Dear Valued Customer: Trying to stop the healthcare meltdown, President Obama announced a one-year extension on individual health policies that don’t meet the standards of Obamacare. “We fumbled the rollout of this health care law,” the President admitted in an hour-long press conference as he announced a move to placate angry people who are not able to keep their healthcare plan as promised. Millions of Americans have received cancellation notices. But the president said insurance companies will be required to give a disclaimer saying customers might be able to get better or cheaper policies through Obamacare.

Philippines:  The number of confirmed dead in Typhoon Haiyan is approaching 4,000, but is likely to keep rising as aid teams reach further into the interior. The aircraft carrier USS George Washington is ferrying food and water to shore by helicopter and spreading the effort beyond the city of Tacloban. The effort to distribute aid is hampered by a lack of trucks.

World: The Chinese Communist party today announced it is easing its 30-year-old one-child policy and ending the “re-education” labor camps. Under the new policy couples in which the husband or wife is a single child may have more than one child.

• Canadian police say an international child pornography investigation led to the rescue of 386 children and the arrest of 348 suspects. Thousands of videos of children involved in sex acts were confiscated. The investigation focused on a mail order operation that dealt in videos of boys, ages 5-12.
• Volkswagen is recalling 2.6 million cars for a variety of relatively minor problems, a serious blow to the company trying to gain traction in the market. The recall includes 800,000 Tiguan SUVs. More than 640,000 of the recalls are in China where VW makes 4 million cars a year.
• Brazil says deforestation of its rainforest increased 28% in the last year. The country was making progress toward an 80% reduction of  deforestation by 2020. Environmentalists blame the reversal on a relaxation of rules.

National: In the fogspeak of the Federal Reserve, chairman nominee Janet Yellen said during her confirmation hearing that unemployment is “still too high, reflecting a labor market and economy performing far short of their potential.” In other words, things aren’t great. Yellen said the Federal Reserve needs to continue quantitative easing, pumping billions of dollars into the economy every month.

Bowled: India’s Babe Ruth of cricket retired this week after a 24-year career as a batsman. Sachin Tendulkar, 40, began the game when he was 16. He leaves the game ranked 51^st on the international list of highest-paid athletes. He holds records for lifetime runs and for “centuries” … 100 runs in one match. A popular T-shirt says, “Cricket is my religion, and Sachin is my god.”

Snap: The 23-year-old co-founder of the mobile photo-sharing service Snapchat turned down a $3 billion offer from Facebook. Not enough, says Evan Spiegel. Facebook wanted Snapchat to help keep its attraction to young people, but Snapchat could be worth as much as $1 billion more than offered.

MayOral: We’re not even going to repeat what Toronto mayor Rob Ford said yesterday. Let’s just say he denied dining out and said he had plenty to eat at home.

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