upworthy
Heroes

Woman saves clerk from robbery using her martial arts skills while wearing high heels

The 42-year-old has a black belt.

person dressed in all black to resemble a robber; woman in gi and green belt performing karate

Woman saves clerk from robbery while wearing high heels.

Ginger Rogers once said, "There's nothing a man can do, that I can't do better and in heels." The quote is often used to celebrate the ability of women, but recently one woman was awarded for bringing the famous quote to life when a local convenience store was about to be robbed. Mairi Kerin, 42, stopped by the store to purchase some chocolate for her nieces when she was forced to make a split second decision.

The woman stands at the counter to pay for the treats when a masked man in a hood walks up next to her. Kerin is already cautious of the man due to noticing him in the parking lot appearing suspicious, she explains to SWNS, "As I got out of the car I noticed this person all covered up and thought, ‘You look like you’re going to rob a shop’," before quickly shaking the thought with a reminder. "You can’t think that about people, can’t pigeon-hole people like that… Maybe he’s just got a bike somewhere, he’s been out riding, or whatever.”

But her instincts were right; the man was up to no good and she was about to find out in just a few seconds. The shopkeeper notices the hooded man put something against the door to block it. This prompted the shopkeeper to ask why. The hooded man's answer was chilling. According to Kerin, he calmly replied, "Because I’m going to take your money."

Kerin may have appeared uncomfortable due to breaking in a new pair of heels, but that didn't stop her from utilizing her fighting skills. The woman is a medal-winning Wado-kai karate black belt who has is also trained in Brazilian jujitsu and boxing. Though she was struggling through pain, she managed to quickly thwart the would-be robber. Watch:

"I was wearing new heels at the time and I was trying to break them in–I hadn’t worn heels since lockdown so I needed some practice. That, the bad back, and just not being in the mood resulted in that swagger back to the desk. It makes me laugh when I watch it now," she says to Metro UK.

The man, later identified as Jordan Hickman, probably also walked away a little funny because when Kerin hears the man say he's planning to rob the store, she swiftly assesses the situation and takes action. Noticing his hand in his pocket likely on a weapon, the woman grabs his arm and delivers several powerful kicks in his shin causing the criminal to flee. The entire ordeal was caught on CCTV, aiding in the capture of Hickman and two others—21-year-old Jake Jones and an 18-year-old—who had all been on a robbery spree in Telford, England. All three men were sentenced to a combined 18 years in prison and Kerin was awarded with a Police Chief Superintendent Commendation Award by West Mercia Police for her heroic action.

If you're wondering if Kerin was frightened when fighting off the criminal in her heels, she wasn't afraid at all.

















"The time was right, and I’m glad I was there. People have asked whether I was scared. No, I was not. I’ve imagined taking the legs of far more people than I will ever need to and have trained with this type of event in mind for over 20 years. I have sparred in full-contact sessions with people far heavier than me and have been through the mill many times. In my opinion this is not stupidity or bravado, it’s a reflection of self-belief," Kerin told Metro UK.

While the woman may not be impressed by her achievement, plenty of others are, especially since she did it with aching feet in a brand new pair of high heels.

Pets

Four guys asked their new neighbor if they could walk her dog. Then the dog wrote back.

"If you ever get bored, we are more than happy to look after him/her."

via Stevieticks / Instagram

A black dog and a note form "the boys from number 23."

If you've lived your whole life with a dog, a home has to feel pretty empty without one. Your heart has to feel like there's something missing as well. When Jack McCrossan, originally from Scotland, moved to Bristol, England with his three friends, they were bummed out to learn that their landlord didn't allow dogs.

So when they saw a beautiful black Sheprador (a German Sheppard Lab mix) in their neighbor's window, they knew that had to become buddies with her. They wrote the dog's owner, Sarah Tolman, a letter asking to arrange a play date with the dog. "If you ever need someone to walk him/her, we will gladly do so," they wrote.

"If you ever get bored (we know you never will, but we can dream), we are more than happy to look after him/her. If you want to come over and bring him/her to brighten our day, you are more than welcome. If you want to walk past our balcony windows so we can see him/her, please do," the letter continued.


"We hope this doesn't come too strong, but our landlord won't allow pets, and we've all grown up with animals. The adult life is a struggle without one," they wrote. "Yours sincerely, The boys from number 23," the letter concluded.

Soon after, the boys in 23 received a response from the dog herself, Stevie Ticks, accepting the offer. However, it may have been written by her human, Sarah Tolman. In the letter, Stevie shares a bit about herself, saying she's two years and four months old, was adopted in Cyprus, and that she's "very friendly and full of beans." (The boys shouldn't worry about a gassy hound, in England, "full of beans" means lively.)


"I love meeting new people and it would be great if we can be friends. I must warn you that the price of my friendship is 5 x ball throws a day and belly scratches whenever I demand them," the letter continued. A few days later, the boys got to meet Stevie. "Meeting Stevie was great!" McCrossan told Buzzfeed. "She was definitely as energetic as described. We got to take her for a walk and she wouldn't stop running!"

black labrador, dogs, dog-walkers, kind nieghbors, stevieticks, bristol, ukA black labrador (representative image).via Canva/Photos

Tolman thought the boys' letter was a fantastic gesture in an era where, quote often, neighbors are strangers. "In a day and age where people don't really know or speak to their neighbors, it was really nice for them to break down that barrier," she said. After the story went viral, she saw it as an opportunity for people to share their love of dogs with the world. "My mother and I are amazed at all the love we've received from around the world these past few days," Tolman wrote as Stevie. "If you have a doggo in your life, share that love with those around you."

A lot has changed in the past 6 years since this story warmed hearts around the globe. The boys have since moved away, but as of September 2024, Stevie is around 8 years old and still doing well. Her keeper and Sarah's partner, Chris Bowley, shared an update on Instagram. "[The boys] sadly moved out of Bristol. However, we have always tried to keep the ethos going of Stevie having as many friends and meetups as possible," Bowley wrote.


This article originally appeared six years ago.

Tom Hanks speaking to a crowd in London in 2023.

Tom Hanks, 68, has had an incredible career as an actor, playing lead roles in iconic films such as Forest Gump, Philadelphia, Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, and Sleepless in Seattle. He also has remarkable longevity in the business, having been on the A-list for the last 40-plus years. He picked up one of the secrets to his success at age 21 when a frustrated director shared some practical wisdom he'd never forget.

Hanks shared his advice on June 15, 2023, during “An Evening with Tom Hanks,” in London, hosted by fellow actor Richard E. Grant (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Gosford Park). As a young man, Hanks worked for a repertory theater, doing background roles and working as an understudy on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shew, when the lead actors came to rehearsal hungover and didn’t know their lines. This angered the director, who demanded they come to work like professionals.

What's the best advice Tom Hanks ever received?

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“This is my job, and it's your job here. And I can't tell you guys what to do every time. Stop asking me where you should be. Stop asking what the motivation is. That's your job,” Hanks recalled the director saying before delivering advice that would change his life: “You gotta show up on time. You have to know the text, and you have to have an idea.”

The best advice Tom Hanks ever received: “You gotta show up on time. You have to know the text, and you have to have an idea.”

The advice changed how Hanks approached being a professional actor and helped propel him to the industry's top. The strange thing for Hanks is that it’s advice that many actors still need to hear. “You tell me, are there not a ton of actors that are working who don't do any of those things? And they still get to come and get paid to do it?” he told Grant.

tom hanks elvis, tom hanks australia, tom parker, hanks advice, tom hanks roles, how to act, directorsTom Hanks at the "Elvis" premiere in Australia. via Eva Rinaldi/Wikimedia Commons

Hanks elaborated on the three pieces of advice, adding that showing up on time means “a little bit early,” and knowing the texts means understanding "what’s going on” and being prepared. Finally, " having an idea” means bringing something to the table that will “move it a little further down the line.”

When you boil all of Hank’s advice down to its core, it means to take the initiative. Show up early, be prepared for what you must do, and then improve upon the situation by bringing some fresh ideas to share. From the director’s perspective, it’s invaluable to work with actors who want to enhance their vision so they don't have to control every aspect of the production.


Whether it’s a director, your boss, or your spouse, there’s nothing people love more than being able to depend on those who care enough to go the extra mile so that the project is a success. Show that you’re more than just an actor looking for fame, an employee looking for a paycheck, or a spouse who wants little more than to keep a roof over their head.

Hanks’ advice is great for anyone who wants to go above and beyond and become an integral part of a team. As actor Steve Martin once said, “Be so good that you’re undeniable.” It’s no wonder that Hanks has had such a great career. He took the director's advice to heart and became one of the most successful and beloved actors of all time.

Diane Tirado/Facebook

Left: Teacher Diane Tirado. Right: The note she left for students after being fired.

If you're of the mind that kids today are being coddled and not properly prepared for the real world, well, you might want to buckle up for this one. The story out of a public school in Florida has parents and teachers alike up in arms.

A Florida teacher was fired for giving her students zeros for missing assignments. Diane Tirado has been a teacher for years. Most recently, she was an eighth-grade history teacher at Westgate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Diane recently gave her students two weeks to complete an Explorer notebook project, but several students simply didn't hand it in. Since there was zero work done, Diane gave them zeros.

She got fired for it.

schools, teachers, education, grades, students, parentsMichael Scott from The Office saying "What?"Giphy

The elementary school has a rule called the “no zero policy."

The lowest possible grade that teachers can give students is a 50, even if they don't turn anything in. That means that an extremely poor completed assignment is worth the same number of points as no assignment at all.

Hardly seems fair, right? Westgate is far from the only school that has such a policy, however.

whiteboard, education, classroom, teacher, middle school, 8th grade A message written on the whiteboard for her students after Diane Tirado was firedDiane Tirado/Facebook

It's a rule that Diane, unsurprisingly, does not agree with. After she was fired for disobeying, she left her students a charming goodbye message on the whiteboard.

"Bye kids. Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life. I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50 percent for not handing anything in. Love, Mrs. Tirado"

The scale, as outlined by the school, reads as follows:

A = 90 to 100
B = 80 to 89
C = 70-79
D = 60-69
F = 50-59

Diane later shared the story on Facebook, hoping to spread awareness about the school's policy.

“A grade in Mrs. Tirado's class is earned," she said.

“I'm so upset because we have a nation of kids that are expecting to get paid and live their life just for showing up and it's not real."

Diane's post has gone viral, and most commenters agree with her position – it's not fair to hand out grades for work that doesn't exist.

No zero policies are common in many schools, and teachers notoriouslyhate them. But it's at least worth considering why they exist. Some educators say it's because when a student earns a zero, it's very difficult for them to ever recover their grade in that class. In other words, it may be too harsh. Others argue that, if you don't want a zero, don't turn in nothing! Getting an earned-zero is a great way to learn to at least try.

A follow up statement from the school stated: "Ms. Tirado was released from her duties as an instructor because her performance was deemed sub-standard and her interactions with students, staff, and parents lacked professionalism and created a toxic culture on the school’s campus. ... During her brief time of employment at West Gate, the school fielded numerous student and parent complaints as well as concerns from colleagues. Based on new information shared with school administrators, an investigation of possible physical abuse is underway."

However, school representatives did not deny the existence of the no zero policy, and Tirado claims the school engaged in a smear campaign after she became a "whistleblower" on their policies. She's currently considering legal action against the district.

Still, the debate over the grading policy rages on.

“The reason I took on this fight was because it was ridiculous. Teaching should not be this hard," Diane said.

This article originally appeared 6 years ago.

The moon nearly had a man-made crater on it.

Over the past 70 years, scientists have created detailed maps of the entire surface of the moon in minute detail, right down to every crater and rock formation. But those maps almost looked a lot different, considering the fact that the United States wanted to detonate a nuclear bomb on the surface of the moon a decade before we sent the first humans there.

That's right, Project A119 (which might as well have been called Project Nuke the Moon) was a real U.S. Air Force project to send an atomic bomb to the moon and detonate it in a spot where the explosion would be seen from Earth. Why? Because we could, and because we wanted the Kremlin to see that we could, in a nutshell.

That team of scientists working on the project included a young graduate student named Carl Sagan. Yes, that Carl Sagan, who became one of the most famous and beloved cosmologists and science communicators of all time. If you're wondering whether he thought nuking the moon was a whackadoodle idea or not, apparently he was at least somewhat on board with it. He thought it might reveal information about possible microbes or organic compounds on the moon.

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Let's step back for a minute here. This was the 1950s, a time when much of our scientific advancements and nearly all of our space research was inextricably linked to the Cold War. Support for science was largely dictated by political and military aims, which left scientists to mold their own goals and aims around the projects the government wanted to explore.

If the military wanted to create an explosion on the moon big enough for the Kremlin to see it and feel intimidated, scientists would make the most of the opportunity to learn what they could from it. Some of the team were interested in what the detonation would reveal about the chemical makeup of the moon. Others were interested in studying the seismic effect of the blast on the moon's subsurface structure.

The top-secret project, known by the benign title "A Study of Lunar Research Flights," was launched in 1958 and led by physicist Leonard Reiffel, who would eventually become deputy director of NASA's Apollo Program. To his credit, he did try to explain to the government why nuking the moon might not be such a great idea, scientifically speaking.

"I made it clear at the time there would be a huge cost to science of destroying a pristine lunar environment," Reiffel told The Observer. "But the US Air Force were mainly concerned about how the nuclear explosion would play on Earth."

The plan was to detonate a bomb on the Terminator Line, the border between the light and dark side of the moon, which would be the location most visible from Earth. And as asinine as it might sound to us now, the goal of this enormous undertaking really was just to flex our muscles—to show Russia that we could best them in both the space and the arms race.

"It is a pretty interesting window into the sort of American mindset at that time," Alex Wellerstein, a historian of science and nuclear technology, told the BBC. "This push to compete in a way that creates something very impressive. I think, in this case, impressive and horrifying are a bit too close to each other."

Reiffel himself told The Observer in 2000, ‘It was clear the main aim of the proposed detonation was a PR exercise and a show of one-upmanship. The Air Force wanted a mushroom cloud so large it would be visible on Earth."

Would it have even worked, though? According to Reiffel, they could have gotten the bomb within two miles of where they wanted it and could have detonated it, creating a big enough flash bang to see from here. However, there wouldn't have been a mushroom cloud, since there's very little atmosphere on the moon. Without the resistance of a dense atmosphere, the dust and debris from the explosion would just keep expanding outward; it wouldn't curl back inward into any kind of formation like it would on Earth.

Ultimately, nuking the moon didn't happen, though the reasons the project was scrapped are classified and have never been revealed. Thankfully, we went ahead with sending humans to the moon instead of our most notorious weaponry. Can you imagine how much bombing the moon would have changed our approach to space exploration?

astronaut, moon, NASA

As British nuclear historian David Lowry said according to The Guardian, "It is obscene. To think that the first contact human beings would have had with another world would have been to explode a nuclear bomb. Had they gone ahead, we would never have had the romantic image of Neil Armstrong taking 'one giant step for mankind.'"

It was "one giant leap for mankind," actually, but who's counting? Let's all just be grateful we got that giant leap instead of a big ol' nuclear crater that would forever change the way we see the moon, literally and figuratively.

Angel statue in Poland

Over the past decade, Scandinavian concepts like ‘hygge’ and ‘lagom’ have dominated wellness and decorating trends. Hygge, a Danish concept without a direct English translation, captures the essence of coziness, warmth, and comfort in one's surroundings—think candles, fireplaces, and strategically placed lamps. Lagom, on the other hand, comes from the Swedes and roughly means “just enough. " This concept preaches finding tranquility in the balance of all things.

Which, you know, is nice. (Who doesn’t want to live in a lovely, snug home and bathe in the warm glow of candlelight?) What idiot would say no to a perfectly balanced life where there’s never too much or too little?

But sometimes, the biggest concern in life isn’t “How can I make this room cozier?” Life comes at you fast. Money arrives, then leaves even quicker. Families disagree, creating generational rifts that seem insurmountable. Governments fail to protect their citizens, exposing them to war, danger, and poverty. What then? Do Europeans have a neat little phrase for that?


white book near mugHygge is nice, certainly Photo by Pavan Trikutam on Unsplash


“Things will work out in the end”

In fact, the answer is yes. Enter 'Jakoś to będzie' (pronounced 'Ya-kosh toe ben-jay'), which literally translates to "Things will work out in the end." This contrasts sharply with the sunny, optimistic advice that often emerges from idyllic nations like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden. “Learning about happiness from the Scandinavians can feel a little like learning about money from a millionaire when you struggle financially,” writes Olga Mecking. “Instead,” she continues, “why not learn from a country that has been through hell and back — multiple times — and is still standing?”


beautiful multicolored buildings Poland is a living testament to the human spirit Photo by Maksym Harbar on Unsplash

Of course, she is referring to Poland, a Central European country that has existed for 500,000 years. As one imagines, there’s a lot of history sandwiched between those 500,000 years, beginning with the Polish state’s establishment during the 10th century. In the 14th century, Poland joined forces with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, culminating in the formation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth—one of Europe’s largest and most populous nations. Then, the strife: during the 18th century, the Commonwealth began to decline, eventually leading to the last King of Poland, Stanislaw Augustus, abdicating the throne in 1975. From there, many wars, insurrections, and violent protests were mounted against the country’s forced partitions, upheld by unwelcomed, occupying armies. However, Poland would not see independence again until 1918, when the Allies agreed to the country’s reconstitution in the aftermath of World War I. From there, even more chaos ensued. Devastation reigned during World War II, as much of the country fell into Nazi Germany’s hands, and Poland saw the near-annihilation of its Jewish population during the Holocaust.

Poland stands today not just as a country but as a powerful testament to the strength of the human spirit: despite the traumas that may come, optimism is always available to us. ‘Jakoś to będzie;’ “things will work out in the end.”


The true meaning of ‘jakoś to będzie’

Much like the country it hails from, the concept of ‘jakoś to będzie’ is all about resilience and grit in the face of life’s darkest and most uncertain moments. “It’s the unwavering certainty that we can do anything, no matter what obstacles we face along the way,” says Beata Chomątowska, co-author of “Jakoś to będzie. Szczęście po polsku” (or “Jakoś to będzie, the Polish way of life”). Meanwhile, the BBC describes ‘jakoś to będzie’ as “the perfect philosophy for tough times.”


brown and green concrete building under white sky during daytimeIt's Poland's philosophy for hard times. Photo by Zhi Xuan Hew on Unsplash

In some circles, ‘jakoś to będzie’ is presented as the anti-‘hygge’. While the latter encourages us to retreat into comfort, to adorn ourselves in cozy objects and fuzzy socks, the Polish approach embraces uncertainty head-on. This isn’t the time for hiding under a blanket with hot cocoa; ‘jakoś to będzie’ stresses the importance of acting without overthinking the consequences. It’s a peculiar philosophy that could only emerge from a country that has endured some of the most brutal hardships in history.

So, in an increasingly erratic, unknowable world, it might be wise to borrow a page or two from this Polish school of thought. Whenever a scary, daunting challenge arises—personal crises, difficulties at work, attempts to navigate any number of global problems, etc.—instead of falling into despair, try channeling a bit of this Polish spirit instead. Don’t overthink. Take that risk. Make something happen. ‘Jakoś to będzie’ — somehow, everything will work out. Moving forward is always better than staying still, no matter how frightening. Or, as Polish author Daniel Lis puts it, “[Life] is always a bit of adventure.”