The X Factor Reveals Season 2 Finalists
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The X Factor
Carly Rose Sonenclar, Emblem3, Tate Stevens and Fifth Harmony
Ray Mickshaw/FOX (4)
Sparks will fly at the finale!
On Thursday, The X Factor revealed its top three acts, who will perform next week in the final night of competition – in hopes of taking home the $5 million recording contract.
Simon Cowell said it would take a miracle to get his girl group, Fifth Harmony, to the finale after they performed Shontelle's "Impossible" and Ellie Goulding's "Anything Could Happen" on Wednesday. Keep reading to find out if their dream came true ...
Apparently, miracles do happen! Fifth Harmony was the first act to be sent through to the finale.
They will compete against departing judge L.A. Reid's country singer, Tate Stevens, and Britney Spears's only remaining contestant, Carly Rose Sonenclar.
That means Simon's promising boy band, Emblem3, are out of the running for the big prize.
"This is the way it goes on competitions," Simon said. "I'm gutted really for them ... But it happens."
Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants
Label: HealthALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.
The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.
To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.
But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.
When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.
And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.
In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."
The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.
Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.
Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.
A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.
California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.
The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.
And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.
If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.
Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.
The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.
"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."
Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.
There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.
Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.
For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.
"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."
___
Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .
Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .
State population rises in sign of economic recovery
Label: BusinessCalifornia's population has grown to 37.8 million, continuing the state's trend of slowing but steady growth — about 1% annually — over the last decade, according to new population estimates released by the state Department of Finance.
The population increased by 256,000 people since July 2011, a growth rate of 0.7%. It's roughly the same growth rate as last year, but some experts pointed to an uptick in the number of people moving in and out of California and between counties as a sign of economic recovery.
"We've been mired in this deep slump, economically and demographically, and we're all looking for signs of revival," said USC demography and urban planning professor Dowell Myers. "During the recession, everyone froze. People didn't move as fast as normal."
In Los Angeles County, more people moved out than into the county in 2011, but at a significantly slower rate than in 2010, the state numbers show.
"Overall, movements are speeding up in both directions, but L.A.'s attraction is winning the war," said Myers, who also noticed an increase in movement in the entire western region, particularly among young adults. "It means the system is unfreezing, it's loosening up....This is the beginning."
Recent estimates by the American Community Survey showed that about 100,000 more Californians left the state than moved here. Most of those who left headed to Texas, Arizona and Oregon.
But state demographers cautioned that the out-of-state migration numbers may appear misleading because immigrants often enter through California before settling in other states.
"People see that so many people are leaving the state, and they think 'oh, it's because California business is bad,' " said Bill Schooling, chief of demographics research for the state Department of Finance. "It's more that California, particularly with counties like L.A., is a huge gateway state."
Los Angeles remains the state's most populous county, with more than 9.9 million residents. More than 26% of the state's entire population lives within the Los Angeles County limits.
Schooling noted that much of the state's population growth was concentrated in coastal counties, where people tend to be younger and more mobile.
Economists also said that job growth has been much stronger along the coast, particularly with growth in foreign trade, technology and tourism.
"The state recovery really started in the Bay Area, spread to Orange County and San Diego, and in the last six months, has spread to L.A. County," said Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. "Slow population growth is consistent with the early phase of recovery."
Births helped maintain the population growth, with 503,000 babies born in California between July 2011 and July 2012. There were 234,000 deaths in the state during the same time, a slight increase from past years, according to the state estimates.
Until the state becomes more stable economically, it is difficult to make long-term population projections, experts said.
"This is a step in the right direction," Myers said. "And we will, we should, have much better news next year."
rosanna.xia@latimes.com
U.S. Citizen Is Said to Be Held in North Korea
Label: World
SEOUL, South Korea — A 44-year-old American citizen has been held in North Korea for a month, a human rights activist in Seoul said on Thursday. The alleged detention comes at a particularly sensitive time for Washington, which is trying to rally support for a new round of penalties against Pyongyang over its launching of a rocket this week.
Kenneth Bae, who runs a company that specializes in taking tourists and prospective investors to North Korea, had visited the country several times without incident before being detained about a month ago, according to Do Hee-youn, head of the Seoul-based Citizens’ Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees. Mr. Do said he had learned of Mr. Bae’s detention through a mutual friend in China.
“We’re obviously aware of these reports that a U.S. citizen has been detained in North Korea,” Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department in Washington, said at a briefing Tuesday. “We obviously have no higher priority than the welfare of our citizens.” Ms. Nuland declined to comment further, citing privacy considerations.
South Korean news reports said Mr. Bae, a naturalized United States citizen who was born in South Korea, was detained after bringing five European tourists into North Korea through the city of Rajin on Nov. 3. The Europeans were allowed to leave the country, the reports said. Pyongyang operates a free-trade zone in Rajin, which is near the Russian border, but has had difficulty attracting foreign investors.
Mr. Do said he had few details about the circumstance of Mr. Bae’s alleged arrest. The South Korean daily Kookmin Ilbo cited an unnamed source as saying that Mr. Bae was detained after North Korean security officials found a computer hard disk suspected to contain sensitive information about the country. Mr. Bae was later transferred to Pyongyang for further investigation, according to that report.
Mr. Do said that Mr. Bae was interested in helping orphans who beg for food in North Korean markets. “The most plausible scenario I can think of is that he took some pictures of the orphans and the North Korean authorities considered that an act of anti-North Korean propaganda,” he said.
In recent years, several American citizens have made headlines by ending up in North Korean custody. In 2010, North Korea detained and then set free Robert Park, a Korean-American Christian activist who had entered the country to draw international attention to the North’s poor human rights record. A year earlier, former President Bill Clinton flew to Pyongyang to win the release of two American journalists who had been arrested near the Chinese border while on a reporting trip covering North Korean refugees.
The United States has no diplomatic presence in Pyongyang. It depends on the Swedish Embassy there to intervene on its behalf for issues involving American citizens in North Korea.
On Wednesday, North Korea launched a long-range rocket that put a satellite into orbit, prompting the United States and its allies in Asia to try to marshal support for further sanctions against Pyongyang.
Google Maps makes its way back to the iPhone
Label: Technology(Reuters) – Google‘s navigation tool has returned to the iPhone, months after Apple‘s home-grown mapping service flopped, prompting user complaints, the firing of an executive and a public apology from Apple’s CEO.
The Google Maps app will be compatible with any iPhone or iPod Touch that runs iOS 5.1 or higher, the company said in a blog post. (http://link.reuters.com/jek64t)
Apple launched its own service in early September, and dropped Google Maps, when it launched the iPhone 5 and rolled out iOS 6, an upgrade to its mobile software platform.
Users complained that Apple’s new map service, based on Dutch navigation equipment and digital map maker TomTom’s data, contained errors and lacked features that made Google Maps popular.
In October, Scott Forstall, a long-time lieutenant of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, was asked to leave the company partly because of his refusal to take responsibility for the mishandling of the mapping software.
While Apple Maps offered soaring ‘flyover’ views of major cities, it had no public transit directions, limited traffic information, and obvious mistakes such as putting one city in the middle of the ocean.
This led to Apple chief executive Tim Cook apologizing to customers frustrated with the service and, in an unusual move for the U.S. consumer group, directed them to rival services such as Google’s Maps instead.
(Reporting by Tej Sapru and Ankur Banerjee in Bangalore; Editing by Chris Gallagher and Dan Lalor)
Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Tevin Hunte Is 'So Happy' After His Voice Elimination
Label: Lifestyle
TV Watch
The Voice
Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte was eliminated on Tuesday's episode of The Voice, but the soulful singer isn't letting the end of this journey hold him back.
"I feel like the best person on the planet Earth. I am so happy and excited to be honest," Hunte told PEOPLE after the show. I feel like a weight has been lifted. Being away from family and friends and what you're used to was definitely a hard thing for me."
Hunte is looking forward to his mom's cooking and seeing his friends back home, and he won't waste a second wondering what if he'd made it further.
"I have no regrets. I am glad that I took a leap of faith and auditioned," he said. "I auditioned for American Idol and told my family I didn't have the strength to do it again. But I am definitely happy and excited that I made it this far."
And he still has a long way to go. "I'm only 18," he said. "I'm just really excited."
Dozens sue pharmacy, but compensation uncertain
Label: HealthNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dennis O'Brien rubs his head as he details ailments triggered by the fungal meningitis he developed after a series of steroid shots in his neck: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, exhaustion and trouble with his speech and attention.
He estimates the disease has cost him and his wife thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket expenses and her lost wages, including time spent on 6-hour round trip weekly visits to the hospital. They've filed a lawsuit seeking $4 million in damages from the Massachusetts pharmacy that supplied the steroid injections, but it could take years for them to get any money back and they may never get enough to cover their expenses. The same is true for dozens of others who have sued the New England Compounding Center.
"I don't have a life anymore. My life is a meningitis life," the 59-year-old former school teacher said, adding that he's grateful he survived.
His is one of at least 50 federal lawsuits in nine states that have been filed against NECC, and more are being filed in state courts every day. More than 500 people have gotten sick after receiving injections prepared by the pharmacy.
The lawsuits allege that NECC negligently produced a defective and dangerous product and seek millions to repay families for the death of spouses, physically painful recoveries, lost wages and mental and emotional suffering. Thirty-seven people have died in the outbreak.
"The truth is the chance of recovering damages from NECC is extremely low," said John Day, a Nashville attorney who represents several patients who have been sickened by fungal meningitis.
To streamline the process, attorneys on both sides are asking to have a single judge preside over the pretrial and discovery phases for all of the federal lawsuits.
This approach, called multidistrict litigation, would prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings and conserve resources of all parties. But unlike a class-action case, those lawsuits would eventually be returned to judges in their original district for trial, according to Brian Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville.
Even with this approach, Fitzpatrick noted that federal litigation is very slow, and gathering all the evidence, records and depositions during the discovery phase could take months or years.
"Most of the time what happens is once they are consolidated for pretrial proceedings, there is a settlement, a global settlement between all the lawyers and the defendants before anything is shipped back for trial," he said.
A lawyer representing NECC, Frederick H. Fern, described the consolidation process as an important step.
"A Boston venue is probably the best scenario," Fern said in an email. "That's where the parties, witnesses and documents are located, and where the acts subject to these complaints occurred."
Complicating efforts to recover damages, attorneys for the patients said, NECC is a small private company that has now recalled all its products and laid off its workers. The company's pharmacy licenses have been surrendered, and it's unclear whether NECC had adequate liability insurance.
Fern said NECC has insurance, but they were still determining what the policy covers.
But Day says, "It's clear to me that at the end of the day, NECC is not going to have sufficient assets to compensate any of these people, not even 1 percent."
As a result, many attorneys are seeking compensation from other parties. Among the additional defendants named in lawsuits are NECC pharmacist and co-founder Barry Cadden; co-founder Greg Conigliaro; sister company Ameridose and its marketing and support arm, Medical Sales Management.
Founded in 2006 by Cadden and Conigliaro, Ameridose would eventually report annual revenue of $100 million. An NECC spokesman didn't respond to a request for the pharmacy's revenue.
While Federal Drug Administration regulators have also found contamination issues at Westborough, Mass.-based Ameridose, the FDA has said it has not connected Ameridose drugs to infection or illness.
Under tort law, a lawsuit has to prove a defendant has a potential liability, which in this case could be anyone involved in the medical procedure. However, any such suit could take years and ultimately may not be successful.
"I would not be surprised if doctors, hospitals, people that actually injected the drugs, the people that bought the drugs from the compounding company, many of those people will also be sued," said Fitzpatrick.
Plaintiffs' attorneys said they're considering that option but want more information on the relationships between the compounding pharmacy and the hundreds of hospitals and clinics that received its products.
Day, the attorney in Tennessee, said the clinics and doctors that purchase their drugs from compounding pharmacies or manufacturers could be held liable for negligence because they are in a better position to determine the safety of the medicine than the patients.
"Did they use due care in determining from whom to buy these drugs?" Day said.
Terry Dawes, a Michigan attorney who has filed at least 10 federal lawsuits in the case, said in traditional product liability cases, a pharmaceutical distributor could be liable.
"We are looking at any conceivable sources of recovery for our clients including pharmaceutical supply places that may have dealt with this company in the past," he said.
Ten years ago, seven fungal meningitis illnesses and deaths were linked to injectable steroid from a South Carolina compounding pharmacy. That resulted in fewer than a dozen lawsuits, a scale much smaller than the litigations mounting up against NECC.
Two companies that insured the South Carolina pharmacy and its operators tried unsuccessfully to deny payouts. An appellate court ruled against their argument that the pharmacy willfully violated state regulations by making multiple vials of the drug without specific prescriptions, but the opinion was unpublished and doesn't set a precedent for the current litigation.
The lawsuits represent a way for patients and their families recover expenses, but also to hold the pharmacy and others accountable for the incalculable emotional and physical toll of the disease.
A binder of snapshots shows what life is like in the O'Briens' rural Fentress County, Tenn., home: Dennis hooked up to an IV, Dennis in an antibiotics stupor, bruises on his body from injections and blood tests. He's had three spinal taps. His 11-day stay in the hospital cost over $100,000, which was covered by health insurance.
His wife said she sometimes quietly checks at night to see whether her husband of 35 years is still breathing.
"In my mind, I thought we were going to fight this and get over it. But we are not ever going to get over it," said Kaye O'Brien.
Marjorie Norwood, a 59-year-old grandmother of three who lives in Ethridge, Tenn., has spent just shy of two months total in the hospital in Nashville battling fungal meningitis after receiving a steroid injection in her back. She was allowed to come home for almost a week around Thanksgiving, but was readmitted after her symptoms worsened.
Family members are still dealing with much uncertainty about her recovery, but they have not filed a lawsuit, said their attorney Mark Chalos. He said Norwood will likely be sent to a rehabilitation facility after her second stay in the hospital rather than return home again.
Marjorie Norwood's husband, an autoworker, has taken time off work to care for her and they depend on his income and insurance.
"It doesn't just change her life, it changes everyone else's life around her because we care about her and want her to be happy and well and have everything that she needs," said her daughter, Melanie Norwood.
$100-million gift to cover costs for 30-plus UCLA medical students
Label: BusinessMore than 30 incoming medical school students will get a full ride to UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine thanks to a $100-million gift from the school's benefactor.
The donation by Geffen, a philanthropist and entertainment executive, will create a scholarship fund to cover the recipients' entire cost of medical school, including tuition, room and board, books and other expenses.
"It is a fantastic vote of confidence for higher education," said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. "We're eternally grateful."
The gift, which will be announced Thursday, makes Geffen the largest individual donor to UCLA and to any single UC campus. In 2002, Geffen donated $200 million in unrestricted funds to the medical school. At the time, the campus was renamed in his honor.
Geffen, 69, declined to comment but said in a statement that students shouldn't be discouraged by the expense of medical school.
"The cost of a world-class medical education should not deter our future innovators, doctors and scientists from the path they hope to pursue," he said. "We need the students at this world-class institution to be driven by determination and the desire to do their best work and not by the fear of crushing debt. I hope in doing this that others will be inspired to do the same."
More than 85% of medical school students nationwide graduate with some debt. Among those, the average is $170,000, according to the Assn. of American Medical Colleges. That debt often influences graduates' career choices and has contributed to a shortage of primary care doctors, who often earn less than specialists. That shortage will be exacerbated by the aging of the population and the federal expansion of health coverage to the uninsured.
The UCLA scholarships are "unprecedented," said John Prescott, chief academic officer for the association. "My mouth dropped open when I saw this," he said. "It is going to create quite a legacy for the school."
The medical school's dean, A. Eugene Washington, said that he was thrilled by the donation and that it will free scholarship recipients from the tremendous burden of debt. The four-year tab for medical school students entering next fall could exceed $300,000 in tuition, housing, fees and other costs.
The scholarship will allow the school to free up some of the money it uses for financial aid and will enable students to follow their passions and become leading physicians and researchers without worrying about paying off loans, he said. "It is going to be for a group of the top students who will be freed up to pursue whatever their interests are," he said.
The David Geffen Medical Scholarship Fund will provide scholarships for up to 33 students beginning medical school in 2013. Up to three of the scholarships are available for students pursuing a joint doctorate and medical school degree. The students will be chosen based on merit, not financial need.
Block said the scholarships will help recruit more of the nation's top medical school applicants. Already, more than 7,500 applicants compete for 163 first-year slots at the school.
Emily Dubina, 25, a third-year medical school student at UCLA, received a partial scholarship from Geffen's original contribution. The new scholarships, she said, are an amazing opportunity that will take away a lot of the stress of day-to-day life. The recipients will be able to focus on becoming great physicians rather than on how much money they are spending on their education.
"I so wish they had that when I started," she said. "Life would have been much better."
Geffen began his career as a mail room worker at the William Morris Agency in Manhattan and later earned a fortune in the record and movie industries. He formed DreamWorks SKG in 1994 with Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. He has also become a well-known benefactor, giving to such organizations as the Motion Picture and Television Fund and to the Geffen Playhouse.
anna.gorman@latimes.com
Hugh Hefner's Engagement Ring to Crystal Harris Revealed
Label: LifestyleThe wedding's back on – though it may be a good idea to save that gift receipt.
The onetime Playmate of the Month then ripped Hef's bedroom skills, calling him a two-second man, to which Hefner replied, "I missed a bullet" by not marrying her.
Hugh Hefner, 86, officially confirms that he is once again engaged to Crystal Harris, 26, telling his Twitter followers, "I've given Crystal Harris a ring. I love the girl."
And to prove it, Harris posted photos of the big diamond sparkler, calling it "my beautiful ring."
Neither announced a wedding date, though sources tell PEOPLE they're planning to tie the knot at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve.
Whether that still happens remains to be seen.
This is the plan they had in 2011 – a wedding at the mansion – except that Harris called it off just days before the nuptials were scheduled to happen in front of 300 invited guests.
Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris
David Livingston / Getty
A year later, Hefner's "runaway bunny" bounded back to him.
• Reporting by JENNIFER GARCIA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Copyright © News subtangent. All rights reserved.
Design 
And Business Directories
