By: Savannah Swanson

The Cat in the Hat trend is a viral social media trend that includes disturbing AI- generated images of the Dr. Suess character lurking in neighborhoods, schools, and homes.

People are making Cat in the Trend as menacing and Mike Mylers themed, by making it slowly approach homes and set them in a dark place to catch viewer’s interest. The video includes captions with “I’m coming” or direct threats naming schools, communities, and students.

Teens and children are mostly reposting these videos which is causing terror across social media.

The trend started in late June 2026 on TikTok when someone posted an AI generated video of 2003 Mike Myers dancing as Cat in the hat. As the user posted this clip it quickly gained millions of views. This created online horror lore about the characters’ hollow-eyed appearance.

By August 2026, the meme evolved into dark humor posts and horror- style videos circulating in Ireland and the United Kingdom.  People in the US and Canada started jacking the trend by AI generating images and fake security footage to place Cat in the Hat in local homes, schools and sometimes targeted threats which has led to police investigations and juvenile arrests.

Many teenagers have even been arrested or charged over posts connected to the trend. Over month ago a 15-year-old Hutchinson high school student created TikTok account for the community referencing the trend and got charged with two counts of criminal threat.

14-year-old arrested in Grand Junction, Colorado for harassment and interfering with school operations.

Numerous school districts in states like Texas, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Massachusetts stepped up security and enacted a temporary lockdown.

People went out to buy Cat in the Hat costumes to continue the trend which caused many teens and children to videotape people walking in neighborhoods or Infront of schools with the costume.

Many posts also include names of people which teens or adults have reported to police. This has caused police to have to investigate and go through many videos of Cat in the Hat. Which Greg Mays, deputy commissioner of the Tennessee Office of Homeland security, told New York Times that the problem begins when the images are paired with threats. “That’s where it crosses the line,” Mays said.

The pattern is familiar, in the warning about the trend the Bulter Police department compared it to the ‘killer clown’ scare in 2016, which was false reports of clowns spreading across the country.  Just like how people are dressing up or making fake images of the Cat in the Hat “killer” lurking around cities. It’s almost like history repeated itself.

Police advice residents to not share these false accusations as they have proven it is not real and there is no real threat to the residents.

As aggressive laws enforcement crackdowns, which made it clear that these posts were fake and that were posted for hoaxes the trend slowly started to die down. Multiple Juvenile arrest including the 14, 15-year-old and 10 other unnamed juveniles nationwide in Texas, Mississippi, and Minnesota. Lockdowns of schools with heightened security measures like police patrols, bag checks, and some temporary remote learning pivots (Kentucky and Texas).

The official debunking, as multiple months went by in terror for surround cities impacted by these false accusations, police agencies and platforms activity debunked the rumors and clarified the eerie, AI- generated images of the Dr. Seuss character lurking outside of schools or homes were fake hoaxes with no credible danger attached.

Families are thankful that they have finally debunked this as teens, children and adults can now walk outside without a feeling of eerie creepiness.

By: Savannah Swanson

Dolly Parton was an amazing songwriter, singer, actress, and businesswomen. Who shaped pop and country culture today with her humor, sharp wit, and one of a kind vocals.

Dolly wrote over 3,000 songs including her most popular ones, “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors”, and “I Will Always Love You”. She became a beloved figure for feminism, LGBTQ+ culture, and country music singers.

By passing her music career Dolly was very kindhearted, as she founded her own library in 1995 called Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Which gifted over 330 million books to children from birth to the age of 5 across the world for free.

She donated $1 million dollars Vanderbilt University Medical Center in 2020, which help fund the COVID-19 vaccine research.

Dolly provided millions of dollars on emergency disaster relief including My People Fund for families affected by the 2016 Gatlinburg wildfires and aid for Hurricane Helene victims.

Ultimately, she helped fund many charities, families, and anything that needed immediate help..

Dolly Parton’s warm personality was loved by many, as her approachable style to connect with people across the world with different backgrounds to her persistence in navigating the music industry and building businesses beyond preforming.

Her maintained and recognizable identity with her 1900s hair, style, and storytelling voice. She also maintained her Appalachian roots while becoming an international celebrity.

Her combination of confidence, humor, humility, and generosity has helped many people embrace their own confidence and style.

Diving into more of her personal life, she got married to Carl Dean in 1966, he was never seen with Dolly in her spotlight and rarely made an appearance publicly with her. She was 1 of 12 children, she loved to cook for her family growing up with her sisters since they needed help feeding their big family.

Her family was very poor but a very loving family which many think that’s why Dolly has a loving nature. She credits her mother for her passion for music singing and writing. She reportedly wrote her first song at five years old with the help of her mother Avie Lee Parton.

She lived Locust Ridge, Tennessee, during her childhood but moved to Nashville as a teenager to pursue music. She met her husband Carl Dean there, they never had children as Dolly wanted to focus on her music business, she was known for being Miley Cyrus’s.

Dolly was very family orientated and always spoke on memories from her childhood even if they weren’t glamorous. Most of her songs are inspired by her family, husband, and her faith in Christianity.

Many described Dolly as a highly generous person, as she donated lots of money to different charities, research centers, and hospitals. She donated millions of dollars to natural disaster help centers like the major flooding in Tennessee in 2021 which her organizations helped raise 700,000 for the affected families, and the Tennessee wildfire in 2016.

In 2018 she helped rededicate Sevier County’s senior center as the My People Senior Activity Center in honor of her parents and continued helping it after.

Her personal acts of kindness never went unnoticed by people as she wrote personal notes to people to congratulate them, encourage, or even to let them know she was thinking of them.

During the 2020 pandemic she read to children who were frightened, she recorded herself reading books for 10 weeks. She also remembered people who helped her and described her as attentive to the people around Dolly. She often acknowledged ordinary people and workers who crossed her path.

After a life of kindness and generosity she died on August 25^th, 2026, at age of 80 years old from a brief battle of cancer. Her legacy and the impact that she had and will still have to this day does not go unnoticed.

By: Allison Ambuehl

The butterfly effect is an interesting concept that explains how tiny actions can lead to major consequences over time. The idea comes from chaos theory, a branch of science that studies complex systems and unpredictable events. The term was popularized by meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s. He suggested that something as small as the flap of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world could eventually influence weather patterns somewhere else, possibly even causing a tornado weeks later.

At first, the butterfly effect may sound unrealistic, but it highlights an important truth about life and nature, insignificant changes can grow into much larger outcomes. In chaotic systems such as the weather, the stock market, or human behavior, tiny differences at the beginning can completely alter what happens later. Because of this, predicting the future with perfect accuracy becomes nearly impossible.

The butterfly effect can also be seen in everyday life. A simple conversation may inspire someone to pursue a new career. Missing a bus could lead to meeting a person who changes your future. Even small habits, such as reading for twenty minutes a day or exercising regularly, can create significant long-term results. These examples show how little actions can shape the direction of a person’s life.

This idea has become popular in movies, literature, and psychology because it reflects how connected the world truly is. In many stories, one small decision changes an entire chain of events. The concept encourages people to think carefully about their choices and recognize that even seemingly unimportant actions may have lasting effects.

However, the butterfly effect is not only about dramatic consequences. It also reminds us that positive actions matter. A kind gesture, a word of encouragement, or a small act of generosity can spread from one person to another and influence many lives. In this way, the butterfly effect can be both scientific and deeply human.

The butterfly effect teaches us that the world is interconnected and unpredictable. While we cannot control every outcome, we can understand that our actions, no matter how small, have the power to create change. This idea inspires curiosity, responsibility, and hope, showing that even the smallest movement can shape the future in powerful ways.

The PaperMate American Blue wood case checking pencil is not listed on the official PaperMate ‘about us’ list of advancements they’ve made to mankind. But was the PaperMate American Blue Wood Case checking pencil that insignificant or just unlucky? Lets see.

While WW II was simmering under a couple years of European warfare, Patrick J. Frawley Jr. was leading the charge on underperforming literary utensils. Creating a better quick drying ballpoint pen, he “revitalized” the inking industry, according to the PaperMate About Us section. He had previously acquired a ballpoint pen parts maker that defaulted on its loan, and rebranded as the Frawley Pen Company.

Hailing from Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in the world, Patrick Joseph Frawley Junior is seemingly one of the lucky few to, I’d say properly achieve the American Dream. He was born to a banker, import-export Father and a stay-at-home mother in 1923. He learned how to wheel and deal from his father and negotiated a $300,000 deal between the Panamanian government and U.S. Rubber for tires at 18. He enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and fought in WW II. He eventually went to and dropped out of college to keep working with his father.

At 23 he bought the downtrodden manufacturer for $18,000 and went on to sell over 51 million pens to what had previously been a market so disliked that you couldn’t give away prior ballpoint pens for free, said a 1955 Times newspaper. He sold the company to Gillette the same year for $11.4 million, equivalent to over $139,000,000 today after 1955 taxes.

He went on to buy shares in the Schick razor company and Technicolor Inc., became an outspoken anticommunist after Fidel Castro took over his factory in Cuba, and presented his opinion in a Catholic newspaper he founded.

Frawley also found himself as one of the first members in the American Security Council. Seemingly a pile of people that were born into money and politics that wanted better communist protection after the failure of the Korean war; feeling as though it were lost due to commie infiltrators. Though he is just one of the many people that started mass surveillance on the American public back in the day. He heavily funded a few conservative political campaigns, as well as INCA, the Information Council of America. They had a blacklist of over 6 million names that they gave to companies in hopes of weeding out commies trying to work in the private sector. You’d both be baffled and completely unsurprised at how any semi to official government funded mass surveillance programs there were, and probably still are.

He goes on to find treatment for his alcoholism and buys the hospital because of how well he felt the negative reinforcement treatment worked. He starts selling off his shares or ownerships of a few assets around now. Tries to blame the assassination of JFK, MLK, and RFK on the commies in his newspaper. Builds and buys and sells a mansion or two. And feared assassination due to reportedly being involved with “political espionage matters.” Patrick Joseph Frawley Jr., living until the ripe age of 75 in 1998, having seen the most human advancement in the history of our species, becoming a millionaire and governmental something or other, dies after lung surgery.
This pencil sent me down the most random and interesting rabbit hole by complete accident, but I’ve used better.

By: Adrianna Raile

After having gone through many renovations, Island Park holds a great story about the history of Fargo and the history of disputes between foreign countries. The most important story about Island Park is the story of Henrik Wergeland and the statues built for him.

Henrik Wergeland was born in 1808 in Kristiansand, Norway. He was a writer who was most celebrated for his poetry but also known as a prolific playwright, polemicist, historian, and linguist.

For almost his whole life, he was seen as a heroic pioneer. His words led Sweden to independence in 1905, and has a nickname being “the Abraham Lincoln of Norway.”

The sculpture of Wergeland’s stature was Gustav Vigeland, one of Europe’s most well-known sculptors. Evidence suggests that he was working on Wergeland’s statue dating back to 1897.

As this statue was unveiled in the summer of 1908, more than 3,500 people were there to experience it. Here now in 2026, the statue still stands. To honor Norway’s most beloved poet, an identical bronze statue was unveiled in Oslo, Norway the same day.

As true landmark for North Dakota’s culture, the park is still being renovated and improved and will continue to be for 20 years and beyond.