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The next generation of female leaders has arrived. Here’s how they’re making sure they (and every girl) get a chance to learn.
Malala Fund and their local partners, with support from Pura, help girls find their voice. The result: greater access to education and a better world.
Music, community and joy drive real change
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.
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Instagram post compares Robert De Niro’s face over the years to explain why everyone’s ears change
It happens to the best of us.
Our bodies are miraculous, and much of the time, we don’t even know why. As we age, without any surgical help, our face shapes can change, shoulders can hunch, and teeth can shift. But one of the most obvious (and perhaps odd) differences is the size of our ears and noses.
In a recent post from the Instagram page Historic Moments, two profile photos of actor Robert De Niro are shown. In the earlier image—likely from his role as Travis Bickle in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver—his features appear proportionate. The other photo shows a more recent De Niro, where his ear (and possibly his nose) appears noticeably larger.
The caption reads, “Robert De Niro is living proof that our ears grow roughly 0.22 millimeters per year.” In the description, they write:
“Recent side-by-side comparisons of Robert De Niro vividly illustrate the physiological reality that human ears continue to grow throughout our lives. While many believe this is merely sagging skin, studies confirm that ear circumference increases by roughly 0.22 millimeters per year. This phenomenon is primarily due to the continuous growth of cartilage and the relentless effects of gravity over decades. De Niro’s evolving profile is a high-profile example of this unique aspect of the human aging process.”
The post has gone viral, suggesting that many people have wondered why this change happens. Fortunately, we have answers.
Doctors weigh in
Upworthy spoke with Dr. Ari Hoschander, the head plastic surgeon at the Rhinoplasty Center of Long Island, who shared:
“There are actually two things happening at once, and people conflate them. The nose and ears do genuinely grow, but they also appear larger because the face around them is losing volume. Volume decreases in the cheeks and temples, and the fat pads that used to provide roundness to the face start to descend or just disappear altogether. Suddenly your nose looks disproportionately larger compared to the rest of your face.”
Hoschander also discussed the cartilage issue:
“Cartilage also doesn’t behave the way bone does as you age. While bone mostly stops changing once you’re done growing, cartilage continues to slowly deform and lose its structural resilience over your entire life. The ears and nose are mostly cartilage, so the actual structure of your nose and ears continues to change over the course of your life.”
As for noses and ears?
“The nasal tip is where I see it most dramatically in practice. Gravity pulls the tip down, the supporting ligaments stretch out, and the skin loses its elasticity. So the tip droops and the nose looks longer and heavier than it did a few decades earlier. For the ears, the lobes are mostly fat and skin, so they elongate just from years of gravity, sometimes accelerated by heavy earrings. The upper ear cartilage is also slowly expanding, which is why older men in particular can end up with ears that look really big.”
A plastic surgeon explains the change
Dr. Jeffrey Lisiecki, a board-certified plastic surgeon, also shared similar insight with Upworthy. As for noses, he said they appear to grow for a couple of reasons:
“The cartilage of your nose essentially stops growing by adulthood, but the ligaments that hold those cartilages together can stretch with age, which can make your nose appear longer and more drooping with age. We also lose fat in our faces as we age, which makes our cheeks appear flatter and our nasolabial folds appear deeper, which can make the nose seem relatively larger.”
And what about those ears?
“Ears age in a similar way—the cartilage reaches its mature size before adulthood. The earlobe stretches out and becomes longer with age, which makes the ear appear larger. The earlobe also loses volume with age, and the thinning of it accelerates the process of lengthening.”
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Grocery store’s produce section concerts give indie musicians a live venue. People want more.
“We need this right now in the world…Real humans doing real human things.”
On the outside, Fiesta Fresh Market looks like just another neighborhood grocery store in New Castle, Delaware. Inside the produce section, however, customers can listen to local bands perform their latest songs live and in person. These “Mercadito Sessions” have since evolved from a simple community offering into a full-fledged live music event.
While grocery stores and live music don’t typically mix, at Fiesta Fresh Market, it’s part of the family. The Aguilar Garcia family, who run the store, have music in their roots—especially co-owner José Luis Aguilar Garcia, who works in the music industry.
In the hope of helping Mexican American bands gain more exposure, José and his family offered their produce section as a space for Latin musicians to perform for customers. They were inspired by National Public Radio’s “Tiny Desk Concerts,” which feature artists performing live in a confined space.
These produce section mini-concerts, dubbed “The Mercadito Sessions,” initially puzzled customers. Over time, however, shoppers came to welcome and enjoy the live music, with some even visiting just for the performances. Then, posts on the store’s social media featuring the bands began to go viral.
“The idea is to highlight independent artists from the area,” José told CBS Philadelphia. “Because it’s getting more attention online, people are excited. They’ll ask when we’re doing the next one.”
Commenters on the store’s Instagram celebrated the market’s concert concept:
“This is so cool. Not everyone wants to go to bars and/or have to stay up late to hear live music. I love this so much.”
“Honestly this is the absolute coolest thing ever.”
“Amazing music scenes going on everywhere, love the magic being shared.”
“We need this right now in the world…Real humans doing real human things.”
“Such an innovative and creative idea! 🥹💫”
While the Mercadito Sessions showcase Mexican regional music, they are open to any genre. As the series gained attention online, many bands reached out to Fiesta Fresh Market to get booked. Several acts have come to perform and record as customers pick out fresh fruits and vegetables.
Concerts for the community, by the community
Musicians and customers alike say these concerts provide a sense of community among Latin Americans living in Delaware. They not only celebrate their culture, but also showcase it to others in New Castle.
“It gives us a platform to portray who we really are,” musician Jesús Beltran Méndez told CBS Philadelphia. “There’s a lot of misconceptions about who we are. There are bad people. There are good people. We are just human.”
Demand for the music has grown so much that the grocery store is now hosting and promoting a full-fledged concert event. What was once a place to buy groceries has become a spotlight for the community—all by offering a small space in an aisle.
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A ‘gentleman’ reveals 4 reasons why men suddenly stopped wearing fancy hats in the ’60s
Men and women once went out wearing hats, and then suddenly, they disappeared.
One of the most striking things about real-life footage of Americans from the advent of the camera until around 1970 is that nearly all men, and many women, are wearing hats. In footage from the 1940s, for example, men boarding the subway to go to work are almost always seen in fedoras, trilbys, or homburgs. Earlier clips show them in bowlers and top hats.
It’s as if, before TV turned color, Americans were a nation of conformists who all dressed the same way. So how did men across the Western world go from wearing hats every day for decades to suddenly going bareheaded? Preston Schlueter of the Gentleman’s Gazette outlines four reasons in a YouTube video with more than 2 million views.
Four reasons why men stopped wearing hats
1. Climate control
“One of the biggest reasons for the loss of hat-wearing is likely that we now have better control over our indoor climate than we used to,” Schlueter says. “This is also why men can now go in and out of doors wearing sometimes fewer than two layers of clothing, and why things like gloves and scarves aren’t as popular as they used to be.”
2. Social class
“Social class was an incredibly important aspect of Western society, and people were absolutely expected to know their place,” Schlueter says. “But, after the horrors of war brought every social class just a bit closer, we began to focus more on the individual, rather than on the class in which they resided. As a result, then, the practice of wearing clothing and, particularly, hats to signify yourself as part of a distinct group has become largely extinct.”
A man and woman wearing hats at the turn of the century. Photo credit: Adományozó/Wikimedia Commons 3. Highways and cars
Back in the day, when transportation consisted of subway cars, trolley cars, horse-drawn buggies, or horseback travel, there was plenty of headroom, even for someone wearing a top hat. However, with the advent of the automobile, headroom in vehicles changed drastically.
“Look up at the ceiling in your own car. How much headroom do you have there? The answer is probably not much, perhaps even for a relatively soft or short hat style,” Schlueter says. “Simply put, modern cars aren’t built to accommodate the hat styles of old.”
Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep. Photo credit: Warner Bros./Wikimedia Commons 4. The Internet
“In the last decade and a half or so, hats like the fedora and trilby have gained an increasingly negative reputation thanks to Internet memes from websites like 4chan, Reddit, and Tumblr,” Schlueter says. “Indeed, for some younger members of our audience, when we mention fedoras, they might first think of the infamous ‘tips fedora’ meme. Because there are now thousands of these easily spreadable memes all over the Internet, the fedora, in recent years, took on a decidedly less-than-cool reputation.”
Hats are due for a comeback
In the end, there are many reasons people stopped wearing fancy hats every day. It appears to be a confluence of historical events, technological progress, and social pressures that influenced this major shift in fashion. But that doesn’t mean the era of the hat is gone forever. If one thing is certain, what goes out of fashion is always bound to come back.
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Comedian Jack Shep steals new ‘SNL UK’ scene with impeccable Princess Diana impression
Audiences are already begging for him to do it again.
Saturday Night Live UK debuted over the weekend on Sky TV (and Peacock in America), and already, one performer is a fan favorite. In a skit titled “David Attenborough’s Last Supper,” the famed naturalist, played by George Fouracres, invites several of “history’s greatest Britons,” who have been resurrected thanks to his brother Richard Attenborough’s “Jurassic Park technology.”
Naturally, the sketch featured a slew of impressive celebrity impersonations, from Freddie Mercury to Winston Churchill to Agatha Christie. But even in a sea of notable performances, it was comedian Jack Shep’s Princess Diana who really stole the show.
Watch:
While Shep’s Diana does speak here and there—thanking Attenborough for the invitation and reassuring Freddie Mercury that if a menu item “has an asterisk next to its name, then it comes with free rice”—most of the laugh-out-loud moments come from her coy, flirtatious glances at the camera while others are speaking. The People’s Princess has, after all, long been a queer icon. But this takes things to a whole new level.
Reactions
One leisurely scroll through the YouTube comments makes it clear that Shep was a fan favorite. Many are eager for Diana to become an SNL UK staple.
“The way he was eyeing the camera was hilarious.”
“I hope that Diana becomes a regular that randomly pops up in episodes to steal the show as she/he does here.”
“Princess Di was to die for.”
“I loved Princess Di but that Jack Shep impression was the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages.”
“Hope she’s a recurring visitor…”
“The Diana impression is an instant classic. Absolutely spot on.”
“The star of this show is definitely the person that played Princess Diana.”
Perhaps this comment says it best:
“Princess Di was uniquely special in real life and this actor does do her memory justice even though it’s a silly comedy skit. I feel she might have had a good laugh about the whole thing and it’s not disrespectful at all.”
Though Shep undoubtedly helped win favor among viewers, the overall reaction to an across-the-pond version of SNL has been mixed.
Some things, like host Tina Fey’s opening monologue and the edgier “Weekend Update” segment, have been mostly well-received.
However, some critics have lambasted the show as a “tepid cosplay” of its American predecessor, arguing that it copies the format without adding a unique touch. Still, even those critics seem to agree that certain elements need time to develop before the show can be fully assessed.
One promising sign is that, much like SNL in the U.S., SNL UK can give relatively unknown comedians like Shep a chance to share their gifts with the world. That certainly seems like a win-win for everyone.
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Brit shares the one-word ‘dead giveaway’ that American actors can’t do in an English accent
“There is one word that is a dead giveaway that an English character in a movie or a TV show is being played by an American.”
When it comes to actors doing accents across the pond, some Americans are known for their great British accents, such as Natalie Portman (“The Other Boleyn Girl”), Robert Downey, Jr. (“Sherlock Holmes”), and Meryl Streep (“The Iron Lady”). Some have taken a lot of heat for their cartoonish or just plain weird-sounding British accents, Dick Van Dyke (“Mary Poppins”), Kevin Costner (“Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves”) and Keanu Reeves (“Bram Stoker’s Dracula”).
Some actors, such as Tom Hardy (“The Drop”) and Hugh Laurie (“House”), have American accents so good that people have no idea they are British. Benedict Townsend, a London-based comedian and host of the “Scroll Deep” podcast, says there is one word that American actors playing characters with a British accent never get right.
And no, it’s not the word “Schedule,” which British people pronounce the entire first 3 letters, and Americans boil down to 2. And it’s not “aluminum,” which British and American people seem to pronounce every stinking letter differently.
What word do American actors always get wrong when they do British accents?
“There is one word that is a dead giveaway that an English character in a movie or a TV show is being played by an American. One word that always trips them up. And once you notice it, you can’t stop noticing it,” Townsend says. “You would see this lot in ‘Game of Thrones’ and the word that would always trip them up was ‘daughter.’”
Townsend adds that when British people say “daughter,” they pronounce it like the word “door” or “door-tah.” Meanwhile, Americans, even when they are putting on a British accent, say it like “dah-ter.”
“So, top tip if you are an actor trying to do an English accent, daughter like a door. Like you’re opening a door,” Townsend says.
Townsend later confirmed in a follow-up video that he and his wife identified the American actor in Netflix’s “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” within moments of hearing her speak. He also noted in an interview that “America” itself may be one of the hardest words for non-Americans to pull off convincingly in an American accent — which adds a pleasing layer of irony to the whole thing.
As it turns out, the problem runs both ways.
Some American commenters returned the favor by sharing the word that British actors never get right when using American accents: “Anything.”
“I can always tell a Brit playing an American by the word anything. An American would say en-ee-thing. Brits say it ena-thing,” Dreaming_of_Gaea wrote.
“The dead giveaway for English people playing Americans: ‘Anything.’ Brits always say ‘EH-nuh-thin,’” marliemagill added. “I can always tell an actor is English playing an American when they say ‘anything.’ English people always say it like ‘enny-thin,’” mkmason wrote.
What is the cot-caught merger?
One commenter noted that the problem goes back to the cot-caught merger, when Americans in the western US and Canadians began to merge different sounds into one. People on the East Coast and in Britain pronounce them as different sounds.
“Depending on where you live, you might be thinking one of two things right now: Of course, ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound exactly the same! or “There’s no way that ‘cot’ and ‘caught’ sound the same!” Laura McGrath writes at DoYouReadMe. “As a result, although the different spellings remain, the vowel sounds in the words cot/caught, nod/gnawed, stock/stalk are identical for some English speakers and not for others.” For example, a person from New Jersey would pronounce cot and catch it as “caht” and “cawt,” while someone from Los Angeles may pronounce them as “caht” and “caht.”
To get a better idea of the big difference in how “caught” and “cot” are pronounced in the U.S., you can take a look at the educational video below, produced for a college course on linguistics.
American actors owe Townsend a debt of gratitude for pointing out the one thing that even the best can’t seem to get right. For some actors, it could mean the difference between a great performance and one that has people scratching their heads. He should also give the commenters a tip of the cap for sharing the big word that British people have trouble with when doing an American accent. Now, if we could just get through to Ewan McGregor and tell him that even though he is fantastic in so many films, his American accent still needs a lot of work.
This article originally appeared last year.
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One seemingly simple question stumped all three Final Jeopardy contestants in 1984
It was only Alex Trebek’s second day on the job when all three contestants gave the same wrong answer and all ended up with $0.
The popular game show “Jeopardy!” originated in 1964, and for six decades it has stumped contestants and viewers with tough trivia questions and answers (or answers and questions, to be more accurate). Competing on “Jeopardy!” is practically synonymous with being a smartypants, and champions win lifelong bragging rights along with whatever monetary winnings they take home.
To win “Jeopardy!,” you place a wager in the Final Jeopardy round with whatever money you’ve collected through the first two rounds. All three contestants write down their wagers based solely on the category given, then they have 30 seconds to write down the question for the same answer after it’s revealed. Very rarely do all three contestants get the Final Jeopardy wrong.
But in 1984, on Alex Trebek’s second day hosting the show, a deceptively simple Final Jeopardy answer resulted in all three contestants making the same wrong guess and ending the round with $0 each.
The category was “The Calendar,” and after the contestants placed their bets, the answer was revealed: “Calendar date with which the 20th century began.”
The 20th century was the 1900s, as most of us are aware, and all three contestants wrote down identical responses: “What is January 1, 1900?” But they were all incorrect. And unfortunately, all three had wagered their entire amount, leaving them with nothing across the board.
“Oh, I don’t believe it!” exclaimed one of the contestants as they all laughed at the absurdity. “I’m at a loss for words,” said Trebek.
A member of the audience asked what the correct answer–or question— was, and Trebek shared that the correct response would have been “What is January 1, 1901?”
If that seems confusing, it’s probably because we all made a huge deal about the year 2000, marking it as the end of the 20th century as well as the turn of the millennium. But basically, we were wrong. Some people did point it out at the time, but the excitement and momentum of celebrating Y2K had us all in a frenzy and no one was going to wait until January 1, 2001 to celebrate the new millennium.
“Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek at the 2016 USO Gala. Credit: Jim Greenhill/Wikimedia Commons Why should we have? It all comes down to the fact that in the Gregorian calendar, the first year wasn’t 0 A.D., it was 1 A.D. The first century spanned from 1 to 100 A.D., the second century from 101 to 200 A.D. and so on, leading up to the 20th century officially being from 1901 to 2000. So January 1, 1901 is actually the date that the 20th century began, despite how unintuitive it feels.
To be fair, you’d think a “Jeopardy!” contestant might recognize that the question seemed awfully simple for a Final Jeopardy round, but only having 30 seconds to think under pressure is tough. And it’s not like these people lived in the internet era where random trivia questions like this regularly go viral, making us more aware of them. And this episode aired over a decade before the “Seinfeld” episode where Jerry explains the “no year zero” thing to Newman, who had planned a millennium party.
As one person pointed out, the calendar answer is technically correct, but it’s not the way the average person thinks of centuries, just as a tomato is technically fruit but the average person thinks of it (and uses it) as a vegetable. Even though there were some sticklers about the year 2000, most of us just went along with seeing it as the turn of the millennium because it felt like that’s how it should be. It’s kind of wild how most of us can think of something incorrectly but we just sort of collectively accept our wrongness about it.
The 1984 episode, making a viral comeback, also prompted people to share how much they missed Alex Trebek. The beloved, long-time “Jeopardy!” host died in 2020 at age 80 after an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer. He worked up until the point where he couldn’t anymore, even while undergoing chemotherapy. His final episode included a touching tribute honoring his 37 seasons with the game show, the end of an illustrious and iconic era.
Ken Jennings, former “Jeopardy!” champion with the record for the longest winning streak, has been the sole host of the show since late 2023, after previously sharing hosting duties with Mayim Bialik.
This article originally appeared last year.
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When an autistic 12-year-old showed up to back his mom in court, his reactions to her violations stopped the room
“I’m proud to have my autism because it makes me who I am now.”
A clip from Caught in Providence, the nationally syndicated courtroom show that made Judge Frank Caprio one of the most beloved figures on the internet, captured a hearing that stopped the room cold in the best possible way.
A woman named Michelle Verdayo had come to the Providence Municipal Court to answer for four red light violations. She brought her 12-year-old son Arion, who is on the autism spectrum and has ADHD. Arion introduced himself the moment they arrived.
“I am Arion. A-R-I-O-N. I am 12 years old, I’m in the seventh grade.”
Caprio, already won over, asked what Arion wanted to do after school. The boy said he was still deciding, but that he definitely wanted to be successful. “It’s hard to decide,” he told the judge. “When you’re at that age, you don’t know what you wanna do. At some points you wanna do what you wanna do but you don’t want to disappoint your family in any way.” Caprio looked at him for a moment. “You are speaking with the maturity of an adult,” he said.
Then they pulled up the footage.
As Caprio walked through each violation, Arion watched alongside his mom, offering live commentary. Some of the red lights, he allowed, seemed fairly minor. Then came the clip of his mom nearly hitting another car. Arion gasped. “How dare you!?” The courtroom broke.
“You think you know your mom,” he said, shaking his head, “and she goes out and blatantly does that.”
Caprio turned to Michelle with a grin. “You are being chastised right now, and rightfully so. You’ve got a great kid.”
A woman testifies in court. Photo credit: Canva When Caprio asked about Arion’s autism, Michelle was candid. It had been hard, she said, especially with his father out of the picture. As she spoke, Arion stepped in, not to deflect but to reframe it entirely. He told Caprio that despite being teased, he had never seen his diagnosis as a problem.
“I’m proud to have my autism because it makes me who I am now.”
Caprio paused. “I am so impressed.”
He invited Arion up to the bench, shook his hand, and asked for his verdict. The boy picked up the gavel, brought it down, and announced: “Case dismissed.”
(L) 12-year-old Arion Verdayo speaks to the judge. (R) Judge Frank Caprio speaks during hearing. Photo course: Facebook | Caught In Providence “You won your case,” Caprio told Michelle. “Your boy presented you well.” He closed by echoing something Arion had said earlier: “Just because you’re different doesn’t mean that you should be treated differently, because we’re all human beings.”
Judge Frank Caprio presided over the Providence Municipal Court for nearly four decades and built a YouTube following of close to three million subscribers through Caught in Providence. He died on August 20, 2025, at 88, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was remembered widely as the nicest judge in the world. It is not hard to see why.
This article originally appeared two years ago.
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You were born with a playlist already in your soul: Why science says musicality is hardwired
We are born with a musical blueprint that might actually be older than language itself
Every parent has seen that magical moment when a toddler, barely able to stand, starts bouncing perfectly in time to a catchy beat. It turns out that those rhythmic wobbles are not just cute accidents. According to a report from Neuroscience News, humans are actually born with a “music blueprint” that is hardwired into our biology.
The evidence suggests that our musicality is an ancient capacity that might even predate the development of human language. As Brighter Side reported, music cognition professor Henkjan Honing has spent two decades researching how our brains process sound. His findings indicate that we do not just learn to like music through culture or upbringing. Instead, we are born with a dedicated capacity for it.
Professor Honing explained that these abilities emerge spontaneously in infants. Babies respond to melody and rhythm without any formal instruction, which suggests that we come into the world with a biological predisposition for musical structures.
To test how deep this goes, researchers even looked at other species. In one experiment, macaque monkeys were able to synchronize with complex rhythms, suggesting that the building blocks of music are shared across different branches of the evolutionary tree.
While we often think of music as a hobby, for many it is a lifeline. According to data from Edison Research, the average member of Gen Z spends over four hours a day listening to music. About 86 percent of those young listeners told researchers that music is a primary tool for boosting their mood, and 61 percent said it helps support their mental health.
This deep connection makes sense if music is a fundamental part of our species. Professor Honing noted that musicality is a combination of many traits, including our understanding of pitch, timing, and intervals. While songbirds and marine animals show some of these traits, humans have a unique and integrated system for it.
The next time a certain song touches your heart or makes you want to dance, you can thank your own biology. It is not just a vibe. It is a part of what makes us human. As Professor Honing concluded, we are simply musical beings by nature.
This article originally appeared earlier this year.
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