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White House blows cover of CIA's Kabul station chief Washington Times The White House inadvertently blew the cover of the CIA's top officer in Kabul during President Obama's surprise trip to Afghanistan on Sunday. The name of the spy agency's station chief in Kabul was included on a list provided to news organizations of ... CIA Chiefs Cover Blown By White HouseDaily Caller White House mistakenly ID's Afghanistan CIA chiefThe Virginian-Pilot Top CIA officer in Afghanistan mistakenly named by White House: reportChicago Tribune Battle Creek Enquirer all 170 news articles »

How administrators killed Fairfax school's math success Washington Post When people began telling me of J.E.B. Stuart High School's decline, with scores plummeting and teachers leaving, I contacted Bill Horkan, a veteran math teacher at the Fairfax County school who is one of the most insightful educators I know. Horkan ...

In YouTube videos and a long written manifesto, Elliot Rodger aired his contempt for everyone from his roommates to the whole human race, reserving special hate for two groups: the women he says kept him a virgin for all of his 22 years, and the men they chose instead.

The Obama administration said Saturday it will allow more veterans to obtain health care at private hospitals and clinics in an effort to improve their treatment.

After hitting some bumps during the setup of the Affordable Care Act, advocates say they're regaining momentum in their effort to expand private insurance coverage for the treatment of autism.

On Saturday, veteran Ben King led a yoga and meditation event at Arlington National Cemetery.

The military's domestic outreach efforts are picking up steam as warm weather returns and funding for air shows and fleet week events have been restored.

Two sex offenders charged with raping and killing four California women while wearing GPS monitors had escaped parole supervision and left the state together more than once in the four years before their most recent arrest, The Associated Press learned Friday.

Last week, we told you how pharma biggie Novartis was still openly marketing at least one of its antibiotics as a growth-promoter for livestock, even though the FDA had politely asked drug companies to pretty please stop selling antibiotics for non-medical uses. Given the voluntary nature of this guidance, not to mention its numerous loopholes, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that both the FDA and Novartis shrugged off critics’ concerns.

An estimated 80% of antibiotics sold in the U.S. go to livestock farmers, mostly because the drugs have the happy side effect of promoting growth in these animals. They also have the unhappy consequence of encouraging the development of medicine-resistant bacteria, making those same drugs less useful in the long run.

The FDA guidance was intended to curb this overuse of antibiotics in animal feed by asking pharmaceutical companies to only sell the drugs for treatment and prevention of disease. And yet, right there on the website for Novartis’ swine antibiotic Denagard is an entire page touting the drug’s growth-promotion results. Since being an average size pig is not a disease, this would seem to violate the spirit of the guidance, as it gives livestock farmers a non-medical reason to purchase Denagard and claim that it’s for a non-existent or exaggerated medical purpose.

That was the gist of the letter written to the FDA last week by the group Keep Antibiotics Working.

“Many of the drugs approved for production uses like growth promotion also have approvals for disease prevention and control and can be administered in essentially the same manner as for growth promotion (i.e. no requirement for diagnosis, herd or flock wide use, and unlimited duration),” wrote KAW’s Steven Roach. “Companies that persuade animal producers of the production benefits of the use of these drugs can expect more use over longer periods of time in greater numbers of animals — in short, higher sales.”

The FDA has responded to the KAW letter, and it doesn’t provide much in the way of hope for people hoping the agency was serious about cutting down on medically unnecessary antibiotics.

“In your letter, you express concern that drug manufacturers may promote extralabel production uses for products approved only for therapeutic use, thereby undermining the spirit and intent of [the guidance], reads the letter. “We understand your concern and, as part of the… implementation process, we intend to look for ways to reinforce the importance of the principles of judicious and appropriate use, including engaging animal drug manufacturers on the appropriate use of promotional materials.”

To us, this statement comes across as more derriere-dragging from an agency that waited for more than three decades to issue antibiotics guidance it was told to draft back in the 1970s — and only did so after being sued for its inaction.

The FDA says it will “look for ways to reinforce the importance of the principles of judicious and appropriate use,” which seems to indicate it intends to come to a compromise with an industry that denies — in spite of all the research to the contrary — that there is any link between overuse of antibiotics and drug-resistant pathogens.

Speaking of which, Novartis eventually got around to responding to our request for a statement and issued the following comment which denies that growth-promotion is an off-label use of Denagard, and passes the buck back to the FDA:

“Novartis Animal Health US, Inc. does not promote off-label uses of Denagard, or any of its products. The US Denagard website clearly explains that Denagard is used therapeutically, and that the animal performance benefits derived from use of Denagard result from a reduction in disease associated with stressful periods that are directly related to higher disease levels throughout a pig herd.

The US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) not only protects public health by assuring the safety, efficacy and security of human and veterinary drugs, but the agency also reviews promotional materials, including websites. The content in the website referenced by the group Keep Antibiotics Working (KAW) in their letter to FDA was submitted to FDA at the time of its development as required by the agency’s regulations. NAH is committed to advertising and promoting its products according to the labeled claims.”

Yes, the Denagard site does explain that the drug has therapeutic uses. But this statement implies that the “animal performance benefits” touted on the site are solely from disease prevention. Then why does the site have an entire page dedicated to growth-promotion? And why does that page tell farmers about their “return on investment” in terms of how many pounds of the antibiotic they need to feed their pigs versus weight gain in those animals? We would consider that an “animal performance benefit” that has nothing to do with treating or preventing disease.

Then it points the blame arrow at the FDA, saying the agency approved the site so there can’t be anything wrong with it. Just because the FDA approved the site doesn’t mean that Novartis can’t remove the growth-promotion page. Novartis could have opted to remove this obvious promotion of a non-medical use for Denagard, but instead chooses to keep it up because it knows this is a selling point for the drug.

“Why should FDA bother asking companies to remove growth claims from their labels if they are going to allow them to promote therapeutic drugs based on their growth promoting benefits?” KAW’s Roach tells Consumerist in response to the Novartis statement.

KAW tells Consumerist that the group plans on meeting with the FDA to discuss the Denagard website and the issue of off-label promotion of antibiotics.

“We hope they will commit to challenging companies that are promoting the production benefits of drugs without promotion approvals, but that will not address the broader problem of FDA’s failure to prohibit the routine use of medically important antibiotics for disease prevention.”

Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York has been an outspoken critic of the FDA’s guidance on antibiotics, which she says is “riddled with loopholes and completely inadequate” to fight the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. Rep. Slaughter says that without mandatory limits on antibiotic use, the overuse of these drugs will continue.

“When a company is offered the choice to comply with a regulation or work around it, it’s not surprising when the company chooses the most financially attractive option – more often than not, that option is noncompliance,” she explained in a recent statement.

People tend to under-report food poisoning: generally, we don’t visit the doctor for a small digestive disturbance or report our illness to the local health department unless it happens to be part of a widely-publicized outbreak. What if there were another way to learn about these outbreaks, though? What if health departments could use Yelp?

No, reviewers aren’t going to film twelve-second clips of themselves barfing. We hope. It’s possible, though, that people might mention illness in their reviews, even if they don’t go to the effort of calling their doctor or contacting the health department.

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene worked with Yelp to obtain weekly data dumps of all eatery reviews in the city, then scanned those reviews for words that you might use when reviewing a place that made you ill. Keywords that they looked for included “sick,” “vomit,” “diarrhea,” and “food poisoning.”

500 reviews mentioned food poisoning that turned out to be an actual illness, and health department workers followed up with those customers. Out of the Yelp data dump, researchers found three outbreaks that had previously gone unreported, which sickened a total of 16 people. For smaller incidents where only one or two people reported that they became ill, researchers found that very few of these incidents had already been reported to the health department, and they would need to get the word out about how city residents and visitors can do that.

When you hesitate to mention that you became sick in your online review, reconsider! You might be warning other diners and helping solve public-health problems.

Yelp Helps NYC Health Department Track Foodborne Illnesses [National Geographic]
Using Online Reviews by Restaurant Patrons to Identify Unreported Cases of Foodborne Illness — New York City, 2012–2013 [CDC]

Collectively, as a nation, we eat a lot of food. A lot of high-fat, high-sugar bad-for-us, questionable food. Scientists of every stripe are always asking why we do this to ourselves. The answer? It might be as simple as: because we can afford to.

The Pew Research Center today points to a study showing that Americans are spending less money than ever on food, comparatively speaking.

We still spend millions and billions of dollars on food, of course, but it’s become an ever-smaller amount of the cash we spend in general. The average American household now spends about 10% of its disposable income on food, Pew says, where in the 1930s it was at least a quarter.

The problem of averages being averages still applies, though: food costs are not so low for everyone. The poorest 20% of Americans, Pew says, still spend a solid third of their income trying to stay fed.

In general, every dollar simply buys more calories than it used to. Of course, we don’t all, strictly speaking, need every calorie we consume. As is often reported, obesity rates in the U.S. have also skyrocketed through the 20th century and into the 21st, as the cost of food in general has reached historical lows.

“So why doesn’t everyone just eat right and exercise more?” you may ask. Well it turns out, we do that, too: in a 2009 study, Pew says, over 51% of Americans reported getting regular physical exercise. And collectively, we also buy more fresh fruits and vegetables than we did thirty or forty years ago.

But that doesn’t seem to stop us from exercising the buying power of our dollar to buy the bad stuff all the time. And it’ll probably take a few marathons more than most of us will ever run to make up for a triple cheeseburger served between donuts.

Chart of the Week: Is food too cheap for our own good? [Pew Research Center]

When perusing Amazon for a too-good-to-put-down book, consumers often assume the site’s vast library of titles includes all that’s available in the literary world. But the e-tailer is now putting pressure on one publisher by making it hard to find and order that company’s books.

The New York Times’ Bits blog reports that Amazon recently escalated its e-book pricing dispute with book publisher Hachette, pulling pre-order options from titles like the upcoming J.K. Rowling novel and the upcoming The Girls of August by Anne Rivers Siddons.

In other reported measures, Amazon has discouraged the purchase of Hachette books by cutting discounts, taking weeks to ship, suggesting other books to consumers and increasing the discount of e-book versions, the Times reports.

The move isn’t relegated to just U.S. consumers either. Deliveries of books issued by major German publisher Bonnier have also been delayed.

“Of course it is very comfortable for customers to be able to order over the Internet, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Alexander Skipis, president of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, tells the Times. “But with such an online structure as pursued by Amazon, a book market is being destroyed that has been nurtured over decades and centuries.”

Skipis said his organization is looking into whether the move by Amazon violates the law.

Amazon’s tactics, long criticized by the publishing industry, are not going unnoticed by authors. Children’s book writer Nina Laden, who is published by Hachette, recently voiced her disapproval.

“Your actions to raise the prices of our books, place banners touting books that ‘are similar but lower in price’ and saying that our books will ship in 3-5 weeks when they are in stock is not only a disgusting negotiation practice, but it has made me tell my readers to shop elsewhere — and they are and will,” she wrote in a Facebook post also sent to the retailer.

This isn’t Amazon’s first attempt to strong-arm publishers. In 2010, the retailer briefly removed the “buy” button from Macmillian published books. That same year, the e-tailer lowered the prices on Penguin hardcovers to $9.99 when the publisher refused to budge on e-book pricing.

E-book pricing has been a contentious issue for years. Initially, sellers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble were generally able to determine the retail prices charged for titles. Then, after Apple got into the e-book business, many publishers switched to the so-called agency model, where the publisher sets the price with the seller getting a fixed percentage of the sale price.

This model resulted in higher prices for e-books and ultimately led to lawsuits against Apple and several publishers, including Hachette, Macmillan and Penguin. The publishers settled these claims, refunding some $166 million to consumers in 32 states.

Amazon Escalates Its Battle Against Publishers [The New York Times Bits]

Mergers are an expensive business. Not only is Comcast spending $45 billion just to buy Time Warner Cable, but also there are the costs of getting the deal approved. Trying to convince regulators and lawmakers that this arrangement is not only not harmful, but potentially beneficial, is a hefty undertaking. That means a legion of lobbyists.

The Hill reports today on the scope of Comcast’s lobbying campaign, calling it the “shock and awe” approach. The cable company has employed no fewer than 40 separate lobbying firms to blanket DC with arguments on its behalf.

Comcast keeps a large stable of lobbyists working anyway; The Hill says that at the start of the year they employed 33 firms. The extra seven were hired since Comcast and TWC announced their merger intention in February.

Why hire so many different firms? Because lobbying isn’t really about filing forms and moving money. It’s a giant game of matching up the people you know — or have paid — with the people they know. And lobbyists know lots of people in government, because that’s where they used to work.

The lobbyists and lobbying groups Comcast has hired all have ties to the regulatory agencies and Congressional committees that the cable giant needs to win over in order to see its merger bid approved. The Hill outlines several. For example, one who was formerly with the House Judiciary Committee and the DoJ Antitrust Division:

Joseph Gibson of The Gibson Group, which started lobbying for Comcast in April, has held several prominent roles with the House Judiciary Committee, whose members grilled Comcast executives for four hours earlier this month. Gibson also worked at the Justice Department, including a stint advising the assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division.

Over 80% of the lobbyists Comcast currently has on their roster formerly worked for the federal government, The Hill adds, and in 2013 the only company to outspend them on lobbying was Northrop Grumman (an enormous defense contractor).

And of course these lobbyists are all in addition to the significant campaign donations Comcast is sprinkling through Congress, and the well-timed philanthropic projects that the company uses to buy extra “good-guy” cred.

Not everyone is in favor of the merger, of course. Our colleagues down the hall at Consumers Union joined a protest yesterday at Comcast’s annual shareholder meeting to oppose the planned merger. You can see a video from the event embedded below.

Comcast goes for shock and awe [The Hill via DSLReports]

Here at Consumerist headquarters, we enjoyed Netflix’s original programming for April Fool’s Day 2014: streaming films of bacon frying and rotisserie chickens roasting. They had a lovely, meditative quality, and made fine sleep aids. Would they make a good advertisement, though? That’s what Arby’s aims to find out with their mission to create the longest-ever TV advertisement.

Maybe it’s a natural evolution. The first-ever TV ad was only 10 seconds long, and now we have program-length extended infomercials. Why not run 13 hours of meat-roasting footage?

The Arby’s ad promotes the chain’s new brisket sandwich, and the crew who made the video say that it was filmed in the smokehouse where the actual briskets that will be used nationwide are cured.

“The real news about this sandwich is the brisket is smoked for 13 hours and really nobody knows that,” the man behind this ad told the New York Times. What better way to get the message across to customers that the smoke flavor isn’t bottled than to show the meat being smoked, live on camera?

The whole 13-hour smoking process will show on broadcast TV in Duluth, Minnesota tomorrow afternoon. (It has to show on a real TV station, not just online, in order to make the Guinness Book of World Records.) The rest of us will have to wait until next week, when they will stream the ad online, offering cash prizes to viewers that will pop up at random. At the end of the epic film, the company’s executive chef slices off a piece and assembles a sandwich on-camera. Of course.

Televising Sizzling Meat to Bump Up Sales of a Brisket Sandwich [New York Times]

For many, summer means renting a vacation home. Perhaps you dream of a week at the beach or some quiet time at a secluded lakeside cottage deep in the woods. Whatever your vacation fantasy, don’t let your excitement for some time away lure you into making a major vacation mistake.

Like renting a place that’s not a palace, but a pit.

Or learning your down payment money went to a ne’er-do-well who never had the right to rent you a property in the first place.

(Not to mention what’s gone wrong for some Airbnb-ers — from having homes turned into brothels or a crib to host sex parties.)

Looking online may seem to be the fastest and easiest way to get a reasonably-priced rental, but it’s also a great breeding place for real estate scammers.

Before you plunk down any money — especially if you’re a faraway traveler who can’t see a property ahead of time — follow these six tips on how to not suck at booking a vacation home.

1. If it looks too good…

There are plenty of reasons a vacation property may be listed for rent at a surprisingly cheap rate, but, well… We can’t think of any that are good.

Anyone can post photos of a beautiful seaside retreat and say it’s the property they have for rent. Maybe the photos are real, or maybe they were borrowed from a legit travel web site and a completely different property.

Before you put any money down, do some investigating of your own. Use online satellite map programs to get a real look at the address, or simply add the address to a Google search and see what you find.

If that’s not enough, consider contacting a local real estate agent or even a local shop to see if anyone can vouch for the quality of the property.

2. Know who you’re renting from

If you’re going directly through an owner and not a property management or real estate company, put on your sleuth’s hat.

Search for the owner’s name on social media and see what you can come up with. Plug the name into a search engine, too.

Some states have property ownership records online, or you can call the local municipality and request the info. You’ll want to make sure the person renting the property to you actually owns it.

If you can’t find public records to support this, ask the landlord for a copy of a utility bill with his/her name and the property address.

Even if you think you’re working with a reputable real estate firm, you still need to double check. Some scammers have hacked into listings of legit rental sites, stealing property info and pretending to unsuspecting vacationers that they have the right to rent a property they have no real ties to.

Also ask to have a phone conversation with the owner. Hearing a person’s voice is no guarantee, but it may help you go with your gut depending on what you hear.

3. Read online reviews like a skeptic

Anyone can post a positive review (or two, or six…) about a property on a rental web site. That doesn’t mean the author actually stayed in the property.

Most renters, even those who absolutely loved a home, may have small criticisms. Any review that’s all glowing words with no caveats could very well be fake.

Also look for mentions of the owner’s names in the reviews, and make sure they match the landlord you’re talking to.

4. Where you shop matters

While free listings services like Craigslist can be a good place to look for a rental, they can also be home to many unsavory characters.

If you’re not going to go through a real estate company, only use web sites that have a proven track record. Sure, some of the properties listed could be phonies, but many sites perform background checks on those who list properties, or at the very least they do some research to make sure a listing is the real thing.

5. Get it in writing

A huckster can certainly come up with a fake contract, or choose not to honor one, but getting the details of the property in writing is always a smart move. (A legit landlord should want this anyway to protect her property.)

If it turns out that the property isn’t what was promised, you may have some recourse with a contract.

6. Pay the right way

Many property management companies will accept credit cards for deposits, and that will give you the most protection should something go awry.

Landlords who rent directly may not accept credit cards. Ask if you can use PayPal or a similar service because this will at least give you some protections and the ability to trace the person who received your funds.

Your landlord may want a personal check. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but be aware that you’re putting your account number and address in the hands of the check-casher.

If something goes wrong, you won’t have much recourse, and the bad guy will have your banking information.

Of course, the flip side of that could work to your advantage if something goes wrong. You will have a copy of your cashed check with the casher’s account number and signature on it, and that may help track a scammer down… Unless they use a check-cashing service.

If the landlord wants cash, beware. Don’t use wire transfer services either because you’ll have no way to track down stolen down payments.

7. Home exchanges

One way to get a vacation rental is to trade your property with someone else’s for the week. Of course lots can go wrong here, too — not just with your rental but with your home — but you can do the same research mentioned above on possible home swap candidates.

Have a topic you’d like to see covered in How To Not Suck? Or maybe you’re an expert who would like to share your insight with Consumerist readers? Send us a note at notsuck@consumerist.com.

You can read Karin Price Mueller’s stories for The Star-Ledger at NJ.com, follow her on Facebook, and on Twitter @kpmueller.

PREVIOUSLY ON HOW TO NOT SUCK:
How To Not Suck At Making The Transition From School To The Real World
How To Not Suck At Spring Cleaning
16 Ways To Not Suck At Making Mother’s Day Special
10 Ways To Not Suck At Spending Your Tax Refund
15 Things Everyone Needs To Know About Disability Insurance
15 Things People Of All Ages Need To Know About Long-Term Care Insurance
15 Things You Need To Know About Life Insurance
15 Things Everyone (Including Renters) Should Know About Homeowner’s Insurance
15 Things You Need To Know About Buying Auto Insurance
How To Not Suck… At Going To Small Claims Court
How To Not Suck… At Buying In Bulk
How To Not Suck At Planning Your Wedding, Part 5: Spending Your Wedding Cash
How To Not Suck At Planning Your Wedding, Part 4: The Honeymoon
How To Not Suck At Planning Your Wedding, Part 3: The Costly Little Extras
How To Not Suck At Planning Your Wedding, Part 2: The Stuff People Pay Too Much For
How To Not Suck At Planning Your Wedding, Part 1: The Most Expensive Steps
How To Not Suck… At Teaching Your Kids About Money
How To Not Suck… At Valentine’s Day Gifts
How To Not Suck… At Merging Your Money When You Marry
How To Not Suck… At Borrowing For College
How To Not Suck… At Saving For College
How To Not Suck… At Pre-Paying For Your Funeral
How To Not Suck… At Making Financial New Year’s Resolutions
How To Not Suck… At Last-Minute Christmas Gifting
How To Not Suck… At Saving For The Holidays
How To Not Suck… At Charitable Giving
How To Not Suck… At Disputing Credit Report Errors
How To Not Suck… At Lowering Your Utility Bills
How To Not Suck… At Home Inspections
How To Not Suck… At Understanding Credit Card Rewards
How To Not Suck… At Getting Ready For Tax Season
How To Not Suck… At Picking A Retirement Plan
How To Not Suck… At Deciding When To DIY
How To Not Suck… At Getting Out Of Debt
How To Not Suck… At First Year College Budgets

DISCLAIMER: Any websites, services, retailers, or brands mentioned in the story above are only intended as some of many options available to consumers, and do not constitute an endorsement by Consumerist, Consumerist Media LLC (CML) or its staff. Per Consumerist’s No Commercial Use Policy, such information may not be used by others in advertising or to promote a company’s product or service. In addition, this policy precludes any commercial use of any of CML’s published information in any form, or of the names of Consumers Union®, Consumer Media, Consumer Reports®, The Consumerist, consumerist.com or any other of CU or CML’s publications or services without CU or CML’s express written permission.

Let’s face facts — If you’re reading Consumerist at all today, it’s probably while sitting bored in a half-empty office wondering why you didn’t just make this a four-day weekend like your co-workers Sue, Linda, Ted, and Steve. We feel for you, honestly. While we can’t do anything to get you out of work any earlier, we can try to summer-up your afternoon with photos of a huge cheeseburger on glazed donut buns.

The NY Daily News points us to the below photos posted to Twitter and Instagram of a triple cheeseburger on Krispy Kreme buns that’s apparently being served at the San Diego County Fair by Chicken Charlie’s, a restaurant whose menu includes Krispy Kreme Sloppy Joes, deep-fried White Castle sliders, and something called the Zucchini Weeni.

So because nothing says summer like massive amounts of ground beef sandwiched between glazed donuts, here is some low-grade food porn to get you in the mood:

Here's that triple cheeseburger on Krispy Kreme bun. http://t.co/h3ASq8LeaC—
Nina Garin (@ninagarin) May 21, 2014

If I'm a little lethargic today, blame Chicken Charlie and his Krispy Kreme triple cheeseburger #sdfairfood http://t.co/0CJN2B1gIq—
Michele Parente (@sdeditgirl) May 21, 2014

#sdfair how is this even legal?? Lol triple cheeseburger with Krispy Kreme "buns" lol. 😳 I get sick looking at it. http://t.co/S7Oh93LW1B—
Terra Musgrove (@T_Musgrove) May 21, 2014

The new 9/11 Museum at the former site of the World Trade Center might be New York City’s hottest tourist attraction right now, and both the museum and its gift shop of items in questionable taste have been in the news lately. Here’s the latest head-scratcher featured online: a map-shaped cheese plate marked with terrorist attack sites.

No, we are not kidding. Yes, someone thought that this would be a good idea, and someone designed and manufactures it. Gothamist brought us this terrible news.

A cheese plate shaped like a map of the continental United States would be unusual and unwieldy, but kind of patriotic. Maybe it would work for a highbrow Independence Day celebration. It’s the three dots on the map signifying Arlington, VA, Shanksville, PA, and New York City that make the plate unappetizing.

Gift shops are a big revenue center for museums; no one disputes that. Most of the items in the museum are at least on theme and not completely crass. Still, some victims’ families find the entire commercial enterprise distasteful. Is it in poor taste to sell beautiful photos of the Twin Towers when they stood? What about stuffed search and rescue doggies?

“It’s hard to corporatize something that is essentially a cemetery,” one Manhattan resident who was a preteen at the time of the attack told the New York Post.

This 9/11 Cheese Plate May Be The 9/11 Museum’s Most Tasteless Souvenir [Gothamist]

Readers of this site might think that Consumerist staff eat a lot of junk food and fast food. That’s not true at all: maybe the amount of time that we spend reading about new permutations of food-like substances wears down our interest. For example, there are two new weirdly tempting hybrids of existing snacks available in stores now or very soon: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Oreos and Oreo-filled Chips Ahoy cookies. Why?

Nabisco didn’t answer that question. They just continue the endless parade of new products. Oreos with peanut butter-flavored creme already exist, but not Reese’s brand creme. The problem is, when Nabisco tried to sell Chips Ahoy cookies with tiny Reese’s cups embedded in them, our favorite snack reviewer noted that while the cookie tasted nice and peanut buttery and all, it didn’t have the very distinctive taste of Reese’s. Why cross-brand otherwise? A 2013 follow-up effort consisting of chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips was apparently a vast improvement.

Will chewy cookies filled with Oreo creme be worth eating? There’s only one way to find out…but I’m not sure that my pancreas is up to it.

COMING SOON – Nabisco Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Creme Oreo Cookies [The Impulsive Buy]

NOTE TO FOOD COMPANIES: Please read our “About Us” page before you consider sending us food. As part of a venerable organization with strict rules about that kind of thing, we cannot accept or review free samples.

Do you have so many online accounts that you can barely keep track of where you’re registered, let alone what the passwords are? You’re certainly not alone. Heck, even Fernando Corbató, a retired researcher who is one of the people credited with inventing the computer password 50 years ago, keeps all of his on a few typed sheets of paper.

Don’t be too horrified: by the time you read this, he will have transferred them over to some kind of password-keeping program, just like you made your dad/aunt/all other relatives do while you were visiting over Christmas.

Passwords came about to simplify life in the early ’60s while using a mainframe: researchers at MIT were sharing a disk file and needed separate accounts. To keep each other out of their accounts, each one had its own password. “You wanted to avoid people needlessly nosing around in everybody’s files,” Corbató explained to the Wall Street Journal. That holds true today, but those files are now a lot more intimate and important to us. Yet no one has invented any better technology than the password…yet.

Man Behind the First Computer Password: It’s Become a Nightmare [Wall Street Journal]

In the past two days, Petco and PetSmart, two of the country’s biggest names in pet supplies, have said they will stop selling pet treats made in China over concerns about the safety of those products.

There have been numerous instances of poorly manufactured or tainted pet products that have led to illnesses and deaths in pets in the U.S.

For instance hundreds of dog fatalities and thousands of illnesses were tied to chicken jerky treats imported from China, though the actual cause of these illnesses is still undetermined.

Petco was first out of the gate on Tuesday, saying it would have all China-made treats off shelves by the end of the year.

“We know some pet parents are wary of dog and cat treats made in China, especially Chicken Jerky products, and we’ve heard their concerns,” said Jim Myers, Petco CEO in a statement. “As a leader in the industry and the trusted partner for our pet parents, we’re eager to make this transition and to expand our assortment of safe and healthy treats, the majority of which are made right here in the U.S. Very simply, we feel this decision is in the best interest of the pets we all love and, ultimately, for our business.”

Then today, PetSmart followed suit, telling the AP that it plans to get rid of all treats that were made in China by March 2015.

“This is something we’ve been working toward for some time, and feel it’s the right thing to do for pets and our customers,” said a PetSmart rep.

Prince William County news in brief Washington Post Va. sales-tax break for hurricane supplies. Virginia residents can receive a tax break next week as the state prepares for hurricane season. epa04215205 Divers for Hi-Dive show perform a jump from a springboard during a media ... and more »

In the battle royal over Richard III's bones, Britain's High Court has given the victory to Leicester.

When the floods came, Danijel Mitevski was separated from his family, and it took him two days to rejoin his wife and daughter in a shelter. But the resident of Serbia's flood-hit town of Obrenovac wouldn't rest until his family was complete again.

han-usual rate of strikes along the Eastern Seaboard for this time of year, a federal agency said.

The investigation into a February radiation release from the federal government's underground nuclear waste dump in southeastern New Mexico has turned to a seemingly unusual suspect: cat litter.

Police in southern Oregon held an unlikely suspect overnight: an adorable black bear cub.

Ruth Ziolkowski, who carried on her late husband's dream of honoring Native Americans by carving the massive likeness of warrior Crazy Horse into the Black Hills in South Dakota, has died. She was 87.

One of the Virginia Museum of Transportation's steam passenger locomotives is heading to North Carolina to be restored.

Students at Virginia's public community colleges will pay higher tuition and mandatory fees in the upcoming academic year.

Hot and tired from a three-hour drive inside a trailer behind a pickup truck, the 600-pound English Charolais calf was content to lay on the grass behind a south Houston building while a team of technicians worked on its hind legs.