Muammer Guler said Saturday around 100 other people were injured in the two car bomb explosions and that 29 of them are in serious condition.

The blasts raised fears that Syria's brutal civil war violence was crossing into its neighbor, but Turkey's prime minister hasn't ruled out that it could be related to peace talks with Kurdish rebels.

The West African nation was on track to record growth of 5.3 percent last year, before a military coup and lagging demand for cashew nuts - its primary export - slashed that to 2.6 percent, according to the government.

Wedged between Guinea and Senegal on West Africa's coast, Guinea Bissau is among the world's poorest countries. It has endured years of instability and has become a major hub for trafficking South American cocaine to Europe.

"A rebound in cashew nut exports and the renewal of budget support from regional partners should contribute to an increase in gross domestic product growth to a rate of 3.5 percent in 2013," said Mauricio Villafuerte, who headed the IMF mission to the country of 1.6 million people.

Cashew production, most of which is shipped to India, accounts for around 90 percent of Guinea Bissau's export revenues and employs some 80 percent of its population.

In April last year, the military arrested then Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior and acting President Raimundo Pereira during an election that Gomes Junior was poised to win.

The coup led to sanctions and a suspension of aid by donors, though regional powers have since re-established ties with a transitional civilian authority meant to lead the country to elections now due by the end of the year.

Villafuerte said mid-term growth prospects hinged on improvements in the political and security situation and the renewal of support from traditional partners.

Donors including the European Union, once a source of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the state, refuse to recognise the transitional administration.

TORONTO (Reuters) - There is little room for panic in the National Hockey League (NHL) playoffs and the battle-hardened Boston Bruins are showing just how valuable experience is as they chase a second Stanley Cup in three seasons.

The Bruins fell into an early hole during a pivotal road game against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday but battled back for an exhilarating 4-3 overtime victory that gave the visitors a 3-1 stranglehold in the best-of-seven series.

"It's not how you start, it's how you finish," Bruins captain Zdeno Chara, who had four assists, told reporters.

"It's a 60-minute game, and sometimes more than that, so all of us kind've tried to put that first 20 minutes behind us and focus on the next period and go from there."

The Maple Leafs, in the playoffs for the first time in nine years and desperately trying to square the first-round series, jumped out to a 2-0 lead with a pair of first-period goals.

But the Bruins stormed back with a three-goal second period and, after allowing a Toronto goal with under three minutes to play in the middle frame, entered the third period tied 3-3.

Before the game, the Bruins roster had 1,330 games of NHL playoff experience, including five players with more than 100 each. By contrast, the three Maple Leafs with the most playoff experience had played a combined 121 games.

The contrast in experience was clearly evident during the late stages. Boston never panicked even as the Maple Leafs pressed for the go-ahead goal, only to be denied time and time again by Finnish goalie Tuukka Rask.

"We know we have so much experience on this team, but it's how you use that experience that is important," Bruins forward David Krejci told reporters after scoring the overtime winner to complete his hat trick.

"I think we used it well tonight, but Tuukka also made some great saves. If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have even been in overtime."

For the Bruins, the win means they can avoid a trip back to Toronto for a Game Six with a win at home on Friday that would put them in the Eastern Conference semi-final for the first time since winning the Stanley Cup in 2011.

This season marks the sixth consecutive year the Bruins are in the playoffs, the franchise's longest stretch since their NHL-record span of 29 consecutive seasons from 1968-1996.

The Bruins' experience was not lost on the Maple Leafs, a team that does not have history on its side with Boston owning a 15-2 record when leading a best-of-seven series 3-1.

"There is obviously a bit of a learning curve," Toronto forward Joffrey Lupul, who opened the scoring less than three minutes into the game, told reporters. "In the playoffs the more experienced guys tend to have a little bit of an advantage but that's not an excuse at all."

(Editing by Julian Linden)

Why does a joint replacement cost 40 times as much at one hospital as at another across the country? It's a mystery, federal health officials say.

"It doesn't make sense," Jonathan Blum, Medicare deputy administrator, said Wednesday. The higher charges don't reflect better care, he said.

And the amounts are too huge to be explained by obvious differences among hospitals, such as a more expensive regional economy, older or sicker patients, or the extra costs of running a teaching hospital, he said.

The average charges for joint replacement range from about $5,300 at an Ada, Okla., hospital to $223,000 in Monterey Park, Calif., the Department of Health and Human Services said. That doesn't include doctors' fees.

Hospitals within the same city also vary greatly. At Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, the average charge to treat a blood clot in a lung is $51,580. Down the street at NYU Hospitals Center, the charge for the same care would be $29,869.

At the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the list price is $16,861.

That isn't necessarily what you pay.

Medicare pays hospitals on its own fee schedule that isn't based on the listed charges, Blum said. And insurance companies routinely negotiate discount rates with the hospitals.

But patients who are uninsured can be billed the full amount. And some with private insurance may find their share of the bill is inflated as a result of a hospital's higher charges, officials said.

Blum said the Obama administration hopes that releasing the information, at the website www.cms.gov, will help lead to answers to the riddle of hospital pricing and pressure some hospitals to lower their charges.

The database also will help consumers shop around, he said.

The variations shouldn't be a surprise, since hospitals might violate antitrust regulations if they shared "proposed or negotiated rates" with each other, said Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association. Forty states do require or encourage hospitals to make some payment information publicly available, he said.

"The complex and bewildering interplay among 'charges,' 'rates,' 'bills' and 'payments' across dozens of payers, public and private, does not serve any stakeholder well, including hospitals," Umbdenstock said.

Consumer advocates said making the charges public is significant, even if most patients don't pay those rates.

"I think the point is to shame hospitals," said Chapin White of the nonprofit Center for Studying Health System Change.

Dr. David Goodman, co-author of the Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care, said, "It does show how crazy the system really is, and it needs some reform."

Goodman argues that hospitals should be required to go further and post the charges that patients actually pay out-of-pocket, depending on what medical coverage they have. The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy has long found wide geographic variation in Medicare payments for the similarly ill, yet people who receive more expensive care don't necessarily receive better care. Sometimes hospitals just add tests or treatments they don't really need.

A hospital's charges are akin to a car dealership's "list price." Hospitals say they frequently give discounts to the uninsured $41 billion in financial aid in 2011.

But some people pay full price, or try to afford it, because they don't know they can seek a discount, White said.

And even for those who do bargain, the listed charge "is the opening bid in the hospital's attempt to get as much money as possible out of you," he said.

At Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Md. serving an affluent community at the gates of the National Institutes of Health the average charge for simple pneumonia was $5,284. Compare that to $79,365 at Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.

The database lists the average charges for the 100 most common Medicare inpatient services at more than 3,000 hospitals. The prices, from 2011, represent about 60 percent of Medicare inpatient cases.

"Hospitals that charge two or three times the going rate will rightfully face scrutiny," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters.

And consumers will get insight into a mystifying system that too often leaves them with little way of knowing what a hospital will charge or what their insurance companies are paying for treatments, Sebelius said.

Previously, the price information that the government collects from hospitals wasn't available to the average consumer, although the data could be purchased for uses such as research, officials said.

The department also is making $87 million in federal money available as grants to states to improve their hospital rate review programs, research why hospital charges vary so much, and get more information to patients.

Todd Park, an assistant to President Barack Obama on technology issues, said he envisions entrepreneurs creating apps to help consumers compare hospitals and researchers combing through the data to explain the cost differences.

"Transparent marketplaces are more competitive, and more competitive marketplaces drive down costs," Park told reporters at the White House. "And that's certainly the hope here."

___

Online:

CMS data: http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/Medicare-Provider-Charge-Data/index.html

___

Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ConnieCass

How a GOP Focus on Minorities Could Pay Off

It may seem contrarian, but Republicansby focusing on winning over African-Americans with an aspirational agenda that includes education reform, economic growth and faith-based initiatives. 

In fact, a new , which reports record-high turnout among blacks along with lagging white turnout in the 2012 presidential election, underlines the point.

The study suggests that the historic nature of President Obamas candidacy raised African-American turnout to historic levels that arent likely to be replicated. If a future Republican nominee got merely 10 percent of the black vote, with lower turnout levels, swing states like Ohio, Florida, Virginia and perhaps even Pennsylvania could flip. A more relatable nominee may also increase turnout among working-class whites.

Latinos, despite their growing numbers, still lag behind in turnout, and immigration reform is one way to focus on that piece of the puzzle. But policy items like education reform, which may appeal to a broader population of minority voters, could be a productive ticket for Republicans and should not be ignored.

Josh Kraushaar

KARZAI: AFGHAN GOVERNMENT VERY GRATEFUL FOR CIA FUNDS. Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed a report by The New York Times that the United States has been making monthly payments to the Afghan National Security Council for the past decade, the Associated Press reports. Karzai said that the monthly sums were "a small amount," and have been "very useful, and we are grateful for it." The CIA, which has reportedly provided tens of millions of dollars in payments to the Afghan council, declined to comment on the report.

MISHA: I HAD NO ROLE IN BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING. The mysterious Misha who reportedly helped to radicalize Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev is Mikhail Allakhverdov, The New York Review of Books Christian Caryl reports. I wasnt his teacher. If I had been his teacher, I would have made sure he never did anything like this, Allakhverdov said. Ive been cooperating entirely with the FBI. I gave them my computer and my phone and everything I wanted to show I havent done anything. And they said they are about to return them to me. And the agents who talked told me they are about to close my case.

GARY PETERS TO ANNOUNCE SENATE BID. Rep. Gary Peters, D-Mich., will announce this week that he will run to replace retiring Sen. Carl Levin, sources tell The Hotline, giving Democrats another top recruit in a state critical to their hopes of keeping the Senate next year. Peters, a three-term House member from the Detroit suburbs, will be the first major-party candidate to jump in the race. And he's likely to have the Democratic primary to himself. Republicans have yet to settle on a candidate of their own. Reps. Mike Rogers and Justin Amash are both considering a bid.

NBAS COLLINS INSPIRED BY JOE KENNEDY TO COME OUT. National Basketball Association player Jason Collins, who came out as gay in a Sports Illustrated story published Monday, was influenced by the decision of his former college roommate, Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., to march in Bostons Gay Pride parade last year, The Washington Post reports. Im seldom jealous of others, but hearing what Joe had done filled me with envy. I was proud of him for participating but angry that as a closeted gay man I couldnt even cheer my straight friend on as a spectator, Collins wrote. The White House commended Collinss decision today.

FIVE THINGS TO WATCH AT SANFORD-COLBERT BUSCH DEBATE. The only debate in the special congressional race between Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, a Republican, and Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch is Monday night at 7 p.m., and The Washington Posts Sean Sullivan has five things to watch out for, including whether Sanford can shift the momentum and how Colbert Busch will perform under the spotlight.

MORE GROUPS PLOT TO DODGE SEQUESTER CUTS. Now, with two sequester adjustmentsthe FAA and meat inspectorsonthe books, other special-interest groups, unions, and lobbyists areplanning to rev up their efforts to undo the cuts bit by bit or, in thiscase, by a few billion dollars here or there. The actions of the FAA inthe past week, alongside airline groups and unions, offer a playbookfor others to use as they too seek exemptions, National Journals Nancy Cook reports. 

OBAMA AT WHCD: WE CAN DO BETTER. President Obama closed hisremarks at the White House Correspondents Dinner not with humor butwith a 607-word morality bomb, National Journals Ron Fournierwrites. If were only focused on profits or ratings or polls, thepresident noted, then were contributing to the cynicism that so manypeople feel right now. The remarks, which received less attention thanthe evenings jokes, may stand as one of the best rhetorical moments ofObamas presidency, a clearheaded indictment of four nationalinstitutions (the media, the entertainment industry, big business, andthe political system), coupled by a prescription for revival, Fournierwrites.

OCONNOR HAS MISGIVINGS ABOUT BUSH V. GORE. During a recent interview with the Chicago Tribune editorial board, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor expressed reservations over the Court accepting Bush v. Gore in 2000. "It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue. Maybe the court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, good-bye,'" OConnor told the board. It turned out the election authorities in Florida hadn't done a real good job there and kind of messed it up. And probably the Supreme Court added to the problem at the end of the day.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS LINK CLIMATE CHANGE TO TRANSACTIONAL SEX, DISEASE. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., along with 11 Democratic cosponsors, introducedrecently highlighting the particular dangers of climate change for women and asserting support for the plight of female farmers. According to the resolution, women who are food-insecure, and with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health.

CONSUMER-CONFIDENCE NUMBERS OUT. The monthly gauge of consumer sentiment is due out tomorrow, and the numbers from the Conference Board are expected to show a slight rise from Marchfrom 59.7 to 62.0, according to The Wall Street Journal.

KERRY TO HOST MEETING WITH JORDANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER. Secretary of StateJohn Kerry will hold a bilateral meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh at the State Department. Closed press. He will also hold a bilateral meeting with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, also at the State Department.

My wife, my family, I got one of the biggest liberal families in the world, but I had more money when Bush and Reagan was president. I shouldnt have said that, my wife is going to kill me for that. Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson on Obama. ()

FROM DRUG-WAR INFORMANT TO FUGITIVE. On the run from his native country and abandoned by his adopted home, Luis Octavio Lpez Vega, 64, lives in intentional obscurity, his former face vanished with a face-lift over a decade ago, writes Ginger Thompson for The New York Times. But what separates Lpez from numerous other immigrants living unregistered in the western United States is that Lpez is hiding from the authorities with whom he once worked closely. Lpez was a senior adviser to Mexicos drug czar of the 1990s, Jess Gutirrez Rebollo, while also working as a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration informant. When Rebollo was arrested in 1997 in what was considered the biggest drug-trafficking case in Mexican history, the DEA secretly helped Lpez and his family escape across the border in exchange for his cooperation with the investigation. Then the agency severed its ties. Lpez has been a fugitive ever since and the DEA denies any knowledge of his whereabouts.

Career Highlights

Of Interest

SARAH PALIN HATED NERD PROM, BUT THESE PEOPLE DIDNT. The Washington Post photographers blanketed the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, from the , to the , to the . Because what other red carpet would feature bothand the ; what other dinner party would feature New York Mayor Michael BloombergBarbra Streisand; and what other events after-party would featureJon Bon Jovi and Geraldo Rivera?

The FAA said Saturday that it has suspended all employee furloughs and that traffic facilities will begin returning to regular staffing levels over the next 24 hours. The furloughs were fallout from the $85 billion in automatic-across-the-board spending cuts this spring. The bill, passed on Friday, allows the FAA to move as much as $253 million within its budget to areas that will allow it to prevent reduced operations and staffing.

The furloughs started to hit air traffic controllers this past week, causing flight delays that left thousands of travelers frustrated and furious. Planes were forced to take off and land less frequently, so as not to overload the remaining controllers on duty.

The FAA had no choice but to cut $637 million as its share of $85 billion in automatic, government-wide spending cuts that must be achieved by the end of the federal budget year on Sept. 30.

Flight delays piled up across the country Sunday and Monday of this week as the FAA kept planes on the ground because there weren't enough controllers to monitor busy air corridors. Cascading delays held up flights at some of nation's busiest airports, including New York, Baltimore and Washington. Delta Air Lines canceled about 90 flights Monday because of worries about delays. Just about every passenger was rebooked on another Delta flight within a couple of hours. Air travel was smoother Tuesday.

Things could have been worse. A lot of people who had planned to fly this week changed their plans when they heard that air travel might be difficult, according to longtime aviation consultant Daniel Kasper of Compass Lexicon.

"Essentially what happened from an airline's perspective is that people who were going to travel didn't travel," he said. But canceled flights likely led to lost revenue for airlines. Even if they didn't have to incur some of costs of fueling up planes and getting them off the ground, crews that were already scheduled to work still had to paid.

"One week isn't going to kill them, but had it gone on much longer, it would have been a significant hit on their revenues and profits," Kasper said.

It's also a toll on travelers. At New York's LaGuardia airport on Friday, traveler Roger Bentley said "getting on a flight and being delayed really puts people on the spot. It puts people on the edge and makes people edgy and that's not something I want."

The challenges this week probably cost airlines less than disruptions from a typical winter storm, said John F. Thomas, an aviation consultant with L.E.K. Consulting.

"I think the fact that it got resolved this week has minimized the cost as it was more the inconvenience factor," Thomas said.

The budget cuts at the FAA were required under a law enacted two years ago as the government was approaching its debt limit. Democrats were in favor of raising the debt limit without strings attached so as not to provoke an economic crisis, but Republicans insisted on substantial cuts in exchange. The compromise was to require that every government "program, project and activity" with some exceptions, like Medicare be cut equally.

The FAA had reduced the work schedules of nearly all of its 47,000 employees by one day every two weeks, including 15,000 air traffic controllers, as well as thousands of air traffic supervisors, managers and technicians who keep airport towers and radar facility equipment working. That amounted to a 10 percent cut in hours and pay.

Republicans accused the Obama administration of forcing the furloughs to raise public pressure on Congress to roll back the budget cuts. Critics of the FAA insist the agency could have reduce its budget in other ways that would not have inconvenience travelers including diverting money from other accounts, such as those devoted to research, commercial space transportation and modernization of the air traffic control computers.

President Barack Obama chided lawmakers Saturday over their fix for widespread flight delays, deeming it an irresponsible way to govern, dubbing it a "Band-Aid" and a quick fix, rather than a lasting solution to the spending cuts known as the sequester.

"Republicans claimed victory when the sequester first took effect, and now they've decided it was a bad idea all along," Obama said, singling out the GOP even though the bill passed with overwhelming Democratic support in both chambers.

He scolded lawmakers for helping the Federal Aviation Administration while doing nothing to replace other cuts that he said harm federal employees, unemployed workers and preschoolers in Head Start.

A preview of the measures provided by administration officials Tuesday includes increasing criminal sentences for those convicted of tax-related identity theft and creating new civil penalties for those who file fraudulent returns.

The IRS would be able to assess a $5,000 civil penalty for each incidence of identity theft.

Under the plan, the government would also limit access to Social Security Administration files on deceased individuals that have been used by those seeking fraudulent refunds. Instead, the files that the SSA compiles would be available immediately only to those who legitimately need the information for fraud prevention purposes. All other users would have to wait three years for access.

The proposal would also revise the W-2 form that employers must provide the IRS so that it includes an "identifying number" for each employee rather than the employee's Social Security number.

As of the end of 2012 the IRS had more than 3,000 employees working on identity theft issues, more than double from the previous year.

The tax agency says that in 2012 it prevented $20 billion in fraudulent returns, including those related to identity theft, compared to $14 billion the previous year.It says that it stopped 5 million suspicious returns in 2012, up from 3 million in 2011.

The Yankees said Cervelli needs surgery and will miss a minimum of six weeks. Nova left his outing against the Blue Jays after allowing a single to the second batter of the third inning. He will have an MRI later Friday.

After allowing a ground single up the middle to Rajai Davis, trainer Steve Donohue and manager Joe Girardi immediately ran out to the mound, and Nova walked off without hesitation.

Nova gave up two runs and four hits in two-plus innings.

Cervelli was holding his throwing hand just above his knee when Davis fouled a pitch straight back. Cervelli immediately looked at his hand and flexed it several times. Girardi and a trainer checked out Cervelli before Girardi waved to the bullpen for backup catcher Chris Stewart.

The batterymates join a long list of Yankees on the disabled list. New York has been without All-Stars Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixiera since the beginning of the season.

Kevin Youkilis was not available for the sixth straight game because of lower back tightness, and he may be headed to the disabled list Saturday.

Cervelli spent nearly all of 2012 at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but he got off to a solid start this year and earned most of the playing time over Stewart after the Yankees let Gold Glover Russell Martin leave to free agency last winter.

Cervelli was hitting .269 with three homers and eight RBIs entering Friday. And, a night earlier, Girardi complimented the job he did behind the plate to help Hiroki Kuroda work through a rocky beginning to his start.

There was no word on a replacement for Cervelli but, Triple-A catcher Austin Romine was lifted from his game after one at-bat.

Hackable Wardrobes: The PBS online series OffBook has aon wearable technology, touching on Google Glass, conductive yarns, body-monitoring devices, DIY wearables, light-up neckties and more, all in less than six minutes. Featuring supercool , among others. A great crash course in one of the most gloriously geeky trends going.

A Toast To Technology: An app calledtaps into data from RateBeer.com to help you create a heat map of your preferences over the beer space. A data visualization project with a practical payoff: how refreshing. Via .

Demonizing Bieber: Evolver.fms Eliot Van Buskirk, the all-out king of comprehensive music-app coverage, highlights a funny hack-day creation called . Basically it converts standard vocal tracks into a super-demonic, screamo-metal style. The proof-of-concept clip brutalizes a snippet of a Justin Bieber song into pure demonic menace. The motive seems to be catharsis: Do you hate Justin Bieber or pop music in general? the creators write. Here is your chance at revenge!