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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'Evil' actor killed college students, girlfriend says

A woman authorities say helped her then-fiance after he allegedly killed two people said at a news conference Tuesday night that she is "completely innocent."

Rachel Mae Buffett, 25, addressed the media at her brother's Long
Beach wine bar flanked by her brothers, sister and mother. She declared
her innocence and vowed to assist Costa Mesa police in their ongoing
investigation into the May 2010 killings of two Orange Coast College
students.

"I will meet them anywhere, anytime," Buffett said. "I'm very compliant."

Police and prosecutors have said that Buffett helped her then-fiance
Daniel Patrick Wozniak, 28, after he killed Samuel Herr, 26,
his neighbor in the Camden Martinique apartments, and Herr's friend and
tutor Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23. Authorities say Buffett lied to police
after the slayings, telling police Herr had family problems when he did not.

Authorities said that Herr was killed at a Los Alamitos military base and later dismembered,
and that Kibuishi was killed at Herr's apartment, her body
positioned in such a way to make authorities believe she had been sexually
assaulted.

In a previous interview with the Daily Pilot from jail, Buffett described both victims as "so sweet" and said she continues to grieve for them.

"I'm really sorry such evil has occurred," Buffett said.

In addressing the charges facing her former fiance, Buffett said: "I'm glad that I don't have to do the sentencing.

"I think that they're very justified in going for the death penalty," Buffett said.

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Assad Fires Scud Missiles at Rebels, U.S. Says, Escalating War in Syria

Narciso Contreras/Associated Press

Free Syrian Army fighters with two bodies they found in the rubble during clashes with government forces in Aleppo on Monday.

WASHINGTON — Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have fired Scud missiles at rebel fighters in recent days, Obama administration officials said on Wednesday.

 The move represents a significant escalation in the fighting, which has already killed more than 40,000 civilians in a nearly two-year-old conflict that has threatened to destabilize the Middle East, and suggests increased desperation on the part of the Assad government. A fresh wave of mayhem struck the Syrian capital Damascus on Wednesday, reports from the region said, including a deadly triple bombing outside the Interior Ministry. One American official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing classified information, said that missiles had been fired from the Damascus area at targets in northern Syria.

 “The total is number is probably north of six now,” said another American official, adding that the targets were in areas controlled by the Free Syrian Army, the main armed insurgent group.

It is not clear how many casualties resulted from the attacks by the Scuds — a class of Soviet-era missiles with a range of nearly 200 miles, made famous by Saddam Hussein of Iraq during the first Persian Gulf war when he lobbed them at Israel. But it appeared to be the first time that the Assad government had fired the missiles at targets inside Syria.

American officials did not say how they had monitored the missile firings, but American intelligence has been closely following developments in Syria through aerial surveillance and other methods, partly out of concern that Mr. Assad may resort to the use of chemical weapons in the conflict.

The Obama administration views the Assad government’s use of Scud missiles as a “significant escalation” of the conflict, said a senior official. It also shows, he said, the increasing pressure on Mr. Assad, since Scuds are primarily defensive weapons, being used by the government offensively against a counterinsurgency.

 “Using Scuds to target tanks or military bases is one thing,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Using them to target rebels hiding in playgrounds at schools is something else.”

Among other repercussions the Obama administration fears is the possibility that Mr. Assad’s military could fire Scuds near, or over, the border with Turkey, which has become one of the Syrian president’s most ardent foes.

Military experts said the Assad government’s use of Scuds might reflect worries that its aircraft have been vulnerable to rebel air defenses. In recent weeks, rebel forces have captured Syrian military bases, seized air-defense weapons and used some of them to fire at Syria warplanes. But one expert said that the government may have decided to use large missiles in order to wipe out military bases — and the arsenals they hold — that had been taken over by the opposition.

 The Obama administration has yet to comment publicly on the missile attacks, but a senior administration official alluded to the development in a briefing for reporters on Tuesday.

 “The Syrian regime has used aircraft,” the administration official said. “It has used artillery, and it appears that it has even used missile to attack the Syrian population and to attack what was a peaceful protest movement.”

There have been other indications of Syrian government use of missiles. The Local Coordinating Committees, an antigovernment activist network in Syria, reported from its Damascus office in an e-mail late Tuesday that “Regime forces are firing land missiles that are capable of carrying chemical warheads.” The group did not elaborate on what the missiles were or where the information had originated.

 The developments came as representatives of more than 100 countries and organizations that support the anti-Assad movement met in Morocco and endorsed a newly formed insurgent coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. President Obama formally acknowledged that coalition, known as the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, in an interview on Tuesday with ABC News.

But the leader of the coalition took issue with a decision by the Obama administration to classify Al Nusra Front — one of several armed groups fighting Mr. Assad — as a foreign terrorist organization and urged the United States to review that decision.

The coalition leader, Sheik Ahmad Moaz al-Khatib, said, “The logic under which we consider one of the parts that fights against the Assad regime is a terrorist organization is a logic one must reconsider.”

Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from Washington; Aida Alami from Marrakesh, Morocco; Alan Cowell from London; Anne Barnard, Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada from Beirut, Lebanon, and Hala Droubi from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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AP PHOTOS: Top 10 Search Trends of 2012

NEW YORK (AP) — From the tragic to the downright silly, millions of people searched the Web in 2012 to find out about a royal princess, the latest iPad, a record-breaking skydiver and the death of a pop star.

Google released its 12th annual “zeitgeist” report on Wednesday. The company calls it “an in-depth look at the spirit of the times as seen through the billions of searches on Google over the past year.”

Here’s an Associated Press photo gallery of the top ten trending searches of 2012.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Pope Benedict XVI Joins Twitter

By Julia Haskins

12/12/2012 at 04:05 PM EST

Pope Benedict XVI Tweeting

Splash News Online

The Vatican just got considerably more social media savvy.

Pope Benedict XVI sent out his first Tweet on Wednesday using the handle @Pontifex (loosely translated from Latin to mean "bridge builder").

"Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter," he wrote. "Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart."

The pontiff sent the first Tweet himself on an iPad in front of a public audience in the Vatican. He will not send out every Tweet personally, but his new form of outreach is still sure to connect Catholics across the globe.

"Offer everything you do to the Lord, ask his help in all the circumstances of daily life and remember that he is always beside you," he later Tweeted.

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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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Doctor caught with 1,000 child porn images, police say

A
Santa Ana foot doctor was arrested Tuesday on a warrant accusing him of possessing more
than 1,000 images of child pornography on his company computer.

Dr. Pete Thomas, 58, of Coastline Podiatry in Santa Ana, surrendered to a judge
Tuesday and was booked into Santa Ana jail before being released on $50,000 bail,
Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

The images were first discovered by a
computer technician who was servicing company computers, Bertagna said. The technician told his bosses, who alerted
police in late October.

Detectives then seized the computer, and upon being
granted a search warrant, sent it to an FBI forensics lab, authorties said. There, investigators
located more than 1,000 images of children between age 7 and “early teenage
years,” who were  “involved
in sex acts with other kids and adults,” Bertagna
said.

“Right now, there is no evidence that he’s had any
personal contact with the children in the photographs,” Bertagna added.

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The Female Factor: Hillary Dominates 2016 Chatter in Washington

NEW YORK — Even before President Barack Obama’s Election Day victory last month, one name kept popping up in political circles, cable news programs, blogs, opinion columns and newspaper articles: Hillary Clinton — Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Speculation about Mrs. Clinton’s presidential prospects is feeding political talk in Washington’s power centers, in global capitals, and among American women and progressives of all genders.

But the Hillary boom is not a U.S. phenomenon alone.

Women around the world are likely to see a Clinton presidency as a major breakthrough. Globally, women’s status has improved since 2008, when Mrs. Clinton sought the Democratic nomination.

“It is very hard to overstate the impact that a Hillary Clinton presidency would have in fundamentally altering expectations for women around the world,” said Steven Clemons, an expert on international affairs and senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

Sure, we have superimportant female leaders like Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany, Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil. But none of them has Mrs. Clinton’s stature.

“Her winning the presidency would be seismic,” said Mr. Clemons, who is also the Washington editor at large of The Atlantic, “and could trigger a global tsunami that would dislodge and upend the male-dominating social, political and economic structures around the world.”

Clearly, Mrs. Clinton’s election would “have monumental impact,” Laura A. Liswood, the secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders, a policy program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, said by telephone from Washington.

Mrs. Clinton is already a global figure, Ms. Liswood said. “She has already brought a gender perspective to world affairs. With the presidency, she becomes even bigger,” Ms. Liswood noted.

As president, Mrs. Clinton could hit a 9 on the 1-to-10 scale in domestic policy, Ms. Liswood suggested. “She’s already a 9 on the gender scale.” That puts her ahead, in Ms. Liswood’s view, of Margaret Thatcher, who was certainly a major force on domestic and international policy but did not have a sizable impact on women’s advancement.

What’s more, Ms. Liswood says, Mrs. Clinton, as secretary of state, has built a reservoir of trust with a number of world leaders. “In addition, she’s gained the trust of a number of senators from both parties, which is really important to be a successful leader.”

Other female executives with global experience emphasize the need for women at the top.

Beth A. Brooke, the global vice chairwoman for public policy at Ernst & Young, said in an e-mail, “Secretary Clinton is one of the world’s greatest leaders on the issue of empowering women. Having her in the U.S. presidency would be inspiring to women from all reaches of the world.” She pointed at the need for more women in all types of leadership positions to give more balance to the diversity of perspectives facing some global economic challenges.

“Women in top leadership — be it the U.S. presidency or on boards or at the helm of multiglobal corporations — is critical,” said Deborah M. Soon, senior vice president for global strategy at Catalyst, a nonpartisan and nonprofit international organization centered on women in business.

All this talk may be irresistible to a woman who has devoted her life and career to solving tough social and international issues, who has set the pace for the advancement of women and children around the world, who has traveled farther and more widely than any previous secretary of state (just under 1 million miles, or more than 1.5 million kilometers, since 2009).

After more than 30 years in the public arena, how could she turn her back on the opportunity to crack the ceiling she sought to smash in 2008? How can she refuse the chance to finally break through and do even bigger things as president of the United States?

Mr. Clemons put it this way: “Her tenure at the State Department has been marked by bringing nontraditional issues like women’s rights, water, poverty, disease and more into classic national security discussions. Her presidency would consolidate serious treatment of these issues and make them a core part of American diplomacy and development.”

Publicly she wards off such talk, saying in Ireland on Friday, “I’m right now too focused on what I’m doing to complete all the work we have ahead of us before I do step down.”

Political experts and pundits alike say that she will run. “Every Democrat I know says, ‘God, I hope she runs. We don’t need a primary,”’ the former Bill Clinton campaign strategist James Carville said on Sunday on the public affairs program “This Week,” on ABC.

A former Republican presidential candidate and House speaker, Newt Gingrich of Georgia, didn’t mince words on “Meet the Press,” on NBC. A contest against Hillary Clinton, he said, would be like the Super Bowl. “The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level,” he said.

It is nearly impossible to believe that after all that, she will not reach up one more time. Her tenure at State is ending, but this is hardly the finish line of Mrs. Clinton’s public life. On the contrary, she has new heights to scale, ascending to unquestioned leader of the world’s women, and galvanizing them.

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Obama election tweet most repeated but Olympics tops on Twitter

(Reuters) – An election victory tweet from President Barack Obama — “Four more years” with a picture of him hugging his wife — was the most retweeted ever, but the U.S. election was topped by the Olympics as the most tweeted event this year.

Obama’s tweet was retweeted (repeated) more than 810,000 times, Twitter said as it published a list of the most tweeted events in 2012. (http://2012.twitter.com/)

“Within hours, that Tweet simultaneously became the most retweeted of 2012, and the most retweeted ever. In fact, retweets of that simple message came from people in more than 200 countries around the world,” Twitter spokeswoman Rachael Horwitz said.

Twitter users were busiest during the final vote count for the presidential elections, sending 327,452 tweets per minute on election night on their way to a tally of 31 million election tweets for the day.

The 2012 Olympic Games in London had the most overall tweets of any event, with 150 million sent over the 16 days.

Usain Bolt’s golden win in the 200 meters topped 80,000 tweets per minute but he did not achieve the highest Olympic peak on Twitter. That was seen during the closing ceremony when 115,000 tweets per minute were sent as 1990s British pop band the Spice Girls performed.

Syria, where a bloody civil war still plays out, was the most talked about country in 2012 but sports and pop culture dominated the tally of tweets.

Behind Obama was pop star Justin Bieber. His tweet, “RIP Avalanna. i love you” sent when a six-year-old fan died from a rare form of brain cancer, was retweeted more than 220,000 times.

Third most repeated in 2012 was a profanity-laced tweet from Green Bay Packers NFL player TJ Lang, when he blasted a controversial call by a substitute referee officiating during a referee dispute. That was retweeted 98,000 times.

This was the third year running that the microblogging site published its top Twitter trends, offering a barometer to assess the biggest events in social media.

Superstorm Sandy, which slammed the densely populated U.S. East Coast in late October, killing more than 100 people, flooding wide areas and knocking out power for millions, attracted more than 20 million tweets between October 27 and November 1.

European football made the list of top tweets when Spain’s Juan Mata scored as his side downed Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 final — sparking 267,200 tweets a minute.

News of pop star Whitney Houston‘s death in February generated more than 10 million tweets, peaking at 73,662 per minute.

Romantic comedy “Think Like a Man” was the most tweeted movie this year, topping “The Hunger Games”, “The Avengers” and “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Rapper Rick Ross who notched his fourth No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart this year, was the most talked about music artist.

(Editing by Rodney Joyce)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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PHOTO: Sheryl Crow and Son Splash Down

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/11/2012 at 04:00 PM ET

Water baby! Sheryl Crow takes elder son Wyatt Steven, 5½, for a spin on a jet-ski while vacationing in the Bahamas on Tuesday. The musician, 50, is also mom to son Levi James, 2½.

Crow is currently taking a break from working on her new record — her first country album! — at home in Nashville.

Butterworth/Splash News Online

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