$1 billion? Not as crazy as it sounds.

Saturday’s winner, who purchased a ticket at a Newport Stop & Shop, has yet to be identified. But the sixth-largest lottery ticket in U.S. history — worth about $210 million as a lump-sum payment — could eventually seem like chump change.

Had no one picked Saturday’s six-number winning combination, the Powerball ticket would have jumped to a record $415 million this week.

“Could we see even bigger numbers? Anything’s possible,” says Tennessee Lottery Director Rebecca Paul Hargrove, head of the Multi-State Lottery Association (MUSL). “When a jackpot hits $200 million, it becomes water cooler talk and the increase in play is dramatic.”

Tennessee, which has offered Powerball since 2004, had record ticket sales last week. Like other states, Tennessee receives at least 30% of Powerball revenue, which issued for education and other programs, says Hargrove, who has overseen lotteries in Illinois, Georgia and Florida.

MUSL, a coalition of several states, tweaked Powerball to make it more enticing last month, boosting ticket prices to $2 from $1 and hiking the minimum top payout to $40 million. The number of potential $1 million prizes was also increased, and the odds of winning the top prize were lowered to 1 in 176 million — from 1 in 195 million under prior Powerball draws.

“You definitely see a huge jump in sales,” says Terri La Fleur, publisher of gaming journal La Fleur’s. “We haven’t seen a (top prize) above $390 million. We envision it can go over $500 million.”

Lottery officials expected the changes to raise the anticipated top prize to $255 million, says MUSL director Chuck Strutt. But sales mushroomed the past 10 days. Powerball is offered in 42 states, Washington, D.C., and the Virgin Islands.

“Can the jackpot in the new game hit $1 billion? In this game design, it is predicted to happen about once in 10 years,” he says.

Saturday’s winning numbers were 1-10-37-52-57, with a Powerball of 11. Rhode Island lottery director Gerry Aubin says he expects the winner to surface later this week. “Hopefully, they are seeking some financial and legal advice right now and changing their phone number,” Aubin says. The state’s previous top lottery winner, who won $151 million in 2007, didn’t come forward for several days.

Higher prizes could lead to abuse, warns Keith Whyte, of the National Council on Problem Gambling. “Some people may be unable to resist risking hundreds or thousands of dollars,” he says. “The simplest advice: keep purchases at reasonable levels and play for recreation, like pooling ticket purchases with friends.”

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Cox first examines a bleached slab of French oak flooring, and then moves on to a stack of white fabric samples.

“This is probably a million dollars a yard, but that’s really pretty,” Cox remarks in the tone of a down-market bride who has just mistakenly tried on Vera Wang. She passes the silky white linen square over. “Feel that, though. Like I’m not going to sit on that and enjoy every minute of it?”

Cox is on the move. First, she’s heading back into prime time with her smart, wine-friendly ensemble comedy Cougar Town, which begins Season 3 on Tuesday night (ABC, 8:30 ET/PT). Physically, she’s moving back into the city (and decorating the new pad) after spending the last year almost an hour away at her home in Malibu, Calif.

“I just need to get back into a rhythm of being back in town,” says Cox, who plans to spend the workweek in town, allowing for easier commutes with Coco (she and David Arquette share custody), more of a social life and an quicker trip to her production company, Coquette Productions.

“Everything has changed so much in the last year that I’ve got to get things a little more back to normal,” she says, happily puttering around her office before the business of interviewing begins. “Things will. It’s just been an interesting year.”

Indeed. In the past year, Cox has weathered a separation with Arquette, a strange media blitz as Arquette publicly spilled (a few too many) details on their marriage and Cox’s own admission that the two had been growing apart. Cox marched on through the fall, shooting Cougar Town episodes while Arquette joined Dancing With the Stars.

Now, Cougar Town is back, in a new time slot.

“It’s been off the air for nine months. That’s a long time,” says Cox, who, along with the rest of the cast, has gone “grass-roots” in an effort to raise awareness (the show now follows Tim Allen’s new comedy, Last Man Standing).

In the past two weeks, Cox has given wine away via her newly launched Twitter feed and dialed up the ever-pressing Howard Stern; the Cougar Town cast has held viewing parties in major cities across the USA; and together, they all made a Funny or Die video skewering the show’s oft-mocked name.

“All we’re really trying to do is get back the people that watched our show last year,” says creator Bill Lawrence. “I think the only way you can survive if you’re a smaller-niche show is to cultivate a loyal fan base and reward them.”

Despite fans worrying about Cougar Town, which floundered through fall without a secure return date, Cox was confident her show wasn’t on the chopping block.

“Too many people love the show,” she says. “There’s just too many people that don’t know about it or have chosen not to watch it because of the title. It’s not about cougars! It hasn’t been about cougars since the first four or five episodes.”

Producers considered changing the show’s name, and Cox says the plan was always for her character, Jules, to fall for her age-appropriate neighbor, Grayson (Josh Hopkins). And no, she and “best bud” Hopkins are not dating in real life — nor is she dating her other male co-star, Brian Van Holt, who plays her ex-husband, Bobby.

Cox shrugs off the tabloid rumors. “I’ve gone through this for so many years, I don’t even pay attention,” she says. “But we’re all close. You can’t help but when you start a show, you get close to everybody.” And yes, that means they may even vacation together.

Hopkins says sometimes a Hawaiian photo is, well, just a photo. “We actually went on vacation together but aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend,” he says. But he understands the confusion. “I would look at that and think something’s there. But alas, there was nothing.”

(For the record, Lawrence confirms his cast members are “100%” not dating each other.)

But that’s all par for the course for a woman who has been ubiquitous in the business so long that last night, she stumbled upon three old Friends episodes all playing in syndication at the same time. So she has fun with it: “Now I try to take pictures with Dan (Byrd, who plays her son on Cougar Town) and hold him close and say, ‘If only I could date him.’ “

Premiere spoiler alert!

In Season 3, much is new (but those sassy zingers haven’t gone anywhere). With Grayson’s biological clock on the back burner — “Something happens,” teases Cox — Jules (spoiler alert!) gets engaged in the season premiere and simultaneously chafes at being called predictable.

“What I love about Jules is that she’s really silly, she gets really wrapped up in ideas, and she’s game for anything,” Cox says. “And she’s a really fun character to play. I feel like Jules is the closest person I’ve played to myself, and that’s because Bill Lawrence and I spend so much time together.”

Her on-screen ex, Bobby, even scores a girlfriend (Scrubs‘ Sarah Chalke) this season; Laurie (Busy Philipps) starts a cake decorating business; and neighbors Ellie and Andy (Christa Miller and Ian Gomez) discover their sweet baby Stan has become a devilish toddler. Plus, “Jules is planning her wedding,” Cox says. “And she’s not obsessed with flowers and all that stuff. It’s more about the amount of people. She doesn’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

The shortened 15-episode season proves Jules and Grayson are no Ross and Rachel: Skirmishes and standoffs will not tear these two apart. “For me, it’s about how the couple manages once they decide to commit,” Lawrence says.

Suddenly, an assistant pops in with an announcement: Coco has made an executive decision to skip her singing class.

Cox immediately picks up the phone. “Sorry,” she says, dialing. But it’s mom time. “Coco? I love you. You have to go to singing class.” Tough talk is softened by her bemused tone, and promptly, Coco begins her negotiation: Her schedule is too packed, she’s not feeling so hot, she wants to see her dad. “We can talk about changing some things for the week,” Cox replies. “If it’s too much, I understand. But we can’t cancel at the last minute.”

It’s done. Mom and daughter are laughing now, and, no surprise, she’s going to singing class. “I love you, Coco! Bye, baby. Feel better.”

‘Baby steps’ in love life

After hanging up, Cox says her daughter, whose “office,” a room filled with toys, is across the hall, spends four days a week with her and three with Arquette. “But I’ll see her during his days, too. We hang out, we go to dinner. We’re not your typical couple that’s not together.”

“They get along better than a lot of couples that are currently married do,” Lawrence says, and they still share the midcentury-infused production office. Evidence of Arquette is everywhere, from the inscribed art on the wall facing her desk to a portrait of him by Coquette Productions’ door. He even guest-stars as a quirky concierge in Cougar Town‘s finale, at Cox’s request.

They also share an assistant. “That’s probably not even healthy, but he needs to know where I am and I need to know where he is, so why not have someone who works with both of us? There’s nothing that we can’t tell each other.”

But Cox knows it’s time to move on. Arquette has stepped out with a new girlfriend, Christina McLarty. She’s almost ready, she says.

Talking about Jules’ heart-tugging proposal gets Cox a little emotional. “It’s sweet the way he does it,” Cox says. “It made me cry when I saw it.” Can she picture herself in Jules’ shoes? It’s the only question in an hour that throws her off at first.

“I think it’s time, but, man. I need to take baby steps, because I’m not quite emotionally there yet. Maybe when I move into town. It’s time for me to be open, I’m just not quite there.”

But Cox, who’s dressed casually in a thin black sweater over a sheer black button down with a delicate necklace that reads “Coco” hanging at the base of her neck, doesn’t apologize for how open the two of them have been in the past year. That’s just who they are.

“She’s got a really interesting dynamic,” Hopkins says. “She’s such a people-pleaser, she really wants to make sure everyone’s happy. … But also, once she’s put herself out there, she’s pretty much ‘take me or leave me.’ “

Much of that ends up on screen. “I’ve never met an actress of her fame level that is so comfortable mocking herself,” says Lawrence, who writes her mannerisms into the show.

Cox also is making waves behind the lens. She’s executive- producing Mile High, a show for the Travel Channel, with Arquette and has added a new title to her résumé: director.

Cox directed two episodes of Cougar Town this season and has taken on her first movie since wrapping the show: directing Tall Hot Blonde for Lifetime, a true story about two people falling in love on the Internet, with deadly results.

“I love directing,” she says. “There’s something about just caring more about the whole process in every way. I feel it pushes me in more ways.”

Lawrence says directing fits well with Cox, who is “as OCD as they come.” (Cox rearranges jars of nuts and candy in the sleek conference room before the interview, stacking notepads and lining up bottles of Dasani water just so.) “The only reason we don’t put that on the show is that we take great pains to not have her be Monica,” he says.

He also calls her optimistic at heart. “You cannot dampen her spirit. If things happen the way they’re supposed to, things are going to go great for Courteney Cox, both personally and professionally.”

“I think life is really good,” Cox says with a smile, before getting back to puttering around her office. “I feel like on this show, it’s just perfect for where I am in my life.”

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Democrats praised it for outlining investments in education and transportation, and higher tax rates for the wealthiest of Americans, Republicans criticized the president for failing to offer comprehensive proposals to address the main drivers of the nation’s economic problems: the aging population and the resulting costs associated with entitlement programs including Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

“This is not a fiscal plan to save America. … This is a political plan for the president’s re-election,” said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., House Budget Committee chairman, whose panel is currently drafting the GOP’s fiscal year 2013 budget, to be unveiled in late March.

Obama’s budget stands no chance of congressional approval. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has already said he will not bring a budget resolution to the floor because Congress agreed to discretionary spending levels for 2012 and 2013, a main function of the budget process, during the budget fight last summer to raise the debt ceiling.

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, defended the decision to sidestep a budget in the Senate, and acknowledged that in this political climate, further deficit reduction legislation was unlikely to occur before November. “I think we all understand that this is an election year, and so trying to come together is especially difficult in that context,” Conrad said.

Republicans plan to put forward specific plans to rein in the debt and reform entitlement programs, but that path is riddled with political land mines. Last year, Ryan included in the House-passed budget a plan to phase Medicare in to a premium support system that Democrats are keen to use against Republicans in congressional races this November.

Ryan signaled Monday that Republicans would not back away from offering specific policy positions on entitlements. “We’re going to put out a budget like we did last year to fix this problem,” Ryan said. “We’re going to come up with a plan and show America two different futures.”

Congress won’t agree to a budget resolution this year, but the debate over taxes and spending is the prevailing argument that will play out throughout 2012. “We are going to witness budgetary trench warfare,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan budget watchdog.

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Kate Upton

SI unveiled a billboard of Upton’s cover image across from Letterman’s Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan.

The 19-year old Upton and 9 other models were scheduled to present the “Top Ten Reasons This Year’s Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Is the Best One Ever” during tonight’s show (11:30 p.m. ET).

Among other models scheduled to appear on the show were: Julie Henderson, Jessica Gomes, Ariel Meredith, Alyssa Miller, Chrissy Teigen, Genevieve Morton, Izabel Goulart, Jessica Perez and last-year’s cover model Irina Shayk.

This year’s 2012 SI Swimsuit Issue hitting newsstands, the Web, tablets and iPhones today will feature 18 models and 6 athletes and will be read by an estimated 70 million adults.

Upton joins the list of other SI cover models, including: Kathy Ireland, Christie Brinkley, Cheryl Tiegs, Elle MacPherson, Tyra Banks and Brooklyn Decker. She made her first appearance in SI last year and was “Rookie of the Year.”

The 19-year old Melbourne, Fla. native has been romantically linked in the tabloids to New York Jets QB Mark Sanchez, according to The Big Lead.

She’s dabbled in TV work for MSG Network and caused a YouTube sensation by dancing the “Dougie” at a Los Angeles Clippers game.

Upton’s personal Web site describes her as the “next great Supermodel.” She was a competitive equestrian before modeling

She’s joined in this year’s issued by three male athletes: Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps; NBA star Chris Paul and tennis star Rafael Nadal. And three female athletes wearing only bodypaint: Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin; LPGA pro Natalie Gulbis; and U.S. women’s soccer star Alex Morgan.

Copyright 2012 USATODAY.com

Last August when the bride-to-be, now 25, booked a sprawling plantation on the Wye River for her reception, plans for the fairy tale wedding of her childhood dreams started to crystallize. She selected a caterer, florist and DJ for the September wedding, and her father, Stephen Williams, shelled out nearly $10,000 for the facility.

But by early December, the reception hall had filed for bankruptcy and gone up for public auction — without any warning to the Williams family.

Such a pre-wedding disaster is not unusual, wedding insurance providers say. During the last several years, many wedding insurance policyholders have filed claims because venues and vendors have gone out of business before the big day.

“The claims are shooting up through the walls — the DJ goes out of business, the photographer goes out of business, the venue takes your money and is actually in bankruptcy,” says Robert Nuccio, president and CEO of R.V. Nuccio & Associates, the program administrator for Fireman’s Fund wedding insurance. “When they take your money, they’re already out of business.”

Last year, about a third of wedding insurance claims with both Travelers Insurance (31%) and WedSafe, a unit of Aon, (38%) fell under vendor or venue mishaps.

While the recession is largely to blame for these suppliers going under, it has also prompted wedding financiers to approach their nuptials with financial caution, says Chantal Cyr, vice president of personal insurance for Travelers.

“People are more in tune than ever to protect their investments,” Cyr says. “It’s a significant investment — it’s like buying a car and not insuring a car.”

WedSafe has seen a 60% jump in policy sales since 2007, says Aon Vice President Steven Lauro, and Travelers has also seen steady increases in wedding insurance sales during the same period.

Premiums vary based on the overall cost of a wedding, and many insurance providers allow customers to cover wedding particulars — such as photography, the gown or wedding bands — for additional charges. Cancellation coverage typically insures these items, and liability insurance, which venues are increasingly requiring couples to carry, protects the hosts against injuries to guests or property damage.

Weddings cost an average of $26,501, according to the 2011 Brides American Wedding Study. To insure a typical wedding — a $25,000 celebration, for example — premiums range from $320 to $420, which includes both cancellation and liability coverage, as well as insurance for items such as attire, photography and wedding gifts.

“In this volatile economy, wedding insurance is a wise investment and only costs a fraction of the goods and deposits it covers,” says David Wood, president of the Association of Bridal Consultants.

However, if the wedding party knows its providers closely — or if the vendors are highly reputable — wedding insurance may not be necessary, Wood says.

Without a separate wedding insurance policy, couples can protect select aspects of their wedding through homeowner’s or renter’s insurance, which often covers wedding gifts and engagement rings. However, some couples are still unaware they can insure everything from the rehearsal dinner to the after party, several insurance representatives say.

“Some people just don’t realize that they have the option of protecting their wedding, and they don’t realize the risk that they’re running in not protecting it,” Lauro says.

Others, such as filmmaker Cory McGee, accept that risk. McGee was married last August and opted not to insure her wedding.

“I’m a huge risk-taker in life, and I never thought that buying wedding insurance was worth it because had I died or had something tragic happened before the wedding, I think it has something to do with fate,” McGee says, noting her wedding went off without a hitch.

Williams was more wary, and with good reason. With less than a year before the big day, it wouldn’t be easy for her to re-create the wedding she had pictured since her teens, but a policy her father purchased from Travelers helped them recover his full deposit and reserve a new waterfront location.

Although she pushed the ceremony back by a month, Williams found a new site on the Chester River, where she will tie the knot in October.

“She has the water again,” Stephen Williams says. “It made a painful situation a little easier.”

Insurance may have helped smooth this snag, but it might not be the last of Stephen Williams’ wedding anxieties. He has two more unmarried daughters.

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

“This would be way more sophisticated than anything that’s ever been done before,” said Charles Wald, a retired Air Force general who led the coalition air campaign in Afghanistan that helped topple the Taliban.

By contrast, Israel’s strike on Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 and an attack in Syria in 2007 were simpler operations that required Israel to hit a single above-ground target. Neither country had sophisticated air defense capabilities.

There would be nothing “surgical” in a strike on Iranian facilities, Wald said.

Iranians have learned from Israeli attacks in Syria and Iraq, Wald said. Iran’s nuclear facilities are dispersed throughout the country, some of which are being hardened to withstand bomb blasts, said Colin Kahl, a Georgetown professor and former Pentagon official overseeing Middle East policy. Pilots would face a network of radar and anti-aircraft missiles designed to protect Iran’s airspace.

Middle East analysts say it is difficult to predict precisely how any attack might unfold.

“The Israelis are extraordinarily creative,” Kahl said. “Nobody knows exactly how they would do it.”

The key challenges Israel would face if it launched an attack:

Range

Israeli pilots would be near or exceed the maximum range of their U.S.-built F-15s and F-16s, depending on the route they took and their speed and payload.

Wald said the Israelis would either have to use aerial refueling or land somewhere en route to refuel. It’s not known whether any country would provide permission or whether Israel could set up a covert refueling facility in the desert.

Aerial refueling has its own set of challenges. Israel’s air force has limited refueling capacity, and if it launched any of its four KC-130 tankers, it would have to commit fighter planes to protect them, putting a further strain on resources, said Scott Johnson, an analyst at IHS Jane’s, a defense consulting firm. Israel has about 350 F-15s and F-16s.

Flying over Iraq is the most direct route for Israeli pilots. Since the U.S. withdrawal, Iraq is not capable of effectively protecting its airspace, which potentially would give Israel a way to reach Iran while maintaining an element of surprise.

Air defenses

Israeli aircraft could probably penetrate Iranian air defenses, but Israel would need to commit additional aircraft to jam radars and in other ways neutralize Iran’s radar and missile systems, analysts say.

“They’re not using wax pencils on glass,” Johnson said of Iranian air defenses. “They have updated computerized modern air defenses.”

Iran doesn’t have the latest systems, said Wald, a military analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank. In 2010, Russia canceled a planned sale to Iran of sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missiles that would have significantly upgraded Iran’s anti-aircraft defenses.

Bombs

Israel has large bombs capable of penetrating bunkers, but some analysts say they need more sophisticated munitions to help knock out some of the well-protected facilities.

Israel has the U.S.-built GBU-28 bunker busters, 5,000-pound bombs capable of blasting hardened targets. In a recent report, the Bipartisan Policy Center advocated the United States provide Israel with the more sophisticated GBU-31.

Analysts say timing on a strike would be critical, since a lengthy operation would raise the likelihood of U.S. opposition and could trigger a wider conflict.

“They will probably only get one strike,” said Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Wald says the campaign would require more time. “If you really wanted to do this right, you’re talking a few weeks probably,” he said.

The United States should be prepared for an Iranian counterstrike, Wald said. Iran has medium-range missiles that could reach Israel, Kahl said.

There are other ways Iran could strike back. Iran’s navy could interfere with commercial shipping in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, disrupting the world’s oil supplies. In 2009, about 17% of all oil traded worldwide went through the narrow strait, according to the Energy Department.

Iran would probably use its surrogates, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to attack Israel, analysts say. “You’ve got to be ready for that,” Wald said.

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Offshore hurricanes could demolish half the turbines in proposed wind farms just off the USA’s coastlines, according to a study out Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We find that hurricanes pose a significant risk to wind turbines off the U.S. Gulf and East coasts, even if they are designed to the most stringent current standard,” the authors from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh write.

Engineer Stephen Rose and colleagues estimated that over a 20-year span many turbine towers would buckle in wind farms enduring hurricane-force winds off the coasts of four states — Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Texas — where offshore wind-farm projects are now under consideration.

Wind turbines are vulnerable to hurricanes because the maximum wind speeds in those storms can exceed the current design limits of wind turbines, according to the study.

Failures can include loss of blades and buckling of the supporting tower.

The research incorporated the current construction standards for the turbines and assumed a maximum sustained wind speed of 111 mph near the top of the turbine, about 90 meters (about 300 feet) above the surface. This is the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, he says.

The study had to use computer models to simulate hurricanes’ effect on the wind turbines, as no offshore wind turbines have yet been built in the USA (although there are 20 offshore wind projects in various stages of planning).

However, turbine tower buckling has occurred in typhoons in the Pacific. Hurricanes are the same type of storms as typhoons.

Of the four locations examined in the study, offshore of Galveston County, Texas, is the riskiest location to build a wind farm, followed by the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Atlantic City and Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

“Galveston was the riskiest because it gets hit by hurricanes the most frequently,” says Rose.

The damage caused by Category 3, 4 and 5 hurricanes is important for offshore wind development in the USA, the study notes, because every state on the Gulf of Mexico coast and nine of the 14 states on the Atlantic Coast have been struck by a Category 3 or higher hurricane from 1856 through 2008.

“As you get to Categories 3, 4, 5 — that’s where the risks are,” says Rose. “The intense hurricanes pose the most of the risk.”

However, damage could be greatly reduced by building the farms in lower-risk areas and boosting the abilities of turbines to withstand higher winds.

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

United-Continental frequent-flier members will be eligible for the MileagePlus Gift Card Exchange program if they’ve got a gift card from one of more than 60 major retailers on the airline’s approved list, such as Starbucks, Target and Home Depot.

United will determine how many miles the remaining dollars on the cards are worth.

Airlines increasingly are competing for loyal customers, especially business travelers. And rewards programs are a way to entice them.

“We are always looking for new and innovative ways for our members to engage with the MileagePlus loyalty program,” says Charles Hobart, a spokesman for United.

Websites such as Points.com and PlasticJungle.com facilitate the buying, selling and swapping of gift cards between people now. But analysts say it’s unusual for airlines to break into the market in such a direct way.

“Usually this works the other way around,” says Randy Petersen, founder of Milepoint.com and who monitors frequent-flier programs. “You use miles and you convert them to gift cards. And this is just the opposite of that.”

The amount consumers bought in U.S. gift cards surpassed $100 billion last year for the first time, according to research from CEB’s TowerGroup.

Until two years ago, when a new federal law regulating gift cards took effect, the amount of gift card money that went unused reached the billions. In 2009, consumers lost about $6 billion in gift card money. The new law extends the expiration date on gift cards to at least five years from the date of purchase. It also requires disclosure of fees and places a cap on them.

In 2010, the amount of gift card money that went unused dropped to $3.6 billion. Last year, it declined even more to $2 billion, according to CEB TowerGroup.

Brian Riley, a senior research director at CEB TowerGroup, says the gift card exchange business is a fledgling one, but “there is potential.”

“Airline programs have been kind of stuck in this funk for the last couple of years,” he says. “There hasn’t been much creative play in the airline reward business.”

He says it’s too soon to tell how much consumers will benefit from United’s program.

To participate, frequent-flier members must log into their accounts, select the retailer, then enter their gift card information. United will then convert the gift card to miles and deposit them into members’ accounts.

Copyright © 2010 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

While participating in a Boys & Girls Club event in Los Angeles on Monday, Tebow was asked if there was any news to report regarding himself and the starlet.

(Here’s a bone for you conspiracy theorists: Perry was also in L.A. this weekend while performing at the Grammys on Sunday night.)

Per the AP:

“No, me and Katy Perry don’t have a thing, but she’s a very good artist,” he said, smiling when asked by one of the kids in the group.

“I’m single.”

Perry attended and presented the offensive rookie of the year award at the inaugural NFL Honors on the eve of Super Bowl XLVI.

“Hi, Tim. My parents say, ‘Hi,’ ” Perry said on stage that night while playfully waving to Tebow, who sat in the front row laughing.

OK! magazine reported last month that Perry, the daughter of evangelical ministers, had taken a liking to Tebow following her split with actor Russell Brand.

Per the magazine, Perry “mentioned on more than one occasion how much she likes Tim” and thinks “he’s handsome, charming, intelligent and above all, a good Christian.”

Of course if Perry is actually interested in dating Tebow, she may have to take a number.

Copyright 2012 USATODAY.com

Moody’s lowered the ratings on Italy, Spain, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Malta.

In its extensive news release, Moody’s explained the reasons for the “adjustments”:

- The uncertainty over (i) the euro area’s prospects for institutional reform of its fiscal and economic framework and (ii) the resources that will be made available to deal with the crisis.

- Europe’s increasingly weak macroeconomic prospects, which threaten the implementation of domestic austerity programs and the structural reforms that are needed to promote competitiveness.

- The impact that Moody’s believes these factors will continue to have on market confidence, which is likely to remain fragile, with a high potential for further shocks to funding conditions for stressed sovereigns and banks.

To a varying degree, these factors are constraining the creditworthiness of all European sovereigns and exacerbating the susceptibility of a number of sovereigns to particular financial and macroeconomic exposures.

“Moody’s tends to be more conservative than S&P but it’s trail-blazing here by placing the UK on a negative watch,” Kathy Lien, director for currency research at GFT Forex, told the FT, but “it’s very unlikely that they will follow this with an actual debt downgrade.”

Copyright 2012 USATODAY.com