00:00:00
Speaker 1: It's the turn of Barbara Friedman, Barb's wire. She's chosen three stories that she'll share with us. These are trending stories in social media. Welcome, Barbara.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, morning.
00:00:12
Speaker 3: So the first one, I'm going with the sort of slightly offbeat stories today, and it's about the Tinder swindler.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: And you recall a few.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: Years ago, I think it was in 2022, there was the Netflix documentary based on this woman and other woman that he had swindled through dating apps and scammed them and sort of catfished them in. And it really was a viral story at the time. People were just completely gobsmacked by this man and how he managed to to fool these women.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: And, uh, the latest, which.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: I have to talk about is that he, Simon Levy, um, that's not his original name, but that's what the name he goes by wants to launch a dating app. He wants to launch a safe dating app. And of course the internet is exploding over this. It will be called safe love. I mean, you cannot make this up. And, um, So the man who allegedly scammed women out of millions of dollars on dating apps says he's reformed.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: He's reformed. And he wants to launch his very own dating app.
00:01:19
Speaker 3: And, of course, he says that it will have all these safety features and he will vet. Everything will be vetted because he knows all about that, right?
00:01:28
Speaker 2: And, in fact, the.
00:01:33
Speaker 3: Organization that sort of manages dating, association that manages online dating apps.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Is calling for this to be stopped.
00:01:43
Speaker 3: They're saying that Google and Apple and all these phones and things need to, they're saying they want Apple and Google to completely ban the app from the app stores before it even launches. Whether he ever gets this together is obviously a moot point. but it's really become to the attention of the online communities. You know, he says he'll use ID checks, facial verification, and an SOS feature to protect users from romance scammers and unsafe situations.
00:02:11
Speaker 2: You can't make this up.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: Who better to educate or to help women from getting scammed than Simon Levy?
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Who are the best cybersecurity experts? Hackers.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Well, there you go. Maybe he's on to something. I.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: I think so.
00:02:31
Speaker 1: He knows the tricks of the trade.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: He knows the tricks of the trade. People commenting, are we being punked?
00:02:37
Speaker 3: You know, ladies know we need to make this flop hard. You know, the audacity, that's a no from me. But, you know, he'll probably get away with it. I mean, he was sentenced to several years in prison in three different countries. He served a partial sentence in Israel and was released on an early COVID kind of release program because of COVID. Then he served, I think, a small amount in Finland and absconded, I think. And then Germany dropped the charges. So this man has just got away with everything.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: Sorry, Amy's in my ear. Amy says she will absolutely unequivocally And I'm using the English words because she's speaking up against me. Unequivocally not download the app.
00:03:22
Speaker 3: It's nuts.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: He doesn't deserve one of your cents in payment for an app when he is. But you have to admit it is a good story.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, well. It's a funny story.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: I've actually never been on a dating app. Yeah, you've said because you– I predate a dating app, I guess.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: I think you kind of predate it. Although, you know, Dating Buzz and those ones in South Africa have been around probably since the.
00:03:48
Speaker 2: Early– maybe 2000, if not the late 90s.
00:03:51
Speaker 1: But I was a social animal at the time. You were. So I didn't need a dating app.
00:03:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But it's not about that. You know, you can still be social.
00:03:58
Speaker 3: In the real world.
00:03:59
Speaker 2: I'm not judging. No, no, no, no, you're not. And everyone's on dating apps. Not everyone. I take that back. I mean, younger people have grown up.
00:04:08
Speaker 1: Married people aren't dating.
00:04:09
Speaker 3: But I'm saying younger people have grown up where it's part of their existence. Whereas when I first went on to one in 2007 or something, I was like very scum to do it. And my friends in the newsroom at E!
00:04:22
Speaker 2: Said to me, no, come, you need to make a profile. And it was the best thing I actually ever did.
00:04:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely no judgment.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: But everyone has different experiences.
00:04:31
Speaker 1: I was in a foreign place with my wife and there were some 25-year-olds that were part of our company and they were hooking up.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: I was like, good for you.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: No issues.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: Absolutely no issues. It's a way to meet people that you would never meet.
00:04:44
Speaker 3: Because, I mean, truthfully, like who wants to go sit in a bar and meet someone with beer goggles on?
00:04:50
Speaker 2: Not me.
00:04:52
Speaker 1: That's the kind of conversation that I'd kind of be looking forward to. That very same person that you described.
00:04:57
Speaker 3: Well, the next story is also full of drama. And it's all about Daniel Medvedev, the cricketer.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: I'm losing it. The tennis star.
00:05:10
Speaker 3: I mean, he has always had a bit of a history, I think, of sometimes getting a bit cross. But it's been quite a shock that he was disqualified in the Beijing, in the China Open in Beijing.
00:05:21
Speaker 2: And so this is if you've.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: Watched the video and I went and watched it multiple times. So he was playing Novak Djokovic and he was quite frustrated and he swipes a rebounding ball and the tennis ball would have kind of gone into the audience. And so he runs. I personally don't think he looked angry. Just my view. And he rebounds the tennis ball away from the crowd. If you get my drift, go sort of backwards to the back of the court. And unfortunately, it hits a spectator in the eye really hard. And then, of course, the cameras eventually cut to this man and his partner. She's helping him climb up the stairs to get out of the arena because he's now got an eye injury.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: It's very dramatic.
00:06:10
Speaker 3: And, of course, the Internet is very divided. He's been disqualified. And, you know, it was a semifinal clash.
00:06:18
Speaker 2: And, yeah.
00:06:21
Speaker 3: You know, what happened was the ball hit his racket at a bad angle. I think it hit the frame and then it kind of bashed backwards. It was quite hard into the man's eye.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it's unfortunate. And a lot of people are very critical of him.
00:06:34
Speaker 3: A lot of other people are saying they're defending him and they're saying it was a freak accident.
00:06:39
Speaker 2: And I must be honest, I just think it was a freak accident.
00:06:43
Speaker 3: I don't know that he did this terrible, terrible thing.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: Let's just play a little clip of him afterwards. He actually spoke about the incident.
00:06:52
Speaker 4: To the spectator, first of all, and trying to get in touch with him if he wants it. So hopefully I can apologize in person and see how it feels. Yeah, I mean, 100% an accident. You can see that I didn't hit the ball in anger. Actually, I do a lot of bad things, but usually ball abuse is not... And the ball was bouncing back, so I tried to just hit it anywhere so it doesn't go out from the court. And when I saw the result, I mean, I felt horrible again.
00:07:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, he felt horrible. He's done a lot of bad things, he said, but this isn't one of them.
00:07:34
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:07:34
Speaker 3: It's just if you're a big tennis fan and you're listening to this and you've got a view, you can let Clarence know.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: But I personally didn't feel that there was huge rage and anger.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: It's harsh.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Can't you, like, just penalize him with a point or something?
00:07:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he says he did it because he didn't want the ball to fly into the crowd.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: Into somebody's eye.
00:07:55
Speaker 2: Got these little crazy stories today.
00:07:57
Speaker 3: It's mad. And then the third one is my best, so... You know Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, that they have this traditional blessing of the animals every year? I think I've spoken about it on here before. It's mostly a big deal in New York, but it's in other cities in America. It's in Manila, in the Philippines. It's actually in lots of different places. And the videos online are amazing. Just, I mean, I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a religious person, but honestly, if you want to see just a range of people and their range of pets, from horses to roosters to dogs to cats to goldfish to guinea pigs to everything, getting their pets blessed, it is just, it's a beautiful thing to see. It just is very, very moving and special. But I thought I would highlight one that happened actually because it goes on for quite a few weeks. There's one that happened, I think it's in Portland, Oregon. a few weeks ago, that has gone absolutely viral. And it's an outdoor, very beautiful mass that's happening. It's a place called The Grotto. So it's quite a garden setting, if you can picture it, if you're listening. And the priest starts singing. They say it's the hymn, Lift Up Your Voice, and walks over and he's singing in a microphone. And a husky, who's one of the audience, because he's waiting for his blessing like the good boy that he is, He literally lifts up his voice and he starts howling to the song.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: And people there just were completely like melting. And I thought we'll play it. Listen hard. You can hear the husky.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: Red rushing winds who.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Are so strong.
00:09:35
Speaker 3: You clouds above that sail along.
00:09:39
Speaker 4: Oh, praise him.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Alleluia. I mean, it's just the sweetest thing.
00:09:49
Speaker 1: And he was in it.
00:09:50
Speaker 4: Let me tell you, he was.
00:10:00
Speaker 2: There for it, that husky.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're gorgeous.
00:10:03
Speaker 3: And they do love to howl. So when the singing happens, they want to join in. Got millions of views, millions.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: And a blessing.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: And they wrote a lot of the headlines, said it was hallelujah. Sweetness.
00:10:16
Speaker 1: I love the stories today.
Speaker 1: It's the turn of Barbara Friedman, Barb's wire. She's chosen three stories that she'll share with us. These are trending stories in social media. Welcome, Barbara.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, morning.
00:00:12
Speaker 3: So the first one, I'm going with the sort of slightly offbeat stories today, and it's about the Tinder swindler.
00:00:19
Speaker 2: And you recall a few.
00:00:20
Speaker 3: Years ago, I think it was in 2022, there was the Netflix documentary based on this woman and other woman that he had swindled through dating apps and scammed them and sort of catfished them in. And it really was a viral story at the time. People were just completely gobsmacked by this man and how he managed to to fool these women.
00:00:42
Speaker 2: And, uh, the latest, which.
00:00:43
Speaker 3: I have to talk about is that he, Simon Levy, um, that's not his original name, but that's what the name he goes by wants to launch a dating app. He wants to launch a safe dating app. And of course the internet is exploding over this. It will be called safe love. I mean, you cannot make this up. And, um, So the man who allegedly scammed women out of millions of dollars on dating apps says he's reformed.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: He's reformed. And he wants to launch his very own dating app.
00:01:19
Speaker 3: And, of course, he says that it will have all these safety features and he will vet. Everything will be vetted because he knows all about that, right?
00:01:28
Speaker 2: And, in fact, the.
00:01:33
Speaker 3: Organization that sort of manages dating, association that manages online dating apps.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: Is calling for this to be stopped.
00:01:43
Speaker 3: They're saying that Google and Apple and all these phones and things need to, they're saying they want Apple and Google to completely ban the app from the app stores before it even launches. Whether he ever gets this together is obviously a moot point. but it's really become to the attention of the online communities. You know, he says he'll use ID checks, facial verification, and an SOS feature to protect users from romance scammers and unsafe situations.
00:02:11
Speaker 2: You can't make this up.
00:02:13
Speaker 3: Who better to educate or to help women from getting scammed than Simon Levy?
00:02:20
Speaker 1: Who are the best cybersecurity experts? Hackers.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: Well, there you go. Maybe he's on to something. I.
00:02:30
Speaker 2: I think so.
00:02:31
Speaker 1: He knows the tricks of the trade.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: He knows the tricks of the trade. People commenting, are we being punked?
00:02:37
Speaker 3: You know, ladies know we need to make this flop hard. You know, the audacity, that's a no from me. But, you know, he'll probably get away with it. I mean, he was sentenced to several years in prison in three different countries. He served a partial sentence in Israel and was released on an early COVID kind of release program because of COVID. Then he served, I think, a small amount in Finland and absconded, I think. And then Germany dropped the charges. So this man has just got away with everything.
00:03:09
Speaker 1: Sorry, Amy's in my ear. Amy says she will absolutely unequivocally And I'm using the English words because she's speaking up against me. Unequivocally not download the app.
00:03:22
Speaker 3: It's nuts.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: He doesn't deserve one of your cents in payment for an app when he is. But you have to admit it is a good story.
00:03:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, well. It's a funny story.
00:03:34
Speaker 1: I've actually never been on a dating app. Yeah, you've said because you– I predate a dating app, I guess.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: I think you kind of predate it. Although, you know, Dating Buzz and those ones in South Africa have been around probably since the.
00:03:48
Speaker 2: Early– maybe 2000, if not the late 90s.
00:03:51
Speaker 1: But I was a social animal at the time. You were. So I didn't need a dating app.
00:03:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. But it's not about that. You know, you can still be social.
00:03:58
Speaker 3: In the real world.
00:03:59
Speaker 2: I'm not judging. No, no, no, no, you're not. And everyone's on dating apps. Not everyone. I take that back. I mean, younger people have grown up.
00:04:08
Speaker 1: Married people aren't dating.
00:04:09
Speaker 3: But I'm saying younger people have grown up where it's part of their existence. Whereas when I first went on to one in 2007 or something, I was like very scum to do it. And my friends in the newsroom at E!
00:04:22
Speaker 2: Said to me, no, come, you need to make a profile. And it was the best thing I actually ever did.
00:04:27
Speaker 1: Absolutely no judgment.
00:04:29
Speaker 2: But everyone has different experiences.
00:04:31
Speaker 1: I was in a foreign place with my wife and there were some 25-year-olds that were part of our company and they were hooking up.
00:04:38
Speaker 2: I was like, good for you.
00:04:40
Speaker 1: No issues.
00:04:40
Speaker 2: Absolutely no issues. It's a way to meet people that you would never meet.
00:04:44
Speaker 3: Because, I mean, truthfully, like who wants to go sit in a bar and meet someone with beer goggles on?
00:04:50
Speaker 2: Not me.
00:04:52
Speaker 1: That's the kind of conversation that I'd kind of be looking forward to. That very same person that you described.
00:04:57
Speaker 3: Well, the next story is also full of drama. And it's all about Daniel Medvedev, the cricketer.
00:05:07
Speaker 2: I'm losing it. The tennis star.
00:05:10
Speaker 3: I mean, he has always had a bit of a history, I think, of sometimes getting a bit cross. But it's been quite a shock that he was disqualified in the Beijing, in the China Open in Beijing.
00:05:21
Speaker 2: And so this is if you've.
00:05:23
Speaker 3: Watched the video and I went and watched it multiple times. So he was playing Novak Djokovic and he was quite frustrated and he swipes a rebounding ball and the tennis ball would have kind of gone into the audience. And so he runs. I personally don't think he looked angry. Just my view. And he rebounds the tennis ball away from the crowd. If you get my drift, go sort of backwards to the back of the court. And unfortunately, it hits a spectator in the eye really hard. And then, of course, the cameras eventually cut to this man and his partner. She's helping him climb up the stairs to get out of the arena because he's now got an eye injury.
00:06:08
Speaker 2: It's very dramatic.
00:06:10
Speaker 3: And, of course, the Internet is very divided. He's been disqualified. And, you know, it was a semifinal clash.
00:06:18
Speaker 2: And, yeah.
00:06:21
Speaker 3: You know, what happened was the ball hit his racket at a bad angle. I think it hit the frame and then it kind of bashed backwards. It was quite hard into the man's eye.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it's unfortunate. And a lot of people are very critical of him.
00:06:34
Speaker 3: A lot of other people are saying they're defending him and they're saying it was a freak accident.
00:06:39
Speaker 2: And I must be honest, I just think it was a freak accident.
00:06:43
Speaker 3: I don't know that he did this terrible, terrible thing.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: Let's just play a little clip of him afterwards. He actually spoke about the incident.
00:06:52
Speaker 4: To the spectator, first of all, and trying to get in touch with him if he wants it. So hopefully I can apologize in person and see how it feels. Yeah, I mean, 100% an accident. You can see that I didn't hit the ball in anger. Actually, I do a lot of bad things, but usually ball abuse is not... And the ball was bouncing back, so I tried to just hit it anywhere so it doesn't go out from the court. And when I saw the result, I mean, I felt horrible again.
00:07:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, he felt horrible. He's done a lot of bad things, he said, but this isn't one of them.
00:07:34
Speaker 4: I don't know.
00:07:34
Speaker 3: It's just if you're a big tennis fan and you're listening to this and you've got a view, you can let Clarence know.
00:07:39
Speaker 2: But I personally didn't feel that there was huge rage and anger.
00:07:42
Speaker 4: It's harsh.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: Can't you, like, just penalize him with a point or something?
00:07:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he says he did it because he didn't want the ball to fly into the crowd.
00:07:49
Speaker 1: Into somebody's eye.
00:07:55
Speaker 2: Got these little crazy stories today.
00:07:57
Speaker 3: It's mad. And then the third one is my best, so... You know Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, that they have this traditional blessing of the animals every year? I think I've spoken about it on here before. It's mostly a big deal in New York, but it's in other cities in America. It's in Manila, in the Philippines. It's actually in lots of different places. And the videos online are amazing. Just, I mean, I'm not a Catholic, I'm not a religious person, but honestly, if you want to see just a range of people and their range of pets, from horses to roosters to dogs to cats to goldfish to guinea pigs to everything, getting their pets blessed, it is just, it's a beautiful thing to see. It just is very, very moving and special. But I thought I would highlight one that happened actually because it goes on for quite a few weeks. There's one that happened, I think it's in Portland, Oregon. a few weeks ago, that has gone absolutely viral. And it's an outdoor, very beautiful mass that's happening. It's a place called The Grotto. So it's quite a garden setting, if you can picture it, if you're listening. And the priest starts singing. They say it's the hymn, Lift Up Your Voice, and walks over and he's singing in a microphone. And a husky, who's one of the audience, because he's waiting for his blessing like the good boy that he is, He literally lifts up his voice and he starts howling to the song.
00:09:22
Speaker 2: And people there just were completely like melting. And I thought we'll play it. Listen hard. You can hear the husky.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: Red rushing winds who.
00:09:32
Speaker 2: Are so strong.
00:09:35
Speaker 3: You clouds above that sail along.
00:09:39
Speaker 4: Oh, praise him.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Alleluia. I mean, it's just the sweetest thing.
00:09:49
Speaker 1: And he was in it.
00:09:50
Speaker 4: Let me tell you, he was.
00:10:00
Speaker 2: There for it, that husky.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're gorgeous.
00:10:03
Speaker 3: And they do love to howl. So when the singing happens, they want to join in. Got millions of views, millions.
00:10:09
Speaker 1: And a blessing.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: And they wrote a lot of the headlines, said it was hallelujah. Sweetness.
00:10:16
Speaker 1: I love the stories today.
