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He goes everywhere with the soon-to-be eight-grader [Rachel Benke], including accepting awards at school, celebrating birthdays, and even on the school track where he one day sprung into action. "Her aide was holding Taxi on the side and he just started pulling away from the aide as hard as he could trying to get to Rachel," [Theresa] Benke said. She said once they got her inside, Rachel had a grand mal seizure, and Taxi wouldn't leave the girl's side. "I don't know how Taxi new this, but he wouldn't let anyone near her until the paramedics arrived,"- KHOU 11.

Jean Francois showed off these cleats, which depict Darth Vader and Kylo Ren to the eager eyes of the internet today. Francois plans on hitting the gridiron tonight against the Eagles, sporting these flashy new cleats. Let's just say the force is strong with this one. Lightsabers not yet NFL approved though.

Here's a sneak peek of my footwear for "Saturday Night Football" pic.twitter.com/D0vKFY8aC2

— Ricky Jean Francois (@Freakyjean99) December 24, 2015

This is Angela Zhang, a Californian student who just won $100,000 in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Her contribution to the competition? Nothing big, just discovering a cell that can fight cancer. Oh sorry, I meant developed that cell. Her work, titled "Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells," is a total mouthful, but some are saying it's a real "Swiss army-knife" in the fight against cancer - helping both the treatment of cancer cells and their detection.

Did I mention that she's seventeen years old?

And with that, I'm going to go pretend like I've accomplished something with my life.

Check the via link for more info!

The Ferguson Police Department is testing out a new device which they think might help prevent unnecessary shooting deaths.

“The Alternative” was invented by a retired police officer and is produced by a California-based company called Alternative Ballistics. It’s an orange accessory that sits on the end of a gun and basically slows down the bullet so it is less likely to kill someone (although it has never actually been used on a human).

“It’s going to feel like you’re getting punched in the chest by Barry Bonds,” CEO Christian Ellis told CNN. “It’s going to break some ribs.”

The company claims it only takes a few seconds to attach the device to the gun, and it doesn’t obstruct the view of the target through the sight.

Here’s a description of how it works according to Alternative Ballistics:

Once the weapon is fired; the bullet embeds itself inside the projectile with no chance of escaping, simultaneously transferring the bullet’s energy, propelling it directly at the target. Once the bullet is fired from the gun into the projectile they permanently become one unit. The docking unit will automatically eject from the weapon and the firearm returns to its normal function before it cycles in a new round.

It's as if this story walked right off the set of a heartwarming Hallmark Holiday movie; this will bring on all the warm and fuzzy feels.

David Marks told ABC News,

I couldn't believe it. It was an absolute surprise, and the perfect Christmas gift.

For the last six years spent away from his home, Willie was provided for by a family out of Eureka, Nevada, almost 300 miles from his home in Las Vegas. With Willie back at home, the Marks tell the press that it feels like everything's right again. Isn't that a happy ending to a long and bumpy tale?

Watch the entire allergy-inducing video here. Fair warning, it's pretttty touching:

Picture courtesy of Uproxx.

From the New York Post:

For months doctors searched for a way to awaken Li, but to no avail. It wasn't until his family revealed what he loved most in the world that they found their key to success.

"We had asked his family what really drove him, and they were very clear that it was money," Tang said. "When we learned about his fondness for money, we experimented with notes and change.

"Memories of smell and sound can be very powerful stimulants," he added. "We found that a crisp, new 100 yuan note crumpled under his nose worked best."

A fireworks festival at Oban in Scotland went awry, releasing the entire load of explosives (meant for a half hour long show) at once. So, minus one very nice well-produced fireworks show. Plus one "Minute-long-spark-and-boom Party".

Fake news is a serious problem. In fact, bogus headlines might have been partly responsible for very real headlines, like ones about a “pizzagate shooter” and a billionaire reality TV game show host winning the presidency.

To arm yourself against Fake News, the only thing you can do is be vigilant. It’s clear that critical thinking and media literacy are not at the top of most school’s lesson plans, so NPR put together a solid list of things to look out for when reading the news. After you check out the list, send it to any family members or former classmates who keep clogging our newsfeeds with this stuff. 

via YouTube

Pay Attention to Domain and URL

Addresses that end in “[dot] com” — good.

Addresses that end in “[dot] com [dot] co — bad.

Read the "About Us" section

According to NPR, if the “melodramatic and seems overblown, you should be skeptical. Also, you should be able to find out more information about the organization's leaders in places other than that site.”

Read the quotes in the story

Journalism, of the most part, relies on first person accounts to get the stories. Traditionally, although becuase of the internet this has been dwindling, it’s a journalistic responsibility to speak to more than one source.

If you’re reading a story and there aren’t that many quotes, raise your eyebrows and look into who they’re quoting.

Read the comments

This goes against smart practices, but if you think something might be fake, read the comments. Because so many comment sections are linked to other social media sites, there’s a good chance someone is already calling the article “fake” in the comments.

Reverse image search

Honestly, if you’ve already gone through the other steps and still can’t whether it’s fake news or not, either check another news outlet or get off the internet. But if you really want to know how to do this, NPR says, “You can do this by right-clicking on the image and choosing to search Google for it. If the image is appearing on a lot of stories about many different topics, there's a good chance it's not actually an image of what it says it was on the first story.

BONUS: See who’s writing this garbage

If every article is written by Jimmy Rustling, and they include headlines like “DRUGS IN COLORADO: New Deadly Strain Of Marijuana Turning Users Gay,” you’re on a fake new site, buddy. 

BONUS BONUS

Jimmy Rustling’s bio on abc.com.co is unbelievable.

via ABCNews.com.co