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Please help me, as I am not tech-savvy. I have been using Messages+ for quite a while for texting with my Android phone. Verizon is now informing me that this app will be discontinued, and I am being nudged toward replacing it with a Google app. Tried researching other choices, but I don't know how to judge what is a good replacement. My phone is a Galaxy S21. Suggestions?

At first glance, the fundraising message seemed innocuous. “700% MATCH ACTIVE! Give now to help Kamala Harris and Democrats win!” it read. But a quick search for the group that sent the text, Democrats United PAC, reveals a hazier story. Since January of 2023, Democrats United has raised more than $2.5 million from small and large donors, federal records show. But it has given nothing to federal candidates, party committees or super PACs. Instead, the group has funneled most of its cash back into fundraising.

A Mississippi teen who sat in her kitchen alongside her two dogs moments after she allegedly killed her mother is accused of texting her friend that she had an “emergency” and trying to lure her stepfather back to the home. Carly Gregg, 15, is accused of murdering her mom, high school teacher Ashley Smylie, inside their Brandon, Miss., home March 19 when Smylie discovered her daughter’s “secret life.” Gregg, wearing a Nirvana band shirt, awkwardly shuffled around the house holding something behind her back, later identified as a .357 Magnum handgun, and facing the camera so it could not detect...

So many things can keep you from seeing your loved ones in person, from busy schedules to long distances to a rather unexpected pandemic. Fortunately, thanks to modern technology, the people we miss are often only a phone call or text message away. But if you're someone who's more prone to typed out messages than verbal ones, you may want to reconsider. According to science, if you want to feel more connected to the people you're talking to, you should call them instead of texting. A new study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, found that communication interactions that...

A defiant French teacher is still in the classroom after being fired by the Department of Education — crowing that the city “can’t touch me” despite the sexually-charged accusations that got her sacked, including making nearly 30,000 late-night texts to a schoolgirl. Dulaina Almonte, 33, lost her job at Harry S. Truman High School in The Bronx in 2020 after the Special Commissioner of Investigation substantiated claims of her creepy behavior with teens. “I can’t be guilty if I’m still a teacher,” Almonte — who now teaches at a Bronx charter school — boasted to The Post this week.

Toxic texting is when someone texts you toxic messages, controlling your texting life and causing you anxiety. Toxic texters may insist that their texts receive immediate attention, read all your communications and police your phone, gaslight you, and then isolate you. By Theo Harrison Toxic texting is when someone texts you toxic messages, controlling your texting life and causing you anxiety. Toxic texters may insist that their texts receive immediate attention, read all your communications and police your phone, gaslight you, and then isolate you. According to marriage and family therapist and YourTango expert, Frances Patton, you are in a...

Vice President Harris has launched a community number, which will allow Americans to text her and receive information about her work, her office announced Friday. The community number is the first time in history that all Americans can text a vice president, according to her office. “As Vice President, I’ve traveled our nation and met so many of you. I’m inspired by your stories, work, dreams, and aspirations — and I want to keep our conversations going. Starting today, you can text me at 310-861-2977. I can’t wait to hear from you,” Harris shared in a video on X, formerly...

Does texting erode language? One lazy day, my dog ate my dictionary. He really did. When I got to him, he had gone up to chewing up to “P”. But I had no choice after that but to throw away that humongous word library. One, because it (the dictionary, not my dog!) just had to be euthanized and second, well, there was an online, updatable, therefore more useful version. But come to think of it, why do we need dictionaries?

A 5-year-old deadly car crash is getting renewed attention because the driver is now the wife of U.S. Senator Bob Menendez, both of whom are facing federal charges alleging they took bribes. The crash happened in December of 2018, before they were married. Nadine Menendez was driving her Mercedes-Benz in Bogota, New Jersey, when she struck and killed a pedestrian. Police dash cam video shows her interaction with officers after the crash. "If we can clear you from any wrongdoing, I want to get you home and comfortable and not here anymore, you know what I'm saying," a Bogota police...

“Intense worry” is how a former passenger of the missing Titanic submersible describes his feelings as he waits with hope that the five people onboard, including two of his friends, will be found safely. Alfred Hagen, president of Hagen Construction and Development and a self-described adventurer from Pennsylvania, spoke with Global News about his connection to the ship and recounted his own journey he took into the ocean depths in 2021. His friends Paul-Henry Nargolet, a French diver considered a world expert on the Titanic, and OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush were on the submersible when it went missing Sunday. “As...

NEW BRAUNFELS, TX — Tensions rose between a local couple today after a woman texted her husband to ask him to pick up a mobile Target order for her on his way home from work, to which he replied "Ok." Reports indicated she was not at all happy with the tone of his "Ok" response. "What on earth is that supposed to mean?" said Monique Johnson who had put in an order for dishwashing soap and Reese's Peanut Butter Easter Eggs and set the pickup time to coincide with her husband, Derek, getting off of work. "I thought I could...

The commanding general of the 10th Mountain Division wants late-night texts from leaders to subordinates to stop. “The overuse and reliance on cell phones causes unforeseen stress on soldiers and families,” reads a policy letter recently shared on Twitter by Gen. Milford H. Beagle Jr., who said it was the official cell phone policy for the division and was designed to “prevent soldiers from being led by text.” “Change is a constant around us, but not all change needs to be communicated via text, chat groups, or other messaging applications,” Beagle wrote in the letter he posted Tuesday. “The constant...

The retired Florida police captain who fatally shot a man inside a movie theater in 2014 was acquitted of murder by a jury late Friday. Curtis Reeves, 79, was charged with second-degree murder after he gunned down 43-year-old Chad Oulson during a matinee screening of “Lone Survivor” in suburban Pasco County. Defense lawyers and prosecutors were in agreement that Reeves asked Oulson to stop texting during the movie previews — which started an argument that ended with the former Tampa police captain opening fire. Reeves pleaded not guilty on the grounds of self-defense. His lawyers successfully argued that police training...

Bill Melugin is the reporter for FoxLA who first picked up the story of a racist black woman who called a Latino cop a “Mexican racist” and a “murderer,” among other racist and offensive comments because he planned to ticket her for texting while driving. One network did show her face and her name appears to be Kalunda-Rae Iwamizu, AKA Kalunda Jenkins: The driver was identified by hundreds of social media users and TB Daily News as Kalunda-Rae Iwamizu.

Michelle Carter, the Massachusetts woman convicted of involuntary manslaughter for persuading her boyfriend to kill himself, was released from prison Thursday, months ahead of schedule due to good behavior. Carter, now 23, began serving a 15-month sentence in February, but she earned time off her sentence for good behavior, according to Jonathan Darling, spokesman at the Bristol County Sheriff's Office. She left the Bristol County House of Correction at about 9:30 a.m., video from CNN affiliate WHDH shows. Wearing a black turtleneck, a light blazer and black pants -- the same outfit she wore the day she was sentenced --...

Mobile technology has transformed the way we live — how we read, work, communicate, shop and date. But we already know this. What we have not yet grasped is the way the tiny machines in front of us are remolding our skeletons, possibly altering not just the behaviors we exhibit but the bodies we inhabit. New research in biomechanics suggests that young people are developing hornlike spikes at the back of their skulls — bone spurs caused by the forward tilt of the head, which shifts weight from the spine to the muscles at the back of the head, causing...

Most states ban texting behind the wheel, but a legislative proposal could make Nevada one of the first states to allow police to use a contentious technology to find out if a person was using a cellphone during a car crash. The measure is igniting privacy concerns and has led lawmakers to question the practicality of the technology, even while acknowledging the threat of distracted driving. The future of the Nevada proposal isn't clear. A similar measure introduced in 2017 failed in the New York Legislature, but lawmakers are considering it again.Law enforcement officials argue that distracted driving is underreported...

Following a new FCC ruling, the California Public Utilities Commission has ditched its planned 2019 vote on taxing text messaging. The CPUC revealed on Twitter Friday that it has decided not to go forward with a scheduled January 2019 vote to levy a 'text tax' following the FCC's ruling that text messages were an 'information service' — as opposed to a telecommunications service — meaning that texts aren't eligible for taxation under California state law. The commission's controversial 'text tax' plans involved a per-text surcharge which would help fund programs that provide cell phone services for low-income and disabled people,...

Report of Investigation: Recovery of Text Messages From Certain FBI Mobile Devices

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