Hobby Lobby, defying health law, refuses to cover morning-after pill























































































Hobby Lobby


Hobby Lobby has said that it will defy the Affordable Care Act by refusing to provide insurance to workers that will cover contraceptives that its owners consider to be "abortion-causing drugs and devices."
(Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)





































































After losing a last-minute appeal to the Supreme Court, craft chain Hobby Lobby will defy a federal healthcare mandate requiring employers to provide its workers with insurance that covers emergency contraceptives.


The Oklahoma City-based chain, which is owned by a conservative Christian family also with holdings in the religious bookseller Mardel Inc., had applied to the Supreme Court to block a part of the federal healthcare law ordering companies to offer insurance that covers contraceptive drugs including the morning-after pill.


After the court refused to block the mandate, a lawyer for Hobby Lobby said the Green family will defy the law and refuse to provide health coverage for contraception they considered to be "abortion-inducing."





Hobby Lobby and Mardel could be fined as much as $1.3 million a day starting Tuesday.


"They're not going to comply with the mandate," Kyle Duncan, general counsel of the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents the company, said in a statement. "They're not going to offer coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in the insurance plan."


At the time of their lawsuit, the Green family said certain types of contraception such as the morning-after pill and the week-after pill violated their religious beliefs against abortion.


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Stores hope last-minute Christmas shoppers revive holiday sales


Follow Shan Li on Twitter @ShanLi
































































































































































































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Boehner: Obama won't stand up to his own party on 'fiscal cliff'









WASHINGTON -- House Speaker John A. Boehner called it “ironic” that President Obama blamed Republicans for stalled negotiations on the "fiscal cliff" and accused the Democrat of being unwilling to stand up to his own party.


Responding to Obama’s appearance on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” the Ohio Republican said the GOP has been “reasonable and responsible” throughout the talks.


“In an effort to get the president to agree to cut spending -- which is the problem -- I put revenues on the table last year, and I put them on the table again last month,” Boehner said in a statement. “Republicans made every effort to reach the ‘balanced’ deficit agreement that the president promised the American people, while the president has continued to insist on a package skewed dramatically in favor of higher taxes that would destroy jobs.”





In an interview taped Saturday, Obama told NBC’s David Gregory that he remained “optimistic” that a deal could be reached, but said that in his mind, the sticking point was that Republicans “have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers.”


QUIZ: How much do you know about the fiscal cliff?


“Congress has not been able to get this stuff done, not because Democrats in Congress don't want to go ahead and cooperate, but because I think it's been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader [Mitch] McConnell to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit, as part of an overall deficit reduction package,” he said.


“I negotiated with Speaker Boehner in good faith and moved more than halfway in order to achieve a grand bargain.”


Earlier this month, Obama had offered to raise the income threshold for higher tax rates to $400,000, from the $250,000 he had campaigned on. Boehner pulled back from the negotiations and tried to pass what he called "Plan B," which would have boosted the threshold to $1 million. He failed to get support from House Republicans and did not bring it to the floor.


Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, responded that “while the president was taping those discordant remarks yesterday, Sen. McConnell was in the office working to bring Republicans and Democrats together on a solution. Discussions continue today.”


In his statement, Boehner noted that the House has passed multiple bills that would avert the entire fiscal cliff, addressing both the looming across-the-board tax increases and deep spending cuts.


“The president has never called for the Senate to act on those bills in any way. He instead has simply allowed the Democratic-controlled Senate to sit on them and lead our economy to the edge of the fiscal cliff,” Boehner said.


PHOTOS: Notable moments of the 2012 presidential election


The Senate has passed budget bills that the House has not acted upon.


The House is due to gavel in Sunday afternoon, with votes expected on unrelated bills. The Senate is in session while leaders and staff continue to seek a solution that would garner enough votes to move over to the House.


“We know that there are negotiations going on,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said on the Senate floor. “I really hope our leaders can find a way out of this.”


Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook


michael.memoli@latimes.com


twitter.com/mikememoli





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Hidden Powers of Your Mouse






You use your mouse for just about everything: you drag, you drop, you highlight, you scroll. But even if you click your mouse a thousand times a day, I bet I’ve got a few secret mouse tricks you’ve never heard of.


Click Tricks
You surely know that double clicking highlights a word, and you might even know that triple clicking highlights a paragraph. But have you ever wanted to select a column of text in a Word document, without getting all the text to the left and right of it? Here’s how you can: Hold down the alt and left mouse button (on a Mac, option-left mouse), and drag the cursor over the section you want to select. The coolest thing about this trick is that the text you are selecting does not even need to be formatted as a column for this to work.3e0bc  uyl ep83 large1 Hidden Powers of Your Mouse






[Related: 8 Microsoft Word Shortcuts You Probably Don't Know]


Scroll Tricks
Most mice have a scroll wheel. Sure, it takes you up and down on a page, but in combination with other keys, it can do much more:


  • Scroll sideways: In many versions of Excel, holding down the shift key while scrolling will take you sideways. That’s super helpful in a big spreadsheet.

  • Scroll wheel as back button: In most web browsers, if you hold the shift key while using the scroll wheel, it works like the back button: You can fly through all the sites you’ve recently visited. (Some mice have side buttons that work like back and forward buttons in your browser, too.)

  • Scroll to zoom: Holding ctrl and scrolling lets you zoom in or out of the page you’re viewing. Ctrl-scroll up zooms you in; ctrl-scroll down zooms you back out. On a Mac, this trick will zoom in and out your whole screen, not just the document you’re in.

Windows-Specific Tricks
While most of the tricks I’ve listed so far work in either Windows or Mac OS, here are a few that are specific to Windows machines:


  • To maximize a window: drag the title bar to the top.

  • To minimize all windows except the active window: “Shake” the title bar. Then if you want to restore all the windows you just minimized with this shortcut, just click again on the title bar of the window in view.

  • To view two windows in a 50-50 split: Drag the title bar of one document to the left edge of your screen, then drag a second document to the right edge; they will snap into position in a nifty side-by-side view.

Bonus Sneaky Trick
Suppose you want to walk away from your hyper-secure work computer for a few minutes and not have to re-log in when you get back. Sure, you could change the sleep settings, but this idea is much more clever: Set your mouse on top of your analog watch or a clock. The mouse tracks the second hand’s movement and it tricks your computer into thinking you’re still busy working. Of course, there are valid security reasons for NOT using this trick, but I still think it’s cool that it works.


Did we miss your favorite mouse trick? Like us on Facebook, and share your secret there.


[Related: How to Speed Up Your Internet Browsing]


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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'The Hobbit' stays atop box office for third week


LOS ANGELES (AP) — "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" continues to rule them all at the box office, staying on top for a third-straight week and capping a record-setting $10.8 billion year in moviegoing.


The Warner Bros. fantasy epic from director Peter Jackson, based on the beloved J.R.R. Tolkien novel, made nearly $33 million this weekend, according to Sunday studio estimates, despite serious competition from some much-anticipated newcomers. It's now made $222.7 million domestically alone.


Two big holiday movies — and potential Academy Awards contenders — also had strong openings. Quentin Tarantino's spaghetti Western-blaxploitation mash-up "Django Unchained" came in second place for the weekend with $30.7 million. The Weinstein Co. revenge comedy, starring Jamie Foxx as a slave in the Civil War South and Christoph Waltz as the bounty hunter who frees him and then makes him his partner, has earned $64 million since its Christmas Day opening.


And in third place with $28 million was the sweeping, all-singing "Les Miserables," based on the international musical sensation and the Victor Hugo novel of strife and uprising in 19th century France. The Universal Pictures film, with a cast of A-list actors singing live on camera led by Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway and Russell Crowe has made $67.5 million domestically and $116.2 worldwide since debuting on Christmas.


Additionally, the smash-hit James Bond adventure "Skyfall" has now made $1 billion internationally to become the most successful film yet in the 50-year franchise, Sony Pictures announced Sunday. The film stars Daniel Craig for the third time as the iconic British superspy.


"This is a great final weekend of the year," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "How perfect to end this year on such a strong note with the top five films performing incredibly well."


The week's other new wide release, the Billy Crystal-Bette Midler comedy "Parental Guidance" from 20th Century Fox, made $14.8 million over the weekend for fourth place and $29.6 million total since opening on Christmas.


Dergarabedian described the holding power of "The Hobbit" in its third week as "just amazing." Jackson shot the film, the first of three prequels to his massively successful "Lord of the Rings" series, in 48 frames per second — double the normal frame rate — for a crisper, more detailed image. It's also available in the usual 24 frames per second and both 2-D and 3-D projections.


"I think people are catching up with the movie. Maybe they're seeing it in multiple formats," he said. "I think it's just a big epic that feels like a great way to end the moviegoing year. There's momentum there with this movie."


"Django Unchained" is just as much of an epic in its own stylishly violent way that's quintessentially Tarantino. Erik Lomis, The Weinstein Co.'s president of theatrical distribution, said the opening exceeded the studio's expectations.


"We're thrilled with it, clearly. We knew it was extremely competitive at Christmas, particularly when you look at the start 'Les Miz' got. We were sort of resigned to being behind them. The fact that we were able to overtake them over the weekend was just great," Lomis said. "Taking nothing away from their number, it's a tribute to the playability of 'Django.'"


"Les Miserables" went into its opening weekend with nearly $40 million in North American grosses, including $18.2 on Christmas Day. That's the second-best opening ever on the holiday following "Sherlock Holmes," which made $24.9 million on Christmas 2009. Tom Hooper, in a follow-up to his Oscar-winner "The King's Speech," directs an enormous, ambitious take on the beloved musical which has earned a CinemaScore of "A'' from audiences and "A-plus" from women.


Nikki Rocco, Universal's head of distribution, said the debut for "Les Miserables" also beat the studio's expectations.


"That $18.2 million Christmas Day opening — people were shocked. ... This is a musical!" she said. "Once people see it, they talk about how fabulous it is."


It all adds up to a record-setting year at the movies, beating the previous annual record of $10.6 billion set in 2009. Dergarabedian pointed out that the hits came scattered throughout the year, not just during the summer blockbuster season or prestige-picture time at the end. "Contraband," ''Safe House" and "The Vow" all performed well early on, but then when the big movies came, they were huge. "The Avengers" had the biggest opening ever with $207.4 million in May. The raunchy comedy "Ted" and comic-book behemoth "The Dark Knight Rises" both found enormous audiences. And Paul Thomas Anderson's challenging drama "The Master" shattered records in September when it opened on five screens in New York and Los Angeles with $736,311, for a staggering per-screen average of $147,262.


"We were able to get this record without scratching and clawing to a record," he said.


Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.


1. "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," $32.9 million.


2. "Django Unchained," $30.7 million.


3. "Les Miserables," $28 million.


4. "Parental Guidance," $14.8 million.


5. "Jack Reacher," $14 million.


6. "This Is 40," $13.2 million.


7. "Lincoln," $7.5 million.


8. "The Guilt Trip," $6.7 million.


9. "Monsters, Inc. 3-D," $6.4 million.


10. "Rise of the Guardians," $4.9 million.


___


Online:


http://www.hollywood.com


___


Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.


Read More..

Obama blames GOP for 'fiscal cliff' brinksmanship









WASHINGTON -- President Obama blamed Republican leaders for the latest round of brinkmanship in Washington and said it was now up to lawmakers to find a way back from the so-called fiscal cliff.


In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” aired Sunday, Obama said he had reached out to Republicans for weeks, but their refusal to raise taxes had blocked progress.


“They have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers,” Obama said. In Friday’s meeting with congressional leaders at the White House, “I suggested to them if they can't do a comprehensive package of smart deficit reductions, let's at minimum make sure that people's taxes don't go up and that 2 million people don't lose their unemployment insurance.





“And I was modestly optimistic yesterday,” he added in the interview taped Saturday, referring to the aftermath of that meeting, “but we don't yet see an agreement. And now the pressure's on Congress to produce.”


PHOTOS: Notable moments of the 2012 presidential election


Senate leaders and their aides spent Saturday working on a deal that would protect most taxpayers from seeing their incomes taxes rise Jan. 1. The deal may also set new estate tax rates, prevent an expansion of the alternative minimum tax and extend unemployment insurance.


If the effort is successful, a final proposal is expected later Sunday, when senators are set to meet in party caucuses.


A spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded to the president's criticism:


"While the president was taping those discordant remarks yesterday, Sen. McConnell was in the office working to bring Republicans and Democrats together on a solution," Don Stewart said. "Discussions continue today."


In the interview, Obama said he expected an “adverse reaction in the markets” and depressed consumer spending if lawmakers allow the tax increase to take effect as scheduled -- and he tried to lay the blame on Republicans. Economists have suggested the combination of the tax increases, along with nearly $65 billion in spending cuts, could knock the economy back into a recession.


Obama did not offer a clear strategy for avoiding those spending cuts, which Congress and the president agreed to in 2011 as a way to force themselves to act on a larger deficit reduction deal. That deal has remained elusive, and Obama said in the interview that Republicans have had trouble saying yes to his offers.


QUIZ: How much do you know about the fiscal cliff?


Pressed by host David Gregory on why that is, Obama answered:


“That's something you're probably going to have to ask them, because, David, you follow this stuff pretty carefully. The offers that I’ve made to them have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me. I mean, I offered to make some significant changes to our entitlement programs in order to reduce the deficit,” he said, referring specifically to a change in the way Social Security cost of living increases are calculated, which many liberal groups opposed.


“They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they're behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme.”


Obama has tried to frame the debate as a battle over taxes. One Republican acknowledged Sunday that the president appears poised to win the political battle on that front. If lawmakers agree on allowing taxes to rise on top earners, “it will accomplish a political victory for the president,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina


“Hats off to the president. He stood his ground; he’s going to get tax rate increases … on upper income Americans. And the sad news for the country is we’ve accomplished very little in terms of not becoming Greece or getting out of debt.… Hats off to the president -- he won.”


[For the Record, 8:05 a.m. PST  Dec. 30: This post has been updated to include reactions to Obama's comments from McConnell's office.]


Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook


kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com


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New NHL proposal sets Jan. 19 deadline to open season













Bill Daly, Steve Fehr


Bill Daly, deputy commissioner of the NHL, and Steve Fehr of the NHL Players Assn., address the media following negotiations earlier this month.
(Bruce Bennett / Getty Images / December 4, 2012)





































































An amended collective bargaining proposal made by the NHL late Thursday to the players union includes a deadline to open training camps by Jan. 12 for a Jan. 19 start to the season or the 2012-13 season will be canceled, according to a source with knowledge of the matter but not authorized to speak about it publicly.


The source also confirmed earlier reports by many media outlets, led by ESPN.com, that the league had softened its stance on several key issues that had fueled the two sides' differences.


A Jan. 19 start would allow for a 48-game season, as the league played following a labor dispute that delayed the 1994-95 season.





Players are expected to discuss the proposal via conference call Friday and will probably make a counterproposal. NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said in a statement that the league had made “a new, comprehensive proposal” late Thursday, but he would not disclose the details.


It’s believed the NHL stayed firm on a 10-year term for the next labor deal, with an opt-out clause after eight years. Its “make-whole” offer of $300 million also remains intact as a means of easing players’ transition from last season’s 57% share of hockey-related revenues to a 50-50 split.


The NHL, which had previously proposed a five-year limit on player contracts with an exception of seven-year deals for teams to re-sign their own free agents, proposed a six-year limit while keeping the seven-year exception. It also increased the year-to-year variance allowed within a contract to 10% from 5% and would allow each team to buy out one player as a “compliance” issue as the new labor deal goes into effect. The amount of that player’s contract would not count against the team’s salary cap figure but would count toward players’ share of hockey-related revenues.


The salary cap next season would be set at $60 million and there would be no limit on escrow. The NHl Players Assn. had wanted a limit on escrow and had wanted buyouts, so it remains to be seen if players will accept the league’s latest proposal on that point.


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Contest winners to join Beyonce onstage at Super Bowl


Matt Leinart says he deserves the start this week for Raiders






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FBI removes many redactions in Marilyn Monroe file


LOS ANGELES (AP) — FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning acquaintances who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.


But the files, which previously had been heavily redacted, do not contain any new information about Monroe's death 50 years ago. Letters and news clippings included in the file show the bureau was aware of theories the actress had been killed, but they do not show that any effort was undertaken to investigate the claims. Los Angeles authorities concluded Monroe's death was a probable suicide.


Recently obtained by The Associated Press through the Freedom of Information Act, the updated FBI files do show the extent the agency was monitoring Monroe for ties to communism in the years before her death in August 1962.


The records reveal that some in Monroe's inner circle were concerned about her association with Frederick Vanderbilt Field, who was disinherited from his wealthy family over his leftist views.


A trip to Mexico earlier that year to shop for furniture brought Monroe in contact with Field, who was living in the country with his wife in self-imposed exile. Informants reported to the FBI that a "mutual infatuation" had developed between Field and Monroe, which caused concern among some in her inner circle, including her therapist, the files state.


"This situation caused considerable dismay among Miss Monroe's entourage and also among the (American Communist Group in Mexico)," the file states. It includes references to an interior decorator who worked with Monroe's analyst reporting her connection to Field to the doctor.


Field's autobiography devotes an entire chapter to Monroe's Mexico trip, "An Indian Summer Interlude." He mentions that he and his wife accompanied Monroe on shopping trips and meals and he only mentions politics once in a passage on their dinnertime conversations.


"She talked mostly about herself and some of the people who had been or still were important to her," Field wrote in "From Right to Left." ''She told us about her strong feelings for civil rights, for black equality, as well as her admiration for what was being done in China, her anger at red-baiting and McCarthyism and her hatred of (FBI director) J. Edgar Hoover."


Under Hoover's watch, the FBI kept tabs on the political and social lives of many celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Charlie Chaplin and Monroe's ex-husband Arthur Miller. The bureau has also been involved in numerous investigations about crimes against celebrities, including threats against Elizabeth Taylor, an extortion case involving Clark Gable and more recently, trying to solve who killed rapper Notorious B.I.G.


The AP had sought the removal of redactions from Monroe's FBI files earlier this year as part of a series of stories on the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death. The FBI had reported that it had transferred the files to a National Archives facility in Maryland, but archivists said the documents had not been received. A few months after requesting details on the transfer, the FBI released an updated version of the files that eliminate dozens of redactions.


For years, the files have intrigued investigators, biographers and those who don't believe Monroe's death at her Los Angeles area home was a suicide.


A 1982 investigation by the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office found no evidence of foul play after reviewing all available investigative records, but noted that the FBI files were "heavily censored."


That characterization intrigued the man who performed Monroe's autopsy, Dr. Thomas Noguchi. While the DA investigation concluded he conducted a thorough autopsy, Noguchi has conceded that no one will likely ever know all the details of Monroe's death. The FBI files and confidential interviews conducted with the actress' friends that have never been made public might help, he wrote in his 1983 memoir "Coroner."


"On the basis of my own involvement in the case, beginning with the autopsy, I would call Monroe's suicide 'very probable,'" Noguchi wrote. "But I also believe that until the complete FBI files are made public and the notes and interviews of the suicide panel released, controversy will continue to swirl around her death."


Monroe's file begins in 1955 and mostly focuses on her travels and associations, searching for signs of leftist views and possible ties to communism. One entry, which previously had been almost completely redacted, concerned intelligence that Monroe and other entertainers sought visas to visit Russia that year.


The file continues up until the months before her death, and also includes several news stories and references to Norman Mailer's biography of the actress, which focused on questions about whether Monroe was killed by the government.


For all the focus on Monroe's closeness to suspected communists, the bureau never found any proof she was a member of the party.


"Subject's views are very positively and concisely leftist; however, if she is being actively used by the Communist Party, it is not general knowledge among those working with the movement in Los Angeles," a July 1962 entry in Monroe's file states.


___


Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP


Read More..

Surgery Returns to NYU Langone Medical Center


Chang W. Lee/The New York Times


Senator Charles E. Schumer spoke at a news conference Thursday about the reopening of NYU Langone Medical Center.







NYU Langone Medical Center opened its doors to surgical patients on Thursday, almost two months after Hurricane Sandy overflowed the banks of the East River and forced the evacuation of hundreds of patients.




While the medical center had been treating many outpatients, it had farmed out surgery to other hospitals, which created scheduling problems that forced many patients to have their operations on nights and weekends, when staffing is traditionally low. Some patients and doctors had to postpone not just elective but also necessary operations for lack of space at other hospitals.


The medical center’s Tisch Hospital, its major hospital for inpatient services, between 30th and 34th Streets on First Avenue, had been closed since the hurricane knocked out power and forced the evacuation of more than 300 patients, some on sleds brought down darkened flights of stairs.


“I think it’s a little bit of a miracle on 34th Street that this happened so quickly,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York said Thursday.


Mr. Schumer credited the medical center’s leadership and esprit de corps, and also a tour of the damaged hospital on Nov. 9 by the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, W. Craig Fugate, whom he and others escorted through watery basement hallways.


“Every time I talk to Fugate there are a lot of questions, but one is, ‘How are you doing at NYU?’ ” the senator said.


The reopening of Tisch to surgery patients and associated services, like intensive care, some types of radiology and recovery room anesthesia, was part of a phased restoration that will continue. Besides providing an essential service, surgery is among the more lucrative of hospital services.


The hospital’s emergency department is expected to delay its reopening for about 11 months, in part to accommodate an expansion in capacity to 65,000 patient visits a year, from 43,000, said Dr. Andrew W. Brotman, its senior vice president and vice dean for clinical affairs and strategy.


In the meantime, NYU Langone is setting up an urgent care center with 31 bays and an observation unit, which will be able to treat some emergency patients. It will initially not accept ambulances, but might be able to later, Dr. Brotman said. Nearby Bellevue Hospital Center, which was also evacuated, opened its emergency department to noncritical injuries on Monday.


Labor and delivery, the cancer floor, epilepsy treatment and pediatrics and neurology beyond surgery are expected to open in mid-January, Langone officials said. While some radiology equipment, which was in the basement, has been restored, other equipment — including a Gamma Knife, a device using radiation to treat brain tumors — is not back.


The flooded basement is still being worked on, and electrical gear has temporarily been moved upstairs. Mr. Schumer, a Democrat, said that a $60 billion bill to pay for hurricane losses and recovery in New York and New Jersey was nearing a vote, and that he was optimistic it would pass in the Senate with bipartisan support. But the measure’s fate in the Republican-controlled House is far less certain.


The bill includes $1.2 billion for damage and lost revenue at NYU Langone, including some money from the National Institutes of Health to restore research projects. It would also cover Long Beach Medical Center in Nassau County, Bellevue, Coney Island Hospital and the Veterans Affairs hospital in Manhattan.


Read More..

Port strike in eastern U.S. averted with 30-day contract extension









The labor contract covering more than 15,000 dockworkers at 14 Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast ports has been extended for 30 more days, heading off a strike that could have begun as early as Sunday.


George H. Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, a government agency, said the International Longshoremen's Association and United States Maritime Alliance Ltd. had reached an agreement on one of the most contentious issues in the talks.


That issue involves so-called container royalty fees on cargo, which supplement dockworker wages. Employers have sought to cap those fees and limit who gets them. The union has opposed those changes.





"The container royalty payment issue has been agreed upon in principle by the parties," Cohen said in a statement, "subject to achieving an overall collective bargaining agreement."


The parties also agreed to extend their contract an additional 30 days, until midnight Jan. 28, Cohen said.


The ILA and the maritime alliance, which represents cargo shipping lines, cargo terminals and port associations on the East and Gulf coasts, have been negotiating since March to reach agreement on a new six-year contract.


When the last contract expired in September, both sides agreed to a 90-day contract extension that was set to expire this weekend.


The 14 seaports that would have been affected by a strike include several of the largest outside of the western United States.


According to the American Assn. of Port Authorities, the 14 ports handle 44% of the cargo containers that enter or leave the U.S.


Those facilities include the Port Authority of New York-New Jersey, which ranks third behind the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in cargo container traffic.


Savannah, the nation's fourth-busiest container port, and Houston, the busiest on the Gulf Coast, would have also been affected.


The possibility of another strike on the heels of a walkout that idled most of the Port of Los Angeles and half of the Port of Long Beach for eight days, beginning in late November, had worried some retailers, manufacturers, farmers and other port customers.


On Thursday, the Obama administration urged both sides to "continue their work at the negotiating table to get a deal done as quickly as possible" to avoid a strike.


The National Retail Federation, which represents many of the nation's largest retail chains, said Friday it was pleased to learn of the latest contract extension.


“We continue to urge both parties to remain at the negotiating table until a long-term contract agreement is finalized," said Matthew Shay, chief executive of the federation.

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Home sales rose in November


Stocks slide as fears build on fiscal cliff


No violations found in Countrywide VIP probe





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USC football: Matt Barkley will not play in Sun Bowl























































































Matt Barkley


Matt Barkley winces in pain after being sacked during USC's loss to UCLA.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / December 27, 2012)





































































Lane Kiffin finally made it official Thursday, announcing USC quarterback Matt Barkley will not play in the Sun Bowl.


Redshirt freshman Max Wittek will start for the Trojans on Monday against Georgia Tech.


Barkley suffered a shoulder sprain on Nov. 17 against UCLA and has not practiced since, but Kiffin had said the senior would be evaluated once the Trojans arrived in El Paso, Texas.





Barkley did not practice Wednesday or Thursday, except to perform some conditioning drills.


Barkley passed for 36 touchdowns, with 15 interceptions, in 11 games this season.


He finishes his career with 64.1% completion percentage and 12,327 passing yards. Barkley passed for a Pac-12 Conference record 116 touchdowns, with 48  interceptions.


This will be the second start for Wittek, who played in the Trojans’ loss to Notre Dame in the regular-season finale.


ALSO:


David Beckham has plenty of options next year


Tim Tebow snubbed again; Mark Sanchez to start Sunday for Jets


Mayors of Stanford, Wisconsin hometowns announce Rose Bowl wager























































































































































































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