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RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Stressing that improvements are happening daily, the senior Obama official closest to the administration's malfunctioning health care website apologized Tuesday for problems that have kept Americans from successfully signing up for coverage. "I want to apologize to you that the website has not worked as well as it should," Medicare chief Marilyn Tavenner said as she began her testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee. It was the most direct mea culpa yet from a top administration official.
STEVE ROTHWELL, AP Markets Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks were mixed in early trading Monday, keeping the Standard & Poor's 500 index at a record high, as investors assessed the latest earnings from big U.S. companies. The S&P 500 closed at a record high last week after getting a boost from technology companies, including Microsoft and Amazon. Stocks have surged this year, in part because companies have been able to keep increasing their earnings even as the economy has failed to escape stall speed. The S&P 500 was up two points, at 1,761 in early trading.
ALICIA CHANG, AP Science Writer LOS ANGELES (AP) — Surrounded by a gooey graveyard of prehistoric beasts, a small crew diligently wades through a backlog of fossil finds from a century of excavation at the La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of Los Angeles. Digs over the years have unearthed bones of mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves and other unsuspecting Ice Age creatures that became trapped in ponds of sticky asphalt. But it's the smaller discoveries — plants, insects and rodents — in recent years that are shaping scientists' views of life in the region 11,000 to 50,000 years ago.