Watch A Jerktacular U.S. Immigration Officer Deport A Lady He Probably Shouldn't Be Deporting. EVER.
Look, if you are against immigration reform, then let's get realistic about who we should deport. Starting with this lady. Otherwise, we're gonna need a realistic path to citizenship for people.
If you think she should be deported, click here. If you don't think she should be deported, click here. AND if you think more people should see this, you could totally share it. (ALSO, WARNING: THIS IS SATIRE.) Totally your call though.
Brendan Fraser might be making the greatest career comeback ever, racking up accolades and award nominations for his dramatic, transformative role in “The Whale." But the OG Fraser fans (the ones who watch “Doom Patrol” solely to hear his voice and proudly pronounce his last name as Fray-zure, for this is the proper pronunciation) have known of his remarkable talent since the 90s, when he embodied the ultimate charming, dashing—and slightly goofball—Hollywood action lead.
Let us not forget his arguably most well known and beloved 90s character—Rick O’Connell from the “Mummy” franchise. Between his quippy one-liners, Indiana Jones-like adventuring skills and fabulous hair, what’s not to like?
During a double feature of “The Mummy” and “The Mummy Returns” in London, moviegoers got the ultimate surprise when who should walk in but Brendan Fraser himself, completely decked out in Rick O’Connell attire. The brown leather jacket. The scarf. Everything.
"I am proud to stand before you tonight," he told the audience. "This is a film that was made in Britain. You should know that! Even the second one, too. Be proud. Thank you for being here."
He continued, "We didn’t know if it was a drama or a comedy or a straight-ahead action or romance, a horror picture, more action, all of the above. No idea until it tested in front of British audiences. Thank you for that.”
Fraser then asked the crowd if anyone hadn’t actually seen the movie yet, before shouting, “Outstanding!” when somebody raised their hand. He then quickly made a polite plug encouraging people to go see “The Whale” before whisking himself away, saying, “I won’t take up any more of your time.”
Uh, yeah…I don’t think any time spent with Brendan Fraser is a waste. Do you?
Watch the adorable clip below:
As to whether or not "Mummy" fans will ever see a new Rick O'Connell story up on the big screen—only time will tell. In the meantime, we'll keep watching this video on repeat.
Even though the United States is going through a labor shortage, high-profile jobs are still tough as ever to get. In a world where hundreds of applicants send in their resumes for the same job, it can be hard to stand out.
Karly Pavlinac Blackburn of Wilmington, North Carolina, was lamenting that the jobs she wanted were too competitive when a colleague suggested the 27-year-old do something dramatic to get her name out there.
"I was actually talking to my former colleague about getting in front of employers—and he was like, 'Well, Karly you need to do better ... show up in a creative way ... what about a resume on a cake?'" she told Good Morning America.
So Blackburn did just that.
Blackburn dreamed of getting a job at Nike’s new business incubator, Valiant Labs in Beaverton, Oregon. So she decided she’d get a cake with her resume printed on top and send it to the person who makes hiring decisions. She picked the perfect day to send the cake, September 8, 2022, or as they call it in Beaverton, Just Do It Day.
But it wasn’t going to be that easy. She couldn’t just drive over to a bakery, pick up a cake and deliver it to Nike 3,000 miles away.
\u201cKarly Pavlinac Blackburn, the #PoolePack alumna who recently sent her resume to @Nike on a cake, was a part of the Andrews Launch Accelerator a few years ago. \ud83c\udf82 \n\nRead her story. \u27a1\ufe0f https://t.co/g2Mjmq1Ht9 @NCStateAlumni\u201d
— NC State Poole College of Management (@NC State Poole College of Management)
1664395186
She ordered the cake ahead of time at an Albertson’s grocery store near the Nike campus and contacted Instacart to make the delivery. Luckily for Blackburn, the delivery driver was Denise Baldwin, a single mother of three, who goes the extra mile for her customers.
"That’s just how I do my Instacart. Like every order I take, I take it as if I was putting groceries in my home or taking stuff to my spot or a family member that needs help," Baldwin told Today. "I take every order into consideration and make sure I do my best with every order."
With the delicate sheet cake in one hand and her 8-month-old son in the other, Baldwin traversed the 300-acre Nike campus and wouldn’t stop until she found her person. "I knew navigating Nike’s large campus was a feat, but combining a giant party with tons of people on top of that adds another layer of complexity to this delivery," Blackburn wrote on LinkedIn.
Even though security asked Baldwin to leave the cake at the front desk, she was firm that she had to hand deliver it to the correct person. With the help of security, she was able to do just that.
"You have inspired me," Baldwin told Blackburn. "This was meant to be. I am a mom and I am tired of doing Instacart. I know I have more abilities and qualifications to get something better. I'm so glad this worked for the both of us."
Blackburn posted about the cake delivery on LinkedIn where it went viral, receiving over 132,000 likes. Even though she didn’t get a job at Nike, her resume got her a lot of attention from potential employers.
On Monday, January 30, Blackburn will start a new job at CureMint.
"I will be the director of growth marketing at a software startup called CureMint—we make software that helps dental companies automate their business," she told Good Morning America. "To be on the other side of the job hunt feels good. It has definitely been a roller coaster with the virality of the LinkedIn post."
Blackburn hopes that her unique way of approaching her job search inspires others to find imaginative ways to get themselves noticed.
"Don't be afraid to do something out of the box and never give up on what you really want,” she told Good Morning America. “Because it will happen, you just have to keep going."
An estimated 50-70% of the population doesn't have an internal monologue.
The notion of living without an internal monologue is a fairly new one. Until psychologist Russell Hurlburt’s studies started coming out in the late 90s, it was widely accepted that everyone had a little voice narrating in their head. Now Hurlburt, who has been studying people's "inner experience" for 40 years, estimates that only 30-50% of the population frequently think this way.
So what about the other 50-70%? What exactly goes on inside their heads from day to day?
In a video interview originally posted in 2020, a woman named Kirsten Carlson gave some insight into this question, sharing how not having an inner dialogue affected her reading and writing, her interactions with others and how she navigates mental challenges like anxiety and depression. It was eye-opening and mind-blowing.
Reading isn’t a particularly enjoyable activity, Carlson admitted, explaining that rather than seeing images of characters and landscapes, she only sees words.
“In my head, every sentence has a shape so you can see the shape of a sentence. Keywords will pop out and I can file those away into my concept map, so at the end of reading something I can have a concept map of the main topics that I read about. It's not images, it's just the words."
That said, she is apparently a “very fast” reader.
This concept alone was hard for viewers to grasp. As one person wrote, “She's broken my mind. I don't even understand what I'm not understanding. I've never visualized a sentence in my life.”
While she “never daydreams," Carlson does dream at night. However, she doesn’t recall any dialogue in those dreams. Carlson also shared that her alone time is always spent doing stuff like cleaning, cooking, watching Netflix and studying. I can only imagine the things I’d accomplish if I didn’t get sidetracked with existential questions like “Is a hotdog a sandwich?” If only.
While Carlson’s way of thinking might seem vastly different from the norm, there are several commonalities. Like most people, she has stores of information that she can pull up at any time. Thoughts still can keep her up at night, even if she does picture her endless to-do lists rather than hear them. And not having an inner monologue offers no protection against things like anxiety or depression, which Carlson explains manifest physically for her. Rather than feeling mental overload, her hands will start shaking, her stomach might get nauseated, and she’ll feel physically fatigued or disinterested in life.
Watch the video below:
As our understanding (and appreciation) of neurodiversity becomes more evolved, it’s likely that we’ll have even more fascinating conversations to absorb. No two people interpret the world that same way. Celebrating these differences reminds us that there is no one “right” way of thinking.
"You can’t just say, 'I want to be a dentist,'” judge Simon Cowell told the duo.
Back in 2014, cello-playing brothers Emil and Dariel wowed "America’s Got Talent" audiences with their cello rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s "Purple Haze," even becoming finalists for the season.
After getting invited back to participate in "America’s Got Talent: All Stars," the duo once again rocked the house with an epic cover of "Take On Me." This classic A-ha tune has been covered a lot, so the fact that these two gave it fresh new life is no easy feat.
However, judge Simon Cowell remained unimpressed.
While he admitted that "the track is great," he ultimately dubbed the performers as "boring." And when the two cellists shared that they were actually pursuing a career in dentistry, not stardom, Cowell became visibly flustered, even going so far as to mime stabbing himself in the chest with a pen.
"This is not enough. There must be a dream. Something that’s inspired you. You can’t just say, 'I want to be a dentist,'" the judge lamented.
"Wow… We are so humbled by the heartfelt outpouring of support you have shown us since the airing of our performance on AGT All Stars," the duo wrote. "[It] warms our hearts and reminds us why we set out to perform in the first place."
While they explained how their story was "sadly cut in the edit"—leaving out an anecdote about learning to play cello and pursue the American Dream from their immigrant grandfather, as well as their intention to "light a spark of inspiration in the hearts of the kids that are labeled as 'outcasts' or 'uncool'" through their music—the main purpose of their statement was to address Cowell’s "derogatory comments towards our lifelong dream of becoming dentists."
It’s lengthy, but worth a read. They held nothing back.
"Dear Simon,
Hopefully, this message finds you well. The purpose of this letter is not to direct any negativity towards you, rather we hope this will serve as an eye-opener to the impact of your words. On Monday, January 23rd, the episode in which you called us out and went out of your way to belittle us for pursuing a career in dentistry debuted. On behalf of the outpouring of current and aspiring health care professionals from around the world who have reached out in response to your comments making a mockery of our choice to pursue a career in dentistry, we demand you take responsibility for your actions and issue a formal apology to the more than 700,000 dentists around the world who are committed to serving their communities.
Since we were little kids, aside from being classically trained cellists, we had the dream of following in our dad’s footsteps to become dentists. Coming from a family of three generations of dental professionals beginning in Kiev, Ukraine, this profession runs in our blood. This profession means more to us than a line of work; it’s our family lineage and calling. We are proud of our decision to pursue a craft that will allow us to positively impact people’s lives. The dental profession is hard at work every day with the mission of helping people attain the health and confidence they desire.
In response to why we decided to be a part of your show, we are well-attuned to the fact that you’re not searching for America’s Next Top Dentist. But you/your producers invited us, as finalists from Season 9, to perform among the 'best of the best' to share what we have been up to since the last time the world saw us. What an honor to be considered ‘All Stars,’ we thought. We presupposed this is far different from a typical AGT audition. After much deliberation, we ultimately decided to carve time out of our busy school schedules and perform due to the show’s wide reach with the hopes that someone watching us will think they too could feel cool playing an instrument that was never traditionally considered as such.
We love playing music together, especially rock n’ roll. Always have and always will. But we have no intention of making a career out of music. This may be atypical for someone in your line of work, but there are those individuals in the world who find a noble purpose outside of pursuing ‘stardom,’ not that there is anything wrong with that.
Please know this: Your words do not offend us, as they have no bearing on our life’s trajectory. They do, however, have weight and consequences on the decisions of young, aspiring health care professionals listening to you that may think twice about pursuing a noble career in caring for others. We are proud to be dental professionals and will not pretend otherwise, no matter how many times your producers attempt to rewrite our story. Above all, we are proud to dedicate our lives to building people up instead of putting them down. We were expecting that your disparaging remarks would make air, after experiencing the beatdown in person. But we did not expect the footage to be so heavily manipulated from what actually happened. Thankfully, most viewers saw right through that, but there are still those that place value behind what a man of your privileged stature says, which is why you, Simon, should consider thinking twice before you speak. Thank you for your valuable time.
Best wishes,
Emil & Dariel"
Perhaps they have a point. While it might not make for good television (which is entirely debatable), there is nothing wrong with having an artistic passion and focusing on what could be labeled as a more "humble" profession. Not everyone wants to make their art into a career. That doesn’t make the art any less important. And, as the statement pointed out, there is nothing undignified about wanting to help people. What’s really inspiring here isn’t Emil and Dariel’s musical talents, or even seeing them stand up for their beliefs. It’s that they have decided, no matter what they do in life, to be a force for good in the world. That’s an act that never gets boring.
At a time when Americans are struggling with historic inflation, rising housing costs and elevated gas prices, Walmart, the country’s largest private employer, has announced it’s raising its minimum wage to $14 an hour. The raise is roughly a 17% percentage jump for people who work on the floor of the retail giant.
Walmart has 1.7 million employees in the United States, 94% of which are hourly workers.
The decision doesn’t just benefit Walmart employees. In a country where the federal minimum wage is a paltry $7.25 an hour—and has been for 14 years—Walmart acts as a de facto minimum wage in some parts of the country, especially the South. The highest minimum wage in the U.S. is in Washington State where it’s $15.74.
Twenty states in the U.S. currently have the state minimum wage set at $7.25 an hour or less or have no minimum wage set at all.
In addition to the pay raise, Walmart is expanding its Live Better U program, which covers tuition fees for part- and full-time workers. It will also recruit employees to become truck drivers, who can make up to $110,000 in their first year.
The raise will also put pressure on other employers to raise their pay in areas where Walmart has a strong foothold in the labor market.
The raise will bring Walmart closer to other big-box retailers such as Best Buy, Target and Amazon, which all have a $15 minimum wage.
It’s interesting to note that, for the past decade, there has been a Fight for 15 movement in the U.S. to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour across the country. Although that movement has stalled in many parts of the U.S., the labor market has forced countless retailers to raise their minimum wages to near the magical number.
Walmart is giving raises even though the economy seems to be headed for a recession. But the tight labor market has pushed wages upwards.
Currently, there are 10.5 million job openings in the U.S. and 6 million unemployed people. The labor shortage of 4 million people has meant that employers need to keep their employees happy before they jump ship and look for greener pastures.
The move is also a positive development for Walmart, which has historically paid very low wages to workers, driving down pay across the country because it was such a massive employer. Ten years ago, the average hourly worker at Walmart made $8.81 an hour.
Now, things seem to be going the other way with Walmart being forced to raise its wages to keep up with its competitors.
“We’re proud to continue investing in Walmart’s legacy by introducing new job opportunities and raising pay,” Walmart’s president and CEO John Furne, told employees in a memo announcing the raise. “No matter where you are in your journey, getting your start here can open doors—the first step into jobs that become careers and build better lives. Thank you for all you do to serve our customers and communities every day.”
Little boy and his mom get surprised with tickets to Eagles game.
In today's world, it's easy to get caught up in all the negative news we're exposed to, but in reality, most good deeds are done away from a camera—just one person helping another without desire for fanfare. And for mom Bryanne McBride and her young son, Mason, that's exactly what they were doing when they got the surprise of a lifetime.
Bryanne was approached by a man in a parking lot asking for a dollar to catch the bus. The entire time, the mom scrounged around in her purse looking for spare change and revealed she felt bad because she thought she had some. Bryanne's desire to help was a simple act of kindness to another human in need without the expectation of something in return.
During the time it took for the unsuspecting mother to dig for loose change, the "stranded" stranger, Zach, introduced himself and asked if the duo were from Philly. Once they said they were from the area, he then inquired if they were Eagles fans...the football team, not the birds. "You ever been to an Eagles game?" Zach asked.
The two quickly said no but the mom was focused on retrieving some quarters for this stranger. Zach continued to question them about the Eagles game, asking, "Would you want to go one day?" The answer was an enthusiastic yes, though Bryanne never broke her gaze from the purse as she looked for change. When she finally relented that she had no money in her purse and would need to check her car, she came back to a surprise.
Zach asked why Bryanne was so willing to help him and her response was just more evidence that she's simply a kind person. "I hate telling people no, especially when I can help," she said. After she handed him the money, he gave it to Mason and said he didn't actually need it before handing the generous mom $500 in cash. But Zach wasn't done—he had tickets to the Eagles game that night and gave the mother and son the tickets.
