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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UK government urged to consider relaxing drug rules

JUST say yes to considering relaxed drug controls, urged a panel of UK parliamentarians this week - but Prime Minister David Cameron has rejected the calls.

Many countries have loosened their penalties for drug use, including the Czech Republic and Portugal, which introduced a "de-penalisation" strategy in 2000. Citizens caught in possession avoid criminal records but must attend drug advice sessions. Last month, the US states of Colorado and Washington voted to legalise the recreational use of cannabis.

The UK report calls for the effects of these legal moves to be monitored. "Drugs policy ought to be evidence-based as much as possible," it concludes. "We recommend that the government fund a detailed research project to monitor the effects of each legalisation system."

The report notes that 21 countries have now introduced some form of decriminalisation. But the government's response has been lukewarm. "I don't support decriminalisation," said Cameron. "We have a policy which actually is working in Britain. Drugs use is coming down."

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Unsafe ride-on animal toy recalled

SINGAPORE: SPRING Singapore has found that a toy given out as a free gift contains unsafe levels of phthalates, commonly used as a plasticiser in toys.

The free gift comes in the shape of cows, deers and ponies.

SPRING had sent samples of the toy for testing in response to a consumer's complaint.

As a precaution, SPRING had asked the retailer Aura Roboclean Singapore Pte Ltd to immediately stop distributing the product.

The retailer is contacting customers who were given the toys to stop using them and dispose of them immediately, or return them to the company.

So far, between 300 and 400 toy animals have been given out.

- CNA/ck

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Google Maps returns to iOS as an app after Apple's removal

Screen shots of Google's new Maps app for iOS.

(Credit:
Google)

Once banished from Apple's iOS, Google Maps has returned to the mobile platform in the form of a standalone app.

The official Google Maps app returned to Apple's App store this evening. As expected, the new app includes turn-by-turn navigation, just like its
Android counterpart, as well as public transit directions, and its Street View.

However, as quickly as it showed up, it vanished. Many iOS users complained about not being able to complete the purchase, getting a message that "the item you tried to buy is no longer available."

Error message would-be Google Maps buyers are seeing.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Declan McCullagh/CNET)

CNET has contacted Google for comment and will update this report when we learn more.

Google supplied the map function to iOS devices until the release of
iOS 6 this fall, when it was replaced by Apple's homegrown mapping solution. The maps were found to be rife with embarrassing errors, leading Apple CEO Tim Cook to issue a rare public apology on the subject. Apple retreated on claims that the app was the "most powerful mapping service ever" and even began promoting other maps apps in its App Store.

The ouster of iOS software chief Scott Forstall was said to be linked to Cook's apology and Forstall's unwillingness to sign it. Richard Williamson, who was in charge of the company's maps software for iOS, was also reportedly fired.

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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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McAfee Lands in Miami: I'm Free

Software mogul John McAfee has been released from detention in Guatemala City and has landed in Miami.

Immediately upon landing, according to passengers on the plane, McAfee's name was called and he was whisked off the aircraft. Federal officials escorted the 67-year-old Internet antivirus pioneer through customs spirit him out a side door, out of the view of reporters, according to Miami International Airport's communication director, Greg Chin.

It was not clear whether officials intended to help McAfee avoid the inevitable media circus or wanted to question him. However, he has not been charged with committing a crime in Guatemala or Belize, where the authorities have sought to question him about the murder of his neighbor.

McAfee's departure from Guatemala came earlier today.

"They took me out of my cell and put me on a freaking airplane," he told ABC News. "I had no choice in the matter."

McAfee said, however, that Guatemalan authorities had been "nice" and that his exit from the Central American country was "not at all" unpleasant.

"It was the most gracious expulsion I've ever experienced," he said. "Compared to my past two wives that expelled me this isn't a terrible trip."

McAfee said he would not be accompanied by his 20-year-old Belizean girlfriend, but is seeking a visa for her. He also said he had retained a lawyer in the U.S.

Guatemala's National Police/AP Photo

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When he was released earlier today, McAfee told the Associated Press, "I'm free. ... I'm going to America."

McAfee, who had been living in a beachfront house in Belize, went on the run after the Nov. 10 murder of his neighbor, fellow American expatriate Greg Faull. Belize police said they wanted to question McAfee about the murder, but McAfee said he feared for his life in Belizean custody.

He entered Guatemala last week seeking asylum, but was arrested and taken to an immigration detention center. He was taken to the hospital after suffering a nervous collapse and then returned to the detention center. The U.S. State Department has visited McAfee, who is a dual U.S.-British citizen, several times during his stay in Guatemala.

During his three-week journey, said McAfee, he disguised himself as handicapped, dyed his hair seven times and hid in many different places during his three-week journey.

He dismissed accounts of erratic behavior and reports that he had been using the synthetic drug bath salts. He said he had never used the drug, and said statements that he had were part of an elaborate prank.

Investigators in Belize said that McAfee was not a suspect in the death of Faull, a former developer who was found shot in the head in his house.

McAfee told ABC News that the poisoning death of his dogs and the murder just hours later of Faull, who had complained about his dogs, was a coincidence.

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Today on New Scientist: 11 December 2012

Out-of-season's greetings from the Arctic frost flowers

Season's regards from an icy meadow in the Arctic, but it's no winter wonderland and please don't dash out into it

How hacking a mosquito's heart could eradicate malaria

Watch how a double-pronged trick helps mosquitoes remain healthy while carrying disease, a process that could be exploited to eliminate malaria

New drug lifts hard-to-treat depression in hours

A new class of drugs that changes the way neurons interact in the brain can rapidly lift people out of depression

E. O. Wilson and poet laureate on altruism and mystery

Leading evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson and former US poet laureate Robert Hass discuss free will, wilderness and the mysterious origin of the arts

Souped-up immune cells force leukaemia into remission

Genetically engineered white blood cells have been shown to have a strong impact on leukaemia after just three months

War of words: The language paradox explained

If language evolved for communication, how come most people can't understand what most other people are saying?

AC/DC's Highway to Hell sent via a drone's laser beam

A dose of rock music proves that a drone's reconnaisance data can be sent via reflected laser beam instead of radio

'Biology is a manufacturing capability'

Soon we'll be able to engineer living things with mechanical precision, says Tom Knight, father of synthetic biology

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UN Security Council to meet over N. Korean launch

UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council will meet Wednesday to discuss North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket in defiance of threats of sanctions, a Western diplomat said.

"The Japanese and the Americans have requested a Security Council meeting, which will take place late Wednesday morning" around 11:00 am (1700 GMT), the diplomat said.

Japan's chief government spokesman Osamu Fujimura told reporters in Tokyo that the Japanese envoy had already called for UN Security Council president Morocco to "swiftly summon" the council to a meeting.

The Western diplomat predicted the special talks would likely see a "strong response" at the council to the rocket launch that Seoul, Tokyo and their Western allies swiftly condemned as a disguised ballistic missile test that violates UN resolutions triggered by Pyongyang's two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

North Korea had confirmed hours earlier the launch of a long-range rocket and said it had succeeded in its mission of placing a satellite into orbit.

A previous launch of the same Unha-3 rocket in April had ended in failure, with the carrier exploding shortly after take-off.

In 2006, the Security Council imposed an embargo against North Korea on arms and material for ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction. It also banned imports of luxury goods and named individuals and companies to be subject to a global assets freeze and travel ban.

In 2009, it imposed a ban on North Korea's weapons exports and ordered all countries to search suspect shipments.

According to Japanese reports, Japan, the United States and South Korea have agreed to demand the Security Council strengthen sanctions on North Korea to levels that match those on Iran.

That would include increasing the list of financial institutions, entities and individuals subject to asset freezes.

Much will depend on the stance taken by UN veto holder China, North Korea's sole major ally and its biggest trade partner and aid provider.

- AFP/ck

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Start-Ups Silicon Valley Ep. 6: Booty calls and booted dolls

Hermione sans dildo.

(Credit:
BravoTV Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Last week, we left our protagonists on "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" hanging on the end of a strap-on.

No, wait. It was Hermione (blonde, British, boozer) who was hanging on to a strap-on at the end.

Her brother Ben (short, pretty, pretty short) was livid with her, even though it was her birthday party. One doesn't play with sex toys in front of VCs.

Not unless those sex toys are social and can entice 100 million users within a week.

Ben reveals to Hermione something more important than whether they lost $500,000 to her dildo dancing: he isn't going to pursue a relationship with Sarah (blonde, big-headed lifecaster).

Well, he has Ashley, you see. She's a model entrepreneur. Actually, that's not quite right. She's a model/entrepreneur. They have been seeing each other for four years. When they're together, they're on. When they're not together, they're entirely off.

"It's perfect,' explains Ben, off-handedly.

A cute girl in an ugly world
Meanwhile, another perfect pair -- Kimmy (dark, deeply ambitious, dullish) is hanging out with Dwight (light, tight, hairy).

Dwight and Kimmy besmirch Sarah as being a sad, dumb freeloader. Her greatest advantage, they opine, is that she's a cute girl in a place where most people are ugly.

Oddly, Dwight and Kimmy are cute too. Kimmy, though, is very serious about her fashion site, Shunova.

What kind of fashion site is it? Shunoidea.

Ben and Hernione are off to try another investment pitch. This time, they encounter former astronaut Esther Dyson. Hermione immediately sucks up to Dyson that she's wearing space pants in her honor.

Dyson looks like she would love to suck Hermione up in a Dyson vacuum cleaner.

Ben enthuses about Ignite, their app that is all about being able to predict your lifespan. And, um, motivating yourself to die later than you might.

Ignite also includes a pad that you step on and, oh, measure things. This is colloquially known as the
iPad. Dyson asks to see it.

There's a slight problem. It doesn't exist yet. Dyson looks like she'd happily suck Ben up into a Dyson too.

A booty call ignited
But what of David (gay, sane)? His start-up is called Goal Sponsors. It's sort of similar to, um, Ignite. Without the iPad and the actual calculation of when you're going to die. But with sponsors.

Yes, it's AA for the health-neurotics.

"We just have a lot of chemistry and not a lot of time to sleep."

Is this David talking about his start-up? No, it's Ben talking about his model relationship with Ashley. He describes it in British as "snuggles." He translates this as "booty call."

Ben is worried that with Ashley in town he will not be able to use his head. Really.

The potential investors from Gramercy Ventures -- together with Dyson -- go to see prototypes of the Ignite Pad. It's a bathroom scale. But because you can give it more meaning through your smart iPhone, it's a very smart bathroom scale.

Potential investor Michael Gale -- he who may (or may not) have been offended by Hermione's strap-on performance -- asks whether "Ignite" is too male a brand name. Hermione goes into an imaginative explanation involving sperm.

Ben suddenly looks as if he is about to give birth.

"When Ben and I first kissed, she came two days after."

A slightly odd chain of events, you might imagine. Actually, this is Sarah's tale of woe concerning Ashley's sudden arrival at the last SXSW. Sarah has heard Ashley is in town now. David explains to her that they're both gorgeous.

Yes, of course they're at a party. Sarah is upset. David tells her he understands. Sarah believes Ben is trying to have his cake and eat it.

There's quite a lot of cake on Sarah's face. But, as yet, no egg.

Ignite has ignition

Meanwhile, Gale explains to Ben and Hermione that he doesn't like egg on his face either. He hates looking stupid. But Dyson actually likes the Ignite idea, so, together, they're going to give them $500,000.

Yes, the strap-on didn't make the investors stroll off. There was a clue when the meeting started. Gale brought some red champagne. Yes, blood red.

Hermione celebrates with her human strap-on. He's called Jay. She worries he's gay. Because he's keeping her at bay.

But then she decides that's a good thing. She must, after all, concentrate on her start-up.

Sarah booted
But first, another party.

"It's going to take a certain kind of guy to ever be able to deal with me," offers Hermione to Ashley. Yes, indeed. An insane guy, might be one thought.

Oddly enough, Hermione then chooses the next moment -- entirely by coincidence -- to tell Ashley that Sarah had been on a date with Ben. Yes, a date that included kissing.

More Technically Incorrect

"I didn't know that you guys were together," Sarah tells Ashley. With typical sensitivity, she goes on to insist that Ben had told her there was nothing between him and Ashley.

Oh, other than that he had mentioned that Ashley was stalking him.

Ashley gets shirty with Sarah. She demands that she lay off Ben. Sarah confronts Ben. She asks him to admit that he called Ashley a stalker.

Ben denies it and then utters a line that must have been fed to him: "You want to create drama wherever you are."

Yes, Ben, they do, those wily producers.

Meanwhile, Sarah is left to sniffle and philosophize.

"When girls are taken advantage of by a guy, we should stand together," she says.

It's as if she's never watched any of the "Real Housewives" franchise.

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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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