Chavez's successor in Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro

Vice President Nicolas Maduro is taking over leadership of Hugo Chavez's political movement after the socialist leader died Tuesday at age 58 following a nearly two-year bout with cancer. Maduro now faces the daunting task of rallying support in a deeply divided country while maintaining unity within his party's ranks. Maduro decidedly lacks the vibrant personality that made Chavez a one-man political phenomenon in Venezuela, but he has the advantage of being Chavez's hand-picked successor. The mustachioed 50-year-old former bus driver won Chavez's trust as a loyal spokesman who echoed the president's stances. How Maduro will lead in Chavez's...

Read more »

Venezuela's Chavez dies, officials call for unity

Some in anguish, some in fear, Venezuelans raced for home and stocked up on food and water Tuesday after the government announced the death of President Hugo Chavez, the larger-than-life firebrand socialist who led the nation for 14 years. Vice President Nicolas Maduro's voice broke and tears ran down his face as he appeared on national television to announce that Chavez died at 4:25 p.m. local time (3:55 p.m. EST, 1755 GMT) "after battling hard against an illness over nearly two years." He did not say what exactly killed Chavez, although the government had announced the previous night that a severe new respiratory infection had severely...

Read more »

Devastated, mourning Chavez supporters pour onto streets

Grieving and stunned supporters of deceased Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took to the streets on Tuesday weeping, chanting slogans and vowing to continue their hero's revolution. Gathering in streets and squares across the South American nation of 29 million people, backers of the socialist leader shouted: "Chavez lives forever!" and "The fight continues!" "We have to show that what he did was not in vain," said Jamila Rivas, 49, crying outside the military hospital where Chavez died. Hundreds of supporters flocked there. Venezuelans have been tracking the ups-and-downs of Chavez's two-year battle against cancer, but some supporters...

Read more »

Medicare paid $5.1B for poor nursing home care

Medicare paid billions in taxpayer dollars to nursing homes nationwide that were not meeting basic requirements to look after their residents, government investigators have found. The report, released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general, said Medicare paid about $5.1 billion for patients to stay in skilled nursing facilities that failed to meet federal quality of care rules in 2009, in some cases resulting in dangerous and neglectful conditions. One out of every three times patients wound up in nursing homes that year, they landed in facilities that failed to follow basic care requirements laid out by the federal agency that administers Medicare, investigators estimated. By law, nursing homes need to write up care plans specially tailored for each...

Read more »

Senate Dems' bill light on deficit cuts in 2013

White House-backed legislation in the Senate to replace $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts would raise the deficit through the end of the budget year by tens of billions of dollars, officials said late Wednesday as the two parties maneuvered for public support on economic issues. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that under the Democratic measure, deficits also would rise in each of the next two years before turning downward. Democratic officials had said earlier in the day their bill would spread one year's worth of anticipated savings — $85 billion — over a decade in an attempt to avoid damaging the shaky economic...

Read more »