If you’re a Chick-fil-A fan like us, pay attention. All locations are handing out free breakfast items through the end of the month. All you have to do is download the app to cash in. As a way of celebrating its 80th birthday, the company is giving away Chick-fil-A Chicken Biscuits—no strings attached through February 28th. The deal is available on its app under “My Rewards” for everyone who downloads the app or who already has it. Literally everyone who wants a free Chicken Biscuit can grab one during breakfast hours. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Snackolator (@snackolator) “We love finding ways to surprise and delight our guests, especially during this year’s ‘Newstalgia’ celebration in honor of 80 years,” Chick-fil-A Vice President of Brand Strategy, Advertising & Media, Khalilah Cooper, said in a statement per Southern Living. “What better way to celebrate than by giving a breakfast classic to our Chick-fil-A One Members? It’s our small way of thanking guests for being part of our story, then and now.” Chick-fil-A is Celebrating 80 Years Throughout 2026 The free breakfast sandwich is only a small part of the birthday celebrations, too. Chick-fil-A began introducing new deals and treats in January and will continue throughout the year. The chain has also been reintroducing some of its most nostalgic classics, like its cow calendar, its 1940s and 50s packaging, and its frosted floats and sodas. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Snackolator (@snackolator) This story’s featured image is by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images.

Wheel of Fortune’s Vanna White turned 69 today (Feb 18), and she’s celebrating both a beautiful life and a beautiful career. The letter-turning legend took to Instagram to share a photo dump of her fun-filled birthday at the game show’s set and admitted in the caption that “working on your birthday isn’t so bad when you get to celebrate with this amazing crew.” View this post on Instagram Vanna ended her message with “Thank you all so much for all the love today.” In a series of five photos, Vanna captured a massive birthday party filled with cake and smiles. Fans were thrilled to see their favorite game show host glowing as she celebrated her big day. “God bless you on your very special day from a huge fan from the West Coast of Canada,” one person wrote in the comments. “I really hope you do not plan on retiring, PLEASE!!” another begged. Vanna White has had an especially good year leading up to this birthday. The blonde beauty secretly said “I do” to longtime boyfriend, John Donaldson. And for those who are worried about her following Pat Sajak out the door and retiring, you don’t need to worry. She recently said she’s not ready to call it quits. “I’m just not ready to retire yet,” she told E! News. “I’m having fun. I feel good. I feel healthy,’” she added. “So, at this point, it’s one year at a time.” This story’s featured image is by Eric McCandless/Disney via Getty Images.

Olympic skiers had the most adorable competition at the cross-country skiing team sprint free race on Wednesday, and we think he deserve a medal. While the athletes were on their final sprint on the course in Lago Di Tesero, Italy, this morning (Feb. 18), a local Czechoslovakian wolfdog named Nazgul went on a joy run after escaping his doghouse at a bed-and-breakfast. Before his family could track him down, he spotted the race and ran into the mix. DOG ON THE COURSE AT OLYMPIC SKIING. The late entry closes strong at the cross country finish line! pic.twitter.com/o4mO28tXXW— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) February 18, 2026 “He was crying this morning more than normal because he was seeing us leaving — and I think he just wanted to follow us,” his owner shared with NPR. “He always looks for people.” The Dog Returned Home After His Olympic Sprint Footage shows the seemingly smiling pooch running full speed behind two skiers. Fortunately, he didn’t interfere with medal-winning competitors. The top skiers had already finished the race. And when he crossed the finish line, he gave the few athletes left a surprise when he greeted them with tail-wagging sniffs. “I was like, ‘Am I hallucinating?” Croatian skier Tena Hadzic said. “I don’t know what I should do because maybe he could attack me, bite me.” Race officials were able to quickly capture Nazgul and get him home unharmed and with new memories. This story’s featured image is by Andrzej Iwanczuk/NurPhoto via Getty Images.

Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you’ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here. From plastic to petals Sequin-clad merrymakers filled the streets of New Orleans once more this week to celebrate Mardi Gras, the jubilant end to the annual Carnival season. But amid the feasting and revelry, the environment is paying a heavy price. In recent years, the infamous party has produced more waste than ever, reports The New York Times in an article shared by Contributing Editor Michaela Haas. As well as clogging landfills, this stuff is having immediate impacts on the city’s health. A 2013 study found that more than 60 percent of Mardi Gras beads — a common item thrown from festival floats — contained unsafe lead levels. In 2018, 46 tons of beads were found to be clogging vital flood infrastructure. Now, a coalition of nonprofits, city officials and scientists is trying to clean up the party, says the NYT, adopting waste prevention strategies and exploring everything from beads made out of a byproduct of sugar cane production to 3D-printed beads embedded with okra seeds. To have beautiful flowers, people will have to nurture these seedlings, said Dr. Naohiro Kato, adding: “You have to take care of what you receive.” Michaela says: Proof that you don’t need plastic to have fun! Taking a stand Despite facing legal instability, Haitian migrants at a beef plant in Colorado were among a group of largely immigrant union workers who voted overwhelmingly to strike last week. The meatpacking plant is owned by Brazilian multinational JBS, the world’s largest producer of beef. In what could become the first sanctioned walkout at a major meatpacking plant in decades, according to an article in the Food and Environment Reporting Network, shared by Interim Editorial Director Tess Riley, the strike vote came following eight months of tense negotiations over pay and dangerous working conditions. “The workers have spoken,” said Kim Cordova, the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 union. Tess says: Collective bargaining is a cornerstone of democracy, enabling unions to support marginalized groups in the face of powerful corporations. What else we’re reading Childhood Trauma Doesn’t Have to Be a Lifelong Curse — shared by Executive Editor Will Doig from The New York Times  How Breckenridge Reserved Almost 75 Percent of Its Full-Time Housing for Workforce — shared by Interim Editorial Director Tess Riley from High Country News  Nearly Half of L.A. County’s Pavement May Be Unnecessary, New Map Finds — shared by Contributing Editor Michaela Haas from Los Angeles Times  Amsterdam, Florence Become Latest Cities to Ban Fossil Fuel Ads — shared by Interim Editorial Director Tess Riley from Earth.Org  Vienna Swaps Parking for Green Space — shared by Interim Editorial Director Tess Riley from DW In other news… Last week, we ran a story about the DIY diehards building green infrastructure from scratch and it turns out that not one but two of the Reasons to be Cheerful team is now hoping to do one of the DIY wind turbine courses at the center of that article. Because who doesn’t want to harness their own energy and have fun learning how to do so! Credit: PureSelfMade Have you done any interesting sustainability courses, or have any good eco-tips to tell us about? As ever, send them over to info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we’ll share any highlights with you all. The post What We’re Reading: A Carnival Clean-Up in New Orleans appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

Imagine you're walking by a payphone in Abilene, Texas, when it unexpectedly rings. You pick up, only to hear that a total stranger over 1500 miles away in San Francisco is on the other end of the line. Do you argue, as so many social media algorithms would have people do? Or do you dig into your primal human instinct, the one that makes evolution possible, and find yourself connecting?The biotech company Matter Neuroscience had this thought. What if they chose one of the most conservative and most liberal cities in the U.S. and installed free payphone-looking devices in each one? The idea is to bridge the gap between the great divide many are currently experiencing. Whether due to politics, religion, or different lifestyles, many are seemingly forgetting that we're all just human beings searching for contentment. See on Instagram On their Instagram page, Matter Neuroscience (@Matterneuroscience) explains that it's about people connecting from all walks of life. "The goal of this project is to create space for friendly, human-to-human conversations. We believe that a few different opinions (even on important political topics) should not block us from having a truly positive, maybe even fun conversation with other humans."How it worksAs explained on the initial Instagram Reel, "When one phone is picked up, it automatically calls the other." In a video, we see one of the Matter Neuroscience teammates, Logan Ivey, setting up an old payphone that was bought on Facebook Marketplace for $300.00. Ivey jimmies it open to put a modem inside, with a Verizon SIM card inserted. In essence, it's a cell phone inside of a payphone.On the side, the words "The Party Line" are painted to entice people walking by to give it a shot. At the top of the "payphone" in San Francisco, they've written "Call a Republican." (In Texas, it says "Call a Democrat.") There's an extra plaque at the top that says, "This payphone is a social experiment. Right now you're in San Francisco, the most liberal city in America. When you pick up this phone, it will automatically connect you to another payphone in Abilene, Texas, the most conservative city in America."They continue their mission statement, writing, "The goal for this project is to have people from different places have meaningful conversations. Because hostile political discourse increases our brain's cortisol levels and suppresses our happiness. But positive conversations do the opposite. We are recording the conversations so that we can highlight positive ones on our social media account, though any personal names shared will be bleeped out, as we treasure your anonymity. Have fun and enjoy!" See on Instagram The resultsPeople are already taking the "have fun" part to heart. In one conversation, the phone rings in Texas and a young woman answers. After some giggly pleasantries, they each establish the cities they're in and the current weather. The adorably pure laughter continues as they realize what a cool thing they're taking part in. The Texan shares, "I've been to San Francisco before. You have those cool little streets and stuff."The Californian is, unfortunately, late for a meeting, but noted, "I was like I had to pick up." The Texan is glad she did, gushing, "Oh my goodness. We picked up at the same time. I'll probably never see you again. But Jesus loves you and I hope you have a good life."The Californian agrees. "Oh yeah, you too. Sending you all the best. All the blessings." See on Instagram Another conversation has a Texas woman and a California guy connecting nearly immediately. He admits, "I was running down the street and I heard the phone ring. Wait a second, I know that phone!" They laugh and once again pleasantly discuss the weather. He then asks, "What else do you want to talk about?"She answers honestly, saying, "I don't know! We just wanted to call and make some friends." He replies, "Oh fantastic! Well, I'm going to meet a bunch of friends out. We're a group called Moto Chug. It's not really a group, but it's the group text name. And we're all friends who ride motorcycles together." He tells her a bit about their group, to which she replies in earnest, "You are so cool. I hope that you know that. And I hope that you go and tell your friends that this random college kid from Abilene, Texas thinks that you guys are so cool."He sweetly responds, "Awww, awesome! Right on! Well, it's great to talk to Texas, man. Hang in there. I've got good family in Texas and they're all great people. Hella love going from San Francisco to Abilene, Texas right now."They then exchange names before he tells her, "We need to make more connections to make this a better place." The comment section is delighted. One writes, "I'm grinning from ear to ear — just pure joy on what's going on here! Can't wait for the next call."Another adds, in part, "The type of discourse we really need in this country." See on Instagram Matter Neuroscience and their missionMatter Neuroscience has been searching for the definitive formula for happiness since they were founded in 2019. Alongside the Happiness Research Institute, Maastricht University, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, they (according to their website) sought "to find a universal biomarker for happiness to guide all of us to long, happier, healthier lives." But what they've found is that the answer is far more complex than some doctors or even philosophers might suggest.Upworthy had the chance to chat with Ben Goldhirsh, who co-founded Matter Neuroscience, alongside neuroscientist Axel Bouchon. (Small world! Goldhirsh incidentally was also one of the co-founders of GOOD Worldwide, the umbrella company of Upworthy.) He explained that in all of his research, he has found that if people only understood how the brain worked, it could make a real difference. "It's interesting how culture sort of focuses you on certain areas. The reality is that your biology requires this rainbow of activity."He also notes that everyone should benefit from happiness research, not just depression and anxiety patients. Their team decided, "We should create something that is useful to everyone. So, we basically opened up the 'Emotional Fitness Club' (an app.) Everyone should understand the science of happiness. We all have this incredible organ, and we're trying every day to teach people about this stuff."The payphone experiment wanted to test how people, when stripped to just two voices across the country, would react to one another. "One of the topics that a lot of people in our community were talking about is how stressful things feel right now. And so cortisol is this fascinating and super valuable chemical in the brain that is popped out when we experience conflict or a fight-or-flight response."The question posed was: "Are we in a state of fight or flight actually? Or are we actually just misconstruing things and feeling like we're in conflict? If we put a phone booth in the most liberal city and the most conservative city based on voting blocks, will people choose conflict? Because in a way, that's what the media would make you think people would choose. Or will people choose to connect and find common ground, which releases all these positive emotions, or chemicals, in the brain? Will they choose cortisol and conflict? Or will people choose cannabinoids and finding common ground?"Turns out, at least so far, that 100 percent of the people in these conversations have chosen common ground. "I get to listen to all of this. It's this amazing break from the funny mirror that we're constantly looking in."Additionally, Goldhirsh shares that people are just looking to connect. "People don't want to be seen as stereotypes. People look to connect on human stuff. Like 'Oh, I'm on a date.' Or 'Gosh, this sandwich is so expensive.' Humans are awesome, and if given the chance to connect, it brings out our humanity. And it's really nice to see how we biologically evolved to connect with each other directly. And when we have those opportunities, it turns out the best parts of us." See on Instagram