Trump tried to troll Michigan’s Secretary of State on voting laws. It didn’t end well for him.
In a now-deleted tweet, President Trump engaged in one of his favorite pastimes on Wednesday—accusing another elected official of committing a crime on Twitter. This time, the object of his accusation was Michigan’s “rogue” Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. The crime? Trump accused her of “illegally and without authorization” sending absentee ballots to 7.7 million…
In a now-deleted tweet, President Trump engaged in one of his favorite pastimes on Wednesday—accusing another elected official of committing a crime on Twitter.
This time, the object of his accusation was Michigan’s “rogue” Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. The crime? Trump accused her of “illegally and without authorization” sending absentee ballots to 7.7 million people in her state. He threatened to withhold funding to Michigan saying, “If they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!” (Ahem, is “voter fraud” a proper noun, sir?)
Benson responded to Trump’s tweet in the best way possible—she fired back with facts and a reminder of her name.
“Hi!” she wrote, with a wave emoji. “I also have a name, it’s Jocelyn Benson. And we sent applications, not ballots. Just like my GOP colleagues in Iowa, Georgia, Nebraska and West Virginia.”
The president was roundly called out for being so inaccurate. Trump partially corrected his previous tweet two-and-a-half hours later, only adding the word “applications,” but but still falsely claiming the mail-in voting broke the law.
The president seems hell bent on making people believe that mail-in voting is “ripe for fraud” and that making it easier for people to vote by mail is somehow beneficial for Democrats. Let’s not forget he voted by mail in Florida in March. Or that Washington and Oregon, who have had all-mail-in voting for years, both have Republican Secretaries of State overseeing their elections. Voter fraud, despite claims to the contrary, is a statistically insignificant occurrence—and a bipartisan one at that.
Benson, again, responded with the facts. And again, she reminded him that she has a name.
“Hi again,” she wrote. “Still wrong. Every Michigan registered voter has a right to vote by mail. I have the authority & responsibility to make sure that they know how to exercise this right – just like my GOP colleagues are doing in GA, IA, NE and WV. Also, again, my name is Jocelyn Benson.”
Hi again. Still wrong. Every Michigan registered voter has a right to vote by mail. I have the authority & responsibility to make sure that they know how to exercise this right – just like my GOP colleagues are doing in GA, IA, NE and WV. Also, again, my name is Jocelyn Benson. https://t.co/deZJwbMlT0— Jocelyn Benson (@JocelynBenson) May 20, 2020
Benson insisting that President Trump call her by her name may seem like a small thing, but it’s not. In fact, it might be the most powerful part about her responses. The president has a habit of not referring to women he doesn’t like by name, instead making up childish nicknames for them or simply omitting their name altogether. It’s a power play of sorts—one that Benson expertly diffuses in her tweets to him.
As political historian Heather Cox Richardson pointed out on Facebook:
“From Moby Dick’s famous beginning ‘Call me Ishmael’ to the fear in the Harry Potter books of calling the evil Voldemort by name, invoking someone’s name makes them a power to be reckoned with. In this case, a woman doing her job, insisting on reality that interrupts Trump’s narrative, repeatedly demands that he use her name.
It’s a powerful moment. At a time when senators and government officials appear to have ceded their power to Trump, it is ordinary Americans like Jocelyn Benson, ordinary women like Jocelyn Benson, who are standing up to him. ‘Hi!’ she wrote. ‘I also have a name.’
Indeed she does. That’s exactly what the president is afraid of.”
Strong, smart and self-respecting women who don’t peddle “alternative facts” are Trump’s kryptonite. He doesn’t know what to do with them, other than attack them with false claims and nicknames. In the space of two tweets, Jocelyn Benson managed to not only correct the president’s falsehoods, but also show that she’s not going to let him play that game. It’s ridiculously unfortunate that government officials have to battle lies from the president on Twitter, but since that’s how he’s chosen to communicate, that’s where it has to happen.
Of course, Benson’s office also issued official statements on the matter, because despite appearances, governance is not actually done over Twitter. The Department of State wrote:
“President Donald Trump’s statement is false. The Bureau of Elections is mailing absent voter applications, not ballots. Applications are mailed nearly every election cycle by both major parties and countless advocacy and nonpartisan organizations. Just like them, we have full authority to mail applications to ensure voters know they have the right to vote safely by mail.”
We need to see women standing calmly and confidently in the storm, providing factual, low-key fierce rebuttals to the blatantly false accusations that keep flying from the president’s fingertips.
In a small village in Pwani, a district on Tanzania’s coast, a massive dance party is coming to a close. For the past two hours, locals have paraded through the village streets, singing and beating ngombe drums; now, in a large clearing, a woman named Sheilla motions for everyone to sit facing a large projector screen. A film premiere is about to begin.
It’s an unusual way to kick off a film about gender bias, inequality, early marriage, and other barriers that prevent girls from accessing education in Tanzania. But in Pwani and beyond, local organizations supported by Malala Fund and funded by Pura are finding creative, culturally relevant ways like this one to capture people’s interest.
The film ends and Sheilla, the Communications and Partnership Lead for Media for Development and Advocacy (MEDEA), stands in front of the crowd once again, asking the audience to reflect: What did you think about the film? How did it relate to your own experience? What can we learn?
Sheilla explains that, once the community sees the film, “It brings out conversations within themselves, reflective conversations.” The resonance and immediate action create a ripple effect of change.
MEDEA Screening Audience in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
Across Tanzania, gender-based violence often forces adolescent girls out of the classroom. This and other barriers — including child marriage, poverty, conflict, and discrimination — prevent girls from completing their education around the world.
Sheilla and her team are using film and radio programs to address the challenges girls face in their communities. MEDEA’s ultimate goal is to affirm education as a fundamental right for everyone, and to ensure that every member of a community understands how girls’ education contributes to a stronger whole and how to be an ally for their sisters, daughters, granddaughters, friends, nieces, and girlfriends.
Sheilla’s story is one of many that inspired Heart on Fire, a new fragrance from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection that blends the warm, earthy spices of Tanzania with a playful, joyful twist. Here’s how Pura is using scent as a tool to connect the world and inspire action.
A partnership focused on local impact, on a global mission
Pura, a fragrance company that recognizes education as both freedom and a human right, has partnered with Malala Fund since 2022. In order to defend every girl’s right to access and complete 12 years of education, Malala Fund partners with local organizations in countries where the educational barriers are the greatest. They invest in locally-led solutions because they know that those who are closest to the problems are best equipped to solve and build durable solutions, like MEDEA, which works with communities to challenge discrimination against girls and change beliefs about their education.
But local initiatives can thrive and scale more powerfully with global support, which is why Pura is using their own superpower, the power of scent, to connect people around the world with the women and girls in these local communities.
The Pura x Malala Fund Collection incorporates ingredients naturally found in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil: countries where Malala Fund operates to address systemic education barriers. Eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection will be donated to Malala Fund directly, but beyond financial support, the Collection is also a love letter to each unique community, blending notes like lemon, jasmine, cedarwood, and clove to transport people, ignite their senses, and help them draw inspiration and hope from the global movement for girls’ education. Through scent, people can connect to the courage, joy, and tenacity of girls and local leaders, all while uniting in a shared commitment to education: the belief that supporting girls’ rights in one community benefits all of us, everywhere.
You’ve already met Sheilla. Now see how Naiara and Mama Habiba are building unique solutions to ensure every girl can learn freely and dare to dream.
Naiara Leite is reimagining what’s possible in Brazil
Julia with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura
In Brazil, where pear trees and coconut plantations cover the Northeastern Coast, girls like ten-year-old Julia experience a different kind of educational barrier than girls in Tanzania. Too often, racial discrimination contributes to high dropout rates among Black, quilombola and Indigenous girls in the country.
“In the logic of Brazilian society, Black people don’t need to study,” says Naiara Leite, Executive Coordinator of Odara, a women-led organization and Malala Fund partner. Bahia, the state where Odara is based, was once one of the largest slave-receiving territories in the Americas, and because of that history, deeply-ingrained, anti-Black prejudice is still widespread. “Our role and the image constructed around us is one of manual labor,” Naiara says.
But education can change that. In 2020, with assistance from a Malala Fund grant, Odara launched its first initiative for improving school completion rates among Black, quilombola, and Indigenous girls: “Ayomidê Odara”. The young girls mentored under the program, including Julia, are known as the Ayomidês. And like the Pura x Malala Fund Collection’s Brazil: Breath of Courage scent, the Ayomidês are fierce, determined, and bursting with energy.
Ayomidês with Odara in Brazil. Captured by Luisa Dorr for Pura
Ayomidês take part in weekly educational sessions where they explore subjects like education and ethnic-racial relations. The girls are encouraged to find their own voices by producing Instagram lives, social media videos, and by participating in public panels. Already, the Ayomidês are rewriting the narrative on what’s possible for Afro-Brazilian girls to achieve. One of the earliest Ayomidês, a young woman named Debora, is now a communications intern. Another former Ayomidê, Francine, works at UNICEF, helping train the next generation of adolescent leaders. And Julia has already set her sights on becoming a math teacher or a model.
“These are generations of Black women who did not have access to a school,” Naiara says. “These are generations of Black women robbed daily of their dreams. And we’re telling them that they could be the generation in their family to write a new story.”
Mama Habiba is reframing the conversation in Nigeria
Centre for Girls' Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura
In Mama Habiba’s home country of Nigeria, the scents of starfruit, ylang ylang and pineapple, all incorporated into the Pura x Malala Collection’s “Nigeria: Hope for Tomorrow,” can be found throughout the vibrant markets. Like these native scents, Mama Habiba says that the Nigerian girls are also bright and passionate, but too often they are forced to leave school long before their potential fully blooms.
“Some of these schools are very far, and there is an issue of quality, too,” Mama Habiba says. “Most parents find out when their children are in school, the girls are not learning. So why allow them to continue?”
When girls drop out of secondary school, marriage is often the alternative. In Nigeria, one in three girls is married before the age of 18. When this happens, girls are unable to fulfill their potential, and their families and communities lose out on the social, health and economic benefits.
Completing secondary school delays marriage, and according to UNESCO, educated girls become women who raise healthier children, lift their families out of poverty and contribute to more peaceful, resilient communities.
Centre for Girls’ Education, Nigeria. Captured by James Roh for Pura
To encourage young girls to stay in school, the Centre for Girls’ Education, a nonprofit in Nigeria founded by Mama Habiba and supported by Malala Fund and Pura, has pioneered an initiative that’s similar to the Ayomidê workshops in Brazil: safe spaces. Here, girls meet regularly to learn literacy, numeracy, and other issues like reproductive health. These safe spaces also provide an opportunity for the girls to role-play and learn to advocate for themselves, develop their self-image, and practice conversations with others about their values, education being one of them. In safe spaces, Mama Habiba says, girls start to understand “who she is, and that she is a girl who has value. She has the right to negotiate with her parents on what she really feels or wants.”
“When girls are educated, they can unlock so many opportunities,” Mama Habiba says. “It will help the economy of the country. It will boost so many opportunities for the country. If they are given the opportunity, I think the sky is not the limit. It is the starting point for every girl.”
From parades, film screenings to safe spaces and educational programs, girls and local leaders are working hard to strengthen the quality, safety and accessibility of education and overcome systemic challenges. They are encouraging courageous behavior and reminding us all that education is freedom.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
Why is it that certain people are incredibly likable? One of the biggest reasons is that they know how to make others feel good about themselves. This may seem selfish, but in a world where so many seem to think only of themselves, it feels great to spend time with people who are genuinely interested in us.
One of the best ways to tell someone is interested in us and enjoys our company is if they genuinely laugh and smile when we’re together. When we laugh and smile together, we’re a lot more likable than if we seem distant and indifferent. In fact, Vanessa Van Edwards, communications expert and author of Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People, says that when you are generous with your smiles and laughter, people will like you even more.
How to be more likable
“Be an easy laugher and an easy smiler,” she said in an Instagram video while looking unimpressed. “Don’t be too cool to laugh or smile. An easy laugher and easy smile means you’re always looking for an opportunity to smile. If someone shares good news, don’t say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s great news.’”
“Make sure that you actually smile and actually laugh. Smiles are contagious,” Van Edwards continued. “Research has proven that when we see someone with an authentic smile, it makes us feel happier, too. So, try to look for opportunities to laugh or smile in conversation at someone else’s story, someone else’s joke, or just when something makes you feel good. They are contagious.”
How to have a genuine smile
Van Edwards notes that our smiles should read as genuine, or they’ll have the opposite effect.
“Only real smiles are contagious,” she said. “In other words, if you look at a picture of someone with a fake smile, you feel nothing afterward.”
The key to a genuine smile is that you can see it around the eyes. If you covered a smiling mouth with a 3” x 5” card and couldn’t tell someone was smiling from the eye area, it wouldn’t be seen as genuine.
According to Van Edwards, back in our “caveman” days, if someone approached the village and flashed a smile from 300 feet away, we’d know whether they were friendly. So it was important for a smile to be large enough to be seen from a distance.
“If you can’t see a real smile on the top half of the face, it’s not a real smile,” Van Edwards said.
Laughter also makes people feel great because it’s believed we evolved this behavior to signal that a person or situation is safe. It releases endorphins, which reduce stress and help people feel connected. No wonder people feel great when they laugh together.
A big smile and a hearty laugh are obvious signifiers that someone is engaged in an interaction. However, some people may feel uncomfortable expressing themselves through over-the-top smiles or laughter for cultural reasons. There are still many ways to express warmth and interest through body language, such as leaning forward in a conversation, using a “triple nod” to encourage the speaker, or mirroring their posture and tone.
Ultimately, it’s common for people to think that if they want others to like them, they have to be impressive. However, the truth is that people just want to know you’re interested in them. So before you head to your next party, instead of thinking about the amazing stories you’re going to tell to the new people you’ll meet, just remember to give a big smile and hearty guffaw at their jokes. That will make you more likable than the greatest anecdote you could ever tell.
Science lovers got a treat recently when new research on sperm whales was quietly released. Researchers not only witnessed the birth of a baby sperm whale, but also saw elder females, including the grandmother, acting as midwives. Very few species assist with birth outside of humans, but it seems sperm whales can now join that short list.
Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative) released two studies on sperm whales in journals Nature and Science respectively. Nature covers the different vocalizations of the whales during this teamwork process, while Science discusses the collaborative birthing approach by the whales.
The sperm whale’s birth was first captured via drone in July 2023. Now that the video has made its way to social media, viewers cannot get over witnessing the whales act as midwives. Typically, scientists don’t get to witness sperm whales’ behavior during birth, likely because they give birth far from shore and avoid boats during this vulnerable process.
With the increasing use of drones, however, scientists can now capture moments like this without disrupting wildlife. In the video, other whales—one identified as the grandmother—surround the birthing whale, named Rounder. Not all of the supporting whales were from the same pod as the mother, but they joined to help ensure the calf’s safe arrival.
Because whales are mammals, they can’t breathe underwater. For this reason, baby whales, also known as calves, are born tail-first. Like other mammals, newborn whales instinctively try to breathe, so exiting the birth canal headfirst could result in drowning, according to National Geographic.
Scientists have been following this pod for a while, so they’re familiar with the whales in the family. As they watched the drone footage from the boat, they were able to identify who was present. Still, the sight of this unique birthing circle shocked the scientists.
While birthing her calf, Rounder was flanked by her sister, Accra, and Atwood, an elder female. Behind the mom-to-be was her mother, Lady Oracle, her aunt Aurora, a juvenile whale named Ariel, and four other unknown female whales. The whales had dual roles: when the calf was born, the assisting whales formed a tight cluster and raised the baby out of the water so it could breathe.
They took turns holding the calf out of the water for three hours. During that time, the females that were not actively lifting the calf to the surface were fending off nosy animals. Once the baby was safe and swimming alongside its mother, the other whales began to depart.
One of the scientists, Shane Gero, told National Geographic, “All the biologists on the boat were losing their minds.” The same could be said for people coming across the video online.
One person wrote, “Women supporting women! Bring it on!”
Another person called out humans, saying, “I think they lied , who said survival of the fittest or only the strong survive. Everything in nature is about collective care. Even other animal species be helping each other. Also even when its predators they only take what they need.”
This commenter admired the teamwork, writing, “I love how whales put so much energy into each other, but it’s even more exciting that members outside of the family pod were being so helpful. I’m invested!”
“This is so frigging cool,” another person gushed. “I love how nature really wants nature to succeed. Absolutely 100% lit. Thanks for this!”
During his shift as a pizza delivery driver for Domino’s Pizza, Dan Simpson noticed the order included a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke, but the shop was out. Instead of canceling that part of the order, he went to a nearby convenience store to buy the soda.
“It took about three minutes,” he told the Idaho Statesman. Those three minutes earned him a “tip” that now totals more than $24,000.
When Domino’s is out of Diet Coke, but your delivery driver stops at the store to get it for you. Dan, you went above and beyond tonight, thank you!The world needs more Dans. Happy almost retirement! #dominos#fyp
Caught on a Ring camera, Simpson presented the pizza and store-bought sodas to the grateful customer, who was astonished he had gone out of his way to get the Diet Coke. The customer was appreciative but upset they didn’t have any extra cash to add to Simpson’s tip. Simpson, however, was happy to have done a good deed and receive the tip he’d already earned, sharing that he had been delivering pizzas as a second job for 14 years and was just 26 days from retirement.
Simpson’s small gesture goes viral
The Ring camera footage was posted online, and commenters remarked on Simpson’s kindness:
“This is old school respect and going beyond duty.”
“As a loyal Diet Coke drinker, this would mean everything to me.”
“I am going to screammmmmmn, I love him. 😭😭😭”
“This literally made me cry. He’s so sweet. 🥺”
“He is a Pawpaw. I know it. This is something my Daddy would do. 🥰🥰”
“He’s overjoyed about $6.60 🥹 That’s so humble but it makes me sad for some reason. Probably because he deserves the WORLD with a soul like his. 🫶”
“GET DAN’S INFO!!!! He retired already and is still working! He deserves to retire! And I’m willing to pitch in for his retirement!!!”
Everyone wanted to “tip” him
Commenters and the customer agreed that Simpson’s $6.60 tip wasn’t enough. Not only did the customer send him a retirement card with $50 inside, but a GoFundMe was also started to contribute to his retirement. Within a couple of days, Simpson’s additional GoFundMe “tip” reached more than $24,000 and is still growing as of this writing.
Commenters cheered on and praised the donations as they came in:
“As someone that has worked with Dan for years, he is so deserving of this. He would always stay late and take extra deliveries when we were super busy even though he started his first job at 5am and had to be back at 5am the next day.”
“Just donated! Happy retirement Dan!🥹🩷”
“An example of how being a decent human goes a long way. One kind gesture turned into a 5k tip!! Kind gestures are so rare that the masses want to gift those who do nice things.🫶👏”
The customer who posted the Ring camera footage on TikTok later gave commenters an update:
“We dropped off a retirement card & an additional cash tip to the Domino’s Dan works at. In the card we wrote him a letter that explained how we put him on TikTok and that the internet fell in love with him. Dan gave us a call this afternoon and thanked us for the card, additional tip, and for TikTok’s donations to the GoFundMe. When we were talking with Dan, it had just reached $900! He was literally speechless and so humble. Dan doesn’t do technology, but he’s very thankful for all the support. We’ll keep ya’ll updated!Let’s see how far we can get this to go for Dan, he deserves it!”
Simpson was shocked and humbled by the gesture, especially since he believes in doing the right thing for its own sake.
“I know what it’s like to be down and out,” said Simpson. “So when I see people who are hurting, I try to help them.”
What Simpson did proves that even the smallest gestures, like getting a soda, can make a big impact on people.
Ida’s answer? A hard no, and trust me, she didn’t lose a wink of sleep over it.
A legacy that can’t be bought
Ida is a part of the Huddleston family, who have farmed this land for 200 years. That’s two centuries of early mornings, muddy boots, and honest work. Over generations, they’ve raised cattle, grown soybeans, and planted corn on their 1,200-acre property outside Maysville.
But it’s not just land stewardship. During the Great Depression—when jobs disappeared and families lined up just to get a meal—the Huddlestons grew wheat. They helped keep bread lines operating across America when people had almost nothing left. This land didn’t just feed the family; it fed the nation.
The Huddleston family has been farming in Kentucky for 200 years. – Photo credit: Canva
Notice the wording. She didn’t say “nothing.” She said $26 million doesn’t mean anything.
The tech giant at the door
The company that offered $26 million for the Huddlestons’ property has never revealed its identity; local officials were required to sign non-disclosure agreements just to learn who was making the offer.
“They call us old, stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,” she told WKRC-TV. “We know whenever our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we don’t have any water, and that poison. Well, we know we’ve had it.”
She called it a scam. And to be honest, the repeated pressure campaigns—multiple offers, persistent calls, and what she described as “mind harassment”—don’t exactly reflect good faith.
A community that agrees
Ida isn’t a lone voice in the wilderness here. Since 2017, Mason County has lost one-fifth of its farms. Neighbors throughout the region share her concerns about what an industrial mega-campus would do to their rural way of life: their water, their soil, their sense of home.
For Ida, the decision was never really about money.
Her late husband built their house with his own hands. She feels his presence every time she walks the fields. The land holds her family’s past and, she hopes, their future.
‘I’M STAYING PUT’: Ida Huddleston and her daughter, Delsia Bare, have rejected multimillion-dollar offers from developers planning a massive data center project on Big Pond Pike. Huddleston turned down $60,000 per acre for her 71 acres, while Bare declined $48,000 per acre for her 463-acre farm. 💰🚫 Despite promises of hundreds of jobs, the family remains skeptical—and determined to stay. “I’m staying put,” Huddleston said. County leaders are still reviewing the proposal as debate over the project continues. #KentuckyNews#CommunityVoices#datacenter
“I said, ‘No, mine is priceless.’ What I’ve got here, I want to pass it down. What God told me to do was to keep it until I was through with it and then pass it on to the next generation,” she told WXIX-TV.
In an era when everything seems to have a price—and the biggest tech companies in the world have the resources to buy nearly anything—there’s something quietly remarkable about a woman who simply says: no, not this.
Ida says she intends to die on that land, on her own terms, surrounded by 200 years of family history.
A young man named He Tongxue from HTX Studio, a team of DIY innovators from Hangzhou, China, wanted to be able to “see music.” He had just started learning piano and felt like the visible dimension was missing. There are plenty of computer programs that create digital visual effects with music, of course. But the goal was to make music visible in real life.
It took the studio three years, four prototypes, and endless tests to come up with just the right combination of elements. They wanted something that would rise from the piano and light up when the keys were pressed.
“Our first thought was smoke,” he said. They figured they could line up smoke machines that would be triggered by the piano keys and use lasers to light up the smoke as it rises.
The studio built a prototype, and at first, it looked pretty cool. But after playing the piano for a few minutes, the cool factor wore off. He later described it as “a disaster.”
“The smoke drifts everywhere,” he said. “You can’t tell which light matches which note. It feels like a genie is coming out. And after a while, it feels like someone is barbecuing inside the piano.”
They wanted the smoke to rise in chunks, like solid musical notes, instead of spreading out. That led them to the idea of vortex rings. Essentially, they could make smoke rings that would give the visible “notes” more structure.
A second prototype was made to test out this idea. And it did look really cool…at first. The vortex rings worked, but there was too much extraneous smoke that eventually built up and made it hard to see the rings. The contraptions that made the rings were also too large to make separate ones for all 88 keys of the piano, and making them smaller rendered them unusable.
Back to the drawing board again.
Since a vortex ring is essentially rotating fluid, they shifted to different fluids: water and paint. They created yet another piano prototype that would shoot paint vortex rings into water. Yet again, cool at first, but soon the water simply clouded up as the paint rings dissipated. They tried using oil paints, which wouldn’t dissolve in water, but that also disappointed. Oil paint didn’t form rings, but rather broke apart into small spheres in the water.
However, the spheres gave them the idea of simply using droplets. They created a piano that would push up a droplet of colored glycerin into the water tank with each note played. Lights would illuminate them.
The idea was solid, but the execution left something to be desired. The beauty of the lit-up droplets didn’t extend throughout the tank. The droplets drifted, and attempts to rein them in with glass tubes ruined the magical effect.
“By this point, the project had dragged on for two years,” he said. “We had tried everything we could think of. I honestly didn’t know what I was to do. We’ve abandoned projects before. But never one that consumed this much time, energy, and effort from almost everyone in the studio.”
Then disaster struck. One night, the glass tank shattered under the water pressure, destroying the entire system.
Watch the full story here:
“If the universe was telling me to stop, this felt like the sign,” he said. But in the midst of significant setbacks and creeping self-doubt, the idea of turning to nature arose. What if they used bioluminescent algae, which light up all on their own?
“Around the world, you can see this blue glow in coastal waters,” he said. “It’s caused by a reaction between luciferin and luciferase when the algae are stimulated. We didn’t spray algae into water. We filled the entire tank with them, then disturbed them with bubbles so they would glow all the way to the surface.”
He and his studio mates did it. No AI. No digital effects. Real-life, 3D visible music with an assist from nature. They named it the Blue Tears Piano.
Here’s German pianist Oskar Roman Jezior playing “Golden Hour” on it:
Leslie Harter-Berg from Vancouver, Washington, lost her husband, Ryan, in 2019 when he died suddenly after an aneurysm and stroke. The couple was in Palm Springs, California after visiting Disneyland with their two sons, Wit (then 3) and Rory (1), when he passed away. “So I flew back from Cali as a single mom, solo business owner and widow, a term I thought only applied to old ladies,” she told Newsweek.
In 2022, she found love again with a new man, Sol, and in 2023, they had a son, Rhys. “I feel very blessed and lucky that I was able to find love twice,” she told People. “I can only imagine Ryan telling me not to waste this one life I get.”
The perfect way to celebrate her husband’s life with her children
But she still wanted her two oldest sons to understand the amazing man their father was and to experience him in some way. So, every year on his birthday, they would do something Ryan loved, such as watching a classic film or playing with LEGO.
In 2021, while going through Ryan’s belongings, she found a bucket list he had written in a high school journal. It paints a vivid picture of a young man’s hopes and core beliefs about family, friendship, and adventure. Since the bucket list was discovered, they have done something on it every year on Ryan’s birthday. Here’s the list:
One year, the family accomplished #26 in his life by dressing up as pirates and going out in public, and #16 by playing chess in a park. April 2, 2026 will mark the fifth year that the family has been checking things off his list.
“My kids look forward to it every year!” she told Newsweek. “Especially as they get older and closer to the age Ryan was when he made it, I think it’s meaningful to get a glimpse into who their dad was.”
So far, the kids’ favorite activity on the list has been one of the most challenging.
“My kids’ favorite was probably building the three-foot-high card tower, which proved almost impossible,” she told Upworthy. “One of my friends was determined, and it took about three hours to finally get the cards to stay in place. We threw a big party and ate Ryan’s favorite snacks.”
After more than six million people saw her TikTok post about the bucket list, many contacted her to help her family complete it. One said they’d let them borrow their mansion to cross off #15.
“Someone on Lake Michigan said he’d be in Japan and my kids and I could experience mansion life to cross off Ryan’s ‘live in a mansion’ bucket list item,” she said. “Tempting, but we opted not to take him up on it. It has been so sweet to see how the Internet has rallied to want me to help complete it. A web design firm reached out, offering to build a website, another item on his list. Many people in the comments said they’d want to check off Ryan’s items too, which means so much. He lives on in his quirky little list.”
A vacation to Disney World is still considered the gold standard by many when it comes to family getaways. It has everything from good food to thrill rides, childhood nostalgia, and more.
But all that joy and magic sometimes come at a cost. Not just the financial price tag, but also the hard work it takes to afford those tickets and arrange the trip—work that doesn’t necessarily end when you step foot inside the parks. One family learned this lesson the hard way, firsthand.
The Mouselets are three siblings who’ve teamed up, using their shared love of all things Disney, to run social media accounts and podcasts where they share their favorite tips and secrets about the parks.
Recently, they arranged to take their parents to Disney World, and the excitement was palpable:
Unfortunately, the work didn’t end there for their poor dad. In other clips shared by The Mouselets, he’s forced to whip out his laptop at lunch, tap away at his phone while waiting for a show to begin, and even take another urgent call while dressed in full Mike Wazowski garb, of Monsters, Inc. fame.
Their dad even brought an entire multi-monitor setup to their room at the Grand Floridian Resort to bang out a few spreadsheets (or something like that).
The siblings edited it all into a brilliant, horror movie–inspired supercut:
Even though they have well over a million followers on social media, The Mouselets could never have predicted how popular the video of their dad would become. To date, it’s received nearly five million views on TikTok and Instagram.
Overwhelmingly, people are showing respect for their dad’s hustle:
“Someone’s gotta pay for y’all’s vacation”
“Taking the call is what pays for those trips.”
“Disney doesn’t pay for its self”
“I respect this man. The family appreciates his hard work.”
In another post, The Mouselets clarified that they were the ones who arranged and paid for the trip, not their dad. Still, the video serves as a bittersweet reminder of what it must have taken to bring three kids to Disney World and instill in them a lifelong love—one that would later inspire them to start a business like The Mouselets.
Put another way, their dad knew he had work to do but simply couldn’t pass up the chance to spend time with his kids. So, like many parents, he decided to “do it all.”
“Work-life balance” and vacation, or time off, have become messy concepts
Gen Zers are pushing back hard against hustle culture, but a lot of modern companies still expect employees to go the extra mile, work well beyond 40 hours per week, and stay digitally connected even during personal and vacation time.
There’s something sad about watching Papa Mouselet miss out on what should be quality time, but apparently he’s not the only one. Commenters chimed in with their own “life goes on, even at Disney” moments:
“me taking my college exam while in line for guardians”
“i was in a meeting on the skyliner”
“I have a park photo from the ride of my husband taking a work call on Haunted Mansion. Dad had to pay for the next Disney trip somehow”
“Have done a full on Zoom on people mover”
“I had a job interview on the dumbo flying elephants”
“He’s not [alone], my husband does this too”
Disney magic is powerful stuff, but it doesn’t come out of nowhere. The hard work and planning it takes often go unseen and unnoticed. Other times, unfortunately, the work refuses to wait until you get home. But that doesn’t mean you can’t still have a great trip.
It all worked out for the whole family
As for Mr. Mouselet, viewers were relieved to know he did, in fact, have a wonderful vacation—once he’d handled his business, that is.
A beautiful art project has strangers answering an old-fashioned telephone and saying whatever’s on their minds. – Photo credit: aview.fromabridge/Instagram
Viral “street interviews” are a relatively new form of content. They’ve popped up in the last couple of years and often involve random social media creators sticking a microphone in someone’s face on the street and asking personal, funny, or sometimes invasive questions about sex, relationships, and money.
In many big cities, these interviewers are everywhere. Though the clips are sometimes entertaining, many have pointed out problems with the format. Namely, that (often drunk) people can go viral for embarrassing moments and wind up humiliated on an international stage. Or famous. Either way, there’s little recourse for regretful participants, and even less substance in the interviews.
Artist Joe Bloom wanted to reimagine the street interview
“Interviewing strangers is such a beautiful art form but it’s been made so tacky,” Bloom told The Guardian in 2024. “You get some knobhead on the street running up to someone with a microphone asking them about their trauma. It feels awful. The AI-generated subtitles don’t even match up. It’s contrived and rushed. They just don’t care.”
He came up with what he thought was a better idea. Inspired by the early optimism of Internet projects like “Humans of New York,” he wanted to find a way to share people’s real stories, not just farm viral clips about embarrassing topics.
Immediately, he harkened back to his nostalgia for the telephone. No, not the iPhone, not texting, but the classic landline handset.
“You see it in movies: it’s always this nostalgic and almost glamorous thing, holding a phone up to your ear and talking into this object,” he said.
The project, called “A View from a Bridge,” launched in 2023 and saw Bloom place old-fashioned handset telephones on random bridges in London. When strangers would pass by and if they picked up, he’d be on the other end ready to chat.
What he found was that, surprisingly, people were willing to talk. Not just that, but they were more than willing to bare their souls.
There was the kid who had deep thoughts about the body after learning he was more than just a skeleton with a heart inside.
“What’s the point in not knowing who are you?” the wise boy said of his mission to devour all the books he could about anatomy.
Another young man opened up about all the time he spent chatting and connecting with people all over the world during COVID via virtual reality chat:
“A lot of people tend to think that history as it was has ended. … Things can never be how they once were. I don’t think things have changed that much in terms of people wanting each other and needing each other.”
“I don’t think things have changed much, in terms of people wanting each other and needing each other” – Cameron’s View From A Bridge @Cameron Winter . Filmed, interviewed + edited @Joe Bloom Original music @Ross Woodhead #geese#vr#virtualreality#Love#connection
Bloom’s project brings down people’s guard in a natural, organic way. As the interviewer, he stands far away. Typically, the subject can’t even see him at all. It gives the subject a sense of safety in the anonymity and lack of face-to-face eye contact.
And then there’s the phone itself.
“It creates an openness for the person being interviewed,” Bloom said of the format. “The action of holding the phone to your ear is powerful. It’s quite a calming thing.”
Who doesn’t remember long nights spent talking on the phone as a teenager, pouring out your deepest fears and dreams to friends and crushes? Research has found that in intimate, trusting relationships, we prefer to open up face to face. However, with people we don’t yet trust or are just getting to know, we’re often more forthcoming online or over the phone.
Bloom uses this phenomenon to get stranger interviewees to open up in ways the “street interview” creators could never dream of.
And the results are far more powerful and human. In each story, thousands of viewers see themselves and find ways to connect with the subjects—with their fears, pain, or even just funny observations. The videos are ultimately helping millions of people feel less alone.
That’s exactly the kind of optimism and connection Bloom was going for, and it’s something sorely lacking in most corners of the Internet.
