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Barbie is known worldwide for being tall, white, and blonde. Well, until now.

Times are a-changin.

In honor of International Women's Day, the makers of Barbie — who only a year ago turned their flagship doll into an engineer — are about to release a trio of diverse, fiercely feminist dolls modeled after Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, American pilot Amelia Earhart, and NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson.

The new series, “Inspiring Women,” is part of a larger initiative by the company to educate young girls about some of the most rebellious and daring women in history. Each doll will come with the real woman’s backstory.


“As a brand that inspires the limitless potential in girls, Barbie will be honoring its largest line up of role models timed to International Women’s Day, because we know that you can’t be what you can’t see,” Lisa McKnight, the senior vice president and general manager of Barbie, said in a statement on Tuesday.

In case you need one, here’s a crash course on these three badass women.

Photos via Barbie/Mattel.

Earhart, known as the “Queen of Air,” was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean solo. Kahlo is known as a legendary artist whose timeless paintings and self-portraits depicting the triumph and trials of womanhood. And in case you didn’t see “Hidden Figures,” Johnson was a mathematician who trail-blazed a path for black women in STEM. If it weren’t for her calculations, astronaut Neil Armstrong wouldn’t have made that “giant leap for mankind” on the moon in 1969.

The new line is the company’s latest effort to promote diversity, inclusivity, and representation.

In the past, the toy seriously lacked diversity when it comes to body proportions, cultural backgrounds, and skin tones. For years, Mattel has been on the receiving end of numerous critiques on how Barbie — a supermodel-tall, disproportionately skinny, white, blue-eyed blonde — sets an unrealistic standard for young girls.

In an attempt to fix that, Mattel has launched a series of campaigns to empower young girls with dolls with realistic body types and multiple skin tones. The “You Can Be Anything” line includes dolls with “three body types (tall, curvy, petite), seven skin tones, 22 eye colors, and 24 hairstyles.”

Then, in May 2016, Mattel announced their “Sheroes” line of dolls featuring numerous notable women who shattered stereotypes and broke boundaries in industries where they are underrepresented. Some of the women featured are actresses Kristin Chenoweth, Zendaya, and Emmy Rossum; directors Patty Jenkins and Ava DuVernay; Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim; and first-ever African-American principal ballet dancer, Misty Copeland.

For International Women’s Day on March 8, the brand stated they will be honoring and sparking conversations about the 17 global female role models featured in the their “Shero” program.

One year later, Mattel announced fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad as their first hijabi Barbie doll. In 2016, Muhammad became the first American to compete in the Olympic Games while wearing a hijab.

Katherine Johnson doll.

Let’s hope this new line — as well as Mattel’s continued efforts to champion female empowerment and representation will inspire a whole generation of young women that they can do anything.

“Girls have always been able to play out different roles and careers with Barbie and we are thrilled to shine a light on real life role models to remind them that they can be anything,” McKnight said in the Mattel statement.

The doll company has made an entire fortune of Barbie pursuing numerous of ambitious careers from doctor to lawyer to astronaut. But with the “Inspiring Women” series, young kids around the world will learn more about the real women — some of whom look a lot like them — who overcame real challenges and made a real impact in the world.

And, just maybe, one of these young girls will grow up to have a doll made in honor of them.

Joy

Sorry, Labradors. After 31 years, America has a new favorite dog.

The American Kennel Club has crowned a new favorite.

via Pixabay

A sad-looking Labrador Retriever

The sweet-faced, loveable Labrador Retriever is no longer America’s favorite dog breed. The breed best known for having a heart of gold has been replaced by the smaller, more urban-friendly French Bulldog.

According to the American Kennel Club, for the past 31 years, the Labrador Retriever was America’s favorite dog, but it was eclipsed in 2022 by the Frenchie. The rankings are based on nearly 716,500 dogs newly registered in 2022, of which about 1 in 7 were Frenchies. Around 108,000 French Bulldogs were recorded in the U.S. in 2022, surpassing Labrador Retrievers by over 21,000.

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Family

Pediatrician shares two simple tips that could save a child's life at a pool party

"The more folks present, the safer the pool is, right? Wrong."

Photo by Ash Dowie on Unsplash

If there's a body of water anywhere, a designated adult needs to have their eyes on it.

It's that time of year when the weather across the country is warm enough for families to enjoy outdoor barbecues, picnics and pool parties. That means it's also the time of year when tragedy will strike a certain percentage of families who get blindsided by how quickly and easily a child can drown in a backyard pool, even when they're surrounded by people who care about them and their safety.

We've all been at a gathering where adults are coming and going, chatting, setting up food, taking trips to the bathroom, all while kids are busy playing in the water. In such scenarios, it's easy to assume that someone else is keeping an eye on the pool.

But as pediatrician Diane Arnaout has shared, the harrowing reality is that the more people there are at a pool party the more likely it is that a child could slip into the pool or become distressed in the water without anyone noticing.

In a Facebook post that has been shared more than 77,000 times, Dr. Arnaout wrote:

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Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS.

On May 25, the show’s Instagram page posted a touching video of an off-the-cuff moment between Barrymore and a fan during a taping of her show. In the clip, Barrymore realizes that someone in the audience is crying. So, instead of ignoring the fan, she jumps to action to see what is the matter.

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Musician uses traditional Chinese instrument to create hypnotic cover of 'Hotel California'

There are literally hundreds of covers of this song floating around on the internet, but this one has its own unique flair.

Moyun/Youtube

Moyun peforms "Hotel California" on the guzheng.

The Eagles' hit song, “Hotel California,” has been covered countless times over the years by a variety of artists, including the likes of Nancy Sinatra, the Gypsy Kings and that guy at your local karaoke spot.

And while every rendition gives the song a fresh dynamic, one musician with a penchant for mystery has transformed the rock n’ roll staple into something entirely new.

Using a traditional Chinese string instrument called a guzheng, Moyun plays the song focusing mostly on its two guitar solo arrangements, creating a sound that has all the otherworldly beauty of an ancient folk tale.
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Pop Culture

Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
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Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

“I said, you know what, I’ve done everything else. Why not?”

77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

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