Tinder Is Adding Panic Button, Other Safety Features for Dates That Go Wrong
Tinder is following in Uber’s lead in adding in-app safety features for dates that become unsafe.
The dating app is adding new safety features, including a panic button that alerts safety authorities if something goes wrong during a date. Tinder has also added the ability to check-in, telling friends where the daters are.
US users will receive the free new tools next Tuesday in a new section of the app called the Safety Center. Match, the dating conglomerate that owns Tinder, will roll out the new tools to its other US dating services later this year. The company also owns OkCupid, Hinge and the flagship Match.com.
The tools will be powered by Noonlight, a safety platform that Tinder made an investment in. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
To use the new Safety Center tools, users will have to also download Noonlight and enable the app’s location-tracking tools. Users’ dates information, such as location, will have to be manually entered into a new “Tinder Timeline” tool that can be shared with friends.
If the user feels unsafe, they will have to open the Noonlight app and press a button that discreetly contacts Noonlight dispatchers. The dispatcher will first send them a text so they don’t have to vocally talk for help. If that’s unanswered, Noonlight will send a code and call them. If there are no answer, Noonlight will dispatch emergency services.
The aim to let users ask for help without raising suspicions during the date. That’s why it’s panic tools are located within the Noonlight app.
Location-sharing apps have come under scrutiny recently for not selling users’ information to advertisers. Match won’t have access to Noonlight’s location data and Noonlight claims it doesn’t sell user data. Users can also switch off location services within the phone’s settings when they aren’t on dates.
Tinder is also testing a new photo verification tool so users can ensure they’re talking to someone real before they go on the date. A user will have to submit picture certain poses. Tinder’s AI technology will compare those photos to previously submitted pictures. Profiles will have a check mark for those that complete the service. Tinder said the tool will become widely available later this year.
Match said it’s the first dating company to integrate in this type of service. Dating apps and ride-hailing companies, like Uber and Lyft, have been blasted for putting users in unsafe positions. Both of those companies have rolled out similar so-called panic buttons and safety tools to address those concerns.
Photo Credit: ktla.com
Man Dies After Getting Attacked by His Rooster on Their Way to a Cockfight in India
An Indian man has died after a tussle with his rooster — on their way to a cockfight.
Saripalli Chanavenkateshwaram Rao, 50, was hit in the neck with a blade tied to the rooster’s claw on January 15. A police spokesman told CNN the father of three was taken to hospital, where he later died from a stroke.
Rao, who lived in Pragadavaram village in southern India’s Andhra Pradesh state, was a regular at local cockfights, and was on his way to enter the rooster in a competition when it tried to break free, station house officer Kranti Kumar said.
Cockfighting has been illegal in India since 1960. However, animal fighting continues to be a problem in the country, according to Gauri Maulekhi, trustee for India’s People for Animals foundation.
“The offenses have been made very clear and explained to the district and state authorities, but they choose to turn a blind eye towards it. It is not just for entertainment that these animals are made to fight, but it is (also) due to the heavy betting and gambling that goes on in the garb of these events,” Maulekhi said.
Kumar said the local cockfight went ahead without any arrests.
A 2014 Supreme Court judgment clarified the illegality of animal fighting under India’s Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. In 2015, Maulekhi used that judgment to intervene in a state court petition to lift the ban on cockfighting — and the ban was upheld.
“I don’t think culture has anything to do with it — it is purely a money game and hysteria takes over, reason and logic just take a back seat such that neither the animal’s welfare nor the people’s welfare is enough to stop it,” Maulekhi said.
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Revolting video shows woman devouring bat amid coronavirus outbreak
A revolting viral video has emerged online of a Chinese woman gobbling a bat, which “play a critical role” in transmitting the deadly coronavirus that recently surfaced in the US. A second video features an alleged bowl of bat soup.
The first gag-inducing clip features an unidentified woman at an undisclosed restaurant in the Wuhan province clutching what appears to be a fruit bat with chopsticks while nibbling its wing like chicken.
A man can be heard in the background saying in Chinese, “Eat the meat! [Don’t] eat the skin” and “[You] should eat the meat on its back.”
The graphic footage was first posted Wednesday by Hong Kong-based news service Apple Daily before circulating on Twitter.
Another gross Twitter video, which popular Chinese blogger Chen Qiushi shared Wednesday with his 84,000 Twitter followers, depicts Cantonese-speaking diners about to chow down on a bat bouillabaisse at an upscale eatery.
The Mandarin caption reads: “[After] experiencing this matter, can Chinese people give up eating wildlife?”
The social media peanut gallery was quick to react: “Jesus Christ! What else can I say about the risk,” posted one tweeter of the batty eating habit.
“Disgusting indeed,” added another.
They’re not just being squeamish. Experts say bats are among the carriers of the coronavirus epidemic ravaging China. The deadly disease reportedly originated at Wuhan’s Huanan seafood market, which sold civets, snakes and other illegal exotic animals that had been infected by bats, reports Business Insider.
The coronavirus then spread from the tainted wildlife to humans, killing 17 people across China and sickening 600 others in less than a month. Infections became so rampant that Chinese officials halted all travel out of Wuhan.
It’s not just China that has to worry about the outbreak. Last week, a man infected with coronavirus may have put over a dozen people at risk after arriving in Washington state from China.
Unfortunately, the bat’s exalted status as a traditional folk remedy means gourmands might not stop eating the flying rodents anytime soon. In Indonesia, a popular asthma cure involves removing a flying fox’s heart like the evil priest in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” before cooking it and eating it, reports CNN. Even bat feces is purported to cure everything from bad vision to childhood malnutrition in Chinese medicinal circles, reports the Yin Yang House.
via: https://nypost.com/2020/01/23/revolting-video-shows-woman-devouring-bat-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/
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Bank calls cops on black man trying to cash check from discrimination lawsuit
A Detroit man is suing a Michigan bank for refusing to cash a settlement check awarded to him in a racial discrimination lawsuit, according to a report.
Sauntore Thomas, 44, claims TCF Bank employees refused to cash or deposit his settlement check on Tuesday at a branch in Livonia, leading cops to respond and a fraud investigation to be launched, the Detroit Free Press reports.
“I didn’t deserve treatment like that when I knew that the check was not fraudulent,” Thomas told the newspaper. “I’m a United States veteran. I have an honorable discharge from the Air Force. They discriminated against me because I’m black. None of this would have happened if I were white.”
Thomas, who had an account at the bank for nearly two years, sued TCF Bank on Wednesday, alleging racial discrimination by the bank for calling police, prompting four cops to respond to the branch, the newspaper reports.
Thomas declined to indicate the amount of the settlement check, saying it’s part of a confidential agreement in a federal lawsuit against his former employer, Enterprise Leasing Company of Detroit.
The vet even called his employment law attorney while at the bank for help explaining to bank employees that the check was authentic.
“I got on the phone with the bank,” attorney Deborah Gordon told the newspaper. “I sent them my federal court complaint, to see that it matched. I did everything.”
Thomas was denied due to his race, Gordon said.
“Obviously, assumptions were made the minute he walked in based on his race,” the attorney continued. “It’s unbelievable that this guy got done with a race discrimination case and he’s not allowed to deposit the check based on his case? It’s absolutely outrageous.”
“We apologize for the experience Mr. Thomas had at our banking center,” TCF Bank spokesman Tom Wennerberg told The Post in a statement. “Local police should not have been involved. We strongly condemn racism and discrimination of any kind. We take extra precautions involving large deposits and requests for cash and in this case, we were unable to validate the checks presented by Mr. Thomas and regret we could not meet his needs.”
Thomas, who is suing for unspecified damages, was not arrested or charged during Tuesday’s visit to TCF Bank, where its computer system read his check as fraudulent, according to police.
But the check cleared some 12 hours later after Thomas opened a new account at a Chase bank in Detroit. The Air Force vet who previously walked to work then used the funds to buy a 2004 Dodge Durango, the Free Press reports.
“I feel very intimidated because I knew that if I would have gotten loud, they would have had me on the ground for disturbance of the peace,” Thomas said. “But I didn’t get loud … I did nothing.”
Photo Credit: Facebook
Gangsters are stashing knives in playgrounds to get round stop an search
Gangsters are stashing knives, guns and drugs in children’s playgrounds in order to circumvent the increase in stop and search, a senior police officer has said.
Officers in north London recovered a terrifying haul of eight lethal blades, including a Samurai sword style knife, during three routine weapons sweeps earlier this week.
They also found a quantity of Class A drugs that had been hidden close to where youngsters gather to play.
Detective Chief Superintendent Lee Hill, who leads the Metropolitan Police Violent Crime Taskforce, said his officers were finding weapons on a daily basis hidden in easily accessible open spaces such as parks and playgrounds.
One theory is that gang members, fearful of being caught with weapons in the upsurge in stop and search tactics, are stashing them in places they can easily get to.
Mr Hill said: “I’ve no doubt that does play into it. Obviously with the increase in stop and search, people come alive to that, that’s the reality of the situation, and we are seeing more weapons being concealed.”
“I think it is a trend that takes place across London, certainly from what we are seeing those open spaces.
“It is difficult to try to get into the psyche of a criminal or a young person who is involved in this sort of activity, but clearly where they are able to access things quickly because they have been involved in argument, that is something we are seeing across London.”
Describing the haul from a playground in Crouch Hill, north London, Mr Hill said: “These knives could have fallen into the wrong hands, worse they could have been acquired by young children.”
Inspector Richard Berns, who is based in Camden, north London, said on Twitter that stop and search meant criminals were “too afraid” to carry knives, and were instead hiding them to be retrieved later.
Merseyside Police, which received £4.2 million extra government funding to tackle violent crime, has also seen an increase in the number of concealed weapons found in open spaces.
There were 149 homicides in London in 2019, up from 133 the previous year and despite a drop nationally.
Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons insisted that the force is taking the right action to try to bring numbers down, but admitted it is a “huge” challenge.
Speaking at Scotland Yard, he said: “The challenge remains huge for us in terms of how we take the next step in tackling violence.
“This is a huge concern for us. It is not enough for us to reduce overall violence if we can’t have an impact on the number of young people who die.”
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/gangsters-stashing-knives-playgrounds-round-172659081.html
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Jessica Simpson goes public with addiction to alcohol and pills: ‘I was killing myself’
Jessica Simpson is sharing long-held secrets in her upcoming memoir, Open Book.
People magazine has the first look at the book, which is chock-full of revelations, including that the singer and actress turned fashion mogul was sexually abused as a child. It also revealed her quiet struggle with addiction — and how she got sober in 2017.
The sexual abuse started when she was 6, when the Simpsons would visit the home of family friends and Jessica would share a bed with their daughter.
“It would start with tickling my back and then go into things that were extremely uncomfortable,” the 39-year-old recalled.
Simpson kept silent about the abuse — and blamed herself, explaining, “I wanted to tell my parents. I was the victim but somehow I felt in the wrong.”
When she was 12 she finally shared her secret with her parents, Tina and Joe Simpson, while on a family road trip. She said her mother reacted by yelling at her dad and slapping him, saying, “‘I told you something was happening.’”
Simpson’s dad, a Baptist minister, who later went on to manage her career, didn’t take his eyes off the road “and said nothing,” she wrote. “We never stayed at my parents’ friends house again but we also didn’t talk about what I had said.”
The star said that the pain from the sexual abuse — coupled with stress of her career and anxiety — led to her self-medicating with alcohol and pills during her time in the spotlight. She got help for her addiction in late 2017 and has been sober since.
“I was killing myself with all the drinking and pills,” wrote Simpson, who was told by her doctor that her dependency was putting her life in danger.
She said her rock bottom was at the annual Halloween party she and husband Eric Johnson hosted in 2017. (Around that time, there were tabloid stories about her drinking “spiraling out of control,” made worse by the anti-anxiety medicine she was taking.) Whatever happened that night led to her telling her closest friends, “I need to stop. Something’s got to stop. And if it’s the alcohol that’s doing this, and making things worse, then I quit.” She said her friends responded by embracing her in a group hug — and supporting her as she got sober.
Getting control of her addiction involved a team of doctors, therapy twice a week and the support of her family, she revealed.
“Giving up the alcohol was easy,” Simpson wrote. “I was mad at that bottle. At how it allowed me to stay complacent and numb.”
What was harder was therapy, she admitted. However, “With work, I allowed myself to feel the traumas I’d been through.”
Reflecting on that time, she wrote, “When I finally said I needed help, it was like I was that little girl that found her calling again in life. I found direction and that was to walk straight ahead with no fear.”
She added, “Honesty is hard but it’s the most rewarding thing we have. And getting to the other side of fear is beautiful.”
Simpson — who welcomed her third child, 10-month-old Birdie, after getting sober — calls her new life “a continual gift.”
Open Book goes on sale Feb. 4 and will also detail her rise to stardom and her relationships, including with first husband Nick Lachey. She also recorded the audiobook, which will include new songs she says are inspired by her memoir.
Article via Yahoo
Husband serenades his wife in moving video as she battles brain cancer
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – You don’t have to listen too long to notice there’s something special happening. Newlyweds Ray and Roslyn Singleton are on a journey they never expected but found a way to embrace.
“To me, cancer is a blessing because it’s my way of telling people that no matter what it is, it’s going to be OK,” Roslyn told WSOC.
Roslyn noticed changes with her health while she was serving in the Navy in 2008. By 2013, before she’d ever met Ray, she’d received her first diagnosis.
“The first round was more aggressive,” she said. “The tumor was the size of an orange.”
By 2016, when the couple first met, Roslyn was cancer free, and by 2018, the two were married. Then came October 2019.
“I wasn’t expecting for it to come back because I was young, and I was taking care of myself,” Roslyn said. “I don’t eat pork. I was like, ‘I’m doing good.'”
The cancer came back.
Throughout their journey, Ray has been using his love for music to encourage his wife and to calm himself.
He made an adorable video for her while sitting in the waiting room a few weeks ago before her second brain surgery — just to make her smile.
“I was nervous and I was bored,” Ray said. “When she comes out, I don’t know if she’ll be able to see this, but I want to make something for her that will make her smile after having her head cut open.”
It did a lot more than that.
“It got to Shade Room,” he said. “They’ve got 17 million followers on Instagram, and it went absolutely crazy. It went crazy!”
The song in Ray’s tribute is from Grammy-nominated artist Daniel Caesar. His management team contacted the couple and shared how their video inspired him. From there, they also extended an invitation to the international music festival Coachella.
“I told my pastor and God in front of a lot of people, ‘I’m with her through sickness and health,’ and this is just a part of that,” Ray said.
The couple has a long road ahead as Roslyn continues treatments, but they take comfort in knowing their together.
“It’s like now, he just — he makes it OK,” Roslyn said.
Photo Credit: fox2now.com
Man finds $27,000 on the ground near ATM, returns it to bank
Meredith) – When a Michigan man found a case filled with $27,000 in cash, he didn’t take the money and run.
Surveillance video captured the moment George Condash returned all of the cash to the Westland Federal Credit Union, located about 25 miles west of Detroit.
He found the money near an ATM outside the credit union, WDIV reported. An armored security guard apparently left it there by mistake.
A video shows Condash stopping his vehicle to pick it up.
“Well, first, I just thought it was trash,” he said. “For some reason it hit me that, ‘Why don’t I just pick this up so no one else has to swerve around it?'”
Without hesitation, Condash decided to return the cash — even after seeing the large amount on the case. Build a dynamic banking and financial enterprise.Transform operations, operating models and enterprise architecture to become more agile and efficient, allowing you get to market faster.Ad By IBMSee More
“I picked it up and noticed a tag that said it was $40,000,” he said. “I said, ‘Is there a reward for $40,000?’ I put it on their counter, and they just looked dumbfounded.”
Turns out, there was only $27,000 inside.
“It’s not mine and any honest person, I would hope, would take it back in,” Condash said.
According to WDIV, the credit union gave Condash a small token of appreciation for his good deed.
Photo Credit: kmov.com
Man allegedly kills pro-Trump boss after argument, throws American flag on his body
A construction worker in Florida has been accused of murdering his pro-Trump boss with a trowel after a political argument on the construction site where they both worked and then throwing an American flag on the man’s body.
The incident occurred on Monday morning at approximately 10:30 a.m. when emergency dispatchers received a call from co-workers saying that Mason Trever Toney, 28, had stabbed and killed their boss, 28-year-old William Steven Knight on the Florida Turnpike job site, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by ABC News’ Orlando affiliate WFTV.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office says that the murder appears related to a political dispute between the men. Knight was a big supporter of President Donald Trump while Toney was anti-government.
“[Toney is] anti-government and very outspoken about his beliefs that the government is bad and out to get him,” said Toney’s arrest affidavit.
When deputies arrived they found Knight’s body lying next to an excavator on the job site with a brand new American flag thrown onto the side of the victim’s body that didn’t belong to anybody on the site, according to the arrest affidavit.
A preliminary report determined that the weapon used to murder Knight was a trowel, according to ABC News’ Houston station KTRK.
After Toney allegedly killed Knight he stole a white pick-up truck and fled the scene of the crime but was taken into custody shortly after crashing the vehicle in a brief pursuit in Brevard County, Florida.
Police confirmed that Toney was arrested and taken into custody without incident in a statement on social media.
Toney is currently being held in Orange County without bond.
Photo Credit: Orange County Sheriff’s Office
Wife tases man after finding him with another woman at nightclub
WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — A Wichita Falls woman was charged with tasing her husband after police said she went looking for him and found him at a nightspot with his girlfriend.
Irlanda Parra, 24, was charged with assault family violence.
Just after 2 a.m. Sunday police were called by the victim at Jefe’s restaurant on Southwest Parkway, which police say operates as a night club on the weekend.
He said Parra was his child’s mother and she was in the parking lot armed with a taser.
Officers said when they arrived several people were arguing and a gold car was trying to leave.
An officer stopped the car driven by Parra and said she told them she came to pick up her husband, and that his girlfriend and her friends tried to jump her.
She said that’s when she pulled out the taser and pointed it at the girlfriend and her friends.
Officers said Parra first said her husband had called her to come get him, but later changed it to a friend had told her her husband was at the club with another woman, and that she went there to confront them.
Police said the man told them he was trying to leave with his girlfriend when Parra arrived and blocked his vehicle in.
He said she got out of her car and began trying to tase him and his girlfriend, and showed officers redness where he said he got tased on his hand.
Witnesses told officers they saw Parra attempting to tase several people in the lot.
The man said another person was able to disarm Parra, and the taser was found near her car.
Court records show that last October Parra was granted a protective order against a man who was harassing and threatening her because she filed for child support.
She said he went to bars every weekend and got drunk then came to her house at all hours to threaten her. She said he broke the windows out of her car with a bat one time.
via: https://fox2now.com/2020/01/21/wife-tases-man-after-finding-him-with-another-woman-at-nightclub/
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