Articles

State aims to extend Healthy Indiana Plan

Indiana has submitted a request for a 10-year extension of its Medicaid alternative program, the Healthy Indiana Plan, and still included is the suspended work requirement that was imposed on some enrollees in the public assistance program but is currently under review by the courts.

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Back to the border: Notre Dame law legal aid team sees increased hardship for asylum seekers

Instead of spending his holiday season surrounded by all things merry and bright, immigration attorney Rudy Monterrosa spent days at what he described as an ominous place akin to a concentration camp. For the second year in a row, Monterrosa took a team to the Texas-Mexico border to offer free legal services to women and children seeking asylum in the United States. His experience this time, however, was quite different.

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Medicaid changes could have big state consequences

Nearly one in five Hoosiers is on Medicaid, a program that pays for medical care, hospitalization, drugs, skilled nursing and other services for low-income and disabled people. But the future of the program is now up in the air after the Trump administration announced in January it would allow states to add eligibility requirements, benefit changes and drug-coverage limits.

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Homeland Security waives contracting laws for border wall

The Trump administration said Tuesday it will waive federal contracting laws to speed construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security said waiving procurement regulations will allow 177 miles of wall to be built more quickly in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

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Indiana AG sues to shut down embattled Charlestown zoo

The owner a controversial Charlestown zoo who recently lost his federal exhibitor’s license is now also facing a state lawsuit that would shut down the zoo’s underlying nonprofit organization and remove him as its director, citing allegations of animal abuse, financial improprieties, intimidation and more.

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Feds say local gaming company conspired with GOP strategist to make illegal contributions

A Republican strategist who worked for an Annapolis, Maryland-based consulting firm has admitted to taking part in a scheme to funnel corporate contributions to political candidates — including former Indiana Sen. Brent Waltz when he ran for U.S. Congress in 2016 — in a case that is part of a federal crackdown on fraudulent political action committees.

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Lawyers: Immigration court system is ‘red tape gone crazy’

The Associated Press visited immigration courts in 11 cities more than two dozen times during a 10-day period in late fall, including Chicago’s two locations, which serve Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. They found inefficient proceedings leading to years-long gaps between court dates, misplaced files, missing interpreters and immigrants not knowing how to fill out forms or get them translated.

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New track to arrive at ‘reasonable’ rail rates?

The next time you’re stuck in your car watching a train amble across an intersection, think about this: Deregulation is credited with preventing the railroad industry from being run over by truckers, but in places where the rails are the only means of transportation, what should be done to ensure the prices charged by the railroads to the companies shipping products are reasonable?

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7th Circuit reverses Indiana prison mailbox untimeliness ruling

A federal prisoner who struggled to file an administrative complaint through the prison mail system and was denied his complaint due to untimeliness has won a reversal from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The 7th Circuit concluded that the complaint was filed the moment it was placed in the prison’s mail and not upon its receipt.

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