Women Lose Half Their Weight: How They Did It

At 25 years old and 288 pounds, Ashley Donahoo was depressed.

“I was unhappy with my job, I was unhappy with the direction my life was going, and I had a hard time enjoying the little things that my kids wanted to do,” the 27-year-old mother of two from Pace, Fla., said. “My health was failing. My doctor told me that he didn’t think I was going to make it to 30 if I kept on [this way]. … It kept getting worse and worse.”

Donahoo was concerned, but it was her faithful husband, David, who pushed her on a path to health, starting with a walk around the block.

“His heart was breaking for me,” she said. “And he saw how unhappy I was, and he came to me and said, ‘We’re going to go for a walk.’  And I was, like, ‘No, we’re not.’”

Her husband won that battle, and on the walk, she started thinking about her own choices and future.

“The realization hit me that I made this choice.  I made this choice to get where I am right now.  So I’m going to start making a different choice,” she said.   ”I put my health and myself on back burner, and I think … it had all caught up to me.”

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Like Donahoo, Caroline Jhingory reached a similar eye-opening realization about her weight.

“I looked in the mirror one day and just realized I didn’t recognize the person that was staring back at me,” said Jhingory, 32, of Washington, D.C.

Jhingory’s struggles with her weight began early. At age 8, she weighed 120 pounds. Taunted by her peers, Jhingory was enrolled in a medical weight loss program, but it didn’t work because she would sneak junk food like candy bars.

“I found a way to be a food hustler and get whatever food I wanted,” she said. “Not only did I spend two decades of my life morbidly obese. I spent two decades of my life being taunted and teased in every environment. I never went to prom. I never had dates. I couldn’t ride a roller coaster because the safety bar wouldn’t go over my stomach.”

Jhingory remained heavy until college, when she tipped the scales at 303 pounds and started feeling self-conscious in her new environment.

“I felt like I had a moment when all these difficult experiences were a huge pause button on my life. I finally said to myself, ‘I’m tired of this. I want to have a normal life.’”

Jhingory started walking everywhere. Then, she took up a daily cardio regimen to shed the weight, and she rid her pantry of tempting snack foods she once binged on. Now 149 pounds, she has reclaimed her shape and kept off the weight.

Jhingory’s amazing transformation, along with Donahoo’s and other weight-loss success stories, were spotlighted in the “Half Their Size” feature in the latest issue of People magazine.

RELATED: Is Being Overweight Really Bad For You?

Donahoo cut out the late-night binges that brought her down and, thanks to her strong support system, lost 137 pounds. She credited her weight loss success to tracking her food and exercise on livestrong.com and running. She has run two 5Ks.

Leah Fernandez of Atlanta found herself at 251 pounds after two pregnancies. The baby weight stuck and she tended to eat emotionally.

“I wanted the food,” she said. “It made me feel good, and so I ate it.”

But it was the motivation to be there for her children that helped her turn it all around.

“Thinking about going out to the park with my kids felt like work to me, you know?  And at some point I realized that’s ridiculous. Not only am I cheating myself but I’m cheating my kids of me,” she said.

Fernandez turned to Jenny Craig in March 2011 and hasn’t looked back. Since then, she has lost half her weight by staying active with her kids and incorporating walking into her lifestyle.

“I’m getting my groove back.  Leah’s getting her groove back,” she said.

RELATED: Apps to Help With Weight-Loss Resolutions

RELATED: 329 Pound-Weight-Loss Trio Share Their Secrets

READ MORE: 138 Pound Weight Loss Changes Woman’s Life

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Israeli-Palestinian clashes erupt in West Bank

TAMOUN, West Bank (AP) — An arrest raid by undercover Israeli soldiers disguised as vegetable vendors ignited rare clashes in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, residents said, leaving at 10 Palestinians wounded.

Israeli army raids into Palestinian areas to seize activists and militants are fairly common. The raids are normally coordinated with Palestinian security forces, and suspects are usually apprehended without violence.

The clashes began early Tuesday after Israeli forces disguised as merchants in a vegetable truck arrested one man. Regular army forces then entered the town, prompting youths to hurl rocks to try to prevent more arrests.

Israeli forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition as youths set tires and bins on fire to block the passage of military vehicles. In several hours of clashes, dozens of masked youths hid behind makeshift barriers, hurling rocks and firebombs at soldiers.

Faris Bisharat, a resident of Tamoun, said 10 men were wounded, some by live fire. Bisharat said the wanted men belong to Islamic Jihad, a violent group sworn to Israel’s destruction. It wasn’t clear how many men Israeli forces sought to arrest. There were no immediate details on how seriously the 10 were hurt.

The Israeli military said it arrested a “terrorist affiliated with the Islamic Jihad terror group.” It said two soldiers were injured during the raid.

The fighting, which broke out in several parts of the town of some 8,000 people, were a rare, angry response. It was also unusual for Israeli forces to use live fire toward Palestinian demonstrators. Israel says it uses live fire only in extremely dangerous situations.

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Olympics, elections and horsing around in odd 2012

LONDON (Reuters) – Presidential preening, golden Olympic gaffes, a royal windfall for a skydiving British queen on her diamond jubilee and the endless end of days marked the odd stories in 2012 which pranced across the news in Gangnam Style.

The year opened with a tale that flocks of magpies and bears had been spotted in mourning for North Korea‘s “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-il who died in December 2011 and was succeeded by his 20-something son Kim Jong-un.

Winter weather was so cold in Brussels that the Manneken-Pis, a bronze statue of a young boy urinating had to stop peeing because of sub-zero temperatures.

There was slightly warming news about Mondays in Germany, where crematoriums are struggling to adapt to an increasingly obese population and a boom in extra-large coffins.

“We burn particularly large coffins on Monday mornings when the ovens are cold,” one crematorium said.

In March Polish media reported that kite surfer Jan Lisewski fought off repeated shark attacks and overcame thirst and exhaustion in a two-day battle of survival on the Red Sea with just his trusty knife as protection.

“I was stabbing them in the eyes, the nose and gills.”

In other animal news, dairy cows across the world mourned the loss of “Jocko”, the world’s third most-potent breeding bull and Yvonne the German cow who evaded helicopter searches and dodged hunters landed a film deal: “Cow on the Run”.

A Nepali man who was bitten by a cobra snake bit it back and killed the reptile after it attacked him in his rice paddy.

“I could have killed it with a stick but bit it with my teeth instead because I was angry,” Mohamed Salmo Miya said.

A scathing resignation letter of a Goldman Sachs executive published in the New York Times inspired a sheaf of online spoofs, including Star Wars villain Darth Vader.

“The Empire today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about remote strangulation. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore,” Vader wrote in a published letter.

Austerity in Europe saw a once-thriving Greek sex industry become the latest victim of the country’s debt crisis with Greeks spending less on erotic toys, pornography and lingerie.

But lust appeared to be in the rudest of health elsewhere.

Turkish emergency workers rescued an inflatable sex doll floating in the Black Sea and a German disc jockey vowed to press charges against a woman who locked him in her apartment and ravaged him for hours until he rang the police.

“She was sex mad and there was no way out of the flat,” Dieter S. told police.

@ROYALFETUS

Britain’s Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 60th year on the throne with Diamond Jubilee celebrations that saw a 1,000-ship rain-sodden flotilla sail down the River Thames, a massive party in front of Buckingham Palace, street parties across the country and a spoof incarnation of her majesty on Twitter.

“OK, fire up the Bentley. Let’s rock,” tweeted “Elizabeth Windsor“, the comic online alter ego of the British monarch in a typical tweet from the spoof Twitter account @Queen_UK, a virtual monarch with a razor-sharp wit and a penchant for gin.

And Twitter positively exploded with spoof royal accounts later in the year when Elizabeth’s grandson William and his wife Kate announced she was pregnant with a future monarch.

“I may not have bones yet, but I’m already more important than everyone reading this,” was the tweet from @RoyalFetus.

Leadership and change was a theme which ran through a year in which socialist Francois Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Mimi the clown to become French president, Vladimir Putin was elected Russian president again and U.S. President Barack Obama won re-election over Republican Mitt Romney.

Amid the tight election race, Obama met a gaffe-prone Romney for an exchange at a charity dinner ahead of the November poll, where America’s first black president poked fun at Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood for lecturing an empty chair as if it were Obama during the Republican convention.

“Please take your seats,” Obama told the crowd, “or else Clint Eastwood will yell at them.”

“THE MODFATHER”

Sporting news was dominated by the London Olympics during the summer, where the opening ceremony included a vignette of Queen Elizabeth being escorted by James Bond before apparently skydiving into the Olympic stadium for her arrival.

“Good evening Mr. Bond,” was her only line.

Olympic embarrassments were few, but they began early with organizers forced into apologies for displaying the South Korean flag on a video screen for North Korea‘s women’s soccer team.

British cycling sensation Bradley “the Modfather” Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, sparking a craze among fans for cutout cardboard sideburns modeled on his own and shouting “here Wiggo” as he raced to Olympic gold.

London’s eccentric and loquacious Mayor Boris Johnson fell rather awkwardly silent when he got stuck dangling from a zip wire, waving two Union flags in drizzling rain.

Olympic chiefs urged youthful athletes to drink “sensibly”.

But there was anything but restraint for Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, who declared an early night at one point only to be photographed later with three members of the Swedish women’s handball team. Early one Sunday morning Bolt also dazzled dancers at a London night club with a turn in the DJ booth.

“I am a legend,” Bolt shouted out to a packed dance floor from the decks with his arms raised in the air.

Towards the close of the year, tens of thousands of mystics, hippies and tourists celebrated in the shadow of ancient Maya pyramids in southeastern Mexico as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as the end of the world.

“It’s pure Hollywood,” said Luis Mis Rodriguez, 45, a Maya selling obsidian figurines and souvenirs.

Finally, a chubby, rapping singer with slicked-back hair and a tacky suit became the latest musical sensation to burst upon the world from South Korea, via a YouTube music video that has been seen more than a billion times.

Decked out in a bow tie and suit jackets varying from pink to baby blue, as well as a towel for one sequence set in a sauna, Psy busts funky moves based on horse-riding in venues ranging from playgrounds to subways.

The video by Psy has been emulated by everyone from Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei to students at Britain’s elite Eton College, gurning politicians, spotty teens and embarrassing dads worldwide.

“My goal in this music video was to look uncool until the end. I achieved it,” Psy told Reuters.

(Reporting by Paul Casciato; editing by Mike Collett-White)

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‘Rings’ trilogy sound editor Hopkins dies in NZ

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Oscar-winning sound editor Mike Hopkins, who worked on the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and other Peter Jackson films, has died in a rafting accident in New Zealand. He was 53.

Hopkins drowned on Sunday when his inflatable raft capsized during a flash flood in a river on New Zealand‘s North Island, police senior Sgt. Carolyn Watson said. His wife survived.

The New Zealand Herald newspaper quoted “Rings” director Peter Jackson as saying many actors, directors and film crew members who were lucky enough to work with Hopkins would miss him deeply.

“Mike was a very genuine, caring and warm-hearted guy with a great sense of humor,” Jackson said.

A native New Zealander, Hopkins shared Oscars with sound editing partner Ethan Van der Ryn in 2006 for “King Kong” and in 2003 for “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.” They also were nominated for 2007′s “Transformers.”

Hopkins also was sound editor on the two other “Rings” films and had worked on earlier Jackson movies including “Heavenly Creatures” and “The Frighteners.”

The Herald reported a family celebration of Hopkins’ life was planned on Thursday.

A river contractor, Bruce Slater, and his son used a jet boat to rescue Hopkins’ wife. Nicci Hopkins had been in the Waiohine River two hours and was clinging to a ledge in a narrow part of the gorge too dangerous for bigger boats or a helicopter.

Watson called the Slaters heroic. Slater told Fairfax New Zealand the flash flood raised the river 2 to 3 meters (9.8 feet) while the rafters were in the water.

“If they’d been half an hour earlier, they would have been clear of the gorge,” he said. And a half hour later, the water levels would have been noticeably dangerous before the rafters launched, Slater said.

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Clinton receiving blood thinners to dissolve clot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Doctors treating Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for a blood clot in her head said blood thinners are being used to dissolve the clot and they are confident she will make a full recovery.

Clinton didn’t suffer a stroke or neurological damage from the clot that formed after she suffered a concussion during a fainting spell at her home in early December, doctors said in a statement Monday.

Clinton, 65, was admitted to New York-Presbyterian Hospital on Sunday when the clot turned up on a follow-up exam on the concussion, Clinton spokesman Phillipe Reines said.

The clot is located in the vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind the right ear. She will be released once the medication dose for the blood thinners has been established, the doctors said.

In their statement, Dr. Lisa Bardack of the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said Clinton was making excellent progress and was in good spirits.

Clinton’s complication “certainly isn’t the most common thing to happen after a concussion” and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said Dr. Larry Goldstein, a neurologist who is director of Duke University’s stroke center. He is not involved in Clinton’s care.

The area where Clinton’s clot developed is “a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull. It’s how the blood gets back to the heart,” Goldstein said.

Blood thinners usually are enough to treat the clot and it should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, Goldstein said.

Clinton returned to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, then fell ill with a stomach virus in early December that left her severely dehydrated and forced her to cancel a trip to North Africa and the Middle East. Until then, she had canceled only two scheduled overseas trips, one to Europe after breaking her elbow in June 2009 and one to Asia after the February 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Her condition worsened when she fainted, fell and suffered a concussion while at home alone in mid-December as she recovered from the virus. It was announced Dec. 13.

This isn’t the first time Clinton has suffered a blood clot. In 1998, midway through her husband’s second term as president, Clinton was in New York fundraising for the midterm elections when a swollen right foot led her doctor to diagnose a clot in her knee requiring immediate treatment.

Clinton had planned to step down as secretary of state at the beginning of President Barack Obama’s second term. Whether she will return to work before she resigns remained a question.

Democrats are privately if not publicly speculating: How might her illness affect a decision about running for president in 2016?

After decades in politics, Clinton says she plans to spend the next year resting. She has long insisted she had no intention of mounting a second campaign for the White House four years from now. But the door is not entirely closed, and she would almost certainly emerge as the Democrat to beat if she decided to give in to calls by Democratic fans and run again.

Her age — and thereby health — would probably be a factor under consideration, given that Clinton would be 69 when sworn in, if she were elected in 2016. That might become even more of an issue in the early jockeying for 2016 if what started as a bad stomach bug becomes a prolonged, public bout with more serious infirmity.

Not that Democrats are willing to talk openly about the political implications of a long illness, choosing to keep any discussions about her condition behind closed doors. Publicly, Democrats reject the notion that a blood clot could hinder her political prospects.

“Some of those concerns could be borderline sexist,” said Basil Smikle, a Democratic strategist who worked for Clinton when she was a senator. “Dick Cheney had significant heart problems when he was vice president, and people joked about it. He took the time he needed to get better, and it wasn’t a problem.”

It isn’t uncommon for presidential candidates’ health — and age — to be an issue. Both in 2000 and 2008, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had to rebut concerns he was too old to be commander in chief or that his skin cancer could resurface.

Two decades after Clinton became the first lady, signs of her popularity — and her political strength — are ubiquitous.

Obama had barely declared victory in November when Democrats started zealously plugging Clinton as their strongest White House contender four years from now, should she choose to take that leap.

“Wouldn’t that be exciting?” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi declared in December. “I hope she goes. Why wouldn’t she?”

Even Republicans concede that were she to run, Clinton would be a force to be reckoned with.

“Trying to win that will be truly the Super Bowl,” Newt Gingrich, the former House Speaker and 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said in December. “The Republican Party today is incapable of competing at that level.”

Americans admire Clinton more than any other woman in the world, according to a Gallup poll released Monday — the 17th time in 20 years that Clinton has claimed that title. And a recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 57 percent of Americans would support Clinton as a candidate for president in 2016, with just 37 percent opposed. Websites have already cropped up hawking “Clinton 2016″ mugs and tote bags.

Beyond talk of future politics, Clinton’s three-week absence from the State Department has raised eyebrows among some conservative commentators who questioned the seriousness of her ailment after she canceled planned Dec. 20 testimony before Congress on the deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya.

Clinton had been due to discuss with lawmakers a scathing report she had commissioned on the attack. It found serious failures of leadership and management in two State Department bureaus were to blame for insufficient security at the facility. Clinton took responsibility for the incident before the report was released, but she was not blamed. Four officials cited in the report have either resigned or been reassigned.

___

Associated Press writer Ken Thomas in Washington and AP Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee contributed to this report.

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UPDATE 7-Tennis-Auckland Classic women’s singles round 1 results

Jan 1 (Infostrada Sports) – Results from the Auckland Classic Women’s Singles Round 1 matches on Tuesday

2-Julia Goerges (Germany) beat Anastasija Sevastova (Latvia) 6-3 6-4

Marina Erakovic (New Zealand) beat Stephanie Dubois (Canada) 6-2 6-1

1-Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) beat Greta Arn (Hungary) 6-2 6-2

8-Mona Barthel (Germany) beat Grace Min (U.S.) 6-1 6-3

6-Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan) beat Lara Arruabarrena Vecino (Spain) 6-3 6-2

Romina Oprandi (Switzerland) beat Nudnida Luangnam (Thailand) 6-0 6-2

Heather Watson (Britain) beat 5-Sorana Cirstea (Romania) 6-3 (Cirstea retired)

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What to Do With Your New Android

So you got a shiny new Android for Christmas? Before showing it off to all your Apple-loving friends, the device should be fully optimized at the start. Taking a couple measures ahead of time will make for a better experience later.

If you’re a brand new Android owner, the phone’s operating system is likely Jelly Bean or Ice Cream Sandwich. You shouldn’t have to upgrade anything, but there might be newer versions of built-in apps. (We’ll get to that later.)

You’ll have to set up a Google account, which should be fairly easy if you already use Gmail. If you’re completely new to Google, consider a couple things before even setting up your phone.

SEE ALSO: Top 20 Things Every First-Time Android User Should Know

[More from Mashable: Facebook in 2013: More Growing Pains Ahead]

Switching from an older Android requires a bit more prep, but it’s not impossible. Once you have a Google account, simply log in and sync accounts to receive your email and contacts. Some of your data, like photos and apps, will not transfer as easily, but there are a few ways to get around that.

The easiest way is to purchase the MyBackup Pro app. It’ll cost you $ 4, but the app backs up data and restores it to a new device.

If you’d rather start with a clean slate, without losing old photos, store all of your data in the cloud. Apps like Dropbox will back up data, but you can manually restore specific items to the new device.

Apps will need to be re-downloaded manually on a new device. Any apps purchased on a former Android will not need to be purchased again, but you will have to download those again, too.

Get Connected

The first thing to do before playing around with your new phone is to set up a Wi-Fi connection.

Hit the Menu button, and choose Settings. Then select Wireless & Networks and connect to the proper Wi-Fi as you would anywhere with a computer.

You’ll also have the option to connect to mobile networks — those settings can be found in the same menu. Your phone runs on 3G or 4G mobile networks when there is not a Wi-Fi connection.

It’s important to connect your phone to Wi-Fi when it’s available, because running on mobile networks uses data. Each download will cost data, which can quickly run over when you first get a new phone and want to try new apps. Running over on data can be very expensive.

Apps on Apps on Apps

Now that you’re up and running, it’s time to dive into the Google Play Store and get the apps that will make your life easier and more efficient.

There are so many apps for every aspect of your life. It depends on whether you want something entertaining, educational, fun, informative, creative or navigational. Sifting through apps can feel overwhelming — trial and error is the best way to approach the task. You can always uninstall an app if you don’t want it.

If you plan on purchasing anything, you’ll need a credit card. Your information will be stored securely, so you’ll only need to enter this once. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend money — there are plenty of free apps that will help you just as effectively.

Your phone will already have built-in apps, which differ with every manufacturer. These are likely due for an update before you even log into the new device. You can update them all at once by opening the Play Store, tapping the Menu button and selecting “My Apps.”

The Google Play Store can be accessed and adjusted from your phone or a desktop when logged into your Google account. You can install, update or remove any app from your phone via the store.

Google’s native apps should already be built in the device. If you can’t function without these tools — which is likely why you went with Android — you won’t be disappointed with the mobile versions.

If you juggle more than one email address, Gmail will access multiple accounts in one device.

Google Maps is a seamless GPS system, plus the updated app gives offline maps, indoor navigation and recommendations for nearby places.

Zappos

Free

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Social

Facebook’s native app favors Android devices. The app closely mirrors what you’d see on a desktop, making it easy to navigate. Like any other app, it has pre-fixed settings, so you might need to adjust, depending on your preferences.

After downloading and logging in to your account, hit the Menu button and select Settings. If you don’t want to use Facebook Chat from your phone, make sure Chat Availability is off. You can also adjust notifications so they only push the updates most important to you.

If you choose to sync your Facebook friends, they will automatically appear in your contact list if they share their phone number. When you agree to use the Facebook app, it shows your phone number on your profile. If you don’t want to share your number with friends, be sure to edit your contact info so that information is only available to you. The easiest way to do so is from a desktop.

Setup for Twitter is pretty straightforward. You can adjust syncing and push notifications, just like you did for Facebook, by going to Settings from the Menu button.

There are a couple options for Twitter aside from the native app. If you’re a list person, TweetDeck or Hootsuite might be better experiences.

If there is one good thing about Google+, it’s the syncing features that come with an Android device. If you don’t use the network as a social place, it can function as an automatic storage space. For example, if you take a photo with your phone, it will save to your Google+ account, even if you delete the photo from your device.

Of course, there are plenty of other social networks, so test them out and judge for yourself. If you don’t like one (or any app, for that matter) you can always uninstall it from the Google Play Store, just as you would update it.

Music

Your new Android replaces the need to carry multiple devices, including an MP3 player. If you’re gung-ho Google, the native Music app stores all of your files in the cloud, so you can easily switch from device to computer.

There is no native iTunes app, but that’s nothing a little hack can’t work around. DoubleTwist is worth the $ 5 pricetag if you cannot live without your iPod. Also, your iTunes library syncs over Wi-Fi — no wires required.

There are other great apps for music lovers on the go. Spotify is the best service for sharing and discovering music. You can send friends songs, albums and playlists. The free service features a nearly limitless music library, or you can upgrade to premium for an unlimited, ad-free experience.

Are you and Android user? Share any advice for first-timers in the comments below.

Images courtesy of iStockphoto, by_nicholas, Flickr, JD Hancock

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Kanye West, Kim Kardashian expecting baby: reports

(Reuters) – Rapper Kanye West and reality TV star Kim Kardashian are expecting their first child, celebrity media outlets reported on Monday.

Fans and family took to Twitter to congratulate the celebrity power couple.

“Been wanting to shout from the rooftops with joy and now I can!” wrote Kardashian’s sister Kourtney. “Another angel to welcome to our family. Overwhelmed with excitement!”

According to E! News, West, 35, announced the news from the stage at a concert in Atlantic City on Sunday.

Kardashian, 32, who rose to fame five years ago for her appearances in reality TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”, was the most-searched person on the Yahoo! website in 2012.

She married basketball player Kris Humphries in August, 2011, in a lavish, made-for-TV wedding, but the couple divorced just 72 days later.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Vomiting Larry battles “Ferrari of the virus world”

LONDON (Reuters) – Poor Larry isn’t looking too good. He’s pale and clammy and he’s been projectile vomiting over and over again while his carers just stand by and watch.

Yet their lack of concern for Larry is made up for by their intense interest in how far splashes of his vomit can fly, and how effectively they evade attempts to clean them up.

Larry is a “humanoid simulated vomiting system” designed to help scientists analyze contagion. And like millions around the world right now, he’s struggling with norovirus – a disease one British expert describes as “the Ferrari of the virus world”.

“Norovirus is one of the most infectious viruses of man,” said Ian Goodfellow, a professor of virology at the department of pathology at Britain‘s University of Cambridge, who has been studying noroviruses for 10 years.

“It takes fewer than 20 virus particles to infect someone. So each droplet of vomit or gram of feces from an infected person can contain enough virus to infect more than 100,000 people.”

Norovirus is hitting hard this year – and earlier too.

In Britain so far this season, more than a million people are thought to have suffered the violent vomiting and diarrhea it can bring. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said this high rate of infection relatively early in the winter mirrors trends seen in Japan and Europe.

“In Australia the norovirus season also peaks during the winter, but this season it has gone on longer than usual and they are seeing cases into their summer,” it said in a statement.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say norovirus causes 21 million illnesses annually. Of those who get the virus, some 70,000 require hospitalization and around 800 die each year.

PROFUSE AND PROJECTILE

Norovirus dates back more than 40 years and takes its name from the U.S. city of Norwalk, Ohio, where there was an outbreak of acute gastroenteritis in school children in November 1968.

Symptoms include a sudden onset of vomiting, which can be projectile, and diarrhea, which may be profuse and watery. Some victims also suffer fevers, headaches and stomach cramps.

John Harris, an expert on the virus at Britain’s HPA, puts it simply: “Norovirus is very contagious and very unpleasant.”

What makes this such a formidable enemy is its ability to evade death from cleaning and to survive long periods outside a human host. Scientists have found norovirus can remain alive and well for 12 hours on hard surfaces and up to 12 days on contaminated fabrics such as carpets and upholstery. In still water, it can survive for months, maybe even years.

At the Health and Safety Laboratory in Derbyshire, northern England, where researcher Catherine Makison developed the humanoid simulated vomiting system and nicknamed him “Vomiting Larry”, scientists analyzing his reach found that small droplets of sick can spread over three meters.

“The dramatic nature of the vomiting episodes produces a lot of aerosolized vomit, much of which is invisible to the naked eye,” Goodfellow told Reuters.

Larry’s projections were easy to spot because he had been primed with a “vomitus substitute”, scientists explain, which included a fluorescent marker to help distinguish even small splashes – but they would not be at all easily visible under standard white hospital lighting.

Add the fact that norovirus is particularly resistant to normal household disinfectants and even alcohol hand gels, and it’s little wonder the sickness wreaks such havoc in hospitals, schools, nursing homes, cruise ships and hotels.

During the two weeks up to December 23, there were 70 hospital outbreaks of norovirus reported in Britain, and last week a cruise ship that sails between New York and Britain’s Southampton docked in the Caribbean with about 200 people on board suffering suspected norovirus.

MOVING TARGET

The good news, for some, is that not everyone appears to be equally susceptible to norovirus infection. According to Goodfellow, around 20 percent of Europeans have a mutation in a gene called FUT2 that makes them resistant.

For the rest the only likely good news will have to wait for the results of trials of a potential norovirus vaccine developed by U.S. drugmaker LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals Inc, or from one of several research teams around the world working on possible new antiviral drugs to treat the infection.

Early tests in 2011 indicated that around half of people vaccinated with the experimental shot, now owned by Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical Co, were protected from symptomatic norovirus infection.

The bad news, virologists say, is that the virus changes constantly, making it a moving target for drug developers. There is also evidence that humans’ immune response to infection is short-lived, so people can become re-infected by the same virus within just a year or two.

“There are many strains, and the virus changes very rapidly – it undergoes something virologists call genetic drift,” Harris said in a telephone interview. “When it makes copies of itself, it makes mistakes in those copies – so each time you encounter the virus you may be encountering a slightly different one.”

This means that even if a vaccine were to be fully developed – still a big ‘if’ – it would probably need to be tweaked and repeated in a slightly different formula each year to prevent people getting sick.

Until any effective drugs or vaccines are developed, experts reckon that like the common cold, norovirus will be an unwelcome guest for many winters to come. Their advice is to stay away from anyone with the virus, and use soap and water liberally.

“One of the reasons norovirus spreads so fast is that the majority of people don’t wash their hands for long enough,” said Goodfellow. “We’d suggest people count to 15 while washing their hands and ensure their hands are dried completely.”

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Will Waterman)

Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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China to keep prudent monetary policy in 2013: central bank

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will stick to a prudent monetary policy next year and keep consumer prices stable, its outgoing central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, said on Monday, in fresh sign that Beijing won’t be changing direction when the new government takes over in 2013.

Reiterating China’s long-stated vow to reduce the level of central planning in its economy and make room for more market forces, Zhou also said China will deepen reforms in its financial sector in 2013.

“In 2013, we will continue to implement prudent monetary policy and make policies more pre-emptive, targeted and flexible,” Zhou said in a brief new year address.

“We will keep overall price levels basically stable and promote healthy and sustainable growth of the economy,” he said. “We will also further deepen financial reforms and the opening up of financial markets.”

Zhou’s remarks follows similar comments from China’s soon-to-be-retired president, Hu Jintao, who promised that reform of China’s economic growth model would be a crucial theme next year.

Hu said in a separate new year address broadcast nationally that China’s economy will grow at a balanced and sustainable pace in 2013, whilst noting the challenge from sluggish growth for the world economy.

“Transforming the economic growth model will be a main theme,” Hu said, without giving further details. “The trend of weak global economic growth will continue.”

China’s leaders have repeatedly promised to encourage domestic consumption and reduce the nation’s heavy reliance on exports for growth, a task that has become more pressing due to expectations of prolonged weak demand in developed nations.

Most analysts and academics agree China needs to transform its growth model to allow consumption, not exports and investment, to drive activity.

But there is no clear agreement on how or when China can pursue such changes.

Zhou, who has been head of the central bank since 2003, is set to retire in coming months.

Hu will relinquish office March 5 when China starts its annual parliament meeting, to make room for his successor Xi Jinping.

(Reporting by Aileen Wang and Koh Gui Qing; editing by Jonathan Standing)

Economy News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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