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She's the first woman aged 50 to play a Bond girl, and she knows it's a big [censored] deal.

Monica Bellucci is the oldest woman to be one of Bond's love interests. We're so on board.

After Meryl Streep turned 40, she was offered three different roles as witches — within the same year!

Coincidence? Maybe ... but probably not.



Winifred is not having it. GIF via "Hocus Pocus."

"Once women passed childbearing age they could only be seen as grotesque on some level," she told Vogue of the experience.

See? Even Meryl Streep has fallen victim to Hollywood's sexist, ageist, awful ways!

Stories like Streep's are why we are so on board with 50-year-old Monica Bellucci being cast in the new James Bond movie.

The first full-length trailer for "Spectre" was released July 21, 2015. It. Looks. Awesome.

At 50, Bellucci is the oldest woman to play a Bond girl.

Or, as she'd prefer, Bond "woman."

"Do I have to replace Judi Dench?" she joked to The Sunday Times about her playing the role. "I told [director Sam Mendes] he would be a hero among women for casting me in 'Spectre.'"

"For the first time in history,James Bond is going to have a story with a mature woman."

Photo by Tiziana Fabi, Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images.

Preach, girl (er, woman). It's not just the fact Bellucci has at age 50 landed a coveted role typically reserved for younger gals (although that's wonderful). The age gap between her and Daniel Craig — who plays Bond in "Spectre" — is just three years (Craig is 47).

While Bond has been romantically involved with women closer in age in past movies, the franchise does have a history of pairing the lead actor with ridiculously younger "girls."

Remember when Roger Moore, who played Bond in "A View to a Kill" was older than Tanya Roberts' mother? (Yeeeaah. Awkward.)

This is a big deal because women of a certain age are often overlooked for roles that go to much younger actresses.

The silver screen loves pairing younger women with older men. Take, for instance, actress Emma Stone. She's 26 years old, but — throughout the past year — has had four onscreen male love interests who were over 40.

GIF via "I Love Lucy."

We're not trying to shame any couple based on age — hey, age is just a number, right? — but Hollywood often sacrifices more realistic, age-appropriate relationships in favor of having more youthful women on screen.

And that means fewer opportunities for women who aren't in their 20s or 30s.

Ageism in Hollywood doesn't just affect opportunities for women, though — it affects their bank accounts, too.

On average, male movie stars reach their peak earning potential at age 51. For women, it's 34. Yeah, that's right. Men in Hollywood enjoy 17 more years of their stock rising, all while their female counterparts watch their values depreciate (rapidly) via their paychecks.

Sure, George Clooney may have to start enduring some "old guy" jokes at the party. But at least his paychecks haven't been shrinking due to those gray hairs of his.

Thankfully, more women are challenging the status quo.

A sketch by Amy Schumer featuring Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patricia Arquette poking fun at Hollywood's ageist ways went viral earlier this year.

For three years in a row, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hilariously took advantage of their national platform hosting the Golden Globes to call out the problem.

And — years after walking away from those opportunities to play a witch — Meryl Streep launched a screenwriting lab for women over 40 through the organization New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT).

Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

“After decades of ageism and sexism in our culture and in our films, the complex voices of mature women are in danger of being lost entirely," NYWIFT director Terry Lawler said in a statement. "Women must address this inequality by taking ownership of that narrative."

Just like every other group, older women deserve for their stories to be told on screen.

Cheers to Monica Bellucci for adding her two cents to that narrative.

True

Making new friends as an adult is challenging. While people crave meaningful IRL connections, it can be hard to know where to find them. But thanks to one Facebook Group, meeting your new best friends is easier than ever.

Founded in 2018, NYC Brunch Squad brings together hundreds of people who come as strangers and leave as friends through its in-person events.

“Witnessing the transformative impact our community has on the lives of our members is truly remarkable. We provide the essential support and connections needed to thrive amid the city's chaos,” shares Liza Rubin, the group’s founder.

Despite its name, the group doesn’t just do brunch. They also have book clubs, seasonal parties, and picnics, among other activities.

NYC Brunch Squad curates up to 10 monthly events tailored to the specific interests of its members. Liza handles all the details, taking into account different budgets and event sizes – all people have to do is show up.

“We have members who met at our events and became friends and went on to embark on international journeys to celebrate birthdays together. We have had members get married with bridesmaids by their sides who were women they first connected with at our events. We’ve had members decide to live together and become roommates,” Liza says.

Members also bond over their passion for giving back to their community. The group has hosted many impact-driven events, including a “Picnic with Purpose” to create self-care packages for homeless shelters and recently participated in the #SquadSpreadsJoy challenge. Each day, the 100 members participating receive random acts of kindness to complete. They can also share their stories on the group page to earn extra points. The member with the most points at the end wins a free seat at the group's Friendsgiving event.

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Democracy

This Map Reveals The True Value Of $100 In Each State

Your purchasing power can swing by 30% from state to state.

Image by Tax Foundation.

Map represents the value of 100 dollars.

As the cost of living in large cities continues to rise, more and more people are realizing that the value of a dollar in the United States is a very relative concept. For decades, cost of living indices have sought to address and benchmark the inconsistencies in what money will buy, but they are often so specific as to prevent a holistic picture or the ability to "browse" the data based on geographic location.

The Tax Foundation addressed many of these shortcomings using the most recent (2015) Bureau of Economic Analysis data to provide a familiar map of the United States overlaid with the relative value of what $100 is "worth" in each state. Granted, going state-by-state still introduces a fair amount of "smoothing" into the process — $100 will go farther in Los Angeles than in Fresno, for instance — but it does provide insight into where the value lies.

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Family

Woman bakes cheeky curse word pies for her grandma and it becomes a quirky holiday tradition

2023's pie is an homage to her favorite word to use while stuck in traffic.

Canva

You never know where a holiday tradition will come from.

Tried-and-true holiday traditions certainly have their merit, but there’s something quite special, magical even, about discovering personal rituals that commemorate one’s unique life. In my household, for instance, nothing quite rings in the Christmas spirit like sipping my partner’s delicious coquito and putting up a cardboard gingerbread house for my cats.

The beauty of creating customized holiday traditions is that they can be as festive, sentimental, or as silly as you want them to be. And you never know how one small moment can become the catalyst for a tradition that sparks joy year after year.

For Jess Lydon, that tradition is baking expletive-laden pies for Thanksgiving. (This is your profanity warning—the images below contain swear words.)

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Education

3,700-year-old Babylonian stone tablet gets translated, changes history

They were doing trigonometry 1500 years before the Greeks.

via UNSW

Dr. Daniel Mansfield and his team at the University of New South Wales in Australia have just made an incredible discovery. While studying a 3,700-year-old tablet from the ancient civilization of Babylon, they found evidence that the Babylonians were doing something astounding: trigonometry!

Most historians have credited the Greeks with creating the study of triangles' sides and angles, but this tablet presents indisputable evidence that the Babylonians were using the technique 1,500 years before the Greeks ever were.

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Peter Bence's piano cover of "Africa" by Toto

Peter Bence’s performance of “Africa” by Toto has over 17 million views on YouTube because of his creative reimagining of the song and, well, just about everyone loves “Africa.”

Bence is a Hungarian composer and producer who has become a viral sensation for his Michael Jackson, Queen, Sia, and Beatles covers. He has over 1.1 million followers on YouTube and has toured the globe, playing in more than 40 countries across four continents.

His performance of “Africa'' is unique because it opens with him creating a rhythm track and looping it by strategically tapping the piano and rubbing its strings to create the sound of shakers and congo drums.

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Joy

Family posts a very chill note to neighbors explaining why their dog is on the roof

“We appreciate your concern but please do not knock on our door.."

via Reddit

Meet Huckleberry the dog.

If you were taking a stroll through a quiet neighborhood and happened to catch a glance of this majestic sight, you might bat an eye. You might do a double take. If you were (somewhat understandably) concerned about this surprising roof-dog's welfare, you might even approach the homeowners to tell them, "Uh, I'm not sure if you know...but there's a...dog...on your ROOF."

Well, the family inside is aware that there's often a dog on their roof. It's their pet Golden, Huckleberry, and he just sorta likes it up there.

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Family

12 hilariously relatable comics about life as a new mom.

Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

All illustrations by Ingebritt ter Veld. Reprinted here with permission.

Some good not so good moments with babies.



Embarrassing stains on your T-shirt, sniffing someone's bum to check if they have pooped, the first time having sex post-giving birth — as a new mom, your life turns upside-down.

Illustrator Ingebritt ter Veld and Corinne de Vries, who works for Hippe-Birth Cards, a webshop for birth announcements, had babies shortly after one another.

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