The Jim Bakker Show

Nearly 1.5 million people signed up for Obamacare plans so far: officials

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 800,000 people signed up for Obamacare individual health insurance plans in the second week of open enrollment, U.S. government health officials said on Wednesday, bringing the total number of sign-ups to nearly 1.5 million so far.

There is particular scrutiny of how Affordable Care Act programs are faring after a year in which President Donald Trump has sought to undermine Obamacare, especially after his fellow Republicans in Congress failed to pass legislation to repeal and replace the law.

More people have signed up for Obamacare plans in the first two weeks of 2018 open enrollment than in the same time period last year, and the sign-ups include about 345,000 new consumers, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

But the Trump administration halved the 2018 open enrollment period to six weeks, slashed the Obamacare advertising budget by 90 percent and cut funding for groups that help people enroll in Obamacare insurance, so it is still unclear whether there will be the same level of participation as in years past.

The Congressional Budget Office has forecast that 11 million people will buy plans in 2018, 1 million more than were enrolled in 2017.

Republicans, who control the White House, Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, failed this summer to push through legislation to overturn the 2010 law, former Democratic President Barack Obama’s top domestic policy achievement.

Repealing Obamacare has long been a goal of Republicans and it was one of Trump’s main election campaign promises. Frustrated by inaction in Congress, the president has taken steps through executive and regulatory actions to undercut the law, and has promised to let the healthcare program “implode.”

Republicans including House Speaker Paul Ryan have said they will try again next year to repeal the law, which has extended health insurance coverage to 20 million more Americans but which has long been seen by Republicans as costly government overreach.

The Senate this week added a repeal of Obamacare’s individual mandate, the requirement that most Americans purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty, to its version of an overhaul of the U.S. tax code that is working its way through Congress.

(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Frances Kerry)

Gunmen shoot dead police officer and family in southwest Pakistan

By Gul Yousafzai

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a senior Pakistani police officer, as well as his wife, son and grandson on Wednesday as the family was driving in Baluchistan province, officials said.

Two attackers opened fire on the vehicle carrying District Superintendent Muhammad Ilyas and his relatives to Quetta, the capital of the southwestern region, police said.

His four-year-old granddaughter survived and was taken to hospital, they added.

Authorities say there has been a surge in attacks on security officials in Baluchistan, with five suicide bombings and one armed attack targeting police in the past six months.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s shooting – though Sunni militants and sectarian groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, as well as the Taliban, operate in the region that borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Separatists have also fought a long insurgency there, demanding a greater share of the region’s gas and mineral resources and an end to what they say is discrimination.

Baluchistan is at the center of the $57 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a planned transport and energy link from western China to Pakistan’s southern deep-water port of Gwadar.

(Writing by Saad Sayeed; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Gunman kills four in Northern California shooting spree

By Dan Whitcomb

(Reuters) – A gunman carrying a semi-automatic weapon and two handguns opened fire at multiple locations across a small Northern California community on Tuesday, killing four people before he was slain by police.

At least 10 other people were wounded, including two children at an elementary school near the small town of Corning, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Sacramento, where the suspect was slain, according to police and local media.

“Deeply saddened to hear of the shooting in Northern California, the loss of life, including innocent children,” Vice President Mike Pence said on Twitter. “We commend the effort of courageous law enforcement. We’ll continue to monitor the situation & provide federal support, as we pray for comfort & healing for all impacted.”

Shots were fired at Rancho Tehama Elementary school where some people were injured there but no students or staff members died, Corning Union Elementary School District administrative assistant Jeanine Quist said.

Tehama County Assistant Sheriff Phil Johnston said at a news conference that the shooter, who he did not name, had been armed with a semi-automatic rifle and two handguns.

The Sacramento Bee newspaper, citing multiple law enforcement officials, later identified the suspect as 43-year-old Kevin Janson Neal, a local resident who had been arrested in February in connection with a stabbing.

Johnston did not give a motive for the shooting rampage. The local Redding Record Searchlight newspaper reported that it began when the gunman opened fire at a home and some six other locations shortly after 8 a.m. PST.

A parent, Coy Ferreira, said he was dropping off his daughter at the elementary school when he heard gunfire.

“One of the teachers came running out of the building and told us to all run inside because there was a shooter coming,” Ferreira told Redding, California, television station KRCR.

Ferreira said he heard gunfire for over 20 minutes and that a student in the room was struck.

Area resident Brian Flint told local media his neighbor was the shooter and had stolen his truck.

Enloe Medical Center in Chico, some 40 miles away, received five patients, three of whom were treated and released, hospital spokeswoman Natali Munoz-Moore said.

St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in the community of Red Bluff received two patients, including one who was stabilized and transferred to another facility, spokeswoman Amanda Harter said.

Mercy Medical Center in Redding received three patients, including one who also was transferred elsewhere, Harter said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Peter Szekely and Daniel Wallis in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Lisa Shumaker)

Indonesian police officer killed in shooting near Freeport mine

By Sam Wanda and Agustinus Beo Da Costa

JAKARTA/TIMIKA, Indonesia (Reuters) – An Indonesian police officer was killed and a second wounded on Wednesday, after both were shot in the back in an area near Freeport-McMoRan Inc’s giant Grasberg copper mine in the eastern province of Papua, police said.

The officers were patrolling an area close to where a Freeport vehicle was targeted in a shooting on Tuesday, Papua police spokesman Suryadi Diaz said in a statement. A helicopter flew the men to a hospital in the nearby lowland city of Timika.

The main access road to Grasberg remained closed, Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama said, referring to a 79-mile (127-km) stretch from Timika to the mining town of Tembagapura that runs near a river rich with gold tailings from the mine upstream.

A string of at least 15 separate shooting incidents in the area since mid-August that wounded at least 12 people and killed two police officers has been blamed by police on an “armed criminal group”, but linked to separatist rebels by others.

In a statement, the separatist West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN-OPM), a group linked to the Free Papua Movement, claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s incident.

The group has said it is at war with police, military and Freeport.

EMERGENCY MEASURES

For decades, there have been sporadic attacks along the road where the shootings took place, but authorities’ efforts to catch the perpetrators have been hampered by thick surrounding jungle.

“The Indonesian Military (TNI) and police have urged the Armed Separatist Movement in Papua to surrender, but until now no one has turned themselves in,” Indonesian military chief Gatot Nurmantyo said in a statement.

“Armed separatists cannot be left alone,” he said, adding that reining in such activities was the domain of the military, which was preparing “emergency measures” in case persuasive approaches by the police and military failed.

Papua has had a long-running, and sometimes violent, separatist movement since the province was incorporated into Indonesia after a widely criticised 1969 U.N.-backed referendum.

Foreign journalists have in the past required special permission to report in Papua, and once there, have had security forces restrict their movement and work.

President Joko Widodo has pledged to make the region more accessible to foreign media by inviting reporters on government-sponsored trips, although coverage remains difficult.

(Reporting by Sam Wanda in TIMIKA; Additional reporting by Agustinus Beo Da Costa in JAKARTA; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

U.S. consumer prices edge up; retail sales unexpectedly increase

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. consumer prices barely rose in October as the boost to gasoline prices from hurricane-related disruptions to Gulf Coast oil refineries was unwound, but rising rents and healthcare costs pointed to a gradual buildup of underlying inflation.

Low inflation is, however, helping to underpin consumer spending. Other data on Wednesday showed an unexpected increase in retail sales last month as heavy price discounting by automobile manufacturers lifted purchases of motor vehicles.

Rising retail sales and steadily firming underlying price pressures likely will keep the Federal Reserve on course to raise interest rates next month.

The Labor Department said its Consumer Price Index edged up 0.1 percent last month after jumping 0.5 percent in September. That lowered the year-on-year increase in the CPI to 2.0 percent from 2.2 percent in September. The increases were in line with economists’ expectations.

Gasoline prices fell 2.4 percent after surging 13.1 percent in September, which was the largest gain since June 2009. September’s jump in gasoline prices followed Hurricane Harvey, which struck Texas in late August and disrupted production at oil refineries in the Gulf Coast region.

Food prices were unchanged after nudging up 0.1 percent in September. Excluding the volatile food and energy components, consumer prices rose 0.2 percent in October amid a pickup in the cost of rental accommodation, healthcare costs, tobacco and a range of other goods and services.

The so-called core CPI gained 0.1 percent in September. October’s increase lifted the year-on-year increase in the core CPI to 1.8 percent. The year-on-year core CPI had increased by 1.7 percent for five straight months.

The slight pickup in the monthly core CPI could offer some comfort to Fed officials amid concerns that stubbornly low inflation might reflect not only temporary factors but developments that could prove more persistent.

The Fed’s preferred inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index excluding food and energy, has consistently undershot the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent target for more than five years. The Fed has lifted borrowing costs twice this year and has projected three rate increases in 2018.

Prices of U.S. Treasuries fell and the U.S. dollar <.DXY> pared losses against a basket of currencies after the data. U.S. stock index futures extended losses.

RENTS, HEALTHCARE COSTS RISE

Last month, owners’ equivalent rent of primary residence climbed 0.3 percent, quickening after September’s 0.2 percent increase. The cost of hospital services increased 0.5 percent and prices for doctor visits rose 0.2 percent. There were also increases in prices for wireless phone services, airline fares, education and motor vehicle insurance.

Prices for used cars and trucks rose 0.7 percent, ending nine straight months of declines. New motor vehicle prices, however, fell for a second consecutive month as manufacturers resorted to deep discounting to eliminate an inventory overhang.

In a separate report on Wednesday, the Commerce Department said retail sales increased 0.2 percent last month. Data for September was revised to show sales jumping 1.9 percent, which was the largest gain since March 2015, rather than the previously reported 1.6 percent advance.

Retail sales increased 4.6 percent on an annual basis.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast that retail sales would be unchanged in October. The slowdown in retail sales last month from September’s robust pace largely reflected an unwinding of the boost to building materials and gasoline prices after recent hurricanes.

Receipts at auto dealerships increased 0.7 percent after soaring 4.6 percent in September, supported by the deep price discounting by manufacturers. Sales at gardening and building material stores fell 1.2 percent last month after surging 3.0 percent in September.

Receipts at service stations decreased 1.2 percent in October. That followed a 6.4 percent gain in September. Excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales increased 0.3 percent last month after climbing 0.5 percent in September.

These so-called core retail sales correspond most closely with the consumer spending component of gross domestic product. Last month’s increase in core retail sales indicated a healthy pace of consumer spending at the start of the fourth quarter.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased at a 2.4 percent annualized rate in the third quarter.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Paul Simao)

South Korea postpones university exam after rare earthquake

By Christine Kim and Cynthia Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea postponed its annual university entrance exam by a week on Wednesday after a rare earthquake rattled the country, shaking buildings and causing damage but no deaths.

Minister of Education Kim Sang-kon said the hugely competitive exam, scheduled for Thursday, would be postponed for the first time ever because of a natural disaster. It was the country’s second-biggest earthquake on record.

“A fair amount of damage was reported,” Kim told a media briefing.

“Due to the continued aftershocks, we are seeing many citizens, including students, unable to return home.”

The exam would now be held on Nov. 23 to ensure conditions were fair for everyone, he said.

The 5.4 magnitude quake struck about 9 km (5 miles) north of the southeastern port city of Pohang, the Korea Meteorological Administration said.

Shaking was felt across the country and there were numerous reports of minor damage. Operations at nuclear reactors were not affected, the state-run nuclear operator Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co said.

The university entrance exam is taken very seriously. Commercial airliners do not fly during listening portions of the exam, while financial markets open later in the day to ensure light traffic for students to get to their exam centers.

The country’s foreign exchange and stock markets will still open an hour late (0100 GMT) on Thursday, South Korean financial authorities said in text messages.

South Korea has relatively little seismic activity, compared with Japan to the east.

Its strongest quake on record was magnitude 5.8 in September last year.

The Meteorological Administration said nearly 20 aftershocks had shaken the region and more were expected in coming days.

(Reporting by Christine Kim and Cynthia Kim; Additional reporting by Jane Chung, Haejin Choi; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Philippines’ Duterte lauds China’s help at ‘crucial moment’ in Marawi battle

By Karen Lema and Martin Petty

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday heaped praise on visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for what he said was China’s “critical” role in expediting the end of a five-month war with Islamist insurgents in a Philippine town.

Duterte credited China with supplying what he said was the rifle that on Oct. 16 killed Islamic State’s regional point man, Isnilon Hapilon, and said he would present that weapon to China as a mark of appreciation for its help in the war in Marawi City.

“I am going to return to you the rifle so that the Chinese people would know, it was critical, it is a symbol of the critical help,” Duterte told Li, the first Chinese premier to visit the Philippines in a decade.

There are doubts, however, about if it really was a Chinese sniper rifle that killed Hapilon, and uncertainty about whether the military has used any of the 6,100 guns Beijing has donated since June.

The Philippine defense minister recently said all those weapons were given to the police.

Hapilon was killed by members of the 8th Scout Ranger Company. “Scout Ranger Books”, a Facebook page of one of the ranger officers, gave a blow-by-blow account of the operation and said the shot that killed Hapilon came from a gun mounted on an armored vehicle.

Members of the unit also told media the shot came from a fixed weapon controlled remotely. Such weapons are typically 50-calibre machine guns.

“The arms you gave us, helped abbreviate, shorten the military fight there,” Duterte said.

On Friday, he said something similar to Russian President Vladimir Putin. He told him Russia had “helped us turn the tide and to shorten the war” by supplying weapons that Philippine soldiers used to kill militant snipers in Marawi.

The Russian arms were actually delivered two days after military operations were declared over.

The conflict was the biggest and longest battle in the Philippines since World War Two. More than 1,000 people, most of them rebel gunmen, were killed and 353,000 were displaced.

Duterte told Li China’s help came at “the crucial moment when we needed most and there was nobody to help us at that time”.

His remarks may not sit well with the United States and Australia, which from the early stages of the conflict were providing technical support to Philippine forces, including surveillance aircraft to pinpoint locations of militants.

Li said China would provide 150 million yuan ($22.7 million) to help with reconstruction in Marawi. He praised Duterte for last year putting aside festering disputes with China and visiting Beijing, a trip he said was an “ice-breaker”.

Philippine security analyst Renato De Castro said the information Duterte gave to Li was inaccurate, but consistent with his policy of “total appeasement” of China.

“I’m really surprised, I don’t know whether it’s flattery or an outright lie,” he told news channel ANC.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)

Afghans believe country headed in wrong direction, but optimism rising slightly: survey

People climb up a hill to watch the sunset in Kabul, Afghanistan November 16, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

KABUL (Reuters) – More than 60 percent of Afghans still believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, but signs of better governance and rebuilding has slightly lifted the national mood, according to a survey by the Asia Foundation.

Just over half of the 10,000 people surveyed said they had confidence in President Ashraf Ghani’s government, which has struggled to establish security in the face of a growing Taliban insurgency. Last year, just under half of Afghans said they had confidence in Ghani.

However, nearly 39 percent of those surveyed said they would be willing to leave if they had the opportunity, the second highest figure in the survey’s more than decade-long history.

The main reason was increased security concerns. More than 70 percent of Afghans fear for their personal safety.

Attacks are up across the country. In May, more than 150 people were killed by a blast in Kabul’s diplomatic zone – one of the deadliest since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001.

On the day the survey was released, more than 20 policemen were killed in fighting with Taliban insurgents in the southern province of Kandahar.

The survey which was conducted in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan in July, primarily in rural households, pointed to a mixed picture, with steady gains in education and health over the past decade and a half matched by continuing concern over corruption, unemployment and security.

Around a third of Afghans, or 33 percent, believe the country was heading in a positive direction, up slightly from 29.3 percent last year to buck a years-long declining trend.

“After a historic decline in 2016, confidence in public institutions has slightly improved; growing confidence in the Afghan National Security Forces stabilized in 2017,” Abdullah Ahmadzai, Asia Foundation’s country representative in Afghanistan said in a statement.

The increase in optimism applied across ethnic groups except Uzbeks, who make an important minority in Pashtun- and Tajik-dominated Afghanistan.

While there was a slight rise in positive sentiment, it was down significantly from a peak in 2013 before the withdrawal of most foreign forces. Back then nearly 60 percent of Afghans were positive about their future.

The survey comes as the United States in August announced a boost in U.S. troops to Afghanistan, which could push optimism higher in the coming months.

(Reporting by Girish Gupta; Editing by Michael Perry)

Trump administration to release rules on disclosing cyber flaws: source

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Trump administration is expected to publicly release on Wednesday its rules for deciding whether to disclose cyber security flaws or keep them secret, a national security official told Reuters.

The move is an attempt by the U.S. government to address criticism that it too often jeopardizes internet security by stockpiling the cyber vulnerabilities it detects in order to preserve its ability to launch its own attacks on computer systems.

The revised rules, expected to be published on whitehouse.gov, are intended to make the process for how various federal agencies weigh the costs of keeping a flaw secret more transparent, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the rules were not yet public.

Under former President Barack Obama, the U.S. government created an inter-agency review, known as the Vulnerability Equities Process, to determine what to do with flaws unearthed primarily by the National Security Agency.

The process is designed to balance law enforcement and U.S. intelligence desires to hack into devices with the need to warn manufacturers so that they can patch holes before criminals and other hackers take advantage of them.

The new Trump administration rules will name the agencies involved in the process and include more of them than before, such as the Departments of Commerce, Treasury and State, the official said.

Rob Joyce, the White House cyber security coordinator, has previewed the new rules in recent public appearances.

“It will include the criteria that the panel weighs, and it will also include the participants,” Joyce said last month at a Washington Post event. He said the Trump administration wanted to end the “smoke-filled room mystery” surrounding the process.

Some security experts have long criticized the process as overly secretive and too often erring against disclosure.

The criticism grew earlier this year when a global ransomware attack known as WannaCry infected computers in at least 150 countries, knocking hospitals offline and disrupting services at factories.

The attack was made possible because of a flaw in Microsoft’s Windows software that the NSA had used to build a hacking tool for its own use.

But in a breach U.S. investigators are still working to understand, that tool and others ended up in the hands of a mysterious group called the Shadow Brokers, which then published them online.

Suspected North Korean hackers spotted the Windows flaw and repurposed it to unleash the WannaCry attack, according to cyber experts. North Korea has routinely denied involvement in cyber attacks against other countries.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; editing by Grant McCool)

Senate Finance chairman revises tax plan to end Obamacare mandate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee proposed major changes to a Republican tax reform plan, adding a repeal of Obamacare’s health insurance mandate and making corporate tax cuts permanent while ending individual cuts in 2025.

In a statement late on Tuesday, committee chairman Orrin Hatch said the proposed changes would also slightly lower some individual tax rates and includes a repeal of the alternative minimum tax but only through 2025, when it would be reinstated.

The 226-page amendment comes as the Senate continues to craft its version of tax reform alongside the U.S. House of Representatives, which is finalizing its own bill. The two plans must be reconciled and merged into a final plan that can pass both chambers before it goes to President Donald Trump to sign into law.

Republicans, who control Congress and the White House but have yet to pass any major legislation, are eager for a legislative victory ahead of the 2018 midterm elections and are pushing hard to pass tax cuts by the end of the year.

It was not immediately clear how many of Hatch’s colleagues will support the plan in the Senate, where Republicans hold a slimmer 52-48 majority than in the House.

Democrats have dismissed the Republican plans as giveaways to corporations and the wealthy that would swell the nation’s deficit. If Democrats remain united in opposition, Republicans cannot lose more than two senators from their ranks and still have enough votes to pass tax legislation.

The inclusion of the healthcare provision, however, could add to the uncertainty, given that Republicans earlier this year failed to make good on their pledge to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare overhaul.

Hatch’s changes would end one of the more unpopular provisions in Obama’s Affordable Care Act that require Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the change would increase the number of uninsured by 13 million people by 2027.

“By scrapping this unpopular tax from an unworkable law, we not only ease the financial burdens already associated with the mandate, but also generate additional revenue to provide more tax relief to these individuals,” Hatch said in a statement.

But several key moderate Republicans, including Senators Susan Collins and John McCain, expressed uncertainty on Tuesday over tying the tax bill to the healthcare provision details.

Hatch’s plan would also expand access to deductions for so-called “pass-through” businesses and increase the child tax credit to $2,000 from the earlier proposed $1,650, Hatch said. The current tax credit for children is $1,000.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Sign up for Jim Bakker Show