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 .

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Police, world wonder about Conn. shooting motive

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — The massacre of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut elementary school elicited horror and soul-searching around the world even as it raised more basic questions about why the gunman, a 20-year-old described as brilliant but remote, would have been driven to such a crime and how he chose his victims.

Investigators were trying to learn more about the gunman, Adam Lanza, and questioned his older brother, who is not believed to have been involved in the rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary. Police shed no light on the motive for the nation's second-deadliest school shooting.

In tight-knit Newtown on Friday night, hundreds of people packed St. Rose of Lima church and stood outside in a vigil for the 28 dead — 20 children and six adults at the school, the gunman's mother at home, and the gunman himself, who committed suicide. People held hands, lit candles and sang "Silent Night."

"These 20 children were just beautiful, beautiful children," Monsignor Robert Weiss said. "These 20 children lit up this community better than all these Christmas lights we have. ... There are a lot brighter stars up there tonight because of these kids."

Lanza is believed to have suffered from a personality disorder and lived with his mother, said a law enforcement official who was briefed on the investigation.

Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, drove to the school in her car with at least three guns, including a high-powered rifle that he apparently left in the back of the vehicle, and shot up two classrooms around 9:30 a.m. Friday, law enforcement officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A custodian ran through the halls, warning of a gunman, and someone switched on the intercom, perhaps saving many lives by letting them hear the chaos in the school office, a teacher said. Teachers locked their doors and ordered children to huddle in a corner or hide in closets as shots echoed through the building.

The well-liked principal, Dawn Hochsprung, was believed to be among the dead. A woman who worked at the school was wounded. An update on victims' identities was planned Saturday morning.

A law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said investigators believe Lanza attended the school several years ago but appeared to have no recent connection to it.

At least one parent said Lanza's mother was a substitute teacher there. But her name did not appear on a staff list. And the official said investigators were unable to establish any connection so far between her and the school.

Lanza's older brother, 24-year-old Ryan Lanza, of Hoboken, N.J., was questioned, but a law enforcement official said he was not believed to have had a role in the rampage. Investigators were searching his computers and phone records, but he told law enforcement he had not been in touch with his brother since about 2010.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation.

At one point, a law enforcement official mistakenly identified the gunman as Ryan Lanza. Brett Wilshe, a friend of Ryan Lanza's, said Lanza told him the gunman may have had his identification. Ryan Lanza apparently posted Facebook page updates Friday afternoon that read, "It wasn't me" and "I was at work."

For about two hours late Friday and early Saturday, clergy members and emergency vehicles moved steadily to and from the school. The state medical examiner's office said bodies of the victims would be taken there eventually for autopsies.

The shooter took three guns into the school — a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, and a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle, according to an official who was not authorized to discuss information with reporters and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The weapons were registered to his slain mother.

Adam Lanza and his mother lived in a well-to-do part of prosperous Newtown, about 60 miles northeast of New York City, where neighbors are doctors or hold white-collar positions at companies such as General Electric, Pepsi and IBM.

Lanza's parents filed for divorce in 2008, according to court records. His father, Peter Lanza, lives in Stamford, Conn., and works as a tax director for General Electric.

The gunman's aunt Marsha Lanza, of Crystal Lake, Ill., said her nephew was raised by kind, nurturing parents who would not have hesitated to seek mental help for him if he needed it.

"Nancy wasn't one to deny reality," Marsha Lanza said, adding her husband had seen Adam as recently as June and recalled nothing out of the ordinary.

Catherine Urso, of Newtown, said her college-age son knew the killer and remembered him for his alternative style. "He just said he was very thin, very remote and was one of the goths," she said.

Adam Lanza attended Newtown High School, and several news clippings from recent years mention his name among the honor roll students.

Joshua Milas, who graduated from Newtown High in 2009 and belonged to the school technology club with him, said Adam Lanza was generally a happy person but that he hadn't seen him in a few years.

"We would hang out, and he was a good kid. He was smart," Joshua Milas said. "He was probably one of the smartest kids I know. He was probably a genius."

An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it was not clear that Adam Lanza had a job, and there was no indication of law enforcement interviews or search warrants at a place of business.

The mass shooting is one of the deadliest in U.S. history, and among school attacks is second in victims only to the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, which left 33 people dead, including the gunman. Reaction was swift and emotional in Newtown, a picturesque New England community of 27,000 people, as well as across the country and around the world.

"It has to stop, these senseless deaths," said Frank DeAngelis, principal of Colorado's Columbine High School, where a massacre in 1999 killed 15 people.

In Washington, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence organized a vigil at the White House, with some protesters chanting, "Today IS the day" to take steps to curb gun violence. In New York's Times Square, a few dozen people held tea lights in plastic cups, with one woman holding a sign that read: "Take a moment and candle to remember the victims of the Newtown shooting."

President Barack Obama's comments on the tragedy amounted to one of the most outwardly emotional moments of his presidency.

"The majority of those who died were children — beautiful little kids between the ages of 5 and 10 years old," Obama said at a White House news briefing. He paused for several seconds to keep his composure as he teared up and wiped an eye. Nearby, two aides cried and held hands.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard described the attack as a "senseless and incomprehensible act of evil."

"Like President Obama and his fellow Americans, our hearts too are broken," Gillard said in a statement.

In Japan, where guns are severely restricted and there are extremely few gun-related crimes, the attack led the news two days before nationwide parliamentary elections. In China, which has seen several knife rampages at schools in recent years, the attack quickly consumed public discussion.

At the Newtown vigil, Anthony Bloss, whose three daughters survived, said they are doing better than he. "I'm numb. I'm completely numb," he said.

The gunman entered the school through its front door, and authorities are looking into the possibility that he shattered glass next to it to get in, said Newtown Police Lt. George Sinko.

Panicked parents looking for their children raced to Sandy Hook, a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school where police told youngsters to close their eyes as they were led from the building so that they wouldn't see the blood and broken glass.

Schoolchildren — some crying, many looking frightened — were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on one another's shoulders.

Robert Licata said his 6-year-old son was in class when the gunman burst in and shot the teacher. "That's when my son grabbed a bunch of his friends and ran out the door," he said. "He was very brave. He waited for his friends."

He said the shooter didn't utter a word.

Kaitlin Roig, a teacher at the school, said she implored her students to be quiet.

"I told them we had to be absolutely quiet. Because I was just so afraid if he did come in, then he would hear us and just start shooting the door. I said we have to be absolutely quiet. And I said there are bad guys out there now and we need to wait for the good guys to come get us out," Roig told ABC News.

"If they started crying, I would take their face and say it's going to be OK. Show me your smile," she said. "They said, we want to go home for Christmas. Yes, yeah. I just want to hug my mom, things like that, that were just heartbreaking."

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Pat Eaton-Robb and Matt Apuzzo and videographer Robert Ray in Newtown; Bridget Murphy in Boston; Samantha Henry in Newark, N.J.; Pete Yost in Washington; Michael Melia in Hartford; and the AP News Research Center in New York.

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China arrests legislator with 4 wives, 10 children

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese authorities have arrested a legislator found to have four wives.

A district official in the northern province of Shanxi said Li Junwen also had 10 children, and had been detained on suspicion of document forgery. Bigamy is a criminal offense in China, while rules restrict most couples to just one child.

Another 14 people were sacked or given warnings or demotions for negligence or helping Li arrange identity documents for his illegitimate children, said the official reached by phone at the Xiaodian district party committee in the provincial capital of Taiyuan.

The 43-year-old Li had been an appointed representative from Xiaodian and the Communist Party head of the village of Xiquan.

The allegations against Li have been featured prominently in state media as part of an anti-corruption drive.

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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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Jenni Rivera's remains returned to So. California

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Jenni Rivera, the Mexican superstar killed in a weekend plane crash, has made her final journey home.

Three brothers of Rivera, a Southern California native, accompanied her remains on a Thursday night flight from Mexico to the Long Beach airport.

Escorted by police, her casket was then driven to a Long Beach mortuary, where dozens of fans waited.

Other fans gathered outside her mother's home in nearby Lakewood, where well-wishers have left a memorial of balloons, candles and flowers.

Rivera, 43, was perhaps the most successful female singer in grupero, a male-dominated Mexico regional style, and had branched out into acting and reality television. Known as the "Diva del la Banda," she sold 15 million records and was loved on both sides of the border for her down-to-earth style and songs about heartbreak and overcoming pain.

She and six other people were killed Sunday evening when a plane she was traveling in nose-dived from 28,000 feet to the ground while flying from Monterrey in northern Mexico to the central city of Toluca.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation.

Results of DNA tests were pending, but her family conceded Thursday that she was dead.

"We have received 100 percent confirmation that my sister Jenni is gone to be with the Lord," a brother, Pedro Rivera Jr., said during a news conference at the Lakewood home. "She is in the presence of God now. They did show pictures to my brothers of the body; it is not the full body."

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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."

___

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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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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NKorea still years away from credible missiles

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — After 14 years of painstaking labor, North Korea finally has a rocket that can put a satellite in orbit. But that doesn't mean the reclusive country is close to having an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Experts say Pyongyang is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets, though it did gain attention and the outrage of world leaders Wednesday with its first successful launch of a three-stage, long-range rocket.

A missile program is built on decades of systematic, intricate testing, something extremely difficult for economically struggling Pyongyang, which faces guaranteed sanctions and world disapproval each time it stages an expensive launch. North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a threat to its neighbors.

"One success indicates progress, but not victory, and there is a huge gap between being able to make a system work once and having a system that is reliable enough to be militarily useful," said Brian Weeden, a former U.S. Air Force Space Command officer and a technical adviser to the Secure World Foundation, a think tank on space policy.

North Korea's satellite launch Wednesday came only after repeated failures and hundreds of millions of dollars.

South Korea's Defense Ministry said Thursday the satellite was orbiting normally at a speed of 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) per second, though it's not known what mission it is performing. North Korean space officials say the satellite would be used to study crops and weather patterns.

Though Pyongyang insists the project is peaceful, it also has conducted two nuclear tests and has defied international demands that it give up its nuclear weapons program.

The U.N. Security Council said in a brief statement after closed consultations Wednesday that the launch violates council resolutions against the North's use of ballistic missile technology, and said it would urgently consider "an appropriate response."

"This launch is about a weapons program, not peaceful use of space," U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. Even the North's most important ally, China, expressed regret.

North Korea has long possessed the components needed to construct long-range rockets. Scientists in Pyongyang, however, had been trying and failing since 1998 to conduct a successful launch. Only this week — their fifth try — did they do so, prompting dancing in the streets of the capital.

North Korea's far more advanced rival, South Korea, has failed twice since 2009 to launch a satellite on a rocket from its own territory, and postponed two attempts in recent weeks because of technical problems.

Each advancement Pyongyang makes causes worry in Washington and among North Korea's neighbors. In 2010, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned that within five years the North could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.

Wednesday's launch suggests the North is on track for that, said former U.S. defense official James Schoff, now an expert on East Asia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But he and other experts say the North must still surmount tough technical barriers to build the ultimate military threat: a sophisticated nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a long-range missile, something experts say will be the focus of future nuclear tests.

And despite Wednesday's launch, Pyongyang is also lacking the other key part of that equation: a reliable long-range missile.

"If in the future they develop a nuclear warhead small enough to put on a rocket, they are not going to want to put that on a missile that has a high probability of exploding on the launch pad," David Wright, a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists who has written extensively about North Korea's missile program, said in an email.

To create a credible missile program, experts say, North Korean technicians need to conduct many more tests that will allow them to iron out the wrinkles until they have a missile that works more often than it fails. Pyongyang's past tests have been somewhat scattershot, possibly because of the heavy international sanctions the rocket and nuclear tests have generated.

North Korea must build a larger missile than the one launched Wednesday if it wants to be able to send nuclear weapons to distant targets, analysts said.

The satellite North Korea mounted on the rocket weighs only 100 kilograms (220 pounds), according to the office of South Korean lawmaker Jung Chung-rae, who was briefed by a senior South Korean intelligence official. A nuclear warhead would be about five times heavier.

Other missing parts of the puzzle include an accurate long-range missile guidance system and a re-entry vehicle able to survive coming back into the atmosphere at the high speeds — 10,000 mph — traveled by intercontinental ballistic missiles, said Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts.

Both are seen as being years off.

History also shows that first-generation, long-range missiles need dozens of test flights before they are accurate enough to be deployed.

The world's "ICBM club" has just four countries: the United States, Russia, China and France, according to Markus Schiller, an analyst with Schmucker Technologie in Germany and a leading expert on North Korean missiles.

If North Korea "really intended to become a player in the ICBM game, they would have to develop a different kind of missile, with higher performance," Schiller said. "And if they do that seriously, we would have to see flight tests every other month, over several years."

Wright said the Unha-3 rocket launched Wednesday has a potential range of 8,000 to 10,000 kilometers (4,970 to 6,210 miles), which could put Hawaii and the northwest coast of the mainland United States within range.

But even if North Korea builds a ballistic missile based on a liquid-fueled rocket like the 32-meter (105-foot)-tall Unha-3, it would take days to assemble and hours to fuel. That would make it vulnerable to attack in a pre-emptive airstrike. Solid-fueled missiles developed by the U.S. and Soviet Union are more mobile, more easily concealed and ready to launch within minutes.

Money is another problem for Pyongyang. A weak economy, chronic food shortages and the sanctions make it difficult to sustain a program that can build and operate reliable missiles.

"I don't think the young leader (Kim Jong Un) has any confidence that the home economy could afford a credible deterrent capability," said Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University.

Zhu said Pyongyang's recent launch was a negotiating chip, not an immediate threat. He said it was intended to stoke tensions abroad in order to improve Pyongyang's position in future international negotiations.

Weeden said North Korea may want to create the perception that it poses a threat to the United States, but is not likely to go further than that.

"I expect North Korea to milk this situation for everything they can get," he said. "But I don't think that perception will be matched by the actual hard work and testing needed to develop and field a reliable, effective weapon system like the ICBMs deployed by the US, Russia and China."

But Victor Cha, a former White House director for Asia policy, warned there has been an unspoken tendency in the United States to regard North Korea as a technologically backward and bizarre country, underestimating the strategic threat it poses.

"This is no longer acceptable," he wrote in a commentary.

North Korea already poses a major security threat to its East Asian neighbors. It has one of the world's largest standing armies and a formidable if aging arsenal of artillery that could target Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Nearly 30,000 U.S. forces are based in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended with an armistice, not a formal peace treaty.

The North's short-range rockets could also potentially target another core U.S. ally, Japan.

Darryl Kimball, executive director of the nongovernmental Arms Control Association, said those capabilities, rather than the North's future ability to strike the U.S., still warrant the most attention.

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Matthew Pennington reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Alexa Olesen in Beijing 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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'Lincoln' leads Golden Globes with 7 nominations

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Steven Spielberg's Civil War epic "Lincoln" led the Golden Globes on Thursday with seven nominations, among them best drama, best director for Spielberg and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

Tied for second-place with five nominations each, including best drama are Ben Affleck's Iran hostage-crisis thriller "Argo" and Quentin Tarantino's slave-turned-bounty-hunter tale "Django Unchained."

Other best-drama nominees put forward by The Hollywood Foreign Press Association are Ang Lee's shipwreck story "Life of Pi" and Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt thriller "Zero Dark Thirty."

Nominated for best musical or comedy were: the British retiree adventure "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"; the Victor Hugo musical "Les Miserables"; the first-love tale "Moonrise Kingdom"; the fishing romance "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"; and the lost-soul romance "Silver Linings Playbook."

Globe attention can give contenders a boost for Hollywood's top honors, the Academy Awards, whose nominations come out Jan. 10, three days before the Globe ceremony.

The directing lineup came entirely from dramatic films, with Affleck, Bigelow, Lee, Spielberg and Tarantino all in the running.

"It's very gratifying to get this many nominations from the HFPA for a film I worked so hard on and am so passionate about. I look forward to having fun at the Golden Globes with my cast mates and fellow nominees," Tarantino said in a statement.

Filmmakers behind best musical or comedy nominees were shut out for director, including Tom Hooper for "Les Miserables" and David O. Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook."

Along with Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg's epic, best dramatic actor contenders are Richard Gere as a deceitful Wall Streeter in "Arbitrage"; John Hawkes as a polio victim trying to lose his virginity in "The Sessions"; Joaquin Phoenix as a Navy veteran under the sway of a cult leader in "The Master"; and Denzel Washington as a boozy airline pilot in "Flight."

Dramatic-actress nominees are Jessica Chastain as a CIA analyst hunting Osama bin Laden in "Zero Dark Thirty"; Marion Cotillard as a whale biologist beset by tragedy in "Rust and Bone"; Helen Mirren as Alfred Hitchcock's strong-minded wife in "Hitchcock"; Naomi Watts as a woman caught up in a devastating tsunami in "The Impossible"; and Rachel Weisz as a woman ruined by an affair in "The Deep Blue Sea."

For musical or comedy actress, the lineup is Emily Blunt as a consultant for a Mideast sheik in "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"; Judi Dench as a widow who retires overseas in "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel"; Jennifer Lawrence as a young widow in a new romance in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Maggie Smith as an aging singer in a retirement home in "Quartet"; and Meryl Streep as a wife trying to save her marriage in "Hope Springs."

Nominees for musical or comedy actor are Jack Black as a solicitous mortician in "Bernie"; Bradley Cooper as a troubled man fresh out of a mental hospital in "Silver Linings Playbook"; Hugh Jackman as Hugo's long-suffering hero Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables"; Ewan McGregor as a British fisheries expert in "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen"; and Bill Murray as Franklin Roosevelt in "Hyde Park on Hudson."

Competing for supporting actor are Alan Arkin as a Hollywood producer helping a CIA operation in "Argo"; Leonardo DiCaprio as a cruel slave owner in "Django Unchained"; Philip Seymour Hoffman as a mesmerizing cult leader in "The Master"; Tommy Lee Jones as firebrand abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens in "Lincoln"; and Christoph Waltz as a genteel bounty hunter in "Django Unchained."

The supporting-actress picks are Amy Adams as a cult leader's devoted wife in "The Master"; Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln in "Lincoln"; Anne Hathaway as a mother fallen into prostitution in "Les Miserables"; Helen Hunt as a sexual surrogate in "The Sessions"; and Nicole Kidman as a trashy mistress of a Death Row inmate in "The Paperboy."

Kidman was a dual nominee, also in the running as best actress in a TV movie or miniseries for "Hemingway & Gellhorn."

"As an actor you look for roles that are rich, complicated, and that stretch you and this year I was blessed to find two," Kidman said in a statement. "To have the chance to play them was a gift in itself and to then be acknowledged this way is icing on the cake."

"Quartet" star Smith also had a second nomination, for supporting actress in a TV series, miniseries or movie for "Downton Abbey."

Snubbed completely was the low-budget critical darling "Beasts of the Southern Wild," which won top honors at last January's Sundance Film Festival. Also shut out was the stripper hit "Magic Mike," which had good buzz for supporting player Matthew McConaughey, who also earned acclaim for roles in "Bernie" and "Killer Joe." Another film to not notch a single nomination was "The Hobbit," a prelude to the "The Lord of the Rings" films, which all got Globe nods.

With three nominations, "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" was a surprise inclusion Thursday, since the film had virtually no awards buzz behind it.

There will be some friendly rivalry among the hosts at the Globe ceremony, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Both were nominated for best actress in a TV comedy, Fey for "30 Rock" and Poehler for "Parks and Recreation."

Fey and Poehler follow Ricky Gervais, who was host the last three years and rubbed some Hollywood egos the wrong way with sharp wisecracks about A-list stars and the foreign press association itself.

The Sarah Palin drama "Game Change" leads TV contenders with five nominations: including best movie or miniseries and acting honors for Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Ed Harris and Sarah Paulson.

Best TV comedy series nominees are "The Big Bang Theory," ''Episodes," ''Girls," ''Modern Family" and "Smash." TV drama picks are "Breaking Bad," ''Boardwalk Empire," ''Downton Abbey: Season 2," ''Homeland" and "The Newsroom."

Globe acting winners often go on to receive the same prizes at the Oscars. All four Oscar winners last season — lead performers Meryl Streep of "The Iron Lady" and Jean Dujardin of "The Artist," and supporting players Octavia Spencer of "The Help" and Christopher Plummer of "Beginners" — won Globes first.

The Globes have a spotty record predicting which films might go on to earn the best-picture prize at the Academy Awards, however.

Last year's Oscar best-picture winner, "The Artist," preceded that honor with a Globe win for best musical or comedy. But in the seven years before that, only one winner in the Globes' two best-picture categories — 2008's "Slumdog Millionaire" — followed up with an Oscar best-picture win.

Along with 14 film prizes, the Globes hand out awards in 11 television categories.

Jodie Foster, a two-time Oscar and Globe winner for "The Accused" and "The Silence of the Lambs," will receive the group's Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement.

With stars sharing drinks and dinner, the Globes have a reputation as one of Hollywood's loose and unpredictable awards gatherings. Winners occasionally have been off in the restroom when their names were announced, and there have been moments of onstage spontaneity such as Jack Nicholson mooning the crowd or Ving Rhames handing over his trophy to fellow nominee Jack Lemmon.

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Online:

http://www.goldenglobes.org

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