Take one sip of the Colorado-made spirit Tingala and you’ll understand why it’s unlike anything else currently available on the market.

The sensory experience starts with a bouquet of cinnamon and allspice in the aroma, and at first those are the dominant flavors on the palate, too. But soon, spicy notes give way to tingling sensations that build and build until the whole tongue feels numb, almost like it’s vibrating. Stick with it for just a couple of brave moments and the experience will peak before mellowing out and returning your mouth back to normalcy.

Phew, you made it through the rollercoaster of flavors. Ready for another ride?

That’s the appeal of Tingala, which has been tantalizing tastebuds since it debuted in 2016. Its secret ingredient is the buzz button, a Brazilian flower that includes a compound responsible for evoking the intense sensory effects.

While bartenders throughout the U.S. have garnished cocktails with buzz buttons for fun and flare, company president Susan Tews believes Tingala is the first to use them in distillation. It’s fair to say, though something of a novelty, it has been a hit.

Demand skyrocketed in recent years as Tingala added a second spirit recipe to its portfolio. The company doubled its sales in 2024, Tews said, and its products have continued to grow in popularity – so much so, that Tingala is currently facing a shortage.

“Starting fall of last year, demand just suddenly soared and we simply sold out,” Tews said. “We had a reserve built up that up until then was adequate.”

Until this point, Tews admits the company kept a modest backstock. She describes Tingala is a “micro-mini” brand and family operation based in Greenwood Village that typically only produces a few thousand cases per year. Tews’ husband Bob and their son Eric are the creators of this inventive spirit, the recipe for which they first drafted by infusing store-bought liquor with buzz buttons grown in their home garden.

Their inspiration? Anthony Bourdain.

Susan and Bob Tews had seen one of Bourdain’s travel shows that took the chef and TV personality to Brazil, where he encountered the buzz button. Locals there use the flower, known scientifically as spilanthes acmella, in medicines and stews.

Bob and Eric Tews were homebrewers who always had an interest in unusual flavors, so buzz buttons seemed like a fun experiment. The first time they used them to infuse a spirit, they put the tingly tipple into Jell-O shots. Talk about a fun party trick.

“Our friends just loved it,” Susan Tews said. “From there, we just decided to look into what it would take to get a formula approval from the TTB and try bottling it.”

The family first worked with Mile High Spirits in Denver to produce and distribute Tingala commercially. In 2020, they partnered with Golden’s Local Distilling, maker of VANJAK Vodka, which now produces its two recipes.

The original is a 50% ABV liquor meant for mixing. In 2023, the company released Tingala Gold (35% ABV), made with vanilla and agave for a touch of sweetness, for the customers who wanted to sip it on its own. That second product is what helped put Tingala on the map, Tews said, as it both captured attention and renewed interest in the original, higher proof recipe. Both products are currently distributed throughout Colorado and in eight additional states.

Because the family originally worked with a farm in California to grow the buzz buttons, Tingala used to be a seasonal project, Tews said. But as thirst outpaced production, the company enlisted the help of Denver’s Rebel Farm to grow them hydroponically year-round.

Spilanthes, commonly known as buzz buttons or electric daisy, grows in the greenhouse at Rebel Farm in Denver on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

“The flowers just go crazy,” said James O’Brien, owner of Rebel Farm.

O’Brien and his team recently completed test batches of about 120 plants, which yielded five pounds of buzz buttons per week. The farmer’s goal is to quadruple production to harvest 20 pounds of flowers per week, which will help the Tewses double their production in 2025 and keep stores and bars stocked.

“We think we’ll be caught up by the end of summer and able to resupply everybody,” Tews said. Until then, visit tingalaspirits.com to see where the spirits are sold and be sure to call ahead to see if it’s in stock.

Because the flavor is unique, Tingala keeps a robust collection of cocktail recipes on its website for newbies. If you want to try it straight, Tews has one piece of advice for maximum enjoyment: “Take a little sip, roll it around in your mouth and then swallow,” she said. “You don’t want to shoot it, that is a mistake.”

Liver specialist Maurizio Bonacini is in the race for a cure for hepatitis B, one of the world’s most widespread diseases and a top cause of liver cancer around the globe.

“It’s the last frontier,” said Dr. Bonacini, a San Francisco-based clinical researcher who has spent his career studying the chronic version of the disease estimated to affect more than 2 million people in the United States.

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The World Health Organization estimates that one of three people worldwide has been infected by acute hepatitis B. The likelihood of developing chronic hepatitis B is higher for the young — the risk is 90 percent for babies with the bloodborne disease. When untreated, the virus progresses into liver cancer 25% of the time, killing one of four.

Although hepatitis B is both preventable with vaccines and treatable with oral medication, the virus continues to spread 60 years after its discovery. There is no cure yet.

Hoping to change this, Bonacini joined B-United, a clinical trial with 300 chronic hepatitis B patients at 80 sites across 18 countries, sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, a biopharma company headquartered in the U.K.

Bonacini leads one of two investigation locations in California — the other is in San Jose, led by Dr. Huy A. Nguyen at San Jose Gastroenterology. Bonacini’s San Francisco site was first to treat a patient with a potential cure for chronic hepatitis B.

Until there’s a cure, patients with hepatitis B must take antiviral pills for life so the virus does not rebound. The medication stops the replication of hepatitis B DNA in the body, halving the risk of liver cancer and other complications. But the drugs can cause side effects such as upper respiratory infections, fatigue, nausea and gastrointestinal issues. Sometimes, people develop resistance to the antivirals, and in rare cases experience kidney or liver complications or failure.

“When we treat patients with hepatitis B, it’s like the Olympics. What we have now is the bronze medal,” Bonacini said.

Bonacini wants gold — a sterilizing cure that eradicates every trace of the virus and cannot return.

For now, he’ll take silver, a functional cure, one in which the virus could return, but which reduces cancer risk by 80% and allows patients to stop taking the antiviral pills.

Bonacini follows 10 Bay Area participants while observing 200 others under his care who could not qualify for the trial.

While still taking their regular medication, study patients receive monthly injections of an investigational drug that slows production of the surface antigen, the hallmark of the infection. After 24 weeks, they receive weekly injections of a different research drug for another 24 weeks. If surface antigens are still gone after 24 more weeks, patients stop all treatment but remain under close monitoring.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration might consider the injections for market approval starting in late 2027, Bonacini said.

Bonacini emphasized the need for better prevention and diagnosis in the interim. This June, he asked more than 60 primary care physicians in California to flag state-mandated screening for hepatitis B in electronic health records systems. He said he received the pushback from the time-strapped practitioners.

“The consensus seemed to be that implementing this would be very burdensome. It takes time. I’ve been there,” he said.

Many of the doctors also did not want to make their patients take an additional test. “In theory, it should be covered (by insurance) in California, but the reality could be different,” he Bonacini.

Additionally, U.S. law requires proof of vaccination for immigrants entering the country, but not screenings. “That is a big mistake,” Bonacini said.

Even if a person shows proof of vaccination or receives one, vaccinations administered to those who are already infected don’t work.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services oversees immigration health requirements and designates doctors called “civil surgeons” to sign off on these requirements. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issues technical instructions for hepatitis B vaccines, confirmed that testing for the disease is not a part of protocol for civil surgeons because prospective immigrants would not be inadmissible–rejected from entry–for having the disease.

One of Bonacini’s study patients, a San Francisco resident in his 40s, slipped through this crack. He immigrated to the U.S. from Southeast Asia at age 9 and received a hepatitis B vaccination later as a student.

But after his first physical exam when he was in his 30s, he learned he had contracted hepatitis B before receiving the vaccination and now had fatty liver and mild cirrhosis.

He met Bonacini while volunteering for COVID vaccine studies and enrolled in the chronic hepatitis B cure research as soon as he became eligible.

Hepatitis B DNA became undetectable his system within months of taking oral medication; 26 weeks into trial injections, he is essentially noncontagious.

The man, who asked not to use his name because of the stigma around the condition, wishes more people talked more about hepatitis B. He’s speaking out more and finding others living with the condition. While glad to know he’s not alone, he is exhausted from maintaining his health under the ever-looming threat of liver cancer.

Every six months, he pays $100 to $200 for bloodwork and $500 to $700 for imaging before hitting his deductible. He said he can’t imagine the financial burden for those with inferior coverage.

“I’m getting used to it but there has to be a better way,” he said. “I will participate in any clinical trial just to find a cure.”

With better prevention, Bonaicini said we would rarely, if at all, see cases like this patient’s in a generation or two. But even then, a cure would still be necessary because it is impossible to inoculate every human.

As part of a global quest, he exchanges notes with respected virologists and clinicians in places like Tanzania and Hong Kong, where up to 7% of the population contends with the disease. He said studies increasingly suggest a cure is within reach.

“We just have to find the right drugs,” he said.

By DID TANG and COLLIN BINKLEY, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over a recent two-year period, the Pentagon funded hundreds of projects done in collaboration with universities in China and institutes linked to that nation’s defense industry, including many blacklisted by the U.S. government for working with the Chinese military, a congressional investigation has found.

The report, released Friday by House Republicans on the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, argues the projects have allowed China to exploit U.S. research partnerships for military gains while the two countries are locked in a tech and arms rivalry.

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“American taxpayer dollars should be used to defend the nation — not strengthen its foremost strategic competitor,” Republicans wrote in the report.

“Failing to safeguard American research from hostile foreign exploitation will continue to erode U.S. technological dominance and place our national defense capabilities at risk,” it said.

The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to an Associated Press request for comment. Beijing has in the past said science and technological cooperation between the two countries is mutually beneficial and helps the two sides cope with global challenges.

The congressional report said some officials at the Defense Department argued research should remain open as long as it is “neither controlled nor classified.”

The report makes several recommendations to scale back U.S. research collaboration with China. It also backs new legislation proposed by the committee’s chairman, Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan. The bill would prohibit any Defense Department funding from going to projects done in collaboration with researchers affiliated with Chinese entities that the U.S. government identifies as safety risks.

Republicans say the joint research could have military applications

The 80-page report builds on the committee’s findings last year that partnerships between U.S. and Chinese universities over the past decade allowed hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to help Beijing develop critical technology. Amid pressure from Republicans, several U.S. universities have ended their joint programs with Chinese schools in recent years.

The new report focuses more narrowly on the Defense Department and its billions of dollars in annual research funding.

The committee’s investigation identified 1,400 research papers published between June 2023 and June 2025 that acknowledged support from the Pentagon and were done in collaboration with Chinese partners. The publications were funded by some 700 defense grants worth more than $2.5 billion. Of the 1,400 publications, more than half involved organizations affiliated with China’s defense research and industrial base.

Dozens of those organizations were flagged for potential security concerns on U.S. government lists, though federal law does not prohibit research collaborations with them. The Defense Department money supported research in fields including hypersonic technology, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, advanced materials and next-generation propulsion.

Many of the projects have clear military applications, according to the report.

In one case, a nuclear scientist at Carnegie Science, a research institution in Washington, worked extensively on Pentagon-backed research while holding appointments at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Hefei Institute of Physical Sciences.

The scientist, who has done research on high-energy materials, nitrogen and high-pressure physics — all of which are relevant to nuclear weapons development — has been honored in China for his work to advance the country’s national development goals, the report said. It called the case “a deeply troubling example” of how Beijing can leverage U.S. taxpayer-funded research to further its weapons development.

In another Pentagon-backed project, Arizona State University and the University of Texas partnered with researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Beihang University to study high-stakes decision-making in uncertain environments, which has direct applications for electronic warfare and cyber defense, the report said. The money came from the Office of Naval Research, the Army Research Office and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The Shanghai university is under the supervision of a central Chinese agency tasked with developing defense technology, and Beihang University, in the capital city of Beijing, is linked to the People’s Liberation Army and known for its aerospace programs.

Calls for scaling back research collaborations

The report takes issue with Defense Department policies that do not explicitly forbid research partnerships with foreign institutions that appear on U.S. government blacklists.

It makes more than a dozen recommendations, including a prohibition on any Pentagon research collaboration with entities that are on U.S. blacklists or “known to be part of China’s defense research and industrial base.”

Moolenaar’s legislation includes a similar provision and proposes a ban on Defense Department funding for U.S. universities that operate joint institutes with Chinese universities.

A senior Education Department official said the report “highlights the vulnerability of federally funded research to foreign infiltration on America’s campuses.” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said the findings reinforce the need for more transparency around U.S. universities’ international ties, along with a “whole-of-government approach to safeguard against the malign influence of hostile foreign actors.”

House investigators said they are not seeking to end all academic and research collaborations with China but those with connections to the Chinese military and its research and industrial base.

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — When Kate Smith worked a 9-to-5 office job, she was burned-out, suffering from daily migraines and thinking, “I can’t do this for the rest of my life.”

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She didn’t have to. For her next role, Smith landed a remote, full-time marketing job that enabled her to travel the world.

Her laptop lifestyle took her to Bali, where she lived and worked for a year-and-a-half. “Every day, I was riding my scooter through the rice fields and thinking, ‘I love my life, this is amazing,’” she said. “And that feeling never fades. … I feel so grateful for the freedom and flexibility.”

While Smith, 36, has worked remotely for more than a decade, the trend of ditching traditional office spaces to work from living rooms or beachfront shacks accelerated in 2020, when the coronavirus hit and workers who could began performing their jobs from home.

Many people grew accustomed to the lifestyle change once they tasted the freedom and flexibility a home office afforded. Working parents enjoyed meeting children at the school bus. Others found more time for exercise, socializing and basking in nature once their jobs did not include long commutes.

But after the pandemic subsided, many large companies began calling employees back into the office, creating fierce competition for jobs that could be done from anywhere. Many positions advertised as remote attract hundreds, if not more than a thousand, of applications, experts said.

“Fully remote is very rare now in the U.S.,” said Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh. “It is getting much more difficult and you need to look for the smaller firms or medium-sized firms … and those firms do not provide as competitive financial packages as the big firms, but they try to attract talent by providing more flexibility.”

About 9% of paid U.S. job postings on social networking platform LinkedIn in July offered remote work, while those types of roles attracted 37% of applications, according to the company.

Below, employers and people who haven’t returned to an office offer advice on how to land remote jobs in a competitive climate.

Show your autonomy

The biggest concern for an employer hiring remote workers is ensuring they will do their work, said Carla Rover, co-founder of Strategy and Content, a startup that leverages artificial intelligence.

“I have approached people with a schedule, saying, ‘This is how much I create each day. This is how much I’ve built in a period of time,’” said Rover, who mostly has worked remotely since 2010. Assembling a strong portfolio showcases what you can do while working outside an office, Rover advised.

“Time management and independence, being self-motivated, are really critical,” said Toni Frana, career expert at FlexJobs, a platform dedicated to helping people find remote or flexible work.

If you’ve worked remotely before, highlight that on your resume. List communication tools you’ve used, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, said Dawn Fay, operational president at staffing firm Robert Half International. “Call out that you have worked remotely, independently, for X amount of time successfully,” Fay added. “You really want to stress that.”

Stick with a role similar to your current job

After moving on from the office job that made her miserable, Smith created a side hustle coaching other professionals who longed for a nomadic lifestyle. Her coaching eventually grew into a full-time job.

When looking to transition into remote work, find a job that’s similar to your current role instead of competing with better-qualified candidates for jobs that require more experience, she advised. “Get your foot in the door … and then from there work your way to the long-term goal,” Smith said.

You can also try to convert your current job into a remote role. That’s what Courtney Sandifer attempted after her husband, 60, had a heart attack and underwent cancer treatment within the same year. He retired early and they bought a small property in Mexico near the beach, hoping to reduce stress. “We just got tired of the rat race,” Sandifer said.

Sandifer, 44, loved her job working in video production in Houston. But she took a risk, telling her employer they were moving and she wanted to do her job remotely. The company agreed she could be a contractor but no longer a staff member. She lost her benefits, a big financial hit.

But it was worth it to be able to edit video by a pool and to know she’ll be able to visit her son in New Zealand, where he’ll be attending college, without taking much time off from work, she said. “If you have kids, it’s so much easier to be who you want to be with a remote job,” Sandifer said. “That’s what came into focus for me: How will my family be the happiest and healthiest in the long term? It may not be the most lucrative, but you have to consider your own mental health.”

Where remote jobs are growing

Where you live matters. Europe and Australia have more remote jobs than the U.S., Ma said. Lawmakers in Victoria, Australia, have said they plan to introduce legislation that would give workers the legal right to work from home two days a week.

Dozens of countries, including Thailand, Italy and Brazil, offer “digital nomad visas” which allow foreigners with remote jobs to stay and work for an extended period of time.

Different industries and occupations are more conducive to the remote work scene. In the U.S., education, administrative and social media positions are the fastest-growing full-time remote jobs, while nursing, telehealth and licensed therapists are among the top titles for part-time remote work, according to Frana at FlexJobs.

Smith said she sees opportunities to find remote jobs in marketing, product management, sales, human resources, talent acquisition, software development, engineering, customer support, data analysis and financial services.

Read the fine print

PJ Hruschak, 54, has been looking for remote work in web design, writing or editing since he was downsized from a full-time job two years ago. He lives outside Cincinnati, Ohio, and wants to avoid commuting and be able to work from home when his 9-year-old son is sick.

But often when he finds jobs advertised as remote, he reads further into the description to learn the employer wants candidates to live in a particular city or be available to work in the office several days per week. “It’s definitely frustrating,” Hruschak said. “It almost feels like it’s a waste of time.”

Search aggressively

For Francesca Conti, an investor who works in venture capital, working remotely from London for a Swiss company has allowed her to travel internationally and visit extended family in the U.S.

“The opportunities are out there, but they’re very few and far between,” she said.

Conti recommends attending industry or alumni events to meet contacts that can help in the search.

“Even though you want a remote opportunity, those relationships need to be made in person. They can’t be made remotely,” Conti said. “Remote opportunities are very unique in nature, so just be even more aggressive in the search and understand that it might take a little bit more time, but my experience has been highly worth it.”

Share your stories and questions about workplace wellness at cbussewitz@ap.org. Follow AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health at https://apnews.com/hub/be-well