Health-Care Reform After Kennedy: A Scaled-Back Bill?

It has not been lost on many that Ted Kennedy’s death came at a moment when the cause he described as the greatest one of his public life — universal health care — seems to be stumbling just short of the goal line. Kennedy’s absence has been felt all year on Capitol Hill, and there are many on both sides who believe that health reform might be closer to becoming a reality if he had been in any shape to bring his negotiating skills to bear. So what effect will his passing have on the prospects for health reform?

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Inmate-release plan hits snag in California Assembly

California legislators plan to keep trying Tuesday to find consensus on a controversial proposal that would release at least 27,000 inmates from state prisons. The California Assembly on Monday delayed a possible vote on the plan. “When we arrive at a responsible plan that can earn the support of the majority of the Assembly and make sense to the people of California, we will take that bill up on the Assembly floor,” Assembly Speaker Karen Bass said in a statement

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Woodstock: How Does It Sound 40 Years Later?

Lots of people never made it to Woodstock, in part because the 400,000 who did caused the most famous traffic jam in New York history. But for those of us who missed it because of the inconvenience of having not yet been born, the concert’s 40th anniversary is instinctively less a cause for celebration than an excuse to plug our ears. We know the basics — or think we do.

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Many French Don’t Like Law Allowing More Sunday Shopping

Never on a Sunday? Not anymore in France, where the upper house of Parliament ended a bruising, two-year political battle by giving final approval to a law that will allow some stores to trade on the seventh day. Conservative supporters hail the law as a reformist boost for France’s recession-stalled economy

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