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Plantar fasciitis. If you haven't had to deal with it personally, just ask around. Chances are you know lots of people who can describe it in great detail: stabbing heel pain and agonizing steps followed by a frustratingly slow recovery. Plantar fasciitis - an inflammation of the plantar facsia, a thick band of tissue that runs along the arch from the heel to the toes - has become so ubiquitous that podiatrists can practically make the diagnosis before a patient even sets foot in their office.

Just four months into marriage, my husband and I were having trouble connecting. Like, actually connecting. The Internet in South Africa was terrible. "I can hear you. Can you hear me?" I shouted from my end, the common room of a Cape Town hostel. Each time I managed to pull up Skype on my laptop, the screen froze and my husband's voice squealed through the speakers like a tipsy robot. "Hello - ?" I could see his brown eyes searching the webcam. Lemon-yellow sunlight streamed through the windows of our Palm Springs condo.

Two-fifths of the elderly spend more than they earn, often forcing them to dip into savings to pay bills, according to a new study. Among those 65 and older, 40% shell out more on housing, medical care and other costs than they take in from Social Security, pensions and other sources, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute. An additional 14.3% of that age group spend more than 75% of their incomes on regular expenses, leaving little cushion for unexpected financial setbacks, the study showed.

If you drink schnapps at 56 degrees below zero, be careful. Unless you warm it in your mouth before swallowing, you will burn your throat. The advice came from my father as we stood, clad in thick winter gear, at a remote Alaska lake on a November night three decades ago. We passed the bottle, took a few pulls, then the five of us - father, his friend, brother, my friend - climbed aboard snowmobiles and freight sleds and raced across lakes toward...

When I discovered I was pregnant with our second child, I pulled out the storage bin containing the maternity clothes from my first pregnancy and was instantly depressed. After nine months of wearing a Diane von Furstenberg maternity wrap dress and Lilly Pulitzer maternity shift in heavy rotation — and I mean heavy in every sense — I couldn't face another pregnancy in these same few outfits. But at $300 for designer maternity dresses I would wear another half a year at most, I wasn't prepared to splurge on an entirely new pregnancy wardrobe.

On any given day, in downtown lofts, Santa Monica ateliers and dozens of studios across Los Angeles, dressing rooms are filled with men and women who are slipping into suits, dresses and jeans that fit as if they were made just for them — because they were. They are donning custom-made wedding gowns, dress shirts, even entire wardrobes. Whether they were propelled there by the frustrations of poorly fitting commercial clothes or by a sense of style that isn't part of the trend du jour, they've discovered the rewards of made-to-order clothing.

It was just an online classified ad, under Collectibles for Sale, but it sounded like a cry from the heart: "I'm tired of these things now. Please save me from them." Kelly Cabral of Tracy, Calif., placed the ad recently after coming across a box in her garage crammed with dozens and dozens of Beanie Babies, the floppy little stuffed animals that sparked an international trading frenzy in the late 1990s.

The history of Europe is written in its people's DNA. The Huns and the Slavs made incursions into Eastern Europe about 1,500 years ago. Migrants moved from Ireland to England in recent centuries. Populations in Italy and Spain have been comparatively stable. None of this is breaking news. But scientists were able to see it anew by examining the patterns of genes in 2,257 people now living in 40 countries on the continent. It's surprising "how much past history was still evident in the patterns we've seen," said Peter Ralph, a computational biologist at USC who reported the findings Tuesday in the journal PLOS Biology.

Pity the poor Hollywood agent. In the '80s and early '90s, talent agents ruled the industry. Movie studios and television networks found themselves beholden to International Creative Management, the Creative Artists Agency and the time-tested William Morris Agency, the "big three" agencies that had a lock on most A-list stars. Agents made big money for both their clients and themselves, charging the TV networks, for example, huge so-called packaging fees to assemble talent for shows.

In a global search for low-cost customer service, AOL considered call centers in India and other popular locations -- then settled on the tiny island of St. Lucia. In choosing the Caribbean island, AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., joined other U.S. companies that have made the region a new global hub for call centers.

WASHINGTON - Climate change may increase the risk of extreme rainfall in the tropics and drought in the world's temperate zones, according to a new study led by NASA. "These results in many ways are the worst of all possible worlds," said Peter Gleick, a climatologist and water expert who is president of the Pacific Institute, an Oakland research organization. "Wet areas will get wetter and dry areas will get drier. " The regions that could get the heaviest rainfall are along the equator, mainly over the Pacific Ocean and the Asian tropics.

WASHINGTON - Americans do not have a right to obtain public records from states other than their own, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, dealing a setback to businesses and researchers who gather data across the nation. The unanimous decision upheld laws in Virginia and a handful of other states that release some public records only to their own citizens. "This is disappointing. We have a national information economy now, and all sorts of activities depend on data from all 50 states," said Washington attorney Deepak Gupta, who represented two men who had challenged the "citizens only" provision of Virginia's public records law. Despite the ruling, Gupta said the trend has been for states to open their public records on an equal basis.

First time on the market in 24 years. Good bones. Needs TLC. Alas, this was not realty. It was reality, smacking me in the face. Several months after the end of a 20-year marriage to my college sweetheart, I was ready to date. I told my friends. The first call came as I was headed to a movie. "I have somebody for you," she said. "He's tall. " To her, this was a crucial attribute because I'm tall. Unusually tall. When I was confirmed in the sixth grade, I was taller than the bishop - with his hat. Truth be told, I wasn't concerned.

SAN ANTONIO - Something was missing. Actually, someone was missing. It had a lot to do with scoring, as in not enough of it for the Lakers, in a grueling, often boring 91-79 loss Sunday to the San Antonio Spurs. Kobe Bryant was present only on Twitter, watching from his home as the Lakers missed shot after shot and committed 18 turnovers in their playoff opener at AT&T Center. Yawn. Stretch. Head for the locker room. Game 2 is Wednesday in San Antonio. It was worth checking futility records when the Lakers entered the fourth quarter with a meager 57 points.

Show houses are meant to provide inspiration and to reflect the latest trends, and the Pasadena Showcase House of Design opens Sunday with plenty of both. This year 28 designers transformed a 1941 Arcadia estate originally designed by Roland E. Coate Sr., adding color and texture that exude warmth while staying true to the home's Monterey Colonial style. In a long second-floor hallway, purple damask fabric applied to the wall in lieu of wallpaper adds an unexpected softness. Grass cloth and burlap appear on other walls, often used as backing for bookshelves.

Authorities allege that five teenagers killed an off-duty San Jose paramedic inside his vehicle in an incident that Oakland's police chief called disturbing. "I'm deeply concerned about an unacceptable and disturbing trend where robberies and other crimes are being committed by young people 13 to 17," Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan told reporters at a news conference. "Young people are finding it very simple to point a gun and shoot someone. " The teenagers were arrested in connection with the killing of Quinn Boyer, 34, a San Jose paramedic who was inside his vehicle, police told the Oakland Tribune.

Like many honor students with dreams of going to an Ivy League university, Burton Liao has been taking a test preparation course to boost his scores on college entrance exams. But unlike his classmates in the summer program, Liao has plenty of time left to learn SAT vocabulary words and score-boosting strategies before the big test day arrives. He's only 13 years old.

Joanne Clarke, a legal secretary in her late 50s, leads the way down a pale green hallway in her modest Costa Mesa home, past a small guest room on the right and a blue tiled bathroom on the left. At the end of the hall, she opens a door, pushes aside a thick black curtain and ducks inside. "Isn't this wild?" she says, gesturing to the high-tech marijuana grow room she and her husband recently installed. "This used to be my daughter's bedroom. " Wild is one word for it. Bright is another.

Hospital owner Pacific Health Corp. said it will close its three remaining Southern California hospitals, citing the fallout from a federal fraud case last year in which the company admitted paying to recruit homeless people off skid row in Los Angeles and billing the government for unnecessary care. The Tustin company said the three hospitals shutting down are Los Angeles Metropolitan Medical Center, Bellflower Medical Center and Newport Specialty Hospital. Last week, Pacific Health announced the closure of Anaheim General Hospital.

Pluses There might be playoff games in The Center of the Hockey Universe for the first time since 2004, with the Toronto Maple Leafs having won three straight games and earned points in eight straight. Nazem Kadri and linemate Joffrey Lupul have played big roles, with Lupul collecting five goals and nine points in his last four games and Kadri scoring six goals and 14 points in his last eight. For that, Kadri was rewarded - or should that be punished? - by a kiss on the cheek from Don Cherry on Saturday.