World’s Population Living Longer, New Report Suggests


A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.


The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.


At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.


But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990.


“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organizationfinanced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said.


The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.


Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health publication.


The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared to a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.


The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.


“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can address as easily.”


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Inflation check: Energy prices fall most since 2009 on gas plunge









Wholesale prices slipped 0.8% last month for the second straight month as gasoline prices plunged.


In its deepest dip since May, the Labor Department’s producer price index fell 0.8% in November after sliding 0.2% in October. The index rose 1.1% in September.


A major factor? Plummeting gas prices, which sank 10.1% after spiking 9.8% just two months earlier. At the moment, a gallon of regular gas costs $3.30 on average nationwide, according to the AAA Fuel Gauge, down from $3.44 a month ago.





The gasoline tumble made up more than 90% of the overall 4.6% drop in energy prices -- the most substantial fall since March 2009. 


Quiz: The year in business


Food costs, however, more than made up for the energy dip by rising for the sixth straight month in a row. The 1.3% increase is the largest in nearly two years.


Beef and veal prices soared 30% alone in November. Vegetables also experienced an 11.8% wholesale price hike.


But when factoring out the volatile food and energy portions, the core producer price index inched up 0.1% last month. From November of last year, overall wholesale prices are up 1.5% in the most minimal year-over-year gain since July.


ALSO:


Rising rents and food prices mean Americans are paying more


California's crazy October gas price spike may be over, for now


Fed renews stimulus efforts, ties interest rates to jobless rate





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Ravi Shankar, sitar master, dies at 92









Ravi Shankar was already revered as a master of the sitar in 1966 when he met George Harrison, the Beatle who became his most famous disciple and gave the Indian musician-composer unexpected pop-culture cachet.


Suddenly the classically trained Shankar was a darling of the hippie movement, gaining widespread attention through memorable performances at the Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock and the 1971 Concert for Bangladesh.


Harrison called him "the godfather of world music," and the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin once compared the sitarist's genius to Mozart's. Shankar continued to give virtuoso performances into his 90s, including one in 2011 at Walt Disney Concert Hall.





PHOTOS: Ravi Shankar | 1920 - 2010


Shankar, 92, who introduced Indian music to much of the Western world, died Tuesday at a hospital near his home in Encinitas. Stuart Wolferman, a publicist for his record label Unfinished Side Productions, said Shankar had undergone heart valve replacement surgery last week.


Well-established in the classical music of his native India since the 1940s, he remained a vital figure on the global music stage for six decades. Shankar is the father of pop music star Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar, his protege and a sitar star in her own right.


Before the 1950s, Indian classical music — with its improvised melodic excursions and complex percussion rhythms — was virtually unknown in America. If Shankar had done nothing more than compose the movie scores for Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray's "Apu" trilogy in the 1950s, he "would be remembered and revered," Times music critic Mark Swed wrote last fall.


PHOTOS: Notable deaths of 2012


Shankar was on a path to international stardom during the 1950s, playing the sitar in the Soviet Union and debuting as a soloist in Western Europe and the United States. Two early albums also had considerable impact, "Three Classical Ragas" and "India's Master Musician."


During his musical emergence in the West, his first important association was with violinist Menuhin, whose passion for Indian music was ignited by Shankar in 1952. Their creative partnership peaked with their "West Meets East" release, which earned a Grammy Award in 1967. The recording also showed Shankar's versatility — and the capacity of Indian music to inspire artists from different creative disciplines.


He presented a new form of classical music to Western audiences that was based on improvisation instead of written compositions. Shankar typically played in the Hindustani classical style, in which he was accompanied by a player of two tablas, or small hand drums. Concerts in India that often lasted through the night were generally shortened to a few hours for American venues as Shankar played the sitar, a long-necked lute-like stringed instrument.


At first, he especially appealed to fans of jazz music drawn to improvisation. He recorded "Improvisations" (1962) with saxophonist Bud Shank and "Portrait of a Genius" (1964) with flutist Paul Horn, gave lessons to saxophonist John Coltrane (who named his saxophone-playing son Ravi), and wrote a percussion piece for drummer Buddy Rich and Alla Rakha.


On the Beatles' 1965 recording "Norwegian Wood," Harrison had played the sitar and met Shankar the next year in London.


Shankar was "the first person to impress me," among the impressive people the Beatles met, "because he didn't try to impress me," Harrison later said. The pair became close and their friendship lasted until Harrison's death in 2001.


Harrison was instrumental in getting Shankar booked at the now legendary Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. They partnered in organizing the Concert for Bangladesh and were among the producers who won a Grammy in 1972 for the subsequent album. They toured together in 1974, and Harrison produced Shankar's career-spanning mid-1990s boxed set, "In Celebration."


But Shankar came away from his festival appearances with mixed feelings about his rock generation followers. He expressed hope that his performances might help young people better understand Indian music and philosophy but later said "they weren't ready for it."


"All the young people got interested … but it was so mixed up with superficiality and the fad and the drugs," Shankar told The Times in 1996. "I had to go through several years to make them understand that this is a disciplined music, needing a fresh mind."


When Shankar was criticized in India as a sellout for spreading his music in the West, he responded in the early 1970s by lowering his profile and reaffirming his classical roots. He followed his first concerto for sitar and orchestra in 1971 with another a decade later.


"Our music has gone through so much development," Shankar told The Times in 1997. "But its roots — which have something to do with its feelings, the depth from where you bring out the music when you perform — touch the listeners even without their knowing it."


In the 1980s and '90s, Shankar maintained a busy performing schedule despite heart problems. He recorded "Tana Mana," an unusual synthesis of Indian music, electronics and jazz; oversaw the American premiere of his ballet, "Ghyanshyam: The Broken Branch"; and collaborated with composer Philip Glass on the album "Passages."





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Facebook revises privacy controls in effort to make them more accessible, comprehensible






SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world’s largest social network into a more discreet place.


The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook Inc.‘s more than 1 billion users in the next few weeks.






The biggest change will be a new “privacy shortcuts” section that will appear as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people’s news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users will be able to get answers to common questions such as “Who can see my stuff?”


Other updates will include a tool that will enable individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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'Lincoln,' 'Les Mis,' 'Playbook' lead SAG awards


LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Civil War saga "Lincoln," the musical "Les Miserables" and the comic drama "Silver Linings Playbook" boosted their Academy Awards prospects Wednesday with four nominations apiece for the Screen Actors Guild Awards.


All three films were nominated for overall performance by their casts. Also nominated for best ensemble cast were the Iran hostage-crisis thriller "Argo" and the British retiree adventure "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel."


Directed by Steven Spielberg, "Lincoln" also scored individual nominations for Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role as best actor, Sally Field for supporting actress as Mary Todd Lincoln and Tommy Lee Jones for supporting actor as abolitionist firebrand Thaddeus Stevens.


"Les Miserables," from "The King's Speech" director Tom Hooper, had nominations for Hugh Jackman for best actor as Victor Hugo's long-suffering hero Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway for supporting actress as a woman fallen into prostitution, plus a nomination for its stunt ensemble.


"Silver Linings Playbook," made by "The Fighter" director David O. Russell, also had lead-acting nominations for Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as lost souls who find a second chance at love and Robert De Niro for supporting actor as a football-obsessed dad.


Besides Lawrence, best-actress nominees are Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst pursuing Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; Marion Cotillard as a woman who finds romance after tragedy in "Rust and Bone"; Helen Mirren as Alfred Hitchcock's strong-willed wife in "Hitchcock"; and Naomi Watts as a woman caught in the devastation of a tsunami in "The Impossible."


Joining Cooper, Day-Lewis and Jackman in the best-actor field are John Hawkes as a polio victim aiming to lose his virginity in "The Sessions" and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."


SAG nominees are almost all familiar names in Hollywood's awards season. Eighteen of the 20 film acting contenders are past Academy Awards nominees and 13 have won Oscars, among them five two-time winners. Only Cooper and Jackman have never before earned Oscar nominations.


One of the year's most-acclaimed films, Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master," earned only one nomination, supporting actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman as a mesmerizing cult leader. The film was snubbed on nominations for ensemble, lead actor Joaquin Phoenix and supporting actress Amy Adams.


Other individual performances overlooked by SAG voters include Anthony Hopkins in the title role of "Hitchcock," Keira Knightley in the title role of "Anna Karenina," Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt in "Hyde Park on Hudson" and "Argo" director Ben Affleck, who also starred in the film.


The SAG Awards will be presented Jan. 27. The guild nominations are one of Hollywood's first major announcements on the long road to the Feb. 24 Oscars Awards, whose nominations will be released Jan. 10.


Nominations for the Golden Globes, the second-biggest film honors after the Oscars, come out Thursday.


Maggie Smith had four individual and ensemble nominations. Along with sharing the ensemble honor for "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," Smith joined the cast of "Downton Abbey" among TV ensemble contenders and had nominations for supporting film actress as a cranky retiree in "Marigold Hotel" and TV drama actress for "Downton Abbey."


Nicole Kidman earned two individual nominations, as supporting film actress as a woman smitten with a prison inmate in "The Paperboy" and best actress in a TV movie or miniseries as war correspondent Martha Gellhorn in "Hemingway & Gellhorn."


Bryan Cranston had three overall nominations, as best actor in a TV drama for "Breaking Bad," an ensemble honor for that show and a film ensemble honor for "Argo."


Along with "Breaking Bad" and "Downton Abbey," best TV drama ensemble contenders are "Boardwalk Empire," ''Homeland" and "Mad Men." TV comedy ensemble nominees are "30 Rock," ''The Big Bang Theory," ''Glee," ''Modern Family," ''Nurse Jackie" and "The Office."


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Online:


http://www.sagawards.org


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Fed to spend $45B to sustain bond purchases








The Federal Reserve will spend $45 billion a month to sustain an aggressive drive to keep long-term interest rates low. And it set a goal of keeping a key short-term rate near zero until unemployment drops below 6.5 percent.

The policies are intended to help an economy that the Fed says is growing only modestly with 7.7 percent unemployment in November.

The Fed said in a statement issued Wednesday that it will direct the money into long-term Treasurys to replace an expiring bond-purchase program. The new purchases will expand its investment portfolio, which has reached nearly $3 trillion.

The central bank will continue buying $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds. All told, its monthly bond purchases will remain $85 billion. They are intended to reduce already record-low long-term rates to encourage borrowing and accelerate growth.


Quiz: The year in business
The Fed kept its target for its benchmark short-term interest rate at a record low near zero, where it has been for the last four years. The Fed said Wednesday that it would link any future rate change to lower unemployment, as long as inflation is expected to stay below 2.5 percent.

Before Wednesday, the Fed had said it planned would keep the rate low until at least mid-2015.

The Fed said it can pursue the aggressive stimulus programs because inflation remains below its target.

The statement was issued after the Fed's two-day policy meeting and approved on an 11-1 vote. Jeffrey Lacker, president of Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, objected for the eighth time this year.

The Fed's final meeting of the year is being held against the backdrop of the looming “fiscal cliff,” the sharp tax increases and spending cuts that will hit the economy in January if Congress and President Barack Obama are unable to reach an agreement this month to avert them.

Bernanke has said that the Fed's efforts will not be able to rescue the economy if the budget negotiations fail and the country does go over the fiscal cliff.

Fears of the cliff have led some U.S. companies to delay expanding, investing and hiring. Manufacturing has slumped. Consumers have cut back on spending. Unemployment remains elevated. If higher taxes and government spending cuts were to last for much of 2013, most experts say the economy would sink into another recession.

The latest bond-buying program would replace an expiring program called Operation Twist. With Twist, the Fed sold $45 billion a month in short-term Treasurys and used the proceeds to buy the same amount in longer-term Treasurys.

Twist didn't expand the Fed's investment portfolio, it just reshuffled the holdings. But the Fed has run out of short-term securities to sell. So to maintain its pace of long-term Treasury purchases and to keep long-term rates low, it must spend more and increase its portfolio.

The Fed's portfolio totals nearly $2.9 trillion — more than three times its size before the 2008 financial crisis.

The Fed has launched three rounds of bond purchases since the financial crisis hit. In announcing a third program in September, the Fed said it would keep buying mortgage bonds until the job market improved substantially.

Skeptics note that rates on mortgages and many other loans are already at or near all-time lows. So any further declines in rates engineered by the Fed might offer little economic benefit.

Inside and outside the Fed, a debate has raged over whether the Fed's actions have helped support the economy over the past four years, whether they will ignite inflation later and whether they should be extended.






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States pressed to guarantee Medicaid expansion









WASHINGTON — The Obama administration stepped up pressure on states Monday to guarantee insurance for all their low-income residents in 2014 under the new healthcare law, warning governors that the federal government would not pick up the total cost of partially expanding coverage.


"We continue to encourage all states to fully expand their Medicaid programs and take advantage of the generous federal matching funds to cover more of their residents," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote in a letter to governors.


But Sebelius indicated that governors who do not open their Medicaid programs to all eligible low-income residents would forfeit some of the federal aid promised by the Affordable Care Act.





"The law does not provide for a phased-in or partial expansion," the Department of Health and Human Services said in guidance accompanying Sebelius' letter.


Medicaid has become a major issue in the implementation of the law since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that states can decide whether to expand their Medicaid programs in 2014.


The law originally required the states to open Medicaid to all Americans who earn less than 138% of the federal poverty level, a major change for a program that now largely covers poor children and mothers.


To ease the expansion, the law initially provides full federal funding to cover the new population. Currently, Medicaid costs are split between state and federal governments.


Nonetheless, several Republican governors have said they won't expand Medicaid, citing cost concerns. That prompted speculation that some states might partially expand Medicaid programs. But Obama administration officials said Monday the law did not authorize full federal funding for a more limited expansion.


A state that opens Medicaid to only some new low-income residents would qualify for reduced federal aid, requiring the state to come up with the remainder of the funding.


How the guidance will affect state decisions remains unclear.


Alan Weil, president of the National Academy for State Health Policy, said state leaders probably would not make final decisions until they worked out 2014 budgets next year. "A lot of what we have seen so far is posturing," he said.


But the administration's announcement drew quick criticism from the Republican Governors Assn.


"The Obama administration's refusal to grant states more flexibility on Medicaid is as disheartening as it is short-sighted," said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, the group's chairman. Jindal has said he will not expand Medicaid in his state.


In contrast, the administration's move was applauded by the National Assn. of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, whose members care for millions of the nation's uninsured, often without compensation. Dr. Bruce Siegel, the association president, said it "takes an important step toward significantly reducing the ranks of the uninsured."


The Obama administration is facing additional resistance from several Republican governors who have said they won't set up insurance exchanges — a cornerstone of the law that will allow Americans who don't get health benefits at work to shop for insurance plans that meet new minimum standards. The federal government can set up exchanges for states that refuse to do so.


Also Monday, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oregon and Washington got conditional federal approval to operate their own exchanges. The six were the first to apply, and administration officials said approval for other states, including California, would probably follow.


noam.levey@latimes.com





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'Lincoln' leads Critics' Choice Awards nominees


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Film critics love "Lincoln." The historical drama earned a record-breaking 13 nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Awards.


The Broadcast Film Critics Association announced the nominees for its 18th annual awards ceremony Tuesday in Los Angeles.


"Lincoln" beat the 12 nods earned by 2010's "Black Swan" with bids for director Steven Spielberg, star Daniel Day-Lewis and supporting actors Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones, as well as cinematography, adapted screenplay, costume design, makeup, editing, art direction, score and acting ensemble.


"Les Miserables" follows with 11 nominations and "Silver Linings Playbook" has 10. "Life of Pi" earned nine nods. "Argo," ''Skyfall" and "The Master" each have seven.


Winners will be announced Jan. 10, 2013, at a ceremony set to be broadcast live on the CW network.


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Online:


www.criticschoice.com


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Rate of Childhood Obesity Falls in Several Cities


Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times


At William H. Ziegler Elementary in Northeast Philadelphia, students are getting acquainted with vegetables and healthy snacks.







PHILADELPHIA — After decades of rising childhood obesity rates, several American cities are reporting their first declines.




The trend has emerged in big cities like New York and Los Angeles, as well as smaller places like Anchorage, Alaska, and Kearney, Neb. The state of Mississippi has also registered a drop, but only among white students.


“It’s been nothing but bad news for 30 years, so the fact that we have any good news is a big story,” said Dr. Thomas Farley, the health commissioner in New York City, which reported a 5.5 percent decline in the number of obese schoolchildren from 2007 to 2011.


The drops are small, just 5 percent here in Philadelphia and 3 percent in Los Angeles. But experts say they are significant because they offer the first indication that the obesity epidemic, one of the nation’s most intractable health problems, may actually be reversing course.


The first dips — noted in a September report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation — were so surprising that some researchers did not believe them.


Deanna M. Hoelscher, a researcher at the University of Texas, who in 2010 recorded one of the earliest declines — among mostly poor Hispanic fourth graders in the El Paso area — did a double-take. “We reran the numbers a couple of times,” she said. “I kept saying, ‘Will you please check that again for me?’ ”


Researchers say they are not sure what is behind the declines. They may be an early sign of a national shift that is visible only in cities that routinely measure the height and weight of schoolchildren. The decline in Los Angeles, for instance, was for fifth, seventh and ninth graders — the grades that are measured each year — between 2005 and 2010. Nor is it clear whether the drops have more to do with fewer obese children entering school or currently enrolled children losing weight. But researchers note that declines occurred in cities that have had obesity reduction policies in place for a number of years.


Though obesity is now part of the national conversation, with aggressive advertising campaigns in major cities and a push by Michelle Obama, many scientists doubt that anti-obesity programs actually work. Individual efforts like one-time exercise programs have rarely produced results. Researchers say that it will take a broad set of policies applied systematically to effectively reverse the trend, a conclusion underscored by an Institute of Medicine report released in May.


Philadelphia has undertaken a broad assault on childhood obesity for years. Sugary drinks like sweetened iced tea, fruit punch and sports drinks started to disappear from school vending machines in 2004. A year later, new snack guidelines set calorie and fat limits, which reduced the size of snack foods like potato chips to single servings. By 2009, deep fryers were gone from cafeterias and whole milk had been replaced by one percent and skim.


Change has been slow. Schools made money on sugary drinks, and some set up rogue drink machines that had to be hunted down. Deep fat fryers, favored by school administrators who did not want to lose popular items like French fries, were unplugged only after Wayne T. Grasela, the head of food services for the school district, stopped buying oil to fill them.


But the message seems to be getting through, even if acting on it is daunting. Josh Monserrat, an eighth grader at John Welsh Elementary, uses words like “carbs,” and “portion size.” He is part of a student group that promotes healthy eating. He has even dressed as an orange to try to get other children to eat better. Still, he struggles with his own weight. He is 5-foot-3 but weighed nearly 200 pounds at his last doctor’s visit.


“I was thinking, ‘Wow, I’m obese for my age,’ ” said Josh, who is 13. “I set a goal for myself to lose 50 pounds.”


Nationally, about 17 percent of children under 20 are obese, or about 12.5 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which defines childhood obesity as a body mass index at or above the 95th percentile for children of the same age and sex. That rate, which has tripled since 1980, has leveled off in recent years but has remained at historical highs, and public health experts warn that it could bring long-term health risks.


Obese children are more likely to be obese as adults, creating a higher risk of heart disease and stroke. The American Cancer Society says that being overweight or obese is the culprit in one of seven cancer deaths. Diabetes in children is up by a fifth since 2000, according to federal data.


“I’m deeply worried about it,” said Francis S. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, who added that obesity is “almost certain to result in a serious downturn in longevity based on the risks people are taking on.”


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Bank of America voted least popular; satisfaction at 11-year low









Customers last year were not pleased with Bank of America and its many fees, giving the institution its lowest satisfaction score since 2000.


The score of 66 on a scale of 100 is 3% lower than the bank’s tally in 2010, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.


The Charlotte, N.C., company now trails all of its major banking rivals and is the only institution with a grade that’s lower than its pre-recession level. It’s the least popular bank for the fourth year in a row.





JPMorgan Chase leads the pack of big banks, rising 6% to a score of 74. It beat out Wells Fargo, which has led the board since 2009 but last year slipped 3% to 71. Citigroup dipped 4% to 70.


The overall banking sector saw consumer satisfaction with checking, savings and loan services swell 2.7% to 77. But, taken on their own, smaller institutions do better with customers, scoring 79.


Larger banks, with collected most of the $30 billion in overdraft fees charged in 2011, are losing more customers to more petite rivals and credit unions.


The influx of clients has caused satisfaction with credit unions to take a 5.7% hit, but the sector’s 82 score still outperforms other types of banking.


The ACSI report also covers health insurance, which as an industry landed a 72 tally. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Assn. led the pack, followed by WellPoint, UnitedHealth and finally Aetna.


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