lifestyle news stories on Newser

Quit the Rat Race: Go Rural

Matt Cantor — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:13:08 CDT

Rural life often gets a bad rap: There’s no culture, no convenience, and locals are uneducated, we hear. It’s high time we examine the benefits of living in the country, writes Trent Hamm in the Christian Science Monitor . Indeed, the lifestyle can provide “a lot of economic and social opportunity,...

More Hospitals Refuse to Hire Smokers

Matt Cantor — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:32:13 CST

A new trend in hospital jobs: Smokers need not apply. In what some call “tobacco-free hiring,” medical businesses are refusing employment to smokers, insisting on blood tests for nicotine along with applications, the New York Times reports. The policy—which, the Times notes, treats a legal habit like an illegal...

How Will Ruth Madoff Survive on Just $2.5M?

Matt Cantor — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 08:18:39 CDT

With just $2.5 million at her disposal as her husband heads to jail, Ruth Madoff won't exactly be sentenced to penury, but she'll have to cut her annual expenses to the low six figures if she wants it to last her lifetime, reports Brett Arends of the Wall Street...

Healthy Greek Isle Fosters Longer Lives

Drew Nelles — Sun, 03 May 2009 18:20:00 CDT

Researchers have discovered every health nut's dream in the North Aegean Sea: an island with the highest percentage of nonagenarians on the planet, NPR reports. On the Greek isle of Icaria, nearly one in three make it to age 90, and residents have far lower rates of cancer, heart disease,...

Once-Richest Aussie Dumps His Playthings

Matt Cantor — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:16:02 CST

The recession is forcing one of Australia's richest men to cut back on the playboy life, the Sunday Telegraph reports. James Packer, son of media mogul Kerry Packer, is selling his $50 million yacht, halting the construction of a $3 million pool complex at his family home, and pushing back...

Times Tough for I-Bankers, in 'Marie Antoinette' Kind of Way

Matt Cantor — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:26:12 CDT

With Wall Street in free fall, many of its elite I-bankers are seeing the status quo turned upside-down, Vanessa Grigoriadis writes in New York . Once at the top of the heap, working for companies that praised them as smartest people out there, some are fighting to survive on the Street,...

College Does This to You, and Aims to Fix It

Harry Kimball — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:26:01 CDT

New research on the connection between sleep and performance has colleges scrambling to get their students to bed, the Boston Globe reports. According to a university doctor, “pulling an all-nighter is the equivalent of driving drunk and is detrimental to reaction time and memory.” But some habits are hard to...

Whatevs, Ma: Anti-Martha Builds Empire

Victoria Floethe — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 17:50:01 CDT

Whatever, Martha !, in which Alexis Stewart and a pal riff over episodes of her mother’s TV shows, is the opening of the latest chapter in the pair’s unusual relationship, Andrew Goldman writes in New York . Alexis, 42, is surprisingly vulgar for being raised by a domestic diva. “My media training...

Paltrow Starts Lifestyle Website

Elizabeth Wolff — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:18:33 CDT

On top of co-hosting a PBS travel and cooking show, Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow has launched a lifestyle website called Goop.com, the Huffington Post reports. In an essay, Paltrow says she’ll share what she’s learned and the advice of her “sages” in the still-empty sections such as "Make," "Go,...