Calling all Halloween enthusiasts, lovers of ’80s cult classics, and fans of Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Michael Keaton … you get the idea: The long-awaited Beetlejuice sequel premieres today. Titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the film is positioned to be the flick of the season, with the aforementioned returning cast members joined by Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega, and Willem Dafoe. Watch the trailer and see where it’s playing near you.
Leave the packaged bottles on the grocery store shelf: You can dry your own herbs at home
Culture
North Carolina Town Tops List of Fastest-Growing Suburbs With Home Values Under $500K
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Suburbs are often the butt of jokes about white picket fences and minivans, but they remain a popular choice for families thanks to their proximity to cities, more affordable home prices, and space. To help people choose a locale with potential, the site GoBankingRates recently created a list of American ’burbs that meet two key conditions: average home values under $500,000, and significant population growth between 2020 and 2022. Mooresville, North Carolina, part of the larger Charlotte metropolitan area, took the No. 1 spot, with a July 2024 home value of $480,430 and a nearly 30% population increase during that two-year period. Next was Hamtramck, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, and then Buckeye, Arizona, located outside of Phoenix. As the top three demonstrates, there was no singular U.S. region that dominated the rankings — there were towns and cities around the country that met the site’s criteria. See the rest of the 50 fast-growing suburbs that made the list.
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This App Sets Up Weekly Dinners With Strangers in Cities Across the World
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A dinner out with a bunch of strangers may sound like a nightmare for introverts, but as the worldwide users of Timeleft might tell you, it could be a low-stress way to make friends in this age of loneliness. The app sets up weekly dinners in 200 cities across 50 countries, using a “personality algorithm” to pair groups of strangers. Users pay a small fee to get access to the dinners, which begin with an icebreaker game prompted by Timeleft. If the group clicks, there’s also an option to head to a bar after dinner with even more potential friends to meet. At one recent gathering in Minneapolis, participants expressed an appreciation for meeting people offline, particularly in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. “The way we connect to others via the internet has fundamentally changed the way that we view ourselves and what we have to offer to the world,” Alessandra Gaglio told The Minnesota Star Tribune. “So infrequently do we get the opportunity to really connect with strangers in a safe and curious environment face to face.” Another participant at the Minneapolis dinner, Chloe Neighbor, added: “We all collectively forgot how to make new friends and interact with new people [during the pandemic]. But humans are still social creatures, so we’re still looking for those connections.”
Health
How Research and Innovation Have Improved Outlooks for Pediatric Cancer Patients
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September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and various medical and research institutions around the world are taking this as an opportunity to share just how much has changed for the better when it comes to treating pediatric cancer patients. According to a recent article from the American Association for Cancer Research, the five-year survival rate for young cancer patients has improved significantly over the past several decades, going from 58-68% in the 1970s to 83-88% in the 2010s. And a report published Wednesday by the South Carolina Childhood Cancer Taskforce found an 11% improvement in childhood cancer survival in the state between 1996 and 2016. These hopeful numbers are thanks to new research and innovations in the field, such as the increased use ofCAR T-cell therapy and a novel treatment for kids with neuroblastomas, a rare brain cancer. But that only scratches the surface — read about more research breakthroughs from the charity Cancer Research UK.
Global Good
🇳🇴 The size of Norway’s forests has more than tripled over the last century, growing 10% in just the last decade.
🇹🇼 A workshop in Taiwan called the Trash Kitchen is turning plastic waste into sunglasses.
🇷🇺 Siberian gold miners found the mummified remains of a woolly rhino, a species that went extinct 10,000 years ago.
🇦🇺 The Ladies League, Australia’s first women’s sports bar, is officially open in Sydney’s LGBTQ+ district.
Nikki Corbett, a mom and business owner in Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula, couldn’t find any children’s books to help teach her kids the native Yup’ik language. So, like mothers tend to do, she decided to do it herself, teaming up with Katie O’Connor, a friend, fellow mom, and illustrator, to create a Yup’ik alphabet coloring book.
Eyes on Paris
Michael Reaves/Getty Images
It’s an understatement to call Diede de Groot a force. The Dutch wheelchair tennis star has a resume most athletes could only dream of: She’s the first tennis player (wheelchair or non-disabled) to win three successive calendar Grand Slams, and the first wheelchair player to achieve the “Super Slam,” winning all four Grand Slam tournaments, the Paralympic gold medal, and the Wheelchair Tennis Masters in a single year. Oh, and did we mention her undefeated streak from February 2021 to May 2024? De Groot, 27, earned the doubles silver medal with partner Aniek van Koot yesterday, and she’s expected to score gold in the singles final against Japan’s Yui Kamiji this morning. “It will mean everything [to defend the titles]. It’s the goal that I’m aiming at,” she told CNN back in May.
Learn a New Language and See Where It Takes You
The Labor Day deals aren’t over just yet: Babbel is offering readers 67% off subscriptions, marking its best sale of the year. The language learning platform is like a private tutor in your pocket. The bite-sized lessons — taking just 10 minutes a day — fit seamlessly into your routine, helping you confidently start real-world conversations in as little as three weeks.
