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Concerns raised about security of health website

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius gestures while testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The Obama Administration claims the botched rollout was the result of contractors failing to live up to expectations – not bad management at HHS. As the public face of President Barack Obama's signature health care program, Sec. Sebelius has become the target for attacks over its botched rollout with Republicans, and even some Democrats, calling for her to resign. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is surrounded by photographers on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, prior to testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Sebelius, President Barack Obama's top health official faced tough questioning by a congressional committee Wednesday that will demand she explain how the administration stumbled so badly in its crippled online launch of the president's health care overhaul. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., prior to testifying before the committee's hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Sebelius, President Barack Obama's top health official faced tough questioning by a congressional committee Wednesday that will demand she explain how the administration stumbled so badly in its crippled online launch of the president's health care overhaul. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, prior to testifying before the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the difficulties plaguing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. President Barack Obama's top health official faced tough questioning by a congressional committee Wednesday that will demand she explain how the administration stumbled so badly in its crippled online launch of the president's health care overhaul. (AP Photo/ J. Scott Applewhite)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defending President Barack Obama's much-maligned health care overhaul in Congress, his top health official was confronted Wednesday with a government memo raising new security concerns about the trouble-prone website that consumers are using to enroll.

The document, obtained by The Associated Press, shows that administration officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were concerned that a lack of testing posed a potentially "high" security risk for the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states. It was granted a temporary security certificate so it could operate.

Security issues are a new concern for the troubled HealthCare.gov website. If they cannot be resolved, they could prove to be more serious than the long list of technical problems the administration is trying to address.

"You accepted a risk on behalf of every user...that put their personal financial information at risk," Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during questioning before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. "Amazon would never do this. ProFlowers would never do this. Kayak would never do this. This is completely an unacceptable level of security."

Sebelius countered that the system is secure, even though the site has a temporary certificate, known in government parlance as an "authority to operate." Sebelius said a permanent certificate will only be issued once all security issues are addressed.

Added spokeswoman Joanne Peters: "When consumers fill out their online...applications, they can trust that the information they're providing is protected by stringent security standards and that the technology underlying the application process has been tested and is secure. Security testing happens on an ongoing basis using industry best practices."

A security certificate is required before any government computer system can process, store or transmit agency data. Temporary certificates are allowable, but under specific circumstances.

Earlier, the secretary said she's responsible for the "debacle" of cascading problems that overwhelmed the government website intended to make shopping for health insurance clear and simple.

"Hold me accountable for the debacle," Sebelius said during a contentious hearing. "I'm responsible."

Sebelius is promising to have the problems fixed by Nov. 30, even as Republicans opposed to Obama's health care law are calling in chorus for her resignation. She told the committee that the technical issues that led to frozen screens and error messages are being cleared up on a daily basis.

Addressing consumers, Sebelius added, "So let me say directly to these Americans, you deserve better. I apologize."

The Sept. 27 memo to Medicare chief Marylin Tavenner said a website contractor wasn't able to test all the security controls in one complete version of the system.

"From a security perspective, the aspects of the system that were not tested due to the ongoing development, exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk for the (website)," the memo said.

It recommended setting up a security team to address risks, conduct daily tests, and a full security test within two to three months of going live.

HealthCare.gov was intended to be the online gateway to coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, as well those who purchase their policies individually. Many people in the latter group will have to get new insurance next year, because their policies do not meet the standards of the new law.

Sebelius' forthright statement about her ultimate accountability came as she was being peppered with questions by Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., about who was responsible. It was Blackburn who introduced the term "debacle."

Rep. Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee, scoffed at Republican "oversight" of a law they have repeatedly tried to repeal.

"I would urge my colleagues to stop hyperventilating," said Waxman. "The problems with HealthCare.gov are unfortunate and we should investigate them, but they will be fixed. And then every American will have -- finally have access to affordable health insurance."

Throughout the hearing, Sebelius was respectful and poised, often addressing lawmakers as "sir" or "congresswoman." She kept her cool as some lawmakers repeatedly cut off her answers. But she did not shy a few times from tersely interjecting her views while a member was speaking.

The standing-room-only hearing room was silent when she swore an oath to tell the truth and began her statement. "I apologize," she told the rapt committee.

Sebelius faced questions about problems with the website as well as a wave of cancellation notices hitting individuals and small businesses who buy their own insurance.

Lawmakers also want to know how many people have enrolled in plans through the health exchanges, a number the Obama administration has so far refused to divulge, instead promising to release it in mid-November.

On Tuesday, Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner was questioned for nearly three hours by members of the House Ways and Means Committee who wanted to know why so many of their constituents were getting cancellation notices from their insurance companies.

The cancellations problem goes to one of Obama's earliest promises about the health law: You can keep your plan if you like it. The promise dates back to June 2009, when Congress was starting to grapple with overhauling the health care system to cover uninsured Americans.

As early as last spring, state insurance commissioners started giving insurers the option of canceling existing individual plans for 2014, because the coverage required under Obama's law is significantly more robust. Some states directed insurers to issue cancellations. Large employer plans that cover most workers and their families are unlikely to be affected.

The law includes a complicated "grandfathering" system to try to make good on Obama's pledge. It shields plans from the law's requirements provided the plans themselves change very little. Insurers say it has proven impractical. The cancellation notices are now reaching policyholders.

Tavenner blamed insurance companies for cancelling the policies and said most people who lose coverage will be able to find better replacement plans in the health insurance exchanges, in some cases for less money.

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-10-30-Health%20Overhaul-Problems/id-463dace01eff4c5b858b7cf28ec8b5d4
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Frank Marshall on 'Destroyed Friendship' With Lance Armstrong

Courtesy of Frank Marshall

From left: Damon, in 2003 on the set of "The Bourne Supremacy," was set to star in a biopic of Armstrong, produced by Marshall.

This story first appeared in the Nov. 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

Producers Frank Marshall and Matt Tolmach knew they wanted a strong director for what was to be an inspirational documentary about Lance Armstrong's comeback to compete in the 2009 Tour de France. But after they hired Alex Gibney, who won an Oscar for his 2007 doc Taxi to the Dark Side, they found themselves engaged in a struggle with their chosen filmmaker.

Gibney had signed on hoping the project, Lance Armstrong: The Road Back, would be a pleasant respite from his previous explorations of topics like sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. But well before the reality of Armstrong's doping was confirmed, Gibney began to see the cyclist through an increasingly dark lens. "I kept leaning on [the doping] issue in ways that Frank and Matt felt were too out of step with the film we were making," Gibney tells THR. "They were saying, 'How come we're spending so much time on this old story when there's so much material about the Tour?' "

PHOTOS: THR's Sports Issue: Exclusive Portraits of the Dodgers' Yasiel Puig, Olympian Lindsey Vonn

Marshall was zealously protective of longtime friend Armstrong, whom he met at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Tolmach, who is such a "weekend warrior" cyclist that he shaves his legs, was a bit more skeptical but had responded with enthusiasm years earlier when Marshall approached him with a pitch for a biopic based on Armstrong's 2000 book It's Not About the Bike. At the time, Tolmach was president of Columbia Pictures, and the studio developed the feature idea with Matt Damon at one point set to play the lead. But by fall 2008, Marshall and Tolmach agreed instead to make a documentary chronicling Armstrong's comeback bid. (Tolmach transitioned to being a producer on the project after he exited his job at Columbia in October 2010. Damon was set to narrate.)

Gibney insisted at the start that the film would acknowledge the prevalent but still-unproved allegations against Armstrong. But as he immersed himself in the cyclist's world, he came to feel the doping angle deserved much more than a nod.

STORY: Toronto: Filmmaker Alex Gibney Says Lance Armstrong Is Still Lying

The conflict came to a climax Nov. 21, 2010, as Tolmach and Marshall sat with Gibney in an editing room on the Sony lot. "There were raised voices," allows Tolmach. Gibney says he didn't explicitly threaten to take his name off the film, though he considered it. "I said: 'You guys own the movie; you can do what you want. You don't need me for that.' " Tolmach says the message was clear: "It was, 'If this is an Alex Gibney movie, this is what it's going to say.' "

As more facts about Armstrong doping became public, the story changed so much that the documentary -- a seven-figure project that was ready for release -- was shelved. Gibney then returned to the story to create the version heading to theaters Nov. 8, titled The Armstrong Lie. The impact of the revelations on Marshall's relationship with Armstrong was inevitable. "It essentially destroyed my friendship," he says. "There's nothing left. I mean, we're cordial, but the friendship is really over."

PHOTO: First Look: Ben Foster as Lance Armstrong in Stephen Frears' Biopic

Marshall says Armstrong has not seen the film, but his reps saw it in Denver after the Telluride Film Festival. "It was two hours of agony for me," says Marshall, who is a friend of Armstrong's attorney and agent, Bill Stapleton. "Because they couldn't deny any of it. … They just sat there and took it and watched this epic downfall." It's clear the loss is painful for Marshall. "I believed a beautiful lie," he adds. "It was the greatest sports story ever, the greatest human story ever -- and I wanted to believe."

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/thr/news/~3/HDauueqgg_g/lance-armstrong-frank-marshall-destroyed-651486
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Public insurance fills the health coverage gap, new UCLA analysis shows

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Oct-2013

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Contact: Gwen Driscoll
gdriscoll@ucla.edu
310-794-0930
University of California - Los Angeles

In the years leading up to implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of Californians who received their health insurance through public programs continued to rise, likely in direct response to the loss of job-based coverage in the state, according to a new analysis by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

The data for the analysis, collected in 2012 by the California Health Interview Survey, represents the most recent comprehensive statewide source of information on health insurance trends. The fact sheet was funded by The California Endowment and The California Wellness Foundation.

According to the analysis, the percentage of non-elderly state residents receiving health insurance through an employer dipped just below 50 percent in 2011 and remained there in 2012 a 6 percentage-point decrease since 2001.

Public programs, such as Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, insured nearly 20 percent of Californians in 2012, a 3 percentage-point increase since 2009 and a 5 percentage-point increase since 2001.

"In effect, public programs have stepped in as employers have stepped out," said Shana Alex Lavarreda, the center's director of health insurance studies and the lead author on the fact sheet. "The data refutes any lingering arguments that employer-based insurance is the solution to our health care coverage crisis."

Jobs that are returning to the state after the Great Recession seem to lack affordable health insurance benefits, depriving workers of a major source of coverage. From 2009 to 2012, the proportion of Californians with employment-based insurance dropped from 52.1 percent to 49.5 percent. With the recent economic recovery, unemployment rates in California have declined, from 20 percent in 2009 to 9.8 percent in 2012. Still, the rate of job-based health insurance has remained below 50 percent of the non-elderly population rather than exhibiting a similar recovery.

"The steady decline in employer-based health coverage affirms the need for Obamacare," said Dr. Robert K. Ross, president and CEO of The California Endowment. "For the first time in history, health coverage is within the reach of many more Californians who aren't covered by job-based health insurance."

"These data make it clear that many Californian families are still struggling financially and will need to access low- or no-cost health coverage," said Colburn S. Wilbur, interim president and CEO of The California Wellness Foundation. "The state's Covered California online marketplace makes it easy to apply for coverage whether through a public plan like Medi-Cal or one of the private insurance programs offered."

###

Read the fact sheet: "Before Health Reform Expansion, Public Programs Already Covered One in Five Nonelderly Californians in 2012."

The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians.

The California Wellness Foundation's mission is to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention.

The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is the nation's largest state health survey and one of the largest health surveys in the United States.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research is one of the nation's leading health policy research centers and the premier source of health-related information on Californians.

For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

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Share

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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public insurance fills the health coverage gap, new UCLA analysis shows

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

30-Oct-2013

[

| E-mail

]

Share
Contact: Gwen Driscoll
gdriscoll@ucla.edu
310-794-0930
University of California - Los Angeles

In the years leading up to implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the percentage of Californians who received their health insurance through public programs continued to rise, likely in direct response to the loss of job-based coverage in the state, according to a new analysis by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.

The data for the analysis, collected in 2012 by the California Health Interview Survey, represents the most recent comprehensive statewide source of information on health insurance trends. The fact sheet was funded by The California Endowment and The California Wellness Foundation.

According to the analysis, the percentage of non-elderly state residents receiving health insurance through an employer dipped just below 50 percent in 2011 and remained there in 2012 a 6 percentage-point decrease since 2001.

Public programs, such as Medi-Cal and Healthy Families, insured nearly 20 percent of Californians in 2012, a 3 percentage-point increase since 2009 and a 5 percentage-point increase since 2001.

"In effect, public programs have stepped in as employers have stepped out," said Shana Alex Lavarreda, the center's director of health insurance studies and the lead author on the fact sheet. "The data refutes any lingering arguments that employer-based insurance is the solution to our health care coverage crisis."

Jobs that are returning to the state after the Great Recession seem to lack affordable health insurance benefits, depriving workers of a major source of coverage. From 2009 to 2012, the proportion of Californians with employment-based insurance dropped from 52.1 percent to 49.5 percent. With the recent economic recovery, unemployment rates in California have declined, from 20 percent in 2009 to 9.8 percent in 2012. Still, the rate of job-based health insurance has remained below 50 percent of the non-elderly population rather than exhibiting a similar recovery.

"The steady decline in employer-based health coverage affirms the need for Obamacare," said Dr. Robert K. Ross, president and CEO of The California Endowment. "For the first time in history, health coverage is within the reach of many more Californians who aren't covered by job-based health insurance."

"These data make it clear that many Californian families are still struggling financially and will need to access low- or no-cost health coverage," said Colburn S. Wilbur, interim president and CEO of The California Wellness Foundation. "The state's Covered California online marketplace makes it easy to apply for coverage whether through a public plan like Medi-Cal or one of the private insurance programs offered."

###

Read the fact sheet: "Before Health Reform Expansion, Public Programs Already Covered One in Five Nonelderly Californians in 2012."

The California Endowment, a private, statewide health foundation, was established in 1996 to expand access to affordable, quality health care for underserved individuals and communities and to promote fundamental improvements in the health status of all Californians.

The California Wellness Foundation's mission is to improve the health of the people of California by making grants for health promotion, wellness education and disease prevention.

The California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) is the nation's largest state health survey and one of the largest health surveys in the United States.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research is one of the nation's leading health policy research centers and the premier source of health-related information on Californians.

For more news, visit the UCLA Newsroom and follow us on Twitter.

[

| E-mail

Share

]

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/uoc--pif103013.php
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EU spying backlash threatens billions in US trade

FILE - This is a Friday, May 18, 2012 file photo of President Barack Obama, right, greets President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso on Barroso's arrival for the G8 Summit at Camp David, Md. The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year _ and negotiations on another pact worth many times more. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

BRUSSELS (AP) — The backlash in Europe over U.S. spying is threatening an agreement that generates tens of billions of dollars in trans-Atlantic business every year — and negotiations on another pact worth many times more.

A growing number of European officials are calling for the suspension of the "Safe Harbor" agreement that lets U.S. companies process commercial and personal data — sales, emails, photos — from customers in Europe. This little-known but vital deal allows more than 4,200 American companies to do business in Europe, including Internet giants like Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon.

Revelations of the extent of U.S. spying on its European allies is also threatening to undermine one of President Barack Obama's top trans-Atlantic goals: a sweeping free-trade agreement that would add an estimated $138 billion (100 billion euros) a year to each economy's gross domestic product.

Top EU officials say the trust needed for the negotiations has been shattered.

"For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed, there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University.

At the very least, the Europeans are expected to demand that the U.S. significantly strengthen its privacy laws to give consumers much more control over how companies use their personal data — and extend those rights to European citizens, maybe even giving them the right to sue American companies in U.S. courts.

The Europeans had long been pressing these issues with the Americans. But since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden began to leak surprising details on the extent of U.S. surveillance in Europe, the European demands have grown teeth.

"I don't think the U.S. government can be convinced by arguments or outrage alone, but by making it clear that American interests will suffer if this global surveillance is simply continued," said Peter Schaar, the head of Germany's data protection watchdog.

One sanction the European Union could slap on the U.S. would be to suspend the Safe Harbor deal, which allows American businesses to store and process their data where they want. It aims to ensure that European customers' data are just as safe as in Europe when handled in the U.S.

"But if you look at the U.S. legal environment, there is no adequate legal protection for EU citizens," said the European Parliament's leading data protection lawmaker Jan Philipp Albrecht after talks with U.S. officials in Washington.

By signing up for the self-reporting scheme supervised by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, U.S. companies gain the right to move data about their business and consumers back and forth between the EU and the U.S. as needed.

Without it, U.S. firms would face either a lengthy and complicated case-by-case approval procedure by European data protection authorities, or a technological nightmare of having to ensure that European data is stored and processed only on servers within the 28-nation bloc. That would be costly and in some cases impossible — and could force U.S. businesses to stop servicing European customers.

"There is really no viable alternative in the near-term," said Chris Babel, chief executive of San Francisco-based TRUSTe, which helps American firms get Safe Harbor certification from the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He estimates that U.S. companies would face tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs to redesign their technological infrastructure.

Facebook declined to comment on what a suspension of Safe Harbor would mean. Microsoft hailed the agreement for establishing "legal certainty" but declined to elaborate. Spokespeople for Google, Apple and Amazon could not immediately be reached.

Of course, any suspension would hurt Europe as well, just as the 28-nation bloc is emerging from a recession. Consumers and businesses would find themselves without U.S.-based services from flight-booking websites to email providers.

Options available to the EU include suspending or ending the agreement, or demanding that the United States enact more powerful data protection laws that include substantial fines for companies that don't keep data safe.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, said Wednesday that it also wants to see changes in Safe Harbor.

"We share the opinion that the Safe Harbor agreement needs significant improvements," Interior Ministry spokesman Philipp Spauschus said.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission chief Edith Ramirez said Safe Harbor has nothing to do with the surveillance scandal, and urged Europeans not to damage what she called a commercial agreement that works well.

"It cannot be right ... to conflate the distinct issues raised by the use of personal data to advance private commercial interests and to protect national security," she said Monday in Brussels.

But the EU's Reding made clear that the status quo is not an option.

"The existing scheme has been criticized by European industry and questioned by European citizens: They say it is little more than a patch providing a veil of legitimacy for the U.S. firms using it," she said Tuesday in Washington.

Her agency is reviewing Safe Harbor and will present its results by the end of the year. The EU Commission could suspend the agreement or seek amendments to it rather easily, without the usual lengthy procedures of having to seek approval from all EU member states or the European Parliament.

An even bigger battle looms over already contentious free-trade talks between the world's two biggest economies. Trade volume between the United States and the European Union totaled 800 billion euros last year.

Reding warned this week that the lack of data privacy safeguards in the U.S. could "easily derail" the talks, which resume in December and are expected to be concluded within a year.

It appears certain that as part of the negotiations the EU will insist on tougher U.S. data protection in line with new European laws.

That legislation lets users instruct companies to fully erase their personal data — the so-called right to be forgotten — as well as limiting user profiling, requiring greater transparency from companies and mandating prior consent. Plus they contain stiff fines for violations.

"Otherwise, the European Parliament may decide to reject" the EU-U.S. free trade deal, Reding said.

The most significant action taken in Brussels so far has been a vote by the European Parliament urging Europe to stop sharing bank transfer data with U.S. law enforcement in terror investigations.

But that resolution would need approval from the European Commission — and from all 28 national governments, a long and uncertain process.

___

Frank Jordans and Geir Moulson in Berlin and Deb Riechmann in Washington contributed reporting from Berlin.

___

Follow Juergen Baetz on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/jbaetz

Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-10-30-NSA%20Backlash/id-4e2f5a2e30fa47f39fbcc0e6ac496623
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Facebook considers tracking your mouse cursor and screen views to improve its ads

It's no secret that Facebook likes its targeted advertising. However, that affinity may soon blossom into a full-fledged love affair. The social network's Ken Rudin tells the Wall Street Journal that his company is testing a system which targets ads based on where users' mouse cursors hover; it can ...

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/F88mEDiCYkE/
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Rihanna Gets New Henna-Inspired Hand Tattoo, Tattoo Artist Says "She's a Champ": Pictures

Rihanna went to great lengths for her newest ink. The "Pour It Up" singer, 25, flew tattoo artists Keith "Bang Bang" McCurdy and Cally Jo from New York City to the Dominican Republic to cover up the Maori tattoo she got recently in New Zealand, a source confirms to Us Weekly. (E! News was first to report the unusual travel arrangements.)

PHOTOS: Celebs' crazy tattoos

The new tat -- a henna-inspired design on the Barbados-born star's right hand -- "goes over the knuckles and wrist," Bang Bang tells Us. "It was made to complement what was already there. It looks like a henna tattoo, but it's the real deal. She's a champ."

Rihanna with Bang Bang McCurdy and Cally Jo after getting her henna-inspired hand tattoo
Credit: Bang Bang NYC

PHOTOS: Celebs' weird body art

Indeed she is. As seen in a video of Rihanna posted to YouTube earlier this month, the "Diamonds" singer first got her hand tattooed with a chisel and mallet in New Zealand. The painful method, known as Ta moko, is traditional to the Maori culture. Rihanna remained silent throughout the process, but her hand was left bloodied and bruised after.

PHOTOS: Rihanna's bikini body

The ink-loving star has several other tattoos, as well. Among them? A trail of stars down the back of her neck, a handgun near her armpit, a falcon on her right foot, the Egyptian goddess Isis on her chest, and her best friend's birthday on her shoulder.

"I like hanging out in tattoo shops," Rihanna told Atlanta Peach magazine back in 2007. "Sometimes I get dressed and go to the tattoo parlors in SoHo and hang out. I am so intrigued by tattoos. It's an entire culture, and I study it."

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-beauty/news/rihanna-gets-new-henna-inspired-hand-tattoo-tattoo-artist-says-shes-a-champ-pictures-20133010
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EU spying backlash threatens billions in US trade

French President Francois Hollande addresses the media at the European Council building in Brussels, Friday, Oct. 25, 2013. Migration, as well as an upcoming Eastern Partnership summit, will top the agenda in Friday's meeting of EU leaders. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

Top EU officials say the trust needed for the negotiations has been shattered.

"For ambitious and complex negotiations to succeed, there needs to be trust among the negotiating partners," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said Wednesday in a speech at Yale University.

He estimates that U.S. companies would face tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue and additional costs to redesign their technological infrastructure.

Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on what a suspension of Safe Harbor would mean. Spokespeople for Google, Apple and Amazon could not immediately be reached.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, said Wednesday that it wants to see changes in Safe Harbor.