Supreme Court ruling on care for trans minors reopens other cases
The directive from the justices, announced in its routine orders list, could upend lower-court rulings involving transgender rights in four states. One cleared the way for transgender individuals in Oklahoma to change their sex designation on birth certificates. The others involve state health policies in Idaho, West Virginia and North Carolina that do not cover certain treatments for transgender patients.
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Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
A Tunisian musician was detained in LA after living in US for a decade. His doctor wife speaks out
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Dr. Wafaa Alrashid noticed fewer of her patients were showing up for their appointments at the Los Angeles area hospital where she works as immigration raids spread fear among the Latino population she serves. The Utah-born chief medical officer at Huntington Hospital understood their fear on a personal level. Her husband Rami Othmane, a Tunisian singer and classical musician, began carrying a receipt of his pending green card application around with him. Over the past few months, immigration agents have arrested hundreds of people in Southern California, prompting protests against the federal raids and the subsequent deployment of the National Guard and Marines. Despite living in the U.S. for a decade as one of thousands of residents married to U.S. citizens, he was swept up in the crackdown. On July 13, Othmane was stopped while driving to a grocery store in Pasadena. He quickly pulled out his paperwork to show federal immigration agents. 'They didn't care, they said, 'Please step out of the car,'' Alrashid recalled hearing the officers say as she watched her husband's arrest in horror over FaceTime. Alrashid immediately jumped in her car and followed her phone to his location. She arrived just in time to see the outline of his head in the back of a vehicle driving away. 'That was probably the worst day of my life," she said. The Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration has ensnared not only immigrants without legal status but legal permanent residents like Othmane who has green cards. Some U.S. citizens have even been arrested. Meanwhile, many asylum-seekers who have regular check-in appointments are being arrested in the hallways outside courtrooms as the White House works toward its promise of mass deportations. Alrashid said her husband has been in the U.S. since 2015 and overstayed his visa, but his deportation order was dismissed in 2020. They wed in March 2025 and immediately filed for a green card. After his arrest, he was taken to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in downtown Los Angeles where he was held in a freezing cold room with 'no beds, no pillows, no blankets, no soap, no toothbrushes and toothpaste, and when you're in a room with people, the bathroom's open,' she said. The Department of Homeland Security in an emailed statement noted the expiration of his tourist visa but did not address the dismissal of the deportation order in 2020 nor his pending green card application. The agency denied any allegations of mistreatment, and said "ensuring the safety, security, and well-being of individuals in our custody is a top priority at ICE.' Alrashid said for years her husband has performed classical Arabic music across Southern California. They first met when he was singing at a restaurant. 'He's the kindest person,' Alrashid said, adding that he gave a sweater she brought him to a fellow detainee and to give others privacy, he built a makeshift barrier around the open toilet using trash bags. 'He's brought a lot to the community, a lot of people love his music," she said. More than a week after his arrest, fellow musicians, immigration advocates and activists joined Alrashid in a rally outside the facility. A few of his colleagues performed classical Arabic music, drumming loud enough that they hoped the detainees inside could hear them. Los Jornaleros del Norte musicians, who often play Spanish-language music at rallies, also were there. 'In Latin American culture, the serenade — to bring music to people — is an act of love and kindness. But in this moment, bringing music to people who are in captivity is also an act of resistance," said Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. Leading up to the rally, Alrashid was worried because she hadn't received her daily call from her husband and was told she couldn't visit him that day at the detention facility. She finally heard from him that evening. Othmane told her over the phone he was now at an immigration detention facility in Arizona, and that his left leg was swollen. 'They should ultrasound your leg, don't take a risk,' she said. Alrashid hopes to get her husband out on bail while his case is being processed. They had a procedural hearing on Thursday where the judge verified his immigration status, and have a bail bond hearing scheduled for Tuesday. Until then, she'll continue waiting for his next phone call.
USA Today
42 minutes ago
- USA Today
From marginal religious groups to mainstream Christians: Why some see a shift in Supreme Court cases
The court's first case involving a Rastafarian highlights the role smaller religious groups have played in the court's history, even as more cases come from mainstream Christian groups. WASHINGTON – There have been no shortage of religious groups seeking help from the Supreme Court in recent years, including three cases last term that involved the Catholic Church. But the religion at the center of a case set for after the summer is not nearly as well represented in the population - or in the courtroom. In fact, it appears to be the first time the Supreme Court will hear an appeal from a Rastafarian. Damon Landor said his religious rights were violated when his dreadlocks were forcibly shaved by Louisiana prison guards. More: Supreme Court to decide if prison officials can be sued over inmates' religious rights Handcuffed to a chair while his dreadlocks were shaved off Landor had shown prison officials a copy of a court ruling that dreadlocks grown for religious reasons should be accommodated. But an intake guard threw the ruling in the trash and Landor was handcuffed to a chair while his knee-length locks were shaved off. The justices will decide whether Landor can sue the guards for compensation under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Landor – whose appeal was backed by more than 30 religious groups and the Justice Department − argues that monetary damages are often the only way to hold prison officials accountable when religious rights are violated. Legal experts on religion cases expect the court will side with the Rastafarian. That would be consistent not just with the high success rate of appeals the court agrees to hear from religious people, but also with the role smaller religious groups have played in the court's history. Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists Most of the religious cases Richard Garnett teaches in his classes at the University of Notre Dame Law School involve smaller religious communities, including Jehovah's Witnesses and Seventh-day Adventists. 'The story of religious freedom in America has developed through cases involving members of minority religions,' Garnett said. Other court watchers, however, say that was more true in the past than it is now. 'That's kind of a legacy view,' said Carl Esbeck, an expert on religious liberty at the University of Missouri School of Law. In fact, a 2022 study found that; since 2005, the winning religion in most Supreme Court religious cases was a mainstream Christian organization. In the past, by contrast, pro-religion outcomes more frequently favored minority or marginal religious organizations, according to the analysis by Lee Epstein at Washington University in St. Louis and Eric Posner of the University of Chicago Law School. 'The religion clauses of the First Amendment were once understood to provide modest but meaningful protection for non-mainstream religions from discrimination by governments that favored mainstream Christian organizations, practices, or values,' they wrote. Similarly, traditionalist Christians – such as orthodox Catholics and Baptists – had been significantly less successful than other religious groups in getting accommodations from lower federal courts from 1986 to 1995, according to a study by Michael Heise of Cornell Law School and Gregory Sisk of the University of St. Thomas School of Law. But from 2006 to 2015, their disadvantage 'appeared to fade into statistical insignificance,' they wrote in 2022. The Supreme Court, they said, 'appears to be setting the stage for a more equitable and expansive protection of religious liberty.' Colorado and the gay wedding cake debate Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, agrees that the court has taken an expansive view of religious liberty protections. But he says it hasn't always been equitable. In 2018, the court said Colorado had shown "religious hostility" to a baker who didn't want to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple. More: How a Supreme Court case about a gay couple's wedding cake got caught up in Israeli judicial reform But that same month, Mach said, the court upheld President Donald Trump's travel ban 'even in the face of Trump's repeated unambiguous statements condemning Islam and Muslims.' More broadly, he said, the court's 'general hostility to the separation of church and state' erodes protections for minority groups promised by the First Amendment's prohibition against the government favoring a specific religion or favoring religion in general. 'Built into that structure is necessarily a protection against the imposition by the majority of its favored religious doctrine,' he said. In February, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at 'Eradicating anti-Christian Bias' and calling on agencies to eliminate the "anti-Christian weaponization of government." The administration cited that order when telling federal employees in a July 28 memo they may discuss and promote their religious beliefs in the workplace. More: Supreme Court blocks Catholic charter school in big setback for religion advocates Ruling for Amish built on to benefit other religions In June, the Supreme Court built upon a 1972 ruling for the Amish as it affirmed the religious rights of parents to remove their elementary school children from class when storybooks with LGBTQ+ characters are being used. When deciding more than 50 years ago that Amish parents did not have to keep their children in school until age 16 as Wisconsin required, the court said those parents had an argument 'that probably few other religious groups or sects could make.' But Justice Samuel Alito left no doubt about the broader significance of Wisconsin v. Yoder in the 6-3 opinion he authored in June that sided with parents from a variety of religious backgrounds − including Roman Catholic but also Muslim, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and other faiths − who objected to the LGBTQ+ storybooks used in Maryland school district. 'Yoder is an important precedent of this Court, and it cannot be breezily dismissed as a special exception granted to one particular religious minority,' Alito wrote. More: Supreme Court sides with Maryland parents who want to avoid LGBTQ+ books in public schools In a 2020 speech to the conservative Federalist Society, Alito had warned that 'religious liberty is in danger of becoming a second-class right.' He listed examples of cases he'd judged about religious minorities, including the rights of Muslim police officers to have beards, of a Jewish prisoner to organize a Torah study group and whether a Native American could keep a bear for religious services. The baker who didn't want to make a cake for a same-sex wedding and Catholic nuns who objected to insurance coverage for contraceptives 'deserve no less protection,' Alito said about more recent cases. More: Supreme Court sides with Catholic Charities in case about tax exemptions and religion `Clear pattern of preference for religious groups' Cornell Law School Professor Nelson Tebbe said more of the claims about religious freedom started to come from mainstream majority Christian groups as political polarization increased and as the gay rights movement picked up speed. 'Suddenly, civil libertarian groups who had been on the side of minority religions…started to realize that civil rights laws could be vulnerable to religious attacks by conservative Christians and they started to get worried,' Tebbe said. As the court has shifted its approach, he said, the justices have both granted exemptions from regulations that burden religion as well as said government must treat religious groups no differently than secular organizations when providing public benefits − such as school vouchers. 'While both of those could be seen as understandable on their own terms, when you put them together, there's a clear pattern of preference for religious groups,' he said. 'It's a pretty dramatic moment in constitutional law in this area.' Garnett, the religious freedom expert at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said the court's decisions are a reflection of the ongoing debate over how much accommodation should be given in a country with diverse religious views. 'So the fact that those cases are coming up isn't because the court sort of shifted to protecting majority groups,' he said. 'It's because events on the ground shifted. And the nature of the controversies that are served up are different.'
Forbes
44 minutes ago
- Forbes
Novel Access Model For Sickle Cell Disease Gene Therapy Could Be Template
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced in July that 33 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico will join a new voluntary program intended to improve patient access to and lower costs for gene therapies targeting sickle cell disease. This was a Biden administration initiative, which the Trump administration decided to continue to implement. It ties payment for two novel gene therapies to positive clinical outcomes. This could make such treatments that cost millions be more widely accessible for patients. And if successful, it may serve as a template for future cell and gene therapy agreements. Medicaid, the joint federal and state program that provides health coverage to low-income individuals, is the main insurer for SCD patients. The Biden administration announced last year that the manufacturers of Lyfgenia and Casgevy had entered into agreements with CMS to participate in the Cell and Gene Therapy Access Model, which allows CMS to negotiate outcomes-based agreements on behalf of state Medicaid programs for cell and gene therapies, beginning with sickle cell disease treatments. Essentially this means that CMS will reimburse based on whether certain agreed-upon clinical thresholds are reached in patients. According to CMS, the participating states in the newly established access initiative represent about 84% of Medicaid beneficiaries with SCD. The program could contribute towards a sizable expansion of access to potentially transformative care in the form of two extraordinarily expensive gene therapies. The launch prices for Casgevy (exagamglogene autotemcel) and Lyfgenia (lovotibeglogene autotemcel) were $2.2 million and $3.1 million, respectively. SCD is a group of congenital red blood cell disorders, named sickle cell for their crescent shape. The condition affects millions of people worldwide. In the United States, approximately 100,000 individuals are living with the disease, which predominantly impacts people of sub-Saharan African descent. The disease alters the structure of hemoglobin, the molecule in red blood cells that delivers oxygen to organs and tissue throughout the body. As a consequence, this causes severe pain, anemia, organ damage and infections. Individuals with the disease have a shorter life expectancy, by more than 20 years on average. The most common sickle cell disorder type is sickle cell anemia. Besides pain medications to relieve symptoms as well as antibiotics to treat infections, hydroxyurea—a bone marrow suppressive agent that decreases red blood cell production—can be used to reduce the frequency of painful episodes. It has been in use since the 1980s. The Food and Drug Administration has approved several new therapeutics in the past ten years, but none are as promising as Lyfgenia and Casgevy. These two novel therapies can decrease or potentially eliminate pain crises in patients. Gene therapies such as Lyfgenia and Casgevy are administered in an inpatient hospital setting but are considered covered outpatient drugs because they're directly reimbursed and subject to standard, federally mandated Medicaid rebates. Manufacturers of the two treatments must also provide states with supplemental rebates (post-hoc discounts off of the list price) reflecting model-negotiated terms. In turn, states are obligated to implement an agreed-upon access policy for patients. According to CMS, there is also optional federal support of up to $9.55 million per state available to help with implementation of the arrangements, outreach and data tracking. In the cell and gene therapy space, science has generally outpaced commercialization. Access to very costly treatments is a challenge. Whether in the public or commercial sector, payers must find novel ways of paying for cell and gene therapies while generating evidence with respect to their real-world effectiveness and safety. Questions insurers must find answers to include: What are the health outcomes for patients in real-world settings? Do treatments fulfill the promise of a one-time cure for certain serious illnesses or disorders? Are there particular safety concerns that appear in real-world settings? Are side effects manageable? Coordinating evidence gathering as well as contracts across state Medicaid agencies is likely to yield a more efficient process while improving access for a substantial majority of SCD sufferers nationwide. It's not just SCD gene therapies that confront a formidable set of barriers to access. All cell and gene therapy manufacturers face a challenging environment. The regulatory hurdles are enormous to begin with, but manufacturing challenges following approval are considerable, too. Furthermore, patient preparation, side effect and adverse event profiles can be intolerable. This can deter patients from signing up to initiate treatment. On top of all of this, payers concerned about the high per unit costs often impose coverage restrictions, as the Tufts Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health describes. Nonetheless, gene therapies in particular hold the promise of delivering groundbreaking improvements in health outcomes across multiple disease areas. Therefore, overcoming obstacles to optimal patient access is crucial. If successful, the SCD model being experimented with could serve as a blueprint for other cell and gene therapies that have faced considerable barriers with respect to patient access.
