A private company is selling cheap tablets to inmates to let them communicate with their family. They have to use “digital stamps” to send messages, 35 cents a piece and come in packs of 5, 10 or 20. Each stamp covers up to 20,000 characters or one single image.

They also sell songs, at $1.99 a piece, and some people have spent thousands over the years. That’s also now just going away.

Then you get to the part about the new company. Who already has a system in Tennessee where inmates have to pay 3-5 cents per minute of tablet usage. Be that watching a movie they’ve bought or just typing a message.

The vast majority of American movie and tv just use 18 regardless, to avoid any legal issues

Which is why a lot of Americans, even ones living in states where it’s 16, think it is 18 in all states.

I’m guessing you’ve never look inside a physical newspaper before.

It’s part of a series of articles called “Kindness of strangers”. Specifically highlighting interesting events where someone was helped and that changed their outlook on life, but isn’t some major event.

Here are some of the other headlines:

• a woman lay on the road beside me, holding my hand until the ambulance came

• I pulled over in hysterics – then a passing driver saved me from the spider

• when my cat died, my dance class pooled their money for a thoughtful gift

^Alita

Although an Akira crossover with Alita could be fun.