(Reuters) — Vegetarian burgers may finally be getting the recognition they need to go mainstream. On Monday Burger King and Silicon Valley startup Impossible Foods announced the rollout of the Impossible Whopper in 59 stores in and around St. Louis, Missouri.

To mark the launch on April Fool’s day, the burger giant released a hidden-camera-style promo video showing the serving of plant-based Whoppers instead of meat to customers who marvel that they cannot tell the difference.

“We wanted to make sure we had something that lived up to the expectations of the Whopper,” said Burger King‘s North America president, Christopher Finazzo. “We’ve done sort of a blind taste test with our franchisees, with people in the office, with my partners on the executive team, and virtually nobody can tell the difference.”

The Impossible Whopper comes at an extra cost – about a dollar more than the beef patty Whopper. But Finazzo said research shows consumers are willing to pay more for the plant-based burger.

Plant-based meat substitutes have been gaining popularity as more attention is focussed on the environmental hazards of industrial ranching. Finazzo said his research shows customers mainly like it for the health benefits. The Impossible Burger patty has zero cholesterol.

Impossible Foods, based in Redwood City, California, launched its first faux meat patty over two years ago. A genetically modified yeast creates the key ingredient, called heme, which makes the patties appear to bleed and taste like real meat.

Burger King is not the first to serve up a no-meat burger. Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat in early January announced it was rolling out its plant-based burger at fast-food chain Carl’s Jr. Beyond Meat counts actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Microsoft founder Bill Gates as investors.

Finazzo said Burger King also researched Beyond Meat, but decided that Impossible Food’s offering was a better fit. “Around the taste, around the brand recognition, around the price, all those things were important factors in choosing Impossible,” he said

Impossible Foods, which also counts Gates as an investor, tailored a patty specifically for the Whopper, according to Chief Executive Pat Brown.

“We’re now in well over 6,000 restaurants. If the Burger King launch is as successful as I expect it to be, and we go nationwide, that will add more than 7,000 restaurants that serve the Impossible Burger,” Brown said.

(Reporting by Jane Lanhee Lee; Editing by Leslie Adler)

In episode 2 of Humans Who Make Games – a podcast featuring in-depth conversations with the creators of some of the most highly regarded games today – comedian and host of the show, Adam Conover, talks with Derek Yu, the creator of Spelunky, Aquaria, Eternal Daughter and more.

Yu shares insights of his journey on getting into game design and chats about why he loves glitches in games and what it means to him when he sees a broken game.

Listen to Humans Who Make Games Episode 2.

The moment that drove Yu to go from an amateur game creator to actually make games for a living, was when he was in college working on his computer science degree at Berkeley – and completely burnt out. At the time, he was making games in his spare time, with few overlaps between his computer science courses and game creation.

Yu didn’t think about turning his passion for games into a profession at the time, because of the way he worked on games – having his hands in it all, from start to finish. He thought it, “was not a viable way to become a professional.”

His perception on having a career in the gaming industry changed once he discovered the indie game scene – personal games made by small teams.

Yu went into detail on why he loves glitches and bugs in games, saying that it’s a way to open up the game for improvements and see more of what’s really there.

“In a way, people love it when games get broken… That’s how you pull back the curtain,” Yu said. “Even just a non-randomly-generated game like the first Super Mario Brothers. You’ve got Minus World. And just the fact that Minus World exists opens up that game so much in terms of how it feels. I remember talking about Minus World as a kid and feeling like…it’s almost like a religious thing. Like, ‘Oh, there’s basically an afterlife in Super Mario Brothers’ or something like that. I’m a big fan of glitches and innocuous bugs in games. Because they open the games up for me and increase the possibility space of the game.”

For more on Yu’s experience getting into games professionally and to hear more inspirations and what he likes about the tension in platformers vs. roguelikes, listen to the full episode 2 of Humans Who Make Games podcast.

And make sure you subscribe to Humans Who Make Games on iTunes so you don’t miss an episode.

Jessie Wade is a news writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter @jessieannwade.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – NFCA Executive Director Carol Bruggeman with the support of the Board of Directors is pleased to announce the hiring of Annie Heskett as the Association’s Events and Outreach Specialist.

Heskett becomes a full-time NFCA team member after joining the Association last May as an intern. In her new role, she will develop and enhance NFCA outreach programs, which are designed to enhance current member experience and create new member growth. Additionally, Heskett is responsible for the execution and administration of the NFCA awards and scholarship programs, while assisting in various roles with the events and membership teams. 

“From the first day Annie joined the NFCA Team as an intern, I knew she was something special,” said Bruggeman. “Annie was a tireless worker who wanted to learn all she could about the NFCA. She is intelligent, passionate, and a true team player.  Annie will continue to make an impact on our organization in a variety of ways, as she possesses a vast skill set.” 

No stranger to the world of softball, Heskett played two years at Butte College before transferring to perennial Division II power UC San Diego and donning the Tritons’ uniform, helping the squad to a 2012 national runner-up finish. While attending Butte and UCSD, Heskett earned an associate degree in university studies and a bachelor’s degree in literature and writing.

Following graduation, the Portola, Calif. native moved back to Northern California to begin her coaching career at Feather River College as a two-year assistant alongside wife and husband coaching tandem Meredith and Marco Aragon. 

“As an added bonus, she was a successful high school, travel ball, NJCAA, and Division II softball player and now is a high school coach,” said Bruggeman. “She truly understands and wants to grow all levels of the sport and is very deserving of her new opportunity.”

Heskett, who ventured to Louisville in 2015, will graduate in May with a master’s degree in sports administration from the University of Louisville. Additionally, she worked in the University’s compliance office as an Adidas intern and is currently an assistant softball coach at South Oldham High School.

It’s hard to know what exactly constitutes a healthy breakup. This is particularly true in the immediate aftermath, when few of us are, shall we say, in the most emotionally reasonable state.

According to two different psychologists HuffPost Canada contacted for this story, it’s very normal to want to check on your ex’s activity, online and otherwise — but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should do it.

Is it normal to check your ex’s social media?

“Let’s face it, it’s irresistible,” says Dr. Bronwyn Singleton, a (very honest!) Toronto psychotherapist who specializes in relationship issues. “I’d love to say ‘just don’t do it,’ but that doesn’t seem realistic in this day and age.” And yet: “in almost any breakup, it would be better to not be following each other on social media anymore.”

Ask yourself what it’s doing for you. “Check in about how you feel afterwards,” Singleton says. Once you’ve scratched that online itch, do you feel any better, or do you actually feel worse?

Dr. Tracy Dalgleish, a psychologist and couples therapist with the Centre for Interpersonal Relationships in Ottawa, recommends the exact same thing: “If a client is talking about that, we might talk about what the checking on social media is doing for them, and how it’s benefitting them,” she told HuffPost Canada.

This process will be different for everyone, of course. But generally speaking, if you’re honest with yourself, you’ll probably come to realize that your day actually doesn’t improve after reading your ex’s funny tweet or looking at a picture of their dog.

“You want to get them out of your sphere, especially if it’s hurting you daily,” Singleton says. “When you break up with someone, breaking up with their social media is by and large a good tactic.”

Remember it’s not the whole story. For one thing, “we lose a lot of context with social media,” Dalgleish says. Most people’s lives will seem more appealing online than they actually are, and it’s easy for your perception to become distorted.

Ask yourself how much energy you’re giving up. Both therapists say that the effort you’re expending by focusing on your ex is keeping you connected to a part of life that’s over. “When you’re trying to move away from something or separate yourself from something, it’s really a process of directing your energy away from that relationship and putting it in new things,” Singleton says. “I think it’s really healthy to have a period of separation and cooling off.”

Staying friends with an ex

Is being friends with all your exes the healthiest and most enlightened way to break up? Not necessarily.

Evaluate your needs. There are certain situations where you have to maintain a relationship, Dalgleish points out — if you have children you’re co-parenting, for instance, or if you have business ties, or even if you just have mutual friends. If you’re not in one of those positions, at least consider severing your tie to that person completely.

Ask yourself why you want to be friends. “Try to cultivate some awareness of the feelings that are motivating this,” Singleton says. “Do you feel guilty about something? Are you feeling sad, or jealous? If you can dig into what’s motivating this, then you have something to work with.”

Many of the common reasons people want to stay friends with their exes aren’t necessarily healthy, Dalgleish says. “Is the relationship comfortable and familiar, and are you afraid of being alone?” she would ask a client. She would also get them to evaluate their feelings about ending a relationship. Do they think a breakup means failure, or that it’s always bad to cut people out? Those perspectives aren’t accurate or healthy, she says.

Think about what you’d suggest to someone else in your situation. Singleton says “a quick and dirty test” she asks clients is: if your best friend was in this situation, what would you say to them? It can be much easier to be be objective — and kind — if you’re not dealing with your own feelings.

Be very honest with yourself about whether you’re doing this because you hope to get back together. This is the crucial question. “If you’re staying friends, and you hope your ex will change and be the right one for you, or that you will change and you will become the right one for them, then it will be challenging to maintain a friendship,” Dalgleish says.

Remember why the relationship ended. The issues that made you incompatible as a couple might also make you incompatible as friends, Dalgliesh points out: “We know that people repeat patterns in different relationships,” she says. If he was a selfish boyfriend, in other words, he might also be a selfish pal.

Ask yourself if your friendship with your ex will get in the way of other things in your life — including meeting someone new. Singleton suggests thinking about your relationship with your ex as a sort of battery. “If you keep putting your energy into and charging that battery, it’s really going to be hard to get healthy and go back to doing your own thing,” she says.

Dalgleish echoes that idea. There are likely friends or interests you didn’t tend to as much as you wanted to during your relationship, and returning to those is likely more productive than spending time with your ex. And what’s more, it’s very hard to start a new relationship when you’re still hung up on someone from your past.

“You only have so much energy to give,” she says. “If you’re giving your ex your daily updates, your moments of connection, maybe there’s less energy to give to a new partner.”

More than anything else, remember to tune into your own feelings. “Every day we make choices… [but] often we don’t listen to ourselves,” Dalgleish says. Decide on your course of action based on what will be best for you — not based on your self-destructive tendencies or anyone else’s wants.

And remember that as painful as breakups are, they’re also an opportunity for transformation. “The more we stay tethered to our ex, and that old life, the more we deny ourselves the opportunity to push forth in other directions,” Singleton says.

“So all the energy you want to pour into the ex, and checking Instagram with them — choose yourself instead.”

“Searching For Normal” is HuffPost’s attempt to answer some of the internet’s most pressing queries: Is it Normal To ____ ? Why Am I ___? Why do I ___?

Comic book writer Brian Michael Bendis claims the Kitty Pryde Spinoff X-Men film is still in development.

Revealed through Twitter in response to a fan question about the status of the film in the midst of the Disney/Fox merger, Bendis says that he is currently working on the film.

This revelation may come as a surprise to fans. Disney’s acquisition of Fox (which has developed every film in the franchise since the 2000 original) is set to close sometime before June 2019, and Marvel is set to take control of the X-Men film franchise. In fact, MCU head Kevin Feige claimed late last year that Disney could start developing movies for Fox-owned superheroes within six months.

A Kitty Pryde solo film was announced in January 2018, with Deadpool director Tim Miller helming the film and Bendis writing the script. The reference in Bendis’ tweet about the Fortress of Solitude is in regards to his gig at DC Comics, where he has taken control of the Superman franchise. Bendis began this exclusive position after he left his 18-year tenure at Marvel.

Kitty Pryde (sometimes referred to as Shadowcat, Sprite, or Ariel) has been around since the first X-Men film, but has most recently been portrayed by Ellen Page in X-Men: The Last Stand and Days of Future Past. She’s best known for her abilities to phase through objects, and has become a fan-favorite character.

Colin Stevens is a news writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.

Akron, Ohio- The recognition and celebration continues on for Akron Racers right fielder A.J. Andrews. Last month Andrews made history at the annual NPF Awards Banquet, becoming the first woman to win a Rawlings Gold Glove Award in the award’s 59-year history. Every year since 1957 the Gold Glove has been awarded to the best defensive player at each position in Major League Baseball’s American and National League.

A season’s worth of highlight reel catches, in which she routinely soared over fences, crashed through them or sacrificed her body on diving grabs, and many more years of hard work led to the groundbreaking achievement for Andrews. 

“I’m really excited to get acknowledged for (my hard work),” Andrews told the crowd at the NPF Championship Series, when she was presented with the Gold Glove. “It’s really, truly an honor and a blessing. I can’t thank everyone enough for this opportunity.”

Next week, Andrews will return to Northeast Ohio to continue the celebration. On Monday, September 19, the Racers will host a reception in Andrews’ honor in the Summit County Softball Hall of Fame from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

On the next night (Tuesday, September 20), the Racers’ MLB neighbors to the north will also recognize the landmark moment. The Cleveland Indians will take time to recognize Andrews before their game with division-rival Kansas City Royals, the reigning World Series champions, in a pre-game ceremony. The ceremony will precede the game’s 7:10 p.m. first pitch. The Indians currently boast the American League’s second best record as Cleveland looks to make the postseason for the first time since 2013.

Tickets for Tuesday’s game are available on the Indians’ website at indians.mlb.com or by visiting the Progressive Field Ticket Office.

— Courtesy of National Pro Fastpitch

Activists should be proud this week. The fact that Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson announced on Friday that her government will not exclude vital lessons around LGBTQ+ sexuality, consent, and social-media literacy from Ontario’s sexuality education curriculum is proof that the massive wave of public push-back in support for sex-ed is working. The overwhelming majority of parents, educators, and young people who stood up to fight for sex-ed were impossible to ignore. It’s a win for sex-ed but what the government announced is a compromise between what they want and what parents, teachers, and young people are asking for.

Ontario’s plan for the sex-ed curriculum still fails to meet the rights and needs of kids. We need to remain vigilant.

Ontario’s new sex-ed curriculum will remain a step back from where we got to in 2015. The minister said that the curriculum will delay teaching about gender identity and expression until Grade 8, which is the latest they can possibly push it within elementary school curriculums. These compromises may seem small but they have serious implications for students and their families, particularity LGBTQ+ youth and their families. Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas. Now is the time to recognize that protest works and that we should continue to push until no child is left behind.

First, some context: according to UN experts and the 2018 UNESCO International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, no curriculum in Canada meets the highest quality standards for sex ed. Almost no kid in Canada is getting the complete education they need to live full, healthy lives. Those few who do are fortunate enough to have exceptional supports that are often offered by sexual health experts who have made it their mandate to build capacity in schools or with children themselves. But this is the exception, not the rule.

Watch: Ontario introduces a new sex-ed curriculum. Blog continues below.

The inconsistent, patchwork nature of quality sex education throughout Canada is nothing less than a human rights violation. That is why a recent letter sent from a large group of UN human rights experts to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau demands that Canada immediately intervene to ensure that young people across Canada, in every jurisdiction, have equal access to high-quality sex ed. And that is why Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights is campaigning for better sex ed everywhere in Canada.

Playing politics with the health of kids is a dangerous thing for any government to do. Thankfully, the public has proved that it has no intention of sacrificing the well-being of young people because of unwarranted fears based on misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia.

We should feel proud that parents, educators, and young people were successful in pushing back against what could have been an unmitigated disaster. But we should also remain deeply concerned that the new curriculum will not meet the needs of our kids.

The fact that children will not be taught about gender identity until Grade 8 may not seem like a big deal but it will have a huge negative impact. The notion that including gender diversity in classroom discussions is not “age-appropriate” is patently untrue, as well as dangerously stigmatizing. Most children will develop a sense of their gender identity between the ages of two and five. How is that child meant to feel when people are telling them that their thoughts, feelings and indeed, their whole self is not “appropriate” to express? For kids who are gender diverse, or gender creative, knowing that gender expression and diversity exists and that it is normal will have real consequences for their mental and physical health. This isn’t about politics, this is about real people and their lives.

All kids need to learn about gender identity. Gender roles that teach boys to be tough and unemotional and girls to be submissive and pleasing have serious consequences too. These messages, so pervasive in society and media, must be actively managed through gender-sensitive, gender inclusive, age-appropriate sexuality education that begins in kindergarten.

Gender diversity and expression are an inseparable part of sexual health information all young people need from an early age. Every kid has the basic human right to non-discrimination, education, and health because it’s vital to their overall health and well-being and to creating safe, healthy societies.

Every government within Canada has the obligation to deliver on these rights for all people to their maximum capacity. Ontario’s decision to delay gender diversity and expression lessons until Grade 8 has serious health implications and is a violation of Ontario and federal human rights laws.

Parents, educators, and young people have once again made it clear: they want their kids to have all the information they need to live healthy lives. When will Ontario and the rest of the country truly deliver? Enough is enough with these political games, children’s lives are on the line.

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