Sally Struthers enters not guilty plea for DUI

YORK, Maine (AP) — Sally Struthers has entered a not guilty plea on charges she drove drunk in Maine, where she was performing in a musical.

The Portland Press Herald (http://bit.ly/XleJBq) reports the 65-year-old Struthers did not appear in York District Court on Thursday, and entered the plea through her lawyer.

Police arrested Struthers on Sept. 12 on U.S. Route 1 in the resort town Ogunquit (oh-GUHNG’-kwit). She was charged with criminal operating under the influence.

Struthers is best known for her role as Gloria Stivic in the 1970s TV sitcom “All in the Family.” She had been performing at the Ogunquit Playhouse in the musical “9 to 5.”

Struthers is scheduled to appear in court on Feb. 13 for a bench trial.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com

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US faces task of running dozens of health exchanges

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fourteen U.S. states and the District of Columbia so far have told the federal government they plan to operate healthcare exchanges under President Barack Obama‘s reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for at least two-thirds of the country.

On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top U.S. healthcare policy official told lawmakers that the exchanges will start enrolling eligible families starting on October 1, 2013.

“I am confident that states and the federal government will be ready in ten months, when consumers in all states can begin to apply,” Gary Cohen, director of the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, told a health oversight panel in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Cohen, whose agency is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), was among federal officials who testified alongside state health authorities at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health.

In written testimony, Cohen said 15 states have told the administration they will operate their own exchanges. He later explained under questioning that the count comprises 14 states and the District of Columbia.

Separately, HHS officials confirmed the count of 14 states but could not immediately explain why Cohen’s written testimony contained a higher number.

Some experts say the number of states planning to operate their own exchanges could reach 18 by the time the deadline arrives Friday. Still, the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues, says only two states – Utah and Florida – remain undecided.

That would leave at least 30 states in which the administration would be required to run exchanges, a challenge that is raising questions about how successfully U.S. officials can implement a key provision of the healthcare reform law, known to opponents and advocates alike as “Obamacare”.

“I don’t envy them for the job that they have,” said Dennis Smith, a former federal healthcare official who now heads health services in Wisconsin, a state that has decided not to pursue its own exchange.

“At the end of the day, you’re trying to connect a buyer to a seller. And the fundamental things required to do that are not yet in place,” he said.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which Obama signed into law more than 2-1/2 years ago, is expected to extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans. Those who enroll starting in October would be covered by insurance from January 1, 2014.

POLITICAL THEATER

About half of those newly insured individuals would purchase private coverage from online exchanges at federally subsidized rates. Ultimately, the number of people finding coverage through exchanges is expected to reach 26 million, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The remainder would be covered by expanding the Medicaid program for the poor to cover all adults earning up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, or about $ 15,000 for individuals and $ 30,600 for a family of four.

Thursday’s hearing provided a political stage for partisan rhetoric about Obama’s health reforms, which have survived repeated Republican repeal efforts, a nail-biting consideration by the Supreme Court and the Presidential election campaign.

Republicans and state officials from Republican-led states complained about compliance costs and accused HHS of delaying the release of vital details and rules needed to move forward on the exchanges and on the planned Medicaid expansion.

“The uncertain regulatory environment and the overall lack of response from HHS are not encouraging the states or the health plans to move forward,” said Representative Michael Burgess, a Texas Republican.

In response, Congressional Democrats and their state allies stressed the law’s benefits for senior citizens, protections for young adults and the sick, and the prospective economic benefits from an expected influx of billions of dollars in federal money.

“The (Republican) move now is to delay implementation under the guise of lack of information,” said Representative Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat.

“The world in fact is not coming to an end,” he added. “The nation will be better because of the Affordable Care Act.”

States that don’t run their own exchanges would opt for one of two alternatives: a federally facilitated exchange that requires minimal state participation, or a federal partnership exchange in which states help by performing certain duties.

Kaiser Family Foundation expects six states to choose the partnership option and two dozen to opt for federally facilitated exchanges. Cohen said the count so far is four partnerships and seven facilitated exchanges.

States have until February 15 to say whether they intend to seek a federal partnership exchange. Four have done so already, Cohen said.

The administration will have to engineer an information technology system capable of processing operations in a way that meet the needs of healthcare consumers in different states.

Experts say the biggest challenge will likely be providing adequate customer service to handle enrollment, as well as fielding a technology system capable of interfacing seamlessly with the system of each state government.

Cohen told the panel the administration is building a website with interactive capabilities and a call center and has begun testing a data services hub to determine eligibility.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Ros Krasny, Jilian Mincer, Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)

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Marijuana not a high priority, Obama says

President Obama says recreational users of marijuana in states that have legalized the substance should not be a "top priority" of federal law enforcement officials prosecuting the war on drugs.

"We've got bigger fish to fry," Obama said of pot users in Colorado and Washington during an exclusive interview with ABC News' Barbara Walters.

"It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it's legal," he said, invoking the same approach taken toward users of medicinal marijuana in 18 states where it's legal.

More of Barbara Walters' exclusive first joint, post-election interview with President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama airs tonight on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET on ABC stations.

Obama's comments on marijuana are his first following Colorado and Washington voters' approval of Nov. 7 ballot measures that legalize the recreational use and sale of pot in defiance of federal law.

Marijuana, or cannabis, remains classified under the Controlled Substances Act as a Schedule I narcotic whose cultivation, distribution, possession and use are criminal acts. It's in the same category as heroin, LSD and "Ecstasy," all deemed to have high potential for abuse.

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

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Obama told Walters he does not – "at this point" – support widespread legalization of marijuana. But he cited shifting public opinion and limited government resources as reasons to find a middle ground on punishing use of the drug.

"This is a tough problem, because Congress has not yet changed the law," Obama said. "I head up the executive branch; we're supposed to be carrying out laws. And so what we're going to need to have is a conversation about, How do you reconcile a federal law that still says marijuana is a federal offense and state laws that say that it's legal?"

The president said he has asked Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department to examine the legal questions surrounding conflicting state and federal laws on drugs.

"There are a number of issues that have to be considered, among them the impact that drug usage has on young people, [and] we have treaty obligations with nations outside the United States," Holder said Wednesday of the review underway.

As a politician, Obama has always opposed legalizing marijuana and downplayed his personal history with the substance.

Obama wrote in his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father," that he would smoke pot regularly with his high school buddies who formed a "club of disaffection." The group was known as the "Choom Gang," says Obama biographer David Maraniss.

"There are a bunch of things I did that I regret when I was a kid," Obama told Walters. "My attitude is, substance abuse generally is not good for our kids, not good for our society.

"I want to discourage drug use," he added.

While the administration has not prioritized prosecutions of marijuana users and small-scale distributors in states where it's legal, it has not ceased prosecutions altogether. The Justice Department has continued raids on pot providers – including in states where they are legal – in an approach that experts say is more aggressive than Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush.

"I never made a commitment that somehow we were going to give carte blanche to large-scale producers and operators of marijuana – and the reason is, because it's against federal law," Obama told "Rolling Stone" in an interview earlier this year.

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Online gambling companies struggle to clear EU hurdles

LONDON (Reuters) – A partnership stuck on Friday between bwin.party Digital Entertainment and a Belgian casino group has defused one of many disputes pitting online gambling companies against governments across Europe.

The agreement came a month after bwin.party’s co-CEO was questioned by Belgian authorities in an escalating license dispute the company said was costing it 700,000 euros ($ 916,000) in monthly revenue.

By joining forces with Belcasinos, a unit of local casino owner Group Partouche, bwin.party neatly met a requirement to have a presence in Belgium to win a license for online poker, casino and sports betting.

The agreement is a rare bright spot in a tough regulatory environment for online gambling companies across the continent.

Betting online on sports events or playing poker on the Internet are increasingly popular pastimes in Europe, where operators say they are held back by unfair and discriminatory rules in many European Union countries.

“It is not a European Union in any way, it is a patchwork of different countries who happen to be in the EU,” said Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, director of the betting research unit at Nottingham Business School in central England.

“Different countries have different vested interests and different ideas they are trying to promote. Are they trying to protect consumers or to maximize their tax take?” he said.

The 27 EU member states retain the right to regulate their gambling sectors as they see fit, but rules must comply with EU law, broadly meaning they must be consistent and proportionate.

Some companies are scaling back activities in European markets where, they say, regulatory risks are too high or tax rates are punitive.

Betting exchange operator Betfair for instance said this week it was halting marketing and investment in unregulated markets, including EU members Cyprus, Germany and Greece.

William Hill, Britain‘s largest bookmaker, has joined Betfair in pulling out of Greece and has also stopped offering sports betting to German residents because of a 5 percent turnover tax.

STAKES RISE

The stakes are high. Online gambling is growing at an annual rate of almost 15 percent in the EU and will be worth an estimated 13 billion euros ($ 17 billion) by 2015, according to EU figures.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive, stepped in to the debate in October when it published a medium-term plan to clarify regulations and promote cooperation between member states, ruling out EU-wide legislation for the time being.

“All citizens must be adequately protected, money laundering and fraud must be prevented, sport must be safeguarded against betting-related match-fixing and national rules must comply with EU law,” Internal Market and Services Commissioner Michel Barnier said, setting out his approach.

The online operators accuse the European Commission of failing to follow through properly on complaints lodged about regulation in no fewer than 20 or the 27 EU member states.

Barnier has written to member states accused of breaching EU law in the way they handle gambling, seeking an update on the situation by the end of the year.

However, the industry questions whether the EU will go into battle over gambling when it is facing so many other problems.

“They will chip away at some of the most blatant ones,” said Clive Hawkswood, chief executive of trade body the Remote Gambling Association. “What we really need is for them to take some to the European Court and take enforcement action.”

BRITISH TAXES

Gambling companies themselves have taken advantage of different tax regimes where they work in their favor.

This is illustrated in Britain, historically the biggest betting market in Europe and a place with a well-developed gambling culture where bookmakers have operated in town centers for 50 years.

In recent years, most betting companies have moved their British online betting operations to Britain’s overseas territory of Gibraltar. There they are sheltered from a 15 percent tax on gross profit faced by operators based in Britain.

New legislation will close off that loophole after 2014. The shift to a taxation model based on the location of the consumer was expected to cost gambling companies as much as 270 million pounds ($ 435 million) by 2016-17.

Analyst Nick Batram at brokerage Peel Hunt said smaller players would likely be picked off because of the impact of higher tax and regulatory burdens across Europe.

“It is getting more complicated and more expensive. There is more change afoot but it should ultimately play into the hands of the better-capitalized companies.”

In that vein, William Hill has provisionally agreed a 485 million pound takeover of smaller rival Sportingbet, keen to get its hands on the company’s regulated Australian betting business.

“I think there is a lot more M&A activity to come,” said Batram.

(Additional reporting by Rosalba O’Brien; Editing by David Holmes)

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UPDATE 3-Cricket-Hughes shines as Australia reach 299-4

* Hughes falls just short of century

* Clarke and Hussey combine for 101

* Welegedera takes 3-99 (Adds quotes)

HOBART, Dec 14 (Reuters) – Phil Hughes made a solid 86 on his return to test cricket before Michael Clarke and Mike Hussey took up the running and steered Australia to 299 for four at close of play on the first day of the first test against Sri Lanka on Friday.

Hughes was the only batsmen to fall in the final session, lasting only a couple of overs after lunch before being bowled through the gate by Chanaka Welegedera, giving the Sri Lankan seamer his third wicket of the day.

Clarke, who had made 70 not out, and Hussey, unbeaten on 37, batted through the remainder of the day and if the evidence of their prolific partnerships in the recent series against South Africa is anything to go by, will take some shifting.

“Overall, 299 for four puts the ball in our court,” said Hughes. “I thought we were outstanding today. It really gives us momentum going into tomorrow.”

Sri Lanka’s bowlers, dubbed this week as the worst pace attack ever to tour Australia by former test bowler Rodney Hogg, made life uncomfortable for the batsmen at times but struggled for any real penetration under cloudy skies at Bellerive Oval.

“I think we showed we can put Australia under pressure and hopefully the bowlers will be fresh in the morning and we can get them out for less than 100 additional runs,” said Welegedera, who finished with 3-99 on his return after nine months out injured.

Clarke, who passed 1,400 runs for the year, has now put on 731 runs in partnerships with Hussey in the last four tests and will be looking to plunder a few more on Saturday despite taking a couple of painful knocks to his legs.

Friday, however, belonged to Hughes.

The lefthander was recalled to the side on the back of good domestic form following the retirement of Ricky Ponting at the end of the series against the Proteas.

The 24-year-old reached his fourth test half century with a square drive for three runs and then initially accelerated towards a century, most notably with an ugly but effective slog for six off spinner Rangana Herath.

CALAMITOUS RUNOUT

On the ground where his second spell as a test batsman ended amid questions about his technique after two failures against New Zealand last year, Hughes scored eight fours and one six in his 166-ball knock before Welegedera struck with a superb ball.

“It was nice to get a few,” he said. “It would have been nice to get a few more and get into three figures.”

Australia had lost openers Ed Cowan (four) and David Warner in the opening session, the latter run out for 57 on the stroke of lunch after a calamitous misunderstanding with Hughes.

Shane Watson, dropping down to fourth in the batting order to allow Hughes to come in at number three, followed them to the pavilion for 30 shortly before tea, the victim of an exceptional diving catch in the slips by skipper Mahela Jayawardene.

That was a second wicket for Welegedera and a measure of redemption for the bowler after he had Hughes caught behind for 77 only for the umpire to call a no ball.

Welegedera had also made the early breakthrough for the tourists when Cowan tried to pull a short delivery only for the ball to catch him high on the bat and carry to mid-on where Shaminda Eranga took a simple catch.

It could have been even better for the Sri Lankans, who were only centimetres away from the perfect start to the morning after Clarke had won the toss and elected to bat.

Cowan edged the second delivery of the day from Nuwan Kulasekara to the slips but Angelo Mathews was just unable to get his hands to it, despite an athletic dive. (Editing by Peter Rutherford)

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family’s options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama‘s health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can’t afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama’s law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don’t expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation’s second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities “where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point,” Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. “In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds.”

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict “a double whammy” in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $ 1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation’s largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $ 1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $ 600 million and $ 650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $ 96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $ 81 million two years earlier. The state’s public hospital districts spent an additional $ 717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision “basically eviscerates” the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of “who lives there and what they’re eligible for,” said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it’s believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

“In a sense we’ve been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time,” said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson’s vice president of health policy in Houston. “The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us.”

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $ 11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors’ offices. But in the first year, $ 600 million was cut from the centers’ usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

“They always attended to me,” she said, “even though it’s slow.”

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Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Tolkien class at Wis. university proves popular

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The vast collection of J.R.R. Tolkien manuscripts initially sold senior Joe Kirchoff on Marquette University, so when the school offered its first course devoted exclusively to the English author, Kirchoff wanted in. The only problem: It was full and he wasn’t on the literature track.

Undaunted, the 22-year-old political science and history major lobbied the English department and others starting last spring and through the summer and “kind of just made myself a problem,” he said. His persistence paid off.

“It’s a fantastic course,” said Kirchoff, a Chicago native. “It’s a great way to look at something that’s such a creative work of genius in such a way you really come to understand the man behind it.”

He and the 31 other students can now boast of their authority about the author who influenced much of today’s high fantasy writing. The course was taught for the first time this fall as part of the university’s celebration of the 75th anniversary of “The Hobbit” being published. And class wrapped up just before the film, “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” was released Friday.

The class, which filled up fast with mostly seniors who had first dibs, looked at Tolkien as a whole, not just the popular “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit.” Students took their final exam this week, and the course was so well received, Marquette is considering more in the future.

“It’s the best class I’ve had in 27 years here … for student preparation, interest and enthusiasm,” said English professor Tim Machan. “And I can throw out any topic and they will have read the material and they want to talk about the material.”

Marquette is one of the main repositories of Tolkien’s drafts, drawings and other writings — more than 11,000 pages. It has the manuscripts for “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” as well as his lesser-known “Farmer Giles of Ham” and his children’s book “Mr. Bliss.” Marquette was the first institution to ask Tolkien for the manuscripts in 1956 and paid him about $ 5,000. He died in 1973.

Other significant collections are at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University in England and Wheaton College in Illinois.

Though Tolkien classes aren’t unusual nationwide, Marquette students had the added bonus of being able to visit Tolkien’s revisions, notes, detailed calendars, maps and watercolors on site at the school’s archive. And they got a lesson from the school’s archivist Bill Fliss.

“One of the things we wanted to impress upon the students was the fact that Tolkien was a fanatical reviser,” said Fliss said. “He never really did anything once and was finished with it.”

Chrissy Wabiszewski, a senior English major, described Tolkien’s manuscripts as art.

“When you get down and look at just his script and his artwork in general, it all kind of flows together in this really beautiful, like, cumulative form,” Wabiszewski said. “It’s cool. It is just really cool to have it here.”

The class also looked at Tolkien’s poetry, academic articles and translations of medieval poems; talked about the importance of his writers’ group, the Inklings; and explored what it meant to be a writer at that time.

“We’ve … tried to think about continuities that ran through everything he did,” Machan said. His students were also required to go to three lectures that were part of Marquette’s commemoration.

“The Hobbit,” a tale of homebody Bilbo Baggins’ journey, is set in Tolkien’s fictional realm of Middle-earth and takes place 60 years before “The Lord of the Rings.” The movie released Friday is the first of the trilogy, with “The Hobbit: There and Back Again” set for release on Dec. 13, 2013, and a third film to come out in the summer of 2014.

Most of the students were just finishing elementary school when the first “Lord of the Rings” film was released 11 years ago.

Kirchoff said he started reading “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” when he was in fourth grade, before the movies came out. He said the movies have introduced others to Tolkien’s ideas, making his love for Tolkien’s fantasy worlds more socially acceptable.

“The movies were fantastic enough and engaging enough to coexist in my mind with the literature I really do love,” he said.

Wabiszewski said it’s clear her classmates weren’t just taking the class as a filler.

“I definitely expected the enthusiasm from everybody but just the knowledge that everybody brought into the class, it’s cool,” she said. “We really have a smart group of people in that class who have a lot to offer.”

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U.S. to send missiles, troops to Turkey

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed an order on Friday to send two Patriot missile batteries to Turkey with 400 American personnel to operate them, in a move by NATO members to bolster Turkey's defenses against the threat of Syrian missiles.

The order was signed shortly before Panetta arrived on an unannounced visit to Turkey to meet American troops stationed at the Incirlik Air Base, the last stop on a week-long trip that took him to Afghanistan and Kuwait.

"The purpose of this deployment is to signal very strongly that the United States, working closely with our NATO allies, is going to support the defense of Turkey, especially with potential threats emanating from Syria," spokesman George Little said.

NATO-member Turkey has repeatedly scrambled jets along the countries' joint frontier and responded in kind when shells from the Syrian conflict came down inside its borders, fanning fears that the civil war could spread to destabilize the region.

The widely expected U.S. move follows similar steps by Germany and the Netherlands, which also said they will send two Patriot batteries. The three countries are the only NATO nations with the most modern type of Patriots.

Little declined to say where the U.S. batteries would be located and said the systems would be deployed to Turkey for an unspecified amount of time.

"We expect them to be deployed in the coming weeks," Little said.

NATO approved Turkey's request for air defense batteries on December 4, in a move meant to calm its fears of coming under missile attack, possibly with chemical weapons, from Syria.

The Patriot system is designed to intercept aircraft or missiles. NATO says the measure is purely defensive, but Russia, Syria and Iran have criticized the decision, saying it increases regional instability.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Aides: Chavez in tough fight, may miss swearing-in

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Somber confidants of President Hugo Chavez say he is going through a difficult recovery after cancer surgery in Cuba, and one close ally is warning Venezuelans that their leader may not make it back for his swearing-in next month.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Wednesday night that Chavez was in “stable condition” and was with close relatives in Havana. Reading a statement, he said the government invites people to “accompany President Chavez in this new test with their prayers.”

Villegas expressed hope about the president returning home for his Jan. 10 swearing-in for a new six-year term, but said in a written message on a government website that if Chavez doesn’t make it, “our people should be prepared to understand it.”

Villegas said it would be irresponsible to hide news about the “delicateness of the current moment and the days to come.” He asked Venezuelans to see Chavez’s condition as “when we have a sick father, in a delicate situation after four surgeries in a year and a half.”

Moving to prepare the public for the possibility of more bad news, Vice President Nicolas Maduro looked grim when he acknowledged that Chavez faced a “complex and hard” process after his latest surgery.

At the same time, officials sought to show a united front amid the growing worries about Chavez’s health and Venezuela’s future. Key leaders of Chavez’s party and military officers appeared together on television as Maduro gave updates on Chavez’s condition.

“We’re more united than ever,” said Maduro, who was flanked by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, both key members of Chavez’s inner circle. “We’re united in loyalty to Chavez.”

Analysts say Maduro could eventually face challenges in trying to hold together the president’s diverse “Chavismo” movement, which includes groups from radical leftists to moderates, as well as military factions.

Tapped by the 58-year-old president over the weekend as his chosen political heir, Maduro is considered to be a member of radical left wing of Chavez’s movement that is closely aligned with Cuba’s communist government.

Cabello, a former military officer who also wields power within Chavez’s movement, shared the spotlight with Maduro by speaking at a Mass for Chavez’s health at a military base.

Just returned from being with Chavez for the operation, Cabello called the president “invincible” but said “that man who is in Havana … is fighting a battle for his life.”

After Chavez’s six-hour operation Tuesday, Venezuelan television broadcast religious services where people prayed for Chavez, interspersed with campaign rallies for upcoming gubernatorial elections.

On the streets of Caracas, people on both sides of the country’s deep political divide voiced concerns about Chavez’s condition and what might happen if he died.

At campaign rallies ahead of Sunday’s gubernatorial elections, Chavez’s candidates urged Venezuelans to vote for pro-government candidates while they also called for the president to get well.

“Onward, Commander!” gubernatorial candidate Elias Jaua shouted to a crowd of supporters at a rally Wednesday. Many observers said it was likely Chavez’s candidates could get a boost from their supporters’ outpouring of sympathy for Chavez.

Opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who lost to Chavez in the October presidential election and is running against Jaua, complained Wednesday that Chavez’s allies are taking advantage of the president’s health problems to try to rally support. He took issue with Jaua’s statement to supporters that “we have to vote so that the president recovers.”

Maduro looked sad as he spoke on television, his voice hoarse and cracked at times after meeting in the pre-dawn hours with Cabello and Ramirez. The pair returned to Venezuela about 3 a.m. after accompanying Chavez to Cuba for his surgery.

“It was a complex, difficult, delicate operation,” Maduro said. “The post-operative process is also going to be a complex and hard process.”

Without giving details, Maduro reiterated Chavez’s recent remarks that the surgery presented risks and that people should be prepared for any “difficult scenarios.”

The constitution says presidents should be sworn in before the National Assembly, and if that’s not possible then before the Supreme Court.

Former Supreme Court magistrate Roman Duque Corredor said a president cannot delegate the swearing-in to anyone else and cannot take the oath of office outside Venezuela. A president could still be sworn in even if temporarily incapacitated, but would need to be conscious and in Venezuela, Duque told The Associated Press.

If a president-elect is declared incapacitated by lawmakers and is unable to be sworn in, the National Assembly president would temporarily take charge of the government and a new presidential vote must be held within 30 days, Duque said.

Chavez said Saturday that if an election had to be held, Maduro should be elected president.

The dramatic events of this week, with Chavez suddenly taking a turn for the worse, had some Venezuelans wondering whether they were being told the truth because just a few months ago the president was running for his fourth presidential term and had said he was free of cancer.

Lawyer Maria Alicia Altuve, who was out in bustling crowds in a shopping district of downtown Caracas, said it seemed odd how Maduro wept at a political rally while talking about Chavez.

“He cries on television to set up a drama, so that people go vote for poor Chavez,” Altuve said. “So we don’t know if this illness is for that, or if it’s that this man is truly sick.”

Some Chavez supporters said they found it hard to think about losing the president and worried about the future. His admirers held prayer vigils in Caracas and other cities this week, holding pictures and singing hymns.

Chavez has undergone four cancer-related surgeries since June 2011. He has also undergone months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Throughout his treatments, Chavez has kept secret some details of his illness, including the exact location and type of the tumors.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa wished his close ally the best, while also acknowledging the possibility that cancer might end his presidency. “Chavez is very important for Latin America, but if he can’t continue at the head of Venezuela, the processes of change have to continue,” Correa said at a news conference in Quito.

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Associated Press writer Christopher Toothaker contributed to this report.

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iPad mini deemed a ‘game changer,’ outgrew Kindle Fire by nearly 50%

Smaller tablets in the 7-inch range have been on the market for more than two years now, but it looks like it took Apple (AAPL) just one month to vault to the top of the category. Mobile advertising firm Millennial Media recently published the findings of a study pitting the iPad mini against Amazon’s (AMZN) popular Kindle Fire, which has been an extremely popular iPad alternative since it first launched last year. According to Millennial, iPad mini usage grew about 50% faster during early November than the Kindle Fire did immediately following its successful launch last year, as measured by ad impressions served by the firm’s network.

Millennial found that impressions served to the iPad mini in early November grew at an average daily rate of 28%. In the weeks following the Kindle Fire’s launch last year, usage of Amazon’s tablet grew roughly 19% each day.

“In the first weeks after the iPad mini went on sale, we saw an average daily growth in impressions of 28 percent. Last holiday season, Amazon launched the Kindle Fire to much anticipation, Millennial Media’s Matt Mills wrote on the company’s blog. “As a comparison, we saw Kindle Fire impressions grow at an average daily rate of 19 percent in the first two weeks after it went on sale last year. So, by our math it looks like Apple could have itself another massive holiday season.”

Mills called the iPad mini a “game changer” and said he expects “a massive amount” of iPad mini tablets to be given as gifts this holiday season.

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