Hasta La Gadget!

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — President Barack Obama’s executive order to spare some immigrants from deportation has galvanized Democrats, immigration groups and health care advocates in California to push for expanding health coverage to a segment of the population that remains uninsured.

The president’s action excludes immigrants who came to the country illegally from qualifying for federal health benefits. But California has its own policy of providing health coverage with state money to low-income immigrants with so-called “deferred action” that allow them to avoid deportation. Immigrant and health care advocates say that means Obama’s executive order will enable hundreds of thousands of low-income immigrants in California to apply for Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid. Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, said allowing this expanded group of immigrants to participate in the Medicaid program will enable people to get primary and preventive care, “rather than just at the emergency room.”

The California Department of Health Care Services, however, has yet to receive formal guidance. A state official said it’s too early to tell how the immigration program will impact the overall Medi-Cal program, which is consuming an increasing share of state funds.

Medi-Cal is a health program for the poor paid for by the federal government and the state. It has grown by about 3 million people in California under federal health care reform and now covers more than 11 million Californians, about 30 percent of the state’s population. The federal government is paying for the expansion, but the state will eventually pay 10 percent of additional costs to cover low-income adults, many of whom are childless.

The state is expected to spend more than $17 billion of its own money on the program this year, up 3.5 percent a year ago, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

“We are assessing what some of the potential impacts could be, but it would be premature for us to comment until we have more specific information available,” said Norman Williams, a spokesman for the Department of Health Care Services.

The president’s action has also emboldened a Democratic lawmaker to revive a bill that would provide health coverage to all Californians, regardless of their immigration status.

Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, plans to reintroduce his Health4All bill on Monday to open Medi-Cal to immigrants, as well as extending subsidized health benefits in a new insurance marketplace for those without legal status. The proposal, which previously carried a cost as high as $1.3 billion a year, stalled in a legislative committee last cycle and Republicans had criticized the cost of the expansion.

“The president’s action covers almost half of California’s undocumented population, but that still leaves over a million people with no access to health care. We can do better. The bill will cover those remaining uninsured that will not benefit from Obama’s action,” Lara said.

According to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C., the president’s action lifts the threat of deportation to as many as 1.2 million immigrants living illegally in California. There are an estimated 2.6 million people living illegally in the state.

The issue of benefits for immigrants who are illegally in the United States is a sensitive one.

Joe Guzzardi a spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, a Santa Barbara, California-based group that advocates for lower population, said the state is already more generous toward immigrants than most states and adding health coverage may attract more people to cross into California illegally.

“There are millions of Californians who don’t have health care insurance or have to pay for their health care insurance out of their own pockets. So it seems unfair to have legislation that provides for people who came to the United States unlawfully to be rewarded with a health care plan,” Guzzardi said.

Gabrielle Lessard, a health policy attorney with the National Immigration Law Center in Los Angeles, said it will be months before immigrants can apply for the program and fewer will apply or qualify for Medi-Cal. She said it’s also unlikely that immigrants would overwhelm the Medi-Cal system because many would be able to get health coverage through work or school.

BALTIMORE (AP) — A 15-year-old murder case that landed a popular teenager from Baltimore County behind bars for life is at once being revived in a podcast that offers more questions than answers about the crime and its fallout, and in a Maryland appeals court that will ultimately decide the man’s fate.

Millions of listeners are anxiously awaiting the next installment of Serial, a podcast from the creators of “This American Life” that tells the story of Adnan Syed, a Woodlawn High School student who was found guilty in 2000 of murdering his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. The podcast is the brainchild of longtime radio producer and former Baltimore Sun reporter Sarah Koenig, who spent more than a year digging into Syed’s case and reporting her findings in almost real-time in hour-long segments released online every Thursday (with the exception of Thanksgiving). Nine episodes in, the podcast has attracted more than 1.5 million listeners per episode worldwide and turned Adnan Syed into something of a household name, inspiring a dedicated fan base, re-cap blogs and even spin-off podcasts, not to mention heated debates around countless water coolers and dinner tables about Syed’s guilt or innocence.

But although the buzz surrounding the case is new, Syed has been trying to prove his innocence for years — so long, in fact, that his case is now in its final stages of appeal. A hearing scheduled for January of next year represents what Syed’s lawyer, C. Justin Brown, said is the man’s “last best chance” at freedom.

“I joke that when I was hired to do Adnan’s appeal I was a free-wheeling single man and now I’m married with two kids. It’s been a lengthy process,” said Brown, who has represented Syed for more than five years. “There are three parts to the legal process: a trial, then an appeal, then you have post-conviction relief. This is the last step.”

Syed, now 34, was convicted of first-degree murder, robbery and false imprisonment in 2000 and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors said Syed strangled Lee after becoming inconsolably jealous when the two broke up and she began dating someone else.

The primary points Brown makes in his appeal are some of the same reasons Koenig told listeners in her podcast’s first episode that she decided to investigate the case: there were no eye-witnesses tying Syed to the crime, and Syed’ s attorney, Cristina Gutierrez, failed to interview a witness who said she was with Syed at the time Lee was killed. Gutierrez, a high-profile Baltimore-area criminal defense attorney, was disbarred in 2001 client funds went missing. She died in 2004 of a heart attack.

Brown in his appeal says Gutierrez knew about Asia McClain, a classmate of Syed’s who saw him in the library around the time prosecutors say Lin was killed. But Brown says the attorney failed to pursue her alibi during trial.

“The entire trial depended on whether Syed could prove where he was at the time of the murder,” Brown wrote. “Meanwhile, a credible witness — an honors student who had no obvious bias in favor of Syed — had come forward unsolicited with a recollection that she had been with Syed around the time of the murder…Yet the lawyer did absolutely nothing.”

Brown also wrote that Gutierrez erred when she did not seek a plea deal for Syed, who asked her several times whether a plea option was available.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals asked prosecutors to respond to the post-conviction appeal in September to see if they too believed Syed had ineffective counsel in a move Brown said is highly unusual. But ultimately, as millions of listeners try and parse the evidence for themselves, what happens next is up to the judges.

“It’s an unusual phenomenon,” Brown said. “The Court of Special Appeals has shown some interest in the case and asked the state to respond to our application, which is more than they usually do in this procedural posture. But I truly think the appellate courts make their decisions based on the merits of the case, and not the popularity of a podcast.”

One group wants more businesses digging deeper into their pockets for charitable causes, and it believes they’ll make more money in the long run by doing so.

The One Hope Foundation, an organization working with companies to integrate charitable giving into their business models, believes companies that commit to worthy causes will boost bottom lines by complying with customers wants. The foundation’s success causing positive change reflects a growing number of businesses prioritizing cause-related missions.

According to One Hope, if Fortune 500 companies donated just 1 percent of the $12.21 trillion they garnered in 2013, several milestones could have been reached with the funds: access to clean water for everyone who doesn’t have it and an end to homelessness in the U.S., to name a couple.

Here’s what else the world could do with 1 percent of $12.21 trillion:

As Time.com pointed out, “times have changed” from past decades, when businesses were skeptical to implement any form of social responsibility into their goals. Ten years ago, roughly a dozen Fortune 500 companies around the world issued a corporate social responsibility, or CSR, report — today, the majority do.

The dramatic increase can be tied to a large number of consumers who want to support businesses that give back to charitable causes. A 2011 study by Cone Communications found that 94 percent of customers are likely to switch brands to one that supports a social issue, if the brands are about equal in price and quality.

The One Hope Foundation, which claims to have facilitated more than $1.5 million in donations to more than 200 charities thus far, is pushing for more business partners and soliciting donations from supporters in its latest campaign video above. The group says that a $10 donation to One Hope generates $500 to charity.

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