Many leads, little progress 2 months after mom vanished

Two months after a mother of five vanished from a tony Connecticut town, authorities say they're still following up on more than 1,200 tips and leads.

But Jennifer Dulos' disappearance remains a mystery. The 50-year-old New Canaan woman went missing on May 24 after dropping her children off at school.

Police later arrested Fotis Dulos, her estranged husband, and Michelle Troconis, his girlfriend, on charges of evidence tampering and hindering prosecution. Both have pleaded not guilty, and both are free on $500,000 bond.

FILE - In this June 26, 2019 file photo, Fotis Dulos speaks after an appearance at Connecticut Superior Court in Stamford, Conn. Dulos is charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in connection with the May 24 disappearance of his wife Jennifer Dulos. (Tyler SizemoreHearst Connecticut Media via AP, File)

The five children, who range in age from 8 to 13 and include two sets of twins, have been staying with a grandmother in New York City.

"It's still an active investigation," New Canaan police Lt. Jason Ferraro said. "We're over 1,200 tips at this time. It's a tremendous amount of information" to sort through.

A closer look at the case:

FILE - In this June 28, 2019, file photo, Michelle Troconis attends a hearing in Stamford Superior Court in Stamford, Conn. The judge agreed to issue a no-contact order designed to keep her boyfriend Fotis Dulos and his attorney away from her and also granted permission for her to travel to a friend's home in New York state. Troconis and Dulos are charged with evidence tampering and hindering prosecution in connection with the May 24 disappearance of Fotis Dulos' wife Jennifer Dulos. (Erik TrautmannHearst Connecticut Media via AP, Pool, File)

CONTENTIOUS DIVORCE, LAWSUIT

The Duloses have been embroiled in a contentious divorce and child custody case for the past two years.

According to court documents filed in the divorce case, Jennifer Dulos feared that Fotis Dulos would harm her in some way in retaliation for her filing for divorce.

This undated photo on a missing persons flier provided by the New Canaan Police Department shows Jennifer Dulos, missing since May 2019. Two months after the mother of five vanished in Connecticut, authorities said they're following up on more than 1,200 tips and leads. (New Canaan Police Department via AP)

Jennifer Dulos is the daughter of Gloria Farber and the late Hilliard Farber, who ran Chase Manhattan Bank's bond trading desk before founding his own brokerage firm in 1975.

Fotis Dulos, a developer of expensive homes, is also involved in a lawsuit filed by Gloria Farber, acting as executor of the estate of Hilliard Farber, for not being able to repay back $1.7 million in loans.

DEFENSE STRATEGY

Norman Pattis, Fotis Dulos' lawyer, has argued that Jennifer Dulos is not the victim of foul play and has suggested a couple of alternate explanations for her disappearance. Patrick McKenna, who has helped win high-profile acquittals for O.J. Simpson and Casey Anthony, is also on his defense team.

Pattis told the New York Post in June that Jennifer Dulos once wrote a manuscript similar to the popular book-turned-movie "Gone Girl" about a woman who stages her own disappearance to frame her husband for murder. Pattis has also put forward a revenge-suicide hypothesis as an explanation for Jennifer Dulos' disappearance.

A Dulos family spokeswoman called the "Gone Girl" theory "false and irresponsible."

Fotis Dulos, meanwhile, has said he misses his kids.

"I just want to tell my children that they're constantly on my mind and that I love them and I miss them very much," he said last month.

SEARCHES AND TIPS

Law enforcement officials have searched several locations for evidence, including Fotis Dulos' home, several bodies of water in the Avon and Farmington area and a Hartford trash-to-energy plant where police sifted through trash bags containing clothing and other items with Jennifer Dulos' blood found on them.

Investigators say blood splatter and evidence of cleanup attempts were also found at Jennifer Dulos' home.

Authorities also allege that Fotis Dulos and his girlfriend discarded the bags that ended up in the trash plant, citing surveillance videos showing two people resembling them dumping bags there.

A website has been set up to help bring in further tips.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Michelle Troconis is scheduled to appear in court again on Aug. 19. Fotis Dulos' next court date is scheduled for Aug. 2.

Chris Ehrmann is a corps member for Report for America , a nonprofit organization that supports local news coverage, in a partnership with The Associated Press for Connecticut. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

NEW DELHI (AP) — The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.

In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here's what happened:

In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.

The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.

The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.

“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.

Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. “TikTok wasn’t a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date.”

At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users, the most outside of China. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.

TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go — and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.

“And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated,” said Pahwa.

In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.

But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.

Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.

“I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn’t like how it used to be on TikTok,” he said.

Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” he said.

The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.

The measure gives ByteDance, the app’s parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn’t happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.

In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.

But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. “In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it’s not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India,” he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.

As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.

The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.

“Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others,” said Pahwa.

“There should be different rules for democratic countries and for authoritarian regimes where companies can act as an extension of the state,” he added.

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This story corrects the expert's erroneous reference to Fourth instead of First Amendment.

FILE- Activists of Jammu and Kashmir Dogra Front shout slogans against Chinese President Xi Jinping next to a banner showing the logos of TikTok and other Chinese apps banned in India during a protest in Jammu, India, July 1, 2020. (AP Photo/Channi Anand, File)