Are tougher penalties against Russia to come?

WASHINGTON — U.S. penalties against a Russian bank and the Kremlin's inner circle have pinched Moscow, but their effectiveness is in doubt if the goal is to get President Vladimir Putin to roll back his forces from Crimea or prevent more land grabs.

Putin has mocked the punitive steps President Barack Obama has taken so far.

He made jokes of Obama's decision to freeze the assets of businessmen with close ties to Putin, as well as Bank Rossiya, which provides them support. Putin retaliated with travel restrictions on nine U.S. officials and lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain. "I guess this means my spring break in Siberia is off," said McCain, R-Ariz.

For now, Putin says there is no need for further Russian moves, even as his Foreign Ministry said Moscow would "respond harshly."

Putin claims to have no plans for further incursions into Ukraine or elsewhere in the region. But he's not planning to reverse Russia's annexation of Crimea, either.

The U.S. and Europe are left to consider the possibility of tougher measures on Russia's energy and banking sectors. That could backfire if Moscow seized American or other foreign assets or cut exports of natural gas to Europe, which is heavily dependent on Russia for energy.

"If Russia doesn't do anything other than what they've done so far with Crimea, I think the Obama administration will probably stand pat with the sanctions that it has already imposed," said Richard Fontaine, president of the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.

"I think they are waiting to see if this is the end of the Russian adventurism, or if there is more to come, and then they will react with more sanctions accordingly."

By taking a step-by-step approach, the U.S. is giving Russia a chance to resolve the crisis, Fontaine said. "The problem with that is that Putin has shown absolutely no appetite to take any off-ramp," he said.

Just the threat of harsher penalties has dimmed the outlook for the fragile Russian economy. Russian stocks were under pressure Friday as a second credit rating agency put the country on notice of a possible downgrade. Visa and MasterCard stopped serving two Russian banks, including Bank Rossiya.

The Russian stock market has lost more than 10 percent this month.

Also Friday, Russia said it might scrap plans to tap international markets for money this year.

The European Union imposed penalties against 12 more people Friday, bringing its list of those facing visa bans and asset freezes to more than 30. They include one of Russia's deputy prime ministers, two Putin advisers and the speakers of both houses of parliament.

But it still is short of the top-tier list of Putin associates punished by the United States, and evidence that Europe is not as eager to punish its energy supplier and trade partner.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who went to Ukraine with McCain last week, urged Obama to rally U.S. allies. "To do it alone is very limited. To do it with our allies can have some impact on Putin," he said.

McCain also said cracking down on Russian lawmakers and Putin's inner circle won't get Putin's attention. He said the U.S. should provide financial aid to Ukraine, immediately send defensive weapons to the country, resume work on the missile defense system in Poland and develop a long-term plan to get energy to Europe and Ukraine.

"The higher price that Putin thinks he has to pay for further aggression, the more likely that he doesn't act," said McCain.

Fifty former U.S. government officials and foreign policy experts wrote Obama on Friday urging him to strengthen Ukraine's democratic transition and impose "real costs" on Putin.

They said Obama should go after Putin, and expand the sanctions to isolate Russian financial institutions and businesses that are complicit in Russia's incursion into Crimea or support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The group praised the deployment of U.S. fighter aircraft to Poland and the Baltic states but said the U.S. should send additional ground forces, missile defenses or other assets to former Warsaw Pact members of NATO, work to reduce Europe's dependence on Russian natural gas and expand U.S. military rotations to Georgia, which is seeking membership in NATO.

Experts on Russia and Europe caution against looking at the Crimea problem too narrowly. Putin's move into Crimea can be seen as part of a broader strategy of stopping NATO enlargement, or at least keeping neighboring countries off balance so they can't be further integrated into the alliance or have closer ties with the West.

"We don't have anything against cooperation with NATO, nothing at all," Putin said in a speech earlier this week. "We are against having the (NATO) military alliance ... behaving as the master of the house outside our fence, next to our home or on our historical territory."

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Associated Press writers Donna Cassata in Washington and Lynn Berry in Moscow contributed to this report.

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'20s charm abounds in Belmont home

This classic colonial in Belmont has been updated but retains much of its woodwork and charming details, such as arched doorways.

Built in 1928, the five-bedroom home at 22 Adams St. lies in the town's high-end Presidential Estates subdivision. The gabled, hip-roofed house, with an attached two-car rear garage, has seen major kitchen and bathroom updates and new heating and central air systems. It's on the market for $1,395,000.

There's a custom stone wall-enclosed patio in the front yard, and a granite walkway leads up to the house, which has a brick exterior first floor and newly repainted light-blue clapboard above. There's a stone-floored entry with a coat closet to one side that opens into a large hardwood-floored foyer with a turning staircase.

To the left is a formal living room with hardwood floors, a beamed ceiling and sconce lighting. The sunny room has six windows and a wood-burning fireplace with a restored mantel.

A french door from the living room leads into a home office with built-in shelving. To the right of the foyer is a sitting room with hardwood floors and crown molding that leads through french doors into a formal dining room. This sunny room has five windows and restored maple floors.

It segues into an L-shaped recessed-lit kitchen that underwent a major renovation in 1997, including restored maple floors. There are over 40 custom hand-painted white cabinets in three distinct areas above and below black granite countertops. There's a dining area with two windows and six glass-fronted cabinets. The main preparation area has lots of drawers and shelves, and an adjacent pantry area has large cabinets. There's a stainless-steel Thermador gas stove and two black Thermador wall ovens, a stainless-steel LG dishwasher and Kitchen Aid compactor and a Maytag side-by-side refrigerator that was added last year.

There's a door from the pantry area out to a rear deck with cedar floors and mahogany railings that has stairs down to a small grass backyard. Back inside, at the back of the first floor, is a guest bedroom with two windows as well a full bathroom added in 1998 that has a blue tile floor, white-tiled walk-in shower and a white pedestal sink.

There are three bedrooms on the home's second floor reached via a turning staircase in the foyer.

The master bedroom suite underwent a major renovation in 1998 with restored hardwood floors and a custom walk-in closet with built-in drawers and cabinets. The en-suite bathroom has a beige marble floor and marble-topped double-sink vanity. There's a white-tiled double steam shower with a marble bench and a skylight above.

The second and third bedrooms are good-sized, and both have hardwood floors and alcoves with built-in desks on one side and dresser drawers on the other,

A second full bath was redone in 1998 with a white marble floor and marble-topped double sink vanity and a white-tiled walled whirlpool tub and shower.

The carpeted fifth bedroom is one floor above in a converted attic with a window.

The home's basement was remodeled in 2001. Stairs lead down to a ceramic-tiled laundry and storage room with a wall of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and a full-size Maytag washer and dryer.

Off this room is a large, carpeted recessed-lit family room with a wood-burning fireplace.

A closet holds a heating and central air-conditioning system added in 2001, at which time new electrical,. plumbing and coaxial cable wiring were also upgraded.

There's also an attached two-car garage in the basement, with automated doors and parking for an additional vehicle under the deck and in a long driveway. But there's no direct access to the house from the garage.

There's not a lot of yard space, but the area around the home is nicely landscaped with birch trees and flowering bushes.

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Mass. nixes hike in worker's compensation rates

BOSTON — The state insurance commissioner has approved a settlement eliminating a proposed increase in workers' compensation insurance rates.

Attorney General Martha Coakley's argued against the planning increase, which would have hiked rates by an average of 7.7 percent across the state.

Coakley called the proposed increase "totally unjustified" and said it would have hit small businesses hard at a time when the state is grappling with high unemployment.

Coakley, who is also a Democratic candidate for governor, said Friday's settlement will end up saving Massachusetts employers a total of $75 million.

Massachusetts businesses are required to purchase workers compensation insurance to provide coverage for expenses and lost wages of workers injured on the job.

Rates for workers compensation insurance are set at least every other year in an administrative rate hearing

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Obama: Women still face outdated policies at work

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says the economy hasn't caught up to the new reality that women now make up about half of the workforce.

Obama says in his weekly radio and Internet address that women earn about 77 cents for every dollar men earn. He says women face outdated policies that hold them back, and that hurts their families and the broader economy.

Obama is calling in Congress to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.

In the GOP address, Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan says there's an economic comeback in states led by Republican governors. He says it can happen nationally if the country follows their lead.

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Online:

Obama address: www.whitehouse.gov

GOP address: www.youtube.com/user/gopweeklyaddress

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Obamacare plans bring hefty fees for certain drugs

MIAMI — With the promise of affordable health insurance under President Barack Obama's law, many Americans with serious illnesses are finding relatively low monthly premiums and, in many cases, access to insurance for the first time.

But some have been shocked at how much their prescriptions are costing as insurers are creating complex drug tiers and in some cases charging co-insurance rates as high as 50 percent, leaving patients on the hook for thousands.

Avalere Health, a market research and consulting firm, estimates some consumers will pay 50 percent of the cost of their specialty drugs — that compares to about 30 percent in the private market.

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Obama meets with tech executives over NSA spying

SAN FRANCISCO — Six technology executives, including Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, met with President Barack Obama on Friday to discuss National Security Agency spying in the wake of revelations that the agency may have infected millions of computers around the world with malware.

Also at the meeting were CEOs Reed Hastings of Netflix, Drew Houston of Dropbox, Alex Karp of Palantir Technologies and Aaron Levie of Box.

The CEOs of Yahoo, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Twitter could not make the meeting.

The meeting comes ahead of a March 28 deadline for recommendations on how to end the NSA's collection of bulk phone records.

Internet companies are closely following the issue because it could affect how the government intercepts Internet data as well.

Zuckerberg recently voiced the jointly held frustration of the tech CEOs that government spying is hurting their businesses around the world.

His comments came after reports surfaced that the NSA may have infected computers with malware by posing as a Facebook server to gain access to users' data. The allegations were in documents leaked by former intelligence contractor Edward Snowden to the online news site the Intercept.

"The U.S. government should be the champion for the Internet, not a threat," Zuckerberg wrote in a recent post on his Facebook page. "They need to be much more transparent about what they're doing, or otherwise people will believe the worst."

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©2014 Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services

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Wendy's rolls out mobile payment in US restaurants

NEW YORK — Wendy's is rolling out a program that lets customers pay using their smartphones, following a similar plans unveiled by Burger King this week.

The Wendy's Co., based in Dublin, Ohio, has been testing the mobile payment option over the past year and said the majority of its roughly 5,800 U.S. locations are now ready to accept the payments.

The move reflects a push by fast-food chains to court younger customers by tapping into the attachment they have to their phones.

"If they want to come in and give us business, we want to allow them to pay the way they want to pay," Craig Bahner, chief marketing officer for Wendy's, said in a phone interview.

Burger King Worldwide Inc. also said this week it would introduce a mobile payment program at its U.S. restaurants in April.

McDonald's Corp., meanwhile, has acknowledged the importance of mobile payments and offers but is still in a testing phase after hiring its first chief digital officer this past October.

The company, based in Oak Brook, Ill., is known in the industry for its meticulous planning of any changes. But at a recent investor conference, Chief Financial Officer Pete Bensen noted it would have to do things that were a "little bit unnatural for McDonald's" to stay on top of digital trends.

"We're going to have to put some things out there that we know are not 100 percent perfect. But if you wait in this space until everything is 100 percent figured out, then you're going to miss the whole opportunity," he said.

McDonald's isn't alone in still figuring out exactly how it wants to approach mobile payments and loyalty programs. Chipotle is still experimenting with the options as well.

In the meantime, Starbucks Corp. is pushing to get more customers to sign up for its app and loyalty program and says 14 percent of all purchases now come from mobile payments. Executives at the coffee chain say customers who sign up for the app tend to visit more often.

"You look at the numbers that Starbucks puts out, and it's pretty amazing," said Brandon Rhoten, vice president of digital at Wendy's.

It's not clear whether the impact Starbucks sees in mobile would translate to fast-food chains, however, since coffee is more of a daily fix. People may not think it's worth downloading an app for a chain they only visit occasionally, especially since there are so many other services offering apps.

But Rhoten said Wendy's saw promising trends in tests, including increased visits. The app doesn't yet offer discounts or a loyalty program, a feature that's considered a way to help cultivate customer loyalty.

To pay with the Wendy's app, customers tap the app to pull up a six-digit number they tell the cashier, rather than holding up their device to a scanner. Burger King also said its app will give customers a four-digit number they tell cashiers to make a payment.

"That's a real benefit when you think about cars going through pickup windows," Bahner said.

The rollout comes as Wendy's works to revamp its image to be more in line with chains like Panera Bread, which charge a little more than traditional fast-food chains like McDonald's and Burger King. That push has included remodeling of its restaurants to have a more inviting feel, as well as the addition of menu items such as the Pretzel Bacon Burger that command higher prices.

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Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi

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Kim Kardashian and Kanye West cover Vogue magazine

NEW YORK — Kanye West's campaign to get fiancee Kim Kardashian on the cover of Vogue magazine has finally paid off. They appear in a photo by Annie Leibovitz on the April issue.

The photo shows Kardashian wearing a white wedding-style dress with West's arms around her. She posted it on her official Twitter and Instagram accounts saying: "This is such a dream come true!!!" West wrote "Thank you @voguemagazine" on his Twitter account.

West has said he believed Kardashian is cover-worthy. In a radio interview with Ryan Seacrest last October, he said "there's no way Kim Kardashian shouldn't be on the cover of Vogue." He also said Kardashian was more influential than first lady Michelle Obama in her clothing choices.

However, in the magazine, which hits stands March 31, Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour told readers it was the magazine's idea to feature Kardashian, and the decision was based on the reality starlet's dominance — and was not influenced by her famous boyfriend.

"You may have read that Kanye begged me to put his fiancee on Vogue's cover," Wintour wrote. "He did nothing of the sort. The gossip might make for better reading, but the simple fact of the matter is that it isn't true."

The couple are the parents of 9-month-old daughter North.

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Online:

http://www.vogue.com/

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Firm downplays problems at L'Wren Scott's company

NEW YORK — A public relations firm that focuses on the fashion and beauty industries is denying reports that fashion designer L'Wren Scott's company was on the verge of shutting down.

The 49-year-old longtime girlfriend of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger was found dead in her Manhattan apartment Monday. Authorities say she committed suicide.

New York-based PR Consulting says in a statement Friday that Scott was considering a restructure of her global business, LS Fashion Ltd.

The firm says that while some areas of the business had not yet reached their potential, other parts were successful. It says the long-term prospects for the business were encouraging.

Accounts filed by LS Fashion Ltd. in London show the company had liabilities that exceeded assets by 4.24 million euros ($5.9 million) as of Dec. 31, 2012.

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Report: NSA targeted Chinese tech giant Huawei

BERLIN — U.S. intelligence agencies hacked into the email servers of Chinese tech giant Huawei five years ago, around the time concerns were growing in Washington that the telecommunications equipment manufacturer was a threat to U.S. national security, German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

The National Security Agency began targeting Huawei in early 2009 and quickly succeeded in gaining access to the company's client lists and email archive, Der Spiegel reported, citing secret U.S. intelligence documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Among the people whose emails the NSA was able to read were Huawei president Ren Zhengfei, the magazine said.

The operation, which Der Spiegel claims was coordinated with the CIA, FBI and White House officials, also netted source codes for Huawei products. One aim was to exploit the fact that Huawei equipment is widely used to route voice and data traffic around the world, according to the report. But the NSA was also concerned that the Chinese government itself might use Huawei's presence in foreign networks for espionage purposes, it said.

In 2012, the House Intelligence Committee recommended that Huawei be barred from doing business in the U.S., citing the threat that its equipment could enable Chinese intelligence services to tamper with American communications networks.

Huawei didn't immediately respond to a request for comment late Saturday. In January, the company rejected a previous Der Spiegel report claiming that its equipment was vulnerable to hacking. The magazine had reported that the NSA was able to install secret "back doors" in telecoms equipment made by Huawei and other companies.

Der Spiegel's latest report claims the NSA also targeted top Chinese officials, such as former President Hu Jintao, as well as ministries and banks.

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