Month: May 2022

On Tuesday, a gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 15 — 14 children and one teacher. It’s the most devastating school shooting since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012 and it left a nation overrun by gun violence once again in shock, exacerbated by lawmakers’ perpetual inaction. Shortly after the tragedy, one of them took to the floor of the Senate to beg GOP leaders to help them do something, anything.

That lawmaker is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who was previously a representative for the district that included Sandy Hook Elementary School. His voice cracking, he addressed his colleagues to finally spring into action.

“Sandy Hook will never, ever be the same,” Murphy told his colleagues. “This community in Texas will never, ever be the same. Why? Why are we here? If not to try to make sure that fewer schools and fewer communities go through what Sandy Hook has gone through. What Uvalde is going through.”

Instead of mere grandstanding, Murphy tried to reach across the aisle to effect real change.

“I am here on this floor to beg — to literally get down on my hands and knees and beg my colleagues,” Murphy thundered. “Find a path forward here. Work with us to find a way to pass laws that make this less likely. I understand my Republican colleagues may not agree to everything I support, but there is a common denominator we can find. There is a place where we can achieve agreement…”

He added, “What are we doing? Why are we here? What are we doing?”

You can watch Murphy’s full, fiery speech in the video above.

(Via CBS News)

Another day in America and another shooting at a school has occurred. Early on Tuesday, an 18 year old suspect opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 14 students and one teacher. In a school whose student body is 90% Hispanic, it also raised obvious concerns as to whether this was a racially motivated shooting. Regardless, it’s yet another senseless act that shows the country’s inability to protect it’s children from horrific crimes like this while *at school.*

The New York Times reports that this is “the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the one in Newtown, Conn., according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit that advocates for gun control.” The fact that we have other elementary school shootings to compare this one too is insane. It will once again bring the issue of gun control to the forefront of American politics and celebrities and prominent figures are beginning to share their thoughts on social media. Let’s face it, it takes influential voices to help enact change, and what happened today in Uvalde is nothing short of an injustice to children, their families, and more.

Among those sharing their words and sympathies on Twitter, Finneas made a statement that captures the sad reality of where we stand right now. “Anyone saying “now isn’t the time to talk about gun control” doesn’t care that kids got f*cking murdered today,” he tweeted.

He’s 100% right. And here’s hoping that if anything positive can come from yet another unthinkable, heinous act, it’s that the move towards stricter gun control in America gains more steam so this never happens again.

Warning: The below post contains spoilers for the midseason finale of Better Call Saul.

Late last year, Bob Odenkirk posted what he thought was a nice, innocuous picture of himself and actor Patrick Fabian. He wished his colleague a happy birthday. It was supposed to be a nice gesture. But eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that what he wound up doing, albeit inadvertently, was tease a massive spoiler for the shocking midseason finale of Better Call Saul that just aired. Now Odenkirk is owning up to the breach.

In the episode, Fabian’s character, Howard Hamlin, is shot and killed by Lalo Salamanca in Jimmy and Kim’s apartment. It’s clear that the photo Odenkirk posted in December was taken while they were shooting the episode. Fabian looks disheveled, his hair messed-up. There’s even stray traces of blood. It’s not an obvious spoiler, but it’s not hard to intimate that something bad would happen to his character.

Odenkirk re-posted the photo after the episode aired, wishing his friend well-wishes once again. When someone asked the actor if he posted it “just to mess with us,” he replied that he did not. “Well the truth can be told. I screwed up,” he wrote back. “I did not know you could see a little bit of make up that told story… my bad.

Fabian himself also addressed the photo in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. When asked about it, he jokingly feigned ignorance, then acknowledged that luckily they didn’t give the game completely away. “You know what? It didn’t really go anywhere,” Fabian said. “We just pretended there was nothing there, but I also had plenty of explanations for it as well. So I was glad it didn’t go any further than it did.”

Let there be a lesson here: If you’re going to post a birthday message with a friend, make sure you’re not accidentally revealing that the character they play on a hit TV show has been offed.

I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Inattentive Type about three years ago—I was a fully functioning adult, married with children before finding out that my brain worked a bit differently. Of course I’ve known that I functioned a bit differently than my friends since childhood. The signs were there early on, but in the ’80s diagnosing a girl with ADHD just wasn’t a thing that happened.

Much of the early criteria for ADHD was written based on how it presented in males, more specifically, white male children, and I was neither. Women like me are being diagnosed more and more lately and it’s likely because social media has connected us in a way that was lacking pre- doom scrolling days.

With the help of social media, women can connect with others who share the same symptoms that were once a source of shame. They can learn what testing to ask for and how to advocate for themselves while having an army of supporters that you’ve never met to encourage you along the way. A lot of women that are diagnosed later in life don’t want medication, they just want an answer. Finally having an answer is what nearly brought me to tears. I wasn’t lazy and forgetful because I didn’t care. I had a neurological disorder that severely impacted my ability to pay attention to detail and organize tasks from most important to least. Just having the answer was a game changer, but hearing that untreated ADHD can cause unchecked anxiety, which I had in spades, I decided to listen to my doctor and give medication a try.

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About 30 minutes after my first pill I was actually able to sit still. My brain slowed down and thought one thing at a time. I was suddenly able to finish the tasks that I started in a few minutes instead of hours, or not getting done at all. I remember calling my older brother and crying into the phone telling him that for the first time in my life I was able to not only sit and create a list, but mark stuff off said list. The excitement over my new found executive functioning skills wrapped in a peach colored diamond shaped pill was short lived. For a week out of the month, the pill did nothing. My brain went back to ping ponging from idea to idea, subject to subject. Things for work went unfinished or were messily completed in a last minute hurry. It was beyond frustrating, and no one had an answer as to why my period affected my medication.

My psychiatrist at the time suggested that I was building up a tolerance, but I took “medication vacations” and really only took it during the work week. It wasn’t until I reached out in a group specifically for moms with ADHD out of sheer exasperation that I got answers. Comment after comment were women saying, “my meds don’t work when I’m on my period either.” So many women didn’t have an answer as to why, it was just something that they’ve accepted that comes along with being a woman with ADHD. A week out of the month, your medication that literally helps you function is essentially reduced to being a Tic-Tac. It has no effect, and the symptoms of ADHD are cranked up to 100 that week. It was the most fascinating, bizarre and infuriating revelation. Why isn’t this talked about more?

It seems that women are left to either struggle with thinking they’ve lost their minds or that their medication needs to be increased, when a lot of the time neither is true. In fact, after doing a bit of research I found a few articles written about the effects of estrogen on ADHD symptoms, but had difficulty finding one that was peer reviewed. Most articles were written by therapists and ADHD coaches that have been doing their own research into the matter to help their clients that menstruate.

One of the few peer reviewed articles found was by Chris Iliades, MD and peer reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH. In the article, Iliades notes that “The hormone estrogen affects receptors in the brain that release the naturally occurring chemicals serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. When estrogen levels drop during the weeks before a menstrual period or during the years before menopause, so does the level of these brain chemicals.” He goes on to explain, “because symptoms of ADHD are affected by many of these same brain chemicals, it stands to reason that women with ADHD are more sensitive to estrogen.”

The breakdown of how these chemicals work in conjunction with estrogen, which fluctuates throughout your menstrual cycle, is indeed interesting. But why are articles highlighting this issue outliers? Why aren’t doctors who prescribe these medications more forthcoming with this information? It makes you wonder if doctors are aware at all or if the biological makeup of women and girls taking ADHD medication is an afterthought that medicine has to catch up with. If it is an afterthought, there are thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of menstruating people who would love more research done on this—taking a weeks long vacation from work and daily life isn’t feasible. Here’s hoping for more research and doctors like Chris Iliades to tell us what to expect when ADHD and periods meet.

Giving birth can be serene and magical, filled with swear words, death stares and some serious contemplation on why you thought having a baby would be a good idea. Preparing for birth is often meticulous; everything is planned out months in advance, bags are packed by the door and your favorite doctor or midwife is on speed dial. You worked hard to get things in place and everything should run as smoothly as a well oiled machine. But for one mom in Kentucky, that birth plan went out of the window.

Heather Skaats, 34, is no stranger to having babies and likely can tell a doctor a thing or two about how her deliveries are going to go after after six children. Heather was three weeks away from her due date for her seventh child when she started having light contractions. When in labor with her older children, the mom labored for hours so she was not terribly concerned when she started experiencing mild labor pains. Skaats told Today Parents, “I thought I wouldn’t have a baby in my arms until eight or ten hours later.”

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Due to her history with her other labors lasting so long and her contractions being light, Heather decided to run some errands before it was time to call the midwife. The plan was for the seasoned mom to have a water birth at home, but baby had other ideas. While Skaats was driving her contractions intensified and she had to pull over. Now is a good time to note that all five of her other children were in the car, ages ranging from 2-13. Skaats’ other child, Leilah died of cancer in 2016 at the age of 4.

After pulling over and reassuring her kids that everything was OK, the mom got out of the car and squatted down when she felt her water break. Skaats said, “I put my hand down there and his head started coming out with his body,” she said. “I didn’t even have to push. It was so quick. I was on the phone with my husband, Nick, and 20 seconds later, I was like, ‘He’s here!’”

Heather was able to catch her son, who started crying right away. But the birth story doesn’t end there. Mom and baby had to make it back to the house with five other shell shocked but excited kids. She was able to wrap the baby in a blanket and drive the family back to the house while she held him close to her chest. Once Skaats made it home she delivered her placenta in the shower with the help of her 13-year-old daughter, Kaelynn. The midwife arrived shortly after.

As for how she remained calm throughout the whole unexpected ordeal, Heather said, “I think having home births in the past sort of taught me to trust my body. Knowing the process really helped.”

Currently the newest member of the Skaats clan doesn’t have a name but the parents are considering the names of the cross streets where he made his grand appearance, Wolf and Porter. No matter what name they choose, there’s no doubt the story behind his birth will be the talk of the town.

Jet packs and jet suits have been part of science fiction and fantasy fiction for a long time but who would’ve thought we could really be living like “The Jetsons” sooner rather than later? Paramedics in the UK have been trying out a jet suit to reach stranded explorers who have been injured in remote areas. The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) is testing out the flying jet suits invented by Richard Browning from Gravity Industries. Andy Mawson, the director of operations from GNAAS, hopes to have the technology fully up and running by the summer of 2022.

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The jet suit has five mini engines: two built into both hand units, and one built into the backpack. It can reach up to 85 mph with a total flight time of 10 minutes. When speaking to BBC, Mawson said, “There’s still a lot to work out. Safety is key, and myself and the other paramedics training need to make sure we’re capable.” While it would be pretty cool to take a ride with a paramedic wearing a jet suit if your leg were injured, that’s not the purpose. Mawson explained, “What we’re really improving here with this equipment, is the time in which we get a highly qualified paramedic to the patient’s side, not getting the patient to the hospital.”

It would be a surreal experience for anyone to see their rescue team showing up over the horizon like “Iron Man.” It’s hard to believe that this will be a reality for some people in the very near future. Hopefully no one needs paramedics while exploring remote areas of the countryside but if you do, this sure would be an awesome story to tell your friends.

There are over 850,000 podcasts with 48 million episodes in the world so it can a little overwhelming to find the right one to throw on in your earbuds. If you’re a fan of Upworthy’s uplifting news stories and social media posts, then you’ll probably enjoy some of these podcasts that brighten our days.

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Upworthy Weekly

Ok, we may be a little biased but we love our first-ever podcast that’s a lighthearted look at some of our most popular and engaging stories. It’s the perfect way to shake off the Monday-to-Friday news cycle with a refreshing dose of good news. Upworthy Weekly is hosted by Alison Rosen from the super-popular podcast “Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend” and Upworthy staff writer Tod Perry.

Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeart Radio.

Follow Friday

“Follow Friday” is your guide to the best people on the internet. Every week, Eric Johnson sits down with writers, podcasters, comedians and more to find out who they follow, and why.

Were You Raised By Wolves?

Etiquette, manners and beyond! Join Emmy Award-winning journalist Nick Leighton and acclaimed comedian Leah Bonnema (“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”), the perfect odd couple, as they try to make the world a nicer, more polite place and offer up practical advice to help you smoothly glide through any situation.

The Good News Podcast

Everything we hear in the news these days is bad. We wake up, read the headlines and immediately get stressed out. We hear all the bad news, but we rarely hear the good news—and there’s actually a lot of it. So to make each day more bearable, Cards Against Humanity created “The Good News Podcast.”

The Ten News

“The Ten News” podcast explores topics kids care about most including events, sports, science, gaming, pop culture, entertainment and more. With new episodes every Tuesday, Thursday and extras on Saturdays, it’s a great way for you and your family to stay connected with what’s going on in the world. “The Ten News” also features some pretty awesome guests; LEGO Masters Judge Amy Corbett, America’s top doctor Dr. Anthony Fauci, Sarah Natochenny, the voice of Ash Ketchum for “Pokemon” fans and many more.

The Newsworthy

“The NewsWorthy” is on a mission to help people enjoy staying informed with its fast, fair, fun approach. They keep you well-rounded and up-to-date on a wide variety of stories—from politics to tech to entertainment and more—all in about 10 minutes each weekday.

Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend

“Upworthy Weekly’s” Alison Rosen has her own twice-weekly podcast that we’re sure will make her your bestie. Mondays are one-on-ones featuring surprisingly honest conversations that are equal parts silly, serious and revelatory. Thursdays are roundtable group shows. You will laugh, think and feel less alone.

Secretly Incredibly Fascinating

A weekly podcast about the history, science, lore and surprises that make everyday things secretly incredibly fascinating. Hosted by comedy writer, emoji creator and “Jeopardy!” champion Alex Schmidt.

The Only One in the Room

Writer Laura Cathcart Robbins found herself in an all too familiar position. In September 2018, she was the only Black woman in the room at Brave Magic, a famed writer’s retreat. After it was over, she wrote about her “only one” experience in The Huffington Post and comments started flooding into her DMs. These comments were from people from all races, ethnicities, creeds and nationalities who had felt “othered.” On her podcast, Laura beautifully interviews a person about their “only one” story each episode and addresses as many of those DMs as possible in the process.

Recently, Republicans have been demonstrating their love of freedom in unusual ways: by not letting teachers and students discuss LBTQIA+ issues and by banning books. There have even book burnings. But there’s one tome they won’t be able to reduce to ashes.

As per The Hill, Penguin Random House is releasing a limited edition of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood’s classic novel about a theocratic/patriarchal dystopia in which women have been stripped of even basic human rights. The new edition is made of fireproof materials, including a “black Cinefoil dust jacket, white heat shield foil pages, section sewn with nickel wire, a phenolic hard cover, stainless steel head and tail bands and a Kapton high temperature adhesive.”

With all that, it can withstand heat up to a whopping 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The unburnable Handmaid’s Tale won’t be available in your local Barnes & Noble. Instead it will be up for auction at Sotheby’s New York, with proceeds going to the advocacy group PEN America, which defends free expression.

Atwood’s novel, first published in 1985, has been a target of book banning for ages. It’s attracted new interest in the last five years, partly because of its acclaimed (and still-going) Hulu TV adaptation, which premiered in the early days of the Trump administration. Since then, the “red maiden” costume worn by its protagonist has become a popular one to wear at protests. There was even a “sexy” version of the get-up that wound up being pulled, in part due to copyright infringement.

You can watch a video about the new edition, which includes the sight of Atwood herself trying — and failing — to torch her most famous work with a blowtorch.

(Via The Hill)

Who could have expected this? It seems as though a phishing scam has caused actor/writer/former Buffy werewolf Seth Green to lose out on his Bored Ape NFT. To make matters even worse, Green has been developing a TV show based on the ape (really!) which he can’t seem to release now, because he technically no longer owns the IP. Whoops!

This past weekend, Green was at VeeCon, which is an NFT convention that was held in real life in a half-empty stadium. Green gave a sneak peek of the show called White Horse Tavern which was slated to star Fred, the ape. Yeah, the NFT has a name, it’s a whole thing, and the trailer does in fact feature an Imagine Dragons song from 2012.

But now the future of the show is uncertain after the ape was stolen. “I bought that ape in July 2021, and have spent the last several months developing and exploiting the IP to make it into the star of this show.” Green said at the con. “Then days before — his name is Fred by the way — days before he’s set to make his world debut, he’s literally kidnapped.” Green has since been Tweeting at the scammer trying to get his fictional ape back, but it doesn’t seem to be so easy.

And then there’s always legal action, which one would think would be a no-brainer.

Go ahead, take a minute to soak in “the promise of the ape community.” It’s okay, we understand.

According to Buzzfeed News, the hackers have already sold two of the NFTs that were stolen from Green: the Bored Ape for over $200k and one of the Mutant ones for $42k. Because of how new NFT copyright law is, the situation doesn’t look good for Green. OpenSea, the NFT marketplace where Green’s NFTs were stolen, already has three pending lawsuits from similar phishing accounts. It’s unclear what will happen to the TV show, but here’s to hoping Imagine Dragon’s got their royalty check early.

Green has previously worked with NFT King Steve Aoki for their NFT shenanigans. He is now allegedly working with the FBI to get his little monkey back. Predictably, people on social media are taking turns dragging Green for the events.

Maybe just cast real actors in your show next time! They can’t be stolen legally.

(Spoilers for Netflix’s Stranger Things will obviously be found below.)

Stranger Things fans have waited three years to return to Hawkins, Indiana and plenty has happened in that long and painful interim. The cast has grown up, the episodes have reached cinematic run times, and the story about a group of misfits saving their cursed town from Demogorgons, Mindflayers, and Russian scientists has expanded. A long hiatus and more plot threads than a Marvel multiverse movie mean there are likely some characters and storylines audiences have probably forgotten about over the years.

Look, we don’t judge, but we do want you to be prepared for season four, which is why we’ve crafted this handy guide to refresh your memory when it comes to the biggest plot points and character arcs last seen hanging off the proverbial cliff in season three. Here’s where we left Hawkins, and where things might be headed next.

Back to the Beginning

Over the course of three seasons, Stranger Things immersed us in a nostalgic sci-fi trip back to the ’80s, complete with government experiments and Goonies references, and monsters. So many monsters. The show’s central focus was on a group of preteens called The Party which was made up of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard), and Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo). When Will went missing, Mike met Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), a young girl with incredible powers who may have been responsible for creating a rift between our world and its evil twin, a place called The Upside Down. As the kids searched for their friends, the adults in town, Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder) and Jim Hopper (David Harbour) did their own digging. Eventually, Will returned safe — though deeply traumatized — and Eleven was able to close the crack temporarily. Following seasons proved though that The Upside Down and its many horrors were weirdly drawn to Hawkins, which meant The Party (which added both El and new girl Max Mayfield, played by Sadie Sink, to its roster in season two) seemed to always be tasked with saving the day.

Summer Lovin’ and the Starcourt Mall

The show kicked off its third season by leaning into not one but two teenage rights of passage: summer hookups and mall hangouts. Eleven and Mike were navigating their relationship while trying to manage Hopper’s protective instincts as her adopted dad while Max and Lucas also started dating. Dustin returned from summer camp with a girlfriend too — and a long-range DIY radio that proved surprisingly helpful later in the season — while poor Will was left alone, wondering why none of his friends wanted to play Dungeons & Dragons anymore. Hawkins also got a brand new mall, filled with Jazzercise studios and extinct retail shops like Radio Shack. It was, for all intents and purposes, a simpler time. A happier time.

The Mindflayer

Of course, this is Hawkins we’re talking about so the season’s big bad reared its ugly head early on and it chose Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), Max’s arrogant and abusive stepbrother as its havoc-wreaking avatar. The Mindflayer manipulated the thin veil between our world and The Upside Down to possess Billy and other residents in town, consuming them in order to feed a gnarly-looking creature the kids would face off against at the end of season three. Eventually, Eleven was able to “rescue” Billy (who’d already killed plenty of people by that point) and the show’s resident bad boy decided to sacrifice himself to save the group in a showdown at the Starcourt Mall.

The Scoops Troop

But monsters weren’t the only threat using Hawkins’ most popular hangout spot as a base of operations, the Russians were camped out there too. At the beginning of season three, Russian scientists were seemingly frustrated by failed experiments concerning The Upside Down. When an intimidatingly large laser couldn’t create a portal in their homeland, they came to Hawkins to re-open the tear between the two worlds. Why? We’re still not entirely sure, but it may have something to do with the military’s hope that Demogorgons and all of the other terrifying creatures inhabiting The Upside Down could be harnessed as weapons by whoever controls that world. Unfortunately for them, the Russians weren’t as clever as a group of bored teenagers motivated by free ice cream and unsolvable puzzles. In season three, the Scoops Troop, which was named after the mall’s ice cream shop where babysitting hunk Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) worked with newcomer Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) banded together to decode a Russian transmission Dustin accidentally picked up on his supercharged walkie-talkie. They recruited Lucas’ younger sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) to help, eventually discovering the Russians had built a bunker deep beneath the mall where they were blasting through the wall between our world and its opposite.

The Grownups

Magnetic anomalies and Russian bodyguards lingering around Hawkins Town Hall alerted Hopper and Joyce to the weird sh*t going down in town too, but it took the adults a while longer to clue into the larger conspiracy. First, they had to kidnap a naïve, slushie-loving scientist named Alexei (R.I.P.) and recruit help from their old friend, private investigator Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman). Eventually, they returned to the Starcourt Mall, and, while the children battled the Mindflayer, Joyce blew up the Russian’s operation (literally) with Hopper trapped too close to the laser to avoid the fallout.

Where They Are Now

Stranger Things ended its third season by scattering its cast to the four winds, which is just a dramatic way of saying some kids went to California and some stayed in Hawkins. Dr. Owens, the clueless-yet-well-meaning government guy from season two popped up to help relocate The Byers family who apparently decided Will had been terrorized by The Upside Down long enough. With Hopper gone, El went with them, assuming a new identity as Jane Hopper and attempting to start fresh after losing her superpowers in the fight against the Mindflayer. Though Jonathan and Will seem to be thriving on the West Coast, El looks like she’s having a tough time adjusting to handling school bullies without her abilities. Meanwhile, in Hawkins, Nancy’s heading the school newspaper, Lucas is trying to get in with the jocks by joining the school’s basketball team, Dustin and Mike have joined the Hellfire Club (a DnD group the rest of the town believes to be low-key Satanists) Max is mourning the loss of her stepbrother, and Robin and Steve are working at a video rental shop.

Based on trailers for season four, the group will face off against another fantasy-inspired villain named Vecna who’s into an even more terrifying form of demonic possession than the Mindflayer and who may have his sights set on Max. And, all the way around the world in Kamchatka, Russia, a believed-to-be-dead Hopper is planning his escape from a Siberian prison, likely with help from Joyce and Murray.

So, now you’re all caught up.

Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ returns on May 27.