"This is an issue of vital concern to every American, and I'm glad that so many are engaged," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address Saturday. "But it also should be an honest debate, not one dominated by willful misrepresentations and outright distortions, spread by the very folks who would benefit the most by keeping things exactly as they are."

"So today, I want to spend a few minutes debunking some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the Internet, on cable TV and repeated at some town halls across this country," the president said.

Obama said the overhaul would not cover illegal immigrants nor use taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions, and he does not intend a government takeover of health care — as critics have claimed at contentious town hall-style meetings with members of Congress.

He also took a swipe at "death panels," an idea former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin introduced on her Facebook page.

"As every credible person who has looked into it has said, there are no so-called death panels — an offensive notion to me and to the American people," Obama said. "These are phony claims meant to divide us."

Obama angered his liberal base this past week after seeming to suggest he would be OK with a plan that didn't have a government-run health insurance option.

"This is one idea among many to provide more competition and choice, especially in the many places around the country where just one insurer thoroughly dominates the marketplace," Obama said. "Let me repeat: It would be just an option; those who prefer their private insurer would be under no obligation to shift to a public plan."

Republicans, in their weekly address, accused Obama of being the one misrepresenting his proposal.

"As opposition to the Democrats' government-run health plan is mounting, the president has said he'd like to stamp out some of the disinformation floating around out there," said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga. "The problem is the president, himself, plays fast and loose with the facts."

Price said the whole idea should be scrapped and lawmakers should start anew with a plan that ensures sure patients — not Washington or insurance providers — are the top priority.

"We all know that when the government is setting the rules and is backed by tax dollars, it will destroy, not compete with, the private sector," said Price, a doctor. "The reality is, whether or not you get to keep your plan, or your doctor, is very much in question under the president's proposal."

By DARLENE SUPERVILLE

This hoofed, horned Draenei stands watch beneath a Blizzcon banner, and impresses all passerby with her ability to walk on what are essentially 12-inch platform heels.

This guy appears to be a Night Elf druid, although he didn't spring for the purple face paint, so we can't give him full points for his costume. Nice hair, though.

There's no lack of purple makeup this time around, but clearly the centerpiece of this Night Elf Hunter's costume is that ginormous longbow, which appears to be taller than its wielder.

The parade of elves continues. Aside from sporting more feathers than anyone since Bjork, this fan demonstrates that shoulderpads are in again.

This fan's made up as a Forsaken -- basically, a race of undead zombies who possess free will, fierce independence, and crippling dentist bills.

What appears to be the offspring of a Night Elf and the Hindu goddess Shiva is actually, we think, a demon of some sort. We'd welcome more knowledgeable fans to set the record straight in our Comments. Either way, nice costume!

This fan's made up to look like a Pandaren Brewmaster -- a noble warrior in the form of a humanoid panda bear, who carries a keg around with him.

At a guess, this two-fisted fighter appears to be a Blood Elf Rogue.

This appears to be a Blood Elf Warlock accompanied by her demonic pet. If you're wondering what's the difference between Blood Elves and Night Elves, by the way, here's the short version: Blood Elves are white and evil, while Night Elves are purple and good.

A Death Knight in full regalia. The contact lenses are an especially nice touch.

This dazzling ensemble is none other than the Mistress of Pain from the Diablo series. The costume walked away with first prize, and we'd call it well-earned.

We close our pictorial with this lovely fan dressed up to look like High Inquisitor Sally Whitemane of the Scarlet Crusade.

C.I.A. jailers at different times held the handgun and the drill close to the detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, threatening to harm him if he did not cooperate with his interrogators, a government official familiar with the contents of the report said.

Mr. Nashiri, who was implicated in the bombing of the Navy destroyer Cole in 2000, was one of two C.I.A. detainees whose interrogation sessions were videotaped — tapes that were destroyed by C.I.A. officers in 2005. It is unclear whether the threats with the gun and the power drill were documented on the tapes.

In a separate episode detailed in the report — completed in 2004 by the inspector general, John L. Helgerson, but emerging now after a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union forced its release — C.I.A. officers fired a gunshot in a room next to a detainee, leading the prisoner to believe that a second detainee had been killed.

It is a violation of the federal torture statute to threaten a detainee with imminent death.

The C.I.A. declined to comment on specifics of the report, which were first reported Friday evening by Newsweek.

Paul Gimigliano, a C.I.A. spokesman, said: “The C.I.A. in no way endorsed behavior — no matter how infrequent — that went beyond the formal guidance. This has all been looked at; professionals in the Department of Justice decided if and when to pursue prosecution.”

A federal prosecutor is now investigating the destruction of the C.I.A. tapes, but the Justice Department has thus far declined to open a formal investigation into the abuses in C.I.A. prisons.

That may be about to change, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is considering whether to appoint a prosecutor to examine the allegations in Mr. Helgerson’s report, and to investigate a number of cases where detainees died in C.I.A. custody.

President Obama has insisted that C.I.A. officers who adhered to Justice Department interrogation guidelines should escape prosecution, and Mr. Holder is not expected to single out Justice Department lawyers who approved the brutal interrogation techniques.

This would give any future investigation a somewhat narrow mandate: aiming only at C.I.A. officers who carried out abuses that exceed the interrogation guidelines.

Mr. Helgerson’s report is said to document in grim detail a number of abuse cases, and its release on Monday is likely to reinvigorate a partisan debate on Capitol Hill.

Even as White House officials say that they are hesitant to dwell on the detainee abuse during the Bush administration, the A.C.L.U. lawsuit has forced officials to make public a number of classified documents from that era.

Besides the inspector general’s report, other documents expected to be released Monday are a 2007 Justice Department memo reauthorizing the C.I.A.’s “enhanced” interrogation techniques, documents that former Vice President Dick Cheney has said provide evidence that the interrogation methods produced valuable information about Al Qaeda; and Justice Department memos from 2006 concerning conditions of confinement in C.I.A. jails.

In Mr. Nashiri’s case, military prosecutors announced in July 2008 that they would seek the death penalty as they brought war crimes charges against him. He has been held at the prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and is suspected of helping to plan the bombing of the Cole, an attack that killed 17 sailors.

Mr. Nashiri is a Saudi who has long been described by American officials as Al Qaeda’s operations chief in the Persian Gulf and the primary planner of the October 2000 attack on the Cole.

Mr. Nashiri is one of three detainees who the C.I.A. has acknowledged were subjected to waterboarding. Mr. Nashiri was interrogated in the agency’s secret prisons before he was transferred to Guantánamo in 2006.

In announcing the charges, which will be heard by the Bush administration’s military commission tribunals at Guantánamo, the Pentagon official, Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, appeared to back away from years of assertions by American officials about Mr. Nashiri when he was asked at a news conference if Mr. Nashiri was suspected of being the primary planner or mastermind of the Cole attack.

Yahoo Finance, which has occupied the top spot in the category for 19 consecutive months, drew 21.7 million unique United States visitors in July; Google Finance drew only 1.2 million unique visitors, placing it 17th in comScore’s rankings for the category, one slot above a site called FreePressRelease.com.

Yahoo understands that information about money — a user’s own money — presents some tricky psychological issues. James Pitaro, vice president of Yahoo’s audience group, said, “In our research with users, we found that the more information that was displayed on the page, the greater the anxiety.”

He said Yahoo deliberately adopted what he calls “the Apple model — simplicity in design; a clean, simple look, not overburdening our users with too much information on the page.”

Google seems to pay no heed to such psychology. Google Finance, which was introduced in 2006 and shed its “beta” label earlier this year, hews to its original strategy: offer the best data and charts. And when that doesn’t work, offer still more data and charts.

Yahoo Finance is organized into sections: investing; news and opinion; personal finance; customized portfolio tracking; and “Tech Ticker,” short video features that have supplied an average of 450,000 streams a day in recent months, Yahoo says. When you click on a link to a news story accompanied by a Tech Ticker video, it starts automatically and seems intended to insert a warm human presence on the page. The video player is on one side of the page and is stationary; the visitor scrolls down on the other side to read news articles.

“It’s made for multitasking,” Mr. Pitaro said.

About 5 percent of the finance site’s information is original, he said, though his group is looking at ways to increase that to about 10 percent, matching the proportion on Yahoo Sports.

Mr. Pitaro credited Yahoo’s home page with sending traffic to Yahoo Finance.

“We have a great relationship with the front-page team to identify topics we should cover,” he said. An example of a “featured” story found last week on Yahoo’s front page: “Where Rich Singles Live,” accompanied by a picture of an attractive young woman smiling at the camera while pulling papers out of a briefcase. A click whisked the interested reader to Yahoo Finance.

Google does not use the mostly empty home page of the mothership to let visitors know that it has a finance site — some may not even know it exists. (To reach it, a user must click on the word “more” at the top of the home page.) But Google’s finance site offers something rather basic that Yahoo doesn’t: free real-time price quotations obtained directly from the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.

Over at Yahoo, the price quotations come from the BATS Exchange, an electronic equity exchange. A Yahoo spokeswoman said that in terms of accuracy and speed, its data “are very close to that from the larger exchanges, and for the average investor, the differences would hardly be noticeable.” (In my side-by-side comparison, the BATS quote on Yahoo for “YHOO” usually lagged Nasdaq’s on Google by a minute.)

If Yahoo customers would like the quotations directly from the two largest United States exchanges, they must pay Yahoo $10.95 or $13.95 a month for the privilege of getting the same data that Google offers free.

Among all visitors to Yahoo Finance who are referred by another site, 47.8 percent came from another Yahoo property, according to comScore’s data for July. Only 28.8 percent of Google Finance visitors came from another Google property. (As for MSN Money, which holds third place, 72.7 percent came from other Microsoft sites.)

Compare the total United States traffic on all Google sites with the total on all of Yahoo’s and you’ll see that Google edged past Yahoo last year to take the overall lead. Since then, Google has stayed on top, though with only a slim advantage, according to comScore. So finance is an important category that allows Yahoo to remain neck-and-neck with Google over all.

Yahoo Finance is not just coasting, either: it enjoyed 12 percent growth in traffic from July 2008 to July 2009, while Google Finance’s traffic grew by only 3 percent.

GOOGLE has not adopted the features that Yahoo uses to create a more appealing look and feel for a finance site. While Google also provides news and portfolio tracking, it doesn’t have its own videos or columnists.

Invited to show off features that differentiated Google’s site from Yahoo’s, Ayan Mandal, a Google product manager, pointed to new charting tools, called “Technicals. Added this summer, they allow users to analyze stock prices over time with 12 technical formulas.

This kind of rice is useful in areas where the flooding of paddies is difficult to control. But deepwater varieties don’t yield as much rice as high-yield varieties.

Ordinarily, ethylene, a gas produced by the plant that acts as a hormone, diffuses out of the plant tissues into the air. But ethylene diffuses much more slowly through water, so when the plant is submerged, the gas accumulates in the plant. The researchers found that this accumulation induces the expression of the genes, resulting in increased production of another hormone, gibberillin, that causes the rapid elongation of the stem.

They began to pull away from everyone else in the 1970s. By 2006, income was more concentrated at the top than it had been since the late 1920s. The recent news about resurgent Wall Street pay has seemed to suggest that not even the Great Recession could reverse the rise in income inequality.

But economists say — and data is beginning to show — that a significant change may in fact be under way. The rich, as a group, are no longer getting richer. Over the last two years, they have become poorer. And many may not return to their old levels of wealth and income anytime soon.

John McAfee is auctioning off this property in New Mexico to pay bills. His worth has fallen to about $4 million from a peak of about $100 million.

For every investment banker whose pay has recovered to its prerecession levels, there are several who have lost their jobs — as well as many wealthy investors who have lost millions. As a result, economists and other analysts say, a 30-year period in which the super-rich became both wealthier and more numerous may now be ending.

The relative struggles of the rich may elicit little sympathy from less well-off families who are dealing with the effects of the worst recession in a generation. But the change does raise several broader economic questions. Among them is whether harder times for the rich will ultimately benefit the middle class and the poor, given that the huge recent increase in top incomes coincided with slow income growth for almost every other group. In blunter terms, the question is whether the better metaphor for the economy is a rising tide that can lift all boats — or a zero-sum game.

Just how much poorer the rich will become remains unclear. It will be determined by, among other things, whether the stock market continues its recent rally and what new laws Congress passes in the wake of the financial crisis. At the very least, though, the rich seem unlikely to return to the trajectory they were on.

Last year, the number of Americans with a net worth of at least $30 million dropped 24 percent, according to CapGemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Monthly income from stock dividends, which is concentrated among the affluent, has fallen more than 20 percent since last summer, the biggest such decline since the government began keeping records in 1959.

Bill Gates, Warren E. Buffett, the heirs to the Wal-Mart Stores fortune and the founders of Google each lost billions last year, according to Forbes magazine. In one stark example, John McAfee, an entrepreneur who founded the antivirus software company that bears his name, is now worth about $4 million, from a peak of more than $100 million. Mr. McAfee will soon auction off his last big property because he needs cash to pay his bills after having been caught off guard by the simultaneous crash in real estate and stocks.

“I had no clue,” he said, “that there would be this tandem collapse.”

Some of the clearest signs of the reversal of fortunes can be found in data on spending by the wealthy. An index that tracks the price of art, the Mei Moses index, has dropped 32 percent in the last six months. The New York Yankees failed to sell many of the most expensive tickets in their new stadium and had to drop the price. In one ZIP code in Vail, Colo., only five homes sold for more than $2 million in the first half of this year, down from 34 in the first half of 2007, according to MDA Dataquick. In Bronxville, an affluent New York suburb, the decline was to two, from 17, according to Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage.

“We had a period of roughly 50 years, from 1929 to 1979, when the income distribution tended to flatten,” said Neal Soss, the chief economist at Credit Suisse. “Since the early ’80s, incomes have tended to get less equal. And I think we’ve entered a phase now where society will move to a more equal distribution.”

No More ’50s and ’60s

Few economists expect the country to return to the relatively flat income distribution of the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, they say that inequality is likely to remain significantly greater than it was for most of the 20th century. The Obama administration has not proposed completely rewriting the rules for Wall Street or raising the top income-tax rate to anywhere near 70 percent, its level as recently as 1980. Market forces that have increased inequality, like globalization, are also not going away.

But economists say that the rich will probably not recover their losses immediately, as they did in the wake of the dot-com crash earlier this decade. That quick recovery came courtesy of a new bubble in stocks, which in 2007 were more expensive by some measures than they had been at any other point save the bull markets of the 1920s or 1990s. This time, analysts say, Wall Street seems unlikely to return soon to the extreme levels of borrowing that made such a bubble possible.

Any major shift in the financial status of the rich could have big implications. A drop in their income and wealth would complicate life for elite universities, museums and other institutions that received lavish donations in recent decades. Governments — federal and state — could struggle, too, because they rely heavily on the taxes paid by the affluent.

Perhaps the broadest question is what a hit to the wealthy would mean for the middle class and the poor. The best-known data on the rich comes from an analysis of Internal Revenue Service returns by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, two economists. Their work shows that in the late 1970s, the cutoff to qualify for the highest-earning one ten-thousandth of households was roughly $2 million, in inflation-adjusted, pretax terms. By 2007, it had jumped to $11.5 million.

The gains for the merely affluent were also big, if not quite huge. The cutoff to be in the top 1 percent doubled since the late 1970s, to roughly $400,000.

By contrast, pay at the median — which was about $50,000 in 2007 — rose less than 20 percent, Census data shows. Near the bottom of the income distribution, the increase was about 12 percent.

Some economists say they believe that the contrasting trends are unrelated. If anything, these economists say, any problems the wealthy have will trickle down, in the form of less charitable giving and less consumer spending. Over the last century, the worst years for the rich were the early 1930s, the heart of the Great Depression.

Other economists say the recent explosion of incomes at the top did hurt everyone else, by concentrating economic and political power among a relatively small group.

“I think incredibly high incomes can have a pernicious effect on the polity and the economy,” said Lawrence Katz, a Harvard economist. Much of the growth of high-end incomes stemmed from market forces, like technological innovation, Mr. Katz said. But a significant amount also stemmed from the wealthy’s newfound ability to win favorable government contracts, low tax rates and weak financial regulation, he added.

The I.R.S. has not yet released its data for 2008 or 2009. But Mr. Saez, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said he believed that the rich had become poorer. Asked to speculate where the cutoff for the top one ten-thousandth of households was now, he said from $6 million to $8 million.

For the number to return to $11 million quickly, he said, would probably require a large financial bubble.

Making More Money

The United States economy experienced two such bubbles in recent years — one in stocks, the other in real estate — and both helped the rich become richer. Mr. McAfee, whose tattoos and tinted hair suggest an independent streak, is an extreme but telling example. For two decades, at almost every step of his career, he figured out a way to make more money.

In the late 1980s, he founded McAfee Associates, the antivirus software company. It gave away its software, unlike its rivals, but charged fees to those who wanted any kind of technical support. That decision helped make it a huge success. The company went public in 1992, in the early years of one of biggest stock market booms in history.

But Mr. McAfee is, by his own description, an atypical businessman — easily bored and given to serial obsessions. As a young man, he traveled through Mexico, India and Nepal and, more recently, he wrote a book called, “Into the Heart of Truth: The Spirit of Relational Yoga.” Two years after McAfee Associates went public, he was bored again.

So he sold his remaining stake, bringing his gains to about $100 million. In the coming years, he started new projects and made more investments. Almost inevitably, they paid off.

“History told me that you just keep working, and it is easy to make more money,” he said, sitting in the kitchen of his adobe-style house in the southwest corner of New Mexico. With low tax rates, he added, the rich could keep much of what they made.

One of the starkest patterns in the data on inequality is the extent to which the incomes of the very rich are tied to the stock market. They have risen most rapidly during the biggest bull markets: in the 1920s and the 20 years starting in 1987.

“We are coming from an abnormal period where a tremendous amount of wealth was created largely by selling assets back and forth,” said Mohamed A. El-Erian, chief executive of Pimco, one of the country’s largest bond traders, and the former manager of Harvard’s endowment.

Some of this wealth was based on real economic gains, like those from the computer revolution. But much of it was not, Mr. El-Erian said. “You had wealth creation that could not be tied to the underlying economy,” he added, “and the benefits were very skewed: they went to the assets of the rich. It was financial engineering.”

But if the rich have done well in bubbles, they have taken enormous hits to their wealth during busts. A recent study by two Northwestern University economists found that the incomes of the affluent tend to fall more, in percentage terms, in recessions than the incomes of the middle class. The incomes of the very affluent — the top one ten-thousandth — fall the most.

Over the last several years, Mr. McAfee began to put a large chunk of his fortune into real estate, often in remote locations. He bought the house in New Mexico as a playground for himself and fellow aerotrekkers, people who fly unlicensed, open-cockpit planes. On a 157-acre spread, he built a general store, a 35-seat movie theater and a cafe, and he bought vintage cars for his visitors to use.

He continued to invest in financial markets, sometimes borrowing money to increase the potential returns. He typically chose his investments based on suggestions from his financial advisers. One of their recommendations was to put millions of dollars into bonds tied to Lehman Brothers.

For a while, Mr. McAfee’s good run, like that of many of the American wealthy, seemed to continue. In the wake of the dot-com crash, stocks started rising again, while house prices just continued to rise. Outside’s Go magazine and National Geographic Adventure ran articles on his New Mexico property, leading to him to believe that “this was the hottest property on the planet,” he said.

But then things began to change.

In 2007, Mr. McAfee sold a 10,000-square-foot home in Colorado with a view of Pike’s Peak. He had spent $25 million to buy the property and build the house. He received $5.7 million for it. When Lehman collapsed last fall, its bonds became virtually worthless. Mr. McAfee’s stock investments cost him millions more.

One day, he realized, as he said, “Whoa, my cash is gone.”

His remaining net worth of about $4 million makes him vastly wealthier than most Americans, of course. But he has nonetheless found himself needing cash and desperately trying to reduce his monthly expenses.

He has sold a 10-passenger Cessna jet and now flies coach. This week his oceanfront estate in Hawaii sold for $1.5 million, with only a handful of bidders at the auction. He plans to spend much of his time in Belize, in part because of more favorable taxes there.

Next week, his New Mexico property will be the subject of a no-floor auction, meaning that Mr. McAfee has promised to accept the top bid, no matter how low it is.

“I am trying to face up to the reality here that the auction may bring next to nothing,” he said.

In the past, when his stock investments did poorly, he sold real estate and replenished his cash. This time, that has not been an option.

Stock Market Mystery

The possibility that the stock market will quickly recover from its collapse, as it did earlier this decade, is perhaps the biggest uncertainty about the financial condition of the wealthy. Since March, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has risen 49 percent.

Yet Wall Street still has a long way to go before reaching its previous peaks. The S.& P. 500 remains 35 percent below its 2007 high. Aggregate compensation for the financial sector fell 14 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association — far less than profits or revenue fell, but a decline nonetheless.

“The difference this time,” predicted Byron R. Wein, a former chief investment strategist at Morgan Stanley, who started working on Wall Street in 1965, “is that the high-water mark that people reached in 2007 is not going to be exceeded for a very long time.”

Without a financial bubble, there will simply be less money available for Wall Street to pay itself or for corporate chief executives to pay themselves. Some companies — like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, which face less competition now and have been helped by the government’s attempts to prop up credit markets — will still hand out enormous paychecks. Over all, though, there will be fewer such checks, analysts say. Roger Freeman, an analyst at Barclays Capital, said he thought that overall Wall Street compensation would, at most, increase moderately over the next couple of years.

Beyond the stock market, government policy may have the biggest effect on top incomes. Mr. Katz, the Harvard economist, argues that without policy changes, top incomes may indeed approach their old highs in the coming years. Historically, government policy, like the New Deal, has had more lasting effects on the rich than financial busts, he said.

One looming policy issue today is what steps Congress and the administration will take to re-regulate financial markets. A second issue is taxes.

In the three decades after World War II, when the incomes of the rich grew more slowly than those of the middle class, the top marginal rate ranged from 70 to 91 percent. Mr. Piketty, one of the economists who analyzed the I.R.S. data, argues that these high rates did not affect merely post-tax income. They also helped hold down the pretax incomes of the wealthy, he says, by giving them less incentive to make many millions of dollars.

Since 1980, tax rates on the affluent have fallen more than rates on any other group; this year, the top marginal rate is 35 percent. President Obama has proposed raising it to 39 percent and has said he would consider a surtax on families making more than $1 million a year, which could push the top rate above 40 percent.

What any policy changes will mean for the nonwealthy remains unclear. There have certainly been periods when the rich, the middle class and the poor all have done well (like the late 1990s), as well as periods when all have done poorly (like the last year). For much of the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, both the middle class and the wealthy received raises that outpaced inflation.

Yet there is also a reason to think that the incomes of the wealthy could potentially have a bigger impact on others than in the past: as a share of the economy, they are vastly larger than they once were.

In 2007, the top one ten-thousandth of households took home 6 percent of the nation’s income, up from 0.9 percent in 1977. It was the highest such level since at least 1913, the first year for which the I.R.S. has data.

The top 1 percent of earners took home 23.5 percent of income, up from 9 percent three decades earlier.

by by David Leonhardt and Geraldine Fabrikant

Suicidal Comments

Typical remarks are "I can't go on," "Nothing matters anymore" or even "I'm thinking of ending it all." Says Dr. Leslie Seppinni, a Beverly Hills, Calif., clinical psychologist: "They might make a sudden off-handed comment such as 'If I don't see you in the new year…' and then say they were kidding."

Getting One's Affairs in Order

Making a will or giving away valued possessions. Says Dr. Leslie Seppinni: "They might call their lawyer or accountant to make sure everything is in order."

Drugs and Alcohol

Men are more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol during times of stress than women, although women are quite capable of abusing both when under duress or depressed.

Mood and Behavior Changes

Men are more likely to turn to sex or use prostitutes during times of extreme stress. But women will also have affairs. Behavior might also change: disappearing for periods of time with no good explanation or withdrawing from friends and family.

Passive Suicide

Individuals suffering illnesses that are controlled by prescription drugs--such as hypertension or diabetes--may stop taking their medications or may refuse to go to the doctor.

Losing Weight

Drastic weight loss or changes in appetite, coupled with the individual not appearing healthy, are other signs.

Call for Help

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is connected to the U.S. Department of Health and can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK.

Women are making strides in the workplace, yet selecting what to wear to meetings, business dinners or just to the office remains a challenge.

Designers, fashion stylists and other experts say executive women make an array of mistakes, from dressing too casually to not paying attention to fit. Truth is, most executive women won't be making it onto any best-dressed lists anytime soon.

"Clothing is an overlooked component in many women's professional life," says Mary Lou Andre, head of Organization by Design. In a world where first impressions count for everything and "people are sizing you up and sizing you down," appearance and clothing are "so important."

Here, the worst mistakes women make when dressing for work and how to avoid them.

Forgetting Your Audience
When it comes to dressing for work, there's no such thing as one size fits all. Remember to dress for the company that is paying your salary, avoiding clothes that clash with your corporate culture.

Investment banks still require conservative suits, usually in neutral colors, while individuality and creative flair are expected in fields such as advertising or film. Be sure to pick up cues from your office culture.

Women should convey professionalism, advises Ida Liu, a director in the fashion retail group at Citibank's private banking arm. "I want to be a trusted adviser to my clients. When they are looking at me I want them to see me as intelligent."

Above all, remember that what flies in one office might not work so well in another. Don't be afraid to modify your clothing to fit the culture. Susan Magrino, who runs a New York-based public relations firm, alters her clothes to make them work for the office. She recently purchased a Pucci sweater and added extra hooks to make it less revealing.

Wearing the Same Old Designers Again and Again … and Again
When shopping for the office, most women head straight for the same designer or store. While it's easy to stick with what has worked before, this is the quickest way to look dated. Instead, vary your designers and shop at different stores to create looks that are fresh.

Another great way to update your office look is to try more cutting-edge brands, such as 3.1 Phillip Lim or Rag & Bone. Buy a blazer from one of these labels and pair it with pants.

And of course, pattern tights, scarves and earrings can work in dozens of combinations to liven up a neutral suit.

Finally, don't forget that a work wardrobe begins with great basics. Most crucial: one great suit and shirts in your most complimentary colors. Magrino says every woman should also own a jacket; gray flannel, brown and black pants; and brown and black boots and pumps.

Not Paying Attention to Fit
Everyone knows that you should avoid clothes that are too tight or too skimpy. If your clothing is overly revealing, you may have difficulty getting attention for your ideas.

But baggy clothing that's two sizes too big can be just as detrimental. If your clothing is shapeless, you'll end up looking sloppy.

When choosing work outfits, stick to items with a contemporary cut and avoid anything that is ill-fitting or too large. "Wearing something that fits you well will give you that extra boost of confidence," says Liu.

In most cases, that means taking store-bought clothes to a tailor. "Even movie stars get their clothes tailored," says stylist Phillip Bloch, who has worked with celebrities such as Salma Hayek and Halle Berry. "Very few people can just go into a store and throw something on and look good."

Going Trendy Instead of Timeless
Unless you work in fashion, wearing the latest trends to work is a no-no, as wearing overly trendy clothing can overshadow your work accomplishments. "You don't want to walk in [wearing] a purple fluorescent suit, even if it's beautiful," says Citibank's Liu. Instead, "be a diva in the evenings."

While it's important to avoid looking too trendy, this shouldn't translate into wearing dowdy clothes. Rory Tahari, vice chairman and creative director of the fashion brand Elie Tahari, says women tend not to give themselves the freedom to express their own personal style. Women shouldn't be afraid to take a risk now and then with color, prints and fabrics, explains Tahari. "You are a woman, you don't have to dress like a man."

Bloch suggests adding pops of color like tangerine and yellow to update outfits for spring without overdoing it. "Hillary Clinton was a great example of this on the campaign trail. There she was in her black suit but she was always throwing a pop of color under it."

Dressing for the Weekend … During the Week
Dress codes have relaxed at many companies, and business casual is now the norm in many workplaces every day of the week. Problem is, many people have no idea what this means.

Don't interpret business casual as dressing for a Saturday afternoon. Limit jeans to Fridays and make sure they're neatly pressed. As for the rest of the week, if business casual means skipping the suit in favor of slacks and a blouse or sweater, just remember that you never know when a meeting with a client will spring up or when you'll have to drop by an unscheduled evening event with colleagues.

by Leah Bourne

Make Time For Routine Maintenance

Spending just minutes a day washing your face, putting on jewelry or applying makeup can pay off, because those simple actions create a self-assured attitude that lasts throughout the day. "It boosts the confidence that gives that particular woman what she needs to face the day and look at people square in the eye to feel good," says Lisa Clinkscale Porter, the author of Every Woman's Guide To Looking And Feeling Sexy From Head To Toe.

Flaunt Clothes That Fit And Flatter

Forget showing miles of cleavage, which only makes a woman look like she's trying too hard. Instead, opt for a well-fitted suit and a pair of not-too-high heels that offer a boost to a woman's confidence even more than to her stature. "Throw away all of those robot-type suits that look like they came from Daddy," says image consultant Sandy Dumont. "Show off a woman's hourglass silhouette."

Bond With Your Girlfriends

Because they're not insecure, sexy women embrace their relationships with other women. That is, to a reasonable extent, they emulate Carrie and the girls. Can't have brunch at Balthazar? Invite over some girlfriends, open a bottle of cheap wine and simply relax at home. No pretense allowed. "Enjoy sisterhood, which is not competitive," says life coach Allana Pratt, who specializes in helping moms feel sexy. "Encourage each other to shine."

Turn Flaws Into Assets

In her appropriately titled book How To Be Sexy, Carmen Electra writes that people who try to be perfect are too phony to be truly attractive. Within reason, flaws like crooning off-key in karaoke can be endearing and, moreover, pretty darn sexy. "Most people will relate to you if you're human, and human is not perfect," Electra writes. "You're a klutz? I think that's cute. You're the world's worst cook? So what? That's what take-out is for."

Mix-And-Match Style

There's no need for the average woman to go broke on a brand-name wardrobe. Instead, she can mix a few more expensive pieces with items culled from places like H&M, outlet malls and vintage boutiques. "Seeing somebody top to toe in a label just shows a lack of imagination. It's a little bit sexier to have a creative twist," says Joyce Corrigan, senior editor at large at Marie Claire. "It's all about an individual twist."

Flash A Warm Smile

Confidence isn't off-putting or intimidating as long as it's paired with a genuine grin. "You can still be inviting in that way, by your body language," says Lisa Clinkscale Porter, author of Every Woman's Guide To Looking And Feeling Sexy From Head To Toe.

Dance Like No One Is Watching

Dancing, according to life coach Allana Pratt, is one of the best ways to loosen inhibitions, release tension and surrender to something out of our control. "A sexy woman is at peace with exactly who she is and how life is. She's not resisting everything," Pratt says. "Real sexiness does not require approval from the outside."

Appear Put-Together

Porter, author of Every Woman's Guide To Looking And Feeling Sexy From Head To Toe, has observed women who dress simply and neatly--sans makeup--walk as if they are wearing $1,000 shoes. "It has nothing to do with the size of their bank accounts," she says. "It's the way that they maintain themselves and carry themselves."

Seek A Style That's Understated

Revealing necklines, tight dresses and short skirts are relics of a bygone age. Today's woman seeks outfits that are less obvious. "Dare I say it, there's even a ladylikeness to some of the sexiest clothes. They're softly draped and they're in demure colors. They're not micro-minis," says Marie Claire's Corrigan. "The best-kept secret of any of those extreme heels is that they are really for fun, and always pack a pair of flats with you."

Keep A Twinkle In Your Eye

While it might be hard for a single cornea to express that a woman is equal parts cunning and earnest and playful, it can--and should--be done. "Look engaged," says image consultant Dumont. "If your eyes twinkle, that makes you seem charismatic."

Make It Seem Effortless

No matter how much they primp and prepare, women should try to make their outward appearance and demeanor seem easy and natural. "There is something about today's sexy woman," says Marie Claire's Corrigan. "She doesn't look as if she's trying too hard. She's not in-your-face sexuality, with things cut up to there and down to there, with sparkles and spangles and spiked heels."

Flaunt Your Independence

The trait Sarah Jessica Parker values above all others is her independence. In an interview with Forbes.com's Camilla Webster, Parker said she was honored to put her name on a line of inexpensive clothing at the department store Steve and Barry's. "None of my decisions have been mercenary," Parker said. "I hope that I've shown that to my child, and being able to support myself and being independent has always been very important to me."

The economic crisis has a huge upside: an opportunity to improve your relationship.

Layoffs, furloughs and shrinking 401(k)s may not seem like natural aphrodisiacs, but according to experts in relationships and sex, the depressed financial picture is leading some couples--and singles--to better appreciate each other.

"The recession brings with it a re-evaluation of what's important in life," says Manhattan psychoanalyst Amy Joelson.

It's too early for empirical studies evaluating the effect of the recession on the sex lives of Americans, notes Chicago psychiatrist Paul Dobranksy, author of The Secret Psychology of How We Fall In Love. He says it takes years to compile a meaningful picture of how the downturn has changed the intimate lives of Americans. "See me in five years," he says.

But anecdotal information exists. While many of Joelson's patients, for example, have expressed anxiety about spending money on frivolous items, they still feel good about engaging in physical intimacy. "People wrestle with guilt about indulging in all kinds of pleasures, like going shopping or eating at expensive restaurants; that's seen as politically incorrect," she says. "But you don't need a 401(k) to have sex."

Physical intimacy is also a great way to relieve anxiety, tension and stress, points out Wayne, N.J., psychologist and dating coach Victoria Zdrok, author of Anatomy of Pleasure: The Head to Toe Guide to Better Sex. "People are turning to sex to boost their endorphin levels," observes Zdrok. Tightening budgets means more time at home, says Zdrok. "That allows people more one-on-one time and more intimacy," she says, "which leads to more sex."

Because of all the bad news about plunging markets and escalating unemployment, says Zdrok, some couples may be turning off the television and turning to one another. "It's been shown that people who watch more TV have less sex," she notes. "In one Italian study, when television was removed from the bedroom, couples' sex lives improved."

Another upside of the down economy: With many Americans out of work or on furlough, people have more time to exercise.

"Exercise is one of the ways people deal with stress and anxiety," notes New York City relationship counselor Ian Kerner, author of Sex Recharge: A Rejuvenation Plan for Couples and Singles. "Exercise is also a great libido-booster and a great part of sexual health," adds Kerner. "Exercise increases blood flow and predisposes you to sexual arousal."

Layoffs and furloughs can also shake up the daily grind and introduce the concept of novelty, which can spur spontaneous sex. "Whenever you introduce novelty, it stimulates dopamine transmission in the brain," notes Kerner. "I advise couples to use the recession to break out of routines."

Experts agree that tough economic times can motivate couples, as well as singles, to turn to simple pleasures. For singles, that can mean greater use of dating Web sites followed by low-key in-person meetings that can lead to more intimate conversations and deeper relationships.

"To go out there and use the more traditional method of a night on the town--that's too costly," points out Manhattan psychotherapist and advice columnist Jonathan Alpert.

Couples, likewise, can forgo lavish vacations or dinners in upscale restaurants in favor of affordable pastimes that stimulate bonding, like cooking dinner at home, renting a movie, cuddling on the couch or taking a walk in the park and talking. "All of these activities," says Alpert, "encourage an intimacy and a closeness that improves the quality of a couple's sex life."

Dobranksy agrees. "Anybody who loses a job is going to take a hit to his dignity," he says. "That presents a couple with an opportunity to rediscover the non-material values in life, which are certainly the stuff of love and romance."

Meantime, notes psychoanalyst Joelson, couples should stay focused on the value of an active sex life. "Sex is a great expression of intimacy in a relationship," says Joelson. "It's a really optimistic thing, to have sex; there is hope built into the belief that together, you can create something better."

by Susan Adams

Depression disproportionately affects women. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, women experience double the rate of clinical or "major" depression--depression that isn't a temporary state caused by life events such as a death or divorce--than men do.

An estimated 12 million women a year experience it, and one in eight women in their lifetime will suffer from it. Notably, many experts put that number closer to one in four.

Why are women at such a high risk? "There's no one trigger, but we believe hormones can play a role, as can genetic predisposition," says Roselyn Watkins, Ph.D., supervising psychologist at Friends Hospital in Philadelphia. Watkins notes that societal expectations have an impact as well.

"Women are expected to be perfect wives, great moms and flawless workers, and to appear young and beautiful at all times too. That pressure can contribute to depression."

One landmark study from the 1970s found that nearly half of women physicians and 73% of women Ph.Ds had experienced depression, while another 1999 study of female physicians conducted by Emory University in Atlanta found that some 20% were depressed.

A 2007 study from British researchers found that workers (male or female) with high levels of job stress are twice as likely to develop depression as those with low levels of career-related stress.

But those figures don't only reflect the professional and highly educated. More women, including women of color, are likely to work second or third shifts, head single-parent households and have sub-prime mortgages.

They might feel guilty about their depression or simply not have time for it and push the blues to the mental back burner.

Even in an age where sexual dysfunction and menstrual cycles are all brunch fodder, depression unfortunately remains a taboo topic--which may explain why surveys show that fewer than half of women who experience depression seek help.

That shouldn't be the case, insists Charles Conway, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "I tell patients to think of depression as a stress reaction.

It is not a weakness in character or a defect; it's simply a [physical response]." He adds, "You should absolutely not avoid getting help because of a stigma surrounding depression.

There are so many treatments that are proven effective and very safe. [Plus] quite a few studies now suggest that it's dangerous for your brain to be in that state."

Comment On This StoryIn fact, untreated depression can be devastating. A recent Finnish study reveals that depressed people are twice as likely to develop metabolic syndrome, a condition that can lead to heart disease and diabetes--which may help explain why depression also increases the risk of both conditions.

Research shows that women who are depressed are more likely to have eating disorders or to gain weight.

Of course, depression can also cause relationship rifts, hurt your performance at work and sap your libido--all of which can make your blues even worse.

If you're feeling depressed, the last thing you should do is wait it out in the hopes that you'll suddenly feel better.

"It's dangerous to pretend it isn't a big deal, especially if you've been feeling blue for more than two weeks," says Stacey Rosenfeld, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City who is also a staff psychologist at Columbia University Medical Center.

Notably, depression isn't just about sadness, and in fact many symptoms, such as feelings of irritation and frustration, are overlooked.

Other oft-ignored signs include sleeping and eating more or less than usual, avoiding being around others, diminished or nonexistent sex drive and reoccurring thoughts of suicide.

''If you can't feel good, and the things that you used to do to make yourself feel better or that brightened your mood, like going out for a walk or seeing a friend, don't do the trick anymore, see a therapist or your doctor," urges Watkins.

Studies suggest that more than half of women who undergo treatment, and stick with it, will get significant relief.

Talk therapy, a.k.a. psychotherapy, is still considered a gold standard of depression treatment and is especially helpful for milder forms of depression; it even appears to help reduce the incidence of further depressive episodes.

Women with major depression should consider talking to their doctor or psychiatrist about antidepressants, either alone or in conjunction with psychotherapy.

"Studies show that a combination of antidepressants and talk therapy is especially effective for treating moderate to severe depression, and in a perfect world, every patient would have access to both," says Dr. Conway.

And although this advice extends to all women, if you're depressed, it's especially important to take care of yourself. "Stay active and exercise as much as you can, and get adequate sleep," recommends Rosenfeld.

"Seek social support and find people who make you feel good." She also strongly advises delegating. "Don't try to be superwoman; it's not a failure to say, 'I can't do this.' Take on what you can, and let the rest go."

by Camille Noe Pagan

Women are flocking to the labor force in record numbers. Nearly 60% sought or occupied employment in 2008, the latest year for which statistics are available, representing 46.5% of the total U.S. labor force.

More than one-third of these women worked in management, professional and related occupations, accounting for 51% of all workers in this top-paying sector.

Though a pay gap persists--women's earnings remain stalled at around 80% of men's--women are finding the jobs that pay them the most, and some may surprise you.

Based on a U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau 2008 analysis, we ranked women's median weekly earnings as full-time wage and salary workers to uncover the highest-paying jobs for women.

An unlikely No. 1 emerged. Much to our surprise, pharmacy topped the list, where women pharmacists earn a median wage of $1,647 per week or about $86,000 a year.

Women currently account for slightly less than half of all pharmacists in the U.S. and earn about 85% as much as their male colleagues.

It's a much smaller pay gap than that of medical doctors, however, where women make 59% as much as men. And pharmacy requires less education.

Women physicians and surgeons came in far behind pharmacists at No. 6 on the list, earning a median of $1,230 per week. Dr. Drucilla Barker, economist and director of women's and gender studies at the University of South Carolina, explains this by the wide distribution of salaries in the medical profession.



Women often go into family practice or other lower-paying specialties, she says, rather than work the 80-hour-plus weeks of surgeons.

In jobs like pharmacy and speech pathology there is a clear and narrow salary range, and women are more likely to have manageable schedules, Barker says.

Women computer scientists and systems analysts came in at No. 10, earning a median wage of $1,082 per week or about $56,000 a year. In recent years, telecommuting has become increasingly common in the industry, making computer science even more appealing to women seeking high-paying work and flexibility.

And just above, at No. 9, were speech-language pathologists, the only occupation on our list in which women earn exactly equal to men and represent 50% of the field's total workers.

While women are inching higher and higher in status positions and earnings--the pay gap has narrowed by 10 percentage points since 1990--there remains a large divide.

About 3.5 million women earn within the highest pay bracket, making a minimum of $1,500 per week, compared with almost 10 million men. This may be explained by the most common female-held positions: administrative assistants, nurses and grade school teachers.

(As a comparison, there are 36 times as many women administrative assistants as there are women pharmacists.)

Yet women outnumber men in some unexpected high-earning jobs like financial managers, accountants and auditors, and budget analysts. Women human resource managers, the No. 8 position on our list with a median of $1,137 per week, outnumber men in the field 2 to 1.

by Jenna Goudreau

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Many professional women are guilty of multiple fashion faux pas without realizing it, and their lack of judgment can sometimes lead to being passed over for a job or promotion.

Experts agree that one of the biggest fashion mistakes women make, for example, is showing too much cleavage.

"It's distracting and inappropriate in a business environment," says Ginger Burr, president of Total Image Consultants in Lynn, Mass., and author of Fashion Secrets Mother Never Taught You.

Dressing too sexy can also have psychological effects on your peers, according to Peter Glick, a professor of psychology at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.

A study by Glick that was published in Psychology of Women Quarterly indicates that women in high-level positions who dress in what is seen as sexy attire are viewed as less competent--regardless of their skill sets.

These women are passed over for promotions more often than their more modestly dresses female colleagues.

So if you want to get ahead in the workplace, better rethink that low-cut top.

One more comment ... People do look at women very differently. At one time I was over 300 pounds. I lost it by the bariatric surgery. I've lost 1/2 and honestly I can say that heavy women are tre....

If you're confused about what is appropriate, you aren't alone, says Barbara Pachter, an etiquette expert who advises companies like Pfizer and Microsoft, noting that a surprising number of executive women admit to not knowing what styles suit their bodies.

In fact, many women wear clothes that are either too big or not tailored properly, a fashion snafu that is easily avoided, says Pachter, who advises buying clothes at department stores with on-site tailors or simply patronizing your neighborhood tailor.

Details are important, adds Burr, whose home-study program, "Who Taught You How to Dress," helps clients navigate some of these issues.

She tells of a client who was passed over for a promotion for a detail as small as scuffed shoes.

"There were two people who were equally qualified for the position, and in the end it came down to one candidate was wearing shoes that were scuffed," she says.

"The company wondered whether that would translate in a work [environment] to other details being overlooked."

Even politicians and celebrities have to polish their looks in the hopes of furthering their careers. Hillary Clinton is a prime example.

More than once she has revamped her look and wardrobe--sometimes criticized as too severe and masculine--to include more traditionally feminine touches, like pastel suits, in an effort to emphasize her role as a wife and mother and relate more to the voting public.

Assess Your Work Environment

According to James McDonald Jr., a partner at the Irvine, Calif., offices of labor and employment law firm Fisher & Phillips, it is generally legal for an employer to institute an employee dress code.

But you don't need to read a company manual to see what is and what is not appropriate to wear to work.

The best advice experts give is to simply look around the office: Are the female VPs wearing stockings in the summer months? Is your manager one who rarely takes off her jacket or, perhaps, does she favor short skirts and skinny jeans?

The fashion and social service industries, for instance, ordinarily have much more relaxed dress codes than, say, law firms.

Even if your position doesn't require you to see outside clients, you are still "making an impression on your boss [and] your potential future boss," notes Heather Kleis, a human resources adviser for insurance company ING.

While women may have more options about what to wear in the workplace, they also have more room for misstep, notes psychology professor Glick.

"What's a man going to wear, a pair of Dockers and a button-down shirt, as opposed to a tie and a shirt?" Pit that scenario against a woman whose maxi dress is semi-transparent and, well, the impact on their respective reputations hardly compares.

Common Mistakes Women Make

In general, there are wardrobe selections women should always avoid in the workplace.

In addition to the aforementioned maxi dress, wearing clothing that reveals your bra or panty lines is inappropriate office attire.

Period. Ditto for micro-mini skirts and sheer clothing without a lining or cover-up.

Summer is a season that opens the door to a slew of potential fashion landmines for professional women, including spaghetti-strap tops and gladiator sandals, a hot-ticket item that should be avoided unless the dress code is so laid back that "everyone, including higher-ups, is wearing flip flops," Burr says.

So is being overly conservative the key to advancing? Not necessarily, says Glick.

Although it can't hurt to err on the side of caution, asserting a little bit of individuality and personal style can boost your confidence and ability.

As elsewhere in your business, it pays to stay one step ahead of the expected.

by Laura Sinberg