Obamacare wins a big challenge, but Republicans say there’ll be more. Taxi drivers rage against Uber in France. And President Barack Obama will deliver the eulogy for slain Rev. Clementa Pinckney in Charleston.
It’s Friday, and here are five things to know for your New Day:
OBAMACARE RULING
Another battle won: Obamacare has survived — again. Yesterday, the Supreme Court saved the health care law that will define Obama’s administration for generations to come. The justices ruled 6 to 3 that subsidies for people purchasing insurance on a federal exchange are legal.
It staved off a major political showdown and a mad scramble to prevent millions from losing coverage in the 34 states that don’t have their own exchanges. But Washington, Republicans say this is not the end of their unrelenting challenges against the Affordable Care Act.
PRISON BREAK
Small hardware: Gene Palmer told authorities he didn’t think he was making it easier for two maximum security inmates on the lam to escape. The guard at the upstate New York prison allegedly gave needle-nose pliers and a flat-head screwdriver to David Sweat and tubes of paint to Richard Matt — both are convicted killers.
Palmer also apparently handed off frozen ground beef to them from prison tailor Joyce Mitchell, who admitted to stuffing hacksaw blades and drill bits into it. When investigators asked Palmer whether he helped Sweat and Matt escape, he answered, “No. Not intentionally.”
UBER PROTESTS
Road rage: Taxi drivers hate Uber. In France, that turned to rage yesterday as taxi drivers overturned cars, stopped traffic to airports and train stations, set fire, and clashed with riot police. The UberPOP app used there has been ruled illegal, but Uber has not exhausted legal its recourse yet, and there are drivers still around.
U.S. singer Courtney Love got caught up in the protests and tweeted a photo of an egg thrown at her driver’s car. “Dude @kanyewest we may turn back to the airport and hide out with u,” she wrote. Today, taxi drivers plan to wreak havoc again.
CHARLESTON CHURCH SHOOTING
Presidential eulogy: Today’s remembrance for Clementa Pinckney, the reverend and state senator gunned down in a racist massacre in a South Carolina church last week, will look something like a state funeral. Hillary Clinton, House Speaker John Boehner and Vice President Joe Biden will attend. And President Obama, who knew Pinckney, will deliver his eulogy. We also learned that self-confessed church shooter wanted a much deadlier weapon — an AR-15 — but couldn’t afford it.
PLANE CRASH
Tour turns tragic: A sightseeing plane carrying a pilot and eight cruise ship passengers crashed into a cliff in southeast Alaska yesterday, killing everyone on board. Authorities haven’t determined why it went down. The eight passengers were from the MS Westerdam. The plane had taken off on a tour of the 2-million-acre Misty Fjords National Monument.
