocates believe that the treaty creates an international norm that will eventually pressure nuclear-armed countries into compliance, even if they never formally sign on, said Rebecca Johnson, executive director of Britain’s Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy.

“Nuclear weapons became a tool for weak leaders to take shortcuts instead of providing their own people with safety, security and food,” said Johnson, a founding co-chairwoman of ICAN.  “We have to take that value away in order to pull down numbers to zero.”

She said nuclear tensions between Washington and North Korea represent a setback to world peace.

“That has to be done with diplomacy and politics, and definitely not nuclear saber-rattling between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un,” she said. “They are very dangerous leaders that think they are exercising nuclear deterrence but in their irrationality are actually risking nuclear war.”

The Nobel Committee said the award was not intended as a slap at any particular country or leader, but rather was meant to encourage all nations to give up their nuclear weapons in the name of a safer world.

[North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, analysts say]

Indeed, world peace seems especially fragile now. North Korea in recent months has embarked on a series of ambitious tests of nuclear weapons technology and has threatened to strike the mainland United States.

Meanwhile, Trump is poised next week to decertify Iran’s compliance with a deal limiting its nuclear program. Under the 2015 accord, Iran pledged that “under no circumstances” would it “ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons” and said its aim was only to make progress on “an exclusively peaceful” nuclear energy program.

Separately, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has come under fire for failing to stop or condemn the ethnic cleansing of her nation’s Rohingya Muslim minority in recent months.

William Branigin in Washington contributed to this report.

            Read more         

 Quiz: How much do you know about the Nobel Peace Prize?  

 Why Aung San Suu Kyi is unlikely to have her Nobel Peace Prize revoked  

 

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Europe helped draft the Iran nuclear deal. Now EU leaders seek to save it from Trump pressure.

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ZURICH — European officials and business executives are quickly mobilizing a counter effort to the expected U.S. rebuff of the Iran nuclear accord, encouraging companies to invest in Iran while urging Congress to push back against White House moves that could hobble the deal.

The European stance — sketched out on the sidelines of an Iran-focused investment forum in Zurich this week — is an early signal of the possible transatlantic rifts ahead as America’s European partners show no sign of following the White House call to renegotiate the landmark pact with Tehran.

“The nuclear deal is working and delivering and the world would be less stable without it,” Helga Schmid, the secretary general of the European’s foreign policy service, said in a speech at the Europe-Iran Forum.

This amounted to a warning shot that Washington may once again find itself isolated from its key Western allies, who have already broke with the White House over issues such as President Trump’s call to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.

Trump plans next week to declare that the 2015 Iran deal — which curbs Iranian nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief — is no longer in the U.S. national interest, according to U.S. and European officials. Such a move would then give Congress 60 days to vote to reimpose sanctions.

[Trump once again imperils key alliances]

This could pave the way for the deal’s collapse or, more likely, Europeans and others such as China and India could keep up their growing economic and diplomatic engagement with Iran with the United States on the outside looking in.

“The risk [of sanctions] is there, but my perception is that everybody outside the U.S. who participated in the deal wants to increase relations with Iran,” Ulrich Von Zanthier, director of financial risk management at KPMG, a global audit and advisory firm, told the conference.

If the United States reintroduces sanctions, “it is what it is,” he said. “But at the moment, we can do business, so let’s do business.”

European diplomats and business leaders said they hope the 60-day period will provide them with a diplomatic buffer zone in which they can convince Congress to salvage the agreement.

“There’s a period of 60 days where things need to work out in a way that upholds the [agreement] with the U.S. still in it,” said a senior executive at a Europe-based multinational company. The executive spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters related to Iran sanctions.

“There’s no real alternative” to the deal, the executive said, adding that “it’s an illusion to think you can reopen and renegotiate” it.

The agreement, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was result of years of negotiations between Iran and world powers. It was hailed as a victory for global diplomacy and nuclear nonproliferation, and allowed Iran to resume oil exports and foreign companies to tap in to a vast new consumer market.

Since then, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. atomic watchdog tasked with monitoring Iran’s nuclear program, has repeatedly certified its compliance with the deal.

Still, the Trump administration has said the agreement does not go far enough in countering Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for groups that the United States considers as terrorists, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Trump is expected to announce a major policy shift on Iran next week — one that will more aggressively target Iranian security services and push for more radical enforcement of the deal, officials say.

[Nobel Peace Prize goes to group seeking nuclear-free world]

The deal has been “put into question in harsh terms by some in recent months,” said the foreign policy group chief Schmid, referring to the U.S. administration.

“Some critics say that the agreement does not address Iran’s regional activities,” she said, adding that “this is a nonproliferation agreement. It is not an agreement on regional matters or human rights . . . The JCPOA should not be blamed for something it is not supposed to address,” she said. “As Europeans, we will do everything to make sure it stays.”

Iranian leaders also have insisted the nuclear pact cannot be renegotiated. On Friday, the head of Iran’s nuclear agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, warned that Iran would be forced to abandon the accord if other countries followed the U.S. lead to possibly reimpose sanctions.

“But if the U.S. leaves the deal on its own with the others adhering to it, the situation will be different,” Salehi told Iran’s Fars news agency.

Part of the European effort to save the deal includes reassuring European companies and banks that they have political support for their investments, even as some businesses have struggled to navigate Iran’s volatile economy.

As a measure of confidence, the European Commission has recommended that the European Investment Bank be allowed to operate in Iran in the future, Schmid said.

But for others, the risk may be too great.

Before the nuclear deal, the United States imposed what are known as secondary sanctions, where the Treasury Department penalizes companies or people who do business with Iran. The fear is that the United States may revive those strict regulations — putting foreign companies doing business in Iran under the cloud of possible U.S. clampdowns.

“We need to be compliant with international law, or applicable law. And if sanctions come back and that means we cannot do our work inside or outside Iran, then we will stop,” the executive from the multinational said.

“Iran is a big market. It’s also quite a stable country,” the executive said. But multinational companies “have to consider markets around the world, and Iran today is still relatively small, compared to Europe or the U.S.”

Brian Murphy in Washington contributed to this report.

Read more:

Trump’s decision on Iran nuclear deal could cause major breach with European allies

Trump’s generals thwart him on the Iran deal

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Bergdahl expected to plead guilty, avoid trial

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Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was held captive by the Taliban for half a decade after abandoning his Afghanistan post, is expected to plead guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, two individuals with knowledge of the case said.

Bergdahl’s decision to plead guilty rather than face trial marks another twist in an eight-year drama that caused the nation to wrestle with difficult questions of loyalty, negotiating with hostage takers and America’s commitment not to leave its troops behind. President Donald Trump has called Bergdahl a “no-good traitor” who “should have been executed.”

The decision by the 31-year-old Idaho native leaves open whether he will return to captivity for years — this time in a U.S. prison — or receive a lesser sentence that reflects the time the Taliban held him under brutal conditions. He says he had been caged, kept in darkness, beaten and chained to a bed.

Bergdahl could face up to five years on the desertion charge and a life sentence for misbehavior.

Freed three years ago, Bergdahl had been scheduled for trial in late October. He had opted to let a judge rather than a military jury decide his fate, but a guilty plea later this month will spare the need for a trial.

Sentencing will start on Oct. 23, according to the individuals with knowledge of the case. They weren’t authorized to discuss the case and demanded anonymity. During sentencing, U.S. troops who were seriously wounded searching for Bergdahl in Afghanistan are expected to testify, the individuals said.

It was unclear whether prosecutors and Bergdahl’s defense team had reached any agreement ahead of sentencing about how severe a penalty prosecutors will recommend.

An attorney for Bergdahl, Eugene Fidell, declined to comment on Friday. Maj. Justin Oshana, who is prosecuting the case, referred questions to the U.S. Army, which declined to discuss whether Bergdahl had agreed to plead guilty.

“We continue to maintain careful respect for the military-judicial process, the rights of the accused and ensuring the case’s fairness and impartiality during this ongoing legal case,” said Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman.

Bergdahl was a 23-year-old private first class in June 2009 when, after five months in Afghanistan, he disappeared from his remote infantry post near the Pakistan border, triggering a massive search operation.

Videos soon emerged showing Bergdahl in captivity by the Taliban, who ruled Afghanistan in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and harbored al-Qaida leaders including Osama bin Laden as they plotted against America. For years, the U.S. kept tabs on Bergdahl with drones, spies and satellites as behind-the-scenes negotiations played out in fits and starts.

In May 2014, he was handed over to U.S. special forces in a swap for five Taliban detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison, fueling an emotional U.S. debate about whether Bergdahl was a hero or a deserter.

As critics questioned whether the trade was worth it, President Barack Obama stood with Bergdahl’s parents in the White House Rose Garden and defended the swap. The United States does not “leave our men or women in uniform behind,” Obama declared, regardless of how Bergdahl came to be captured. The Taliban detainees were sent to Qatar.

“Whatever those circumstances may turn out to be, we still get an American soldier back if he’s held in captivity,” Obama said. “Period. Full stop.”

Trump, as a presidential candidate, was unforgiving of Bergdahl, who has been assigned to desk duty at a Texas Army base pending the outcome of his case. At campaign events, Trump declared that Bergdahl “would have been shot” in another era, even pantomiming the pulling of the trigger.

“We’re tired of Sgt. Bergdahl, who’s a traitor, a no-good traitor, who should have been executed,” Trump said at a Las Vegas rally in 2015.

Bergdahl’s guilty plea will follow several pretrial rulings against him that had complicated his defense. Army Col. Jeffery R. Nance, the judge, decided in June that testimony from troops wounded as they searched for him would be allowed during sentencing, a decision that strengthened prosecutors’ leverage to pursue stiffer punishment.

Some of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers want him held responsible for any harm suffered by those who went looking for him. The judge ruled a Navy SEAL and an Army National Guard sergeant wouldn’t have found themselves in separate firefights if they hadn’t been searching.

The defense separately argued Trump’s scathing criticism unfairly swayed the case. The judge ruled otherwise. Nance wrote in February that Trump’s comments were “disturbing and disappointing” but didn’t constitute unlawful command influence by the soon-to-be commander in chief.

Bergdahl’s lawyers also contended that misbehavior before the enemy, the more serious charge, was legally inappropriate and too severe. They were rebuffed again. The judge said a soldier who leaves his post alone and without authorization should know he could face punishment. The misbehavior charge has rarely been used in recent decades, though there were hundreds of cases during World War II.

Defense attorneys don’t dispute that Bergdahl walked off his base without authorization. Bergdahl himself told a general during a preliminary investigation that he left intending to cause alarm and draw attention to what he saw as problems with his unit. An Army Sanity Board Evaluation concluded he suffered from schizotypal personality disorder.

The defense team has argued that Bergdahl can’t be held responsible for a long chain of events that included decisions by others about how to retrieve him that were far beyond his control.

———

Associated Press writer Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.

Trump administration narrows Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate

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The Trump administration issued a rule Friday that sharply limits the Affordable Care Act’s contraception coverage mandate, a move that could mean many American women would no longer have access to birth control free of charge.

The new regulation, issued by the Health and Human Services Department, allows a much broader group of employers and insurers to exempt themselves from covering contraceptives such as birth control pills on religious or moral grounds. The decision, anticipated from the Trump administration for months, is the latest twist in a seesawing legal and ideological fight that has surrounded this aspect of the 2010 health-care law nearly from the start.

Several religious groups, which battled the Obama administration for years over the controversial requirement, welcomed the action.

Women’s rights organizations and some medical professionals portrayed it as a blow to women’s health, warning that it could lead to a higher number of unintended pregnancies.

The rule change is among the recent moves by President Trump to dismantle initiatives enacted under the Obama administration. It fulfills a crucial promise Trump made as a candidate to appeal to social conservatives and that he repeated in May when he signed an executive order in the Rose Garden to expand religious liberty.

Senior Health and Human Services officials, briefing reporters early on condition of anonymity, contended the change will still leave “99.9 percent of women” with access to free birth control through their insurance. They said the estimate was based on the finite number of groups that have filed about 50 lawsuits over the provision.

This latest rewriting of the federal policy, in an interim final rule that takes effect immediately, broadens the entities that may claim religious objections to providing contraceptive coverage to nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies, even ones that are publicly traded. Also included are higher educational institutions that arrange for insurance for their students, as well as individuals whose employers are willing to provide health plans consistent with their beliefs.

A separate section covers moral objections, allowing exemptions under similar circumstances except for publicly traded companies.

As part of the rule, made publicly available in the Federal Register late Friday morning, administration officials estimate that 120,000 women at most will lose access to free contraceptives — many fewer than critics predict.

They write that they do not know how many employers or insurers that omitted contraceptive coverage before the ACA did so based on religious beliefs that would now allow them to be exempt. For that reason, the law says, HHS cannot predict how many entities will want exemptions, other than the groups that have filed recent lawsuits or made other public statements against the Obama-era policy.

The analysis concludes that perhaps one-third of women who get insurance through such groups — the estimated 120,000 — would end up paying for birth control on their own.

The new policy “will result in some persons covered in plans of newly exempt entities not receiving coverage or payments for contraceptive services,” the rule acknowledges. But it says there is not “sufficient data to determine the actual effect . . . on plan participants and beneficiaries, including for costs they may incur for contraceptive coverage, nor of unintended pregnancies that may occur.”

[New Mexico makes it easier for women to obtain birth control]

The controversy first arose as part of the Obama administration’s initial definition of preventive care that insurers must cover under the ACA — which encompassed birth control, officials decided.

Subsequent accommodations gave exemptions of sorts to houses of worship, nonprofits with religious affiliations and closely held for-profit companies. Such employers have been able to opt out of providing the coverage and instead have their insurance company pay for it by notifying the insurer, a third-party administrator or the federal government. That situation will continue.

Organizations affiliated with the Catholic church, which teaches against birth control other than by natural means, have been among the most vocal opponents. They’ve argued that having to cover the cost of contraception through health insurance plans is tantamount to being forced by the government to be complicit in a sin.

In the past several years, lawsuits have been filed by nuns, Catholic charities, hospitals and universities. Even now, litigation remains in several federal appeals courts.

One challenge was heard by the Supreme Court, and the justices ruled in 2014 that it was illegal to impose the mandate on “closely held corporations” such as Hobby Lobby, the craft store chain. Its Christian owners had objected to the idea of paying for several kinds of the birth control that must be covered.

Despite HHS’s officials 99.9 percent prediction, no one knows how many companies and institutions will now claim an exemption and, in turn, how many women will lose access to no-cost birth control.

The new rule is almost certain to spark fresh litigation. The National Women’s Law Center — which estimates that in 2013 alone, the contraception requirement saved women $1.4 billion in oral contraceptive costs — has vowed to challenge the Trump administration in court. It plans to argue that the new policy amounts to sex discrimination, since it will disproportionately affect women. It also plans to allege religious discrimination, arguing that it will allow employers to impose their religious beliefs on employees.

“The Trump administration is treating birth control as if it’s not even health care. We see this as part of the larger war they are waging on women’s health,” said Mara Gandal-Powers, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center. “For some [women], it means choosing between preventive care like contraceptives and paying their rent, their mortgage, electric bill.”

Other groups focused on a different issue, with Anne Davis of Physicians for Reproductive Health arguing that the widened exemptions will leave many women “vulnerable to the whim of their employers. … An employer’s beliefs have no place in these private decisions, just as they would not in any other conversation about a patient’s health care.”

[States with more Planned Parenthood clinics have fewer teen births and sexually transmitted diseases]

The rule follows some social conservatives’ increasing frustration with the pace at which the Trump administration has addressed their demands on issues such as the ACA contraception requirement. “An awful lot of people who voted for this president did so believing this was going to be something he would solve,” said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who hailed the rule as a correction of overly aggressive liberal actions under President Barack Obama. “There are other ways to get contraceptives. You don’t need to force nuns to give people contraception.”

In his sweeping May 4 executive order on free speech and religious liberty, Trump directed his Cabinet to address the concerns of those who had “conscience-based objections” to contraceptive coverage.

In previewing the rule for reporters, Roger Severino, director of HHS’s office for civil rights and a longtime proponent of religious liberties, reiterated Trump’s May pledge from the Rose Garden. The president had promised that “we will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced any more . . . We are ending the attacks on religious liberties.”

On Friday, Severino elaborated: “That was a promise made, and this is the promise kept. … We should have space for organizations to live out their religious identity and not face discrimination because of their faith.”

The HHS regulation was not the only administration action along these lines to be announced on Friday. Minutes later, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued sweeping guidance to all executive departments and agencies on the Justice Department’s interpretation of religious liberties. That also triggered an immediate backlash, with civil liberties groups asserting that he was essentially offering a license for discrimination.

Senior Justice Department officials said the guidance was merely meant to offer interpretation and clarification of existing law. But the interpretation seemed to be particularly favorable to religious entities, possibly at the expense of women, LGBT people and others.

The guidance, for example, said the ACA contraceptive mandate “substantially burdens” employers’ free practice of religion by requiring them to provide insurance coverage for contraceptive drugs in violation of their religious of beliefs or face significant fines.

Over the summer, a leaked early draft of the regulation began circulating in Washington, priming both sides for a renewed fight. That draft immediately drew praise from one side and condemnation from the other.

When the contraception mandate was first implemented in August 2012, it required all health insurance offered by employers to cover at least one of the 18 forms of birth control approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Since then, savings on the birth control pill have accounted for more than half of the drop in all out-of-pocket prescription drug spending, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Google’s new Clips camera is invasive, creepy, and perfect for a parent like me

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At least a half-dozen times every week, I reach into my pocket and pull out my smartphone in an attempt to take a photo or video of something my kids are doing. As a dad, I’m eager to capture those magic, fleeting moments when my two boys are playing, not fighting. When one of them is nice to the dog for a change. When a kid is lost in their own world, building a universe around a set of blocks or a cardboard box.

More often than not, however, the act of trying to capture that moment breaks the spell. The kid looks up and stops focusing on his fantasy. The boys stop playing and start asking to see the phone. I’ve deleted dozens of photos and videos that capture them in the act of walking over to me, hand outstretched, asking with sudden urgency, “Can I see? Can I see?”

So I was intrigued by Google Clips, the new AI-driven camera the company showed off yesterday at its hardware event. It’s a little unit you can set on a table or bookshelf, or clip to a fence or shirt. Turn it on, and it starts watching its surroundings. It uses AI to learn which faces are important to you, then starts automatically capturing photos and videos. I was similarly excited by early promotional videos of parents in Google Glass playing with their young kids, capturing photos and videos in a hands-free way that didn’t interrupt the moment.

A lot of people don’t feel this way, though. Many have responded to this device by calling it creepy and invasive. This is a similar reaction to the one that tanked Google Glass. People don’t like the idea of an always-on camera watching them, doubly so if it’s powered by artificial intelligence and created by a company that makes its money by collecting your personal data and allowing advertisers to target you.

Those are all valid concerns, but I think they miss some crucial details of how the product was designed, and the use cases that Google is smartly pushing.

First, the camera doesn’t share data or images with any of Google’s cloud-connected services. The AI system is localized to the hardware, and the photos and videos it takes are also stored on the device. You can review them using an app, and transfer them to your phone over Wi-Fi. Everything is encrypted, and nothing gets shared to the web or social media unless you decide to do that.

Do I trust Google to actually respect my privacy? Yeah, I do. Secretly exfiltrating intimate photos of its customers and their families doesn’t help Google sell more ads, and it most definitely will be a huge PR nightmare if discovered. Google Photos is, with customers’ explicit permission, already getting hundreds of millions of images to study. Google understands that, when it comes to hardware, privacy can be a strong selling point.

Will some clever hacker figure out a way to tap into a Clips camera and make off with the images? Maybe. But what would photos of me and my family futzing around in our living room be worth? I’m personally a lot more worried about credit rating agencies and health care providers leaking everything from my Social Security number to my driver’s license.

Now, I wouldn’t wear Clips on me when going to public places. I also wouldn’t attach it to the jungle gym at the local park and assume it will only capture shots of my kids, or that other parents won’t be justifiably freaked out. A device like this seems appropriate only in a private space where everyone has given their consent. The fact that Google put a heavy emphasis on privacy and security while introducing the device makes me think it learned from the Google Glass fiasco.

(Quick aside: you could argue I’m using these gadgets to craft a mom-and-pop surveillance state for my kids. That’s one of the weird things about being a parent in this day and age. I’m my kids’ legal guardian for the next 18 years or so, and so I get to make most of their life decisions. But if they told me they didn’t want a photo or video shared publicly, I wouldn’t. And as they get older, they will need more privacy. I don’t plan on keeping a video camera in a teenager’s room.)

So, that gets back to whether Clips will be worth using, and whether it can deliver some value. For parents of young children, I’m going to guess it will, and I think I have some evidence. Strangely enough, one of my favorite apps to use recently is the one that comes with my home security camera from Logi (formerly Logitech). It has a feature called Daily Brief that shows you a high-speed capture of the last 24 hours. It slows down when it detects a lot of motion and records sparingly when no one is around. It’s making decisions, in other words, about what’s worth recording.

I keep the camera in my kids’ room so I can hear and see them at night. It helps when they decide it would be fun to scale a bookshelf, or when I want to know if they are actually asleep before turning on the TV in the living room. It’s been in there long enough that we don’t pay attention to it, so it captures the glorious, mundane activity of our lives in a completely candid way.

The video quality isn’t great and it’s very sped up, but it’s still fun to peek at the little moments you might otherwise miss. Sometimes one of my boys will wake in the middle of the night, find something to do, then fall back asleep. Sometimes they play together in the morning for a while before rousing their sleepy parents by jumping on their heads. There are tantrums and bedtime stories and everything in between.

I’ll have to spend some time with Clips before I can judge if it actually learns to capture interesting moments and properly safeguards that data. But as a parent, I understand immediately the pain point a device like this could solve, and am eager to see if it can deliver on the promise of an ambient camera that can live in my home and make intelligent choices about what memories to preserve.