2/27/2013 10:57:00 PM
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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...
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
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...
As budget cuts loom, is government shutdown next?
With big, automatic budget cuts about to kick in, House Republicans are turning to mapping strategy for the next showdown just a month away, when a government shutdown instead of just a slowdown will be at stake.
Both topics are sure to come up at the White House meeting Friday between President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders, including Republican House Speaker John Boehner. A breakthrough on replacing or easing the imminent across-the-board spending cuts still seems unlikely at the first face-to-face discussion between Obama and Republican leaders this year.
To no one's surprise, even as a dysfunctional Washington appears incapable...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Sources: Rockets make deals with Suns, Kings; Morris twins reunited in Phoenix
The Houston Rockets acquired Sacramento's Thomas Robinson, the fifth overall pick in the 2012 draft, in a deal on Wednesday night, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.
The Rockets sent Patrick Patterson, Toney Douglas and Cole Aldrich to the Kings. In a separate deal, the Rockets sent Marcus Morris to the Phoenix Suns for a 2013 second-round draft pick. That deal reunites Morris with his twin brother, Markieff. Thomas Robinson (USA Today Sports)
The Kings give up Robinson, the power forward out of Kansas, Francisco Garcia and Tyler Honeycutt, sources said.
Marcus and Markieff played together at Kansas and were chosen back-to-back with the...
Lakers beat Celtics 113-99 on emotional night
Dwight Howard had 24 points and 12 rebounds in helping the Los Angeles Lakers to an emotional 113-99 victory over the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night in their first game since the death of owner Jerry Buss.
Kobe Bryant added 16 points, Steve Nash and Earl Clark had 14 apiece, and Metta World Peace 12 in a game that surely would have delighted Buss, who always loved to win but especially liked beating the Celtics.
The Lakers won their most recent NBA championship - and last under Buss - in 2010, defeating the Celtics 4-3 in the finals. Buss died Monday at 80 after an 18-month struggle with cancer that had forced him to watch his team's games...
Soccer: Milan strangle Barcelona to seal shock win
AC Milan produced a defensive masterclass to shackle Barcelona and secure a shock 2-0 win in their Champions League last-16 first-leg match on Wednesday.
A hotly-protested goal by Kevin-Prince Boateng in the 57th minute set AC Milan on their way over the Champions League favorites.
Barcelona, who eliminated Milan last season, surrounded the referee complaining Cristian Zapata had handled the ball before it landed at the feet of Boateng who smacked it into the net.
Barca, who had dominated possession in their familiar style, lost their grip on the game after the incident and were sunk by a second goal from Boateng's fellow Ghanaian Sulley...
Special Report: Russia's $50 billion Olympic gamble
Above the Black Sea city of Sochi, one of Russia's richest men is spending billions of roubles to turn a patch of mountainside into a global showpiece. Metals magnate Vladimir Potanin has paid for new buildings, new lifts and hundreds of snow canons in the hope of transforming slopes not far from sub-tropical Sochi into a world-class ski resort.
Like most of the plans to host the Winter Olympic Games next year, Russia's ambitions for the ski village and other venues are outsized in scale and ambition. Total investment to make the sleepy region fit to welcome thousands of competitors and the world's media is expected to exceed $50 billion,...
Official: Calif. gunman was loner, 'gamer'
The first of three people killed in a gunman's rampage was identified Wednesday as a 20-year-old woman but police did not know why she was in the home of the shooter, who lived with his parents and was described by authorities as a video game-playing loner.
Courtney Aoki, 20, of Buena Park was shot multiple times early Tuesday in the home where gunman Ali Syed, 20, lived, said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jim Amormino.
Authorities don't know her occupation, how she might have known Syed, how she got in the house — or what drove Syed to kill her with a shotgun and then leave a trail of dead and wounded as he stole a series of cars and...
Adults cut back fast food, but U.S. kids still eat too much fat: CDC
American adults have made a little progress in recent years in cutting back on calories from fast food, but children are still consuming too much fat, U.S. health researchers say.
French fries, pizza and similar items accounted for about 11 percent of U.S. adults' caloric intake from 2007 to 2010, on average, down from about 13 percent between 2003 and 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in one of two reports released on Thursday.
Younger adults, black Americans and those who are already obese consumed the highest amounts of such food, which is often high in fat, salt and calories that can doom waistlines.
The CDC found...
Cash, sexism and violence keep women out of Kenyan politics
Violence, a deeply chauvinistic society and a lack of cash are locking women out of elected office in Kenya, east Africa's leading economy but a laggard when it comes to female representation.
The country's new constitution guarantees women a third of seats in parliament, but two and a half years since its adoption, Kenya's male-dominated assembly has still not passed the necessary legislation to put the constitutional principle into practice.
In next month's general election only one of eight presidential runners is female, and women held just 10 percent of seats in the last parliament, half the sub-Saharan average.
"Society sees our place...
SAfrica police: Pistorius detective faces charges
South African police say the lead investigator in the case against Olympian Oscar Pistorius faces attempted murder charges in an October 2011 shooting.
Police Brig. Neville Malila said Thursday that detective Hilton Botha is scheduled to appear in court in May on seven counts of attempted murder. Malila says Botha and two other police officers fired shots while trying to stop a minivan in the incident.
On Wednesday, the prosecution case against Pistorius began to unravel with revelations of a series of police blunders and Botha's admission that authorities have no evidence challenging the double-amputee Olympian's claim he killed his girlfriend...
5 dead after small jet crashes in eastern GA
An official says five people are dead and two injured after a small jet ran off the end of a runway and crashed at an airport in eastern Georgia.
Thomson-McDuffie County Sheriff Logan Marshall says the jet carrying seven people crashed after 8 p.m. Wednesday. Logan says the two survivors were taken to area hospitals and their conditions were not known. He says the identities of those killed are being withheld pending notification of family members.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said in an email that the Hawker Beechcraft 390/Premier I crashed around 8:30 p.m. at the Thomson-McDuffie County Airport, about 30 miles...
Japan's Abe seeks to show off alliance, get Obama nod on Abenomics
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be seeking to put a strong U.S.-Japan alliance on full display in the face of potential threats from a nuclear North Korea and an assertive China when he meets U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday.
Abe, who has kept his ratings high since taking office in December, also needs Obama's signoff on his economic revival recipe of big spending and hyper-easy monetary policy.
Expectations for "Abenomics" - especially drastic monetary easing - have sliced about 10 percent off the yen's value against the dollar since Abe took office, raising concern abroad that Japan is weakening its currency to export its...
Mexico security forces abducted dozens in drug war: rights group
Dozens of people were abducted and murdered by Mexican security forces over the past six years during a gruesome war with drug cartels, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, urging President Enrique Pena Nieto to overhaul the military justice system.
The rights group said that since 2007 it has documented 149 cases of people who were never seen again after falling into the hands of security forces, and that the government failed to properly investigate the "disappearances."
"The result was the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades," the U.S.-based group said. (Human Rights Watch report: http://r.reuters.com/fyk26t)
It...
Witness heard "non-stop shouting" in Pistorius home before shooting
A witness heard "non-stop shouting" in the home of athletics star Oscar Pistorius shortly before his girlfriend was shot dead, the lead detective in the murder investigation said on Wednesday.
Warrant officer Hilton Botha, a detective with 24 years on the force, also told the Pretoria magistrates court that police had found two containers of testosterone and needles in Pistorius' bedroom.
Pistorius, a double amputee dubbed "Blade Runner" because he raced on carbon fibre blades, sobbed uncontrollably as Botha presented his testimony about the death of Reeva Steenkamp, 29.
The law graduate and model was in the toilet of the athlete's home...
Champions League - Paper Round: Wenger out of a job?
This morning's papers make dismal reading for Arsenal fans after their Champions League humiliation against Bayern Munich.
Out of the FA Cup - Out of the League Cup - Out of title race - Almost out of CL - Should Wenger be OUT OF A JOB?
Oliver Holt: The righteous anger of Arsene Wenger gave way to something more poignant at the Emirates. Outraged by newspaper headlines on Monday, he was humbled in front of the fans who once adored him. Sure, the supporters grew angry now and again at the impotence of their team against the might of Bayern Munich. But they have been angry for so long here that it is almost as if they are burned out...
NKorean propaganda video shows Obama in flames
A new North Korean video portrays President Barack Obama and American troops in flames and says the North conducted its recent nuclear test because of U.S. hostility.
The video follows a string of critical rhetoric against the United States. Another video posted earlier this month showed an American city being attacked by missiles.
The most recent video, posted Sunday by a YouTube account affiliated with a pro-reunification government agency, shows a blazing fire superimposed over footage of Obama, and ends with a generic simulation of a nuclear device exploding underground.
The United States currently is negotiating in the Security Council...
Syria "Scud-type" missile said to kill 20 in Aleppo
A Syrian missile killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held district of Aleppo on Tuesday, opposition activists said, as the army turns to longer-range weapons after losing bases in the country's second-largest city.
The use of what opposition activists said was a large missile of the same type as Russian-made Scuds against an Aleppo residential district came after rebels overran army bases over the past two months from which troops had fired artillery.
As the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, now a civil war, nears its two-year mark, rebels also landed three mortar bombs in the rarely-used presidential palace compound in the capital...
Man goes on shooting rampage in Calif.; 3 killed
The early morning commute was just getting under way on suburban Orange County's network of freeways when Melvin Lee Edwards pulled up to a stop sign near a busy off-ramp.
It was just after 5 a.m. and Edwards, 69, was on his way to work when, police say, a fleeing murder suspect forced him out of his BMW at gunpoint, marched him across the street and shot him three times from behind as horrified commuters watched.
The shooting was the second of three murders in a trail of carnage early Tuesday that spanned 25 miles — but lasted just an hour. The shooter, 20-year-old Ali Syed, killed a woman in the home he shared with his parents, killed...
Family threatened by ex-cop recalls 6-day ordeal
Christopher Dorner's threats to kill officers and the families of those linked to his 2008 firing from the department was backed up with deep research that included surveillance of possible victims, officials said Tuesday.
Chief Charlie Beck told reporters Tuesday that the former Los Angeles police officer "did a lot of homework." Authorities believe he even conducted surveillance near the homes of those who were threatened.
Many officers lived in fear after the threats in Dorner's 11,000-word manifesto were found on Facebook on Feb. 6.
Titled "Last Resort," it led the police to place about 50 officers and their families under protection.
Dorner...
Bulgaria government resigns amid growing protests
Bulgaria's government resigned on Wednesday after violent nationwide protests against high electricity prices, joining a long list of European administrations felled by austerity after Europe's debt crisis erupted in late 2009.
Many Bulgarians are deeply unhappy over high energy costs, power monopolies, low living standards and corruption in the European Union's poorest country and protesters clashed again with police late on Tuesday.
Tens of thousands of Bulgarians have rallied in cities across the country since Sunday in protests which have turned violent, chanting "Mafia" and "Resign".
Prime Minister Boiko Borisov had tried to calm protests...
