Nearly 12 percent of the U.S. population lives in poverty. That’s more than one in ten Americans—and the percent is even higher for children.
If you’re not up on the current numbers, the federal poverty line is $12,760 for an individuals and $26,200 for a family of four. If those annual incomes sound abysmally low, it’s because they are. And incredibly, the Trump administration has proposed lowering the poverty line further, which would make more poor Americans ineligible for needed assistance.
However, debates over the poverty line don’t even capture the full extent of Americans struggling to make ends meet. For many people, living above the poverty line is actually worse. These are the folks who make too much to qualify for aid programs but not enough to actually get by—a situation millions of working American families find themselves stuck in.
Amy Jo Hutchison is a single mother of two living in West Virginia, and a community organizer for West Virginia Healthy Kids and Families and Our Future West Virginia. She has also lived in poverty and been part of the working poor herself. In an impassioned speech, she spoke to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform about what poverty really looks like for working families—and even called out Congress for being completely out of touch with what it takes for a family to live on while they’re spending $40,000 a year on office furniture.
Watch Hutchison’s testimony here (transcript included below):
Ms. Hutchison Testimony on Proposed Changes to the Poverty Line Calculation
“I’m here to help you better understand poverty because poverty is my lived experience. And I’m also here to acknowledge the biased beliefs that poor people are lazy and the poverty is their fault. But how do I make you understand things like working full-time for $10 an hour is only about $19,000 a year, even though it’s well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour?
I want to tell you about a single mom I met who was working at a gas station. She was promoted to manager within 30 days. She had to report her new income the DHHR within 60 days. Her rent bumped from $475 to $950 a month, she lost her SNAP benefits and her family’s health insurance, so she did what poor people are forced to do all the time. She resigned her promotion and went back to working part-time, just so she and her family could survive.
Another single mom I know encouraged her kids to get jobs. For her DHHR review she had to claim their income as well. She lost her SNAP benefits and her insurance, so she weaned herself off of her blood pressure medicines because she—working full-time in a bank and part-time at a shop on the weekends—couldn’t afford to buy them. Eventually the girls quit their jobs because their part-time fast food income was literally killing their mother.
You see the thing is children aren’t going to escape poverty as long as they’re relying on a head of household who is poor. Poverty rolls off the backs of parents, right onto the shoulders of our children, despite how hard we try.
I can tell you about my own with food insecurity the nights I went to bed hungry so my kids could have seconds, and I was employed full time as a Head Start teacher. I can tell you about being above the poverty guideline, nursing my gallbladder with essential oils and prayer, chewing on cloves and eating ibuprofen like they’re Tic Tacs because I don’t have health insurance and I can’t afford a dentist. I have two jobs and a bachelor’s degree, and I struggle to make ends meet.
The federal poverty guidelines say that I’m not poor, but I cashed in a jar full of change the other night so my daughter could attend a high school band competition with her band. I can’t go grocery shopping without a calculator. I had to decide which bills not to pay to be here in this room today. Believe me, I’ve pulled myself up by the bootstraps so many damn times that I’ve ripped them off.
The current poverty guidelines are ridiculously out of touch. The poverty line for a family of three is $21,720. Where I live, because of the oil and gas boom, a 3-bedroom home runs for $1,200 a month. So if I made $22,000 a year, which could disqualify me from assistance, I would have $8000 left to raise two children and myself on. And yet the poverty guidelines wouldn’t classify me as poor.
I Googled ‘congressman salary’ the other day and according to Senate gov the salary for Senators representatives and delegates is $174,000 a year so a year of work for you is the equivalent of almost four years of work for me. I’m $24,000 above the federal poverty guidelines definition of poor. It would take nine people working full-time for a year at $10 an hour to match y’all’s salary. I also read that each senator has authorized $40,000 dollars for state office furniture and furnishings, and this amount is increased each year to reflect inflation.
That $40,000 a year for furniture is $360 more than the federal poverty guidelines for a family of seven, and yet here I am begging you on behalf of the 15 million children living in poverty in the United States—on behalf of the one in three kids under the age of five and nearly 100,000 children in my state of West Virginia living in poverty—to not change anything about these federal poverty guidelines until you can make them relevant and reflect what poverty really looks like today.
You have a $40,000 dollar furniture allotment. West Virginia has a median income of $43,000 and some change. People are working full-time and are hungry. Kids are about to be kicked off the free and reduced lunch rolls because of changes y’all want to make to SNAP, even though 62 percent of West Virginia SNAP recipients are families with children—the very same children who cannot take a part-time job because their parents will die without insurance. People are working full-time in this country for very little money.
They’re not poor enough to get help. They don’t make enough to get by. They’re working while their rationing their insulin and their skipping their meds because they can’t afford food and healthcare at the same time.
So shame on you. Shame on you, and shame on me, and shame on each and every one of us who haven’t rattled the windows of these buildings with cries of outrage at a government that thinks their office furniture is worthy of $40,000 a year and families and children aren’t.
I’m not asking you to apologize for your privilege but I’m asking you to see past it. There are 46 million Americans living in poverty doing the best they know how with what they have and we, in defense of children and families, cannot accept anything less from our very own government.”
In addition to Hutchison’s testimony, a coalition of 26 patient organizations, including the American Cancer Society Action Network, American Heart Association, and United Way, wrote a joint letter opposing the proposed lowering of the poverty line, stating:
“The current Official Poverty Measure (OPM) is based on an old formula that already does not fully capture those living in poverty and does not accurately reflect basic household expenses for families, including by underestimating child care and housing expenses. The proposed changes to the inflation calculation would reduce the annual adjustments to the poverty measure and therefore may exacerbate existing weaknesses, putting vulnerable Americans – including those with serious and chronic diseases – at great risk. Further lowering the poverty line would also give policymakers and the public less credible information about the number and characteristics of Americans living in poverty.”
Laughter is one of the most natural impulses in humans. Most babies start to laugh out loud at around 3 to 4 months, far earlier than they are able to speak or walk. Expressing enjoyment or delight comes naturally to us, but we’re not the only creatures who communicate with giggles.
Researchers at UCLA have identified 65 species of animals who make “play vocalizations,” or what we would consider laughter. Some of those vocalizations were already well documented—we’ve known for a while that apes and rats laugh—but others may come as a surprise. Along with a long list of primate species, domestic cows and dogs, foxes, seals, mongooses and three bird species are prone to laughter as well. (Many bird species can mimic human laughter, but that’s not the same as making their own play vocalizations.)
Primatologist and UCLA anthropology graduate student Sasha Winkler and UCLA professor of communication Greg Bryant shared their findings in an article in the journal Bioacoustics.
The authors explored various play vocalization sounds, recording them as noisy or tonal, loud or quiet, high- or low-pitched, short or long, a single call or rhythmic pattern.
But really, what we want to see is what animal laughter sounds like from various species, right? While the researchers said that it can be hard to document laughter in the wild, especially among animals with quieter vocalizations, we do have some examples captured on video.
Check out these foxes laughing like little kids:
Or maybe little kids on helium. How fun is that?
Ever seen a bonobo chimp laugh? Just as cute.
I’m not sure if tickling a baby bonobo is sweet or torturous, though these researchers surely know what they’re doing. It’s always delightful to see the instinctual playfulness of primates.
Laughter in some animals isn’t as audibly apparent as it is in these foxes and chimps, though. Researchers from Humboldt University of Berlin found that rats laugh when they are tickled—and appear to enjoy tickling, as they seek it out—but their vocalizations are ultrasonic, so it’s hard to hear them without special instruments.
The UCLA researchers shared that the study of laughter in animals can help us better understand our own evolutionary behavior.
“This work lays out nicely how a phenomenon once thought to be particularly human turns out to be closely tied to behavior shared with species separated from humans by tens of millions of years,” Bryant said, according to UCLA.
“When we laugh, we are often providing information to others that we are having fun and also inviting others to join,” Winkler said. “Some scholars have suggested that this kind of vocal behavior is shared across many animals who play, and as such, laughter is our human version of an evolutionarily old vocal play signal.”
Raise your hand if you just want to see a cow laughing for real now.
Evian, Fiji, Voss, SmartWater, Aquafina, Dasani—it’s impressive how many brands we have for something humans have been consuming for millennia. Despite years of studies showing that bottled water is no safer to drink than tap water, Americans are more consuming more bottled water than ever, to the tune of billions of dollars in bottled water sales.
People cite convenience and taste in addition to perceived safety for reasons they prefer bottle to tap, but the fear factor surrounding tap water is still a driving force. It doesn’t help when emergencies like floods cause tap water contamination or when investigations reveal issues with lead pipes in some communities, but municipal water supplies are tested regularly, and in the vast majority of the U.S., you can safely grab a glass of water from a tap.
And now, a new study on nanoplastics found in three popular bottled water brands is throwing more data into the bottled vs. tap water choice.
Researchers from Columbia University used a new laser-guided technology to detect nanoplastics that had previously evaded detection due to their miniscule size. The new technology can detect, count and analyze and chemical structure of nanoparticles, and they found seven different major types of plastic: polyamide, polypropylene, polyethylene, polymethyl methacrylate, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, and polyethylene terephthalate.
As opposed to microplastics, nanoplastics are too small to be seen by microscope. Their size is exactly why experts are concerned about them, as they are small enough to invade human cells and potentially disrupt cellular processes.
Columbia researchers found that bottled water contains hundreds of thousands of previously uncounted plastic particlesu2014particles small enough to pass into the bloodstream and travel directly into our organs.nhttps://t.co/NoC70dLakV
— (@)
“Micro and nanoplastics have been found in the human placenta at this point. They’ve been found in human lung tissues. They’ve been found in human feces; they’ve been found in human blood,” study coauthor Phoebe Stapleton, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers University’s Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy told CNN Health,
We know that nanoplastics are making their way into our bodies. We just don’t have enough research yet on what that means for our health, and we still have more questions than answers. How many nanoplastics does it take to do damage and/or cause disease? What kinds of damage or disease might they cause? Is whatever effect they might have cumulative? We simply don’t have answers to these questions yet.
That’s not to say there’s no cause for concern. We do know that certain levels of microplastic exposure have been shown to adversely affect the viability of cells. Nanoplastics are even smaller—does that mean they are more likely to cause cellular damage? Science is still working that out.
According to Dr. Sara Benedé of the Spanish National Research Council’s Institute of Food Science Research, it’s not just the plastics themselves that might cause damage, but what they may bring along with them. “[Microparticles and nanoparticles] have the ability to bind all kinds of compounds when they come into contact with fluids, thus acting as carriers of all kinds of substances including environmental pollutants, toxins, antibiotics, or microorganisms,” Dr. Benedé told Medical News Today.
Where is this plastic in water coming from? This study focused on bottled water, which is almost always packaged in plastic. The filters used to filter the water before bottling are also frequently made from plastic.
“Based on other studies we expected most of the microplastics in bottled water would come from leakage of the plastic bottle itself, which is typically made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic,” lead author Naixin Qian, a doctoral student in chemistry at Columbia University, told CNN Health. “However, we found there’s actually many diverse types of plastics in a bottle of water, and that different plastic types have different size distributions. The PET particles were larger, while others were down to 200 nanometers, which is much, much smaller.”
We need to drink water, and we need to drink safe water. At this point, we have plenty of environmental reasons for avoiding bottled water unless absolutely necessary and opting for tap water instead. Even if there’s still more research to be done, the presence of hundreds of thousands of nanoplastics in bottled water might just be another reason to make the switch.
Senators grilled the top executives from TikTok, Meta, X, Discord and Snapchat on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a U.S. Senate Judiciary hearing about the impact of social media on children. The hearing examined child sexual exploitation online and featured the testimony of children who have suffered abuse and bullying online.
The hearing was a rare time when Republicans and Democrats fought on the same side of an important issue.
“Elizabeth [Warren] and I see an abuse here that needs to be dealt with,” Republican Senator Lindsay Graham told the committee. “Senator Durbin and I have different political philosophies, but I appreciate what you’ve done on this committee. You’ve been a great partner. To all my Democratic colleagues, thank you very, very much. To my Republican colleagues, thank you all very, very much.”
“There is pretty clearly a bipartisan consensus that the status quo isn’t working,” New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez told the hearing. “When it comes to how these companies have failed to prioritize the safety of children, there’s clearly a sense of frustration on both sides of the aisle.”
BREAKING: Zuckerberg stands up, turns to survivors and parents who lost kids to social media, apologizes to them for harms caused by Meta.
— (@)
During the hearing, Senator Graham highlighted the story of South Carolina State House Rep. Brandon Guffey, whose son died by suicide after being a victim of sexual extortion.
When asked if he had any response to the victims whom his products have harmed, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was apologetic.
“I’m sorry for everything you have all been through,” Zuckerberg said. “No one should go through the things that your families have suffered, and this is why we invest so much and we are going to continue doing industry-wide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer.”
At one point, Zuckerberg stood up and faced a group of parents who were holding pictures of their children who were victims of online harassment.
We’re dealing with a fundamental decision as to whether social media companies should be able to face lawsuits like any other company in America.
Weu2019re dealing with a fundamental decision as to whether social media companies should be able to face lawsuits like any other company in America.nnWe must say they can be held responsible in court for their wrongdoing.
— (@)
Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin was clear that he believes social media companies are a significant cause of many of the problems facing America’s youth. “They’re responsible for many of the dangers our children face online,” Durbin said in his opening statements. “Their design choices, their failures to adequately invest in trust and safety, their constant pursuit of engagement and profit over basic safety have all put our kids and grandkids at risk.”
The tech CEOs continuously touted their companies’ online safety features throughout the hearing. Zuckerberg noted that Meta spent $5 billion on security and safety in 2023.
Graham suggested that Congress work to repeal Section 230 which would give social media companies greater accountability. The federal law protects social media companies from being responsible for lawsuits arising from user-generated content.
“You have a product that’s killing people … You can’t be sued, you should be!” Graham said. “It is now time to repeal Section 230.”
The purpose of the hearing was to work toward legislation that would make social media safer for young people. But it’s unclear whether the hearings will result in anything meaningful.
Things don’t always go our way, and sometimes people have a way of making you feel pretty bad about yourself. Whether it’s because of how you dress, laugh or how you fixed your hair that day, there are some people that will just try to find a way to make you feel badly. During those moments, it’s great to have a friend that will remind you of who you truly are.
A little girl was having one of those days and her classmate, Mason, knew just how to support her. A video was uploaded to social media by Unklearold that showed the little girl on a school playground, upset. Another child had called her dumb, obviously hurting her feelings. But her friend was not going to stay silent so he gave her the most heartfelt pep talk his little body could muster causing the internet to collectively sigh, “aww.”
“Don’t listen to a guy that called you dumb,” Mason says in his little voice. “Listen to yourself. Ignore this guy, whoever it is just stop talking to people that called you dumb.”
The little boy says it with so much conviction that you don’t have a choice but to believe him and it was just what his friend needed to hear. While he was reminding the girl to listen to herself, she became overcome with emotion and hugs his neck, “you’re such a nice friend.”
Of course people are just feeling all of the things in the comments of the video. It’s such a sweet moment that changed the girl’s day for the better.
One person says, “Whew. Who is raising him?! They’re pouring into him and equipping him to be a kind & loving human who pours into other people. Just imagine the world we would have if this was ubiquitous! Wow. Bless him. ‘You’re such a nice friend!'”
Another writes, “Mason out here building and uplifting everybody’s spirit with that sermon on the playground!”
Someone else comments, “This is a lesson we have to learn over and over into adulthood. Remember, what someone says about you has ABSOLUTELY NO DOMINION over who you are. Who YOU say you are is the only thing that holds power over you. Great job young man.”
Sheep are hardy, resilientanimals. Depending on the breed, they thrive in the driest of desserts and snowiest of planes. But being highly social animals, one thing they cannot tolerate is isolation.
So imagine poor Fiona, a sheep who spent more than two years in solitude at the bottom of a cliff in Scotland.
Dubbed Britain’s, then the world’s “loneliest sheep,” Fiona had become something of a local legend—first spotted by a kayaker in 2021, and then again two years later, not malnourished and in good condition, but with badly overgrown fleece and in need of a good shearing.
How exactly Fiona became stuck at the bottom of a cliff was a mystery. But hauling her out was an even more confounding problem.
Despite over 50,000 people signing a petition to rescue Fiona, the Scottish SPCA called the safety logistics “incredibly complex” due to the terrain being so inaccessible, not to mention any human interaction likely causing extreme stress for the stranded rescuee.
That’s when a group of five farmers—including sheep farmer and BBC presenter Cammy Wilson, and Youtube star Graeme Parker— took things into their own hands.
With a whole lotta rope, and a whole lotta patience, the team successfully found Fiona in a cave (a little overweight, perhaps eating her lonely feelings a bit) and hoisted her up the steep cliff to safety.
Watch the harrowing resc-ewe mission below. Gotta say, the drone footage makes it look even more epic.
Fiona was then taken to Dalscone Farm Fun, a new forever home, where her new owner, Ben Best, dubbed her healthy and relaxed, even if she “could lose a few pounds.” (“As it Happens, CBC Radio)
Though animal rights activists did show concern with Fiona’s new living situation, likening it closer to a “petting zoo” than the sanctuary she deserved, Best affirmed that was not the case, saying “It’s effectively a farm where people can go and visit the animals, but they don’t go in amongst the animals.”
He also added that she would be kept away from the public eye for five-to-six months, and not step into the limelight until she’s ready for it.
And there you have it, folks. Fiona might have once been the world’s loneliest sheep, but now she’s living it up like the star she is.
It hasn’t even been a year since the beloved series “Ted Lasso,” which told the story of a kind hearted, folksy football coach and his team of believers, came to its final episode.
And yet, since the series ended, fans have yearned to have any type of chance to see some of their favorite characters come together again—which is what makes a surprise rock-n-roll duet between Jason Sudeikis, Ted Lasso himself, and Hannah Waddigham, who played boss and bestie Rebecca Welton.
A video quickly making the rounds online starts with Sudeikis sharing the stage with fellow “Saturday Night Live” star Will Forte, telling him “there’s nobody I would rather be singing this song with. ”
Then the recognizable guitar intro to “Shallow,” originally sung by Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga for the 2018 film “A Star is Born,” begins to play. Cue crowd applause.
Sudeikis, singing Cooper’s part, completely delivers the perfect blend of twang and rock needed for the tune—but then has one more trick up his sleeve. For just as Forte opens up his mouth to sing in place of Lady Gaga, a woman’s voice is heard instead.
Not just any woman, in fact. But ‘Ted Lasso’ costar and Broadway legend Hannah Waddingham.
Waddingham playfully shoos Forte away to take her rightful place on stage, where both she and Sudeikis finish out the iconic song.
Needless to say, viewers were beside themselves. Especially “Ted Lasso” fans.
“I can never ever properly put into words how much this video (of two of my LITERAL favorite human beings from my VERY favorite show) brings me the most joy I may have ever felt. Thank you times infinity for this!!!!!!” one person wrote on Youtube.
Another added, “This is perfect in all levels! 💜💜💜”
Perhaps the only thing better than seeing these two widely loved actors singing together, is the reason behind their surprise duet. Sudeikis was hosting for THUNDERGONG!, a benefit concert held by Steps of Faith, which helps amputees gain access to prosthetic limbs.
Brendan Hunt, aka “Coach Beard,” also made a guest appearance, making it a wholesome “Ted Lasso” reunion for a great cause.Watch. And enjoy Waddingham’s out-of-this-world belting ability:
There are multiple reasons why kids might start experimenting with a curse word…or two…or three. It might be because the word soundsfunny, or they’re imitating their parents (oops), or because they’re trying to vent some intense feelings and that word seems to feel right. It’s all part of exploring language.
But even though this phase is innocent and natural, it can still make for some pretty awkward moments for adults.
For Tina Midkiff, that moment came while teaching daycare. Midkiff was “trying to resolve cussing issues” with a young girl in her class, especially since Midkiff didn’t want the other kids hearing it.
Getting creative, she found the perfect place for her adorable pottymouth—the bathroom.
In a video posted to Midkiff’s TikTok, we see the plan in action. Midkiff tells the girl “we’re only going to cuss in the bathroom. We’re not cussing anywhere but in the bathroom. And we’re not going to give the finger anywhere but in the bathroom.”
Midkiff also confirmed that this was a “mother approved” strategy for getting it out of the little girl’s system.
The little girl complies with sweet little “otays,” and is clearly ancy to let it all out. As soon as her teacher leaves the room, the expletives start flying.
Mid rant, Midkiff asks “are you unfinished?” but the little girl yells back “No!” and more F-bombs pour out in a clandestine whisper.
Then as the end of her swear session approached, the little girls instruct herself to only use those words in the bathroom.
“Did you get it out of your system?” Midkiff asks as she comes back in, to which the girl replies “yeeeeaaaah,” before frolicking off to her class.
Nearly 15 million people watched Midkiff’s video, and found the clip kind of precious, if not incredibly relatable.
One viewer quipped, “Me when I’m rehearsing fights in my head.”
Another added, “Her whispering her bad words is so cute.”
Just about everyone seemed in agreement that the little girl did indeed simply need to let it out.
“She needed to release this, daycare buds getting on her nerves. Lol,” one person commented .
In a follow-up video, Midkiff explained that she posted the video to highlight the importance of giving kids a “safe space” to express themselves. In this case, it proved to be more effective than punishment, which the little girl wasn’t responding to.
“We had to go outside the box…to see what was the best [thing] for the child,’ Midkiff said, adding that sometimes adults can get stuck in a rut of redirecting or doling out punishment, which keeps the situation from actually being dealt with.
Other adults seemed to agree with Midkiff’s reasoning.
One person wrote, “This! Every child is different. You made it work for her—you didn’t shame her. You let her express it so she can move on with her life.”
Another added, “I will now use this method for my child. Thank you Ms. Tina.”
Just as Midkiff was able to find success by uncovering why this little girl felt the need to cuss, so too can others find a solution once they know the specific underlying motivation of their own kid. For instance, if the curse words are to get attention, it might be recommended to ignore the pleas as to not encourage that kind of behavior. If it’s from repeating what’s heard at home, then perhaps being more mindful of your own swear habit is key.
Bottom line: kids are individuals, and might need an individual approach. Even when it comes to expletives.
There are multiple reasons why kids might start experimenting with a curse word…or two…or three. It might be because the word soundsfunny, or they’re imitating their parents (oops), or because they’re trying to vent some intense feelings and that word seems to feel right. It’s all part of exploring language.
But even though this phase is innocent and natural, it can still make for some pretty awkward moments for adults.
For Tina Midkiff, that moment came while teaching daycare. Midkiff was “trying to resolve cussing issues” with a young girl in her class, especially since Midkiff didn’t want the other kids hearing it.
Getting creative, she found the perfect place for her adorable pottymouth—the bathroom.
In a video posted to Midkiff’s TikTok, we see the plan in action. Midkiff tells the girl “we’re only going to cuss in the bathroom. We’re not cussing anywhere but in the bathroom. And we’re not going to give the finger anywhere but in the bathroom.”
Midkiff also confirmed that this was a “mother approved” strategy for getting it out of the little girl’s system.
The little girl complies with sweet little “otays,” and is clearly ancy to let it all out. As soon as her teacher leaves the room, the expletives start flying.
Mid rant, Midkiff asks “are you unfinished?” but the little girl yells back “No!” and more F-bombs pour out in a clandestine whisper.
Then as the end of her swear session approached, the little girls instruct herself to only use those words in the bathroom.
“Did you get it out of your system?” Midkiff asks as she comes back in, to which the girl replies “yeeeeaaaah,” before frolicking off to her class.
Nearly 15 million people watched Midkiff’s video, and found the clip kind of precious, if not incredibly relatable.
One viewer quipped, “Me when I’m rehearsing fights in my head.”
Another added, “Her whispering her bad words is so cute.”
Just about everyone seemed in agreement that the little girl did indeed simply need to let it out.
“She needed to release this, daycare buds getting on her nerves. Lol,” one person commented .
In a follow-up video, Midkiff explained that she posted the video to highlight the importance of giving kids a “safe space” to express themselves. In this case, it proved to be more effective than punishment, which the little girl wasn’t responding to.
“We had to go outside the box…to see what was the best [thing] for the child,’ Midkiff said, adding that sometimes adults can get stuck in a rut of redirecting or doling out punishment, which keeps the situation from actually being dealt with.
Other adults seemed to agree with Midkiff’s reasoning.
One person wrote, “This! Every child is different. You made it work for her—you didn’t shame her. You let her express it so she can move on with her life.”
Another added, “I will now use this method for my child. Thank you Ms. Tina.”
Just as Midkiff was able to find success by uncovering why this little girl felt the need to cuss, so too can others find a solution once they know the specific underlying motivation of their own kid. For instance, if the curse words are to get attention, it might be recommended to ignore the pleas as to not encourage that kind of behavior. If it’s from repeating what’s heard at home, then perhaps being more mindful of your own swear habit is key.
Bottom line: kids are individuals, and might need an individual approach. Even when it comes to expletives.
The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.
ITEM NUMBER ONE – Pixar, I am begging you
Sequels can be tricky business. They can be fun when there’s a legitimate way to continue the story, but they can also come across as lazy cash grabs targeted at a baked-in audience. Sometimes movie franchises try to have it both ways by setting up a sequel by ending on a cliffhanger, which is extra annoying and a good reminder that both the most recent Fast & Furious movie and the most recent Mission: Impossible movie cut to their respective credits after an open-ended reveal about a submarine that was either trapped under or bursting out of a sheet of ice. Which was actually kind of funny. Both movies also featured frantic car chases through Rome and twists related to characters that died many movies earlier. This isn’t where I thought this paragraph was headed when I started writing it but it’s still important to note.
The point here is that you need to have a good story to earn a sequel. And that original stories can be hard to create. And that it’s kind of nice when the universe just goes right ahead and plops one in your lap. This brings us to this bit of news out of France from earlier this week.
Wine worth more than €1.5m ($1.6m) has vanished from La Tour d’Argent, one of Paris’ most famous restaurants and the inspiration for the film Ratatouille.
I think you see where this is headed. Especially if you are a regular reader of this column. But let’s get some more of the facts about this French wine mystery out of the way before we get to all of that.
The loss was discovered during a routine inventory of the 300,000 bottles at the “largest cellar in Paris,” a sommelier told Le Parisien.
An estimated 83 bottles are thought to be missing, according to the last inventory, which was taken in 2020.
Three things worth noting here before we press on:
300,000 bottles of wine is so many bottles of wine
If 83 bottles of wine are missing and the estimated value of the whole haul is $1.6 million, that means the average cost per bottle comes in just south of $20k
If I spend $20k on a bottle of wine it better drive me home when I’m done drinking it
One last blockquote.
Among the missing bottles are wines from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti a Burgundy estate famed for producing expensive vintages.
A bottle of Romanée-Conti from 1945 was sold for €482,000 ($523,878) in 2018, becoming the most expensive bottle in the world at the time.
Okay, that’s enough actual information to get us where we’re headed, which is… here: Let’s make this the sequel to Ratatouille. You saw the thing up in the first blockquote about this being the restaurant that kind of inspired the movie. Well, there you go. There’s your hook. We fast-forward from the end of the 2007 Pixar film to the present day, almost two decades later. We see Remy and Linguini thriving in the little bistro they opened at the end of the movie. We do NOT Google things like “rat life span” or “how long do rats live.” Everything is great.
But.
Then.
The bistro’s impressive little wine cellar is ransacked. Maybe not to the tune of $1.6 million but still. It has the chance to ruin them. Maybe Linguini forgot to file the insurance paperwork. (Classic Linguini.) And so Remy and his rat friends across the city must investigate the situation themselves, in part to save the restaurant but also out of a love of fine food and drink. Something must be done. I really must stress once again that we do not question how a fully grown rat has survived for almost 20 years. That’s important.
I have this image in my head of Remy in the sewers in a little toy boat he’s driving like a speedboat, a match in his hand like it’s a torch, hunting down the many bottles of fancy wine that went missing. It’s a full-on animated thriller, a cartoon action movie with a thumping soundtrack. Yes, the thief is voiced by Pierce Brosnan. You see the vision here.
Coming to theaters next summer…
It’s time for…
Rata2ille.
(Sorry.)
ITEM NUMBER TWO – While we’re on the subject of Hollywood-adjacent heists
A dying thief who confessed to stealing a pair of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore in “The Wizard of Oz” because he wanted to pull off “one last score” is expected to stay out of prison after he’s sentenced Monday.
What’s actually happening here is that the man has months to live and is on hospice care and so everyone is just agreeing that jail isn’t necessary BUT it’s more fun — by a lot — to read this as saying he used “I needed to do one last job” as his actual defense and the jury rolled with it.
Terry Jon Martin, 76, stole the slippers in 2005 from the Judy Garland Museum in the late actor’s hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota. He gave into temptation after an old mob associate told him the shoes had to be adorned with real jewels to justify their $1 million insured value, his attorney revealed in a memo to the federal court ahead of his sentencing in Duluth.
So, two things are true here:
Stealing is bad and you should not do it
If I knew I had months to live, I might try to steal some famous jewel-encrusted slippers, too
Seize the day, you know? And the slippers. Seize the day and the slippers.
“At first, Terry declined the invitation to participate in the heist. But old habits die hard, and the thought of a ‘final score’ kept him up at night,” DeKrey wrote. “After much contemplation, Terry had a criminal relapse and decided to participate in the theft.”
This story is a bummer on a number of levels if you dig down below the surface of it all but it’s going to take a backhoe for me to dig past “a mobbed-up career criminal drove himself mad by contemplating the theft of Judy Garland’s slippers from The Wizard of Oz as his one last score before his death” sooooooo…
Yeah, let’s just leave it there.
ITEM NUMBER THREE – Buddy, Elmo had a week
This is a video of Larry David physically assaulting Elmo on The Today Show and then being forced to apologize for it like a child, which is a lot to comprehend with or without context. And the explanation of how we all got here doesn’t make any of it less weird. But it’s fun. Here’s the shortest version I can put together.
Earlier this week, Elmo — or at least the social media manager who is tasked with being the voice of Elmo — tweeted this.
And Lord in Heaven, did people ever tell Elmo. It became a whole thing. Thousands of people around the world replied to an adorable fuzzy red puppet to unburden themselves of piles of pent-up stress and anxiety and existential dread. There were write-ups and stories about it on the actual news, like the news normal people who aren’t online-addled weirdos consume. It achieved the escape velocity to get to the civilians, which is always a good barometer of whether something is an actual big deal or just something the rest of us goblins are shouting about.
A little while later, Elmo tweeted this follow-up, which is also adorable and proof that Muppets and Sesame Street characters are better-adjusted than the humans watching them.
Wow! Elmo is glad he asked! Elmo learned that it is important to ask a friend how they are doing. Elmo will check in again soon, friends! Elmo loves you.#EmotionalWellBeingpic.twitter.com/jhn2LNKfHf
Anyway, that is how and why Elmo was on The Today Show, where he was assaulted by Larry David, who was also there to promote the final season of a television show he’s been making for almost 25 years. I would bet my life and the lives of everyone I love on the fact that this represents the first time those words have been typed in that order.
I’ll leave you with this: The whole ordeal and my subsequent Googling led me to this, an interview with the aforementioned social media manager who tweets as Elmo that was conducted before this whole fiasco. Her name is Christina Vittas and she seems pretty cool.
I probably watch more Elmo content than a whole preschool class combined, but I am not learning my ABCs and 123s, I am learning comedy, character traits, and so much more that all goes into the work I do. I feel in touch with my inner-Elmo and am grateful that the joy, curiosity, and spirit of friendship that we share comes naturally to me.
In conclusion, please imagine being the person behind the couch in that video who has the Elmo doll slipped over a hand that is getting battered by world-famous comedian and Seinfeld co-creator Larry David. There’s a story you can dine out on for years.
We can get through this one in three bullet points and a blockquote:
This is the trailer for Monkey Man, an upcoming film from Dev Patel and Jordan Peele
It was released last Friday about 10 minutes after I submitted that week’s edition of this column, which was infuriating to me, a crazy person who pouted for 30 minutes that I would have to wait a week to mention it
It looks freakin awesome
Here’s the description in the as-promised blockquote:
A young man ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he’s beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, he discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his mysteriously scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.
We are absolutely going to see this movie.
ITEM NUMBER FIVE – This is fascinating to me
FX
Calista Flockhart is out doing the promotional rounds for the new season of Feud, which is titled Capote Vs. The Swans. I haven’t seen any of it yet and don’t know if or when will, but I do like this for Calista Flockhart. She’s always struck me as a cool lady, dating allllllll the way back to Ally McBeal, the show that made her a network TV icon almost 30 years ago. She’s not as active now, picking and choosing roles as opposed to gobbling them up as they come along, but it’s good that she’s doing it today because it means people can ask her about her decades-long romance with Harrison Ford. They’ve always struck me as a fun celebrity couple, one that just kind of adores and is proud of each other and doesn’t feel the need to shove it in anyone’s face.
They hold hands on the red carpet; they get caught on camera canoodling at the airport as they shuttle between Brentwood and their ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and they play practical jokes on each other.
I’m breaking up this passage only because I really need you to focus on this next part. Please. Both eyeballs on the screen.
“I’m called the ‘Scare Monster’ in my house because I hide behind every corner,” she said. “And so Harrison will walk in, and then I’ll go, ‘Raaah!’ And he’ll go, ‘W-uy-aah!’ And then I die laughing. I’ll put a plastic spider inside his big ice cubes in the tray, and then he’ll drink it. But then I’ll go to bed two weeks later, and he’s out of town in Jackson, and I’ll take the covers down and there’s this little rubber scorpion. It’s fun.”
Three things worth noting here, once again via bullet point:
Let’s go ahead and confirm my “Calista Flockhart seems cool” hypothesis
Please close your eyes and picture Calista Flockhart hiding around a corner and leaping out and Harrison Ford — Indiana Jones, Han Solo, all of that — getting startled and shouting “W-uy-ahh!” in the hallway of his Wyoming home
Please close your eyes and picture Harrison Ford at like a Five Below buying a rubber scorpion and looking the flabbergasted cashier in the eye and saying “I’m trying to get back at my wife for scaring me”
The people who truly deserve a reality show are the kind of people who would never want to star in one. It’s cruel but kind of beautiful.
READER MAIL
If you have questions about television, movies, food, local news, weather, or whatever you want, shoot them to me at [email protected] (put “RUNDOWN” in the subject line). I am the first writer to ever answer reader mail in a column. Do not look up this last part.
From Paul:
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about the new Christopher Reeve documentary. His injury was like yours, right? I hope that’s okay and not too weird to ask. It’s just interesting that there’s this cool documentary coming out about a famous actor who had a spinal cord injury and one of my favorite entertainment writers has a spinal cord injury, too. Please feel free to ignore me if it’s not something you want to discuss.
Buddyyyyy I do not mind talking about it at all. To some degree, I even like when people ask about it because it allows me to answer their specific questions quickly and in a more targeted way rather than doing a whole What It’s Like To Use A Wheelchair rant. I like talking about other stuff, too, like heists and Jason Statham movies and sandwiches I ate, but you’re good.
A little background will help here, mostly for people who have never read my writing before and scrolled this far after finding this article with a Google search of “ratatouille sequel” (lol) (hi). Yes, I do have a spinal cord injury, too. Mine is not quite as severe as Christopher Reeve’s was, though. His was way up at the C1 and C2 vertebrae. Those are the ones that control, like, breathing. That’s why he was pretty much completely paralyzed from the neck down and used a ventilator. My injury is a little lower, at C4, and I’ve gotten a little recovery below that point, too. I still use a power wheelchair but I have some use of my right arm — it’s how I am typing this run-on sentence — and I am able to breathe on my own and drive an accessible van with a joystick like a dorky fighter pilot.
But yeah, the short version is that I think this documentary is cool. I haven’t seen it yet but I love almost anything that increases the awareness of disability issues like this and I like that it might start some conversations I would like people to start having. Christopher Reeve was a dope dude who didn’t run off and hide away when bad stuff happened to him and he did more to raise the public profile of disability advocacy than almost anyone I can think of. Someone like that deserves a documentary. I’m glad it appears to be a good one rather than the cheesy tearjerkers that often get made. Those always annoy the hell out of me. You can usually see them coming because the word “inspirational” is involved in a prominent way. Those are, in my biased opinion, puke city.
And while I’m already doing some Wheelchair Blogging, let’s go ahead and get this out there again, too: Documentaries and feel-good disability stories are fine, and again I support almost anything that advances visibility, but I do hope we see more movies and shows that have a dude in a wheelchair whose entire personality is more than just A Dude In A Wheelchair. And we cast people who have the disability in the role instead of, like, putting some able-bodied theater kid in a chair while the cameras are rolling. This does not feel like an unreasonable ask.
It is very funny to me that we’re about to go from Serious Disability Chat to… well, this…
With their purple, gold and green colors and toy babies hidden inside, king cakes are staples of Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, but apparently they’re also valuable enough to steal — at least this time of year during the Carnival season.
Do…
Do we have a cake heist?
A Mardi Gras cake heist???
A thief stole seven king cakes — about as many as he could carry — during a break-in last week at a New Orleans bakery. The thief also took cash and a case of vodka from Bittersweet Confections last Wednesday, according to New Orleans Police Department.
MARDI GRAS CAKE HEIST
As much as I loved typing that, I do have to stop here and wonder. What, exactly, does one do with nine cakes? I get the vodka thing because alcohol doesn’t go bad but… that’s a lot of cake. It’s more than one person or family can eat. Feels like a crime that wasn’t fully thought throu-… aaaaaaand someone stole 100 cakes, too.
A sweet-toothed thief made off with 100 king cakes during a smash-and-grab in New Orleans early Tuesday.
100 CAKES
Mike Graves, owner of the King Cake Drive-Thru, said someone broke a window on his van and stole the cakes, which were to be sold today at the company’s pop-up in Meridian, Miss.
I can’t decide if I want this to be the same guy who stumbled into a strangely lucrative black market cake hustle or if I want it to be a different thief who saw the original nine-cake heist and was like “Oh, I can definitely top that.”
Either way, we have a string of cake heists in the Big Easy. Shaping up to be a wonderful Mardi Gras.
While frustrated with the theft, Graves said he was grateful that no bakeries were left in the lurch because he’d already paid for the pilfered king cakes. The theft, he said, is just something that happens in the city.
This guy is remarkably chill about getting 100 cakes — ONE HUNDRED CAKES — stolen from him. We should all strive for this attitude. Good for him.
“Nobody got injured, and everybody has been very sweet and supportive,” Graves said. “There’s more good in the community than bad.”
THE CAKE HEISTS WILL UNITE US ALL.
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