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The web site slowed, but it did not buckle as it did Dec. 31, the last big deadline for enrolling in coverage. On that day, frustrated Minnesotans who needed coverage to start Jan. 1 overwhelmed the call center.

But Monday's rush showed that the MNsure website has improved. MNsure also followed a consultant's advice and added 100 representatives to its call center.

"We've added additional capacity for the surge to the site to ensure that people are able to get in and that the system itself can handle additional volume," interim CEO Scott Leitz said. "Beyond that, we're monitoring by the minute the stability of the site and where things are at."

MNsure officials say there are still hundreds of people stuck in insurance limbo, whose cases are deemed "pending."

One of them is Susan Leem of St. Paul, a married mother of two whose current insurance expires in April. On March 6, when she first applied, the site said she and the children qualified for Medicaid, but Leem doubts that because of her income. She needs coverage to begin Tuesday, but her case is still pending.

"For me it's the not knowing," she said. "If I get into a car accident and I need emergency surgery and they ask my husband where is your medical card, can he say, 'pending MNcare?'" she asked. "Maybe they'd reimburse me later; maybe they wouldn't if my paperwork was not deemed eligible or correct." — Elizabeth Stawicki, MPRnews

This story is part of a reporting partnership that includes NPR, member stations and Kaiser Health News.

The novel itself shows a lot of leg, dancing back and forth between the few days before the murder (in which we get to see the growing friendship between the two women) and the days after (in which Blanche tries to figure out the mystery of her dear new friend's death). This sets a jaunty pace, and emerging from it is a portrait quite compelling of two strong, if eccentric, women and the city they live in: raucous, violent, charming, filthy, plague-ridden San Francisco. And what turns out to be a portrait — complete with explicit scenes of intense fornication and blazing fisticuffs — of their brief affair.

Though Donoghue poses the book as a mystery — who killed Jenny Bonnet? — it's equally a celebration of love despite hardships galore, and the rising call of motherhood against near impossible odds. With, I should add, a soundtrack on the page of vintage music hall songs, some of which are the raunchiest you'll ever hear. Cock your head! Listen! Ah! Frog music!

Read an excerpt of Frog Music

Misha Kostin, a 21-year-old construction engineer in eastern Ukraine, loves The Simpsons. He's loved it for 10 years. He says the animated series "illustrates everyday life problems in humorous ways, and offers a useful moral at the end of each episode."

And though Kostin and most of the people in eastern Ukraine are native Russian speakers, he prefers to download episodes dubbed not in Russian but in his second language, Ukrainian. All his friends in the city of Donetsk prefer the version dubbed in Ukrainian.

"They talk in Russian, they think in Russian," and even their parents speak only Russian, he says of his friends. "But Simpsons? They like in Ukrainian."

Vladimir Lykov, creative director of an animation studio in Donetsk, agrees that The Simpsons is more popular in Ukrainian than are some other shows, like Family Guy.

In the recent crisis in Ukraine, much has been made of the divisions between Russian speakers, who are the majority in the east and the south, and the Ukrainian-speakers, who are dominant in the western part of the country.

But Lykov says language in Ukraine has always been more a political tool of division than an actual divide. People in eastern Ukraine — especially those under 35, who came of age after the Soviet Union collapsed — like being bilingual, he says.

"Unfortunately," he says, "The media likes to show that only Russians live here and only Ukrainians live in western Ukraine. Actually people here have no trouble understanding both languages. And Ukrainian is even funnier for Russian-speakers [because] it's got cleverer slang."

He blames the media, controlled by oligarchs and Ukrainian politicians, for exaggerating the language divide. He says it has always been easier to stoke language fears than address real problems, like the lack of jobs or the stumbling economy.

The new head of General Motors, Mary Barra, goes to Capitol Hill Tuesday to begin two days of testimony.

It's the first time she'll be questioned about a safety defect that's been linked to at least 13 deaths and has sparked a 2.6-million-vehicle recall.

At issue for the Detroit CEO is the classic question: What did GM know about the problems with ignition switch problems in its cars, and when did the company know it?

And just as important for GM and government regulators is the follow-up question: Why did no one act sooner?

In the recent history of General Motors, there's one car that sort of symbolizes the problems of the old GM: the Chevy Cobalt.

'A Moment Of Panic'

The car is currently the subject of about a half-dozen investigations. Even if more than 1 million Cobalts were not being recalled, the cars would still have a bad reputation, simply for not being a quality vehicle.

Scott Oldham of Edmunds.com says that's hindsight. "At the time, in the context of what GM was making before the Cobalt, it was seen, for the most part, as a giant leap forward," he says.

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A History Of GM's Ignition Switch Defect