New York and Minnesota sue Trump administration over cuts to health care funding News
New York and Minnesota sue Trump administration over cuts to health care funding

New York and Minnesota filed a lawsuit [complaint, PDF] on Friday in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York [official website] to block the Trump administration from cutting off federal funding to state programs that provide health care to low-income people.

In December the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) [official website] informed both states that, due to Congress not appropriating funds, about 25 percent of federal funding would be cut from New York’s plan and Minnesota would be cut completely.

Both states allege that HHS is cutting federal funding without “adequate justification and in disregard of lawful procedure”, which is legally required to be provided under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) [text, PDF]. Accordingly, both states allege that HHS is violating the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) [text, PDF] by “failing to follow the clear procedures set forth in the APA for making such significant administrative payment decisions.”

According to a statement [press release] by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, about $1 billion in state funding for health programs, created under the ACA were cut. New York and Minnesota operate a Basic Health Program (BHP) [text, PDF], which provides heath insurance for low-income residents; the decision to cut funding affects about 700,000 people. The New York and Minnesota [official websites] BHPs are reliant on federal funding to operate.

New York and Minnesota are the only states to operate BHPs.

They are seeking for the court to annul HHS decisions and compel it to restore the funding.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Night of the Murdered Poets takes place in USSR

Soviet authorities under Josef Stalin executed a group of 13 Jewish intellectuals from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, an organization dedicated to supporting the Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany, on August 12, 1952. The 13 stood accused of supporting the US and Zionism as well as trying to create an independent republic in Crimea, which all but one falsely confessed to under torture. Learn more about the Night of the Murdered Poets from the World Jewish Congress and Forward. Also read a history of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee from the Jewish Virtual Library.

Swiss banks agreed to compensate Holocaust victims for holding assets

On August 12, 1998, Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion to settle lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors and their heirs. The plaintiffs had alleged that the banks had kept millions of dollars deposited by Holocaust victims before and during World War II. Read CNN's original report of the story.

City of Chicago founded

On August 12, 1833, the City of Chicago was founded. The city was later formally incorporated with a town charter on March 4, 1837.
Learn more about the history of Chicago's charter from the Encyclopedia of Chicago.

Former Japan PM convicted of accepting bribes

On August 12, 1983, the former Prime Minister of Japan, Tanaka Kakuei was convicted of accepting bribes while in office and sentenced to 4 years in jail. He came to be described as "the paragon of post war corruption" for taking money from the defense contractor Boeing in exchange for favorable contracts. Also on this day, Nikita Kruschev famously banged his shoe on the table during a heated argument before the United Nations General Assembly.