Worry

Amid anxiety over rising costs from the federal healthcare law, California received better-than-expected insurance rates for a new state-run marketplace, but many consumers still won't be spared from sharply higher premiums. Three years after President Obama's landmark law was passed, the state unveiled the first details Thursday on what many Californians can expect to pay for coverage from 13 health plans offering policies in the state's exchange, in which as many as 5 million people will shop for coverage next year.

ARDMORE, Pa. - Last we heard from Luke Donald, he was feasting on perfectly marbled steak after a victory in Japan yielded a shipment of 200 pounds of Miyazaki beef. "Brought a few here this week," Donald said. "Hopefully some good protein. " Asked if the rib-eyes and filets will give him a few extra yards off the tee, Donald grinned and replied, "I wish it was that easy. " The world's former No. 1 player - he's No. 6 now after a so-so start to the year - has yet to win a major.

When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan's colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn't feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague's response? "This isn't just about you. " "It's not?" Susan wondered. "My breast cancer is not about me? It's about you?" The same theme came up again when our friend Katie had a brain aneurysm. She was in intensive care for a long time and finally got out and into a step-down unit.

Josh Hamilton is batting .216 overall, .146 with runners in scoring position. He has driven in 18 runs, the same as Alberto Callaspo and Chris Iannetta . He is on pace to strike out 173 times, a career high. This is not what Hamilton or the Angels had in mind for the debut season of a five-year, $125-million contract. In the first week of the season, the Texas Rangers walked Albert Pujols intentionally several times to get to Hamilton. On Sunday, with the tying run on base in the eighth inning, the Astros pitched carefully to Mark Trumbo with Hamilton on deck and first base open, walking Trumbo on five pitches.

WASHINGTON - Two years into a civil war that shows no signs of ending, the Obama administration is considering resettling refugees who have fled Syria, part of an international effort that could bring thousands of Syrians to American cities and towns. A resettlement plan under discussion in Washington and other capitals is aimed at relieving pressure on Middle Eastern countries straining to support 1.6 million refugees, as well as assisting hard-hit Syrian families. The State Department is "ready to consider the idea," an official from the department said, if the administration receives a formal request from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, which is the usual procedure.

Trade Big Game James Worthy? Sell the farm first. DEBORAH PITTS La Canada

"Worry: Controlling It and Using It Wisely" By Dr. Edward M. Hallowell Random House Audiobooks Abridged nonfiction Two cassettes Length: Three hours $18 Read by the author Available in bookstores A senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and the founder of the Hallowell Center for Cognitive and Emotional Health, Hallowell certainly knows his stuff. He should have let someone else read it for him, however. His manner and delivery border on bland.

This was to have been a new season for Terry Donahue. All the apprehension and nagging doubts that dogged him in past years had disappeared. No one called him the Wizard of Worry this season. With a soft schedule and a team loaded with talent, a national championship and Heisman Trophy seemed to be a certainty. But after the debacle at the Rose Bowl, maybe Donahue has been too complacent this season. According to the media, any team in the Pac-10 can beat any other conference team on a given Saturday.

Terry Donahue can relax now. His team won't be ranked No. 1 this year. With any luck, they will fall like boulders in the polls, and, if USC takes care of Illinois, the media spotlight will shift back across town where he prefers it. This may be an Excedrin 11 for Bruin fans, but rest assured, Terry is in clover. With the Oklahoma debacle, the last "gutty little Bruin" has resurrected the myth only he has any use for. Terry is a complicated guy. He shows signs of imagination. Give him a proposition and he sees all the possibilities, not all of them happy.

"Don't worry," might be the most common advice pediatricians dish out to parents struggling to raise baby. But according to a new study, parents do worry--about the wrong things. Mothers, for instance, worry more about whether their children will be kidnaped by a stranger than whether their children's school performances are satisfactory. They worry disproportionately more about sudden infant death syndrome, a rare phenomenon in which an infant stops breathing for unexplainable reasons.

It's not what the San Jose Sharks would want to hear after being eliminated Tuesday, but NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman praised the state of hockey in California during the Kings' 2-1 victory over the Sharks at Staples Center. "To be here tonight and see the crowd, it all demonstrates that hockey is thriving in California. And that's great to see," Bettman told The Times. "If we were trying to be a little trite, we could say we've gone from the Golden Seals to a Golden Era. " The Western Conference semifinals marked only the fourth time two California teams faced each other in the NHL playoffs.

GRAND CANYON, Ariz. - On a routine patrol, park ranger Stephanie Sutton spots a looming confrontation between tourist and nature - in this case, the driver of a white SUV and a 500-pound elk. The large female elk lopes along a road shoulder in the woodsy visitors village on the canyon's South Rim. Within moments, Sutton is in the middle of a peculiar hazard known in Grand Canyon National Park as an elk jam. Cars and RVs jam on their brakes, disgorging...

HERZLIYA, Israel - High-tech entrepreneur Kobi Stok is chasing the new Israeli dream. The 33-year-old software engineer quit a steady job to launch a Web start-up that teaches guitar playing. In three years, Stok's Jamstar.co signed up 80,000 users, raised $650,000 from investors, and inked a partnership deal with Warner Music to teach songs by Led Zeppelin and others on the site. Next step? Like most Israeli start-up founders, Stok is hoping to sell his brainchild to a large international Internet-based company, preferably at a price in the eight digits.

California is believed to have more than 15 billion barrels of oil locked within the rocks under the Central Valley that might be used to feed the nation's energy hunger - if oil companies can free it with hydraulic fracturing. Fracking, as the practice is popularly called, has been going on in the state for years, but mostly in a remote oil field in Kern County. The prospect of extensive new fracking efforts in the 1,750-square-mile geological formation known as the Monterey Shale, which extends roughly from Modesto to Bakersfield, calls for long-overdue study and regulation of how this production method might affect air and water quality, as well as seismic safety.

Call it retirement anxiety, or maybe recession obsession. For all of their married life, Patrick Webster, 63, and Susie Martin, 54, have been extremely frugal. Webster and Martin, who both work at Marymount College in Rancho Palos Verdes, have been stashing away their combined income at an enviable rate - more than 25% - for retirement. Together they have more than $1 million in investments and no debt. But rather than feeling reasonably secure about their financial future, they dread a return of hard times.

A few low, indecipherable noises escaped from the table where Shug McGaughey, trainer of even-money Preakness favorite Orb, sat during the post-position draw Wednesday. The horse had drawn the dreaded No. 1 gate, meaning eight horses will be closing him in as they race toward the shortest path to the first turn. McGaughey, though, was not among those who thought this meant anything significant. "Some people groaned," he said. "I didn't groan. " McGaughey acknowledged a preference to start on the outside of the field - where the jockey and horse can watch the field open up - but said he thought drawing the rail simply didn't matter in a nine-horse field running over a mile and three-sixteenths.

Americans are awfully messed up about food -- so thinks Barry Glassner, USC sociology professor and author of "The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong." We imbue certain ingredients with an almost magical power to heal -- when, that is, we're not fearing them as poisons we must strip from our diet.

We had one President who was a golfer and we lived through it; so why worry if we have another golfing President? MAC SENFIELD, Camarillo

CAIRO - His phone doesn't ring and his charts are gloomy. But every day Mostafa Ismail, a financial broker with a hangman's demeanor, steps into the Egyptian stock exchange hoping for positive blips. They are rare in a nation where revolution has brought two years of political instability and turned "investor confidence" into a quaint phrase from a more prosperous era. "The market has declined as far as it can go," said Ismail, his tie loosened, a string of numbers before him. "There's no one to trade or buy or sell with.

University of California undergraduates are pleased with the education and social life on their campuses but are worried about how to pay for it all, according to a new survey. The 2012 UC Undergraduate Experience Survey found that about 82% of those who answered the survey were somewhat satisfied, satisfied or very satisfied with their overall academic experience. About 79% reported similar satisfaction with their social life. The survey was answered by 36% of undergraduates, or about 63,500 students.