Month: June 2024

Though the official start of summer is still a few weeks away, Megan The Stallion got a jump start on it last month with the launch of her Hot Girl Summer Tour with GloRilla. Thankfully the tour, which wraps up at the end of July, is just the beginning of Megan’s summer plans as the Houston rapper officially announced her third album over the weekend. The project, titled Megan, will arrive on June 28. According to People, Megan announced the album during the Atlanta stop of her Hot Girl Summer Tour where she revealed a QR code for fans to pre-save the album.

Megan also unveiled what appeared to be the cover art for Megan. A large “M” is depicted on the cover as well as a large cocoon with Megan emerging from it upside-down. So far, Megan has been supported by three singles — “Cobra,” “Hiss,” and “Boa” — and a freestyle series that saw the rapper lay bars over Gucci Mane’s “I Think I Love Her” and Far East Movement’s “Like A G6.”

The Atlanta stop for Megan’s Hot Girl Summer Tour delivered more than just news about her album. After a massive water main break in Atlanta forced her to reschedule a tour stop, Megan kicked off her pair of shows in the city by bringing out Latto to perform. The two previewed a new remix of the latter’s “Sunday Service” remix and performed “Budget” from Megan’s Traumazine album.

Megan is out 6/28 via Hot Girl Productions LLC. Find out more information here.

Godzilla Minus One, one of the best movies of 2023 (and maybe the best Godzilla movie since the 1954 original), is now streaming on Netflix.

The streaming release came with no advance notice on Saturday which IndieWire notes is “very unusual” for Netflix: “That suggests the contractual agreement between Toho and Legendary Pictures (the producers of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), which called for delayed availability for the Japanese title, specifically set June 1 as the earliest for home release.”

We’re living in a golden age of ‘Zilla.

Godzilla Minus One, which is directed Takashi Yamazaki and stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki, was a surprise box office sensation, earning over $115 million worldwide on a reported $15 million budget. It’s also the first Godzilla film to win an Oscar, taking home Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards. He even wore a little bowtie.

“We looked at a lot of different Godzillas throughout the years and as a team we wanted to get the essence of what we thought most actually represented what Godzilla is about,” Yamazaki said at the ceremony. “Godzilla, if you trace back to its origins, is a symbol of terror, war and nuclear power. I wanted to make sure that when audiences saw Godzilla, that fear would be instilled on them.”

Godzilla Minus One is streaming on Netflix now.

First responders often have a much different view of safety than people who don’t handle dangerous situations every day. Police officers, doctors, nurses, firefighters and military personnel see what happens when people put themselves in danger and are often a little more cautious than the average civilian.

Situations that seem safe to some can seem like the beginnings of a horror story to someone who works in the emergency room and regularly sees people being admitted for the same types of injuries.

That’s why a video by pediatric operating room nurse Josie Rose Mueller should be seen by parents everywhere. As a mother of 3 young boys, who has been working in the operating room since 2018, she shares the 5 things she’d never let her kids do because, as Mueller puts it bluntly: She’s “seen some sh*t.”

Although the activities she mentions seem relatively harmless, she’s seen what can happen when things go wrong.

Warning: Video contains strong language.

@josierosemueller

1. Sit atop a ride-on lawnmower

“Without a doubt, I see one person on my Facebook feed doing this every single summer and yes, the photo is adorable, but it is less adorable when I see kids getting their legs cut off from it.”

2. Play with fireworks

“I will never ever ever let my kids play with explosive fireworks during the 4th of July. I have seen kids lose fingers, entire hands, teeth, portions of their jaw. I’ve seen them blow up basically just about anything,”

3. Go to a swim party alone

“Number 3, I will never let my younger children, who are not very, very confident in water, go to a swim party without me. It is actually true that the more people in a pool, even the more people surrounding a pool, the higher chance there is for your child to drown. There’s way too much room for error. There’s way too much room for someone to get lost.”

4. Ride in a car without a harness or seatbelt

“I have seen situations where one kid is buckled in and walks away with very minor injuries and the other kid either passes or walks away with very severe injuries because they were not buckled in from the same exact car crash.”

5. Attend a sleepover

“I will never let my kids be babysat by or go to somebody’s house or spend the night and do a sleepover at a house where I do not know every single person that’s going to be there, every single person in the house. I’ve known them a long time and I can verify that they’re good people. I can’t even get into the abuse situations that I’ve seen, but it was enough to really … and I still question whether I’ll ever let my kids have sleepovers at all.”

Mueller’s video has nearly 2 million views and she disagrees with those who think she’s being too cautious.

“It’s my job as my child’s parent to keep them safe,” she told Upworthy. “I want my children to take calculated risks, and I want them to fall, scrape their knees and make mistakes. I believe that builds character and helps them recognize and deal with adversity. However, when it comes to their life or their limbs being in danger, it’s a parent’s job to keep their child away from said dangers.”

She believes parents should be short and to the point when explaining potential dangers to their young children.

“Kids don’t process long, drawn-out explanations. For example, if my husband is mowing the lawn, the rule is the boys stay inside,” she told Upworthy. “If they request to go outside, I will say, ‘The rule is we stay inside until daddy is done mowing the lawn. This keeps your brothers and you safe. We can go play outside when the lawnmower stops.’ We can make a fun game out of it like counting how many times Daddy passes the window. And the reward would be if they stay inside like I’ve asked, we play outside with Dad when he’s all finished up.”

Here’s an article to send to every jerk in your life who denied you the right to complain about your period cramps: A medical expert says that some women experience menstruation pains that are “almost as bad as having a heart attack.” John Guillebaud, who is a professor of reproductive health at University College London, spoke to Quartz on the subject, and said that the medical community has long ignored what can be a debilitating affliction, because it’s a problem that mostly inconveniences women.

“I think it happens with both genders of doctor,” Guillebaud told Quartz. “On the one hand, men don’t suffer the pain and underestimate how much it is or can be in some women. But I think some women doctors can be a bit unsympathetic because either they don’t get it themselves or if they do get it they think, ‘Well I can live with it, so can my patient.'”

And it’s a problem that can’t just be treated with common painkillers. Some people who experience dysmenorrhea, the medical term for painful menstruation, also suffer from endometriosis, a condition that can cause infertility if it’s not treated properly. But research on the subject is scant, so doctors often misdiagnose it, or dismiss the pain entirely. It’s estimated, however, that one out of 10 women has the condition.

Earlier this month, Girls creator Lena Dunham was forced to take a rest from show promotion and other work duties because she suffers from endometriosis. In a recent edition of her newsletter, Lenny Letter, Dunham wrote a frank essay about her struggle with the condition, and particularly with a medical institution that didn’t know how to diagnose her. She didn’t know how to put a name to her pain until she turned 24 and underwent laparoscopic surgery, “which is the only way to definitively diagnose endometriosis,” according to Dunham.

Quartz reporter Olivia Goldhill had the same problem. She suffered from frequent period pains that were as distressing as a slipped disk, she says. But doctors had no answer for her. “Before I had my MRI scans, I told my primary care doctor that the pain seemed to be triggered by my period,” she said. “He didn’t think this was relevant and ignored the comment.”

For now, the medical community has been dragging its feet to do research on the subject. Goldhill says the only thing people can do right now is talk about it, to heighten awareness. “Tell your doctor, your friends, your colleagues,” she wrote. “We need to talk about period pain long and loudly enough for doctors to finally do something about it.”

This article originally appeared on 09.14.17

As part of an experiment, a man asks for help translating a Facebook message he has received.

There’s a man in Lithuania who speaks only English. The message is in Lithuanian. He can’t read it, so he asks some locals to translate it for him.

As he asks one person after another to translate the message for him, two things become obvious.

1. He’s received a message full of hate speech.

2. Translating it for him is breaking people’s hearts.

It’s nearly more than these people can bear.

There’s a sudden, powerful connection between the translators and the man they’re translating for. They want to protect him, telling him not to bother with the message.

They apologize for the message.

They look like they want to cry.

Words hurt.

Most of us would never think of saying such horrible things. This video shows people realizing in their gut what it must feel like when those words are pointed at them — it’s all right on their faces. And so is their compassion.

The Facebook message is horrible, but their empathy is beautiful. The video’s emotional power is what makes it unique, and so worth watching and passing around.

Here it is.

The video’s in English, subtitled in Lithuanian. Just watch the faces.

This article originally appeared on 04.10.15

There are few people on Earth that love basketball more than Kevin Durant. The former MVP, NBA champion, and Finals MVP really loves to hoop, and he is ready to get that work in anywhere, anytime.

That includes the club, where a video posted to TikTok went viral after getting put up on Twitter, as basketball fans related to the future Hall of Famer as someone captured him working on his triple threat moves in his section.

Just about every quote tweet and reply to the post is some form of “a relatable king” or “he swears he’s me,” as every hooper at every level has found themselves out in public working on their game in some form. Sometimes you just gotta hit someone with a Eurostep on the sidewalk, or in KD’s case, get some triple threat size-up work done in the club. There’s never a bad place to hone your craft, and KD is always ready to ball — I would bet he used to wear gym shorts under his jeans, just in case a pickup game broke out when he was a kid (to be clear: I was also that kid).

Now, if only they’d throw the History Channel up on one of the TVs for my guy, KD, he’d really be living his best life in that club.

(WARNING: Spoilers for the most recent All American episode will be found below.)

Including this week’s episode of All American, there are four episodes left in season six of the series. It’s important to note that as season seven, which is still up in the air, could feature a whole new cast. Despite that, we can still enjoy what the current cast of Spencer James, Olivia and Jordan Baker, and others have brought to the show. This week, Spencer is at the NFL draft combine and it proves to be a bit more difficult that expected. Here’s when you can check the next episode of All American.

When Will All American Season 6, Episode 10 Come Out?

The tenth episode of All American season six, titled “Mass Appeal,” will arrive on June 3. The Dawn Wilkinson-directed and Robert D. Doty-written episode will be available on Monday, 6/3 on the CW TV channel at 8pm EST/PST. The episode will later be available to stream on the CW app and website at 3 am ET/12 am PT. A synopsis for “Mass Appeal” can be found below:

Spencer finds himself struggling at the NFL combine when prospective coaches dig into his past. Jordan convinces Layla to take a day for herself while he handles her first brunch service at the lounge. Elsewhere, Asher receives some unexpected news about Coach Montes, and Olivia’s time with Baby AJ gives her some much-needed perspective about her book.

You can also watch the trailer for All American season six, episode ten below:

New episodes of ‘All American’ are available on CW TV on Mondays at 8 pm ET/PT and on the CW app and website at 3 am ET/12 am PT.

When I saw these incredible photos Angelo Merendino took of his wife, Jennifer, as she battled breast cancer, I felt that I shouldn’t be seeing this snapshot of their intimate, private lives.

The photos humanize the face of cancer and capture the difficulty, fear, and pain that they experienced during the difficult time.

But as Angelo commented: “These photographs do not define us, but they are us.“

This article originally appeared on 11.5.13

Adrienne Osuna is a fitness blogger with a focus on weight training. After years of struggling with her weight, this mother of four finally got serious about her health, adopting a rigorous schedule of power lifting, cardio, and intermittent fasting to lose weight, gain muscle, and kick ass.

And while her personal regimen might be a little too ambitious for most of us, she’s still inspiring—because she keeps it real.

An image she posted on her blog is going viral for pointing out that focusing on your weight is a misleading goal. The before-and-after pic shows her before she started lifting and after—a complete physical transformation which resulted in a staggering one pound of weight loss.

After she went viral she made another Instagram post revealing she was actually a pound heavier in the after photo. Unfortunately, that post has since been made private.

She would later explain that she felt it was important to reclaim her image because it had been used in advertisements for weight loss products, and that’s not what she’s about.

“But I DID NOT use anyone’s products to do this,” she wrote in a post which since been made private. “This was all hard work in the gym lifting heavy weights and intermittent fasting.

Kudos to Ms. Osuna for getting the word out—fitness isn’t about a number, it’s about having awesome muscles you could use to punch a hole through a plaster wall.

This article was originally published on 12.22.22 by our partners at someecards and was written by Matt Nedostup.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn’t terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it’s true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we’ve gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That’s why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

The twins, Bernardo and Arthur Lima, are almost 4 years old and have never seen one another’s face. They’ve spent their lives conjoined at the top of their heads, facing opposite directions. Born as craniopagus twins (joined at the cranium), their brains were also fused together, making their separation extremely complex. According to the BBC, they’ve been cared for at the Instituto Estadual do Cérebro Paulo Niemeyer (Paulo Niemeyer State Brain Institute) in Rio de Janeiro for the past two and a half years.

Surgeon Noor ul Owase Jeelani is the founder of medical charity Gemini Untwined, which funded the surgery. He helped lead the team of nearly 100 medical workers who worked for months to prepare for the boys’ separation, which was one of the most complicated of its kind.

Jeelani told the BBC that it was the first time surgeons in separate countries practiced by operating in the same “virtual reality room” together, wearing VR headsets.

“It’s just wonderful,” he said. “It’s really great to see the anatomy and do the surgery before you actually put the children at any risk. You can’t imagine how reassuring this is for the surgeons. To do it in virtual reality was just really man-on-Mars stuff.”

Watch Jeelani explain how they prepared for the procedure:

Prior attempts to separate the twins had been unsuccessful, making the surgery even more challenging due to scar tissue. However, after multiple surgeries that took more than 33 hours collectively, the boys were successfully separated in June.

“It was without a doubt the most complex surgery of my career,” said neurosurgeon Gabriel Mufarrej of the Paulo Niemeyer State Brain Institute, according to EuroNews. “At the beginning, nobody thought they would survive. It is already historic that both of them could be saved.”

Jeelani told the BBC that the boys’ heart rates and blood pressure were “through the roof” for four days after the surgery—until they were reunited and touched hands.

According to Reuters, Bernardo and Arthur are the oldest twins with fused brains to be successfully separated. They will spend the next six months in rehabilitation.

Congratulations to the Lima family and to the global team that combined dedication, perseverance and the miracle of modern technology to create a brighter future for these young boys.

This article originally appeared on 08.04.22