A new plan for birth control coverage

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, trying to defuse one of the most contentious issues in its healthcare law, proposed Friday a new way to shield religiously affiliated organizations, such as hospitals and universities, from having to provide contraceptive coverage directly to their employees.

Instead, the employees would obtain coverage through a separate, private insurance policy at no cost.

The proposed rule also reaffirms that churches and other houses of worship themselves are exempt from the contraceptive mandate in Obama's healthcare overhaul, and makes it easier for institutions to show that they qualify for the exemption.

For-profit businesses with more than 50 employees will still be required to provide health coverage that includes contraceptive benefits, even if the employer has moral objections to such benefits.

The Obama administration's efforts to balance religious objections to contraception with support among public health advocates for broader access to such services has proven one of the most delicate tasks of implementing the Affordable Care Act. The law requires health plans to cover a host of preventive services without any cost-sharing for patients, such as cancer screenings and physicals. Also included are FDA-approved contraceptives for women, including emergency contraceptive pills.

That has generated controversy almost from the moment the president signed the legislation in 2010. The contraceptive mandate is at the center of numerous lawsuits challenging the law for impeding religious freedoms. Federal judges have split on the issue.

It was unclear Friday how much the administration's latest effort would quiet the battle.

Republican lawmakers and leading conservative critics of the healthcare law kept up their attacks. "Today's proposed rule does nothing to protect the religious freedom of millions of Americans," said Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The fund represents several plaintiffs suing to overturn the contraceptive mandate.

Leading advocates for reproductive rights, meanwhile, quickly hailed the administration for preserving broad access to contraceptive coverage, which Debra L. Ness, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, called "a critical advance for women's health."

But several leading organizations representing religiously affiliated employers, including the influential Catholic Health Assn. representing Catholic hospitals nationwide, did not offer a quick judgment on the administration's latest proposal, saying they were still reviewing it.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a leading critic of the contraceptive mandate, was similarly noncommittal Friday.

Obama administration officials hoped to satisfy these specific groups with their latest proposal.

A year ago, the administration tried to resolve the issues. But church leaders were concerned that last year's proposal was too restrictive, exempting religious organizations only if they met several tests, including a requirement that they primarily serve people who share their faith.

That could have posed a problem for churches that run parochial schools or operate services such as soup kitchens that may serve people of many faiths.

Under the new proposal, a house of worship would be exempt from the contraceptive mandate as long as it qualifies as a tax-exempt religious employer.

The administration took a second approach to try to address concerns from hospitals, charities and universities such as Notre Dame that have religious affiliations but primarily provide nonreligious services to people of many faiths. Many of these employers, like churches, object on moral grounds to providing contraceptive coverage.

The Obama administration did not exempt them in the way that churches and other houses of worship are carved out of the mandate.

Instead, administration officials proposed a complex system designed to insulate these employers from having to pay for the contraceptive coverage or even arrange it for their employees.

Employers that contract with insurance companies to provide health benefits to their employees would notify the insurer that they object to the coverage. Under the proposed regulations, the insurer would then have to offer the employees a separate contraceptive benefit at no cost to the employees.

The process would be even more complicated for self-insured religiously affiliated employers that provide health benefits themselves and rely on insurers only to administer their health benefits.

In these cases, the insurance companies would also have to provide a separate contraceptive benefit.

But the companies would be able to recover some of these costs.

The administration has proposed forgiving fees that these insurers would otherwise pay to sell insurance on new federally operated insurance exchanges next year to Americans who don't get health benefits at work.

Administration officials denied Friday that this amounted to a government subsidy for contraceptive coverage. And they continued to assert that because contraceptive services prevent unwanted pregnancies, they actually save insurers money.

Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a deputy director at the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, said the administration was still reviewing the proposed arrangement for religiously affiliated employers and could make more changes in the future.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described the new proposal Friday as a fair compromise.

"The administration is taking the next step in providing women across the nation with coverage of recommended preventive care at no cost, while respecting religious concerns," Sebelius said. "We will continue to work with faith-based organizations, women's organizations, insurers and others to achieve these goals."

noam.levey@latimes.com

David G. Savage and Christi Parsons in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.

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Marmot researchers raise a toast for Groundhog Day

For most Americans, Groundhog Day is a quaint oddity or a movie starring Bill Murray. For Punxsutawney Phil Sowerby, the Pennsylvania critter who'll be dragged out of his burrow Saturday by men in top hats to look for his shadow, the day must be a supreme annoyance.

But for UCLA biologist Dan Blumstein, today's midwinter observance has become a reason to throw a party in honor of a creature that scientists have studied for decades.

Groundhogs are marmots — and through marmots, scientists hope to gain insight into the social behavior of animals, how they communicate and how their interactions influence the size of their population.

And so on Friday afternoon, Blumstein and a group of 30 or so fellow "marmotophiles" gathered in a spare hallway in the university's Life Sciences building and toasted groundhogs with cans of soda as a jazz mix played in the background.

"This is really the only holiday about animal behavior," Blumstein said.

Cat-sized, sharp-toothed groundhogs have a large range — from the Southeast up into the East Coast and Midwest, across Canada and even as far north as Alaska. Also known as woodchucks, they're the largest of the 14 or 15 marmot species (scientists are still debating the precise number).

Marmots are great animals for scientists to study, Blumstein said, because they're awake during the day and they "have an address," living in burrows that researchers can stake out over time. Blumstein, who has also studied the behavior of kangaroos, wallabies, hermit crabs, sea anemones, lizards, birds and people, has spent more than 13 years observing the colonies of yellow-bellied marmots who live at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Crested Butte, Colo.

During summers in the field, he and colleagues have trapped marmots live using horse chow as bait, tagged them with "earrings," taken samples of their blood, and recorded the size of colonies as they waxed and waned. During winter, Blumstein has held a hibernating marmot in a lab, its body temperature just a couple of degrees above freezing. "It's like a hairy rock," he said.

A groundhog roused from hibernation that appears to be "looking for his shadow" is probably displaying a typical pattern, Blumstein said. Marmots rouse periodically during the winter to urinate, and near the end of the season they start to emerge from their burrows and scope out their territory for potential mates. Males typically wake before females.

Over the years, the scientists' observations have helped them understand how certain behaviors translate into success, or failure, for the colonies. Lately, they've focused on how the higher temperatures brought on by climate change might improve, or hinder, the marmots' reproductive success.

As recently as 2010, earlier springs seemed to be helping the marmots in Colorado by increasing the length of time they could eat. But then a longer-than-usual winter caused the population to crash.

Blumstein and his team are curious to see how the marmots will fare this spring after a winter that produced less early-season snow. That snow acts as a blanket for the animals; without it, their burrows may not have maintained the right temperature for healthy hibernation.

"We want to understand the limits of their flexibility," Blumstein said. "At some point, there may be too little snow to keep them warm over the winter."

One of Blumstein's students said she was studying gene expression in the Colorado marmots. Another student, from South America, was studying how marmots react to climate. They don't have marmots — or Groundhog Day — in South America, she noted.

Matthew Petelle, a graduate student, said he was interested in "marmot personality." Some are bold and others are shy, he said, and he's trying to figure out why the shy ones survive and thrive.

"We're the enthusiasts," he said of the partygoers at the science building, admitting that he'd probably be talking about marmots even in the absence of Groundhog Day.

Behind Petelle glowered Two-Buck Chuck, a groundhog Blumstein spied near a Kansas road more than 15 years ago.

"I was trying to study it and I was thinking it was alive," he said. "Then I realized, it's really not moving."

The animal had been hit by a car and had crawled off the road to die. Blumstein brought the body back to his lab and stuffed it, with help from his wife.

Other examples of groundhog kitsch were on display as well. There was a photograph of an obese yellow-bellied marmot eating Lay's potato chips in a Utah woman's kitchen and a page from the News of the World tabloid headlined "ATTACK OF THE 100 FT MARMOT."

"We made that into T-shirts," Blumstein said.

The jovial professor said he got the idea for the annual shindigs from his mentor, Kenneth Armitage, a University of Kansas behavioral ecologist who led the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory marmot project for 41 years.

Armitage, now retired, said he always promised his guests he'd serve groundhog at the parties.

As in "ground hog," or sausage.

"They'd kind of look at you funny, at first," he said of his grad students. "Then you'd see this big flash of relief."

eryn.brown@latimes.com

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Top contenders share strong ties to Jewish community

Eric Garcetti jokingly refers to himself as a "kosher burrito." Wendy Greuel's mother accurately predicted that she would "marry a nice Jewish boy." And Jan Perry frequently talks about how her conversion to Judaism affects her worldview.

The field vying to become Los Angeles' next mayor is diverse in many ways, but one commonality that binds three of the top candidates is their long-standing ties to the Jewish community. All are highlighting their history in hopes of gaining an edge in this key voter bloc.

Jewish voters make up a small sliver of the city's registered voters, about 6%. But they are receiving an outsized amount of attention because they vote in high numbers, even in low-turnout city elections, where they tend to account for nearly one-fifth of the ballots cast.

"It's a very high turnout group with a very high propensity to vote," said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Edmund G. "Pat" Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. "In theory, it would be very important if it was a monolithic group. But that depends on the political situation."

Nationally, Jewish voters overwhelmingly vote Democratic and are highly focused on the security of Israel. In city elections, they are not as motivated by a single issue. But when they have coalesced behind a candidate, they have often been part of successful alliances to win citywide office, such as when they teamed with African American voters to elect Tom Bradley mayor. He was first elected in 1973.

If county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky were in this race, many political observers believe he would win the lion's share of the Jewish vote because of his name recognition after nearly four decades in local elected office; his representation of the Westside and the Valley, the two geographic centers of the Jewish vote; and because he began his career as an activist working for Jews in the Soviet Union.

"Had Zev been in the race, this would have made it a more challenging situation for all these candidates," said Steven Windmueller, professor emeritus of American Jewish affairs at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles. "With him not in this race, that opens the door to everyone having a play in the Jewish community."

Garcetti, Greuel and Perry lack Yaroslavsky's identity in the Jewish community, and all have sought his blessing. He has not decided whether he will endorse.

"I've met with all of them, I know them all, I've worked with them all," Yaroslavsky said. "They're all good people.... One of them is going to be mayor, and I wish them the best of luck once they get that job because it's going to be one monster of a job."

The candidates have been regularly courting the community, reaching out through advertising in Jewish media, attending dinners for organizations that promote Israel and speaking at forums put on by Jewish institutions.

Like all politicians, they tailor their message to the audience. During a Tuesday mayoral gathering at the Sinai Temple in West Los Angeles, Garcetti and Greuel mentioned enjoying attending services there. Perry and Garcetti pledged that the principles of Judaism would guide them if elected mayor. Perry also described her conversion, saying that it was "a life-transforming experience, one that sustains me in my work and my life."

At a January forum at the Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills, Garcetti spoke of his mother's ancestors fleeing pogroms and attending the Breed Street shul, the teachings of the Talmud and his support for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was seized by Palestinian militants and held in captivity for five years. Perry pledged if elected mayor to help families that cannot afford to send their children to private Jewish day schools. Greuel mentioned the Jewish high holidays and spoke of her pride in standing with the state of Israel.

The candidates' statements may sound like pandering, but some Jewish voters give them a pass because of their track record.

"They're not showing up at Jewish events in 2012 and 2013 because there's an election looming," said Sam Yebri, an attorney and chairman of the Jewish Federation's New Leaders Project. "None of them are strangers to the Jewish community. They have been so involved, and their support is genuine. That's exciting and refreshing, but it does make it harder."

Garcetti's father is Mexican and was raised Catholic; his mother is Jewish. The family attended temple during the High Holy Days but were not observant Jews. Joking that he was raised by an atheist and an agnostic, Garcetti says he sought to become closer to his faith in his youth, attending services with more observant cousins, making his parents send him to Jewish summer camp and joining a minyan (a Jewish prayer group) when he was a graduate student at Oxford University.

Perry was raised in a church-attending Protestant family in Ohio, occasionally getting in trouble as a child for questioning the doctrine. When she transferred to USC, Perry said she was on a quest for spiritual meaning in her life, which led her to long conversations with the rabbi at the Hillel Center, which led to two years of studying for her conversion.

Greuel is Christian but is married to a prominent member of Los Angeles' Jewish community, Dean Schramm. One of the turning points of their courtship was when he asked if she would raise a child in his faith and she agreed to. Their son, now 9, attends Hebrew school weekly. Greuel said she was also shaped by working with people with strong ties to the community, including Bradley and the founders of DreamWorks.

Alex Davis, 19, said he had never heard of so many politicians who share his faith competing in the same contest.

"That's awesome. It's nice to, as a Jewish adult, have some representation in your elected government," said the USC political science major, who is undecided about whom he'll vote for. "It's a unique thing that is inspirational. It seems like they're very open about it, which is very cool."

The candidates noted that the field reflected Los Angeles' diversity.

"So one of us is Jewish, born to a Jewish mother but with an Italian last name. One of us is an African American woman who converted and who is Jewish. And you have a woman from the Valley who in the words of Groucho Marx is 'Jew-ish,' who's married to a Jew," Garcetti said.

"So there you go."

seema.mehta@latimes.com

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Doctor who admitted dealing drugs to get his license back

A West Hollywood psychiatrist who pleaded guilty to felony drug dealing after pills he prescribed turned up for sale on Craigslist will be able to get his medical license back in a year under an agreement announced Friday by the Medical Board of California.

The sanction, though harsh by board standards, allows Nathan Kuemmerle, 40, a former methamphetamine user, to treat patients again as soon as next February.

As a result of the criminal charges, Kuemmerle had lost his privilege to prescribe controlled substances and must apply to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration if he wants it restored. Kuemmerle agreed to undergo random drug testing, enroll in a physician ethics class and seek psychological counseling, among other conditions.

Kuemmerle was featured in a Dec. 30 Times report on the state's failure to use its vast prescription drug database to identify reckless prescribing by physicians.

In 2009, Kuemmerle was the state's most prolific prescriber of Adderall, a widely abused stimulant, records show. His prescribing drew scrutiny only after Redondo Beach narcotics detectives arrested a suspected drug dealer peddling Adderall pills on Craigslist. The suspect identified Kuemmerle as the source of the prescriptions.

Two months later, a second suspected drug dealer arrested in Arizona also pointed authorities to Kuemmerle. When drug agents checked the state's prescription drug database, known as CURES, they discovered that in 2009 Kuemmerle prescribed nearly four times as many of the highest-dose Adderall pills as the No. 2 doctor on the list, records show. Additionally, records show, he was the state's No. 2 prescriber of the most highly controlled narcotic painkillers.

Kuemmerle was arrested and pleaded guilty in 2011 to drug dealing and was sentenced to three years' probation.

Federal agents had alleged that Kuemmerle was selling prescriptions to people he had never seen, much less examined, records show. Kuemmerle wrote an average of 15 prescriptions per day for controlled substances over a four-year period, a figure a medical expert described as "remarkably high," records show.

Narcotics detectives said they were amazed that Kuemmerle was able to prescribe so many drugs undetected for so long, even though state authorities had access to a database that collected a record every time a pharmacy dispensed one.

Kuemmerle could not be reached for comment.

The types of drugs Kuemmerle prescribed are fueling an epidemic of overdose deaths that has drawn the attention of drug enforcement agencies, lawmakers and medical authorities. The response has largely focused on illicit sources of prescription drugs, such as pharmacy robberies and teens stealing from home medicine cabinets.

But a Times investigation of more than 3,700 prescription drug deaths in Southern California found that nearly half of the decedents had a doctor's prescription for one or more of the medications that caused or contributed to their deaths.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged states to mine prescription drug monitoring databases to identify and stop reckless prescribers. At least six states do so. California does not.

lisa.girion@latimes.com

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Son of Nick Van Exel sentenced to 60 years on murder conviction

Nick Van Exel was taken 37th overall by the Lakers in the 1993 draft. (Vince Compagnone / Los Angeles Times / February 2, 2013)

By Eric Pincus

February 2, 2013, 7:06 a.m.

Sad news for a former Lakers All-Star. Nickey Maxwell Van Exel, the son of Nick Van Exel, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for murder in Texas on Friday.

The 22-year-old was found guilty Thursday of shooting Bradley Bassey Eyo in 2010.

Nick Van Exel was selected by the Lakers with the 37th overall pick in the 1993 NBA draft.

Before the arrival of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant in 1996, Van Exel was the team's leader and go-to player.

Van Exel played with the Lakers until 1998, then was traded after an All-Star season for Tony Battie and the draft rights to Tyronn Lue.

He is currently on staff with the Atlanta Hawks in player development.

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Email Eric Pincus at eric.pincus@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @EricPincus.

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Economy added 157,000 jobs in January; unemployment rate up to 7.9%

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy added 157,000 new jobs in January and the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%, the Labor Department said Friday.  

The job creation was below analyst expectations of 165,000 and down from a revised 195,000 in December. The unemployment rate ticked up from 7.8% in December.

The pace of job creation is consistent with moderate growth and could ease concerns that the economy's unexpected contraction in the final three months of last year was a sign another recession could be near.

In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday revised job gains for October, November and December sharply upward. The total for those three months was 603,000, compared to an initial 453,000.

"With a gain of 157,000 jobs in January, the employment situation continues to improve despite slow economic growth," said Kathy Bostjancic, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Conference Board.

"The good news is that January's employment gains, coupled with large revisions to the prior months, may translate into more consumer spending power, which helps offset some of the negative drag on after-tax income from the expiration of the temporary payroll tax cut," she said. "The bad news is that unemployment remains stubbornly high."

The private sector added 167,000 jobs in January, but overall growth was pulled down by a net loss of 9,000 government jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said.

Sectors that showed job gains in January included retail, construction and healthcare, while transportation and warehousing showed declines.

The jobs report comes after the government said Wednesday that the economy shrank at a 0.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2012, the first contraction since the Great Recession ended in 2009.

But economists said the slowdown at the end of last year was an anomaly and predicted the economy is continuing to grow at a slow to moderate pace.

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Former New York Mayor Ed Koch dies at 88

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who led the nation's biggest city for three terms in the late 1970s and '80s, died Friday in a Manhattan hospital.

Koch, 88, died of congestive heart failure at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia Hospital, a spokesman, George Arzt, said. His death came two days after a documentary about the former mayor, "Koch," premiered in New York. Koch had been scheduled to appear at the premiere but a day earlier was admitted to the hospital to be treated for fluid in his lungs and shortness of breath.

Koch suffered a stroke while in office in 1987 and in recent months had been hospitalized for a variety of ills. He was readmitted last Monday, two days after having been released from an earlier hospitalization, and he died at about 2 a.m., Arzt said in a phone interview.

Koch took the helm of New York in 1978, and his enthusiasm for his hometown and fiscal conservatism were credited with lifting the city from the doldrums after its near-bankruptcy in the 1970s and the flight of residents to the suburbs.

He won election to his third term with 78% of the vote but lost his fourth bid after alienating many New Yorkers with fierce criticism of then-U.S. presidential candidate Jesse Jackson.

Since leaving office, though, Koch had maintained a high profile in the city, acting as a political pundit and appearing in brief spots in the myriad TV series shot in New York.

With each release from the hospital in the past year, Koch was greeted by well-wishers and media as he was rolled in a wheelchair outside, and always said he was feeling fine and eager to return to work.

Arzt said Koch's family had been notified and that the funeral would be held Monday in New York.

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Binge-viewing is transforming the television experience

A Netflix show starring Kevin Spacey.

When Thomas Toth contracted pneumonia, he became inseparable from the cool, stylish Don Draper.

Toth watched all five seasons of the AMC series "Mad Men" from his sickbed in a two-week viewing binge . He became so captivated by its fictional admen that he began sporting skinny ties and drinking Old-Fashioned cocktails.

"The nuances of the story lines are getting so complicated — they're introducing characters in Episode 2 and that character comes back in Episode 6 — I can digest things a lot quicker and easier when I binge on them," the 44-year-old Denver resident said.

Toth has lots of company. Services such as Netflix and Hulu, as well as digital video recorders, have transformed the TV viewing experience by enabling viewers to devour multiple episodes or even entire seasons of "The Wire" or "Downton Abbey" in marathon viewing sessions.

VIDEO: Winter TV preview

Now Netflix is making a massive bet that it can satisfy the addiction that it helped create. At 12:01 a.m. Friday the service debuted its first original series, a political drama called "House of Cards" that stars actor Kevin Spacey as a ruthless, scheming House majority whip.

In a departure from television tradition, the entire season of "House of Cards" — all 13 episodes, nearly 13 hours of tense Capitol Hill drama — will be available at once, with the click of a button.

Millions of Americans are binge-viewing serialized dramas and comedies, including those that can no longer be found on the network prime-time schedule. Hits like the espionage thriller "24" and cult favorites such as "Arrested Development," which both ran on the Fox network, have found new life on Netflix, as have past seasons of FX's "American Horror Story" and ABC Family's "Pretty Little Liars."

The phenomenon is so pervasive that a majority of Americans ages 8 to 66 say they've engaged in this sort of copious TV consumption, according to a study conducted by media consultant Frank N. Magid Associates Inc.

"We're finding that people who binge-view once binge-view again," Magid Executive Vice President Jack MacKenzie said. "It's the 'you can't eat just one' kind of thing."

This instant-gratification approach flouts network scheduling traditions.

Hollywood has always fed audiences a diet of, "Wait a week and we'll give you new episodes, then wait a season, we'll give you another season," Netflix Chief Content Office Ted Sarandos said.

"The Internet is attuning people to get what they want when they want it," Sarandos said. "'House of Cards' is literally the first show for the on-demand generation."

Netflix committed a reported $100 million for two seasons of "House of Cards," based on a strong script and the pedigree of the creative team of director David Fincher ("The Social Network" and "Fight Club") and writer Beau Willimon, who received an Oscar nomination for the 2011 political drama "The Ides of March."

"We wanted to go all-in," Sarandos said. "It's important to signal … that we're moving into this space in a meaningful, big way. So we did it loud."

If successful, the gambit could begin to unwind 60 years of serialized television convention — especially if others begin to emulate Netflix's approach. So far, broadcast and cable programmers have shown no inclination to release multiple episodes simultaneously.

"I don't think one show changes the television industry," said Richard Greenfield, media analyst with BTIG. But "if this become replicated multiple times over by Netflix and others, absolutely."

The instant-availability formula dispenses with cliffhangers designed to prevent the audience from fleeing during commercial breaks and woo them back for next week's installment. There is no need for comprehensive recaps of the previous week's episode because Netflix assumes that viewers won't miss a beat.

The absence of ads means that each episode has more time for story lines and relationships — as much as 15 more minutes of story per television hour.

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U.S. economy adds 157,000 jobs in January

U.S. employers added 157,000 jobs in January and hiring was stronger over the past two years than previously thought, providing reassurance that the job market held steady while economic growth sputtered.

The mostly upbeat Labor Department report Friday included one negative sign: the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent in December. The unemployment rate is calculated from a survey of households, while job gains come from a survey of employers.

The hiring picture over the past two years looked better after the department's annual revisions. Those showed employers added an average of roughly 180,000 jobs per month in 2012 and 2011, up from previous estimates of about 150,000. And hiring was stronger at the end of last year, averaging 200,000 new jobs in the final three months.

Stock futures rose after the report was released.

One notable change in the job market is the stronger contribution from construction firms. They added 28,000 jobs in January and nearly 100,000 in the past four months. The gains are consistent with a rebound in home construction and a broader recovery in housing.

Last month's hiring should cushion the impact of the higher Social Security taxes that most consumers are paying this year. And it would help the economy resume growing after it shrank at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the October-December quarter.

Higher Social Security taxes are reducing take-home pay for most Americans. A person earning $50,000 a year will have about $1,000 less to spend in 2013. A household with two high-paid workers will have up to $4,500 less. Taxes rose after a 2 percent cut, in place for two years, expired Jan. 1.

Analysts expect the Social Security tax increase to shave about a half-point off economic growth in 2013, since consumers drive about 70 percent of economic activity.

The hit to consumers is coming at a precarious moment for the economy. It contracted in the fourth quarter for the first time in 3 1/2  years. The decline was driven largely by a steep cut in defense spending and a drop in exports. Analysts generally think those factors will prove temporary and that the economy will resume growing.

Still, the contraction last quarter points to what are likely to be key challenges for the economy this year: the prospect of sharp government spending cuts and uncertainty over whether Congress will agree to raise the federal borrowing cap.

Most analysts predict that the economy will grow again in the January-March quarter, though likely at a lackluster annual rate of around 1 percent. They expect the economy to expand about 2 percent for the full year.

Two key drivers of growth improved last quarter: Consumer spending increased at a faster pace. And businesses invested more in equipment and software.

In addition, homebuilders are stepping up construction to meet rising demand. That could generate even more construction jobs.

And home prices are rising steadily. That tends to make Americans feel wealthier and more likely to spend. Housing could add as much as 1 percentage point to economic growth this year, some economists estimate.

Auto sales reached their highest level in five years in 2012 and are expected to keep growing this year. That's boosting production and hiring at U.S. automakers and their suppliers.

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Edward Koch dies at 88; outspoken mayor led New York City comeback

Edward I. Koch, a Greenwich Village lawyer who became mayor of New York in the late 1970s and led the city out of one of its worst financial crises by stabilizing the budget and restoring its swagger, has died. He was 88.

Koch died early Friday of congestive heart failure in a Manhattan hospital, his friend and spokesman, George Arzt said. Koch had been hospitalized Monday, a day before a documentary about him, "Koch," premiered in New York City. He had complained of trouble breathing and other ailments, and it was the latest of several hospitalizations for the former mayor in recent months.

For most of his adult life, Koch had lived alone in an apartment off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. It's where he departed the morning he rode a public bus to City Hall to be sworn in as the 105th mayor and where he returned 12 years later, at age 65, after a disastrous fourth run to keep the job he clearly relished and worked hard at. Voters had finally tired of his infatuation with himself and his racially divisive rhetoric; but far from retiring, Koch spent the rest of his life out of public office but never out of public view.

He juggled almost a dozen jobs including law partner, columnist, author, radio show host, playwright, movie reviewer, public speaker and appeared relentlessly in the media, a shtick-artist with one of the most recognizable New York accents in the world. When he wasn't bellowing at opponents on political round tables, he was hawking everything from diet aids to soft drinks in advertisements and popping up in screen cameos playing always himself, the quintessential New Yorker, alongside Carrie and the girls in episodes of "Sex in the City" or with Big Bird in "The Muppets Take Manhattan."

He was pivotal in a September 2011 upset that put a Republican into the heavily Democratic congressional district that had been held by Rep. Anthony Weiner, who had been forced to resign in a "sexting" scandal. Koch helped catapult Republican Bob Turner to an unlikely victory in the special election to replace Weiner after he endorsed Turner to show his anger with President Obama's Middle East policy. "Ed Koch was enough to turn this around," Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said after Turner's win.

For his 86th birthday, New York's current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, renamed the Queensboro Bridge linking Manhattan to Koch's home borough of Queens after him, saying the bridge – now officially known as the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge -- was like Koch: "a resilient, hard-working New York City icon."

"He was a great mayor, a great man, and a great friend," Bloomberg said in a statement Friday after Koch's death. "In elected office and as a private citizen, he was our most tireless, fearless, and guileless civic crusader. Through his tough, determined leadership and responsible fiscal stewardship, Ed helped lift the city out of its darkest days and set it on course for an incredible comeback."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo echoed the sentiment. "No New Yorker has -- or likely ever will -- voice their love for New York City in such a passionate and outspoken manner than Ed Koch," said Cuomo. "New York City would not be the place it is today without Ed Koch's leadership over three terms at City Hall."

City flags were ordered flown at half-staff.

"He was the epitome of New York--loud, funny, opinionated, smart," said Arzt, a former reporter who became Koch's spokesman in City Hall and had lunch with him every Saturday after he left, along with 10 other alumni of the administration. "Ed was very much a straight shooter, a champion of the middle class, a moderate Democrat akin to a Harry Truman. He defied categories."

In fact, Koch loved to enrage liberals by doing and saying the unthinkable--endorsing Republican politicians (John Lindsay, Rudolph Giuliani, George W. Bush) and their beliefs (the death penalty). But Koch also held fast to many liberal values. A civil libertarian, Koch made one of his first executive orders when he became mayor to add sexual preference to a citywide ban on job discrimination.

He not only never shied away from controversy, he invited it; unlike successors Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, he enjoyed confrontation. He once wrestled an egg-throwing heckler to the floor before the police could move in.

Altogether Koch wrote (mostly co-authored) 15 books, including eight autobiographies, two children's books and multiple mystery novels starring himself as the detective. He also regularly reviewed movies and restaurants, and at last count had more than 6,200 followers on Twitter (@mayoredkoch).

Really, Koch would opine to whomever, whenever, never mincing words: Movie tickets were too expensive; the United Nations, after an anti-Israel vote, was "made up of gangsters, cutthroats and piranhas"; a Puerto Rican mayoral rival was a "poverty pimp"; Sarah Palin was likable "but she scares the hell out of me." He never lost interest in his absolutely favorite subject—himself. "How'm I doin'?" was his trademark question.

The only topics that remained off limits were his heroic service as an infantryman in World War II—he was awarded two battle stars—and his sexuality. A lifelong bachelor, Koch refused to delve into rumors of his homosexuality. "I ran in a total of 24 elections and won 21," he once told the New York Times. "I will not be a coward and say I am straight or I'm gay, because it's no one's business. I got where I am today not because of sexuality or gender but because people thought I was the best at what I did...."

In recent years, though Koch appeared to mellow, seeking reconciliation with many of his former rivals, he refused to yield when it came to standards for public service. As recently as the summer of 2010, at age 85, he ginned up a campaign called "New York Uprising" to reform state government. Despite a history of heart disease that left him with two pacemakers and a degenerative spinal disorder that caused the once-strapping 6-foot-1 former mayor to be stooped in old age, he embarked in a rented Jeep on a campaign-style press tour around upstate New York to shame reluctant legislators in their home districts to signing a pledge to "clean up Albany."

"I didn't willingly take this on," he told reporters. "I was waiting for someone else to do it.... It's only after six months or a year of going to every breakfast, lunch and dinner, where all they talked about is the dysfunctional Legislature ... I'm thinking somebody is going to stand up and challenge this in some form. But nobody did. So I said to myself, 'Well, if nobody will, I will.' "

This was shortly after Koch, ever the showman, revealed he'd finalized plans for his funeral and penned his gravestone epitaph about his love of his religion, Judaism, his city and his country.

In 2011, when the Queensboro Bridge was renamed, the former mayor enthused: "It's not a beautiful bridge. It's a workhorse bridge. It's craggy and shaggy, and I'm craggy and shaggy." He also hinted that he wouldn't mind if Newark Airport was renamed for him: E.I.K, he said, "kind of rhymes with J.F.K."

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