Lindsey Vonn Reveals Depression Battle






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12/13/2012 at 12:45 PM EST



Lindsey Vonn seems to have it all.

As the most decorated skier in U.S. history, Vonn's easy smile and record-decimating athletic career have made her a fixture on podiums, magazine covers and multi-million dollar endorsement deals. But life off the slopes wasn't always so rosy.

In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the Olympic gold medalist, 28, discloses that she's quietly suffered from depression for many years and currently takes an anti-depressant to help manage her symptoms.

"Everything about my life seemed so perfect to people. But I struggle like everyone else," Vonn confesses.

At one point in 2008, she says, "I couldn't get out of bed anymore. I felt hopeless, empty, like a zombie."

But these days, Vonn is happier than she's been in a long time. "I feel like I just needed to get everything off my chest," says the ski racer, who filed for divorce late last year from her husband Thomas Vonn, also her longtime manager and coach.

With the winter race season underway – Vonn nabbed her 57th World Cup win on Dec. 8 in St. Moritz, Switzerland – she's hit a new groove.

"All the parts of my life are finally in sync," she says. "I accept who I am, and I'm moving forward."

For the star athlete's exclusive interview and photo shoot, pick up PEOPLE magazine, on newsstands Friday

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Study: People worldwide living longer, but sicker


LONDON (AP) — Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.


The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.


Malnutrition was once the main health threat for children. Now, everywhere except Africa, they are much more likely to overeat than to starve.


With more children surviving, chronic illnesses and disabilities that strike later in life are taking a bigger toll, the research said. High blood pressure has become the leading health risk worldwide, followed by smoking and alcohol.


"The biggest contributor to the global health burden isn't premature (deaths), but chronic diseases, injuries, mental health conditions and all the bone and joint diseases," said one of the study leaders, Christopher Murray, director of the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.


In developed countries, such conditions now account for more than half of the health problems, fueled by an aging population. While life expectancy is climbing nearly everywhere, so too are the number of years people will live with things like vision or hearing loss and mental health issues like depression.


The research appears in seven papers published online Thursday by the journal Lancet. More than 480 researchers in 50 countries gathered data up to 2010 from surveys, censuses and past studies. They used statistical modeling to fill in the gaps for countries with little information. The series was mainly paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.


As in 1990, Japan topped the life expectancy list in 2010, with 79 for men and 86 for women. In the U.S. that year, life expectancy for men was 76 and for women, 81.


The research found wide variations in what's killing people around the world. Some of the most striking findings highlighted by the researchers: — Homicide is the No. 3 killer of men in Latin America; it ranks 20th worldwide. In the U.S., it is the 21st cause of death in men, and in Western Europe, 57th.


— While suicide ranks globally as the 21st leading killer, it is as high as the ninth top cause of death in women across Asia's "suicide belt," from India to China. Suicide ranks 14th in North America and 15th in Western Europe.


— In people aged 15-49, diabetes is a bigger killer in Africa than in Western Europe (8.8 deaths versus 1 death per 100,000).


— Central and Southeast Asia have the highest rates of fatal stroke in young adults at about 15 cases per 100,000 deaths. In North America, the rate is about 3 per 100,000.


Globally, heart disease and stroke remain the top killers. Reflecting an older population, lung cancer moved to the 5th cause of death globally, while other cancers including those of the liver, stomach and colon are also in the top 20. AIDS jumped from the 35th cause of death in 1990 to the sixth leading cause two decades later.


While chronic diseases are killing more people nearly everywhere, the overall trend is the opposite in Africa, where illnesses like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are still major threats. And experts warn again shifting too much of the focus away from those ailments.


"It's the nature of infectious disease epidemics that if you turn away from them, they will crop right back up," said Jennifer Cohn, a medical coordinator at Doctors Without Borders.


Still, she acknowledged the need to address the surge of other health problems across Africa. Cohn said the agency was considering ways to treat things like heart disease and diabetes. "The way we treat HIV could be a good model for chronic care," she said.


Others said more concrete information is needed before making any big changes to public health policies.


"We have to take this data with some grains of salt," said Sandy Cairncross, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.


He said the information in some of the Lancet research was too thin and didn't fully consider all the relevant health risk factors.


"We're getting a better picture, but it's still incomplete," he said.


___


Online:


www.lancet.com


http://healthmetricsandevaluation.org


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Wall Street dips as "fiscal cliff" fears outweigh data

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell slightly on Thursday, pulling back from six straight days of gains despite a batch of positive economic releases as "fiscal cliff" negotiations in Washington weighed on sentiment.


Weekly claims for jobless benefits dropped near the lowest level since February 2008 and retail sales rose in November after an October decline, improving the picture for consumer spending.


Best Buy Co shares shot up more than 18 percent after a report that the company's founder is expected to offer to buy the consumer electronics retailer by the end of the week.


Trading was constrained by the drawn-out fiscal talks between Democrats and Republicans. Investors worry that tax hikes and spending cuts set to begin in 2013 if a deal is not reached in Washington will hurt growth. Republican House Speaker John Boehner accused President Barack Obama of "slow-walking" the economy off the fiscal cliff.


"There's a lot of confusion. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the cliff," said Tom Schrader, managing director of U.S. equity trading at Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets in Baltimore.


Despite the overarching concerns, the S&P 500 has managed gains for six sessions, touching its highest level since October 22 on Wednesday.


"I don't know if there's a lot of anticipation that they're going to get anything done, but the market doesn't seem too worried about it," Schrader said.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 9.35 points, or 0.07 percent, at 13,236.10. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> lost 0.88 point, or 0.06 percent, at 1,427.60. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> rose 3.60 points, or 0.12 percent, at 3,017.41.


A day after the Federal Reserve announced a new round of stimulus for the economy, markets focused on Chairman Ben Bernanke's reiteration that monetary policy would not be sufficient to offset going over the fiscal cliff.


European Union finance ministers reached agreement to make the European Central Bank the bloc's top banking supervisor, which could boost confidence in EU leaders' ability to confront the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.


CVS Caremark Corp gained 3.0 percent to $48.97 after saying it expects higher earnings in 2013.


Best Buy's stock was trading up $2.09 at $14.27 at midday.


Jobless claims dropped 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 343,000, indicating healing in the labor market.


(Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Review: PlayStation icons join in ‘Battle Royale’






The holiday season is a good time to catch up with old friends. If you’re an Xbox fan, you’re probably getting reacquainted with galactic warrior Master Chief in his new adventure, “Halo 4.” If you’re a Nintendophile, you’re probably frolicking with Mario on your new Wii U.


Sony, meanwhile, has expanded its holiday guest list to invite nearly two decades worth of characters to mix it up in “PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale” (for the PlayStation 3, $ 59.99; Vita, $ 39.99). Fans of the original PlayStation can welcome back old pals like Sir Daniel Fortesque of “MediEvil” and the title character of “Parappa the Rapper.” Younger gamers who have only known the PS3 will be happy to see Nathan Drake from “Uncharted” and Cole MacGrath from “Infamous.” Turn them loose in an assortment of game-inspired arenas and you’ve got chaos.






It’s not an original idea: Nintendo has been pitting its lovable characters against each other since 1999′s “Super Smash Bros.” As you’d expect, “All-Stars” lets up to four players choose their favorite personalities and pound on each other until one is left standing.


The technique is a change from most fighting games. Most of the time, kicking or punching your opponent doesn’t do much damage. Instead, each blow adds to an attack meter; build up enough energy and you can unleash three levels of truly deadly moves. There’s a little more strategy, but most players won’t find it too complicated.


The solo campaign is awfully skimpy, but “All-Stars” makes for a lively party when you have a few friends over. Two-and-a-half stars out of four.


— Sony’s burlap-clad goofball Sackboy is part of the “All-Stars” lineup, but he takes center stage in “LittleBigPlanet Karting” ($ 59.99).


Yes, it’s a go-kart racer — a genre that has already made room for Mario, Donkey Kong and Sonic the Hedgehog — but Sony freshens it up by giving you the ability to build your own racetracks and share them online. By exploring the game’s built-in courses, you can find hundreds of elements to add to your own, and they all share the homespun “arts-and-crafts” aesthetic of the original “LittleBigPlanet.”


Unfortunately, “LBP Karting” also revives the weird, floaty physics of its parent. That worked fine in the two-dimensional fantasy world of “LBP,” but it’s annoying when you’re behind the wheel. The tracks are filled with the power-ups, obstacles and gravity-defying leaps you’d expect in a kart racer, but the vehicles themselves feel sluggish and unresponsive. Two stars.


—Insomniac Games’ popular “lombax”-robot buddies are celebrating their 10th anniversary, both in “All-Stars” and their own “Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault” ($ 19.99). The latter game, however, is a big disappointment, stripping away most of what made the team so endearing.


It’s a “base defense” game, meaning you’re plopped down on a planet and then have to protect your turf from waves of invading enemies. That eliminates the exploration and discovery that made most of the “R&C” games so absorbing, replacing it with a tiresome cycle of building fortifications, having them destroyed, then rebuilding them. Instead of the comedy that was once this series’ trademark, you get drudgery. One star.


___


Follow Lou Kesten on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lkesten


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Want Megan Fox's Killer Body? Harley Pasternak Shares Her Workout






Celebrity Blog










12/12/2012 at 12:25 PM EST







Megan Fox with Brian Austin Green while pregnant, and last week in L.A.


GSI; Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic


Lately I've been getting a lot of questions about Megan Fox and how incredible she looks only weeks after giving birth to her son. Megan, and her husband Brian Austin Green, have been clients of mine for years and may just be the fittest couple in Hollywood.

This week, I sat down with PEOPLE to answer some of those questions and share secrets to Megan's fit pregnancy and killer post-baby body.

How did Megan stay healthy throughout her pregnancy?
We worked out throughout her entire pregnancy. She was a model of health through the whole process. She really educated herself big time and had a great relationship with her physician so she really understood the safe boundaries of how to exercise and eat well during pregnancy. As a result, she knew how active she could be and she was very consistent and didn't overdo it.

As she progressed from trimester to trimester, we'd modify things. As a result, she was so fit at the point of delivery that it actually went more easily and she was able to get medical clearance relatively quickly to come back and keep working out.

How long after giving birth did she start working out?
Definitely within a few weeks she was able to come back and workout. We didn't start at full speed – we eased into it.

How did she train post-baby?
We used the exact same exercises as we did pre-baby. We just focused more on the process and adjusted our program to suit her specific needs and limitations. The workouts we did are like all of my other Five Factor workouts. They are five phases: a minimum five minute cardio warm-up, a lower body sculpting exercise, an upper body toning exercise, then an abdominal sculpting exercise, and finally, a five minute cool down. We tried to have her do minimal impact. Post-baby there shouldn't be a lot of jumping up and down.

On the days when she doesn't want to leave her baby and come to the gym to see me, she does my video game Harley Pasternak's Hollywood Workout. I actually developed it for a lot of my new mom clients from Jessica Simpson to Hilary Duff, Megan and Milla Jovovich. It's a great, intense workout.

A Sample Workout

Warm-up: Five minutes on the bike or treadmill

Lower Body: Skater lunge
Cross your right leg behind your left leg as you bend your left knee into a half-squat position. Extend your left arm out to the side and swing your right arm across your hips. Hop a few feet directly to the right, switching the position of your legs and arms. Repeat on opposite side.

Upper Body: Supine (lying down) triceps extension
Lie face up on a bench with your arms raised straight above you, a weight in each hand; slowly lower them to the sides of your forehead and repeat.

Abdominal Sculpting: Superman
Lay on your stomach with your legs and arms fully extended. Slowly, contract your lower back and raise your legs and arms off the ground. Then lower them back down.

Cool-down: Five minutes on stationary bike.

We do 20 repetitions of each upper body, lower body, and abs and cycle through those three exercises non-stop, repeating that circuit four times. Each day of the week she would come in and we'd do different body parts at least three days a week.

Post-baby, which is more important, exercise or diet? 
What's more important in a car, the gas or the tires? You need both. Megan and Brian eat really well. They both cook and love using their blender. They love my smoothie recipes! Megan's favorite is the red smoothie, which is whatever berries are in season, Chai tea, a scoop of protein powder and little bit of almond milk.

Check back every Wednesday for more insider tips from celebrity trainer Harley Pasternak on Hollywood's hottest bodies – and learn how to get one yourself! Plus: follow Harley on Twitter at @harleypasternak

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Congress examines science behind HGH test for NFL


WASHINGTON (AP) — A congressional committee has opened a hearing to examine the science behind a human growth hormone test the NFL wants to start using on its players.


Nearly two full seasons have passed since the league and the players' union signed a labor deal that set the stage for HGH testing.


The NFL Players Association won't concede the validity of a test that's used by Olympic sports and Major League Baseball, and the sides haven't been able to agree on a scientist to help resolve that impasse.


Among the witnesses before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday is Pro Football Hall of Fame member Dick Butkus. In his prepared statement, Butkus writes: "Now, let's get on with it. The HGH testing process is proven to be reliable."


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Wall Street adds slight gains after Fed

DEAR ABBY: I have been married for 14 years to a man who had two failed marriages. I never felt insecure in my married life until I read his answers to a Yahoo Answers poll that asked, "Do you dream about the one that got away?" and, "Have you found the love of your life?"My husband responded that he thinks about her very often, especially on her birthday and Valentine's Day. To the other question he replied he had found the love of his life, but the relationship had ended in divorce, which he admitted was his fault.I know he was talking about his first wife. I feel so sad and insecure. ...
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Facebook revises privacy controls in effort to make them more accessible, comprehensible






SAN FRANCISCO – Facebook is trying to make its privacy controls easier to find and understand in an effort to turn the world’s largest social network into a more discreet place.


The fine-tuning announced Wednesday will include several revisions that will start rolling out to Facebook Inc.‘s more than 1 billion users in the next few weeks.






The biggest change will be a new “privacy shortcuts” section that will appear as a tiny lock on the right-hand side at the top of people’s news feeds. This feature offers a drop-down box where users will be able to get answers to common questions such as “Who can see my stuff?”


Other updates will include a tool that will enable individuals to review all the publicly available pictures identifying them on Facebook.


Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Critics' Choice Nominations Help Kick Off Award Season















12/11/2012 at 01:00 PM EST







Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln


David James


'Tis the season ... for Hollywood awards!

Forget Santa and Frosty, on Monday the nominees for the 18th annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards were announced, unofficially kicking off more than two months of nominations, parties and award shows that will culminate with the Academy Awards on Feb. 24.

This week on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, the Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globe nominations will also be announced. (The Oscar nods aren't revealed until after the actual holidays are over, on Jan. 15, 2013.)

So, which films do the critics think are the best of 2012?

Lincoln is their top pick, with a record-setting 13 nominations, including the biggies, such as best picture, best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, best supporting actress for Sally Field and best director for Steven Spielberg.

Just behind Lincoln is another historical drama – this one with music! Les Misérables received 11 nods. And the quirky love story Silver Linings Playbook, starring Bradely Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, got 10 nods.

What no Twilight you ask? Not so fast: This year for the first time, fans can vote on their favorite film franchise, and nominees include Batman; Harry Potter; Indiana Jones; James Bond; Lord of the Rings; Spider-Man; Star Trek; Star Wars; Toy Story; and our favorite bloodsuckers from Twilight.

The winners will be announced Jan. 10, at the Barker Hangar in Santa Monica and broadcast live on The CW Network (8 p.m. ET). See the full list of nominations at CriticsChoice.com.

• Check out the recommendations from PEOPLE's movie critic, Alynda Wheat, here

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Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law


WASHINGTON (AP) — Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.


The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.


Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a "sleeper issue" with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.


"Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it," said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.


Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.


The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.


Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.


The program "is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all," the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to "contributions" without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.


Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.


The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama's expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.


But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don't provide coverage.


"This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount," said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.


Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.


America's Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama's law take effect.


But employers already offering coverage to their workers don't see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.


"It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs," said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.


The fee will be assessed on all "major medical" insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That's because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.


The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.


It will phase out completely in 2017 — unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits — decides to extend it.


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