President Obama said Thursday that the Supreme Court’s upholding of his signature piece of the legislation, the 2010 Affordable Care Act, is a “victory for people all over this country.” Saying “I obviously didn’t do it because it was good politics. I did it because I believed it was good for the country,” the president assured Americans that the new law means that nobody will lose his or her health insurance—and that insurance companies will not be able to bill you into bankruptcy. “Five years from now, 10 years from now, and 20 years from now, we’ll be better off because we had the courage to keep moving forward,” Obama said.

It's been a rough couple of months in Europe as the continent's leaders struggle to head off a mounting debt crisis and keep the economy chugging along. The latest development: Italy and Spain—two countries under crushing pressure to bring down their borrowing costs— have blocked an agreement to spend $120 billion euros aimed at promoting growth. The two countries are demanding that Germany approve a short-term measure that would bring down interest rates on their debt.

The Supreme Court upheld President Obama’s health-care mandate on Thursday, handing the White House a major victory but providing the Republicans with ammunition for the upcoming election. The law had been based on a provision that required all Americans to buy health insurance. That law survived as a tax. Four justices dissented, but Chief Justice John Roberts joined the majority opinion and said that the mandate is constitutional. "What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States. And that is I will act to repeal Obamacare," Mitt Romney declared following the announcement. "Our mission is clear," he said. "If we want to get rid of Obamacare, we're going to have to replace President Obama. My mission is to make sure we do exactly that." Obamacare opponents may not have to wait that long, however. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced that the House will vote on repealing the law on July 11. 

One soldier is dead at Fort Bragg after another opened fire during a safety briefing around 3:30 p.m. Thursday. The gunman then tried to kill himself but failed, and he was taken into custody. A third soldier was wounded by a ricocheting bullet. Investigators aren’t sure yet what the motive was.

A four-day long fire known as the Waldo Canyon fire spread to 18,500 acres late Wednesday, destroying 300 homes in its path outside Colorado Springs. One of nine major wildfires currently raging in the state, officials said the Waldo Canyon fire is about five percent contained. Fire officials say they do not know the exact cause of the blaze, and the FBI has joined the investigation. Around 32,000 people are out of their homes. The state’s wildfires has already cost and estimated $40 million—a number which does not include the cost of the Waldo Canyon fire. President Obama is scheduled to visit the region on Friday.

Talk about a bittersweet day for Obama. The House voted 255–67 to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress late Thursday. The vote is the latest fallout from the government gun sting scandal, Fast and Furious. Holder is being held in contempt for refusing to turn over documents about the operation to Congress. The vote marks the first time in history that a sitting U.S. attorney general has been held in contempt. Prior to the vote, a small group of Democratic representatives led by the Congressional Black Caucus staged a walkout to protest Holder being targeted by House Republicans. “They are finally about to get the prize they have been seeking for more than a year—holding the attorney general of the United States in contempt,” Rep. Ellijah Cummings (D-Md.) said.

With all the attention on Obamacare, the news was easy to miss. But the Supreme Court made another important decision Thursday, ruling 6-3 that the Stolen Valor Act violates the First Amendment. The court struck down the controversial law, which made it a crime to lie about winning military honors. In its decision, the court added that the act did have “substantial justification” and could be rewritten by Congress in a narrower fashion that wouldn’t violate free speech.

In another blow to Research in Motion, the company that makes the BlackBerry, its latest launch is being delayed until 2013. Research on the BlackBerry 10, its next generation of devices, turned out to be more time-consuming than the company had anticipated. RIM’s stock price tumbled 14 percent after the news was announced. This follows on the heels of a quarterly operating loss and steep job cuts.

Freshman senator or freshman in high school? Kentucky Rep. Rand Paul insulted the highest court in the land Thursday when he declared the health-care decision to be the wrongful opinion of “just a couple people” in a statement. “Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional,” Paul said. “While the court may have erroneously come to the conclusion that the law is allowable, it certainly does nothing to make this mandate or government takeover of our health care right.” The senator pledged to fight to overturn the decision. “This now means we fight every hour, every day until November to elect a new president and a new Senate to repeal Obamacare.”

Catch him if you can. WikiLeaks founder Juilian Assange was delivered an extradition notice by London police Thursday, who demanded Assange present himself at the station “at a time of our choosing.” The note was delivered to Ecuador’s London Embassy, where Assange is currently living. Assange faces being sent back to Sweden, where he is accused of rape and assault. Under international diplomacy rules, Assange cannot be arrested while living at the foreign embassy. Ecuador is currently considering Assange’s application for asylum.

Let’s forget about health care for a split second and return to foreign policy: in the event of an alien invasion, who would you want to be leading the country? According to a National Geographic–sponsored survey, 65 percent of 1,114 respondents think Obama would be a better leader than Romney if, say, the movie Independence Day became a real-life scenario. It’s an issue that concerns some 79 percent of Americans, who think the U.S. government has kept information about UFOs secret, according to the survey. The survey also found that 36 percent of Americans think UFOs exist, and 11 percent are convinced they’ve seen one.

The Daily Beast’s Isabel Wilkinson has been named one of Los Angeles’s “30 Under 30” by the blog Refinery 29—just weeks ahead of the launch of her Fashion Beast blog in July. A graduate of Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Wilkinson interned at The Daily Beast following her graduation and has since covered everything from Paris Fashion Week to Mary-Kate Olsen’s online double.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday dismissed Spanish and Italian calls for aid, saying that instead of providing more cash, the euro zone needed to step up debt reduction and economic reforms. Merkel flew to Paris on Wednesday for an emergency meeting with French President Francois Hollande as leaders from across Europe headed to Brussels on Thursday for a two-day summit to address the mushrooming crisis. “I fear at the summit we will talk too much about all these ideas for joint liability and too little about improved controls and structural measures,” Merkel said. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said he would plead with other leaders to allow the European Central Bank to bailout his country—a measure he said is necessary as the 10-year Spanish bond yields passed the benchmark level of seven percent.

It may seem a little backwards that taxpayer money will go to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, but apparently it’s in accordance with the law. The former football assistant coach will continue to receive a $59,000 annual state pension from his thirty year career at Penn State while behind bars, after being found guilty of 45 charges related to child sex abuse. But Sandusky’s heinous crimes aren’t covered by Pennsylvania’s Act 140, and while the state is working to amend the law, Penn State is still bound in a pension contract with the former assistant coach.

A man dressed as Elmo in New York City’s Central Park disappeared from the park on Wednesday, one day after he arrived late, saying he had been held for a psychiatric evaluation at a nearby hospital. The man, who goes by the name Adam Sandler, had been videotaped by an English tourist on Sunday going on an anti-Semitic tirade outside the Central Park Zoo—and at least two of his other tirades have gone viral. On Tuesday he removed his Elmo hat and tried to explain himself. In an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, Sandler, 48, of Oregon, explained that he had gotten in trouble in Cambodia for starting a pornographic website called “Welcome to Rape Camp” after he graduated from the University of Oregon. In April, he independently spent $300 on the Elmo suit, and found that it quickly paid for itself.

That was fast. House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold President Obama’s health-care law just means that Congress will have to work to repeal the legislation. “The president’s health-care law is hurting our economy by driving up health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire,” Boehner said. The House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the House will vote the week of July 9 to overturn the legislation. Republicans are expected to use the decision as something of a rallying cry on the campaign trail, since Americans do not support the legislation overall—but a majority supports the parts of the law. Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to give his reaction to the ruling later Thursday. “We knew all along that the law was constitutional,” said one White House aide.

Beast TV is going live for the first time! Join NewsBeast writers Michael Tomasky, Michelle Goldberg, Peter Boyer, and Dr. Kent Sepkowitz, along with The New York Times’s Rachel Swarns, as they discuss the Supreme Court’s highly anticipated ruling on President Obama’s signature health-care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Cameras start rolling Thursday at 9:30 AM EST. Send your questions for the panel via Twitter at @DailyBeastTV or using the hashtag #BeastTV.

JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon thought he had covered his bases when he estimated that the bank’s $2 billion losing investment on credit derivatives could double within the next few quarters. But he didn’t expect that the numbers could triple, let alone quadruple, as current and former traders and executives at the bank have inferred. Regulators have estimated the damage at roughly $6 billion or $7 billion, though it’s not clear how this will factor into the debate over how strictly financial institutions and huge banks should be regulated. In retrospect, the bank’s first-quarter profit of $5.4 billion makes the trading loss seem less disastrous, though CEO Jamie Dimon, who has been fighting major regulatory changes, could take the biggest hit. Meanwhile, Wall Street stocks declined on the new estimates at the opening bell.

California dreams are not so bright these days. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the state’s budget late Wednesday night, an ambitious plan that aims to close the state’s $15.7-billion deficit with cuts in social services. The budget also depends on voters approving $8 billion in temporary tax hikes in November. But the budget does not have a higher sales tax and increased levies on the wealthy, which Brown says will cause the spending cuts to come from public schools. In addition to cuts to programs for the poor, the state will also cut scholarships for students attending private collages starting in the 2013-14 academic year—and the budget could lead to freeze on college tuition.

Turkey said on Thursday that it will be stationing antiaircraft batteries on the Syrian border, as United Nations envoy Kofi Annan announced he would convening an “action group” of diplomats in Geneva on Saturday. The move comes two days after Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad that “every military element that approaches the Turkish border from Syria in a manner that constitutes a security risk or danger would be considered as a threat and would be treated as a military target.” Meanwhile, a preliminary U.N. report inquiry could not determine who carried the massacre in the town of Houla, when armed gunmen allegedly walked door to door and shot people. The report said it is unclear if pro-government forces were responsible, or rebels—or if the killers were from “foreign groups with unknown affiliation.”

News Corp. on Thursday approved a split between the publishing and entertainment divisions—and Rupert Murdoch will chair both. The entire process is expected to take a year. Under the split, 20th Century Fox, Fox broadcast network and Fox News will be included in the entertainment company while HaperCollins, The Wall Street Journal and Britain's Sun newspaper will be in a separate company. Shares of the company’s stock have risen 11 percent since News Corp. acknowledged it was considering the split.

Looks like the iPad has some competition. Google unveiled its first tablet computer, Nexus 7, at its annual developer conference on Wednesday. The 7-inch device, built and co-branded in partnership with hardware maker Asus, will be priced at $199. It features the new 4.1 Jelly Bean version of Google Android, has front-facing camera, a 1280x800 resolution screen and an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor.

Ann Curry gave an emotional farewell on Thursday in her final appearence as host of the Today show. "I am so grateful, especially to all of you who watch," Curry said. On Wednesday night,she told USA Today it’s “going to be a bit of a tough day” and she’ll “really miss” the viewers. She’ll stay with NBC, however, after signing a multiyear contract to cover foreign and national stories for the network. She says the leaks about her departure have “hurt deeply” and that she doesn’t feel she had enough time to work out the “kinks” at Today.

The News International phone-hacking scandal continues. A former police officer was arrested Thursday as part of the British investigation into corrupt links between police and journalists. Police are investigating former chief constable Craig Denholm for his alleged knowledge of the hacking of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone. Rupert Murdoch’s onetime deputy Rebekah Brooks was officially charged in May with “perverting justice” after reporters from her tabloid News of the World hacked into the murdered schoolgirl’s cellphone.

The Chicago Tribune once wrote “Dewey Defeats Truman,” the New York Post claimed that Bush won the 2000 election before it was called, and now CNN and Fox News join the ranks: the two networks reported inaccurately that the Supreme Court “killed” part of President Obama’s health-care legislation. The individual mandate, one of the key parts of the legislation, was upheld as a tax, but CNN and Fox News reported that it had been ruled unconstitutional. Within minutes, the report was disputed, but screenshots of CNN and Fox News will allow the error to live on in infamy.