Paris, France (4E) – President-elect Francoise Hollande on Tuesday flew to Germany for a eurozone debt crisis meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel but his plane was hit by lightning and it returned to Paris. He was unhurt and took another plane to resume his flight to Berlin.

The incident came just hours after his inaugural as the new leader of France at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Former president Nicolas Sarkozy formally turned over power to the 57-year-old Hollande.

According to a presidential spokesman, the plane hit by lightning turned back for safety reasons. Planes are usually hit by lightning with the electricity being dispelled through their wingtips, but turning around after a strike is rare, according to a BBC transport correspondent.

Hollande decided to have a dinner meeting with Merkel, his second act as president after naming Jean-Marc Ayrault as his prime minister at 5 p.m., to renegotiate the European Union fiscal pact and make it growth-oriented instead of austerity-oriented as the German leader wanted it to be.

In his televised inaugural speech, Hollande said he will propose to Merkel a plan to reduce public debt while stimulating the economy.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – On Wednesday, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is set to suspend his presidential bid and back Mitt Romney.

In an interview Tuesday with USA Today, Gingrich said he will back Romney’s candidacy and is prepared to campaign for his former foe. In return, Romney will help Gingrich pay off some of his millions of dollars of campaign debt.

Gingrich said, “Mitt Romney met the first criteria of being a good candidate: He won. Now, you have to respect that.”

Gingrich will make the official announcement at 3 p.m. Wednesday in Arlington, Va.

Romney is not scheduled to be there.

It has been a rollercoaster ride for Gingrich, who in January sat at the top of the polls. However, in the months that followed it became apparent he was not a GOP favorite.

Gingrich has maintained that he is committed to the Republican party and his goal is to make certain Obama is not re-elected.

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Charlotte, NC, United States (AHN) – Bank of America Corp. saw its first-quarter profit drop to $653 million, compared to a profit of $2 billion for the same period last year.

Earnings were 3 cents per share, down from 17 cent per share a year ago.

The bank said that an accounting charge related to the bank’s debt affected first-quarter profits.

However, revenue was also down for the quarter to $22.3 billion, versus $26.9 billion for the same quarter last year.

Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) was not alone in falling profits. Rival bank Morgan Stanley also saw its profits drop because of an accounting charge.

However, Morgan Stanley went into the negative territory, reporting a first-quarter loss of $119 million, compared to a profit of $736 million during the same period last year.

Morgan Stanley also saw revenues drop, slipping to $6.9 billion, compared to $7.6 billion last year.

Both Bank of America and Morgan Stanley have passed recent bank stress tests.

In addition, Bank of America is one of the largest banks in the world with 57 million customers.

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Kansas City, KS, United States (KaiserHealth) – In an ongoing disagreement over how to solve dental care access problems in Kansas, there is one thing no one disputes: the great need.

That need was on display in February when the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation held its eleventh free clinic of the past decade. Known as the Kansas Mission of Mercy, the clinic was staffed by volunteer dentists in a vacant Walmart store in Kansas City.

Organizer Greg Hill said that patients began arriving at 8 p.m. the night before the clinic opened. They were able to spend the night inside the store. “By 5:30 a.m., there were 1,200 people in the building,” Hill said.

At that point, the parking lot had to be closed, because no more patients could be treated in a single day— even with 165 volunteer dentists and many more hygienists and other support staff from all across the state. By the end of the two-day clinic 2,144 patients had been treated, adding to the total of approximately 20,000 patients served since Mission of Mercy began in 2002.

Analysts have known for years that Kansas has a severe shortage of dentists, and that shortage is getting worse. The problem is greatest in rural Kansas, especially in the western part of the state.

To deal with the shortage, Fort Hays State University President Ed Hammond backs the idea of creating a mid-level dental provider — a person whose training and skills fall somewhere between those of a hygienist and a full-fledged dentist.

Hammond is keen to begin training those providers at Fort Hays State, but the proposal faces strong opposition from the Kansas Dental Association and has bogged down in the state legislature.

Hammond points out that it is not just the poor or uninsured who have trouble accessing dental care in western Kansas. Even a college president can have trouble.

“I can’t get dental services where they accept our Delta Dental Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan,” said Hammond. “As a state employee, I get — and pay for — dental insurance, but the dentists in western Kansas don’t accept it.”

Hammond says he’s had to switch dentists three times to find someone who would accept his dental insurance. There are 13 primary care dentists in the Hays area, but Hammond says only a few accept Delta Dental.

“The shortage is impacting not just the indigent, not just the children. It’s impacting all of Kansans in western part of the state,” he said.

A report published last fall by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the University of Kansas Medical Center counted 1,159 primary care dentists in the 105 counties of Kansas. However, roughly half of them are located in metropolitan Kansas City and Wichita. Add in Topeka and Lawrence, and more than 700 of the state’s dentists are in just four communities.

Most counties in the western half of the state have only one or two dentists, if any. A dozen western counties, plus three more in eastern Kansas, have no dentist at all. Hammond said it’s not hard to understand why dentists are reluctant to set up shop in frontier counties.

“The problem is, the people graduating from dental school are coming out with tremendous debt, and then they have to get a lot of equipment,” Hammond said. “That raises the bar that their practice has to generate a certain amount of resources in order for it to make sense, and so they don’t go to western Kansas and the smaller towns.”

Hammond compared the so-called mid-level dental providers to mid-level medical providers who are already helping meet the need for primary care in rural Kansas.

“We train nurse practitioners that go out to the Hill Citys, the Atwoods, the various different communities throughout the state, and provide medical services. We’re proposing to do the same thing with a mid-level professional in the area of dentistry,” he said.

Hammond said Fort Hays State University is prepared to begin training this new class of dental providers as soon as the legislature approves the proposal. A coalition called the Kansas Dental Project submitted a plan last year. It would create a new type of provider with more training than a dental hygienist, but not as much as a dentist, called a Registered Dental Practitioner, or RDP. The new practitioners would be allowed to fill cavities and do simple extractions of children’s primary teeth.

But the Kansas Dental Association has fought this idea all the way. “The overwhelming majority of dentists are opposed to the registered practitioner model, and it’s not like 99 percent. It’s 99.9 percent,” said Kevin Robertson, who heads the association.

Robertson said the proposal goes too far by allowing RDPs to perform procedures which are, by definition, considered surgery.

“Anything that includes the cutting of the hard surfaces of the tooth is considered surgery,” said Robertson. “The bill is written to allow the extraction of all primary teeth, or meaning baby teeth. Now, a lot of listeners might think, well, baby teeth, I’ve pulled out my son’s or my daughter’s baby teeth. Well, there’s nothing in the proposal that says it has to already be loose.”

And Robertson says what sounds like a simple procedure can suddenly become more than a registered dental practitioner is trained, or licensed, to handle.

“Maybe you’ve snapped off a tooth. You’ve broken it. Maybe the root’s wrapped around the nerve that runs through the jaw, or something like that, and you didn’t know it at the time,” said Robertson. “Those are the types of things that we think could occur and that we’re concerned about.”

Robertson predicted that mid-level providers would actually make it more difficult for dentists to make ends meet in rural areas. He said it would create a two-tiered system of dental care in Kansas: dentists for those in the more-populated areas, and mid-level providers with a lower level of training for rural Kansans.

But others counter that even that scenario would be better than the status quo.

“I would describe no care as second-class care, and that’s the system we have in place now for many Kansans,” said Shannon Cotsoradis, who heads the advocacy group Kansas Action for Children. Cotsoradis is spearheading the Kansas Dental Project, the effort to create licensed, mid-level dental providers.

“Many Kansans, whether they’re low-income, uninsured, or insured through the public health coverage system, can’t access dental care,” Cotsoradis said. ” Our goal is to make sure that all Kansans, regardless of what kind of insurance they may have or whether or not they have insurance at all, can access care, and we believe that adding another member to the Kansas dental team will help ensure that.”

Cotsoradis said the opposition to registered dental practitioners is based on fear and misinformation.

“The research that’s out there says very clearly that mid-level dental providers can provide the same quality and the same level of safety in the care they deliver as a dentist, within their scope of practice, and I would challenge the Kansas Dental Association to produce research that demonstrates something to the contrary,” she said.

Melinda Miner, a dentist in Hays, holds the opposite view of most of her DDS colleagues: She would like to start working with registered dental practitioners.

One of the so-called “dental deserts” identified in the state dental workforce report is just to the south and west of Hays. It’s an area of approximately 500 square miles, where there are no primary care dentists at all. Miner envisions being able to use registered dental practitioners to bring dental care to nearby Trego and Ness counties, which currently have no dentists.

“Our goal would be to open outreach clinics in the surrounding communities for preventive — for cleanings, for check-ups, for small fillings,” Miner said.

Miner said people will drive long distances for major dental problems, but they’re less likely to do so for the kind of routine care that can prevent more serious issues.

“You know, having to take your child out of school, take half a day off work, drive 30 minutes or more to go to the dentist for a routine checkup or preventive care is a lot less likely to happen than if you have a preventive person in your town,” said Miner.

The proposed law would require registered dental practitioners to spend their first 500 hours of practice under the direct supervision of a licensed dentist. That means they’d start out in the Hays clinic, just down the hall from Miner and her husband, who is also a dentist. Once they’re placed in the outreach clinics, they’d be under “general supervision.” Miner said telemedicine would make it possible to supervise a practitioner work without being at the same location.

“All of our x-rays are on the computer. They can call at any time and ask a question. They can send us a photograph or an x-ray, and ask us our opinion. You don’t have to be there in person to watch over somebody,” she said.

Miner sees mid-level providers not as a threat to her practice, but as a way to make it more efficient and to expand her patient base.

“Every dentist can run their practice how they want to, and I don’t want to tell a dentist, ‘Hey, you have to take Medicaid or you have to see people for free, or you have to use a hygienist,’” she said. “There are dentists who don’t want to use hygienists. That’s fine for their practice, but I would prefer if they don’t tell me I can’t do something that would help my practice to be better.”

The Kansas Dental Association does support expanding the role of dental hygienists. They’ve endorsed a bill to create what’s called an Extended Care Permit 3. It would allow specially-trained hygienists, under the sponsorship of a dentist, to provide temporary fillings, adjust dentures, and remove very loose baby teeth. Their services would be aimed at underserved children, senior citizens, and people in various forms of state care or custody. Those favoring creation of Registered Dental Practitioners say this bill would help, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Kansas is among 15 states where advocates are working to expand the dental workforce with mid-level dental providers. So far, Alaska and Minnesota are the only states where these providers have been authorized.

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Washington, DC, United States (ProPublica) – by Marian Wang

It was with some fanfare that the Obama administration announced last fall that it was ramping up a program to help students with federal loans reduce their monthly payments. Under the program, payments are adjusted based on how much students earn — what’s known as income-based repayment.

Yet, even while the administration has emphasized easing the burden for student borrowers, some contractors with the Department of Education appear to be exacerbating it.

Bloomberg reported this week that some federally contracted debt collection agencies have been playing hardball with borrowers who are behind:

insisting on payments the borrowers can’t afford;

even when federal student-loan rules allow more leniency.

The debt collectors have an incentive to be tough. As Bloomberg explains:

Under Education Department contracts, collection companies “rehabilitate” a defaulted loan by getting a borrower to make nine payments in 10 months. If they succeed, they reap a jackpot: a commission equal to as much as 16 percent of the entire loan amount, or $3,200 on a $20,000 loan.

These companies receive that fee only if borrowers make a minimum payment of 0.75 percent to 1.25 percent of the loan each month, depending on its size. For example, a $20,000 loan would require payments of about $200 a month. If the payment falls below that figure, the collector receives an administrative fee of $150.

The Department of Education is trying to balance its interest in helping struggling borrowers and stewarding taxpayer dollars, department spokesman Justin Hamilton told Bloomberg.

Striking that balance, it seems, hasn’t been easy. Consumer advocates chafed when President Obama, as part of a deficit-reduction plan promoted last fall, recommended allowing debt collectors to robo-call the cell phones of borrowers who fell behind on federal student loans and other debts to the government.

That plan didn’t get far. But the measure resurfaced as a line item in Obama’s proposed 2013 budget last month.

As Bloomberg noted, federal student-loan rules require that collectors work out “reasonable and affordable” payments with borrowers to get them back on track, but the rules don’t spell out how such a calculation should be made. The Department of Education is meeting with key student-loan stakeholders this week to discuss, among other things , whether to use the income-based repayment formula to help set that standard. (As it stands, only borrowers who are current on their federal loans are eligible for help via income-based repayment.)

One thing that isn’t on the table at these rule-making meetings? A measure hailed by some advocates as potentially the single most important rule change for student borrowers who’ve become severely disabled and are seeking a discharge of their federal student loans. As we reported last year, the department initially pledged to overhaul the program and consider whether to simply accept Social Security determinations of disability instead of its current complex and opaque process. The department subsequently backed off that fix. Now it isn’t even on the agenda .

– Provided by ProPublica.org

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Stock index futures point to extended gains for Wall Street Friday as traders remain upbeat on the U.S. economy.

Shortly before the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 38 points to 13,209, the Standard & Poor’s 500 futures eked up 3.3 points and the NASDAQ futures climbed 8.8 points.

The closely watched S&P benchmark, because of its diversity, surpassed the 1,400 threshold Thursday for the first time since before the 2008 financial crisis. All three indexes have made impressive gains in recent trading sessions.

The markets in general have gotten a lift from optimistic data on the recovering U.S. economy, coupled with easing fears about the European debt crisis.

Market participants will be eyeing three key economic reports on Friday.

Before the open, a report on Inflation at the consumer level showed an increase of 0.4 percent in February, in line with estimates, with a spike in gas prices accounting for almost 80 percent of the rise. Excluding the food and energy components, prices were up 0.1 percent, slightly less than the 0.2 percent forecast.

Later on Friday, data from the Federal Reserve is expected to show production in the U.S. industrial sector grew at 0.4 percent in February from the prior month. Two regional manufacturing reports came in ahead of expectations on Thursday.

Also expected is a report on consumer sentiment which is expected to show a very slight, but positive, rise in early March. Rising gasoline prices may have also taken its toll here, too.

In premarket trading, oil rose 40 cents to $105.51 a barrel, and gold gave back $13,00 to $1,646 a troy ounce.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Wall Street slipped on the open Friday as investors keep a sharp eye on rising oil prices.

Just after the opening bell, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 24 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 2 points and the NASDAQ was flat.

Stocks aim to end the choppy week up. A positive close to the week will mean nine straight weeks of gains, the longest such run since January 2004.

Investors are hesitant to jump into stocks as oil prices continue to rise. U.S. crude oil futures were hovering near $108 a barrel Friday, a day after hitting a 10-month high of $110 on supply concerns in the Middle East.

The U.S. dollar’s strength against the yen and the euro could continue to pressure oil and other commodity prices.

Gold, which fell sharply Wednesday and gained some ground Thursday, was down $10 in early trading Friday, last quoted at $1,712.90 a troy ounce.

Market participants continue to monitor developments in Europe as finance ministers in the region forge ahead in their efforts to bring the eurozone’s debt crisis under control

Concerns persist about Greece’s stability and Europe’s capacity to support larger economies such as Italy and Spain should they face economic distress.

In afternoon trading, European stocks were mixed, while Asian markets ended higher.

In corporate news in the U.S., the highly anticipated initial public offering of YELP debuts Friday on the New York Stock Exchange.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Precious metals continued to move higher Wednesday following Tuesday’s Greek debt deal in which euro zone finance ministers approved a second bailout for the ailing Mediterranean country.

While the deal isn’t expected to solve Europe’s debt problems, investors were able to sigh in relief that a messy and chaotic debt default will not disrupts markets–for the time being, anyway.

Gold ended higher by $32.60 Tuesday, settling at $1757.10 a troy ounce. The white metals, platinum and palladium also enjoyed strong gain. Silver, the gray metal, finished the day sharply higher.

The upward momentum in the commodities spilled over into Wednesday.

Comex April gold futures staged a late day move to finish the U.S. trading session on Wednesday at a fresh three month high. April gold last traded up $13.30 at $1771.80. Spot gold was last changing hands up $9.70 at $1,770.50.

Platinum jumped $39 to $1,721, palladium rose $12.30 to $719 and silver eked out a nickel gain to $34.34.

Investors plunged into gold as a safe-haven buy following rising tensions in the Persian Gulf following the recent news Iran halted oil shipments to some European countries. The other metals, used in the industrial production of a variety of goods and services, continued their ascent on renewed hopes that a global economic slowdown is not on the near horizon.

Profit taking may ease some of the recent gains, but precious metal bugs see the upward trend continuing.

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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) – The struggling U.S. Postal Service posted a $3.3 billion loss on Thursday and projected it would run out of cash in October as its fiscal woes continued to widen.

The $3.3 billion loss in the last quarter of 2011 included a $3.1 billion charge for mandated health care prefunding payments.

An overhaul that would cut $20 billion in annual costs by 2015 was proposed by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, but the move would require congressional approval to implement the majority of the proposed changes.

The post office will most certainly hit its $15 billion debt ceiling in 2012, and may no longer be able to borrow from the Treasury, the agency’s chief financial officer, Joe Corbett, noted.

If the Postal Service hits its borrowing limit and does not find other sources of revenue or cost savings, it could be forced to delay payments to vendors and workers.

The Postal Service, a government agency, cannot write off it debts by filing bankruptcy. Ultimately U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for the agency’s losses.

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