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President Barack Obama’s health care law created a $5 billion fund to shore up coverage for early retirees, and some of that money is flowing to places you might not expect.

Two Texas public employee programs are among the top 25 recipients of the federal subsidy despite Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s opposition to the law Republicans derisively call “Obamacare.”

And records show the Huntsman family business, where GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman sharpened his executive skills, received about $1 million.

It highlights the gap between dire Republican rhetoric about the health care overhaul and the pragmatic impulse to cash in on a new government benefit.

Employer-sponsored health insurance for retirees has been shriveling for years, ever since companies were required to report the estimated liability to investors. Democrats who wrote the new law wanted to provide an incentive for employers to keep offering coverage. Only about 6 percent of private companies currently offer such a benefit for early retirees, according to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.

But that still works out to more than 400,000 companies. Add state and local government agencies, as well as union plans, and the number swells. Indeed, the Obama administration’s subsidy program got so many applications it stopped accepting new ones after approving more than 6,000. The program pays 80 percent of the claims amount for early retirees ages 55 to 64 whose care costs between $15,000 and $90,000.

The top beneficiary: the United Auto Workers retiree medical plan, which has collected more than $220 million.

“Some people have described this program as `Cash for Clunkers,’ in the sense that if you want it, you have to get in line first,” said Paul Fronstin, an economist with the research group. “There was a lot of advice given to be first in line.” The original Cash for Clunkers was an Obama administration program that paid people to trade in gas guzzlers for more fuel-efficient transportation. It created a marketing sensation before running out of cash.

Texas, it seems, heeded the advice. So did Huntsman International.

The Teacher Retirement System of Texas, a statewide system for public education employees, received more than $70 million as of Sept. 22, according to the federal Health and Human Services Department. The Employees Retirement System of Texas, which covers state employees, received about $30 million.

Huntsman International, the main operating subsidiary of the family-founded chemical conglomerate, is also collecting subsidies.

As candidates, both Perry and Huntsman have sworn to repeal Obama’s signature health care law, which gradually extends coverage to most of the uninsured and makes numerous other changes, including a ban on insurers denying coverage to people in poor health and an unpopular requirement that most Americans carry coverage quick cash.

Spokesmen for the Perry and Huntsman campaigns said they see no contradictions.

Texas taxpayers also pay federal taxes, said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. “State taxpayers have a right to get those federal funds returned to them, in this care in the form of disbursement to the teachers and state employee retirement systems,” said Sullivan. “No Texas law or policy needed to be changed in order for these agencies to be eligible to receive the funds.”

Huntsman spokesman Tim Miller said his candidate, Obama’s first ambassador to China and a former governor of Utah, is opposed to all subsidies.

Jon Huntsman has not been involved in the family business since 2005, said company spokesman Gary Chapman. Huntsman resigned from the company to pursue his political career.

Asked why Huntsman International applied for the early retiree subsidy, Chapman responded: “We’re a commercial organization. We are looking to maximize our shareholders’ value. If there was a legitimate opportunity for us to get help in this respect, we would go for it.”

Republicans have tried to paint the early retiree subsidy program as a political reward to unions, among the staunchest Democratic loyalists. According to calculations by the office of Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the United Auto Workers Retiree Medical Benefits Trust has made out the best.

A UAW spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment. In its 2007 contracts with Chrysler, GM and Ford, the union agreed to form the trust to pay health care costs for the companies’ retirees, including early retirees too young to qualify for Medicare. The trust started paying bills in January 2010, before Congress passed the health care law.

The calculations by Enzi’s staff also list AT&T, Verizon, General Electric, General Motors, Qwest, Caterpillar and other private companies in the top 25, not to mention the two Texas state programs. AT&T received $157 million.

Several media companies are also benefiting. The Associated Press, a nonprofit news-gathering service owned by the nation’s newspapers, has received $191,888.

Back in Texas, public and private employer retiree plans have collected more than $326 million from the subsidy. They range from American Airlines to Texas A&M University _ Perry’s alma mater.

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BlackBerry’s maker says smartphone users in Latin America and India also are experiencing problems with messaging and browsing services.

Research in Motion Ltd. said Tuesday users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are affected.

The brief statement follows an online uproar as BlackBerry users experienced a second day of disruptions after an unexplained glitch cut off Internet and messaging services Monday for large numbers of users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

There were no reports of any problems in the U.S.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

LONDON (AP) _ BlackBerry users across Europe, the Middle East and Africa were hit with service disruptions to their smartphones for a second day after an unexplained glitch cut off Internet and messaging services for large numbers of users around the world.

Research in Motion Ltd., which makes BlackBerry devices, acknowledged there were ongoing issues Tuesday, hours after it said services were operating normally and the issue responsible for delays in subscriber services a day earlier had been resolved.

“Some areas have messaging delays and impaired browsing,” Blackberry said on Twitter, adding it was working to “restore normal service as quickly as possible online payday advance.”

In Britain, Vodafone UK told customers via Twitter that service was not fully restored. Rival T-Mobile UK blamed “a European-wide outage on the BlackBerry network” which it said was affecting all mobile operators. There were also reports of problems elsewhere in Europe, such as Spain.

The disruptions were also felt in the Middle East and Africa.

Etisalat, which operates in the United Arab Emirates, apologized for “the further interruption” to Blackberry services, “once again due to RIM problems.”

And Kenya’s Safaricom Ltd. said on Twitter that its Blackberry customers were experiencing a “technical fault,” while South Africa’s Vodacom told subscribers the issues were affecting multiple networks and countries.

There were no reports of any problems in the U.S.

Angry smartphone users also used Twitter to vent frustration with the company and bemoaned the loss of their messaging capabilities, questioning why the company took so long to restore services.

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Asian stock markets were mixed Monday after a weekend meeting of the leaders of France and Germany provided a promise of action on Europe’s debt crisis but few details.

Oil prices hovered above $83 per barrel while the dollar slipped against the euro and the yen.

On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said a comprehensive response to the debt crisis would be finalized by the end of the month, including a detailed plan to ensure European banks have adequate capital. Few other details were provided.

The market reaction in Asia was lukewarm. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.7 percent to 17,589.15. But South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.7 percent to 1,771.29 and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.5 percent to 4,184.40.

Benchmarks in mainland China, New Zealand and the Philippines were lower. Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times Index rose. Markets in Japan were closed for a national holiday.

“Discussions over the weekend between German Chancellor Merkel and French President Sarkozy delivered little in substance,” Credit Agricole CIB said in a research note.

“In the meantime, markets may give eurozone officials the benefit of the doubt, but patience will run thin if no progress is made on these fronts,” it said.

Analysts have urged European officials to identify all the banks in the region that need to replenish their capital reserves, then decide whether to compel them to raise that money from markets and to provide government financing to the ones that can’t unsecured personal loans.

Many experts say the capital cushions of many European banks must be strengthened in order to withstand a possible government bond default by Greece.

Chinese real estate shares fell after a weekend report by a research firm that housing prices in 100 cities declined in September for the first time this year following repeated interest rate hikes and other government efforts to cool an overheated economy.

Hong Kong-listed China Overseas Land & Investment Ltd. lost 5.1 percent. China Resources Land Ltd. fell 5.2 percent. China Vanke Co. dropped 3.3 percent.

Meanwhile, energy shares rose on the back of stabilizing oil and gold prices. Australia’s Woodside Petroleum gained 1.3 percent and Energy Resources of Australia gained 4.3 percent.

The euro rose to $1.3449 from $1.3388 in late trading Friday in New York. The dollar weakened to 76.74 yen from 76.82 yen.

In energy trading, benchmark crude for November delivery was up 67 cents to $83.65 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract climbed 39 cents to end Friday at $82.98 a barrel in New York.

Brent crude was up 16 cents at $106.04 a barrel on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.

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Stock futures rose sharply Thursday after applications for unemployment benefits fell to a five-month low. The government also reported that the economy grew slightly faster in the spring than previously reported.

Initial unemployment claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 391,000. That’s the lowest level since April 2 and also the first time applications have fallen below 400,000 since Aug. 6. The big drop suggests that layoffs are stabilizing. Still, economists say unemployment requests need to consistently fall below 375,000 to indicate job growth.

The Commerce Department also said that the economy grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, up from the 1 percent estimate made a month ago. The improvement reflects modest growth in consumer spending and trade.

Both reports gave investors some confidence about the strength of the economy.

“The economy in the rear-view mirror here … was growing at a pretty modest pace; not anywhere near what anyone would like, but not troublesome,” said Rob Lutts, president and chief investment officer of Cabot Money Management. “This gives us a little more confidence that maybe the economy will muddle through here as we go through all these challenges.”

About a half hour before the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures are up 137 points, or 1.3 percent, at 11,113.

Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are up 15, or 1.3 percent, at 1,163. Nasdaq 100 futures are up 35, or 1.6 percent, at 2,253.

In Europe, German lawmakers voted to expand the powers of the region’s bailout fund quick guaranteed personal loans. That reassured investors that Europe is working to contain its debt problems.

The measure needs to be approved by all 17 countries that use the euro before it can take effect. It will allow the bailout fund to buy government bonds and lend money to troubled governments before they get to a full-blown crisis. Finland approved it on Wednesday.

Concerns about Europe have roiled the financial markets since late July. Analysts say investors are reacting to every bit of news from the region, which has contributed to volatility in stocks.

Case in point: Stocks rose earlier this week on hopes that Europe was moving closer to resolving its debt problems. The Dow soared 272 points on Monday, its fourth-largest increase this year, and another 147 points on Tuesday. By Wednesday, a three-day winning streak came to an end on more uncertainties about Europe’s debt. The Dow fell 180 points.

In corporate news, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. fell 9 percent in premarket trading Thursday after the company cut its revenue and earnings forecast for the third quarter, saying it was having problems getting its chips made.

Wheel and tire maker Titan International rose 3 percent ahead of the opening. The company boosted its revenue forecast for the year and said it is in a “great position to grow.”

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It may almost be time to start hyperventilating.

American Girl, the retailer that has a cult-like following among little girls, is proposing to put a store at Chesterfield Mall. In the words of a tween: OMG!

I have never set foot inside an American Girl store. But my colleagues have regaled me over the years with tales of taking their mesmerized daughters to the company’s flagship store in Chicago. In the store, you can dress up and accessorize the dolls, take them to a hair salon, and have tea parties with them. And that’s just the highlight reel.

So when I told my co-workers on Friday about the proposed store, one of them screamed in delight. But another groaned and said her daughter’s head was going to explode.

“In fact, mine just did,” she said, adding that she enjoys visiting the store, but is not so happy with how much poorer she is by the time she drags her can-we-stay-just-a-little-bit-longer daughter out of it.

An American Girl spokeswoman was quick to note that the retailer hasn’t signed a lease yet.

“Nothing is official or final,” Susan Jevens, the spokeswoman, wrote in an email.

But the retailer has submitted detailed plans to the city of Chesterfield to develop the former Wapango space at the mall into a 10,850-square-foot store.

The submitted architectural renderings, which include a candy apple red facade and pink awnings, makes the store seem more than just a pipe dream.

The proposed development goes before the city’s planning commission on Monday night. The next step will be getting a building permit, said Aimee Nassif, Chesterfield’s planning and development director.

American Girl has been slowly expanding in recent years. It opened its first store in Chicago in 1998 and later opened two more flagship stores

Alarmed by dismal economic conditions around the world, Toronto economist David Rosenberg asserts that “it’s time to start calling this for what it is: A modern day depression.”

Rosenberg made his reputation as a globally esteemed economist in New York as one of the top economic forecasters at Merrill Lynch & Co. When the Toronto money management firm Gluskin Sheff recruited Rosenberg home to his native Canada to continue his sage analysis from a slightly more Canadian perspective, I regarded this as a public service.

When someone of Rosenberg’s stature, even discounting his characteristic bearish sentiment, starts using the D-word, one can assume it will start popping up in the reports of securities analysts and macroeconomists worldwide.

There’s no question we’re in a world of hurt, from which Canada is not isolated.

Jim Flaherty, the federal finance minister, tried to slap down Peggy Nash, the NDP finance critic, in the Commons earlier this week by accusing her of “badmouthing” the economy. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had just downgraded its forecasts of Canadian GDP growth — from 2.8 per cent this year to only 2.1; and to a mere 1.9 per cent next year from an earlier forecast of 2.6 per cent.

If Nash is badmouthing the economy, then so are the IMF and David Rosenberg. Spitting on the messengers doesn’t change the fact that for the almost 1.4 million Canadians who are unemployed, we are indeed in a depression. And that about one million children in this country are living in poverty.

Our jobless rate, at 7.3 per cent, remains higher than the 6.0 per cent of October 2008, when the Great Recession began. And Canadian household debt is at near-record levels, as the income of middle- and working-class Canadians has continued its 30-year stagnation.

The U.S. and Europe, markets we rely on for export revenue, are in economic crisis.

Yet for all that, we are not in a depression, nor bound for one. Not remotely.

Put aside that the same IMF report that downgraded our GDP growth also forecast that it will continue to outpace our G7 peers over the next two years. And that Flaherty remains convinced GDP growth will be strong enough to enable him to keep his pledge to eradicate the last of the deficit accumulated in 2009-10 within three to four years.

The crippling North American jobless rate during the Depression ranged from 17 to 28 per cent. It was much higher in the hardest-hit regions like Appalachia and in “Dust Bowl” communities where family farms perished by the thousands.

Not until 1954 did the stock markets recover to their previous peak at the time of the Crash of ’29 — a span of a quarter century.

Today’s stock market, despite a slide over the summer, is trading at 2000 levels — not shabby given the epic global financial meltdown of 2008-09. U.S. banks failed by the thousands in the Depression. Today’s U.S. banks are sitting on about $2 trillion in idle reserves they refuse to lend until they’re absolutely certain that the meltdown will have no second act.

Similarly, corporate profits have soared, recovering to record levels in many industrial sectors. And perhaps most important is the absence of Depression-era trade wars, regarded by most economic historians as the chief cause of the Depression’s depth and duration.

There was, of course, no elaborate social safety net in place during the Depression, an unprecedented failure of cowboy capitalism that caused us to bring about those protections.

If you look beyond the admittedly discouraging conditions of the moment, you can see the European powers — chiefly all-important Germany — overcoming their reservations about reinventing the eurozone, to resolve that crisis and emerge with a far stronger common currency zone than they first conceived only 12 years ago.

And concern about the so far “jobless recovery” has lately pulled governments in Canada, the U.S. and Britain away from their sole obsession — as recently as a few months ago — with balancing the books.

The Depression was wholly different. In 1932, the Saturday Evening Post asked John Maynard Keynes, the great British economist, if the Depression had any precedent. “Yes,’ he replied. ‘It was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years.”

It’s hubris to say a Depression could never happen again. Yet in these troubled times, we are dealing mostly with familiar problems, to which there are solutions that have reliably worked in the past.

We are, it’s true, in the grips of economic malaise. And the lack of urgency in curing us of it is a temptation to strong words. But since the crisis is more political than economic, better that we hold to account the powers that be and not go into rhetorical overdrive about the conditions themselves.

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Consumers spent less on autos, clothing and furniture, leaving retail sales unchanged in August. The lack of growth in retail sales during a month of wild stock market fluctuations may increase recession fears.

The Commerce Department says retail sales showed no growth in August and demand in July was weaker than first thought.

Auto sales fell 0.3 percent. Sales at clothing stores declined 0.7 percent. Gasoline sales rose.

The flat reading in August was a surprise given reports from retailers that back-to-school shopping and auto sales were strong during the month compared to a year ago.

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Official figures show that British government borrowed far less in July than it did in the same month a year ago.

The Office for National Statistics says Friday that public sector net borrowing, which excludes financial interventions such as bank bailouts, was 20 million pounds ($33 million), way down on last year’s equivalent 3.5 billion pounds ($5.8 billion). It was also much lower than the 2.5 billion pound ($4.1 billion) shortfall expected in markets.

The statistics office said the levy on banks’ balance sheets contributed some 660 million pounds ($1.1 billion) in July while public finances were also boosted by larger corporation tax receipts, sales taxes and lower spending by local government.

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Financial consultant Jose Jimenez has been on his own gut-wrenching roller coaster ride the last few weeks — and not because of the stock market fluctuations he monitors daily.

Jimenez, 35, has been trying to buy his first home.

“In a way, I’ve been rooting for the markets to tank a bit and hoping that might encourage other people not to buy right now, but that doesn’t seem to be the case,” says Jimenez, whose wife is expecting their second child.

In fact, whipsawing markets, fears of a double-dip recession and global economic uncertainty seem to have made housing look as good as gold.

Canadian home sales were up 12.3 per cent last month from July, 2010 and are expected to grow slightly the rest of this year because of low interest rates, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Tuesday.

“We anticipate that, going forward, the housing market in Canada is going to be an oasis of stability compared to what is expected to be further volatility in financial markets,” Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist, said in a telephone interview.

Almost 285,000 housing units have sold across Canada so far this year, just 1.6 per cent below sales for the same period last year, and that’s expected to hit 450,800 by the end of 2011, according to CREA forecasts.

That’s despite dire predictions earlier this year from some housing analysts that the real estate bubble is overdue to burst and send Toronto prices toppling by as much as 25 per cent.

Jimenez is keenly aware of all those numbers but has a few more pressing ones on his mind: His second child is due in September, his 2-year-old daughter Sadie will start school in a couple of years and Jimenez and his wife, Sydney Richardson, just want a house they can make a home.

Richardson is now worried the couple are “doomed” to have to raise their children in their two-bedroom Beach apartment after losing out Monday in a six-person bidding war — their second in just a few weeks — on a renovated three-bedroom Beach semi that was listed for $699,000.

The couple offered $703,000, only to be outdone by a so-called “bully bid” — a down-to-the-wire offer almost $100,000 over asking price payday loan.

Last month they were braced to offer $70,000 over the $550,000 asking price for a Rhyl Ave. house but found themselves up against 13 other potential buyers. The house sold for $120,000 over asking.

The couple has talked about putting things on hold until the real estate market calms down, but their biggest fear is that day will never come.

While Sonya Gulati, an economist at TD Economics, anticipates sales will be a little more subdued in the fall, she said first-time buyers and immigrants are still being drawn into the market by interest rates that are expected to remain low until 2013.

“On the one hand, they are incredibly brave given all the economic uncertainty out there,” says Gulati, “but you need a place to live and a house is a long-term purchase so people seem to think it makes sense despite the market gyrations.”

Real estate agent Dave Tsaparis says he’s seeing more and more home buyers, banking on low interest rates, taking on mortgages of $300,000 to $500,000.

Veteran Beach real estate agent Dianne Chaput blames lack of supply for many of the bidding wars, but expects that could ease in the fall as more baby boomers look to cash out on their biggest asset at peak market.

Domenic Polsoni is so confident real estate is a sure bet, he recently traded in his Milton home, and gave up one car to help finance the move to a more expensive house in the Dufferin St. and Sheppard Ave. area.

“People have been saying for years that the real estate bubble is going to burst, but I can’t imagine that will happen. We survived a major hit in 2008, people held their breath and then everything just seemed to march along.”

Jimenez fears getting caught up in the current real estate “panic.”

“But this is the neighbourhood where we want to raise our kids. Even if we were to take a short-term loss, I wouldn’t be too worried about it in the long run.

“I think we’d definitely get the value back from it, not just in the sale price, but in the life we will have had bringing up our family in that neighbourhood.”

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A man and teenager were charged Saturday with the murder of three men in a hit-and-run attack during riots in the English city of Birmingham, the deadliest attack during the past week’s street unrest in Britain.

Both males would be arraigned Sunday morning at Birmingham Magistrates Court on three counts each of murder, police said.

Joshua Donald, 26, from a street gang stronghold in Birmingham was identified as the older suspect. The 17-year-old suspect, who lives in the same district as the three dead men, was not identified because of his juvenile status.

The breakthrough follows an intensive investigation by a team of 70 detectives into Wednesday’s hit-and-run slaying of Haroon Jahan, 20, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30, and Abdul Musavir, 31 no teletrek payday advance. They were killed after a car, allegedly containing several looters, struck them at high speed as they stood guard in front of a row of Pakistani-owned shops.

The killings threatened to ignite clashes between the area’s South Asian and black gangs, but the father of Haroon Jahan made a series of public statements pleading for racial harmony and no retaliation.

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