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Uprising’s guest expert Maya Rockeymoore, President of the Center for Global Policy Solutions, a social change non-profit dedicated to making policy work for people and their environment, analyzes today’s news headlines:

Nearly 300 people are feared dead with the downing of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 over Ukraine yesterday. A hundred and eighty one bodies have so far been recovered. US officials have told the press that surface-to-air missiles likely struck the plane down but it is not yet known who was responsible. The governments of Ukraine and Russia have pointed fingers at each other. Commercial airlines had been avoiding the airspace over Ukraine because of the political conflict there. Malaysian authorities told the press that there was no distress call from the plane before it crashed. This is the second time in just months that a Malaysia Airlines flight has ended in tragedy, after flight MH 370 disappeared over the Indian ocean earlier this year. USA Today reported that as many as “100 AIDS researchers, activists, and health workers” may have been on board the plane. They were traveling from an AIDS conference in Australia. Click here for an Al Jazeera article, and here for a USA Today article about the story.

Investigations into the bridge-closure scandal in New Jersey are continuing with Regina Egea, Governor Chris Christie’s future Chief of Staff being questioned at a hearing. Egea told lawmakers that she had texted the Governor about lane closings that created gridlock in the city of Fort Lee. On-going investigations are pending over Gov. Christie’s role in whether those lane closings were retribution for Fort Lee’s Mayor’s refusal to endorse him, and how much Christie knew about the lane closures. Christie has his eye on the White House and has already begun what appears to be an early campaign. He just announced his support for the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case. Click here for a New York Times article about the story.

And finally, the federal government has come to a settlement with the Cherokee nation over unpaid healthcare costs, to the tune of $29.5 million. For nearly ten years the government did not pay for costs associated with the Indian Health Service, which serves more than a million people in the Cherokee nation. There are several similar cases of other Indian tribes in legal negotiations with the government over unpaid healthcare costs that add up to hundreds of millions of dollars. Click here for an Al Jazeera article about the story.