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anxiety and irritability
trembling hands
sleeplessness.
And if you are drinking coffees with lots of milk it may affect your weight.
"Lattes and cappuccinos can make an excellent dairy-based or soy-based snack, but if you're having lots of those throughout the day, especially if you're trying to lose weight and having four milk coffees a day, it's going to impact on your calorie intake," Renn says.
However, drinking coffee can also have a range of health benefits, and has been linked to decreased risk of some cancers, heart disease and type 2 diabetes.
"Coffee is certainly not the evil we once thought it was, but it's that old adage of everything in moderation," says Renn.
For more on caffeine, it's side effects and benefits see our Caffeine fact file.
This is why friends shouldn’t let friends drive drunk.
New Jersey cops scored a drunk-driving hat trick when they busted a motorist for DUI, then pinched her two sloshed friends who separately drove to the police station to pick her up.
It all started when a cop in Readington Township pulled over Carmen Reategui, 34, after he noticed her car swerving on Route 22 early one morning last week.
Charged with DUI, she was taken to the town’s police station, where she called a friend to come and get her.
But the friend wasn’t much help.
Nina Petracca, 23, who drove down to the station, was filling out necessary paperwork when a cop noticed that she, too, seemed a little tipsy.
She failed a sobriety test right in the station lobby and was charged with DUI.
So Petracca, too, was slapped with a DUI charge, as well as a drug charge for Vicodin tablets found in her purse, police said. Both women then reached out to another friend, Ryan Hogan, who, like Petracca before him, raced down to the police station to help his friends out of a jam.
But when he showed up, Police Sgt. Carlos Ferreiro thought he seemed off.
“When I was outside talking to him he displayed signs of intoxication,” he said.
Hogan also failed sobriety tests, police said.
“They finally got a sober adult to come pick up all three of them,” Ferreiro said.
“It’s the first time in nine years I’ve had something like this.”
All three friends are scheduled to appear in court next month.
Reategui vented about the ordeal on Facebook.
“Just getting home,” she posted to her page on Dec. 16. “ABSOLUTELY THE WORST NIGHT OF MY F–KING LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Petracca “liked” her lockup pal’s comment.
Later in the day she was wishing the whole thing had never happened, posting:
“Heavy, heavy heart. Wish there was an undo button in life.”
Squeeze on consumer spending is the worst in peacetime for a century, new research shows
Households are facing the most savage peacetime squeeze on consumer spending in almost 100 years.
Figures show that only during the Second World War did spending suffer a deeper fall. Even the Great Depression saw nothing on this scale.
Analysis by the independent Centre for Economics and Business Research shows an 8.4 per cent fall in real consumer spending per household between 2007 and the end of this year. The comparable figure for 1939-1945 was 14 per cent.
Consumer spending: Only during the Second World War did it suffer a deeper fall
Chief executive Douglas McWilliams said only in the slump of 1919-1920 was there possibly a peacetime drop on today’s scale.
The extraordinary figures are published today ahead Tuesday’s expected downgrading of economic growth in the third quarter.
The first estimate showed the economy roaring back to health, with growth of one per cent from July to September.
But it is now thought that this may have exaggerated the recovery from recession and that the second estimate is likely to see the rate of expansion cut to 0.9 per cent, or lower.
The psychological impact could be out of proportion to the size of the reduction, according to Howard Archer of independent consultancy IHS Global Insight.
‘The fact of no longer having a “one” in front of the decimal point and having a nought instead may weigh with some people,’ he said. ‘More worrying is the possibility of a flat or negative number in the fourth quarter. Much will hinge on spending over Christmas.’
He said higher than expected inflation may make people more concerned and this, in turn, could make worries about negative growth in the first quarter of next year into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative growth, so shrinkage in this quarter and the next would plunge Britain into a slump for the third time in less than five years.
Trevor Williams, chief economist at Lloyds Bank wholesale markets, said: ‘The second estimate could be lower, perhaps 0.9 per cent instead of one per cent.
‘As for the fourth quarter, I would expect that to be flat, or even slightly negative. But the prospects of a triple-dip recession are more remote. There is no obvious reason why we would get a negative reading in the first quarter of next year.’
Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank, said: ‘There is a possibility of a negative fourth quarter. I am certainly not looking for anything stellar.’
On August 22, 2015, at approximately 07:13 a.m., the Coos Bay Police Department dispatch center received a 911 call pertaining to a reckless driver within the Empire District of the City of Coos Bay. An Oregon State Police Senior Trooper overheard the criminal call and responded to assist. The Trooper located the suspect vehicle unoccupied and parked on N. Morrison Street in the City of Coos Bay. The Trooper attempted to contact the registered owner of the vehicle at an adjacent residence to further the investigation into the Reckless Driving complaint.
The Trooper attempted contact at the residence and was unable to contact the registered owner of the vehicle in question. The Trooper walked away from the residence and was conducting further follow up investigation and documenting suspect vehicle descriptions and identifiers as the vehicle was parked on the side of N. Morrison Street.
As the Trooper was conducting the follow up investigation, an adult male identified as Michael SCOTT, age 25, from North Bend, came out of the residence from which the Trooper had previously attempted to contact the registered owner. SCOTT approached the suspect vehicle and the Trooper with a digital recording device in hand. SCOTT proceeded to climb up onto the hood of the car and then sit on the roof of the car with his legs positioned over the windshield, facing the Trooper who was positioned near the front of the suspect vehicle.
The Trooper disengaged contact with SCOTT and walked back towards his patrol vehicle and ultimately re-entered the patrol vehicle. SCOTT dismounted from the suspect vehicle and followed the Trooper. SCOTT continued to advance towards the police vehicle, walking in front of it, on the passenger side, across the rear and then advancing towards the driver side. The Trooper exited his vehicle as SCOTT was approaching him from the rear. The Trooper was attempting to stop SCOTT from further interfering with his investigation of the original Reckless Driving Complaint.
Coos Bay Police Department responded and arrived to assist with the investigation and further continuing the investigation into the Reckless Driving Complaint.
The Oregon State Police is continuing the investigation into the incident with SCOTT and will be referring the completed criminal report to the Coos County District Attorney’s Office for consideration of the charges of: Interfering with a Police Officer and Disorderly Conduct II. Other criminal charges may be considered upon the review of the Coos County District Attorney.
Recently, education reporter Jay Mathews of The Washington Post has been writing about reading in the public schools, two of those pieces appearing here and here. One reason for doing so stems from a report issued by Renaissance Learning, a reading program that helps teachers and parents determine how well children understand the reading they do for homework and on their own.
Because of the popularity of the program, Renaissance Learning has a vast database on the books kids in public schools from kindergarten to 12th Grade actually read voluntarily and for class. The most recent findings, for the 2008-09 school year, are now released in a paper entitled “What Kids Are Reading: The Book-Reading Habits of Students in American Schools” (here’s for the link).
The list of most popular titles for Grades 9 through 12 show just how powerful the social element of reading is at that age. The top four spots (!) are held by one author, Stephanie Meyer — Twilight, New Moon, Breaking Dawn, and Eclipse. (At Border’s Books yesterday, I asked for the jigsaw puzzles and the man directed me to a rear wall, adding, “We only have six or seven puzzles, and nearly all of them are New Moon stuff.”)
At No. 5 sits To Kill a Mockingbird, then comes Night (Wiesel), A Child Called “It” (Dave Pelzer), Of Mice and Men, Animal Farm, Brisingr (Christopher Paolini), Romeo and Juliet, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Giver, and seven more works of literature.
That makes only two nonfiction works in the entire list, prompting Mathews to comment:
“Educators say nonfiction is more difficult than fiction for students to comprehend. It requires more factual knowledge, beyond fiction’s simple truths of love, hate, passion and remorse. So we have a pathetic cycle. Students don’t know enough about the real world because they don’t read nonfiction and they can’t read nonfiction because they don’t know enough about the real world.”
This dilemma is increasingly discussed in English Language Arts circles as more and more ELA standards are oriented toward abstract reading skills. Those standards will say things like “Students identify the main thesis in a text” and “Students detail the evidence used to support a contention in a text” — essential capacities, to be sure. To a decreasing degree, however, they ask for students to demonstrate specific “domain knowledge” such as “Students characterize, with examples, major periods of English and American literary history.”
As a result, the knowledge deficits proceed, and so does poor achievement in the higher grades. Mathews again:
“Educational theorist E.D. Hirsch Jr. insists this is what keeps many students from acquiring the communication skills they need for successful lives. “Language mastery is not some abstract skill,” he said in his latest book, The Making of Americans. “It depends on possessing broad general knowledge shared by other competent people within the language community.”
Hirsch’s new book may be found here.
Another voice on the issue is cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham, who contributes an introductory note to the reading report above. There, Willingham maintains:
“Many people think of intelligence as comprised of mental skills that are independent of knowledge. That is, smart people think logically and analytically about problems, and they do that for pretty much any problem that comes along. If you’re a ‘good thinker’ you can apply those thinking skills quite broadly. This view is inaccurate. Thinking well is intertwined with knowledge.”
Why so? Willingham:
“We tend to think of reading as a skill that can be applied to any text. Indeed, describing a child as a good reader implies that she will be a good reader no matter what the content. That is true only for decoding — the process of turning written letters into sounds. Comprehending what you read depends heavily on what you already know about the topic.
“Here’s why that’s true. We all omit information when we speak. For example, imagine I said to a friend “I ate pasta when I wore my new sweater. Now I’m going to have to throw it out.” I don’t elaborate that I spilled pasta sauce on my sweater, or that stains are hard to remove from some fabrics, or that these fabrics are often used to make sweaters, or that I am the sort of person who would throw out a sweater if it were stained. I assume that my friend knows all this, and can fill in the gaps. If I didn’t omit information that the listener already knows, speech would be very long and very boring.”
Poland will sign ACTA despite massive protests, Global Voices Online reports, citing Polish Minister of Administration and Digitisation Michal Boni.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Polish minister does not shy away from telling his citizens blatant lies, in order to get the controversial ACTA agreement signed.
According to Global Voices, Mr. Boni said in a radio interview in Polish that it was ”impossible not to sign the agreement, because it was too late: Poland joined the negotiation process in 2008 and all the other European countries have already signed it”.
If Mr. Boni did in fact say this (I don’t speak Polish, so I cannot verify independently), it is an outright lie. Not a single one of the 27 EU Member States has signed the agreement yet. Poland is the first country scheduled to do so, tomorrow on January 26.
The European Council of Ministers has taken a decision that it wants the EU to sign the agreement, but that is a completely different thing. ACTA is a so called ”mixed agreement”, that has to be signed by both the EU and each of the member states. On the national level, no member state has taken the formal decision to sign the agreement yet.
Global Voices further reports that Mr. Boni said that Poland ”should attach a clause to the treaty that would show how we interpret these articles”. If it is true that he said this, it is also a direct lie.
There is no way of attaching any further clauses to the ACTA agreement. The negotiations have been concluded, and the only thing left for the EU and the individual member states to do now is to say either ”yes” or ”no”. Being a minister in the Polish government, Mr. Boni would of course know this.
It is apparent that the game of telling EU citizens whatever lies may be necessary to get the ACTA agreement signed has begun. Poland is only the first of 27 EU member states. Do not get surprised if the story repeats itself in your own country in the coming months.
While it might not have the name recognition of Rupp Arena or Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Thomas & Mack Center is one of college basketball’s most iconic arenas. It’s played host to the 1990 UNLV men’s national championship team, as well as other spectator events most college hoops’ venues could never dream of, from world class concerts, to championship boxing matches and, yes, the annual rodeo.
Yet even by the insane standard that events in Vegas can provide, a recent drive up to Thomas & Mack tells you something else altogether: The arena is preparing for an event the likes of which neither UNLV nor Vegas has ever seen.
On a calm afternoon, weeks before the start of basketball season, security is at an all-time high. Every car is funneled through the same entrance, and every driver is politely asked where they’re headed, who they’re there to see and the purpose of their visit. Parking is at a minimum, if available at all.
Article continues below ...
Clearly, this isn’t your normal protocol on a normal afternoon, and it isn’t until later that you realize this has nothing to do with UNLV hoops or some Rascal Flatts concert tour rolling through town.
This isn’t about questioning visitors in an aggressive manor; instead, it's about protecting the future of the country. Literally.
While the focus at the Thomas & Mack Center is usually on basketball this time of year, politics are taking center stage. The arena will host the third and final presidential debate on Wednesday night. But while the debate will bring the eyes of the world to Las Vegas, it has brought something else to UNLV basketball, the primary tenant of the Thomas & Mack Center: headaches. Lots and lots of headaches.
“The first thing that came to mind was ‘that’s pretty cool,’ the national attention that it will bring to the Thomas & Mack and the university” new UNLV head coach Marvin Menzies said. “But then the second thought was ‘wow, that’s going to be a logistical nightmare.’”
Admittedly, the debate has been a logistical nightmare for just about everyone on UNLV’s campus, and very likely for the entire city of Las Vegas in recent days. However, it’s taken an especially large toll on the UNLV basketball team because its offices are located in the Thomas & Mack and its practice facility is located right next door at the Mendenhall Center.
To prepare for the debate and to make sure the entire surrounding area is completely secure, the Runnin’ Rebels hoops team was forced to leave its offices last Friday and won't be able to return until Thursday morning. Coaches have been put in temporary offices alongside other coaches in other sports, while practices have taken place at an intramural gym across campus.
When players, coaches and administrators left the facility last week, they were forced to bring anything with them they could possibly need for six days, knowing that once they exited they wouldn’t be allowed back in.
“There’s a long list of things,” Menzies said. “We’ll need to bring basketball equipment and pads and balls and things of that nature. And then your files, records, recruiting, things of that nature. [Thankfully] in this day and age, technology is so advanced there’s a lot of things that we will work off of that will be off our laptops that we will be able to access.”
The situation is unique and could be especially troublesome for this particular UNLV squad. Menzies is in his first year as head coach after being hired in late April, and after bringing in nine new players this offseason (and returning just four from last year’s squad), there is a major learning curve for everyone. Players are still not only getting to know the coaches (and vice-versa), but they’re also getting to know each other.
For most coaches, that alone would be a nightmare. But then consider that precious time and effort in the preseason has been dedicated to such trivial matters as “where will practice be today” and “where will my office be for the next six days.”
However, instead of looking at this situation as a negative, Menzies has turned it into a positive. He will be able to see how his young team deals with a tiny bit of adversity. And it will also give them a chance to grow together as a group.
“Getting your kids ready to handle change because change is coming,” Menzies said. “Whether you’re going on the road to travel, whether you’re out because of an electrical outage. It gives your kids an opportunity to handle change. I think it can actually be beneficial depending on how you look at it and how you handle it.”
And when discussing the “big picture” of the debate, Menzies takes things one step further. After all, is it really a bad thing to alter a couple practices when the eyes of an entire nation will be on your school and campus? Could it possibly be a negative to have an event in your home arena that required over 700 media credentials and will bring a reported $85 million in free advertising to your school?
It’s one of the biggest positives any school could ask for.
“Let’s face it, this is a national branding for the university,” Menzies said. “[This is a national branding opportunity for] the Thomas & Mack.”
And most important, it’s a teaching moment for Menzies and his staff.
Being a college basketball coach isn’t just about X’s and O’s, but about helping boys become men. It’s about teaching them that life is bigger than basketball, and that it’s important to look beyond just the stat sheets and box scores to other important things in life.
That’s especially true as we enter one of the most heated and controversial elections ever.
“I think we’ve used it as an observation to talk a little bit about the privilege to be able to vote,” Menzies said. “Being to see all the pomp and circumstance that goes with the debate, it makes it a little more real for the guys.
“It is [bigger than sports],” he said. “The magnitude of this particular debate, along with that it’s just such a dynamic event in and of itself. So to have it at your university, I think that’s a cool thing. It’s a good thing.”
Even if it does force you to move a practice or two.
After a Palestinian researcher was denied a bug bounty by Facebook, Marc Maiffret, CTO of BeyondTrust, kicked off a crowd-sourced fund yesterday to come up with a reward.
The researcher, Khalil Shreateh, expressed his gratitude today to Maiffret and others who have contributed to the fund. “Thank you so much. I never imagined what they will do for me,” Shreateh said in a telephone interview.
Seventy-nine people have contributed nearly $9,000 in the last 24 hours to an account that will be handed over to Shreateh once it reaches the goal of $10,000.

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