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BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) - Cramped space at the St. Clair County jail means inmate visits soon may be going to cyberspace.

The Belleville News-Democrat says St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson is exploring the costs of perhaps giving relatives the option of visiting with their jailed loved ones through online video streaming.

Watson says such an offering would be safer in that it would let inmates have such visits from their cells rather than requiring guards to move them to and from the visitation area. And it would be convenient for the relatives.

Supporters of the idea include the John Howard Association, a nonprofit prison watchdog. Its executive director, John Maki, says enabling more visitations creates a calmer lockup, improving safety of the jail and staff.

A new report says the national health law will push up the cost of medical claims in both Missouri and Illinois.

The study by the Society of Actuaries says the amount paid by insurers who sell policies to individuals in Illinois will rise more than 50 percent by 2017. The jump is even greater in Missouri, where the cost of medical claims could grow by almost 60 percent.

The report says costs will rise largely because of spending on sicker people and other high-cost groups who will gain coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The study did not make similar estimates for Employer-sponsored plans.

The White House disputes the study's claims because they didn't consider other cost-saving aspects of the new law.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea says it's cutting off a key military hotline with South Korea that allows cross border travel to a jointly run industrial complex in the North.

The move was announced in a statement sent Wednesday to South Korea from North Korea's chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks.

North Korea recently cut a Red Cross hotline between the Koreas, but there's still a hotline linking aviation authorities in both Koreas.

The hotline mentioned Wednesday is important because the Koreas use it to communicate as hundreds of workers travel back and forth to the Kaesong industrial complex. Officials say more than 900 South Korean workers were in Kaesong on Wednesday.

North Korea is angry over routine U.S.-South Korean drills and recent U.N. sanctions punishing it for its Feb. 12 nuclear test.