Author: USA Facts News

Taking place on Sunday (9 February), the world will be watching once again as Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs square off against Jalen Hurts’ Eagles at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.

That will very much include the extremely famous girlfriend of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, music sensation Taylor Swift.

And with multiple Grammy award-winning Kendrick Lamar taking to the stage for the halftime show, all eyes will be on whether he inflames his beef with Drake even more than he recently has.

The NFL is a growing sport on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, with the UK and Europe outreach programmes a huge opportunity for league bosses when it comes to making money and expanding the game.

It’s why in 2024, more than 3.4 million Brits tuned in live overnight to watch the event despite kick off being at 11.30pm and not ending until the very early hours of the following Monday morning.

Over in the USA the game is being broadcasted on Fox and for free on streaming platform Tubi.

In the UK, Super Bowl LIX broadcast rights belong to Sky Sports and DAZN for those who pay for those subscription services.

Thankfully, it is also available on free-to-air channels, with ITV1 and ITVX also having the rights for the 2025 event.

But if you decide to tune in, you could end up facing a potential £1,000 fine if you don’t have the correct paperwork.

We’re talking about a TV Licence, which is a necessary legal requirement if you end up watching live TV of any kind.

This also counts for live on-demand content such as on YouTube, Netflix live events, and ITVX.

Daniel McAfee, Head of Legal Operations at Lawhive, says: “Under UK law, any live television broadcast requires a valid TV licence, regardless of the streaming platform.”

A TV licensing spokesperson previously said that the service ‘has a duty to enforce the law when there is evidence that someone has avoided paying for a TV Licence’.

Most people tend to have magical memories of ‘The Happiest Place on Earth’ but theme parks have sadly been home to several tragedies throughout history.

And in 1974, Deborah Gail Stone lost her life at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California.

The 18-year-old has taken up the job as a hostess to earn some extra cash ahead off going to college following her high school graduation, where she landed a role greeting visitors as they entered the newly opened ‘America Sings’.

Featuring a cast of audio-animatronic animals, the attraction had replaced ‘Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress’ which had moved to Florida’s Magic Kingdom.

It was basically a rotating theatre, with the cast singing songs from America’s musical history. The building had an outer ring of six theatres, all connected by divider walls which revolved mechanically around every four minutes as the show progressed.

And while Disney fans were thrilled over the new attraction, tragedy struck just nine days after the first show.

It’s believed the deadly chain of events occurred during the 45-second interval.

READ MORE:

ALL THE DEADLY INCIDENTS THAT HAPPENED AT THE WORLD’S MOST DANGEROUS THEME PARK

SEVERAL PEOPLE INJURED AFTER CHRISTMAS FAIRGROUND RIDE ‘COLLAPSED’

Stone’s role saw her welcoming the next low of theatregoers during this time before the outer ring rotated, carrying the audience to the first scene of the show.

At around 11pm on the evening of 8 July 1974, it’s believed she approached the area between the rotating wall and the stationary stage wall too closely – and somehow became trapped in between them.

The exact circumstances of her death remain a mystery, as it is not clear how she got herself stuck in the gap. But the young Disneyland employee ended up suffering one of the worst deaths imaginable, as she was horrifically crushed to death between the two walls.

The audience seated for the next America Sings show reportedly thought Stone’s screams of terror were part of the show – although one member of the crowd realised something more sinister was going on.

An article at the time from The Los Angeles Times told how Daniel Robison, a member of the US Air Force, had been in the front row of an adjoining theatre with his family when the incident occurred.

He told investigators he had witnessed what he thought was a child being dragged between the two walls, while hearing a terrifying scream.

Following Stone’s shocking death, Disney launched an investigation into the incident and promptly closed America Sings and it reopened just three days later.

Safety lights were installed by the operators while the walls inside of the rotating attraction were then swapped to breakaway versions, so that it could give someone a chance of escape if a similar accident occurred.

Stone’s parents reportedly filed a lawsuit against Disneyland following her death, which is said to have resulted in them receiving a ‘small settlement’.

America Sings eventually closed for good on 10 April 1988.

While that might be a dream for people, it also seems highly unlikely you’d even pass the first round of questions during an interview. However, that’s not actually true and apparently, it’s pretty straightforward.

To prove this, Bezos once interviewed a potential Amazon employee by asking her just two questions.

Then he hired her on the spot.

Ann Hiatt applied and was then interviewed for a role at Amazon in 2002.

I don’t know about you, but I’d be shaking in my boots if I had to be interviewed by the man himself. So you can only imagine how terrified she felt when she ended up facing 61-year-old Bezos (happy birthday!) as part of the recruitment process.

But at least she wasn’t asked these three crazy questions. So, it could have been worse.

While she had to pass a number of smaller interviews to get to this stage, once it was Bezos’ turn to suss her out, things went quickly, as she revealed on the CNBC show CNBC Make It.

Hiatt, who was interviewing to be a Junior Assistant, made the revelation after leaving Amazon.

She said Bezos began by asking her a simple brain teaser that began with him saying: “I’ll do the math.”

“I want you to estimate the number of panes of glass in the city of Seattle,” he said.

This forced Hiatt to seriously think on her feet to come up with something that resembled an answer.

I’m not going to lie, if I’d been in her shoes, I’d have probably panicked and run out of the room.

But not Hiatt, who told Bezos that the best way to establish a number would involve taking the city’s population, and then creating a figure depending on whether they had a home, transportation, an office, and a school.

“So I suggested that we base the estimate on averages of those,” she said.

She then worked with Bezos and the pair ‘got down into every possible scenario, group, anomaly and ways to account for these exceptions’.

The hopeful assistant said it was thrilling to watch one of the world’s richest men come up with the figure itself.

“That looks about right,” he said afterwards.

The second question that he went on to ask her was a lot simpler, and it was one we’ve likely all been asked at some point.

“What are your career goals?” he questioned.

Hiatt explained that she wanted to work at Amazon because, in her opinion, the company was comprised of ambitious, passionate people who she wanted to learn from and emulate.

This was enough to seal the deal, and she said Bezos hired her on the spot.

Looking back on the interview process, she concluded: “He was measuring my potential by asking questions that would explore whether I had the grit, courage and motivation to run at his pace and be brave enough to consistently jump with him and level up.”

There may not technically be any word which rhymes with the word ‘orange’ which can be found in the dictionary, but in the real Slim Shady’s book, the rules are different.

Oh, and the rapper has proven not only one, but many words can, in fact, rhyme with the name of the citrus fruit.

Basically, you have to think about it like a bit of mind game or mental psychokinesis.

Instead of desperately Googling words which sound like the word orange, Eminem – real name Marshall Mathers – revealed if you take the focus off ‘orange’ and place it on other words, then you can bend the word to make it more like others instead.

He said: “The word orange doesn’t rhyme with anything, and it kind of p****s me off because I can think of a lot of things that rhyme with orange.

“If you’re taking the word at face value, and you just say ‘orange’, nothing is going to rhyme with it exactly.

“If you enunciate it and make it more than one syllable, or-ange, you can say, like, I put my or-ange, four inch, door hinge in stor-age and ate porr-idge with Geo-rge.”

Take that you difficult to rhyme with piece of citrus fruit.

And Eminem fans still can’t get over his ‘lyrical genius’, flooding to social media in praise of the rapper after the clip resurfaced.

One Twitter user said: “One of the best rappers of all time.”

Another echoed: “Eminem is and always will be a lyrical genius. The best ever.”

A third added: “GOAT for a reason!”

And a final resolved: “Eminem’s linguistic agility never fails to amaze! The way he bends words to his will and finds rhymes where most can’t, like with ‘orange’ shows his genius in full flow. Language is a playground for this guy, and watching him at work is a masterclass in creativity with words.”

It’s no wonder Billie Eilish was scared of him – although, Eminem has since addressed that and very much in a way only the Slim Shady could.

May I introduce you to William James Sidis, an American former child prodigy who boasted an IQ between 210 and 250.

For reference, the UK’s average is between 85 and 115, while Einstein and Hawking had scores around 160.

Sidis then, is a class apart from even the most gifted scientists of the last 100 years – but why haven’t many people heard of him?

Sidis was born on 1 April 1898 in New York to immigrants from the Russian Empire, and could read the newspaper at just 18-months-old.

It’s worth noting that his father, Boris Sidis, was a well-known psychologist known for his work in Psychopathology, and his mother, Sarah Mandelbaum Sidis, was a medical doctor.

Maybe intelligence is hereditary, after all.

The author behind Sidis’ biography, Amy Wallace, said his parents put pressure on him to seek knowledge, regardless of what he wanted. Books, educational materials and even psychological debates were thrown at the boy before he had even reached double digits in age.

When he was eight, Sidis allegedly spoke eight languages, created his own, and when he was nine, he was accepted into Harvard University. And I thought being able to kick a ball off the ground at that age was impressive.

Harvard made him wait until he was 11 to be enrolled though, so he spent two years studying maths at Tufts University.

It is said that he spent time correcting mistakes and going through Einstein’s famous theory of relativity.

Though there are no existed report cards or grade scores of the genius, it is thought that he had an IQ score 50-100 points higher than scientists of the 20th century.

In 1909, Sidis became the youngest student to study at Harvard, and in his first year, he delivered a presentation on four-dimensional bodies to the Harvard Mathematics Club.

It’s fair to say that he impressed several experts.

American Physicist Daniel F. Comstock, a professor at MIT at the time, suggested: “I predict that young Sidis will be a great astronomical mathematician, the leader in that science in the future”.

But this is when his life would take a sad turn.

Being at university at such a young age had a toll on Sidis, who struggled to live a normal life, being made fun of by students and being closely followed by media.

Wallace claimed that he wanted to ‘be a regular working man’.

Sidis once told a reporter after graduating aged 16 that he wants to live ‘in seclusion’, as he ‘always hated crowds’.

After becoming an assistant mathematics professor and publishing a book on Euclidean geometry, he got annoyed at being treated badly and went back to Harvard to study law. But just three years in, he dropped out for unknown reasons.

Sidis became embroiled in socialist causes in 1919, becoming arrested for being part of a communist-led anti-war tally.

His celebrity status meant that he made headlines, and was sentenced to 18 months behind bars after assaulting an officer.

Sidis’ parents would strike an agreement for him to be held at a sanatorium under his father at MIT while working.

Now in his early twenties, he was released and spent the rest of his life away from the public, and didn’t want to make use of his outstanding knowledge of mathematics anymore.

He would work as a book-keeper, used a fake name, and changed jobs and cities if someone recognised him. However, Sidis would still write a number of books, some in his real name, with others under pseudonyms.

They would range in topics, from the history of the USA to streetcar transfer tickets, even publishing a book on cosmology in 1925 titled The Animate and the Inanimate, where he predicted black holes.

This was 14 years before the better-known predictions made by Chandrasekhar, but Sidis still lived in the shadows, even fleeing his own parents.

The genius then wrote a book in 1935 called John W. Shattuck, focused on the aspects of Native American history, while also inventing a type of calendar that looked for leap years.

Sidis lived a quiet life until an article was published about him in The New Yorker back in 1937, documenting what happened to him since escaping the public eye.

He accused the magazine of libel and violating his privacy, filing a lawsuit and eventually winning in 1944, though he sadly died of a brain haemorrhage later that year.

While you might expect to feel pretty smug and rub in their face where you are now, it’s more likely to be relatively awkward.

And despite all his fame, that was the case for Michael B. Jordan as the actor ended up calling out a reporter on the red carpet for the comments she had made about him in their school days.

But since those younger days, the celeb, who turns 38 this Sunday (9 February) made a name for himself as Wallace in HBO’s The Wire and has appeared in the likes of Fantastic Four, Black Panther and Creed.

And while he was on the red carpet for the Creed III premiere, he ended up meeting Lorel’l, host of The Morning Hustle Show, who he just so happened to go to the same school as him in New Jersey.

So, Jordan saw a chance to remind her of her previous comments.

“I was the corny kid, right?” he said to her. Lore’l then attempted to defend herself as she responded: “I did not say that! I was misquoted for sure!”

But the actor wasn’t having it, doubling down: “I heard it.”

This comment he was referring to came from a podcast Lore’l has appeared on back in 2021 – Undressing Room.

“You know what’s so crazy? I went to school with Michael B. Jordan at a point in life,” she said.

Lore’l went on to claim that other classmates there would ‘make fun of him’ and question what he was planning to do with his ‘stupid headshot’.

“And now look at him,” she added. “But yeah, he is obviously killing things out there.”

The host denied directly calling him corny and attempted to end things on a lighter note by saying to him: “Well, you’re not corny anymore.”

Jordan appeared to not bother responding though as he carried on down the red carpet. And following this awkward exchange, fans hit back in his support.

One X user wrote: “You called him corny. Now you gotta call him actor, director, superstar, Hollywood mogul. Living legend. He took that s**t personally.”

As another said: “You called him corny, but you’re the one who interviewing him not the other way around. I’m glad MBJ got the last laugh.”

If you ever catch yourself thinking ‘damn, I should work out a bit more’ but can never seem to find the time, then perhaps put your chuffing phone down and stop doom-scrolling for hours every day and see what you can achieve.

A trio of guys did that as part of a video by YouTuber Browney, who took a guy who didn’t exercise much along with two others who were far more familiar with working out.

However, doing 100 sit-ups isn’t easy for anyone and ‘gym bro’ Jorg also seemed to be having trouble with it at first.

To give Enzo his credit he already looked to be in pretty decent shape before he started this, and the poor bloke was feeling the effects of the first day when he took a crack at round two of 100 sit-ups.

Things were really hurting after just one session and it was causing him significant pain to the point that he was struggling to sleep, and all he could do was hope that the pain would go away.

Browney told him he could take a rest day if he wanted, but the man was committed to doing the challenge properly.

By about day 12, he said the pain was going away and he was finding it easier to do the 100 sit-ups and at the halfway mark the signs of a six-pack were visible.

At the 20 day make he was finishing his sit-ups within seven minutes, when it had taken him twice as long as that back when he started out.

In the final few days Enzo even started feeling like he wasn’t making much progress by doing them any more which is a sentiment the other two men were also feeling.

It should be noted that they were also leading pretty healthy lifestyles in terms of diet and other exercise as well as doing their sit-up challenge.

After the 30 day challenge it turns out he’d actually gained just over half a kilogram in weight as he’d put on some muscle mass and already looked pretty slim when he started.

At the end of it all Enzo said he would recommend doing the challenge and he thinks he made some progress, so good for him.

The Perseverance rover has collected a sample with never-before-seen textures, and the rock core has been named ‘Silver Mountain’.

The sample has the possibility to change what we know about the Red Planet, and it has been sealed into a tube so it can be analysed in labs on Earth in the future.

From its very own X account, NASA’s rover wrote: “Now that I’ve completed my climb out of Jezero Crater, I’m back to #SamplingMars!

“My 26th sample, known as ‘Silver Mountain’, has textures unlike anything we’ve seen before. I’ve sealed the rock core in a sample tube so it can be analyzed in labs on Earth in the future.”

At the moment, dozens of samples are being collected from Mars to help better understand its geological history, climate, and to finally determine whether it has ever hosted life.

Last August, the space agency shared the route the rover would take across the planet, revealing it would embark on a 250m climb up the western rim of Jezero Crater before eventually approaching what is known as ‘Witch Hazel Hill’.

The 2.9cm Silver Mountain was collected from Blue Hill.

“This marks our first Noachian-aged outcrop sample, an important milestone in our mission to uncover the geological history of Jezero Crater,” NASA explained.

“Since Shallow Bay-Shoal Brook is the only location along our planned route where this regional low-calcium pyroxene unit was identified from orbit, this sample is a one-of-a-kind treasure for future Mars Sample Return analyses.”

Writing for NASA, postdoctoral scientist Nicolas Randazzo added that the rocks may reveal ‘critical clues’ about past water activity and potential habitability on Mars.

The agency had previously announced that samples (now including the intriguing Silver Mountain) could be returned to Earth as soon as 2035 and as late as 2039 as it deliberates on what method to use.

Former NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement: “Pursuing two potential paths forward will ensure that NASA is able to bring these samples back from Mars with significant cost and schedule saving compared to the previous plan.”

The agency said a selection would be announced as soon as next year.

The Trump administration’s pick to lead NASA has indicated that Mars will be a priority for the agency going forward.

According to Dr Judy Melinek, it’s to take a job as a medical examiner in New York City. She revealed all of the terrifying ways life in the big city can kill you in her 2014 memoir Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner.

Speaking about her former job in an interview with New York Post, Dr Melinek revealed she was told that NYC had ‘all kinds of great ways to die’ by her chief resident while studying.

And it turns out the advice was very accurate, as she has seen pretty much everything when it comes to the deceased.

So what’s the worst death she’s ever encountered during her work?

Well, she has an answer for you, but be warned – it’s a pretty grim way to go.

Dr Melinek revealed that her typical answer to anyone who asks about the gory details of her job is: “You don’t want to know.”

But if you really insist she’ll retell the unfortunate case of a man named Sean Doyle.

“The worst nightmares I ever had in my two years at OCME (Office of Chief Medical Examiner) came after I performed the postmortem examination of Sean Doyle,” she said.

The horrifying death of Sean Doyle

According to Dr Melinek, Doyle was a bartender in the Big Apple who’d been out drinking with his friend Michael Wright and Wright’s girlfriend on a fateful night back in 2002.

It’s thought that Wright had believed Doyle was hitting on his girlfriend and the pair got into an argument. Exact details on what happened next are unclear, however, Doyle would end up at the bottom of an open manhole.

He would fall around 18 feet into the hole, landing in a pool of boiling water which was flowing from a broken main.

Doyle would miraculously survive the fall – but meet his end in a much more gruesome manner as first responders were unable to get him out of the tunnel in time due to extreme temperatures.

According to The Post, officials on the scene witnessed the man shouting and screaming for help but were unable to assist as temperatures reached a scorching 148°C.

It is here that Doyle would tragically cook to death, with Dr Melinek recalling the man looked like he’d ‘been steamed like a lobster’. The outer layer of his skin had completely peeled off and his internal organs were cooked.

The story gets even more chilling after the medical examiner revealed the man had no head trauma or broken bones, meaning that he simply boiled to death.

This means it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Doyle’s death was the case which gave Dr Melinek the ‘worst nightmares’ of her time in the role.

Dr Rena Malik is a urologist, sexual health expert, and pelvic surgeon based in the US – and she’s now provided her expert advice on how you can spice your relationship up.

In the past, the medical professional has revealed how long sex lasts on average, warnings about No Nut November, and if size really matters. Now, posting advice on her YouTube channel, the expert gave us 10 ways to ‘increase pleasure’ in bed.

Communication

Though it might seem like a no-brainer, Dr Malik says that many of her partners go to see her and admit they haven’t asked their partner about said problem.

She pointed out that you have to communicate out of the bed room, and ensure it’s not a serious conversation right before or after being intimate.

It needs to be in a neutral situation where everyone can feel secure, and it may need a few conversations, emphasising that it’s nothing wrong with the other person, but more about what you want to try out.

Being open to masturbation

You might be surprised at that one, but Dr Malik says that it’s important to ‘be open’ and ‘learn’ from self-pleasure.

Describing it as a ‘great’ way to explore your own body, it can help you find out what works for you.

She pointed out: “Don’t take it as ‘oh, they’re finding pleasure by themselves, I’m gonna be replaced’, it’s more about ‘hey, this is great, my partner is finding pleasure and is able to communicate that with me!”

Highlighting that this can work in relationships where there are mismatched libidos, it’s also a way to find if the erogenous zones work for you.

Stimulate the clitoris

Aimed about men aiming to pleasure women, the health expert says that the first thing to aim for is ‘stimulating the clitoris’.

Using science to back it up, she explained: “80 to 90 percent of women need clitoral stimulation in order to climax,

“Because the clitoris is the homolog of the penis and what this means is that they both develop from the same tissue embryologically.”

While she explains that it’s key for men and women, she pointed out that it can take up to 20 to 30 minutes for women to become fully aroused.

Failing to do this can result in the sex being painful as the woman’s sexual organs aren’t lubricated enough.

Some women may find this harder to do due to age, or with it being a genetic condition, Dr Malik explains.

Use lube

While some people may avoid using this due to the stigmas around it, Dr Malik explains: “Lubrication is fun, it’s great, it’s cheap and the bottom line is lubricants are meant to make things more slippery, more fun and have less friction.”

She highlights that it’s for ‘every age’, as she advises that you use water-based ones as they are easy to find and buy.

Silicon-based lubricants are actually longer-lasting though, and oil-based lube also lasts longer, though it can break condoms.

Performance issues are okay

“There are times where a man will lose his erection early or ejaculate earlier than he wanted to and that’s okay,

“It’s important to realise that that’s not a sign that something is wrong with you,” the urologist highlighted.

Speaking to female viewers, she explained that it could be due to alcohol, medical issues, or something mentally – the point is it’s ‘okay to keep going’.

“There are other ways you continue pleasuring each each other,” as she suggested foreplay or even the use of toys.

Relax more

Basically, if your body is stressed, it releases cortisol and increases your fight or flight response.

Dr Malik added: “Your body can’t differentiate between a stressor like a lion coming after you, or a stressor like you had a rough day at work, your body does the same thing.

“If you’re stressed you’re just not going to be able to get blood flow to the genitals because it’s working somewhere else – it’s going to be much harder to get aroused,” the American health professional said.

Couples relaxation before getting intimate can help, and it could be anything from yoga or meditation together to getting a massage.

Schedule time for intimacy

Dr Malik noted that a lot of people wouldn’t want to ‘schedule sex’, as it should be spontaneous, but sometimes, life can take over.

“When you’ve won been in a longer term relationship or you’ve got other stressors in life, it’s more difficult to get aroused just by seeing your partner,” she explained.

Apparently, there are two types of desire – spontaneous desire, and responsive desire.

The latter isn’t triggered by just seeing them or thinking about them, but while you’re being intimate together and cuddling, or similar.

It signals to your body that you’re ready for a bedroom session, though if you’re lying in bed facing away from each other on your phones, it doesn’t help.

This is why scheduled time can make a difference, because you might have everything in life scheduled to a tee, apart from your sex life – which is time with your partner, after all.

Mindfulness

Being mindful is very important, and it means being present during intimacy and trying not to think about other everyday tasks.

It’s about living in the moment, focusing on the touch of your partner, if they smell nice, how it feels to be back with them after work.

“Focus on those sensations, it can lead to a overall better sex life, better pleasure, better orgasms, better overall experience during sex,” Dr Malik highlighted.

Exercise

This should be important anyway, from a health point of view, but it can help to reduce stress and improve long-term health.

She further explained: “Exercise has also been linked with increased sexual

arousal – that can be with things like walking, swimming, yoga, strength training,

all those things have been looked at to increase sexual arousal.”

She suggested going to the gym quickly, then come home to shower with your partner and ‘see where it leads’.