California Assembly OKs $14.4B health-care overhaul

Sacramento, Calif.

The California Assembly on Monday approved the first phase of a $14.4 billion plan to extend medical insurance to nearly all residents, giving Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and his Democratic allies their first victory in a campaign to overhaul the state's health-care system.

The measure requires almost everyone in California to hold insurance starting in 2010 and provides subsidies and tax credits to those who would have trouble paying.

The authors say the plan would bring medical coverage to 3.6 million Californians, including 800,000 children, who presently lack it.

The measure, which contains the rules for a new health-care system but none of the financing, faces a more skeptical reception in the state Senate.

No law would go into effect unless the electorate approved a proposed ballot initiative in November 2008 that would finance the health-care overhaul by placing new taxes on businesses, tobacco products and hospitals.

Central Islip, N.Y.

Couple convicted of enslaving women

A jury Monday convicted a millionaire couple of enslaving two Indonesian women they brought to their mansion to work as housekeepers.

Mahender Murlidhar Sabhnani, 51, and his wife, Varsha Mahender Sabhnani, 45, were each convicted of all charges in a 12-count federal indictment.

Prosecutors said the women were subjected to repeated psychological and physical abuse and were forced to work 18 hours or more a day.

The Sabhnanis, who have four children and operate a worldwide perfume business out of their Muttontown home on Long Island's Gold Coast, could face up to 40 years in prison, although attorneys predicted the punishment would be considerably less. He is from India, and she is from Indonesia, but both are naturalized U.S. citizens.

Trenton, N.J.

State abolishes death penalty

Gov. Jon Corzine signed into law Monday a measure that abolishes the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.

The bill, approved last week by the state's Assembly and Senate, replaces the death sentence with life in prison without parole.

The measure spares eight men on the state's death row, among them Jesse Timmendequas, a sex offender who murdered 7-year-old Megan Kanka in 1994. The case inspired Megan's Law, which requires law-enforcement agencies to notify the public about convicted sex offenders living in their communities.

New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982 — six years after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume executions — but it hasn't executed anyone since 1963.

Also

Drought: A water-conservation measure that would reduce flows into Apalachicola River and hinder the Florida Panhandle's oyster industry has been put on hold, the governors of Florida, Georgia and Alabama said Monday as they pledged to speed up talks on sharing water during scarcities.

Financial aid: The University of Pennsylvania on Monday joined Harvard and other elite private colleges in announcing loan-free packages aimed at middle- and upper-middle-class students. All financially eligible undergraduates will receive grants instead of loans beginning in fall 2009, Penn officials said.

Los Angeles: Police found the body of an elderly woman in a vehicle that was in an accident and taken to a tow yard the day before, authorities said. The woman's injured son had been pulled from the car the day of the crash.

Seattle Times news services