2014

Some prominent health insurers, including industry giant UnitedHealth Group Inc., are not participating in California's new state-run health insurance market, possibly limiting the number of choices for millions of consumers. UnitedHealth, the nation's largest private insurer, Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. are sitting out the first year of Covered California, the state's insurance exchange and a key testing ground nationally for a massive coverage expansion under the federal healthcare law. Meanwhile, the biggest insurers in the state - Kaiser Permanente, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of California - are all expected to participate in the state-run market for individual health coverage.

Santa Anita came away the big winner Thursday when the California Horse Racing Board tentatively approved racing dates for 2014 and 2015 in response to the pending closure of Betfair Hollywood Park on Dec. 22. Santa Anita will expand its usual fall meeting by more than two months, starting Dec. 26 and lasting through July 6, 2014. The Arcadia track will be in session for all three of the lucrative Triple Crown races. Santa Anita also gets the days for a possible 2014 Breeders' Cup during an autumn meeting that will run from Sept.

A $215-million Hello Kitty theme park celebrating the cute cartoon cat with a cult-like following will open in China in 2014. Photos : Hello Kitty theme park rides and attractions Construction is expected to begin in July on the 150-acre theme park in China's Zhejiang province, about three hours west of Shanghai, according to China's Xinhua news agency. Plans for the first Hello Kitty theme park outside Japan closely follow the recent announcement of Shanghai Disneyland , set to open in late 2015 or early 2016.

At age 59, Rita Kowalski decided she wanted to use the computer for more than emailing her kids and looking up salmon recipes. Forty-two years after she dropped out of high school to start a family, Kowalski, now a grandmother of 12, is using it to get her high school equivalency credential. "I perked up because I can look straight at the computer," Kowalski said. "My attention span is shorter with books for some reason, but I can look at the screen for hours and it doesn't seem to bother me. " After decades of pencil-to-paper test sheets, California this year became the latest state to launch the General Educational Development test, known as the GED, in a computer format.

Consumers are getting their first glimpse at what health insurance will look like in California as the state prepares to implement the federal healthcare law. On Wednesday, state officials will spell out the details on policies available next year to people buying their own coverage. In January 2014, most Americans will be required to have health insurance or face a penalty. Federal law established four broad plans of coverage - Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze - whose benefits vary based on the level of out-of-pocket expenses that consumers are required to pay. A Platinum plan, the most expensive, would require policyholders to pay about 10% of the cost of care, while the Bronze plan, the least expensive, pegs the patient share at 40%. Document: Details of California's healthcare plans Now for the first time, California is laying out the specific co-pays and deductibles that many policyholders will face when going to see a doctor, get a lab test or visit an emergency room.

From the nation that brought you "Are You Being Served?" comes "Mr. Selfridge," a loose dramatization of the founding of a British retail institution, the Selfridge & Co. department store, familiarly called Selfridges. Its eight-part run begins Sunday, under the colors of PBS' "Masterpiece. " Starring Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American who brought recreational shopping to Britain, it is neither a miniseries nor a biopic, but a full-on, open-ended TV series - a second season is already slated for 2014 - which, like "The Tudors/The Borgias," takes real people from a real place and time and embroiders their lives with the sort of things you watch television for. There are resemblances to "Mad Men," as well, in that it is a period piece about the business of selling and the dreaminess of buying; and of "Downton Abbey" because it is concerned with social mobility at the end of the Edwardian era and ... big hats.

With tourism on the rise in downtown Los Angeles, construction is set to begin on a $172-million Marriott hotel complex that has even bigger aspirations than when it was announced almost a year ago. Downtown's thriving hotel market can be seen in the long-anticipated development near the L.A. Live entertainment complex and Staples Center, which has grown by a floor and 15 additional rooms from the original plan. Now set to be 23 stories, the tower on Olympic Boulevard will house a 174-room Courtyard by Marriott and a 218-room Residence Inn by Marriott under one roof when it opens in summer 2014.

SACRAMENTO - California's $8-an-hour minimum wage needs to go up, says Watsonville Democratic Assemblyman Luis Alejo. And he may be getting the votes he needs to make it happen. But don't count on it; Alejo has tried this before. Alejo is the author of AB 10, which would give the Golden State its first minimum wage increase since 2008. The bill would raise it 25 cents an hour next year, 50 cents in 2015 and an additional 50 cents to $9.25 an hour in 2016. In 2017 and annually thereafter, hourly pay would be adjusted upward automatically, based on the state's inflation rate.

A new fight is brewing over health insurance companies letting millions of Americans renew their current coverage for another year - and thereby avoid changes under the federal healthcare law. That may offer a short-term benefit for certain consumers and shield some of those individual policyholders from potentially steep rate increases. But critics say this maneuver could undermine government efforts to remake the insurance market next year and keep premiums affordable overall. At issue is a little-known loophole in President Obama's landmark legislation that enables health insurers to extend existing policies for nearly all of 2014.

My wife does not work and is covered by my employer's health insurance plan. I am 60, she is 53. If I retire in five or seven years and go on Medicare, what does that mean for my wife? At most, she will be only 60. Do we have to purchase private insurance (which I suspect will be very expensive)? Or is there some kind of Medicare coverage for dependent spouses? Unfortunately for you and for millions of other couples in your position, Medicare does not provide dependent coverage.

If Mazda can't figure out a way to sell its excellent all-new sedan - the 2014 Mazda6 - the automaker should just give up selling cars altogether. Mazda has no problem building great vehicles. It just can't seem to sell them. The company has long failed to capitalize on critical acclaim and a track record for reliability with its mid-size sedan - a crucial segment for any automaker. Part of the problem is of Mazda's own making, with its "Zoom-Zoom" marketing. The automaker has cast itself as the fun-to-drive brand in a family sedan segment in which buyers don't care much about fun. Mazda has acknowledged as much and will seek to appeal to a wider array of car buyers with a more aggressive national advertising campaign for the new 6. PHOTOS: 2014 Mazda6 looks and drives the part The product should make the sales job easy.

What does it take to go from a sixth-generation 2013 Corvette to the seventh-generation 2014 model? $1,400. Chevrolet on Friday announced pricing for the all-new C7 Corvette Stingray. The car will start at $51,995, including destination. The Stingray convertible will start at $56,995. PHOTOS: Seven generations of Corvettes Both models reflect a $1,400 increase over the outgoing Corvette. That extra money buys you a lot of changes, not the least of which is the controversial styling.

Elon Musk quips that it's easier getting rockets into orbit than navigating his commute between home in Bel-Air and his Space Exploration Technologies factory in Hawthorne. "The 405 … varies from bad to horrendous," said Musk, who also co-founded PayPal and Tesla Motors. "It just seems people in Los Angeles are being tortured by this. … I don't know why they aren't marching in the streets. " The massive project to widen the 405 Freeway is not only causing traffic nightmares for motorists like Musk but has also been plagued by cost overruns and delays.

SACRAMENTO -- With most statewide offices filled with first-term incumbents planning to run for reelection, 2014 holds a shortage of job opportunities for aspiring pols. But in the races that are open -- state controller and secretary of state -- candidates are beginning to jockey for position. Earlier this month, state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) announced his candidacy for secretary of state. His colleague Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) has also announced a bid. Joining the two Democrats in the race is Pepperdine University's Pete Peterson, a registered Republican.

Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, who sometimes crossed his party in the powerful role of Finance Committee chairman, announced Tuesday he would retire at the end of his term - complicating Democrats' efforts to keep control of the Senate in the 2014 midterm election. The move caught many in Washington by surprise. Baucus had stockpiled $5 million - a fortune by Montana standards - and voted last week to oppose compromise gun control legislation, which some viewed as a calculation aimed at winning reelection in his libertarian-leaning state.

Most consumers will not be able to get ahold of Google Glass until next year, despite earlier promises that the smart-glasses would be available to the general public in 2013. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told the BBC that the general consumer release of the high-tech eyewear is still "a year-ish away. " Glass is a device designed by Google that functions similarly to a smartphone but is worn on users' faces like a pair of glasses. The device has a tiny display that users see out of the corner of their eye. Among its features, Glass can be used to search the Internet, hold video chats or take photos.

WASHINGTON - The ousted head of the Internal Revenue Service apologized Friday for the agency's "foolish mistakes" in singling out conservative groups for intrusive and time-consuming scrutiny, but said that the effort was not driven by partisan motives. Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller, whose tenure will end Wednesday after he resigned under pressure this week, said the agency staff's attempts to identify groups with political aims was not "targeting," as it was termed in an inspector general's audit.

It didn't have to be like this. In the age of green screens and VFX houses, filmmakers responsible for the sixth installment of the "Fast & Furious" franchise didn't have to actually destroy hundreds of cars. They didn't have to run over a custom 1969 Ford Mustang with a tank. The 2008 BMW M5, one of several demolished, didn't need to be thrown through a building. And the 1970 Ford Escort Mark 1 - beloved in the United Kingdom - didn't need to be tossed 70 feet in the air over a freeway divider with a live stunt driver behind the wheel.

While education reformers in Sacramento continue to obsess about how easy it should be to fire teachers and how important tests should be in evaluating their performance, almost no one is talking about the central issue of what students are supposed to be learning in the near future. A sea change is coming to schools in California, one of the 45 states that have adopted what are known as the Common Core State Standards. The idea of the new standards is to bring some consistency to education from state to state, and to better prepare students for the work they'll be expected to do in college and their jobs.

Heija Yan took a drag from his cigarette as he approached Powell Library on the UCLA campus Monday, not noticing the ashtrays were empty and askew. The graduate student in electrical engineering had no idea the university had enacted its tobacco ban on Earth Day. "I know others don't like the smell around them, but I know [the library] is a popular place to smoke, so I thought I'd be OK," Yan said, flicking the butt into an ashtray. UCLA is the first school in the UC system to implement the ban, following a call by President Mark G. Yudof for all 10 UC campuses to go smoke-free by 2014.