Cancellations

One of the arguments made for the 2010 healthcare law was that it attacked the problem of underinsurance -- the threadbare policies that offered such poor coverage, they allowed millions of Americans to be bankrupted by medical bills. Now, however, Democrats are confronting the fact that the law they wrote is forcing thousands of people to lose their current insurance plans because the coverage doesn't meet the new standards. It's a perfect example of the road to political hell being paved by good intentions.

After years of contentious debate, a long-running and sharply criticized plan to extend Orange County's toll road network to the San Diego County line has been shelved. The extension would have added miles to the county's maze of tollways but also would have cut - in the view of some - perilously close to San Onofre State Beach and one of the state's most treasured surf breaks. On Tuesday, officials with the Transportation Corridor Agencies announced they had canceled environmental studies for the massive 241 extension and said they would pursue less-ambitious alternatives.

The busiest travel day of the year collided with an ugly storm that swept up from the Southeast to the East Coast, drifting into the nation's busiest airspace. The results were 667 canceled flights and 6,435 flights delayed at least 15 minutes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, according to the travel monitoring site Flightstats.com. By comparison, only 189 flights were canceled and 3,560 were delayed last year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, according to Flightstats.com.

A recent trip to Europe was an exercise in saving money. Here is some of what I discovered. Ground transportation: Taxis may seem like the most convenient and civilized way to get around, and sometimes they are, but sometimes they're expensive and annoying. They're also subject to all the traffic everyone else is sitting in. Subway systems are efficient and traffic-proof (unless there's a problem on a line). They can get you to most tourist destinations faster, and they are actually easy to use - easier than figuring out the rules for hailing a cab in the same city.

Getting good care when you cancel Jane Engle's well-written article regarding cancellations of hotel reservations ["Canceling Your Room?" Oct. 25] was right on point. As an attorney, I've made it a prerequisite to view the relevant cancellation provisions on websites and in written documents. One point, however, should be noted. As rigid and clear as some of the provisions may be, there is still, thankfully, a human factor that should not be ignored. My wife and I recently had planned a trip to New York City and bought "nonrefundable" tickets via Telecharge to some Broadway shows.

Storms that hit the Midwest and East Coast last month were to blame for 49,000 canceled flights, the highest number for any January in the last five years. An additional 300,000 flights were delayed last month by U.S. airlines. The cancellations last month even exceeded those caused by Hurricane Sandy in October and November of 2012, according to an analysis from MasFlight, an aviation operations technology company based in Bethesda, Md. January's airline woes cost passengers more than $2.5 billion in lost productivity, hotel expenses and meals and inflicted $75 million to 150 million in losses to the airline industry, MasFlight said.

Super storm Sandy has led to the cancellation of about 19,500 flights since Saturday but cancellations are on the decline and two key East Coast airports reopened Wednesday. John F. Kennedy International in New York and Newark Liberty International in New Jersey reopened Wednesday for limited service, but La Guardia International Airport in New York remains closed because of flooding. It remains unclear when La Guardia will reopen and airline officials urged passengers to check on their flight status by phone or online before heading for an airport.

WASHINGTON — What's behind the unusually high rate of contract cancellations and settlement delays in the real estate market? With signs of recovery emerging in many parts of the country, shouldn't deals be zipping along with minimal complications? Apparently not. Nearly one-third of realty agents in a new national survey reported experiencing contract cancellations — purchases crumbling before closing — in February. That's up dramatically from a similar poll 12 months earlier, when just 9% of agents reported cancellations.

  Airline cancellations continued to mount, with a few carriers beginning to cancel flights scheduled for Thursday. Super storm Sandy is now blamed for the cancellation of 18,100 flights, stretching from Saturday to Wednesday, according to the travel monitoring site, Flightaware.com. The canceled flights were primarily to and from storm-ravaged cities along the East Coast. About 50 or so flights were already canceled for Thursday. The website Flightstats.com has animated the effects of the storm on flights in an online video, shown above.

Getting home after the Christmas holiday continues to be a predicament as a massive storm that has now hit the Northeast grounded thousands of planes for the third straight day. As of Thursday morning, more than 800 flights had been canceled and nearly 5,000 more had been delayed, with most of the planes grounded in Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and New Jersey, according to the flight monitoring site Flightstats.com. Still, the storm's effect has declined compared to Wednesday, when more than 2,000 flights were canceled and more than 12,000 were delayed as the storm cut a wide swath through the mid-Atlantic states, heading northeast.

A powerboat racing contest in San Dimas was canceled this past weekend after one contestant was killed and another injured during a practice-lap crash at Puddingstone Reservoir. The two-boat collision occurred on the lake in Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park at about 11 a.m. Saturday, on the second day of the three-day event hosted by the Southern California Outboard Assn., park officials and authorities said. According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, a lead boat lost control, causing a boat trailing the craft to crash into it. The impact killed 64-year-old Gregory Wayne Belda of Los Angeles, who was piloting the lead boat, authorities said.

The Marathon Crash Race is officially canceled. But the "fun ride" is on. "The city really, really, really, really wanted me to get a permit," said Don Ward, organizer of the bicycling group Wolfpack Hustle and the annual Marathon Crash Race. "So they worked really hard to get a permit - and as of Friday night, 8 p.m., they got me a permit. " Ward credited officials from the Los Angeles Police Department, the city attorney's office and the mayor's office as key players in helping to obtain a permit to make Sunday's ride a reality.

Join Los Angeles Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson for an L.A. Now Live discussion at 12:30 p.m. on the Marathon Crash Race and why the city of Los Angeles has clamped down on the popular ride. We're also planning on having one of the organizer's of the race, Roadblock of Wolfpack Hustle, join us during the chat and serve as a panelist during the discussion. For four years, thousands of cyclists have descended on Los Angeles for what is often considered the biggest underground bicycle race in the country  -- a 4 a.m. sprint along the empty L.A. Marathon route before the runners and walkers take it over for the sanctioned event.

A Republican state lawmaker sued California's health insurance exchange, saying it overstepped its authority by refusing to allow more than 900,000 people to keep their existing health policies. In his suit, state Sen. Ted Gaines (R-Rocklin) said the Covered California exchange violated federal and state laws by requiring participating health plans to cancel policies by Dec. 31 that didn't comply with new requirements of the Affordable Care Act. The issue of cancellations for about 900,000 individual policyholders in California and several million nationwide has sparked widespread criticism of President Obama's healthcare law. Many consumers got new, improved coverage at lower rates as a result of federal premium subsidies.

Days before the Los Angeles Marathon, organizers canceled a  popular nighttime bicycle race along the 26.2-mile route because they did not obtain the proper permits. Every year since 2009, hundreds of cyclists have gathered in the dark along Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, waiting for road closures to begin along the marathon route, which stretches from Dodger Stadium to Santa Monica. Just after 4 a.m., cyclists swarm the streets to enjoy three hours of car-free fun on some of Los Angeles's normally most congested boulevards.

The Obama administration wrote a new chapter Wednesday in the "if you like your health plan, you can keep it" chronicles, decreeing that plans it once derided as "junk" or "substandard" can remain in effect until October 2017 -- long after the next presidential election. The point, administration officials say, is to help those in the market for individual or small-group plans make a smoother transition into Obamacare. As you may recall, President Obama repeatedly promised that the 2010 Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare)

As a nor'easter storm threatens the East Coast, the nation's airlines have canceled more than 1,500 flights scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. The cancellations, about 1,200 for Wednesday and 313 on Thursday, were primarily scheduled to fly in and out of Newark Liberty International in New Jersey and La Guardia and John F. Kennedy International airports in New York. Cancellations were also made for flights in and out of Philadelphia International, Chicago's O'Hare International and Dallas/Fort Worth International airports, according to the flight-monitoring site Flightaware.com.

Qantas and Virgin Australia canceled flights that were scheduled Thursday (Australia time) to New Zealand and the western Australian city of Perth as an ash cloud from a Chilean volcano continued to spread into the area and strand thousands more travelers. The cloud has also wreaked havoc in South America . Disruptions of air travel in various parts of the world could last for months, experts say. The Sydney Morning Herald dubbed the cloud over Perth the "plume of gloom" and explained that levels of ash as low as 15,000 feet posed a safety risk for airlines.

At least 17 flights that were scheduled to arrive at Los Angeles International Airport were canceled Monday morning after a massive winter storm wreaked havoc on the East Coast. The canceled flights had been scheduled to fly to LAX from airports in Washington D.C., New York and New Jersey, among others. In a Twitter message Monday morning, Ronald Reagan National Airport said runways were closed as crews made a "herculean effort" to clear snow. The winter storm marched toward the East Coast on Sunday night, prompting airlines to preemptively cancel 1,500 flights scheduled for Monday.