At War Blog: Highlights From Karzai, Obama News Conference

President Obama, after meeting with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, said Friday that the United States would be able to accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in coming months because of gains made by Afghan security forces.

As the Times’s Mark Landler reported, Mr. Obama also made it clear that he contemplated leaving relatively few troops in Afghanistan after the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, saying that the mission will be focused on advising and supporting Afghan troops and targeting the remnants of Al Qaeda.

You can watch the full video here:

You can also find the joint statement, released by President Obama and President Karzai here.

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Video game retail sales continued to slide in December, down 22% from 2011

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Alabama's Lacy, Milliner, Fluker enter NFL draft

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Alabama tailback Eddie Lacy, cornerback Dee Milliner and right tackle D.J. Fluker are entering the NFL draft after helping lead the Crimson Tide to a second straight national title.

Lacy and Milliner announced their plans to skip their senior seasons Friday at a news conference. Fluker couldn't be there for the announcement because he was traveling.

It's another exodus of talented underclassmen for a team that has won three of the past four national championships. Most of the four first-round picks in each of the past two drafts that left Alabama were underclassmen.

"I appreciate what they've done for the University of Alabama but we also acknowledge the fact that from a business standpoint, these guys are making good decisions about their future and what they can do," coach Nick Saban said.

Unlike recent groups of departing juniors from Alabama, only Milliner is pegged as a sure first-round pick.

He was a Jim Thorpe Award finalist and unanimous All-American after recording two interceptions and 22 pass deflections. He and guard Chance Warmack, who was a senior, are projected as the Tide's top current prospects.

"I think while I was here, I met all the goals and team affirmations that I set for myself as a freshman by winning a championship, becoming an All-American, just being part of a team that always loved to win," Milliner said. "I think I fulfilled all my goals and am ready and prepared to go to the next level."

Lacy was MVP of the national championship game against Notre Dame after rushing for 140 yards and scoring two touchdowns. He said he wasn't 100 percent healthy all season until the title game Monday night, but Lacy still ran for 1,322 yards and 17 touchdowns while averaging 6.5 yards per carry.

"We don't have a lot of years to play this position, so you have to go while you can," Lacy said. "I would love to come back. This is a great place. We have the best fans, but I really didn't want to risk coming back and not having such a good year or maybe even risking injury. I've had my share of injuries this year. I feel like you've got to get out while you can."

Lacy thinks he "made a pretty solid statement" in the title game, when he made a spin move into the end zone on a TD catch and on another run pushed 248-pound linebacker Danny Spond away with one hand.

Lacy was recruited in the same class as Trent Richardson, last year's No. 3 pick by Cleveland, but redshirted and then spent two seasons as a backup. He's not widely projected to follow Richardson and 2009 Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram into the first round. Lacy said he was projected as a second- or third-round pick in feedback from the NFL, but was impressive in the finale. Ordinarily, Saban only recommends projected first-round picks leave early.

"I'm fully supportive of what Eddie's doing," Saban said. "It's a little bit of a different situation than we've had in the past, but it's a little bit unique as well. Every one of these situations is unique to that particular individual and what his situation is. "

The 6-foot-6, 335-pound Fluker started 35 games for the Tide and was a second-team Associated Press All-American.

He was one of the Tide's top-rated signees in 2009 but came in overweight at about 395 pounds and was redshirted.

"I certainly feel like this year has been his best year as a player, and I feel that he's made a good decision about what he wants to do," said Saban, adding that Fluker has improved as much as any player on the team.

The mammoth Fluker, who wears a size-22 shoe, said in a statement that leaving early "is never an easy decision when you are playing at a place like Alabama."

"''These four years in Tuscaloosa have been the best four years of my life and I appreciate everyone who helped me along the way," he said.

Quarterback AJ McCarron, All-America linebacker C.J. Moseley and guard Anthony Steen have already said they're returning for their senior seasons. Saban didn't rule out other juniors possibly declaring for the draft before Tuesday's deadline.

The Tide does have promising players who have logged plenty of playing time behind Lacy and Milliner, especially. Two freshmen — tailback T.J. Yeldon (1,108 yards, 12 touchdowns) — and cornerback Geno Smith saw significant action.

"You've got people that are going to go to the NFL each year and you've got people behind them that are going to do the same things when their time comes," Milliner said.

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Doctor and Patient: When the Doctor Returns to Doctoring

Several years ago, a highly respected medical expert I had just met shared a little-known detail of his illustrious career: as a young doctor, he had stopped practicing medicine for a few years to homeschool his son.

His revelation took me completely by surprise. Doctors rarely talked about taking time off for fear that colleagues would assume them incompetent or in possession of some serious personal flaw.

I understood my colleagues’ hesitation because I always avoided bringing up my own decision to take a professional hiatus.

I had had a harrowing pregnancy, marked by bleeding that worsened anytime I operated. I stopped seeing patients soon after my first trimester and made the decision to extend that break after the birth of healthy twin daughters. But I did so without realizing just how difficult it would be to return.

In all the articles, essays and books on the growing trend among professionals to “opt out” of their careers, doctors, I would discover, remained strangely absent. While the lawyers, accountants, business executives and teachers seemed to ease back into their careers after a few years raising children, attending to their own or loved ones’ health issues or even pursuing entirely new careers, I couldn’t find answers to even my most basic questions. Did I need to be tested, proctored or re-trained? Would I work as an assistant, a doctor-in-training equivalent or a fully trained physician? Were there rules and “industry standards” I needed to pass in order to assure patients I was safe? And in the world of practicing doctors, would the time I spent away from medicine always remain “That-Period-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named?”

Now, nearly a decade later, studies have shown that more doctors than ever are choosing to take time off, at least twice as many as in previous generations. But while these physicians have more company and support than their predecessors, returning to practice remains daunting in large part because of the persistent stigma. (Interestingly, most of the re-entry doctors I spoke to hesitated or declined to be quoted for this article.)

Although concerns about the competency of returning doctors are justified, the profession’s aversion to discussing the issue and reluctance even to recognize it has had perverse results. There are no national standards for doctors who want to return to clinical practice, only a helter-skelter set of hurdles, hoops and headaches.

“The safety net has big holes in it,” said Dr. Claudette Dalton, the former chair of the American Medical Association’s task force on re-entry who has interrupted her own medical career and re-entered clinical practice twice. For example, roughly half of all the state medical boards, including New York’s, have no policy for doctors attempting to return to clinical practice after an extended period of time away. But even in those states with requirements that range from mandatory completion of an official re-entry training program to passing a written exam, it’s unclear that such policies really do ensure competence. Research on physician re-entry is scarce; and no one really knows when time away begins to affect a doctor’s clinical skills and what might best remediate any deficiencies. Indeed, aside from a few surveys, little is even known about who the re-entering doctors are.

“Our profession needs to be able to reassure patients that the doctor they are seeing knows what he or she is doing and isn’t rusty and creaky like some unoiled door hinge,” Dr. Dalton said.

One particularly promising initiative is a mentored clinical program that slowly re-introduces doctors to practice. At the physician re-entry program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, one of fewer than a dozen such programs throughout the country, re-entering doctors work with three different experienced senior physicians in their field, attend lectures, participate in teaching and work rounds, take call and progressively shoulder more responsibility. At the end of two or three months, the doctors submit to a rigorous exit interview, where they can be drilled on any of the cases they have seen.

Of the 14 doctors who have gone through the Cedars-Sinai program, 13 have successfully returned to practice. But with the costs for such programs ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 a month or more, many doctors cannot even consider enrolling in one even if their state licensing boards mandates them.

“We’ve had a blind spot when it comes to physician re-entry,” said Dr. Leo A. Gordon, who heads the Cedars-Sinai program, “even though it really should be part of the profession’s obligation, especially with the upcoming physician shortage.”

That doctor deficit is expected to surpass 100,000 physicians within the next 15 years. But according to the American Medical Association, at least 10,000 doctors each year are currently looking to return to clinical practice. Re-entry experts believe that these doctors, if successfully returned to practice, could not only help to alleviate the doctor shortage but would do so quickly.

“This is not a seven-year pipeline,” said Dr. Dalton, referring to the usual time required to educate and train a new doctor. “This is a 6-month to a year pipeline at most because a lot of those doctors when assessed could be perfectly fine.”

Although the A.M.A. and a few professional organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics have increased their efforts to support returning physicians and create national standards, those initiatives will only falter without a major shift in the attitude of the profession itself.

“We have to realize that it’s not about abdicating your profession,” Dr. Dalton said. “It’s about having some sensibility about the priority in your life at a certain moment, then returning to your clinical roots and coming back to serve your profession.”

I have been back in clinical practice for several years now. My path of return was neither obvious nor straightforward, but I have always remained grateful to the doctor who oversaw my re-entry process. He and his colleagues willingly took me on, persisted in putting me through the paces and displayed an unfailing and contagious devotion to the highest standards of care.

Through it all, they understood that stopping working as a doctor temporarily to be a mother never meant I had stopped loving patient care.

---

Correction: The head of the Cedars-Sinair re-entry program is Leo A. Gordon, not Leo G. Gordon.

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France Near Deal to Simplify Labor Regulations

PARIS — French labor unions and business leaders appeared close to striking a deal Friday to make it easier to hire and fire employees in France’s notoriously rigid labor market. An accord would tame some of the most confounding rules in the 3,200-page labor code, as the country tries to increase its competitiveness and curb unemployment.

After weeks of sparring among the five major labor unions and the main employers’ lobby, both sides were edging toward a breakthrough that could pave the way for a series of changes that President François Hollande has said are needed to burnish France’s international allure as a place to do business.

Those ambitions were clouded recently by a series of high-profile episodes, including a recent government threat to nationalize an ArcelorMittal plant in northeastern France to preserve jobs. There was also the audacious decision during the past week by the French actor Gérard Depardieu to take Russian citizenship to escape a proposed 75 percent marginal tax rate on incomes of more than €1 million, or €1.3 million.

The labor measures expected to be cemented in the accord still being worked out late Friday would help address what Louis Gallois, Mr. Hollande’s investment commissioner, has dubbed a “two-speed” labor market in France. Under that system, employees on long-term contracts enjoy extensive, costly job protections and benefits, while temporary workers, whose ranks have surged to one-third of the French labor force, have minimal job security and relatively few benefits.

The changes under discussion would include giving employers more flexibility to reduce working hours in times of economic distress without incurring union strikes. High levels of compensation that courts can award to laid-off workers would be trimmed, and the five-year period that ex-employees now have to contest layoffs would be reduced.

In November, the government introduced a tax credit for companies, potentially worth a total of €20 billion, aimed at easing high employment costs.

In exchange, business negotiators on Friday agreed, as a concession to unions, to pay higher taxes for short-term work contracts. Two unions objected that the offer was not enough, a hitch that could still scuttle the talks. But if approved, that move would expand government coffers meant to support the unemployed, while also nudging employers toward favoring long-term contracts. Employers would also pay somewhat higher contributions for private health insurance.

But whether any of the changes, even if nailed down in a binding agreement, will come fast enough to fix France’s problems is an open question. Some economists now say that France could become the next sick man of Europe if it does not improve the environment for investment and hiring.

“Given the gap we still have between the level of labor market regulation in France and in countries like the United States, Britain and Ireland, it is very clear that when observers look at the outcome, they will say it’s a step in the right direction, but not enough,” said Dominique Barbet, the European economist for BNP Paribas in Paris.

“But we also need to keep in mind that in France, if you want to make reforms, you have to go through small steps first,” he said. “You can’t try to change the system overnight. That usually results in mass protests in the streets.”

Mr. Hollande’s government is expected to sign off on the deal. He has said it will help him keep a promise of reducing unemployment, now at a 13-year high of 10.7 percent, by the end of 2013. Youth unemployment is now around 25 percent.

Mr. Hollande sought the accord after Mr. Gallois issued a stark assessment of the French economy in November, saying the country needed a “competitiveness shock” that would require politicians to curb the “cult of regulation” that the Mr. Gallois said was choking business.

Under current labor rules, many entrepreneurs in France hesitate to hire large numbers of workers. Some employers even resort to operating several companies with no more than 49 employees each, instead of running larger ones that employ hundreds.

That is because after the 50th person is hired, a stack of new regulations come into play, including lengthy firing procedures even for underperforming employees, and requirements for numerous union representatives.

Temporary contracts fall on the other end of the scale: they are often lower-paid and offer far fewer protections, something that has alarmed French labor unions. More than 80 percent of new contracts now issued in France are short term, a trend that has grown steadily as employers turn to them to escape the costly rules protecting permanent workers.

Mr. Gallois’s report said that unless France relaxed its labor rules, the country would continue on an industrial decline that had destroyed more than 750,000 jobs in a decade and helped shrink France’s share of exports to the European Union to 9.3 percent from 12.7 percent. The report also called for cuts to a variety of business taxes used to pay for government and France’s expensive social safety net.

The International Monetary Fund in December warned that France needed to lift competitiveness or risk rising unemployment. Because of continued impediments in the functioning of labor and product markets, the fund added, French companies were earning lower profit margins than in other European countries, in turn affecting the ability of enterprises to invest and innovate.

While the impact of such changes will take time, France has already taken a series of steps that could help it skirt the worst in coming years. A fiscal consolidation begun in 2010 is continuing, in which tax increases and spending cuts are being applied to bring the overall budget deficit down to 3 percent of gross domestic product in 2013, from an estimated 4.5 percent in 2012.

The economy is expected to grow about 0.4 percent in 2013, according to the I.M.F.

“What’s most important is that France get an economic recovery,” said Mr. Barbet, of BNP Paribas. “If we don’t have that, people won’t hire no matter what the new labor rules are.”

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Blasts in Pakistan Kill at Least 88 and Raise Fears Over Elections

Waheed Khan/European Pressphoto Agency

The worst violence was concentrated in the southwestern city of Quetta, where two explosions killed at least 57 people and wounded more than 110, the police said.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Bomb blasts in two Pakistani cities killed at least 88 people on Thursday and wounded more than 270, offering harrowing evidence of how the country’s myriad internal conflicts may destabilize it as elections approach.

The worst violence was concentrated in the southwestern city of Quetta, where two explosions a few minutes apart in the evening ripped through a billiards hall in a neighborhood dominated by ethnic Hazara Shiites, killing at least 57 people and wounding more than 110, the police said.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside the hall, and a second attacker then blew up his vehicle outside the club as police officers and journalists arrived, a senior police officer, Mir Zubair Mehmood, told reporters. The television channel Samaa said one of its camera operators was killed by the second explosion after rushing to the scene. Hospitals were overwhelmed as casualties arrived through the evening.

Quetta is no stranger to sectarian, nationalist and Islamist violence. Most violence against Shiites there has been directed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni militant group with strong ties to the Pakistani Taliban. But there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the billiard hall attack.

An ethnic Baluch separatist group claimed responsibility for another bombing earlier on Thursday, aimed at paramilitary soldiers in a commercial part of Quetta, which killed 12 people.

The Hazara, minority Shiites who migrated from Afghanistan more than a century ago, have been the target of dozens of attacks from sectarian death squads led by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in Quetta over the past year, but the billiard hall attack was by far the bloodiest.

Human rights activists said the police and the security forces failed to protect the vulnerable community. “The callousness and indifference of authorities offers a damning indictment of the state, its military and security agencies,” said Ali Dayan Hasan, the Pakistan director at Human Rights Watch.

The other focus of violence on Thursday was the Swat Valley, in the Hindu Kush mountains in northwestern Pakistan, where an explosion in the basement of a religious seminary killed at least 22 people and wounded an additional 60. It was not clear why the seminary, run by the Islamic missionary group Tableeghi Jamaat, was a target.

Initial reports said a gas leak had caused the explosion, but police and hospital officials later said that there was clear evidence of a bomb.

Doctors at a hospital in Saidu Sharif, near the site, said blast victims were being treated for wounds caused by ball bearings, which are sometimes packed into suicide bombs to make them more deadly.

“There was a smell of explosives,” Muhammad Iqbal, a senior doctor, said by telephone.

The violence underscores the fragility of state authority in parts of Pakistan as the country prepares for a general election that analysts say is likely to take place before June. Many Pakistanis worry that increasing instability could cause the elections to be postponed.

Islamist violence in Swat drew international condemnation in October after Taliban gunmen shot a teenage schoolgirl and education activist, Malala Yousafzai. The episode highlighted how Islamist fighters were slowly returning to the valley three years after a Pakistani military operation drove them away.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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Can Social Media Help You Lose Weight?

At the start of the New Year, when weight loss is often a priority, building a support team to help keep us on track can be extremely helpful. This might typically consist of family members, friends, co-workers, or perhaps even a nutritionist or registered dietitian. But today, support can also be found online. Plenty of Web sites focus on losing weight, and include communities that provide support and encouragement. Since many of us spend a lot of time on social media sites–maybe too much if you ask my husband!–why not use these platforms as another tool for support? In fact, one study suggests employees participating in a workplace wellness program who also joined the company’s Facebook page, run by a registered dietitian, stayed with the program longer than those who didn’t.

[See Already Struggling With Your New Year's Resolution?]

Could it actually make sense that gluing ourselves to our mobile device or computer could help us shed pounds? It sounds like quite the oxymoron, since increased screen time doesn’t usually equate to weight loss. But here’s how to make social media sites work for you:

Facebook

Facebook is a place where you can share what’s going on in your life with friends, but you may not feel comfortable announcing what you weigh or that you’re trying to lose weight. On the other hand, you may enjoy posting fitness milestones, such as training for and completing your first marathon, or a bike ride for your favorite charity. Sharing your fitness goals with the Facebook universe may be helpful, because the more people who know about it, the more likely you are to stay committed.

[See Small Steps, Big Change: How to Lose 50 Pounds Without Really Trying]

Rather than simply connecting with friends on the site, you can also connect with health and fitness professionals, such as registered dietitians, or pages for diet books, like mine, The Small Change Diet. You can also “like” the pages of health and fitness magazines and your favorite brands. The folks who run these pages may post articles that provide you with helpful weight-loss tips, and many organize regular Facebook chats, allowing you to ask an expert your questions. The more that healthy information is “in your face,” the more likely you are to stick to it.

Most importantly, you may discover a weight-loss community on Facebook, where like-minded individuals share their weight losses (or gains) and offer support. Daily accountability could be just what you need, and knowing others are rooting for you can make a world of difference. If you can’t find a Facebook community you like, start your own.

Twitter

So many of my patients don’t have Twitter accounts, because they think they have nothing clever or witty to say. My advice to them is always the same: You don’t have to “say” anything; you can just follow, at least at the beginning. Registered dietitians (I’m @kerigans) have great tips and, if they’re like me, are more than happy to answer questions via Twitter. I’ve had followers tweet a picture of their dinner and ask what my dietitian colleagues and I thought of it–priceless information for free.

[See Best Plant-Based Diets]

Just as you do on Facebook, follow fitness professionals, health magazines, and other sources that provide weight-loss motivation. Once you feel comfortable, you may decide to join in the conversation, since that’s what social media is all about. Perfect example of how it can benefit you: One morning, I tweeted that I felt more like staying in my pajamas than going to yoga. Some of my followers chimed in that they were feeling the same way, BUT stressed that we should all still exercise. And so we all did. And trust me, none of us regretted going–rather, we were thankful for each other.

[See Are Mobile Health Apps Helpful?]

Seek out people on Twitter and Facebook who you find inspirational, and hopefully a little of what they do will rub off on you. Since nothing is etched in stone, you can unfollow, unlike, or unfriend them if they aren’t helping you. And please keep in mind that while social media can be another tool in your pursuit of weight loss, it’s not the end all. Healthy eating, fitness, and plenty of sleep actually need to happen away from a screen.

Hungry for more? Write to [email protected] with your questions, concerns, and feedback

Keri Gans, MS, RD, CDN, is a registered dietitian, media personality, spokesperson, and author of The Small Change Diet. Gans’s expert nutrition advice has been featured in Glamour, Fitness, Health, Self and Shape, and on national television and radio, including The Dr. Oz Show, Good Morning America, ABC News, Primetime, and Sirius/XM Dr. Radio.

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NFL star Junior Seau suffered from brain disease

Junior Seau, one of the NFL's best and fiercest players for two decades, suffered from a degenerative brain disease often associated with repeated blows to the head when he committed suicide last May, the National Institutes of Health said in a study released Thursday.

The NIH, based in Bethesda, Md., said Seau's brain revealed abnormalities consistent with chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. It said that the study included unidentified brains, one of which was Seau's, and that the findings on Seau were similar to autopsies of people "with exposure to repetitive head injuries."

Seau's family requested the analysis of his brain.

The 43-year-old star linebacker played for 20 NFL seasons with San Diego, Miami and New England before retiring in 2009. He died of a self-inflicted shotgun wound.

He joins a list of several dozen football players who were found to have CTE. Boston University's center for study of the disease reported last month that 34 former pro players and nine who played only college football suffered from CTE.

"I was not surprised after learning a little about CTE that he had it," Seau's 23-year-old son Tyler said. "He did play so many years at that level. I was more just kind of angry I didn't do something more and have the awareness to help him more, and now it is too late.

"I don't think any of us were aware of the side effects that could be going on with head trauma until he passed away. We didn't know his behavior was from head trauma."

That behavior, according to Tyler Seau and Junior's ex-wife Gina, included wild mood swings, irrationality, forgetfulness, insomnia and depression.

The NFL faces lawsuits by thousands of former players who say the league withheld information on the harmful effects of concussions. According to an AP review of 175 lawsuits, 3,818 players have sued. At least 26 Hall of Famer members are among the players who have done so.

Seau is not the first former NFL player who killed himself, then was found to have CTE. Dave Duerson and Ray Easterling are the others.

"He emotionally detached himself and would kind of 'go away' for a little bit," Tyler Seau said. "And then the depression and things like that. It started to progressively get worse."

He hid it well in public, they said. But not when he was with family or close friends.

Dr. Russell Lonser, who oversaw the study, said Seau's brain was "independently evaluated by multiple experts, in a blind fashion."

"We had the opportunity to get multiple experts involved in a way they wouldn't be able to directly identify his tissue even if they knew he was one of the individuals studied," he said.

The National Football League, in an email to the AP, said: "We appreciate the Seau family's cooperation with the National Institutes of Health. The finding underscores the recognized need for additional research to accelerate a fuller understanding of CTE.

"The NFL, both directly and in partnership with the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and other leading organizations, is committed to supporting a wide range of independent medical and scientific research that will both address CTE and promote the long-term health and safety of athletes at all levels."

NFL teams have given a $30 million research grant to the NIH.

Before shooting himself, Duerson, a former Chicago Bears defensive back, left a note asking that his brain be studied for signs of trauma. His family filed a wrongful-death suit against the NFL, claiming the league didn't do enough to prevent or treat the concussions that severely damaged his brain.

Easterling played safety for the Falcons in the 1970s. After his career, he suffered from dementia, depression and insomnia, according to his wife, Mary Ann. He committed suicide last April.

Mary Ann Easterling is among the plaintiffs who have sued the NFL.

"It was important to us to get to the bottom of this, the truth," Gina Seau said, "and now that it has been conclusively determined from every expert that he had obviously had it, CTE, we just hope it is taken more seriously.

"You can't deny it exists, and it is hard to deny there is a link between head trauma and CTE. There's such strong evidence correlating head trauma and collisions and CTE."

Tyler Seau played football through high school and for two years in college. He says he has no symptoms of brain trauma.

Gina Seau's son Jake, now a high school junior, played football for two seasons but has switched to lacrosse and has been recruited to play at Duke.

"Lacrosse is really his sport and what he is passionate about," she said. "He is a good football player and probably could continue. But especially now watching what his dad went through, he says, 'Why would I risk lacrosse for football?'

"I didn't have to have a discussion with him after we saw what Junior went through."

Her 12-year-old son, Hunter, has shown no interest in playing football.

"That's fine with me," she said.

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City Room: How Are You Warding Off the Flu?

Sure, you could go out and get a flu shot like everyone keeps telling you to do. It’s relatively cheap, and available just about everywhere.

But the shot is not 100 percent effective. And it takes two weeks to kick in. Although influenza can be deadly, some have been making light of the virus’s symptoms.

On the bright side, having the flu was a great start to my spring break diet.. eating nothing and still managing to puke

— Allison (@Ally_YM) 6 Jan 13

Turns out I don’t have the flu, I just really like NyQuil and hate wearing pants.

— NYC Blonde (@NYC_Blonde) 10 Jan 13

If you’re holding out, or procrastinating, or have decided against getting vaccinated altogether, what alternative means are you using to keep those bad bugs away? Comment in the box below.

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Sharp Words From European Minister for Countries in North

BRUSSELS — Jean-Claude Juncker, the departing leader of the group of ministers who oversee the euro currency, sharply criticized northern Europeans on Thursday for demanding austerity budgets from their southern neighbors.

But in the same speech he seemed to endorse as his successor an official from the Netherlands, one of countries that has made the toughest demands for fiscal rigor in the euro zone.

Mr. Juncker, himself a northern European and prime minister of Luxembourg, told members of the European Parliament’s influential Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee that northerners had falsely painted themselves as more economically virtuous than southerners. “I’m totally against this distinction,” he said.

Mr. Juncker warned that some members of his own country’s Parliament had become fed up with “the German diktat,” and he said countries making painful economic adjustments should be rewarded for their efforts.

“We have been arrogant” toward countries like Greece, he said.

Still, Mr. Juncker said his successor as head of the Eurogroup of ministers would speak one of the languages of the Benelux, a grouping that includes Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Mr. Juncker’s comments were characteristically cryptic, but appeared to lend weight to the chances of the front-runner for the job, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister.

The president of the Eurogroup plays a coordinating role among finance ministers when they make critical decisions like giving political approval for bailouts or pressuring governments to shore up their finances to preserve the stability of the euro. Mr. Juncker has held the post since 2005; although his term expired last summer, he indicated he would stay on for a limited time until a successor was named.

At a news conference Thursday, Mr. Juncker said a decision on his successor should be made on, or shortly after, Jan. 21, because that would be the last meeting of the Eurogroup at which he would serve as president.

Although the president of the Eurogroup is supposed to be elected by ministers, as a practical matter is decided by consensus among governments, opening the way for political horse-trading.

Mr. Dijsselbloem’s candidacy gained strength in recent weeks partly because he comes from a country that still holds a triple-A debt rating, making him a natural ally of Germany. But his candidacy is more problematic for the French, the other major power in the euro area.

The government led by President François Hollande has emphasized giving the most vulnerable members of the euro area the leeway to make painful economic adjustments. By contrast, the Netherlands, along with Germany and Finland, has pressed indebted nations like Greece and Portugal to tighten their belts, despite the recessionary effect on their economies.

One factor that could help the French swing in support of Mr. Dijsselbloem, a member of the Dutch Labor Party, is that he, like Mr. Hollande, is a socialist.

Meanwhile, for the soon-to-be created single banking supervisory agency for the euro zone, Mr. Juncker suggested Thursday that a Frenchwoman could be offered a senior role. And although Mr. Juncker again did not offer names, there are reports in the French news media that Danièle Nouy, an official at the Banque de France, could be offered such a role, partly to assuage French concerns.

Mr. Dijsselbloem, 46, won the finance portfolio, his first Netherlands cabinet post, late last year, and he has little experience at the top levels of government or in European affairs. But he did take office in time to participate in a round of marathon meetings by finance ministers to strike agreements on resuming aid to Greece and the creation of the single banking supervisor.

“I suppose he is suitable as he wouldn’t be finance minister,” said Sophie in ‘t Veld, a Dutch member of the European Parliament for the Democrats 66, a liberal and pro-European political party.

“But how is he going to navigate between the deeply euro-skeptic electorate and a deeply euro-skeptic Parliament that will expect him to be a troublemaker in Europe and, on the other hand, show compromise and consensus as the head of the Eurogroup?” she asked.

Mr. Dijsselbloem told the Dutch daily newspaper De Volkskrant at the end of December that he regarded “strengthening European cooperation inevitable and good for the Netherlands.” But he also cautioned that, “when it comes to Greece, for example, everyone looks to the Netherlands and we have to take the floor” and that, “from us, from Germany and Finland, it’s expected that we exhibit some strictness.”

That, though, is an approach that Mr. Juncker on Thursday cautioned his successor against taking. For countries like Greece and Portugal facing brutal austerity, he said, there should be rewards for meeting targets and “not only a big stick.”

Mr. Juncker also called for euro area countries to adopt a legal minimum wage so as not “to lose the support of the working classes.”

And in a marked contrast to the stance of some Dutch politicians, Mr. Juncker suggested that countries like Spain and Ireland should have some scope for using European bailout funds to bail out their banks directly. Otherwise, said Mr. Juncker, the purpose of the bailout fund “would lose a large part of its sense.”

For his part, Mr. Juncker said at the news conference that he would concentrate on winning another term as the prime minister of Luxembourg and use that perch to continue to play a role in European affairs.

“You will hear from me,” he said.

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