Many restaurants have a policy of giving police officers free cups of coffee or discounted food but a Chicago police officer was suspended for 18 months and recommended for counseling after she demanded free coffee and pastries from area Starbucks. Most police departments have unwritten rules against officers either accepting or demanding anything free, although those rules generally aren't enforced. Many restaurants feel it enhances safety to have police officers stop in for coffee, a snack or a meal. But officers traditionally offer to pay before a restaurant tells them it's on the house or discounted.

A Daytona Beach, Fla. , police officer was fired for demanding free coffee from a Starbucks and threatening to respond slowly if employees didn't give him a free latte. Although Starbucks has a policy of giving police officers free regular coffee, it doesn't hand out specialty coffees without charge.

Thirty-nine-year-old Debbie Bird claims she is allergic to modern living and says mobile phones, microwaves and cars are banned from her house. Bird said she is sensitive to electromagnetic fields (emf) or "smog" created by computers, microwave ovens, mobile phones and some cars, and that she develops skin rashes and her eyelids swell to three times their normal size if she gets exposed to them.

The new edition of the game Monopoly will feature major companies such as McDonald's, Starbucks and Motorola. Instead of an old shoe, McDonald's French Fries will be a player piece along with a Starbucks coffee cup, a Toyota Prius car, a Motorola RAZR phone and a New Balance running shoe. The "Here and Now" U. S. edition of the board game will feature Times Square instead of Boardwalk, among other changes.

Coffee giant, Starbucks, has canceled its free iced coffee e-mail offer after the messages were sent nearly worldwide. According to a press release, "An email offering a free Starbucks iced coffee was distributed to a limited group of Starbucks partners (employees) in the Southeast United States on Wednesday, August 23, 2006, with instructions to forward to their group of friends and family. "