Today in history
On March 28, 1942, during World War II, British naval forces staged a successful raid on the Nazi-occupied French port of St. Nazaire in Operation Chariot, destroying the only dry dock on the Atlantic coast capable of repairing the German battleship Tirpitz.
In 1834, the U.S. Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson for the removal of federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
In 1898, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen.
In 1930, the names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were changed to Istanbul and Ankara.
In 1935, the notorious Nazi propaganda film “Triumph des Willens” (Triumph of the Will), directed by Leni Riefenstahl, premiered in Berlin with Adolf Hitler present.
In 1941, novelist and critic Virginia Woolf,
59, drowned herself near her home in Lewes, East Sussex, England.
In 1955, John Marshall Harlan II was sworn in as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1969, the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, died in Washington, D.C. at age 78.
In 1977, “Rocky” won best picture at the
49th Academy Awards; Peter Finch was honored posthumously as best actor for “Network” while his co-star, Faye Dunaway, was recognized as best actress.
In 1979, America’s worst commercial nuclear accident occurred with a partial meltdown inside the Unit 2 reactor at the Three Mile Island plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania.
In 1987, Maria von Trapp, whose life story inspired the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music,” died in Morrisville, Vermont, at age 82.
In 1990, President George H.W. Bush presented the Congressional Gold Medal to the widow of U.S. Olympic legend Jesse Owens.
Ten years ago: Iran aired a video of 15 British sailors and marines who were captured five days earlier; the lone female captive, Faye Furney, wearing a white tunic and a black head scarf, said the British boats had “trespassed” in Iranian waters while patrolling for smugglers near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab, a disputed waterway. (The crew members were released a week later.)
Five years ago: The U.S. Supreme Court wrapped up three days of public arguments on President Barack Obama’s historic health care law. On the last day of his visit, Pope Benedict XVI demanded more freedom for the Roman Catholic Church in communist-run Cuba and preached against “fanaticism” in an unusually political sermon before hundreds of thousands at Revolution Plaza.
One year ago: The FBI said it had successfully used a mysterious technique without Apple Inc.’s help to hack into the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, effectively ending a pitched court battle. Winston Moseley, the man convicted of the 1964 stabbing death of bar manager Kitty Genovese, died at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, at age 81.
“A man can do his best only by confidently seeking (and perpetually missing) an unattainable perfection.” — Ralph Barton Perry, American author and educator (18761957).
LITTLE ROCK — An effort to continue the hybrid Arkansas Medicaid expansion another year failed Monday in the state Senate, days after Republican efforts to repeal and replace the federal health law that enabled the expanded coverage faltered in Congress.
The budget bill for the state’s Medicaid program and the expansion failed on two votes — by a 19-1 and a 20-1 margin— falling short of the 27 needed to approve the budget measure. Legislative leaders said they planned to try again with the proposal today, and were confident they had the votes needed.
The top Republican in the Senate said he didn’t believe the program would be blocked while the future of the federal health law remains in limbo.
“I don’t think there’s sufficient will right now to start blocking budgets when we don’t even know what’s going to happen or how long it’s going to take,” Senate Majority Jim Hendren said after the votes. “We owe the state of Arkansas a budget and I think most people understand that.”
More than 300,000 people are on Arkansas’ hybrid program, which uses Medicaid funds to purchase private insurance for low-income residents. The program was crafted in 2013 and has sharply divided Republicans since then in the Legislature, who have repeatedly derided the federal health care law. GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson effectively saved the first-in-the-nation program last year after it failed to get enough votes by voiding part of a budget bill that would have ended the expanded coverage.
Hutchinson earlier this month said he would seek federal approval to move 60,000 people off the expanded coverage and on to the insurance marketplace, and to impose work requirements on able-bodied participants. The governor plans to call a special session next month to take up legislation related to those changes.
Republican Sen. Bryan King, the only lawmaker to vote against the budget bill both times it came up Monday, said the program’s funding should be considered alongside those changes in the special session. The total cost of the expansion in the coming fiscal year is estimated to be $1.8 billion, with the state paying $109 million and the federal government paying the rest.
“You don’t need to give people a credit card to spend whatever they want to without knowing the details first,” King said Monday night.