BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Taxpayers to get rude surprise Millions of couples, retirees may have to repay some of Obama tax credit by Stephen Ohlemacher Millions of Americans enjoying their small windfall from President Barack Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax credit are in for an unpleasant surprise next spring. The government is going to want some of that money back. The tax credit is supposed to provide up to $400 to individuals and $800 to married couples as part of the massive economic recovery package enacted in February. Most workers started receiving the credit through small increases in their paychecks in the past month. But new tax withholding tables issued by the IRS could cause millions of taxpayers to get hundreds of dollars more than they are entitled to under the credit, money that will have to be repaid at tax time. At-risk taxpayers include a broad swath of the public: married couples in which both spouses work; workers with more than one job; retirees who have federal income taxes wit...

DIABULIMIA - A NEW DANGEROUS PRACTICE Some skipping insulin to slim down -- Practice results in grave diabetic complications earlier in life, expert warns Like many teenage girls, Lee Ann Thill was obsessed with her appearance. A diabetic, she was already suffering from bulimia — forcing herself to throw up to lose weight. But it wasn’t enough, and she’d recently put on 20 pounds. Then one day at a camp for diabetic teens, she heard counselors chew out two girls for practicing “diabulimia” — not taking their insulin so they could lose weight, one of the consequences of uncontrolled diabetes. Don’t you realize you could die if you skip your insulin? the counselor scolded. Don’t you know you could fall into a coma or damage your kidneys or your eyes? But that’s not what registered with Thill, who has type 1, or juvenile diabetes. Instead, she focused on this: Skipping insulin equals weight loss. For the next 17 years, diabulimia was her compulsion. “I took just enough insulin to function...