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Kooky conspiracy theories are detracting from the very real issue of child trafficking

Kooky conspiracy theories are detracting from the very real issue of child trafficking
Photo by Mahir Uysal on Unsplash

Two years ago, I got off the phone after an interview and cried my eyes out. I'd just spent an hour talking to Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad, an organization that helps fight child sex trafficking, and I just couldn't take it.

Ballard told me about how the training to go undercover as a child predator nearly broke him. He told me an eerie story of a trafficker who could totally compartmentalize, showing Ballard photos of kids he had for sale, then switching gears to proudly show him a photo of his own daughter on her bicycle, just as any parent would. He told me about how lucrative child trafficking is—how a child can bring in three or four times as much as a female prostitute—and how Americans are the industry's biggest consumers.

But you know what he didn't mention in our hour-long conversation? Pizza, hot dogs, Hollywood elites, or any of the other child sex trafficking conspiracy theories raging around the internet. Not one of them. Not once.

You know who else doesn't mention any of those things? The organizations that have spent years and years battling child sex trafficking while most of us blissfully went along in our daily lives, largely oblivious to it.

No matter our political, religious, or ideological leanings, the unfathomable hideousness of child sex trafficking is something all of us should be able to agree on. But that doesn't make conspiracy theories about pizza parlors and Satanic pedophile rings palatable, or even remotely acceptable.

Did people learn nothing from the man who believed the Pizzagate conspiracy and fired his AR-15 inside of Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C. because he believed a baseless pedophile ring conspiracy theory involving the pizza parlor?

There are still people who think that Pizzagate thing is real. (For those who have been blissfully spared from that lunacy, you can read about it here.) But that's not even the kookiest thing I've seen lately. There's a veritable laundry list of child sex trafficking posts going around, including:

- Oprah, Tom Hanks, Ellen Degeneres and other "Hollywood elites" have actually been arrested, and the pandemic is all a distraction to cover up the crackdown on these celebrities. (Fact check here. Oh and another one here.)

- Model and wife of John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, is a pedophile because she's tweeted a whole bunch about pizza and because she had a sardonic sense of humor about the sexualization of little kids on the show Toddlers & Tiaras back in 2013. (Fact check here and here.)

- Wayfair—yes, the home goods products store—has coded listings for missing children being sold at exorbitant prices in a child sex trafficking scheme. (No, they don't. Fact check here.)

- Having children wear masks will make it easier for kids to be trafficked because no one can see the expression on the kids' faces or identify them. (As if child traffickers weren't already successfully trafficking kids without masks. Fact check here.)

- There's a concerted effort to make "age fluidity" a thing, and to make pedophilia an accepted sexual orientation. (There is one very small group called NAMBLA, which has been trying to abolish consent laws since the 1970s, but claims that there's some kind of "movement" to normalize pedophilia as a legitimate sexual orientation is actually an effort to harm the LBGTQ+ community. Fact check here.)

- Obama and Clinton are satanic leaders of a global child-sex-trafficking cabal—which includes most Democrats and Hollywood, apparently—who feast on children's adrenal glands in order to increase their power. (Fact check here, although if you seriously need a fact check for this you are already too far gone, my friend. On a related note, this article about the parallels between QAnon and "alternate reality games" is suuuuper fascinating and explains a lot.)

- Obama spent $65,000 on a "hot dog" party, which is code for little boys and pedophilia. (You know what? I'm not even going to fact check this, because come on.)

And that's not even all of them.

Of course, there are some legitimate questions to be asked about how much involvement certain celebrities and politicians, including Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, had with known pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Having watched a beloved figure like Bill Cosby fall from grace over sexual misconduct, we know what's possible. But none of those Epstein connections are a secret. It's all being reported on in the real news and has been since Epstein started being investigated. (There's also a lot of misinformation about who was involved with Epstein, and to what degree, and in what capacity, and none of these conspiracy theories are helping us get to the truth of the matter.)

The main problem is this: When you conflate the actual issue of child sex trafficking—which is absolutely real and serious and deserves our attention—with totally off-the-wall, debunked conspiracy theories, it causes people to put their energies in the wrong places.

The Polaris Project, a national organization that fights human trafficking, had to release a statement asking people to stop calling about Wayfair because it was overwhelming the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

"While Polaris treats all calls to the Trafficking Hotline seriously, the extreme volume of these contacts has made it more difficult for the Trafficking Hotline to provide support and attention to others who are in need of help," the group said in a July 20 press release. "We strongly encourage everyone to learn more about what human trafficking really looks like in most situations, and about how you can help fight trafficking in your own community."

What it often looks like is a family member trafficking a child, such as Melody Cholish's story she recently shared with us. Sometimes it looks different, and you can find all kinds of stories and information about child trafficking from the many organizations that have worked for years on this issue, including Save the Children, Operation Underground Railroad, the Polaris Project, Love 146, and Stop the Traffik. (Please use those sites for "doing research" instead of Twitter or QAnon or YouTube or memes that come through your feed.)

The other problem is that the issue of child sex trafficking is suddenly being used to deflect from every other important issue, because "Oh yeah? What about CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING???" is a fairly effective deflection. I mean, who doesn't think that child sex trafficking is the absolute worst of the worst things humans do? Black Lives Matter? What about CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING? Horrible pandemic situation due to inept leadership? What about CHILD SEX TRAFFICKING?

I mean, we can care about more than one thing at a time. The question is, why did all these conspiracy theorists not care this much about child sex trafficking until they thought it was "evil liberal elites" doing it? Why was no one calling child sex trafficking a "pandemic" until we were in the middle of an uncontrolled literal pandemic? Why were there no widespread protests against child sex trafficking until there were widespread protests for Black Lives Matter?

As I mentioned, Tim Ballard didn't say a single thing about Hollywood elites or pizza parlor basements or adrenal-sucking rituals or anything of the sort in our hour-long conversation about child sex trafficking. And he's an expert on this topic. He's also a conservative Trump supporter. He's not peddling any of these conspiracies, and neither are any of the legitimate organizations that are working to end child trafficking. Not one.

Either every major organization working to end child sex trafficking is a part of The Big Evil Global Elite Pedo Ring Plot or people who spend too much time on social media are being taken by baseless, politically-driven nonsense that's probably being pumped out of some guy's basement. My money is on the latter.

Stick with the organizations that have been doing this work for decades. Get your information from them. Stop sharing crazy internet conspiracies simply because you want people to know you care about children, or because it justifies your hatred of people you see as your enemies. We can—and must—unite to fight child sex trafficking without resorting to insane, debunked rumors that muddy the waters and distract from the real problem.

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Her groundbreaking theory on the origin of life was rejected 15 times. Then biology proved her right.

Lynn Margulis had the audacity to challenge Darwin. And we're lucky she did.

lynn margulis, lynn margulis symbiosis, biology, scientific breakthroughs, darwin, darwinism, women in science
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A photo of Lynn Margulis.

Throughout her prolific and distinguished career, biologist Lynn Margulis made several groundbreaking contributions to science that we take for granted as common knowledge today. For example, she championed James E. Lovelock’s “Gaia concept,” which posited that the Earth self-regulates to maintain conditions for life.

But by far, her most notable theory was symbiogenesis. While it was first written off as “strange” and “aesthetically pleasing” but “not compelling,” it would ultimately prevail, and completely rewrite how we viewed the origin of life itself.

In the late 1960s, Margulis wrote a paper titled "On the Origin of Mitosing Cells," that was quite avant-garde. In it, she proposed a theory: that life evolved through organisms merging together to become inseparable.

In essence, cooperation is the driver of life, not competition and domination. This directly went against Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” principle that was considered gospel in scientific circles. Margulis’ paper was rejected by fifteen journals before getting accepted into the Journal of Theoretical Biology.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Time would be on Margulis’ side, however. By the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, research proved that the two major building blocks of plants and animals, chloroplasts and mitochondria were at one time independent bacteria. This solidified the fact that on a biological level, connection trumps autonomy for longevity. And now that fact is written in textbooks, with no real story of the adversity it overcame to get there.

While it is customary for most new scientific theories to be met with criticism, especially those that completely shift the current narrative, many have noted that sexism played a key part in Margulis’ initial lack of acceptance. On more than one occasion, she herself had hinted that women were seen as mothers and wives first, and scientists second. She recalled that while married to fellow scientist Carl Sagan that “Carl would finish his sentence, unperturbed” while she was expected to “handle all the duties of a 1950s housewife, from washing dishes to paying the household bills.”

And yet, Margulis would have other ideas that were controversial that had nothing to do with her gender. Most famously, she did not believe that AIDS was caused by HIV, and instead believed it was cause by a syphilis-causing type of bacteria, despite there already being decades of research proving otherwise. That view was seen as an endorsement of AIDS denialism, which undermined prevention and treatment effort. Then later in life, Margulis became a vocal proponent of 9/11 conspiracy theories suggesting government involvement the in Twin Towers attacks.

And yet, perhaps this is one of those “you gotta take the good with the bad” situations. Margulis’ inherent contrarian nature gave us both these unfounded, even harmful stances, in addition to entirely new paradigms that altered our understanding of life itself.

And if nothing else, it illuminated the need for science to include multiple points of view in order to unlock the truth. It seems life is, after all, about coming together.

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Most Americans agree bed sheets get 'gross' after 35 days. Experts say it's much sooner.

This is how often you should wash your sheets, according to experts.

washing sheets, bedding, how often should you wash your sheets, making the bed, wash sheets, how often should you wash bed sheets
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The rest of your bedding doesn't need to be washed as often.

There's nothing better than hopping into bed with clean sheets. But let's be honest: washing your sheets can be a pain. From stripping the bed to putting sheets back on post-washing, it's a chore. But you may want to re-think how often you should be washing your bed sheets.

According to a survey of 1,000 Americans conducted by Mattress Advisor, the average time between sheet changings or washings in the U.S. is 24 days—or every 3 1/2 weeks, approximately. The same survey revealed that 35 days is the average interval at which unwashed sheets are "gross."

If that sounds about right to you, prepare to be shocked. According to experts, you should be washing your sheets *a lot* sooner than that for hygiene reasons.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

How often should you wash your sheets?

Hint: It's a lot more frequent than 24 days.

While there is no definitive number of days or weeks, most experts recommend swapping out used sheets for clean ones every week or two.

Dermatologist Alok Vij, MD told Cleveland Clinic that people should wash their sheets at least every two weeks, but probably more often if you have pets, live in a hot climate, sweat a lot, are recovering from illness, have allergies or asthma, or if you sleep naked.

We shed dead skin all the time, and friction helps those dead skin cells slough off, so imagine what's happening every time you roll over and your skin rubs on the sheets. It's normal to sweat in your sleep, too, so that's also getting on your sheets. And then there's dander and dust mites and dirt that we carry around on us just from living in the world, all combining to make for pretty dirty sheets in a fairly short period of time, even if they look "clean."

Maybe if you shower before bed and always wear clean pajamas you could get by with a two-week sheet swap cycle, but weekly sheet cleaning seems to be the general consensus among the experts. The New York Times consulted five books about laundry and cleaning habits, and once a week was what they all recommend.

Sorry, once-a-monthers. You may want to step up your sheet game a bit.

sheets, bed sheets, clean sheets, how often should you wash your sheets, how often should you wash your bed sheets Experts agree that this is how often you should wash your bed sheets.Photo credit: Canva

What about the rest of your bedding? Blankets and comforters and whatnot?

Olivia Parks, Owner + Lead Organizer at Nola Organizers, told Upworthy that duvet covers should be cleaned every week or so.

"Even though the cover protects the insert, the insert still collects body odor, sweat, body oils from lotions or other body products, crumbs if you eat in your bed, dog hair or cat hair, and more," she explained.

Somewhere between the Gen X and Millennial eras, young folks stopped being about the top sheet life, just using their duvet with no top sheet. If that's you, wash that baby once a week. If you do use a top sheet, you can go a couple weeks longer on the duvet cover.

For blankets and comforters and duvet inserts, Sleep.com says every 3 months. And for decorative blankets and quilts that you don't really use, once a year washing will suffice.

What about pillows? Pillowcases should go in with the weekly sheet washing, but pillows themselves should be washed every 3 to 6 months. Washing pillows can be a pain, and if you don't do it right, you can end up with a lumpy pillow, but it's a good idea because between your sweat, saliva and skin cells, pillows can start harboring bacteria.

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Baking soda absorbs moisture and or odor and breaks down any residue that builds up! If you have allergies you should be doing this more often! #cleaning #lifehack #tiktokshopcybermonday #tiktokshopblackfriday #mattressvacuumcleaner

Finally, how about the mattress itself? Home influencers on TikTok can often be seen stripping their beds, sprinkling their mattress with baking soda, brushing it into the mattress fibers and then vacuuming it all out. Architectural Digest says the longer you leave baking soda on the mattress, the better—at least a few hours, but preferably overnight. Some people add a few drops of essential oil to the baking soda for some extra yummy smell.

If that all sounds like way too much work, maybe just start with the sheets. Pick a day of the week and make it your sheet washing day. You might find that climbing into a clean, fresh set of sheets more often is a nice way to feel pampered without a whole lot of effort.

This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.

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15 years ago, a Russian gymnast was interrupted by her 2-year-old daughter. It became a historic performance.

"This is beyond beautiful. 🥲"

dance, motherhood, mommy daughter dance, mother daughter relationship, parenting, wholesome
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Svetlana Putintseva with her daughter Masha.

In 2005 at only 18 years old, Russian rhythmic gymnast Svetlana Putintseva became a world champion, after which she retired and eventually became a mom. Then, in 2011, Putintseva came out of retirement for one special Gala performance.

Little did anyone know that her then two-year-old daughter named Masha would be the key to making that performance so special.

As the story goes, the young child refused to leave her side that night. But rather than stopping the performance, Putintseva did what so many incredible moms do: she masterfully held space for two different identities.

As we see in the video below, Putintseva simply brought Masha onto the dance floor and incorporated her into the routine—holding and comforting her at times, performing impressive moves while she ran around at others…letting it all become a lively, endearing interaction rather than a rote routine. It became something really touching:

Watch:

Now, a bit of fact-checking as this video has once again started going viral. Despite what many captions say, Putintseva‘s daughter was likely always a planned part of the performance (the tiny leotard is a bit of a giveaway). But that doesn’t really take away from the message behind it: motherhood weaves another soul into one's identity, forever. And one of the biggest lessons it teaches is how to hold someone else steady, all while becoming ourselves.

Every day, moms are engaging in a similar type of “dance”: navigating through the world while guiding and nurturing their little ones. It probably doesn't always feel quite as graceful as what Putintseva put out, and, yet, it is just as beautiful.

dance, motherhood, mommy daughter dance, mother daughter relationship, parenting, wholesome A mother hugging her daughter.Photo credit: Canva

Maybe so many thought it was an improvised moment because improvising is a very real parent superpower. That’s certainly the takeaway we get from some of these lovely comments:

“You cannot control life but you can learn to dance with it. 🤍”

"This is beyond beautiful. 🥲"

“If this isn't a metaphor for motherhood. We improvise so much.”

“A mother’s unconditional love 🥹❤️ She just made my whole month.”

“I do this sometimes while deejaying. My daughter comes up so I hit the slicer and let her chop it up. A few chops and she is happy and goes about her business. 🥰”

“I can see my daughter doing this to me soon whenever I get up on stage on perform. She already stares long and hard at me whenever I am onnstage singing. She doesn't take her eyes off me. Sure she would be running up to stand with me when she starts walking 😂😂 i look forward to it tho”

“Sobbing 😭😭😭😭 As a dancer who hasn’t performed since having a kid, this inspires me in so many ways 🥹🥹 So beautiful and it’s clear that she admires her mom so much 🥰”

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Though not much is written on Putintseva following this performance, one blog post says that Masha has followed in her footsteps by getting into rhythmic gymnastics. Maybe it all started with this one performance. ❤️

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A girl's pet pig ate her homework. Teachers were stunned when mom sent them video proof.

"Okay, I have to admit this is a first for me!"

pigs, pets, homework, school, teachers, kids, dog ate my homework, excuses, funny, humor
By Andrew Watson/Wikimedia Commons & Canva

An Arizona girl claimed "My pig ate my homework!" Luckily, she had proof.

Believe it or not, "the dog ate my homework" excuse is over 100 years old. The first known anecdote involving a dog eating important documents came about around 1905. A professor was later recorded in 1929 writing, "It is a long time since I have had the excuse about the dog tearing up the arithmetic homework," suggesting the phrase had been around for some time.

In the century since, teachers the world over have heard every variation of excuse about why a student can't turn in their homework. But, in 2026, we may have fortuitously stumbled on a new one most teachers have never dreamed of.

Jacey Tinsley, a mom from Arizona, recently posted a story to social media that has to be seen to be believed. In the now viral post, she explains that her daughter Taylee was unable to turn in her homework for multiple subjects... because their pet pig ate it.

Yes, the Tinsleys have racked up quite a following on social media documenting life with their three mini-pigs, so it is certainly in the realm of possibility that one of the pigs could have gotten into Taylee's homework.

But would the teachers buy it?

Luckily, Tinsley was able to catch the whole thing on video via indoor Ring cam. In the footage, their pig Polly is caught red-handed snatching the backpack off of the counter, dragging it to the floor, and rifling through it—destroying several papers in the process. Tinsley took the initiative to email her daughter's teachers and school administrators with the indisputable photographic evidence.

Jacey Tinsley took full accountability for her daughter's missing work. "If/when you see any work that's partially eaten/chewed, that is 100% on us, not Taylee," she confessed.

Then, she hoped for the best.

The school staffers had no choice but to accept Jacey's ludicrous tale, and they got quite a kick out of it, too.

Taylee's principal was first to reply: "Okay, I have to admit this is a first for me!! I'm trying not to laugh hysterically..."

The science teacher chimed in next: "This is a first time in my teacher career to hear this and I find it hilarious."

The math teacher was a person of few words: "Oh my goodness, that is so funny."

Over two million people viewed the reel on Instagram and TikTok combined. Commenters were delighted by the ridiculous footage and had plenty of their own hard-to-believe stories of lost homework:

"I turned in homework once that was half eaten by my rabbits but all the answers weren't eaten so I got an A"

"That happened with my piggy she ate three page, so I sent a picture of our piggy Then the damn teacher wanted me to bring her to show and tell her"

"Had a classmate who brought in his homework that was literally eaten by his dog. My teacher thought it was so funny that he displayed the chewed up paper on his wall"

"My baby sister ate my homework once. I wish I was joking"

"My dog ate my homework which was a book I picked to read and it was about lying and saying that your dog ate your homework. I told my teacher and got yelled at so my Dad had to come in with the torn up book to prove I wasnt lying"

If there's anything to learn from the massive response to Tinsley's post, it's that, sometimes, the dog really does eat your homework. And if not the dog, then the rabbit, cat, or even pig.

Pigs can make terrific pets in the right home. They are surprisingly intelligent, playful, affectionate, and can be trained to do many of the tricks and tasks dogs can do.

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Pigs can, however, be quite destructive. Because they're so smart, any hint of boredom can drive them into a frenzy of activity; a favorite activity of many pigs is rooting. Rooting is when they use their powerful snout to push and dig at the ground—or whatever items happen to be around (like a backpack that smells like yesterday's lunch). It's an instinctual behavior that calms them and helps them find snacks.

Taylee got lucky this time that the whole incident was caught on camera. "The pig ate my homework," doesn't seem like the kind of excuse that's going to fly more than once without proof.

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'Remarkable' UPS driver runs into burning home to save 101-year-old woman

"I just did what I thought was right."

ups driver, ups, hero, house fire, elderly woman, orange county, california, local news, good news, ktla
Photo credit: Canva

A delivery driver with a determined expression; a house on fire.

Fate often tests our courage at the most unexpected times. For UPS driver Willy Esquivel, that moment came on January 15 while he was completing a delivery in Orange County, California.

According to KTLA, Esquivel was on his routine route in Santa Ana when he noticed neighbors attempting to smother a blaze coming from the condo of Ann Edwards, a 101-year-old woman who lives alone.

Esquivel wasted no time entering the smoke-filled building to rescue Edwards, who seemed "very disoriented" and reluctant to leave. Nevertheless, Esquivel "picked her up and carried her safely outside," according to KTLA and a statement from the Orange County Fire Authority (OFCA).

A video posted on the OFCA's X account showed just how thick the smoke was pouring from Edwards' condo as firefighters arrived. The OFCA also acknowledged the resourceful neighbors who aided in the rescue.

"At the same time, the neighbors used fire extinguishers to knock down the kitchen fire," the OCFA wrote on X. "One of them, a roofer by trade, grabbed his ladder, climbed to the roof, and used a garden hose to spray water into the kitchen vent."

Thankfully, while Edwards was taken to the hospital, she was expected to make a full recovery. Her son, Rick, told KTLA that he was grateful to Esquivel for "sticking with her and getting her out of there."

As for Esquivel, rather than seeing himself as a hero, he told KTLA that he was "just a UPS driver who was in the right place at the right time."

"I just did what I thought was right," he added. "At the end of the day, she's someone's mother, someone's grandmother, great-grandmother."

- YouTube www.youtube.com

Moments like this rarely announce themselves ahead of time. They unfold in the middle of ordinary days, on familiar streets, while people are simply doing their jobs or moving through their routines. Delivery drivers like Esquivel travel through neighborhoods every day, often unnoticed, yet uniquely positioned to sense when something is wrong. On this day, being present and paying attention made all the difference.

Just as striking as Esquivel's bravery was the way neighbors instinctively sprang into action. Without hesitation, they grabbed fire extinguishers, ladders, and garden hoses, each contributing whatever they had in the moment. Together, their quick thinking and collaboration helped prevent an even greater tragedy.

"A remarkable outcome made possible by quick action, teamwork, and people looking out for one another in a moment of need," the OCFA wrote on X.

It's easy to assume someone else will step in. That it's not your fight. That it's not your responsibility. Heroism requires the opposite mindset. And at a time when the world can feel increasingly short on that quality, this story is a refreshing reminder that yes, there are still good people out there willing to help, even when it means helping complete strangers while on the job.

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