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China's anti-corruption campaign has expanded its reach to the country's military, with a former top general being charged and news that widespread wrongdoing had been uncovered at key units of the People's Liberation Army.

Former Gen. Gu Junshan, who served as the PLA's deputy logistics chief, has been charged of "suspicion of corruption, bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power," state-run Xinhua news agency reported on Monday. Until now, it has been extremely rare for high-ranking military figures to be caught up in such probes. A guilty verdict is considered a near certainty.

The BBC quotes Chinese investigative magazine Caixin, as reporting that Gu's apparently lavish lifestyle includes "several properties, including a home in Henan province modelled on China's former imperial palace, with several gold art pieces or statues."

The ex-general's indictment was followed on Tuesday by a statement from China's Defense Ministry that inspectors, working on orders of China's President Xi Jinping, found evidence among Beijing-area units of problems with the handling of promotions, poor discipline of officers, illegal land transfers, and corruption in construction and military medical services.

According to the AP:

"The ministry said those cases would be further investigated and publicized 'for their deterrent effect,' raising the likelihood that offenders would be brought before military courts.

"The PLA has long been dogged by a culture of bribery, corruption and power abuse. Promotions and plum assignments are sometimes secured by providing payments or favors to higher ranking officers and military assets, especially land, used for private economic benefit.

"Officers enjoy official vehicles, housing and generous benefits in return for pledging their loyal to the ruling party, rather than to the Chinese state."

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.