The burger chain continues to lose customers in the U.S., 10 months after announcing the need for a turnaround.

Yoshikazu Tsuno / Getty Images

As McDonald's sets out to transform into a "modern, progressive burger company" and transitions to new leadership, sales continue to slide. The chain reported Friday that global comparable sales at stores open at least 13 months fell 0.6% in April, including a 2.3% decrease in the U.S.

Facing "ongoing competitive activity and negative customer traffic," as the company describes its problems, McDonald's U.S. business has been weak for more than a year. This is the hole it has to dig itself out of:

The company installed a new CEO, Steve Easterbrook, in March to lead the turnaround. This week the chief executive announced his first step would be a corporate restructure, leaving many questions unanswered about the strategy, including specifics around upcoming menu innovation or changes in restaurant operations.

Last July, McDonald's announced that it would take 18 months to strengthen its business and rethink its brand. The company has repeatedly stated the need to simplify its menu to speed up service, localize products and advertising, and improve its marketing to regain consumer trust.

These efforts are only recently taken off, but nearly 10 months since announcing a need for a turnaround, McDonald's has yet to improve sales. It has launched social media campaigns to reassure consumers about the quality of the ingredients it uses. Alongside a gradual rollout of customized burgers, the chain also recently removed a number of menu items including the Deluxe Quarter Pounder, six chicken sandwiches, and two snack wraps. As Easterbrook said in a release, there "remains significant work ahead."

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TL;DR: The music is better and the comedy is worse.

Universal Pictures

Pitch Perfect was Bring It On meets Glee — the kind of movie that felt like a comfy childhood favorite even when it was brand new in theaters, the kind that you'd stop and watch whenever you stumbled across it on cable. It was a surprise hit only in the context of the industry's Memento-like inability to remember that young women like to watch movies too, and not just as presumedly reluctant companions of the young men at whom most blockbusters are flagrantly aimed.

The 2012 movie, directed by Jason Moore, was warmhearted and rickety, filled with enjoyable musical numbers and jokes that weren't always targeted very carefully. For the second installment, which opens in theaters on May 15, producer and cast member Elizabeth Banks (she plays Gail Abernathy-McKadden, one half of a brutal commentating pair) is making her directorial debut.

Most of the Barden Bellas are now in their senior year, but their story otherwise recycles most of the same beats — so how does the sequel measure up against the first Pitch Perfect? Here's a look.

Beca

Throughout Pitch Perfect 2, Anna Kendrick maintains the vaguely disgruntled air of someone who'd rather be elsewhere, which is fine, because the movie's provided her character, Beca, with another storyline about how she'd rather be elsewhere too.

In the sequel, Beca's mind is on her internship at a record production house where she does coffee runs and tries to curry favor with a demanding boss (played by Keegan-Michael Key, who's everywhere this summer). The distraction puts her at odds with Chloe (Brittany Snow), but also means she spends a lot of the movie doing her own thing rather than spending time with the group.

It feels undeniably strange that the main character of both movies has spent so much time distancing herself from the thing the movies are about, and Beca's storyline is clumsily dovetailed with that of the underwritten newcomer Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), who's only ever wanted to be a Bella. The repetition of "I've got more important things to do" isn't just stale, it feels like a mistake in a movie that's all about the Bellas' last hurrah before graduation. Shouldn't Beca be more into this by now?

Winner: Pitch Perfect

Universal Pictures

The music

The mash-ups are back, choreographer Aakomon Jones is back, and in a new development, the Bellas actually flirt with the aca-transgressive idea of performing an original tune — "Flashlight," which in the movie is composed by new Bella Emily, and performed on the soundtrack by Jessie J. It doesn't have the same wistful charm of Kendrick's "Cups," but it doesn't need to. It's a big, arms outstretched, Katy Perry–esque number that's threaded through the movie in various forms, one that really soars in its final and fullest appearance. Like Pitch Perfect itself, it manages to feel familiar even though it isn't.

"Cups" does get a reprise, as does the "riff-off," one of the highlights of the first movie, which is actually bigger and better in the sequel, taking place at an underground party hosted by the self-declared "world's biggest a cappella fan" (played by David Cross) and filled out with some welcome cameos.

The Bellas' big rivals in Pitch Perfect 2, the German group Das Sound Machine, get a few amusingly precise musical numbers of their own. Led by Birgitte Hjort Sørensen and Flula Borg and dressed like the villains in a dystopian YA story, "DSM" manages a bit of choreography that's simultaneously clever and silly. Despite plot requirements, the Bellas aren't always the obvious singing standouts they're meant to be, but their mash-ups are even more impeccably put together this go-round.

Winner: Pitch Perfect 2

Universal Pictures

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Not only is the minibar selection terrible, the reopened hotel is in the middle of the Iraqi government’s next big target for reclamation from the militants.

Safin Hamed / Getty Images

OUNIS AL-BAYATI/AFP / Getty Images

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Messina touts a “progressive” victory.

Obama and Messina in 2013.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP / Getty Images

The former Obama aide who helped Britain's Conservatives stay in power Thursday told BuzzFeed News that Hillary Clinton, rather than U.S. Republicans, should be taking hope from the victory of Britain's right.

Prime Minister David Cameron is "a progressive leader" who "pushed for gay marriage and a world climate change deal and proposed to increase child care subsidies and cut taxes on the minimum wage," Jim Messina said in a telephone interview from London, where he said he'd just departed a celebratory tea at 10 Downing Street.

Messina served as a top adviser to the Conservative campaign, and spent the run-up to the election in London, and said he'd slept about an hour in the last two days. He helped steer a re-election campaign that combined intense attacks on Labour leader Ed Miliband with policies — from support for nationalized health care to intervention in the housing market — that would fit easily inside the U.S. Democratic Party. (Labour, which is well to the left of the Democrats, was advised by Messina's old boss, David Axelrod, who declined via email to comment on the lessons for Clinton from the U.K. election.)

But Cameron clashed with Miliband over the incumbent's relatively hawkish foreign policy and support for, and from, London's booming financial industry.

Messina said he'd learned from Bill Clinton that elections should always look forward, and said Miliband "was talking about going back to the '70s and '80s."

He declined to draw any direct lines between this election and next year's American presidential campaign.

"I don't think this election has anything to do with Hillary Clinton," he said.

But Messina said Clinton could take heart from the results.

"Cameron showed, again, that all presidential elections are about the future and Hillary is by far the right candidate in the U.S. to do that," Messina said.

He said Cameron would likely follow Obama's example in staying neutral in the U.S. election, as Obama did in Britain's.

He said he'd been struck by the difference between the electoral system — in particular, Britain's cap on spending, at just over £31 million per party, that means that election campaigns aren't dominated by television advertising.

"The very hard cap on spending was a very good thing," said Messina, who said it created an environment in which the press had more power than it does in the U.S.

Britain has a "way more partisan press corps than what we have in the U.S.," Messina noted, though he disputed the notion that the press had tilted toward the Tories.

Messina said he will return to continue to work for the super PAC Priorities U.S.A., which he co-chairs and whose relationship to Clinton's campaign has at times been complicated.

"I plan to do whatever else I can to help," he said.

Jenny Chang/BuzzFeed

I was cutting strawberries at the sink the other night when I thought of my mother, standing over her own kitchen sink all those years ago, doing the same exact thing. Slicing fruit. I adored watching her slice fruit. She could skin an apple with one swift flick of her knife, tossing the peel on the counter like some sort of motherly mic drop. She’d blast through a container of strawberries in 60 seconds, holding the knife and fruit in the same hand, nimbly pressing the blade through the fruit’s red flesh and up into her thumb without once cutting her own skin. I’d spent years clumsily slicing into strawberries on a cutting board, too scared of stabbing myself to try it her way. But over the years I’d gained courage from childbirth and a consistent Lexapro prescription, and I started cutting strawberries just like her without even realizing it.

My mother passed away eight years ago, when I was 27, and I’ve spent years grieving her death deeply. But as I stood there the other night, going through her motions, I had an unsettling realization. As usual, I was conjuring up emotional images of my mother. But this time, I felt no sadness, no tears, no urge to curl up in the fetal position at the foot of my sink. My grief was simply gone.

My mom was 55, in perfect health, and fresh off a trip to France with my dad when her stomach stopped working. Her doctor spent months shooing her out of her office with heartburn medicine in hand, insisting it was indigestion. It wasn’t. It was stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Nine nightmarish months after she was finally diagnosed, she was gone.

In the early days, my grief was overwhelming and all-consuming. I logged my 10,000 hours of weeping. (I am a Malcolm Gladwell–approved genius at sobbing into an Ikea couch pillow.) But the terrifying thing about grief is how easy it can be to function in your day-to-day life while it quietly eats away at you. In the months that followed my mom’s death, I got my dream job writing about celebrity and pop culture at VH1, my boyfriend became my fiancé, and I smiled through bridal showers and bachelorette parties for dear friends. But through all these milestones, as well as the boring everyday, I was only barely present. I was stoned on my grief, my brain perpetually clogged with the memory of my mother.

Before she died, my mother taped instructions on all the appliances in our family home detailing how to use them. From the vacuum to the washing machine to cabinet full of lightbulbs, my mom covered things in her tight, sloped cursive so we wouldn’t be completely lost without her. She cared deeply for my father, brother, and me, investing herself in our lives but not losing herself in them. She was a gentle force, a strong advisor, and a fierce ally. A week before she died she could barely take a sip of water, but she somehow found the strength to demand I not revisit a toxic friendship I’d ended years prior. If someone screwed you over, she’d loathe them for a lifetime on your behalf.

Our relationship had just recently transitioned out of the antagonistic teen years into a space of mutual love, understanding, and trust. I matured, she eased up, and a true friendship blossomed. She’d take the train down from Boston to visit me in my tiny New York City studio, sleeping on my couch and taking me shopping for expensive bras I could never afford on my own. We’d stroll the city, linger in Barneys, and eat too much avocado toast at Cafe Gitane. At the end of the weekend I’d drop her off at Penn Station, feeling so grateful she was mine. Then suddenly the apocalypse hit. I was supposed to be figuring out who I was, exploring all avenues of my adult self. Instead, my grief shifted from a coping mechanism to my whole identity.

My younger brother and father were also entrenched in their own sorrow, but I was too absorbed in my own pain to even begin to acknowledge theirs. We’d always been a close family, and we had bonded even more as my mom’s caregivers, sleeping on the floor together around her bed during those last weeks of hospice. But with her gone, the family dynamic shifted. I was now the only girl. My brother — who shared a quiet stoicism with my mother — was now the lone introvert. And my dad, who had once charmed my mom by playing harmonica at a college party, was alone for the first time since he was 18. Still, they coped. They threw themselves into new adventures — my brother started business school, my dad took up ballroom dancing. My relationships — with my fiancé, friends, and colleagues — were an afterthought, my hobbies nonexistent. They were no match for the constant sadness that scrolled through me like a news ticker, distracting me from focusing on what was happening directly in front of me.

I spent most of my time in my tiny NYC apartment, sitting on my bed, digging through the pretty Container Store box I’d purchased to hold things that reminded me of her. I saved the most insignificant of things: grocery lists with items like “real oatmeal - not flavored,” and the pad of paper on which she’d listed out the family friends who warranted invitations to my wedding someday. I read and reread old emails, the most mundane correspondences shaking me the most. “So maybe your gas issue is realted [sic] to gluten allergy,” she wrote, offering me advice about a rash in February 2006. “It means not eating lots of what you like. it is hard.”

Nothing made her feel more alive again than when she was at her most nagging. “Kate,” she instructed on a yellow Post-it note. “You have to fill out the customer agreement & the assumption of liability form. Then return to Verizon. They did not include an envelope. xoxo Mom.”

Just looking at her scribbled signature could launch her back to life to the point where I could almost trick myself into believing she was still real. Revisiting that deep, endless sadness again and again allowed me to remember all the details about her I feared I might forget, to touch and smell and see her. I began to not just enjoy these daily grieving rituals, I craved them. Nowhere in the five stages of grief does Elisabeth Kübler-Ross mention that mourning might actually feel good. I was happy existing in a perpetual state of grief, because it kept my mom alive.

I found solace in Tumblr, dumping my emotions into raw, rambling blog posts that would often result in a friend texting me, “I saw yr post abt yr mom, r u doing ok?” It was a relief to put those emotions somewhere. But every time they spilled out, I filled right back up. Still, being The Girl Who Blogged About Her Dead Mom only strengthened my relationship with my grief. I became so good at grieving that I didn’t know how not to do it. And I definitely didn’t want to live without it, because it would mean discovering who I was without her in my life.

The thing about grief is that the old adage is true: Time heals all wounds. The rushing roar of pain and mourning that once swept me up and carried me away has now dried up to a trickle. I have lived a full eight years of my life — chasing career dreams, moving across the country, pushing babies out. My brother’s career is flourishing, and my father got remarried to a wonderful woman whom he met at his ballroom dancing lessons. Sometimes we text each other on my mom's birthday, or the anniversary of her death. Other times, we’re silent, and the days go on almost as if nothing ever happened.

My grief slipping away feels just as terrifying as it did to lose her. In some ways, I’m losing her all over again. My memories of her are becoming sloppy and unclear, foggy around the edges. My box of mementos is shoved on a shelf in my living room; my Tumblr is mostly a home for One Direction photos now. In that moment at the sink cutting strawberries, I pushed myself to go into my grief, to come up with a memory, a moment — something to hold on to, to bring her back. I searched my mind to hear the pitch of her laughter, to eye the slope of her shoulders as she sat paying bills at her desk, to watch her stand there cutting strawberries, piling them into the dingy, plastic, yellow strainer that she bought before I was born. I wanted to feel the sadness because it would mean that a part of her was still there, living and breathing through my sorrow. But my mind just circled around and around, until I finished my work, tossing the strawberry tops in the trash.

I am a mom now; my daughters are 4 and 2. They are tall, mischievous, and empathetic, just like her. My eldest knows my mom is dead. She asked me about her one day in the kitchen, as I hunched over the counter scribbling out detailed instructions for their babysitter. “Your mom died,” she said dramatically, and I nodded. “But where IS she?” she asked. “Can she still talk?”

And so I told her that yes, she is dead but she is still here. She talks through me, and lives on in my relationship with her and her sister. She is there in the advice I give them about navigating friendships, in the songs we sing and the hugs we share, in my endless nagging to pick up their toys, put away their shoes. She’s there when I’m at the sink slicing up strawberries for them to eat. As I said this to her, I realized that I no longer need to drown in my sadness just to keep her alive. I’m letting go of my grief, and finding my mom in myself.

This policeman’s moustache has got Twitter going.

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All mornings should start with a dozen French toast cups, if you ask me.

BuzzFeed / thecookingjar.com

French Toast Cups

With a whiskey cream cheese glaze. Get the recipe.

gimmesomeoven.com

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“And here I thought I was all cried out on Mother’s Day. THANKS WEINER!” WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the May 10 episode, “The Milk and Honey Route.”

WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the May 10 episode of Mad Men, "The Milk and Honey Route."

Michael Yarish / AMC

On the penultimate episode of Mad Men, Betty Francis (January Jones) and fans got some very unpleasant news: Betty has aggressive lung cancer...and nine months to a year to live.

AMC

Yes, Betty spent a large portion of the 10 years that have transpired on the series with a cigarette in her mouth...

AMC / Via purplelavellan.tumblr.com

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“I don’t feel low income means low talent or low imagination or low intelligence.” Update: A spokesperson for the BBC told BuzzFeed News that they tried to include an essence of what she said when her views were not related to the awards itself.

Jessica Hynes argued against government cuts in her acceptance speech at the BAFTAs.

However, a section of the speech was edited out from BBC coverage later that evening.

Stephen Butler / BAFTA / Rex / REX USA

I am from a single-parent family and my mum was a full-time worker to support me and my sister, and I'm really worried about the cuts that are coming to state education for people in low-income families.

Because I don't think low income means low talent or low imagination or low intelligence.

Via radiotimes.com

But some of that part of her speech was cut from the TV broadcast of the awards, as shown here.

Viewers only saw this: "I am from a single-parent family and my parent was a full-time worker, and I'm really worried about the cuts that are coming."

Then the broadcast cut to later section of the speech in which Hynes – who won Best Female Performance in a Comedy Programme for her role as Siobhan Sharpe in W1A – praised Arts Emergency, "who are working to raise money to ensure that the next generation of artists, producers, actors, directors are from all walks of society, because without organisations like that ... I wouldn't be here."

vine.co

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“A best friend isn’t a person, it’s a tier” - Mindy Lahiri.

So you're in a social situation and get introduced to a new person.

Warner Bros.

You strike up a casual conversation with them.

E!

Buena Vista Pictures

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Jenny Chang/BuzzFeed

Looking back eight years later, I can see that something was wrong just moments after my daughter, Hope, was placed, pink and new, on my chest. Instead of love or joy, I felt panicked, worried we were already nursing failures two minutes in. Yet because my lead-up to motherhood had been nearly picture-perfect — a happy marriage, a wanted pregnancy, a birth so smooth my OB had said I should have a whole football team of kids — it took me several weeks to understand that while Hope was healthy, I was not. Eventually I could name it — postpartum depression — and begin to recover, but for a while it just felt like all the good parts of me had slipped away the day I gave birth.

My husband, Rich, returned to his long lawyer hours and two-hour daily commute a few days after Hope was born. My mother flew from Kansas City to my home in Los Angeles to help for three weeks, a period in which we both imagined I’d be getting better at this mothering gig, not worse. Mom was doing her part — changing Hope’s diapers and dressing her in gingham and florals with frilly socks and matching soft leather shoes. I, meanwhile, sat around a lot in my nursing gown and robe, crying or about to cry.

“I’m worried about you,” Mom said sharply one morning after she’d placed Hope in a bouncy chair festooned with teddy bears.

“I’m fine,” I responded quickly. “Lots of moms have the baby blues.”

Mom had steadfastly cared for my dad, my brother, and me since her early twenties. She rarely complained, but I thought I detected the toll this sacrifice took in the way she seemed happiest not with us, but at church or petting the dog or watching PBS. I tried to make things easier by hiding my troubles from her and sometimes even myself, but this time I was too weak to pretend.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have had kids,” Mom said on another one of those endless mornings after Hope was born, standing at my sink in her red capri pants and white Talbots short-sleeve button-down. She was mixing oatmeal for me, the spoon clinking accusingly against the ceramic bowl, her short dark hair falling just so.

Mom’s comment stung, but more than anything it told me two things: She was very worried, and she wasn’t going to be able to help me. Rich was concerned, but with him, as everyone, I didn’t know what was wrong or what to ask for. And I knew he needed to work, so I tried not to let on to him how bad I was feeling. I held out a glimmer of hope though that his mother, Teri, might somehow help return me to myself.

The same day Mom left, Teri arrived. At 53, just 20 years my senior, everything about my tall, dyed-blonde mother-in-law was soft — her body, her voice, her way of being in the world. The regular stuff of my life, from working at a magazine to the bright Gerbera daisy centerpieces at my baby shower, made her suck in her breath as if witnessing a mini-miracle. I found this both refreshing and naive.

That evening, Teri made soft clucking noises as she followed me around the house and in and out our sliding glass door to the backyard as I tried to nurse and settle Hope with little success. The next morning, I woke at 5 a.m., stumbled toward the nursery, and assessed from the doorway that Hope was still asleep. I walked a few feet farther to the small guest room. The crumpled white sheets next to Teri felt like an invitation, and even though I knew it was an odd thing to do, climbing into bed with one’s sleeping mother-in-law, it felt like it was either that or walk down the stairs and out the front door and never come back.

Teri opened her eyes, her thin hair strewn across the pillow, and smiled sleepily. “Well, hi, honey.”

“I don’t know what is going on,” I said quietly, running my fingers along the edge of the sheet, my eyes filling. “I don’t know if this is normal anymore.”

“It does seem pretty bad to me,” she said thoughtfully.

I was surprised both by what she said and how she said it. She was acknowledging a problem, a big one, but it didn’t feel like an indictment or even all that terrible, like it might with Mom. It was just the truth.

“I was depressed once,” she went on. “Before I decided to leave Rich’s dad. I would drive sometimes and think it would be a good idea to drive my car off Huntington Beach Pier.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“I think about being in the hospital,” I whispered to the ceiling. “I think how great it would be to break both my legs because then someone else would have to care for Hope and no one would blame me.” I held my breath, waiting for the earth to engulf me for exposing this terrible secret.

Instead, Teri turned to me. “You’re going to get better, kiddo,” she promised softly, our blue eyes inches apart, as she rubbed my arm. “I’m not going to leave you until you’re better.”

I cried, this time out of relief, my tears soaking the sleeve of her white cotton nightgown with bitty blue flowers.

A few days later, my longtime doctor prescribed antidepressants and sleep, telling me that eventually I’d be OK but never the same because now I knew what it was like to be sick. Hope’s weight had dropped, so I switched to formula, which she happily gobbled up. Teri took the night shifts and she stayed awake all day, too, helping Hope and I find our way.

“Your mother is amazing,” I told Rich one night as we fell into bed at 8:30 p.m., giddy at the thought of several hours of uninterrupted rest. “When I married you, I never knew what a package deal I was getting.”

My mom was anxious for updates, and we spoke every day about Hope’s weight gain and our activities. Before she’d left, I’d asked Mom if she could return once Teri’s week was up. “I guess I can,” she’d responded wearily. But Teri told her boss she needed to stay another week, and that evening, I told Mom: “Teri can stay, so you don’t need to come.” Instantly, I regretted my words and the suggestion that I had Teri so I didn’t need her. “I mean, Teri’s OK,” I said lamely.

“Oh, I know,” Mom said matter-of-factly. “I know she’s nurturing like that.”

A year later, Mom’s breast cancer from decades past returned and I was pregnant again; it seemed that my Midwest roots and our moms were calling us home. My husband found work in Kansas City and we bought a house that was a 10-minute drive from Mom and Teri, our three homes forming an imperfect triangle on the map. Mom quietly began chemo treatments, and the grandmas traded off watching Hope and our new son, Gabriel, while I worked part-time as a freelance magazine and web editor.

I told myself a thousand times not to compare Mom and Teri, and then did it anyway. At 5 p.m., I’d drive up to Teri and her husband’s yellow house in the heart of a cul-de-sac and discover her and the kids in the backyard, dumping sand in a turtle-shaped sandbox. “We played cars and then were doing crafts at Renee’s and I looked up and it was 1:30!” Teri would exclaim, smiling at the memory of playing through lunch. “How was your day, honey?”

Mom, meanwhile, preferred to watch the kids at my house, and when I arrived home I felt myself tensing up. Something usually had gone wrong — the neighbor’s dogs barked during naps or Hope refused to wear socks or we’d run out of bread again.

I knew Mom was battling cancer and that was very hard even though she didn’t like to talk about it with me. And I knew things like sandwiches and socks were important to her. Part of me wished what I’d always wished when Mom was disappointed — that I could be a better daughter. But with Teri constantly offering up an alternate view in which me and my family were kind of like rock stars, I had what seemed a heretical thought: Could it be that the tension between Mom and me wasn’t entirely my fault?

I thought about talking about all this with Mom, how I loved Teri but I really wanted to love her better, too. But I didn’t know how, especially when we learned Mom’s cancer was terminal. I vowed to be more understanding toward Mom, to swallow my feelings for Teri because we had decades, after all, and Mom and I didn’t. Then, one early June day when Hope was 4 and Gabriel was 3, Teri turned yellow. The CT scan showed a mass in her pancreas and her doctor asked if he could pray with her and just like that, the fragile love triangle that existed between Mom, Teri, and I blew up. With both moms failing and up against the clock, I felt like I had to choose.

I told myself and others that I was so immersed in Teri’s care because no one else could understand Teri’s medical issues and advocate for her. Mom was a nurse, meanwhile, and had my dad, a radiologist, my brother, also a radiologist, and my aunt, a nurse, for support. But the truth was that I wanted to help and be with Teri more, and she wanted me with her, so I was. Whenever I thought about this, I felt equal parts warrior and betrayer.

Mom and I talked on the phone almost every day, and I saw her at least once a week, plus I talked or emailed frequently with family about her. But in the evenings, after the kids were in bed and the dishwasher hummed, my car drove mostly one direction: south to Teri’s. I’d show up in her doorway with McDonald’s shakes and we’d sit together on her bed, slurping and watching Big Brother or speculating about her oncologist’s personal life or laughing at the way Hope said “prentzel.” For a while, I thought I needed to save Teri — to find the right doctor, the right combination of chemotherapy — to prove that I really was the dream daughter she’d taken me for. But the more time we spent together, the more I realized that our kind of love was something you don’t have to earn.

I never knew who was going to die first, but in less than a year, Teri was gone. Two days after the funeral I felt exhausted and empty and ready, at last, to go to Mom. My family had been mostly understanding about my dedication to Teri, but occasional comments from my brother — “you only have one Mom, you know” — and my aunt — “You’re coming, right? Because I don’t think I can get her to the doctor myself” — made me feel that my loyalty was in question.

Mom smiled faintly as I entered her bedroom, her bald head wrapped in a pink terry-cloth cap.

“Can I sit with you?” I asked, and she weakly patted the spot next to her on the bed.

Over the next month, I moved in and out of Mom’s bedroom easily, helping her shift positions or lifting a can of Dr. Pepper from the nightstand and offering it to her, steadying the straw with my fingers. We flipped through Mini Boden and Garnet Hill children’s clothing catalogs, trying to surmise which tops the designers meant to go with which bottoms. “That’d look real cute on Hope,” she’d say thickly, and I’d dog-ear the page. Sometimes we held hands in silence, watching the shadows change on the wall.

I can’t say exactly why things were so different that last month before she died. I think at the end of her life and knowing I no longer needed to care for Teri, Mom was able to relinquish her role as “strong mother” and just be herself, a dying woman who wanted her daughter’s help. And I was able to respond, in part because Teri’s love had finally quieted that little part of me that always wondered whether I was enough. So I was able to simply love Mom instead of demanding more than she could give.

One afternoon I was checking email in my parents’ office, my laptop on the smooth brown desk that used to be my brother’s. I glanced up and my eyes focused on my junior yearbook photo that was pinned to a bulletin board. It was me with long brown ringlets, fuchsia shortalls, too much blush. It struck me that Teri never knew that girl at all, nor the many other versions of me that Mom had been there for. I thought about how Mom had always only wanted for me what I desired, whether it was her gold hoop earrings I wore almost every day my junior year or the unabashed, uncomplicated love of another mother. Sitting there among the old greeting cards and bills and my photo I suddenly knew: It wasn’t a coincidence Mom stopped chemo right after Teri died. She hadn’t wanted me and Teri to separate any sooner than necessary, so she’d pushed on, making sure it was Teri who let go first.

That night, after gathering my things like usual, I dropped my bag and walked back down the hall to Mom’s bedside.

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me my whole life,” I said, looking down at her, placing my hand over hers.

“I wish I could have done more,” she said, tears in her eyes. It was not what I was expecting.

“You did everything,” I said, my throat catching. “And now I’m so happy.”

Driving home under the canopy of trees in my parents’ neighborhood, I turned Mom’s words over in my mind. Maybe some of those times I’d wished to be a better daughter, Mom had been making her own silent wishes, too.

If you don’t smile at these pictures, you’re quite possibly made of stone.

As you may recall, last month, Kevin Blandford, 34, from Kentucky, won a free holiday in Puerto Rico.

However, there was a downside. Due to the type of trip, he couldn't bring his wife Bonnie and their 7-month-old baby. So he made them a hilariously miserable holiday photo album, which swiftly went viral on Imgur.

Anyway, after the pictures went viral, something rather lovely happened.

Kevin Blandford / Via imgur.com

Kevin tells us that both the hotel he stayed at and the Puerto Rican tourism advertising agency saw the photos.

They decided they wanted to bring him back, but they wanted him smiling this time. So they arranged a trip for Kevin, Bonnie, and their 8-month-old baby.

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Kevin tells us that Bonnie really enjoyed the holiday. Just take a look for yourselves...

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Fit for a royal Tenenbaum.

Last week saw the opening of Bar Luce, a Milan cafe designed by film director Wes Anderson.

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The cafe, located inside the city's newly opened Fondazione Prada complex, is everything any Wes Anderson fan could hope for.

And then some.

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Anderson has described the bar as the perfect place to write a movie, which makes total sense, since the bar appears to be one that would rival the Grand Budapest Hotel lobby.

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"While I do think it would make a pretty good movie set, I think it would be an even better place to write a movie. I tried to make it a bar I would want to spend my own non-fictional afternoons in," he explained in a statement.

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When you’re having a great time but remember who you are.

"Crap, they've spotted me."

As spotted at Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, where Mr West performed "All Day".

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Never forget.

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LINK: Why Does Kanye West Look Sad In These Photos?

Stay forever weird, Florida.

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Good luck!

The group are expected to spend €13 million (£9.5 million) while in France.

A Chinese businessman has taken 6,400 employees on holiday to France to celebrate his company’s 20th anniversary.

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A spokesperson for the French foreign minister said the staff – of Tiens Group – had booked up 140 hotels in the centre of Paris during the four-day break, Reuters reported.

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Billionaire Li Jinyuan founded Tiens Group in 1995 and turned it into an international conglomerate, with tourism, e-commerce, and biotechnology businesses among its interests.

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In 2011, he made Forbes' list of billionaires.

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#TryNotCryInTheEggs

Yesterday for Mother's Day, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson snapped this photo of his mom Ata Johnson having breakfast.

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"Cool Mother's Day story.. early am flight and I'm sittin' across from my mom when out of the blue she looks around the plane, then looks at me and says "Son, I can't believe the life I have.. grandma and grandpa would be so proud." I asked her, "Are you happy ma?". Just then the flight attendant placed my moms breakfast down on the table and my mom said to me, "Am I happy?.. I used to worry about how I was going to buy groceries for us and now I just had my breakfast placed down in front of me". She bursts into tears and says "Yes, son I couldn't be happier". This is the woman who when I was 14yrs old we were evicted out of our apartment in Hawaii 'cause we couldn't afford the $180 per week rent. At this moment Im shaking my head and smiling quietly (as my mom blows her nose;) 'cause she just told me she's happy. And y'all know when our parents tell us they're happy, its so satisfying for us, 'cause it means we've done a good job for them as their kids. Happy Mother's Day to all the deserving amazing mamas out there. And Happy Mother's Day to my amazing mom who will no doubt kill me for posting this crying pic. #EnjoyBreakfastMom #GratefulTears #TryNotCryInTheEggs"

If only we all could be as good to our mamas as The Rock is to his.

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The 30-year-old said also that Princess Charlotte needs to work on her timekeeping.

Prince Harry has told Sky News that he would love to have children “right now” and that it would be great to have someone by his side to help with the pressures of royal life.

In an interview on Monday, the fifth in line to the throne talked about his new niece, Princess Charlotte, and the prospect of settling down.

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There come times when you think, now's the time to settle down, or now's not or whatever way it is.

I don't think you can force these things, it'll happen when it's going to happen – of course I'd love to have kids right now but, you know, there's a process that one has to go through and tours like this is great fun.

Hopefully I'm doing alright by myself, it would be great to have someone next to me to share the pressure – time will come, whatever happens will happen.

The prince is currently visiting New Zealand following a four-week attachment to the Australian Defence Force.

The trip saw Harry miss the birth of Princess Charlotte, but he said he was excited to meet her for the first time when he returns to the UK.

"As I’ve said, I’m so looking forward to seeing her, meeting her, holding her – she was a little bit late hence I missed her, so she’ll have to work on that," he joked to Sky News.

"It’s fantastic news for both [the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge] of them so I’m thrilled."

Harry also revealed that his brother sent him two pictures of Charlotte shortly after she was born: one in the hospital, "before everyone else – which was nice", and one when the baby princess was back home and meeting her brother, Prince George, for the first time.

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Harry also discussed his decision to leave the army next month to focus on his royal duties.

The 30-year-old said that having to go on trips such as the one he is currently on while leaving someone else to look after his soldiers didn't sit right with him.

After 10 years in the services he's at a crossroads, he said, and having taken on more royal responsibilities, it was getting hard to balance the two.

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Susan O’Brien was lost overnight in a freezing after getting lost during a running event.

This is the emotional moment a mother of two was reunited with her family after having to drink her own breast milk to survive.

Susan O'Brien got stuck in some bushes after competing in yesterday's Xterra Wellington Trail Running Series event in the Rimutaka Forest Park, Radio New Zealand reported.

She told the station: "I wanted to carry on but I got too exhausted so I just dug a hole. I didn't have a life blanket, I thought I was going to die. I'm breastfeeding my baby so I had a bit of my milk. I thought that should help me keep going, for energy." She added that she managed to keep herself going by thinking about her husband and children, and praying.

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She told the station: "I definitely thought I was going to die."

She said: "I just kept chucking dirt on me and every time I heard something I just screamed 'help'".

The station reported that more than 20 police and search and rescue volunteers with dogs had searched the area.

She was eventually found on Monday morning, around 24 hours after she had set off, around two and a half kilometres away from the running trail. She said the experience had not put her off competing again.

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Here's a video of the moment she was reunited with her family.

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Whatever you’re up to around town, there’s always time for a bevvy.

Berry & Rye

This place is one of the city's up-and-coming drinking spots. Suave, atmospheric, and very, very cool, it's hidden away on Berry Street. There's no sign or noticeable entrance; just a door to knock on and, if there's room, they'll let you in.

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Ma Egerton's

Centrally located (right by Lime Street train station), not only is the food highly recommended (notably the pizza), but the overall experience – including the atmosphere, friendly staff, great service, and inviting nature – of this old English pub is second to none.

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Some Place

A small, unadvertised bar that deals exclusively in absinthe cocktails, which are a lot nicer than they sound. Honest.

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Peter Kavanagh’s

Boasting huge character and unique decor, this is one of Liverpool's oldest pubs. To go with your interesting surroundings, there are a selection of fine ales, including Drunken Duck.

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