Farrah Fawcett left her son Redmond O’Neal, 33, $4.5 million when she died in 2009, yet earlier this week he was arrested for allegedly robbing a convenience store at knife point in Los Angeles. According to police, O’Neal, whose father is actor Ryan O’Neal, walked into a store located near Santa Monica armed with a knife and demanded the clerk to take out money from the register. O’Neal, who has battled drug addition for years, then fled the store after the clerk handed over an undisclosed amount of cash and was arrested nearby, according to a police spokesperson, who aded that officers recovered a knife from Redmond that matched the clerk’s description. While Fawcett left her son the bulk of her wealth when she died in 2009, she set up strict parameters on how the money could be spent, according to a copy of the trust leaked to RadarOnline not long after her death. © Toby Canham/Getty Redmond O'Neal Instead of giving his inheriting the money outright, she put $4.5 million into a trust fund overseen by her business manager and producer, Richard Francis. According to the terms of the trust, the money could only be used for matters relating to his health care. “This means Francis can spend as much as he deems advisable for rehabilitation (which would clearly improve Redmond’s health), without paying anything directly to him for fear of it being spent on drugs, etc.,” author and probate attorney Andrew W. Mayoras wrote in 2009. However, Fawcett’s trust does allow O’Neal to collect the interest generated by the fund “at least 4 times year, and as often as monthly,” Mayoras explained. “If this $4.5 million is conservatively invested to generate even a modest 5% return, this would mean almost $19,000 per month would be available for Redmond, without ever spending any of the $4.5 million itself.” © Steve Grayson/WireImage Redmond O'Neal, Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal in April 2003 Redmond is being held on $50,000 bail after the robbery arrest. He is due in court on Thursday when a judge will determine if he will be granted bail or released. The 33-year-old has struggled with substance abuse issues since he was a teenager, leading to numerous drug and weapons-related charges as well as much time spent in rehab. Redmond most recently had his probation revoked in May 2015, seven months after it was reinstated as a judge determined he had used drugs and did not maintain doctor appointments. He was sentenced to three years in state prison for violating the probation, but was credited for nearly a year served by his trial judge. Redmond was spotted spending time with his father out of prison in Sept. 2016. Redmond’s half-sister Tatum O’Neal spoke exclusively with PEOPLE about her concerns for her half-brother despite her urging for him to quit using drugs. In 2015, Tatum, whose mother is Joanna Moore, said, “I love him, but I have never seen a more scary side of addiction. He’s got addiction problems so bad that it breaks my heart. Nobody knows what to do with Redmond. From what I’ve seen, there is no way he’s going to survive.”

Batali, Joe and Lidia Bastianich, as well as five restaurants, were named in the suit Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich are close to finalizing a settlement on yet another wage violation lawsuit. Batali, Bastianich, and Lidia Bastianich, along with five of their NYC restaurants, have agreed to pay out about $2.2 million after a former busser at Felidia filed a class action suit late last year, according to a public court documents. About 1,300 front-of-house staffers at Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group restaurants Felidia, Esca, Becco, Del Posto, and Babbo are eligible to get paid from the $2,150,000 settlement, which has not yet received final approval from a judge. Former busser Hector Jara filed the original suit in December 2017, accusing Felidia and its owners of not properly paying him while he worked at the restaurant from October 2015 to January 2017. He alleged that he often worked 55 hours a week but was only paid for up to 45; he also claimed that his work exceeded the legal limits of what tipped employees could do. Jara further accused a manager of disability discrimination, alleging that he was fired following a doctor recommendation to avoid lifting heavy items. In court documents, the restaurants and owners denied the allegations. The Bastianichs and Batali did not admit fault as part of the settlement agreement, which was filed this week. Though front-of-house staffers at Babbo will be able to be part of the class, the settlement explicitly mentions that former Babbo busser Octavio Quinones will not qualify for a payout. Back in November, Quinones and prolific restaurant world attorney Maimon Kirschenbaum separately sued Batali, Bastianich, and Babbo for wage violations, also in attempt to make it a class action. That case is pending; Kirschenbaum tells Eater that they were originally slated to go into mediation with Batali attorneys next Monday. He plans to contest this settlement’s inclusion of Babbo, which was added onto the suit the same day that the settlement agreement was filed. “We believe this was behavior intended to shortchange the Babbo group, which they knew was represented by us,” Kirschenbaum says. Carolyn Richmond, an attorney for B&B Hospitality Group and the other defendants, said in a statement that the companies “did nothing wrong and settled to avoid litigation costs”: This settlement involves a deeply flawed statute that imposes $5,000-per-employee fines for paperwork violations that don’t actually harm any employee and are made by payroll companies. It’s become a plaintiff’s lawyer job creation act, with lawsuits flooding courts against 99% of NY restaurants. Mr. Kirschenbaum is in no position to object to a mediated and negotiated settlement when his client wasn’t involved in it or affected by it. Eater has also reached out to Jara’s attorney, who did not immediately respond to an email request for comment. It’s not the first time Kirschenbaum has gone up against the Batali and Bastianich restaurants. In 2012, he negotiated a $5.25 million settlement with the crew, similarly following a wage violation lawsuit. The newer Babbo suit, which can be seen here, also accuses the group of shortchanging staff on pay. Batali is named in the suit, but shortly after Jara and his attorney C.K. Lee filed the original complaint, the famous chef stepped away from management of his restaurants following sexual misconduct allegations. Joe Bastianich remains at the group, and Lidia Bastianich took on a bigger role. Batali is now in the process of divesting financially from the businesses.

At least five people were injured when a car crashed into a New York City deli, the FDNY said. All injuries were non-life-threatening, and the victims were all taken to a local hospital. According to CBS New York, police said a livery cab jumped the curb after getting into a collision with a taxi cab, striking multiple pedestrians and then crashing into a deli. "We saw one lady on the top of the hood and the younger boy, I think her son I'm not sure it's her son or not, also was crying there," a witness who works in a nearby pizza shop told CBS New York. "It was very hard actually, very sad." Police said both drivers remained on the scene after the crash.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration is expressing “regret” after airport security demanded that Justin Trudeau’s industry minister remove his turban, sparking a Canadian government complaint. Navdeep Bains, who is Sikh and serves as Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, was on his way to Detroit in April 2017 when airport security officers asked him to remove the turban. He declined on religious grounds. “Once they realized my position, who I was, I was ultimately allowed to fly,” Bains said in televised remarks Thursday, after Montreal’s La Presse newspaper reported the incident. He said the issue “speaks to discrimination” and was the first time that’s happened to him, adding that U.S. officials apologized. Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said separately from Washington that her department spoke with U.S. officials about the situation and “expressed Canada’s perspective.” The Transportation Security Administration, in a statement released Thursday by assistant press secretary Michelle Negron, said it reviewed security videos and found the officer checking Bains didn’t follow procedure and has since received training. The written statement did not include an apology. “We regret the screening experience did not meet the expectations of Mr. Bains,” the agency said. “When possible, passengers may remove non-formfitting headwear before proceeding through the security checkpoint. We recognize that passengers may be unable or unwilling to remove items for religious, medical, or other reasons, and should expect to undergo additional screening protocols.”

NBC has offered to look into sexual harassment and assault allegations against Tom Brokaw by former NBC correspondent Linda Vester. But Vester has declined the request at this point, because the network wouldn’t bring in outside counsel to run the investigation. “We will not be participating in any investigation by NBC of NBC,” Ari Wilkenfeld, Vester’s attorney, told Variety. He added that he informed the news organization that his client would be “more than willing” to participate if there was an investigation commissioned by outside counsel. Wilkenfeld says he has not heard back yet from NBC about his request. “NBCUniversal has reached out to Ms. Vester via her attorney to discuss her allegations, and so far she has not accepted our offer,” a spokesperson for NBCUniversal said in a statement to Variety. After “Today” anchor Matt Lauer was fired last November over a series of sexual misconduct allegations, NBC News chairman Andy Lack vowed to review the Lauer situation, but ever since the results of that report were made public Wednesday, the news division has faced criticism for using NBCUniversal general counsel instead of an outside team. “This so-called ‘investigation’ is a joke and Comcast needs to clean house at the highest ranks of NBC if it wants to create a safe workplace,” said Karin Roland, chief campaigns officer of women’s advocacy group UltraViolet about the Lauer report. According to NBC’s findings, no managers were responsible for any wrongdoing in the Lauer case. Those findings don’t necessarily fit with the narrative of the story that has unfolded in the press. In an interview with the Washington Post in April, former “Today” co-anchor Ann Curry said that she voiced concerns in 2012 about Lauer’s conduct toward women to an unnamed manager at NBC. It’s not clear if that manager was part of the internal probe, but Curry told the New York Times in a statement, “I have not participated in any formal investigation by NBC on sexual harassment.” “NBCUniversal’s investigation was thorough, objective and conducted at the corporate level, outside the News division,” an NBCUniversal spokesperson told Variety. “Kim Harris, the company’s General Counsel, led this process with a team of legal and HR professionals who are independent of News. In addition, we consulted with two prominent outside law firms – Proskauer Rose and Davis Polk – both of whom validated the investigation’s methodology, findings, conclusions and recommended next steps.” NBC running its own investigation in the Lauer case raises questions about a network’s ability to investigate itself. Even before the Lauer findings were made public, Wilkenfeld blasted the network for failing to run an independent investigation, saying, “One important reason companies hire outside investigators is to send a strong signal to their own employees that the company wants to get to the root of what happened and is prepared to accept responsibility. Sadly, it seems that NBC has chosen to go in a very different direction.” Thursday morning, appearing on “Good Morning America,” Vester was asked by George Stephanopoulos, “You don’t trust them to investigate this themselves?” to which she responded, “Well, I think it’s common sense — you can’t investigate yourself. You just can’t. There’s an internal bias. That’s how it works.” Vester, a former NBC war correspondent, accused Brokaw of sexually harassing and assaulting her in the 1990s, claiming the anchorman groped her in a conference room, forcibly tried to kiss her on two different occasions, and showed up uninvited at her hotel room during a business trip. Brokaw has strongly denied these claims. NBC knew about Vester’s allegations for several weeks prior to her story being published in Variety and the Washington Post. But Wilkenfeld says nobody from the news division contacted Vester until after her story became public.

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

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Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

Hello there, Welcome to this wonderful Community.. Enjoy your stay here.. Cheers!

A spokesperson has reportedly confirmed the ATS Sedan is being discontinued. Cadillac’s answer to the German trio (A4, 3 Series, C-Class) has been in production at General Motors’ Lansing Grand River Plant factory in Michigan since 2012. Sales of the compact luxury sedan never really took off - as reflected by GM’s decision to idle production for three weeks back in 2014. Facing poor demand with each passing year, it seems increasingly more likely the 2018MY will be the last one for the ATS Sedan. After appearing as a coupe-only 2019MY in a leaked VIN code documents towards the end of last year, the ATS in sedan guise is a no-show in GM’s fleet order guide where only the ATS Coupe is listed together with the hotter ATS-V Coupe for the 2019 model year. Let’s keep in mind that former Cadillac president, Johan de Nysschen, did announce back in July last year that the ATS would not get a “natural successor” as the company wants to “re-balance [its] sedan portfolio. In other words, the fact that the ATS Sedan could be on its death bed is not exactly a big surprise. Another nail in the ATS’ coffin is represented by a statement made by Cadillac spokesman Donny Nordlicht. In an interview with The Car Connection, the company’s representative said: “Production of the ATS sedan is ending due to extensive plant upgrades, expansion and re-tooling to prepare for the next generation of Cadillac sedans.” He went on to mention Cadillac is planning to rework its sedan lineup by offering three models competing in different segments of the market not just in terms of pricing, but also as far as size is concerned. The new family of sedans is expected to include a CT5 as a replacement for both the ATS and the CTS. The newcomer would join the existing CT6, with a smaller CT4 compact sedan to arrive at a later date. A flagship sedan is also in the offing, but the official word right now is that it’s been delayed until after 2022.

Always in touch with its roots, Aston Martin has announced a limited run of previous-generation V12 Vantages based on an old icon, the 1998 V8 Vantage V600, the most powerful car to come out of Aston's awkward years. The 1980s and early '90s were not a good time for Aston, with numerous ownership changes and dismal sales, but a car by the name of the V8 Vantage arguably saved the brand from extinction. A more powerful version of the now-deceased Aston Martin Virage, the Vantage produced 550 horsepower from its twin-supercharged V-8. For the 1998 model year, A V600 package was offered that brought the power output up to a monstrous 600 horses, the most powerful Vantage ever. Aston is building just seven coupes and seven roadsters that pay homage to the '98 Vantage V600. All 14 of these cars are customer-commissioned and will be made by the company's bespoke "Q by Aston Martin" division. Based on the VH Gaydon-style V12 Vantage, it's also a goodbye to the current-generation Vantage before the face-lifted 2019 model arrives. "This is precisely why we created our ‘Q by Aston Martin – Commission’ service," explained Marek Reichman, Vice President and Chief Creative Officer of Aston Martin."Our customers can create truly bespoke sports cars by personally collaborating with myself and Aston Martin’s design team." Unique design features include a carbon fiber rear diffuser, darker grille, exclusive center-lock forged aluminum wheels, and a more pronounced hood and side strakes inspired by the 1998 car. The car's interior is different as well, themed around dark aluminum and carbon fiber with a new leather seat design pattern. To pay homage to the V8 V600, the limited-edition V12 gets a naturally-aspirated 6.0-liter V-12 pushing 600 PS (591 mechanical horsepower), hooked up to a seven-speed manual transmission. Other notable upgrades include a dual independent wishbone suspension and a quad-exhaust system. "The V600 name remains a classic in Aston Martin’s heritage and I’m proud to see it adorn the V12 Vantage V600 once again," continued Reichman. Aston is now taking orders for these special Vantages and deliveries will begin later this year.

The Land Rover Defender Works V8 has a 400-hp V-8 stuffed under the hood, an interior wrapped in expensive leather, and spangly alloy wheels shod with clod-crusher tires. It's hella loud and sorta quick. The short-wheelbase version corners like a fat lady covered in fire ants, ponderously twitching and squirming, never quite sure where it's headed next. Built to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Britain's iconic off-roader, the Works V8 is everything a Land Rover Defender shouldn't be. Only 150 are being made, and they're all sold, despite a $200,000-plus price tag. P.T. Barnum would have approved. Wait up ... Jaguar Land Rover stopped production of the Defender in 2016. So where has the Works V8 come from? © Motor Trend Staff It's a factory car, sold through Land Rover dealers in the U.K., with a full factory warranty. But it's a reborn Defender, not a newly made one, created at the new Jaguar Land Rover Classic Works facility near Coventry, England. Its starting point is a 2012 or later Defender 90 or 110 with fewer than 20,000 miles on the clock. The 400-hp engine under the hood is JLR's trusty 5.0-liter V-8, minus the supercharger. Peak power arrives at 6,000 rpm, and all 380 lb-ft of torque are on parade from 5,000 rpm. The engine's bolted to a version of ZF's ubiquitous eight-speed automatic, this one, says JLR, with Sport mode and quick shift response. This enables shifts to be completed in just 200 milliseconds, a unit of time almost certainly never previously used to describe the operational efficiency of a Defender's driveline. The Works V8 still has a low-range transfer case, however. Thankfully, some things remain sacrosanct. © Motor Trend Staff Despite having the aerodynamics of a brick outhouse, JLR says the Defender Works V8 will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 5.6 seconds and will reach 106 mph. Eventually. It feels faster, like a harum-scarum funfair ride. Although the all-wheel-drive system can shuttle up to 90 percent of the torque to the front or rear axle on demand, the Works V8 scrambles for traction on greasy tarmac before lunging down the road. Upgraded springs, shocks, and stabilizer bars add a layer of urgency to the Defender 90's trademark pitch and bounce. The recirculating ball steering, tuned to deliver more on-center feel, does its best to help you keep it all on your side of the road. Then you arrive at a corner. Works V8 Defenders are equipped with the brake setup used for the armored Land Rovers built in JLR's Special Vehicle Operations shop just around the corner from the Classic Works facility. They use 13.2-inch rotors up front and 13.0-inch items at the rear, each clamped by four-piston calipers. There's no issue with the actual stopping, but in the short-wheelbase model, you're acutely aware of the weight transfer that occurs as you attempt to get about 4,000 pounds of fast-moving, high-riding, live-axle SUV ready to change direction. And although the steering no longer has the broad on-center dead spot typical of vehicles designed to crawl rocks without tearing the wheel from your hands, it's still slower than a wet weekend in Cleveland. © Motor Trend Staff Land Rover Defender 90 Works V8 front three quarter 01 Hurrying the Defender Works V8 along a winding two-lane makes you feel like you're commanding an Army Corps: All that shock and awe only happens after a lot of forward planning. But why would anyone want to drive a Land Rover Defender that way? It's mildly amusing for the first couple of miles, but it doesn't take long for the novelty to wear off. After that, it's just hard work and you're left wondering, why the 400-hp V-8 and the sport transmission and the big wheels? Not to mention the racy leather-trimmed sport seats, a surround-sound audio system, and the other bright, shiny trinkets lifted from the insta-performance car catalog. It's punk attitude glommed on to an icon, Winston Churchill with tattoos and a mohawk. For decades, one word summed up Land Rover's tough, capable, and gloriously charismatic off-roader: authentic. The Defender Works V8 isn't.

The man who owns 400 cars When Rodger Dudding bought an almost-new Jensen FF back in 1968, little did he know that half a century later he would still own it - along with two more, plus more than 400 other classic cars and around 65 motorbikes. He even owns 24 - yes 24 - Aston Martin Lagondas - or 4% of the entire production of the striking William Towns designed luxury car. Buying whatever takes his fancy, Rodger has built up what he claims is the biggest car collection in the UK, and probably Europe too. Called Studio 434 and not open to the public, Autocar recently got the chance to look around the incredible hoard of rarities.

Did you know that some extra weight might just give you some extra life? It's not like you'll live forever, or even year per additional pound, but perhaps doctors might just not be totally truthful when addressing the health risks associated with people whose BMIs — that is, Body Mass Indexes — are between 25 and 30 ("overweight") on the scale. For those of you who are unaware of BMI — which is not someone who's a habitual dieter, let me tell you — it's the chart that doctors and other healthcare professionals swear by to determine a person's percentage of fat based on their weight and height. If you've ever seen one of these BMI charts, they're typically littering doctors' offices with user-friendly color-coated squares. Green is normal or "good," and then there's orange for "overweight" or "not so great," and red for "obese" which means "STOP." Doctors have lectured on and on about the dangers of being "overweight," but as it turns out, it might actually just be better for you to have a little extra weight than to be at a "normal" BMI. According to Wikipedia, "The generally accepted view is that being overweight causes similar health problems to obesity, but to a lesser degree." But even in papers regarding the dangers of being overweight, like the Journal of the American Medical Association's paper regarding "Excess deaths associated with underweight, overweight, and obesity," they can be cited as stating, "Overweight was not associated with excess mortality." In fact, the findings rule quite the opposite of the dangers that we've previously believed about carrying a little "extra" weight: People who are overweight actually live longer than people who are in that happy green BMI square. What does this mean for everyone who's in the "orange" BMI category? Well, you might actually just be at a "normal" weight, while people of normal weight might actually be considered "mildly underweight." The research supports the idea that people within the "overweight" category are healthier and live longer, but science and the doctors who recognize this issue are still unwilling to make the call and change "overweight" to "normal" for the charts. We're not certain why, but it might be so they can keep condescending you about all the pizza you're eating because let's face it: Those hips didn't get there by avoiding one of the greatest foods of all time. This also suggests that the dangers of being within that category may be grosslyover-exaggerated since doctors are continually finding out that "overweight" people actually tend to live longer, healthier lives than those within the "normal" weight groups. © Provided by NewsCred Of course, at some point, the more weight you put on, the worse your health will become, because obesity is still damaging to your body — high blood pressure, heart problems, diabetes, skin issues, hormonal problems and many others. But where that point actually begins has been called into question. So if you go to the clinic and your BMI is a little higher than "acceptable" to your doctor, don't freak out and call off carbs just yet, and certainly don't kiss goodbye alcohol and other hedonistic pleasures, because you could be within a totally (secretly) healthy weight group. And the plus side? You might actually be able to enjoy every amazing bite of that pizza and live longer than your skinnier friends. Have fun rubbing that in their faces next time you're eating a lovelyMediterranean meal while they choke back a dry salad without any pesky, delicious calorie-filled dressing.

Smoke may get in your eyes while you're barbecuing up a brisket in real life, but don't be surprised if this video of a fan's encounter with Guy Fieri at the Stagecoach Festival in Indio, CA has you tearing up just the same. Back in April, Fieri curated the lineup at the Guy's Stagecoach Smokehouse pavilion, a veritable buffet of barbecue delights served up to attendees of the country music festival. But in a video released today, our friends at Entertainment Weekly reveal that they took the opportunity to introduce one incredibly inspiring teenager to his culinary idol. 14-year-old Fuller Goldsmith has an impressive track record for a young chef. He won Chopped Junior in 2017 and competed on the first season of Top Chef Jr. earlier this year. But the Alabama resident has an even more inspiring accomplishment: He's beat cancer three times. Goldsmith has been battling acute lymphoblastic leukemia off and on since he was just three years old. Through it all, Goldsmith says food, cooking, and Guy Fieri kept him going, revealing that cooking is "pretty much therapy" to him. Last month, Entertainment Weekly's Gerrad Hall followed Goldsmith around the Stagecoach Festival's food tent with a camera crew, having him taste some of the items on the menu before surprising Goldsmith by dropping the news on him very suddenly. "We're gonna go meet Guy Fieri right now. You think that's going to be all right?" Goldsmith plays it pretty cool and admits he can probably think of a couple of questions for the TV star. Fieri then sits down with Goldsmith who asks him some very practical questions (does Fieri really drive everywhere on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and how does he get the same car everywhere?). Fieri jokes with the young chef at first but ends up spilling the beans on some of his travel food show's behind the scenes secrets. And given the surroundings, Goldsmith also asks Fieri his favorite thing to smoke—a question which Fieri compares to choosing a favorite child. He finally admits it's a turkey pastrami. When Goldsmith eventually reveals his cancer struggles to Fieri, the chef has some incredibly encouraging words for his fan. "What you've already accomplished in your life is amazing. The example that you're setting for kids is amazing. The example you're setting for adults [too]." "I look forward to cooking with you someday," Fieri adds. That day would be the very same day as Fieri takes Goldsmith to one of the outdoor kitchens where they whip up burritos (buffalo, ostrich, and, wildebeest are on the menu) for Ashton Kutcher (yes, that Ashton Kutcher).

Old age demands to be taken very seriously–and it usually gets its way. It’s hard to be cavalier about a time of life defined by loss of vigor, increasing frailty, rising disease risk and falling cognitive faculties. Then there’s the unavoidable matter of the end of consciousness and the self–death, in other words–that’s drawing closer and closer. It’s the rare person who can confront the final decline with flippancy or ease. That, as it turns out, might be our first mistake. Humans are not alone in facing the ultimate reckoning, but we’re the only species–as far as we know–who spends its whole life knowing death is coming. A clam dredged from the ocean off Iceland in 2006–and inadvertently killed by the scientists who discovered it–carried growth lines on its shell indicating it had been around since 1499. That was enough time for 185,055 generations of mayfly–which live as little as a day–to come and go. Neither clam nor fly gave a thought to that mortal math. Humans fall somewhere between those two extremes. Globally, the average life span is 71.4 years; for a few lucky people, it may exceed 100 years. It has never, to science’s knowledge, exceeded the 122 years, 164 days lived by Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who was born when Ulysses S. Grant was in the White House and died when Bill Clinton lived there. Most of us would like a little bit of that Calment magic, and we’ve made at least some progress. Life expectancy in the U.S. exceeds the global average, clocking in at just under 79 years. In 1900, it was just over 47 years. The extra decades came courtesy of just the things you’d expect: vaccines, antibiotics, sanitation and improved detection and treatment of a range of diseases. Advances in genetics and in our understanding of dementia are helping to extend our factory warranties still further. None of that, however, changes the way we contemplate the end of life–often with anxiety and asceticism, practicing a sort of existential bartering. We can narrow our experiences and give up indulgences in exchange for a more guardedly lived life that might run a little longer. But what if we could take off some of that bubble wrap? What about living longer and actually having some fun? A Yale University study just this month found that in a group of 4,765 people with an average age of 72, those who carried a gene variant linked to dementia–but also had positive attitudes about aging–were 50% less likely to develop the disorder than people who carried the gene but faced aging with more pessimism or fear. There may be something to be said then for aging less timidly–as a sort of happy contrarian, arguing when you feel like arguing, playing when you feel like playing. Maybe you want to pass up the quiet of the country for the churn of a city. Maybe you want to drink a little, eat a rich meal, have some sex. “The most important advice we offer people about longevity is, ‘Throw away your lists,'” says Howard Friedman, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and co-author of The Longevity Project. “We live in a self-help society full of lists: ‘lose weight, hit the gym.’ So why aren’t we all healthy? People who live a long time can work hard and play hard.” Under the right circumstances, it increasingly seems, so could all of us. Marie Ashdown, 90, has lived in New York City for nearly 60 years, in an apartment on the east side of Manhattan. New York has beaten down younger people than her, but Ashdown, executive director of the Musicians Emergency Fund, loves city life. “I have a fire in my belly,” she says. “There’s not one minute of the day that I don’t learn.” As a classical-music connoisseur, Ashdown organizes two concerts a year at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. When she’s not working, she takes weekend trips outside of the city, and spends her free time binding old books. Like many New Yorkers several decades her junior, she often orders takeout rather than bother with cooking. “We have the best and worst here,” says Ashdown. “We learn to cope, live on the defensive and conquer fear.” She’s hardly the only senior who loves city living. In the U.S., 80% of people ages 65 and older are now living in metropolitan areas, and according to the World Health Organization, by 2030, an estimated 60% of all people will live in cities–many of them over age 60. You may lose a little sidewalk speed and have to work harder to get up and down subway stairs, but cities increasingly rank high on both doctors’ and seniors’ lists of the best places to age gracefully. Every year, the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging (CFA) ranks the best metropolitan places for successful aging, and most years, major cities sweep the top 10 spots. No wonder: cities tend to have strong health systems, opportunities for continued learning, widespread public transportation and an abundance of arts and culture. That’s not to say that people can’t feel isolated or lonely in cities, but you can get lonely in a country cottage too. In cities, the cure can be just outside your door. “We all long to bump into each other,” says Paul Irving, the chairman of the Milken Institute CFA. “The ranges of places where this can happen in cities tend to create more options and opportunities.” It’s that aspect–the other-people aspect–that may be the particularly challenging for some, especially as we age and families disperse. But there are answers: a 2017 study in the journal Personal Relationships found that it can be friends, not family, who matter most. The study looked at 270,000 people in nearly 100 countries and found that while both family and friends are associated with happiness and better health, as people aged, the health link remained only for people with strong friendships. “[While] in a lot of ways, relationships with friends had a similar effect as those with family,” says William Chopik, assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University and the author of the study, “in others, they surpassed them.” If the primacy of family has been oversold as a key to long life, so has the importance of avoiding conflict or emotional upset. Shouting back at cable news is no way to spend your golden years, but passion, it’s turning out, may be more life-sustaining than apathy, engagement more than indifference. In a study published by the American Aging Association, researchers analyzed data from the Georgia Centenarian Study, a survey of 285 people who were at least (or nearly) 100 years old, as well as 273 family members and other proxies who provided information about them. The investigators were looking at how the subjects scored on various personality traits, including conscientiousness, extraversion, hostility and neuroticism. As a group, the centenarians tested lower on neuroticism and higher on competence and extraversion. Their proxies ranked them a bit higher on neuroticism, as well as on hostility. It’s impossible to draw a straight line between those strong personality traits and long life, but the authors saw a potential one, citing other studies showing that centenarians rank high on “moral righteousness,” which leads to robust temperaments that “may help centenarians adapt well to later life.” © Maciek Jasik At the same time that crankiness, judiciously deployed, can be adaptive, its polar opposite–cheerfulness and optimism–may be less so. Worried people are likelier to be vigilant people, alert to a troubling physical symptom or a loss of some faculty that overly optimistic people might dismiss. Friedman and his collaborator Leslie R. Martin, a professor of psychology at La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif., base their book on work begun in 1921 by Stanford University psychologist Lewis Terman, who recruited 1,500 boys and girls born around 1910 and proposed to follow them throughout their lifetimes and, when he died–which happened in 1956–to have successors continue the work. Friedman and Martin have been two of those successors, and they’ve learned a lot. “Our research found that the more cheerful, outgoing children did not, for the most part, live any longer than their more introverted or serious classmates,” says Friedman. “Excessively happy people may ignore real threats and fail to take precautions or follow medical advice. It is O.K. to fret–if in a responsible manner.” One tip for long life that is not coming in for quite so much revisionist thinking is exercise–and some seniors are achieving remarkable things. Take Ginette Bedard, 84, of Howard Beach, N.Y. It was a drizzly morning last Nov. 5, but that didn’t stop Bedard from crossing the New York City Marathon finish line first in her age group. Bedard picked up running decades ago as a way to keep fit, but she didn’t run her first marathon until she was 69 years old. “I was watching the marathon runners on TV and I was so envious,” she says. “I was thinking, I cannot do that, they are all superhumans.” So she decided to become one of them. She began training daily until she could run the full 26.2 miles, and she’s run nearly every New York City Marathon since. “It takes discipline and brainpower and dedication,” she says. “The running is hard, but the finish line is euphoria.” She now runs three hours every day along the beach. Few physicians would recommend that all octogenarians pick up a three-hour-a-day running habit, but adding even a small amount of movement to daily life has been repeatedly shown to be beneficial, for a whole range of reasons. “Exercise likely works through several mechanisms,” says Dr. Thomas Gill, director of the Yale Program on Aging. “Increasing physical activity will improve endurance; it benefits muscle strength and balance and [reduces] occurrence of serious fall injuries. It also provides a benefit to psychology, by lifting spirits.” Exactly how much–or how little–exercise it takes to begin paying dividends has been one of the happy surprises of longevity research. A 2016 study found that elderly people who exercised for just 15 minutes a day, at an intensity level of a brisk walk, had a 22% lower risk of early death compared to people who did no exercise. A 2017 study found that exercising even just two days a week can lower risk for premature death. Researchers from McMaster University in Canada even found that breaking a sweat for just 60 seconds may be enough to improve health and fitness (as long as it’s a tough workout). Healthy eating is something else that may have a lot more wiggle room than we’ve assumed, and if there’s such a thing as a longevity diet, there may be more on the menu than seniors have been told. “I have my wine and ice cream,” says Bedard without apology. Similarly, 90-year-old Ashdown phones her takeout orders into Tal Bagels on First Avenue, not some trendy vegan joint. “It really is an issue of moderation,” says Peter Martin, a professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University, who runs an ongoing study of centenarians. Martin notes that while most centenarians eat different but generally healthy diets, one consistent thing he has picked up from work with his 100-plus crowd is breakfast. “They rarely skip breakfast,” he says. “It’s often at a very specific time, and the routine is important.” Alcohol has its place too. An August 2017 study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that light to moderate alcohol use (14 or fewer drinks per week for men and seven or fewer for women) is associated with a lower risk of death compared to people who don’t drink at all. If you’re a nondrinker, that’s no reason to start, and if you drink only infrequently, it’s no reason to drink more. Still, among the more than 333,000 people in the study, light and moderate drinkers were 20% less likely to die from any cause during the study period compared with their completely abstemious peers. There’s also an argument for letting go of diet obsessiveness, especially if you’re at a reasonably healthy weight already. A 2016 study found that women over age 50 who were categorized as normal weight, but reported fluctuating (dropping more than 10 lb. and gaining it back at least three times) were 3½ times more likely to experience sudden cardiac death than those whose weight stayed the same. The takeaway: simply stay in a healthy range; striving for a smaller size isn’t necessarily doing you any longevity favors. Finally, as long as seniors are enjoying themselves with some indulgent food and drink, they may as well round out the good-times trifecta with a little sex. It’s no secret that remaining sexually active has been linked to life satisfaction and, in some cases, longer life. One celebrated study, published in the British Medical Journal in 1997, followed 918 men in a Welsh town for 10 years and found that those with a higher frequency of orgasm had a 50% reduced risk of mortality. Friedman and his colleagues, working with the Terman group, found something similar–though not quite as dramatic–for women. A 2016 study from Michigan State University was less sanguine, finding that older men who had sex once a week or more were almost twice as likely to suffer a cardiovascular event than men who had less sex; that was especially so if the more active men were satisfied with the sex, which often means they achieved orgasm. For older women, sex seemed to be protective against cardiovascular event. The problem for the men was likely overexertion, but there are ways around that. “Older adults have to realize that it’s intimacy that’s important,” says Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “If the focus is on pleasure rather than achieving orgasm each time, it can be fulfilling.” In this and other dimensions of aging, Kennedy cites pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who died at age 86 and was still performing into his 80s. Conceding the limitations of age, he left the most demanding pieces out of his performances; of those that remained, he would play the slower ones first, making the faster ones seem faster still by comparison. “He would optimize, not maximize,” says Kennedy. There is an admitted bumper-sticker quality to dictum like that, but compared with the familiar age-related wisdom–take it slow, watch your diet, stay cheerful–it’s bracing. There are, Kennedy says, no truly healthy centenarians; you can’t put 100 points on the board without getting worn out and banged up along the way. But there are independent centenarians and happy centenarians and centenarians who have had a rollicking good ride. The same is true for people who will never reach the 100-year mark but make the very most of the time they do get. The end of life is a nonnegotiable thing. The quality and exact length of that life, however, is something we very much have the power to shape.