Polish deputy PM to resign after losing party election

WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Waldemar Pawlak said he would resign from the government after unexpectedly losing a battle for the leadership of the junior coalition partner on Saturday, but there was no threat to the stability of the coalition.

Janusz Piechocinski, a 52-year-old member of parliament who beat Pawlak by 547 to 530 votes in the election at the PSL congress, said he wanted to keep the coalition with the Civic Platform (PO) intact.

Pawlak, who is also the economy minister in Prime Minister Donald Tusk‘s government, had led the PSL for seven years. Serving twice as a prime minister in the past two decades, he has been PSL’s most prominent politician. He said he would hand his resignation to Tusk on Monday.

“PSL will be a rational coalition partner, a rational and wise participant of the parliamentary debate,” Piechocinski told reporters after the vote, adding he wanted Pawlak to retain his position in government.

“Nothing that happened is a challenge to the government, to the coalition.”

The party hit the headlines in July after media released recordings that showed suspected corruption among its party members. It led to the resignation of Agriculture Minister Marek Sawicki.

PSL members quoted by local media said Piechocinski won largely because of a campaign that targeted delegates from outside Warsaw and other larger cities.

(Reporting by Maciej Onoszko; Editing by Alison Williams)

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Israel hits Hamas buildings, shoots down Tel Aviv-bound rocket

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza, and the “Iron Dome” defense system shot down a Tel Aviv-bound rocket on Saturday as Israel geared up for a possible ground invasion.

Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that runs the Gaza Strip, said Israeli missiles wrecked the office building of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh – where he had met on Friday with the Egyptian prime minister – and struck a police headquarters.

Along the Tel Aviv beachfront, volleyball games came to an abrupt halt and people crouched as sirens sounded. Two interceptor rockets streaked into the sky. A flash and an explosion followed as Iron Dome, deployed only hours earlier near the city, destroyed the incoming projectile in mid-air.

With Israeli tanks and artillery positioned along the Gaza border and no end in sight to hostilities now in their fourth day, Tunisia’s foreign minister travelled to the enclave in a show of Arab solidarity.

In Cairo, a presidential source said Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi would hold four-way talks with the Qatari emir, the prime minister of Turkey and Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to discuss the Gaza crisis.

Egypt has been working to reinstate calm between Israel and Hamas after an informal ceasefire brokered by Cairo unraveled over the past few weeks. Meshaal, who lives in exile, has already held a round of talks with Egyptian security officials.

Officials in Gaza said 43 Palestinians, nearly half of them civilians including eight children, had been killed since Israel began its air strikes. Three Israeli civilians were killed by a rocket on Thursday.

Israel unleashed its massive air campaign on Wednesday with the declared goal of deterring Hamas from launching rockets that have plagued its southern communities for years.

The Israeli army said it had zeroed in on a number of government buildings during the night, including Haniyeh’s office, the Hamas Interior Ministry and a police compound.

Taher al-Nono, a spokesman for the Hamas government, held a news conference near the rubble of the prime minister’s office and pledged: “We will declare victory from here.”

Hamas‘s armed wing claimed responsibility for Saturday’s rocket attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.

“Well that wasn’t such a big deal,” said one woman, who had watched the interception while clinging for protection to the trunk of a baby palm tree on a traffic island.

In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.

Among those killed in airstrikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding on motorcycles.

Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, along with appeals to avoid civilian casualties.

Hamas, shunned by the West over its refusal to recognize Israel, says its cross-border attacks have come in response to Israeli strikes against Palestinian fighters in Gaza.

RESERVIST CALL-UP

At a late night session on Friday, Israeli cabinet ministers decided to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000, political sources said, in a signal Israel was edging closer to an invasion.

Around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.

Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”

“We have a plan … it will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.

A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, favorite to win a January national election.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-09, killed over 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.

“Israel should understand that many things have changed and that lots of water has run in the Arab river,” Tunisian Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesslem said as he surveyed the wreckage from a bomb-blast site in central Gaza.

One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s manoeuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.

“DE-ESCALATION”

Netanyahu spoke late on Friday with U.S. President Barack Obama for the second time since the offensive began, the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

“(Netanyahu) expressed his deep appreciation for the U.S. position that Israel has a right to defend itself and thanked him for American aid in purchasing Iron Dome batteries,” the statement added.

The two leaders have had a testy relationship and have been at odds over how to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

A White House official said on Saturday Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to discuss how the two countries could help bring an end to the Gaza conflict.

Ben Rhodes, White House deputy national security adviser, told reporters that Washington “wants the same thing as the Israelis want”, an end to rocket attacks from Gaza. He said the United States is emphasizing diplomacy and “de-escalation”.

In Berlin, a spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had spoken to Netanyahu and Egypt’s Mursi, stressing to the Israeli leader that Israel had a right to self-defense and that a ceasefire must be agreed as soon as possible to avoid more bloodshed.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt next week to push for an end to the fighting in Gaza, U.N. diplomats said on Friday.

The Israeli military said 492 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel since the operation began. Iron Dome intercepted another 245.

In Jerusalem, targeted by a Palestinian rocket on Friday for the first time in 42 years, there was little outward sign on the Jewish Sabbath that the attack had any impact on the usually placid pace of life in the holy city.

Some families in Gaza have abandoned their homes – some of them damaged and others situated near potential Israeli targets – and packed into the houses of friends and relatives.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams and Douglas Hamilton in Tel Aviv, Allyn Fisher-Ilan in Jerusalem, Jeff Mason aboard Air Force One, Writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Crispian Balmer)

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Liam Neeson in negotiations for crime thriller “The All Nighter”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Liam Neeson is in negotiations to star in the crime thriller “The All Nighter (AKA Run All Night)” a person familiar with the situation has told TheWrap.

The story follows an aging hit man who, in order to protect his wife and son, must take on his former boss in a single night. He then winds up on the run from the mob and the authorities with his estranged son.

The film is being produced by Vertigo Entertainment‘s Roy Lee, along with Brooklyn Weaver for Warner Bros. which declined to comment. The studio acquired Brad Ingelsby‘s spec script “The All Nighter” in January for a reported six figure sum.

Neeson’s upcoming films include “Non-Stop” and “A Walk Among The Tombstones.” He will also be featured in a voice role in the upcoming film “Lego: The Piece of Resistance.”

Lee is working on a long-list of projects including Spike Lee’s remake of the South Korean thriller, “Oldboy,” which is currently filming. He is also producing the upcoming thriller “The Double Hour”; a feature film based on the hit video game “Deus-Ex Human Revolution”; “Lego: The Piece of Resistance,” and the action thriller “Sleepless Night,” which is also set up at Warner Bros. Weaver’s credits include “Thirteen” and “Picture Book.”

Ingelsby’s upcoming projects as a writer include “The Raid.” In 2008, he made another major spec deal for his revenge thriller “The Low Dweller,” which went to Relativity Media.

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Roche’s Avastin misses key data point in brain cancer study

ZURICH (Reuters) – Swiss drugmaker Roche’s cancer drug Avastin failed to make a statistically significant difference to survival rates of patients with a common form of brain cancer in a late-stage study, the company said on Saturday.

The Phase III AVAglio study presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology congress in Washington on Saturday showed Avastin, combined with radiation and chemotherapy, reduced the risk of cancer worsening or death, the Basel-based drugmaker said in a news release.

But the drug did not reach statistical significance in overall survival, a key data point. Further data are expected next year, Roche said.

“The interim results for overall survival (OS), the other co-primary endpoint, did not reach statistical significance,” the company said in the statement.

Earlier data from the study published in August showed Avastin significantly extended progression-free survival of people with an aggressive form of brain cancer.

Avastin is Roche’s third-biggest seller and is approved to treat several types of cancer, including breast, kidney, colorectal and ovarian cancers.

(Reporting by Katharina Bart and Caroline Copley; editing by Jason Webb)

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Retailer Comet to close 30 stores

16 November 2012 Last updated at 19:00 ET

The insolvent electrical chain Comet is preparing to close about 30 stores by the end of November, the BBC has learned.

Comet appointed administrators earlier this month, putting 6,611 jobs at risk.

The remaining 206 or so outlets are expected to continue trading over the Christmas period, but their future remains deeply uncertain.

The first of the store closures will begin next week, the Financial Times reported earlier.

The administrators, Deloitte, has already announced 330 job losses at Comet’s headquarters and among administrative staff and there have also been reports that it is preparing to close down the retailer’s home delivery operation.

Comet’s demise was one of the biggest High Street casualties of recent years.

The electricals chain had been hit hard by the drop in consumer spending in the UK since 2008, which has been particularly acute in the case of the big items that Comet sells.

Many of Comet’s customers are first-time home-buyers, according to Deloitte, meaning that business has been hurt by the much tighter conditions in the UK mortgage market.

According to Deloitte, the company had been pushed to the brink by a cash drain caused by suppliers who had been unwilling to provide credit to Comet. Without such credit, the chain was unable to stock-up for Christmas.

Deloitte recently allowed gift vouchers bought by members of the public to be used at stores, days after suspending them, after taking time to “assess the financial position of the company”.

Rival Dixons has offered Christmas jobs to hundreds of Comet staff who face redundancy.

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Israel moves on reservists after rockets target cities

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli ministers were on Friday asked to endorse the call-up of up to 75,000 reservists after Palestinian militants nearly hit Jerusalem with a rocket for the first time in decades and fired at Tel Aviv for a second day.

The rocket attacks were a challenge to Israel‘s Gaza offensive and came just hours after Egypt‘s prime minister, denouncing what he described as Israeli aggression, visited the enclave and said Cairo was prepared to mediate.

Israel’s armed forces announced that a highway leading to the Gaza Strip and two roads bordering the enclave would be off-limits to civilian traffic until further notice.

Tanks and self-propelled guns were seen near the border area on Friday, and the military said it had already called 16,000 reservists to active duty.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened senior cabinet ministers in Tel Aviv after the rockets struck to decide on widening the Gaza campaign.

Political sources said ministers were asked to approve the mobilization of up to 75,000 reservists, in what could be preparation for a possible ground operation.

No decision was immediately announced and some commentators speculated in the Israeli media the move could be psychological warfare against Gaza’s Hamas rulers. A quota of 30,000 reservists had been set earlier.

Israel began bombing Gaza on Wednesday with an attack that killed the Hamas military chief. It says its campaign is in response to Hamas missiles fired on its territory. Hamas stepped up rocket attacks in response.

Israeli police said a rocket fired from Gaza landed in the Jerusalem area, outside the city, on Friday.

It was the first Palestinian rocket since 1970 to reach the vicinity of the holy city, which Israel claims as its capital, and was likely to spur an escalation in its three-day old air war against militants in Gaza.

Rockets nearly hit Tel Aviv on Thursday for the first time since Saddam Hussein’s Iraq fired them during the 1991 Gulf War. An air raid siren rang out on Friday when the commercial centre was targeted again. Motorists crouched next to cars, many with their hands protecting their heads, while pedestrians scurried for cover in building stairwells.

The Jerusalem and Tel Aviv strikes have so far caused no casualties or damage, but could be political poison for Netanyahu, a conservative favored to win re-election in January on the strength of his ability to guarantee security.

“The Israel Defence Forces will continue to hit Hamas hard and are prepared to broaden the action inside Gaza,” Netanyahu said before the rocket attacks on the two cities.

Asked about Israel massing forces for a possible Gaza invasion, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said: “The Israelis should be aware of the grave results of such a raid and they should bring their body bags.”

Officials in Gaza said 28 Palestinians had been killed in the enclave since Israel began the air offensive with the declared aim of stemming surges of rocket strikes that have disrupted life in southern Israeli towns.

The Palestinian dead include 12 militants and 16 civilians, among them eight children and a pregnant woman. Three Israelis were killed by a rocket on Thursday. A Hamas source said the Israeli air force launched an attack on the house of Hamas’s commander for southern Gaza which resulted in the death of two civilians, one a child.

SOLIDARITY VISIT

A solidarity visit to Gaza by Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil, whose Islamist government is allied with Hamas but also party to a 1979 peace treaty with Israel, had appeared to open a tiny window to emergency peace diplomacy.

Kandil said: “Egypt will spare no effort … to stop the aggression and to achieve a truce.”

But a three-hour truce that Israel declared for the duration of Kandil’s visit never took hold. Israel said 66 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip hit its territory on Friday and a further 99 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Israel denied Palestinian assertions that its aircraft struck while Kandil was in the enclave.

Israel Radio’s military affairs correspondent said the army’s Homefront Command had told municipal officials to make civil defence preparations for the possibility that fighting could drag on for seven weeks. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

The Gaza conflagration has stoked the flames of a Middle East already ablaze with two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to leap across borders.

It is the biggest test yet for Egypt’s new President Mohamed Mursi, a veteran Islamist politician from the Muslim Brotherhood who was elected this year after last year’s protests ousted military autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood are spiritual mentors of Hamas, yet Mursi has also pledged to respect Cairo’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel, seen in the West as the cornerstone of regional security. Egypt and Israel both receive billions of dollars in U.S. military aid to underwrite their treaty.

Mursi has vocally denounced the Israeli military action while promoting Egypt as a mediator, a mission that his prime minister’s visit was intended to further.

A Palestinian official close to Egypt’s mediators told Reuters Kandil’s visit “was the beginning of a process to explore the possibility of reaching a truce. It is early to speak of any details or of how things will evolve”.

Hamas fighters are no match for the Israeli military. The last Gaza war, involving a three-week long Israeli air blitz and ground invasion over the New Year period of 2008-2009, killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died.

Tunisia’s foreign minister was due to visit Gaza on Saturday “to provide all political support for Gaza” the spokesman for the Tunisian president, Moncef Marzouki, said in a statement.

The United States asked countries that have contact with Hamas to urge the Islamist movement to stop its rocket attacks.

Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist. By contrast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who rules in the nearby West Bank, does recognize Israel, but peace talks between the two sides have been frozen since 2010.

Abbas’s supporters say they will push ahead with a plan to have Palestine declared an “observer state” rather than a mere “entity” at the United Nations later this month.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell, Jeffrey Heller and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem; Writing by Jeffrey Heller; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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TV, movie features on new Wii U delayed until Dec.

NEW YORK (AP) — Some of the entertainment features on Nintendo’s new Wii U won’t be available when the game machine goes on sale Sunday.

Nintendo didn’t give a reason for the delay in Friday’s news release. In a statement, the company said it wanted the service “to be the best possible experience for all consumers.” Nintendo said it was still working to “make it available as soon as possible.”

The new service, Nintendo TVii, promises to take into account all the ways users watch movies, TV shows and sports.

If you like the TV show “Modern Family,” for example, it will present you with a list of the show’s episodes gathered from available sources, whether that’s Hulu, Netflix or traditional cable TV.

The Wii U is the first major game console to launch in six years. The free TVii — pronounced “tee-veeee” — features were supposed to be available at the time of Wii U’s launch in the U.S. and Canada. Nintendo said the TVii service will now be activated sometime in December.

With TVii the GamePad controller that comes with Wii U is supposed to work as a fancy remote control. Viewers will be able to browse shows to watch or send suggestions to other Wii users. The service also captures scenes from live TV and displays them on the controller’s touch-screen display.

Nintendo also said the ability to watch Amazon, Hulu and Netflix content on the Wii U won’t be available for a few more weeks. These are separate apps, though the content services will also be available through the Wii U app.

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New Variety owner Jay Penske slashes one-quarter staff

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Jay Penske, the new owner of Variety, laid off nearly a quarter of the company’s staff on Thursday.

Between 20 and 25 employees from the struggling Hollywood trade’s circulation, database and conference departments were laid off. The editorial staff was not affected. Variety had about 120 employees before Thursday’s cuts.

“Without a doubt, this is a challenging day, and I particularly wanted to notify and acknowledge those of you who will be saying goodbye to valued colleagues and friends,” Penske, the CEO of Penske Media Corporation wrote in a memo obtained by the industry blog Deadline, which he also owns. “As we look ahead, Variety’s business holds almost limitless potential and I will remain available to answer any questions you might have regarding today’s changes and our future.”

Penske bought the paper last month at the fire-sale price of $ 25 million. In his memo, Penske said that he planned to invest in the editorial and digital departments while trimming the database services and business branch.

The jobs eliminated came from the LA411 and NY411 units – directories for production resources – and its administration and conference units, according to the memo. Deadline said that the cuts totaled 20 to 25 employees.

He also cut circulation staff, in what may presage a move to cut back on the paper’s printing schedule. Variety currently prints daily during the week and a weekly edition on Friday.

TheWrap previously reported that Penske planned to maintain the print edition and drop the paywall that blocked non-subscribers from reading Variety’s site, placing it in direct competition with competitors like the Hollywood Reporter, TheWrap and its corporate sister Deadline. The paywall has since been torn down.

Neither Penske nor Variety returned calls or emails from TheWrap requesting comment.

Here’s the full memo:

Dear Team

For the past six months, we have diligently reviewed every aspect of the Variety business. And in more recent weeks, we have outlined to Variety senior management an exciting and also aggressive trajectory for the brand’s resurgence. These steps will include substantial further investment in editorial and digital, but will unfortunately require some immediate eliminations in the following business units: LA411/NY411, Circ, Systems, Conferences, and Admin.

Without a doubt, this is a challenging day, and I particularly wanted to notify and acknowledge those of you who will be saying goodbye to valued colleagues and friends. As we look ahead, Variety’s business holds almost limitless potential and I will remain available to answer any questions you might have regarding today’s changes and our future. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, or see Tammy Chase to arrange an appointment.

Sincerely,

Jay Penske

CEO

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Five Republican governors reject state-run health markets

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Five Republican governors rejected on Friday a major provision of President Barack Obama‘s healthcare reform law that calls on states to set up online health insurance markets where consumers can purchase private coverage at federally subsidized rates.

That makes it likely that the federal government will establish its own markets, known as healthcare exchanges, in those states and potentially supplant state control of private individual insurance markets.

But in what could be a sign of thawing relations between administration officials and some state Republican leaders, three of the five governors — representing Ohio, Michigan and Florida — expressed a willingness to work with Washington as reforms inch toward a January 1, 2014, deadline for full operation.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Georgia Governor Nathan Deal said they would not cooperate at all.

Missouri Governor Jeremiah Nixon, a Democrat, said the state would not run its own exchange but did not take a position on a federal partnership. He said the state legislature could take up the issue early next year.

Meanwhile, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, a Republican, deferred to the state’s governor-elect, Mike Pence, also Republican, who has said he intends to oppose both a state-based exchange and a federal partnership after assuming office next year.

The announcements came a day after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services extended its deadline for states to say whether they would operate their own exchanges. The positions reveal an emerging split between Republican governors who had appeared to form a united front against healthcare reform before Obama’s November 6 reelection ensured the law’s implementation.

Many governors have dragged their feet on implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, hoping Republican Mitt Romney would defeat Obama and repeal the law. They are now deciding whether to set up their own exchanges, accept a partnership with the federal government or allow Washington to take control.

“What this reflects is the difficult position of some of these governors,” said Jennifer Tolbert of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues. “While they may oppose the new reform law and its requirements, some also don’t want the federal government to come in and run the exchange and take over that responsibility.”

Friday was the original deadline for states to tell the administration whether they plan to operate their own exchanges and file blueprints to show how they would do it. The administration extended the deadline to December 14 after governors requested more time to comply.

The Affordable Care Act is scheduled to extend health coverage to more than 30 million uninsured Americans beginning January 1, 2014. About half of those would be covered by exchanges, designed to allow working families to purchase coverage at subsidized rates.

A MEETING IN FLORIDA?

At least 17 states already have told the administration that they will create their own exchanges, according to sources familiar with the situation. An HHS spokeswoman could not confirm that number. Experts predicted the total could rise to 20 by the time the new deadline passes.

As many as 15 states from Georgia and Texas to Wyoming and Maine opposed the exchanges outright before the election.

But some of those, including Nebraska, have since opted to work with the federal government on an exchange. Others say they are still deliberating. Over the past week, Kansas has rejected all participation in an exchange while Nebraska has agreed to seek a federal partnership.

States that reject the call for state-run exchanges but opt for a federal partnership could better ensure smooth market operations for residents than states that reject exchanges outright, experts say. They could also have an easier time adopting a state-based operation in coming years.

All five Republican governors who announced their plans on Friday complained that the Obama administration has been slow to release details about how exchanges should operate and complained that the law has proved too inflexible to meet the needs of individual states.

“At this point, based on the information we have, states do not have any flexibility to build and manage exchanges in ways that respond to unique needs of their citizens or markets,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said in a November 16 letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, an HHS agency that is implementing the law’s exchange provision.

“Regardless of who runs the exchange, the end product is the same,” he added.

But Kasich and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder both suggested their positions could change as details emerge.

Florida’s Republican governor, Rick Scott, said in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that he could not see how an exchange would improve healthcare access while lowering costs for Florida residents.

But Scott said Florida was willing to “partner” with the administration to find a solution. He invited Sebelius to a meeting to discuss the issues.

States have until February 15, 2013, to say whether they would prefer a federal partnership exchange.

Whatever the choice, Sebelius has pledged that Americans in all 50 states will have access to coverage through exchanges when the Affordable Care Act comes into full force in 2014.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Additional reporting by Karen Pierog; Editing by Leslie Adler and Tim Dobbyn)

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BP agrees to record criminal penalties for U.S. oil spill

NEW ORLEANS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – BP Plc will pay $ 4.5 billion in penalties and plead guilty to felony misconduct in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which caused the worst U.S. offshore oil spill ever.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called the deal a “critical step forward” but was adamant that it did not end the criminal investigation of the 2010 spill.

The settlement announced on Thursday includes a $ 1.256 billion criminal fine, the largest such levy in U.S. history. It was not, however, the “global” settlement some had hoped for, which would have also resolved the considerable federal civil claims against the company at the same time.

“BP lied to me. They lied to the people of the Gulf. And they lied to their shareholders, and they lied to all Americans,” said Representative Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee who led investigations at the time of the spill.

The government also indicted the two highest-ranking BP supervisors aboard the Deepwater Horizon during the disaster, charging them with 23 criminal counts including manslaughter. One man’s lawyer said his client was being turned into a scapegoat for the disaster.

The April 2010 explosion on the rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers. The mile-deep Macondo oil well then spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf over 87 days, fouling shorelines from Texas to Florida and eclipsing in severity the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.

The company said it would plead guilty to 11 felony counts related to the workers’ deaths, a felony related to obstruction of Congress and two misdemeanors. It also faces five years’ probation and the imposition of two monitors who will oversee its safety and ethics for the next four years.

Wall Street analysts said the deal will allow BP to focus again on oil production, while one U.S. senator from Louisiana said he hoped the settlement would not prevent his state and others from collecting civil penalties.

Investors shrugged off the news, and BP shares listed in New York and London were little changed on the day.

“It certainly is an encouraging step,” said Pavel Molchanov, oil company analyst with Raymond James. “By eliminating the overhang of the criminal litigation, it is another step in clearing up BP’s legal framework as it relates to Macondo.”

The disaster has dragged BP from second to a distant fourth in the ranking of top Western oil companies by value.

‘CRIMINAL SCALP’

“With these unprecedented criminal penalties assessed, I urge the Obama administration to be equally aggressive in securing civil monies that can help save our Louisiana coast” through other avenues, Louisiana Senator David Vitter said in a statement. “I certainly hope they didn’t trade any of those monies away just to nail this criminal scalp to the wall.”

Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, called the settlement a “good down payment” on what BP should ultimately pay, which the environmental group argues is tens of billions of dollars more.

BP said the payments would be spread over six years, and that it expected to be able to handle the payments “within BP’s current financial framework.”

The company has sold $ 35 billion worth of assets to fund the costs of the spill. Matching that, it has paid $ 23 billion already in clean-up costs and claims, and has a further $ 12 billion earmarked for payment in its spill trust fund.

The oil company said it has not been advised of any government authority that intends to debar BP from federal contracting activities as a result of the deal.

‘RECKLESS MANAGEMENT’

The lawyers for Bob Kaluza, the BP well manager aboard the rig who faces manslaughter charges, condemned the case against the four-decade oilfield veteran.

“Bob was not an executive or high-level BP official. He was a dedicated rig worker who mourns his fallen co-workers every day,” Shaun Clarke and David Gerger said in a statement.

Kaluza faces two kinds of charges related to the workers’ deaths: Involuntary manslaughter, a broad statute covering individuals whose reckless disregard leads directly to loss of life; and seaman’s manslaughter, reserved for those employed on ships whose misconduct results in death.

As for BP, its settlement does not resolve civil litigation brought by the U.S. government and U.S. Gulf Coast states, which could be considered when the case convenes in February 2013.

Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange, who represents other spill-hit states in the case, said he intends to prove that BP’s actions were grossly negligent – a charge that would bring billions of dollars in extra liability if upheld. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal agreed in a statement.

“The majority of BP’s liability remains outstanding and we will hold them fully accountable,” he said.

Holder said at a news conference to discuss the criminal settlement that while the government and BP had held talks to resolve the civil claims, the sides had not been able to agree on a “satisfactory” number. He said a deal was still possible but the government was moving ahead to the February trial.

Negligence is a key issue. A gross negligence finding could nearly quadruple civil damages owed by BP under the Clean Water Act to $ 21 billion.

Chief Financial Officer Brian Gilvary said the company’s provisions should be enough to cover liabilities, provided it avoids a conviction for gross negligence, and that it had shareholder support to fight the case should that happen.

“I can boldly defend where we are in the provisions today. If something were to happen in the trial that read across to gross negligence … then we would certainly take that to appeal,” he said on a conference call with analysts.

Still unresolved is potential liability faced by Swiss-based Transocean Ltd, owner of the Deepwater Horizon vessel, and Halliburton Co, which provided cementing work on the well that U.S. investigators say was flawed.

Halliburton said it “remains confident that all the work it performed with respect to the Macondo well was completed in accordance with BP’s specifications for its well construction plan and instructions. Halliburton has cooperated with the DOJ’s investigation.” Transocean was not available for comment.

According to the Justice Department, errors made by BP and Transocean in deciphering a pressure test of the Macondo well are a clear indication of gross negligence.

Transocean disclosed in September that it is in discussions with the Justice Department to pay $ 1.5 billion to resolve civil and criminal claims.

BP has already announced an uncapped class-action settlement with private plaintiffs that the company estimates will cost $ 7.8 billion to resolve litigation brought by over 100,000 individuals and businesses claiming economic and medical damages from the spill.

(Additional reporting by Chris Baltimore and Anna Driver in Houston, Braden Reddall in San Francisco, Roberta Rampton in Washington, Verna Gates in Birmingham, Ala. and Andrew Callus in London; Writing by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Edward Tobin, David Gregorio, Richard Chang and Tim Dobbyn)

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