Author: USA Facts News

From Whiplash to War Dogs, to Top Gun: Maverick – the actor has been part of some of the more memorable films in the past decade or so.

But while you may appreciate his acting or range of roles, you may not have noticed a certain facial feature of his.

Teller has scars on a part of his face because of something that happened when the American actor was just 20.

While he was a college student in 2007, he was a passenger in a car crash on the way home from a music festival that left him with some nasty facial injuries.

Opening up to ABC in 2016, he recalled: “My buddy lost control of my car going 80 miles per hour.

“We flipped eight times. I got ejected out the window. The car landed and I was just laying, like, 50 feet from the car, unconscious, covered in blood. My buddy thought I was dead.”

He said that the car flew over three lanes while he flew out of the window.

18 years on, the actor still sports the scars, as well as two pieces of gravel embedded in his cheeks, which were left to avoid further scarring.

The actor said that the aftermath of the crash was also ‘very painful’ when speaking to Esquire in 2015, and added in a separate interview with The Guardian a year later: “Everything was fine except for my face.”

Teller suffered a broken wrist and needed to have 20 staples put in his shoulder afterwards as well.

He feared soon after that it would be difficult to land film roles because higher-ups wouldn’t think the scars would ‘make sense’ in line with the characters.

But there was one director that didn’t care, and gave him his breakout role.

Director John Cameron Mitchell cast Teller opposite the likes of Nicole Kidman and Dianne Wiest in Rabbit Hole in 2010, as the actor revealed: “[Mitchell] was like, ‘I love [the scars]. It tells a secret.’”

Obviously, he would go on to have a successful career in Hollywood, which is still going on, as he is set to star in upcoming Michael Jackson biopic, Michael.

As for Teller’s buddies from the car crash, it looks like they are no longer on the best terms, as he explained what happened in his interview with Esquire.

He recalled: “I was racking up all these medical bills, so we had to sue his insurance because he was driving.

“It’s not like we’re suing HIM. We’re suing his insurance. He comes to me, he’s like, ‘Miles, I don’t know if we can be friend when my parents’ insurance premiums are going to go up.’ I just sat with that for, like, 24 hours, and after that I was like, ‘Man, f*ck you. I’ve never made you feel bad for this. For you to make me feel guilty and make me feel like you’re the victim here, that’s really f*cked up.’”

In 1994, the New York Times reported that a woman called Gloria Ramirez, 31, attended Riverside General Hospital in California to be treated for late-stage cervical cancer.

According to the article, Ramirez arrived at the hospital semiconscious on the evening of 19 February, after her fiancé called an ambulance when she reported nausea and breathing difficulties.

Ramirez – who had only found out her cancer diagnosis six weeks earlier – was then treated by a number of medical staff who carried out a routine blood test.

The mystery of Gloria Ramirez

When blood was drawn from the woman, it’s claimed a strong smell came from the liquid in the syringe.

According to the report, a doctor named Humberto Ochoa, who was the attending physician in the emergency room at the time, noticed that the sample looked as if it contained white crystal-like objects.

They also said she was emitting ‘fumes that smelled like ammonia’.

As these factors emerged, a handful of staff at the Californian institution began to feel dizzy, while some actually collapsed due to Ramirez’s foul-smelling blood.

According to the New York Times, one of the staff members ended up developing acute circulatory problems.

Meanwhile, another report from 1995 claimed 23 of the 37 medical experts experienced at least one symptom resembling poisoning by a deadly class of chemicals called organophosphates.

Due to the specialists’ overwhelming illness, the emergency room was quickly evacuated.

Experts were forced to treat patients in the car park while people dressed in protective clothing began testing the air in the emergency room for dangerous gases.

Ramirez, whose life was unable to be saved when she went into cardiac arrest, was sealed in an airtight coffin and removed from the premises.

The mum-of-two’s funeral was staged two months after her peculiar death, with Rev. Brian Taylor claiming she was a ‘friend to all, quick to smile, a carefree joker who brought comfort and joy to others’.

After referring to the ‘bizarre, tragic incident in the hospital emergency room’, the reverend blamed the US hospital for the ‘toxic fumes that took her life’.

“Gloria has not been treated right, her death was unjust and the treatment of her body has been unjust,” he continued, as per the LA Times.

“The people responsible need to be held accountable for that.”

Theories emerge over the ‘Toxic Lady’

Despite the attention that Ramirez’s strange case got at the time, nobody has ever concluded how the so-called ‘Toxic Lady’ died.

However, according to a YouTube video, one of the widely accepted theories is that Ramirez’s cancer medication may have led to a chain reaction, causing poisonous gas.

The claim, made by the popular Weird History channel, states that one of the tablets she was taking may have metabolised when paramedics administered oxygen during her cardiac arrest.

“According to the theory, when Ramirez’s blood was drawn at the emergency room, its temperature dropped sharply. This caused the medication (Dimethyl Sulphone) to convert to the deadly compound Dimethyl Sulphate which was then released into the air,” the YouTube channel states.

This theory has also been endorsed by the Riverside Coroner’s Office and published in the popular Forensic Science International journal.

However, the creator was quick to say that several chemists have previously been skeptical of the theory, remarking that the chemical reaction seemed ‘unlikely’.

Years later, it’s still not known whether the case of Ramirez will ever be solved, and that’s despite ‘medical detectives from ten local, state and federal outfits’ examining dozens of potential causes.

Ramirez’s case has since been the base of a Grey’s Anatomy episode, a Murdoch Mysteries instalment, and is the basis of Buzzfeed Unsolved’s The Bizarre Toxic Death of Gloria Ramirez.

Plenty of us have fond memories of running around looking at fish and passing through the big tunnels as they swim over her heads.

But although various aquariums across the UK are home to different types of shark, there is a specific type that will never be found in them. The great white, of course.

It’s not without trying though as since the 70s, a number of aquariums have had several attempts at displaying a captive great white shark. Tragically, however, most times this ended up with the animals dead.

By the time the 2000s rolled around, it was only the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California still trying to find a way to house a great white.

After a whole lot of time planning its white shark program, it acquired a shark in 2004 that became the first great white which survived in captivity for over 16 days.

The shark ended up being on display for more than six months before the aquarium released it back into the ocean.

But while the aquarium did manage to house a number of other more juvenile white sharks after that, there is an important reason why they aren’t kept in captivity like this.

Why don’t you see great white sharks in aquariums?

Often tragically from what has been seen in the past, the main reason great white sharks struggle in aquariums is because they’re nomadic.

The whoppers of the sea are used to travelling long distances which they can’t exactly do while inside a tank. And it’s said they’d often end up with injuries from bumping into the glass walls of their enclosures.

So, once they then start to slow down or stop moving altogether, it means breathing becomes a struggle and they end up getting weaker.

Plus, there’s the predatory instincts to contend with.

In 2011, Monterey Bay had to release one of its juvenile whites back into the wild because it killed two of its tank mates. That same year, it ended its program with much criticism due to the injuries sharks had developed there.

Jon Hoech, the aquarium’s director of husbandry operations, had said in response: “We believe strongly that putting people face to face with live animals like this is very significant in inspiring ocean conservation and connecting people to the ocean environment. We feel like white sharks face a significant threats out in the wild and our ability to bring awareness to that is significant in terms of encouraging people to become ocean stewards.”

It seems like everyone’s at it these days; the list of people who’ve made the foray into owning cannabis farms or selling cannabis-related goods seems to have grown pretty steadily.

Of course Snoop Dogg has got several cannabis-related businesses (it’d be a bit of a let down if he didn’t), but the likes of Woody Harrelson, Martha Stewart, and Mike Tyson have also dabbled in the industry.

With laws around the drug being relaxed in certain parts of the world, it’s become a growing market, and entering that market by setting up in New York is Robert O’Neill, who gained fame as the man that shot bin Laden.

He became known for talking about his part in Operation Neptune Spear, where Seal Team Six located and killed the al-Qaeda leader at a compound in Pakistan.

In his time speaking about it, he’s said he ‘knew he was going to die’ before going on that mission, as he thought the compound bin Laden was hiding in might have explosives to take out anyone coming to kill him.

He also said he did feel bad, not for killing bin Laden, but for his two-year-old son who was also in the room and witnessed the terrorist leader being gunned down.

Now he’s having a change of career and getting into cannabis.

Speaking to the New York Post, O’Neill explained that his experiences watching fellow soldiers suffer with PTSD helped motivate him to start selling cannabis as he found it ‘helps to get rid of the noise’.

He said: “I wanted to get into the cannabis business through my experience in the military and watching vets suffer from things like post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s a good way to take the edge off. It helps to get rid of the noise.”

O’Neill said it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d have been able to take while still with the Navy Seals, as you can imagine they wouldn’t look too kindly on their serving members getting high while on duty.

However, he now reckons that ‘better conversations’ can be had ‘if we take cannabis’, and suggests ‘the potential for world peace’ is even within reach.

International diplomacy may indeed be a tad more mellow if everyone doing it was enjoying a joint of cannabis, though ‘get them all high and make them hash it out’ as a negotiating strategy is likely to come with some downsides of its own.

He’s named his cannabis company ‘Operator’, a similar title to that of his 2017 book The Operator, and he’s selling products named ‘Healer-Indica’, ‘Warrior-Sativa’, and ‘Shooter-Hybrid’.

ESPN’s TikTok posted a video of her courtside chatting to musician Tucker Halpern.

It’s a bit of a trip out for her as she’s currently studying a Masters degree at Oxford University, but when you’ve had a prolific film career it’s the sort of thing you can afford to take a trip for.

Speaking of which, while she’s a very recognisable star it’s been quite some time since we saw Watson on the big screen with her last movie role coming six years ago with Greta Gerwig’s 2019 version of Little Women.

Speaking to the FT back in 2023 she explained that she’d stepped away from acting somewhat, though didn’t plan to be done completely with performing.

“I wasn’t very happy, if I’m being honest,” Watson said of her decision to move away from looking for regular acting work.

“I think I felt a bit caged. The thing I found really hard was that I had to go out and sell something that I really didn’t have very much control over.

“To stand in front of a film and have every journalist be able to say, ‘How does this align with your viewpoint?’ It was very difficult to have to be the face and the spokesperson for things where I didn’t get to be involved in the process.

“I was held accountable in a way that I began to find really frustrating, because I didn’t have a voice, I didn’t have a say.

“And I started to realise that I only wanted to stand in front of things where if someone was going to give me flak about it, I could say, in a way that didn’t make me hate myself, ‘Yes, I screwed up, it was my decision, I should have done better.’”

In the same interview Watson said she would ‘absolutely’ act again but was ‘happy to sit and wait for the next right thing’.

She said: “I love what I do. It’s finding a way to do it where I don’t have to fracture myself into different faces and people.

“And I don’t just want to switch into robot mode any more.”

Watson seems to be intent on living her best life where she gets to study what she likes and wait for potential movie roles that she would really like to be part of.

It doesn’t always go her way, like the time last year when her car got towed while she was in Stratford upon Avon to watch a performance of The Merchant of Venice.

Fortunately she was able to laugh it off and enjoyed the show, so all’s well that ends well.

It’s understood the pair were initially reluctant to speak to officials when they came looking for answers regarding the disappearance of the 22-year-old vlogger who had lived with them for a spell.

Instead of providing information on their missing son’s whereabouts or the reason that the van Petito and Laundrie had been travelling in across the US together was sitting on their drive, they handed over a contact for their lawyer.

At the time, their representative, Steve Bertolino, told People that the couple did not know where their child was.

It was later revealed that while Laundrie – who began dating Petito in March 2019 – was on the road trip with his fiancée in a Ford Transit Connect van, he’d talked to his parents on the phone and informed them that Petito had ‘gone’.

On 1 September, he returned to his parents’ home without his partner, and the family went camping at Fort De Soto Park in Pinellas County.

Days after Laundrie was named as a person of interest in Petito’s missing person investigation, he also vanished.

On 20 October, his remains and some of his belongings were found in the Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park, with his cause of death later being concluded as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

A notebook was found next to his remains, which contained a spine-chilling entry admitting he had killed Petito.

Why did Gabby Petito’s parents file a civil lawsuit against Brian Laundrie’s parents?

Months after their daughter’s death due to blunt-force injuries and ‘manual strangulation’, Joseph Petito and Nichole Schmidt filed a lawsuit against Christopher and Roberta, as per People.

They claimed in the lawsuit that the murder of Petito – whose remains were located in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming – had allegedly been covered up by the pair.

“It is believed, and therefore averred that … Brian Laundrie advised his parents, Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie, that he had murdered Gabrielle Petito,” states the lawsuit.

“On that same date, Christopher Laundrie and Roberta Laundrie spoke with Attorney Steve Bertolino, and sent him a retainer on Sept. 2, 2021.”

The suit goes on to claim that Roberta blocked Schmidt on social media and that it’s believed they were ‘making arrangements’ for their kid to ‘leave the country’.

“Christopher and Roberta Laundrie exhibited extreme and outrageous conduct which constitutes behaviour, under the circumstances, which goes beyond all possible bounds of decency and is regarded as shocking, atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community,” the lawsuit reads, as per WFLA.

What was in Roberta Laundrie’s ‘burn after reading’ letter?

It’s also reported that Roberta wrote an undated ‘burn after reading’ letter to her son.

Patrick Reilly, an attorney for the Petito family, shared the letter with NBC News, which read: “I just want you to remember I will always love you, and I know you will always love me.

“I just want you to remember I will always love you, and I know you will always love me. You are my boy. Nothing can make me stop loving you, nothing will or could ever divide us no matter what we do, or where we go or what we say – we will always love each other.

“If you’re in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags. If you fly to the moon, I will be watching the skies for your re-entry. If you say you hate my guts, I’ll get new guts.”

After including a verse from the Bible, Roberta added: “Nothing can separate us: not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not threats, not even sin, not the thinkable or unthinkable can get between us.) ~ Not time. Not miles and miles and miles. ~”

Roberta later claimed she wrote the letter to her son months before Petito’s death due to having a ‘difficult’ and ‘strained’ relationship with him.

“I was trying to connect with Brian and repair our relationship as he was planning to leave home – and I had hoped this letter would remind him how much I loved him,” she wrote, as per NBC.

“While I used words that seem to have a connection with Brian’s actions and his taking of Gabby’s life, I never would have fathomed the events that unfolded months later between Brian and Gabby would reflect the words in my letter.”

It’s understood the undated letter was discovered by the FBI in a box in the Laundries’ Florida home and not on the man’s body when he died.

Gabby Petito’s family came to an agreement with the Laundries

In the wake of the lawsuit, the Laundries’ lawyer told People: “Assuming everything the Petitos allege in their lawsuit is true, which we deny, this lawsuit does not change the fact that the Laundries had no obligation to speak to law enforcement or any third-party including the Petito family.

“This fundamental legal principle renders the Petitos’ claims baseless under the law.”

As per the BBC, the case against the Laundries did not go to court. It was settled in February 2024, but the details of the solution were kept private.

“Christopher and Roberta Laundrie and I participated in mediation with the Petito family and the civil lawsuit has now been resolved,” their representative told Fox News at the time.

“The terms of the resolution are confidential, and we look forward to putting this matter behind us.”

Where are Brian Laundrie’s parents now?

Following the reported civil lawsuit settlement between the Laundrie family and the Petitos, Roberta and Christopher continued to live privately in Florida as per The Sun.

Neither has addressed the media about the murder-suicide of Petito and Laundrie.

Gabby’s mother Nichole has recently spoken out following the release of American Murder: Gabby Petito on Netflix.

She told NewsNation: “I don’t think we’ll ever know why, the only two people that will know why are the two people that were there when this happened.

“I think we have the answers we needed. We know that things were known. I don’t want to talk about them or say their names.”

Nichole continued: “I have forgiven Brian, and I know that is what Gabby would have wanted, and I’m moving forward so I can move on.

“That is my personal experience. I don’t think everyone has to forgive. They can when they are ready if they are ever ready. But for me personally, I needed to forgive to let that anchor go.”

Undoubtedly at the top of everyone’s bucket list, the Northern Lights, formally known as aurora borealis, are a natural phenomenon that can be tricky to see with the naked eye.

On the cusp of the ‘aurora oval’, Iceland is widely known for being one of the best places in the world to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights in all its glory, with thousands of Brits flocking to its capital of Reykjavík every year.

So, how can you catch a cheap flight to Iceland and when is the best time of year to see the Northern Lights? Find out everything you need to know below.

When is the best time of year to see the Northern Lights?

The Northern Lights are never guaranteed and a lot of factors need to align in order to catch a glimpse of the phenomenon. The best conditions to see the Northern Lights? You need a clear, dark sky with dry conditions. Pollution, snow or clouds can spoil your chances of seeing the lights – so it’s worth heading out of the city centre if you can or further up land to escape the city’s lights.

According to Arctic Direct, the best time of day to see the Northern Lights is between 9pm and 2am with peak visibility usually around midnight.

The best window to see the phenomenon is between late September and early April with multiple online sources claiming that March is the best time to head to Iceland.

The best places to eat and drink in Reykjavík

Just like Sweden famously has Fika, a tradition that involves relaxing with friends over coffee and cake, Iceland has Kaffitímar. Essentially, it’s a great excuse to indulge in pastries and call it sightseeing. Braud & Co is one of the city’s most famous bakeries and we can confirm it lives up to the hype – just make sure to get there nice and early to beat the queue for cinnamon buns. Other brekkie spots worth adding to your list include Baka Baka for croissants and Deig for bagels.

As for tea, TikTok recommends booking a table at Sumac, Apotek or Food Cellar. Head over to Hús Máls og Menningar for an after-dinner tipple and dance, as the library turns into a bar after dark with live music on weekends.

How to book cheap flights to Iceland now

For a limited time only, you can fly to Reykjavík for less than £50. You need to book a flight from London Stansted to Reykjavík Keflavík Airport on Thursday, 6 March via Expedia UK. The flight departs at 11am and lands at the local time of 2.05pm with one personal bag that fits under the seat in front of you included. The last time we checked, seats were selling fast, so make sure to hurry if you’re keen.

If you’re based up north, you can fly to Reykjavík the day before (Wednesday, 5 March) for £59 with easyJet via Expedia UK. The flight departs from Manchester Airport at 4.10pm and arrives at the local time of 7pm. If you’re even further up north, the cheapest flight we can find is from Edinburgh on Tuesday, 4 March at 12.10pm to arrive at the local time of 2.35pm. As for prices, it will only set you back £58. See you there?

We’ve seen the subscription-based platform rise to prominence over the past few years, to the point where content creators have made a name for themselves on OnlyFans alone, rather than taking their fans with them to the 18+ site.

Sophie Rain was an unknown a couple of years ago, and now she claims to make over $40m a year through her adult content.

But while some of the platform’s celebs boast earnings of genuinely unbelievable numbers, what about the average creator?

The porn-friendly platform is actually under a UK company called Fenix International, so it’s legally required for them to publicly share information about its business and earnings.

In its figures to do with the financial year ending 30 November 2023, their revenues, profits, scale, and other factors were shared, showing an increase in all categories.

It’s become an ultra-successful, profitable company, with its revenue increasing by 19 percent from $5.5 billion (£4.19 billion) in 2022 to $6.6 billion (£5 billion) in 2023, according to Variety.

The number of users saw an increase of 28 percent over the year to 305 million users, while the number of creators hit 4.1 million, a 29 percent increase.

People can genuinely make millions from content, but the story’s different for your average creator.

OnlyFans takes a 20 percent cut of profits, meaning that there would be $5.32 billion (£4.2 billion) to share among creators.

Some quick maths reveals that the average creator will earn $1,300 (£1,030) per year, just $108 (£85.70) per month.

If you were thinking of quitting your day job to pursue this then, you might want to think twice.

On the bright side though, the figure represents an increase of 19 percent.

But the figure itself is a far cry from the millions that we see the big names rake in month upon month.

In fact, Range Media reports that one creator that ranked in the top 71st percentile of creators had just two active subscribers.

The majority of the site’s earnings go to the top one percent of creators, who are believed to earn nearer to $49,000 (£38,900) per year, which is more like a salary.

Obviously, when we move up to the top 0.1 percent, they earn 15 times more this on average, according to Matthew Ball.

It’s no surprise that the biggest earners are those who bring over a following from mainstream media or social media, as it’s a surefire way to make profit.