In Russia, Property Ruined and Spared by Meteor Share Space





CHELYABINSK, Russia — The shock wave from a meteor that exploded above Siberia last week somehow sheared the roof off a brick and steel factory building while leaving a nearby glass facade unscathed.




In some high-rises in this city, the first modern urban community to have felt the breath of a cosmic close encounter, every window blew out on the top floor; elsewhere, the ground floors suffered.


More ominously, reports came in to local news media over the weekend of stranger phenomena: behind unshattered apartment windows, glass jugs were said to explode into shards, dishes to crack, electronics to die. Balconies rattled. One man said a bottle broke right in his hand.


Anna V. Popova was at home with her daughter when she saw the flash, then heard explosions, then found the windows of her enclosed balcony blown in; her neighbor, with identical windows, escaped without property damage.


“A lot of people suffered, not us alone,” Ms. Popova said, but added that there seemed to be randomness in whose property was damaged. “Who are we supposed to blame for all this? Nobody of course.”


Scientists believe the space rock that tore through the atmosphere on Friday morning and blew apart here was the largest to have entered the atmosphere since 1908 and that it was unusual as well for the scale of its effects: more than 1,200 people injured and broad property damage.


Indeed, the event is providing a first indication of the type of structural and infrastructural costs meteors can exact from a highly industrialized society. NASA scientists say a meteor of this size strikes the Earth about once every hundred years.


Shattered glass caused most of the damage and injuries here in Chelyabinsk, a sprawling industrial city of about a million people.


What shattered the glass, scientists say, was both the explosion as the meteor fragmented and the waves of pressure created as it decelerated. Such low-frequency waves — called infrasound — are sometimes detected by cold-war era nuclear blast sensors in remote parts of the Pacific Ocean or Alaska, according to meteor experts.


The waves can bounce off buildings and be stronger in some places than others; they can also resonate with glass, explaining why bottles and dishes might have shattered inside undamaged kitchens, as if crushed by the airy hand of the meteor itself.


“A shock wave is like a ball,” Aleksandr Y. Dudorov, director of the theoretical physics department at Chelyabinsk State University, said in an interview. “Throw a ball into a room and it will bounce from one wall to another.”


Russia has mobilized 24,000 emergency officials to inspect roads, railroads, hospitals, factories and military facilities. Most are undamaged, including 122 sites identified as particularly critical, including nuclear power plants, dams and chemical factories, and a space launching site called Strela.


Also Sunday, Russia’s consumer safety inspection agency, Rospotrebnadzor, released a statement saying the water in Lake Chebarkul, where a hole in the ice appeared on Friday, was not radioactive.


It was unclear why the agency released this finding only Sunday, or whether the tests were conducted to assuage popular concerns or out of any real official uncertainty over what happened on Friday. In any case, the agency said a mobile laboratory quietly dispatched to the lake tested for but did not discover cesium 137 and strontium 90, isotopes created in nuclear explosions.


Infrasound waves have not previously been studied in a cityscape, Richard P. Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an author of a textbook on asteroids and meteorites, said in a telephone interview. But he noted that the apparent randomness of the damage was consistent with the way such waves function.


“A shock wave can be coming from a particular direction, and if you face that direction you are more susceptible,” Dr. Binzel said.


“One building might shadow another, or you may have a street that is optimally aligned to channel the wave, either in a fortunate or unfortunate way.”


Peter Brown, a professor of physics at the University of Western Ontario, wrote in an e-mail that an infrasound wave “is very efficient at traveling long distances,” and that “windows, structures or even glass jars susceptible to resonate at this frequency could be a factor to seemingly random damage at widely disparate locations.”


Dr. Brown studied a similar, though smaller, explosion of a meteor over the Pacific Ocean on Oct. 8, 2009, which also sent out low-frequency waves, though too remote to affect homes or industry.


They were, though, registered by a network of infrasound sensors established to monitor compliance with the international ban on nuclear tests, according to Dr. Brown.


Alekdander V. Anusiyev, the spokesman for the governor of Chelyabinsk region, characterized the damage here as without a discernible pattern. “It is impossible to say more glass broke in one part of the city or another,” he said. “Glass broke everywhere.”


The roof of the zinc factory that collapsed was reinforced with a lattice of steel beams and supported by concrete joists that are now broken, jutting upward with mangled re-bar protruding. Windows on a neighboring house blew in with such force that the frames went with them.


Yet a few yards away on Sverdlovsky Street, the cosmos spared a seemingly vulnerable Hundai dealership, a three-story cube sheathed in glass, with glistening display models inside. Not a window broke.


“People can consider Feb. 15 their second birthday,” the governor of Chelyabinsk, Mikhail Yurevich, told reporters, referring to the day of the meteor strike. “God directed danger away.”


Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow.



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Justin Bieber Feud With Patrick Carney Heats Up As Black Keys Drummer Imitates Pop Star On Twitter






The Twitter war between Justin Bieber and Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney rages on.


After the pair got into a verbal tussle on the social networking site on Tuesday, thousands of Beliebers have bombarded Patrick’s page with threats and insults.






PLAY IT NOW: Justin Bieber Opens Up On Split From Selena Gomez


The musician initially seemed to have fun with the attack from Justin‘s fans (re-Tweeting their oft-misspelled rants) but took the bizarre feud to a new level when he changed his Twitter name to Justin Bieber, and replaced his own photo with a picture of the “Beauty and the Beat” singer rocking hipster frames (similar to his own).


Patrick also began Tweeting using the 18-year-old singer’s catchphrase, “Swag,” when replying to hundreds of angry pro-Justin Tweets.


VIEW THE PHOTOS: Grammys 2013: The Winners


“In order 2 give u guys full swag I have changed my stage name to Justin Bieber,” the 32-year-old drummer Tweeted on Saturday.


“I luv all u! I need to get my beauty swag. Swag you guyz later! – Justin,” he later added.


Carney even Tweeted a photo of a Justin Bieber toothbrush with the caption, “Bout to swag my teeth.”


VIEW THE PHOTOS: The Boy Who Makes The Tweens Swoon — Justin Bieber


See the photo HERE.


On Sunday, however, Patrick seemed to have abandoned his “swag,” as he reverted back to his own name and Tweeted, “Justin is gone now. DNA recombo unsuccessful. I will try again soon though!”


VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hollywood’s Infamous Celeb Feuds


Justin, who is currently on tour in Ireland, has yet to respond to Patrick’s Twitter name change.


As previously on AccessHollywood.com, the fight began after Justin Tweeted, “The black keys drummer should be slapped around haha,” to his 34 million followers on Tuesday night.


The Canadian pop star was up in arms over comments Patrick made to a TMZ paparazzo on Monday night, who asked if Justin should feel snubbed by the Recording Academy’s lack of Grammy nominations.


“He’s rich, right? Grammys are for like music, not for money … and he’s making a lot of money,” the drummer — whose band took home four awards at Sunday’s Grammys — told TMZ. “He should be happy.”


VOTE: Whose side are you on?


– Erin O’Sullivan


Copyright 2013 by NBC Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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Beasts of the Southern Wild-Inspired Louisiana Grub for the Oscars















02/16/2013 at 08:30 PM EST







Nitehawk's Oscar dish, with Quvenzhané Wallis (inset)


Courtesy Nitehawk; Inset: FOX Searchlight


With Feb. 24's 2013 Academy Awards drawing closer, there's no better time to whet your appetite for all things movies – literally.

Embrace your inner film buff one bite at a time starting with one of this year's Best Picture nominees: Beasts of the Southern Wild. You'll take a trip to the bayous of Louisiana courtesy of Brooklyn's Nitehawk Cinema, which is serving up Oscar contender-inspired dishes to moviegoers in celebration of the film industry's biggest night.

Pair your po' boy and hush puppies with an adults-only beverage. (Yup, that means the movie's 9-year-old star (and youngest Best Actress nominee ever), Quvenzhané Wallis, couldn't quite indulge in this gin-based treat.)

Fried Oyster Po' Boy with Hush Puppies and a Spicy Remoulade

Servings: 4

• 20 shucked oysters, cleaned
• 2 cups buttermilk
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tbsp. Old Bay seasoning
• 6 cups canola oil
Marinate oysters in buttermilk, salt and pepper for at least an hour. Mix flour with Old Bay. Heat canola oil in a pot large enough that the oil only fills it half way to 350ºF over medium heat. Use a candy thermometer to keep track of temperature. Remove oysters from buttermilk, dredge in seasoned flour, and fry in canola oil until crispy and golden brown. Season with salt when oysters are removed from the oil. Let oysters drain on paper towels. Serve on a toasted baguette. Cut into four pieces with hush puppies and remoulade. (See recipes below.)

Remoulade• 4 oz. Dijon mustard
• 2 oz. ketchup
• ½ tsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp. prepared horseradish
• 1 clove garlic
• ½ tsp. lemon juice
• 2 tsp. black pepper
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 stalk of celery, chopped
• 2 tbsp. parsley, cleaned and chopped
• ¼ Spanish onion, chopped
• 2 tbsp. paprika
• 2 dashes of Tabasco sauce
• Pinch of cayenne pepper
• Pinch of chili flake
• Salt and pepper
Puree all items in a food processor until smooth. Season to taste.

Hush Puppies• 2 scallions, chopped
• ¼ Spanish onion, diced
• 2 eggs
• 6 oz. buttermilk
• 4 oz. bacon fat
• 2 tbsp. baking soda
• 4 tbsp. baking powder
• 2 cups cornmeal
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 oz. sugar
• 1 tbsp. Old Bay seasoning
• Salt and pepper
• 6 cups canola oil
Mix scallions, onion, baking soda, baking powder, cornmeal, flour, sugar, Old Bay, and salt and pepper well. In a small pot, melt bacon fat and set aside. Add the buttermilk and eggs into dry ingredients until incorporated, making sure not to over-mix. Slowly add in melted bacon fat. Let batter rest for 20 minutes. Over medium heat, pour the canola oil in a pot large enough that the oil only fills it halfway to 350ºF, using a candy thermometer to monitor temperature. Using a small cookie scoop, spoon batter into oil, making sure not to overcrowd the oil. Fry until golden and cooked through, about three to four minutes.

Wink’s Bathtub Gin

Makes one cocktail

• 1.5 oz gin (recipe recommends Bulldog Gin)
• ¾ oz. Lillet Blanc
• ½ oz. crème de cacao liqueur
• ½ oz. fresh lemon juice
Add all ingredients to an ice-filled pint glass. Shake well and strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass.

The 85th annual Academy Awards will air live on Sunday, Feb. 24, on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

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UN warns risk of hepatitis E in S. Sudan grows


GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations says an outbreak of hepatitis E has killed 111 refugees in camps in South Sudan since July, and has become endemic in the region.


U.N. refugee agency spokesman Adrian Edwards says the influx of people to the camps from neighboring Sudan is believed to be one of the factors in the rapid spread of the contagious, life-threatening inflammatory viral disease of the liver.


Edwards said Friday that the camps have been hit by 6,017 cases of hepatitis E, which is spread through contaminated food and water.


He says the largest number of cases and suspected cases is in the Yusuf Batil camp in Upper Nile state, which houses 37,229 refugees fleeing fighting between rebels and the Sudanese government.


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G20 steps back from currency brink, heat off Japan


MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Group of 20 nations declared on Saturday there would be no currency war and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets, underlining broad concern about the fragile state of the world economy.


Japan's expansive policies, which have driven down the yen, escaped direct criticism in a statement thrashed out in Moscow by policymakers from the G20, which spans developed and emerging markets and accounts for 90 percent of the world economy.


Analysts said the yen, which has dropped 20 percent as a result of aggressive monetary and fiscal policies to reflate the Japanese economy, may now continue to fall.


"The market will take the G20 statement as an approval for what it has been doing -- selling of the yen," said Neil Mellor, currency strategist at Bank of New York Mellon in London. "No censure of Japan means they will be off to the money printing presses."


After late-night talks, finance ministers and central bankers agreed on wording closer than expected to a joint statement issued last Tuesday by the Group of Seven rich nations backing market-determined exchange rates.


A draft communiqué on Friday had steered clear of the G7's call for economic policy not to be targeted at exchange rates. But the final version included a G20 commitment to refrain from competitive devaluations and stated monetary policy would be directed only at price stability and growth.


"The mood quite clearly early on was that we needed desperately to avoid protectionist measures ... that mood permeated quite quickly," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters, adding that the wording of the G20 statement had been hardened up by the ministers.


As a result, it reflected a substantial, but not complete, endorsement of Tuesday's proclamation by the G7 nations - the United States, Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.


As with the G7 intervention, Tokyo said it gave it a green light to pursue its policies unchecked.


"I have explained that (Prime Minister Shinzo) Abe's administration is doing its utmost to escape from deflation and we have gained a certain understanding," Finance Minister Taro Aso told reporters.


"We're confident that if Japan revives its own economy that would certainly affect the world economy as well. We gained understanding on this point."


Flaherty admitted it would be difficult to gauge if domestic policies were aimed at weakening currencies or not.


NO FISCAL TARGETS


The G20 also made a commitment to a credible medium-term fiscal strategy, but stopped short of setting specific goals as most delegations felt any economic recovery was too fragile.


The communiqué said risks to the world economy had receded but growth remained too weak and unemployment too high.


"A sustained effort is required to continue building a stronger economic and monetary union in the euro area and to resolve uncertainties related to the fiscal situation in the United States and Japan, as well as to boost domestic sources of growth in surplus economies," it said.


A debt-cutting pact struck in Toronto in 2010 will expire this year if leaders fail to agree to extend it at a G20 summit of leaders in St Petersburg in September.


The United States says it is on track to meet its Toronto pledge but argues that the pace of future fiscal consolidation must not snuff out demand. Germany and others are pressing for another round of binding debt targets.


"We had a broad consensus in the G20 that we will stick to the commitment to fulfill the Toronto goals," German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said. "We do not have any interest in U.S.-bashing ... In St. Petersburg follow-up-goals will be decided."


The G20 put together a huge financial backstop to halt a market meltdown in 2009 but has failed to reach those heights since. At successive meetings, Germany has pressed the United States and others to do more to tackle their debts. Washington in turn has urged Berlin to do more to increase demand.


Backing in the communiqué for the use of domestic monetary policy to support economic recovery reflected the U.S. Federal Reserve's commitment to monetary stimulus through quantitative easing, or QE, to promote recovery and jobs.


QE entails large-scale bond buying -- $85 billion a month in the Fed's case -- that helps economic growth but has also unleashed destabilising capital flows into emerging markets.


A commitment to minimize such "negative spillovers" was an offsetting point in the text that China, fearful of asset bubbles and lost export competitiveness, highlighted.


"Major developed nations (should) pay attention to their monetary policy spillover," Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao was quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying in Moscow.


Russia, this year's chair of the G20, admitted the group had failed to reach agreement on medium-term budget deficit levels and expressed concern about ultra-loose policies that it and other emerging economies say could store up trouble for later.


On currencies, the G20 text reiterated its commitment last November, "to move more rapidly toward mores market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying fundamentals, and avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments".


It said disorderly exchange rate movements and excess volatility in financial flows could harm economic and financial stability.


(Additional reporting by Gernot Heller, Lesley Wroughton, Maya Dyakina, Tetsushi Kajimoto, Jan Strupczewski, Lidia Kelly, Katya Golubkova, Jason Bush, Anirban Nag and Michael Martina. Writing by Douglas Busvine. Editing by Timothy Heritage/Mike Peacock)



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Supreme Leader Says Iran Not Seeking Nuclear Arms





TEHRAN — Iran’s supreme leader said Saturday that his country was not seeking nuclear weapons but added that if Iran ever decided to build them, no “global power” could stop it.




The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose 2005 edict banning nuclear weapons is regarded as binding in Iran, told a group of visitors to his home in Tehran, the capital, that his country favored the worldwide elimination of nuclear weapons.


“We believe that nuclear weapons must be eliminated,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “We don’t want to build atomic weapons. But if we didn’t believe so and intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us.” His comments were posted on his Web site, Khamenei.ir.


American officials say they believe that Ayatollah Khamenei exercises full control over Iran’s nuclear program. On Thursday, he rejected direct talks with the United States while it was “pointing a gun at Iran”; on Saturday he elaborated on the issue.


He called on the United States to show “logic” while talking to Iran, without further elaborating. He and other Iranian leaders have often emphasized that before any talks can take place, Western sanctions must be lifted and the West must respect what they say is Iran’s right to a nuclear program monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency.


“This is the only way to interact with the Islamic republic of Iran, and in that case the U.S. administration would receive a proper response” from Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei said.


He pointed to American-devised sanctions, to which a new set of measures was added this month, as the prime example of why negotiations between Iran and the United States would fail.


“They seek the surrender of the Iranian nation,” Ayatollah Khamenei said of the United States. If negotiations are a sign of good will, he asked how talks could occur in the face of the current sanctions.


“You impose — in your own words — crippling sanctions to paralyze the nation,” he said. “Does this show good or ill intention?”


Iranian oil sales have been reduced by half as a result of the international pressure on Iran, and restrictions on financial transactions and transportation have created many difficulties for Iran’s leaders. Consumer prices have increased, and the national currency has fallen sharply. Still, shops are fully stocked, restaurants are serving customers, and the construction of buildings and roads continues.


“They naïvely think that the nation has been exhausted by the sanctions and will therefore yearn for negotiations with the U.S.,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.


In a separate part of his speech, he sharply criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Ali Larijani, who recently traded accusations during a public session of Parliament. Mr. Ahmadinejad caused an uproar by releasing a video of what he said were secret business dealings involving Mr. Larijani’s brother Fazel. During the same session, Mr. Larijani led the parliamentary effort to impeach one of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s ministers.


“People want psychological and moral peace, and I explicitly say that the event was not fitting to Islamic republic’s code of conduct,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, condemning both the release of the video and the impeachment effort.


“This event made me feel sad,” said the ayatollah, who has been Iran’s supreme leader since 1989.


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Facebook Is Somehow Getting a $429 Million Tax Refund This Year






February really is the cruelest month because, on top of all this snow, one is forced to start contemplating death, or at least filling out one’s taxes. (The distinction was always lost on us.) You might be left scratching your head, and wishing you had a better accountant, when you hear how Facebook is getting hundreds of millions in a tax refund this year.


RELATED: Zuckerberg Is the Most Reluctant IPO Billionaire






Thanks to a statement from Citizens for Tax Justice, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Peter Coy brought an interesting little nugget of information from Facebook’s public filing to our attention. Because of the way Facebook treats stock options distributed to investors and employees instead of cash compensation on its balance sheets, the company is able to claim paying a tax liability worth hundreds of millions of dollars when the reality is they’re getting paid: 


RELATED: Internet Delights in Facebook IPO Filing’s Juicy Details



You won’t find any $ 429 million tax refund in Facebook’s financial statements. Indeed, the company says it had a $ 559 million federal tax liability in 2012. But that liability isn’t an actual payment. In a footnote, the company also said that it had a $ 1.03 billion “excess tax benefit” last year related to “stock option exercises and other equity awards.” That benefit is what flips the federal tax liability into a refund. (A small portion is applied against state taxes.)



So, y’know, hope your return this year is that big. You can read more about the mechanics behind Facebook’s accounting in Coy’s explanation. 


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Molly Sims: I Nursed a Little Vampire!




Celebrity Baby Blog





02/15/2013 at 01:00 PM ET



Following the birth of her baby boy, Molly Sims was ready to sink her teeth into breastfeeding.


The only problem? Her son Brooks Alan had beaten her to it.


“Early on in the hospital, they really want you to breastfeed, so I’m trying everything,” the model mama, 39, shared during a Wednesday appearance on Anderson Live.


“And I’m like, ‘Gosh, this really, really hurts.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, we know.’”


Determined to find the root of the pain, Sims went searching in her newborn’s mouth — and was shocked at her discovery.


“I’m like, ‘Is there any way a baby could be born with a tooth?’” she recalls. “And they went, ‘Oh sweetie, I know you’re a model, but … babies aren’t born with teeth!’”


She continues: “Come to find out, my baby was born with a tooth!”


Molly Sims Breastfeeding Anderson Live
Courtesy ANDERSON LIVE



Despite countless attempts to successfully nurse — “I did nipple shields, nipple guards, supplemental nursing system, it was horrible,” the new mom says — Sims eventually decided to call it quits.


“He was literally like a vampire on me for three months — it was unbelievable,” she says with a laugh. “Cut to I’m not breastfeeding and I’m proud of it.”


Now Brooks, 7 months, has moved on to other milestones — including crawling — and is already taking after his dad, Scott Stuber.


“He has the hairline of my husband. It’s like an Eddie Munster kind of hairline. It’s not so attractive, but [he'll] end up growing into it,” Sims says.


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States' choices set up national health experiment


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is unfolding as a national experiment with American consumers as the guinea pigs: Who will do a better job getting uninsured people covered, the states or the feds?


The nation is about evenly split between states that decided by Friday's deadline they want a say in running new insurance markets and states that are defaulting to federal control because they don't want to participate in "Obamacare." That choice was left to state governments under the law: Establish the market or Washington will.


With some exceptions, states led by Democrats opted to set up their own markets, called exchanges, and Republican-led states declined.


Only months from the official launch, exchanges are supposed to make the mind-boggling task of buying health insurance more like shopping on Amazon.com or Travelocity. Millions of people who don't have employer coverage will flock to the new markets. Middle-class consumers will be able to buy private insurance, with government help to pay the premiums in most cases. Low-income people will be steered to safety net programs like Medicaid.


"It's an experiment between the feds and the states, and among the states themselves," said Robert Krughoff, president of Consumers' Checkbook, a nonprofit ratings group that has devised an online tool used by many federal workers to pick their health plans. Krughoff is skeptical that either the feds or the states have solved the technological challenge of making the purchase of health insurance as easy as selecting a travel-and-hotel package.


Whether or not the bugs get worked out, consumers will be able to start signing up Oct. 1 for coverage that takes effect Jan. 1. That's also when two other major provisions of the law kick in: the mandate that almost all Americans carry health insurance, and the rule that says insurers can no longer turn away people in poor health.


Barring last-minute switches that may not be revealed until next week, 23 states plus Washington, D.C., have opted to run their own markets or partner with the Obama administration to do so.


Twenty-six states are defaulting to the feds. But in several of those, Republican governors are trying to carve out some kind of role by negotiating with federal Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Utah's status is unclear. It received initial federal approval to run its own market, but appears to be reconsidering.


"It's healthy for the states to have various choices," said Ben Nelson, CEO of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. "And there's no barrier to taking somebody else's ideas and making them work in your situation." A former U.S. senator from Nebraska, Nelson was one of several conservative Democrats who provided crucial votes to pass the overhaul.


States setting up their own exchanges are already taking different paths. Some will operate their markets much like major employers run their health plans, as "active purchasers" offering a limited choice of insurance carriers to drive better bargains. Others will open their markets to all insurers that meet basic standards, and let consumers decide.


Obama's Affordable Care Act remains politically divisive, but state insurance exchanges enjoy broad public support. Setting up a new market was central to former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's health care overhaul as governor of Massachusetts. There, it's known as the Health Connector.


A recent AP poll found that Americans prefer to have states run the new markets by 63 percent to 32 percent. Among conservatives the margin was nearly 4-1 in favor of state control. But with some exceptions, including Idaho, Nevada and New Mexico, Republican-led states are maintaining a hands-off posture, meaning the federal government will step in.


"There is a sense of irony that it's the more conservative states" yielding to federal control, said Sandy Praeger, the Republican insurance commissioner in Kansas, a state declining to run its own exchange. First, she said, the law's opponents "put their money on the Supreme Court, then on the election. Now that it's a reality, we may see some movement."


They're not budging in Austin. "Texas is not interested in being a subcontractor to Obamacare," said Lucy Nashed, spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry, who remains opposed to mandates in the law.


In Kansas, Praeger supported a state-run exchange, but lost the political struggle to Gov. Sam Brownback. She says Kansans will be closely watching what happens in neighboring Colorado, where the state will run the market. She doubts that consumers in her state would relish dealing with a call center on the other side of the country. The federal exchange may have some local window-dressing but it's expected to function as a national program.


Christine Ferguson, director of the Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange, says she expects to see a big shift to state control in the next few years. "Many of the states have just run out of time for a variety of reasons," said Ferguson. "I'd be surprised if in the longer run every state didn't want to have its own approach."


In some ways, the federal government has a head start on the states. It already operates the Medicare Plan Finder for health insurance and prescription plans that serve seniors, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Both have many of the features of the new insurance markets.


Administration officials are keeping mum about what the new federal exchange will look like, except that it will open on time and people in all 50 states will have the coverage they're entitled to by law.


Joel Ario, who oversaw planning for the health exchanges in the Obama administration, says "there's a rich dialogue going on" as to what the online shopping experience should look like. "To create a website like Amazon is a very complicated exercise," said Ario, now a consultant with Manatt Health Solutions.


He thinks consumers should be able to get one dollar figure for each plan that totals up all their expected costs for the year, including premiums, deductibles and copayments. Otherwise, scrolling through pages of insurance jargon online will be a sure turn-off.


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After decent rally, perhaps time for a pause

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks could struggle to extend their seven-week winning streak as the quarterly earnings period draws to a close and the market bumps into strong technical resistance.


Many analysts say the market could spend the next few weeks consolidating gains that have lifted the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 <.spx> by 6.6 percent since the start of the year.


The S&P 500 ended up 0.1 percent for the week, recovering from a late sell-off on Friday after a Bloomberg report about slow February sales at Wal-Mart triggered a slide in the retailer's shares. It was the index's seventh week of gains.


Odds of a pullback are increasing, with the market in slightly overbought territory, said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist at Delta Global Asset Management in Boston.


"I do suspect the closing of the earnings season will lead to at least a pause and possibly a pullback," Zaro said. The S&P 500 could shave 3 to 5 percent between now and early April, he said.


Fourth-quarter earnings have mostly beaten expectations. Year-over-year profit growth for S&P 500 companies is now estimated at 5.6 percent, up from a January 1 forecast for 2.9 percent growth, and 70 percent of companies are exceeding analyst profit expectations, above the 62 percent long-term average, according to Thomson Reuters data.


On Thursday, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is due to report results, unofficially closing out the earnings period. Investors will be keen to see its quarterly numbers, especially after the Friday's news report that rattled investors.


The S&P 500 has gained 4.3 percent since Alcoa kicked off the earnings season on January 8.


The approaching March 1 deadline for across-the-board federal budget cuts unless Congress reaches a compromise adds another reason for caution, especially with recent economic data indicating the recovery remains bumpy.


Manufacturing output fell 0.4 percent last month, the Federal Reserve said on Friday, but production in November and December was much stronger than previously thought.


TESTING RESISTANCE


The S&P 500 has been trading near five-year highs, and it notched its highest level since November 2007 this week. But the gains have pushed the benchmark index almost as far as it is likely to go in the near term, with strong resistance hovering around 1,525 and 1,540, one analyst said.


As a result, the index is set to move sideways, said Dave Chojnacki, market technician at Street One Financial in Huntington Valley, Pennsylvania. "We just don't have the volume or the catalyst right now" to go above those levels, he said.


At the same time, other analysts say, the market has not shown significant signs of slowing, including a break below 15- and 30-day moving averages.


Such moves would be needed to show that momentum is slowing or that the market is at risk of a correction, said Todd Salamone, director of research for Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati, Ohio. The S&P 500's 14-day moving average is at 1,511 while the 30-day is at 1,494. The index closed Friday at 1,519.


Recent M&A activity, including news this week of a merger between American Airlines and US Airways Group , helped provide some strength for the market this week and optimism that more deals may be on the way.


In the coming days, the market will focus on minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting, due to be released on Wednesday, which could provide support if they suggest the Fed will remain on its current course of aggressive monetary easing.


The Fed minutes released in January spooked markets a bit when they revealed that some Fed officials thought it would be appropriate to consider ending asset purchases later in 2013. U.S. Treasury yields rose on that news, though market worries about a near-term end to quantitative easing have since faded.


Among other companies expected to report earnings next week are Nordstrom , Hewlett-Packard and Marriott International


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Leslie Adler)



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