The Super Bowl LX halftime show featuring Latin trap artist Bad Bunny was the subject of immense criticism from Americans on Sunday night. President Donald Trump called it "one of the worst ever." "The Super Bowl Halftime Show is absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn't represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting, especially for young children that are watching from throughout the U.S.A., and all over the World," Trump wrote on Truth Social...

Bad Bunny delivered a pointed message in Spanish to millions of Americans watching the Super Bowl on Sunday night: "We're still here." In a history-making halftime show performed almost entirely in Spanish, the Puerto Rican star paid tribute to his heritage and the many countries—from Brazil to Mexico—whose people have come to shape the modern-day U.S. Just a week ago, Bad Bunny denounced Immigration and Customs Enforcement while accepting a Grammy award, stoking further political furor from conservatives ahead of the Super Bowl. But on the halftime stage, he offered up a buoyant celebration of Latino culture...

In just over 13 minutes worth of music, stars and symbolism, Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny rewrote what it means to be American in a time of strife. For months, conservatives from the president on down have painted him as anti-American. Last night, Bad Bunny asked: What if I'm the real American? Bad Bunny — who introduced himself with his real full name, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio — brought the iconography of Puerto Rican culture to his Super Bowl halftime show performance, a joyous and high-energy affair that celebrated the island where he was born and its place in the American story...

Maintaining lots of eye contact in a conversation is generally considered a good thing. But we've all been on the other end of an interaction where the other person stares directly into your soul with intense and unflinching eye contact. It feels uncomfortable and even aggressive.On the other hand, many people struggle to hold enough eye contact. It could be due to something as simple as being shy or anxious, or it could be related to a condition like social anxiety or autism.So how can we thread the needle and make enough eye contact to build rapport, trust, and comfort with the people we're talking to, without making either of us uncomfortable? Communications expert Vanessa Van Edwards may have a solution. Vanessa Van Edwards is one of the foremost experts in body language and communication.By Taylor-winnie-bk/Wikimedia CommonsVan Edwards recently appeared on the podcast The Diary of a CEO and shared her rule of thumb for how, and more specifically when, to make eye contact during a conversation."Eye contact is a power move when you look at someone at the end of your sentence," she said. That's it. It's that simple. Before that, you can feel free to let your eyes roam naturally.She explained, "We like it when someone is actually accessing different memories or areas of their brain," noting that moving our eyes is a natural part of that process."But then when I end my sentence and look right at you you're like [Woah!]" she said. "Highly competent people make eye contact specifically at the end of their sentences to drill a point."Brilliantly, you can see Van Edwards use the exact technique she's speaking about as she describes it. It comes across as very natural, charismatic, and powerful in the moments when she does choose to engage eye contact, like an exclamation point at the end of her sentences. It also appears fluid and human as her eyes drift to the side, up, or follow her hands as she gestures. There's no robotic eye lock-on.Van Edwards said picking the right moments is more important than the total amount of eye contact, adding, "The worst advice I hear 'experts' give: Make more eye contact. Make 100% eye contact. It's awkward. They've studied this, the ideal amount of eye contact is between 60-70% of the conversation."She added that doing more than that amount may be seen as a territorial or aggressive gesture. @doacpod Body Language Expert - Vanessa Van Edwards Mastering Eye Contact: The Secret to Powerful Communication Discover the transformative impact of effective eye contact in conversations. We reveal why ending sentences with direct eye contact enhances connection and influence, along with expert tips on utilizing body language cues like the lower lid flex for deeper engagement. #EyeContact #BodyLanguage #EffectiveCommunication #PowerfulPresence #SocialSkills #NonverbalCues #EngagementTips #CommunicationStrategies #LowerLidFlex #Influence Nearly a million people viewed the short clip and many commenters found the advice extremely helpful:"This woman came out of nowhere and is speaking to my soul""I do this naturally. That's so cool. I couldn't possibly maintain eye contact when explaining something.""Finally, an eye contact advice that makes sense""That makes me feel so much better. This is exactly what I do 100%. I've always felt like there was something wrong with me."Eye contact while you're listening is just as important. And Van Edwards has a simple trick for that, too."One of my favorites. It's called a 'lower lid flex,'" she said. It's a simple narrowing of the eyes, as if focusing on an object in the distance, that signals to the person talking that you're engaged and making an effort to understand what they're saying."Boy oh boy do we like it when someone is lower lid flexing at us," she added. "It's a great power cue to use in moderation." Two men talking on a street. Photo credit: CanvaThis is a great trick for people who feel awkward or uncomfortable holding passive eye contact while listening. It gives you an action to do, a way to move your face and body, while signaling interest and focus rather than disinterest, which might be indicated by looking away.Another popular technique utilized by people who don't like holding too much prolonged eye contact is the "triangle technique." It involves letting your eyes move between someone's eyes and mouth in a triangle shape, or between their eyes and a spot on their forehead for a less intimate approach. This method allows you to keep focus on the person without feeling the searing intensity of non-stop eye contact.Eye contact doesn't come easily for everyone, but no matter where you're starting, improving the skill has tons of benefits. It helps you bond with others, become more memorable to new people you meet, and project confidence. And with Van Edwards' advice, it's more approachable than ever, even if it's not something that comes naturally to you.

Leave it to kids to teach us how to really savor the sweetness (or in this case, battery flakiness) of life.In an adorable video posted onto the travel content Instagram account @apeanuttravels, a mom named Vanessa shows how her two-year-old’s first trip to Paris quickly became one thing and one thing alone: a “full-blown croissant tour.” Indeed, this little gal made the pastry the main event, eating not one, not two, not three, but TWELVE croissants. Let it be known that variety was not sacrificed, though. The croissants themselves ranged from dipped in mayonnaise, to plain, to almond cream, and having gobs of butter plopped on top. Living “her best Parisian life,” this little one also occasionally donned a delightful red beret or croissant-themed pajamas while enjoying her culinary obsession. Other times she dined against a gorgeous backdrop that she was completely unaware of. See on Instagram The pâtissière love affair only got more and more passionate, as she counted the croissants one by one (“This is my first croissant… this is my second croissant…”), eventually only being able to exclaim “croisssabbbbaaa!!!” If ever croissant drunk was a thing, she had it. And while some parents might have felt disappointed that their child didn’t feel that same amount of appreciation for seeing the Eiffel Tower, Vanessa knows that “traveling with a toddler means experiencing a city through snacks,” and that “watching your kid fall in love with something new in a new place is one of the best parts of family travel.”To be clear, this toddler has her priorities straight no matter where she travels. Take a look at this video from Italy. Now THAT’s how you eat noodles: See on Instagram According to several of Vanessa’s videos, snacks are a major key to happy toddler travels—from helping ease airplane restlessness to setting a positive tone for the day before anyone even leaves the hotel. A well-timed treat can turn a potential meltdown into a manageable moment, and having familiar foods on hand gives little travelers a sense of stability in an otherwise new environment. She also suggests planning just one main activity per day rather than a jam-packed itinerary, which leaves room for wandering, resting, and following a child’s natural rhythm. On-the-go naps, making lunch the main meal followed by lighter “snacky dinners” and evening strolls, keeping a consistent bedtime routine, and staying in the same accommodations for multiple nights all help create a sense of predictability. See on Instagram Once the family began making these simple tweaks, travel became “more fun for all,” Vanessa writes. Less about rushing from sight to sight and more about enjoying the experience together.This all goes to show that when it comes to traveling with toddlers, the trip you plan and the trip you actually take are rarely the same. Adults might dream of museums, landmarks, and carefully curated itineraries, but little kids tend to fall in love with the small, delicious, delightfully repetitive things. While it might take some adjustment on the parent’s end, watching a child latch onto one joyful obsession has a way of recalibrating expectations for everyone involved. It shifts the focus from checking off sights to noticing what actually feels good in the moment. And years later, those are often the details that stick. Not the postcard views.

People who remember life before the Internet have witnessed firsthand how modern technology has changed our daily lives, for better and for worse. The world kids are growing up in today is vastly different, which has also changed what childhood looks like. Every generation sees differences between their own formative years and their kids' or grandkids', of course, but the rate of change in the digital age makes the differences between the older and younger generations today feel particularly stark. That contrast has also led to a great deal of nostalgia for the folks who remember a simpler, slower time on a visceral level. So when someone on Reddit asked Gen Xers and Boomers, "What will kids today never get to experience?" the responses prompted a wave of memories. They're not necessarily good or bad experiences, but they do take us right back to a specific era that some of us remember with fondness. from AskOldPeople Here are childhood experiences from Gen Xers and Boomers that today's kids likely won't experience: Encyclopedias Having a set of encyclopedias was almost a given before the Internet, as was a parent telling you to "Look it up in the encyclopedia" when you asked a question. There was no Google, no place to enter a search term and get information. You had to figure out the keyword for what you wanted to learn about and find it alphabetically in a huge set of books. "Having to look up information in an encyclopedia.""GETTING to look up information in an encyclopedia. I loved reading about random topics in my encyclopedia. That has translated into reading about random topics online." - YouTube www.youtube.com "I said I needed something to read at summer camp, in a letter home once. Mom sent the E volume of the 1976 World Book encyclopedia.""Oh dear I asked the 15 year old about something and after he answered I said 'you're such an encyclopedia!' He looked me and said "Whats and esyklopedia what?" I've never felt more old...and I said it was what we used before Google, that it was a series of big books we had to open and read the letter "B" if we were looking for information on something starting with a B....he was dumbfounded.""We watched a movie recently where a kid won an encyclopedia set and I told my six year old, 'That's how Daddy and I used to look things up when we were your age. The Internet wasn't really a thing then.' She said, 'You couldn't even enjoy things?'""Or the reference room at the library and need the reference librarian to dig out archives of newspapers, phonebooks. Microfiche."Freedom to roam and be boredKids today can roam outside, but they often don't. Digital devices, streaming shows and movies, and parental anxieties have greatly diminished kids' abilities to explore the world around them. Parents used to send their kids out on their bikes for hours with no cell phones and no idea where they were, which sounds downright irresponsible to modern-day sensibilities. "Riding your bike all day and exploring. Being free…just be home by dinner time.""Street lights were our timers." "Getting lost and then figuring out on their own how to find the way back. It’s a skill that the cavemen probably relied on.""Just running around rolling on the grass and playing in the dirt. Laying on their backs and seeing pictures in the clouds.""That loss is truly underrated. To be able to draw on those childhood experiences of unstructured time and wonder has been a guide to calm and center me throughout my life."Collect calls (and knowing how to avoid them)Pre-cell-phone, we had a use public pay phones to call home. But if you forgot to bring change for the phone booth, you had to call collect (meaning the receiver of the call would have a charge put on their phone bill for accepting the call, and it usually wasn't cheap). The operator would ask the call receiver if they wanted to accept the call, with a question like, "You have a collect call from [insert name]. Would you like to accept? You only got charged if you accepted the call, so people would get around it by giving a name that meant something specific, like a family code system."Making a collect call from a payphone.""Yes, and calling home and letting it ring once to let Mom and Dad know I’d arrived safely!" - YouTube www.youtube.com "My Mom had a whole list of coded last names she'd use with her sisters. IIR, Mrs. McBride meant she'd be late, Mrs. Wagner meant she'd arrived and needed a ride, and so on. They kept using it well into the 80's for flights.""Mom done (wherever we were) was mine, because i would spend the 25 cents she gave me for the payphone on candy lol."Internet-free TVAh, the joy of walking across the room to change the channel and only having five channels to choose from. Or having to adjust the antenna for picture clarity. Or the sound of TV static. Or racing to the bathroom during a commercial break. "Missing an episode of a show knowing you will never be able to see it again." "I was talking to a Millennial the other day and she was like "Wait, so the TV just stopped broadcasting at night?" Yep. It played the national anthem and there were usually some fighter jets...Then nothing but the test pattern. Blew her mind." TV before the Internet was a whole different experience. Photo credit: Canva"Arguing over the single TV because someone can’t miss 'their' programme. Learning random facts about antiques or wildlife because there’s nothing else on. Having to concentrate whilst listening to dialogue because there’s no rewind. Watching something special but having no way to show it to others. Having no problem with black and white films because you just imagine all the colours. Waiting to 'find out next week' after a cliffhanger.""School closures scrolling across the bottom of the screen at 6 am. It was like waiting for your lottery numbers announced."Boxes of notes and lettersWe had so many handwritten notes, letters, and cards before texting. College friends would write and send snail mail letters to one another during summer break. You'd write to your friends when you were on vacation. Getting the mail was actually exciting because there was a good chance you'd have something personal. "Having a random box of old letters and postcards to sort through now and then.""fr fr those old letters were like little time capsules, now it's just endless scrolling through email or texts." "I’ve noticed that a lot of people these days don’t do cards or notes anymore. I’ve collected every card I’ve got since i was in middle school! I love handwritten notes."Passing notes to your friends, folded up in that certain way that turned the note itself into sort of an envelope. I still have a box of them from high school and they are hilarious."The joys and woes of landline phonesSo many telephone memories: Rotary dialing. Stretching the phone cord as far as it would go. Waiting by the phone. Not knowing who was on the other end when you answered it. "Slamming the phone down in anger.""Rotary dial: Oh the glorious feeling of slamming the phone down mid conversation during an argument and unplugging the phone from the wall :D""The terror of having to talk to a girl’s parents on the phone before you talked to the girl." Phone calls were an entirely different ballgame before cell phones.Photo credit: Canva"As a girl, standing by the phone in the kitchen for 5 hours waiting for the boy to call because all your 6th grade friends said he would call you and you CANNOT have your mom answering. Spoiler alert: He never called. I picture him sitting terrified by his phone and then just abandoning the idea to go outside and ride a bike or something.""Stretching the cord around the corner of the kitchen, in a desperate bid for a bit of privacy!""Getting to the 7th number and realizing you made a mistake, then having to hang it up and start dialing over again lol. Ain't no backspace button on a rotary phone!""Prank phone calls. IDK why but sitting with my GFs, dropping open a phone book, randomly picking a number and then calling someone with some stupid voice and stupider question ('is your refrigerator running?') was the epitome of funny to my 11 year old self."Vaccine-preventable diseasesOn the positive side, communicable childhood diseases have greatly diminished thanks to vaccines. Older generations experienced the realities of polio, the mumps, and other diseases that children are now widely immunized against. "Hopefully polio.""A childhood without measles, polio, mumps, rubella." Vaccines have helped reduce or eliminate childhood diseases that affected generations past. Photo credit: Canva"I was just talking to one of my kids about polio! I told them that most people my age (50ish) knew at least one adult who had it as a child (my great uncle, for me) but that now it was super rare to know anyone because the disease has been eradicated by the vaccine.""I lost 3/4ths of my hearing from the mumps. I hope that won’t happen again to anyone."Nostalgia can be fun to revel in, but it's also easy to look at the past only through rose-colored glasses. Though some people might lament the loss of many of these experiences, some of them are better off being left in the rearview mirror. The diseases, of course, but even the pre-tech simple life wasn't always so simple. Would we really want to give up Google or GPS for encyclopedias and road atlases? Unlikely. Perhaps we can bring some of what was great about childhood experiences of the past while celebrating the genuinely helpful technology that has made our lives better in the present.

Loyal Costco shoppers know that once you check out at the big box retailer, you need to keep your receipt out and ready to hand over to a Costco employee before you're able to leave the store. But why does Costco have employees check your receipt and give it that signature marker swipe at the exit?First, as YouTuber The Costco Dude (who has worked at Costco since 2008) explains, Costco has your receipt checked at the door rather than right there at the register to help with crowd flow."There's usually long lines at Costco, and Costco is all about speed," he says, adding that Costco members don't love the delay at the register when they sometimes check to make sure the number of items on the receipt matches the number of items in their cart.So, it's up to the exit door employees to check out your Costco receipt before you leave the store. These are the six things they are looking for (and no, it's not solely because they assume you're stealing). - YouTube www.youtube.com They double check proper scanningA major reason Costco employees check your receipt is to cover human error that may have occurred during checkout. It's easy to double (or even triple) scan items—especially when buying multiples."I bought two tubs of beer cheese. The asked me did you mean to buy two. Yes, yes I did. I appreciated the check tho, sometimes stuff gets double scanned," one Redditor commented in the thread r/CostcoWholesale.Another Costco shopper shared how the check paid off in a missed item promotion. "Yeah, one time I bought some beer and they stopped me at the door and told me I only picked up half the beer! Apparently the price was for two twelve packs not just one! So I got to go back and grab my beer," they wrote.A Costco employee who does receipt checks also chimed in, saying, "I work at the door of a Costco and it can be a double or even triple scan. Or no scan at all. Employees and members are human and make mistakes," they explained. "Most people think we're there to catch thieves but I think there are more people errors than outright theft though there are articles that claim a good percentage of people don't scan all their items at self checkout."They look for items over $300John Liang (@johnsfinancetips), a personal finance expert, explained that Costco is extra diligent about double checking any expensive purchases. For items over $300, Costco will typically have a supervisor confirm your purchase. @johnsfinancetips As a little kid, I always thought the receipt checkers counted every single item. When I grew up, I just thought the receipt checkers were there as a theft deterrent. But it turns out that their job is a lot more specific than that. #costco #receipt #verified #shop #personalfinance They confirm you shopped at Costco that dayLooking at the receipt will tell the Costco employee that everything in your cart was indeed purchased that day—a way for Costco to cover itself from possible theft or fraud situations."I confirm there is a code on the receipt that says it's from today, I check the bottom of your cart to make sure we've missed nothing," he says.Costco employees will typically swipe your receipt with a marker, which is another way the store protects itself."The swipe on the receipt prevents reuse, e.g. you just go load up your cart with the same items and try to exit again with the same receipt," another Redditor shared.They check you got the best dealsCostco is always running promotions and discounts on items, and receipt checkers are making sure you reap the benefits."A few of them have gotten me price adjustments!" one Redditor noted.They make sure you received back room items and add-onsCostco offers a number of items that are not readily available for you to grab in the middle of the store, such as video games, iPhones (and most other electronics), jewelry, and gift cards.The Costco Dude notes that the supervisor who brought you the item from the back will typically also check the receipt."Exit door checkers also verify that you’ve picked up any gift cards or other high-value items from the front. I’ve also seen them check whether add-ons (insurance or Apple Care) are shown as complete," one Redditor explained.A happy Costco customer also shared, "Had this happen the other evening, and appreciate it so much. Was a bit tired after work and didn’t even think about needing to do that…"They make sure you received the *correct* itemFinally, checking the receipt will also guarantee your received the correct items that needed to be retrieved from the back of the store."They also make sure that you received the correct item from lock up by matching the number on the receipt to the number on the side of the item. Sometimes supervisors grab the wrong item," one Redditor added.

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