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Kodi Lee is blind and has autism, and his America's Got Talent performance will blow you away.

Kodi Lee is blind and has autism, and his America's Got Talent performance will blow you away.

When Kodi Lee walked onto the stage and introduced himself, his disabilities were clearly visible.

Kodi Lee, 22, used a cane to help him navigate the America's Got Talent stage as he held onto his mother's arm. He told the judges his name and age, and his mother, Tina, explained that he is blind and has autism.

Kodi connected with music in early childhood, Tina said. "He listened, and his eyes just went huge, and he started singing," she told the judges. "I realized he's an entertainer. Through music and performing, he was able to withstand living in this world, because when you're autistic, it's really hard to do what everybody else does. It actually saved his life playing music."

His mother escorted him to the piano and quietly told him, "This is your time, okay? There's going to be like 20 cameras on you. Ready?"

Kodi replied with an enthusiastic, "Yeahhhh!"

Tina whispered, "Go! Boom!"

Boom indeed. When Kodi began playing the piano and singing, everyone's jaws dropped.

Tina exited the stage, leaving her son in the spotlight. Then he wowed everyone in the room.

He played and sang a rendition of Donny Hathaway's "A Song for You," and as he performed, it almost appeared as if his disabilities melted away. They didn't, of course, but they clearly didn't stop him from stunning the unsuspecting audience.

As Kodi masterfully sang his song, his voice ranging from powerfully clear to a sweet falsetto, the judge's expressions ranged from surprise to awe to joyful admiration.

By the time Kodi played his last note, his family was in tears backstage, and the judges and the entire audience were on their feet, cheering.

The judges gushed, and Gabrielle Union surprised Kodi with her first Golden Buzzer award.

"What just happened there was extraordinary," said judge Simon Cowell. "I'm going to remember this moment for the rest of my life."

Gabrielle Union is a new America's Got Talent judge, and she's never hit the Golden Buzzer button, which advances a contestant straight through to the finals.

"I'm a new judge this season," she told Kodi and Tina, who had rejoined her son onstage, "and I'm also a new mom this year. And it's the toughest job I've ever had, and the most rewarding job I've ever had. You just want to give your kids the moon, the stars, and the rainbows. And tonight, I'm going to give you something special."

She hit the Golden Buzzer, gold confetti rained down on Kodi and his mom, and everyone celebrated with unbridled glee.

Seriously, watch the whole clip and tell me it doesn't make your whole day:

Share image: America's Got Talent/YouTube.

Korean mom has a perfect response to the teacher who called her son's lunches 'disgusting'

Good for her for standing up for her child's culture.

via Roman Harak/Flickr

A Korean mother and her son

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.

Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:

“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches."

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Suddenly dogs everywhere need teddy bear robes.

Opie the Pit Bully|TikTok

Dog does the 'pick a card' challenge and it's adorable.

There are a few kinds of dog parents: ones that only have outside dogs, those who have inside dogs but they're absolutely not allowed on the furniture and dog parents who treat their dog as if they birthed them themselves and give them every luxury invented for four-legged fur children.

Clearly, people are going to have feelings one way or the other about dogs and their place within a household, but I think everyone can agree that seeing a dog be pampered will always be adorable. Opie the Pit Bully is one of those lucky doggos who wound up living in the lap of luxury, and the pooch got to do a "pick a card" day to showcase that his owner loves him the mostest.

In a video uploaded to TikTok by Opie's owner because...ya know, opposable thumbs and all…Opie is faced with two cards that he can't read: 1) because he's a dog, and 2) because the cards are facing toward the camera. That doesn't stop the sweet puppers from playing along, though.

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Ring doorbell video captures the phenomenon of what it's like to be the default parent

Millions of us know what it's like to be the "default parent."

Toniann Marchese/TikTok

Ring doorbell video captures what it's like to be the default parent.

Kids, man. I'm not sure of the scientific way audacity is distributed, but kids have a lot of it and somehow make it cute. That audacity overload is especially interesting when you're the default parent—you know, the parent kids go to for literally everything as if there's not another fully capable adult in the house. Chances are if your children haven't sought you out while you were taking a shower so you could open up a pack of fruit snacks, then you're not the default parental unit.

One parent captured exactly what it's like to be the default parent and shared it to TikTok, where the video has over 4 million views. Toniann Marchese went on a quick grocery run and *gasp* did not inform her children. Don't you fret, they're modern kids who know how to use modern means to get much-needed answers when mom is nowhere to be found. They went outside and rang the doorbell.

Back when we were children, this would've done nothing but make the dogs bark, but for Marchese's kids, who are 3 and 6 years old, it's as good as a phone call.

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90-year-old tortoise is a hero to his species by becoming a first-time dad to 3 hatchlings

Way to go, daddio!

Photo by David Cadenas on Unsplash

What we imagine the look on Mr/ Pickles' face to be after becoming a dad.

It’s been an exciting time for a couple of tortoises at the Houston Zoo—and really, for tortoises everywhere.

The zoo announced on its blog that their oldest resident, Mr. Pickles, a 90-year-old radiated tortoise, and his 53-year-old companion Mrs. Pickles (that’s quite an age gap there sir, but no judgment) recently welcomed three new hatchlings.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better, here are the new baby names: Dill, Gherkin and Jalapeño.

Clearly, Jalepeño is the spicy one of the bunch.

While this news is certainly momentous for Mr. and Mrs. Pickles, it’s also a huge achievement for the entire species, which is currently critically endangered.

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100-year-old woman's speech against book bans in Florida school district goes viral

Grace Linn speaks for millions of Americans.

Jodi Picoult/TikTok

Grace Linn, 100, speaks at a Martin County School Board meeting on March 21, 2023.

Four hundred years ago, copies of William Tyndale’s English translation of the Bible were publicly burned by the bishop of London, with church authorities insisting that the Bible should only be read in Latin (and only by the clergy). In the centuries since, many books we now consider classics such as Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe," Jack London's "Call of the Wild," Walt Whitman’s "Leaves of Grass," Victor Hugo’s "Les Misérables, Charles Darwin’s "Origin of Species"—even Beatrix Potter's "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" and "Benjamin Bunny"—have been banned or censored in one way or another in various countries.

Battles over books are nothing new, but once in a while, they become particularly ugly or absurd, prompting people to speak out against book bans.

People like 100-year-old Florida resident, Grace Linn, whose speech at a Martin County School Board meeting has gone viral.

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Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler have the cutest friendship, and she has the receipts to prove it

Plenty of teasing. Lots of love.

The Tonight Show/ Youtube

Jennifer Aniston appearing on "The Tonight show"

Let’s face it, platonic relationships between men and women rarely get the same amount of attention as romantic ones, to the point where we debate whether or not they can actually exist in the first place.

That’s what makes a clip of Jennifer Aniston gushing about her decades-long friendship with Adam Sandler so cool to watch. There’s no Harry-Met-Sally-ing here, just one pal talking about another pal.

Aniston sat down with Jimmy Fallon to promote the film “Murder Mystery 2,” starring both Aniston and Sandler, but the conversation quickly veered into several anecdotes about “The Sand Man,” including how the two first met at a deli in their 20s.

As with any healthy friendship, there’s plenty of ragging on each other.

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