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UnitedHealth Group has been sued by three customers who accused the largest U.S. health insurer of charging co-payments for prescription drugs that were higher than their actual cost and pocketing the difference. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota by three UnitedHealth customers, seeks to represent a nationwide class that it says could include "tens of thousands" of people insured by UnitedHealth. The lawsuit said Minnesota-based UnitedHealth and affiliated companies charged customers co-payments for drugs that were significantly higher than prices it negotiated with pharmacies for those drugs. For example, the lawsuit claims, one class member paid a...

Wednesday in Sioux City, IA, while campaigning for her mother Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and acknowledged work needed to be done on ObamaCare. When asked if elected president, how Hillary Clinton would fix President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, dubbed ObamaCare, the younger Clinton said, “We know we do need to work on the affordable part of the Affordable Care Act.”

Major automakers posted lower September U.S. sales on Monday despite big consumer discounts, as pickup truck volumes fell for both General Motors and Ford. With the top six U.S. market leaders reporting, deliveries fell 0.6 percent from a year earlier. But sales were still strong at 17.8 million vehicles on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, Bill Fay, head of the Toyota brand in the U.S. market, told reporters on a conference call. GM, the top-seller in the United States, posted a 0.6 percent decline. Ford reported an 8 percent drop, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was down 1 percent. Shares of...

Deal exercises option on previously awarded foreign military sales contract ____ Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, has been awarded a $91 million contract modification to provide Saudi Arabia with eight UH-60M Black Hawk utility helicopters. The deal modifies an existing foreign military sales contract and exercises an option for the Black Hawk sale. Work will be performed in Connecticut and has an estimated completion date of December 2017. The U.S. Army Contracting Command is the contracting entity. The Black Hawk is the Army's main medium-lift utility transport and air assault helicopter.

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This is getting to be a habit. Previous late summer holidays by this correspondent coincided with the run on Northern Rock, and subsequently with the failure of Lehman Brothers. So the final crawl towards the probable nationalisation of Deutsche Bank came as no particular surprise this year, but it is tiresome to relate nevertheless. The 2015 annual report for Deutsche Bank runs to some 448 pages, so one rather doubts if even its CEO, John Cryan, has read it all, or has a complete grasp of, for example, its €42 trillion in total notional derivatives exposure. Is Deutsche Bank technically...

The gyrations in Deutsche Bank’s shares last week together with a June report from the International Monetary Fund indicating that the bank was “the most important net contributor to systemic risks” has cast a trading pall over all of the global banks. Against that backdrop, most Americans would be stunned to learn that the German Deutsche Bank, which perpetually finds itself on the wrong side of the law, was bailed out in five separate U.S. emergency lending operations during the 2007-2010 financial crisis, receiving more than twice the emergency financial assistance as that received by Lehman Brothers, the failed U.S....

AND NOW... amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke... it is time for... that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-The-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him — do NOT doubt him — with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name (that’s Rush, for those in Rio...

My country club locker room is a fascinating 19th hole observatory where human nature and intelligence often come into conflict. Almost all of my golfing buddies are risk takers by nature and many of them are gamblers — not just in the card room but also in the casinos in Las Vegas. Having spent some time in Sin City myself in my early 20s as one of the first blackjack counters, I was, and still am, most familiar with odds and the impossibility of beating the “House” in any game other than blackjack over a long period of time. Still,...

Britain’s exit from the European Union — whenever it takes place — is a cloud over the economic outlook for both the country and its major trading partners within the 19-country eurozone. Further evidence emerged Wednesday to show that businesses across the single currency bloc are fretting over the risks, while those in Britain appear to have gotten over the initial shock of the vote to leave on June 23 thanks partly to the plunge in the pound. The drop in the currency, which this week hit a 31-year low against the dollar, makes British exports more competitive. Both the...

Economists on the left routinely appear mystified by the ongoing slow growth in jobs, investment and business startups under President Obama. But a new report from America's largest manufacturers' group suggests a big reason for our current slowdown can be found in one word: regulation. The study by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) shows new regulations over just the past year amount to a huge hidden tax on U.S. businesses... ...In the last year, federal agencies and departments imposed rules that will cost U.S. businesses $81.6 billion... ...don't expect a sympathetic hearing from Hillary Clinton and other Democrats on...

In another blow to American global leadership the Obama administration is abdicating control of the Internet. Countries that loathe freedom are gaining more influence over what you'll be able to find on the web. The U.S. started the Internet and served as its guardian for many years, guaranteeing that virtually any person or group, no matter how controversial, could add a website to the worldwide network. But on October 1, the Obama administration surrendered U.S. oversight to a multinational organization, ICANN, which stands for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN will have sole power to grant web addresses...

Brexit is back in the news, but this time it's weighing on gold prices and gold mining stocks. The difference: Unlike in June, there's no real panic, just a vague sense of foreboding, but nothing bad enough to keep the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates. December gold closed down 3.3% to $1,269.70 an ounce on Tuesday, the biggest one-day decline since December 2013. It was the sixth straight losing session as gold undercut a key technical level. Gold price moves have a big impact on the profitability of gold miners, which tumbled on the stock market today... ...A stronger...

(CNSNews.com) - In fiscal 2016, which ended on Friday, the federal debt increased $1,422,827,047,452.46, according to data released today by the U.S. Treasury. At the close of business on Sept. 30, 2015, the last day of fiscal 2015, the federal debt was $18,150,617,666,484.33, according to the Treasury. By the close of business on Sept. 30, 2016, the last day of fiscal 2016, it had climbed to $19,573,444,713,936.79. According to the Census Bureau’s latest estimate, there were 118,215,000 households in the United States as of June. That means that the one-year increase in the federal debt of $1,422,827,047,452.46 in fiscal 2016...

An increasing number of iPhone users are reporting an issue with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus phones freezing up and becoming unresponsive to touch. The issue even has a deadly sounding name: "Touch disease." There are a lot of iPhones out there, so a problem that affects a fraction of a percent of devices could potentially impact thousands of users. But there's some evidence that this particular issue is fairly widespread. Apple has never officially acknowledged the problem, but independent iPhone repair vendors and Apple Store technicians have said that it is easily one of the most common issues...

While the hack of the Clinton Foundation was foreshadowed two months ago, moments ago notorious hacker Gufficer 2.0, who previously was responsible for hacking the DNC and DNCC not to mention the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Shultz, announced that the moment "many of you have been waiting for" has come, by revealing that the Clinton Foundation has been hacked. This is what Guccifer 2.0 posted moments ago on his website: So, this is the moment. I hacked the Clinton Foundation server and downloaded hundreds of thousands of docs and donors’ databases. Hillary Clinton and her staff don’t even bother about...

As governor, Hillary’s High-Tax-Tim tried to hike taxes by billions of dollars If prospective Hillary Clinton running mate Tim Kaine had his way, Virginia residents would be paying billions in higher taxes. As governor, Kaine sought to impose nearly $4 billion in higher taxes, including an income tax hike on families earning as little as $17,000 a year. He pushed for tax hikes on businesses and higher taxes on distilled spirits and cigarettes: Income Tax Hike on Working Families: Kaine tried to Increase the bottom tax rate from 5.75% to 6.75%, directly affecting low income families earning as little as...

AND NOW... amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke... it is time for... that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-The-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him — do NOT doubt him — with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name (that’s Rush, for those in Rio...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its forecast for the U.S. economy this year and warns that political discontent threatens global growth.</p> <p>The IMF on Tuesday cut its estimate for U.S. economic growth in 2016 to 1.6 percent from the 2.2 percent it had predicted in July. The American economy grew 2.6 percent in 2015.</p>

The U.S. economy didn’t pick up much speed in the third quarter. The U.S. economy got off to a roaring start in the third quarter, statistically speaking, but the glow has clearly faded. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow chopped its forecast for U.S. growth to 2.2%... ...source of the reduced performance? Retail sales, consumer spending, manufacturing and construction were all weaker than expected toward the end of the quarter. Now, 2.2% growth isn’t terrible... ...Still, such a modest growth rate assures the U.S. economy will fail to reach the 3% mark for an unprecedented 11th straight year. The last time...

According to a fawning write-up in the New York Times, Roula Allouch of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is worried about “Islamophobia” in airports because, she claims, people sometimes give her “a hard, strong stare and a stern look.” Horror of horrors! People give me “a hard, strong stare and a stern look” in airports all the time; I’ve always thought that it was because they weren’t thinking about me at all, but were preoccupied with making their flight and other pressing matters. But Roula Allouch appears sure that everyone who doesn’t give her a cheery grin is...

BILL CLINTON ON OBAMACARE: “IT’S THE CRAZIEST THING IN THE WORLD” Bill Clinton ripped Obamacare during a campaign rally for his wife in Michigan today. Calling Obamacare, “a crazy system” and “the craziest thing in the world,” the former president said “it doesn’t many any sense; the insurance model doesn’t work here.” Clinton went on to say that Obamacare “works fine” for people with “modest” incomes or who are eligible for government subsidies, but “the people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhSQLmfbQ6Y

Ottawa (AFP) - Canada will impose a national minimum carbon price in 2018 in order to meet its Paris accord commitment to slash greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday. "All Canadian jurisdictions will put a price on carbon pollution by 2018... To get there, the government will set a floor price for carbon pollution," he said in a speech to parliament. Each province will have a choice in how they implement the pricing, he added, for example, by imposing a carbon tax or adopting a cap-and-trade system. The federal government, Trudeau said, is proposing a minimum price...

If you want a new PC running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, you'll have fewer options beginning on Nov. 1. Here's what the end-of-sales deadline means.

Poverty is down, median income is up and health coverage expanded last year. These gains are felt across all racial, ethnic, gender and age groups in the U.S. The gender pay gap, income inequality, unemployment rates – all decreasing. Both the poor and those with middle incomes saw economic gains in 2015, according to new U.S. Census data. And the economy even added more than 2.6 million jobs last year. Sounds like cause for celebration, doesn't it? But don't break out the bubbly just yet. Although these figures are heartening, especially after so many years of increasing hardship in the...

Thinking of planning a vacation to Walt Disney World for the next year? Maybe you should think again. Here are a few things that Disney doesn’t want you to know about what they are up to in Orlando.

Outdoor gear giants Bass Pro and Cabela's will combine in $5.5 billion deal announced Monday. The deal will give Cabela's shareholders $65.50 cash per share, but it creates uncertainty about jobs in the retailer's home state of Nebraska. The combined companies plan to keep some operations in Sidney and Lincoln, Nebraska, but it's not immediately clear how many jobs might be lost. Bass Pro CEO Johnny Morris says he hopes to continue growing the Cabela's brand alongside his own Springfield, Missouri, based chain.

... The white-haired, 63-year-old CEO repeatedly told a congressional panel that he had to check with staff, lacked information or was not an "expert" on a range of topics including executive compensation, credit scores and contracts that must be signed to open an account. Earlier this month, the lender agreed to pay $190 million in penalties and customer payouts to settle the case involving the creation of credit, savings and other accounts without customers' knowledge. About $5 million will directly go to customers, many of whom might have paid a small fee on the unwanted accounts. His responses gave plenty...

Recent events have pushed the issue of international trade to the top of the economic agenda – not just here in the UK, but elsewhere in the world. The Brexit vote in the EU referendum has called into question the trading relationship with our European trading partners and the UK’s trade relationship with the rest of the world.... ...Trump has been highly critical of the existing trade agreements between the United States and other countries. He blames these “bad trade deals”... ...the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which oversees the international trading system, is warning of the slowest growth of exports...

The Blockstack approach should make shutting down the internet or blocking a particular site considerably more challenging. Domain registration is turned over to a blockchain (right now, that’s the original bitcoin blockchain), and no private interest needs to be involved. There’s no single point to tell computers where to look to find a site. There’s lots of places, and the more people use it, the more places there will be. If one path to information is shut down, another can found. On this internet, no one would need to log in to websites, because your browser would use its built...

Industrial Policy: Donald Trump has been bashing Ford for deciding to shift small car production to Mexico. He's pointing the finger of blame at the wrong target. A big driver behind Ford's move is President Obama's push for tougher federal fuel mandates. Earlier this year, Ford (F) announced that it was building a major small-car assembly plant south of the border, and more recently said it was going to shift all its small car production to Mexico within a few years. Trump has called it an "absolute disgrace" and says he'd hit Ford with a 35% import tax on these...

Minnesota’s individual health care market is in “an emergency situation,” the state’s top industry regulator said Friday, noting that it took the approval of massive rate increases to persuade all its remaining insurance companies not to pull out for next year. After a major insurer’s exit from the market earlier this year, the state scrambled to convince the seven remaining companies to continue offering plans to those residents who aren’t covered by an employer or through a public program, Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said. The state agreed to rate increases that range from an average of 50 percent...

Today’s mayhem is not so much the result of reckless bankers and asleep at the wheel regulators, but rather of the public policy response to the last crisis itself – that is to say, regulatory over-reach and central bank money printing. All eyes are naturally focused on the specific problems of Deutsche Bank, but Deutsche is in truth no more than the canary in the coal mine. As Tidjane Thiam, chief executive of Credit Suisse, observed last week, as an entire sector, European banks are still “not really investable”. Much the same disease as afflicts Continental banks also applies to...

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The U.S. Trade Representative, which negotiates with foreign governments, told Reuters the move by China would not be surprising "given the high levels of domestic support China provides to its corn producers." "China's overproduction of corn has created a growing stockpile of corn that appears to have reached unsustainable levels," agency spokesman Matt Swenson said. "Chinese exports could negatively impact corn prices just as U.S. farmers are harvesting their crops." U.S. officials will monitor whether Chinese exports may be subsidized, a prospect the agency finds concerning, he said. Traders and analysts said exports have been increasingly likely as China struggles...

While it now seems that Friday's rumor of a substantially reduced Deutsche Bank settlement with the DOJ, which sent the stock price soaring from all time lows, was false following a FAZ report that CEO John Cryan has not yet begun the renegotiation process, and in the "next few days" is set to fly to the US to discuss the proposed RMBS misselling settlement with the US Attorney General, Germany's largest lender continues to be impacted by the public's declining confidence, exacerbated over the weekend by a disturbing "IT glitch." For one, it remains unclear if Friday's report halted, or...

Make up your mind, Jonathan! Appearing on today’s AM Joy, the Washington Post‘s Jonathan Capehart, accused Donald Trump of “cheat[ing] the government” on his taxes . . . despite unequivocally stating precisely 29 seconds earlier that “what he did is legal.” So is every person and entity that takes legal deductions on his tax return “cheating the government,” Jonathan? Does that make the New York Times a tax cheat, too, in your view? After all, as per Forbes, “for tax year 2014, the New York Times paid no taxes and got an income tax refund of $3.5 million even though...

Rule 301—Confidential client information A member in public practice shall not disclose any confidential client information without the specific consent of the client. This rule shall not be construed (1) to relieve a member of his or her professional obligations under rules 202 [ET section 202.01] and 203 [ET section 203.01], (2) to affect in any way the member's obligation to comply with a validly issued and enforceable subpoena or summons, or to prohibit a member's compliance with applicable laws and government regulations, (3) to prohibit review of a member's professional practice under AICPA or state CPA society or Board...

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” while discussing The New York Times report on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump suggesting that he could have legally avoided paying federal income taxes for the last 18 years, former Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani said “the reality is, he is a genius.”

consider all the times whites are passed over for jobs because of this country’s diversity fetish. The Federal Aviation Administration and the Obama Transportation Department today were smacked with a class action race discrimination lawsuit for systematically purging highly qualified air traffic controller candidates from consideration in order to increase diversity. Mountain States Legal Foundation president William Perry Pendley, whose group filed the lawsuit, said in a statement that, “In abandoning years of hiring the most qualified and adopting a ‘test’ that is the epitome of psychobabble, the FAA told our clients their skills are less important than their race...

The New York Times Building is a skyscraper on the west side of Midtown Manhattan, New York City that was completed in 2007. Its chief tenant is The New York Times Company, publisher of The New York Times as well as the International New York Times, and other newspapers. Construction was by a joint venture of The New York Times Company, Forest City Ratner (Forest City Enterprises's New York subsidiary), and ING Real Estate. --- snip --- The site for the building was obtained by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) through eminent domain. With a mandate to acquire and...

WASHINGTON — Hemmed in by the deficit, White House and congressional budget negotiators have been forced to jettison or scale back many of President Clinton's domestic initiatives. But that has not stopped them from finding a few hundred million dollars for politically influential real estate developers. Working quietly behind the scenes, the commercial real estate industry already has won from budget negotiators a lucrative tax break of $366 million over five years. The provision, quietly approved by a House-Senate conference committee late last week, would make it possible for developers to avoid additional taxes when they are able to persuade...

Elon Musk takes the stage of the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico on Sept. 27, it won’t be to rehash terrestrial concerns like a fatal Tesla autopilot crash or a poorly received merger proposal. Instead, the space and electric-car entrepreneur will be talking about realizing his boyhood dream: going to Mars. Read more on Bloomberg.com: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Whether it's by the use of tiny car-lifting robots or totally spherical wheels, the idea of a car that can move effortlessly sidewise is an endlessly appealing one. Parallel parking becomes a dream, parking garage management becomes a piece of cake. And out of all the ways to make that dream come true, these "Liddiard Wheels" seem like a pretty compelling one. Designed by one William Liddiard, the wheels are similar to the kind of "omni wheels" you'll find on some robots and heavy machinery. The difference with these is that they are on an actual car, they have one...

Learning the Arabic language can open up highly-paid job opportunities in Britain - according to jobs search engine Adzuna - as it is one of the most sought after languages in the country’s labor sector. The British company studied more than one million jobs on the market to see the most requested languages along with English, in various work fields. The study examined which languages could lead to higher salaries and better job positions and found there were nine languages in addition to English that could prove to be rewarding – Arabic came second in the list of nine Those...

Washington (AFP) - The US government on Saturday ended its formal oversight role over the internet, handing over management of the online address system to a global non-profit entity. The US Commerce Department announced that its contract had expired with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the internet's so-called "root zone." That leaves ICANN as a self-regulating organization that will be operated by the internet's "stakeholders" -- engineers, academics, businesses, non-government and government groups. The move is part of a decades-old plan by the US to "privatize" the internet, and backers have said it would help...

Germany’s economy ministry believes a Donald Trump presidency would severely damage the U.S. economy, according to an internal memorandum reported by Der Spiegel magazine on Saturday. The ministry expects “shrinking gross domestic product, fewer jobs and higher unemployment,” in the United States if the Republican candidate were to implement his campaign pledges, the magazine cited the memo as saying. […] Trump’s pledges are “not feasible”, Spiegel cited the memorandum as saying. Moreover, the plans would violate international or U.S. law and could be “no basis for a realistic economic policy.” …

Trump’s populist campaign is fueled by working-class anger about unfair trade, an issue the Democrats need to reclaim The Democratic Party could have blocked the rise of Donald Trump years ago if it had just listened. The story of Trump’s amazingly successful movement is also the story of how Democrats turned their backs on their working-class roots and sided with the elites on the crucial economic question of our times: Who would win from globalization, and who would lose? The facts are stark. Since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect and the U.S. began the...

Apple’s Phil Schiller thinks it’s sad that people use 5-year-old computers. Well, Phil, there’s an auto repair shop in Poland that’s going to send you spiraling into a long depression.Why? Because one of the computers they’re using on a day-to-day basis is a Commodore 64, and I don’t mean one of the slick nostalgic remakes. I’m talking about a classically beautiful beige C64 and its whirring, clunking 5.25″ floppy disk drive.It’s been there for more than 25 years. See, not everyone finds the idea of using an old computer sad. Some, like the mechanics at this shop in Gdansk, treat...