Hasta La Gadget!

Whether you are expecting a vegetarian guest or just want to mix up your family’s dinner routine, you’ll wow everyone with these meatless meals.

1. White Bean Ragout

A quick ragout of white beans, sweet cherry tomatoes and fresh herbs in a robustly flavored broth makes a satisfying vegetarian main course. Serve it with a green salad and garlic bread for sopping up the broth, and dinner is done! GET THE RECIPE

2. Quinoa Pilaf with Shiitake Mushrooms, Carrots & Pecans

Quinoa looks like couscous and eats like a grain but it’s actually the tiny seed of a plant related to leafy greens like spinach and Swiss chard. It is incredibly high in protein and fiber, and contains all of the essential amino acids your body needs. Here, it’s cooked with sautéed onions, carrots, shiitake mushrooms and pecans to make an earthy and hearty dish. GET THE RECIPE

3. Bulgur Salad with Cucumbers, Red Peppers, Chick Peas, Lemon and Dill

Made with bulgur, fresh herbs, chopped vegetables and buttery chick peas, this Middle Eastern-style salad is like a bulked-up tabbouleh. Serve it with soup for dinner or keep it in the fridge all all week long for healthy lunches. GET THE RECIPE

4. Spaghetti Squash Gratin

Spaghetti squash is a low-carb, low-cal alternative to pasta; when cooked, it transforms into golden, spaghetti-like strands. Here, it’s tossed with marinara sauce, sprinkled with crispy breadcrumbs and cheese, and then baked until golden brown. GET THE RECIPE

5. Zucchini Fritters with Feta and Dill

The word fritter usually conjures up something heavy and deep-fried, but these zucchini pancakes are as delicate as can be. For a light dinner, serve them with tzatziki and a Greek salad. GET THE RECIPE

6. Spinach & Gruyere Quiche

This is the best spinach quiche: it’s made with a combination of heavy cream and Gruyère, which makes it incredibly rich and flavorful. There’s also a good bit of spinach, which balances out all that richness and — dare I say — makes it just a little bit good for you. GET THE RECIPE

7. Smoky Chickpea, Red Lentil & Vegetable Soup

This hearty, soul-satisfying soup is ready in 30 minutes, yet tastes like you spent all day in the kitchen making it. To round out the meal, serve it with a green salad and loaf of good bread. GET THE RECIPE

When I started my 25th book 4-5 years ago it was because of stories I read on line that weren’t getting national attention but were very alarming just the same. They were stories of SWAT teams raiding the wrong houses and doing massive property damage, terrifying people, sometimes injuring or even killing them. They were stories of unarmed, frequently mentally disturbed people being shot by police.

As a mystery author and the son of Holocaust survivors, this horrified me and made me do research. I discovered that both the ACLU and the Heritage Foundation were equally alarmed by the post-9/11 radical militarization of our police forces nationwide. They weren’t just being given the weapons of an army by the Pentagon, they were being trained like armies, trained to think of citizens as the Enemy. Which made them over-react.

I’m a writer, and my response to these outrages was to make the issue visible for my audience by having the ugly tsunami hit the two comfortable middle class professors in my mystery series. What it would be like if this violence targeted people who had never been in any kind of legal trouble before, and believed themselves safe, believed that kind of encounter could only happen to somebody else?

Assault With a Deadly Lie was published just around the time of Ferguson and suddenly the story of what had gone terribly wrong in America was in the news 24/7. Then came Eric Garner’s terrible choking death.

Congress rumbled into action. Or at least talk. They’d been oblivious for years. Op-ed pieces were written by the score. People marched and protested across the country. Reporters started writing about cities like Albuquerque with high rates of cop shootings of civilians.

That’s all great, but nothing’s changed at the local level. Look at this past week’s story from Pasco, Washington. A troubled man was gunned down for throwing rocks at police. Rocks. When will it end?

Lev Raphael’s 25th book is the novel of suspense Assault With a Deadly Lie. You can check out his other books on Amazon here.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine plans to begin pulling back heavy weaponry from the front lines of its fight with Russia-backed separatist rebels on Sunday, in accordance with a peace plan whose initial step was a cease-fire that is still being violated, a military spokesman said.

Ukrainian military spokesman Col. Andriy Lysenko told a briefing that the withdrawal was to begin, but did not give further details.

Rebel spokesman Eduard Basurin said the pullback from both sides is to take place between Sunday and March 7, but he did not specify whether rebels had made any moves yet. There was no immediate confirmation that the withdrawal had begun.

Both sides are to pull back their big guns and rockets from 25 to 70 kilometers (15 to 43 miles) away from the conflict line — depending on the weapons’ size — creating a buffer zone of between 50 and 140 kilometers (31-87 miles).

The buffer zone was a main element of a peace agreement worked out in marathon negotiations 10 days ago in Minsk, Belarus. It also calls for a full exchange of war captives. Late Saturday, 139 Ukrainian soldiers and 52 rebels were exchanged; it remains unclear how many prisoners in total are on each side and when other swaps might take place.

The cease-fire that was the first element of the Minsk plan was called into effect last Sunday.

Ukrainian said Russia-backed separatists violated the cease-fire a dozen times during the night with artillery and rocket attacks and an attempt to storm a Ukrainian encampment. Lysenko said one serviceman was killed and three wounded over the past day.

Explosions were heard in the main rebel-held city Donetsk around dawn on Sunday and a rebel website says several buildings in the city were damaged by artillery.

Despite the reported violations, the level of firing appeared to be far lower than a week ago when a cease-fire was called.

Among the attacks reported by the Ukrainian military was an attempt to storm positions in the village of Shyrokyne near the port city of Mariupol. That city remains of strategic concern to Ukraine because rebel seizure of it could help establish a land corridor between mainland Russia and the Russia-annexed Crimean peninsula.

SPECIAL FROM Grandparents.com

In a recent University of Cincinnati study published in Neurology, subjects with Parkinson’s Disease were given shots of two supposedly similar medications. They were told that the first was more expensive, and the second was similar in effectiveness but, because of differences in manufacturing, was much cheaper. The overall result was that patients’ motor skills after the first shot were improved 28% compared to the second shot. The one fact that the patients weren’t told: Both shots were actually just saline solution. Study authors believe patients got better because they had very high expectations, which translated into health benefits.

There has been a lot of debate about the use of generic drugs vs. brand names. Are generics really as effective? It pays to be informed since, according to the FDA, “nearly 8 in 10 prescriptions filled in the United States are for generic drugs. The use of generic drugs is expected to grow over the next few years as a number of popular drugs come off patent through 2015.”

What is the difference between generics and brand names? Is there a time when one is preferable over the other? We spoke with C. Michael White, Pharm.D., Professor and Head, Department of Pharmacy Practice, University of Connecticut, to get an explanation:

Q: Why are brand names so much more expensive than generics?
A: “Unlike the generic manufacturer, the original pharmaceutical company has to pay for more than just the actual production of that medication. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development estimates that the cost to develop and win marketing approval for a new drug is $2.6 billion. It also pays for research and development for medications that failed in trials and can’t be brought to market. According to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, generics have saved Americans one trillion dollars in health care savings over the past decade–a current rate of more than one billion dollars in savings every other day.”

Q: What happens when a brand name goes generic?
A: “At the end of an approximately seven-year period of exclusivity, the FDA allows one specific generic to be the first to market. That generic is given a period of time of exclusivity for about six months. At the end of that time period, any manufacturer that can prove that it can achieve the same drug concentrations in the blood that the brand name does can make a generic. Manufacturers of generics aren’t required to do studies in people to prove safety. It is assumed that if they can achieve same blood concentration, they will achieve same results.”

Q: Do generics have to have the same recipe, effect, side effects?
A: “The generics have to have the number of milligrams of drug that is included on the label in the pills. You can take it to the bank that that does not vary. In addition, the pill needs to get you within 10 percent above or below the blood concentrations achieved with the brand for the FDA to approve the generic, and in reality, they only usually vary by 3-4 percent in one direction or another. So yes, they are very similar in terms of the active ingredient. It is possible that one generic will get you a 3 percent lower concentration than the brand and another can get you a concentration that is 3 percent above the brand and therefore the two generics can be 6% different from each other. Most people will never notice a difference.

“According to the FDA, generic drugs do not need to contain the same inactive ingredients as the brand name product. Inactive ingredients are those that have nothing to do with the therapeutic action of the drug; binding materials, dyes, preservatives, and flavoring agents. That’s why sometimes a pill you have been taking will suddenly look different. It usually means a different manufacturer has made that pill than the one you had before. Also, given individual variations, a person can have an allergic reaction to an inactive ingredient in one generic and not another.”

Q: Is this true for over-the-counter, as well as prescription meds?
A: “Yes. The Food and Drug Administration has very strict criteria so over-the-counter store brands must achieve very similar blood concentrations as name brands. Most people don’t notice a difference. I strongly recommend that patients start out on generic medications or switch to generic medications if they are available, since they almost always work as well and can save people a lot of money. Why throw away money to get a brand name when the generic will give you what you need for a fraction of the cost?”

Q: So, will you always achieve the same effect with a generic as with a brand name?
A: “Keep in mind that there is a lot of diversity among people. When they do the blood concentration studies, they do them in “average” people, but because the inactive ingredients and process of manufacturing are different, they can’t assure that everyone will achieve same blood concentrations. For example, if you have a shorter colon or disease that makes food pass through your intestines faster or slower, that might make a difference. Other people are just very sensitive to small changes in blood concentrations and notice a difference.”

Q: Are there other instances when you should opt for a brand name?
A: “NTI (narrow therapeutic index) drugs can be tricky because the blood concentrations you need to achieve a therapeutic dose and the concentrations that will cause harm are very close together. Small changes in concentrations can lead to ineffective or toxic responses. Medications for seizures, heart arrhythmias, thyroid hormone, warfarin (blood thinner), and lithium are all NTIs. With these, you need to talk to your physician about switching to generic, make sure you understand the risks and rewards, and that you are more closely monitored for the first couple of weeks afterwards.

“Of these NTI drugs, patients with anti-epilepsy drugs are a unique group that do equally well when started on brand or generic drugs but during the couple of weeks after switching from brand to generic or generic to brand, they are more likely to go to the emergency department or their doctor’s office. Epileptic patients should not be routinely changing between forms of the drug for this reason.

“Some patients will tolerate a brand name medication but when they switch medications, they simply do not do as well. The reason may be that that while the blood concentrations of the brand name medication are very similar, what the tablets are made out of can vary. So while the average patient does as well, not everyone will. If you are that outlier, you are better off on the branded medication or another generic. I usually recommend trying two generic versions before giving up and moving back to a brand name drug because again, the costs are much cheaper.

“There’s been a lot of consolidation in the generic manufacturing industry (companies merging with other companies, leaving less competition in the field). In very rare cases, we are left with only one generic manufacturer, so the generic is more expensive than the brand name. Supply and demand also happens in generic drugs and it’s all what the market will bear. Insurance companies may stipulate that you get a lower co-pay with generic than with a brand name even if brand name is less expensive. Patients with very expensive generics should ask their pharmacists if brand name medications are actually cheaper and if they are, switch back to the brand.”

Q: Is it dangerous to your health to switch back and forth?
A: “Most people taking almost all drugs would not notice a perceptible difference in efficacy or safety when switching between brands and generics or between generics, except in the case of NTIs, which are trickier. If you are on a NTI drug, talk with your doctors about the risks and rewards of switching. For all the other drugs, if you switch and you have mild symptoms, there is a chance that those things will resolve and you should stay the course. If it’s more than a mild inconvenience, then you need to let your doctor know right away.”

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PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities say a 16-year-old girl has died after she was shot in the head, allegedly by another teen, in a drive-by shooting in Phoenix.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office says Niani Rayshawn Allen was riding in a car in west Phoenix on Friday night when 18-year-old Jason Christopher Lindsey Jr. allegedly fired a gun from another vehicle. Allen was later pronounced dead at Phoenix Children’s Hospital.

Sheriff’s spokesman Chris Hegstrom says Lindsey was booked Saturday on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Hegstrom says the victim and the suspect were part of two groups who had gotten into an earlier altercation at a high school basketball game.

He says authorities do not expect to make any additional arrests at this time.