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."

___

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

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

Read More..

Wall St Week Ahead: Holiday "on standby" as clock ticks on cliff

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The last two weeks of December are traditionally quiet for stocks, but traders accustomed to a bit of time off are staying close to their mobile devices, thanks to the "fiscal cliff."

Last-minute negotiations in Washington on the so-called fiscal cliff - nearly $600 billion of tax increases and spending cuts set to take effect in January that could cause a sharp slowdown in growth or even a recession - are keeping some traders and analysts from taking Christmas holidays because any deal could have a big impact on markets.

"A lot of firms are saying to their trading desks, 'You can take days off for Christmas, but you are on standby to come in if anything happens.' This is certainly different from previous years, especially around this time of the year when things are supposed to be slowing down," said J.J. Kinahan, chief derivatives strategist at TD Ameritrade in Chicago.

"Next week is going to be a Capitol Hill-driven market."

With talks between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner at an apparent standstill, it was increasingly likely that Washington will not come up with a deal before January 1.

Gordon Charlop, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities in New York, will also be on standby for the holiday season.

"It's a 'Look guys, let's just rotate and be sensible" type of situation going on," Charlop said.

"We are hopeful there is some resolution down there, but it seems to me they continue to walk that political tightrope... rather than coming up with something."

Despite concerns that the deadline will pass without a deal, the S&P 500 has held its ground with a 12.4 percent gain for the year. For this week, though, the S&P 500 fell 0.3 percent.

BEWARE OF THE WITCH

This coming Friday will mark the last so-called "quadruple witching" day of the year, when contracts for stock options, single stock futures, stock index options and stock index futures all expire. This could make trading more volatile.

"We could see some heavy selling as there is going to be a lot of re-establishing of positions, reallocation of assets before the year-end," Kinahan said.

RETHINKING APPLE

Higher tax rates on capital gains and dividends are part of the automatic tax increases that will go into effect next year, if Congress and the White House don't come up with a solution to avert the fiscal cliff. That possibility could give investors an incentive to unload certain stocks in some tax-related selling by December 31.

Some market participants said tax-related selling may be behind the weaker trend in the stock price of market leader Apple . Apple's stock has lost a quarter of its value since it hit a lifetime high of $705.07 on September 21.

On Friday, the stock fell 3.8 percent to $509.79 after the iPhone 5 got a chilly reception at its debut in China and two analysts cut shipment forecasts. But the stock is still up nearly 26 percent for the year.

"If you owned Apple for a long time, you should be thinking about reallocation as there will be changes in taxes and other regulations next year, although we don't really know which rules to play by yet," Kinahan said.

But one indicator of the market's reduced concern about the fiscal cliff compared with a few weeks ago, is the defense sector, which will be hit hard if the spending cuts take effect. The PHLX Defense Sector Index <.dfx> is up nearly 13 percent for the year, and sits just a few points from its 2012 high.

(Reporting by Angela Moon; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

Read More..

The Saturday Profile: A Diver Sifts Through São Paulo’s Polluted Rivers

THE Tietê and Pinheiros Rivers, which cut through this metropolis of 20 million, flow well enough in some parts. But in certain stretches, they ooze. Their waters are best described, perhaps, as ashen gray. Their aroma, reminiscent of rotten eggs, can induce nausea in passers-by.

José Leonídio Rosendo dos Santos has been diving into both rivers for more than 20 years. Hired largely to unclog drainage gates, he scours the murky depths of the Tietê and Pinheiros, which have symbolized São Paulo’s environmental degradation for decades, bringing to the surface a list of items that is eerie and bizarre.

Over the years, his takings (which, as a contractor for public utility companies, he is required to hand over to the authorities) have included a suitcase with $2,000 inside, handguns, knives, stoves and refrigerators, countless automobile tires, and, in another suitcase, the decomposing remains of a woman who had been dismembered.

“I stopped looking for suitcases after that,” said Mr. dos Santos, 48.

He readily admits that jumping into rivers that rank among the world’s most polluted is not for everyone. But for Mr. dos Santos, a surfer who got into diving to pay for his wave-catching habit, his job has brought him an unusual level of notoriety and admiration from Paulistanos, as the residents of this hard-bitten megacity are called.

On the traffic-clogged highways that trace the rivers’ banks, some drivers stop their cars, taking pictures with their smartphones when they see him preparing to dive. Talk-show hosts marvel at his courage. One newspaper here, describing Mr. dos Santos in his futuristic diving garb, compared him to a “Japanese superhero.”

Part of the fascination with Mr. dos Santos has to do with how Paulistanos view their rivers. As the historian Janes Jorge recounts in a book on the city’s largest river, the Tietê (pronounced tchee-uh-TEY), it was adored by city residents as recently as the middle of the last century, when they fished, swam and held rowing competitions in its waters.

Then São Paulo rapidly expanded to become one of the world’s largest cities, its residents moving into high-rise buildings, gated enclaves and sprawling slums. Factories deposited their waste in the rivers. Flourishing districts in São Paulo’s metropolitan area expanded without basic sanitation systems, discharging sewage directly into the Tietê and Pinheiros.

The rivers now persist in Brazil’s popular culture as dystopian objects of derision. Rock bands like Skank composed songs about the seemingly impossible dream of cleaning up the Tietê. Laerte Coutinho, a cartoonist, created an entire strip, “Pirates of the Tietê,” in which marauders set forth from the malodorous river on raiding expeditions across contemporary São Paulo.

MR. DOS SANTOS, soft-spoken and bespectacled, insists that he has never seen any pirates navigating the Tietê or its tributaries. But he has glimpsed other living beings. Herons tiptoe along some riverbanks. He said that capybaras, the world’s largest rodents, roll in the mud along some stretches of the Tietê and Pinheiros. Alligators have been known to emerge from the rivers, weary but resilient.

One of the most astonishing sights of all, Mr. dos Santos said, was a man in São Miguel Paulista, a gritty district on São Paulo’s eastern fringe, who went by the name Pezão and dived into the Tietê without any gear in search of metal to sell to recyclers. “If there’s anyone who deserves recognition, it’s that guy, not me,” Mr. dos Santos said.

Still, he said he held out hope that the stubborn presence of life along São Paulo’s rivers might reflect the latest phase in their existence: the attempts to resurrect them. Since 1992, the authorities have been advancing with a painstakingly slow project to clean up the Tietê and Pinheiros.

Political leaders here contend that the cleanup effort, financed with loans from the Inter-American Development Bank, is going swimmingly. Gov. Geraldo Alckmin even said this year that by 2015, boats could start taking tourists down the Tietê for glimpses of São Paulo’s wonders. (“The problem is removing the smell,” he acknowledged.)

Brazilian scientists point to precedents of restoring vital waterways, as Paris has done with the Seine or London with the Thames, allowing salmon to thrive there decades after they had disappeared.

Cleaning the Tietê and its tributaries, however, offers complications that are in a league of their own, and paramount among them is access to sewage treatment. This deficiency plagues Brazil’s only truly global city, in which hedge funds inhabit hulking postmodern skyscrapers, well-heeled consumers stream into luxury shopping malls and immigrants are as likely to speak Castilian Spanish as Quechua.

At the same time, four million people — about 20 percent of São Paulo’s metropolitan population — still lack basic sanitation, according to Monica Porto, an expert on water reservoir management at the University of São Paulo. One area in metropolitan São Paulo, Guarulhos, with a population of about 1.3 million and home to the city’s international airport, treated almost none of its sewage before 2011.

PROGRESS is slowly being made to hook up more homes to the sewage system. But São Paulo’s hilly geography and its patchwork of squatter settlements, which persist in areas close to the rivers, make this a forbidding task. So the waste of millions, along with some industrial byproducts of dubious origin, still flows into the waterways once treasured by Paulistanos.

Read More..

Games top App Store revenue in 2012

Read More..

The X Factor Reveals Season 2 Finalists

TV Watch

The X Factor

12/13/2012 at 09:10 PM EST

Carly Rose Sonenclar, Emblem3, Tate Stevens and Fifth Harmony

Ray Mickshaw/FOX (4)

Sparks will fly at the finale!

On Thursday, The X Factor revealed its top three acts, who will perform next week in the final night of competition – in hopes of taking home the $5 million recording contract.

Simon Cowell said it would take a miracle to get his girl group, Fifth Harmony, to the finale after they performed Shontelle's "Impossible" and Ellie Goulding's "Anything Could Happen" on Wednesday. Keep reading to find out if their dream came true ...

Apparently, miracles do happen! Fifth Harmony was the first act to be sent through to the finale.

They will compete against departing judge L.A. Reid's country singer, Tate Stevens, and Britney Spears's only remaining contestant, Carly Rose Sonenclar.

That means Simon's promising boy band, Emblem3, are out of the running for the big prize.

"This is the way it goes on competitions," Simon said. "I'm gutted really for them ... But it happens."

Read More..

Asian shares mixed after China data, "fiscal cliff" weighs

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares were mixed on Friday with a pick-up in China's manufacturing sector lending support but worries over the progress of U.S. budget talks to avert the "fiscal cliff" weighing on investor sentiment.

European shares were expected to start higher, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> will open as much as 0.3 percent higher. A 0.3 percent gain in U.S. stock futures hinted at a firm Wall Street open. <.l><.eu><.n/>

A deteriorating business sentiment survey and expectations that the Bank of Japan will ease policy further to support the weak economy next week pushed the yen to a near 9-month low against the dollar and an 8-month low against the euro, helping Japanese equities wipe out earlier losses.

China shares outperformed Asian peers after the HSBC flash purchasing managers' index for December hit a 14-month high of 50.9, the fifth straight monthly gain, showing growth in China's vast manufacturing sector picked up and underlined a brighter outlook for the economy in coming months.

The private survey followed recent positive data suggesting Chinese economic activity has gained some momentum in the fourth quarter after it slowed for seven consecutive quarters.

A state-backed think tank has also forecast China's GDP growth next year at around 8 percent -- above the likely government target -- while calling for an expansion in the central government's fiscal deficit to offset an uncertain external environment.

The Shanghai Composite Index <.ssec> soared 4 percent while Hong Kong shares <.hsi> rose 0.8 percent to a 16-month peak.

"We're seeing positive PMI, industrial data and they are all pointing to the direction of an economic recovery," said Sijin Cheng, a commodities analyst at Barclays Capital. "The underlying demand is going to improve gradually."

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> was little changed, hovering near 16-month highs which it had hit successively since December 5. The index was set to end the week up 1.4 percent.

Australian shares <.axjo> ended flat, giving up earlier gains as investors remained wary of the stalled U.S. budget talks.

A seven-day rally in world shares came to a halt and commodity prices slipped on Thursday after negotiations over the U.S. "fiscal cliff" hit a wall.

President Barack Obama and House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner held a "frank" face-to-face meeting late on Thursday in an effort to break an impasse in talks to avert the "fiscal cliff" of some $600 billion of tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to start in January.

"With the end of the year coming up, I can't see anybody taking any significant positions ahead of this political unknown (the fiscal cliff)," the trader added.

Failure to avert the "fiscal cliff" could derail the struggling U.S. economic recovery and also snuff out encouraging signs emerging from China, the world's second-largest economy after the United States.

"You're not going to get a solution that will be a 100 percent, but it may be a third or a quarter. It will be something a bit hard to reduce the deficit, but they'll get a good vote on it which will make it a good rosy story -- the U.S. is not interested in can-kickers any more," said Jonathan Barratt, chief executive of Barratt's Bulletin, a Sydney-based commodity research firm.

China PMI surveys: http://link.reuters.com/rej64t

Japan Tankan: http://link.reuters.com/qet44t

Japan economy, election: http://link.reuters.com/jyc64t

Asset returns in 2012: http://link.reuters.com/nyw85s

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>

YEN SELLING ACCELERATES

In the world's third-largest economy, big Japanese manufacturers' sentiment worsened in the three months to December, a Bank of Japan's quarterly tankan survey showed on Friday, hurting an economy already seen to be in a mild recession.

The data will help reinforce market expectations for the Japanese central bank to further ease monetary policy.

The yen fell as low as 83.95 against the dollar. The euro stood at 109.83 yen, its highest in more than eight months and looked set to end the week up over 3 percent on the yen.

Japan's Nikkei share average <.n225> turned up 0.1 percent, rebounding from earlier declines. <.t/>

Japan's conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is on track for a stunning victory in Sunday's election, gaining momentum to pressure the BOJ for more forceful easing.

"The market is growing confident the next government will be one of the most aggressive about easing that you could think of," said a trader at a Japanese bank.

Oil prices rebounded from Thursday's fall after Chinese manufacturing data raised hopes for firmer demand, with U.S. crude futures rising 0.8 percent to $86.54 a barrel and Brent adding 0.4 percent to $108.39.

Spot gold steadied near $1,696 an ounce after tumbling 1 percent the previous session to push prices below $1,700 for the first time this week. Gold was set for a third weekly decline as funds liquidate positions to lock in profit for the year.

Sluggish stocks weighed on Asian credit markets, keeping the spreads on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index barely changed from Thursday.

(Additional reporting by Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo, Florence Tan and Melanie Burton in Singapore; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)

Read More..

In Step Toward Palestinian Unity, Hamas Holds Rally in West Bank

Atef Safadi/European Pressphoto Agency

Hundreds of men and boys sporting the signature green of the Hamas faction marched through the West Bank on Thursday.

NABLUS, West Bank — Hundreds of men and boys sporting the signature green of the militant Hamas faction marched through the narrow alleys of the old city here on Thursday afternoon, calling for Palestinian unity but also renewed attacks on Israeli cities, in the first public demonstration by the Islamist party allowed in the West Bank in years.

“Qassam, repeat it, Tel Aviv, destroy it,” they chanted, invoking the name of the armed wing of Hamas, as they wound through the ancient marketplace, wearing and waving green flags and carrying children on their shoulders. “Qassam, repeat it, hit Haifa this time.”

The rally, to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of Hamas, was billed as a step toward reconciliation with the rival Fatah faction that rules the West Bank. The two have been fiercely divided since 2007, after Hamas’s violent ouster of the Palestinian Authority from Gaza, and ever since Hamas activities have been all but banned in the West bank and the party’s leaders routinely harassed or imprisoned. Thursday’s crowd was mainly students and other young men, many of whom had never before attended a Hamas rally; those from the elder generation were ebullient at being able to show their colors again.

“I’m happy to see Hamas flags being raised,” said Radwan Abu Muhamed, 58, who said he had been a member of Hamas since its founding in 1987 and of its precursor, the Muslim Brotherhood, since 1981. “But I want to see other flags being raised also because I believe Palestine is bigger than Fatah and Hamas.”

“God willing, it will be a beginning of a new era,” Mr. Muhamed added. “An era of openness, an era of accepting the other opinion, an era of partnership.”

Such calls for unity have been growing among common citizens and leaders alike since last month’s bloody eight-day conflict between Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and United Nations General Assembly vote upgrading the Palestinians’ status to a non-member observer state. Hamas plans more demonstrations throughout the West Bank after noon prayers on Friday, and has given Fatah permission to mark its own anniversary next month in Gaza.

However, the rallies in one another’s territories constitute at most a first step toward reconciliation. Leaders of the two factions have signed no fewer than four unity pacts in recent years but failed to fulfill them. Repeated promises for renewed talks in recent days have also yet to come to fruition, and the ideological differences remain profound.

Khaled Meshal, the political leader of Hamas, said in a defiant speech on Saturday that he would never recognize Israel, calling for a Palestinian state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, and saying the path to liberation was through resistance, not negotiation. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, the leader of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization, has rejected violence and seeks to negotiate with Israel to establish a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank, using the 1967 borders as a guideline.

On Thursday, Mr. Abbas sought to downplay the differences, telling reporters in Turkey that he did not agree with Mr. Meshal’s refusal to recognize Israel, and pointing to a 1993 agreement signed by Fatah and Hamas that “stipulates a two-state vision.” The Turkish media reported that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Meshal had a half-hour phone conversation on Wednesday — they have been speaking frequently since the onset of the Gaza conflict — and that Mr. Abbas said reconciliation talks would resume in Cairo in two weeks.

“Reconciliation, by definition, is a very, very long-term process — it involves a lot of grievances and, unfortunately, blood,” said Husam Zomlot, a Fatah official. “It’s not going to be a single bullet. There will have to be a gradual process of deescalating, normalizing political processes. It doesn’t mean years; it could happen within weeks.”

Mr. Zomlot and other West Bank political leaders said Thursday’s rally was an important step in building unity on the ground. It was not a large demonstration — perhaps 1,000 Hamas supporters gathered after the march in Nablus’s bustling main square, with a similar number of onlookers smiling from the periphery, many leaning out from five levels of the municipal mall’s parking garage. It was peaceful and orderly under crisp sunshine, with no visible presence of Palestinian security officials other than those directing traffic on nearby streets. But elsewhere in the West Bank on Thursday, 90 Palestinians were injured, one critically, and at least six arrested, in a series of clashes with Israeli soldiers in the volatile city of Hebron, where a border policewoman fatally shot a teenager the day before after he brandished a weapon that turned out to be a toy.

Khaled Abu Aker contributed reporting.

Read More..

Microsoft plots living room domination with 43 new entertainment apps for Xbox 360

Game consoles are no longer simply for video games, as evidenced by last week’s announcement that the PlayStation 3 is the top Netflix (NFLX) streaming device of the year. Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s (MSFT) chief marketing officer for its Interactive Entertainment Division, said this past March that Xbox 360 owners were spending more hours watching online entertainment than playing online games. And now, in a bid to bolster its efforts to conquer the living room, Microsoft Director of Programming for Xbox Live Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb announced in a blog post that 43 new entertainment apps (mostly video) will launch between now and spring of 2013 in various regions. Ten new apps including ARTE, CinemaNow, CNET, Karaoke, Maxim, Napster, SkyDrive, SPORT1, VEVO and Zattoo will arrive this week. Microsoft’s full list of upcoming apps follows below.

1. All3M (United Kingdom, United States)
2. Ameba TV (Canada, United States)
3. ARTE (Germany, France)
4. Azteca (Mexico)
5. Canalplay Infinity (France)
6. CBC’s Hockey Night (Canada)
7. CrunchyRoll (Majority of LIVE Regions)
8. Deezer (Majority of LIVE Regions)
9. Eredivisie Live (Netherlands)
10. Fightbox (Austria, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom)
11. Flixster (United States)
12. GameTrailers (Australia, Canada, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States)
13. Globosat Muu (Brazil)
14. Gulli Replay (France)
15. HBO Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
16. IndieFlix (Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States)
17. Livesport.tv (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden, United Kingdom)
18. Machinima (Majority of LIVE Regions)
19. Maxim (United States)
20. MTV (United States)
21. MyTF1 (France)
22. MyTF1VOD (France)
23. Napster (Germany, United Kingdom)
24. Pathe Thuis (Netherlands)
25. PBS (United States)
26. PopcornFlix (United States)
27. Rai TV (Italy)
28. Sainsbury (United Kingdom)
29. Saraiva (Brazil)
30. SBS (Netherlands)
31. SF Anytime (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
32. Slacker Radio (Canada, United States)
33. SPORT1 (Austria, Germany)
34. The CW Network (United States)
35. Televisa (Mexico)
36. TV3 (Spain)
37. Viaplay (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden)
38. Vidéo à la Demande d’Orange (France)
39. Vimeo (United States)
40. VIVO Play (Brazil)
41. Watchever (Austria, Germany)
42. Zattoo (Germany)
43. Ziggo (Netherlands)

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Tevin Hunte Is 'So Happy' After His Voice Elimination

TV Watch

The Voice

By Jessica Herndon and Julia Haskins

12/12/2012 at 07:45 PM EST

Team Cee Lo's Trevin Hunte was eliminated on Tuesday's episode of The Voice, but the soulful singer isn't letting the end of this journey hold him back.

"I feel like the best person on the planet Earth. I am so happy and excited to be honest," Hunte told PEOPLE after the show. I feel like a weight has been lifted. Being away from family and friends and what you're used to was definitely a hard thing for me."

Hunte is looking forward to his mom's cooking and seeing his friends back home, and he won't waste a second wondering what if he'd made it further.

"I have no regrets. I am glad that I took a leap of faith and auditioned," he said. "I auditioned for American Idol and told my family I didn't have the strength to do it again. But I am definitely happy and excited that I made it this far."

And he still has a long way to go. "I'm only 18," he said. "I'm just really excited."

Read More..

Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL

WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.

Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.

The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.

Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."

Read More..