In partnership with
A man struggling to walk on a tarmac.
‘He could barely walk’: Passenger notices man limping on tarmac, raises $174K to help him retire.
“I’ve been doing this job for 20 years, and I just didn’t think anybody actually cared.”
By Tod Perry
Working as an airplane refueler is a physically and mentally demanding job. It involves handling highly flammable, hazardous fluids, adhering to countless policies, procedures, and regulations, and working on a loud, busy airplane tarmac, rain or shine. That’s why, after two decades on the job refueling planes at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, U.S. Navy veteran James Blair had developed a debilitating limp.
Blair’s hard work on the tarmac, even though he was in obvious pain, caught the attention of Lacinda Thackeray from Salt Lake City, Utah, who took a video of him from her plane window and uploaded it to TikTok. “Does anyone know this man at the John Wayne Airport?” she asked her followers. “Watching him work so hard, he can barely move, truly broke my heart. I know there has to be a way we can help him retire.”
| Read the story |
Free email without sacrificing your privacy
Gmail is free, but you pay with your data. Proton Mail is different.
We don’t scan your messages. We don’t sell your behavior. We don’t follow you across the internet.
Proton Mail gives you full-featured, private email without surveillance or creepy profiling. It’s email that respects your time, your attention, and your boundaries.
Email doesn’t have to cost your privacy.
The story of one of the most charming, audacious marketing campaigns aviation has ever seen.
Pan Am vowed to fly you to the moon by the year 2000. Here’s what actually happened.
Why did 93,000 people join the Pan Am First Moon Flights Club?
By Kat Hong
It’s 1968, and you’re curled up in front of the TV, watching grainy footage of astronauts drift across the screen. Then, somewhere between the evening news and a commercial, a voice tells you: you can reserve a seat on the first passenger flight to the moon.
Nope, not a daydream, but an actual reservation with an actual airline.
All you had to do was call Pan Am.
| Read the story |
Not all heroes wear capes. Some knit tiny penguin sweaters. 🐧
Restoration workers now see how "critical" wood is to the natural habitat.
Helicopters dump 6,000 logs into rivers in the Pacific Northwest, fixing a decades-old mistake
Forty years ago, restoration workers thought logs were the problem. They were wrong.
By Heather Wake
For decades, river restoration in the Northwestern United States followed a simple rule: if you saw logs in the water, take them out. Clean streams were seen as healthy streams, fast-moving water was seen as optimal, and wood was treated like a “barrier” to natural processes, particularly those of the local fish.
Now, helicopters are flying thousands of tree trunks back into rivers to undo that thinking.
| Read the story |
If you're socially awkward, you may be more resilient than others think.
Psychologist says socially awkward people have thrived throughout history because of this hidden trait
“Bad in social situations” doesn’t mean “bad at life.”
By Erik Barnes
Many people experience social awkwardness from time to time, but for some, it happens much more often.
They accidentally say the wrong thing, miss social cues, or are simply overly shy at parties, in meetings, or around people in general. It can make you wonder how social awkwardness still exists as a trait in humans, given that we’ve evolved into such a highly social species, starting with small tribes built for survival and eventually growing into the thriving societies we have today.
Well, one psychologist has a theory about how socially awkward people not only survived evolution but actually thrived.
| Read the story |
