Exercise

Lisa Lillien has the world on a plate. The Los Angeles author and entrepreneur sits atop the multimillion-dollar "Hungry Girl" empire that includes TV shows on the Food Network and the Cooking Channel, several bestselling cookbooks and a daily email blast that tops 1 million subscribers. Lillien is a genius at finding low-calorie ways to scratch a craving itch and then sharing them with her legion of fans. Her new book, "Hungry Girl to the Max," features 650 guilt-free recipes, many that are fewer than 200 calories per serving.

Move over, RG3. Make room for another rookie quarterback sensation . . . RW3. That's Seattle's Russell Wilson, who happens to wear No. 3 and has helped invigorate the Seahawks, just as Robert Griffin III has pumped life into the Washington Redskins. Wilson, coming off a record-setting performance against Buffalo, will get another crack at San Francisco on Sunday night when the 49ers play at Seattle in a game rich with playoff implications. "He's no longer a rookie," said 49ers defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, whose team limited Wilson to 122 yards passing in a 13-6 victory in October.

One of the most influential decisions last summer involving the Lakers was made outside the front office. Ramon Sessions opted to leave the team, leading to an influx of superstars. Steve Nash became a Laker. So did Dwight Howard. A precursor to their arrival in Los Angeles came in June when Sessions decided not to exercise a player option with the Lakers for one season and $4.55 million. "I definitely didn't want to go in with one year not really knowing what to expect in that situation," Sessions said Tuesday before his first game back at Staples Center, "so I kind of was looking for longevity.

Perhaps you've noticed you're less likely to forget where you parked your car after a brisk tennis match than after a trip to the library. There's a reason for that, says a new study: in healthy seniors and those with emerging memory problems, even a single brief bout of vigorous exercise and the release of norepinephrine that comes with it can enhance memory of what came just before it. The phenomenon is one of evolution's cleverest memory-enhancing tricks:...

The principle of the filibuster is a sound one: Any member of the U.S. Senate may speak for any length of time, so a senator who is fiercely determined to oppose a bill may command the podium and stop other business in order to make a point of grave importance. Used judiciously, the device prevents a narrow majority from imposing its will on a significant or determined minority. It allows passions to cool, and reinforces the Senate's place as a deliberative body, an institution that the framers imagined might slow the more rampant and populist instincts they believed would emerge from the House of Representatives.

Indoor trampoline parks are springing into action throughout Southern California, along with leaping games of dodge ball, highflying basketball and rigorous calisthenics. Just ask Akory Coates, who lived out his basketball dreams for an hour recently at a Sky Zone trampoline park in Torrance. He jumped, he twirled in the air, his fingertips grazed the rim and he made four baskets. Not an easy feat for a 9-year-old, but a series of trampolines beneath his feet gave him all the lift he needed.

So, what's it worth to lace up those sneakers and break a sweat for about 30 minutes a day? About 3.5 extra years of life, on average - and about 4.2 additional years for those willing to step up the intensity or put in closer to an hour a day of brisk walking or its equivalent, according to a new study. Even for the severely obese - those with a body mass index above 35 - exercising for about 2.5 hours a week at moderate intensity or for 75 minutes at vigorous levels puts average life expectancy a notch above that of a normal-weight person who is sedentary, the research shows.

ENCINITAS, Calif. - Parents in this seaside town are in a twist over yoga, saying that adding the ancient practice of meditative exercise to the school curriculum is tantamount to religious indoctrination into Hinduism. School officials never thought that yoga, practiced by roughly 22 million Americans, would be controversial when they accepted a $533,000 grant from a local yoga studio to include Ashtanga yoga in a program where students also learn about healthy eating and cultivate small gardens.

There is no appetite among the American people - or on the part of the two men competing for the U.S. presidency in Tuesday's election - for U.S. military intervention in Syria. That reluctance is sensible. Painful as it is to observe the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians in the war between President Bashar Assad and insurgents inspired by the Arab Spring, the deployment of U.S. troops or a campaign of airstrikes under the rubric of a no-fly zone would enmesh the United States in an unpredictable conflict with a heavily armed ally of Iran on behalf of a fractious and fragmented rebel army.

I could not have been more than 5 years old when my mother took me with her to vote in our Chicago neighborhood. I can still see the exotic array of curtains to draw and levers to pull towering over my head like the control panel operated by the Wizard of Oz. The image is enshrined in my memory. This was voting, and it was to be treated with reverence. Over the years, I've voted in Illinois, Washington, D.C., and California. Rarely have I voted by absentee ballot. To me, voting is not only a profound right but a rare opportunity to physically exercise the most important duty of American citizenship.