Morning Briefing

Though President Barack Obama signed an executive order on his third day in office to "lif[t] the odious 'global gag rule' that denied federal money for family planning work abroad to any group that performed abortions or counseled about the procedure, even with its own money," he left standing a policy that is "an overly restrictive interpretation of the [1973] Helms amendment." The policy "imposes similar speech restrictions and bans using foreign aid money for abortions -- even to save a woman's life or in cases of rape in war zones like Congo, Sudan and Burma," a New York Times editorial states.