Hit & Run

Obamacare Not So Affordable, Debtors' Jails May Be Making Comeback, Ship Trapped in Antarctic Ice: P.M. Links

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  • if you like your ice shelf you can keep it
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    Massachusetts and Vermont, who used the same contractor for their healthcare exchanges as the federal government, are looking at ways to withhold payment and reviewing their legal options in trying to recoup their losses. A USA Today analysis, meanwhile, finds that in more than half of the counties in the 34 states serviced by the Affordable Care Act-mandated federal exchange there are no affordable plans for couples over 40 who don't qualify for subsidies. Some experts are concerned that Obamacare could turn into Medicaid in the way that it limits the availability of doctors.

  • Civil liberties groups warn that judges across the country are throwing people in jail for outstanding debts, bringing back de facto "debtors' prison" despite a prohibition on the practice.
  • The Milwaukee school district has 15 vacant school buildings that cost it up to $771,000 a year to maintain. It hasn't used some of them in more than a decade, but refuses to sell any to charter or private schools.
  • California school districts are preparing for new regulations related to transgendered students set to take effect on January 1, and are also preparing for the possibility it'll be delayed by a court order just a few days after that.
  • A likely US drone strike killed three suspected militants in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan, according to unnamed intelligence officials in the country. Separately, Pakistan insists it will raise the issue of US drone strikes in the country with UN Human Rights Council.
  • Six African Union peacekeepers from Chad were killed in the Central African Republic by "anti-balaka" Christian militias. The UN, meanwhile,  is scrambling to send more peacekeepers to South Sudan, where violence broke out after a failed coup earlier this month.
  • Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan says he thinks he's the target of a new corruption investigation in Turkey, but that investigators would leave "empty handed."
  • A Russian ship, carrying 74 people on a scientific expedition, has been trapped by ice off the coast of Antarctica, according to the Australian Maritime Safety Authority

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