U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday announced charges against three men alleged to be behind an international video piracy ring, as law enforcement authorities around the world took down dozens of servers being used to store and distribute copyrighted movies and television shows.The enterprise, known as the Sparks Group, fraudulently obtained copyrighted DVDs and Blu-Ray discs from wholesale distributors and disseminated them online before their release dates, according to indictments unsealed Tuesday in New York.Operating from 2011 to 2020, the group caused tens of millions of dollars in losses to major movie production studios, according to the indictments.The alleged leaders were identified as Umar Ahmad, George Bridi and Jonatan Correa.Ahmad, a citizen of Norway, remains at large.  Bridi, a British national, was arrested Sunday in Cyprus.  The U.S. is seeking his extradition. Correa was arrested Tuesday in the U.S. state of Kansas.The three men were each charged with one count of copyright infringement conspiracy. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Bridi faces two additional charges.The case underscores how far video piracy has come from the days when fraudsters bootlegged movies in theaters and then sold cheap, low-quality copies on the streets of New York, officials said.“The movies and TV shows allegedly stolen by these defendants not only represent a body of work ripped off from those who spent years developing their craft and working their way to stardom, but deprives the studios and actors of the fruits of their labor,” Inspector-in-Charge Philip R. Bartlett of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service said in a statement.Once the copyrighted DVDs and Blu-Ray discs were obtained from distributors in New York and New Jersey, the men allegedly used specialized software to crack their copyright protections and to reproduce them for easy copying and distribution over the internet.“The group allegedly circumvented copyright protections on nearly every movie released by major production studios, as well as television shows, and distributed them by way of a worldwide network of servers,” acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.
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If there’s one thing the pandemic hasn’t canceled, it’s the search for love.
Throughout the health emergency, daters have taken to apps, websites and matchmaking services in search of connection, with more meeting in person as the crisis drags on at a time when every touch is calculated and fraught.
Some daters insist on safety precautions before leaping into offline meetups. Others take no precautions, relying on mutual trust. A lucky few are on the ultimate step, marriage.
One survey done in May found about 42% of single Americans and those in relationships but quarantining apart downloaded a dating app in lockdown. The survey also found that one-third of attached Americans said they’ve reached out to an ex while in isolation, and 37% of singles said they did the same, according to the data from OnePoll.
In March, the popular dating app Hinge experienced a 30% increase over January and February in messages sent among users. In June, compared to the same month last year, there was a 13% increase in the number of dates — virtual and in person — in the U.S. and U.K., said Logan Ury, chief researcher for the app.
Ury said the resolve to reach out amid coronavirus chaos is strong.
“Daters are feeling creative. They’re feeling resilient, and they’re not willing to put a year of their love life on hold because of the global pandemic,” Ury said.
Look no further than Jordan and Brittany Tyler in Allegan, Michigan, as evidence of that.
Jordan, an adjunct professor of communications at Western Michigan University, and Brittany, who supervises a program for autistic youth, had both been divorced about a year when the pandemic hit. Neither had dated online before they signed up for Match.com.
“When the lockdown happened an alert went off on my phone and it sounded liked The Purge' or something," Brittany laughed. "I thought,I’m going to die alone.'”
Both had dated their exes for several years before marrying. Not this time.
The two started texting March 18. They were wed by July after spending much of quarantine together after a romantic date March 24 at Jordan’s place. He made gluten-free pasta from scratch and threw steaks on the grill. They watched the movie “P.S. I Love You” and shared a kiss less than two hours after meeting in person for the first time.
Jordan’s winning line when they hopped from text to the physical world?
“I said, `Hey, if you come have dinner with me I’m stocked up on toilet paper. I’ll give you a free roll,” he joked. “It was worth the risk.”
For two New Yorkers, real-estate agent Gordon von Broock, 53, and hair colorist Alix Mane, 42, pandemic love didn’t start with a dating service. He had been her Instagram crush since late last year and the two had exchanged casual messages.
By March, he was a COVID-19 survivor. She spotted a video he put up on Instagram as he regained his strength.
“He did not look well,” Mane said.
Their first Zoom date at the end of April lasted seven hours. They progressed to real life and they’re now engaged.
“I’ve been divorced twice and have four children. If we weren’t in the COVID-19 situation, knowing that Gordon had never been married, was 53 years old and never had children would be kind of a little red flag for me. I would have been a red flag for him,” she said. “But we got right to the point.”
Von Broock added: “If we had met in different circumstances I would be, no way, but we had the time to really get to know each other.”
Dawoon Kang, co-founder of another popular dating app, Coffee Meets Bagel, said the company’s “slow dating” approach, in contrast to endless swiping, seems to appeal to users during the pandemic. The bulk of the app’s users are between 25 and 39 years old.
“We’re seeing an all-time chat rate,” Kang said. “In mid-March, after the lockdowns, 90% plus of our daters told us they had completely stopped going on dates in person.”
During brainstorming sessions with users since the pandemic began, Kang learned that many yearned for community and a way to ease their loneliness, regardless of whether that led to dates. In response, Coffee Meets Bagel added twice-weekly Zoom meetups of 50 to 100 people from late April to late June.
“Now, people are actually starting to meet up in person, but they’re taking longer and being more selective since there’s more at risk,” she said.
In mid-July, Coffee Meets Bagels surveyed users and 36% said they had gone on at least one in-person date in the last 30 days, with 63% saying it would be a deal breaker if prospective dates didn’t agree to social distancing. Sixty-two percent said not agreeing to wear masks was also a deal breaker.
Some are asking for test results and a 14-day period of quarantine before meeting in person, Kang said.
In a survey of 1,529 U.S. users done Monday, Coffee Meets Bagel reported 62 percent were using dating apps more in the past 30 days, with 35 percent saying they had been on an in-person date in that period. Nearly half abstained from any physical contact.
In Washington, D.C., 25-year-old communications consultant Carlos Zavala has been spending time on Tinder and Bumble but has yet to go on a date in person. He had stopped using the sites in December, but reactivated his accounts in April because: “I was going stir crazy being home with the family.”
Only recently has he felt comfortable, with COVID-19 rates dropping in his area, considering going out with someone in person.
“I’ve seen that our conversations do get more personal faster than usual,” Zavala said. “In the beginning, I considered not dating, but then I realized this actually is making a lot of people be more real with what they want and cuts through all the b.s.”
Zavala’s experience resonates with many corona daters, said Yue Xu, a former relationship coach and co-host of the podcast “Dateable.”
“People are having deeper connections,” she said. “People are bonding over maybe feeling alone, feeling helpless, feeling a sense of loss. So that initial bond is pretty strong, even though these relationships may not last.”
Alina Mayes, senior matchmaker for the luxury firm Selective Search, said that at the beginning of the pandemic, the idea among affluent, older core users was to find someone to quarantine with. Most were used to vetting prospective mates offline with a one-on-one matchmaker, and had to settle in to virtual matchmaking, she said.
“But we’ve been busier than ever,” Mayes said.
Selective Search charges an average of $50,000 to $150,000 per client. The average age of clients hovers in the mid-50s.
Meeting up in person is back on for many, Mayes said, with a shift against “gauging physical chemistry right away towards more concern over mutual interests, shared experiences and stronger emotional connections.”
As for breaking social distance to hug, kiss or have sex, Mayes laughed:
“There’s been some of that. It’s just taking longer. This pandemic and lockdown has really put things into perspective.”
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Health experts are expressing alarm over the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s revision of its coronavirus testing guidelines. The CDC. announced Monday that people who have been in close contact with someone who has been infected by COVID-19 “do not necessarily need a test” if they are not exhibiting symptoms of the virus. The agency had previously recommended that anyone who has come into close contact — defined as being within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes — should be tested for the virus.   No explanation has been given for the sudden change.  Experts are worried the new recommendation could lead to a drop off in testing,    Members with the Washington, D.C. Dept. of Health, prepare to place new signs at their F Street COVID-19 testing location, Aug. 14, 2020, in Washington.Dr. Leena Wen, an emergency physician and a professor of public health at George Washington University, said contract tracing is necessary, since up to 50% of all COVID-19 transmissions are due to people who do not exhibit symptoms of the disease.   The CDC continues to recommend that “vulnerable” people get tested if they come into close contact with someone carrying the virus.  A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday people should consult with their doctor or with public health officials to decide if they need to be tested.One day after U.S. President Donald Trump praised it as “a truly historic announcement,” the head of Food and Drug Administration apologized for apparently overstating the benefits of using convalescent blood plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19.   President Donald Trump speaks, accompanied by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, center, during a media briefing in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House, Aug. 23, 2020, in Washington.President Trump on Sunday announced the federal government had issued an emergency authorization for the use of convalescent blood plasma, which is rich in antibodies, and using it to treat people currently suffering from the virus.  During the public announcement, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the FDA commissioner, reaffirmed claims made by Trump and Health and Human Services Alex Azar of a 35% decrease in mortality among those younger than 80 who were not on a respirator, a month after receiving the treatment early in the course of their disease. A “35% improvement in survival is a pretty substantial clinical benefit,” he added. “We’ve seen a great deal of demand for this from doctors around the country.” FILE – Phlebotomist Jenee Wilson talks with Melissa Cruz, an ER technician for Valley Medical Center who has recovered from COVID-19, as she finishes donating convalescent plasma in Seattle, April 17, 2020.But critics say the claim made by the administration was a gross exaggeration of preliminary findings of a study conducted by the prestigious Mayo Clinic, noting that the study lacked a comparison group of untreated COVID-19 patients.   Dr. Hahn conceded this fact in a tweet Monday apologizing for his remarks, saying “The criticism is entirely justified.”  He explained that he should have said that the data shows “a relative risk reduction not an absolute risk reduction.”   That announcement came a day after Trump, on Twitter, declared that “The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics.” Plasma treatment has been used safely against other diseases, including Ebola and diphtheria, but scientists — including some who work for the U.S. government — are more cautious about it as a treatment for the coronavirus, saying the results are mixed and there is no proof yet that it works against COVID-19. The latest figures from Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracking website says more than 5.7 million people in the United States have been infected with the coronavirus, and more than 178,500 have died — the most of any other country.   
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Donald Trump may have redefined what is possible when it comes to the United States’ relationship with North Korea, whether it was threatening to “totally destroy” the country or becoming the first sitting U.S. president to meet and later claim he “fell in love” with its leader. But U.S.-North Korea diplomacy could soon become more conventional. Joe Biden, Trump’s challenger in the November presidential election, has promised a more traditional approach to North Korea. He’s also signaled a return to a more antagonistic relationship. During the campaign, Biden has repeatedly referred to Kim Jong Un as a “dictator,” a “thug,” and a “tyrant.” North Korea has shot back, calling Biden an “imbecile” and a “fool of low IQ.”  Though Biden didn’t directly mention North Korea in his nomination acceptance speech last week, the Democratic nominee said if elected he would ensure the “days of cozying up to dictators” are over.  Instead, Biden says he would tighten sanctions on North Korea and work with allies, as well as China, to pressure Pyongyang to make concessions on its nuclear program. Strategic patience redux? For many analysts, Biden’s ideas about North Korea sound familiar. As vice president, Biden helped oversee former President Barack Obama’s policy of “strategic patience,” which attempted to gradually apply economic and military pressure until Pyongyang was ready to negotiate. While Biden doesn’t use the phrase “strategic patience” to describe his North Korea plans, his administration may end up with a policy of “strategic patience by default” if it doesn’t offer “some kind of unilateral opening gesture to compel the North Koreans back to negotiations,” says Jenny Town, a North Korea specialist with the Washington D.C.-based Stimson Center.  But if his campaign comments are any indication, Biden is not interested in meeting Kim anytime soon. Biden In this file photo taken on June 30, 2019, North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un (L) and US President Donald Trump shake hands during a meeting on the south side of the Military Demarcation Line that divides North and South Korea.Instead, in an article earlier this year Biden People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, July 31, 2019.In the view of one senior South Korean Blue House official who spoke to VOA last year, a return to “strategic patience” is impractical, in large part because North Korea already has the nuclear weapons it has long sought. “Strategic patience — what would we be waiting for?” asked the South Korean official. A growing number of nuclear policy analysts believe the United States, rather than pushing for denuclearization that may never happen, should instead focus on reducing North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and ensuring Pyongyang doesn’t use it. But there are no signs either Biden or Trump plan to formally embrace an arms control or deterrence approach to North Korea. Doing so would essentially amount to recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power, setting what many see as a dangerous precedent for global nuclear non-proliferation efforts.  What will North Korea do?  In the end, much will likely depend on how North Korea acts.  At the beginning of 2020, Kim warned he no longer feels constrained by his moratorium on long-range missile or nuclear tests and threatened to soon show off a new “strategic weapon.”  But since those comments, North Korea has had to deal with the worldwide coronavirus pandemic, devastating floods during a worse than usual monsoon season, and sanctions that continue to hold back its economy.  Although state media have vaguely hinted at a provocation timed for the U.S. election, Kim may be reluctant to do anything that upsets the chances for diplomacy. In July, Kim Yo Jong, the North Korean leader’s increasingly powerful sister, said her country has “no intention of threatening the United States…if they don’t touch us and hurt us.”  “We are not saying we are not going to denuclearize,” she said. “But we cannot denuclearize now.” 
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