'Cuffing season' has arrived, which means singles are on the hunt for short-term relationships - Yahoo News Canada

'Cuffing season' has arrived, which means singles are on the hunt for short-term relationships - Yahoo News Canada
Online Dating in the Coronavirus Era: How to Get With the Game - The Wall Street Journal
Alibaba sees over $56bn in Singles' Day sales - Yahoo News Canada

Posted: 25 Nov 2020 12:00 AM PST

The Canadian Press

China clamps down in hidden hunt for coronavirus origins

MOJIANG, China — Deep in the lush valleys of southern China lies the entrance to a mine shaft that once harboured bats with the closest known relative to COVID-19.The area is of intense interest because it may hold clues to the origins of the coronavirus that has killed more than 1.7 million people worldwide, but has become a black hole of no information because of political sensitivity. A bat research team that visited recently had their samples confiscated, two people familiar with the matter said. And a team of Associated Press journalists was tailed by plainclothes police in multiple cars who blocked access to sites in late November.More than a year since the first known person was infected with the coronavirus, an AP investigation shows the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins while promoting fringe theories that the pandemic originated elsewhere.The government is monitoring scientists' findings and mandating that the publication of any research first be approved by a new task force managed by China's cabinet under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, according to internal documents obtained by The AP. A rare leak from within the government, the dozens of pages of unpublished documents confirm what many have long suspected: The clampdown comes from the top.The AP's investigation was based on interviews with Chinese and foreign scientists and officials, along with public notices, leaked emails and the unpublished documents from China's State Council and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. It reveals a pattern of government secrecy and top-down control that has been evident throughout the pandemic."They only select people they can trust, those that they can control," said an expert who works with the China CDC, declining to be identified out of a fear of retribution.China's foreign ministry said in a fax that "the novel coronavirus has been discovered in many parts of the world" and research should be carried out "on a global scale."China's leaders aren't alone in politicizing research into how the pandemic started. In April, President Donald Trump shelved a U.S. funded project to identify dangerous animal diseases across Asia. Research into COVID-19's origins is critical to preventing future epidemics, and the move severed ties between Chinese and U.S. scientists. Although the World Health Organization says it will send a team to China in January to investigate, its members and agenda had to be approved by China.The probe into how the coronavirus first emerged started in the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, a sprawling complex where many of the first human cases were detected.In mid-December last year, Huanan vendor Jiang Dafa noticed people were falling ill, including a worker who helped clean carcasses at a stall who later died.At first, the China CDC moved swiftly.On Jan. 1, the market was ordered shut, barring vendors from fetching their belongings, Jiang said. Internal China CDC data shows that by Jan. 10, researchers were sequencing environmental samples.In late January and early February, as the virus spread rapidly, Chinese scientists published a burst of research papers on COVID-19. Then one paper proposed without concrete evidence that the virus could have leaked from a Wuhan laboratory near the market. It was later retracted, but it raised the need for image control.An internal notice from a China CDC lab issued on February 24 put in new approval processes to standardize publication under "important instructions" from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Other notices ordered CDC staff not to share any data, specimens or other information related to the coronavirus with outside institutions or individuals.In early March, China's cabinet, the State Council, centralized all COVID-19 publication under a special task force. The notice, obtained by the AP and marked "not to be made public," was sweeping in scope, applying to all universities, companies and medical and research institutions. It said communication and publication of research had to be orchestrated like "a game of chess" under instructions from Xi and guided by propaganda and public opinion teams.The order went on to warn that those who publish without permission, "causing serious adverse social impact, shall be held accountable."After the secret orders, the tide of research papers slowed to a trickle. Though the China CDC returned to collect some 2,000 samples from the market over the following months, nothing was published.On May 25, China CDC chief George Gao said no animal samples from the market had tested positive, ruling it out as the source.With the market proving a dead end, scientist turned their attention to hunting for the virus at its likely source: bats.Nearly a thousand miles away from Wuhan, bats inhabit a maze of underground limestone caves in Yunnan province. The coronavirus' genetic code is strikingly similar to bat coronaviruses, and scientists suspect COVID-19 jumped into humans from a bat or an intermediary animal.Chinese scientists quickly started testing animals suspected of carrying the coronavirus. Records show scientist Xia Xueshan received a 1.4 million RMB ($214,000) grant to screen animals in Yunnan for COVID-19. In February, his team took samples from animals including bats, snakes, bamboo rats and porcupines.But the government restrictions soon kicked in; data on the samples has not been released.Today, the caves in Yunnan home to the closest viral relative of the coronavirus are under close watch. Security agents tailed the AP team in three locations and stopped journalists from visiting the cave where researchers identified the bats responsible for SARS.Chinese state media has instead aggressively promoted theories suggesting the virus originated elsewhere, such as via frozen seafood, a hypothesis WHO and others have dismissed.The government is also limiting and controlling the search for the first human cases through the retesting of flu samples.Hundreds of Chinese hospitals collect samples from patients with flu-like symptoms, storing them for years. The samples could easily be tested again for COVID-19, although politics could determine whether the results are made public, said Ray Yip, the founding director of the China CDC.Researchers in the U.S., Italy, France and elsewhere have already combed through some of their archived samples to identify the earliest cases of COVID-19 in late 2019. But in China, scientists have only published retrospective data from two Wuhan flu surveillance hospitals, out of at least 18 in Hubei province and more than 500 across the country.The little information that has trickled out suggests COVID-19 was circulating beyond Wuhan in 2019, a finding that could raise awkward questions for Chinese officials about their early handling of the outbreak.Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance said identifying the pandemic's source should not be used to assign guilt."We're all part of this together," he said. "Until we realize that, we're never going to get rid of this problem."___Kang reported from Beijing and Cheng reported from London. Associated Press journalists Han Guan Ng and Emily Wang in Wuhan, China, Haven Daley in Stinson Beach, California, and Tassanee Vejpongsa in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, contributed to this report.___Follow Dake Kang, Sam McNeil and Maria Cheng on Twitter at @dakekang, @stmcneil and @mylcheng.___Contact AP's global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org.Dake Kang, Maria Cheng And Sam McNeil, The Associated Press

Online Dating in the Coronavirus Era: How to Get With the Game - The Wall Street Journal

Posted: 09 Jun 2020 12:00 AM PDT

CHECKMATING Dating apps are encouraging quarantined singles to interact via games of all sorts
Illustration: Kiersten Essenpreis

June 9, 2020 1:00 pm ET

BEFORE COVID-19, the biggest danger of a first date was the risk of rolling your eyes while your match droned on about parasailing or poker. Back then, the online-dating protocol was to move from a brief chat via the app to a date, even kissing, "as quickly as possible after mutually swiping right," said Coffee Meets Bagel founder Dawoon Kang.

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But now with no end to the pandemic in sight, dating-app creators are looking for ways to prolong safe virtual relationships for weeks, even months, stretching their roles from matchmakers to love nurturers.

"It's giving us a chance to rethink the way we date and meet people," said Dani Fankhauser, who co-founded XO, a recently launched app that aims to facilitate meaningful and more playful relationships.

Instead of fostering connections through basic conversation, XO uses in-app icebreakers like the games "Kiss, Marry, Fight" (choose which of three celebrities/cartoons/brand mascots you want to Kiss, Marry or Fight) or "I Draw, You Title" (self-explanatory). Each gives Covid-era singles fun ways to interact and non-apocalyptic topics to inspire discussion.

Similarly, this week Coffee Meets Bagel is rolling out a "Virtual Date Nudge" to facilitate burgeoning, socially distanced relationships. Once two people have swiped and started chatting, the app prompts each one to select a digital-date idea from a list of six, including a game night, a virtual museum tour or the swapping of recipes to cook together over video. When one person selects one, signaling "I'm open to it," the other is alerted.

In April, Hinge rolled out an in-app "Date from Home" pop-up to let users announce to matches they're ready to dive into a digital date. This week, they replaced the prompt with in-app video and phone calls.

While these new proddings might feel analogous to the meddling of an overinvolved mother, many find the suggestions an improvement over shapeless modern courtship.

When Gabriella Garcia's immunocompromised status sent her indoors for the foreseeable future, the 22-year-old college student wasn't expecting to meet her "soul mate." But then she matched with Ishmael on XO, and the two quickly bonded over an "Abraham Lincoln fish morph" amalgamation they created while playing a complete-the-drawing game.

"It was the stupidest thing, but it broke the ice," Ms. Garcia said. For two weeks, she and Ishmael have been FaceTiming multiple times each day. She's even met his mom.

While Ms. Garcia and Ishmael matched by mutually swiping right, XO users can opt-out of scrolling through suitors and instead go on "blind dates": A cartoon obscures each person's profile as you talk. Another option lets you "play a random game" with someone who fits your preset match settings.

Can you make a genuine connection over an app? Ms. Garcia's mom has expressed doubt. "She thinks I'm nuts. 'You've never met this guy—how can you have feelings for him?'" Ms. Garcia recalled. "I just tell her, 'Mom, you would never understand.'"

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Alibaba sees over $56bn in Singles' Day sales - Yahoo News Canada

Posted: 11 Nov 2020 12:00 AM PST

The Canadian Press

A low-key Memphis guitar legend builds on musical legacy

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — It's 1966 and a thunderstorm illuminates the night sky in Memphis, Tennessee. Two Stax Records musicians, guitarist Steve Cropper and singer Eddie Floyd, sit in a room inside the Lorraine Motel, struggling to fashion a song about love and superstition.The pair try many references to good and bad luck — rubbing rabbit's feet, walking under ladders, breaking mirrors — but nothing fits. Then, as the lightning flashes and the thunder roars, Cropper asks Floyd: "What do people usually do for good luck?'""And Eddie goes, knock, knock, knock," Cropper told The Associated Press in November. "I said, 'There's our song, 'Knock on Wood.'"At a time when it was common for white musicians to co-opt the work of Black artists and make more money from their songs, Cropper was that rare white artist willing to keep a lower profile and collaborate. That may explain why now, more than half a century later and still making music at 79 years old, he can walk through an airport or a grocery store without being recognized, while the original songs he co-wrote — played on sound systems in those same public spaces — remain instantly familiar.From "In the Midnight Hour" to "(Sittin On) The Dock of the Bay" to "Soul Man," Cropper worked alongside the likes of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, Eddie Floyd and many others to leave an indelible imprint on the American songbook.Missouri-born and Memphis-raised, Cropper joined the Stax Records team as a 20-year-old. Working as a songwriter, producer, and guitarist in the bi-racial house band Booker T. and the MGs, Cropper laid the foundation for songs that have outlasted the studio that created them."Knock on Wood" featured Cropper's catchy, hip-moving guitar and rousing horns, setting the stage for lines still heard heard in TV commercials and movies: "It's like thunder and lightning, the way you love me is frightening. I better knock, on wood, baby.""When Steve and I would write a song, we jelled so good together, you couldn't tell us we didn't have a hit," Floyd told the AP.On "Knock on Wood," and countless other songs, Cropper produces a lean, precise, understated-yet-signature sound. "In the Midnight Hour," "Soul Man," and "Time is Tight" feature irresistible intros that lure the listener. Cropper mastered the art of filling gaps with an essential lick or two, then stepping aside as organist Booker T. Jones, bassist Donald "Duck" Dunn, trumpeter Wayne Jackson, drummer Al Jackson Jr. and others led the way."I listen to the other musicians and the singer," Cropper said. "I'm not listening to just me. I make sure I'm sounding OK before we start the session. Once we've presented the song, then I listen to the song and the way they interpret it. And I play around all that stuff. That's what I do. That's my style."Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, asked once about Cropper, said simply, "Perfect, man." On a YouTube instructional video, guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa says Cropper's moves are often copied."If you haven't heard the name Steve Cropper, you've heard him in song," Bonamassa said.By his early teens, Cropper knew he wanted to be a musician. As a newcomer to Memphis, he fell in love with music emanating from churches, clubs and car radios."I had never really heard gospel music, or rhythm and blues," said Cropper, who chuckles frequently as he talks. "When I turned the radio on in Memphis, there was a gospel program on. And I never looked back."Cropper bought his first guitar from a Sears catalogue at age 14. When buddy Charlie Freeman came home from guitar lessons, Cropper was waiting at Freeman's house."He would teach me what he learned that day, and then I would play behind him rhythm guitar so he could practice what he had learned that day," Cropper said. "So we started a band together, and got to be pretty good at it."The band's name was the Royal Spades. It later morphed into the Mar-Keys, which scored a hit in 1961 with "Last Night."Formed by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, Stax Records became a soulful, gritty counterpoint to Detroit's Motown. Booker T. and the MGs, with Cropper, Dunn, Al Jackson and Jones, became the lead house band and scored a hit with the instrumental "Green Onions." When trumpeter Wayne Jackson and saxophonist Andrew Love joined them, they called themselves the Mar-Keys.Cropper, Dunn and Wayne Jackson were white. Jones, Al Jackson and Love were Black, defying both local and music industry custom."When you walked in the door at Stax, there was absolutely no colour," Cropper said. "We were all there for the same reason — to get a hit record."In 1962, when Johnny Jenkins and the Pinetoppers arrived at Stax to record, a valet named Otis Redding was with them.As Cropper tells it, Redding pestered Al Jackson to ask Cropper to hear him sing. Cropper relented, giving Redding an impromptu audition."He starts singing, 'These Arms of Mine.' And I went 'Holy s---,'" Cropper said. "My hair stood up on my arms. I said, 'Stop right there.' He said, 'What you don't like it?' I said, 'No, I love it."The song became Redding's first hit for Stax, and the beginning a string of hits that included "Try a Little Tenderness," "Pain in My Heart," and "I've Been Loving You Too Long." In 1967, Cropper and Redding sat down to write "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," Redding's song about lost time, loneliness, and self-reflection.As they worked, Cropper decided the song needed something to put the listener on the dock. Cropper went to a Memphis studio known for producing jingles and recorded sound effects of sea gulls and ocean waves.Cropper sent the recording to New York and Atlantic Records, which had a distribution agreement with Stax. It became Redding's biggest hit.Cropper left Stax in September 1970. He stayed with Booker T. and the MGs but also worked on projects with Levon Helm, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, John Prine, Peter Frampton and others.Cropper and Dunn appeared in the Blues Brothers, the 1980 film featuring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd as ex-convicts looking to put their band back together. When Cropper gets recognized now, it's often by fans of that movie.Cropper has lived in Nashville for more than 30 years. He still cuts guitar dubs at RCA Studio 3, and has a new album set for release in April.The last time he saw Redding was on a Friday at the studio while he was putting the finishing touches on "Dock of the Bay.""He popped his head into the control room. At the time, I was setting up to do the guitar licks," said Cropper. "Otis said, 'I'll see you Monday. I said, 'Ok, I'll see you Monday.' That's the last word I heard from him.'"Redding, 26, and four members of his band died in a plane crash on Sunday, Dec. 10, 1967. They were headed to a show in Madison, Wisconsin, when their plane plummeted into a frigid lake.Cropper and his bandmates were in an Indianapolis airport when they heard Redding died. Songwriter David Porter had called his wife, who broke the news to her husband."David Porter looked like he had the blood drained out of him. We said, 'David are you alright, what's the matter?' So, he said, his wife just told him that Otis' plane had gone down, and he had died," said Cropper, his voice cracking. "Pretty heavy duty."Redding never got to hear Cropper's final version of "(Sittin' On) the Dock of Bay."_____Entertainment Writer Kristin M. Hall contributed from Nashville, Tennessee.Adrian Sainz, The Associated Press

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