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

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