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By brUCE SCHREINER – 2 hours ago
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Health insurer Humana Inc. reported a 12.5 percent rise in its first-quarter profit Monday as growth in its Medicare Advantage and commercial businesses more than offset an expected decline in its stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plans.
The results beat Wall Street expectations, and the company raised full-year earnings-per-share projections. Its shares rose almost 2 percent in premarket trading.
The Louisville-based company earned $80.17 million, or 47 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31 compared to $71.2 million, or 42 cents a share, in the year-ago period.
Revenue rose 12 percent to $6.96 billion from $6.2 billion.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected profit of 45 cents per share on revenue of $6.94 billion.
Its shares rose 18 cents to $45.11 in morning trading Monday.
“Our Medicare Advantage and commercial progress was particularly strong in the first quarter,” said Michael B. McCallister, Humana’s president and chief executive officer.
The Medicare Advantage plans offer comprehensive health coverage.
As expected, Humana’s government segment took a pretax loss of $3.2 million in the first quarter. The decline primarily reflected about $100 million in incremental expenses associated with the company’s stand-alone Medicare prescription plans. Last month, Humana sharply lowered its first-quarter estimate due to higher-than-expected claims in those prescription plans.
Humana said those expenses were substantially offset by improved performance in its Medicare Advantage and military services business.
Medicare Advantage premiums totaled $3.17 billion in the first quarter, up 15 percent from a year ago. Medicare Advantage membership was up 14 percent from the year-ago period.
Military services premiums and administrative fees increased $89.7 million to $831.2 million for the first quarter.
McCallister forecast solid improvement in all of Humana’s lines of business except its prescription drug plans through 2008 and beyond. He predicted the stand-alone prescription plans would return to profitability in 2009.

ap.google.com

HAALE comes to the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River, on Thursday, April 10, at 8 p.m. Haale is a downtown New Yorker of Iranian descent. On her breathtaking full-length debut, No Ceiling, she draws on that heritage freely, but filters it through a contemporary prism.This is a free show in conjunction with the opening of the Experiencing the War in Iraq art opening. For more information please contact 508-324-1926.
The New Piano Quartet will perform Saturday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. at Goff Memorial Hall, 124 Bay State Road, Rehoboth. Pianist Esther Ning Yau, violinist Brenda van der Merwe, violist Emily Rome and cellist Judith Glixon will perform piano quartets by Beethoven, Charles Villiers Stanford, and Ivan Erod. Admission is $14 for adults, $12 for seniors, and $5 for students and children. Call 508-252-5718.
LEO KOTTKE will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, April 11, at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River. Tickets are $45, $40 in advance. For more information, call 508-324-1926 or visit www.ncfta.org or www.leokottke.com.
SONNY LANDRETH will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday, April 12, at the Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River. Tickets are $25, $22 in advance. For more information, call 508-324-1926 or visit www.ncfta.org or www.sonnylandreth.com.
Singer-songwriter Patty Larkin will perform Saturday, April 12, at 8 p.m. at the Common Fence Point Community Hall, 933 Anthony Road. Tickets are $22 and are available at the ticket desk from 3 to 5 p.m. on concert days; through Ticket Web anytime and at the door until sold out. Call Ticket Web at 866-468-7619 or visit www.commonfencemusic.org.
“COCKTAILS FOR A CAUSE” will take place on Sunday, April 13, 2008, at 5 p.m. at the Waterstreet Café, 36 Water St., Fall River.
Southcoast Strength and Spirit is a team of five local women helping fight one of the leading causes of cancer by participating in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in Boston next month. Michelle Pelletier, Pam Sefrino, Isabelle Silva, Jennifer Preston Sousa and Diana Victor will walk more than 39 miles (a marathon and a half) each between May 17 and 18.

heraldnews.com

Until this year, Ted Leonsis’ ambitions had outstripped his success since his purchase of the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals in 1999. Twice — in 2001 and again this year — he’s signed star players to the largest contracts in NHL history. But from 2003 through last year (not including the 2004-2005 season, in which NHL owners locked out players over a labor dispute) Mr. Leonsis’ team underachieved, failing to qualify for the playoffs.
That all changed this year. In November, after a dismal start in which the team won only six of its first 21 games, the Capitals fired coach Glen Hanlon. Under new coach Bruce Boudreau, the team began a remarkable turnaround and ended the season with a hot stretch run that culminated in a playoff berth. Led by Alexander Ovechkin, a third-year player who led the NHL in scoring this season, the Capitals enter the playoffs as favorites to beat the Philadelphia Flyers in their first-round series.
Mr. Leonsis is the former vice chairman of AOL, which he joined in 1993 when the company purchased his marketing firm, Redgate Communications. He stepped down from his role at AOL in 2006 to focus on his sports investments. In an interview, Mr. Leonsis discusses how to run a team under the salary cap that went into effect three years ago, why hockey will never have as many fans as pro football or baseball, and why he spent $124 million in January on his best player. Excerpts:
The Wall Street Journal: You made a fortune in high-tech before buying the Capitals in 1999. Since then, it hasn’t always been smooth — until last year, the Capitals attracted fewer fans than any other NHL team. What have you learned?
Mr. Leonsis: It’s interesting. In sports, you manage with your left brain and your right brain. The business has a double bottom line. There’s the revenue — the profit or loss — and the value creation for the franchise. But it’s really about wins and losses and what you do for your city, your community, so it’s truly a double bottom line business.

online.wsj.com

The Wall Street Journal just profiled the person I’d like to dub the Queen of the Mom Bloggers. Dooce, whose ongoing sarcastic travails about her life–which include bouts with alcoholism and post-partum depression–have created a revenue stream that has enabled her to turn her blog into big bucks.
In the piece, Dooce, otherwise known as Heather Armstrong, admits that while most people in the blogging community have embraced her site, many others have sent hurtful responses her way. Even more damaging, some of her private musings have even caused a rift in her family which she has since repaired.
As a fellow Mom blogger who unfortunately is not making millions from my wildly hilarious posts, I’ve come to the conclusion that I will never rake in the kind of dollars Dooce now commands. The reason? Simple–I am way too chicken to go there. Sure, once in a while I’ll blog about a subject that dishes on a nasty neighbor or even a friend whose parenting skills I’m not that fond of, but I do my best to keep names out of the equation and pretty much figure that none of those people will be reading my posts anyway. So what do I have to worry about?
I’ll tell you what. Moms don’t just blog about their personal lives, politics and potty training. If you insult someone on the Internet, words can not only sting, as Dooce discovered, they can cause friendships to end or families to stop talking to you. And just think about what those teen cheerleaders did a few days ago when they beat up a “friend” who said nasty things about them MySpace. Talking behind someone’s back takes on a whole new meaning when you air your dirty laundry out on the World Wide Web.
Even though there are times I’m tempted to riff about someone on my blog, I’ve realized it’s just not worth it. Personally, I prefer sharing stories from my life that will put a smile on someone’s face rather than go into some deep dark place filled with doom, gloom and misery. My personal feeling on Mom blogging is if Erma Bombeck were alive today, she’d be a blogger too and would hopefully approve of the path I’ve chosen to take.

momlogic.com