Justices side with Colorado baker on same-sex wedding cake
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday for a Colorado baker who wouldn’t make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in a limited decision that leaves for another day the larger issue of whether a business can invoke religious objections to refuse service to gay and lesbian people.
The justices’ decision turned on what the court described as anti-religious bias on the Colorado Civil Rights Commission when it ruled against baker Jack Phillips. The justices voted 7-2 that the commission violated Phillips’ rights under the First Amendment.
The case had been eagerly anticipated as, variously, a potentially strong statement about the rights of LGBT people or the court’s first ruling carving out exceptions to an anti-discrimination law. In the end, the decision was modest enough to attract the votes of liberal and conservative justices on a subject that had the potential for sharp division.
Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion that the larger issue “must await further elaboration” in the courts. Appeals in similar cases are pending, including one at the Supreme Court from a florist who didn’t want to provide flowers for a same-sex wedding.
The disputes, Kennedy wrote, “must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market.”
First Saudi women receive driving licenses amid crackdown
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia issued its first driver’s licenses to 10 women on Monday as the kingdom prepared to lift the world’s only ban on women driving in three weeks, but some who campaigned for the right to drive remain under arrest.
A government statement said the 10 women who were issued licenses already held driving licenses from other countries, including the U.S., U.K., Lebanon and Canada. They took a brief driving test and eye exam before being issued the licenses at the General Department of Traffic in the capital, Riyadh. International media were not present for the event.
Other women across the country have been preparing for the right to drive on June 24 by taking driving courses on female-only college campuses. Some are even training to become drivers for ride hailing companies like Uber.
Saudi women had long complained of having to hire costly male drivers, use taxis or rely on male relatives to get to work and run errands.
The surprise move to issue some women licenses early came as activists who had campaigned for the right to drive remain under arrest, facing possible trial.
As police close in, suspect in 4 Arizona slayings kills self
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — As police closed in, a man suspected of gunning down four people over three days shot himself to death Monday, which authorities said ended a killing spree that claimed the lives of a prominent psychiatrist, two paralegals and a marriage-and-divorce counselor.
Police in Arizona say they spent a day and a half tracking the suspect, eventually finding him at an extended-stay hotel in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale. Officers evacuated nearby rooms before hearing gunfire and finding his body.
Authorities offered nothing public about the man’s possible motives, but they planned to discuss the case in more detail at a news conference scheduled for later Monday. The suspect has not been publicly identified, pending notification of relatives, police said.
The raid came as police identified the fourth victim, Marshall Levine, a 72-year-old counselor and life coach. He was found shot inside an office building shortly after midnight Saturday.
On Thursday, Dr. Steven Pitt, a prominent forensic psychiatrist who assisted in high-profile murder cases, including the JonBenet Ramsey mystery in Colorado and a notorious Phoenix serial killer investigation, was found dead near Scottsdale. Witnesses reported hearing a loud argument and gunfire outside Pitt’s office.
Starbucks’ Schultz mulling ‘philanthropy to public service’
NEW YORK — Starbucks Corp.’s Howard Schultz is stepping down as executive chairman of the coffee company he helped transform into a global brand, and says public service may be in his future.
Schultz, 64, says he is considering a range of options. He had endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton before the last presidential election and had sometimes deflected questions about whether he would run for office.
Speculation has swirled for years that Schultz might run for president. While not addressing the question directly, he told The New York Times on Monday that he was considering public service and that “for some time now, I have been deeply concerned about our country — the growing division at home and our standing in the world.”
Schultz’s move comes after he ceded the day-to-day duties of CEO at Starbucks last year to focus on innovation and social impact projects as executive chairman. As of June 26, Starbucks says Schultz will take the title of chairman emeritus. The Seattle-based chain says he is writing a book about Starbucks’ social impact moves and its efforts to redefine the role of a public company.
“Starbucks changed the way millions of people drink coffee, this is true, but we also changed people’s lives in communities around the world for the better,” Schultz said in a letter to Starbucks employees.
Parkland students to make bus tour to register young voters
PARKLAND, Fla. — A day after graduating, a group of Florida high school shooting survivors announced they’ll spend their summer crisscrossing the country, expanding their grass-roots activism from rallies and schools walkouts to registering young voters to help accomplish their vision for stricter gun laws.
David Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, Cameron Kasky, Jaclyn Corin and about two dozen other students who have become the faces and voices of bloodshed in American classrooms stood together Monday in matching black “Road to Change” T-shirts, holding placards at a park just down the street from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 were killed on Valentine’s Day.
In the months since the shooting, the students have rallied hundreds of thousands across the country to march for gun reform, including a massive turnout in Washington, D.C., in March.
But the young activists say rallies won’t matter unless that energy is funneled into voting out lawmakers beholden to the National Rifle Association this November.
“This generation is the generation of students you will be reading about next in the textbooks. … These are students who are changing the game,” Kasky said. “It’s not just my friends and I from Stoneman Douglas High School. We are part of something so much greater. Students from all over the country are beginning to get up, rally, move in the right direction and realize just how important it is to exercise our freedom.”
California primary election could solidify Democrats’ power
LOS ANGELES — Is California, home to one in eight Americans, becoming the nation’s best example of one-party rule?
Tuesday’s primary election will set the stage for November races for governor, Congress and the Legislature, but it will also test whether the state’s vanishing Republicans have enough remaining influence to avoid another shutout at the statewide polls.
After all, Democrats in California hold every statewide office and dominate both chambers of the Legislature, while counting a 3.6-million edge in voter registrations and a 39-14 advantage in U.S. House seats.
The outcome Tuesday will impact how the state handles a litany of problems, from homelessness to a public pension crisis.
For California, the election could become “our biggest moment of transition” to a state functionally run by elected officials from one party, said Thad Kousser, who heads the political science department at the University of California, San Diego.
Court orders records unsealed in Penn State officials’ case
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania appeals court on Monday ordered the release of documents sealed in the criminal case against former Penn State administrators over their handling of child sex abuse complaints about former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
The three-judge Superior Court panel’s unanimous decision concerned many of the more than 200 records sealed in the case against former university president Graham Spanier, former vice president Gary Schultz and former athletic director Tim Curley.
Spanier is currently appealing his guilty verdict on a single count of child endangerment. Schultz and Curley pleaded guilty to the same offense and have served jail time. Lawyers for all three declined comment on the appeals court decision.
The judges said the basic information in many of the documents sought by The Associated Press has previously been made public and should be released, although they also ruled that sealed “proffers” were not made part of the court record and so are not subject to public disclosure. Docket entries also must be revealed.
The appeals court criticized the trial judge for issuing a blanket order sealing all documents rather than specifying why he was sealing each individual record.
