Houston, TX, United States (AHN) – Dallas based Energy Transfer Partners LP, announced Monday it was buying Sunoco Inc for $5.3 billion.

Under the terms of the deal, Sunocoshareholders will receive about $50.13 a share: $25 in cash and 0.5246 common units of Energy Transfer.

Energy Transfer is paying a 23 percent premium over Sunoco’s closing prior prior to Monday’s announcement.

The transaction will assist Energy Transfer Partners goal of diversifying the company’s pipeline network and the products it ships.

The acquisition gives Energy Transfer Partners 4,900 Sunoco branded retail fueling station in the U.S., in addition to its 32.4 percent share of Sunoco Logistics Partners LP’s common units, enabling Energy Partner to expand its oil pipelines.

In September, Sunoco hired Credit Suisse to explore strategic alternatives, including a possible sale.

Sunoco, an owner of oil refineries since 1895, said it planned to exit that business after posting a $1.7 billion loss in 2011.

Shares of Sunoco soared on the news, rising nearly 20 percent to $48.88.

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United States (KaiserHealth) – Once a year, employees of the Swiss Village Retirement Community in Berne, Ind., have a checkup that will help determine how much they pay for health coverage. Those who don’t smoke, aren’t obese and whose blood pressure and cholesterol fall below specific levels get to shave as much as $2,000 off their annual health insurance deductible.

Daryl Martin, 60, Swiss Village Executive Director, uses the chest press machine in the early morning hours at the Swiss Village Wellness Pavilion (Photo by William Rozier for USA Today/KHN).

At Chicago-based Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate firm, workers can earn up to $300 in cash for having a physical and hitting certain medical goals, or completing health coaching programs.

Gone are the days of just signing up for health insurance and hoping you don’t have to use it. Now, more employees are being asked to roll up their sleeves for medical tests — and to exercise, participate in disease management programs and quit smoking to qualify for hundreds, even thousands of dollars’ worth of premium or deductible discounts.

Proponents say such plans offer people a financial incentive to make healthier choices and manage chronic conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes, which are driving up healthcare costs in the USA. Even so, studies of the effect of such policies on lifestyle changes are inconclusive. And advocates for people with chronic health conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, fear that tying premium costs directly to test results could lead to discrimination.

Consumer Tips: Workplace Wellness Plans

More and more employers are tying financial reward and penalties to workers completing a set of medical tests. KHN’s Julie Appleby says the tests can include blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar. Watch the video.

Employee reaction has also been mixed. “It’s an invasion of privacy,” says Bradley Seff, 54, a court reporter who filed a lawsuit against his employer, Broward County, in August, 2010, for introducing such a plan.

Nonetheless, such plans could be the wave of the future. Faced with crippling healthcare costs, the number of employers embracing such programs shot up from 49 percent in 2010 to 54 percent last year — and more say they expect to do so soon, according to a survey by consultants Aon Hewitt. Big-name participants include insurer UnitedHealthcare, car rental firm Hertz, postage meter maker Pitney Bowes and media owner Gannett, owner of USA TODAY.

And more employers are expected to adopt them starting in 2014, when the health law allows them to offer larger incentives or penalties than they can now.

“We’re seeing a big move in this direction driven by employers’ concern about rising health costs and their sense that employee behavior has a lot to do with high costs,” says Kevin Volpp, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, who has studied the use of incentives in health insurance programs.

Cost Savings Seen

Julie White, 50, Swiss Village Director of Nursing Services, swims laps in the early morning hours at the Swiss Village Wellness Pavilion (Photo by William Rozier for USA Today/KHN).

Leaders at Swiss Village credit their eight-year-old wellness program, along with a high-deductible insurance plan and an on-site fitness center, with slowing health care cost increases. Workers saw no increase in their health premiums from 2005 to 2011.

“We continue to embrace what we’re doing,” says Daryl Martin, executive director of the nonprofit organization. Still, a few high-cost medical issues among its 230 covered employees and their dependents last year caused it to raise employee costs- percent this year.

What’s important, Martin says, is that the company’s approach keeps health “at the forefront of what people are thinking about.”

Of the employers who offer such programs, about one-third offer financial incentives to those who undergo specific medical tests, according to the Aon Hewitt survey. And 5 percent of those tie the financial rewards or penalties to meeting specific medical-based standards.

The survey also found the use of medical screening tests poised to expand to family members: 57 percent of employers said they planned to add incentives for spouses and dependents in the next three to five years.

“A lot of costs come from spouses, but only 29 percent had incentives for spouses,” says Cathy Tripp, a senior vice president at Aon.

Starting in 2014, federal law allows employers to raise the value of the perk or penalty from 20 percent of the cost of a worker’s health insurance plan, to 30 percent. Based on the average cost of employer-offered insurance today, that means firms will be able to offer annual discounts or penalties of more than $4,500 a family, or $1,600 for individuals.

Joe Burkhead, 61, Swiss Village Director of Information Services, uses the leg curl machine in the early morning hours at the Swiss Village Wellness Pavilion (Photo by William Rozier for USA Today/KHN).

Employers will still have to craft plans to comply with federal and, in some cases, state requirements, Volpp says. The programs must be voluntary — meaning an employer can’t require a worker to participate as a condition of coverage. And the employer must offer a “reasonable alternative” to qualify for the reward, or to avoid the penalty for those who can’t achieve the sought-after medical goals.

But Dick Woodruff, vice president of federal relations for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, worries there’s no definition of what a reasonable alternative must include.

Some workers complain the programs are an intrusion into their private lives.

“They portrayed it as voluntary, which it isn’t, because if you don’t participate, they fine you every paycheck,” says Seff, the former Broward employee who is suing over the program. He has since retired on disability with back and neck problems. “I don’t think any employer should do it.”

In an effort to slow rising health care costs, Broward County in 2009 began asking workers to fill out a health information form and have a finger-stick blood test each year to check blood sugar and cholesterol levels, according to court filings. Workers who declined were docked $40 a month.

Those who did participate were offered disease management programs if they had asthma, high blood pressure, diabetes, congestive heart failure or kidney disease. The county stopped docking those who declined to participate Jan. 1, 2011, after Seff’s suit was filed, court documents say.

The lawsuit, which argues the county’s program violates the Americans with Disabilities Act, is likely the first of its kind in the nation, says Seff’s attorney Daniel Levine in Boca Raton, Fla. Without ruling on whether the wellness effort was voluntary, a federal district court judge backed the county in April, 2011, saying the plan fell under provisions of the law meant to protect bona fide benefit programs. The case is now on appeal. Broward County attorneys did not return requests for comment.

Some state lawmakers are also concerned about the potential for discrimination. Colorado passed legislation in 2010 that requires wellness programs to be accredited, bars penalizing workers for not participating, or failing to meet a health standard — and allows appeals if an employee is denied an alternative. A similar bill was brought unsuccessfully in California last year, according to a February report by Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute.

While supporting wellness programs in general, several patient advocacy groups warned the Obama administration last March that additional consumer protections are needed. Tying medical test results to financial incentives or penalties in premiums or deductibles could discriminate against some workers, especially those who already have health problems, the groups said.

“When you start increasing premiums or pumping up the deductibles, you’re making it more expensive and harder for people to access insurance,” says the Cancer Society’s Woodruff, who adds that offering gift cards or bonuses are a better way to reward people for participation.

Employers, however, argue that since they’re on the hook for the bills, they can ask workers to take more responsibility.

“House money, house rules,” says Ken Sperling, global healthcare practice leader at Aon Hewitt.

Humble Beginnings

The first worker wellness programs, which began about a decade ago, rewarded simple participation: attending a health fair or filling out a “health risk assessments,” with the worker perhaps receiving a $25 gift card in return.

Today, many offer discounted premiums to workers who meet standards related to blood pressure, cholesterol and weight, with the value of those discounts running between $30 and $60 a month, says Jim Pshock, founder and CEO of Bravo Wellness in Avon, Ohio. Pshock administers such wellness programs for about 220 employers nationwide, including Colorado construction firm Oakwood Homes and Nashville’s Ardent Health Services.

Although employers may set specific goals — such as a body mass index (BMI) below the 30, the level considered obese — many also reward achievement of less daunting targets. One employer rewarded workers if their test results didn’t get any worse, Pshock says.

At Swiss Village, workers get $500 off their deductible for each of these measures: not smoking, having a BMI of 27.5 or less, a low-density lipoprotein cholesterol level (LDL) of 130 milligrams per deciliter or less, and blood pressure of 130/85 or less. LDL levels above 129 are associated with higher risk of heart disease, while blood pressure greater than 120/80 is considered a risk factor for heart attack and stroke.

A second tier of awards allow workers who approach those ranges to earn $250 per category. The testing takes place at an on-site health fair, or at a doctor’s office with the results gathered by an independent insurance firm that runs the program for the company.

Federal laws allow employers to require workers to fill out a health risk assessment, but bar them from learning a specific worker’s answers, although they can get results in aggregate. The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 also limits employers’ ability to ask about family history or require genetic testing.

The information is generally gathered by firms that run wellness programs or insurance plans. UnitedHealthcare, which offers its “Personal Rewards” program to large, self-insured clients, says it does not use the information to set premiums.

Pshock says some of his clients share the information with their insurers, who may “recognize the significance of a program … with a 3 percent to 6 percent rate reduction.” Many insurers, however, take “more of a wait-and-see-if-the-health-improvement-results-in-fewer-claims approach,” he says.

But Do They Work?

Given the available data, it’s hard to parse how much of the reported savings from such programs come from improved health, and how much from the frequent pairing of such programs with high deductible policies, which shift more costs onto workers.

“We just don’t know how effective (incentives) are,” says Volpp. There is pretty good evidence they help smokers quit, he says, but less that they prompt workers to lose weight and keep it off.

Weight gain is partly a function of genes and environment, he says, so programs that tie incentives to achieving a particular weight range are “in essence, penalizing people for factors they can’t control or can only partly control” – either because they’ve failed to lose weight or haven’t participated in the program.

Volpp says the medical literature shows that incentives work best when participants have choices: get below a certain BMI, or lose 5 percent of current body weight, for example. And, he says, rewards should be immediate.

“If you want the employee to do a health assessment or (medical) screening, you should give them the reward right after they do it” he says.

At Jones Lang LaSalle, workers who make a pledge — on the honor system — that they don’t smoke, or will take a stop-smoking class, and achieve a healthy weight, get 10 percent off their contribution toward insurance premiums.

In 2010, the firm added a cash bonus program, offering $50 to workers who get a physical and another $50 for every one of four medical tests they take: weight, blood pressure, glucose and cholesterol, plus an extra $50 if they do all the tests. If they meet specified goals — or complete a coaching program — they get the money in the form of a cash bonus. Spouses and domestic partners are also eligible, says Howard Futterman, senior vice president of benefits.

Last year, 65 percent of employees participated. While it’s early, he says, indications are the program is having an impact on costs: health spending rose 6 percent in 2010, but only 3 percent in 2011.

“Our long term goal is to make health and well-being part of our culture and everyday values,” says Futterman. “When people start doing it naturally and you don’t have to pay them for it, that’s when you know you’ve succeeded.”

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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London, United Kingdom (IRIN) – The scope of microfinance to lift poor people out of poverty and provide mechanisms of empowerment is being challenged as questions are raised about the supporting evidence.

In a discussion hosted by the UK’s Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the academic evidence was concluded to be unclear, unreliable and inconclusive.

“[There is] no clear evidence that microfinance has any positive or negative impacts,” said Maren Duvendack, ODI fellow and author of a recent systematic review of microfinance, while David Roodman, of the Centre for Global Development, added: “I [wouldn't] say microfinance doesn’t work, I would say it does not systematically reduce poverty. We do not have credible academic evidence that microcredit on average lifts people out of poverty… We [also] do not have evidence that microfinance is systematically making people worse off.”

Range of services

“I think a lot of people think that microfinance equals microcredit [providing small loans],” Duvendack told IRIN. “[Microfinance is] not just credit and savings, [but also] insurance, business skills, training, financial literacy.”

Most studies consider the impact of microcredit, but Roodman suggested another of the microfinance portfolio products — microsavings — could have positive impacts on poverty reduction.

Duvendack, however, who is completing a study on the impact of microsavings, said it showed no significant benefits over microcredit.

Microfinance risks

The predominance of microcredit as a microfinance tool could be a significant hindrance to poverty reduction, as the risk of indebtedness is high.

According to another ODI fellow, Milford Bateman, micro-enterprise failure after funding with microcredit can strip poor people of all their remaining assets.

“It is the overall lack of access to credit for small and medium enterprises that prevents micro-enterprises growing into anything more substantive,” Bateman added in an ODI paper. Microfinance initiatives have provided a social legitimacy for poor people to become indebted, commented Bateman, and the commercial business model has meant high interest rates for microcredit.

“Microfinance institutes [are] now required to generate high financial rewards for their managers (salaries, bonuses) and owners/shareholders (dividends and capital gains),” Bateman explained.

“The fear is that significant financial flows are flowing out of the poorest communities, rather than being retained and recycled within them to underpin productive investment as the precursor to an escape from poverty.”

Consensus is growing that microcredit should not be offered to the poorest of the poor due to the risk of harm, said Ruth Stewart of the Social Science Research Unit at the Institute of Education, University of London, at a London International Development Centre event.

Limitations and advances

The limitations in evidence of microfinance for poverty reduction result from poor study design and unreliable data, despite more than 30 years’ experience. Hopes remain that robust and well-designed research, including randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews, will provide clearer conclusions in coming years.

Microfinance initiatives will not be successful in a vacuum, according to Duvendack. They will need to operate as part of a broader poverty reduction strategy with appropriate large- and small-scale economic frameworks to support advancement for poor people.

Another forthcoming systematic review by Duvendack will also show no benefits of microfinance as a tool to empower poor women, although it does increase recognition of poor people as consumers of financial services, and can result in the development of regulatory frameworks around consumer rights. These factors were argued as possible forms of empowerment and new regulatory frameworks for India were cited.

“There are indigenous models and we need to investigate these models,” said Will Derben, head of community relations at Barclays Africa.

Indigenous community models to provide finance for poor people, like the Susu men in Ghana, have been overlooked during implementation of microfinance tools.

Potential customers, as well as existing community models, need to be better understood so as to be better supported by microfinance initiatives.

Also overlooked, Duvendack told IRIN, may have been other potentially important financial tools, such as targeted welfare programs, conditional cash transfer programs, or small-scale agricultural growth programs.

“I think we need more studies to be clearer about what is the actual impact of the various products,” said Duvendack. “Do we have to have credit plus savings together or savings alone, or credit alone – or what is it now?”

Growth

By 2008, the microfinance industry had grown to include at least 2,420 microfinance institutes in 117 countries, according to microfinance institute exchange; the number continues to grow annually.

Microfinance institutions are able to be relatively self-sufficient, to innovate, to provide jobs and to compete in financial markets.

For Barclays Africa, Derban said, “Microfinance is a concept. It’s about finding that balance between providing a financial service that will improve people’s lives but yet be viable commercially.

“We need to provide financial services and we need to find ways of improving the system. Everybody wants to be banked.”

To maintain a balance between doing social good and implementing successful financial products, Derban explained, Barclays Africa combines its commercial expertise with regulations bound to the philanthropic budget used to invest in community projects.

“I think it used to be the case where a lot of people that came into the microfinance sector came via the NGO route, where it’s all about helping. [Now] we’re seeing… more commercial people are coming in.”

Regulation

“Certainly we shouldn’t just let the market do its own thing,” added Roodman. “Government does need to play a major role, setting the rules of the game and ensuring that it stays on an even keel.”

Continuing to increase funds invested in microfinance, Roodman reflected, would not only be unnecessary, but could also potentially create harmful “microcredit bubbles”.

“We cannot assume that more is always better. The amount of money going into microcredit these days poses the largest threat to the largest strength of microfinance.”

Microfinance, argued Roodman, offers “a cautionary tale about putting a lot of money into things where the impacts are not rigorously dealt with”.

oj/mw

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Cairo, Egypt (The Media Line) – Egypt faces a risk-laden game of Beat the Clock as it tries to get its political house in order before its foreign currency reserves sink much more.

Reserves fell to $16.4 billion in January from about $36 million a year earlier, a drop that economists all agree imperils the economy and requires Egypt to seek support from external sources and make difficult decisions to cut back government spending and subsidies. But that will be difficult given the political situation.

Presidential elections are now scheduled for late May, preceded by a six-week election season. Meanwhile, a parliament dominated by Islamists is tussling over who will control the government with the interim military council. A dispute with the United States over foreign human rights activists detained in Egypt is threatening vital American aid to the country. In the meantime, no U.S. assistance is being transferred to the country.

The timetable looks even more challenging when the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is factored in. Egypt’s Ministry of Finance is reportedly counting on the IMF’s executive board to approve a $3.2 billion facility towards mid-March, which will then go to parliament for approval about the time the presidential campaign is getting under way.

“Time is not on Egypt’s side and politics could be the prime suspect to derail or delay an IMF program or exacerbate dollarization and [foreign currency] outflows,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Jean-Michel Saliba said in a note to investors last week.

Concerns that Egypt’s political trajectory looks to be on a collision course with its financial needs came in the form a downgrade in its bond rating by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Feb. 10. S&P lowered its ratings to B from B+ on Friday, five notches into junk territory, and said further downgrades could be on the way.

“The negative outlook reflects our view that a further downgrade is possible if the government fails to stem the decline in reserves, or an uncertain policy environment and weak institutions emerge from the ongoing political transition,” S&P said. Moody’s and Fitch, two other bond-rating agencies, cut their ratings on Egypt earlier.

Diminishing foreign reserves may be the most immediate threat to Egypt’s economy, but it is not the only one. More than a year after the revolution that brought down Hosni Mubarak, economic growth has stalled, the number of visiting tourists has plummeted and foreign investment has evaporated, all of which is exerting huge economic pressure on the government at a time of political flux.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch estimated that Egypt’s drawdown of its foreign currency would slow to what it called a “more manageable” $500 million a month because the foreign capital that has been responsible for much of the decline has been nearly drained out of the country.

On the other hand, Egypt could also get a boost from a rare instance of foreign investment if France Telecom goes ahead with the purchase of a $2 billion stake in the Egyptian Company for Mobile Service, popularly known as Mobinil, which it agreed to buy from Egyptian entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris last week. If the transaction goes through, that money might be transferred to Egypt in March.

But Merrill also noted that Egypt’s finances look more precarious than the headline foreign reserves figures show. Taking out Egypt’s holdings of gold, reserves fall to $13.6 billion, which are equal to just 2.8 months of imports, Saliba wrote in the Feb. 16 note. Meanwhile, Egypt’s external financing needs could reach some $11 billion through June 2013, Finance Minister Momtaz el-Saieed said Feb. 10.

But accepting aid is politically problematic because the public looks askance at foreign assistance, especially from the U.S. Only 26 percent favor accepting American aid, according to a Gallup poll taken in December. The proportion willing to accept international aid rises to 50 percent (with 42 percent opposing) and those willing to accept it from fellow Arabs reaches 68 percent (28 percent opposing), Gallup found.

Egyptians don’t like aid because it usual comes with strings attached, such as unpopular economic reforms in the case of the IMF and maintaining the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, in the case of American assistance. Political opposition to foreign assistance caused the interim military government to reject the original offer of an IMF credit last spring, a decision many economists say has exacerbated the financial troubles in which Egypt now finds itself.

Parliament must approve an IMF loan, but Essam el-Erian, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, which dominates parliament, said his group may vote against it because it might impinge on Egyptian sovereignty. “Look at Greece,” el-Erian said in an interview with Bloomberg News this week. “Everybody is telling it what to do.”

Above and beyond accepting foreign financial assistance, the other remedies for Egypt’s foreign reserves ailment are all painful for politicians and the public alike.

One is bringing down the budget deficit. As the economy has shrunk and the government boosted handouts in the early days of the revolution to try and palliate the population, Egypt’s fiscal deficit has ballooned. Officials recently revised upward their forecast for the budget deficit for the fiscal year ending June 30 to 9.4 percent of gross domestic product.

The solution would be to cut spending, particularly costly and wasteful subsidies on food and energy. Indeed, the military government recently announced plans for $4 billion in spending cuts and the IMF and others providing aid will have their own list of fiscal measures. But political analysts suggest that will inevitably mean cuts to popular energy and food subsidies of the kind that have set off riots in the past.

Another remedy is devaluing the Egyptian pound. In spite of Egypt’s mountain of economic woes, the pound had shed only about 1 percent of its value over the past year as the central bank acted to shore up its value by raising interest rates and drawing down on reserves. But the bank’s options are narrowing as it is forced to devalue the pound, which will almost certainly lead to higher inflation.

Analysts see some positive elements in the Egyptian political scene. Saliba notes that the decision to move up the presidential vote to May reduces the length of the campaign season and the opportunity for grandstanding by candidates. Ahmed Galal, managing director of the Economic Research Forum in Cairo, maintains that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken a pragmatic line on subsidiary reform and supports free markets.

©2012. The Media Line. All Rights Reserved.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Congress Friday swiftly passed a deal to extend the payroll-tax cut through the end of 2012, continue paying unemployment benefits and avoid a steep cut in Medicare doctors’s fee, moving forward from a lengthy fight that had tied up legislators for months.

The House voted 293-132 to pass the measure. The Senate quickly followed with a 60-36 vote.

The move averts a tax increase on millions of Americas and the end of this month.

Under the deal, the tax paid by workers to Social Security will remain at 4.2 percent instead of reverting to 6.2 percent on March 1.

The deal also avoids a 27 percent cut in payments to doctors who serve Medicare patients, and extends through year’s end payment rates for Medicare doctors. The costs will be offset in part by taking $5 billion from a prevention and public health program established under President Obama’s signature and hotly debated health-overhaul bill.

Both parties are claiming victory.

Lawmakers now head out of town for a week-long recess.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Employers added 243,000 jobs in January, an increase over the 203,000 jobs added in December, the U.S. Department of Labor reported on Friday.

Hiring was stronger than expected and many economists were surprised.

Private sector job growth was widespread with large employment gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing. However, government employment did not change much during January.

At the same time, the jobless rate for January fell to 8.3 percent, marking the fifth consecutive month of declines and taking unemployment to its lowest rate since February 2009.

Manufacturing added 50,000 jobs in January.

Private sector businesses have consistently added jobs since March 2010, with manufacturing creating 14 percent of the jobs in the past 13 months.

However, government has lost jobs since the middle of 2010. Another 14,000 jobs were lost in January.

Despite the job creation, only 63.7 percent of working age Americans had a job in January. That included about 8.2 million people who were involuntarily working part time in January either because their employer cut their hours or because they were unable to find a full time job.

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Boston, MA, United States (AHN Sports) – Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick doesn’t agree with Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas’s decision not to attend a meeting with President Obama at the White House.

President Obama welcomed the Bruins to Washington earlier this week to honor the Stanley Cup champions. Thomas chose not to attend saying he was protesting a federal government that had “grown out of control, threatening the rights, liberties, and property of the people.”

Governor Patrick said Thomas was entitled to his views but said he was disappointed in his decision not to go to the White House on the “Ask the Governor” show on WTKK-FM.

“He’s a phenomenal hockey player and he’s entitled to his views, but it just feels to me like we’re losing in this country basic courtesy and grace,” Patrick said. “I didn’t think much of President Bush’s policies – two wars on a credit card, prescription drug benefit that we couldn’t afford, deficit out of control – but I always referred to him as ‘Mr. President.’ I stood when he came in the room,”

Thomas helped the Bruins win their first Stanley Cup in 39 years last season with a victory over the Vancouver Canucks in the finals.

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DC, Washington, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Conference of Mayors wrapped up its winter meeting Friday in Washington, D.C., with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stepping into controversies on same sex marriage and education.

Emanuel joined about 80 other mayors from across the nation in endorsing laws to give legal recognition to same sex marriage, along with the tax breaks and other benefits spouses can share.

The mayors signed on to a statement that said, “Our cities derive great strength from their diversity and gay and lesbian families are a crucial part. Studies have shown what we know through our hands-on experience that cities that celebrate and cultivate diversity are the places where creativity and ideas thrive.”

Emanuel supported the Illinois Legislature’s effort last year to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples.

He said New York did “a good thing” last June when state lawmakers legalized gay marriage.

In separate comments Friday, Emanuel discussed his plan to turn Chicago’s community colleges into training institutions for the city’s employers.

Currently, Chicago’s City Colleges have a graduation rate of about 7 percent and job prospects for graduates that are “not as high,” Emanuel said.

His plan calls for each of the city’s seven community colleges to operate with specialties, such as health care, transportation, hospitality and manufacturing.

In addition, employers would be brought in to develop curricula that would train the students to become their employees.

“I want it to have economic value” to attend college, Emanuel said at the downtown Washington hotel where about 250 mayors were meeting.

Turning colleges into job training institutions is controversial among some academics, who say a well-rounded education requires liberal arts courses that include literature, history and the arts.

Nevertheless, job creation and recovery from the economic disaster of the Great Recession were dominant themes throughout the meeting this week.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report that said the nation’s metropolitan areas will struggle for five more years to regain jobs lost during the recession that started in September 2008.

“The recovery is very uneven across U.S. regions, with the southeastern and southwestern metro [areas that] were the most affected by the housing bubble looking ahead to years of recovery,” the report says.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls will grow about 1.3 percent this year, which is unlikely to reduce the unemployment rate below 8 percent, according to a report by IHS Global Insight.

The report predicts the nation will regain nearly half the jobs lost during the Great Recession by the end of 2012.

The mayors used the economic report to try to prod Congress to approve legislation that would create more jobs.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, president of the Conference of Mayors, said “Congress has jumped ship” in its obligation to stimulate the economy and employment.

However, Villaraigosa acknowledged cities will have a hard time squeezing money out of Congress at a time the federal government is trying to reduce its deficit by cutting spending.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – First time claims for unemployment compensation benefits during the week ending Dec. 31 dropped by 15,000 from the previous week to 372,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The less volatile 4-week moving average also fell, registering a decrease of 3,250 to 373,250 initial claims.

However, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate also fell. It dropped by 0.1 percentage point to 2.8 percent for the week ending Dec. 24, the most recent week for which such data is available.

Analysts say the decrease in filing for jobless benefits is a move in the right direction.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all unemployment programs for the week ending Dec. 17 dropped by 8,311 from the previous week to 7,223,203.

The unemployment rate for December was 8.5 percent.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Dec. 24 were:

• California (+16,490)
• Pennsylvania (+6,764)
• Michigan (+5,632)
• Kentucky (+5,263)
• Indiana (+5,084)

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Naypyidaw, Myanmar (AHN) – Myanmar President Thein Sein on Wednesday celebrated the country’s Independence Day and used the occasion to give credit to the former junta and the army for the country’s recent political reforms.

Stressing the day’s significance, Sein said it was the “Tatmadaw” military that directed the nation towards building a peaceful, modern and developed democratic one. “The army took step-by-step measures for writing a constitution in order to practice multi-party democracy,” Sein said in a message read by Vice President Sai Mauk Kham.

The nominally-civilian president also praised the military for fighting several wars with numerous armed ethnic rebel groups, adding that the army would continue to remain Myanmar’s most essential pillar. “A Tatmadaw of international standard is required for national defense,” he said.

The speech was delivered in front of 3,000 ministers and civil servants gathered in the capital Naypyidaw.

Sein also criticized 1988′s student uprising, which brought alive Aung San Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy movement, charging that it ruined the country.

The government also released at least 30 prisoners and commuted sentences of many others. However the opposition and the United States described the move unsatisfactory.

Sein’s decree granted amnesty to prisoners for the country’s peace and stability and national consolidation, stated the state-run newspaper. The decree commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment, restricted the maximum sentence to 30 years for all, limited terms of 20-30 years to 20 years and cut shorter sentences by 25 percent.

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