By Sonia Rupp

Any parent will tell you raising teenagers is a stressful time. Are you in that stage? Talk to your teenager about it. Your stress may be similar stress for your teen. 

Sonia Rupp

An American Psychological Association (APA) online survey shows today’s teenagers experience greater levels of stress. Stressors include academic pressures, feeling overscheduled, financial pressure, and social pressures – especially with social media. In addition, bad habits teens learn to deal with stress often continue into adulthood. Stress can help some short-term situations like focusing for an exam or having a burst of energy for a sporting event. However, chronic stress can affect mental and physical well-being. 

Is your teen stressed? According to the APA, common signs of teenage stress include:

• Episodes of irritability or anger
• Tired or fatigued
• Nervousness or anxiousness
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Crying spells
• Skipping meals or overeating – changes in diet
• Upset stomach or nausea.

Many young adults develop unhealthy behaviors to cope with stress such as watching TV, surfing the Internet, or playing video games. Small media amounts may be a good distraction, but stress returns once the media is turned off. Also, for teens with low self-esteem, social media pressures may elevate stress. Violent video games and graphic movies increase nightmares and negative thinking. Of greater concern, your teen may develop other negative behaviors including overeating, anorexia, excessive consumption of caffeine, self-harm, smoking, and drug or alcohol use.

Teach your teen coping habits by being a good example. Help your teen replace unhealthy behaviors with healthier and productive ways to manage stress including the following:

Exercise. Physical activity counteracts heart and blood pressure changes that occur with chronic stress. Outdoor activities help improve mood by supplying vitamin D from the sun. Team sports also help increase socialization.

Mental exercises. Reading, meditation, puzzles and non-violent games are healthy ways to distract the brain from worries and create a more peaceful mind. Think positive thoughts and avoid being cynical. Breathing exercises also relax the body and brain by increasing oxygen and teaching the mind to focus.

Establish routines. Keep regular eating and sleeping habits and avoid overscheduling to allow time to relax.

Improve diet  Stress can affect digestion and immunity. Healthy eating can boost immunity and prevent an upset stomach.

Get creative. Get involved with a hobby or creative interest – draw, write, play music.

Socialize. Take time to enjoy friends and family. In stressful times, talking to a loved one can help the problem not feel so big.

Journal. Write down what causes stress. Separate stressors that can be changed or decreased. Use the strategies above to help with things that can’t change. 

After the best effort to manage stress and you or your teen still feel overwhelmed, don’t be afraid to reach out for help through therapy, a support group, or by talking to your doctor.

Take time to talk to your teenager and start showing healthier ways to deal with stress so they can have a happier and healthier future.

Sonia Rupp is a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist who provides diagnostic evaluations and treatment recommendations for children and adolescents at Barton Psychiatry in Stateline.

By Roni Caryn Rabin, New York Times

As Washington debates the relative merits of Obamacare or Trumpcare, many families have already come up with what is arguably the most reliable form of care in America: It’s called daughter care.

The essential role that daughters play in the American health care system is well known but has received little attention. But some health care analysts are beginning to sound the alarm about the challenges women face as caregivers — not just for children but for aging parents — often while holding full-time jobs.

This month, the medical journal JAMA Neurology highlighted a looming crisis for women and their employers: the growing ranks of dementia patients who will end up relying on family members, typically daughters, for their care.

“The best long-term care insurance in our country is a conscientious daughter,” wrote the authors, all of whom are fellows at Stanford University’s Clinical Excellence Research Center, which studies new methods of health care delivery.

Read the whole story

The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency Governing Board on May 24 approved the residential allocation numbers.

They are handed out every two years.

For 2017-18:

• 20 for Douglas County
• 60 for El Dorado County
• 74 for Placer County
• 66 for South Lake Tahoe
• 20 for Washoe County.

When the Local Government Committee meets in August, the plan is to continue to discuss the connection between allocations, housing, and vacation home rentals. This was a topic at the committee’s May meeting. Between now and August the city’s commissioned VHR study should be released.

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

Nevada Highway Patrol investigators believe speed contributed to the Tuesday night rollover accident near the bottom of Kingsbury Grade in Carson Valley that injured one person.

The man was heading east on the grade at 9:30pm May 23.

“He was negotiating a curve, overcorrected to the right, went broadside, came in contact with the end of the guard rail, overturned and went down the embankment, continuing to overturn,” Trooper Dan Gordon told Lake Tahoe News.

The man, whose name, age and hometown have not been released, was airlifted to Renown Medical Center in Reno. He sustained a broken femur, collapsed lung and spine fracture. 

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The Alfa Romeo Giulia is turning heads in the luxury car world. Photos/Larry Weitzman

By Larry Weitzman

One of the biggest markets in autodom is the near luxury segment comprised of BMW 2,3 and 4 series, Audi A3 and A4, Mercedes C class, Lexus IS, ES (ES is a front driver), Infiniti Q50 and Cadillac ATS. Alfa Romeo Giulia is the new, near luxury entry into this crowded, highly competitive field so it will take a dazzler to make an impact and, yes, the new Giulia is a dazzler.

It accomplishes this most difficult task with new style, performance and grace giving the discerning buyer a more difficult choice when selecting one of these somewhat practical rides that attempt to provide distinctive style, a dash of luxury, performance, ride, handling and fuel economy a cut above the mundane compact or mid-size automobile, like your run of the mill Camry, Altima and/or Accord.

All of the cars above do that, but with the addition of the new Alfa Giulia, the decision just got more difficult, if not downright unfair. Giulia is a stellar new ride with fabulous Italian styling which is sexier, sinewy, and muscular than the rest of the pack. Overcoming BMW is an extremely difficult proposition with its “ultimate driving machine” reputation, but if any car can do it, Alfa Giulia might be the one. And here’s why.

I have written about the Giulia Quadrifoglio, which is a $70,000 super car version of Giulia that has real, out of the box race track capabilities starting with its 505 hp V-6 turbo engine. The regular Giulia, which is nearly identical to the Quadrifoglio except for the engine, has a starting price for us mere mortals at $37,995. Giulia comes with a no-excuses 2.0L turbo, direct injected inline four that cranks out a substantial 280 hp at low 5,200 rpm and whopping 306 pounds of twist starting from 2,000 rpm. Those numbers mean instantaneous response, especially with the 8-speed auto tranny which shifts like a dual clutch although it uses a torque converter of which engineers are making great strides in feel and efficiency, witness this Alfa.

There is no skimping on comfort with the Alfa Romeo Giulia.

My too short of a drive (a couple of hours instead of the half an hour would have been better) demonstrated why this new Alfa is the benchmark in this class of near luxury, premium cars as they like to be called. Performance is at the top of the class with a reported 0-60 mph time of 5.1 seconds from major mags. Response is tremendous at 10 mph or 70 mph. It is the smoothest vehicle as well with an absolutely turbine like feel and a deafening quiet not found in the others. For 99.9 percent of the drivers, the V-6 will supply superfluous power and performance, especially with 306 pounds of torque available with this standard four at just 2,000 rpm.

Fuel economy is rated at 24/33 mpg city/highway, but the Giulia showed just 1,600 rpm at 70 mph when loafing down the highway, which should yield perhaps better than 40 mpg. Hopefully I will get a Giulia shortly to affirm my suspicions. Otherwise those EPA numbers are about average for the class and for that matter it would be about the only thing “average” about the Giulia.

Incredible handling is the result of an advance suspension system with double wishbones up front with a multilink system in the rear, instead of the lesser up front MacPherson struts found elsewhere. One drive, one good corner and you will feel the confidence. As mentioned above, the ride is extremely quiet and smooth.

Inside is the trick Alfa IP, all business with Swiss watch like precision and a proper starter button on the steering wheel, like many race cars. The standard leather interior is sublime and the saddle tan of my tester was gorgeous as well as comfortable with excellent rear seat comfort and legroom provided by the Alfa’s huge 111-inch wheelbase. For a car, just 183 inches long it is a true long distance four passenger car with the 74-inch width, it provides massive shoulder and hip room.

And then there is the voluptuous styling, nothing else comes close to standing out as the looker of the class with curvaceous lines and rippling muscles with perfect proportions including the modern rendition of its timeless and distinctive signature grille. Even the badging is best in class. This makes other near luxo rides mundane, banal, clichéd and ordinary. My adjectives might be repetitive, but worthy. As I said before, the Alfa Romeo Giulia has the panache to elevate it above the others.

Larry Weitzman has been into cars since he was 5 years old. At 8 he could recite from memory the hp of every car made in the U.S. He has put in thousands of laps on racetracks all over the Western United States.

Tahoe Letterpress will open its doors for a studio tour and reception on June 16, 5-8pm.

Located at Bona Fide Books in Meyers, the print shop will offer hands-on demonstrations and free hand-printed souvenirs to take home. The event is free and open to the public.

Tahoe Letterpress began informally in 2014 when letterpress printer Steve Robison moved from the Bay Area to South Lake Tahoe with his wife, the book artist Karen Cutter. Bona Fide Books publisher Kim Wyatt had an interest in letterpress, and partnered up with Robison to start the print shop and offer monthly workshops to the public.

Now a working print shop, the mission of Tahoe Letterpress is to provide a letterpress print facility to the public, teach interested people how to use it, encourage individual creativity and build a thriving print community in the mountains of Lake Tahoe. Fun vintage equipment includes platen presses dating to the 1800s, as well as more modern sign presses.

The centerpiece of Tahoe Letterpress is a collection of handset type housed in four wooden type cabinets. The type comes from the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, the voice of the west during the Comstock era. “Mark Twain was a reporter and editor there and might have even touched this type,” says Robison with a smile.

The recent addition of a Golding Pearl flywheel platen press will expand opportunities for printers. Robison, who has been letterpress printing for more than 50 years, encourages anyone interested in letterpress to come out and “pull a proof.” The art of letterpress printing is more than 500 years old, and he believes the hands-on tactile experience of yesteryear is part of the draw to letterpress printing.

Tahoe Letterpress will offer a four-hour introduction to letterpress workshop June 17, July 22 and Au. 19th. In these workshops, students learn how to use a composing stick, set type and print cards or broadsides. The workshop fee of $50 includes open studio time to work on personal projects.

Sign up online or call call 530.545.1373. Bona Fide Books is located at 1069 Magua St., No. 4, Meyers.

By Benjamin Spillman, Reno Gazette-Journal

Nevada’s peak wildfire season could be late but it won’t be meek, if history is any guide.

That’s because the record-busting winter snow and rain that soaked the state will leave behind a bumper crop rangeland grasses that will serve as fuel for late-summer fires.

The northern and central areas of the state, in fact, are among the three spots in the U.S. with the highest potential for significant wildland fires, the others are in Northern California and a region from southern Georgia to central Florida.

Read the whole story

Pete Klimley, director of the UC Davis Biotelemetry Lab, will give a lecture about the sensory physiology in orientation, predator-prey interactions, ultrasonic tracking and telemetry.

Sharks, sturgeon, trout, and other species can be tagged with acoustic transmitters so that they can be detected and tracked. The UC Davis Biotelemetry Laboratory uses simple beacons, which transmit pulses at a fixed rate and are used to identify the presence of an animal, and telemetry transmitters, which can be equipped with sensors for depth, speed and temperature.

These can be used to examine species abundance, movement, feeding habits, diets, residence patterns, and more.

The talk will be June 27 at 6pm at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center in Incline Village. Seating is open at 5:30pm to guests who have preregistered, open seating starts at 5:50pm. Cost is $5. Go online to register.

By Art Marroquin, Las Vegas Review-Journal
 
Drivers could help assemble a map of Nevada’s roads and warn fellow motorists about potential collisions, all through a smartphone app.

The Nevada Center for Advanced Mobility will announce today an attempt to build the first statewide vehicle-to-vehicle network in the United States by encouraging drivers to download a dashcam app developed by Israeli startup Nexar.

The goal, both sides said, is to use crowd-sourcing information as a way to bolster safety and determine “hot spots” where accidents are most likely to happen throughout the state.

Read the whole story

By Ally Gravina, Moonshine Ink

Becoming a United States citizen technically involves four steps: you must complete an application, appear for a biometrics appointment, attend a naturalization interview, and take an oath. However, each of these steps requires more preparation than simply showing up to the interview or filling out an application. It takes hours of studying, practice tests, and fees.

This spring, 14 law students and five immigration attorneys drove from San Francisco to Truckee in the OneJustice bus to volunteer their time and help 30 community members with one-on-one consultations about immigration programs and naturalization.

OneJustice is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that functions as an innovation lab for legal services. Since 1979 they have prided themselves on providing creative problem-solving and design approaches to increase legal services for those in need.

Read the whole story