Category: Worldwide

Learning to swim can be a very scary experience for kids. They’re being asked to quite literally dive into the unknown, after all. And the pool is not without its inherent dangers, so it’s perfectly understandable that the fear can be overwhelming.

Luckily, the “mermaid mantra” can help.

Tyler Reed, the owner of Triton Aquatic Training in Tampa, Florida, recently went viral after teaching the mermaid mantra to a toddler student who was clearly having a hard time.

It goes like this: “I’m big. I’m brave. I’m beautiful.”

Reed encourages the little girl to repeat the mantra, and through sobs, we hear the most adorable little voice in the whole world utter, “I’m beeg. I’m bave. I’m boobooball.”

Seriously, that boobooball is pure utter sweetness.

Watch:

@tritonaquatictraining Yes… swim lessons can sometimes be scary but when we say our motivational mermaid mantras out loud, we can do anything! 🧜‍♀️🫶 #M#Motivation #m#mobileswimlessonss#swimlessonsp#privateswimlessonss#swiminstructors#southtampat#tampaswimlessonstampasmallbusiness #smallbusiness #smallbusinessowner #survivalswimlessons #survivalswim #fyp #cuteaf #childpsychology #parenting #childeducation #children ♬ original sound – Triton Aquatic Training

Reed’s video quickly went viral online, with folks quick to commend the little one on her bravery.

“It’s so scary as a little person to learn these kinds of things but I’m sure she’s doing great,” one person wrote.

Others were instantly emotional. “I’m boobooful is literally where I lost it. Someone get me the tissue,” wrote another.

Clearly Reed’s approach works, because in a subsequent video he and the same student are back in the water, with her swimming and loving every minute of it. Now she recites the mermaid mantra as a song of victory!

Boobooball is still just as cute though.

@tritonaquatictraining MERMAID UPDATE! Look at this big girl swimming and loving it after just a few weeks! Crazy to think that just a few weeks ago we were in tears and scared! But we kept practicing our motivational mermaid mantra of “I’m Big, I’m Brave, I’m Beautiful!” and look how far we’ve come! I am one proud swim instructor! Thank you all so much for the love & support! 🥰🧜‍♀️🔱🧜‍♂️ #swimlessons #privateswimlessons #learntoswim #swimminglessons #survivalswim #survivalswimlessons #childcare #childpsychology #smallbusiness #smallbusinessowner #cutevideo #proudteacher #fyp #foryou #foryoupage #foryoupage #fypシ #viral #trending #fypシ゚viral #fypage ♬ original sound – Triton Aquatic Training

For Reed, the mantra is about instilling power and autonomy back into his students.

“I think a lot of people look at 2-year-olds and babies as children that are incapable of being able to swim or save themselves and I’m trying to kind of erase that psyche from them, that they can they really can do this,” he told Good Morning America.

Not teaching kids to trust themselves, he added, leads to an over-reliance on swim floaties, which develop a “false sense of their ability to swim.” That’s why he believes engaging in swim lessons at an early age is so important.

This kind of wisdom is pretty universal when it comes to raising confident kids. Teaching young ones how to empower themselves through a variety of situations, rather than constantly trying to shield them from discomfort, develops a skill that can last a lifetime. But this can still be done in a loving, gentle way, as Reed so beautifully demonstrated. Sometimes it’s simply allowing kids to experiment and make mistakes. Other times, it might be affirmations that connect kids to their inner sea creatures.

Reed said it best: “When we say our motivational mermaid mantras out loud, we can do anything!”

When the NBA Draft begins on June 22, there’s no drama around the first name that will be taken off the board, as the San Antonio Spurs will gleefully select Victor Wembanyama.

Beyond that, there’s still some debate as to who will go No. 2 and No. 3 between Scoot Henderson and Brandon Miller, as well as what teams will be picking in those spots. The Charlotte Hornets have the second pick and many expect them to take Miller, but the Blazers’ desire to trade the third overall pick is well known, as Damian Lillard wants them to build a contender for now. The problem to this point has been figuring out what team would be willing to trade up to the top of the draft and part ways with the veteran talent Portland desires.

On Monday, Shams Charania of The Athletic brought word of the first team publicly being tied to a potential trade up scenario, as the New Orleans Pelicans apparently have their eye on Henderson.

The Pelicans have the ammunition to make a deal that would be enticing to either team picking second and third, as they have established star caliber players the Blazers could be interested in, while also having a treasure chest full of future first round picks and swaps, courtesy the Anthony Davis and Jrue Holiday deals that could provide a more future-facing package to Charlotte.

If they can trade up to No. 2, they wouldn’t need to worry about whether Henderson is still on the board and could guarantee themselves the highly touted guard prospect. The question, of course, is whether Charlotte is willing to pass on Miller and Henderson to move down to the 14th pick in this year’s draft to acquire future picks (or accept a deal centered around a current player). Portland would probably love to land Brandon Ingram or Zion Williamson (or, even funnier, bring back CJ McCollum), but that is dependent on exactly how much the Pelicans value Henderson and whether they want to part with one of their All-Stars to get him — and whether he’s still there when the Blazers are on the clock.

Still, this is the first significant report of a team with interest in trading up to the top of the draft, and we’ll see if anything ultimately comes of New Orleans’ interest in landing Henderson.

Pour one out for Marjorie Taylor Greene after the 1:40:40 mark in the above video. She probably hasn’t even recovered from learning about porn websites and posting a video of someone flipping her the bird before noticing (and then it was way too late) such disrespect.

Now, it’s Pride Month, and Greene cannot handle the gay joy. The noted “drag queen story time” opponent relayed to Charlie Kirk (at the aforementioned video mark) about how society is going to hell in a tightly-woven handbasket because she spied a woman who had the audacity to go pantless during this past weekend’s D.C. Pride festival.

Greene’s D.C. serenity was so disturbed by this, dang it, that she is calling it “modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah” to have driven towards her condo on Sunday night, and “all I heard was the crowd all around, all over the streets having the Pride festival continuing on.” From there, she was absolutely appalled to see some partial nudity:

“I even saw one woman that had no pants on…. You’ve seen the videos. They’re all over Twitter, and how disgusting this is. This has nothing to do with equal rights.”

Greene also rambled upon how the gay community should be outraged to see their movement be “hijacked” by those who advocate for trans rights for those under 18. The congresswoman from Georgia cannot cope with all of this debauchery, and she shared a similar sentiment on Twitter, too.

Well, Pride month ain’t over yet, so Greene might have more to say soon.

(Via Raw Story)

DJ Khaled might be one of the funniest social media personalities alive. Everything he does online is hilarious, even if it seems unintentionally so. The thing is, he knows it, which only makes everything more fun. When he’s not producing hit albums such as his album God Did or showing off his love for sneakers (and the extreme lengths he’ll go to in order to preserve them), he’s showing off his athletic prowess (or lack thereof) with ill-advised dunk attempts and overly enthusiastic golf swings. That extends to a surf video he recently uploaded to Instagram in which he wipes out hard.

But, as I pointed out above, Khaled knows we’ll all be laughing about it, so he ups the comedic value of the clip by running back his splash down a couple of times — he even adds slow motion, as well as a few (seemingly unrelated clips of himself receiving a massage and whacking a golf ball out of the rough “right down the middle.” Maybe he felt like he needed to cushion the blow to his ego.

Khaled’s new golf hobby became the focus of another amusing post as Diddy gave him a brand-new golf cart. “If you gonna be the number one in golfing, we gotta make sure you’re number one in the golf cart, baby,” Diddy says in the clip. “Sh*t looks rich, sh*t looks healthy, looks like it fits my brother Khaled.”

After the federal indictment against Donald Trump was unsealed, legal experts from across the political spectrum referred to the government’s case as “damning” and “overwhelming” thanks to a detailed list of evidence that showed top secret documents being stored in a Mar-a-Lago bathroom as well as audio transcripts of Trump openly showing classified intel to individuals without a security clearance.

According to The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, the unsealed indictment is just the tip of the iceberg. While sharing her latest article on Twitter, Haberman revealed that the special counsel is reportedly sitting on a substantial amount of notes from Trump’s former attorney M. Evan Corcoran.

“The indictment, according to multiple people familiar with the case, shows a fraction of the evidence the government has amassed,” Haberman tweeted.

Thanks to special counsel Jack Smith obtaining a crime-fraud exception, Corcoran’s notes have been crucial to indicting Trump, according to Haberman’s article in the Times:

Mr. Corcoran’s notes, first recorded into an iPhone and then transcribed on paper, essentially gave prosecutors a road map to building their case. Mr. Trump, according to the indictment, pressured Mr. Corcoran to thwart investigators from reclaiming reams of classified material and even suggested to him that it might be better to lie to investigators and withhold the documents altogether.

Haberman writes that the notes from Corcoran “were far more extensive, and far more damaging, than previously known,” which is again, pretty amazing considering the indictment against Trump was already filled with enough legal bombshells to make the ladies on The View weak in the knees. They went through some things, let’s just say that.

(Via The New York Times)

Josh Homme has had a lot to deal with over the past year or so. Most notably, Queens Of The Stone Age are returning with their first album and tour in a long time, and there were also the messy legal proceedings involving his ex-wife and children. Now, he has revealed that last year, he was actually diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully, he had a successful surgery to remove it, and now he’s discussed the situation.

In a new interview with Revolver, the publication notes Homme was diagnosed in 2022 and that he “won’t get into details other than to say that surgery to remove it was successful.” They also said Homme is still healing and “gets the occasional twinge of pain” during the interview.

Homme himself said:

“I never say it can’t get any worse. I never say that, and I wouldn’t advise it. But I do say it can get better. Cancer is just the cherry on top of an interesting time period, you know? I’m extremely thankful that I’ll get through this, and I’ll look back at this as something that’s f*cked up, but will have made me better. I’m cool with that. There’s a lot of stuff I want to do. And there’s a lot of people I want to do that with.”

Read the full feature here.

On the latest episode of The Eric Andre Show, host Eric Andre called Jon Hamm the “white Idris Elba” and asked the Mad Men star about what it was like to blow the whistle on that “scenery-chewing motherf*cker” (and Baby Driver co-star) Kevin Spacey. TV will be 20 percent less chaotic — and therefore 20 percent less good — if/when The Eric Andre Show is off the air.

After asking his guest if he’s married to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt actress Ellie Kemper (they’re not; he was her drama teacher), Andre brought up Spacey, who… yeah. “Was he elbow deep in teenage boys the whole time you guys were turning around cameras?” he wondered. “I did not witness any impropriety…” Hamm stuttered, ably playing along. The interview ends with Andre chainsawing into his desk — and a woman’s torso.

Here’s how Hamm responded:

You can watch the video above.

Hamm also appeared on Bill Maher’s epic bacon-named podcast, Club Random, where he was asked about working with Tom Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick. “Tom Cruise is not the kind of guy who doesn’t… look after every detail in a movie,” he said. “There is nothing on set that Tom doesn’t want there,” Hamm confirmed. “It is what he does so well. He curates an experience.” So does Eric Andre. Two greats ignored by the Academy.

(Via Adult Swim)

GOP Representative Clay Higgins — who couldn’t even wait for the ink to dry on Donald Trump’s federal indictment last week before tweeting instructions on starting a Civil War in Florida — is now warning potential MAGA terrorists against falling for the “DOJ’s Trap.”

The Louisianna Republican seemingly lost it when Special Counsel Jack Smith handed down the indictments, not even waiting for the specifics such as Trump is facing dozens of counts, including the “willful retention” of some 300 classified documents. In a post shared with his followers on Twitter prior to the indictment being unsealed, Higgins used right-wing militia speech to galvanize Trump’s base.

According to author and professor Jeff Sharlet, whose book The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War is basically a deep dive into right-wing extremism, Higgins’s knee-jerk tweet was a call to arms. Sharlet identified lingo like “know your bridges” and “perimeter probe” as terms extremists use to signal militant action.

So, to cover his own a** should any MAGA faithful try to blockade a Miami bridge when Trump heads to the courthouse on Tuesday, Higgins’ office released a statement that doesn’t reek of insanity as much as his social media bugle call did. In the press release, Higgins tried to absolve himself of any liability while accusing the Feds of “entrapment.”

“My fellow conservatives, the DOJ/FBI doesn’t expect to imprison Trump, they expect to imprison you. They want J6 again, in Miami and in your city and in mine. We will fight against this oppression. We are indeed, with every ounce of spirit, fighting against the insidious evil that threatens our beloved Republic, but We the People must fight against oppression legally, peacefully, and within the parameters of our Constitution.”

He also posted this to his Twitter account:

You may remember Clay Higgins from his past notable moments of nuttery, like the time he filmed himself inside an Auschwitz gas chamber for social media and the time he claimed his wife — who was recently hospitalized after a “serious neurological episode” — has the “gift of premonition.”

(Via Mediaite)

Daniel Caesar’s got a new album out and he just announced a tour to go with it. Shortly before the release of Never Enough, which landed on Uproxx’s Best R&B Albums Of 2023, the Canadian crooner went on his Almost Enough: The Intimate Sessions mini-tour, promising a “real tour” would arrive imminently. Today, he announced the dates for his Superpowers World Tour, on which he’ll be joined by Omar Apollo, Orion Sun, Montell Fish, Moses Sumney, and Charlotte Day WIlson, who’ll be joined by BADBADNOTGOOD for Caesar’s hometown show in Toronto.

Tickets go on sale Friday, June 16 after a presale beginning Tuesday, June 13. You can get more information here.

08/29 – Indianapolis, IN @ Murat Theatre at Old National Centre^
08/30 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit^
08/31 – Cincinnati, OH @ The Andrew J Brady Music Center^
09/2 – Milwaukee, WI @ The Eagles Ballroom*^
09/3 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed^
09/5 – Columbus, OH @ KEMBA Live!*#
09/7 – Atlanta, GA @ Coca-Cola Roxy#
09/9 – Miami, FL @ FPL Solar Amphitheater#
09/10 – Orlando, FL @ Hard Rock Live#
09/12 – Houston, TX @ 713 Music Hall#
09/13 – Austin, TX @ Moody Amphitheater#
09/14 – Dallas, TX @ South Side Ballroom#
09/16 – Denver, CO @ Fillmore Auditorium#
09/17 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Complex#
09/20 – San Diego, CA @ Gallagher Square Park at Petco Park#
09/21 – Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Bowl!
09/23 – Santa Barbara, CA @ Santa Barbara Bowl*#
09/24 – Phoenix, AZ @ Arizona Financial Theatre#
09/26 – Berkeley, CA @ The Greek Theatre at UC Berkeley*#
09/28 – Portland, OR @ Alaska Airlines’ Theater of the Clouds#
09/29 – Seattle, WA @ WAMU Theater#
09/30 — Vancouver, BC @ Pacific Coliseum%
10/3 — Calgary, AB @ Scotiabank Saddledome%
10/5 — Edmonton, AB @ Rogers Place%
10/6 — Saskatoon, SK @ SaskTel Centre%
10/7 — Winnipeg, MB @ Canada Life Centre%
10/10 — Ottawa, ON @ Canadian Tire Centre%
10/12 — London, ON @ Budweiser Gardens%
10/13 — Toronto, ON @ Scotiabank Arena>
10/15 – Washington, DC @ The Anthem^
10/16 – Boston, MA @ MGM Music Hall at Fenway^
10/17 – New York, NY @ Madison Square Garden+
10/19 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia^
* Not A Live Nation Date
+ With Omar Apollo with special guest Montell Fish
^ Support from Montell Fish
# Support from Orion Sun
! With special guests Flying Lotus and Orion Sun
% Support from Moses Sumney
> Featuring Charlotte Day Wilson playing with BADBADNOTGOOD, with special guest Moses Sumney

If you were a kid during the early ’90s, just hearing the words Free Willy conjures up an immediate mental picture of the film’s climactic moment. As Jason James Richter‘s character finally fulfills the movie’s title by literally freeing Willy, the orca whale leaps over his human pal in a heartwarming moment for the ages.

As for how director Simon Wincer pulled off the stunt at a time when CGI graphics were in their infancy and crazy expensive, the answer is surprisingly simple: A freaking rocket launcher.

In an effort to make the moment look as realistic as possible while keeping the budget under $20 million, Wincer came up with the clever workaround to literally give Willy an explosive jump before handing things off to the digital VFX team.

Via The Guardian:

I remember saying to my agent: “If I can deliver the finale – where the whale leaps to freedom – we’ve got a movie.” We had so many meetings about how the hell we were going to do it. It was the early days of CGI so we shot at high tide in a small harbour – and literally built a rocket launcher with an animatronic whale on it. It would fly out of the water and come to a stop then CGI would take over. Like any pivotal movie moment, it was sound, emotion and picture coming together to lift you to your feet.

Turns out Wincer was right. Willy’s jump is an iconic piece of ’90s cinema all thanks to strapping a fake whale to a rocket launcher. Movie magic, folks, there’s nothing like it.

You can see the iconic Free Willy scene below:

(Via The Guardian)