Health law’s fate lies with court

March 19, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON

Here’s a thought that can’t comfort President Barack Obama: The fate of his health-care overhaul rests with four Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices.

His most sweeping domestic achievement could be struck down if they stand together with Justice Clarence Thomas, another GOP appointee who is the likeliest vote against.

But the good news for Obama is that he probably needs only one of the four to side with him to win approval of the law’s crucial centerpiece, the requirement that almost everyone in this country has insurance or pays a penalty.

Both the Obama administration and the health-care law’s challengers believe they can attract the other four Republicans to their side. The group includes Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, the two appointees of President George W. Bush who have swung the court to the right in a number of areas; conservative stalwart Antonin Scalia; and the less-doctrinaire Anthony Kennedy.

The court has set aside six hours over three days, beginning March 26, to hear arguments.

‘Crowdsourced’ maps catching on

SAN FRANCISCO

When Benjamin Gleitzman moved from New York to the San Francisco Bay area, he used a talking turn-by-turn driving app to guide him across the country. In the middle of Wyoming, the voice told him to turn left where there was no road.

Rather than complain to the maker of the app, called Waze, he logged in and made a note for anyone else who happened to drive that way that the road wasn’t there. It was a small gesture of consideration to his fellow travelers.

But such niceties have started to add up. Taking a page from Wikipedia, services such as Waze have marshaled armies of unpaid contributors and their GPS-equipped smartphones to map wide swaths of the world from scratch. Consumers, companies and even disaster-relief groups have come to rely increasingly on such “crowdsourced” maps and their key advantage: When the landscape changes, so can the map.

Associated Press