WASHINGTON — U.S. healthcare spending barely rose in 2010 from record-low recession levels, as high unemployment and the loss of private health insurance forced many Americans to delay or forego medical treatment, government officials said on Monday.

Spending edged up 3.9 percent, bringing the total size of the U.S.
healthcare system to $2.6 trillion, or $8,402 per person, according to a
report released by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services,
or CMS, and published in the journal Health Affairs.

Growth in 2010 was only a slim 0.1 percentage point higher than the
3.8 percent recorded in 2009, which was the lowest rate recorded in half
a century. Per capita health spending in the United States is still the
highest worldwide.

Ford is hoping history can repeat itself with the upcoming launch of the next-generation Fusion four-door.

It’s been more than a quarter century since the maker revolutionized automotive design with the original Taurus sedan. Its windswept styling helped Ford dominate the huge midsize market segment, and led most competitors to migrate to more aerodynamic designs. The new Fusion, which makes its debut at the Detroit Auto Show next month, will borrow many of the visual cues of the recent Ford Evos concept car and, if early reviews are any indication, could help the maker topple the imports that have dominated the midsize segment over the last two decades.

OMAHA (AP) – The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he
knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a
mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

“She
told him, ‘No, I’m paying for it,’” recalled Edna Deppe, assistant
manager at the store in Indianapolis. “He just stood there and looked at
her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it
wasn’t, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in
tears.”

Stony Brook University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D., announced today that the University has received a $150 million gift from Dr. James and Dr. Marilyn Simons, and from the Simons Foundation. It is the largest gift in the history of Stony Brook University or to any one of the 64 institutions in the SUNY system. Present for the historic announcement, in addition to the Simons, were New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, State University of New York Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, and a number of elected representatives.
Jim Simons is Board Chair of Renaissance Technologies LLC, Chair of the Simons Foundation, and former Chairman of Stony Brook’s Department of Mathematics. Marilyn Simons is an alumna of the University and President of the Simons Foundation. Dr. Stanley said that the University worked closely with them to establish three priorities for their investment: research excellence in the School of Medicine; faculty hires through new endowed professorships; and recruitment of top level graduate and undergraduate students.

A Seattle woman who is receiving welfare assistance from Washington state also happens to live in a waterfront house on Lake Washington worth more than a million dollars.

Federal agents raided the home this weekend but have not released the woman or her husband’s name because they have not officially been charged with a crime.

However, federal documents obtained by KING 5 News show the couple currently receives more than $1,200 a month in public housing vouchers, plus state and government disability checks and food stamps. They have been receiving the benefits since 2003.

The 2,500 square-foot home, which includes gardens and a boat dock, is valued at $1.2 million. And even though the couple has been receiving the benefits for nearly 10 years, records show that they accurately listed the address of their current home when applying for the state and federal benefits.

NEW YORK – An early rally fizzled on the stock market Friday but still left the Standard & Poor’s 500 index up 7.4 percent for the week, its biggest gain since March 2009.

A surprise drop in the U.S. unemployment rate sent stocks higher in early trading, but the gains faded during the afternoon.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 0.61 of a point to close at 12,019.42. The Dow ended the week up 7 percent, the largest weekly gain since July 2009.

Bank stocks rose sharply, continuing a weeklong rally. JPMorgan Chase & Co. jumped 6.1 percent, the most among the 30 stocks in the Dow average. Morgan Stanley leapt 6.9 percent, the second-biggest gain of any stock in the S&P 500 index.

At the stroke of midnight, a growing number of Americans are lining up at Walmart not to cash in on a holiday sale, but because they’re hungry.

The increasing number of Americans relying on food stamps to survive the sluggish economic recovery has changed the way the largest retailer in the United States does business.

Carol Johnston, Walmart’s senior vice president of store development, said that store managers have seen an “enormous spike” in the number of consumers shopping at midnight on the first of the month. That’s typically when those receiving federal food assistance have their accounts refilled each month.

About 3.5 million people were expected to crowd the route of the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York on Thursday while an additional 50 million watched from home.

A jetpack-wearing monkey and a freakish creation from filmmaker Tim Burton are two of the big new balloons that will make their inaugural appearances, while Mary J. Blige, Cee Lo Green, Avril Lavigne and the Muppets are scheduled to take the stage at the end of the route in Herald Square.

Macy’s parade will feature more than 40 other balloon creations, 27 floats, 800 clowns and 1,600 cheerleaders.

The parade began at 77th Street and heads south on Central Park West to Seventh Avenue, before moving to Sixth Avenue and ending at Macy’s Herald Square.

New York (CNN) — Students gathered as the chef sliced tomatoes with a plastic knife in a Brooklyn public school cafeteria. Their eyes followed as she held up a slender green cylinder before the crowd of parents and kids in plastic aprons and hairnets.

“What’s that?” kids shouted.

“It’s a scallion. But don’t eat it now,” warned Leigh Armstrong, a culinary student and volunteer chef. “It doesn’t taste like celery.”

Armstrong was helping at Cooking Matters, a free, six-week class that teaches parents and kids how to shop for and prepare healthy, inexpensive meals. The program launched 20 years ago through the nonprofit Share our Strength, and it now serves more than 11,000 families across the country.

Faced with declining enrollment, aging facilities, and a brutal fiscal situation, Philadelphia School District officials on Wednesday recommended closing nine schools and making grade changes at 17 others.

“We need to aim for a more efficient footprint reflecting the times and the demographics of the city,” said acting Superintendent Leroy Nunery II. “We need to align our resources in a way that benefits the education of our students.”

But the School Reform Commission – which will vote on the recommendations early next year – signaled that perhaps the changes did not go far enough.

“We need to do more,” acting Chairman Wendell Pritchett said.

With a student population now less than 150,000, the district has lost more than 50,000 pupils in the last decade, many to a growing charter-school movement. Officials have estimated there are 70,000 empty seats citywide.