The United Arab Emirates on Monday put to death a woman with links to Islamic extremists who was convicted of murdering an American teacher with a butcher knife in an upscale Abu Dhabi mall.

The execution, carried out just two weeks after the country's top court delivered a guilty verdict, marked a swift end to a case that has rattled this Western-allied Gulf country, where violent crime is rare.

The Federal Supreme Court convicted Alaa Bader Abdullah al-Hashemi, a 30-year-old Emirati mother of six, of deliberately murdering 47-year-old schoolteacher Ibolya Ryan in a mall restroom stall on the capital's upscale Reem Island.

Authorities say the killer, shrouded in a traditional black garment and veil, later planted a homemade bomb outside the home of another American. It failed to explode.

Al-Hashemi also was found guilty of sending money to al-Qaida in Yemen and of publishing information aimed at harming the reputation of the Emirates, a seven-state federation that also includes the commercial hub of Dubai.

The verdict was not eligible for appeal.

Ahmed al-Dhanhani, attorney general for the state security prosecution, told state news agency WAM that al-Hashemi was executed Monday morning following the approval of the president, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Ryan had three children and had been living in Abu Dhabi with her 11 year-old twins. She previously worked at Palmer Elementary School in Denver.

Executions are rare in the Emirates, and are typically carried out using firing squads.

The federal health care law doesn't infringe on the religious freedom of faith-based nonprofit organizations that object to covering birth control in employee health plans, a federal appeals court in Denver ruled Tuesday.

The case involves a group of Colorado nuns and four Christian colleges in Oklahoma.

Religious groups are already exempt from covering contraceptives. But the plaintiffs argued that the exemption doesn't go far enough because they must sign away the coverage to another party, making them feel complicit in providing the contraceptives.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. The judges wrote that the law with the exemption does not burden the exercise of religion.

"Although we recognize and respect the sincerity of plaintiffs' beliefs and arguments, we conclude the accommodation scheme ... does not substantially burden their religious exercise," the three-judge panel wrote.

The same court ruled in 2013 that for-profit companies can join the exempted religious organizations and not provide the contraceptives. The U.S. Supreme Court later agreed with the 10th Circuit in the case brought by the Hobby Lobby arts-and-crafts chain.