If you need something funny to kick off your last weekend of September, here is a video of an airline employee in a T-Rex guiding an airplane on the tarmac.
The Southwest Airlines worker wore the prehistoric costume as a apart of the company’s Spirit Week celebration.
Video footage of the T-Rex guiding a Boeing into a parking spot went viral after it was posted by Orlando International Airport this weekend.
The company even went so far as to comment on their video, saying: “Looks like that safety vest is a bit snug. Should have ordered the rex-tra large. We’ll see ourselves out.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Most people probably would not willingly share embarrassing photos of their teen years – but that is exactly what these celebrities are doing.
During a segment on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the talk show host and television actor Nick Kroll called on their fellow stars to post pre-pubescent pictures of themselves to social media under the hashtag #PuberMe.
Colbert and Kroll both agreed that for every celebrity who posts an embarrassing teen photo, they would donate a certain amount of money to Hurricane Maria relief in Puerto Rico.
The stars said that they would continue to do this “until we run out of money”.
Since they made the announcement on Wednesday night, dozens of stars have risen to the occasion: from former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg, to Broadway heartthrob Lin-Manuel Miranda, to fellow talkshow hosts Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Kimmel.
While some of the photos aren’t as cringeworthy as others, they are still all raising money for a good cause.
While most people may not feel compelled to run towards a car engulfed in smoke, Staff Sergeant Cory Hinkle says that he “did not think twice”.
Hinkle, who is an Iraq combat veteran, says that he was on his way home from the National Guard base in Charlotte, North Carolina when he witnessed a head-on car collision right in front of him.
When dust flew into the air and one of the cars began to smoke, Hinkle charged towards the vehicles.
The driver of the smoking vehicle, 28-year-old Brandy Guin, was having trouble getting out of the car due to a broken ankle that she had sustained from the collision.
Hinkle then helped Guin to the side of the road where he was able to protect her from what happened next.
“As the fire started to spread in my car, the shocks started to explode and hot debris was flying everywhere,” Guin told WBTV, “He shielded me with his body and said ‘It’s going to have to go through me to get to you.’”
Hinkle says that while he was hit in the ankle by a piece of flying debris, he would not hesitate to do it again.
Guin, who is a mother of two, is healing in the hospital expects to make a full recovery, but she is convinced that she wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for Hinkle.
It may have been a cheesy gesture, but Addison Russell was determined to make it up to a front row Cardinals fan during Monday night’s game.
21-year-old Andrew Gudermuth and his girlfriend Hannah Lucas had been enjoying a tray of nachos when the Chicago Cubs shortstop went diving for a foul ball.
Unfortunately, Russell also plunged headfirst into the stands, right into the laps of Andrew and Hanna, upending the couples’ lunch.
Not only did workers at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri immediately replace Gudermuth and Lucas’s cheese-stained shirts with fresh apparel, but Russell also hand-delivered a fresh tray of nachos to the couple in between two of the innings.
Pleasantly surprised by the gesture, Gudermuth and Lucas were featured on the video board with their celebrity snack.
Additionally, Gudermuth got to take a selfie with the shortstop and post it to his Twitter account, which he has now branded as “Nacho Man”.
Scientists have just made an “exciting breakthrough” in the form of a new antibody that can attack 99% of HIV strains.
The study, which was conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the pharmaceutical company Sanofi, created the antibody to attack three major parts of the virus, making it hyper-effective in preventing infection.
Even the most advanced naturally-occurring antibodies usually only have a 90% success rate in preventing HIV infection. The antibodies used in this trial, however, are actually a combination of three antibodies – all of which are super effective in targeting large numbers of different HIV strains.
These “tri-specific antibodies” are infinitely more effective in preventing infection than any antibody that a human could naturally produce on its own.
“The findings suggest that combination therapies might be essential to prevent HIV in people,” says the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Animals receiving either of the two broadly-neutralizing HIV-1 antibodies individually all became infected, yet passively immunizing the primates with both antibodies together conferred 100% protection.”
Human trials of the research are expected to begin in 2018.
Click To Share The Exciting News With Your Friends(Photo by C. Goldsmith, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Typically, kindness doesn’t top the list of survival skills needed in a women’s prison.
But last week, inmates around the world who call themselves “compassionistas” teamed up to see who could perform the most acts of compassion, and competed other prisons and citizens in The 2017 Compassion Games.
In previous years, as part of Compassion Games International, the prison inmates at the California Institution for Women (CIW) tallied 4,500 acts of kindness that included sharing food, cleaning each others’ living spaces, and helping apply sunscreen before going outside. Even when temperatures climbed to 108 degrees in the Corona facility in 2013, the women avoided irritable exchanges and encouraged one another to stay hydrated.
“The Compassion Games allowed gang members, or those who need to maintain an image, to step outside of their ‘roles’ and be kind to others without ridicule,” one inmate said.
During the entire 11 days of the event, kindness was so contagious that no violent incidents were recorded.
Four nonprofits inside CIW, which run dog training and sewing programs, organized the activities, one of which entailed sewing and knitting–on overdrive for 11 days–to create as many items for charity as they could. They created whimsical hats for critically and terminally ill children, and pillows, blankets, and scarves for the homeless or hospitalized veterans.
Drawing by Joey Crotty
With every stitch, the inmates were practicing making “living amends” and giving back to society, something they have expressed as being fundamentally important to them.
The organizing committee at CIW wrapped up the Games in 2015 with a “Day of Compassion,” inviting the entire 2,000 person prison population to take part in a day free of negative energy with a special evening meal prepared by the culinary department.
Reverend Shayna Lester, who played a key role in bringing Compassion Games to CIW, views the multi-year project as an enormous success, and something with the potential for widespread replication.
After fielding inquiries from volunteers at prisons across the country, she prepared a quick-start guide for those who wish to bring the Games to other correctional facilities.
While it’s difficult to measure the long-term impact of the inmates involved in the Games, Lia Mandelbaum wrote in the Jewish Journal, “Having the women engage in the Compassion Games is what I believe to be one of the most powerful forms of restorative justice and healing.”
An inmate named Tikvah also told the journal, “Mostly, there has been a shift in awareness of how compassion and acts of kindness can change attitudes and our living environment.”
Playing in the Games, which run annually for ten days in September, has also offered them a vital lesson: though constrained by the walls of the prison, they still have a choice as to how they want to show up in the world.
Founder Jon Ramer created the games in September of 2012 as a way for people to band together to make the world a kinder place. More than 100 teams have participated, including community groups, faith congregations, schools, families, government agencies and business teams in Australia, Botswana, Canada, Europe, India, Israel, Mexico and across the U.S.
For more information, or to register an individual or team for next year, visit the Compassion Games website.
Laura Zera is an author, consultant, speaker, and Licensed Facilitator of The Desire Map.
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Over 5,000 bicycles that were abandoned at this year’s Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert are to be given new life benefitting victims of Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria.
The photo of the dusty bikes originally sparked controversy in light of the obvious betrayal of the Burning Man tenet “Leave No Trace” – but now, volunteers are refurbishing the bicycles for new homes across the country.
The workers who rounded up the bicycles in Black Rock Desert have already begun cleaning and prepping over 100 bikes for shipping from Reno to Florida. Next, the bikes will be given to distribution programs and organizations throughout Florida and the Caribbean.
The project’s GoFundMe campaign raised $10,110, exceeding their goal of $10,500 to be used to pay for shipping and handling.
The crowdfunding campaign’s creator, Meg Kiihne, said the bikes will provide valuable transportation to those affected by the weather disasters.
Additionally, Kiihne says their distribution partner plans on opening bike repair maintenance hubs in the afflicted regions, creating dozens of jobs for the devastated economies.
Kiihne says she first got the idea for the project after seeing the photo of the lonely “Burner bikes”.
“As I have told every reporter since, I didn’t think very long about the next steps,” says Kiihne. “As someone who has worked as a live event director/producer and has had the vision for years of getting more bikes to more lower-income communities, I honestly didn’t think much. I reacted on what I knew was needed and could be done.”
Today’s youth are smarter about alcohol, says a 2017 study of 30,000 American high school students annually. The number who reported drinking in the last 30 days declined by 18%; while binge drinking dropped by 14% over a 15-year period.
It had been six weeks since Chloe the senior dog had gone missing on the top of a Colorado mountain – but miraculously, thanks to two determined hikers, she was finally rescued and brought to safety.
14-year-old Chloe had first gone missing after she had run off during a walk with her owners, Larry Osborne and Anouk Patel, on Mt. Boss in August. While she is usually able to find her way back to her humans, the hound did not return.
Concerned for the chocolate lab mix’s safety, the couple posted a photo of Chloe to a local Facebook group, asking for help. But as the weeks went by, they assumed the worst.
That is, until last week, when Trinity Smith was told by some hikers that they had heard barking on top of the mountain.
Determined to discover whether the dog was Chloe, Smith spent hours searching the trails and chutes of the mountain. When nighttime came and it became too dark to see, Smith went home – but the next day, she returned with her friend Sean Nichols.
The two continued searching the 14,000-foot mountain and calling Chloe’s name until finally, they saw a little brown head poke out from behind a rock and start whimpering.
Smith and Nichols carried the pup back down the mountain and posted about her rescue on social media. Patel and Osbourne immediately came forward and confirmed that the emaciated pup was Chloe.
Over the course of her stay on the mountain, Chloe had gone from weighing 90 pounds to 26. But now, after being reunited with her family, she is progressively gaining weight and recovering from her harrowing ordeal.
“I am overwhelmed with joy seeing sweet Chloe back with her loving family, already gaining lots of weight, and progressing so fast,” Smith told the Dodo. “She has more fight in her than most of us could ever imagine, lasting six whole weeks in such harsh, inhospitable conditions.”
(WATCH the video below)
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In the midst of NFL controversy, a football player is trying to do some good for the fans who have been affected off of the field.
Deshaun Watson, the rookie quarterback of the Houston Texans, gave his first season’s paycheck to three NRG Stadium cafeteria workers who had lost everything during Hurricane Harvey.
Since the QB’s salary is $465,000, the paycheck is estimated to be a little over $29,000.
In a video released by the football team’s Twitter page, the women can be seen tearing up at the compassionate gesture.
“Hopefully, that helps,” says Watson. “Anything else y’all need, I am always here to help.”
Watson is just one of many celebrities who have put forth time, resources, and finances to help hurricane victims. Hollywood stars, such as the Kardashians and Sandra Bullock, have already donated a few million dollars to Harvey and Irma relief charities.
J.J. Watts, another player for the Houston Texans, raised over $37 million alone through his hurricane relief fundraiser.
A couple dozen other musicians and actors took part in a star-studded telethon two weeks ago that was broadcasted live on several television and social media networks. The event, which was viewed by over 16 million people, reportedly raised over $55 million.
The prime minister of India has just unveiled an ambitious plan to electrify every household in the country by the end of 2018.
The $2.5 billion project will provide electricity to the 40 million Indian households currently without power.
According to Reuters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he plans on electrifying lower-income households free of charges or fees. Funding for the project will mostly be provided by the federal government.
Use of electricity, however, will not be subsidized by the government.
Additionally, the country plans on electrifying more remote villages and structures by using solar power packs and battery banks. This may prove difficult, as there are reportedly 300 million Indian citizens who are not even hooked up to the electrical grid.
Though India currently generates most of its power through coal-powered plants, the country has been making great strides implementing more environmentally-friendly initiatives.
In a recent move to cut pollution and emissions from coal-fired plants, the largest democracy in the world approved the construction of 10 new heavy water nuclear power plants, which, if operated safely, will offer a much cleaner form of energy for millions of homes.
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Messages like “Home, Sweet Home” are fairly common in the world of needlepoint, but for some homeless people, homes—and sweet messages—are hard to come by.
That’s why one Australian woman resolved to use her sewing skills to help provide warmth and comfort to those in need.
As part of her New Year’s resolution in 2015, Maribelle Pokonia decided to start collecting blankets and distributing them to hundreds of Sydney’s homeless.
“Everyone,” she told a Mormon Newsroom, “needs a blanket of love.”
She didn’t want to simply warm their bodies, but their hearts as well. She asked her friends to send her messages of “hope, love and empowerment,” so she could stitch these sentiments as daily reminders for the downtrodden.
Her friends helped her by using needlepoint to physically sew the inspirational statements onto each blanket.
Some of the motivational messages include:
“You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it.”
“Tough times never last, but tough people do.”
“We are all worth more than the worst thing we have done.”
Saudi Arabia will allow women to drive, in a historic decision from the ruler of that country that makes the Gulf kingdom the last country in the world to permit women behind the wheel.
This wedding groom did not care about his expensive suit or the photoshoot after his wedding on Friday – he cared most about rescuing a little boy in trouble.
Clayton Cook and his now-wife Brittany had just tied the knot at their wedding in Cambridge, Ontario this weekend when their photographer, Darren Hatt, took the couple to a nearby park for some wedding portraits.
In the middle of the shoot, however, Clayton noticed a small boy had fallen into the river and was having trouble keeping his face above water.
Without hesitating, the groom dove into the river and pulled the boy to safety.
“By the time the bride noticed and shouted out, Clayton had already jumped down and brought him to safety,” wrote Hatt. “His quick action saved the little guy who was struggling to swim.”
The couple says that an older sibling of the child eventually arrived and escorted the youngster away from the park.
“That’s Clay, like that’s Clay to me,” Brittany told CTV. “It’s something he would just instinctively do.”
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Michael Kent never thought he would live to see the day where he got his swastika tattoos covered up – but that was before he met Tiffany Whittier.
Kent, a 38-year-old father of two, spent most of his life in a violent white supremacy group in Arizona. During his time in prison, he received two swastika tattoos to signify his views.
Then, when he got out of jail, Whittier was assigned as Kent’s probation officer.
Whittier, who is a 45-year-old black woman living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, says that she did not want to judge Kent based on his life decisions. She says she only wanted to be a positive influence on his life.
As their time together eventually blossomed into a meaningful friendship, she talked him into taking down the neo-Nazi banners in his house and putting up smiley faces instead.
“When you wake up and see a smiley face, you’re going to go to work and you’re going to smile,” Kent told ABC News.
Many months after getting out of prison and befriending Whittier, Kent felt spurred to renounce his extremist lifestyle and get his tattoos covered up.
He underwent the 15-hour tattoo procedure earlier this week, thanks to Redemption Tattoo – an organization that helps former skinheads and neo-Nazis get their racist tattoos removed for free.
Kent now says that he works on a chicken farm with 15 other employees – and he is fine with being the only white guy in the workplace. In fact, he enjoys attending his coworkers’ quinceañeras and company parties, despite the racial difference.
And he says that it is all thanks to Whittier.
“If it wasn’t for her I would have seeped back into it. I look at her as family.”
(WATCH the video below)
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After a primary school had started a campaign to raise $900 for women’s education in Africa, a senator in South Australia voiced his disproval of the charity effort on Twitter. His grumpy tweet backfired, however, and the backlash resulted in an epic outpouring of $250,000 in donations.
Craigburn Primary School in Adelaide started the “Do It In A Dress” campaign as a means of encouraging their students to raise money for scholarships for girls in Africa, who are required to buy a school dress before attending school.
In a blog post, the school leaders encouraged students, staff, and teachers—even the males—to come to school wearing “a dress or casual clothes” in exchange for a donation. All of the proceeds would then go towards charity.
“The main thing, of course, is to focus on supporting the education of girls in Africa,” says the school.
Senator Cory Bernardi then tweeted a link to the fundraiser, saying: “One school in SA now has ‘wear a dress day’. This gender morphing is really getting absurd.”
The senator later explained that he felt the campaign was a politicized attempt to force a more liberal, non-gender conforming agenda on primary school students – however, the school responded by saying that they simply thought it would be a fun way for the children to raise money for girls.
“If I look at it in the context of the amount of awareness it’s raised and the money, I think it’s superb,” Craigburn Primary School principal Paul Luke told ABC Radio Adelaide. “If those kids want to have a bit of fun along the way, who is a politician to come along and condemn them for doing so?”
All of the donations are being given to the One Girl charity – an organization that provides educational scholarships to girls in Africa. The nonprofit’s CEO Morgan Koegel said that while she was delighted over the enormous amount of donations, she was exasperated by Bernardi’s social media post.
“When I saw that Wednesday night, the tweet, I honestly face-palmed because it was just so far off what the campaign’s all about,” said Koegel, according to ABC.
“In the schools that we work in, in Sierra Leone and Uganda, a school dress is a really big deal because only one in six girls has the opportunity to go to high school. For a girl to get to wear a school dress, that means she’s educated, that she’s empowered, that she’s had an opportunity and so we use it to represent the same thing here.”
The school’s donation page has crashed several times from the amount of traffic generated by the controversial tweet. Since Bernardi linked to the page last week, however, it has already raised $272,800 – and still counting.
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7-year-old Dominic could not contain his excitement when his birthday wish finally came true: for his parents to finally get married.
Dominic’s father, Eamon Hall, knew about his son’s wish in advance. Assuming it would be the perfect time to propose, he had an engagement ring at the ready for when Dominic blew out the candles.
When Hall asked his son what he wished for, Dominic said: “For mommy and daddy to get married!”
If you know anyone who wants to become the proud owner of 1,300 decorated toilet seat lids, now is their #1 chance.
96-year-old Barney Smith, an ex-plumber, has been creating artwork out of the circular seats for the last 53 years – and they all hang in his Toilet Seat Art Museum in the Alamo Heights area of San Antonio, Texas.
The porcelain prince himself will schedule your visit to the museum— call in advance for an appointment—but the tours are always free.
As a means of curbing the nation’s opioid crisis, pharmaceutical giant CVS announced earlier this week that they will be limiting the length of drug prescriptions for certain health conditions to 7 days.
The regulation will only be utilized with patients who are unfamiliar with pain therapy. Physicians and medical officials will also be required to limit the strength and release of their prescriptions, depending on the conditions.
Additionally, the company will be expanding their Medication Disposal for Safer Communities Program to 1,550 kiosks with locations in Florida, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and the District of Columbia starting this fall.
Instead of allowing excess opioids to be abused or thrown away, the disposal program has properly handled over 100 metric tons of drugs in the last two years.
“Everyone has a role to play in addressing the opioid epidemic, and CVS Health is showing how the private sector can help,” said Richard Baum, Acting Director of National Drug Control Policy. “Making sure people can safely dispose of unwanted medications is a key part of preventing opioid misuse and abuse, and CVS Health has taken this important step which will support the health of communities across the country.”
As a means of supporting the new expansion, which will go into full effect starting in February 2018, the CVS Health Foundation has pledged another $2 million to drug abuse mitigation, treatment, recovery, and counseling programs.
“As America’s front door to health care with a presence in nearly 10,000 communities across the country, we see firsthand the impact of the alarming and rapidly growing epidemic of opioid addiction and misuse,” said Larry J. Merlo, President and CEO, CVS Health.
“Without a doubt, addressing our nation’s opioid crisis calls for a multipronged effort involving many health care stakeholders,” Merlo added, “from doctors, dentists and pharmaceutical companies to pharmacies and government officials. With this expansion of our industry-leading initiatives, we are further strengthening our commitment to help providers and patients balance the need for these powerful medications with the risk of abuse and misuse.”
CVS Health Chief Medical Officer Troyen A. Brennan says: “In many ways, the abuse of opiates can be seen as the leading public health emergency the United States faces today… In light of the human suffering and financial costs caused by the current epidemic, a thoughtful, responsible, evidence-based treatment of pain is a service we must provide to our patients.
“Employing principles sanctioned by the CDC is clearly necessary and prudent,” he added.
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The road to health has not been easy for Shiloh the black Labrador – but thankfully, he has a loving family to help him put one paw in front of the other.
Heidi Fiore first saw an adoption ad for Shiloh on Facebook which described the plump pup as “a tad overweight”. Though he officially weighed in at 146 pounds, the Fiores knew they could assist him to become healthier.
They adopted Shiloh in October and started him on a healthy diet and exercise regiment.
When they first began the routine, Shiloh could barely walk down his street without plopping down on the pavement.
As the days went on, however, the Lab would make it a little bit further every time.
Now, he walks two miles every day and weighs 80 pounds – which is a healthy, average weight for his species. In total, Shiloh lost 60 pounds in 11 months.
While it was no small feat for the hound, he did have 2,000 Facebook fans cheering him on the whole way.
(WATCH the video below)
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