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How 'Black Panther' changed everything for Sandra Bullock and her kids.

As a Hollywood A-lister who's been in the film industry for years, you'd think Sandra Bullock would be unflappable. But there's still something that can bring her to tears — "Black Panther."

Bullock couldn’t help but rave about the film when she met the cast backstage at the Academy Awards on March 4.

“I started to cry backstage when I was telling [the cast of “Black Panther”] how much the film meant to me as a woman, but how much it meant to me as a mother,” Bullock said in a red carpet interview with "Access Hollywood."


Left: Sandra Bullock photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images. Right: Lupita Nyong'o (L) and Danai Gurira. Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images.

Bullock is the mother of two black children, Louis, 8, and Laila, 5, through adoption. The movie’s all-black cast, dynamic female characters, and Afro-futuristic setting are a refreshing change of pace for adult filmgoers. But for children, particularly children of color, seeing a black king, and the intelligent, fierce black women leaders is downright inspiring.

Photo by Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images.

And  for children of color this type of visibility is long overdue.

Children of color are still underrepresented when it comes to toys, books, TV shows, apps, and games. Finding entertainment options with visible, dynamic, leading characters of color requires a little extra time, patience, or in some cases, getting creative.

“I’m so grateful to Marvel because about five years ago, my son asked me if there were any brown Legos. And I said, ‘Yes, there are,’ and I got a Sharpie and I turned Spider-Man brown, I turned the Legos brown ..."

But with the success of films like “Black Panther” there is a glimmer of hope.

The film is already breaking records at the box office, earning more than $500 million domestically since its release 18 days ago.

Now, industry insiders suggest "Black Panther" could make  nearly $250 million in merchandise sales this year alone. With masks, action figures, clothes, Lego, and even a car, Bullock and other parents of children of color will finally get the opportunity to celebrate and support a hero of color on the big screen.

Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images.

It’s a moment many thought would never come.

Parents, including Bullock, are rejoicing.

“I don’t have to turn [the Lego] brown anymore,” Bullock said.

Happy tears, indeed.

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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Joy

18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

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There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
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Things you would tell your 13-year-old self

There are so many times we look back on our lives and think about things we would change or do slightly differently. But many people say they wouldn't change anything because it would change who or where they are in their life now. The mystery around changing something that happened in the past is so woven into our psyches that there are entire sci-fi genres around time travel and what would happen if you altered the past.

While science fiction movies like "The Butterfly Effect" warn us against tampering with events of the past no matter how small, it doesn't stop people from wondering. A user on Reddit decided to pose a question asking what three words you'd tell your 13-year-old self, and some of the answers were surprisingly heartbreaking. (At 13, you'd think most people would want to tell themselves something silly, like the user who wrote, "Pull my finger.")

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Joy

13-year-old uses a slingshot to rescue his little sister from being abducted

He had two projectiles and both hit the suspect, forcing him to drop the little girl.

Owen Burns, 13, rescued his sister from a would-be abductor using a slingshot.

A parent never wants to imagine what would happen if their child were confronted with someone meaning them harm. We do everything in our power to mitigate the risks of things like that happening, but scary situations still occur that can leave a family irreparably broken.

A Michigan family had an extremely close call when their 8-year-old daughter was nearly abducted while playing in their backyard. The little girl was outside picking mushrooms when a 17-year-old boy picked her up with his hand over her mouth. Owen Burns, 13, was inside playing video games when he heard his sister scream. A lot of kids in his situation may not have known what to do, but Owen quickly jumped into action.

The teen saw what was happening out the window and picked up his slingshot and a marble before taking aim at the boy who had his sister.

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She is simply the best.

The explosive, soulful, magnetic Tina Turner has died at 83. Though the cause of her death was not disclosed, a statement on her Instagram announced that the prolific singer and legendary live performer has passed away at her home in Küsnacht, Switzerland, near Zurich.

News of the devastating loss has prompted an outpouring of tributes on social media, including celebrities sharing how much Turner’s work has influenced them.

Angela Bassett, who portrayed the music icon in the 1993 biopic “What's Love Got to Do with It,” said in a statement that she was "honored to have known Tina Turner."

"Through her courage in telling her story, her commitment to stay the course in her life, no matter the sacrifice, and her determination to carve out a space in rock and roll for herself and for others who look like her," Bassett wrote on Instagram, "Tina Turner showed others who lived in fear what a beautiful future filled with love, compassion, and freedom should look like."

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via Twitter

Everyone's childhood is different. But there are common objects, sights, sounds, smells, and memories from elementary school that most Gen Xers and Millenials share.

Personally, when i think back to being in elementary school in the '80s, I remember the taste of the chocolate ship cookie we got on Fridays (with the pizza). The humiliation of getting nailed in the back during nation ball. And the grumbling, grinding sound that happened when you slipped a disk into the drive on an Apple IIe computer.

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Health

Women are shocking their boyfriends by showing them how  tampons actually work

The viral videos are a great way to educate men on a sensitive topic.

via TikTok

Menstrual taboos are as old as time and found across cultures. They've been used to separate women from men physically — menstrual huts are still a thing — and socially, by creating the perception that a natural bodily function is a sign of weakness.

Even in today's world women are deemed unfit for positions of power because some men actually believe they won't be able to handle stressful situations while mensurating.

"Menstruation is an opening for attack: a mark of shame, a sign of weakness, an argument to keep women out of positions of power,' Colin Schultz writes in Popular Science.

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