Matt Damon “thrilled” for Ben Affleck’s movie awards triumphs

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Ben Affleck is storming through the Hollywood awards season with his movie “Argo,” and no-one could be happier than his old friend Matt Damon.

“Argo,” which Affleck directed, produced and stars in, won best drama movie and best director awards at both the Golden Globes on Sunday and the Critics Choice last week. It is also nominated for seven Oscars.

The story of the rescue of U.S. diplomats from Tehran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has put Affleck back in the spotlight after a grueling period 10 years ago when he became tabloid fodder while dating Jennifer Lopez, and the couple starred in 2003 romantic comedy flop “Gigli.”

Damon, with whom Affleck shared a screenplay Oscar for the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting,” talked with Reuters about his friend’s success.

Q: You must be so proud of Affleck.

A: “I’m just thrilled for him. I’m really happy. I’m not at all surprised, because I’ve known him for so long and I know how talented he is.”

Q: Ben went through a rough patch in the early 2000s when the media was merciless with him, his career and his personal life. Was it rough to watch from the sidelines?

A: “It was tough to watch him get kicked in the teeth for all those years because the perception of him was so not who he actually was. I always felt a knee-jerk need to defend him. It was just upsetting. It was upsetting for a lot of his friends because he’s the smartest, funnest, nicest, kindest, incredibly talented guy. And the perception of him was the opposite. So that was tough.”

Q: When did that perception change for better?

A: “It’s taken him a long time. It wasn’t one thing that got him out of the penalty box. He had to dig. He did a lot of really good work over a long amount of time. The last movie he did (“The Town”) was a great movie. And the movie before was a great too (“Gone Baby Gone”). Finally people now are ready to go, ‘Wow, he’s at the very top of the food chain.’”

Q: The two of you came up together in your careers, and won a screenplay Oscar together. How is it that you escaped the media scrutiny and he didn’t?

A: “Ten years ago he was in a relationship (with actress Jennifer Lopez) and he was on the cover of Us Weekly magazine every week. Nobody was more aware of it than him. I talked to him about it back then. He said, ‘I am in the absolute worse place you can be; I sell magazines not movie tickets.’ I remember our agent called up the editor of Us Weekly, begging her not to put him on the cover any more: Please stop. Just stop! And she said, ‘My hands are tied. He’s still moving magazines all through the mid-West. Sorry.’ So he was aware of what was happening as it was happening.”

Q: Do you think “Gigli” deserved to be vilified in that way that it was?

A: “There are a lot of movies that cost more and made less than ‘Gigli.’ But for some reason, people think ‘Gigli’ is the biggest bomb of the last decade and it wasn’t. There’s a narrative that gets attached to all this stuff and Ben knew it. He had a millstone around his neck and that’s it.”

Q: As Ben goes through this awards season, what are you feeling?

A: “Now I’m just thrilled. I’m watching him go through it and it’s great. He deserves everything that he’s going to get. Just for going through what he went through, he deserves it. But he deserves it because he made a great movie.”

(Reporting By Zorianna Kit, editing by Jill Serjeant and David Brunnstrom)

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Well: How to Go Vegan

When I first heard former President Bill Clinton talk about his vegan diet, I was inspired to make the switch myself. After all, if a man with a penchant for fast-food burgers and Southern cooking could go vegan, surely I could too.

At the grocery store, I stocked up on vegan foods, including almond milk (that was the presidential recommendation), and faux turkey and cheese to replicate my daughter’s favorite sandwich. But despite my good intentions, my cold-turkey attempt to give up, well, turkey (as well as other meats, dairy and eggs) didn’t go well. My daughter and I couldn’t stand the taste of almond milk, and the fake meat and cheese were unappealing.

Since then, I’ve spoken with numerous vegan chefs and diners who say it can be a challenge to change a lifetime of eating habits overnight. They offer the following advice for stocking your vegan pantry and finding replacements for key foods like cheese and other dairy products.

NONDAIRY MILK Taste all of them to find your favorite. Coconut and almond milks (particularly canned coconut milk) are thicker and good to use in cooking, while rice milk is thinner and is good for people who are allergic to nuts or soy. My daughter and I both prefer the taste of soy milk and use it in regular or vanilla flavor for fruit smoothies and breakfast cereal.

NONDAIRY CHEESE Cheese substitutes are available under the brand names Daiya, Tofutti and Follow Your Heart, among others, but many vegans say there’s no fake cheese that satisfies as well as the real thing. Rather than use a packaged product, vegan chefs prefer to make homemade substitutes using cashews, tofu, miso or nutritional yeast. At Candle 79, a popular New York vegan restaurant, the filling for saffron ravioli with wild mushrooms and cashew cheese is made with cashews soaked overnight and then blended with lemon juice, olive oil, water and salt.

THINK CREAMY, NOT CHEESY Creaminess and richness can often be achieved without a cheese substitute. For instance, Chloe Coscarelli, a vegan chef and the author of “Chloe’s Kitchen,” has created a pizza with caramelized onion and butternut squash that will make you forget it doesn’t have cheese; the secret is white-bean and garlic purée. She also offers a creamy, but dairy-free, avocado pesto pasta. My daughter and I have discovered we actually prefer the rich flavor of butternut squash ravioli, which can be found frozen and fresh in supermarkets, to cheese-filled ravioli.

NUTRITIONAL YEAST The name is unappetizing, but many vegan chefs swear by it: it’s a natural food with a roasted, nutty, cheeselike flavor. Ms. Coscarelli uses nutritional yeast flakes in her “best ever” baked macaroni and cheese (found in her cookbook). “I’ve served this to die-hard cheese lovers,” she told me, “and everyone agrees it is comparable, if not better.”

Susan Voisin’s Web site, Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, offers a nice primer on nutritional yeast, noting that it’s a fungus (think mushrooms!) that is grown on molasses and then harvested and dried with heat. (Baking yeast is an entirely different product.) Nutritional yeasts can be an acquired taste, she said, so start with small amounts, sprinkling on popcorn, stirring into mashed potatoes, grinding with almonds for a Parmesan substitute or combining with tofu to make an eggless omelet. It can be found in Whole Foods, in the bulk aisle of natural-foods markets or online.

BUTTER This is an easy fix. Vegan margarines like Earth Balance are made from a blend of oils and are free of trans fats. Varieties include soy-free, whipped and olive oil.

EGGS Ms. Coscarelli, who won the Food Network’s Cupcake Wars with vegan cupcakes, says vinegar and baking soda can help baked goods bind together and rise, creating a moist and fluffy cake without eggs. Cornstarch can substitute for eggs to thicken puddings and sauces. Vegan pancakes are made with a tablespoon of baking powder instead of eggs. Frittatas and omelets can be replicated with tofu.

Finally, don’t try to replicate your favorite meaty foods right away. If you love a juicy hamburger, meatloaf or ham sandwich, you are not going to find a meat-free version that tastes the same. Ms. Voisin advises new vegans to start slow and eat a few vegan meals a week. Stock your pantry with lots of grains, lentils and beans and pile your plate with vegetables. To veganize a recipe, start with a dish that is mostly vegan already — like spaghetti — and use vegetables or a meat substitute for the sauce.

“Trying to recapture something and find an exact substitute is really hard,” she said. “A lot of people will try a vegetarian meatloaf right after they become vegetarian, and they hate it. But after you get away from eating meat for a while, you’ll find you start to develop other tastes, and the flavor of a lentil loaf with seasonings will taste great to you. It won’t taste like meat loaf, but you’ll appreciate it for itself.”

Ms. Voisin notes that she became a vegetarian and then vegan while living in a small town in South Carolina; she now lives in Jackson, Miss.

“If I can be a vegan in these not-quite-vegan-centric places, you can do it anywhere,” she said. “I think people who try to do it all at once overnight are more apt to fail. It’s a learning process.”

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What are your tips for vegan cooking and eating? Share your suggestions on ingredients, recipes and strategies by posting a comment below or tweeting with the hashtag #vegantips.

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Deadly West Side shooting spills over onto Eisenhower

A man was shot and killed at a gas station, but was found inside a mini-van along the Eisenhower Expressway.

By Carlos Sadovi




Tribune reporter

7:41 a.m. CST, January 14, 2013

A Forest Park man was shot and killed at a gas station near the Eisenhower Expressway on the West Side this morning, officials said.

The shooting occurred around 4:30 a.m. after the victim, a 28-year-old man, got into an argument with another person at the gas station in the 5200 block of West Jackson Boulevard, according to Police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro.

The victim then drove or was driven to the 600 block of South Kostner Avenue, near the entrance to the Eisenhower Expressway.

He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 5:03 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The man's name is not being released pending notification of his family, according to the office.

At least one lane of the inbound Eisenhower was closed for about a half hour after the shooting, according to Illinois State Police officials.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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BlackBerry service outage hits Europe [updated]

BlackBerry subscribers using Vodafone in Europe, the Middle East and Africa were hit with a service outage on Friday morning that left many with no access to data services. Vodafone confirmed the outage to ZDNet but did not indicate what might have caused the service interruption. “We are aware that some BlackBerry customers are experiencing issues,” Vodafone said in a statement. “Vodafone is working closely with Research in Motion (RIMM) to restore full service as soon as possible.” Email, BlackBerry Messenger and other key services were all impacted by the outage, and Vodafone has subsequently told TechCrunch that service is in the process of being restored.

[More from BGR: How computer scientists are trying to stop smartphones and tablets from breaking the Internet]

UPDATE: RIM has issued a statement confirming that the issue lies with Vodafone and it is supporting the carrier’s efforts to restore service:

[More from BGR: ‘Apple is done’ and Surface tablet is cool, according to teens]

All BlackBerry services are operating normally but we are aware that a wider Vodafone service issue is impacting some of our BlackBerry customers in Europe, Middle East and Africa. We are supporting Vodafone’s efforts to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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CBS orders untitled Jim Gaffigan project to pilot

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – CBS has ordered an untitled Jim Gaffigan project to pilot, the network announced on Friday.

Much like FX’s “Louie,” the proposed single-camera series sounds as if it will be largely autobiographical on the stand-up comic’s life.

Executive produced and written by both Gaffigan and Peter Tolan (“Rescue Me”), Gaffigan will star as the happily married and harried father of five living in New York City.

Gaffigan’s manager, Alex Murray, will also serve as an executive producer on the Sony Television production, along with Michael Wimer of Tolan’s Fedora Entertainment.

Gaffigan has starred in a number of television and film projects over the years, including TBS’ “My Boys,” but most recently won an Emmy for his 2012 comedy album “Mr. Universe.”

His newest book, “Dad is Fat,” hits shelves this May.

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Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Psychologist Who Studied Depression in Women, Dies at 53

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, a psychologist and writer whose work helped explain why women are twice as prone to depression as men and why such low moods can be so hard to shake, died on Jan. 2 in New Haven. She was 53.

Andrew Sacks

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema at the University of Michigan in 2003. Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema's research showed that women were more prone to ruminate, or dwell on the sources of problems rather than solutions, more than men.

Her death followed heart surgery to correct a congenitally weak valve, said her husband, Richard Nolen-Hoeksema.

Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema, a professor at Yale University, began studying depression in the 1980s, a time of great excitement in psychiatry and psychology. New drugs like Prozac were entering the market; novel talking therapies were proving effective, too, particularly cognitive behavior therapy, in which people learn to defuse upsetting thoughts by questioning their basis.

Her studies, first in children and later in adults, exposed one of the most deceptively upsetting of these patterns: rumination, the natural instinct to dwell on the sources of problems rather than their possible solutions. Women were more prone to ruminate than men, the studies found, and in a landmark 1987 paper she argued that this difference accounted for the two-to-one ratio of depressed women to depressed men.

She later linked rumination to a variety of mood and behavior problems, including anxiety, eating disorders and substance abuse.

“The way I think she’d put it is that, when bad things happen, women brood — they’re cerebral, which can feed into the depression,” said Martin Seligman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, who oversaw her doctoral work. “Men are more inclined to act, to do something, plan, beat someone up, play basketball.”

Dr. Seligman added, “She was the leading figure in sex differences in depression of her generation.”

Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema wrote several books about her research for general readers, including “Women Who Think Too Much: How to Break Free of Overthinking and Reclaim Your Life.” These books described why rumination could be so corrosive — it is deeply distracting; it tends to highlight negative memories — and how such thoughts could be alleviated.

Susan Kay Nolen was born on May 22, 1959, in Springfield, Ill., to John and Catherine Nolen. Her father ran a construction business, where her mother was the office manager; Susan was the eldest of three children.

She entered Illinois State University before transferring to Yale. She graduated summa cum laude in 1982 with a degree in psychology.

After earning a Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, she joined the faculty at Stanford. She later moved to the University of Michigan, before returning to Yale in 2004.

Along the way she published scores of studies and a popular textbook. In 2003 she became the editor of the Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, an influential journal.

Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema moved smoothly between academic work and articles and books for the general reader.

“I think part of what allowed her to move so easily between those two worlds was that she was an extremely clear thinker, and an extremely clear writer,” said Marcia K. Johnson, a psychology professor and colleague at Yale.

Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema lived in Bethany, Conn. In addition to her husband, a science writer, she is survived by a son, Michael; her brothers, Jeff and Steve; and her father, John.

“Over the past four decades women have experienced unprecedented growth in independence and opportunities,” Dr. Nolen-Hoeksema wrote in 2003, adding, “We have many reasons to be happy and confident.”

“Yet when there is any pause in our daily activities,” she continued, “many of us are flooded with worries, thoughts and emotions that swirl out of control, sucking our emotions and energy down, down, down. We are suffering from an epidemic of overthinking.”

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The story behind Tribune's broken deal

7:04 a.m. CST, January 13, 2013

At the end of 2007, real estate tycoon Sam Zell took control of Tribune Co. in a deal that promised to re-energize the media conglomerate. But the company struggled under the huge debt burden the deal created, and less than a year later, it filed for bankruptcy.

One of Chicago's most iconic companies — parent to the Chicago Tribune — was propelled into a protracted and in many ways unprecedented odyssey through Chapter 11 reorganization.

On Dec. 31, after four years, Tribune Co. finally emerged from court protection under new ownership, but at a heavy cost. The company's value was diminished, its reputation was tarnished and its ability to respond to market opportunities during its long bankruptcy was constrained.

Tribune Co.'s bankruptcy saga began as an era of superheated Wall Street deal-making fueled by cheap money was coming to an end. The company's tale is emblematic of the American financial crisis itself, in which a seemingly insatiable appetite for speculative risk using exotic investment instruments helped trigger an economic collapse of historic proportions.

Tribune reporters Michael Oneal and Steve Mills, in a four-part series that begins today, tell the story of Tribune Co.'s journey into and through bankruptcy, throwing a spotlight on the key decisions and missed opportunities that marked a perilous time in the history of the company, the media industry and the economy.

Read the full story, "Part one: Zell's big gamble," as a digitalPLUS member.
To view videos and photos and for a look at the rest of the series visit, chicagotribune.com/brokendeal.

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Facebook tests $100 charge to message Zuckerberg

NEW YORK (AP) — Would you pay $ 100 to message Mark Zuckerberg? Facebook says it’s testing some “extreme price points” to let users pay to have their messages seen by people who are not their friends.

The tech blog Mashable reported early Friday that some users trying to message Zuckerberg are offered the option to pay $ 100 to ensure that their missive reaches the Facebook CEO’s inbox. Without paying, the message would likely end up in Zuckerberg’s “other” message folder, an oft-overlooked purgatory between the spam folder and the inbox.

Facebook says it’s testing the “extreme” prices to “see what works to filter spam. The company is also testing a service that lets people pay $ 1 per message to route communications to non-friends’ inboxes.

Zuckerberg has more than 16 million followers on the site.

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PHOTOS: Miss America winners, yesterday and today

Miss America is in a New York state of mind.

Mallory Hagan of New York City won the beauty pageant Saturday night after tap dancing to James Brown’s “Get Up Off of That Thing” and answering a question about whether armed guards belong in grade schools by saying we should not fight violence with violence.

By capturing the crown, Hagan receives a $ 50,000 scholarship and a yearlong run as an advocate and role model.

Here, in images, is a look at some of the present and past winners:

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City Room: Cuomo Declares Public Health Emergency Over Flu Outbreak

With the nation in the grip of a severe influenza outbreak that has seen deaths reach epidemic levels, New York State declared a public health emergency on Saturday, making access to vaccines more easily available.

There have been nearly 20,000 cases of flu reported across the state so far this season, officials said. Last season, 4,400 positive laboratory tests were reported.

“We are experiencing the worst flu season since at least 2009, and influenza activity in New York State is widespread, with cases reported in all 57 counties and all five boroughs of New York City,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement.

Under the order, pharmacists will be allowed to administer flu vaccinations to patients between 6 months and 18 years old, temporarily suspending a state law that prohibits pharmacists from administering immunizations to children.

While children and older people tend to be the most likely to become seriously ill from the flu, Mr. Cuomo urged all New Yorkers to get vaccinated.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said that deaths from the flu had reached epidemic levels, with at least 20 children having died nationwide. Officials cautioned that deaths from pneumonia and the flu typically reach epidemic levels for a week or two every year. The severity of the outbreak will be determined by how long the death toll remains high or if it climbs higher.

There was some evidence that caseloads may be peaking, federal officials said on Friday.

In New York City, public health officials announced on Thursday that flu-related illnesses had reached epidemic levels, and they joined the chorus of authorities urging people to get vaccinated.

“It’s a bad year,” the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, told reporters on Thursday. “We’ve got lots of flu, it’s mainly type AH3N2, which tends to be a little more severe. So we’re seeing plenty of cases of flu and plenty of people sick with flu. Our message for any people who are listening to this is it’s still not too late to get your flu shot.”

There has been a spike in the number of people going to emergency rooms over the past two weeks with flulike symptoms – including fever, fatigue and coughing – Dr. Farley said.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Mr. Cuomo made a public display of getting shots this past week.

In a briefing with reporters on Friday, officials from the C.D.C. said that this year’s vaccine was effective in 62 percent of cases.

As officials have stepped up their efforts encouraging vaccinations, there have been scattered reports of shortages. But officials said plenty of the vaccine was available.

According to the C.D.C., makers of the flu vaccine produced about 135 million doses for this year. As of early this month, 128 million doses had been distributed. While that would not be enough for every American, only 37 percent of the population get a flu shot each year.

Federal health officials said they would be happy if that number rose to 50 percent, which would mean that there would be more than enough vaccine for anyone who wanted to be immunized.

Two other diseases – norovirus and whooping cough – are also widespread this winter and are contributing to the number of people getting sick.

The flu can resemble a cold, though the symptoms come on more rapidly and are more severe.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/13/2013, on page A21 of the NewYork edition with the headline: New York Declares Health Emergency.

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