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People

In 1996, John Leonard became famous for attempting what sounded like a joke: trading 7 million Pepsi Points for a military-grade fighter jet. Nearly three decades later, he’s finally getting something out of it — just not a Harrier.

Leonard, now in his 50s, is the face of a cheeky new Super Bowl campaign by Frontier Airlines, which has given him 7 million frequent flyer miles — one for every Pepsi Point he once tried to redeem. That’s enough to fly free for life.

The stunt rewrites the ending of a story that began with a Pepsi ad showing a teenager scoring prizes with points from soda purchases. In the commercial’s punchline, the kid lands a Harrier jet — with on-screen text declaring it could be his for 7 million points. Leonard took that literally.

“I was a scrappy kid,” Leonard recalled. He tried to collect the points, even finding a legal loophole to buy most of them outright. But when he submitted his claim, Pepsi said the jet wasn’t a real offer. A legal battle followed, eventually ending in court, where a judge ruled that no reasonable person would expect a soda company to hand over a fighter jet.

Leonard never got his plane. But his story lived on — eventually becoming the subject of a 2022 Netflix documentary titled Pepsi, Where’s My Jet?

Now, 30 years after his failed soda scheme, he’s back in the spotlight — this time with a win.

Frontier Airlines approached Leonard with an idea: What if they gave him the “jet” he deserved — in the form of flight rewards? “The first conversation was, ‘Hey, we want to get you the jet we think you should have got 30 years ago,’” Leonard said. “I was like, ‘Well, I’ve been down this route before. No thank you.’”

But Frontier kept pushing. Eventually, Leonard bought in. “They just had this creative cleverness and mischievousness that I really enjoy,” he said. “Frontier is super serious in how they take care of their planes, how they treat their customers… but at the same time, they can make it fun while doing it.”

In the airline’s Super Bowl commercial, Leonard receives the keys to a Frontier Airbus A320neo and makes himself comfortable — lounging across seats and claiming it as his own. The ad highlights both the absurdity of his original quest and the modern-day payoff.

For Leonard, the 7 million miles are a meaningful reward. “I’m an avid traveler,” he said. “We travel all the time with three kids. It’s not cheap to travel.” He admitted the fighter jet fantasy was never realistic. “I couldn’t fly a jet. I couldn’t have maintained it. It’s even a little bit more laughable when I look back.”

Frontier is using the partnership to promote its own loyalty program. From February 5 to 22, customers can convert unused points from other brands into Frontier miles — up to 5,000. “When someone goes the distance on loyalty, they should actually feel rewarded,” said Bobby Schroeter, Frontier’s chief commercial officer. “Giving John seven million miles is simply a bold example of how we believe loyalty should work: straightforward, meaningful, and genuinely fun.”

Reflecting on the long arc of his story, Leonard said he has no regrets. “If you asked me 25 years ago if I’d do it again, I’d tell you ‘No way,’” he said. “But after this last experience with Frontier, I would do it again in a heartbeat. It’s been fun.”

John Leonard Trades 7 Million Pepsi Points For Lifetime Frontier Flights In Super Bowl Ad

BBC News

At Granville Academy, a comprehensive school in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, vape detectors are as common as classroom clocks. But after months of trying the usual tactics—detentions, bathroom redesigns, and warnings—staff realized they needed a new strategy.

Despite tightening rules, students were still vaping in toilets, using e-cigarettes on the walk home, and even stealing them from local shops. So Granville Academy decided to flip the script: instead of punishing students, it would empower them.

Now, the school is part of a pilot project led by Derbyshire County Council aimed at creating vape-free campuses through education, not enforcement. It’s one of dozens of schools in the county trying a fresh, peer-driven approach.

“We can only control what we can control,” said head teacher Gemma Lowe. “And we weren’t seeing an improvement from detentions alone.”

That’s when the school leaned into a student-led model. Year 11 pupils were trained to run educational sessions for their younger peers, sharing personal stories, showing student-produced videos, and holding open conversations about vaping’s impact.

During one of the sessions observed by the BBC, Year 10 student Daniils—who used to vape—said the approach was already making a difference. “It’s making kids be better, not aspiring to be bad people,” he said.

Alicia, also a former vaper, admitted it had felt like “a big thing that everyone needed to do,” even though it made her feel “gross.” Another student, Jayden, said he’d vaped for three years and always felt guilty. “I felt like I was letting my mum down,” he said, adding, “It’s not easy to come off by yourself.”

Head girl Ocean, who helped lead the session, said younger pupils, especially Year 7 students, seemed particularly vulnerable to peer pressure. “I know [vapes] are being passed about in school,” she said.

Alex, another student leader, felt the issue wasn’t being taken seriously enough at the national level. “I think [politicians] are more bothered about immigration. They’re not focusing on the youth.” George, also part of the team, agreed: “It’s scary because it’s impacting us.” Ocean added, “I feel like it’s just been tucked under the rug.”

A recent BBC survey found more than half of secondary school teachers across England say vaping is a problem at their schools. About one in five schools has gone as far as installing vape detectors. The NASUWT teaching union wants vapes added to the list of banned items that allow school staff to search students.

Derbyshire County Council says an estimated 3,000 students in the county vape regularly. Until now, there’s been no specific cessation service for young people. That could soon change. The council is in the process of launching a school-based smoking and vaping support service that would provide 12 weeks of help for students trying to quit.

Granville Academy says it has already seen a drop in vaping since the pilot began. The UK government’s recent ban on disposable vapes has also helped, but Lowe said more targeted support would be a “massive difference.”

“At the moment, there’s an over-reliance on school staff to refer [students] into any services that we can use, like our school nursing team,” she said. “And the wait might be an extended wait that they wouldn’t get with an external service they can tap into themselves.”

A government spokesperson said, “We have always been clear that children should never vape,” and pointed to recent legislation banning single-use vapes and introducing new restrictions on advertising, flavours, and packaging.

For now, Granville’s student leaders are taking matters into their own hands. With a mix of honesty, peer support, and practical advice, they’re building something that detention couldn’t—real momentum toward change.

This School Tried a New Approach to Cut Teen Vaping — and It’s Working

ABC News

Rouble Nagi, an Indian teacher and activist who’s spent years turning slum walls into classrooms and building learning centers across India, has won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize.

The award was announced Thursday at the World Governments Summit in Dubai, where Nagi accepted the prize in front of global leaders and education advocates.

Nagi is best known for founding the Rouble Nagi Art Foundation, which has created more than 800 learning centers throughout India. Many of them serve children who have never attended school. The centers provide a pathway into structured education and support kids already enrolled in schools.

But Nagi’s impact isn’t limited to classrooms. She’s also known for painting vibrant murals across slum neighborhoods—artworks that double as lessons in literacy, math, science, and history. Her approach blends public art with accessible education, bringing learning directly to communities that are often overlooked.

“Rouble Nagi is an example of what’s possible when education and creativity come together to serve those most in need,” said representatives from the Varkey Foundation, which oversees the Global Teacher Prize.

The foundation, established by Sunny Varkey, also runs GEMS Education, one of the largest private school operators in the world. The $1 million prize is awarded annually to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to their profession and to the lives of students.

Nagi said she plans to use the funds to build a free vocational training institute, expanding her foundation’s efforts to help young people develop practical skills alongside traditional learning.

She becomes the 10th recipient of the Global Teacher Prize since it began in 2015. Previous winners have included educators from Kenya, Palestine, Canada, and Saudi Arabia, many of whom were recognized for their work in remote or underserved communities.

Nagi’s award highlights a growing recognition that teaching can take many forms—and sometimes, it starts with a paintbrush.

Indian Teacher Wins $1M Global Teacher Prize For Creating Hundreds Of Learning Centers

Most kids save their pocket money for toys or sweets. Not Rowan. The eight-year-old from Salford prefers to spend his on gloves, flowers, aftershave, and tents—for complete strangers.

“I love it. I just love to see their happiness and it brightens my day up as well,” he told BBC Radio Manchester.

Rowan has quickly become a viral sensation for his feel-good video series showcasing the "random acts of kindness" he performs across his community. The premise is simple: he takes his own money—saved from birthdays and Christmas—and uses it to help people who need a lift.

That could mean giving out chocolates and flowers to elderly neighbours. Or buying an umbrella, chair, and water for someone experiencing homelessness. He’s even purchased tents to help people sleeping rough.

His motivation? "I want to make the world a better place," he said.

Rowan said he started helping others when he was just three years old, handing out food with a local church collection. Since then, his efforts have grown more ambitious—and more personal. “I save money from my birthday or Christmas and buy homeless people things that they need,” he explained. “Then the elderly I just give chocolates and flowers, and the men just maybe sometimes chocolates and just aftershave.”

He also hopes other kids will follow his lead. “I want to encourage more people to do this, people my age as well,” he said.

His kindness hasn’t gone unnoticed at school either. Rowan proudly recalled winning an award after helping a younger child down from a climbing frame.

His mum, Toni, 28, says she’s been proud of him from the beginning.

“He was three years old when this came about,” she said. “Rowan had watched a Christmas advert showing a family that didn't have a lot of money and he got really upset by it.”

That moment stuck with him. He asked if he could save his pocket money to buy presents for people in need. It’s now grown into a quiet online campaign of goodwill.

Toni said they sometimes use social media to ask if anyone is in need. “He ended up helping a lot of people… like a lady who had just had a fire,” she said. “She was really down and he delivered gifts to her children. It was amazing.”

The kindness is all Rowan’s. He comes up with the ideas, picks out the gifts, and delivers them himself—one stranger at a time.

This 8-Year-Old from Salford Spends His Pocket Money on Strangers in Need — And He Loves It

Every week inside a chilly pavilion at King Edward Park in Nottingham, a group of volunteers huddles together—not to escape the cold, but to do something about it.

They call themselves the Kindness Angels. Some of them have slept on the streets. Now, they’re spending their time making sure others don’t feel forgotten.

The group, led by 42-year-old Kerry Warwick, has been packing what they call “care and snack bags” filled with essentials—warm clothing, hygiene items, food, and handwritten notes. They distribute them to people sleeping rough throughout the city, especially during freezing temperatures.

"A random act of kindness can improve anyone's day," said Warwick. "That's what life is all about, making people smile."

The effort began six years ago with a simple gesture. Warwick was with her daughter at a Santa’s grotto event when they saw a man sleeping outside. “My daughter said she wanted to buy the man a scarf, a hat and gloves,” Warwick recalled. “Since then, I have always helped the homeless.”

That impulse has since grown into a community-driven operation. Kindness Angels now packs around 100 drawstring bags at a time. Each one contains hats, gloves, scarves, socks, jumpers, and hygiene products—menstrual pads included. Everything is donated by local residents and businesses from Sneinton, Bakersfield, Colwick, and Carlton.

But the bags are just part of it. The group also takes time to speak with the people they meet.

"As well as taking bags, we talk to them because they are human," Warwick said. "People walk by them all the time thinking they only want money; they want conversations, too. Even asking them 'how are you' can change their day."

On 9 January, the homeless charity Framework recorded 44 individuals sleeping rough in Nottingham’s city centre, with another 21 using emergency shelters set up through the Severe Weather Emergency Protocol.

Kindness Angels meet that reality head-on, wearing high-vis jackets and pushing trolleys full of care bags around the city. For many of the volunteers, the work is personal.

Paula Cope, who joined the group, was once homeless herself. "I was homeless and I understand how it feels when you have no self esteem," she said. "I just want to show them that they are worth something and are worth caring about."

Her partner, Annmarie, has also experienced life on the streets. She sees their work as a way to help others feel seen. “We hope Kindness Angels turns homeless people from being invisible to being visible,” she said. “Unity commands a blessing. We can bless those on the streets who have gone through all the trials and tribulations of life and we want to make that period easier for them.”

She didn’t shy away from sharing her past. “I was homeless, I've been a drug addict, I've been an alcoholic, I've been the person that they are,” she said. “I want to give back what I felt when my life went back on the up.”

It’s not a charity with big offices or fancy slogans. It’s a group of people, many of them once in the same situation, now standing in the gap for others—offering not just warmth, but dignity.

In a city where it’s easy to look away, the Kindness Angels are reminding everyone to look closer. Sometimes, all it takes is a bag of socks, a warm jumper, and the simple act of asking someone how they’re doing.

These 'Kindness Angels' are Uniting to Support the Homeless with Care Bags

Black News

At age 10, Omarion Calloway was already doing a job most adults struggle with: caring for family while balancing school, emotions, and growing up. Like millions of other children in the U.S., he didn’t choose to become a caregiver. It happened because someone in his family needed help, and he stepped in—quietly, consistently, and without fanfare.

The work of young caregivers like Calloway is often overlooked. There’s no official job title, no paycheck, and usually no recognition. But across the country, experts estimate that millions of children and teens regularly take care of siblings, parents, or extended family—providing physical care, managing medications, handling household tasks, and offering emotional support. All while trying to get through math homework or puberty.

For a long time, these stories have remained largely outside of public awareness. But Calloway is working to change that.

In 2025, he spoke at the American Association of Caregiving Youth Conference in Boca Raton, Florida—a national gathering of educators, advocates, and health professionals organized by the group’s president, Connie Siskowski. On stage, Calloway didn’t lean into clichés about resilience or selflessness. Instead, he spoke honestly about what it’s like to grow up inside care—how love can exist alongside burnout, and how responsibility can isolate even as it binds families together.

That experience became the foundation for his next project: More Than Survival: A Guideline for Young Caregivers. The guide, which is free and available online at MoreThanSurvivalGuide.com, was created specifically for children and teens who are caring for others. It’s not written in clinical language or aimed at adults. It speaks directly to young people, offering practical advice, emotional validation, and something even more rare—recognition.

Too often, young caregivers are treated like they’re coping just fine. But Calloway’s guide takes a different approach. It names the reality of caregiving as a kid: the pressure, the confusion, the pride, and the toll. It makes space for the full experience, reminding young people that taking care of someone else doesn’t mean they don’t also need care themselves.

And he’s not stopping there. Calloway is now working on a short documentary, Hands Too Small, scheduled for release in May 2026. The film centers on the voices of caregiving youth and explores what it means to grow up carrying adult responsibilities in a child’s body. It’s part of a larger push to bring visibility to this hidden population—through storytelling, media, and policy conversations.

"That was always the hard part," Calloway said during his conference remarks. "Doing something huge, every day, and feeling like nobody saw it."

According to national caregiving advocates, he’s far from alone. While adult caregivers have begun receiving more attention in public discourse—especially during the pandemic—youth caregivers are still largely missing from those conversations. Schools, workplaces, and even pediatric care systems often don’t account for the fact that a student might be responsible for another person’s well-being before and after class.

Calloway’s work is drawing attention to that blind spot.

And it's not just about awareness. His guide and upcoming film are already sparking new conversations among educators and youth organizations. They’re being used as tools to help identify students who might otherwise fall through the cracks—kids who are tired, distracted, or absent not because they don’t care about school, but because they’re caring for someone else.

By turning his own experience into a resource, Calloway is pushing a quiet truth into public view: caregiving kids are everywhere. They’re in classrooms, sports teams, after-school programs. They show up, hold it together, and often say nothing.

What they need, Calloway says, isn’t pity. It’s to be seen, heard, and supported. His work isn’t about solving the caregiving crisis—it’s about making sure young people in those roles know they’re not alone.

And that, for once, someone is looking out for them too.

He Grew Up Taking Care of Others — Now He’s Making Sure Young Caregivers Aren’t Invisible

Mongabay

Tucked away in South Carolina is a facility that might just be the last hope for dozens of turtle and tortoise species teetering on the edge of extinction.

The Turtle Survival Center, run by the Turtle Survival Alliance, isn’t a zoo or a museum — it’s a high-security ark for the rarest of the rare. Founded in 2013, the center is home to hundreds of freshwater turtles and tortoises, each one representing a vanishing lineage. Some of these animals are extinct in the wild. Others are hanging on by threads due to habitat loss, wildlife trafficking, and the crushing math of slow reproduction.

Globally, more than half of all turtle and tortoise species are now threatened with extinction. In places like Southeast Asia, the situation is especially grim. Turtles are hunted for food, collected for the pet trade, and used in traditional medicine — all while forests disappear and roads, dams, and cities eat away at their homes. Because many turtles don’t start reproducing until decades into life, removing just one adult from the wild can erase generations of potential offspring.

That’s where the Turtle Survival Center comes in. It houses “founder” animals — individuals with genetic value — and carefully breeds species that no longer exist in the wild. It’s a long-game strategy: preserve the genetics, stabilize populations, and one day, if habitat conditions allow, return them to where they belong.

But breeding rare turtles isn’t just about pairing animals and waiting for eggs. It’s painstaking, science-heavy work that requires understanding everything from water chemistry to quarantine protocols. The center serves as a hands-on lab for developing those skills — and for teaching them to others.

Its training program, known as Turtle School, brings in conservationists from around the world. Participants come from zoos, veterinary hospitals, and field rescue teams to learn how to care for turtles seized in wildlife trafficking busts. When authorities intercept hundreds of animals in Cambodia, Mexico, Madagascar, or California, they need trained responders who can keep them alive.

This global rescue network — informal but highly effective — has become one of turtle conservation’s biggest strengths.

Still, no one at the Turtle Survival Center sees captivity as a solution. These assurance colonies exist because wild populations are collapsing. The ultimate goal remains reintroduction, but that requires protected habitats and enforcement systems that too often don’t exist.

The reality is bleak: turtles are built for stability, not speed. Their evolutionary strategy — mature slowly, live long, reproduce modestly — once served them well. But in a world of fast highways, global markets, and rising temperatures, it leaves them exposed.

The center’s mission is less about sweeping success than steady resistance. It won’t save turtles everywhere. But it’s working to make sure they’re not lost everywhere either.

For creatures that have outlived dinosaurs, ice ages, and drifting continents, the present moment may be their hardest yet. Whether they survive it may depend less on their biology than on our willingness to act. In South Carolina, at least, that work is already underway — buying time for species that are rapidly running out of it.

Inside the South Carolina Center Fighting to Save the World’s Rarest Turtles

USA Today

Dave Coulier is once again cancer-free.

The 66-year-old Full House star shared on Good Morning America that he’s now in remission after a recent battle with tongue cancer — just over a year after overcoming stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

“It’s been a roller coaster ride for sure,” Coulier told host Robin Roberts on Feb. 4, which marked World Cancer Day. “What a journey this has been.”

Doctors diagnosed him with p16 squamous cell carcinoma, a form of tongue cancer, during a routine checkup last spring — his first following treatment for lymphoma. At first, Coulier thought the two cancers were related. “It was a big shocker,” he told USA TODAY in December. He believed the chemotherapy for lymphoma might have weakened his immune system and caused the second cancer. But doctors assured him the two were unrelated.

In October, Coulier underwent surgery to remove the upper layer of his tongue — a procedure he described as painful and emotionally exhausting.

“I didn’t want to speak for the first couple of weeks,” he said. Recovery required help from a specialized rehab team, including what he called a “swallow coach.” He had to retrain himself to swallow and eat, a process that involved stretching his throat despite the discomfort. “Your tendency is just to stop eating, stop swallowing, stop drinking, stop doing anything,” he said.

Despite the setbacks, he credited his earlier cancer battle for helping catch the second cancer early. “Had I not gone in for that PET scan and gotten an early detection — it saved my life,” he said.

Coulier now hopes his story encourages others to prioritize regular checkups and stay vigilant, even after treatment.

Dave Coulier Celebrates Remission After Dual Cancer Battle

Talker News

As Cannon Hall Farm kicks off its February lambing season, the barns are bustling — not just with newborns, but with style. Hundreds of knitted sweaters have arrived from across the country to help keep the farm’s tiniest arrivals warm.

The outpouring of woolly support came after Farmer Rob Nicholson posted a plea on social media for a lamb named Soldier, who was born a week early and needed extra warmth. The response was overwhelming.

“We’ve been sent absolutely hundreds of jumpers — so many in fact that now all our lambs can keep warm in style and still have a fashionable outfit change,” Nicholson said.

Located in Barnsley, the family-run visitor attraction is preparing for a busy February, with hundreds of ewes expected to give birth. The cold temperatures can be dangerous for newborn lambs, making the jumpers a practical — and life-saving — gift.

“They are toasty warm inside these jumpers,” Nicholson said. “Cold kills lambs, they need to be warm. Whatever the weather does now these lambs are secure, and they’ve got all the different designs and colours they could dream of.”

Cannon Hall Farm is no stranger to the spotlight, having hosted Channel 5’s Springtime on the Farm. Their annual lambing festival returns during the February half-term, with visitors able to see the new arrivals — many now sporting handmade knitwear.

Nicholson added: “We couldn’t be more grateful. People have really done their best for us and we can’t thank them enough.”

Tiny Lambs at This UK Farm are Staying Warm Thanks to Hundreds of Donated Sweaters

Scientific American

As a surge of Arctic air swept into the southeastern U.S. last weekend, skies off Florida’s coast delivered a stunning visual treat: long, perfectly aligned rows of clouds streaming over the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean.

The pattern, captured on satellite, is known as “cloud streets” — a series of narrow, parallel cloud bands that form under very specific weather conditions. And this weekend’s frigid temperatures set the stage perfectly.

Cloud streets, or horizontal convective rolls as scientists call them, appear when cold, dry air flows over much warmer ocean water. In this case, the cold front plunged southward into typically balmy Florida, setting up a dramatic temperature contrast with the warm surface waters below.

As the cold air passes over the sea, it picks up moisture and begins to rise. That rising air eventually cools, and the water vapor condenses into clouds. But it doesn’t just float straight up — a layer of warmer air higher up acts like a ceiling, forcing the moist air to roll back down in rotating cylinders. The result: neat, evenly spaced lines of clouds, each one separated by clear skies where dry air is sinking.

NASA described the process in 2019 as forming “parallel cylinders of rotating air.” You can see where each cylinder draws up moist air and where it sends cooled, dry air back down — and that contrast creates the signature streaks in the sky.

There’s often a noticeable gap between the coastline and the start of the clouds. That’s because the cold air needs time to absorb enough moisture from the ocean surface before cloud formation can begin.

These cloud formations also tend to line up with the prevailing wind direction. In this case, the wind helped stretch the patterns dramatically offshore, offering a mesmerizing view on satellite imagery.

Though they’re not uncommon during winter cold snaps, cloud streets still manage to spark fascination — both for their orderly beauty and for what they reveal about the interaction between ocean, air, and atmosphere.

So while temperatures plummeted and wind chills dropped across the East Coast, the skies off Florida quietly reminded us just how elegant and complex nature can be when conditions align just right.

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