Record cold for 235 million Americans starting in just HOURS as polar vortex brings'most extreme cold on Earth' Is this the END of Ozempic? Nashville neighbors can see what's REALLY going on with Nicole Kidman. Even I was once overweight. So trust me, this 30 DAY detox plan will get you thin WITHOUT Ozempic... but if you want to stay skinny, you'll have to make one major sacrifice: JILLIAN MICHAELS Mom who spent 10 years'gentle parenting' admits it was a mistake: 'My kids are anxious, insecure and entitled' Worrying side-effect of creatine you aren't being warned about: Cheap supplement is hailed as a'miracle' - but here's how to tell if YOUR brand is doing more harm than good Amazon warns 300 million shoppers of Cyber Monday scam... and how to avoid it'Murder for hire' housewife begs Bahamas judge to free her from GPS shackles so she can start a shocking new career Trump suffers fresh legal blow as Alina Habba's disqualification is upheld by appeals court Trump sparks fury as he frees $1.6 BILLION fraudster just days into seven-year-sentence I was drinking 130 units of alcohol a week and knew it was time to cut down. Then, I discovered this no-effort miracle solution.

Dating apps, booze and clubbing - Jane Austen's Emma comes into the 21st Century And your pushy best friend is trying to sort out your love life. It's Jane Austen's Emma, but not as you know it. For the uninitiated, the 1815 novel follows the charmed life of our protagonist in Regency England as she busies herself interfering in her friends' relationships (or matchmaking, depending on your point of view). In Ava Pickett's fresh adaptation, being staged at London's Rose Theatre, Emma Woodhouse still has all the trademark traits of our beloved original heroine - she's clever, quick-witted, meddling, haughty and occasionally cruel. But instead of navigating society balls and dowries, Pickett's modern Emma is poking her nose into her friends' online dating profiles, having returned home after failing her exams at Oxford University.

On TikTok, Gyasi Alexander likes to hold "yap sessions" about all sorts of vulnerable topics--self-image issues, anxiety, why you shouldn't romanticize forgiveness. He started posting videos like that last summer, following the end of an 11-year relationship, after a group of friends encouraged him to use the platform as an outlet to talk about his healing process. Lately, though, the 28-year-old retail sales worker who lives in Providence, Rhode Island, has decided to fully embrace, and talk about, his most vulnerable trait--being a yearner. "Yearning is a little bit different from love in that it's more intense," he says. It feels like you're constantly reaching for more.

U.S. citizens who visit Mexico are being warned that they may be at risk of being kidnapped by people who lure them in through dating apps, according to federal officials. The U.S. Consulate General Guadalajara warned that the victims of such schemes were kidnapped in Puerto Vallarta and Nuevo Nayarit areas in recent months, according to a news release. The consulate did not say how often this type of crime has occurred or whether any suspects have been arrested. Victims and their family members were extorted for large amounts of money in order to be released, officials said. Some of the victims met their captors in residences or hotel rooms.

In September 2023, Adam Raines made a Reddit post revealing what feels like a near-universal problem for singles: His dating app conversations are painfully boring. Attached to the post, titled "Sometimes, texting on dating apps feelings (sic) like hitting your head against a brick wall," is a screenshot of a bone-dry Tinder conversation between him and one of his matches, in which Raines' curiosity is met with short, dead-ended answers. "The vast majority of my online dating interactions have been like that," says Raines, 25, a gay man living in the UK who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy. Many users in the thread echoed his sentiment and offered explanations or theories as to why conversations on dating apps are often unsatisfying. "I see I'm not the only one getting that type of energy lol," one wrote, as another noted, "It sucks, and if people swiped more mindfully this wouldn't happen, but a lot of guys are so beaten down by the dating app experience they feel like they don't have any other choice and want whatever validation they can get."

Spending time on dating apps, I know from experience, can make you a little paranoid. When you swipe and swipe and nothing's working out, it could be that you've had bad luck. It could be that you're too picky. It could be--oh God--that you simply don't pull like you thought you did. But sometimes, whether out of self-protection or righteous skepticism of corporate motives, you might think: Maybe the nameless faces who created this product are conspiring against me to turn a profit--meddling in my dating life so that I'll spend the rest of my days alone, paying for any feature that gives me a shred of hope.

Since it first appeared with the launch of match.com Around 10% of heterosexual people and 24% of LGBT people have met their long-term partner online, according to Pew Research Center. But evidence suggests that young people are switching off dating apps, with the UK's top 10 seeing a fall of nearly 16%, according to a report published by Ofcom in November 2024. Tinder lost 594,000 users, while Hinge dropped by 131,000, Bumble by 368,000 and Grindr by 11,000, the report said (a Grindr spokesperson said they were "not familiar with this study's source data" and that their UK users "continue to rise year over year"). According to a 2023 Axios study of US college students and other Gen Zers, 79% said they were forgoing regular dating app usage.

Dating apps have evolved a lot over the years, with apps dedicated to any romantic niche–dog lovers, astrology heads, and big, bushy beards. Despite the seemingly endless options of dating platforms, the industry seems to be at a low. So this week, we talk about the current state of dating apps and what it means for those looking for love (or something like it). Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com. You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link.

In her 2012 book, Addiction by Design, anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll lays out the different technological mechanisms casinos employ to keep people gambling. From the architecture of buildings and placement of ATMs to the design of casino carpets--all of it exemplifies strategic calculation. As a blurb for a gambling trade show once put it, the various elements making up the modern gambling experience are "symphonies of individual technologies" that come together to "create a single experience," calibrated in a way to keep people playing, to maximize "time on device." "There's something very similar about the mechanisms that are built into dating apps, especially with swiping," she says. "Swiping left and right--it's almost like a horizontal slot machine. You really don't know what you're going to get."

Bryan, Christina, and our guest host Outward Producer Palace Shaw, tackle the perplexing world of bisexual dads navigating dating apps, strategies for dealing with transphobic relatives during family gatherings, the dos and don'ts of art-gifting etiquette, and whether to fess up to a messy post-divorce disclosure. This week, we've got something for all your senses.