Consumer News: Bond yields are rising: For consumers, that’s good and bad news

A cardiologist explains how these drinks affect your body

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Energy drinks can contain anywhere from 80 to 400 milligrams or more of caffeine per can, along with sugar and other stimulants that may affect the heart and blood vessels.

• Research cited by a UTHealth Houston cardiologist found that a large energy drink can impair blood vessels ability to expand within just 90 minutes.

• Healthy adults should keep total caffeine consumption below 400 milligrams a day, while children, teens, and certain higher-risk adults should avoid energy drinks, according toa cardiologist.

That energy drink promising to get you through an afternoon slump may do more than make you feel awake.

Energy drinks typically combine caffeine with sugar and ingredients such as taurine, guarana, ginseng, and B vitamins. While that mixture can temporarily increase alertness, it can also raise heart rate and blood pressure and affect how blood vessels function, according to Dr. John Higgins, a professor of medicine and sports cardiology at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston.

Caffeine works by blocking adenosine, a chemical in the brain involved in making us feel tired. Its effects can kick in within 30 to 120 minutes and persist for hours, depending on factors such as genetics and a person's tolerance to caffeine.

Some energy drinks also pack a significant amount of sugar 50 grams or more in a single can, according to Higgins. That can contribute to a short-lived energy boost followed by a crash.

The ingredients aren't always straightforward

Consumers looking at the label may find more than caffeine.

Guarana and yerba mate, for example, can add additional caffeine. Other ingredients can include taurine and stimulants such as yohimbine, which Higgins says may increase anxiety, blood pressure, and the risk of heart rhythm problems.

Proprietary blends can make it more difficult to determine exactly how much of an individual ingredient a drink contains because manufacturers may disclose the combined weight of several ingredients rather than the amount of each one.

And those enormous doses of B vitamins advertised on some cans aren't necessarily providing extra energy. Higgins says taking far more than the recommended daily amount won't produce additional energy in someone who isn't deficient.

Your blood vessels may react quickly

The potential cardiovascular effects are one of the bigger concerns.

Research cited by Higgins found energy drinks increased systolic blood pressure by about 4.4 mmHg on average. Another trial found that an energy drink produced greater changes in the heart's electrical activity than caffeine alone, suggesting that the combination of ingredients may matter.

Higgins' own research has found effects on blood vessel function. In one study involving healthy young adults, consuming a large energy drink reduced the blood vessels' ability to relax and expand by nearly half within 90 minutes.

Another finding cited by Higgins involved a 24-ounce energy drink. A measure of artery function known as peak flow-mediated dilation dropped from 5.9% to 1.9% after 90 minutes despite relatively little change in participants' heart rate and blood pressure.

That means a person might not necessarily feel that something is happening to their cardiovascular system.

Severe reactions aren't the norm, but cases involving irregular heart rhythms, chest pain, and cardiac arrest have been associated with heavy or rapid energy-drink consumption, particularly among people with underlying heart problems.

More common side effects include headaches, jitters, insomnia, nausea, and heart palpitations. One survey cited by Higgins found that more than half of young people who consumed energy drinks reported at least one adverse reaction.

How much is too much?

There's no universal answer because caffeine content varies enormously. One can may contain about 80 milligrams while another can pack 400 milligrams or more.

Higgins recommends healthy adults limit their total caffeine intake from all sources to less than 400 milligrams per day. That includes coffee, tea, soda, supplements, pre-workout products, and energy drinks. He also advises against combining several stimulant-containing products during the same day or mixing energy drinks with alcohol.

Children and teenagers should avoid energy drinks entirely, Higgins says. Women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, have high blood pressure or heart conditions, or are particularly sensitive to caffeine should also avoid them.

Consumers should also remember that energy drinks and sports drinks aren't the same thing. Sports drinks are intended to replace fluids and electrolytes, while energy drinks contain stimulants and shouldn't be used primarily for hydration.

Finally, some symptoms warrant immediate attention. Higgins says people should stop consuming caffeine and seek medical help if they experience chest pain, fainting, a racing or irregular heartbeat, severe shortness of breath, confusion, or seizures.

The company said it plans to use it to train AI

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Google agreed to pay $10 million for a massive collection of Spirit Airlines internal business data, including employee emails, Microsoft Teams chats, spreadsheets, calendars and operational information.

• The companies say customer information and personally identifiable information will be excluded, with the data de-identified by a third party before Google receives it.

• Even with those safeguards, the unusual sale raises privacy questions for former Spirit employees whose workplace communications could ultimately be used to help develop and train Googles AI systems.

Google is preparing to spend $10 million on an unusual asset from bankrupt Spirit Airlines: its data.

The technology giant won a bankruptcy auction for a vast collection of the airlines internal digital records, including roughly 100 million emails and 500 million Microsoft Teams chats, according to reports on court filings. The package also includes documents, spreadsheets, calendar information, software and data related to areas such as marketing, productivity and airline operations.

Google has said the information could be used to improve its products and train artificial intelligence models. The transaction still requires bankruptcy court approval, with a hearing scheduled for Aug. 19.

The deal illustrates how valuable private corporate information is becoming as technology companies seek new sources of data for AI development. But it also raises an important question: What happens to the privacy of the people whose emails and workplace conversations are part of the dataset?

What data is Google getting?

This isn't primarily a database of passenger records.

The assets reportedly include Spirit employees emails, Teams conversations, calendars and spreadsheets, along with business and operational information. Google outbid AI data company Mercor, which offered $7.5 million for the assets.

That distinction matters for consumers. Reports on the proposed transaction say customer information and personally identifiable information will not be included in the data Google ultimately receives. A third party is expected to de-identify the material before the transfer is completed.

"We acquired part of an enterprise dataset from Spirit Airlines, which can be helpful in improving our products and AI models," a Google spokesperson said in a statement.

"We will not receive any personal information from this dataset. Any data we receive will be rigorously scrubbed of any personally identifiable information by a third party before receipt."

That means travelers shouldn't assume Google is purchasing a database containing their names, credit card numbers or individual booking histories. Based on the publicly reported terms of the deal, those types of customer records are supposed to be excluded.

So, are there privacy concerns?

Potentially but they are different from the most obvious concern that Google might suddenly receive millions of Spirit passengers personal details.

Complicated privacy issue

The more complicated privacy issue involves employees and other people who may appear in Spirit's internal communications.

Workplace emails and chat messages can contain names, opinions, personnel discussions, conversations with vendors and other information that wasn't necessarily written with the expectation that it would someday become training material for another company's AI systems.

De-identification should substantially reduce that risk if it is done effectively. But removing obvious identifiers such as names and email addresses doesn't necessarily eliminate every possibility that a person could be identified from context, particularly across an enormous collection of interconnected communications.

There is also a broader question of expectations. Employees generally understand that workplace communications belong to their employer and may be retained or reviewed. Selling hundreds of millions of those communications as an asset in bankruptcy for AI development is a considerably less familiar use.

The scale makes the issue particularly significant: reported figures put the collection at about 100 million emails and 500 million Teams conversations.

Consumers have reason to pay attention

Spirit has faced privacy litigation before, although it is unrelated to Google's proposed purchase.

In May, a federal appeals court addressed a lawsuit alleging that Spirit used third-party "session replay" software capable of recording website visitors' interactions. The court upheld dismissal because the plaintiffs had not adequately established a concrete privacy injury, while modifying the dismissal to be without prejudice.

That case does not establish that Google's data purchase creates a privacy violation. It does, however, demonstrate how questions about what companies collect, how information is used and what constitutes a legally recognizable privacy injury can become complicated quickly.

A new kind of asset in bankruptcy

Perhaps the biggest significance of Google's purchase is what it says about the value of corporate data itself.

Bankrupt companies traditionally sell aircraft, real estate, intellectual property and other tangible or clearly defined assets to repay creditors. The Spirit auction suggests years of internal emails, chats and operational records can also carry a multimillion-dollar price tag particularly when AI companies are looking for large collections of real-world information unavailable on the public internet.

Google's $10 million bid also wasn't uncontested. Mercor's competing $7.5 million offer demonstrates that more than one AI company saw substantial value in the dataset.

A survey shows most consumers think retailers are using inflation as an excuse

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• 85% of Americans believe brands and retailers use inflation to justify larger-than-necessary price increases, according to an Omnisend survey.

• More than half of respondents said they have stopped buying from brands they once preferred as prices climbed.

• Nearly one-third reported using credit to pay for essentials such as groceries, rent, utilities and medical bills.

American consumers increasingly suspect companies are using inflation as cover to overchargeand many are responding by abandoning brands they once favored.

A survey commissioned by e-commerce marketing company Omnisend found that 85% of respondents believe brands and retailers often use inflation to raise prices more than necessary. About 67% said higher prices have changed how they view previously favored brands, while 56% reported that they have stopped buying from them altogether.

An additional 22% said they now trust those brands less, according to the findings.

Consumers did not reject all price increases. Respondents were most willing to pay more when the higher price reflected improved product quality, cited by 19%; better wages for workers, cited by 16%; or increased ingredient and material costs, cited by 15%.

Consumers expect an explanation

Marty Bauer, an e-commerce expert at Omnisend, said the findings indicate that customers expect companies to explain why prices are rising. Greater transparency, he said, has become part of the value shoppers expect from brands.

The survey also points to mounting pressure on household finances. Thirty percent of respondents said they had used credit during the previous three months to cover necessities, including groceries, gasoline, utilities, rent or medical expenses. Twenty percent had borrowed from friends or family, while 18% used buy-now-pay-later services and 17% tapped savings intended for another purpose.

Groceries emerged as the most acute source of concern. Thirty percent described grocery spending as the everyday expense that felt most out of control.

Most noticeable at supermarkets

Consumers also said supermarkets were where shrinkflationreducing a products size without lowering its pricewas most apparent. Sixty-five percent identified groceries as the category in which the practice was most obvious, 59% said they noticed it regularly and 29% considered it the most unfair form of a price increase.

Omnisend commissioned the survey, which research company Cint conducted in June 2026 among 1,075 U.S. consumers. Quotas for age, gender, income and residence were used to create what the company described as a nationally representative sample.

The reported margin of error was plus or minus three percentage points. Because the findings are based on self-reported responses to a company-sponsored survey, they measure consumers perceptions and experiences rather than whether individual companies have raised prices beyond their underlying costs.

For scammers, a picture is worth a thousand dollars (or more)

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Artificial intelligence can now analyze ordinary social media photos and determine where they were taken even when location data and geotags have been removed.

• Scammers can use those details to make phishing messages more convincing, such as sending a fake bank fraud alert that references a place the victim recently visited.

• Consumers can reduce the risk by limiting who sees their social media posts, waiting until they return home to share vacation photos and independently verifying unexpected messages before clicking links or providing information.

That vacation photo you posted on Instagram or Facebook may tell a scammer considerably more than you realize.

Artificial intelligence tools have become remarkably good at figuring out where a photograph was taken simply by examining what's visible in the image. That means removing a photo's GPS information or skipping the location tag may no longer be enough to conceal where you are or where you've recently been.

New research from cybersecurity company McAfee demonstrates how that capability could give scammers another way to personalize their attacks.

McAfee Labs tested more than 21,000 publicly available travel photos with two freely accessible AI models. Google's Gemma3 27B correctly identified the city and country in 87% of the photos, while Qwen3 VL 30B did so in 91%, according to McAfee.

In other words, in roughly nine out of 10 cases, an AI model could determine where a travel photo was taken based on the image itself.

That's potentially valuable information for a scammer.

How a vacation photo can become a phishing tool

Imagine posting several photos while vacationing in Spain. None are geotagged, and your captions don't say where you are.

An AI system may not need those clues.

It can analyze features in the photographs including architecture, signs, storefronts and natural surroundings and potentially determine the location. Even photos without famous landmarks can contain useful visual clues. McAfee found that when its AI models failed to identify the correct city, they could still frequently determine the country.

Now imagine receiving a text that appears to come from your bank:

"We detected unusual activity on your card in Spain. Click here immediately to verify these transactions."

The fact that you really are in Spain makes the message considerably more believable.

But the scammer didn't necessarily get the information from your bank or steal your GPS data. Your vacation pictures may have supplied the clue.

The criminal's objective is still familiar: Get the victim to click a phishing link, disclose account credentials, provide personal information or send money. AI simply provides another way to make the bait more convincing.

McAfee researchers say the technology can turn information hidden in ordinary photos into material for highly targeted .

AI is changing an old scammer tactic

Personalized phishing isn't new. Criminals have long collected information about potential victims from social media, public records and data breaches.

What AI changes is the amount of work required to analyze that information.

A criminal once might have needed considerable research or specialized knowledge to identify an obscure location from a photograph. AI can automate much of that analysis and potentially perform it at scale.

The FBI has already warned that generative AI is making financial fraud easier to produce and more believable. Criminals are using AI-generated text for phishing and social engineering, synthetic images to support fraudulent identities and voice cloning to impersonate relatives and other trusted people, according to the agency.

The photo-geolocation technique is another example of the same broader change: AI doesn't necessarily create an entirely new crime. Instead, it can make familiar faster, cheaper and much more personalized.

Your photos can be useful to scammers in other ways

Location isn't the only information criminals can extract from social media photos.

The FBI warned in December 2025 about criminals taking publicly available photographs and altering them to create fake "proof of life" images for virtual kidnapping . In those schemes, criminals contact someone claiming to have kidnapped a loved one, then use manipulated photos or videos to make the threat appear genuine and demand a ransom.

The examples illustrate an important change in how consumers should think about posting photographs online.

A picture isn't merely something other people can see anymore. It can also be data that an AI system can analyze, categorize, manipulate and combine with other publicly available information.

How consumers can protect themselves

You don't have to stop sharing vacation pictures, but it's worth reconsidering when, where and with whom you share them.

Wait until you're home to post travel photos. Posting pictures in real time can reveal that you're away from home and give criminals timely information they can incorporate into a scam. McAfee recommends avoiding real-time sharing of your location and travel itinerary.

Make social media accounts more private. Review who can see your photos, stories and older posts. The FBI recommends limiting online access to images and voice recordings and restricting social media followers to people you know.

Remember that removing a geotag isn't enough. AI can infer a location from what's actually visible in the photograph. Signs and landmarks are obvious clues, but architecture, vegetation and other seemingly insignificant details may also help identify a location.

Be suspicious when an unexpected message knows something about you. A text that correctly identifies your vacation destination, bank, employer or relative may feel authentic. But accurate personal information is no longer strong evidence that the sender is legitimate.

Don't use the contact information in a suspicious message to verify it. If a text claims to be from your bank, don't click its link or call the number it provides. Open your bank's official app or contact the institution using a number you independently know is legitimate. The FBI specifically recommends hanging up on suspicious callers and independently finding the organization's real contact information.

Treat urgency as a warning sign. Scammers frequently try to prevent victims from stopping to investigate by claiming an account will be closed, money is being stolen or a loved one is in danger. The FBI warns consumers to slow down and verify urgent claims independently.

The new rule: Personal information isn't proof

Consumers have traditionally been taught to look for obvious signs of phishing: bad grammar, generic greetings, strange email addresses or messages that don't make sense.

AI is weakening some of those warning signs.

A scammer can generate polished writing, clone a voice, manipulate an image and now potentially examine someone's social media photographs to determine where that person has traveled.

That makes one rule increasingly important: Just because someone knows something about you doesn't mean they are who they claim to be.

A bank alert that names the city you're visiting may be legitimate. But the location itself shouldn't convince you.

Verify the message independently before you click, call or pay.