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Gay valedictorian rejected by his parents wants to give back and Ellen’s here to help.

There are 1.6 million young people experiencing homelessness in the United States and 40% of them identify as LGBT. A large percentage of homeless LGBT youth were thrown out of their homes because their parents refused to accept their sexual orientation.

“Sometimes [parental rejection] is based on religion; they think that their child is a sinner or that their child needs to be punished so they see ‘the error of their ways,’ LGBT youth advocate, Telaina Eriksen, told The Washington Post. "They might think if they force their child to leave their home, their child may return repenting, magically somehow no longer LGBT.”

Seth Owen, 18, was forced out of his parents house during his senior year of high school after his Baptist parents discovered he is gay.


Owen's parents forced him into gay conversion therapy and made him attend a church that attacked him for his sexual orientation. Owen asked his parents if he could attend another church and they gave him an ultimatum: attend their church or move out.

Owen felt safer being homeless.

“The worst part was I was packing my bags, and I was walking out the door, and I was hoping that my mom would stand in my way,” Owen told NBC News. “I was hoping that she would say ‘I love my child more than I love my religion.’ ”

But his parents never took him back.

Even though he was forced to couch surf for the rest of his senior year, Owen earned a 4.61 GPA, was named high school high school valedictorian, and accepted at Georgetown University.

But then he received another blow. His financial aid package from the university had been determined based on expected contributions from the family who rejected him.

“I started to cry, because I realized there was no way that I could go to college,” he told NBC News. “Georgetown was my only option, because I had already denied my other acceptances,” he said.

But then his biology teacher, Jane Martin, stepped in and started a GoFundMe page to help him pay for college. It began with a lofty goal of $20,000.

After news spread of Owen's situation, over $141,000 in donations poured in.

When Georgetown heard about Owen's struggles, the university awarded him with a full scholarship.

Now that he had a full ride to Georgetown, Owen decided to pay it forward and use the remaining GoFundMe money to start a college scholarship for LGBT youth who’ve been rejected by their families. After hearing about Owen’s scholarship, Ellen DeGeneres invited him on her TV show.

“I often had to look up your videos for inspiration,” Owen told DeGeneres. “There were so many times that you really pulled me through.”

At the end of the interview, DeGeneres gave Owen an incredible surprise: a check for $25,000.

“We’re partnering again this year with Cheerios to encourage one million acts of good, and they're inspired by young people like you,” DeGeneres told Owen. “They're going to help you start your scholarship with this check for $25,000.”

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

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A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

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A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

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Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

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Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

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An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

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