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TORONTO – Johnny Wilson, a four-time Stanley Cup champion with the Detroit Red Wings, has died. He was 82.
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson announced his uncle's death Tuesday on Twitter. The coach called him a "warrior thru & thru, right to the end." There was no immediate word on cause of death.
Johnny Wilson was born in Kincardine, Ontario, and spent 11 years in the NHL with Detroit, Toronto, Chicago and the New York Rangers. He had 161 goals and 171 assists in 688 games. Wilson coached seven seasons in the NHL with Los Angeles, Detroit, Colorado and Pittsburgh.
Wilson won the Stanley Cup with Detroit in 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955. He was honored by the NHL in 1960 for an ironman streak at the time that totaled 580 consecutive regular-season games.

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea will hold a funeral procession on Wednesday for its deceased "dear leader", Kim Jong-il, making way for his son, Kim Jong-un, to become the third member of the family to run the isolated and unpredictable Asian country.

The coming year was supposed to mark North Korea's self-proclaimed transformation into a "strong and prosperous" nation, but it faces a dangerous transition to a young, untested leader at a time when dictatorships across the world have tumbled.

The pomp, show of military might and weeping crowds at the funeral will likely mirror the 1994 funeral procession for Kim's father, Kim Il-Sung, the first of the family to rule.

Similarly, it would seem that little is set to change in a country that has staged what many analysts have dubbed a "Great March Backwards" over the last 20 years.

Strong it may be - North Korea is backed by neighboring China, has conducted two nuclear tests and has ambitions to become a nuclear power and boasts a 1.2 million-strong armed forces - but prosperous it is not.

On average, North Koreans die three-and-a-half years earlier than they did when "Eternal President" Kim Il-sung died, according to U.N. data.

The North is one of the most closed and poorest societies on earth, ranking 194 out of 227 countries in terms of per capita wealth, according to the CIA World Factbook.

The United Nations, in a country program for 2011-15, says North Korea's main challenge is to "restore the economy to the level attained before 1990" and to alleviate food shortages for a third of its 25 million-strong population.

Indications from the transition since Kim Jong-il's death on December 17 suggest the father's hardline "military first" policy will continue, leading to further hardship in a country that endured mass starvation in the 1990s.

Leverage from outside, with the exception of China, is limited so all the United States, South Korea and Japan can do is hope that the regime does not collapse, nor flex its military muscle as it did in 2010, when it shelled a South Korean island.

"So far, there is little reason to expect policy changes given that the leadership hierarchy is basically the same with the exception that Kim Jong-un is replacing Kim Jong-il," said Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea Studies at Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S. thinktank.

HALO FADES

North Korea was established in 1948 and under its founding father, Kim Il-sung, went to war to try to conquer the South. It failed and in 1953 a dividing line that would become the world's most militarized frontier was drawn across the peninsula.

While Kim Il-sung was revered by his people for fighting Japanese colonial rule, the halo surrounding his successors has steadily dimmed to such an extent that his grandson, the new ruler, will have to rely on people such as his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, to hold on to power, at least in the short term.

"The outlook for stability is not good, because Kim Jong-un's succession is very different from Kim Jong-il's," said Jia Qingguo, a professor of international relations at Peking University.

"Kim Il-sung was the country's founding father with an extraordinary career and a great deal of personal authority, so when he transferred power to his son, his son assumed quite a lot of authority."

Official media in the North have built Kim Jong-un, a jowly and rotund man in his late 20s, into a leader worthy of inheriting the crown, naming him "respected general", "great successor", "outstanding leader" and "supreme commander".

This year, diident groups based in South Korea, citing North Korean refugees and businessmen working in China, linked the youngest Kim to a crackdown on business activities and a tougher policy on people seeking to flee from North Korea.


Those reports could not be independently verified, but would again suggest that further repression is more likely than an economic opening under the new man.


It also gives little hope for the 200,000 North Koreans who human rights group Amnesty international says are enslaved in labor camps over some infringement, subjected to torture and hunger or execution.


"here is likely to be a politically motivated purge and imprisonment, and it could go on for a considerable period of time," said Pak Sang-hak, who heads a group in Seoul working to support defectors, and is himself a defector.


"That is especially because of the relative instability of Kim Jong-un's leadership. There might also be persecution as a way of intimidation and discipline."


(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in SEOUL and Chris Buckley in BEIJING; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner and Robert Birsel)

ATLANTA – Just as Medicaid prepares for a vast expansion under the federal health care overhaul, the 47-year-old entitlement program for the poor is under increasing pressure as deficit-burdened states chip away at benefits and cut payments to doctors.
Nearly every state has proposed or implemented a plan in its current budget to rein in costs, and many are considering additional cuts in the year ahead.
For the tens of millions of poor and disabled who rely on the program — approaching nearly one in five Americans — the cuts translate into longer waits for doctors, restrictions on prescription drugs, a halt to vision and dental care, staff cuts at nursing homes and dwindling access to home health care.
Ruth Wohlforth, 70, is among those feeling the effects.
Her $700 monthly income qualifies her for both Medicare and Medicaid, but she says her benefits have been reduced, she's being forced her to make co-pays for the first time on prescription drugs, and she now has to drive about 30 minutes from her home near the southern tip of New Jersey to see a doctor. Some of her friends have been assigned to doctors in Philadelphia.
She said she feels lawmakers are not aware of the real-world consequences of their spending cuts.
"I've seen so many people in tears, and they don't know what to do," Wohlforth said. "People that are older than I am, and are in worse shape, they get befuddled by the whole thing. They don't know where to go for help; they just feel they're not being listened to."
States are reshaping the Medicaid landscape even as the need has grown along with joblessness during the recession.
The $427 billion-a-year program, a combination of state and federal funding, also had been targeted for additional cuts at the federal level this year as members of Congress sparred over how to reduce the nation's debt. But funding seems safe for now after a special committee failed last month to reach an agreement on how to cut overall spending.
Already, many changes at the state level have been dramatic and are testing the legal bounds of what Medicaid must provide:
• Arizona, for a time, eliminated life-saving transplants for Medicaid patients, and hospital officials in the state blame at least one death on the halt in coverage. Gov. Jan Brewer restored transplants but is prohibiting thousands of low-income, childless adults from entering the program and has added fees on those who smoke and the obese.
• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is pushing a plan under which only the poorest would qualify. A parent of two making more than $103 per week would no longer be eligible for coverage.
• The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether California has the right to continue cutting payments to physicians and other Medicaid providers to help close the state's ongoing budget deficit.
Cuts to provider fees, as in California, have been the most frequently used tactic by states to save Medicaid costs. A recent survey by the National Association of State Budget Officers found that 33 states wanted to reduce provider rates and another 16 sought to freeze them.
California was granted permission by federal officials to make broad cuts to reimbursement rates to its Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal, in October. The cuts include a 10 percent reduction to payments for outpatient services for doctors, clinics, optometrists, dental services, medical equipment and pharmacy. They are intended to save the state an estimated $623 million.
A coalition of trade associations representing doctors, pharmacists and chain drug stores has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the cuts. Doctors who care for Medi-Cal patients say they already have been subjected to multiple pay cuts, and some say they no longer will be able to serve the state's neediest patients.
About 70 percent of Dr. Douglas Tolley's practice in Yuba County is covered by Medi-Cal. The 64-year-old obstetrician, who practices in a largely agricultural region about 40 minutes north of the state capital, said he is the old-school sort of doctor who "was brought up in a time when doctors took care of all comers."
Yet he has seen his income steadily drop over the last 18 years — down one-third from what it was when he started.

"Everybody understands that doctors are basically small business people, and we have to meet our cost plus make a living." Tolley said. "Just meeting our cost doesn't mean staying in business."

Even more state cuts could be on the horizon. In Maine, Gov. Paul LePage recently proposed removing 65,000 residents from the program, citing a state Medicaid shortfall estimated to reach $221 million through mid-2013. The Republican governor says he will not consider tax increases to make up the difference.

State officials, who are required to balance their budgets, argue they have no choice but to cut into Medicaid after four straight years of budget deficits. With state and federal funds combined, Medicaid makes up 22 percent of total state spending, the largest single portion of most state budgets, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Critics say the moves are shortsighted.

Joan Alker, co-executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University, said slashing Medicaid will not stop the sick from seeking care, sending them to emergency rooms and ultimately inflating private medical insurance premiums.

"At the end of the day, for the children, the individuals with disabilities, the seniors in nursing homes, their health care needs are not going to go away just because someone cuts the Medicaid program," Alker said.

Jerry Kemmer, a former Democratic state assemblyman in New York, said Medicaid has long been an issue lawmakers did not want to touch. Now, they simply have no choice.

"It's ballooned to the extent that it's just become a budget-buster," he said.

Six million people have joined the Medicaid rolls since the recession began in late 2007. Enrollment nationally topped 50 million for the first time in June 2010, a number that is projected to keep rising, especially as the nation's unemployment rate remains high.

Billions of dollars from the federal stimulus program helped avoid deep Medicaid cuts through the worst of the recession, but the last of that money dried up this year.

In Florida, Medicaid reimbursement rates were reduced this year by 12 percent for most hospitals, although rural and children's hospitals were cut just 3 percent, and rates for nursing homes were cut 6.5 percent.

But the start of the next legislative session in January already has some people worried about additional cuts.

Debra St. Fleur, 25, of Miami, is covered by Medicaid, along with her 1-year-old son. Many of her neighbors in the city's Little Haiti section are on Medicaid, too, and she worries what would happen if services continue to be eroded.

"It's really scary," she said. "If they can't get their medicine, what's going to happen? They're going to die."

The Obama administration is concerned enough about the widespread Medicaid provider cuts that it has introduced a rule that would make it harder for states to slash the rates. The move is designed to ensure that those eligible for Medicaid are not denied access due to a shortage of health care resources.

Medicaid reimbursement rates already trail those physicians receive for treating Medicare patients and those with private insurance. A study by the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change found that on, average, Medicaid would reimburse a doctor $39 for 45 minutes for a new patient hospital visit, compared to $63 for Medicare.

Physician groups say that has left more and more doctors declining to see Medicaid clients. Some providers are trying to find other ways to make up for the cuts.

In Columbia, S.C., Julie Ann Avin, executive director of the private, nonprofit Mental Illness Recovery Center Inc., has decided not to fill staff vacancies and also cut back on some rehab services because of Medicaid's new authorization process. The center serves about 650 people annually, close to 60 percent of whom are on Medicaid.

"We accept folks regardless," Avin said. "Everything that we do is not based just on a reimbursement."

Molly Collins Offner, director of policy development for the American Hospital Association, said emergency rooms must accept Medicaid clients, as well as those without insurance.

"More and more, you are seeing ER's becoming primary care docs," she said.

She said deep cuts rippling through the Medicaid system will only exacerbate that.

___

Associated Press writers Samantha Henry in Newark, N.J., Meg Kinnard in Columbia, S.C., Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Los Angeles and Matt Sedensky in Miami contributed to this report.

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Follow Shannon McCaffrey at http://www.twitter.com(backslash)smccaffrey13

ABUJA (Reuters) – Northern Nigerian Christians said on Tuesday they feared that a spate of Christmas Day bombings by Islamist militants that killed over two dozen people could lead to a religious war in Africa's most populous country.

The warning was made in a statement by the northern branch of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), an umbrella organization comprising various denominations including Catholics, Protestant and Pentecostal churches.

But a powerful Muslim traditional ruler, the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu Sa'ad Abubakar said after meeting the Nigerian president in Abuja on Tuesday that it was not a conflict between Muslims and Christians or between Islam and Christianity.

The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia Islamic law across Nigeria, claimed responsibility for the blasts, the second Christmas in a row it has caused carnage at Christian churches.

Saidu Dogo, secretary general for the CAN in Nigeria's 19 northern provinces called on Muslim leaders to control their faithful, saying Christians will be forced to defend themselves against further attacks.

"We fear that the situation may degenerate to a religious war and Nigeria may not be able to survive one. Once again, 'enough is enough!'," Dogo said.

The attacks risk reviving tit-for-tat sectarian violence between the mostly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, which has claimed thousands of lives in the past decade.

Dogo said the CAN was calling on all Christians to continue respecting the law but to defend themselves when needed.

"We shall henceforth in the midst of these provocations and wanton destruction of innocent lives and property be compelled to make our own efforts and arrangements to protect the lives of innocent Christians and peace-loving citizens of this country," Dogo said.

CHRISTIANS VS MUSLIMS

The most deadly attack killed at least 27 people in the St Theresa Catholic church in Madalla, a town on the edge of the capital Abuja, and devastated surrounding buildings and cars as faithful poured out of the church after Christmas mass.

"What is going on is a conflict between evil people and good people," Sultan Abubakar said after the meeting at the presidential residence. "The good people are more than the evil ones. So the good people must come together to defeat the evil ones and that is the message."

"We want to assure our brother Christians and Christian leaders to stand on the part of truth according to our religion and continue to work for the greatness of this country," the Sultan said.

Security forces also blamed Boko Haram for two explosions in the north targeting their facilities. Officials have confirmed 32 people died in the wave of attacks across Nigeria, though local media have put the number higher.

But the church bombs are more worrying because they raise fears that Boko Haram is trying to ignite a sectarian civil war in the nearly 160 million nation split evenly between Christians and Muslims, who for the most part co-exist in peace.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has come under pressure to do more to fight the growing security threat which risks derailing economic gains in the OPEC member and Africa's top oil-producing nation.

Nigeria's main opposition leader Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner and former military ruler who lost a presidential election in April to Jonathan, accused the government of incompetence on Monday, saying government was slow to respond and had shown indifference to the bombings.

The CAN said in the statement that it was concerned that the perpetrators and their sponsors "are well-known to government and no serious or decisive actions have been taken to stem their nefarious activities."

WASHINGTON – The U.S. economy will grow faster in 2012 — if it isn't knocked off track by upheavals in Europe, according to an Associated Press survey of leading economists.
Unemployment will barely fall from the current 8.6 percent rate, though, by the time President Barack Obama runs for re-election in November, the economists say.
The three dozen private, corporate and academic economists expect the economy to grow 2.4 percent next year. In 2011, it likely grew less than 2 percent.
The year is ending on an upswing. The economy has generated at least 100,000 new jobs for five months in a row — the longest such streak since 2006.
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits has dropped to the lowest level since April 2008. The trend suggests that layoffs have all but stopped and hiring could pick up.
And the economy avoided a setback when President Barack Obama signed legislation Friday extending a Social Security tax cut that was to expire at year's end. But Congress could agree only on a two-month extension.
The economists surveyed Dec. 14-20 expect the country to create 177,000 jobs a month through Election Day 2012. That would be up from an average 132,000 jobs a month so far in 2011.
Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital, says the U.S. economy remains vulnerable to an outside shock. A big threat is the risk that Europe's debt crisis will trigger a worldwide credit freeze like the one that hit Wall Street in late 2008.
A shock to the U.S. economy, he says, might not be as dangerous if it were growing at a healthier 4 percent to 5 percent annual pace. But when growth is stuck at 2 percent or 3 percent, a major global crisis could stall job creation and raise unemployment.
Beyond Europe, troubles in other areas could also upset the U.S. economy next year, the economists say. Congressional gridlock ahead of the 2012 elections and unforeseen global events, like this year's Arab Spring protests, could slow the U.S. economy. Three economists said rising nuclear tensions with Iran are a concern.
Even without an outside jolt, the economists expect barely enough job creation in 2012 to stay ahead of population growth and the return of discouraged workers into the labor force.
"I just don't know if it's going to be enough to bring the unemployment rate down," says Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers.
The AP economists expect the unemployment rate to be stuck at a recession-level 8.4 percent when voters go to the polls in November. Unemployment was 8.6 percent in November.
A majority (56 percent) of the economists say the economy will get a lift from Federal Reserve policies. The Fed has said it plans to keep short-term interest rates near zero through at least mid-2013 if the economy remains weak. The central bank also has begun a campaign to try to push down mortgage rates and other long-term interest rates through next June.
Those surveyed also think the economy is strong enough to withstand higher oil prices. At near $100 a barrel, oil prices are up 10 percent from a year ago. But only two of the economists AP surveyed expect the higher prices to slow the economy "a lot."
The economists expect the European economy to shrink 0.5 percent in 2011 — and fall into a recession. Europe is slowing as heavily indebted countries slash spending and banks exposed to government debt curtain lending.
Among the gravest fears is that a major country like Italy will default on its debt, wiping out some banks with large holdings of European government bonds. A worldwide credit crunch like the one that followed the 2008 failure of Lehman Bros could follow.
Twenty-one of the economists listed Europe as a threat to the U.S. economy next year.

"If it were a big enough downturn, given the size of Europe, it could bring the world economy down into recession," says Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics.

But overall, the economists see only an 18 percent chance that Europe's debt troubles will cause a recession in the United States.

The economists are divided over which one step European policymakers should take now to bolster the 17-country eurozone.

More than one-fourth say the European Central Bank should aggressively try to lower the borrowing costs of the Italian and Spanish governments by buying their bonds.

Nearly one-fifth say European countries should jointly issue "Eurobonds" to help finance weaker countries.

And 17 percent say European governments should slash spending.

Still, the economists expect European policymakers to find a way to prevent the crisis from escalating into a global financial panic.

If Europe can stabilize its economies, the U.S. stock markets would rally sharply, economists say, and prospects for U.S. economic growth would brighten.

"Europe appears to be the only real impediment to keeping this recovery from happening," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economics.