Carlos Castaneda's ex-wife believed that a key figure in his spiritual bestsellers - Mexican shaman Don Juan - was an extravagant fiction, drawn in part from conversations and activities the couple shared.

Los Angeles - They were an unlikely couple, the Latin American immigrant and the West Virginia divorcee whose paths crossed in mid-1950s Los Angeles.

But, by Margaret Runyan Castaneda's account, she and Carlos Castaneda were kindred spirits whose time together helped turn him into a countercultural phenomenon.

Carlos wrote The Teachings of Don Juan, a 1968 best seller that told of his peyote-fueled adventures with Don Juan Matus, a Mexican shaman who purportedly guided him to an alternate realm inhabited by giant insects, witches and flying humans. Presented as an anthropological work, the book resounded with a generation of youthful rebels who turned the 1970s into a rollicking era of social and pharmacological experimentation.

Decades after their marriage ended, Margaret wrote her own book, which punctured some of the mystery surrounding the man who came to be viewed as either a godfather of New Age or one of its greatest charlatans.

"Much of the Castaneda mystique is based on the fact that even his closest friends aren't sure who he is," Margaret wrote in her 1996 book A Magical Journey with Carlos Castaneda.

If the choice between being fat and thin were a simple, conscious decision, most of us would likely be slender. Nevertheless, new research suggests that the discrimination and prejudice faced by overweight people, especially women, are driven by the preconceived notion that body fat is somehow optional.

"Fat women experience both the stigma of unattractiveness and the stigma that they lack control," writes researcher Christine A. Smith in a new literature review published online Jan. 18 in the journal Sex Roles. It's that perceived lack of self-discipline that leads to prejudice, said Smith, of the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

"If people are, say, unattractive due to a facial deformity, there tends to be a sympathy factor" that mitigates discrimination against them, Smith said. But because many people think weight is controllable, "for large folks, there doesn't tend to be the sympathy factor."

A new budget report released Tuesday predicts the U.S. government will run a $1.1 trillion deficit in the fiscal year that ends in September, a slight dip from last year but still very high by any measure. A previous estimate was for $973 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office [CBO] report also says that annual deficits will remain in the $1 trillion range for the next several years if Bush-era tax cuts slated to expire in December are extended, as commonly assumed. The CBO is a non-partisan budget analyst for Congress.

If the CBO estimate for this year's deficit proves accurate, fiscal year 2012 would be the fourth consecutive year of federal budget deficits topping $1 trillion. The shortfall registered $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2011, up from $1.29 trillion in 2010. It reached $1.42 trillion in 2009, the highest ever.

The report is yet another reminder of the perilous fiscal situation the government is in, but it is commonly assumed that little will be accomplished on the deficit issue during an election year.

Residents in Emsworth say they have endured sleepless nights because of a mystery low-flying plane.

Many living in and around Emsworth have been disturbed by the noisy aircraft which has been flying between 1.30am and 6am every day for over a week.

Scores complained to the Civil Aviation Authority - only to be told the Ministry of Defence mission was top secret.

It has been discovered the light commercial propeller plane - which belongs to 2Excel Aviation Ltd - was carrying out a national security survey of a three-mile radius surrounding Thorney Island.

Simon Spurge, 53, of Orchard Lane, Emsworth, said: "It's been going on for a week and it's driving me mad.

Sao Paulo: An artist's fantasies of assassinating Queen Elizabeth II, former US president George W. Bush and Pope Benedict XVI have triggered controversy in Brazil ahead of a major art show opening.

Nine charcoal sketch self-portraits of the Brazilian artist, Gil Vicente, in imaginary scenes murdering world leaders have become the focus of fierce debate, with the national lawyers' association demanding they be taken down from the walls of the Sao Paulo Art Biennial, which starts Saturday.

"They claim it justifies crime" an indignant Vicente said in an interview. "Stealing public money is not a crime? The reports on television aren't trying to justify crimes? Only my work is justification of crime?"

Manila - Philippine activists picketed the US embassy on Saturday and burned a cardboard American flag and mock stealth bomber, vowing to launch a campaign opposing a plan to allow more US troops in the country.

About 50 members of the leftist New Nationalist Alliance (Bayan) also held a huge effigy of Uncle Sam with another of Philippine President Benigno Aquino labelled as his "dog", as riot police prevented them from approaching the mission.

"If we allow more US troops to enter our country, the entire archipelago will be transformed into one military outpost for US hegemonic interests," Bayan said in a statement distributed at the rally.

Philippine officials have welcomed plans for a greater presence from the military of its former colonial ruler, seeing it as a counterbalance to recent Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea.

China and the Philippines have territorial disputes over the South China Sea and Manila has accused Beijing of using intimidation to press its claims.

Hundreds of anti-war protesters gathered in central London today at a demonstration against Western intervention in Iran and Syria.

The rally, organised by the Stop the War Coalition, took place outside the US embassy in Grosvenor Square with a number of speakers addressing the 200-strong crowd.

Protesters waved banners bearing the words "Don't attack Iran" and "Hands off Iran and Syria", while the crowd joined together in chanting: "One, two, three, four, we don't want another war. Five, six, seven, eight, stop the killing, stop the hate."

The coalition opposes all military intervention from the West in Iran as concern that the Middle Eastern country is developing nuclear weapons grows.

The group says there is "absolutely no justification" for Western countries to become involved.

Stop the War Coalition activist John Rees said the uprising that ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak a year ago proved that oppressed people in the Middle East could fight for themselves.

He said: "Here is a people who without the bombers and the bullets, the tanks and the soldiers, or the United States, or Britain, or any of the Western powers, pulled down a dictatorship on their own.

"Even after a year's still further struggle, there is not one single Egyptian revolutionary who will ask for support from the United States or military assistance from the United States, and it is because of this: they are still being shot down in the streets by Egyptian soldiers who are using American weapons and American bullets, so why would they ask for help from their killers?""

Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the homeland security committee, plans to introduce a bill in the coming days that would require a new health study of the X-ray body scanners used to screen airline passengers nationwide.
The Transportation Security Administration began using the machines for routine screening in 2009 and sped up deployment after the so-called underwear bomber tried to blow up a plane on Christmas Day of that year.

But the X-ray scanners have caused concerns because they emit low levels of ionizing radiation, a form of energy that has been shown to damage DNA and mutate genes, potentially leading to cancer. ProPublica and PBS NewsHour reported in November that the TSA had glossed over cancer concerns. Studies suggested that six or 100 airline passengers each year could develop cancer from the machines.

Shortly after our report, the European Union separately announced that it would prohibit X-ray body scanners at its airports for the time being "in order not to risk jeopardizing citizens' health and safety."

The new bill drafted by Collins would require the TSA to choose an independent laboratory to measure the radiation emitted by a scanner currently in use at an airport checkpoint. The peer-reviewed study, to be submitted to Congress, would also evaluate the safety mechanisms on the machine and determine whether there are any biological signs of cellular damage caused by the scans.

What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.

But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010's G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.

The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan.