Consumer News: How daytime sleepiness is disrupting everyday life

In fact, moderate daily coffee drinkers saw fewer arrhythmia episodes than abstainers

• A randomized clinical trial found that among people with a history of Atrial fibrillation (AFib) or related rhythm issues, drinking at least one cup of caffeinated coffee daily was associated with a significantly lower rate of recurrence.

• Participants were randomly assigned either to continue consuming caffeinated coffee (about one cup a day) or to completely abstain from coffee and caffeine for six months following a heart-rhythm resetting procedure.

• Results showed recurrence of AFib or atrial flutter in 47% of the coffee group versus 64% in the caffeine-abstinence group a roughly 39% lower hazard of recurrence for the coffee drinkers.

If youve been told to steer clear of coffee because of irregular heartbeats, you may be in for a pleasant surprise.

AFib where the upper chambers of the heart beat rapidly and unevenly affects millions and is often managed by lifestyle tweaks, including avoiding stimulants.

But a new study from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the University of Adelaide suggests that one cup of caffeinated coffee a day may not only be safe, but might actually lower the risk of recurrence of these rhythm disturbances.

Coffee increases physical activity which is known to reduce atrial fibrillation, researcher Gregory M. Marcus, MD, MAS, said in a news release.

Caffeine is also a diuretic, which could potentially reduce blood pressure and in turn lessen A-Fib risk. Several other ingredients in coffee also have anti-inflammatory properties that could have positive effects.

The study

The study dubbed the DECAF trial (Does Eliminating Coffee Avoid Fibrillation?) was the first randomized clinical trial to test the effect of caffeinated coffee on recurrent AFib.

Researchers enrolled 200 adult patients (mean age ~69 years, about 71% male) who either had persistent AFib or atrial flutter with a history of AFib, and who were scheduled for an electrical cardioversion procedure (a controlled shock to restore normal rhythm).

After cardioversion, participants were randomly allocated in a 1:1 ratio: one arm was instructed to drink at least one cup of caffeinated coffee (or an espresso shot) daily, and the other arm was asked to avoid coffee and all other caffeine-containing products for six months.

Baseline coffee intake was similar in both groups (median about seven cups/week), and during follow-up, the coffee group maintained approximately seven cups/week, while the abstinence group averaged zero.

The primary outcome was a clinically detected recurrence of AFib or atrial flutter over the six-month period.

The results

At the end of six months, 47% of participants in the caffeine-consumption group experienced a recurrence of AFib or atrial flutter, compared with 64% in the abstinence group. That difference corresponds to about a 39% lower hazard of recurrence in the coffee group versus the no-coffee group.

Importantly, the study found no significant difference in adverse events between the two groups. The researchers note, however, that the trial participants were all already coffee drinkers and consumed about one cup per day; the findings may not apply to heavy coffee drinkers or to people who start coffee for the first time.

In short: for people with a history of AFib who regularly drink coffee, having roughly a cup a day may be safe and may even reduce the chance of recurrence but as always, any changes to diet or lifestyle should be discussed with your cardiologist or health care provider.

The results were astounding, first author Christopher X. Wong, Ph.D., said in the news release.

Doctors have always recommended that patients with problematic A-Fib minimize their coffee intake, but this trial suggests that coffee is not only safe but likely to be protective.

Turn your "quick Costco run" into a holiday power play

• Check Costcos Holiday Savings/Black Friday ads first and compare full bundle value (warranty, extras) to Amazon/Target/Walmartdont roam for mystery deals

• Use Costco for crowd-feeding shortcuts (party trays, bakery, rotisserie chicken, frozen breakfasts) and skip bulk perishables you cant finish or store

• Save extra with discounted multi-pack gift cards and smart toy buys: compare prices, split big sets for multiple kids, and avoid oversized or super-specific toys

If youre like me, your holiday shopping runs at Costco can go one of two ways: you either walk out feeling like a savings genius, or you stagger to the car wondering how a quick trip for turkey and paper towels turned into a $347 receipt.

Here are some practical ways to shop at Costco like a seasoned pro this holiday season. From smart Black Friday tips to a guide on buying stocking stuffers, gift cards, and holiday food. Its time to shop at Costco in a way that actually saves you money instead of quietly draining it.

Black Friday at Costco: whats worth it (and whats not)

When you think Black Friday, Costco does not always jump to mind like Amazon or Walmart. But the warehouse does roll out a strong mix of online-only and in-warehouse deals on TVs, laptops, appliances, toys, and gift sets.

Their Black Friday and Holiday Savings booklets includestaggered deals across November, with different price drops in the Thanksgiving weekend window versus early December.

Here are your pro moves:

• Check the current Holiday Savings and Black Friday ads on Costcos website or app before you ever set foot in the store. Highlight your must-buy items and mark the dates theyre valid so youre not buying something a week before it goes on sale.
• Costco sells a lot of electronics in custom bundles made only for them. So always make sure youre looking at Costcos all-in value. Do this by comparing the following:
  • The price at Costco
  • The included extras (like an extended warranty, extra controller, charging dock, case, soundbar, etc.)
  • The same item at Best Buy, Amazon, Target, or Walmart. Sometimes Costco isnt the cheapest sticker price, but the added warranty or bundle value makes it better overall.

Avoid roaming the Costco warehouse looking for surprise Black Friday deals. The fastest way to overpay is wandering the seasonal aisles looking for a random deal.

Holiday food: how to feed a crowd without blowing the budget

Costco is arguably at its best when youre feeding a group of hungry folks. This makes holiday gatherings the best time to take advantage of their bulk pricing. Just make sure you pick the right food categories, as some are a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Lean into these:

Party trays and bakery shortcuts. Things like veggie platters, shrimp rings, cheese and charcuterie trays, bakery pies, and cheesecake are often cheaper per person than buying smaller trays at a grocery store. They also save you a lot of time compared to trying to build snack trays yourself.

Their famous $4.99 rotisserie chicken is your secret weapon. Their famously cheap rotisserie can become many things: chicken pot pie, enchiladas, soup for a crowd, and that last-minute companys here dinner. You can even pay a little more and buy a large bag of chicken meat thats already been deboned, which is great for sandwiches, wraps, and fajitas.

Frozen appetizers and breakfast items. Big packages of croissants, muffins, quiche, or breakfast sandwiches can carry you through houseguests and holiday mornings for far less per serving than aspecialty grocery store.

Be careful with:

Ultra-specific holiday items. A giant tub of specialty dip, a massive ham, or a dessert tray may look like a good deal, but if you wont actually finish it, you lose any potential savings.

Perishables you dont have space for. Make sureyou know what'sin yourfreezer before you go. If yourefreezer is already stuffed,skip another bulk pack of anything that wont get used by late January.

Gift cards: quietly one of the best Costco holiday hacks

Costco sells multi-pack gift cards, typically in packs of 4, at a nice little discount. Youll typically only pay $79.99 for a 4-pack of $25 gift cards to restaurants, entertainment spots, and retailers. Thats essentially a free $20 in your wallet.

Sometimes the gift cards will even be for local restaurants and attractions, which is a cool little bonus.

Here are some smart ways to use the discounted gift cards:

• As actual gifts. Restaurant or entertainment gift cards are easy stocking stuffers or teacher/host/coach gifts that will be well received.
• To pre-discount your own holiday spending. If you know youll eat at a certain restaurant chain, go to the movies, or buy from a specific store over the holidays, buying the gift card first at Costco is like giving yourself a small rebate up front.
• Pair them with a small physical gift. A restaurant gift card plus a small food item or candle can feel much more generous than the price you actually paid.

Pro tip: Keep in mind that gift cards typically dont have the same kind of return flexibility as regular Costco merchandise, so only buy for places you or the recipient will actually use.

Toys: How to navigate without overspending

With a bunch of big colorful boxes, brand names, and only here for the season messaging, the toy section at Costco is designed to grab your attention. Butthat doesnt automatically mean everything is a deal.

How the pros shop toys at Costco:

• Know the going price before you go. Get in the habit of checking Amazon, Target, or Walmart for the specific toy. If youre buying a well-known brand (LEGO, Hot Wheels, Barbie, board games), compare the main toy as well as any accessories. Sometimes Costcos exclusive bundle version is a better value and sometimes its actually cheaper to buy without the bundle.
• Use big sets for multiple kids. Costco is known for their multi-packs of books, art supplies, and smaller toys. Consider splitting between siblings, nieces, and nephews as they make for great stocking stuffers and smaller gift ideas.
• Watch for oversized toys that are hard to return. Bikes, motorized ride-ons, and giant stuffed animals may look fun in the moment. But consider the pain in the butt they might be to store, assemble, and return if they dont work out. I always recommend keeping packaging until youre sure theyre a keeper.

Pro tip: If your kid is asking for something very specific (a certain character, color, or version), Costco may not be the right place to shop. Their bread and butter is the wow gift sets, not those super specific wish list items.

The company said the problem was a "bug," not an attack

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

UPDATE 2:30 P.M. ET:

Cloudflare says it's sorry. The company confirms thata bug in one of its core servicescaused a major outageon Tuesday, taking large portions of the internet offline and affecting traffic to services including X, ChatGPT, and, ironically, Downdetector.

"We failed our customers and the broader internet," The companys CTO, Dane Knecht, wrote. "A latent bug in a service underpinning our bot mitigation capability started to crash after a routine configuration change. That cascaded into a broad degradation to our network and other services. This was not an attack."

The incident began at approximately 11:48 UTC on November 18, with Cloudflare's official status site acknowledging internal service degradation. As the issue spread, users across several regions reported failures to access not only Cloudflare-backed websites but also its Access and WARP services.

UPDATE 10 A.M. ET: CloudFlare said it is continuing to work on the problems. Elaborating on the issue, a spokesperson said the company experienced a "spike in unusual traffic" to one of its services early Tuesday, morning, resulting in some traffic experiencing errors.

We do not yet know the cause of the spike in unusual traffic, the spokesperson said. We are all hands on deck to make sure all traffic is served without errors.

• Cloudflare experienced a major outage Tuesday morning due to a spike in unusual traffic, causing widespread errors across major platforms including X, ChatGPT, Shopify, Dropbox, and Coinbase.
• The company says it is all hands on deck, working to restore normal traffic flow; services are beginning to recover, though higher-than-normal error rates may persist.
• Cloudflare, known for providing security, CDN, DNS, and DDoS protection services, is still investigating the cause of the traffic spike while implementing a fix.

If you have trouble accessing websites Tuesday morning, the problem isnt with your device or internet service provider.

A CloudFlare outage is affecting X, ChatGPT and other major platforms. According to DownDetector, there were nearly 12,000 reports of problems on X as of 6:45 a.m. ET.

Cloudflare is a tech company providing a variety of internet services, primarily focusing on security and performance for websites and other internet properties. It acts as a security company, a content delivery network (CDN), and a DNS provider.

It also offers services like distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) protection, web application firewalls (WAF), and tools to speed up websites for users globally.

"We are seeing services recover, but customers may continue to observe higher-than-normal error rates as we continue remediation efforts," Cloudflare said on its status page early Tuesday. The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented."

According to media reports, other sites affected by the outage include Shopify, Dropbox, Coinbase, online game League of Legends, Moodys and NJ Transit. In addition to ChatGPT, the AI platform Perplexity also experienced issues.

Amazon's service joiins Google's Waymo in the streets of San Francisco

Zoox opened its autonomous taxi service to members of the public in San Francisco today, a milestone that positions Amazons robotaxi unit as a direct challenger to Waymo in the nations most scrutinized proving ground for driverless cars. But while Zoox is expanding, the safety gulf between the companies remains wide and consumer trust may hinge on how quickly Zoox can close it.

For years, Waymo has dominated not only deployment but also transparency. The company has logged more than 25 million fully driverless miles, released detailed crash-type data, and partnered with outside researchers and insurers to benchmark its safety performance against human drivers. Independent analyses have consistently found Waymo vehicles dramatically reduce crash rates across multiple categories including intersection collisions and pedestrian injuries compared with comparable human-driven miles.

That puts Zoox in a bind: it is entering the conversation late, and with far less publicly available safety data.

To its credit, Zoox is not simply another operator retrofitting a car with sensors. Its vehicles are purpose-built robotaxis, with no steering wheel, pedals, mirrors, or conventional cabin layout. Riders face each other in a symmetrical cabin, and the vehicle drives equally well in either direction. That futuristic design has long been one of Zooxs selling points but also the very reason it required a federal safety exemption before operating on public roads. Regulators have repeatedly emphasized that purpose-built AVs must meet higher scrutiny because their control layouts diverge so dramatically from traditional automotive safety expectations.

A mixed record so far

Zooxs early safety record has been mixed. The company weathered an NHTSA probe triggered by sudden braking incidents that injured motorcyclists and contributed to at least one Las Vegas crash. The investigation closed only after Zoox issued a software update addressing the conditions that caused the erratic braking. While regulators ultimately allowed operations to continue, the probe remains part of Zooxs public safety narrative especially as it expands into more complex urban environments.

By contrast, Waymos service in San Francisco and Phoenix has quietly accumulated safety-performance credibility. Peer-reviewed studies show statistically significant reductions in nearly every major crash category compared with human drivers. Its detailed, publicly accessible Safety Impact database gives researchers, journalists, and regulators unprecedented visibility.

That openness has become a competitive advantage one Zoox, to date, has not matched.

Rides will remain free for now

Still, Zooxs San Francisco launch marks a meaningful new chapter. The company has been offering free, waitlist-based rides in Las Vegas since September. Its expansion into San Francisco a city with dense cyclist traffic, unpredictable pedestrians, tight intersections, and far less margin for error suggests Zoox believes its system is ready for deeper real-world exposure.

Rides will remain free for now as part of a demonstration phase. Zoox is still awaiting California approval to charge fares, a regulatory milestone that requires consistent safety performance and incident reporting. The company says it has several dozen vehicles operating between San Francisco and Las Vegas, and it has publicly identified Austin and Miami as potential next markets.

But if Zoox hopes to catch Waymo, it will need not just service expansion it will need transparency. Consumers, policymakers, and researchers increasingly expect robotaxi companies to publish granular crash reports, disengagement data, and claims records. In that regard, Waymo has set a benchmark the entire industry now faces.

Zooxs go-slow approach to public disclosure may have kept expectations modest, but its move into one of Americas most challenging urban driving environments raises the stakes. San Francisco riders will ultimately decide whether Zoox feels as safe and predictable as its more seasoned competitor. Regulators will watch closely.

How to Compare Robotaxi Safety Records

1. Look for published autonomous-mileage and crash-type data
Waymo publishes millions of miles of crash-type analysis. Zoox has published far less so far.

2. Check whether the service is demo or revenue-generating
Demo phases often mean lighter oversight and free rides; fare-charging requires additional regulatory approval.

3. Understand where the cars operate
Dense urban environments (like San Francisco) pose tougher reliability tests than controlled routes in less complex areas.

4. Ask what happens after an incident
Does the company publish details? Do regulators require updates? Whos liable for property or injury claims?

5. Does the vehicle have traditional controls?
Waymo uses modified production cars with steering wheels/brakes. Zoox uses a purpose-built pod with none a fundamental difference with regulatory implications.