Health-Exchange Deadline Looms

All of the Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," doesn't go into effect until 2014, but states are required to set up their own health care exchanges or leave it to the federal government to step in by next year. The deadline for the governors' decisions is Friday.

The health insurance exchanges are one of the key stipulations of the new health care law. They will offer consumers an Internet-based marketplace for purchasing private health insurance plans.

But the president's signature health care plan has become so fraught with politics that whether governors agreed to set up the exchanges has fallen mostly along party lines.

Such partisanship is largely symbolic because if a state opts not to set up the exchange, the Department of Health and Human Services will do it for them as part of the federal program. That would not likely be well-received by Republican governors, either, but the law forces each state's chief executive to make a decision one way or the other.

Here's what it looks like in all 50 states and the District of Columbia:

20 states that have opted out -- N.J., S.C., La., Wis., Ohio, Maine, Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Ga., Pa., Kan., Neb., N.H., N.D., Okla., S.D., Tenn., Texas and Wyo.

Charles Dharapak/AP Photo

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Several Republican governors have said they will not set up the exchanges, including Chris Christie (N.J.), Nikki Haley (S.C.), Bobby Jindal (La.), Scott Walker (Wis.), John Kasich (Ohio), Paul LePage (Maine), Robert Bentley (Ala.), Sean Parnell (Ark.), Jan Brewer (Ariz.), Nathan Deal (Ga.), Tom Corbett (Pa.), Sam Brownback (Kan.), Dave Heineman (Neb.), John Lynch (N.H.), Jack Dalrymple (N.D.), Mary Fallin (Okla.), Dennis Daugaard (S.D.), Bill Haslam (Tenn.), Rick Perry (Texas), and Matt Mead (Wyo.).

3 States Out, but a Little More Complicated -- Mont., Ind. and Mo.

The Montana outgoing and incoming governors are both Democrats, but the Republican state legislature rejected the Democratic state auditor's request to start setting up a state exchange. So a federal exchange will be set up in Montana as well.

The Indiana outgoing and incoming governors are both Republicans and outgoing Gov. Mitch Daniels deferred the decision to governor-elect and U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, who said his preference is not to set up a state health care exchange, paving the way for the feds to come in too.

In Missouri, Gov. Jay Nixon is a Democrat, but Prop E passed on Nov. 6, which barred his administration from creating a state-based exchange without a public vote or the approval of the state legislature. After the election, he sent a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services saying he would be unable to set up a state-based exchange, meaning the federal government would have to set up its own.

1 State Waiting for the White House -- Utah

Utah already has a state exchange set up, a Web-based tool where small-business employees can shop and compare health insurance with contributions from their employee. In a letter Republican Gov. Gary Herbert sent to the White House Tuesday, he asked for its exchange, called Avenue H, to be approved as a state-based exchange under the Affordable Care Act as long as state officials can open it to individuals and larger businesses.

Norm Thurston, the state's health reform implementation coordinator, says authorities there "haven't received an official response" from the White House, but "we anticipate getting one soon."

There are some sticking points that don't comply with the exchanges envisioned by the Affordable Care Act and Utah would like to keep it that way.

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Fed ties stimulus to jobs, inflation in unprecedented steps to bolster economy

The Federal Reserve will take steps to bolster the economy until the unemployment rate falls to 6.5 percent or inflation looks likely to exceed 2.5 percent, the central bank said Wednesday in a historic move that for the first time specifies the Fed’s goals for the nation’s economy.

The Fed also said it would buy $45 billion in Treasury bonds a month, on top of $40 billon a month it is already buying in mortgage bonds, in an effort to flood markets with money and reduce interest rates on a wide range of loans. Lower interest rates tend to stimulate borrowing, economic activity and employment.

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Philippines typhoon death toll tops 900

MANILA: The death toll from the strongest typhoon to hit the Philippines this year has climbed above 900, with hundreds still missing, the government said Thursday.

Typhoon Bopha killed 902 people mostly on the southern island of Mindanao, where floods and landslides caused major damage in nearly 2,000 villages on December 4, the civil defence office said.

A total of 615 people remain missing, it said, a big reduction from the previous tally after rescuers found 296 tuna fishermen who had put to sea before Bopha made landfall. The government agency did not give further details.

The typhoon, the deadliest natural disaster to hit the Philippines this year, destroyed 149,000 houses, it said.

About 80,000 people remain in government shelters, where they face months in difficult, crowded conditions as relief officials look for safe areas to build more permanent shelters.

Fifteen "stress debriefers" are now at work in the 63 shelters still in operation to help survivors come to terms with the loss of relatives, homes and possessions.

The United Nations launched a $65 million global aid appeal for typhoon victims on Monday, saying more than five million people faced difficult conditions as they seek to rebuild their lives.

The death toll from Bopha could top the 1,200 people who died last year when Tropical Storm Washi hit Mindanao's north coast.

- AFP/ck

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'Shankar personified Indian soft power'

NEW DELHI: Pandit Ravi Shankar was possibly independent India's first and best-known cultural ambassador. "It's an understatement," says Ronen Sen, former diplomat and one of Shankar's close friends. "He personified Indian soft power at a time when the term had not even been invented."

When India was under international pressure, particularly from the West and US over the 1971 Bangladesh war, it was Shankar who championed, and was a guiding spirit of, the hugely successful concert for Bangladesh.

"The Nixon administration had taken a tough stand against India's intervention in Bangladesh. But it was this concert that helped swing the popular mood in the world towards Bangladesh, and for this Ravi Shankar performed a stellar role as India's ambassador," says Sen.

Ravi Shankar, says Sen, put Indian classical music on the global map, not as "alternative" music. "Despite his following in the pop music world, Ravi Shankar never compromised on the purity of the Indian classical genre. Thus, he played in the Bolshoi theatre in Moscow and in Bonn. He was also the only Indian artiste to play at the Royal Opera House in London."

For Indian diplomacy finding its geopolitical feet in the decades after independence, Ravi Shankar was invaluable. With his music, evident spirituality and an infectious joie de vivre, he set a trend that was very different from the more hedonistic one led by Osho. "He was a pioneer in many ways and the reverence he commanded in the world was invaluable for India's cultural diplomacy," says Sen.

Ravi Shankar not only popularised Indian classical music for Indian audiences in the Dover Lane Music Conference in Kolkata but "as a good Bengali, ashamedly promoted Bengali cuisine", laughs Sen. "He loved his chingri maacher malai curry, ilish bhaapa, and neem-begun," he says, "and he was never ashamed to show it."

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Hubble Discovers Oldest Known Galaxy

The Hubble space telescope has discovered seven primitive galaxies formed in the earliest days of the cosmos, including one believed to be the oldest ever detected.

The discovery, announced Wednesday, is part of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field campaign to determine how and when galaxies first assembled following the Big Bang.

"This 'cosmic dawn' was not a single, dramatic event," said astrophysicist Richard Ellis with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Rather, galaxies appear to have been formed over hundreds of millions of years.

Ellis led a team that used Hubble to look at one small section of the sky for a hundred hours. The grainy images of faint galaxies include one researchers determined to be from a period 380 million years after the onset of the universe—the closest in time to the Big Bang ever observed.

The cosmos is about 13.7 billion years old, so the newly discovered galaxy was present when the universe was 4 percent of its current age. The other six galaxies were sending out light from between 380 million and 600 million years after the Big Bang. (See pictures of "Hubble's Top Ten Discoveries.")

Baby Pictures

The images are "like the first ultrasounds of [an] infant," said Abraham Loeb, a specialist in the early cosmos at Harvard University. "These are the building blocks of the galaxies we now have."

These early galaxies were a thousand times denser than galaxies are now and were much closer together as well, Ellis said. But they were also less luminous than later galaxies.

The team used a set of four filters to analyze the near infrared wavelengths captured by Hubble Wide Field Camera 3, and estimated the galaxies' distances from Earth by studying their colors. At a NASA teleconference, team members said they had pushed Hubble's detection capabilities about as far as they could go and would most likely not be able to identify galaxies from further back in time until the James Webb Space Telescope launches toward the end of the decade. (Learn about the Hubble telescope.)

"Although we may have reached back as far as Hubble will see, Hubble has set the stage for Webb," said team member Anton Koekemoer of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. "Our work indicates there is a rich field of even earlier galaxies that Webb will be able to study."

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Mall Shooter Quit Job, Was Going to Hawaii

In the days before he stole a semiautomatic weapon and stormed into an Oregon shopping mall, killing two people in a shooting spree, Jacob Roberts quit his job, sold his belongings and began to seem "numb" to those closest to him.

Roberts' ex-girlfriend, Hannah Patricia Sansburn, 20, told ABC News today that the man who donned a hockey mask and opened fire on Christmas shoppers was typically happy and liked to joke around, but abruptly changed in the week before the shooting.

Roberts unleashed a murderous volley of gunfire on the second floor of the Clackamas Town Center on Tuesday while wearing the mask and black clothing, and carrying an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon and "several" magazines full of ammunition. He ended his barrage by walking down to the first floor of the mall and committing suicide.

READ: Why Mass Shooters Wear Masks

"I don't understand," Sansburn said. "I was just with him. I just talked to him. I didn't believe it was him at all. Not one part of me believed it."

She said that in recent weeks, Roberts quit his job at a gyro shop in downtown Portland and sold all of his belongings, telling her that he was moving to Hawaii. He had even purchased a ticket.

She now wonders if he was really planning to move.

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"He was supposed to catch a flight Saturday and I texted him, and asked how his flight went, and he told me, 'oh, I got drunk and didn't make the flight,'" she said. "And then this happens... It makes me think, was he even planning on going to Hawaii? He quit his job, sold all of his things."

Roberts described himself on his Facebook page as an "adrenaline junkie," and said he is the kind of person who thinks, "I'm going to do what I want."

Roberts, who attended Clackamas Community college, posted a picture of himself on his Facebook page firing a gun at a target. His Facebook photo showed graffiti in which the words "Follow Your Dreams" were painted over with the word "Cancelled."

Sansburn said the pair had dated for nearly a year but had broke up over the summer. Throughout their relationship, she had never seen him act violently or get angry.

"Jake was never the violent type. He didn't go out of his way to try to hurt people or upset people. His main goal was to make you laugh, smile, make you feel comfortable. I never would have guessed him to do anything like this ever," she said.

"You can't reconcile the differences. I hate him for what he did, but I can't hate the person I knew because it was nothing like the person who would go into a mall and go on a rampage. I would never associate the two at all."

The last time she saw him, which was last week, he "seemed numb," and she didn't understand why, she said.

"I just talked to him, stayed the night with him, and he just seemed numb if anything. He's usually very bubbly and happy, and I asked him why, what had changed, and said 'nothing.' He just had so much he had to do before he went to Hawaii that he was trying to distance himself from Portland," Sansburn said.

Sansburn said the last message she sent Roberts was a text, asking him to stay, and saying she didn't want him to leave. He replied "I'm sorry," with a sad face emoticon.

Police are still seeking information about what Roberts was doing in the days leading up to the shooting. They said today they believe Roberts stole the gun he used in the rampage from someone he knew. They have searched his home and his car for other clues into his motive.

Read ABC News' full coverage of the Oregon Mall Shooting

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said earlier today on "Good Morning America" that he believes Roberts went into the mall with the goal of killing as many people as he could.

"I believe, at least from the information that's been provided to me at this point in time, it really was a killing of total strangers. To my knowledge at this point in time he was really trying, I think, to kill as many people as possible."

Sansburn said she has not talked to police.

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Obama, Boehner trade ‘fiscal cliff’ proposals but appear no closer to a deal

President Obama and House Speaker John A. Boehner were struggling late Tuesday to prevent negotiations over the deficit from breaking down after they traded proposals for averting the the year-end “fiscal cliff” but made no progress toward an agreement.

Obama telephoned Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday, hours after receiving the speaker’s latest proposal for a deal on taxes and spending. The offer was virtually identical to the document Obama summarily rejected just one week ago, according to Republican aides.

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No attempt to shoot down N.Korea rocket: Japan govt

TOKYO: Japan did not try to shoot down a North Korean rocket as it passed over its southern island chain of Okinawa, the government said Wednesday, strongly condemning the launch.

Tokyo confirmed the launch had taken place and that said it believed parts of the rocket had fallen into the sea off the Korean peninsula, with another part dropping into the ocean near the Philippines.

"Launch time was around 9:49 am (0049 GMT). The missile that North Korea calls a satellite passed over Okinawa around 10:01. We launched no interception," a government statement said.

Japan had been on high alert since the 13-day lift-off window opened, despite a suggestion from Pyongyang that it could delay the much-criticised blast-off.

Tokyo deployed missile defence systems to intercept and destroy the rocket if it looked set to fall on its territory, with missile batteries in and around Tokyo and in the Okinawan archipelago.

Japan reacted quickly to the launch on Wednesday, with national media informed by government-run alert system.

"It is extremely regrettable that North Korea went through with the launch despite our calls to exercise restraint," chief government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said.

"Our country cannot tolerate this. We strongly protest to North Korea."

The impoverished but nuclear-armed nation insists the long-range rocket launch -- its second this year after a much-hyped but botched mission in April -- is for peaceful scientific purposes.

But the United States, and allies South Korea and Japan, say Pyongyang's launch was a disguised ballistic missile test that violates UN resolutions triggered by its two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

- AFP/ck

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Apna Ghar case: Contempt petition seeks action against Haryana chief secretary

CHANDIGARH: A contempt of court petition was filed on Tuesday before the Punjab and Haryana high court against the chief secretary (CS), Haryana, following the disappearance of two female inmates of Apna Ghar.

Petitioner Usav Singh Bains, a member of Child Rights Protection Network (CRPN), has sought contempt of court proceedings against the chief secretary for state government's failure to provide safety and security to the sexually-abused children of Rohtak's controversial shelter home - Apna Ghar.

Petitioner has submitted that on October 31, HC had ordered to ensure that none of the accused who have been enlarged on bail should be in a position to either meet or contact the children under any circumstances and if any such instance is brought to the notice of the court, the same shall be viewed with seriousness and taken to be a violation of the order

He alleged that just five days after these orders, a victim of Apna Ghar shelter home, lodged at Panipat, went missing under mysterious circumstances and again on December 10, two more Apna Ghar girls were reported as missing.

Petitioner has also added that it would be in interest of safety and security of the children that all kids in Apna Ghar be immediately shifted from Haryana to "Snehalaya" - a shelter home in Chandigarh, which would not only benefit the safety and security of the children but will also help Chandigarh branch of CBI to meet the children on a regular basis as the case is being tried at the Panchkula special CBI court. The petition would come up for hearing on Wednesday.

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Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

Photograph courtesy Tunç Tezel, APOY/Royal Observatory

This image of the Milky Way's vast star fields hanging over a valley of human-made light was recognized in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the U.K.’s Royal Observatory Greenwich.

To get the shot, photographer Tunç Tezel trekked to Uludag National Park near his hometown of Bursa, Turkey. He intended to watch the moon and evening planets, then take in the Perseids meteor shower.

"We live in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, so when we gaze through the thickness of our galaxy, we see it as a band of dense star fields encircling the sky," said Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory's public astronomer and a contest judge.

Full story>>

Why We Love It

"I like the way this view of the Milky Way also shows us a compelling foreground landscape. It also hints at the astronomy problems caused by light pollution."—Chris Combs, news photo editor

Published December 11, 2012

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