JLo tones down concert in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Jennifer Lopez wowed thousands of fans in Indonesia, but they didn’t see as much of her as concertgoers in other countries — the American pop star toned down both her sexy outfits and her dance moves during her show in the world’s most populous Muslim country, promoters said Saturday.

Lopez’s “Dance Again World Tour” was performed in the country’s capital, Jakarta, on Friday in line with promises Lopez made to make her show more appropriate for the audience, said Chairi Ibrahim from Dyandra Entertainment, the concert promoter.

“JLo was very cooperative … she respected our culture,” Ibrahim said, adding that Lopez’s managers also asked whether she could perform her usual sexy dance moves, but were told that “making love” moves were not appropriate for Indonesia.

“Yes, she dressed modestly … she’s still sexy, attractive and tantalizing, though,” said Ira Wibowo, an Indonesian actress who was among more than 7,000 fans at the concert.

Another fan, Doddy Adityawarman, was a bit disappointed with the changes.

“She should appear just the way she is,” he said, “Many local artists dress even much sexy, much worse.”

Lopez changed several times during her 90-minute concert along with several dancers, who also dressed modestly without revealing their chests or cleavage.

Most Muslims in Indonesia, a secular country of 240 million people, are moderate. But a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

They have pushed through controversial laws — including an anti-pornography bill — and have been known to attack anything perceived as blasphemous, from transvestites and bars to “deviant” religious sects.

Lady Gaga was forced to cancel her sold-out show in Indonesia in May following threats by Islamic hard-liners, who called her a “devil worshipper.”

Lopez will also perform in Muslim-majority Malaysia on Sunday.

“Thank you Jakarta for an amazing night,” the 43-year-old diva tweeted to her 13 million followers Saturday.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Small union is causing big problems for ports

The small band of strikers that has effectively shut down the nation's busiest shipping complex forced two huge cargo ships to head for other ports Thursday and kept at least three others away, hobbling an economic powerhouse in Southern California.

The disruption is costing an estimated $1 billion a day at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, on which some 600,000 truckers, dockworkers, trading companies and others depend for their livelihoods.

"The longer it goes, the more the impacts increase," said Paul Bingham, an economist with infrastructure consulting firm CDM Smith. "Retailers will have stock outages, lost sales for products not delivered. There will be shutdowns in factories, in manufacturing when they run out of parts."

Despite the union's size — about 800 members of a unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union — it has managed to flex big muscles. Unlike almost anywhere else in the nation, union loyalty is strong at the country's ports. Neither the longshoremen nor the truckers are crossing the tiny union's picket lines.

The strike started at the L.A. port's largest terminal Tuesday and spread Wednesday to 10 of the two ports' 14 cargo terminals. These resemble seaside parking lots where long metal containers are loaded and unloaded with the help of giant cranes.

The union contends that the dispute is over job security and the transfer of work from higher-paid union members to lower-paid employees in other countries. The 14-employer management group says that no jobs have been outsourced and that the union wants to continue a practice called "featherbedding," or bringing in temporary workers even when there is no work.

The two sides haven't met since negotiations broke down Monday, but they were scheduled to begin talking again Thursday night. The union has worked without a contract for 21/2 years.

The clerical workers are a vital link in the supply chain. They handle the immense flow of information that accompanies each cargo ship as well as every item in the freight. One shipload of shoes, toys and other products is enough to fill five warehouses.

Logistics clerk Trinie Thompson, 41, normally spends her days working with railroad lines and trucking companies to ensure that the right containers are sent along to their proper destinations. On Thursday, she was walking the picket lines at the docks.

"We will be setting up trains to Houston, trains to Dallas, to Chicago, to the Pacific Northwest," said Thompson, who has worked for 10 years for Eagle Marine Services terminal, which is affiliated with the giant APL shipping line.

"For a typical container ship, we will have to set up multiple trains. We might be sending 200 to 300 containers to Chicago alone, and there will be paperwork for all of them."

The strike comes at a time of simmering labor unrest at other U.S. ports, underscoring the unusual power labor holds in maritime trade.

On the East Coast and Gulf Coast, another group of shipping lines and terminal operators called the United States Maritime Alliance has repeatedly failed to reach agreement on a new labor contract with the International Longshoremen's Assn. A strike that might have involved dozens of ports was avoided only after both sides agreed to extend negotiations past the September end of their current contract.

A strike also was narrowly avoided at Portland, Ore., only a few days ago in a dispute between grain shippers and union workers.

Operations at Oakland International Airport and at the Port of Oakland, the third-largest port in the state behind Los Angeles and Long Beach, were affected by a brief strike this month.

Maritime unions "have successfully organized one of the most vital links in the supply chain, and it's a tradition they nurture with all of their younger workers," said Nelson Lichtenstein, a UC Santa Barbara history professor and workplace expert. "They have a very strong ideological sense of who they are, and for now they are strong."

In Los Angeles and Long Beach, the 800 clerical workers have been able to shut down most of the ports because the 10,000-member dockworkers union is honoring the picket lines. Work continues at only four cargo terminals, where the office clerical unit has no workers.

"Longshoremen stand up when other workers need our help," said Ray Ortiz Jr., a member of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Coast Committee. "Sure, it's a sacrifice to give up a paycheck when you refuse to cross the picket line, but we believe it's in the long-term interest of the Los Angeles-Long Beach harbor area to retain these good local jobs."

Stephen Berry, lead negotiator for the shipping lines and cargo terminals, said the clerical workers have been offered a deal that includes "absolute job security," a raise that would take average annual pay to $195,000 from $165,000, 11 weeks' paid vacation and a generous pension increase.

At a news conference Thursday, Berry denounced the tactics by the clerical workers, calling them "irresponsible."

Read More..

How an Obscure Comic Artist Became John McAfee's Lifeline to the World

Two years ago, Portland animator Chad Essley never could have imagined he would become the webmaster and primary public liaison for John McAfee, the reclusive millionaire and former antivirus software mogul now sought for questioning in a Belizean murder case. But that’s exactly what happened to the aspiring graphic novelist, who is currently at work on an illustrated account of his adventures with McAfee.

The relationship between the fugitive and the cartoonist began in 2010 on a private internet forum where an anonymous entrepreneur hired Essley to produce an animated web short for an antibiotic venture called Quorumex. The mysterious businessman soon revealed himself as McAfee, and the two struck up a friendship. When the news broke this April that a gang suppression unit had raided McAfee’s property in Belize, Essley was taken aback.

“After I [heard] about the first raid, I wrote [McAfee] saying, ‘Oh my god! They shot your dogs! I can’t believe that!’” said Essley. “I received a reply that said, ‘We’re fine. Things have calmed down. Time to come to Belize. Moneypenny will arrange the details.’”

Although Essley has done most of his professional work in the field of animation at his studio Cartoon Monkey, producing animations for clients that include Microsoft and Sesame Street, McAfee asked Essley to join him on his estate and document his life in a graphic novel. After spending nearly a month with McAfee this summer, the artist began work on The Hinterland, an illustrated first-person account of his time in Belize.

After McAfee began his recent flight from the law, he first spoke exclusively with Wired’s Joshua Davis, whose coverage is collected in the e-book The Last Stand of John McAfee, and then began talking with other reporters. But he soon became disenchanted with his portrayal through media filters. That’s when he turned back to Essley, one of the few people he still trusted, to set up a website and Twitter account where he could voice his side of the story. Overnight, Essley went from being an eccentric millionaire’s comic book biographer, to serving as webmaster to a wanted man.

“I did it because I had the ability to do so for free, in a keystroke or two,” says Essley. Since then, he has kept McAfee’s often rambling personal blog WhoIsMcAfee.com up and running, and served as one of the only contacts to the millionaire fugitive, who is still on the run.

Essley is clearly concerned when he speaks of McAfee’s well-being, and has questioned his friend about whether staying in Belize is simply a drawn-out form of suicide, particularly given the Belizean police’s history of excessive force, and the country’s sweeping surveillance laws and ability to hold trials without juries.

He shows me photos of McAfee’s taxi driver, bodyguards and friends, some of whom, like Eddie Anona, are still being held by police. He shows me pristine ocean views, fresh lobster cooked at home, and many of the girls that stayed on McAfee’s estate, noting that one of them, Amy Emshwiller, tried to kill McAfee at least twice. The young woman will be a central figure in the graphic novel, which opens with one of her attempts on McAfee’s life — the same incident detailed by Davis in John McAfee’s Last Stand:

[Emshwiller] slipped out of bed and pulled McAfee’s Smith & Wesson out of holster hanging from an ancient Tibetan gong in his bedroom. Her plan, if it could be called that, was to kill him and make off with as much cash as she could scrounge up. She crept to the foot of the bed, aimed, but at the last moment closed her eyes. She pulled the trigger but the bullet went wide, ripping through a pillow. “I guess I didn’t want to kill him,” she admits.

Essley is careful not to give away too much about his graphic novel, but provided two exclusive pages from the book to Wired. An artist by trade, not a programmer or web developer, Essley seems grateful for the potential to have his first graphic novel reach an audience far broader than most independent comics work, but also visibly exhausted by his intermediate role in the media maelstrom and relieved that he’s currently handing over the some of the tasks involved with the website to a friendly benefactor in Quebec.

He hopes this will give him more time to finish drawing The Hinterland, which he says is three-quarters complete and designed to be a printed work — though an e-book with extended multimedia content is a possibility as well.

“As crazy as it sounds, I plan to share whatever revenue this project makes with John, since he’s helped me work on it,” says Essley.

While he maintains that he would take the trip to Belize all over again (“if my wife would let me”), he’s reluctant to return at the moment. “I would be afraid that the police would want to speak with or detain me in some fashion, because of my association with John. There were real dangers while I was there.”

Asked whether he thinks McAfee is responsible for Faull’s murder, Essley responded in a single word: no.

Read More..

France’s Depardieu detained for drunken driving

PARIS (Reuters) – French actor Gerard Depardieu was detained for driving his scooter while drunk on Thursday after he had a minor accident in Paris, prosecutors said.

The 63-year-old star of films such as “Jean de Florette” and “Green Card” was held for questioning after he fell from his scooter mid-afternoon, slightly injuring his elbow.

No-one else was hurt in the accident.

One of France’s best-known actors for roles in more than a hundred films, Depardieu has recently grabbed headlines for the wrong reasons.

The incident came just months after a car driver filed a legal complaint for assault and battery against Depardieu in August following an altercation in Paris.

Last year, Depardieu outraged fellow passengers by urinating in the aisle of an Air France flight as it prepared to take off, forcing the plane to turn back to its parking spot.

A passenger on the flight said Depardieu appeared to be drunk and insisted he be allowed to use the bathroom during takeoff, when passengers must remain seated.

(Reporting by Gerard Bon; Writing by Leigh Thomas; Editing by Jon Hemming)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: Forced to Choose: Nursing Home vs. Hospice

An older person, someone who will die within six months, leaves a hospital. Where does she go?

Almost a third of the time, according to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco, records show she takes advantage of Medicare’s skilled-nursing facility benefit and enters a nursing home. But is that the best place for end-of-life care?

In terms of monitoring her vital signs and handling IVs — the round-the-clock nursing care the skilled-nursing facility benefit is designed to provide — maybe so. But for treating end-of-life symptoms like pain and shortness of breath, for providing spiritual support for her and her family, for palliative care that helps her through the ultimate transition – hospice is the acknowledged expert.

She could receive hospice care, also covered by Medicare, while in the nursing home. But since Medicare only rarely reimburses for both hospice and the skilled-nursing facility benefit at the same time, this hypothetical patient and her family face a financial bind. If she opts for the hospice benefit, which does not include room and board at the nursing home, then she will be on the hook for hundreds of dollars a day to remain in the facility.

She could use the hospice benefit at home, of course. But, “we know these patients are medically complex,” said Katherine Aragon, lead author of the study in The Archives of Internal Medicine, and now a palliative care specialist at Lawrence General Hospital in Massachusetts. “And we know that taking care of someone near the end of life can be very demanding, hard for families to manage at home.” And that assumes the patient has a family or a home.

For some patients, a nursing home, though possibly dreaded, is the only place that can provide 24/7 care.

But if she uses the skilled-nursing facility benefit to pay for room and board in a facility, she probably has to forgo hospice. (The exception: if she was hospitalized for something unrelated to her hospice diagnosis. If she has cancer, then trips and breaks a hip, she can have both nursing home coverage and hospice. If cancer itself caused the bone to fracture, no dice.)

Let’s acknowledge that these are lousy choices.

The study, using data from the National Health and Retirement Study from 1994 through 2007, looked at more than 5,000 people who initially lived in the community – that is, not in a facility. About 30 percent used the skilled-nursing facility benefit during the final six months of life; those people were likely to be over 85 and family members said, after their deaths, that they had expected them to die soon. (The benefit is commonly referred to as S.N.F., which people in the field pronounce as “sniff”).

The choice to use S.N.F. had ongoing repercussions. Almost 43 percent of those who used it died in a nursing home and almost 40 percent in a hospital. Just 11 percent died at home, though that is where most people prefer to die, studies repeatedly show.

Among those who didn’t use the S.N.F. benefit, more than 40 percent died at home.

In effect, nursing homes were providing end-of-life care, expensively and probably not so well, for almost a third of the elderly population.

The skilled-nursing facility benefit, Dr. Aragon pointed out in an interview, is meant to provide rehabilitation. “The hope is that someone will get stronger and go home,” she said.

Sometimes, of course, that is what happens.

“What we may be missing is that this patient is on an end-of-life trajectory,” she continued. “Maybe they can’t get stronger.”

Moreover, Dr. Aragon pointed out, nursing homes often have financial incentives to keep re-hospitalizing patients. After three days in a hospital, the skilled-nursing facility benefit starts anew, and it reimburses at a higher level than Medicaid, which pays for most nursing home care.

Because this unhappy choice between hospice care and nursing home reimbursement reflects federal policy, there may be little that individual families can do. If physicians are willing to honestly discuss their patients’ prognosis, to assess whether a nursing home stay will lead to rehabilitation or whether it is where a patient will likely die, sooner rather than later, families may have some personal options.

If they knew that death was likely within a few months, they might try to provide care at home with hospice help for that limited time, difficult as that is. Or they might be able to muster enough money to pay for a few months in a nursing home, so that their parent can be a resident and still receive hospice care.

But these are still lousy choices. “Palliative care should be part of nursing home care,” said Alexander K. Smith, the study’s senior author and a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “And that regulation that prevents concurrent use of the S.N.F. benefit and hospice isn’t in the interest of patients and families.”

Coming up in a future post: Experimenting with a concurrent-coverage option.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

Read More..

Most Americans Face Lower Tax Burden Than in the 80s

What Is Fair?:
Taxes are still a hot topic after the presidential election. But as a country that spends more than it collects in taxes, are we asking the right taxpayers to pay the right amounts?

BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Alan Hicks divides long days between the insurance business he started in the late 1970s and the barbecue restaurant he opened with his sons three years ago. He earned more than $250,000 last year and said taxes took more than 40 percent. What’s worse, in his view, is that others — the wealthy, hiding in loopholes; the poor, living on government benefits — are not paying their fair share.

Kirsten Luce for The New York Times

"I don't have the answer of where to pull back. I want the state parks to stay open. I want, I want, I want. I want Big Bird, I think it's beautiful. What don't I want? I don't know," said Anita Thole, a safety supervisor for a utility contractor.

“It feels like the harder we work, the more they take from us,” said Mr. Hicks, 55, as he waited for a meat truck one recent afternoon. “And it seems like there’s an awful lot of people in the United States who don’t pay any taxes.”

These are common sentiments in the eastern suburbs of St. Louis, a region of fading factory towns fringed by new subdivisions. Here, as across the country, people like Mr. Hicks are pained by the conviction that they are paying ever more to finance the expansion of government.

But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes — federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.

Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income. Middle-income households benefited, too. More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.

Lower-income households, however, saved little or nothing. Many pay no federal income taxes, but they do pay a range of other levies, like federal payroll taxes, state sales taxes and local property taxes. Only about half of taxpaying households with incomes below $25,000 paid less in 2010.

The uneven decline is a result of two trends. Congress cut federal taxation at every income level over the last 30 years. State and local taxes, meanwhile, increased for most Americans. Those taxes generally take a larger share of income from those who make less, so the increases offset more and more of the federal savings at lower levels of income.

In a half-dozen states, including Connecticut, Florida and New Jersey, the increases were large enough to offset the federal savings for most households, not just the poorer ones.

Now an era of tax cuts may be reaching its end. The federal government depends increasingly on borrowed money to pay its bills, and many state and local governments are similarly confronting the reality that they are spending more money than they collect. In Washington, debates about tax cuts have yielded to debates about who should pay more.

President Obama campaigned for re-election on a promise to take a larger share of taxable income above roughly $250,000 a year. The White House is now negotiating with Congressional Republicans, who instead want to raise some money by reducing tax deductions. Federal spending cuts also are at issue.

If a deal is not struck by year’s end, a wide range of federal tax cuts passed since 2000 will expire and taxes will rise for roughly 90 percent of Americans, according to the independent Tax Policy Center. For lower-income households, taxation would spike well above 1980 levels. Upper-income households would lose some but not all of the benefits of tax cuts over the last three decades.

Public debate over taxes has typically focused on the federal income tax, but that now accounts for less than a third of the total tax revenues collected by federal, state and local governments. To analyze the total burden, The Times created a model, in consultation with experts, which estimated total tax bills for each taxpayer in each year from 1980, when the election of President Ronald Reagan opened an era of tax cutting, up to 2010, the most recent year for which relevant data is available.

The analysis shows that the overall burden of taxation declined as a share of income in the 1980s, rose to a new peak in the 1990s and fell again in the 2000s. Tax rates at most income levels were lower in 2010 than at any point during the 1980s.

Governments still collected the same share of total income in 2010 as in 1980 — 31 cents from every dollar — because people with higher incomes pay taxes at higher rates, and household incomes rose over the last three decades, particularly at the top.

Read More..

Powerball's $580-million jackpot inspires wishes, dreamers

Don't bother telling Wednesday night's Powerball winners  that a lottery is just a tax on those who flunked math. With a winning ticket in hand, or even just the dream of one, who cares if the odds against them exceeded 175 million to 1? 

Last-minute ticket-buying pushed the jackpot to nearly $580 million, which is how much a single winner would get if he or she took the money in annual payments over 30 years.  

The winning numbers: 5-16-22-23-29, and the Powerball:  06. 

Hours after the 8 p.m. drawing, officials said winning tickets had been sold in Arizona and Missouri.

No one had won since Oct. 6, causing the jackpot to roll over 16 times. It  grows at least $10 million every time no one wins, lottery officials said. 

To play Powerball, one must pick five unique numbers from 1 through 59, and a Powerball number from 1 through 35. The odds of winning are 1 in 175,223,510. 

Powerball tickets aren't sold in California, but some feverish residents reportedly drove or flew to one of 42 participating states  to buy a chance at a fortune. The District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands also participate. 

Maybe the next time the jackpot soars, out-of-state travel won't be necessary. On Thursday, the California State Lottery Commission is expected to adopt regulations to join the Powerball lottery. If so, California retailers could start selling the $2 tickets in April.

[Updated, 10:45 p.m., Nov. 28: An earlier version of this post said the jackpot would exceed $550 million.  Late Wednesday, the Associated Press reported, Powerball officials said it would be nearly $580 million. And early Thursday EST, lottery officials said winning tickets had been sold in Arizona and Missouri.]

 ALSO:

Zig Ziglar dies at 86; motivational speaker inspired millions

Nanny, in hospital, pleads not guilty to murder of 2 children

Texas moves to seize polygamist Warren Jeffs' ranch compound 

Read More..

Netflix Gambles on Big Data to Become the HBO of Streaming

Reed Hastings has a dream. Actually, it’s more of an obsession. The Netflix CEO wants his streaming video service to become the next HBO, but without the hassle of a cable subscription. It’s a bold plan, and if Netflix can pull it off, it’ll change the way you watch TV.

Netflix is gunning for the HBO original-content legacy. Its first exclusive series, Lillyhammer, debuted in January 2012. Critically acclaimed sitcom Arrested Development is being resurrected for an exclusive run on Netflix. Plus the first episode of the Kevin Spacey vehicle House of Cards will be directed by David Fincher.

All of this is big news for a company that started off by shipping DVDs to customers too lazy to return rentals to brick-and-mortar stores before incurring late fess. Netflix doesn’t just want to compete head-to-head with the established television networks with exclusive content. It wants to do it by using something that traditional networks don’t have: Access to your viewing habits and preferences. It knows who watches what and it’s making huge bets that their algorithm will help it determine which shows will be hits.

Plus, by delivering an entire season at once, the company would be putting all the power in the hands of viewers and could destroy “Event TV.”

But, securing original and exclusive content is a far cry from stuffing envelopes or making sure its network can handle weekend streaming traffic. Still, Netflix believes that it needs original content to keep ahead of streaming video challenges from Amazon, Vudu and even HBO GO. It wants to be the first real network of the Internet.

It better move quick.

Netflix accounts for 33 percent of peak streaming downloads, according to network traffic tracker Sandvine Inc. Its closest competitor, Amazon, accounts for 1.8 percent. That’s a comfortable lead, but even Hastings realizes the company must differentiate itself and keep ahead of the pack.

“If we do our job right, there’s always a reason to be a Netflix member on the original side in addition to the license side,” Hastings told reporters during the third quarter earnings call.

To get people excited about its original content, Netflix needs a hit, and its process of mining for gold is different from traditional networks. Shows like the Walking Dead are hits out of the gate, while others, like X Files, gained viewers as the show matured. Netflix, like all networks, wants a string of hits. But instead of generating a ton of content and hoping something resonates with viewers, it is using its vast data set of 29 million subscribers’ viewer habits and preferences.

While networks traditionally order a show based on whether it likes a pilot, Netflix ordered two full seasons (26 episodes) of House of Cards without seeing a single scene. It reportedly bid more than $100 million to secure first rights to the show, outbidding HBO and AMC because it is utterly convinced the show will be a big hit.

Why? Because it is counting on data mining and algorithms to provide an edge. The company knows how many people are watching Kevin Spacey and David Fincher movies and it knows how many viewers watch political thrillers. If that audience is large enough, getting exclusive access to House of Cards makes sense.

“We know what people watch on Netflix and we’re able with a high degree of confidence to understand how big a likely audience is for a given show based on people’s viewing habits,” company communications boss Jonathan Friedland said. “We want to continue to have something for everybody. But as time goes on, we get better at selecting what that something for everybody is that gets high engagement.”

Pages: 1 2 View All

Read More..

R&B star Mary J. Blige sued for defaulting on $2.2 million loan

(Reuters) – R&B star Mary J. Blige was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday alleging the Grammy winner and her husband defaulted on a $ 2.2 million bank loan.

According to court documents filed in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Signature Bank is seeking to recoup the original loan plus $ 58,000 in interest.

Blige, 41, who has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide, and her husband Martin Isaacs took out the loan in October 2011 and defaulted in July 2012, the suit alleges.

Blige’s publicist declined comment on the lawsuit. The singer’s attorney did not immediately return a request to comment.

The lawsuit also names Blige’s production company, Mary Jane Productions Inc.

The lawsuit is the latest financial headache for the New York City native. The “Family Affair” singer’s charity, The Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now Inc, was accused earlier in this year of mishandling funds and cheating scholarship students.

Blige acknowledged the problems in a June interview.

“The lives of young women are at stake,” the singer told Reuters when asked about the allegations. “I feel what they feel. I don’t want them to suffer. I promised them something and I’m gonna deliver. Period.”

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey, editing by Jill Serjeant and Todd Eastham)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

The New Old Age Blog: New Help for Hoarders

There were times, Sandra Stark remembers, when she couldn’t use her kitchen or sit on her sofa. Her collections — figurines, vases, paperweights — had overtaken every closet, drawer and surface. Stacks of clothing and old magazines added to the clutter.

Her daughters came in and threw everything away — to Ms. Stark’s horror — but a year later her home was again barely navigable. “I couldn’t throw out my garbage,” she said. “I put it in plastic bags, but I couldn’t take it out.”

A drop-in support group sponsored by the Mental Health Association of San Francisco helped her begin to control her hoarding behavior, and she has made considerable headway. “My bedroom is still a work in progress,” said Ms. Stark, 67. “But I can cook again.”

She has become a trained peer responder who works with others with this disorder. Many of the Mental Health Association’s clients are older adults: A woman in her 70s occupies one small room because the rest of her spacious house — leaking and mildewed — is filled with stuff she can’t discard. An 87-year-old, a compulsive thrift-store shopper, faces eviction because the city health department says she has created a safety hazard. “I’ll say, ‘Of these dozen black leather coats, pick two,’” Ms. Stark said, mapping her strategy to help keep the woman in her home.

Researchers are not sure if hoarding intensifies with age, but the problems it creates certainly do. “The older you get, the more stuff you’ve been able to accumulate,” said Randy Frost, co-author of the book “Stuff” and a Smith College psychologist. “And older people are less physically able to deal with it.” They are more prone to falls as they try to maneuver between piles of possessions and in a crisis, emergency crews may have trouble even entering their dwellings.

When I last wrote about hoarding almost three years ago (uncorking a wave of readers’ lamentation), I couldn’t offer much in the way of help except to steer people to the OCD Foundation. Though hoarding may not be a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, its site remains useful.

At the time, experts knew what didn’t solve the problem, namely psychoactive drugs or “dumpster therapy,” in which well-meaning friends or family toss hoarders’ possessions, in a temporary fix that doesn’t change their behavior. But researchers were only starting to figure out what did work.

“This is an area in which there haven’t been a lot of answers,” said Eduardo Vega, executive director of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco. Now, “there’s a lot more hope and good will.”

Across the country, for example, cities, counties and states have formed about 80 hoarding task forces so that housing and health departments, senior service agencies, law enforcement and emergency units can coordinate their responses.

On the mental health front, the revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V is scheduled for publication in the spring, and many expect it will recognize hoarding as a distinct disorder with diagnostic criteria and a numeric code. That will make psychologists and other professionals more aware of the problem and, Mr. Vega said, “it will be easier to get insurers and providers to pay for treatment.”

Increasingly, there is treatment. Researchers have published studies showing that cognitive behavioral therapy can help, by encouraging people to reevaluate their attachment to possessions and supporting their decisions to start discarding.

Among patients in therapy groups, Dr. Frost has shown, 70 to 80 percent showed some improvement, he said. “That doesn’t mean they’re freed of symptoms, but their lives are improved and the behavior significantly reduced.”

Questions remain; several published studies use small samples that are heavily comprised of females, though hoarding may be more common among men. It is not clear, Dr. Frost said, whether cognitive therapy is as effective among older adults. And it is easier to find an individual therapist or a group in major cities than elsewhere. (Here’s a locator.)

But Dr. Frost and his co-authors have published a workbook called “Buried in Treasures,” along with a free facilitator’s guide, that allows people with hoarding disorders to form their own 15-session action workshops, led by peers rather than professionals. That approach, too, has brought measurable improvement (when used in groups, not individually), a study shows. “Here’s a way people can start working on this on their own,” Dr. Frost said.

Diagnostic criteria, treatment centers, workbooks, published research — all this is more than mental health professionals could offer years back. Still, compulsive hoarding remains a stubborn problem, a safety risk for older people and a heartache for their families.

“It’s really difficult for adult children,” who worry about their parents, but can’t induce them to change, Dr. Frost said. “There may be a history of animosity. Many report they grew up feeling their hoarding parents cared more about their possessions than about them.” The children, young or grown, could probably use a support group, too.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

Read More..