Get a better sense of how illnesses have shaped history with these gripping reads about history’s most notorious diseases.

Los Angeles prosecutors on Thursday announced that they would recommend that Erik and Lyle Menendez be resentenced for the 1989 murder of their parents more than 30 years after their conviction. Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is expected to announce the decision in a press conference on Thursday, according to NBC Los Angeles. Gascón previously said that his office would review the case in light of new evidence and a recent determination that the brothers, who each received a...

The owners of a container ship that crashed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge have been ordered to pay the US government more than $100m (£77.1m) in damages, the US justice department has announced. Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited, the companies that owned and operated the Dali have agreed to pay, resolving a month-long civil lawsuit.

When Gamai was too young even to speak, her life changed in one horrible instant. Only a year old, she toddled over to a bowl of water her mother had left on the fire, and pulled it down onto herself. "She came and the water fell on her, burning her," Gamai's mother, Confort, recalled. "We carried her to the hospital, but they only gave us ointment for her hands. They said it could not be cured." What followed for Gamai and her family were years of pain in which, due to her injuries, Gamai was unable to make proper use of her arms. Holding onto a teddy bear was one of the few actions she could manage. "Every time whenever I see her hands, I feel very bad," Confort shared. "To even walk with her on the street, I am ashamed." A second chance at childhood For years, Gamai lived without the ability to do things that are part of growing up. She couldn’t draw, dance, or hug her dad. Her accident stole many of the simple joys of childhood, but thanks to the life-changing work of an almost fifty-year-old charitable organization, a brighter future was on its way. "I had a faith that my daughter’s hands will be healed. Fortunately, God heard our prayers and sent a ship to help us." — Confort, Gamai’s mother One day, while at work, Gamai's father, Lamine, heard that a hospital ship was coming to the city. The Africa Mercy, a medical ship run by Mercy Ships, which provides free medical care to people in need, arrived in Gamai's city and welcomed her aboard. The Africa Mercy, one of several vessels operated by Mercy Ships.Aboubacarkhoraa "Ohhh! All the nurses were too nice to me! [...] It changed a lot in my life. It removed shame from my face. " — Confort, Gamai’s mother There, they performed the reconstructive surgery that changed everything for Gamai. Finding freedom in a simple hug After the operation, she could move her arms freely again, finally playing, dancing, and experiencing what she had missed for so long. “Today she is so active because she can move like she couldn’t before. It was as if she was in prison but today I can say she is free." — Confort, Gamai’s mother Most importantly, she could hug her father, a small thing that, or Gamai, was monumental. For years, she had lived without being able to physically express her love or connect with others in such an intimate way. That first hug represented freedom—not just the freedom to move but to feel fully connected with the people she loves. via GIPHY A global community of kindness Mercy Ships' volunteers are people from all over the world—doctors, nurses, and other professionals—who give their time to help children like Gamai. These ships, equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, travel to areas where access to surgery is almost nonexistent. Because of their work, children suffering from painful and preventable conditions get the care they need. While Mercy Ships’ work spans many countries, each story is personal, and Gamai’s is a perfect example of how their mission is changing lives. From holding onto a teddy bear for comfort, Gamai can now dance, write, and experience the joy of being a kid. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mercy Ships UK (@mercyshipsuk) Want to help? Mercy Ships continues to bring healing to children like Gamai. If you’re inspired by her story, you can learn more or support their mission by visiting Mercy Ships.

There's an old joke slash meme that goes something like this:"Guys literally only want one thing and it's disgusting."Its used to imply, obviously, that men are shallow and crude creatures.TikTok creator and simple-life advocate Nolan Reid, however, has a different idea of what men really want.Nolan recently made a video about "Little things in life that make men happy."The hilarious list includes:A fridge full of beer.Drinking said beer in the garage. With your dog. And a good buddy.Finding a cool stick.Kicking a rock.Staring at water.Dropping rocks into said water.As a fellow man, I would say: Yeah. That pretty much covers it.It really doesn't take much! Watch Nolan's full video to see the rest, and just appreciate how much joy and satisfaction he gets from these simple thing. @nolanreid7 People loved Nolan's list – so much so that they began adding their own ideas of "simple things men love."The video racked up hundreds of thousands of views across TikTok and Instagram.One commenter wrote, "He just described my whole personality." Another added, "This guy gets it."Others chimed in with their own additions to the list, like staring at a fire for hours. Or just peace and quiet.But most of the nearly 200 comments were just people chiming in to say one thing:"Hell yeah."Finally, someone who understands us.Nolan's ultra-relaxed vision of "masculinity" is honestly so refreshing.Men on social media are usually bombarded with the Andrew Tates and Jordan Petersons of the world, influencers who constantly berate us to make more money, lose weight and add muscle, sleep with more women, take charge, relentlessly self-improve.I like Nolan's much chiller idea of masculinity. It reminds me of being a kid, taking pleasure in the simple things, not racing to be anywhere, not trying to impress anyone or prove anything.Nolan's entire account is a breath of fresh air, an antidote to hustle culture. His videos find joy in:Breaking down cardboard boxesDriving at sunsetGoing fishingThrowing a frisbeeWearing t-shirtsA daily visit to his page is almost like a meditation. I highly recommend giving him a follow to add a little counterprogramming to your social media feed.Nolan says in another recent video that he started making TikToks and Instagram reels just for fun, but discovered along the way that he was really passionate about the message. "I never thought that my simple living and love for little things would resonate with so many of you."He said he hopes to inspire people to "take a step back and enjoy the good simple things in life."I suddenly have the urge to go chuck a rock into a river, so I would say: Mission Accomplished!

Towards the end of The Beatles’ illustrious but brief career, Paul McCartney wrote “Let it Be,” a song about finding peace by letting events take their natural course. It was a sentiment that seemed to mirror the feeling of resignation the band had with its imminent demise.The bittersweet song has had an appeal that has lasted generations and that may be because it reflects an essential psychological concept: the locus of control. “It’s about understanding where our influence ends and accepting that some things are beyond our control,” Jennifer Chappell Marsh, a marriage and family therapist, told The Huffington Post. “We can’t control others, so instead, we should focus on our own actions and responses.”This idea of giving up control, or the illusion of it, when it does us no good, was perfectly distilled into 2 words that everyone can understand as the “Let Them” theory. Podcast host, author, motivational speaker and former lawyer Mel Robbins explained this theory perfectly in a vial Instagram video. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Mel Robbins (@melrobbins) “I just heard about this thing called the ‘Let Them Theory,’ I freaking love this,” Robbins starts the video. “If your friends are not inviting you out to brunch this weekend, let them. If the person that you're really attracted to is not interested in a commitment, let them. If your kids do not want to get up and go to that thing with you this week, let them.” Robbins says in the clip. “So much time and energy is wasted on forcing other people to match our expectations.” “If they’re not showing up how you want them to show up, do not try to force them to change; let them be themselves because they are revealing who they are to you. Just let them – and then you get to choose what you do next,” she continued. The phrase is a great one to keep in your mental health tool kit because it’s a reminder that, for the most part, we can’t control other people. And if we can, is it worth wasting the emotional energy? Especially when we can allow people to behave as they wish and then we can react to them however we choose. Stop wasting energy on trying to get other people to meet YOUR expectations. Instead, try using the “Let Them Theory.”  @melrobbins Stop wasting energy on trying to get other people to meet YOUR expectations. Instead, try using the “Let Them Theory.” ? Listen now on the #melrobbinspodcast!! “The “Let Them Theory”: A Life Changing Mindset Hack That 15 Million People Can’t Stop Talking About” ? in bio #melrobbins #letthemtheory #letgo #lettinggo #podcast #podcastepisode How you respond to their behavior can significantly impact how they treat you in the future.It’s also incredibly freeing to relieve yourself of the responsibility of changing people or feeling responsible for their actions. As the old Polish proverb goes, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”“Yes! It’s much like a concept propelled by the book ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k.’ Save your energy and set your boundaries accordingly. It’s realizing that we only have “control” over ourselves and it’s so freeing,” 60DaysToLive2012 wrote.“Let It Be” brought Paul McCartney solace as he dealt with losing his band in a very public breakup. The same state of mind can help all of us, whether it’s dealing with parents living in the past, friends who change and you don’t feel like you know them anymore, or someone who cuts you off in traffic because they’re in a huge rush to go who knows where.The moment someone gets on your nerves and you feel a jolt of anxiety run up your back, take a big breath and say, “Let them.”This article originally appeared on 3.4.24

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings. Once the dog was in their house, they noticed that their cats started behaving strangely towards their canine sibling. The cats started attacking the dog, likely trying to get it to tell them what they did with their real dog sister. Cat slaps and a house full of strange people didn't dampen the imposter's spirit though, in fact, that's what helped reveal the switcharoo. This dog kept handing out face kisses and had no interest in seeing her favorite neighbor. After putting all of those things together, the owners decided to hightail it to the vet's office to scan the dog's microchip. Alas, they indeed had the wrong dog. "We just never even thought that that would happen, and of course we thought we would know right? Like we're her parents, we would know something was wrong, we would know right off the bat that it wasn't Emmy," Kebby Kelley told Fox 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul. Seems both golden retrievers got to go on a really strange adventure that deserves a lifetime of delicious dog treats for the confusion. See both sweet pups below:This article originally appeared on 9.21.23

You're probably familiar with the literary classic "Moby-Dick." But in case you're not, here's the gist: Moby Dick is the name of a huge albino sperm whale. (Get your mind outta the gutter.) There's this dude named Captain Ahab who really really hates the whale, and he goes absolutely bonkers in his quest to hunt and kill it, and then everything is awful and we all die unsatisfied with our shared sad existence and — oops, spoilers!OK, technically, the narrator Ishmael survives. So it's actually a happy ending (kind of)! Basically, it's a famous book about revenge and obsession that was published back in 1851, and it's really, really long.It's chock-full of beautiful passages and dense symbolism and deep thematic resonance and all those good things that earned it a top spot in the musty canon of important literature.There's also a lot of mundane descriptions about the whaling trade as well (like, a lot). That's because it came out back when commercial whaling was still a thing we did.In fact, humans used to hunt more than 50,000 whales each year to use for oil, meat, baleen, and oil. (Yes, I wrote oil twice.) Then, in 1946, the International Whaling Commission stepped in and said "Hey, wait a minute, guys. There's only a few handful of these majestic creatures left in the entire world, so maybe we should try to not kill them anymore?"And even then, commercial whaling was still legal in some parts of the world until as recently as 1986.And yet by some miracle, there are whales who were born before "Moby-Dick" was published that are still alive today.What are the odds of that? Honestly it's hard to calculate since we can't exactly swim up to a bowhead and say, "Hey, how old are you?" and expect a response. (Also that's a rude question — jeez.)Thanks to some thoughtful collaboration between researchers and traditional Inupiat whalers (who are still allowed to hunt for survival), scientists have used amino acids in the eyes of whales and harpoon fragments lodged in their carcasses to determine the age of these enormous animals — and they found at least three bowhead whales who were living prior to 1850.Granted those are bowheads, not sperm whales like the fictional Moby Dick, (and none of them are albino, I think), but still. Pretty amazing, huh?This is a particularly remarkable feat considering that the entire species was dwindling near extinction.Barring these few centenarian leviathans, most of the whales still kickin' it today are between 20 and 70 years old. That's because most whale populations were reduced to 10% or less of their numbers between the 18th and 20th centuries, thanks to a few over-eager hunters (and by a few, I mean all of them).Today, sperm whales are considered one of the most populous species of massive marine mammals; bowheads, on the other hand, are still in trouble, despite a 20% increase in population since the mid-1980s. Makes those few elderly bowheads that much more impressive, huh?Unfortunately, just as things are looking up, these wonderful whales are in trouble once again.We might not need to worry our real-life Captain Ahabs anymore, but our big aquatic buddies are still being threatened by industrialization — namely, from oil drilling in the Arctic and the Great Australian Bight.In the off-chance that companies like Shell and BP manage not to spill millions of gallons of harmful crude oil into the water, the act of drilling alone is likely to maim or kill millions of animals, and the supposedly-safer sonic blasting will blow out their eardrums or worse.This influx of industrialization also affects their migratory patterns — threatening not only the humans who depend on them, but also the entire marine ecosystem.And I mean, c'mon — who would want to hurt this adorable face?Whales might be large and long-living. But they still need our help to survive.If you want another whale to make it to his two-hundred-and-eleventy-first birthday (which you should because I hear they throw great parties), then sign this petition to protect the waters from Big Oil and other industrial threats.I guarantee Moby Dick will appreciate it.This article originally appeared on 11.04.15