Minnesota’s governor captured the internet’s attention and swayed Democrats’ messaging by succinctly summing up how he views Republicans: they’re weird. Clips of Tim Walz have spread widely, helping cement him as Kamala Harris’s pick to run alongside her as vice-president. It’s not just the “weird” of it all: he’s been able to run through a list of what Democrats want, and what he’s done as governor during a banner time for Democrats in his state,...

With one viral line on cable TV - "these guys are just weird" - Tim Walz vaulted into contention for the job of Kamala Harris's running mate. The 60-year-old brings with him a folksy, plain-spoken and sharp-tongued approach to taking on the Republican opposition. He also comes with a compelling resume - a public school teacher, football coach and National Guardsman before he entered politics. His political experience, representing a Republican-leaning district in Congress and then...

Vice President Kamala Harris has tapped liberal darling Tim Walz as her running mate, snubbing popular Jewish Democrat Josh Shapiro in the highly anticipated veepstakes. Harris had narrowed the pool of potential running mates down to Walz, who has served as Minnesota governor since 2019, and Shapiro. Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, was seen as the vice presidential favorite heading into the weekend, but Walz’s prospects surged after a string of high-profile progressive...

The fact that beavers build dams is one of nature's coolest features. Gathering and stacking tree branches, rocks, grass and mud across a river so they can build their homes underwater is a unique instinct among the animals—and a strong one. Apparently, it's so strong that beavers will build dams anywhere, including inside a human's house using whatever items they can find. A video shared by Dr. Holley Muraco, director of research at the Mississippi Aquarium, shows a female beaver named Sawyer busily gathering stuffed animals, blankets, Christmas decorations, wrapping paper and more to build a dam in a hallway, and it's seriously the most delightful thing ever. Sawyer pauses once in a while to assess her work, which is adorable. And her ongoing struggle with SpongeBob SquarePants' legs is a must-see.If you're concerned about seeing natural animal behavior like this in an unnatural habitat, don't worry. Muraco explains that Sawyer spends most of her time outdoors with other beavers, but also likes to come in the house occasionally. More on Sawyer's life story below, but first, behold her adorableness at work:Sawyer is one of three orphaned beavers Muraco is rehabbing at her home with the help of Woodside Wildlife Rescue. "Sawyer is one of a kind," Muraco tells Upworthy. "Very opinionated and, as crazy as it sounds, intelligent. I raised Sawyer on a bottle in our home and then introduced her to Huck and Finn who are a bit older. All three were orphaned separately when their parents were killed. The three were sent to Woodside Wildlife to be raised as siblings."Sawyer, Huck and Finn. Perfection.Muraco says Sawyer started building dams in her kennel as a tiny baby and then moved on to building bigger dams in the hallway. She lives outside with Huck and Finn, but she walks to Muraco's back door when she wants to go inside to check on things and build a new dam.Muraco says beavers are very social creatures and do better living in a group, but are also one of the most difficult animals to rehab. They have to spend up to two years with rehabbers, which is how long they would spend with their parents in the wild, and caring for them is challenging due to their complex and sensitive digestive needs. They are also prone to illness and there's a lot that's still unknown about vet care for them. Muraco says beavers are also considered a nuisance animal, especially in Mississippi, so it can be hard to find a safe place to release them.In Muraco's care, Sawyer, Huck and Finn get ample opportunities to practice instinctive behaviors, which is a vital element of rehabilitation. The ultimate goal is for them to return to the wild once they meet key milestones.Raising beavers is a lot of work, but Muraco is dedicated to preparing these young 'uns for life after rehab, both for their own good and for the environment. "Beavers are a keystone species and are often critical for healthy wetlands," she explains. They are misunderstood creatures and are sometimes killed by people who simply see them as pests, which is one reason Muraco publicly shares her adventures with Sawyer, Huck and Finn. "We are so excited that people are enjoying watching the beavers and falling in love with this unusual, quirky rodent," she says.If anyone wants to support these beaver rescue efforts, Muraco invites people to donate to Woodside Wildlife Rescue. This article originally appeared on 01.13.23

I have a confession to make. I'm 48 years old, my youngest child is in high school and I can't stop watching "Bluey." For the uninitiated, "Bluey" is a kids' cartoon from Australia aimed at 5 to 7-year-olds. It's been nearly a decade since my household has seen that demographic, so when people kept telling me I should watch "Bluey," my reaction was basically, "Yeah, I've already done my kiddie show time, thankyouverymuch." Then my almost-15-year-old started watching it just to see what the fuss was about. And as I started tuning in, I saw why people love it so much. I figured it was going to be a wholesome show with some good lessons for kids, and it is. But it's also laugh-out-loud hilarious.As I got sucked deeper and deeper down the "Bluey" hole, I also saw why so many adults say the show is healing their inner child. It doesn't just have good lessons for kids; some episodes are a masterclass in creative, engaged, positive parenting. Now I'm hooked, along with the rest of my family of 40-somethings and young adults. We even have favorite episodes that we rewatch, for goodness sake. So what is it that makes "Bluey" such a beloved show for all ages?The kid actors are fantastic. Seriously, so darn funny. The children who play 6-year-old Bluey, her 4-year-old sister, Bingo, and their various cousins and friends are outstanding. Their voices are cute, but they're also top notch comedians. One of my personal favorite bits on the show is when the kids pretend to be grannies. Here's a clip with Bluey, Bingo and their cousin, Muffin, pretending to be grannies at their neighbor's yard sale. It gets even funnier when the "grouchy granny" encounters an actual, real-life grouchy granny who wants to buy the granny mobile and haggles with her. (We've watched this episode four times. It only gets funnier.)The parents teach lessons through imaginative playThe clip below shows how Bandit (Bluey and Bingo's dad) creatively uses a unicorn puppet to drive home the importance of good manners and personal care habits when Bluey won't stop chewing with her mouth open. Using characters that struggle with whatever a kid needs to learn is a great way to help drive home a lesson. And doing it with silliness and creativity makes the learning process both enjoyable and effective. Also, the parents' love for each other shines through in the show in adorable ways. The parents share their own learnings along the wayBluey episodes are short—the full episode below is less than 7 minutes—and it's amazing how much they can squeeze into them. Here, Bluey's mom teaches Bluey not to compare herself to others by sharing her own comparison story from when Bluey was a baby, which also includes a lesson for the parents who may be watching as well. It also tugs right at the heartstrings at the end. I'm just consistently amazed at how well the show executes on every level. It's therapeutic—literally.For folks with positive childhoods, the show is nostalgic and comforting. For those with tough childhoods, the show can feel healing. And for people who raising their own kids, it can be a resource to help them be better parents. My colleague (and Licensed Clinical Social Worker) Jacalyn Wetzel says she recommends "Bluey" to clients who are having a hard time with parenting. "When parents of young children mention that they're struggling with being able to emotionally regulate through their child's tantrums, outside of talking to them about ways children express unmet needs, I often recommend the cartoon 'Bluey,'" she says. "Bluey behaves very much like a typical preschooler, which sometimes means she accidentally pushes buttons or does something wrong. The way her parents interact with her in those moments are great examples of acknowledging a child's emotions and responding with kindness, understanding and age appropriate terms." The show includes real-life parenting moments that can be hard to navigate, so she encourages parents to watch how the parents interact with Bluey and Bingo. "Parenting doesn't come with a handbook but 'Bluey' is helping those that maybe didn't have the best example of it growing up, and that's special," she says.It's just a near-perfect show in almost every way. There's even some silly potty humor if that's your jam. (See what I mean? A little something for everyone.) You can watch full seasons of "Bluey" on Disney + and find clips and some full episodes the "Bluey" YouTube channel.This article originally appeared on 12.1.23

Pets are wonderful, loving, innocent creatures that add so much pure joy into our lives.They also have an unruly penchant for eating things they shouldn’t be eating, find heinously bad places to go potty and are weapons of mass destruction when it comes to shoes, fragile knickknacks and furniture. If you’ve had a pet, then you have at least one story involving one of these sins, if not all three. No matter how egregious the act, it’s pretty hard to stay mad. After all, much of the time animal misbehavior is merely a natural reaction to stress or boredom. Plus, one look at their sweet little faces is all it takes for anger to be subdued. Most of the time. A Reddit user recently asked pet owners, “What’s the worst thing your pet has ever done?” and boy, some critters really know to act out. Whether its fur babies or feathered friends or scaly companions, pets are capable of some truly horrific-slash-hilarious antics. We love them anyway, of course.Below are 22 of the best responses from traumatized pet owners. And though their stories don’t necessarily paint the best picture of their beastly bestie, it’s certainly an amusing read, if not an all-too-relatable one.1.“My dog dug up my neighbors cable line on Super Bowl Sunday when they had a big crowd coming over.” -@Living_Departure_2652.“My parrot has learnt to swear and will not stop. The weirdest thing is that I don't even know how he learnt to swear. Maybe he overheard the neighbors or something.” -@Pizza-pen3.“As a kitten, she managed to get hold of, and tear to pieces, a dried flower my mother took from my grandmother's funeral as a keepsake. Literally irreplaceable.” -@Catstrudle4.“My dog, then teething, chewed through and broke the beanbag chair he used to sleep on; which was filled with styrofoam pellets, each about 3mm dia. Tens of thousands of them. There is no effective way of picking them up due to their attraction to static and propensity to fly at the slightest change in the wind. The vacuum cleaner just pushed around more than it picked up. It took ~3 hours to clean up. We were finding pellets for years in random places.” -@Darthfloyd5.“I used to have this ball python. I wake up one morning and take him out of his cage because he's looking restless. I throw him on my bed and lay back down. He'd often crawl on me and curl up for warmth. On this particular occasion he came sniffing around my face right as I yawned. When I did, a small tear came out of my eye, which he licked. A second later he latched onto my eyebrow like it was some furry little rodent. I sat right up, holding the four foot snake straight off my face. He let go after a few seconds and we didn't talk for the rest of the day. Left two bloody holes right on my eyebrow. Jerk.” -@Stevel-Knievel6.“Baxter once pooped in the refrigerator and ate an entire wheel of cheese. I wasn't even mad, it was amazing.” -@ryclarky7.“My boxer knocked over a statue of the Virgin Mary. Her head broke off, and my dog was running around with the head.” - @Motherinlawdouche8.“As I lay down for a much needed nap the other day, I heard a crash in the living room go out to check what fresh hell...my Calico had climbed a desk and knocked over a small shelf containing a case of small silver thumbtacks alllllllll over my living room. I made it about 5 steps in before I realized I was surrounded by tacks.” -@slumvillain9.“I filled a cup to the brim with fruit punch and walked away to put the bottle back into the fridge. When I turned back around I saw my blind cat standing on the dining room table feeling the cup with his paw…he winds up and swats it off the table. Got fruit punch everywhere." -@colethefatcat10.“Back in 2014, my parents owned this vase that had been passed down 4 generations to the youngest in the family. It sat on top of the cabinets, like higher than the refrigerator. Our family went on a 4 day vacation to Disney World and had our neighbor feed our 2 cats. On the 2nd day of our vacation, my father gets a text saying that our vase shattered on the floor and both our cats were next to where it once sat. We believe our cats were able to jump up there with the help up [by] climbing on our air fryer we left on the counter.” -@mittiens11.“We bought our first house and the first time we left our dog alone he ate through the trim surrounding all the doors, the drywall behind it, and almost through the exterior. Needless to say I wasn’t pleased.” -@Fuzzy-Ad5756 12.“I’m a caffeine addict and I admit it. I start out every day with an energy drink and pop Diet Mountain Dew all day. In college I was very, very broke and at one point was down to about 14 ounces left in a 2 liter of Mtn Dew poured into a cup. My cat came to check out what I had, sniffed at it and I guess the popping bubbles tickled her nose and she sneezed directly onto the surface of it.”-@LatterTowel940313.“Got a new dog and wanted them to be happy and acclimated to a new home. Gave them a pig ear to chew on (already a fairly disgusting treat) and they happily take it. A short time later, where did the dog go? On my bed, chomping away on the pig ear, with a large pile of drool and pig ear bits, now quite possibly a permanent part of my sheets. Not the way I wanted to start off a relationship with a new dog. Silver lining, my sheets smelled like bacon for a while even after washing them!” -@ItsGotHeart14.“My beta killed 3 fish in a week.” -@Tox1cShark715.“My dog was still a puppy and has never seen a baby bird. One night I was taking her for a walk and there was a baby bird on the ground. It was chirping and it really caught her attention (probably cause it sounded like her squeaky toys). I started reaching for the bird so I could try and put it back in its nest but my dog jumped towards the bird. I just heard a loud squeak and silence. My dog's expression changed when she realized what she had done. The rest of the night she was not herself, I'm sure she felt really bad.” -@justanotherperson21816.“He (dog) broke my mother's nose with his big head by jumping around too excitedly.” -@mortokes17.“A few nights ago, in the middle of the night, my monster cat brought in a live pigeon through the cat door and released it in the living room. Feathers EVERYWHERE.” -@effieokay18.“I have a roomba. I set it to clean at 7:30 AM every morning… because I am always out the door for work by then, and my dog has just been walked. One morning, apparently, the 7 AM walk was not enough, and my dog shit on the floor. Then, like a good little robot, my roomba took off. I came home to poo circles all over my carpet and a dead roomba.TL;DR--My dog teamed up with a robot to create an abstract art piece made out of feces.” -@SleepsontheGround19.“Whilst walking my friend's dalmation, Stripey, one summer's day in a park filled with happy picnickers and laughing children, she spotted a birthday party. A river separated the party from us and, underestimating her love of food, I kept her off the [leash]. I'm not sure how she even saw the birthday cake wrapped in tinfoil but she leaped into the river before I could stop her. She tore apart the tinfoil like a savage and devoured the cake before quickly moving on to the BBQ where she managed to eat every sausage, burger and chicken leg she could see whilst the birthday boy watched in terror. I stood awkwardly on the other side of the water, shouting her name and apologizing profusely but she only listened when she'd decided her meal was over after which she swam calmly back over the water and pranced into the distance whilst the entire family stared me down. I am sorry, birthday boy, I hope your day wasn't too badly ruined.” -@Tanyabee20.“One time I was running to the basement to grab an ingredient I had forgotten to add to dinner. Like an idiot, I kept the burner and hot pan going because I figured that running to the fridge in the basement would only take a minute. Instead, I tripped over my dog before reaching the first step and tumbled down into the basement. I stared up to see my dog looking down and smiling as I scrambled frantically to run back upstairs before my stupid dinner set the entire house on fire.” - [deleted]21. “Maybe not ‘worst’ for me, but definitely for my mom. She pissed off the cat… kicking her out of the bedroom before bed because she hates animals sleeping on her bed or next to her…Apparently in the morning, she was running late for work. Rushed to put on her shoes and found vomit in one of them. Out of all her shoes, and of all the times in the day, the cat had decided to revenge-puke in the ones she wears to work almost every day.” -@badguywindow22.“My 55lb dog ate an entire tray of pot brownies.” -@karmavorousThis article originally appeared on 8.9.22

There are creative, romantic proposals, and then there's this one.Lee Loechler recently proposed to his girlfriend, Sthuthi David, by taking her to a packed theater to see her favorite Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty. Little did she know that Loechler had spent six months altering the animation of the film's most iconic scene, changing the characters to look like the couple themselves and altering the storyline to set up his Big Question. And that's only the beginning.Watching David's face during the scene change is sheer delight, as her confused look proves that she has no clue what is about to happen. The set-up is great, but the magical moment when Loechler's illustrated self tosses the engagement ring to his real-life self? That's when we all toss up our hands and say, "OKAY, man. You win at proposing. Everyone else must bow before you now." The whole proposal—the re-illustrations, the heart jokes (David is a cardiologist), and the bride-to-be's surprise when she finds herself surrounded by friends and family—it's all perfection. Just watch:Amazing, right? Lee Loechler set the bar ridiculously high, but even the most cynical among us have to give him props for his creativity.Reddit users' responses to the video were hilarious, and reflect what we all feel watching this masterpiece."Welp this guy went and did it, theres no point in any of us proposing now he's out done us all." - XXLpeanuts"I was just gonna propose to my girlfriend in the Starbucks parking lot where I first told her I loved her. Welp, that ain't gonna do anymore..." - mattrva"I proposed to my wife in front of Disney Castle in Orlando and I've never felt less proud about it than after watching this video lol. For real though this is one of the best proposals I've ever seen, bravo." - thenaniwatiger"I thought I was smooth with my bridge and lilyponds on a blacksand beach in Hawaii..... this guy just went and rewrote theatrical history, broke the forth wall, made a 4th dimensional joke and timed it perfectly, made a highbrow doctors joke, conspired with the internet, and filled a theater with family and friends." - ooooopium"Goddamn I am cold, cynical bastard and you just warmed my heart with how hard you just crushed it, my dude. I'll say it. I am flat out envious." - Dr_Frasier_BaneCongratulations and best wishes to the lovely couple. May you truly live happily ever after.This article originally appeared on 01.09.20

"Bob's a nasty little bugger." The post The one singer Keith Richards called “a nasty little bugger” first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

"Imagining myself dying." The post “Morbidly obsessed”: the devastating story behind Elton John’s ‘Song for Guy’ first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

No love lost... The post “Contempt”: The Nirvana song used to mock Guns N’ Roses first appeared on Far Out Magazine.