AP Top News at 9:12 p.m. EST

WellPoint insurance hike becomes target for Obama

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) _ Health insurer WellPoint blames the Great Recession and rising medical costs for its planned 39 percent rate increase for some California customers. To President Barack Obama, however, it's Exhibit A in his campaign to revive the health care overhaul. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who received the company's explanation in a letter Thursday, said "it remains difficult to understand" how premium increases of that size by can be justified when WellPoint Inc. reported a $2.7 billion profit in the last quarter of 2009.

Stolen plane, chalk-drawn feet: Teen burglar back?

SEATTLE (AP) _ A stolen airplane found in the San Juan Islands and chalk-outline feet drawn all over a burgled grocery store suggest that Washington's infamous teenage "barefoot burglar" is back at it. Authorities across western Washington state have been hoping to catch alleged bandit Colton Harris-Moore since the lanky 18-year-old escaped from a halfway house in April 2008. Since then, he's suspected in scores of burglaries, many of them near his home on Camano Island and in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle. Investigators believe he more recently turned to joyriding in airplanes.

Army discharging single mom who refused deployment

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) _ A single-mom soldier who says she refused to deploy to Afghanistan because she had no family able to care for her young son will be discharged from the military instead of facing a court-martial, the Army said Thursday. Spc. Alexis Hutchinson, an Army cook stationed at Hunter Army Airfield in Savannah, was arrested in November after skipping her unit's deployment flight. Hutchinson, 21, said she couldn't leave her son because her mother had backed out of plans to keep the child a few days before the soldier's scheduled departure.

Feds pass on surest solution to Asian carp advance

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) _ The surest way to keep rampaging Asian carp from gaining a foothold in the Great Lakes is to sever the link between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River basin, created by engineers in Chicago more than a century ago. That would thrill environmentalists and those who make their living in the $7 billion Great Lakes fishing industry, which could be devastated by a carp invasion. Not so the barge operators who move millions of tons of commodities on the Chicago-area waterways each year.

Police: Iowa mom accused of pimping daughter

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) _ A Cedar Rapids woman was accused of arranging her daughter's effort at prostitution. Mary J. Doolin was arrested Wednesday in connection with a Sept. 29 incident in Coralville. Police said Doolin sent her daughter to meet an undercover officer who had contacted her during a prostitution investigation. According to police, Doolin's daughter, 37-year-old Debra Voshell, was later charged with pandering. Police said Doolin admitted to running a prostitution ring for a number of years and has prior convictions for pimping and prostitution.

Vonn tests shin on skis for 1st time since injury

WHISTLER, British Columbia (AP) _ Each step was noted with enthusiasm, seen as a sign Thursday that, yes, Lindsey Vonn might very well compete in five Olympic races, might be able to think once again about medals, not medicine. Painkillers and a Novocaine-like numbing cream for the American's badly bruised right shin? They seemed to dull the aching. Wearing ski boots, something painful and depressing every time she tried it last week? She yanked them on and did a course inspection.