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Most people would agree that the past two years have been hard. They’ve been particularly difficult for teens: many started high school virtually, or graduated via zoom and went straight into zoom college classes. The mental health crisis amongst teens continues to be an issue that adults are desperately trying to address. Pew Research Center reports that 37% of high school students, private and public, report that their mental health was not good most or all of the time during the pandemic. While restrictions are lifted, the lingering effects of poor mental health still remain for struggling teens.

Planet Fitness, the nationwide fitness club, is doing their part to help. May 2, Planet Fitness announced they would be opening their doors to high school students ages 14-19 for free to not only help with teens physical health but their mental health as well. The passes to the gym will be good through August 31 and there’s no catch outside of having a parent’s permission upon sign up. This isn’t the first time the fitness center (that has over 2,200 locations) has opened its doors to teens. The Summer Pass program first started in 2019 under the name Teen Summer Challenge and had over 900,000 teens participate.

The unique program aims to get kids active in an effort to boost their moodi. Teens spend a lot of time indoors and on social media, whether it’s Discord or TikTok. It doesn’t take much to get caught up in the infamous doom scroll. Planet Fitness also cites the Journal of American Medical Association’s findings that less than 15% of teens get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity a day to back their reasoning behind the program.

The fitness giant didn’t stop there. Planet Fitness commissioned a national study that found 93% of teens want to stay healthy and active over summer break. Signing up for the program also automatically enters teens into The Planet Fitness High School Summer Pass Sweepstakes. One student participant from each state will win a $500 scholarship, and one grand prize winner will receive a $5,000 scholarship. Winners of the scholarships can use the funds on academics or athletic purposes.

By providing this program for free (it’s also available in Canada), it allows teens that may have not otherwise been able to afford a gym membership to participate, as long as they live near a Planet Fitness. Benefits of exercise on mental health have been proven time and time again. People who participate in regular exercise can experience a boost in mood, which can decrease anxiety and depression. Exercise also helps to decrease stress and increase self-esteem and self-confidence according to the National Library of Medicine.

Having a program specifically designed with teenagers in mind is amazing. The fact that the fitness club also gives the high schoolers a chance to win money for their education is just the icing on the cake. If you’re interested in signing your teen up, you can do so here. Here’s to a happy and healthy summer!

The Academy Award winning short, directed by Will McCormack and Michael Govier, tells the story of two parents mourning the loss of their daughter, a victim of a school shooting. You can watch the trailer below:

Govier explained in an interview with Salon that the filmmakers wanted to focus on what “grief and loss really look like” for a parent under these horrific circumstances, rather than the typical, sterile news cycle narratives.

There is no dialogue throughout the entire 12 minutes. Yet through touching music, sparing use of color (the film is mostly in black and white) and characterized shadows, the audience becomes immersed in the full spectrum of each parent’s emotions. The love, the fear, the longing, the regret. All of it.

McCormack added that though the piece centers around parents immediately affected by a school shooting, the message is universal.

“Gun violence is not indiscriminate,” he told Salon. “It’s not someone else’s problem, it’s everyone’s problem. It happens in schools, it happens in grocery stores, it happens everywhere … This is something that affects everyone in all walks of life now, so we felt drawn to write about it.”

One thing becomes painfully clear by the end of the short film: The mother and father are in so much agony that they are disconnected from anything in the outside world, even each other. They share dinners in silence as their shadow counterparts fight with one another, then go off into their own private worlds to be alone in their despair.

It isn’t until the spirit of their daughter urges them to rekindle their connection that they can once again embrace one another. It seems like a gentle reminder that to create lasting change, more compassion is needed. If we don’t connect with each other on a human level, history is bound to repeat itself.

Grief isn’t easy. But art can at least help us make the pain inside a bit more tangible, which can lead to more inspired action.

If you’d like to watch the full film (I highly recommend it), you can still find it on Netflix.

On March 13, 1996, a man walked into Dunblane Primary School in Scotland with four legally purchased handguns and 734 rounds of ammunition, and proceeded to shoot and kill 16 children—5 and 6 years old—as well as their 45-year-old teacher before killing himself. It was Britain’s worst school shooting—and its last to date.

Unlike in the United States, where school shootings have become routine with basically no legislation being enacted to try to stop them, the British government took decisive action. After a petition campaign demanding more stringent gun laws, Parliament passed laws banning private ownership of most handguns.

“We had a tragedy that made people think, as a matter of common sense, that this needs fixing,” Rebecca Peters, director of International Action Network on Small Arms, told the Washington Post in 2007. “It should never have been possible for someone to buy, legally and easily, guns that could be concealed in his pocket. That is not possible anymore in Britain.”

Such a sentiment is practically blasphemy in the U.S., where millions of Americans not only own handguns, but carry them around on their bodies daily. Our Second Amendment being interpreted to mean we can possess any and all the guns our hearts desire means a blanket ban of handguns is unlikely in this country.

But there’s no question that the U.K.’s strict gun laws appear to be working. Cause and effect are always tricky to measure, but in the 26 years since Dunblane, there have been no school shootings in the U.K. And there has been just one mass shooting in general since then, in 2010.

Compare that to 27 school shootings and 213 mass shootings in the U.S. so far in 2022, and we’re not even halfway through the year.

It appears that making it harder—but not impossible—to get guns could be an effective way to limit not just mass shootings, but gun deaths in general. According to data shared by the BBC, in 2019, 73% of homicides were committed with a firearm in the U.S., whereas in England and Wales it was just 4%.

Considering the fact that guns are now the leading cause of death for children and teens in the U.S., decisive gun legislation might be a smart thing to consider.

“Here in the U.S., we have this broken record cycle of what responses to mass shootings or school shootings look like,” Jaclyn Schildkraut, a mass shootings expert at the State University of New York at Oswego told Smithsonian magazine. “Everybody demands action, and then absolutely nothing gets done. Whereas in Great Britain, they actually were able to get stuff done.”

u201cThe Dunblane massacre took place at Dunblane Primary School near Stirling, Scotland, UK, on 13 March 1996, when Thomas Hamilton shot dead sixteen pupils and one teacher, and injured fifteen others, before killing himself. Gun laws came straight away and it never happened again.u201d

— KB #StandWithUkraine ud83cuddfaud83cudde6 (@KB #StandWithUkraine ud83cuddfaud83cudde6)
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After the Parkland, Florida school shooting in 2018, survivors and families of those killed in the Dunblane massacre wrote a letter of condolence to the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on the anniversary of their own tragedy. It’s a reminder of the horror we’ve seen far too many times in our own country, as well as a beacon of hope that things actually can change.

“Dear Students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas School,

On the most poignant day of the year for us we wanted to reach out and offer our deepest and most heartfelt sympathy to you and your teachers and to all the families and friends of those who died at your school on 14th February. We have watched and listened with tremendous admiration as you have spoken out for what you believe should happen now, a significant change of attitude towards the availability of guns in your country.

Twenty-two years ago today our own lives were devastated when a gunman walked into Dunblane Primary School in Scotland and shot dead sixteen 5- and 6-year-old children and their teacher and injured many more. The children who were killed or badly injured were our daughters and sons, our grandchildren, our sisters and brothers, our nieces and nephews, our cousins. The teacher was our wife, our sister, our mother. Five of us are survivors. The gunman owned his four handguns legally, and we knew it had been too easy for him to arm himself with lethal weapons. Like you we vowed to do something about it. We persuaded British lawmakers not to be swayed by the vested interests of the gun lobby, we asked them to put public safety first and to heed what the majority of the British people wanted. Most politicians listened and acted. Laws were changed, handguns were banned and the level of gun violence in Britain is now one of the lowest in the world. There have been no more school shootings.

We want you to know that change can happen. It won’t be easy, but continue to remind everyone of exactly what happened at your school and of the devastation caused by just one person with one legally-owned gun. Never let anyone forget. There will be attempts to deflect you, to divide you and doubtless to intimidate you, but you’ve already shown great wisdom and strength. We wish you more of that wisdom and strength for this toughest of tasks, one that will be so important in order to spare more of your fellow Americans from having to suffer the way you have. Wherever you march, whenever you protest, however you campaign for a more sensible approach to gun ownership we will be there with you in spirit.

Tonight we will be lighting 17 candles for those who died in Dunblane and will be remembering the 17 who lost their lives in Parkland. Our thoughts will also be with every other victim of gun violence.

We offer you our total support for the March for Our Lives and sincerely hope you achieve success. It can be done. #NeverAgain.”

​We don’t have to live like this. We can make another choice. We can at least try to do something different so that we don’t have to keep offering the same thoughts and prayers for tragedies that never should have happened in the first place.

When the Amber Alert came out in the 1990s, pictures of missing children on the backs of milk cartons became a thing of the past. But still, we see posters of missing people line telephone polls, grocery store windows and community bulletin boards. And what’s more, they continue to be easily ignored. Perhaps it’s time for another revamp.

Missing People, a London based charity, created digital billboards showing moving 3D portraits rather than static photos. Blinking eyes, head tilts, the works. You remember the double-take you made when you first discovered iPhone’s “live photos”? It feels a bit similar.

See on Instagram

Not only that, but each bright pink “poster” has a clear, easily scannable QR code that can be used to spread the word about a missing individual on social media. With its immediacy and global reach, social media has had an ever-growing role in recovering missing persons. Having an easy way to share across social media platforms seems like an obvious improvement already.

This combination of technology and eye-catching visuals is all part of an initiative to get people more engaged in the missing persons search. After all, our fast-paced modern world makes it easy to turn a blind eye to what pops up in our periphery. How many times have you strolled past a traditional missing persons poster before forgetting it the minute you go to TikTok?

You’ll also notice that the words “help find” replace the word “missing.” This too is by design.

Anita Braga, behavioral science consultant at Influence at Work, which led the research for the project, explained that this subtle tweak can create a distinctly different outcome. “Very often people do want to act, but they feel like they don’t have the means to, they feel a bit overwhelmed by the situation,” she said, according to The Independent. “Giving a clear call to action is a way to make them feel empowered and also feel empathy towards the person they’re looking for.”

It makes sense. Usually a poster with the word “MISSING” in big bold letters feels … less than hopeful. In addition to dread, sadness and alarm, there tends to be this finality to the situation. This person is missing, if not worse. That’s that. Language is such a powerful tool. It’s pretty amazing that when used intentionally, language can turn passive sympathy into compassionate action.

These interactive posters are still too new to truly test their efficacy, but they are getting some buzz. The Independent also reported Steve Martin, chief executive of Influence at Work, saying, “Even if a couple of dozen extra people see that image, they connect with it, they feel some empathy towards it, that could make the difference and it could help a family who has had their whole life not just disrupted but destroyed because they don’t know where their loved one is.”

This project feels like innovation at its best. Technology often disconnects us from one other, but it also has the potential to bring us closer. Who knows what impact this revamp will have, but the very notion that minds are coming together to use AI in this way feels like a positive move forward.

Scott decided to take Monstro home and see if she could nurse him back to health. Setting up a “shallow hospital tank” with aquarium salt and a daily water change seemed to have a positive effect. Monstro began eating again and swimming for short periods of time.

Eventually, he was put into a five gallon tank, and even got some new friends. At this point, his golden hue began to return. Not fully—he had a cool ombre thing happening. But still, obvious progress.

“He also got bigger….a lot bigger,” the onscreen text read. Continuing to grow is a common characteristic of goldfish—not just to fit their environment, by the way—and this was a clear indicator that Monstro was getting healthier by the day.

As Monstro’s condition improved, people became even more invested.

The video ends with Monstro swimming and carefree, a golden boy once again.

@heretherebesculptures The one where you accidentally become a goldfish keeper. Meet Monstro 🖤 #rescue #inspirational #goldfish #rescuepet #fish #recovery ♬ Inspirational Piano – AShamaluevMusic

One person commented, “You’re telling me this goldfish was wearing all black cause he was SAD? I love him so much.” And actually, this statement is pretty accurate.

Fish can often be seen as the perfect low-maintenance pet. It’s not like Mr. Guppy expects daily walks, after all. Nor does he feel the need to scratch up the leather furniture. What could possibly go wrong?

But the truth is: Fish, like all pets, really do require at least some level of devoted care. Fish in general need a good tank size and water that is routinely cleaned, as well as a strict eating schedule. And unlike our furry friends, fish rarely offer warning signs before things go belly up … literally.

Goldfish in particular might need some extra TLC. They are a notoriously messy breed, and require a little daily help to keep things clean. A fish-keeping site called Aquariadise suggests a high-grade filtration system and a 30% water change on a weekly basis. Plus, being omnivores, they actually need variety in their diet. But not too much too quickly! Yes, it’s a lot. But when properly taken care of, these little guys can provide companionship for decades. Yes, decades.

@heretherebesculptures Reply to @crystalcelestecon he’s doing great 🥰 #monstrothegoldfish #rescueanimals ♬ Japanese-style dramatic piano song – スタジオ　Music Rabbit

It’s unclear whether or not Monstro has decades left. But Scott assured us that no matter how long he has left, “he’ll spend the rest of his days happy and loved.” And that’s what counts.

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

Season 4 of Stranger Things has finally arrived, and fans have been waiting a while. Music has always been a part of the plot; the soundtrack has included classic hits from Joy Division’s “Atmosphere” to The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.”

The taste persists with this new season, this time with Kate Bush‘s beloved “Running Up That Hill” serving a critical role. Sadie Sink’s character Max declares that the ’80s hit is her favorite song; her love for it intensifies when the song is the only thing that can snap her out of a fugue state and back into reality. It ends up being a massive source of protection for the characters from the evil creature Vecna. Max asks Caleb McLaughlin’s character Lucas: “Will it still work? Or will Kate Bush lose her magic power or something?” Lucas answers, “Kate Bush? Never.”

Because of this exposure of the iconic track to the younger generation of watchers, “Running Up That Hill” has reportedly climbed the charts, landing at No. 13 on Spotify’s global daily chart and #1 on the iTunes singles chart, according to TheWrap.

Watch the full, intense scene above, in which Kate Bush saves lives with just her music.

In 1972, Elvis Costello was in the Liverpool band Rusty before he broke out with The Attractions. He toured with Rusty but never recorded a music — until now. In a statement, the legend (who is also British royalty and was battling cancer only a couple of years ago) has announced his debut EP with the group, arriving next month.

“In 2021, my pal and singing partner in the Liverpool clubs, Allan Mayes wrote to me from his home in Austin, Texas. He wanted to remind me that it would soon be fifty years since I joined his band, ‘Rusty,’ just after our first meeting at a party on New Year’s Eve, 1971,” Costello wrote. “The group was then a quartet, with Allan’s school friend, Alan Brown ‐ who would play bass until he left for university later that year — and there was also another vocalist called ‘Dave.’ whose main credentials as a singer were the ownership of a microphone and tambourine. A month later, after a couple of pretty ragged gigs, Allan and I became the only vocalists and there was not a tambourine in sight. Show business is a cruel game.” His statement details at length his experience with Rusty; read it in full on his website here.

Check out the artwork for the EP below.

The Resurrection Of Rust is out digitally on 6/10 via EMI/Capitol.

There’s a long history of actors branching out into directing, and among the most successful is Bradley Cooper. The Oscar-nominee knocked it out of the park with his first effort behind the lens, A Star is Born, a critical and commercial smash and destroyer of records. For his follow-up, he’s not resting on his laurels. Instead, he’s turning himself into legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. And the first look shows he did a bang-up job of that, too.

The film is Maestro, and it looks at 30 years of Bernstein’s life and career, with a focus on his marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre, played by Carey Mulligan. It was originally supposed to be helmed by Steven Spielberg, but he turned it over to Cooper, much as Clint Eastwood passed A Star is Born to his American Sniper star.

The photos show Cooper at various ages. In the photos with Mulligan, he’s younger, with Cooper looking mostly like himself, save a fake nose. In the others, however, he’s much, much older, and looks so unlike himself that one could be forgiven for thinking they’re newly unearthed pics of the man himself.

Actors have always loved transforming themselves, changing their looks so as to look like historical figures. So when the images of Cooper as Bernstein dropped, it blew lots of minds.

There were even some R.E.M. jokes, nodding to the Bernstein name-drop in “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

Maestro has no release date but it’s expected, in theaters and on Netflix, at some point in 2023.

(Via Variety)

Big L is officially able to be remembered in more ways than one as 140th and Lenox Avenue in Harlem has now been renamed “Lamont ‘Big L’ Coleman Way.” The renaming ceremony took place on Saturday (May 28) near where the rapper was shot and killed in 1999. Several people attended, decorating their cars and loudly cheering during the unveiling of the sign located on the corner of the street.

“It took a whole lot of effort and support to get to this great point but as a collective we made it happen,” stated the team behind the upcoming Big L documentary titled Street Struck. “The biggest thank you’s go out to the Dope 500 plus people who signed and passed the petition around so we could get this street renamed.”

Big L got his start alongside The Children Of The Corn group, which also featured fellow Harlem wordsmiths Mase, Cam’ron, Herb McGruff, and Bloodshed. Big L is known for his debut LP Lifestylz Ov Da Poor & Dangerous featuring tracks such as “Put It On,” “MVP,” “Street Struck,” and “Let Em Have It L.” He was shot and killed at the age of 24.

Check out the unveiling of the new street sign in Harlem above.

Keeping up with new music can be exhausting, even impossible. From the weekly album releases to standalone singles dropping on a daily basis, the amount of music is so vast it’s easy for something to slip through the cracks. Even following along with the Uproxx recommendations on a daily basis can be a lot to ask, so every Monday we’re offering up this rundown of the best new music this week.

This week saw Calvin Harris getting back in his collaborative bag and Tate McRae’s debut album. Yeah, it was a great week for new music. Check out the highlights below.

For more music recommendations, check out our Listen To This section, as well as our Indie Mixtape and Pop Life newsletters. Also find our Uproxx HQ Spotify playlist, which is updated weekly with the best new music, at the end of this post.

Calvin Harris, Dua Lipa, and Young Thug — “Potion”

Calvin Harris is a regular presence when it comes to summer bangers and sure enough, he fired off another one last week. The song is a Dua Lipa and Young Thug collab called “Potion,” which successfully plays off the warm, disco-influenced aesthetic Dua has been cultivating in recent years.

Kanye West and XXXTentacion — “True Love”

These days, it’s tough to hear new Ye music unless you own a stem player, but that wasn’t the case a few days ago when his XXXTentacion collaboration “True Love” dropped. The song is more introspective and smoother than the last track the two paired up on, 2018’s “One Minute.”

Chance The Rapper — “A Bar About A Bar”

While Chance has kept relatively quiet (in terms of solo music, at least) since his 2019 album The Big Day, he’s been creeping his way back into the public consciousness this year. 2022 has yielded some Chance singles, with the latest being “A Bar About A Bar,” a quick, 90-second track that offers, as the title suggests, a bar about a man’s experience at an alcohol-serving establishment.

Eminem — “Jimmy, Brian And Mike”

Eminem is still making new music, but it’s not every day you get to hear new material from a bygone era, when Em was in a different phase of his life and therefore making songs not entirely like his current material. Last week, though, the rapper celebrated the 20th anniversary of The Eminem Show by dropping a track from the era, “Jimmy, Brian And Mike,” which apparently nearly made the cut for The Marshall Mathers LP.

Tate McRae — “Don’t Come Back”

In a recent Uproxx cover story, McRae said of releasing her new album, I Used To Think I Could Fly, “I think it’s honestly terrifying, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t change it for the world. When people come up and talk to me about my music, it still makes me anxious. You literally know everything about me, from my biggest fears to the depth of my last relationship. It’s crazy, because I’ll meet people, and they know so much about me already through my music. But I knew that if I needed to hear these songs, as someone listening to my music, then I would want it to be as real as it gets.”

Beabadoobee — “Lovesong”

In 2020, Beabadoobee released her debut album, Fake It Flowers, and people really liked that she did that. So, she’s putting out another one, as Beatopia is set to drop in July. Last week, she shared a preview of it via “Lovesong,” of which Uproxx’s Armon Sadler notes, “There is a soft, tender tone to Beabadoobee’s verses with a bit more of a build-up in the chorus to punctuate the earnest nature of the record fully.”

Ed Sheeran — “I Will Remember You”

Ed Sheeran is on his +-=÷x Tour (aka The Mathematics Tour) at the moment, so he seized the opportunity and dropped a “tour edition” of his latest album, =. The expanded version of the album includes four new songs: two from the Yesterday movie (“One Life” and “Penguins”) as well as “Welcome To The World” and the blooming singer-songwriter jam “I Will Remember You.”

Wilco — “Bird Without A Tail / Base Of My Skull”

In his review of Wilco’s new album Cruel Country, Uproxx’s Steven Hyden calls “Bird Without A Tail – Base Of My Skull” the “album’s best track,” calling it, “a stunningly pretty mid-tempo strummer that shifts into a gentle space-rock jam, like the Grateful Dead slipping in a brief ‘Dark Star’ into the middle of ‘Ripple.’”

Rico Nasty — “Intrusive”

It sure looks like Rico Nasty announced the release date of her next project. Last week was strong for Nasty news overall, as the rapper also dropped “Intrusive,” a brief, abrasive, and in-your-face single on which Nasty is tired of her haters.

Haai — “Human Sound”

On her new debut album Baby, We’re Ascending, the up-and-coming techno star impresses on songs like “Human Sound.” Uproxx’s Alex Gonzalez notes of the Kai-Isaiah Jamal- and Obi Franky-featuring song, “Jamal recites a poem containing themes of social justice and equality, while Franky delivers soothing, transcendental vocals over Haai’s ambiently constructed beat.”

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.