WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Tuesday that she talked to three healthcare companies about a private nonprofit group helping to implement healthcare reform, but she denied asking for donations.

In her first public comments on an issue Republicans have sought to portray as a scandal, Sebelius vigorously defended her efforts to rally private support for a summer outreach campaign to persuade uninsured Americans to sign up for subsidized health coverage through new online state insurance marketplaces.

Republicans in the House of Representatives have launched a probe of her fundraising efforts, while party members in both the House and Senate have asked for outside probes to determine whether the secretary was illegally trying to circumvent Congress or violated ethics rules by seeking funds from companies she regulates.

In testimony before the House Education and the Workplace Committee, President Barack Obama's top healthcare adviser said her actions were sanctioned by long-standing health law and match steps taken by her predecessors to promote new program roll-outs in the past, including Medicare drug benefits.

"I could legally solicit funds from anybody regulated by our office. I chose not to do that. But promoting a public-private partnership? You bet," Sebelius said.

Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is expected to extend health coverage to well over 25 million uninsured Americans during the next decade through subsidized marketplaces and an expansion of the Medicaid program for the poor.

But as administration officials have raced to implement the law by January 1, Republicans have repeatedly blocked public money for the effort and now accuse Sebelius of seeking private support for implementation in an attempt to circumvent them.

The Department of Health and Human Services has said that since March, Sebelius phoned the nonprofit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and tax adviser H&R Block to seek financial assistance for Enroll America, which will serve as a private sector flagship for a campaign coordinated with outreach efforts by states and the federal government.

"Those are the only two conversations I've had about contributing resources," she told lawmakers.

Neither the foundation nor H&R Block is regulated by HHS.

But Sebelius disclosed on Tuesday that she also phoned medical products maker Johnson & Johnson, Catholic health system Ascension Health and private healthcare system Kaiser Permanente to talk about Enroll America. All three are regulated by HHS, but the secretary said she asked none for money.

Johnson & Johnson spokesman Ernie Knewitz said Sebelius talked to the company in April and that it has made no contribution to Enroll America. Ascension Health and Kaiser Permanente had no immediate comment.

CONVERSATIONS ACROSS AMERICA

Representative Tom Price, a Georgia Republican, asked about media reports that she solicited funds from the healthcare industry.

"No, sir. That is not true," she replied.

Representative Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican, wanted to know what she would say if healthcare executives felt pressured to contribute money: "Your response would be what? That they're just too easily pressured or that they misunderstood the conversation?"

"I can't answer what they felt," Sebelius said. "I have had conversations with people all across this country including insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and others using the statutory authority that is clearly given to the secretary of health."

In tense questioning, Gowdy pressed Sebelius to identify who in the administration she consulted in planning the fundraising phone calls: "I'm looking for a name. Can I get a name? I'm looking for a name and you said we'. Who's we? Did you ever discuss it with anyone at the White House?" he asked.

"No, sir," she replied.

Separately, Senator Orrin Hatch, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees healthcare, said Sebelius had effectively admitted pressuring companies she regulates. "That's bullying plain and simple and promotes a pay to play' environment that undermines the public trust in government," Hatch said in a statement.

Enroll America, closely aligned with the Obama administration, has dozens of supporters from healthcare companies to special interest organizations such as AARP, the lobby group for older Americans.

It has been trying to raise money for an outreach effort expected to get under way late in June as government officials prepare to open the new marketplaces for enrollment on October 1.

Reform advocates say the effort is crucial to the success of the marketplaces, or exchanges, which are the lynchpin for the future of the entire reform package.

"It was always recognized from the day the president signed the bill that there would never be enough government funding and that there would not be enough opportunity if this is only a government-run program," Sebelius said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Dan Grebler)

Now, home-ice advantage is gone. So is their lead over the Bruins in the Stanley Cup finals.

Daniel Paille fired a shot past Corey Crawford's glove to give the Bruins a 2-1 overtime victory on Saturday night and tie the series at 1-1 with Game 3 coming up Monday night in Boston.

"You've got to kind of swallow this one and move on," said Patrick Sharp, who scored his ninth goal of the postseason. "We know what's on the line in this series and going into Boston's going to be tough, but we're ready for the challenge. We'll find a way to be better for Game 3."

The Blackhawks squeezed out a 4-3 triple-overtime thriller in Game 1 but couldn't pull this one out, with their stars once again invisible, much like their power play.

Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane were quiet again, just as they were in the opener, and the Blackhawks couldn't take advantage when they had the advantage. They were 0 for 3 on the power play for the second straight game and are now 7 for 57 in the postseason.

As if that's not enough, here's some more bad news for the Blackhawks. Teams winning Game 2 of the finals have gone on to win the Stanley Cup in 55 of 73 years (75.3 percent of the time) since the best-of-7 format started in 1939.

The Blackhawks can't blame Crawford for this one, though. He was just fine in net, stopping 26 shots, after coming through with a terrific performance in Game 1.

The problem was the Blackhawks couldn't convert and, looking tired late in the game, made a series of blunders, including a turnover that led to Paille's winning goal. They outshot Boston 35-28 for the game and really came out firing in the early going, blistering the Bruins 19-4 in the first period, but all they had to show for it was Sharp's goal. Just over a minute after he scored, Jonathan Toews' wraparound was stopped by Rask. Hossa appeared to poke the rebound in, but the whistle had sounded before the puck crossed the goal line with the goalie covering it.

Otherwise, Rask was simply outstanding in net again, getting through that early siege and finishing with 33 saves.

"It does get frustrating," Chicago's Dave Bolland said. "You're getting pucks at the net. Things aren't going in. You do get a sense of frustration. That frustration, you have to leave it alone and you've got to keep throwing it at the net. You hit a hot goalie, you hit a hot goalie."

The Blackhawks sure have hit their share of late but simply kept rolling along.

They had won eight of nine after falling behind 3-1 to Detroit in the Western Conference semifinals, taking out Jonathan Quick and the defending champion Los Angeles Kings in five games before winning that epic opener in this series.

They simply ran out of steam in this one.

"We just didn't continue playing the way we were playing," Toews said. "We let them have the puck a little bit too often. And you, know, we didn't hang on to it. We didn't move our feet with the puck. We were too easy to check."

He thought the whistle was "a little too quick" on that wraparound. Hossa said he didn't hear it blow and thought he had a goal.

"I just tried to battle for the space, and all of a sudden, I saw the loose puck," he said. "I tried to put my stick at the puck. I just felt the puck was crossing the line, and the refs ... decided no goal."

Instead of having a solid lead in the game, they were clinging to a narrow margin. And now, instead of having a big lead in the series, they are knotted up and packing for Boston.

It would help if their top stars converted on offense. Sharp and Hossa each have 15 points. So does Kane, but four of his six goals came in the final two games against Los Angeles. Toews, meanwhile, has found the back of the net just once.

"We know what we're getting ourselves into heading to Boston and how well they play in their building, but it's not going to change our mindset at all," Sharp said. "We're going to play our best game, we're going to have to. There a good team over there, so I don't think anyone's expecting anything different."

The musical is based on an obscure 2005 British film about a British shoe factory on the brink of ruin that retrofits itself into a maker of footwear for drag queens.

Lauper, whose hits include "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "True Colors," teamed up with playwright Harvey Fierstein to craft a story about sons and fathers, bonding at work and red patent leather.

Lauper's catchy, pop-rock 15-song soundtrack ranges from the ballad "I'm Not My Father's Son" to the pulsating "The Sex Is in the Heel" and the disco "Raise You Up/Just Be."

"Kinky Boots" beat out musical versions of "Matilda," ''Bring It On" and "A Christmas Story."

The statements by Naftali Bennett, economics minister and leader of the Jewish Home party, chime with similar sentiments expressed by other officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government and come as the United States is trying to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

"The idea that a Palestinian state will arise inside the land of Israel has reached a dead end," Bennett said Monday at a meeting of the Yesha settlement group. "Never in the history of Israel have so many people dealt with so much energy with something so pointless," he said.

Talks collapsed about five years ago over the core issue of Jewish housing in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territory Israel captured from Jordan in 1967 and which Palestinians envision for a future state. The Palestinians refuse to return to talks unless construction there stops.

Israel says settlements and all other issues like security can only be resolved through dialogue and has frequently called for peace talks to resume without preconditions. Some Israelis cite security, religious and historic reasons for their opposition to a Palestinian state.

Many Israelis are concerned that violent groups will fill the vacuum if Israel withdraws from areas it controls. The Islamic militant group Hamas eventually took over the Gaza Strip after Israel left it in 2005. Hamas is defined as a terrorist organization by the U.S., EU and others due to its suicide bombings, shooting and rocket attacks aimed at civilians that have killed hundreds.

Bennett said that the policy of Israeli land concessions and withdrawals has failed. "Terrorists entered everywhere that Israel withdrew from."

"The most important thing in the land of Israel is to build and build and build," he added. "Israel's biggest problem regarding Judea and Samaria was and remains the lack of willingness by Israeli leaders to say in a simple way that the land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel," Bennett said, referring to the West Bank territory by its biblical names.

Last week, Netanyahu's deputy defense minister and member of his own Likud party, Danny Danon, said "there is certainly no majority" in the Likud for establishing a Palestinian state based on Israel's borders before the 1967 Mideast war.

"A Palestinian state on the 1967 lines is something dangerous for Israel, and therefore I oppose that idea," Danon told Channel 2 TV. He said it was possible that the broader coalition government, which includes other hard-line parties, also opposes a return to the 1967 lines.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shuttled between Israel and the Palestinians to try to resume talks. His return to the region has been postponed.

The Palestinians' chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, condemned Benett's remarks. "These are not isolated events but a reaffirmation of political platforms and radical beliefs. Israel has officially declared the death of the two-state solution," he said.

The state's highest court said a group of Democrats have until Monday to file a motion seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that Christie acted within his authority when he called the special election.

Christie set the special election for October 16, three weeks before voters head to the polls for the November 5 general election in which he is seeking a second term.

"It's going to be chaos and confusion," said Somerset County Democratic Party chairwoman Peg Schaffer. "It's two registration deadlines. Two mail-in vote deadlines, two sets of ballots. It's just unnecessary."

Democrats believe the Republican governor called the special election to avoid appearing on the ballot in the November election at the same time as popular Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a Democrat.

Booker is currently the front-runner for Democrat Lautenberg's seat, according to a Quinnipiac poll. His candidacy was expected to bring a large number of Democrats and minorities to the polls, potentially tightening Christie's race against Democratic challenger Barbara Buono.

Schaffer said holding two elections will likely suppress voter turnout at the general election by about 10 to 12 percent.

"That's bad for everyone, but it's historically bad for us," the Democrat said.

The governor's office expressed confidence the Supreme Court would uphold the lower court's decision.

"Governor Christie followed the law as established by the legislature and ensured New Jersey voters would have a voice and a choice - in both a primary and general election - in selecting the next U.S. senator for New Jersey," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak.

Christie could have filled Lautenberg's seat through the end of his term next year, but instead designated former Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa, a Republican, to hold the seat temporarily until a new election could take place.

The special election, which includes an August primary and the October balloting, will cost $24 million to administer.

The high court's decision was expected as early as next week.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Jackie Frank)

DALLAS (Reuters) - Breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which suffered a publicity backlash last year after it sought to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, said on Tuesday it was canceling fundraising walks next year in seven cities where money goals have not been met.

The organization, which says it is the largest non-government funder of breast cancer research, said it was cutting three-day walks for 2014 in Phoenix, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Tampa Bay, San Francisco and Washington. The event will continue in seven other places.

"The difficult decision to exit these markets was not made lightly, as we know this bold and empowering event has touched the lives of thousands of participants like you," the Dallas-based group said in a message on its Facebook page.

A Komen spokeswoman said in an email that participation in the three-day walks declined by 37 percent in the past four years, without specifying whether that was the number of participants or dollars raised. The group decided to remove the cities from next year's schedule that have not been meeting fundraising goals, the spokeswoman said.

It was unclear what the group's fundraising targets were for the walks. Each participant is required to raise a minimum of $2,300 and walks about 60 miles over the three days.

The charity sparked an outcry last year when it said it would cut funding to Planned Parenthood, a provider of birth control, abortion and other women's health services.

Komen, which supports Planned Parenthood's efforts to provide access to breast-cancer screening, reversed that decision within days and said it would restore the funding.

After the controversy, several of the group's leaders stepped down, and the group's founder, Nancy Brinker, stepped down as CEO, though she continued to hold a management role.

Brinker founded the organization in 1982, two years after her sister, Susan G. Komen, died of breast cancer.

Komen's signature event is the Race for the Cure, which includes 5 kilometers and marathon races as well as the walks. The group says the events involve more than 1.7 million participants each year.

Komen will continue to hold walks in Atlanta, Dallas/Fort Worth, Michigan, Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

(Editing by Edith Honan and Cynthia Osterman)

(Reuters) - Biotech stocks are so hot that even some of the bulls are starting to find themselves on edge.

An index of biotech drugmakers' shares has climbed nearly 50 percent in the past 12 months to all-time highs as the industry starts to launch drugs developed by identifying genes associated with disease - a revolution made possible by decoding the first human genome more than 10 years ago.

The rise at such a fast pace is triggering the inevitable talk of a bubble, especially when investors are reminded that more than 90 percent of experimental drugs that reach mid-stage testing in humans do not make it past that point.

"Genetic information is providing a big opportunity for new drug development," said Rajiv Kaul, portfolio manager of Fidelity Investments Select Biotechnology Portfolio, in Boston. "There are exciting new opportunities, but you also need to be careful because most drugs fail."

Compared with a year ago, the Nasdaq Biotech Index, which is weighted by market cap, is up 45 percent, the dollar-weighted Arca Biotech Index has risen 35 percent, and the Pharmaceutical Index of large U.S. and European drugmakers' shares has increased 32 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 Index has gained 25 percent.

A more favorable regulatory environment and lower capital costs are helping fuel the rally. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved 39 drugs last year - a record beaten only in 1996. Deutsche Bank, meanwhile, estimates that interest costs for large-cap biotechs to borrow in the capital markets are about 2 percent lower today than in 2007, and are likely to remain there for several more years.

Still, with the Nasdaq Biotech Index trading well above its previous all-time peak in 2000 - just before the epic dot-com bust - some investors are thinking about locking in profits.

"The biotech industry is in good shape, but there's going to be a pause in news from medical conferences after ASCO (the American Society of Clinical Oncology), and I am thinking of taking profits on some of the large biotech names and switching some of the money into mid-cap companies," said Nathalie Flury, manager of the Julius Baer Biotech Fund at Swiss & Global Asset Management, in Zurich. "There are no big conferences to provide catalysts between June and August."

The annual ASCO meeting, where companies unveil their latest cancer drug research, will take place in early June in Chicago.

"I still think the sector has some room to grow, but it is not going to be as easy as it has been," said David Heupel, senior healthcare analyst at Thrivent Investment Management, in Minneapolis.

He and others said the sector's latest run-up is also being prompted by a newfound attraction to medical biotech from managers of general-interest mutual funds hunting for strong earnings growth potential.

"The reason is because they are looking for significant earnings growth, driven by new products over the next few years at Gilead, Biogen and Celgene," said Michael Yee, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, in San Francisco.

BEST AND WORST BUSINESS

Gilead Sciences, the world's largest maker of branded HIV drugs, is viewed as the leader in a race to develop a more safe and effective therapy for hepatitis C, a market Wall Street expects to garner billions of dollars in annual sales.

Short interest - a potential red flag that measures shares borrowed by investors expecting a price drop - has changed little over the past year for large-cap biotechs, standing at 2.3 percent of outstanding shares in early May, according to Jefferies & Co.

Short interest in biotech companies with market caps between $2 billion and $10 billion has fallen to 9.2 percent from 11.3 percent in the past 12 months, while short interest for companies with market caps of $500 million to $2 billion has increased to 15.2 percent from 12.7 percent over the past year.

Wall Street analysts estimate that shares of large-cap Gilead, which have more than doubled over the past year, trade at about 26 times 2013 earnings and 12 times 2015 earnings.

"That type of earnings growth is very impressive," Yee said. "And it all comes against a backdrop of a really tough macro-environment."

Concerns about overall consumer sentiment have served to cool investor interest in other growth-oriented sectors, including technology. The S&P Information Technology Sector Index has gained about 13 percent in the past year.

"That's why you are seeing more money moving into biotech," Yee said.

Even with the rally, some investors say biotech valuations remain attractive.

"These companies seem to be earning a much better return on their capital," Heupel said. "They are not off the charts expensive."

Earnings multiples for biotech shares remain well below the levels seen before the latest stock market crash in 2008.

The discount is even steeper when compared with multiples reached before the bursting of the biotech bubble in 2000. Amgen, for example, traded at an average price-to-earnings multiple of 59 in 2000, compared with its current P/E ratio of 14.4 times expected 2013 earnings, according to Deutsche Bank.

The question is how long the rally will continue.

Consensus estimates call for average combined annual earnings growth of 21 percent for biotechs in the next three years, compared with 9 percent for S&P 500 companies, according to Deutsche Bank.

"Biotech is both the worst business in the world and the best business in the world," Kaul said. "It is high risk ... but when you have a good business, there tends to be value there over long periods of time."

(Additional reporting by Ben Hirschler in London; Editing by Ed Tobin and Jan Paschal)

The effort is a continuation of the Republican State Leadership Committee's Future Majority Project, a campaign founded by GOP strategist Ed Gillespie in 2011. In the past election cycle, Gillespie's team spent $5 million to recruit 125 Hispanic candidates and 185 women. For 2014, the group announced on Thursday a goal of investing "at least" $6 million to find more than 200 minority and female candidates.

"We as a party need to do a better job of having a sustained conversation with men and women of all backgrounds in our communities where we think we can make a difference. Not only telling them to run, but offering them help. I think that's an important point that we're trying to make here: that it's not only talking, it's about action," said Jose Felix Diaz, a Republican state representative from Florida taking part in the effort. "It's a good start, but we can and must do better."

Members of Future Majority Caucus, a group chaired by New Mexico Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, held a conference this week in Austin, Texas, to outline its goals and plan for the next election season. The effort is part of a wider Republican Party effort to hit a reset button with minorities and women after the party struggled with nonwhite male demographics in the 2012 election.

Earlier this year, the National Republican Committee published a wide-ranging audit of the GOP's 2012 campaign efforts urging the party to invest significant resources into making inroads with minority communities. The party is currently seeking minorities to run for office on the state and local level and adopting a permanent presence in neighborhoods and districts that traditionally vote Democratic.

Jason Villalba, a Republican state lawmaker from Texas, said he anticipates the party will even veer away from hot-button issues like implementing voter identification laws in the future in fear that it could alienate minorities.

"We recognize as a party that those kinds of issues can become divisive," Villalba said. "I'll tell you philosophically that I'm not opposed to voter ID just because I believe it's about voter integrity, not about alienating our brothers and sisters. That being said, I also recognize the political implications of those kinds of issues and we want to avoid those issues that are perceived as divisive. So I think what you're going to see over the course of the next few election cycles is moving away from that kind of an issue."

According to a memo provided to Yahoo News, the Future Minority Project's goals for the 2013-2014 cycle include:

-Identify 200 new diverse candidates of all backgrounds. This reflects a doubling of our goals from last cycle when we initiated the project.

-FMP looks to not only recruit and encourage these candidates to runwe will help them win.

-Our goal is to elect 75 new candidates of diverse ethnicities across the country.

-Invest at least $6 million for the 2013-2014 election cycle.

It marked the first time the Malian army has fought the NMLA since the rebel group invaded northern Mali last year, forcing the military to withdraw from more than half of the country's territory, in a humiliating blow that left the armed forces in tatters. The NMLA, led by Tuaregs who have long claimed that the central government has marginalized and ignored their traditionally nomadic people, briefly declared independence before being chased out by a trio of al-Qaida-linked groups. The jihadists ruled Mali's north for nearly 10 months until January, when France launched a military intervention to liberate the occupied territory.

"Since 6:30 a.m. they are exchanging fire with heavy weapons," said the mayor of Anefis, Izga Ag Sidi, who was reached by telephone on Wednesday morning. "We are hearing the sound of artillery explosions. For the moment, they appear to be exchanging fire from a distance."

The mayor said that the fighting was taking place around 15 kilometers (9 miles) west of the village, a desolate area of white sand in a region that sits at the base of the vast Sahara desert.

The NMLA said the Malian military had opened fire on them, and had ordered its forces to leave Anefis in order to avoid civilian casualties.

"A convoy of at least 300 (Malian) army vehicles with armored personnel carriers arrived last night. We ordered our men to leave Anefis in order to make sure that the battle would take place outside of the town in order to spare the lives of the population of Anefis," said NMLA leader Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh.

A spokesman for the Malian military confirmed that the combat was continuing. "Yes, there is an operation by our forces that is ongoing in this zone since yesterday night, but I am not yet able to provide any more information," said Capt. Modibo Traore.

The NMLA invaded northern Mali in March 2012 and briefly declared the birth of a new Tuareg nation before being chased out by al-Qaida-linked forces, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb which quickly took over a territory the size of Afghanistan, imposing strict Islamic law, known as Shariah. When they were flushed out in January and February by French forces, the Malian military was able to return to two of the three largest cities in the north Timbuktu and Gao.

In a move that has created a growing divide between Mali and France, French forces were able to liberate the city of Kidal, but they stood by and did not intervene when a battalion of NMLA fighters returned to their former stronghold, quickly setting up a shadow administration, including their own governor. Kidal is now a de facto Tuareg state.

For weeks, the Malian military has been inching up towards Kidal, never getting any closer than Anefis. The NMLA has said they will go to war with the Malian army if they try to take Kidal.

___

Associated Press writer Rukmini Callimachi contributed to this report from Dakar, Senegal.

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Cook was responding to a question on government attention towards the company, which lately has been in the form of scrutiny of the company's tax dodging practices. Here's what he said, viaof Cook's interview at the conference: 

"When you get larger, you get more attention. It comes with the territory. We're doing incredible work in the environment for example. We've been focused on that for a long time...eliminated toxins from all of our products, running data centers on 100% renewable energy, largest solar farm of any non-utility. Lisa Jackson is joining Apple...she recently left the EPA and will be coordinating efforts across the company. She'll be reporting to me."

Jackson stepped down at the end of 2012 from the EPA. She was, as theexplained at the time of her resignation, something of a punching bag for the Republican-led House after the 2010 elections. She was a rumored candidate for the presidency at Princeton, but that obviously didn't happen.