Year: 2014

The Obama administration will grant an extension to people who say they are unable to enroll in the new healthcare program by next Monday's deadline, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday, quoting federal officials. The Post said people who started to apply for Obamacare coverage through the HealthCare.gov website but cannot finish by Monday would have until about the middle of April to seek an extension. Sources close to the Obama administration told Reuters last week that it would soon issue new Obamacare guidelines allowing people to enroll in health coverage after the March 31 deadline, but only under certain circumstances. The sources said the new federal guidelines for consumers in the 36 states served by the federal health insurance marketplace and its HealthCare.gov website, would allow people to enroll after March 31 if they had tried earlier and were prevented by system problems including technical glitches.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is granting more time for people to apply for health care if they started the process but were unable to complete it before the March 31 deadline.

(Reuters) – A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday upheld a 2011 Kansas law that would stop federal family planning money the state receives from flowing to two Planned Parenthood clinics. The ruling overturned a Kansas federal judge’s preliminary injunction that stopped the state from eliminating the federal funding to family planning clinics Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri operates in Wichita and Hays. No abortion services are provided at the health centers and Planned Parenthood has said they would lose more than $330,000 in funding, their eligibility for a low-cost drug-purchasing program and it likely would lead to the Hays clinic closing. Planned Parenthood said it was reviewing its options after the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and remained committed to Kansas women and their families.

Fashion designer L'Wren Scott, the long-time girlfriend of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger, was remembered at a funeral in Los Angeles on Tuesday, a week after she committed suicide in New York, a spokeswoman for Jagger said. It was attended by close friends and family, spokeswoman Fran Curtis said in a statement. "The service with blessings and prayers … included memories and words of tribute from Mick Jagger, her brother Randy Bambrough, Justinian Kfoury, Ira M. Hammons-Glass and Adam Glassman," Curtis said.

Actress Gwyneth Paltrow and husband Chris Martin, the lead singer of alt-rock band Coldplay, said on Tuesday they are separating after 10 years of marriage. "It is with hearts full of sadness that we have decided to separate," the couple said on Paltrow's lifestyle website, Goop.com, in a post entitled "Conscious Uncoupling." "We have come to the conclusion that while we love each other very much we will remain separate. Paltrow, 41, who won a Best Actress Academy Award for "Shakespeare in Love," and British singer Martin, 37, were married in December 2003, and have two children, Apple and Moses.