Category: Social

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American Girl Introduces a Doll With Hearing Loss

It’s really important for children with disabilities to see themselves in pop culture, whether it’s movies, music, TV – or even the toys and dolls they play with. That’s why this announcement from American Girl should make a lot of kids and parents very happy. American Girl rang in 2020 with a new doll, and this one, for the first time ever, has a hearing impairment.

And the new doll is also American Girl of the Year.

Meet Joss Kendrick. Joss’s story is that she hails from Huntington Beach, California, and that she is “a fierce athlete born with hearing loss and a passion for surfing and competitive cheer.”

Joss was born deaf in her left ear and she wears a hearing aid in her right ear. The company said about Joss, “Whether she’s on her surfboard or in the gym, Joss shows girls the importance of trying new things, pushing past stereotypes, and being a good team player.”

The new doll was introduced with the help of Caroline Marks, a 17-year-old surfer who is looking to make a mark at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo as part of the U.S. Women’s Surfing team (I didn’t even know surfing was an Olympic sport). Marks said, “I’m so excited to be a part of the Joss launch and share her message that passion and hard work can really take a girl places—even to the Olympics.”

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Happy times ?

A post shared by Caroline Marks (@caroline_markss) on

As part of the launch of the new doll, American Girl donated $25,000 to the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA).

This is a great move by Mattel and American Girl!

Congratulations and good luck to Caroline Marks at the 2020 Summer Olympics!

The post American Girl Introduces a Doll With Hearing Loss appeared first on UberFacts.

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A Woman Built a Realistic Iron Throne for Her Cat out of a Cardboard Box

Do you ever think about your pet: “Wow, you deserve to be royalty”? If so, you’re not the only one.

One cat mom went above and beyond by actually building a throne for her Maine Coon out of cardboard.

Elly’s cat, aptly named King Arthur, is a 17-year-old Maine Coon. When it was time for Elly to make a new bed for Arthur, she got inspired by his very regal name and decided to make him a throne.

You might assume that a throne made out of cardboard wouldn’t be that fancy-looking, but don’t be fooled — this throne was inspired by the Iron Throne on Game of Thrones, and it looks totally legit!

I made my 17 year old King Arthur a cardboard iron throne. from aww

Elly posted a photo of Arthur in his throne on Reddit.

She told Just Something that she used a cardboard box for children’s boots to make it.

Photo Credit: Imgur

“I was looking at this cardboard box, a shoe box for children’s boots that my mom had mailed me something in, and I was thinking I could make Arthur a new bed,” Elly explained. “I opened it up and it already kind of looked like a chair, so I thought I could make a throne, since we often call him King Arthur. And then I realized the best throne to make would be the Iron Throne.”

Photo Credit: Imgur

Elly added that King Arthur loves sitting and lying in his new throne.

“He is definitely the head of the house, so it’s fitting,” she said.

The post A Woman Built a Realistic Iron Throne for Her Cat out of a Cardboard Box appeared first on UberFacts.

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A Woman Built a Realistic Iron Throne for Her Cat out of a Cardboard Box

Do you ever think about your pet: “Wow, you deserve to be royalty”? If so, you’re not the only one.

One cat mom went above and beyond by actually building a throne for her Maine Coon out of cardboard.

Elly’s cat, aptly named King Arthur, is a 17-year-old Maine Coon. When it was time for Elly to make a new bed for Arthur, she got inspired by his very regal name and decided to make him a throne.

You might assume that a throne made out of cardboard wouldn’t be that fancy-looking, but don’t be fooled — this throne was inspired by the Iron Throne on Game of Thrones, and it looks totally legit!

I made my 17 year old King Arthur a cardboard iron throne. from aww

Elly posted a photo of Arthur in his throne on Reddit.

She told Just Something that she used a cardboard box for children’s boots to make it.

Photo Credit: Imgur

“I was looking at this cardboard box, a shoe box for children’s boots that my mom had mailed me something in, and I was thinking I could make Arthur a new bed,” Elly explained. “I opened it up and it already kind of looked like a chair, so I thought I could make a throne, since we often call him King Arthur. And then I realized the best throne to make would be the Iron Throne.”

Photo Credit: Imgur

Elly added that King Arthur loves sitting and lying in his new throne.

“He is definitely the head of the house, so it’s fitting,” she said.

The post A Woman Built a Realistic Iron Throne for Her Cat out of a Cardboard Box appeared first on UberFacts.

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The First All-Female Indigenous Fire Crew in Australia Is Fighting 24/7 Fires to Protect Their Sacred Land

By now, you’ve heard about the awful and massive fires burning their way through huge swaths of Australia. On top of the terrible damage to the land, it’s estimated that 1 BILLION animals have died in the blazes. People from all over Australia and the world are pitching in to help in any way they can – including some that are pretty unorthodox. In one small Aboriginal community, a group all-female, all-indigenous firefighters are leading the charge to protect their town and their sacred lands.

The town is Lake Tyers in eastern Victoria, home to about 200 indigenous Australians. The town lies on a small, isolated peninsula and has just one access road in and out. The Lake Tyers Fire Brigade is led by Charmaine Sellings and the group is fighting hard against the blazes. Sellings said, “Just one crack of lightning on a stormy day could be disastrous. Things are pretty desperate. We are in extreme conditions, our dams are empty and it’s not a good situation. The crew will work around the clock. We hope for a quiet summer but we fear the worst.”

The fire brigade led by Sellings is the first of its kind in Australia and is made up of mothers and grandmothers in Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust, a self-governing community. The remote town is surrounding by thick bush on one side and a system of lakes on the other side.

Sellings said, “We are the lifeline if anything goes wrong, so we have an important role to play, and I think people are generally very grateful for what we do. There was a sense of helplessness before we came along but we feel empowered that we can look after ourselves and our people whatever the situation. The community is proud of us and they value us.”

About 20 years ago, a series of arson fires threatened the land of Lake Tyers and the nearest fire brigade was 45 minutes away. In response, Charmaine Sellings and her friends Rhonda Thorpe and Marjorie Proctor decided to form their own firefighting squad with other local women.

The women are not only saving lives and structures but also “scatters,” or clusters of historical artifacts that are scattered throughout the bush around Lake Tyers. Today, the fire crew consists of four women, with a few other volunteers who pitch in when they can.

Keep up the great work!

The post The First All-Female Indigenous Fire Crew in Australia Is Fighting 24/7 Fires to Protect Their Sacred Land appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

The First All-Female Indigenous Fire Crew in Australia Is Fighting 24/7 Fires to Protect Their Sacred Land

By now, you’ve heard about the awful and massive fires burning their way through huge swaths of Australia. On top of the terrible damage to the land, it’s estimated that 1 BILLION animals have died in the blazes. People from all over Australia and the world are pitching in to help in any way they can – including some that are pretty unorthodox. In one small Aboriginal community, a group all-female, all-indigenous firefighters are leading the charge to protect their town and their sacred lands.

The town is Lake Tyers in eastern Victoria, home to about 200 indigenous Australians. The town lies on a small, isolated peninsula and has just one access road in and out. The Lake Tyers Fire Brigade is led by Charmaine Sellings and the group is fighting hard against the blazes. Sellings said, “Just one crack of lightning on a stormy day could be disastrous. Things are pretty desperate. We are in extreme conditions, our dams are empty and it’s not a good situation. The crew will work around the clock. We hope for a quiet summer but we fear the worst.”

The fire brigade led by Sellings is the first of its kind in Australia and is made up of mothers and grandmothers in Lake Tyers Aboriginal Trust, a self-governing community. The remote town is surrounding by thick bush on one side and a system of lakes on the other side.

Sellings said, “We are the lifeline if anything goes wrong, so we have an important role to play, and I think people are generally very grateful for what we do. There was a sense of helplessness before we came along but we feel empowered that we can look after ourselves and our people whatever the situation. The community is proud of us and they value us.”

About 20 years ago, a series of arson fires threatened the land of Lake Tyers and the nearest fire brigade was 45 minutes away. In response, Charmaine Sellings and her friends Rhonda Thorpe and Marjorie Proctor decided to form their own firefighting squad with other local women.

The women are not only saving lives and structures but also “scatters,” or clusters of historical artifacts that are scattered throughout the bush around Lake Tyers. Today, the fire crew consists of four women, with a few other volunteers who pitch in when they can.

Keep up the great work!

The post The First All-Female Indigenous Fire Crew in Australia Is Fighting 24/7 Fires to Protect Their Sacred Land appeared first on UberFacts.

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Here’s How Alex Trebek Plans to Officially Say Goodbye to “Jeopardy!” Fans

I’m not looking forward to this one bit…

Alex Trebek has hosted the hit TV show Jeopardy! since 1984, and in those three-and-a-half decades, he’s become a beloved figure. His name and face are so synonymous with the television program, it’s hard to imagine anyone else hosting the show.

It was revealed last year that the 79-year-old Trebek has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and since then the public has been rallying by his side and hoping for a happy outcome as he has gone through multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

Trebek has said he doesn’t have a particular date in mind for his exit from Jeopardy!, but he added that when he leaves it will be “a significant moment for me, but I’ve kind of, in my mind, rehearsed it already. What I would do on that day is tell the director, ‘Time the show down to leave me 30 seconds at the end.’ That’s all I want.”

Trebek continued, “And I will say my goodbyes [and] I will tell people, ‘Don’t ask me who’s going to replace me because I have no say whatsoever. But I’m sure that if you give them the same love and attention, and respect that you have shown me…then they will be a success and the show will continue being a success. And until we meet again, God bless you and goodbye.’”

Here is the video of Trebek’s interview with Michael Strahan where he discusses his farewell.

We’re going to miss you, Mr. Trebek! Thanks for all the great entertainment throughout the years!

The post Here’s How Alex Trebek Plans to Officially Say Goodbye to “Jeopardy!” Fans appeared first on UberFacts.

Posted on

Here’s How Alex Trebek Plans to Officially Say Goodbye to “Jeopardy!” Fans

I’m not looking forward to this one bit…

Alex Trebek has hosted the hit TV show Jeopardy! since 1984, and in those three-and-a-half decades, he’s become a beloved figure. His name and face are so synonymous with the television program, it’s hard to imagine anyone else hosting the show.

It was revealed last year that the 79-year-old Trebek has stage 4 pancreatic cancer, and since then the public has been rallying by his side and hoping for a happy outcome as he has gone through multiple rounds of chemotherapy.

Trebek has said he doesn’t have a particular date in mind for his exit from Jeopardy!, but he added that when he leaves it will be “a significant moment for me, but I’ve kind of, in my mind, rehearsed it already. What I would do on that day is tell the director, ‘Time the show down to leave me 30 seconds at the end.’ That’s all I want.”

Trebek continued, “And I will say my goodbyes [and] I will tell people, ‘Don’t ask me who’s going to replace me because I have no say whatsoever. But I’m sure that if you give them the same love and attention, and respect that you have shown me…then they will be a success and the show will continue being a success. And until we meet again, God bless you and goodbye.’”

Here is the video of Trebek’s interview with Michael Strahan where he discusses his farewell.

We’re going to miss you, Mr. Trebek! Thanks for all the great entertainment throughout the years!

The post Here’s How Alex Trebek Plans to Officially Say Goodbye to “Jeopardy!” Fans appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Share the Crazy Things Others Told Them That They Shouldn’t Have

People are strange. Very strange!

I’m sure you’ve been here before, where a random person tells you a story that is way too personal and makes you very uncomfortable. I know I sure have.

AskReddit users shared their stories about when this happened to them.

1. Thanks for the info!

“I was going to a summer cottage owned by my work. Upon hearing that, a coworker of mine informed me that his daughter was conceived there, in the very bed that I was about to sleep in.

Did not need to know that, at all.”

2. Classy photo shoot.

“I was working in the photo lab at Walmart. They have a policy about not printing lewd photos, and they have to be destroyed if they are printed.

20 minutes before closing a woman comes and asks to print some photos. I direct her to the kiosk, and after a while they start printing in the back.

I notice that the first few photos are poorly cropped as they come off the machine. They’re full-body portraits with half her face cut off. This isn’t uncommon, the software isn’t super intuitive, so I check the next few to see if it happened on more.

The next few photos are the same framing, just different poses. It looks like she’s showing off this nice dress.

And then she’s reclining on a couch…

And then she’s on a bed…

And then her legs are spread…

Now I have to figure how to tell her I cant sell these prints. I’m all ready with the policy binder out and open to the relevant page when she comes up, and I start explaining:

“I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t sell some of these photos to you, they violate our Inappropriate Print Policy so I had to shre-”

“Oh! I’m so sorry I forgot those were in there! It’s fine he’s not allowed to have those kinds of photos in prison anyway!”

I was so relieved that she wasn’t going to yell at me that jt didn’t register what she said until after she left.”

3. Okay, let’s move on to the muffler.

“I see my mechanic a like 5 times a year and he always tells me how many Asian girls he met online and had sex with since we last met. Its like an unprompted tradition he must get past before we can talk about what’s wrong with the car.”

4. Wow this is quite a story.

“As a passenger in an Uber, I had my driver tell me that day was the anniversary of the day his son was murdered. As we drove past the spot where it happened for, according to him, the first time since it had happened. We then drove past a building where he told me the murderer worked, pretending to be a man of God with, in his words, “four bodies on him”.

His son was a gangster. My driver was a 56 year old father just lost in his grief that day and when he picked me up, in that neighborhood in Minneapolis Midtown, it just came out. He also told me that every single day he thought about killing the man who killed his son and then just turning himself in. He told me his wife told him once a week that he better not make her a widow.

It wasn’t the ride to the airport that I signed up for but that was ok. He needed to talk to someone. As a father, I could feel his pain. His kid was weeks away from leaving the life and joining his brother in the military. He told me he was killed by his second in command right after he said he was joining the service.

My bullshit meter is always very high. He wasn’t telling tall tales or workshopping material. I just happened to get in his car when a year’s worth of hell came to the surface. After he dropped me off he told me he was going home because he needed to talk to his wife.”

5. Listen up, sonny boy.

“My 89 year old grandfather told me his and his wife’s favourite sexual position. Number 1 on the list of things I never ever needed to know.”

6. A real catch.

“Sitting with my fiancé’s new friend and she starts bragging to me how she’s been manipulating men including my fiancé into doing things for her. (Picking up her paychecks for her, babysitting her son while she goes on a date, cleaning her place for her etc) Then she started showing me these long messages she’d send to guys she had just met on dating sites telling them how my fiancé was her best friend and her standard for guys.”

7. Dropped a bomb.

“That he considers paying a hooker to lose his virginity. It was back when I worked in retail, and he was a co-worker. We didn’t talk much, only a couple of words, and only about work. Then one day he came to me, and dropped this bomb.

At first at though he was joking, and tried to laugh it off, but he was dead serious. He also wanted to hear my opinion, but I told him that this was not a comfortable conversation for me.

Later another co-worker told me he tries to talk about this to all female workers, and he hopes that one of us would offer him to take his virginity, so he doesn’t have to pay.”

8. Jesus…

“An ex-coworker, whom I barely knew, told me she was in a sexual relationship with her biological father.

They had been together for about 10 years, and moved to a new city together. She was only 25 or so.

I politely smiled, switched topics, and went home shortly afterwards.

Of course I kept that story to myself, but damn.”

9. Ummmmmm…

“A kid I was sort of friends with in high school told me that he regularly had sex with his twin brother.

For the record, he had no history of ever being sexually abused, and from what he talked about, it was mutually suggested between the two.

They were just gay and into incest.”

10. Didn’t need to hear that.

“Managed a restaurant and a man was there to service the building, HVAC or something. He seems anxious and starts rattling on about his girlfriend and then her brother and how said brother f*cked a cow… immediately apologizes, “I don’t know why I said that, I probably shouldn’t have told you that, sorry.””

11. Thanks sis!

“My sister told me she was getting her tonsils out, so that she would give better head.”

12. More sex!

“A (strange) coworker, whom I wasn’t ever close with, decided to tell me at work – across the entire office – that she and her husband were having marital problems due to lack of sex. He wanted more sex. But since she wasn’t trying to get pregnant, she didn’t see the point and said he needed to get over it.

This happened loudly, out of nowhere and with no prompting. What made it more uncomfortable was that she was our HR person.”

13. The rules of swinging.

“Had a super weird chick who lived in our neighborhood once who asked me if I knew the “rules” of polygamy and swinging. I was like, “Uh….no?”

She then proceeded to tell me some long, rambling story about a house party that her husband was invited to, but not her, because they wanted to sleep with her husband but she couldn’t come along to participate or watch or whatever.

Her husband was probably 6 ft 4, but weighed around 350 lbs. He was probably the original neckbeard. She was no prize either. I doubt anybody wanted to sleep with either of them.

She also told me she hated sunbathing nude because her nipples always got super sunburned. o.O

Ok then.”

14. Sounds like a great place to work.

“Working on a assembly line, a girl I had to work next to that day explained to me why part of her shirt was yellow and wrinkled. The yellow part was cat pee, it’s wrinkled cause she sleeps in it. And hasn’t done laundry in 2 week’s…yes she smelled and yes I told her she did.

Next girl working with me confessed that she slept with 50 people at work. Married, has 3 kids, not sure if kid #2 and #3 is her husbands. Then told me not to tell anyone, I barely knew her, but I’m sure people all ready knew this about her. There were less than 300 people working at this plant, that’s including 2 shift’s.

Guy starts talking to me at lunch, ask if I heard about his son committing suicide “yes I did, I’m sorry to hear this,” guy said “don’t worry about it I think he did it for attention” WTF. I left immediately.

I don’t miss that place.”

15. Total creeper.

“Business partner of my then boss, that had just introduced himself to me:

“Nice team you’ve got here. we should all go on a trip to Thailand together. You can f*ck prostitutes without protection over there! They all have documents from their doctors showing that they’re clean!

Dude was also married, with two young daughters.

What the actual f*ck.”

Okay, yeah… wow. Why would people admit ANY of that? Just keep your damn mouths shut, people!

Have you ever encountered anything like this? What did they say?

Let us know in the comments!

The post People Share the Crazy Things Others Told Them That They Shouldn’t Have appeared first on UberFacts.

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Here’s How You Can Recognize the Symptoms of a Heart Attack in Women

There’s a sad lack of knowledge and attention to the fact that women’s heart attacks begin and progress differently from men’s. We’re all shown the “typical” shortness of breath, pain the left arm, and finally in the chest…but if you’re a woman who thinks that’s how it’s going to happen for you, well, it could be too late to save your life by the time you realize you’re in trouble.

It’s important for everyone to know what they’re looking for when it comes to heart attacks in women – this is one of those things where your much better off safe than sorry – so here’s what happened to one woman when her heart went on the fritz:

Researcher Matthais Meyer seconds all of this information, and encourages women to stay in touch with how they’re feeling.

“Women and men have a similar amount of pain during a heart attack, but the location may be different. People with pain in the chest and left arm are more likely to think it’s a heart attack, and these are usual symptoms for men. Women often have back, shoulder, or stomach pain.”

Considering heart disease is the #1 killer of women in the United States, this is information we should all have and share – so pass it on.

The post Here’s How You Can Recognize the Symptoms of a Heart Attack in Women appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Think up the Scariest Messages That Aliens Could Possibly Send Us

If we ever make contact with aliens, it’d be arguably the most major event in our entire species’ history so far. But depending on how that first meeting goes, it could either be a revelation or a terror.

On AskReddit, a user asked what the “scariest” message would be to hear from aliens from outer space. Here are 14 of the spookiest ideas.

1. A cry for help.

“A species more advanced than us screaming for help would imply something much worse is already after them…”

“A cry for help originating from millions of light-years away. By the time the message reaches us, its been floating through space for millions of years. We’ll never know if we just heard the last words of an alien civilization or if it was saved by another civilization. Regardless, it would be a harrowing message.”

2. Earth is a video game.

“Sorry guys; dinner’s ready and mum says I should turn you off.”

3. Earth is a simulation.

“Experiment’s goals accomplished. Simulation scheduled for termination on January 1st.”

4. Just “hello.”

“A random hello would scare the fuck out of everyone at NASA let me say that.”

5. A warning to run.

“RUN.”

“There’s something just so viscerally terrifying about receiving just that one-word command: run. It doesn’t say what’s coming. It doesn’t say when. It doesn’t say where to go. All you know is that you cannot stay where you are and that whoever sent the warning was only able to get out a single word to communicate the impending threat to the rest of the universe.”

6. A warning not to run.

“Do not leave your star system. Trust us.”

7. A countdown.

“…14…13…12…11…10…”

8. Deja vu.

“Hm. Your race was just like this last time too.”

“Don’t try this again… after the 5th time we’re tired of sending your planet back to the stone age…”

9. They’re among us.

“We’re coming to pick up the 2 billion members of our species living on your planet.”

10. Pyramids.

“Radio…? Why aren’t you using the Pyramids?”

11. God didn’t make them.

“God created you, he didn’t create us.”

12. We’ll be harvested.

“CHOOSE HALF OF YOUR HUMANS FOR HARVESTING. IF YOU DO NOT CHOOSE WE WILL.”

13. Taxes.

“You now have to pay galactic taxes.”

“Can’t wait for the Boston tea party 2.”

14. Literally anything.

“I honestly think any communication with extraterrestrial life with freak us out, even if it was totally benevolent or even benign, like we accidentally picked up a communication (don’t tell me this can’t happen. A LOT of accomplishments and discoveries were made entirely by accident).”

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