Congratulations are in order for the Kansas City Chiefs, who beat the Ravens 17-10 in AFC Championship Game yesterday (January 28) to secure their spot in Super Bowl LVIII. The game goes down on February 11 and of course, people are wondering if Taylor Swift will be in attendance.
Will Taylor Swift Go To The 2024 Super Bowl?
It seems that Swift would very much want to be at the big game. She has been in attendance to support Travis Kelce and the Chiefs throughout their playoff run, including yesterday, when she and Kelce shared a sweet post-game kiss.
There is a possible scheduling issue, though: The Eras Tour resumes soon, with a run of dates at Japan’s Tokyo Dome from February 7 to 10. This year’s Super Bowl is taking place in Las Vegas on the 11th, so considering a flight from Tokyo to Vegas is 12-plus hours, it would certainly be a tight turnaround for Swift to make it.
Variety did the math, though, and it turns out that thanks to the international date line, the timing actually isn’t as tight as it may seem:
“Running between the South and North poles, the international date line serves as the boundary between one calendar day and the next. When traveling eastbound over the line, the date decreases by one day, while going west over the boundary moves things forward by one day. Luckily, Swift is traveling east — meaning that she’ll be able to perform her concert on Saturday night in Tokyo, get a full night of rest, and as long as the 13-hour flight leaves before 6 p.m. Japan Standard Time on Sunday, she’ll land in Las Vegas before kickoff at 3:30 p.m. PT. Also helping the matter is Swift’s private jet, which will ensure a non-stop flight on an international journey where that usually does not exist.”
So, Swift hasn’t said anything about whether she plans to try making the big game, but it at least appears to be logistically possible.
The Kansas City Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl! In one of the biggest NFL days of the season yesterday (January 28), the team beat the Chiefs beat the Ravens 17-10 in AFC Championship Game. Naturally, there was a lot of celebration on the Chiefs’ side, including a sweet moment between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
After the game was decided, friends and family of Chiefs players took the field to celebrate with their loved ones, including Swift. When she reached Kelce, they kissed, hugged, and kissed again, as shown on the game’s televised broadcast.
Swifties were over the moon about the whole thing. One wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “my reaction to taylor swift going onto the field to kiss travis kelce is literally not normal send me to the mental hospital i need a lobotomy.” Another said, “TAYLOR AND TRAVIS KISSED IM CRYING.”
my reaction to taylor swift going onto the field to kiss travis kelce is literally not normal send me to the mental hospital i need a lobotomy
As aforementioned, this win means the Chiefs are heading to the Super Bowl on February 11, when they’ll go up against the San Francisco 49ers. A potential problem for Swift, though, is that she has an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo on February 10, so it could be tough for her to fly across the world and attend the big game.
The Detroit Lions took a 24-7 lead into halftime in Santa Clara on Sunday evening, as they stunned the top-seeded San Francisco 49ers in the first half of the NFC Championship Game.
From that point, seemingly everything that could go wrong for the Lions did go wrong, while the Niners capitalized on mistakes and managed to find big plays when they needed it in a way Detroit simply couldn’t. There will be plenty of blame to go around in Detroit, as their defense couldn’t get a stop, receivers couldn’t pull down key catches, and Dan Campbell’s decision-making on fourth down and with the clock late all contributed to a rather incredible collapse as the 49ers came back to win 34-31.
The first drive of the second half saw the Niners move it into Detroit territory, but the Lions were able to force a field goal attempt to stay ahead by two touchdowns. On the ensuing drive, the Lions continued to dominate on the ground, all the way up until some curious play-calling and decision-making put a halt to things. On 3rd and 4, the Lions chose to put receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown in the backfield instead of one of their running backs that had been eating all day, and only got two yards on an inside handoff. On 4th and 2, the ever-aggressive Dan Campbell chose to go for it, which most everyone agreed with, but put the ball in the air, with Josh Reynolds unable to haul in a difficult catch in good coverage, as Jared Goff hit him in the hands, but it was low and away and bounced to the turf.
At that point, things really started to take a turn. Brock Purdy put up a deep ball that should’ve been intercepted by Kindle Vildor became a 51-yard completion to Brandon Aiyuk after bouncing off Vildor’s facemask, leading to TD a few plays later.
On the first play of the next drive, Jahmyr Gibbs put the ball on the ground after an awkward handoff exchange with Goff, with the Niners jumping on the ball to get another possession in plus-territory.
On the next drive, the Lions had two drops over the middle of the field on 2nd and 3rd and 10 that would’ve been first downs. The first saw Sam LaPorta unable to make a difficult catch as he got hit, followed by a stone cold drop from Reynolds while wide open.
From there, the Lions were unable to down a perfect punt by Jack Fox at the 1, as the gunner overran the ball bounding up in the air, with his momentum carrying him into the end zone for a touchback. The Niners would march for another field goal (with some more Purdy escapism along the way), taking their first lead of the ball game at 27-24.
On the next drive by the Lions, they again found themselves facing a 4th and short in field goal range and chose to go for it. Again they passed the ball, but this time the Niners got pressure on Goff and forced an incompletion that was nowhere close to a receiver.
From there, the defense finally seemed like they might get a stop, but were unable to bring down Purdy on 3rd and 4 at midfield, as he escaped a sack and broke loose for a long scramble that eventually set up an Elijah Mitchell touchdown run (after a big McCaffrey run as well) to go up 34-24.
Once again the Lions moved it into San Francisco territory on their next drive, as Goff worked it in the three-minute drill but once they got to the goal line, they stalled and on 3rd and 1 decided to run the ball with a minute on the clock, only to get stuffed. Rather than go hurry up and save their timeouts, Campbell called his first timeout, meaning even though they scored on a TD pass to Jameson Williams on 4th down, they needed to successfully get an onside kick which no one does in the NFL anymore.
After three runs to bleed out the clock, the Niners were able to celebrate a second straight comeback win and another trip to the Super Bowl, where they’ll meet the team that beat them the last time they were there, the Kansas City Chiefs. The Niners undoubtedly deserve credit for their effort in the second half. Brock Purdy made huge plays when they needed him most, especially scrambling and making plays outside of the play structure. The defense got right after being decimated in the first half and had the right design on each of the fourth down plays to force a perfect throw and catch that the Lions could not execute.
Even so, the Lions will spend the next eight months (or longer) looking back at this parade of miscues and mishaps, wondering what could’ve been if they’d just managed to secure one or two of those big plays in their favor. Campbell will have to answer endless questions about his fourth down aggression (especially when he didn’t go for it at the end of the first half in a 4th and goal from the 3), but the timeout management late was the bigger coaching mistake in my mind — along with a few “too cute” play choices, headlined by the St. Brown handoff while they were rolling on the ground otherwise.
The Detroit Lions dominated the first half of Sunday’s NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers, leading 24-7 at the half, but there was a feeling that at some point the Niners offense would wake up.
Brock Purdy did not look sharp in the early going, and while they drove into Lions territory to start the second half, they could only muster a field goal to make it 24-10 as things stalled out once across midfield. Detroit continued to run the ball well on their next drive, but a fourth and short drop by Josh Reynolds ended their first drive of the third quarter, allowing the Niners a chance to make it a one score game.
To do so, they desperately needed the passing game to wake up and it did in a truly wild way as Purdy threw what looked to be his second interception of the game, only for Lions defensive back Kindle Vildor to have it go through his hands, bounce off of his facemask, and into the diving arms of Brandon Aiyuk.
It’s a wild swing, as what should’ve been a pick turned into a huge play, with Aiyuk being touched by Vildor on his way down meaning it was not a touchdown.
A few plays later, Aiyuk found paydirt after shaking free from Cam Sutton, with Purdy finding him for a much more conventional completion in the end zone.
Things continued to swing in favor of the Niners from there, as Lions rookie running back Jahmyr Gibbs fumbled on the first play of their next drive, handing San Francisco the ball back in Detroit territory, down just seven points.
High school is tough enough for the average 17-year-old girl. Anyone who stands out is a target for whispers and hushed laughter in the in hallways or, at worst, public ridicule.
That’s why Maddie Cable, 17, from Charlotte, North Carolina, was less than enthusiastic after being told she needed to wear a large plastic brace to school for at least six weeks.
Cable was in a car accident with her mother in November, and she fractured her T12 vertebra. After doctors stabilized it with rods and pins, Maddie was fitted with the massive brace.
“At first, I felt very self-conscious about the brace,” Cable told Buzzfeed. Then her friend Sarah Chako had the brilliant idea of turning the bland-looking brace into a badass steampunk armor corset using metallic spray paint, gear-shaped stencils, acrylic paint, and metal framing trim. Steampunk is a sci-fi/retro style that combines futuristic steam-powered designs and American “Wild West” aesthetics.
“I enjoy wearing it now,” Cable said. “It makes me feel more confident.” Her mother is pleased, too. “People are initiating conversation instead of just staring,” Cable’s mom, Linda, told HuffPost. “She feels like they see her, and not just her injury.”
Cable’s story is a great example of what you can do with some creative thinking, good friends, and steampunk power. She turned a depressing situation into an opportunity to express herself.
Zoe’s story, “Removed,” has been seen by millions of people.
It was previously shared by my amazing Upworthy colleague Laura Willard. We got just a tiny taste of what it was like for kids in foster care, right after being removed. Specifically, a little girl named Zoe and her little brother Benaiah.
My wife and I, foster parents for the past year, even shared the original with our adoption worker, who passed it along to the entire agency and, then, it took off like wildfire among those people as well.
This is part 2 of that story, and it hits hard.
(Yes, the video’s on the long side at about 20 minutes. But it’s worth the watch to the end.)
She describes her life as a cycle, interrupted by a tornado. She’s a foster child. I don’t think I need to say any more.
So … let’s accompany that with 9 uncomfortable — but enlightening — facts below. There are only nine bolded, but within those headers, there are several more facts.
1. There are an estimated 400,000 kids in foster care right now.
Some are awaiting adoption. Some will go back to their parents. Others will age out or, sometimes, run away.
And PTSD can mimic a lot of other mental illnesses, and it can manifest as nightmares, flashbacks, fight-or-flee responses, anger outbursts, and hyper-vigilance (being on “red alert” at all times), among other symptoms.
3. The average age of a foster child is 9 years old.
They’re just on that edge of childhood, and chances are, it’s been a pretty messed up childhood at that. Trauma does that.
8% are in institutions, 6% are in group homes, and only 4% are in pre-adoptive homes. Read that again — only 4% are in pre-adoptive homes.
5. Some of foster children experience multiple placements. In some cases, eight or more.
That’s eight homes that they move into — and out of. And just consider … that means they lose not just adults and other kids with whom they are establishing a bond, but friends, schoolmates, pets.
6. The average foster child remains in the system for almost two years before being reunited with their biological parents, adopted, aging out, or other outcomes.
8% of them remain in foster care for over five years. Of the 238,000 foster kids who left the system in 2013, about half were reunited with parents or primary caregivers, 21% were adopted, 15% went to live with a relative or other guardian, and 10% were emancipated (aged out).
And if you add that up, year after year, hundreds of thousands of foster youth will have aged out of the system. What does that look like? “You’re 18. You’ve got no place to live and no family. Good luck — buh-bye now!” One-quarter of former foster kids experience homelessness within four years of exiting the system.
They are four-five times more likely to be hospitalized for attempting suicide and five-eight times more likely to be hospitalized for serious psychiatric disorders in their teens.
Based on that set of statistics alone, it’s in the public’s interest (ignoring, for a second, the interests of those kids) to help them through their lot in life and spend resources making it all work much better for everybody before it gets to that point. Right?
So there’s a lot to be angry about in this whole messed up situation. But this next thing? My blood boils.
What’s one of the biggest risk factors in families whose children are placed in foster care?
Together with homelessness and unemployment, it’s a main contributing factor. It happens all the time. The fact that it’s far easier for a parent to be accused and investigated for neglect or abuse because of simple things like lack of access to a vehicle, or a working refrigerator, or the ability to get a kid to a doctor’s appointment — that has a lot to do with this. Tie that to the link between drug abuse and poverty and between poverty and child abuse … well, you can see where this is going.
And in a country where one-third of children are living in poverty (hint: the good ol’ U.S. of A.), imagine how that affects the number of kids being removed and placed into foster care.
I’ll end this with a bit of hope through my story.
My kids went through something a lot like the kids in the clip above before they came to live with us. We’ve been through the ringer in ways that we’re going to have to talk about one day because it’s not just that the kids have been challenging — they have — it’s that the system itself has been more challenging.
The entire system — from agencies to government entities to social workers to even the schools — seems like it’s designed to fail these kids and the families who are attempting to help. It’s almost designed not to work. There, I said it.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t fight to make it better for everybody. We most definitely will.
As for us, we’re just a few weeks away from becoming the legal parents to these kids, and we’re extremely happy to be right here, making it happen. And they seem quite happy to be our kids. Along the way, we fell in love with them, and we can’t imagine life without them.
But to be totally honest … if we’d have known how hard it was going to be when we started this journey, and if we could somehow turn back the clock and NOT do it … well, would we have actually gone forward with the process?
I take that back. I won’t be totally honest here. I will simply let you decide.
Here are some places to help, if you’re so inclined.
AdoptUsKids.org is a place to start if you’re considering fostering or adopting.
My Stuff Bags is a really cool and inexpensive way to help foster kids by gifting them actual luggage, duffel bags, and more, so that they don’t travel from home to home with garbage bags for their belongings — or nothing at all.
CASA for Children offers legal help and advocates for foster kids through a network of volunteers.
This story was written by Brandon Weber and originally appeared on 07.17.15
The Carters are one of music’s most secretive families.
It is often joked that they must have an iron-clad non-disclosure agreement because when Beyoncé or Jay-Z are working on a new professional endeavor, it is kept under tight seal. Or at least it used to be. Over the past few days, behind-the-scene footage of Beyoncé’s seemingly scrapped visuals for her Grammy Award-winning album, Renaissance, has surfaced online. Jay-Z appears to be battling the same issue in his camp.
Is Jay-Z Dropping A New Album In 2024?
According to a viral rumor initiated by AWGE-affiliated Hidji, the “God Did” rapper has a new album in the works and visuals to support it. On January 28, the director took to his Instagram Stories to share two posts confirming that he had been tapped to bring part of Jay-Z’s vision to light. The only problem is Roc Nation quickly took to its official X (formerly Twitter) page to shut down the rumor.
As Hidji uploaded a picture of a clapboard labeled “Jay-Z – 2024 Album,” fans began to build up excitement for the forthcoming visual. Roc Nation replied to the images shared on the NFR Podcast’s page that even they were unaware their founder was working on a new body of work. “That’s news to us,” wrote the company.
So, is Jay-Z releasing a new album or not? It surely feels like it. Back in November, during an interview with Gayle King, when discussing his The Book Of HOV exhibit, he implied that he wasn’t quite ready to walk away from music just yet. Jay-Z’s last album, 4:44, was released in 2017. This would be a great time to drop something fresh.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
A recent video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they’re just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League’s most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league’s top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn’t writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn’t receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their jobs.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There’s evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is.
They did a study of over 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006. They counted how many comments that violated their comment policy were blocked.
“Although the majority of our regular opinion writers are white men, we found that those who experienced the highest levels of abuse and dismissive trolling were not. The 10 regular writers who got the most abuse were eight women (four white and four non-white) and two black men. Two of the women and one of the men were gay. And of the eight women in the ‘top 10’, one was Muslim and one Jewish.
And the 10 regular writers who got the least abuse? All men.”
So what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
If you know someone who talks like this to anyone on the internet, CALL THEM OUT. Publicly, privately — just let them know it’s not OK to talk to anyone like this.
Don’t stop talking about it. Every day, the harassment continues. Don’t let it linger without attention.
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it’s not OK to talk to anyone like that.
A breastfeeding mother’s experience at Vienna’s Schoenbrunn Zoo is touching people’s hearts—but not without a fair amount of controversy.
Gemma Copeland shared her story on Facebook, which was then picked up by the Facebook page Boobie Babies. Photos show the mom breastfeeding her baby next to the window of the zoo’s orangutan habitat, with a female orangutan sitting close to the glass, gazing at them.
“Today I got feeding support from the most unlikely of places, the most surreal moment of my life that had me in tears,” Copeland wrote.
“I visited Schoenbrunn zoo in Vienna whilst on a mini-break with my partner and son. We nipped in to see the orangutans at the end of our day who were happily playing in the enclosure, so I went to the window for a closer look and sat down by the window so my lb could see the orangutan who was roughly 5/6ft away. She then got up, carried a piece of cloth to the window and sat down with me. She looked directly into my eyes then placed her hand up as if to touch my son. I was in awe of this beautiful creature already.“
“My son wanted feeding and as it was quiet I fed him whilst I sat there. The way the orangutan reacted took my breath away she kept looking at me, then my son then back again,” she continued. “She sat with me for approximately half an hour, kept stroking the glass and lay down next to me as if to support and protect me.
I had to share this because my mind was blown. We may be a species apart but breastfeeding connected us today in a once in a lifetime moment that will stay with me forever. I’m also incredibly lucky that my partner caught all of this on video 💕”
The Facebook page added a story about a gorilla being taught to breastfeed by women from La Leche League, an organization dedicated to supporting breastfeeders:
“Did you know that women from La Leche League once taught a mother gorilla to breastfeed? The Mamma gorilla had been born and raised in captivity and didn’t know what to do with her firstborn, and her baby sadly died. When she next became pregnant, breastfeeding women volunteered to sit beside the gorilla’s enclosure and breastfeed their babies, showing the gorilla what to do. When the gorilla gave birth, a volunteer came over and breastfed her baby, showing Mamma gorilla what to do, step by step. Mamma gorilla watched, and then copied, and went on to successfully feed her baby“
The story has been shared more than 37,000 times, with many commenters stating how beautiful and moving it was. Others, while appreciating the beauty of the animal encounter, expressed sadness at seeing such a creature in captivity. As with practically every post about animals in zoos, debate broke out over whether or not zoos are helpful or harmful to the animals they house.
And like most debates, people’s opinions fall along a broad spectrum. Some feel that zoos are the best way for people to learn about animals first-hand, which leads them to care more about protecting them in the wild. Some acknowledge that captivity isn’t ideal, but that many animals die individually or go extinct as species without the work they do. Some feel that it’s always wrong to keep an animal in captivity, no matter what. Even animal experts don’t agree on this front.
And not all zoos are created equal. Many zoos have moved more toward a rehabilitation and conservation model, and there’s no question that many animals who have been raised in captivity would not survive if they were suddenly released into the wild. There’s also the issue of whether trying to limit natural breeding in captivity falls under the ethical treatment of animals, as breeding is a natural animal instinct. And what about the animals that have gone extinct in the wild and can only be found in zoos? There are a million questions with a million unclear answers when it comes to zoos.
However there is one thing most can agree on. Whether or not you think zoos are helpful or harmful, necessary or not, they largely exist today because of human activity mucking with nature. The same nature that compels this creature to connect with a human mother, despite her unnatural surroundings. The same nature that humans are destroying to get palm oil for our cookies and soaps, leading orangutans to the brink of extinction. The same nature that we are all responsible for protecting.
Whether we find this story sweet or sad or something in between, the reality for orangutans in the wild is worth our attention. Visit www.theorangutanproject.org/ to learn more about how to help.
The world would be a much better place if humans weren’t so … human. We all fall short of perfection. Common sense is, sadly, not too common. And there’s one guy out there who always manages to screw things up when things start getting good.
Call it Murphy’s law. Call it the great “reason we can’t have nice things.” Call it entropy. It feels like a whole lot of pain could be avoided if we all had just a little bit more sense.
But what if there was one rule that we all agreed to follow to make everyone’s life better? What would this magical rule be?
A Reddit user who goes by the name P4insplatter came to this realization and asked the AskReddit subforum, “What simple rule would fix the world if everyone actually followed it?” They received dozens of simple rules that if everyone got behind would make the world drastically better.
It’s no shock that most of them felt like a variation of the Golden Rule. It’s funny that a lot of folks believe the world would seriously improve if we could just abide by a simple saying that we all learned in kindergarten.
Also known as the “ethics of reciprocity,” the Golden Rule is so innate to humans that versions of it have been found in religions and cultures throughout the world.
Here are 17 of the best responses to P4insplatter’s simple, but world-altering question.
1. Let go
“Let go or be dragged” an old zen proverb I heard at a meditation class. Really changed the way I let myself worry about things.” — civagigi
2. Simple, but true
“Don’t be a dick.” — WuTangLAN93
3. The Golden Rule
“Treat others how you want to be treated.” — AlbanyGuy1973
4. It starts with you
“I read somewhere that if you want to change the world, you have to change the community, to change the community change your relationships, and to change your relationships change yourself.” — cagibaxii
5. Simple Earth math
“Don’t use more resources than what the Earth is capable of renewing.” — DaethSpiral321
6. Bill and Ted’s rule
“Be excellent to each other.” — pnotar
7. The law of Lebowski
“Fuck it, Dude. Let’s go bowling.” — Bonhomme7h
8. Signal
“Use your turn signal(s) properly.” — futilelord
9. The principle of non-agression
“Simple, the non-aggression principle. You don’t do, initiate or threat any harm unto others, unless acting in true self defense.” — ufrag
10. It works for everything
“Leave it better than you found it.” — Narcoid
11. Generosity and humility
“Be generous and humble. Being generous and kind encourages us to perceive others in a more positive light and fosters a sense of community. Humility teaches you to improve and make a positive impact on the world.” — SuvenPan
12. STFU
“If you are not educated on the subject, sit down and stfu. Let the experts with years of education and experience talk.” — Ch3m1cal420
13. Fairness first
“Everyone gets a chance at one [thing] before anyone gets seconds.” — ehsteve23
14. Permanent daylight
“Obviously making daylight savings permanent.” — ObviousINstruction18
15. Two ears, one mouth
“Listen more, talk less.” — TryToHelpPeople
16. Turn off the lights
“All empty buildings should not have any lights/ac/heating on at night or after business hours depending on the nature of the work. their ac/heating and lights if necessary should only be turned on before the start of the day. This will not only help with energy costs but also with light pollution.” — hadrainsgate
17. Don’t tread on anyone
“You cannot do ANYTHING without consent.” — DeepCompote
This article originally appeared on 03.17.22
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