Allure of Self-Insurance Draws Concern Over Costs

WASHINGTON — Federal and state officials and consumer advocates have grown worried that companies with relatively young, healthy employees may opt out of the regular health insurance market to avoid the minimum coverage standards in President Obama’s sweeping law, a move that could drive up costs for workers at other companies. Companies can avoid many standards in the new law by insuring...

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Editorial: Wages, From the Bottom Up

President Obama was right about the need to increase the federal minimum wage, but it was too bad that he pulled his punches in calling on Congress to lift the wage only to $9 an hour by the end of 2015, from $7.25 an hour, where it has been since 2009. His proposal would boost the annual pay of an employee working full time at the minimum wage from $14,500 now to $18,000, which is still...

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Deasy wants 30% of teacher evaluations based on test scores

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced Friday that as much as 30% of a teacher's evaluation will be based on student test scores,...

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The Quirky World of Competitive Snow Carving Comes to California

Team Truckee entered the competition late, after Team Russia was unable to get visas in time. Their sculpture: "Rising Tide."The weekend at Northstar ski resort in Truckee, California, is beautiful, sunny, and in the 30s. For eight teams of snow carvers from around the world, though, it’s terrible — the melty snow is sloppy, hard to carve, and even dangerous.Teams of three from Finland, Japan,...

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Kate Upton says body shut down after Antarctic bikini shoot

(Reuters) – Swimsuit model Kate Upton said on Tuesday her body shut down after she posed in a skimpy bikini in Antarctica for Sports Illustrated magazine.Upton, wearing only a white bikini bottom and an unzipped white parka, was picked as the cover girl for the annual Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, unveiled on Monday, for the second consecutive year.“It was freezing,” Upton, 20, told NBC’s morning...

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Livestrong Tattoos as Reminder of Personal Connections, Not Tarnished Brand

As Jax Mariash went under the tattoo needle to have “Livestrong” emblazoned on her wrist in bold black letters, she did not think about Lance Armstrong or doping allegations, but rather the 10 people affected by cancer she wanted to commemorate in ink. It was Jan. 22, 2010, exactly a year since the disease had taken the life of her stepfather. After years of wearing yellow Livestrong wristbands, she...

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The Education Revolution: In China, Families Bet It All on a Child in College

Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesWu Caoying studied English under her father’s watchful eye in 2006. She is now a sophomore in college. More Photos »HANJING, China — Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education. ...

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'Blade Runner' Oscar Pistorius weeps as he faces murder charge

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius, the double-amputee revered in South Africa for overcoming his...

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Lebbeus Woods: The Architect Who Dared to Ask 'What If?'

He envisioned underground cities, floating buildings and an eternal space tomb for Albert Einstein worthy of the great physicist’s expansive intellect. With such grand designs, perhaps it’s not too surprising that the late Lebbeus Woods, one of the most influential conceptual architects ever to walk the earth, had only one of his wildly imaginative designs become a permanent structure.Instead of working...

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Oscar’s oldest nominee, Emmanuelle Riva, on “Amour”: it’s a gift in the last stage of my life

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – The life of an artist is full of surprises, and none has been bigger for French actress Emanuelle Riva than the one that has come late in life. The response has been overwhelming to her performance in this year’s meditative “Amour,” which brought her the first Oscar nomination of her career – and makes her the oldest Best Actress nominee ever, at 85.Riva was best known...

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