By KENYA HUNTER

Having your mouth taped shut is the stuff of nightmares — but some people are doing just that to themselves. And in an attempt to sleep better, no less.

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Doctors say don’t do it.

Some on social media say it’s a hack for getting more and better sleep and to reduce snoring. The claims — which are not backed by science — are taking off on places like TikTok, sometimes pushed by people working for companies selling related products.

“The studies behind mouth tape are small, the benefits are modest and the potential risks are there,” said Dr. Kimberly Hutchison, a neurologist and sleep medicine expert at Oregon Health & Science University. Some of those risks include making sleep disorders like sleep apnea worse, or even causing suffocation.

It is better to breathe through your nose most of the time

Mouth breathing in adults is not a major health problem, but it is better to breath through your nose, experts say. Your nose is a natural filtering system, trapping dust and other allergens before they can get to your lungs.

If you’re breathing with your mouth open at night, you could wake up with a dry mouth and irritated throat, which can contribute to bad breath and oral health problems. Mouth breathing is also associated with more snoring.

Don’t rush to use mouth tape

But even though breathing through your nose is better than breathing through your mouth, taping your mouth shut isn’t the best way to fix the issue.

There’s no strong evidence it helps improve sleep. A few studies have been conducted, most of which showed little or no impact, but they were so small experts say conclusions should not be drawn from them.

And meanwhile, there are the potential dangers to be avoided.

Dr. David Schulman, a sleep doctor at Emory University, said there are other things to try, like prescription mouth pieces that can open up your airway, or a CPAP machine. If you’re a smoker or are overweight, for example, quitting smoking and losing weight can help.

Mouth breathing could be a sign of something serious — so find out

The safest approach is to figure out why exactly you are breathing with your mouth, because there could be something else going on.

You may be breathing through your mouth because you have obstructive sleep apnea, a sleep disorder where breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep because of a blocked airway. The disorder is linked to both open mouth breathing and snoring, and is typically treated with a CPAP machine.

“The reason sleep apnea can be bad is that any decrease in the quality of sleep can affect you day to day or over the course of your life,” said Dr. Brian Chen, a sleep doctor at the Cleveland Clinic. “Depending on how bad the sleep is, you may just feel sleep deprived or require more sleep.”

The best thing to do, Emory’s Shulman says, is get a sleep test, some of which can be done at home. “It’s always better to know than not know,” he said. “And if you know that something’s going on and you choose not to pursue therapy, at least you know you’re making an educated decision.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

By JON GAMBRELL, Associated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed an executive order vowing to use all measures including U.S. military action to defend the energy-rich nation of Qatar — though it remains unclear just what weight the pledge will carry.

The text of the order, available Wednesday on the White House’s website but dated Monday, appears to be another measure by Trump to assure the Qataris following Israel’s surprise attack on the country targeting Hamas leaders as they weighed accepting a ceasefire with Israel over the war in the Gaza Strip.

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The order cites the two countries’ “close cooperation” and “shared interest,” vowing to “guarantee the security and territorial integrity of the state of Qatar against external attack.”

“The United States shall regard any armed attack on the territory, sovereignty or critical infrastructure of the state of Qatar as a threat to the peace and security of the United States,” the order says.

“In the event of such an attack, the United States shall take all lawful and appropriate measures — including diplomatic, economic, and, if necessary, military — to defend the interests of the United States and of the state of Qatar and to restore peace and stability.”

The order apparently came during a visit to Washington on Monday by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump organized a call by Netanyahu to Qatar during the visit in which Netanyahu “expressed his deep regret” over the strike that killed six people, including a member of the Qatari security forces, the White House said.

Qatari officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s order. However, the Qatari-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera prominently reported about it Wednesday under the headline: “New Trump executive order guarantees Qatar security after Israeli attack.”

The true scope of the pledge remains in question. Typically, legally binding agreements, or treaties, need to receive the approval of the U.S. Senate. However, presidents have entered international agreements without the Senate’s approval, like President Barack Obama did with Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

And ultimately, any decision to take military action rests with the president. That uncertainty has clouded previous U.S. defense agreements in Trump’s second term, like NATO’s Article 5 guarantees.

Qatar, a peninsular nation that sticks out into the Persian Gulf, became fantastically wealthy through its natural gas reserves. It has been a key U.S. military partner, allowing America’s Central Command to have its forward operating base at its vast Al Udeid Air Base. President Joe Biden named Qatar as a major non-NATO ally in 2022, in part due to its help during America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In the aftermath of the Israeli attack, Saudi Arabia entered a mutual defense agreement with Pakistan, bringing the kingdom under Islamabad’s nuclear umbrella. It’s unclear whether other Gulf Arab countries, both worried about Israel and Iran as it faces reimposed United Nations sanctions over its nuclear program, may seek similar arrangements as well with the region’s longtime security guarantor.

“The Gulf’s centrality in the Middle East and its significance to the United States warrants specific U.S. guarantees beyond President Donald J. Trump’s assurances of nonrepetition and dinner meetings,” wrote Bader al-Saif, a history professor at Kuwait University who analyzes Gulf Arab affairs.

On Reddit, a user recently asked for help recovering from a credit card scam. The poster was more concerned with the emotional impact than the lost funds.

The person who posted expressed embarrassment about falling for the scam and didn’t know how to recover from the experience.

Respondents offered many good ideas: Try to recover the money. Focus on positive things in your life. Forgive yourself for making a mistake. Many assured the individual that anyone can fall for a scam and emphasized that there’s no reason to feel shame.

Experts on financial fraud and identity theft agree with that sentiment.

“The scammers are bad. You’re not bad. You were lied to,” says Eva Velasquez, president and CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center. “We are all vulnerable.”

Even a fraud expert could fall for a scam, she adds.

That’s why knowing how to bounce back from a financial scam is the key to getting past it. Here’s how fraud experts say you can recover:

Keep track of exactly what happened

“Gather as much detailed information about what occurred as possible,” Velasquez says. Try to remember what you clicked on or who you interacted with. Those details can help determine the best way to proceed.

For example, if you clicked on a link but didn’t enter any information, you might not need to take further steps. If you downloaded malware onto your computer, then the next step might be to run a scan of your devices or undergo a factory reset.

“If you clicked on a website and it asked you to log in, then it probably logged your keystrokes,” says Jason Zirkle, training director at the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners and former fraud analyst with law enforcement.

In that case, you’ll want to change your password immediately and then follow up with your bank. “If you catch it quickly, it lessens the damage,” he says.

Call your financial institution

If you shared your credit card or banking information with a scammer, then call your financial institution to let them know. They will follow a fraud procedure that might include helping you change your password, or closing your old account and opening a new one. The latter may require new credit and debit cards.

In the case of credit card fraud like the Reddit poster experienced, you can often dispute the charge and recover the money by following the card issuer’s fraud protection procedure. After all, credit cards come with built-in fraud protections.

If you shared your driver’s license number or passport details, then Velasquez suggests reaching out to the relevant government agencies to follow their protocol for lost or stolen identification items.

Velasquez says to monitor financial accounts for any unfamiliar charges for a time after the fraud, too. You might also want to consider freezing your credit to prevent new accounts from being opened in your name.

Paid credit monitoring services are another option. They can’t necessarily prevent fraud from taking place, but they can alert you to unusual activity so you can take action quickly.

File a police report

File a report with your local police department to create an official record of what happened. That’s important if you or your financial institution are trying to recover the funds.

You can also file a complaint through the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, your state’s attorney general’s office and the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint center .

Zirkle warns that while important, none of these steps are likely to get your money back.

“It’s hard to swallow, but if you can accept the funds won’t be recovered, it sets realistic expectations,” Zirkle says.

But you can do your part to stop further losses.

Talk about what happened

One way to fight back against the shame that often surrounds scams is to talk about it, Velasquez says.

You can share your story with friends and family to help them spot the signs and avert a sketchy situation.

Reach out if you know someone recovering from the aftermath of a scam, Velasquez recommends. “Say, ‘I can help you through this. We’ll find answers together.’”

After all, a big part of recovery is the emotional component, as the Reddit poster showed us.

Reddit is an online forum where users share their thoughts in “threads” on various topics. The popular site includes plenty of discussion on financial subjects like fraud, so we sifted through Reddit forums to get a pulse check. People post anonymously, so we cannot confirm their individual experiences or circumstances.

The article What’s the Best Way to Recover From a Scam? originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting on Wednesday following the latest discouraging signal on the job market.

The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading, though it remains near its record set last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 51 points, or 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, a day after setting its own all-time high. The Nasdaq composite was 0.4% lower.

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The action was stronger in the bond market, where Treasury yields sank after a report suggested hiring may have been much weaker across the country last month than economists expected.

Employers outside the government actually cut 32,000 jobs more than they added, according to the survey by ADP Research, with the hardest hits focused in the Midwest. What’s worse, the survey also revised down its numbers for employment in August, down to a loss of 3,000 jobs from a previously reported gain of 54,000.

The ADP survey gets its numbers from a smaller sample of employers than the U.S. government does for its monthly jobs reports, and the ADP’s does not have a perfect track record predicting what the more comprehensive Labor Department’s will say each month.

Usually, traders on Wall Street wait for the U.S. government’s report to suss out more fully how the job market is doing each month. But the next one, scheduled for Friday, is likely to be delayed because of the shutdown of the U.S. government that began just after midnight. The Department of Labor has said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will completely cease operations if there’s a lapse.

“Whether this is an accurate statistic or not, people in the markets believe that it signals something,” according to Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics. “The signal from today’s headline will not be a good one.”

The hope on Wall Street has been that the job market will continue to slow by a very precise amount: enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it brings a recession.

That’s a delicate balance to achieve, and every report from the U.S. government on the economy that gets delayed only increases the uncertainty about whether it’s possible.

To be sure, the stock market and economy have typically powered through past shutdowns relatively well, particularly if they are short in duration. But this shutdown could be different in a couple ways, including the threat that the White House may use it to push for large-scale firings of federal workers.

On Wall Street, Cal-Maine Foods dropped 2.6% after its profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of analysts’ expectations. That was even though the egg company delivered its strongest-ever first quarter.

On the winning side of the market was Nike, which rose 4.7% after blowing past analysts’ expectations for profit in the latest quarter. The athletic giant reported strong growth for apparel sold in North America.

Lithium America’s stock that trades in the United States soared 22.5% after the Canadian company said the U.S. government agreed to let it draw from a previously announced $2.26 billion loan. As part of the agreement, the U.S. Department of Energy will take an ownership stake in the Vancouver-based company.

Lithium Americas is developing a lithium project in Nevada with General Motors, and it follows Intel and other companies where the U.S. government has recently taken an ownership stake.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following a mixed finish in Asia.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury sank to 4.09% from 4.16% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for action by the Fed, fell more sharply. It dropped to 3.53% from 3.60%.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.