This is MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
And I'm Linda Wertheimer.
The Supreme Court surprised almost everyone yesterday when it upheld the heart of President Obama's health care law: a requirement that everyone either have insurance or pay a fine or tax. It's a big victory for president. It also gives his challenger, Mitt Romney, some important opportunities.
Here's NPR's national political correspondent, Mara Liasson.
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne. The Supreme Court's decision to uphold President Obama's health care law defied many predictions: the outcome, the legal grounds, and the makeup of the court majority. For Chief Justice John Roberts, his definitive court opinion was either a triumph of judicial restraint, or a sellout, depending on who you talk to.
Just last week, Republican leaders were warning their rank and file not to gloat if the health care law were overturned. Well, after the decision came yesterday, GOP leaders regrouped and vowed to keep fighting. NPR's Andrea Seabrook reports.
ANDREA SEABROOK, BYLINE: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor stepped up to the microphone.
REPRESENTATIVE ERIC CANTOR: If for nothing else, today's health care decision underscores the importance of this election.
The Supreme Court's decision on health care yesterday was just one of several handed down this week. The justices also struck down mandatory life sentences for juveniles, citing cruel and unusual punishment.
LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:
There are more than 2,000 inmates serving mandatory life sentences for crimes they committed as minors. The high court said judges should be allowed to consider mitigating factors such as a young defendant's immaturity or the circumstances of his or her upbringing.
Our last word in business today comes from a giant in the advertising industry. Her name is Shelly Lazarus. The Brooklyn native began working at the ad agency Ogilvy and Mather at a time when the industry looked much like the one portrayed in the TV show "Mad Men."
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
An industry run mostly by men. It was 1971 when Shelly Lazarus arrived at the company, fresh from Columbia University, with an MBA - a time when few women were earning business degrees.
The Supreme Court's decision removes much of the uncertainty for businesses involved in health care. Renee Montagne talks to Karen Ignani of America's Health Insurance Plans, the insurance industry's trade group, about the impact of the Supreme Court's ruling on the health care law.
It's 9:45 a.m. Thursday at the headquarters of Health Plan One, a health insurance agency that sells private policies. It's the morning of what is the biggest court decision ever regarding health insurance. Will the court uphold the health-care bill? Will it strike it down?
"Either way is fine with me," says Bill Stapleton, the company's CEO.
Bishop Ricardo Ramirez's grandmother lived a long and full life. But it was the way Francisca Espitia approached her final years that may have impressed her grandson the most.
Ramirez, 75, recently visited StoryCorps to remember his grandmother, whom he called Panchita, in a family story that begins in 1981. That's when he was elevated to bishop in the church. The occasion called for a reception — so Ramirez called his grandmother.
In heavily polluted Mexico City, crime writer Paco Ignacio Taibo II describes his exhausted detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne as looking out at his hometown and seeing "a city that was trying to hide itself in the smog."
Credit Courtesy of Akashic Books
Taibo has not written a Belascoaran crime novel since the drug war in Mexico began six years ago.
Credit Gregory Bull / AP
Taibo's self-proclaimed "street" detective doesn't own a car. He gets around on Mexico City's packed, inexpensive subway. "His only way to survive was to accept the chaos and become one with it," Taibo writes.
In the crowded heart of the Mexican capital, a fictional one-eyed private investigator shares a dingy flat with a flock of ducks and a rotating cast of lovers.
The central character in Paco Ignacio Taibo II's crime novels is Hector Belascoaran Shayne, a former engineer who got a "certificate in detection" through a correspondence course. Belascoaran is a cynical, bumbling private eye who marvels at the chaotic street life unfolding around him in Mexico City.
Protesters stand outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday. The court's ruling upholding the federal health care law is expected to have wide-reaching implications for businesses.
Depending on whom you ask, the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the federal health care law will either help businesses grow or it will make them more hesitant to hire.
Thursday's decision to uphold the law, including the provision requiring individuals to buy insurance, has some far-reaching implications in the business world.
Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business, a business lobby that helped bankroll the suit seeking to strike down the law, said the 5-4 decision was unambiguously bad for business.
