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Why a yes-or-no question for job seekers is now a topic of hope for millions of Americans.

Have you ever been convicted of a felony?

That's an uncomfortable question to have to answer. Especially if you're trying to get a job. And having to respond by checking a box "yes" or "no" — without much room for additional information — doesn't seem fair.

Image via the City of Baton Rouge.

If you disclose a criminal background to a potential employer, it's hard to know whether it was held against you.

Unless, of course, you get the job, which is unlikely for former convicts, according to a study by Princeton and Northwestern universities. It's a problem that could affect millions, as over 600,000 people exit prison every year.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images.

As part of a broad plan to stem mass incarceration, President Obama is asking federal agencies to hold criminal background inquiries for later in their hiring processes to avoid potential discrimination. But the president is not alone on the issue.

A growing number of political leaders want to "ban the box" by removing the question from job applications.

Laws banning the box have passed in 19 states and over 100 cities from every nook of the country. They're known as "fair chance" laws.

Photo by Larry French/Getty Images for ColorOfChange.org.

The idea isn't to get rid of a safeguard. Employers still have the right to run background checks. Banning the box just levels the playing field for folks with criminal pasts who want to rejoin the workforce but are likely to be dismissed solely because of their pasts.

These laws are passing with strong support from Democrats and Republicans at all levels of government.

At the municipal level, for example, New York City's fair chance law passed in a landslide, and the Louisville, Kentucky, city council passed a law without dissent.

And at the state level, the Nebraska legislature unanimously passed a fair chance law in 2014, making it the first "red" state to take the action. Just months later, GOP presidential candidate Gov. Chris Christie signed a fair chance hiring bill into law in New Jersey.

“Everyone deserves a second chance in New Jersey. Today, we're banning the box." — Gov. Chris Christie. Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images.

City officials in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, are among the latest to join the ban-the-box movement. In one of the highest-crime cities in the country, many Baton Rouge residents face hiring discrimination because of their criminal records.

City council member C. Denise Marcelle sees fair chance laws as an important way to change the trend by opening doors for ex-cons to make a living without crime.

Photo by the City of Baton Rouge.

A federal "ban the box" bill — the Fair Chance Act — has been introduced by a bipartisan group in Congress.

And a bizarre alliance of lobbies agree on the issue. Among them are the NAACP, the ACLU, and — wait for it — the Koch brothers.

Banning the box has also surfaced in the 2016 presidential race, particularly among the candidates for the Democratic nomination. Hopefully issues like it — ones that are plainly about doing what's right — can pierce the static and keep us focused on what's really at stake when we're choosing our leadership.

Here's a lighter take on banning the box by "The Daily Show" that sheds a little more light on why it's gaining so much support:

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ACUVUE launches a new campaign to inspire Gen Z to put down their phones and follow their vision

What will you create on your social media break? Share it at #MyVisionMySight.

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If you’ve always lived in a world with social media, it can be tough to truly understand how it affects your life. One of the best ways to grasp its impact is to take a break to see what life is like without being tethered to your phone and distracted by a constant stream of notifications.

Knowing when to disconnect is becoming increasingly important as younger people are becoming aware of the adverse effects screen time can have on their eyes. According to Eyesafe Nielsen, adults are now spending 13-plus hours a day on their digital devices, a 35% increase from 2019.1. Many of us now spend more time staring at screens on a given day than we do sleeping which can impact our eye health.

Normally, you blink around 15 times per minute, however, focusing your eyes on computer screens or other digital displays have been shown to reduce your blink rate by up to 60%.2 Reduced blinking can destabilize your eyes’ tear film, causing dry, tired eyes and blurred vision.3

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Mom who packs her child a meal when going out to restaurants has parents fired up

Does she have a good point?

via UnbreakableMomma/TikTok

Karlie Smith shows the meal she's bringing to the restaurant for her son.

A mom who admitted she packs her 2-year-old a meal when they go out to dinner has started an interesting debate on TikTok about restaurant etiquette and how it applies to young children.

The video posted by Ohio mom, Karlie Smith (unbreakablemomma on TikTok), has received nearly 600,000 views and has over 1,850 comments.

“Call me cheap, call me whatever, but if we’re going out to a restaurant, I’m packing my kid a meal," Smith, 21, said in her post. "I do this for many reasons. On Friday nights, my family and I get together, and tonight, we’re getting food out. My son is not getting food out.”

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Man rewatches shows from his childhood and his recaps of the bonkers storylines are priceless

Rob Anderson's hilarious recaps of shows like "Mighty Ducks," "Beethoven," and "7th Heaven" might make you wonder how they got made in the first place.

@hearthrobert/TikTok

These plots makes zero sense.

While there are no doubt some timeless classics from our childhood that remain every bit as amazing as we remember, many are straight-up cringey upon a later viewing. Really, it’s to be expected as societal viewpoints change…sort of a marker of how far we’ve collectively come.

And so, what do we do with these problematic pieces of old-school pop culture? Well, we can certainly update them to better reflect a more modern attitude, but that also comes with a set of potential problems. Or we could simply never watch them again. Certainly an option given all the content out there. But then we might miss an opportunity to better understand what seemed to work for the mainstream then, and why it doesn’t work now.

And then there’s the third option—allow ourselves to be entertained by their cringiness.

That’s certainly the route taken by Rob Anderson. Over on TikTok, Anderson has taken ultra-popular movies and television shows from his childhood and given them hilarious recaps capturing how absurd some of the storylines are.
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18-year-old took her college savings and bought the restaurant where she was a dishwasher

Samantha Frye, the newest owner of Rosalie's restaurant, is proving there's more than one way to invest in your future.

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There are many way to invest in your future

Eighteen year old Samantha Frye has traded college life for entrepreneurship, and she has no regrets.

Frye began working at Rosalie's Restaurant in Strasburg, Ohio at 16 as a dishwasher, working up the ranks as a kitchen prep, server, then line cook. All while working a second job, sometimes third job.

After graduating high school, Frye started college at Ohio State with plans of studying business or environmental engineering. But when she came back to work a shift at Rosalie’s for winter break, an opportunity arose—the owners had planned to sell the restaurant.
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Woman decides that she is the love of her life and marries herself at her retirement home

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77-year-old woman decides she's the love of her life and marries herself.

We joke about marrying ourselves or a platonic friend if some arbitrary amount of time has passed without a proposal from an imaginary suitor. And sure, some people do wind up marrying a friend in more of a business arrangement, but it's not very common that someone follows through with marrying themselves.

Dorothy "Dottie" Fideli, decided that she was going to break the mold. The 77-year-old sat down and thought about all of the things she had done in life and who was with her the entire time cheering her on. It was an easy answer: herself. She was her biggest cheerleader, the person who always showed up and the love of her life, so Fideli made the plan to marry herself.

On a beautiful May day, friends and family gathered in the O’Bannon Terrace Retirement Community, where Fideli is a resident, to witness the ceremony.

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12-year-old Texas girl saves her family from carbon monoxide poisoning

She knew something was wrong with her mom and brother, which wound up saving her whole family.

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Fort Worth 12-year-old helps save family from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Carbon monoxide is called a silent killer for a reason. Many people don't realize they're experiencing carbon monoxide poisoning before it's too late. The gas is colorless and odorless and tends to have a sedating effect that causes people to sleep through the fatal poisoning. Having carbon monoxide detectors is one of the most effective ways to identify the gas before it's too late to get out of the house, but not every home has one.

A little girl in Fort Worth, Texas, experienced a terrifying encounter with the deadly gas, but her quick actions saved her entire family. Jaziyah Parker is being held up as a hero after she realized something was wrong with her family members and called for help.

The girl called 911 after she noticed her mom pass out. On the call with the dispatcher, Jaziyah says she thinks her mother has died before explaining that there was something now wrong with her baby brother, who was just 5-months-old.

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In a touching, unscripted moment, Drew Barrymore rushes to comfort a crying audience member

"Are you okay?"

via Eva Rinaldi/Flickr

Drew Barrymore speaks during the FLOWER Beauty launch at Westfield Parramatta on April 13, 2019, in Sydney, Australia.

Drew Barrymore, 48, has been in the public consciousness since she starred as Gertie in 1982’s mega-blockbuster, “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” a performance that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. So, it makes sense that many people of a certain age feel as if they’ve grown up with her.

Barrymore has consistently starred in hit films and movies that are rewatchable cable-TV staples, such as “Charlie's Angels” (2000), “Never Been Kissed” (1999), “Scream” (1996), “The Wedding Singer” (1998), “50 First Dates” (2004) and “Fever Pitch” (2005).

Now, she’s an even more significant part of people’s lives as the host of “The Drew Barrymore Show,” which runs every weekday on CBS. So far, the show has been a big success, attracting an average of 1.21 million views per show, and ranks as the #4 talk show in syndication. It was recently renewed through the 2024 season.

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