It's Friday already, and we're another week closer to spring. Hooray! Here's today's links.

A woman in Georgia is set to receive a $1.2 million dollars after a convenience store cappuccino shot hot water at her. link

A new documentary about lawsuits and tort reform examines the well-publicized case of the woman who sued McDonald’s after being burned by the company’s coffee. Sounds pretty provocative. link

Please be careful with your coffee. It’s hot. link

The Starbucks iPhone payment app is a game-changer, according to Bob Sullivan of MSNBC. link

Coffee is sometimes used for political reasons, as is the case in Ivory Coast, where the president-elect of the country has called for a halt on the country’s coffee and cocoa exports in an effort to starve the government of the incumbent (who refuses to cede power after losing the election) for funds. The US is backing the embargo. link

Seattle’s Best (talk about a misnomer) announced the nationwide release of its iced canned lattes. Yay for them. link

The New York Times estimates that you would have to drink 42 cups of coffee at one sitting to be at risk of ingesting a fatal dose of caffeine. For the record, that’s only eight Starbucks Trentas. link

Coffee drinking is growing quickly in India, and guess who is partnering with Tata to push into the Indian market? Yep, the big green apron. link

In an effort to reduce coffee theft, the Coffee Board of Kenya is trying out a new tracking system that follows coffee from the field to market. link

I almost had a heart attack when I saw that the price of a tall Starbucks latte was $5.50. Then I realized that I was reading an article from Singapore. Must be the conversion rate, I thought. Then I looked up the conversion rate and found that US$5.50 is SD$4.30. Ouch. And we complain about high prices here. link

I’m headed up to the Northwest Regional Barista Championship in Tacoma today. It’s a three-day event, but since I’m not competing, I’m just going to see the first day of competition. Hopefully there will be a good story or two to come out of it that I can share with you. Have a good weekend.

Will