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The issue of drinking alcohol in Saudi Arabia has come sharply into focus once again after a British man was caught with homemade wine. Karl Andree, 74, was arrested by Saudi religious police and has spent more than a year in prison - it had been reported that he was also facing 360 lashes but it has since emerged that he was going to be spared flogging because of his age and ill-health. Alcohol is prohibited in Saudi Arabia and the Foreign Office warns Britons not to flout these rules - but how easy is it to get your hands...

First things first. I’m not in any way condoning the act of mediaeval barbarity that the Saudi authorities are reportedly planning to inflict on Karl Andree, a 74-year-old British citizen. It’s savagery dressed up as justice, plain and simple. And yet. We have to be realistic about this case, and about our dealings with Saudi Arabia. Bluntly, 350 lashes for a British grandfather is the cost of doing business with the Saudis.

One word can sometimes change the way one views things. To wit: if one adds the word “other” to alcohol and drugs (alcohol and other drugs) one’s perspective is likely to change. The failure to use it in normal parlance speaks to an arbitrary distinction that has for too long been accepted. It is difficult to argue that alcohol is not a drug and the same applies to nicotine. Further, like almost all recreational drugs, they offer an immediate “high” followed by a “low” as the pleasure chemicals oscillate back to stasis. “Weed,” cocaine, heroin (OXY) etc. do exactly the...

Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia announced he is checking himself into an alcohol rehab center. The team released the shocking statement Monday, one day before the Yankees start their postseason against the Astros in the wild-card game.

Kitchens that are shared between office workers may soon be banned from storing pork products like sausage rolls over fears that they are “offensive”. New guidelines proposed by interfaith group CoExist House say that employers should consider worker’s religions before allowing ham sandwiches placed in the fridge alongside other products. The group also suggests that alcohol should not be served at corporate events in case it upsets members of certain faiths.

A Waupaca County woman who struck and killed an 18-year-old man will spend his birthday in jail, as well as the anniversary of the day she hit Dylan and every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, for the next 10 years. A judge sentenced 40-year-old Heather Schmidt on Wednesday for the death of Dylan Thorne three years ago. Prosecutors say Schmidt’s blood-alcohol level measured twice the legal limit after she hit

Hygiene isn't Halal Immigration is all about diversity and cultural enrichment. And this Muslim eatery enriched the UK with a new strain of Ecoli that sent customers to the hospital because handwashing was Haram. A teenage girl almost died and more than 140 others were taken severely ill after contracting a E.coli in a filthy takeaway where staff did not wash their hands after going to the toilet. 142 customers who ate at the Khyber Pass in Hyson Green, Nottingham, suffered with nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea after the outbreak last June, and a 13-year-old girl was left so ill that...

Unlike ales, lager beers differ little in flavor. But now, by creating new crosses among the relevant yeasts, Kevin Verstrepen, PhD, Stijn Mertens, and their collaborators have opened up new horizons of taste. The research is published in the September 25 Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology. The relative uniformity of flavor among lagers turned out to result in significant part from a lack of genetic diversity among the yeasts. Genetic studies showed that lager yeasts had resulted from just two crosses between the parent yeasts, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and S. eubayanus. The problem was...

A New York City police officer pleaded guilty to attempted murder on Tuesday for firing a barrage of bullets at a car in Westchester County last year, an unprompted, drunken attack that seriously injured a 47-year-old passenger. Under a plea deal, the officer, Brendan Cronin, 28, will be sentenced to nine years in state prison in December, a spokesman for the Westchester district attorney, Janet DiFiore, said. The plea occurred in State Supreme Court in White Plains, the spokesman said. The shooting, shortly before midnight on April 29, 2014, came amid a series of alcohol-fueled episodes involving off-duty police officers,...

Muslim immigrants living in Germany are petitioning the government for a ban on the annual Oktoberfest. The 16-day festival held in Bavaria is viewed as anti-Muslim since one of its main activities is drinking beer. “We’re not against the Christians drinking alcohol in private,” petitioner Iham Faakhir. “But these public displays are an insult to our faith.” Faakhir portrayed his petition as “an act of restraint. For now we are abiding by the western political practice of peacefully asserting our demand. But the kafirs should not try our patience. Sharia law gives us the right to impose morality by force...

The loss of her stepdaughter, Lori Ann Fiorina, to addiction in 2009. It may be unusual for a public figure to share such personal tragedies so openly, but death by drug overdose is not uncommon in the United States. “We need to tell young people the truth. Drug addiction is an epidemic, and it is taking too many of our young people,” Fiorina said during the debate. “My husband Frank and I buried a child to drug addiction.” Wednesday’s debate was not the first time Fiorina brought up the death of her stepdaughter, whom she had known since Lori was...

A wine bar and bistro is being fined over 100,000 pounds for causing a woman severe injuries. According to the BBC, Gaby Scanlon was celebrating her 18th birthday at Oscar’s Wine Bar & Bistro in 2012. During the celebration, a bartender gave Scanlon a Nitro-Jagermeister, which contains liquid nitrogen. “I turned to the man and asked if it was okay to drink. He said, ‘Yes,” Scanlon testified in court. “Smoke was coming from my nose and mouth. Straight away, I knew something was not right. My stomach expanded.” She was immediately rushed to the hospital, where doctors say she was...

I recently went on a low cholesterol and low sugar diet. Carbs were ok but I wanted to lose weight and tone muscle. It was short term (6 to 8 months?) but I started eating egg whites. Couple dozen a week. Whole wheat bread. Couple loaves a week. Tuna. Up to 2 cans a day. And my snack was a large bowl of cheerios or corn flakes. I had some blood work done for my new PCP and they discovered my iron level is/was 3 times normal. Now I discover the foods I was eating are rich in iron, with...

Police fatally shot a man allegedly armed with a metal pipe after responding to a domestic violence call in Ontario on Saturday, officials said. Officers were called just before 4 p.m. to the 400 block of Philadelphia Street, according to the Ontario Police Department. When they arrived, the man allegedly charged at them. The man died from his wounds. The shooting was under investigation.

FARMINGTON HILLS (WWJ) – A Muslim flight attendant has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEO) claiming she was suspended from her job for not serving alcohol — which is against her religious beliefs. Lena Masri, an attorney for the Council of American Islamic Relations Michigan (CAIR), says Charee Stanley followed management’s directions, working out an arrangement with her coworkers to accommodate passenger requests for alcohol. However, Masri said, ExpressJet Airlines put Stanley on administrative leave after another attendant filed “an Islamophobic complaint” that referenced Stanley’s head scarf. “We notified ExpressJet Airlines of its obligation under...

Another Muslim workplace lawsuit from CAIR in order to impose Islam on the workplace. This is what they do.A Muslim flight attendant has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), claiming she was suspended from her job for not serving alcohol. Why would a devout Muslim want to be a flight attendant when half your job is serving alcohol?This is just like the devout Muslim who sued soft porn retailer Abercrombie and Fitch because she wanted to wear the hijab.The EEOC is suing Star Transport for rightfully terminating two Muslims who refused to do their job....

The tycoon-turned-reality TV star watched his older sibling struggle for years with a alcohol problem, which eventually claimed his life. And the 64 year old admits he has never been tempted to sip even a drop of alcohol, after his brother repeatedly warned him to stay away from the bottle. He tells Piers Morgan, "I've never had drugs. I've never had a cigarette and I don't drink coffee. I have other problems, I guess! "I had an older brother named Fred...he started drinking. It got worse and worse. He also smoked a lot. "He was about 10 years older and...

Members of the book group, sporting matching gray T-shirts and broad grins, boarded the Napa Valley Wine Train in high spirits Saturday. “The train is leaving the station! Choo choo!” member Lisa Johnson posted on her Facebook page, captioning a picture of five glasses of burgundy liquid clinking together. But not long into the trip train staff began asking them to quiet down. Before the journey was half over, they were escorted off the train, where police officers were waiting for them, according to the Associated Press. “We didn’t do anything wrong and we still feel this is about race....

A group of black women from a book club were kicked off a wine tour in Napa at the weekend - sparking accusations of racism on the company's part. One of the women, Lisa Johnson, said it was 'humiliating' when she and her friends were escorted off the Napa Valley Wine Train by a police officer. The company said the women had been spoken to several times by the train manager after complaints from other customers that they were laughing and talking too loudly. But one passenger who witnessed the incident later claimed that it was clearly racially motivated. The...

Getting wine-drunk on a train in Napa Valley sounds pretty good if you're the guys from Sideways or the parents in Bob's Burgers, but it's apparently a lot less fun if you're a black woman with a loud laugh. A group of 11 women, members of the Sistahs on the Edge book club, were kicked off the Napa Valley Wine Train last Saturday for allegedly being too loud and disturbing other passengers—but the women say it was because of their race. One of the book club's members, Lisa Johnson, chronicled the event on Facebook, igniting an outcry across social media...