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SPECIAL PUBLICATION-
bendbulletin.com TODAY'S READERBOARD Fish on drugs — Traces of a common medication changed the behavior of perch in a recent study. Such chang-
es could havemajor ecological consequences.A3
• La Pine: Did you glimpsemeteori a te recently? If so,an expert wants to know By Scott Hammers The Bulletin
Afghanistan withdrawal — As operations wind down, getting all the equipment out of
the country is creating a logistical nightmare.A4
Four days before the meteor explosion over Russia that injured an estimated 1,200 people, another errant rock from space may have passed though the skies above Central Oregon.
Although details are few, according to the account shared with Lynn Carroll from theOregon Observatory in Sunriver, at around 10:45 p.m. Sunday, a group of children camping in their backyard in La Pine saw a blazing orange fireball
streaking across the sky directly overhead. Traveling west to east, the fireball was visible 12-15 seconds, roaring like a jet before splitting into roughly eight
still-glowing pieces. Carroll said Wednesday that the children's father,
who was inside the house at the time, saw the curtains light up as though night had briefly turned to day. As of Friday night, efforts to contact first-hand observersofthe fireball were unsuccessful. See La Pine/A6
A phntn Stnf jf —What's happening at WinterFest.B2
FreSh dreWS —Central Oregon's Rat Hole Brewing is
• Russia: Siberia sees the largest recordedmeteor strike in morethan a century
finally getting its beers out to the public.CS
And a Web exclusiveThe Senate is evenlosing money on haircuts: The tax-
payer-subsidized SenateHair Care shop runs hugedeficits. bendbulletin.com/extras
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EDITOR'SCHOICE
Young and insured? Preparefor 'rate shock' By N.C. Aizenman The Washington Post
Chetyahihsk.ru via The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Many young, healthy Americans could soon see a jump in their health-insurance costs, and insurance companies are saying: It's not our fault. The nation's insurers are engaged in an all-out, last-ditch effort to shield themselvesfrom blame for what they predict will be rate increases on new policies they must unveil this spring to comply with President Barack Obama's health care law. Insurers point to several reasonsthatpremiums will rise. They will soon be required to offer morecomprehensive coverage than many currently provide. Also, their costs will increase because they will be barred from rejecting the sick, and they will no longer be allowed to charge older customers
The contrail of a meteor that exploded over Russia on Friday is seen from the city of Chelyabinsk. The bus-size meteor set off the largest explosion of its kind in more than a century, at least according to Western scientists. And even more unusual for an incoming meteor, it caused numerous injuries, mostly from flying glass, as the shock wave violently jolted Chelyabinsk. Based on preliminary calculations, the asteroid weighed about 7,000 tons and was about 50 feet in diameter when it entered the atmosphere at 40,000 mph, said Peter Brown, a professor of physics at the University of Western Ontario.
sharply higher premiums
a fighting chance.
than younger ones. Supporters of the law counter that concerns about price hikes are overstated, partly because federal subsidies will cushion the blow. The insurers' public relations blitz is being
They're hopeful Friday's cosmic coincidence — Earth's close brush with a 150-foot asteroid, hours after the 50-foot meteor
propelled by a growing cast of executives, lobbyists, conservative activists and state health officials. They increasingly use the same catchphrase — "rate shock" — to warn about the potential for price
surges. Aetna chief executive Mark Bertolini invoked the term at his company's recent annual investor conference, cautioning that premiums for plans sold to individuals could rise as much as 50 percent on average. See Insurance/A5
O
See video of the Siberian explosion on The Bulletin's website: bendbuuetin.com/extras
Region onthe men, stea ily By Lauren Dake The Bulletin
SALEM — After experiencing one of the nation's biggest dives in the housing market, CentralOregon's economy has stabilized and begun a slow-but-steady rebound, state economists said Friday. "Bend obviously suffered a severe recession, but the prospects for long-term growth in the area remain good," said Josh Lehner, a state economist, after giving a revenue forecast to state lawmakers Friday. "The things that attracted people to move there, those are all true and good ... It's an attractive place to live." New construction has nearly doubled in the last year in Bend. "It is absolutely turning around," Lehner said. It's not close to reaching the same levels it did before the housing bubble burst, but the free-for-all ha s stopped and building permits and construction have spiked. "It's been depressed for a long time, but we're getting impressive growth rates," Lehner said. See Economy/A5
Girl breathing on her own after surgery By Heidi Hagemeier The Bulletin
• What's going on? Cosmicoi c ncidenceshavepeople talking, and maybeworried Bulletin wire reports CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A space rock even bigger than the meteor that exploded like an atom bomb over Russia could drop out of the sky unannounced atany time and wreak havoc on a city. And Hollywood to the contrary, there isn't much the world's scientists and generals can do about it. But some former astronauts want to give the world
struck in Russia — will draw attention to the dangers lurking in outer space and lead to action, such as better detection and tracking of asteroids. "After today, a lot of
people will be paying attention," said Rusty Schweickart, who flew on Apollo 9 in 1969, helped establish the planet-protecting B612 Foundation and has been warning NASA for years to put more muscle and money into a heightened asteroid alert. Earth is menaced all the time by meteors, which are chunks of asteroids or comets that enter Earth's
"After today, a lot of people will be paying attention." — Rusty Schweickart, former astronaut atmosphere. But many if not most of them are simply too small to detect from afar with the tools now available to astronomers. The meteor that shattered over the Ural Mountains was estimated to be 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II. It blew out thousands of windows and left about 1,200 people injured
Inside • Meteors, meteorites, asteroids: a Q-and-A,A6 in Chelyabinsk, a city of I million. And yet no one saw it coming; it was about the size of a bus. "This is a tiny asteroid," said astronomer Paul Chodas, who works in NASA's Near-Earth Object program in Pasadena, Calif. See Meteor /A6
PALO ALTO, Calif. — Lindsey Bingham began breathing on her own Friday morning, roughly 24 hours after surgeons successfully completed an operation to give her a new heart. The 9-year-old Eastern Oregon girl was taken off the ventilator and has been awake, said her father, Jason Bingham. She remains in the cardiovascular intensive care unit of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., which doctors say is standard forthree to seven days after a heart transplant. "She can't eat too much yet," Jason said Friday afternoon. "All she wants is ice." Lindsey's steady, positive recoverycomes atthe same time as troubling news for the
Bingham family regarding the eldest child, 13-year-old Sierra. See Heart/A5
Small farmer takes onMonsanto over seedpatents By Andrew Pollack New York Times News Service
W ith his mere 300 acresof soybeans, corn and wheat, Vernon Hugh Bovtnnan said, "I'm not even big enough to be called a farmer."
TODAY'S WEATHER A few clouds High 53, Low 27
Page B6
Yet the 75-year-old farmer from southwestern Indiana will face off Tuesday against the world's largest seed company, Monsanto, in a Supreme Court case that could have a huge impact on the future of
genetically modified crops, and also affect other fields from medicalresearch to software. At stake in Bowman's case is whether patents on seeds — or other things that can self-replicate — extend beyond the first
generation of the products. It is one of two cases before the Supreme Court related to the patenting of living organisms, a practice that has helped give rise to the biotechnology industry but which critics have
long considered immoral. The other case, involving a breast cancerrisk testfrom Myriad Genetics, will determine whether human genes can be patented. See Seeds /A8
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