News

The World Cup is here, and America is about to get reviewed by the entire planet

Consider it a scouting report.

The World Cup kicked off this week, which means fans from every corner of the globe are pouring into host cities across North America, including plenty in the U.S., many for the very first time.

They won't be the first to file a report. When a Reddit thread asked non-Americans to name the things about the US that Americans don't even realize are weird, more than 24,000 people piled in, and Neha B. rounded up the ten best answers. A few you could call from midfield (tipping, obviously). Others are a lot harder to see from inside the aquarium.

A sampling: we talk to strangers like it's a varsity sport, which left one visitor from New Zealand genuinely "freaked out." Our coffee is a to-go thing, not a sit-and-savor thing. And our pharmaceutical ads, the ones where everyone is kayaking while a calm voice lists alarming side effects, are apparently the most unhinged programming on American television.

That's three. The other seven include your sidewalks, your flags, and the reason we collectively lose our minds over a British accent. Host nation, know thyself.

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And what did we learn?

Yesterday, we shared Colorado’s new Tamale Act, which makes it legal to sell the delicious treats coming out of home kitchens.

I asked what homemade delicacies GOOD readers would like to see show up in their area, and, wow.

• Abuela-certified tamales, accept no substitute (23.5%)

• The chili your neighbor swears would win a cook-off (21.6%)

• Dumplings, folded by hands that have done this ten thousand times (29.4%)

• Sunday sauce that's been simmering since Thursday (13.7%)

That doesn’t add up to 100% at all because I got a pile of amazing write-in meals.

Reader Gililland Gail has a whole menu in mind. “Chicken-fried steak, mashed garlic potatoes with gravy, fresh green beans with bacon, Brownies and ice cream 😋.”

Cheryl Kidwell asked for cinnamon rolls.

Keleigh is in a summer mood. “BBQ spareribs with all the summer sides.”

Reader SGWC got specific. “Pot roast baked in the oven until it falls apart.”

Results are still coming in, sorry I couldn’t get to them all. Even if I could, I’d have to stop here; I’m getting too hungry to keep working.

Well-being

So no one told you sleep was gonna be this way?

Decades of 4 a.m. call times really messed with Jennifer Aniston.

A 2024 Gallup poll found that only 42% of Americans feel like they're getting enough rest, which means most of us are out here running on fumes and cold brew. Among the bleary-eyed masses: Jennifer Aniston, who has spent decades wrangling chaotic filming schedules, constant travel, and hotel pillows of wildly varying quality.

As Mark Wales reports, Aniston opened up to Self about the four habits she swears by to actually fall (and stay) asleep. The first one starts before her head hits the pillow: "My ideal routine at night begins with all screens going off." The other three take less time than a single episode of Friends, and none of them involve a $400 gadget or an elaborate optimization-culture overhaul.

Here's the kicker: researchers checked her homework, and she passed. Each habit lines up with peer-reviewed science, from melatonin studies to circadian rhythm research, and a couple of them double as gentle movement and mood resets you can do in five minutes flat. The CDC says skimping on sleep is linked to heart disease, diabetes, and mood disorders, so consider this the rare celebrity wellness routine worth copying.

Health

Never wrong, always loud: the anatomy of a low EQ

The friend who hijacks every conversation isn't just annoying.

You know the type. The cousin who has never once been wrong, the coworker who treats feedback like a declared war, the friend who somehow turns your breakup into a story about their breakup. These aren't just personality quirks, according to one licensed therapist. They're symptoms.

As Mark Wales reports, therapist Jeffrey Meltzer has identified six telltale signs that someone's emotional intelligence is running on fumes, and a few of them hide in plain sight as things we politely call "passion." Take the person who fires back the instant they feel something. Meltzer's diagnosis is blunt: "It's not passion. It's poor self control." (His take on fake apologies is even sharper.)

Here's the part worth sticking around for: every single sign is fixable. The need to be right, it turns out, is just a humility deficit, and humility can be trained, much like learning what you don't actually know or steering your emotions instead of being steered by them. The other four signs? Some of them might be lurking in your own everyday habits. No judgment. Mostly.

Who’s a GOOD boy/girl?

Image of the Day has its own lane, but the pet pics keep arriving, and I am not made of stone. So every Friday, I’ll share one reader-submitted photo of a favorite pet. Want yours featured? Send it along.

On June 12, 1967, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous ruling with a name almost too perfect to be true: Loving v. Virginia. The plaintiffs were Richard and Mildred Loving, a quiet Virginia couple whose only crime was being married while she was Black and Native American and he was white. Their home state treated that as a felony, and a county sheriff had once burst into their bedroom at 2 a.m., hoping to catch them in the act of being husband and wife.

The Lovings never set out to be revolutionaries. Mildred simply wrote a letter to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who pointed her toward the ACLU. The case climbed all the way to the top, where Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that the freedom to marry is one of the basic civil rights of man. Nine justices agreed, and bans in sixteen states vanished overnight.

The ripples never stopped. The ruling later helped shape the legal foundation for marriage equality decisions nationwide, and June 12 is now quietly celebrated as Loving Day. 

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