Here is a White House fact sheet on the policy change:

FACT SHEET: Women’s Preventive Services and Religious Institutions

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, most health insurance plans will cover women’s preventive services, including contraception, without charging a co-pay or deductible beginning in August, 2012. This new law will save money for millions of Americans and ensure Americans nationwide get the high-quality care they need to stay healthy.

Today, President Obama will announce that his Administration will implement a policy that accommodates religious liberty while protecting the health of women. Today, nearly 99 percent of all women have used contraception at some point in their lives, but more than half of all women between the ages of 18-34 struggle to afford it.

Under the new policy to be announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. The policy also ensures that if a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage, but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge.

The new policy ensures women can get contraception without paying a co-pay and addresses important concerns raised by religious groups by ensuring that objecting religious employers will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer women to organizations that provide contraception. Background on this policy is included below:

· Section 2713 of the Affordable Care Act, the Administration adopted new guidelines that will require most private health plans to cover preventive services for women without charging a co-pay starting on August 1, 2012. These preventive services include well women visits, domestic violence screening, and contraception, and all were recommended to the Secretary of Health and Human Services by the independent Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science.

· Today, the Obama Administration will publish final rules in the Federal Register that:

o Exempts churches, other houses of worship, and similar organizations from covering contraception on the basis of their religious objections.

o Establishes a one year transition period for religious organizations while this policy is being implemented.

· The President will also announce that his Administration will propose and finalize a new regulation during this transition year to address the religious objections of the non-exempted religious organizations. The new regulation will require insurance companies to cover contraception if the non-exempted religious organization chooses not to. Under the policy:

o Religious organizations will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception.

o Religious organizations will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception.

o Contraception coverage will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception.

o Insurance companies will be required to provide contraception coverage to these women free of charge.

Covering contraception saves money for insurance companies by keeping women healthy and preventing spending on other health services. For example, there was no increase in premiums when contraception was added to the Federal Employees Health Benefit System and required of non-religious employers in Hawaii. One study found that covering contraception lowered premiums by 10 percent or more.

It will be at the Magnuson Hotel and Meridian Convention Center, 737 S. Meridian Ave. It’s just south of Interstate 40.

The venue was changed because of the overwhelming response, according to the Oklahoma Republican Party’s website. It originally was scheduled at the nearby H&H Shooting Sports Complex.

The time remains the same at 9 a.m. There is no charge to attend the rally.

Santorum’s visit today comes two days after he swept victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado. The sweep of the three contests again puts the former senator from Pennsylvania in position to contend for the Republican nomination, analysts say.

His Oklahoma visit today is arranged by the Oklahoma Republican Party, which is not endorsing any contender. It has invited all GOP residential candidates to the state.

After his Oklahoma City visit, Santorum will go to Tulsa. He is scheduled to appear at 1:30 p.m. at the Mabee Center at Oral Roberts University.

-          Michael McNutt, Capitol Bureau

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa: “All along we hoped it wouldn’t come to this, but since the November bankruptcy filing and American Airline’s financial situation became known, it was obvious that such a large restructuring would be difficult on the workforce. It is very disappointing, but looking at the numbers we know that for American Airlines to remain competitive with the rest of the industry it is going to have to make some painful choices. The good news in this otherwise unfortunate situation is that the maintenance facility is going to remain open, which means some jobs will stay, and in the future jobs may even return. I don’t want to give anyone false hope about the future, but I will work diligently with the City of Tulsa, American Airlines, and the rest of the Oklahoma congressional delegation to find ways to mitigate the impact on the community while keeping Tulsa a strong business partner for American and others. Making American profitable again is a critical step in that process.”

U.S. Rep. John Sullivan, R-Tulsa: “While today’s announcement was not unexpected, I am still disappointed at the prospect of hard working Tulsan’s potentially losing their jobs, especially in this tough economy. As I have said before, bankruptcy proceedings are never easy, but our community will get through this and come out stronger than before. Every community in the American Airlines system is going to suffer to some degree as the bankruptcy proceedings play out – the silver lining for Tulsa is that our maintenance base facility will remain open for business and we will continue to rally around these workers. As this process moves forward, I remain strongly committed to fighting for Tulsa jobs, and doing everything in my power to remove regulatory burdens and ensure Eastern Oklahoma remains a strong and attractive place to do business.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee: “While unfortunate circumstances have caused American Airlines to make employment cuts at this time, it is welcome news that the Tulsa maintenance facility will remain open. Moving forward, the focus must be on minimizing further job losses and working with American to ensure they maintain a presence in our community.”

U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore: “While this news is disappointing, there is good reason to believe the restructuring will allow American Airlines to recover and continue to maintain a strong presence in Oklahoma. With our state’s skilled workforce and strong economy, Oklahoma is well-positioned to attract new businesses. The congressional delegation will continue to work with state and local leaders to minimize disruptions for workers and ensure Oklahoma remains an attractive location for the aviation industry.”

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From a Library of Congress news release:

In the early 1880s, three inventors _ Alexander Graham Bell, Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter, collectively making up the Volta Laboratory Associates _ tried to record sound. In one experiment, on Nov. 17, 1884, they recorded the word “barometer” on a glass disc with a beam of light. This disc, along with nearly 200 other experimental recordings, was packed up for safekeeping and deposited at the Smithsonian Institution.

In the past year, Library of Congress Digital Conversion Specialist Peter Alyea; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists Carl Haber and Earl Cornell; and National Museum of American History Curators Carlene Stephens and Shari Stout worked jointly to recover sound from those recordings. Using high-resolution scans made from the original Volta discs, they were able to hear the word “barometer.”

The team has successfully submitted six discs—all experimental recordings made by Volta—to the sound recovery process known as IRENE/3D (Image, Reconstruct, Erase Noise, Etc.), a process developed by Berkeley Lab in 2003-04 and installed at the Library of Congress in 2006 and in 2008.

The process creates a high-resolution digital map of the disc or cylinder. This map is then processed to remove evidence of wear or damage, such as scratches and skips. Finally, software calculates the motion of a stylus moving through the disc or cylinder’s grooves, reproducing the audio content and producing a standard digital sound file.

They are at it again now, Thursday morning, on C-SPAN2.

Former state Rep. Wallace Collins, one of many Democrats defeated last year, was elected chairman of the state Democratic Party in what started out as a six-way race.

Todd Goodman, elected two years ago, did not seek re-election. He was at the party’s helm when Republicans last year captured every statewide post on the ballot and made historic gains in the state House of Representatives and state Senate. For the first time in the state’s 104-year history, a Republican governor is in office at the time Republicans control the Legislature.

“In many ways some people compared my chairmanship to getting the keys to the Titanic after it had already hit the iceberg,” said Goodman, who plans to do consulting work and spend more time in his duties as vice chairman of the Caddo Nation.

Unofficial results Saturday showed Collins, of Norman, winning a majority of votes in the first round of balloting, but the six candidates received nearly 100 more votes than there were delegates eligible to vote. It brought back to longtime delegates memories of 1999 when Mike Mass – a state representative from Hartshorne backed by Gene Stipe, a state senator from McAlester — beat state Democratic Party Executive Director Pat Hall in the chairman’s race by two votes. More votes than delegates – 702-670 — were cast, but the results were allowed to stand.

Saturday, 568 votes were cast, but there were only 473 qualified delegates to vote, announced Tim Reese, who served as convention chairman. Unofficial results showed Collins winning a majority of votes and Mannix Barnes  receiving one more vote than Dana Orwig  to finish second and qualify for a runoff with Collins.

Convention officials decided to check the credentials of each delegate, a process that took more than 2 ½ hours. The revote started after 4:30 p.m., more than an hour after the one-day convention was scheduled to end.

Before voting on the second election started, two contenders – Jed Green,  an Oklahoma City campaign consultant who ran unsuccessful Democratic attorney general candidate Jim Priest’s race last year, and Troy Green,  who unsuccessfully opposed Rep. Randy Terrill, R-Moore, three times – dropped out of the race and endorsed Collins.

Collins in the second election received 249 votes and it was announced Barnes, who served as chief of staff to former Democratic Labor Commissioner Lloyd Fields, finished second to Orwig, who unsuccessfully last year ran against state Rep. Jason Nelson, R-Oklahoma City. Barnes was reported as having received 159 votes and Orwig 157. But convention officials then announced an error had occurred in the calculation and that Barnes had received 16 more votes than he should have. That gave Barnes 143 votes and put Orwig instead of Barnes in a runoff with Collins.

Collins won the runoff, 326-213, over Orwig.
Many delegates grumbled about the election missteps. A Muskogee County delegate said when announcing his county’s vote totals that he had seen better-run student council elections.

“The first thing we’ve got to do is work on organization,” Collins said. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us but I think we can do it. This was a fiasco today, but we hung in there and got it completed. Everybody had a chance to vote and make their voice known.”

Convention rules require the vice chairman to be the oppose sex of the chairman. Orwig decided to oppose the party’s vice chairman, Christine Byrd, who was the only announced contender. Orwig defeated Byrd, who was seeking a second two-year term, by a vote of 281-231.

Orwig said she would work to get Democrats elected in 2012, saying a battle is under way between Republican social conservatives and business conservatives in the Legislature.

“That puts us in a prime position to take advantage of that,” she said.

- Michael McNutt, Capitol Bureau