https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/02/02/floridas-ban-on-ex-felons-voting-is-unconstitutional-and-biased-federal-judge-rules/?utm_term=.435f54aad9dc

In a blistering decision that could impact the 2018 midterm elections, a federal judge on Thursday ruled that Florida’s system for barring former felons from voting is unconstitutional and potentially tainted by racial, political or religious bias.

U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blasted the state panel led by Florida’s governor that decides whether to restore voting rights to people who have completed their sentences, saying their process is arbitrary and exceedingly slow.

“In Florida, elected, partisan officials have extraordinary authority to grant or withhold the right to vote from hundreds of thousands of people without any constraints, guidelines, or standards,” Walker wrote. “The question now is whether such a system passes constitutional muster. It does not.”

“A person convicted of a crime may have long ago exited the prison cell and completed probation,” the judge continued in the 43-page order. “Her voting rights, however, remain locked in a dark crypt. Only the state has the key — but the state has swallowed it.”

The judge did not rule on how the issue should be remedied — he will hold hearings on that in mid-February — but he said the voter restoration system must be changed as soon as possible.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/01/news/economy/india-modicare-healthcare-program-largest/index.html?iid=hp-stack-dom

In India, they're already calling it "Modicare."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's latest blockbuster policy initiative is an ambitious plan to give hundreds of millions of people greater access to hospitals.

The government said Thursday it plans to cover hospital treatment costs of up to 500,000 rupees ($7,800) per year for 100 million "poor and vulnerable" families. That's more than 15 times the amount poor families in India can currently claim from the government.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley estimated that around 500 million people will benefit from the program.

If the program is fully taken up, it would cost close to $780 billion, a huge sum for India's $2.4 trillion economy.

"India cannot realize its demographic dividend without its citizens being healthy," Jaitley said, referring to the country's large young population. "The government is steadily but surely progressing towards the goal of universal health coverage," he added, during a speech presenting his annual budget.

Leaks, feasts and sex parties: How ‘Fat Leonard’ infiltrated the Navy’s floating headquarters in Asia

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/leaks-feasts-and-sex-parties-how-fat-leonard-infiltrated-the-navys-floating-headquarters-in-asia/2018/01/23/4d31555c-efdd-11e7-97bf-bba379b809ab_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_blueridge-804am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.2081ed4502ff



As the flagship for the Navy’s 7th Fleet, the USS Blue Ridge plays a critical role in national security by overseeing all U.S. maritime operations in Asia and the western Pacific. The venerable warship is the Navy’s second-oldest active-duty vessel and has survived the Vietnam War, the Cold War and tensions with China and North Korea.

But there is one foreign threat against which the Blue Ridge proved utterly defenseless for many years: a 6-foot-3, 350-pound tugboat owner known as “Fat Leonard.”

In a case that ranks as the worst corruption scandal in Navy history, the Justice Department has charged 15 officers and one enlisted sailor who served on the Blue Ridge with taking bribes from or lying about their ties to Leonard Glenn Francis, a Singapore-based tycoon who held lucrative contracts to service Navy ships and submarines in Asian ports.

For the better part of a decade, as part of a massive scam to defraud the Navy, Francis systematically infiltrated the Blue Ridge to a degree that is only now coming into focus, more than four years after the defense contractor’s arrest, according to the documents from federal court and the Navy, as well as interviews with Navy officials and associates of Francis.

Prosecutors say nine sailors from the 7th Fleet flagship leaked classified information about ship movements and other secrets to Francis, a Malaysian citizen, making the Blue Ridge perhaps the most widely compromised U.S. military headquarters of the modern era.