LONDON (Reuters) - A senior British minister said on Sunday he would support an exit from the European Union if there were a vote on the issue, as Prime Minister David Cameron faces a revolt over Europe from lawmakers in his own party.

Up to 100 eurosceptic Conservative members of parliament are expected to back an amendment this week criticizing the legislative plans unveiled by the coalition government last Wednesday because they did not include a bill for a referendum on Britain's continued EU membership.

Ministers have been ordered not to join the rebels but will be allowed to abstain, a sign of the extent of the divisions that have dogged Cameron's party for decades.

Three senior ministers, including Education Secretary Michael Gove, said on Sunday they were ready to abstain.

Gove went further, becoming the most senior Conservative figure to publicly confirm that he would back Britain's withdrawal from the European Union if there were a vote based on the current terms of the relationship.

"I'm not happy with our position in the European Union but my preference is for a change in Britain's relationship with the European Union," said Gove, seen as a possible rival to Cameron. "Life outside would be perfectly tolerable, we could contemplate it, there would be certain advantages."

EUROPE SQUABBLE

Cameron came to power in a coalition with the pro-Europe Liberal Democrats in 2010 with a plea to his party to "stop banging on about Europe" - a squabble that helped to bring down his predecessors Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

But the prime minister has come under increasing internal pressure after the party suffered in local elections this month at the hands of the anti-EU UK Independence Party.

Cameron has promised to renegotiate Britain's relationship with the European Union and hold a plebiscite on EU membership in 2017, but eurosceptics want a vote now.

Cameron's plans depend not only on securing more favorable EU membership terms but also on forming the next government after elections in two years. The Conservatives currently trail the opposition Labor Party by around 10 percentage points in surveys.

Gove and other ministers said they fully supported Cameron's stance, but that has done nothing to dim the internal clamor.

Junior Conservatives in parliament would have free rein on whether to back the proposed amendment, but ministers had been instructed to abstain, a government source said.

One unnamed minister told the Sunday Telegraph the fact that Cameron could not even force his cabinet colleagues to vote against the motion showed the prime minister's weakness.

Former senior minister Liam Fox, who ran against Cameron in 2005 for the Conservative leadership, told Sky News he would back the amendment, but described it as "an element of frustration" rather than an overt criticism of the prime minister's position.

While more than 500 business leaders backed Cameron's renegotiation policy in April, saying a new, looser relationship would boost the British economy, others fear his referendum pledge has created uncertainty that will deter investment.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

(Reuters) - Fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer died on Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida, at age 81, her company said.

Pulitzer was known for her bright, cheerful print shift dresses that were popular with socialites and evoked a lifestyle of affluence in Florida and New York's Hamptons resorts.

Her company, named Lilly Pulitzer, also made children's wear, men's wear and household goods, often based on the same prints and bright colors.

"Early this morning, Lilly Pulitzer Rousseau passed away peacefully in Palm Beach, surrounded by family and loved ones," her company said in a statement posted on Facebook. "Lilly has been a true inspiration to us and we will miss her.

"Lilly was a true original who has brought together generations through her bright and happy mark on the world," the statement said.

It did not disclose a cause of death.

Pulitzer's designs were born when she was running a juice stand in Florida and had a sleeveless dress made from colorful printed cotton to hide the juice stains, according to the company website.

She had eloped at age 21 with publishing heir Peter Pulitzer and moved to Palm Beach, "in the shadow of Peter's citrus groves," from New York City, it said. The couple later divorced.

The classic shift dress gained international attention when first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, a former classmate of Pulitzer's, was photographed wearing one of her dresses on vacation, it said.

Her company declared bankruptcy in 1984 but was relaunched in 1992.

She and Pulitzer had three children, according to People magazine. Her second husband was hotelier Enrique Rousseau who died in 1993, according to People.

(Editing by Sandra Maler)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Healthcare reform should be the signature Democratic achievement of President Barack Obama's presidency.

But with "Obamacare" five months from show time, Democrats are worried about whether enough Americans will sign up to make the sweeping healthcare overhaul a success - and what failure might mean for Congress heading into the 2016 presidential race.

Some of the law's main advocates fear that not enough of America's 49 million uninsured will know about health coverage offered in their own states. Even if they do, new insurance plans may not be attractive to young, healthy consumers needed to offset an expected influx of older and sicker patients.

Only a handful of states are beginning campaigns to promote the online health insurance marketplaces created by the law. Known as exchanges, the markets will offer private coverage at federally subsidized rates to individuals and families with low-to-moderate incomes, with enrollment set to begin October 1.

The federal government has kept quiet about its promotion plans, which are expected to begin in earnest over the summer.

While Obama and his administration say they are working nonstop on reform, analysts believe a poor performance could make the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act a big enough campaign issue in 2014 to jeopardize Democratic control of the Senate - particularly if insurance costs rise sharply.

"There is reason to be very concerned about what's going to happen with young people. If their (insurance) premiums shoot up, I can tell you, that is going to wash into the United States Senate in a hurry," said Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

Some Democrats are frustrated about the lack of details surrounding administration plans to promote the exchanges.

Senator Max Baucus, a chief architect of the reform law, said federal outreach efforts deserve a failing grade so far and could be heading for a "huge train wreck." He criticized Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for the scant information her department has provided.

FUNDING EMBARGO

"Why in late April can't they show us any of what they've got planned? The rollout plan should already be in existence," an exasperated Democratic Senate aide said separately.

The law is expected to cover 15 million Americans next year through the exchanges and an expansion of Medicaid. The overall number is forecast to jump to 38 million by 2022.

Reform is facing challenges on several fronts. Big insurers appear wary of participating, raising questions about how competitive the exchanges will be. Businesses are mounting a new legal effort to stop the use of federal subsidies in exchanges run by Washington. And most states have balked at the exchanges and the Medicaid expansion.

Meanwhile, the enrollment effort is under threat from months of delay, a congressional Republican embargo on new funding and worries about how affordable the new plans will be, according to analysts, lawmakers, congressional aides and former officials.

"I don't see how what they're planning to do is going to be adequate. The resources are too limited, the (law's) penalties are too weak and elite opposition in much of the country will undermine" enrollment, said Paul Starr, a Princeton professor and former health adviser to President Bill Clinton.

Add to that the challenge of reaching a public that is highly skeptical and often misinformed about the most complex social legislation since Medicare and Medicaid in the mid-1960s.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 77 percent of Americans know little or nothing about exchanges, while 40 percent erroneously think reforms create a government panel to make end-of-life decisions for people on Medicare.

An April survey of 1,003 people by HealthPocket, an online company that helps consumers find insurance, also found that the law's penalty for not buying coverage would not induce most 25-to-34-year-olds or 18-to-24-year-olds to purchase it.

GLITCHES AND BUMPS

Obama this week defended the pace of implementation, telling reporters that the government was working hard to "make sure that we're hitting all the deadlines and the benchmarks" even with the challenge of building the new online exchanges.

"That's still a big, complicated piece of business," Obama said, adding the task was made harder by a dedicated Republican opposition still determined to block the law's implementation.

"Even if we do everything perfectly, there'll still be, you know, glitches and bumps," he said.

The administration is building exchanges in 33 states that are unwilling or unable to do so on their own, and has limited funds for marketing. The remaining 17 states are building their own and have received sizable budgets for outreach.

Among states taking the lead, Vermont has launched radio advertising to raise public awareness. Colorado begins its public outreach this month, while California, Maryland and the District of Columbia will hold off until later in the year.

For the federal exchanges, HHS has a contract worth at least $8 million with public relations firm Weber Shandwick and $54 million to train and pay "navigators," or counselors who will help consumers choose a health plan. It also has a $28 million contract with General Dynamics to set up a call center and will make its Healthcare.gov website consumer-oriented.

The administration is seeking help from major U.S. insurance providers to market aggressively to consumers on the federally run exchanges and help convince healthy citizens between 26 to 45 to pay for insurance instead of a first-year penalty amounting to $95 per person or 1 percent of household income.

BLOWING UP

But reform advocates worry that the HHS budget is too small and the spigot for new funding from Congress is shut off by partisan politics. The "navigator" program allocates just $600,000 each for 13 states including Delaware, Iowa, Kansas and New Hampshire.

"There's a limited amount of money that should be increased. But that's subject to appropriations and Congress is not likely to appropriate additional money," said Ron Pollack of the advocacy group Families USA. "It's going to require a very robust effort in the private sector."

Analysts say reform could be as big an issue in next year's congressional midterm elections as it was in 2010, when dislike for the law among senior citizens helped install a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. This time, failed implementation could end Democratic hopes of recapturing the House and leave enough Senate Democrats vulnerable to give Republicans an edge in that chamber.

"We have to see how bad it is. This issue blowing up on Democrats would make the Republicans' job a lot easier," said Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report.

But Democrats believe implementation will also provide favorable coverage of deserving individuals and families finally being able to secure adequate and affordable health coverage after a long sojourn through the current marketplace.

There has been encouraging news for consumers. Vermont says 2014 premium rates will save money for residents. A family of four with an annual income of $75,000 would pay less than $600 per month for coverage with a federal subsidy, versus $900 for the cheapest small group plan available today.

(Additional reporting by Sharon Begley and Caroline Humer in New York; Editing by Michele Gershberg, Mary Milliken and Lisa Shumaker)

LONDON (Reuters) - Unprecedented levels of skill, intensity and endurance have transformed global sport into spectacular mass entertainment and handsomely rewarded its leading exponents.

Now that the euphoria of last year's acclaimed London Olympics has dissipated, however, a spate of troubling stories in the first quarter of 2013 show an altogether darker and more disturbing side to a glamorous, multi-billion-dollar industry.

In January, American cyclist Lance Armstrong admitted in a television interview that he had doped before each of his record seven Tour de France victories.

His confession after years of denial followed the United States Anti-Doping Agency's (USADA) decision to strip him of the title and accuse him of being at the center of the "most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen".

A report from Australia's top criminal intelligence unit linked doping in sport with money-laundering and match-fixing after a year-long investigation. Six leading rugby league clubs, from one of the country's four football codes in a sports-obsessed nation, confirmed they were under scrutiny.

And Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, on trial in Madrid for allegedly running a doping ring in cycling, said in his opening testimony that he also had clients in soccer, tennis, athletics and boxing.

Fuentes, who said outside the court this month that he might be willing to co-operate with anti-doping authorities, is appearing in court almost seven years after steroids and blood bags were seized in an investigation code-named Operation Puerto.

"The same people who are trafficking in steroids and encouraging athletes to cheat by doping are the ones who are engaged in illegal betting," said World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) director general David Howman.

"This is essentially money-laundering, bribery and corruption in relation to match-fixing and spot-fixing."

BLACK MARKETS

At a WADA media symposium in London in February, Howman said at least 25 percent of international sport was controlled by the underworld.

"The black markets supply a lot of pharmaceutical products before they are out on the white market," he said. "That's run by the criminal underworld, so a lot of the pharmaceutical stuff comes out in that way."

Rob Koehler, the director of education and program development at WADA, told an anti-doping conference in London this month the drugs problem in sport reflected the problems of society as a whole.

"We are always trying to push the limit," he said. "Adults are cheating. Students are cheating, in fact they think they are smart if they don't get caught."

Koehler said one percent of the population as a whole was rich while the middle class was shrinking and the lower class growing. The position was similar in sport.

"Top athletes are making millions, some athletes make a modest living, most barely get by," he said. "But what some athletes used to make in their career they are now making in one year."

Doping's black heartland has traditionally been in the speed and strength sports of track and field, weightlifting and cycling.

But it has also become increasingly apparent that the nature of ball sports, which rely on a unique set of skills peculiar to their disciplines, has changed.

Baseball, with its explosion of home runs in the 1990s, is an obvious example and this year slugger Barry Bonds, the record holder for home runs, and pitcher Roger Clemens, a seven-times Cy Young winner, were not elected to the Hall of Fame.

WIDESPREAD DOPING

The pair, appearing on the ballot for the first time after waiting five years following their retirements, were linked with performance-enhancing drugs in the Mitchell report which detailed widespread doping in the sport.

Baseball is similar in nature to Twenty20 cricket, where strength as well as technique is necessary to repeatedly clear the boundaries. Rugby union players, who used to be a mixture of the big and the powerful and the small and the speedy, are now uniformly bulked up.

Tennis, as the five-set marathons now common in the men's game demonstrate, demands sustained power and endurance to an extent once unimaginable.

Even golfers, as the modern breed of players headed by Tiger Woods demonstrates, are now athletes working out in the gym as well as frequenting the driving range.

In England, the Football Association reacted to concerns expressed by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger about the possible use of EPO by announcing it would bring in testing for the blood booster, which was introduced into cycling in the 1990s.

"We have had some players come to us at Arsenal from other clubs abroad and their red blood cell count has been abnormally high. That kind of thing makes you wonder," Wenger said.

Wenger also called for blood testing in soccer, adding: "I don't think we do enough. It is very difficult for me to believe that you have 740 players in the World Cup and you come out with zero problems."

Roger Federer, a 17-times grand-slam tennis champion, also called for the introduction of biological passports, pioneered in cycling and subsequently introduced in athletics, which track changes in a competitor's blood profile which could be caused only by doping.

"A blood passport will be necessary as some substances can't be discovered right now but might in the future, and that risk of discovery can chase cheats away," the Swiss said.

"But there also should be more blood tests and out-of- competition controls in tennis."

WADA and its president John Fahey, whose six-year term ends this year, have never been busier and he told the London symposium there was no sign the bad news would end any time soon.

"As long as there is sporting competition there will be athletes who choose to cheat, and consequently a need to lead the fight against this global threat to sport's integrity," Fahey said.

"And, if the last eight months are anything to go by, that need is increasing in its urgency rather than receding."

(Editing by Clare Fallon)

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Louisiana lawmakers on Tuesday questioned the wisdom of eliminating the state's income tax without raising sales taxes, one day after Governor Bobby Jindal said he would delay his plan to scrap the income tax.

Jindal, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, shelved his package on the two-month legislative session's opening day on Monday, acknowledging that widespread public discomfort doomed its chances.

Instead he called on lawmakers to pass their own plan and "send me a bill to get rid of these taxes."

His plan would have eliminated all state personal and corporate income taxes. It also called for a 56 percent increase in the state sales tax, a much higher cigarette tax, and the elimination of some tax loopholes to make up the $3 billion shortfall from abolishing the income taxes.

The question of whether to cut income taxes without raising the sales tax dominated the legislative debate on Tuesday. Another idea being floated was getting rid of the taxes over time instead of all at once.

At a Senate hearing, Republican Senator Robert Adley asked Department of Revenue Executive Counsel Tim Barfield whether an income tax repeal would still need to be revenue-neutral to pass muster with the governor.

"I think that would be the ultimate desire," Barfield said. "But I think if you look at a long-term phase-out of that (income tax), I think you have a lot more leeway."

Jindal's package, designed to make Louisiana more competitive with nearby income tax-free states such as Florida and Texas, would have seen the sales tax top 11 percent in some localities, the highest in the nation, when combined with local taxes.

Simply eliminating the income tax could be an easier sell than pursuing tax hikes to make up for the lost revenue. For one thing, it would not require a two-thirds vote of each chamber of the legislature.

But watchdog groups warned lawmakers against going ahead with a big tax cut on the fly.

"Pursuing a 10-year phase-out of the income tax while trying to find offsets that even the governor couldn't find would be a daunting task at best and of great potential risk to the state at worst," the Council for a Better Louisiana said in a statement. "And simply phasing out the income tax without offsets would be irresponsible."

Representative Joel Robideaux, the Republican Ways and Means chairman who was the sponsor of Jindal's plan, also has weighed in on the side of finding offsets.

House Democratic Caucus Chair John Bel Edwards accused Jindal of being more worried about building a record for a possible presidential run than addressing Louisiana's needs.

"The governor is looking to court folks outside of Louisiana instead of addressing the concerns we have here," Edwards said. "Until we can adequately fund our priorities, we should not even begin to discuss dismantling our tax system."

(Editing by Corrie MacLaggan and Xavier Briand)

Humans are increasingly exposed toin their daily lives, but little is known about how these lifelike machines influence human emotions.

Feeling bad for bots

In two new studies, researchers sought to measure how people responded to robots on an emotional and neurological level. In the first study, volunteers were shownbeing treated affectionately or violently. In the affectionate video, humans hugged and tickled the robot, and in the violent video, they hit or dropped him. []

Scientists assessed people's levels of physiological excitation after watching the videos by recording their skin conductance, a measure of how well the skin conducts electricity. When a person is experiencing strong emotions, they sweat more, increasing skin conductance.

The volunteers reported feeling more negative emotions while watching the robot being abused. Meanwhile, the volunteers' skin conductance levels increased, showing they were more distressed.

In the second study, researchers use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to visualize brain activity in the participants as they watched videos of humans and robots interacting. Again, participants were shown videos of a human, a robot, and, this time, an inanimate object being treated with affection or abuse.

In one video, for example, a man appears to beat up a woman, strangle her with a string and attempt to suffocate her with a plastic bag. In another, a person does the same things to the robot dinosaur.

Affectionate treatment of the robot and the human led to similar patterns of neural activity in regions in the brain's , where emotions are processed, fMRI scans showed. But the watchers' brains lit up more while seeing abusive treatment of the human than abuse of the robot, suggesting greater empathy for the human.

"We think that, in general, the robot stimuli elicit the same emotional processing as the human stimuli," said lead study author Astrid Rosenthal-von der Ptten of the University of Duisburg Essen, in Germany. Rosenthal-von der Ptten suspects that people still have greater empathy for humans than robots, as evidenced by the stronger effect of watching violence toward the human than the robot.

Still, the study only assessed people's immediate reactions to the emotional cues, Rosenthal-von der Ptten said. "We don't know what happens after the short term," she said.

Human-robot interactions

That humans would show empathy for the robot is not surprising, because the bot looked and behaved like an animal, roboticist Alexander Reben, founder of the company BlabDroid, LLC and a research affiliate at MIT, told LiveScience. Reben, who was not involved in the recent study, himself builds small cardboard robots that tap into the human affinity for cute creatures.

Some people find the idea of humans empathizing with robots concerning. But Reben compared trends in robot development with breeding dogs for companionship. "We have been doing this for millennia," he said. "I think we're doing the same thing with robots."

Humans have been known to show empathy for robots in a variety of contexts. For instance,on the battlefield. Other research suggests that humans feel more empathy for , but not if they're too humanlike.

As robots become more and more ubiquitous, understandingwill take on increasing importance, Rosenthal-von der Ptten said.

The new research will be presented in June at the International Communication Association Conference in London.

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