We all had our own ways of coping throughout the first year of quarantine. Some of us learned to dance via TikTok, some of us learned to bake sourdough bread, and some of us vowed to never wear hard pants again. Gwyneth Paltrow, as it turns out, is no different.

Last Monday, while on the SmartLess podcast — hosted by Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett — the Goop founder reminded people that, despite her super holistic pandemic lifestyle, she, too, was a regular person just trying to survive the past year. And in 2020, she did some very regular-person things, like eating carbohydrates and drinking alcohol. Or as she called it: going “off the rails.”

“I’ve been on a bit of a cleanout,” she told the hosts. “Basically during quarantine, I was drinking seven nights a week and making pasta and eating bread. Like I went totally off the rails. I mean, who drinks multiple drinks seven nights a week? That’s not healthy.”

Despite calling her own habits unhealthy, this all seemed like a pretty average 2020 Tuesday to most of us. I mean, who among us hasn’t mainlined pasta and bread while watching Tiger King with a cocktail in hand (and a second on deck)?

Of course, drinking is personal: Two drinks a night may be no big deal for some but can feel problematic for others. And like Paltrow, many found that their consumption was perhaps worsened by the isolation (and boredom, and constant despair) in the early days of lockdown. According to Nielsen, liquor sales outside of bars and restaurants across the U.S. rose about 24% during quarantine in 2020.

That said, Paltrow seemed to indicate that she’s beyond her 14-drinks-a-week habit, and in fact, offered up tips on how to make her most signature cocktail. It includes — wait for it — quinoa whiskey, because of course, it does. When asked by Bateman whether her nightly drinks consisted of wine or something harder, she noted that she loved whiskey and shared her recipe for the cocktail she named after her grandfather Buster Paltrow, “because he liked whiskey sours.”

“It’s this great quinoa whiskey from this distillery in Tennessee with maple syrup and lemon juice, and it’s just heaven,” Paltrow explained. “And I would have two of those every night of quarantine.”

Now, only one question remains: Is Buster Paltrow’s secret whiskey drink really that good? I’ll be doing a real examination of that as soon as I can get my hands on some quinoa whiskey.

If you are struggling with substance abuse, please call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 for free and confidential information.

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This weekend’s Saturday Night Live episode was already fraught with controversy. Hosted by tech billionaire Elon Musk, SNL has been facing backlash for weeks now over their choice to elevate a COVID conspiracist billionaire.

Then, to make matters worse, Musk — masquerading as a comedian — participated in one of the show’s more offensive sketches of the past year. In a segment called “Gen Z Hospital,” SNL attempted to make light of Gen Z slang, but what transpired was a deeply problematic routine that appropriated African-American Vernacular English, or AAVE.

During the sketch, a group of friends dressed up as stereotypical Gen Zers — pastel-colored hair, over-the-shoulder fanny packs, absolutely no skinny jeans, the whole nine — were in a hospital waiting room, desperate to hear news of their “bestie” who got into a car accident while doing tricks on Instagram Live. The entire sketch then shows the cast members as Gen Zers speaking to Musk, who played the doctor (heaven forbid), in a distinct vernacular: they described their “bestie” as taking an “L,” hailing her as a “real one,” and then managed to shove the phrases “bro,” “bruh,” “no cap,” “stan,” “go off, king,” “sis,” and “cuh” into a matter of minutes. When their bestie died, the sketch ended with an “iconic” Supreme-branded urn, memorials given in the “It’s the __ for me” format, and a group selfie.

Of course, the writers of this sketch saw this as a fun exercise in mocking an entire generation, but what they did was rebrand AAVE as Gen Z slang, and this did not go over well — particularly with Black people online.

“Love the relabelling of AAVE and a few assorted BLACK LGBTQ+ phrases as ‘Gen z’ speak,” one Twitter user wrote on Sunday. “Love to see the erasure in real time.”

AAVE — a vernacular rooted in African and Caribbean Creole English dialects — was created in Black communities that were enslaved generations ago as a means to communicate with one another. Some words, like “lit,” “bae,” and “slay,” have managed to enter the mainstream, often because they are popularized by Black musicians. And while appropriation of these terms has become so widespread, it’s entirely different when a for-profit platform that reaches millions of people across generations uses an entire language for comedy.

“This is why black people (AA) want to gatekeep aave,” another person tweeted. “Aave isn’t some funny internet language created by some teens on TikTok nor is it slang, it’s a whole dialect with its own rules. Black people have been literally speaking like this during slavery of course-more words have been added and changed but still aave is apart of black culture.”

For as long as AAVE has been co-opted by the internet — specifically by white communities, both queer and cis — Black history continues to face erasure. “Sis” and “fam” and “cuh” are not terms that originated on TikTok for white people to appropriate in jokes. These words and phrases came from a history of resistance. And Black people were criticized for generations for not using “proper” English until people on the internet adopted our language.

The origins of our language are being steadily erased, quickly stolen, and co-opted for mainstream comedy. AAVE has been repackaged as cute. But attributing AAVE to an entire generation of young people — over and over again — will continue to hurt Black communities in this country.

SNL has yet to make a statement regarding their use of AAVE. Neither has Elon Musk, who participated in the sketch. But, does this really surprise anyone? After all, they once had a noted racists host the show, too.

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On Monday, a (very bizarre) video advertisement shared by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Twitter account became the subject of controversy (and some mockery). In a lengthy video, a Latinx CIA employee is shown making a very heavy-handed pitch to millennials, replete with every “woke” stereotype imaginable. The tweet, which starts with the hashtag #WednesdayWisdom (it was first posted last Wednesday), includes a quote from the employee: “I am unapologetically me. I want you to be unapologetically you, whoever you are. Whether you work at #CIA, or anywhere else in the world. Command your space. Mija, you are worth it.”

In a full version of the video, titled “Humans of CIA,” a camera follows this nameless woman officer around the CIA headquarters for a full two and half minutes. She describes herself as “a cisgender millennial diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder,” and uses the word “intersectional” while walking past multiple portraits of old white men. At age 36, she said she suffered from “imposter syndrome” and also “refuse[s] to internalize misguided, patriarchal ideals about what a woman can and should be.” The video was short of using every woke-ism apart from maybe “hot girl summer” and “bestie.” But fear not, because this agent is clearly #thriving #goals #CIA.

The apparent use of woke bait as a recruiting tactic obviously created “discourse.” (The CIA knows this.) The video made a lot of references to things like marginalization, feminism, and mental health, which prompted conservatives to argue how empty the use of identity politics really are. However, non-conservatives, or in this case, Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, fired back, explaining that the issue isn’t just the very blatant woke bait — it’s the fact that an organization that has thrived on war crimes, torture, and silencing the opposition is trying to recruit the very communities that they’ve destroyed most.

Silly me I thought the CIA was evil because of their 70 years of war crimes, assassinating heads of state, torture, and crushing people’s movements around the globe, and it turns out the real problem was a woke pamphlet https://t.co/MYcNFLjd5s

— Tom Morello (@tmorello) May 3, 2021

Actual quotes from this new CIA recruitment ad:

“I am a woman of color”

“I am a cisgender millennial”

“I have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder”

“I am intersectional”

I think it’s safe to say the contemporary American left has failed.pic.twitter.com/ruUzWSeIur

— Aisha Ahmad (@aishaismad) May 2, 2021

the CIA cynically uses the language of democracy, resistance, education, anti extractivism & dozens of other lefty concepts too it doesn’t mean they’re all tainted & need to be abandoned. Indeed, co-opting otherwise useful political currents to push empire is kind of their thing! https://t.co/KkVgblsHaW

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) May 3, 2021

In case anyone needed a reminder, this effort to rebrand the CIA as a fun start-up recruiting fresh young minds is just a distraction from their storied history as a killing machine. The organization has a long track record of participating in a global drug trade and experimenting on human beings in America and Canada using illegal substances, and it has long been suspected of playing a role in the death of civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among, you know, other issues.

So, sure, the CIA can absolutely try to tell young people to command their space, as long as that space includes abolishing the systems of violence that they created.

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After announcing her bid for California governor at the end of last month, former athlete Caitlyn Jenner has confirmed the LGBTQ+ community’s worst fear: She has no intention of fighting for basic human rights for trans people — including trans kids. On Saturday, a TMZ reporter asked Jenner about her stance on trans students being allowed to compete on school sports teams that align with their gender identity. Her answer? “It just isn’t fair.”

“This is a question of fairness,” Jenner told the reporter while standing outside of her car. “That’s why I oppose biological boys who are trans competing in girls’ sports in school. It just isn’t fair. And we have to protect girls’ sports in our schools.”

Jenner doubled down on her words on Twitter the same day. “I didn’t expect to get asked this on my Saturday morning coffee run, but I’m clear about where I stand,” she tweeted, linking to the TMZ article. “It’s an issue of fairness.”

If it wasn’t clear before, Jenner’s form of “fairness” very much aligns with her conservative platform — and that doesn’t include trans rights, despite her own identity as a trans woman. Her comments quickly drew the ire of advocacy organizations, which in the past year have been fighting a surge of legislation that has threatened the outright existence of transgender people in America.

“Here are the facts: @Caitlyn_Jenner is willing to sacrifice the health & well-being of #trans kids to win votes. @GavinNewsom is not. It’s that simple,” Equality California tweeted on Sunday.

Banning trans students from playing on the school sports teams that align with their gender identities is just one of the many crusades that conservatives have adopted. It’s also an issue that Republican talking heads continuously bring up, and it has gained an alarming level of support. In 2020, 17 states introduced legislation banning trans athletes from competing in sports matching their gender identity; Idaho and Mississippi have already adopted this law and are currently facing ACLU lawsuits. Florida resident Donald Trump, an avid anti-trans activist, used some of his stage time at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February to baselessly claim that women’s sports are being “destroyed” by trans athletes.

“Young girls and women are incensed that they are now being forced to compete against those who are biological males,” Trump said. “It’s not good for women. It’s not good for women’s sports, which worked for so long and so hard to get to where they are.” He also noted that “If this does not change, women’s sports as we know it will die.”

President Joe Biden has made strides to reverse some of these discriminatory policies. In February, Biden expressed his support for the Equality Act, which would expand federal civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ people across the country. He also signed an executive order titled Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation during his first day in office.

While Jenner hasn’t proposed any specific plans concerning trans athletes, it’s not a farfetched idea that she could throw her weight behind anti-trans legislation in California should she be elected. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone: Caitlyn Jenner has always been, and will always be, dangerous to the future of trans kids in this country.

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For the average person, getting a little adventurous with your Starbucks order means going for one extra pump of caramel syrup in a venti iced coffee. It might mean getting whipped cream on top of a grande cold brew, or adding a dash of chocolate powder to a cappuccino just to liven up the day — or so we thought. Many of us were today years old when we learned that some people’s Starbucks orders are often a CVS receipt-length list of customizations that practically make coffee look like a sugary poison.

Over the weekend, a Starbucks barista shared one of these truly unhinged orders with the world. What started as a venti Caramel Crunch Frappuccino from a customer, ended with 5 bananas, 7 extra pumps or dark caramel, 7 “Frapp Chips,” and about a dozen other specifications. “On todays episode of why i wanna quit my job,” ProjectJosiee captioned a photo of the custom dessert I mean drink. The order, made out to a customer named Edward (sounds fake), quickly began trending.

On todays episode of why i wanna quit my job. pic.twitter.com/vKAtRKNRwe

— Josie (@ProjectJosiee) May 2, 2021

“Edward’s” order suddenly inspired other Starbucks baristas to share their own nightmare custom requests in a Twitter thread that has racked up over 185,000 likes and 16,000 retweets.

“Let me throw another one in there for a little extra spice,” one barista commented, sharing a photo for an order of a venti mango dragon fruit lemonade that included requests for cinnamon dolce syrup, cold foam, peppermint syrup, and coconut flakes. Yikes!

“Sunday’s are the worst,” another barista commented alongside a photo of a venti iced blonde vanilla latte that included extra pumps of white mocha, vanilla bean powder, Irish cream and…upside down?

And, in what one person correctly described as an “abomination,” a barista shared what they say is a biweekly order of venti green tea caramel frappuccino with — please sit down for this one — 12 bananas, 12 affogato shots, 12 pumps of honey, extra cocoa powder, 12 additional frappuccino chips, extra pumpkin sauce, extra raspberry syrup, extra cinnamon and nutmeg powder, extra caramel and mocha drizzle, and more pumpkin-flavored toppings, among a seemingly endless list of other add-ons. This was just the TL;DR.

Let me throw another one in there for a little extra spice 🥴💀 pic.twitter.com/67kvISB5Fs

— K ♈︎ ♡ (@Kimmyxr) May 3, 2021

Let me throw another one in there for a little extra spice 🥴💀 pic.twitter.com/67kvISB5Fs

— K ♈︎ ♡ (@Kimmyxr) May 3, 2021

Sunday’s are the worst 😭 pic.twitter.com/Hm3jYSiWxR

— annie (@nerdyac) May 3, 2021

this order comes in every other week pic.twitter.com/PAdcIFotyv

— Bianca (@binxsicle) May 3, 2021

Okay so, hear me out: In the age of “secret” Starbucks menu drinks, I think we’ve gone too far. It was one thing to put pumpkin spice in a chai latte. It was one thing to order a unicorn frappucino. But to add any amount of bananas that you wouldn’t actually eat is unhinged. We may not be able to come back from this as a society, but here’s to praying for the brave baristas that continue to add upwards of three shots to any drink, or had to mix peppermint into a lemonade. We salute you.

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It’s been a full calendar year — or as the millennials on Instagram say, a full trip around the sun — since we started wearing face masks. In the early pandemic aughts, we strove to make our face masks work with our outfits: leopard prints, groundbreaking florals, and even political masks were all the rage. And then, many of us reverted back to the simple surgical masks, often doubling up on cotton ones. Phone, keys, wallet, face mask — that’s all you need.

But now that 50% of all adults in the United States are vaccinated with at least one shot and eligibility for receiving a COVID-19 vaccine is now open to everyone over the age of 16 or 18, depending on what state you’re in, a future without face masks actually seems…possible? Still, one real question remains: Just how close are we to not wearing face masks anymore?

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, Americans might only need to wait until 2022 before a mask-free reality exists once again. When asked about people in the U.S. wearing face masks for another year during a February appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said: “You know, I think it is possible that that’s the case and, again, it really depends on what you mean by normality.” Dr. Fauci also expressed his optimism for getting back to what he again described as normality by the end of 2021.

“As we get into the fall and the winter, by the end of the year, I agree with [President Joe Biden] completely that we will be approaching a degree of normality,” he told host Dana Bash.

But even as life begins to go back to some semblance of normal — as seen by states (often prematurely) lifting COVID-19 restrictions — Dr. Fauci and the CDC continue to stress the importance of wearing a face mask to keep COVID-19 transmission rates low. Until more of the U.S. is fully vaccinated, continuing to wear face masks will help fend off new variants of the coronavirus and keep others healthy overall.

But let’s also talk about the elephant in the room (chat? website?): Some of us kind of maybe like wearing face masks now. There’s a certain anonymity to wearing a face mask outside or an added comfort when going makeup-free. Plus, face masks aren’t just protecting us from COVID, or stopping us from transmitting it — they are also protecting us from a whole host of other airborne infections. And because of face masks, flu cases this past winter dropped dramatically.

Opting to wear face masks for the foreseeable future, according to the Intelligencer, is also a popular choice among teachers, germaphobes, and those with preexisting conditions like heart disease. “Forever maskers,” as they’ve been dubbed, have their reasons for wanting to permanently cover-up, including wanting to keep others safe from them. Another reason, experts say, is rooted in anxiety.

“It’s no different than having a drink or taking a drug or running or any number of ways that we kind of manage our anxiety,” clinical psychologist Lina Perl told Intelligencer about people who choose to wear face masks even after the danger of COVID-19 is gone. “But you can get disconnected from the actual danger.” While she understands why forever maskers choose to continue to hide their faces, Perl also voiced her hope that they “don’t underestimate the loss of [human] connection,” which society will achieve again once our faces are back out in full display.

Still, outside of mental health reasons like anxiety, Americans wanting to make face masks a permanent part of our culture is growing in popularity. The conversation has persisted since 2020, with the general consensus being that the country as a whole could stand to adopt cleaner habits.

We still have a ways to go until the “normality” predicted for 2022 occurs. And there is a future, maybe, sometime, where you could be maskless and sweaty in a concert crowd once again. But until then, the regular check of keys, wallet, cell phone, and face mask continues. As it should.

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When it comes to planning the next phase of their careers, some celebrities start wellness companies, some start recording podcasts, and some decide to become politicians. This is America, and Matthew McConaughey could be running for governor of Texas very soon.

McConaughey has been open about his interest in running for governor of his home state of Texas in the past, but according to a new poll, it looks like his fellow Texans may actually be open to helping him become Gov. McConaughey in the future. In a poll conducted by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler between April 6 and 13, 45% of nearly 1,200 voters in the Lone Star State want McConaughey to be their next governor, and only 33% would vote to reelect Republican governor Greg Abbott. Meanwhile, 22% of voters would cast their ballot for a different candidate.

Of course, support for Abbott’s re-election was overwhelmingly red: 56% of registered Republican voters saying they would stick with the governor in the next election cycle. But in a surprise twist, 30% of Republican voters would jump off Abbott’s ship for the Magic Mike supporting actor, while a cool 66% of Democrats would also support him. However, anyone who is familiar with the McConaughey school of politics knows that the actor is, in fact, extremely centrist, and very critical of liberalism as a whole.

“It’s a true consideration,” McConaughey said of running during an episode of The Balanced Voice podcast in March. “Because I do think I have some things to teach and share, and what is my role? What’s my category in my next chapter of life that I’m going into?” He also touched on politics in 2020 during a guest spot on Russell Brand’s Under the Skin podcast, where he described himself as politically “in the middle,” though critical of what he called the “illiberal left.” He also suggested the United States should just meet in the middle on major issues, and doing so would “not [be] a recession. It’s an aggressive move.” Yikes!

Are you cringing yet? Well, here’s the worst part: Matthew McConaughey would probably definitely very likely make a much better governor than Greg Abbott — but that’s not saying much. In March 2020, amid daily coronavirus deaths sitting in the hundreds and daily infection cases surging into the thousands, Abbott lifted the state’s COVID-19 restrictions — all of them. And this wasn’t the first time he prematurely lifted statewide restrictions; in May 2020, a mere two months after nationwide lockdowns started across the U.S., Abbott ordered Texas business to start reopening. But wait, there’s more: Earlier this month, he also issued an order prohibiting vaccine passports in Texas, calling it an impediment “on Texans’ personal freedoms.”

So could Texas Governor Matthew McConaughey become a reality in the future? The next gubernatorial race will tell. After all, what could possibly go wrong with electing a famous male star of the big and small screen to office? Let’s ask California about that one.

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Three days after a police officer shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Minneapolis, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene proposed that officers in major cities across the U.S. — including Minneapolis — be awarded gold medals for “protecting” cities from anti-racism protestors.

On Tuesday, Greene introduced H.R. 2446 in a press release, a legislation that proposes Congressional Gold Medals to “honor over 2,000 law enforcement officers who were injured while defending American cities during the [2020] riots” from what she described as “Black Lives Matter terrorists.” In addition to the Minneapolis and Portland Police Department, the Congressional Gold Medals would also be awarded to the Smithsonian Institution for preservation purposes, according to Forbes.

“Starting in May 2020, Black Lives Matter launched a domestic terrorist campaign to burn down American cities, loot small businesses, and murder citizens,” Greene noted in a related statement. “In the face of this dangerous threat, our men and women in blue have stood strong by defending our streets, protecting storefronts, and restoring order. […] This week I introduced legislation to honor the bravery and sacrifices of police officers across America who have quite literally put their lives on the line and fight back against Black Lives Matter terror. Congress should boldly and proudly BACK THE BLUE by passing H.R. 2446 immediately.”

However, Greene’s proposal, which has also been cosponsored by Republican Reps. Yvette Herrell and Andy Harris, comes almost one month after she and 11 other Republicans in Congress voted against awarding medals to three officers for defending the U.S. Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. Greene stated that she did not agree with the use of the word “insurrectionists” to describe the white supremacists who stormed the Capitol, but unsurprisingly, has confidently claimed anti-racism protestors to be “terrorists.”

There is no shortage of irony — or outrage — here. Greene’s effort to protect white supremacists from police, but honor the cops who are “defending” cities (read: terrorizing protestors) is merely another not-so-veiled effort to demonize the Black Lives Matter movement. And it’s even less of a surprise that this legislation was introduced not even a week after Wright, a Black man, was shot and killed by a police officer in Minneapolis.

Here’s the reality of what is happening with police in Minneapolis, where Greene wants to award officers: In the days since Wright was killed, the Minneapolis Police Department has upended peaceful protests around the area by using pepper spray and flash bombs, according to CNN; Tuesday night alone saw the arrest of 60 protesters. As the city continues to grieve yet another Black man shot by police, just a few miles from where George Floyd was killed less than a year ago, in the midst of the murder trial for his killer, police have patrolled the area in riot gear, enforcing a 10 p.m. curfew.

Greene has yet to publicly comment on Daunte Wright’s death, but her legislation makes enough of a statement. Her priority is not only to defend a police force that is fraught with racist killings, but to reward officers for their actions in the form of Congressional Gold Medals. And what’s most frightening: She is gaining support.

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Two men connected to the long-unsolved murder case of Kristin Smart have been arrested and charged, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff Ian Parkinson announced on Tuesday. Paul Flores, 44, who was a classmate of Smart’s at California Polytechnic State University when she disappeared in 1996, was charged with one count of murder in Los Angeles; he is currently being held in San Luis Obispo without bail. Flores’ father, Ruben Flores, 80, was also arrested; he was charged with one count of being an accessory to murder and his bail is set at $250,000.

Smart was a 19-year-old freshman at California Polytechnic State University when she disappeared on May 25, 1996. After attending a party at a nearby fraternity house, Smart was seen walking back to her dorm with a group of friends, including Flores. He was the last person to be seen with her prior to her disappearance. Smart’s body was never found, and despite being a person of interest, Flores was never charged with her disappearance. Smart was legally declared dead in 2002.

Everything changed, though, when the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s office accessed a warrant to search Flores’ home in Los Angeles twice last year. The first search in February, which occurred for reasons not made public, led to a second warrant for April, where police said they were looking for “items of interest” across California and Washington.

According to Tony Cipolla, a spokesperson for the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s office, police “recovered some items of interest in the case” during the second search. The warrants, however, are still sealed, and no details on what was found in Flores’ home can currently be made public.

Following Paul and Ruben Flores’ arrests on Tuesday, Smart’s parents released a public statement: “It is impossible to put into words what this day means for our family; we pray it is the first step to bringing our daughter home,” the statement read. “While Kristin’s loving spirit will always live in our hearts, our life without her hugs, laughs and smiles is a heartache that never abates. The knowledge that a father and son, despite our desperate pleas for help, could have withheld this horrible secret for nearly 25 years, denying us the chance to lay our daughter to rest, is an unrelenting and unforgiving pain.”

“We now put our faith in the justice system and move forward, comforted in the knowledge that Kristin has been held in the hearts of so many and that she has not been forgotten,” the statement continued. “To HEAL, we must REMEMBER not only Kristin but also every heart that carried Kristin and our family in theirs!”

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As of Friday, roughly 20% of people in the U.S. have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). With millions of people receiving at least one of the three approved vaccines each day, widespread immunity against the coronavirus is slowly becoming a reality. But, as more vaccinations are rolled out and life inches back to pre-pandemic times, the question of how long that immunity will last after the final shot is on a lot of people’s minds.

According to new research from Pfizer and Moderna, it looks like COVID-19 immunity will last at least six months in fully vaccinated people, though studies are ongoing. In a statement released by Pfizer-BioNTech on Thursday, immunity against the coronavirus is confirmed to last at least half a year for people who have been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer shot. The company, following an observation of 927 symptomatic cases during its phase 3 study, concluded that its vaccine remained 91.3% effective against the virus for up to six months after. Pfizer also confirmed that the COVID-19 vaccine was 100% effective against severe disease, as defined by the CDC; 95.3% effective against severe COVID-19 symptoms, as defined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA); and 100% effective against the highly transmissible B.1.351 variant of the coronavirus.

The Moderna vaccine also appears to remain effective in fighting against COVID-19 for at least six months after the second shot, according to an April 6 report in The New England Journal of Medicine. The vaccine showed a 94% efficacy in the company’s own phase 3 trial, in which 33 adults were tested. Moderna will continue to monitor the subjects’ antibody levels in the coming months.

What will these findings mean for future booster shots and prolonging the vaccine’s effectiveness? Given the still very new nature of this data, medical experts just aren’t sure yet.

For the Moderna vaccine, scientists contributing to The New England Journal of Medicine reported that they are “determining the effect of a booster dose to extend the duration and breadth of activity against emerging viral variants.” Pfizer also appears to be determining the need for a booster shot; its Thursday press release includes mention of “a potential second booster dose of BNT162b2 [the Pfizer vaccine sequence] and/or a potential booster dose of a variation of BNT162b2 having a modified mRNA sequence.”

Experts will no doubt advise people who have been vaccinated to receive booster shots if and when they are developed. Until those shots become reality, those of us who have been partially or fully vaccinated can rest easy knowing that we remain between 80 to 90% protected against COVID-19 for the time being.

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On Monday, reports circulated that two Amazon workers were illegally fired after raising concerns about the shopping giant’s labor practices. According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Amazon fired former user experience designers Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa last April for “repeatedly violating internal policies.” However, both have maintained that they were let go after publicly criticizing the company for not doing enough to combat climate change, as well as criticizing its questionable warehouse conditions and labor practices.

After being terminated, the two filed claims of unfair labor practices against the company in October and they have finally come to fruition. The NLRB has since concluded that there is enough evidence to support those claims and it plans to file a case against Amazon unless a settlement is reached.

According to Cunningham, this is “a moral victory and really shows that we are on the right side of history and the right side of the law.” While working at Amazon, Cunningham and Costa were members of the internal advocacy group Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. The group attempted to push the company to create more structural plans to combat climate change. It also worked against the unfair treatment of warehouse workers and the lack of safety precautions in Amazon warehouses.

After taking stances on both issues, Cunningham and Costa pressured the company to change the way it responded to Amazon workers who spoke out against its policies. (At the time, employees were not allowed to publicly say anything negative about Amazon without written permission from management.) The two women later said they believe that making their concerns public — and having a hand in planning one of the 2020 Amazon walkouts for employees — led to their termination.

Amazon spokesperson Jaci Anderson, however, says that this isn’t true, and that Cunningham and Costa were let go for violating internal policies — not speaking out against the company. “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against our internal policies, all of which are lawful,” Anderson told The New York Times. “We terminated these employees not for talking publicly about working conditions, safety, or sustainability but, rather, for repeatedly violating internal policies.”

This news comes after ongoing backlash over the company’s treatment of workers that has resulted in mass protests and strikes. Amazon is currently facing criticism for its working conditions during the pandemic, including an outright lack of safety measures, like PPE, and ending hazard pay. Last week, the company was scrutinized for not answering to reports that delivery drivers and some factory workers were forced to urinate in water bottles in an effort to deliver packages on time or when bathrooms were inaccessible.

Employees at the Amazon fulfillment center in Alabama have recently made headlines for attempting to unionize; the move would better protect them during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. But the company has been accused of union-busting tactics, and President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders have stepped in to voice their concerns.

“All I want to know is why the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, is spending millions trying to prevent workers from organizing a union so they can negotiate for better wages, benefits, and working conditions,” Sanders tweeted.

Refinery29 reached out to Amazon for comment. We will update this story as we know more.

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Almost five months after losing re-election for president of the United States, former President Donald Trump is once again the subject of controversy after new reports say that his campaign purposely tricked donors into giving recurring donations.

On Monday, a New York Times report revealed that the Trump campaign set up their 2020 donation page to take recurring payments out of donors’ bank accounts, often without their knowledge. First-time contributors who attempted to make a donation to the Trump campaign reported having thousands of dollars extracted from their accounts on a daily and weekly basis. The page, which was set up and hosted by WinRed — the Republican Party’s donation platform — funded millions of dollars for Trump’s presidential campaign by bombarding the site with confusing fine-print details and text. But by November and December, team Trump had refunded donors a staggering $122 million.

In the months since the alleged scam, several campaign donors described having to call their banks and numerous credit card companies to report what they believed was fraud. In reality, they just didn’t read the very fine, purposefully hidden print. One donor, a cancer patient from Kansas City, Missouri living on less than $1000 a month, had his entire bank account drained as a result of the multiple donations. Another retiree had almost $8,000 taken out of his savings.

So, how exactly did the president manage to make millions off of his unwitting donors? Trump’s underhanded attempt at raising millions fast first began in March 2020 when the form to donate to Trump’s campaign included a pre-checked box to make all donations a monthly charge. To avoid that charge, users had to uncheck the box manually. Months later, in June, a second pre-checked box was added just below the first one for the purpose of breaking a “fundraising record on President Trump’s birthday!” Despite Trump’s birthday coming and going on June 14, both boxes became “a fixture for the rest of the campaign.”

In September, as the presidential campaign ramped up and President Joe Biden campaign began to earn well over $150 million more than what Trump’s campaign had raised, The Times reports that Trump not only changed the language of the pre-checked recurring donation boxes on the site from “monthly” to “weekly,” but they also bolded words and phrases and put them in all caps to overwhelm the eye.

Harry Brignull, a user-experience designer in London who spoke with The Times, described the “deceptive design” of the donation page — called a dark pattern in the marketing world — as one that “should be in textbooks of what you shouldn’t do.”

After losing to President Joe Biden in November, Trump’s campaign spent the next two months returning donations back to donors. He ended up giving back 10.7% of what he earned through WinRed, compared to Biden’s 2.2% of funds earned through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s donation platform. The amount of refunds Trump issued during this time, according to political experts, outpaced “every federal Democratic candidate and committee in the country combined.”

The reported scam also revealed that the ten of millions earned by the Trump campaign’s failed attempts that fighting nonexistent voter fraud were used “to help cover the refunds he owed.”

In the classic Trump fashion of brushing serious issues off, Trump spokesperson Jason Miller deflected from the negative reports of fraud in The Times report. Instead, he harped on how small the number of credit card fraud complaints had been: 0.87% of the WinRed transactions.

“The fact we had a dispute rate of less than 1 percent of total donations despite raising more grass-roots money than any campaign in history is remarkable,” he said, ignoring that that still equates to $19.7 million. He also said that “our campaign was built by the hardworking men and women of America” and that “cherishing their investments was paramount to anything else we did.”

Trump’s former campaign team has yet to make an official statement on the report.

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AstraZeneca, the pharmaceutical company behind the latest COVID-19 vaccine to release the results of its clinical trial, is looking to join the ranks of vaccines already approved in the United States. On Monday, the company announced that their vaccine was found to be 79% effective against the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. and that they would be applying for approval for usage in April, according to the Associated Press.

The news of the AstraZeneca vaccine’s overall effectiveness comes after Europe enacted a temporary ban against it following reports of blood clots and unexplained bleeding in people who received it. Out of the millions of injections across the continent, about 30 cases of blood clots forming in the body came to light, prompting leaders from countries including France and Germany to stop the import of the vaccine out of public concern. However, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), after investigating the issue, concluded on Thursday that there were more benefits than risks in relation to the usage of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

“This is a safe and effective vaccine,” Emer Cooke, the executive director on EMA, said during a press briefing on Thursday, as reported by Al Jazeera. “If it were me, I would be vaccinated tomorrow.”

Although skepticism around this particular vaccine has reached the U.S., there’s no evidence to support it. Medical experts have stood in AstraZeneca’s corner throughout the pushback. Many have highlighted that the vaccine has proven to be effective in what it sought to do in the first place: protect people from the spread of COVID-19.

“Although the AstraZeneca vaccine is not yet approved for use in the USA, I hope that it soon will be,” Dr. Paul S Pottinger, MD, a professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Medicine, Division of Allergy & Infectious Diseases, told Refinery29. “This is because it has been found to be very safe and highly protective against COVID-19 in very large and well-designed clinical trials.”

On whether or not the AstraZeneca vaccine played a role in the development of blood clots in certain patients, Dr. Pottinger notes that they weren’t a side effect detected during larger clinical trials and is doubtful of a causal relationship between clots and the vaccine. “The risk of being harmed or even killed by COVID-19 is certainly greater than this theoretical and unproven risk of blood clots,” he added.

Despite the uproar caused by the few blood clots cases, the AstraZeneca vaccine isn’t even the first widely distributed vaccine to be connected to this side effect: Blood clots were reported to have formed in some patients after the usage of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil during the late 2000s to the mid-2010s. After further exploration from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), 90% of people who reported blood clots had underlying risk factors, including genetic clotting abnormalities and smoking.

“It was the Danes who put the kibosh on Gardasil several years ago over a very vague pain syndrome,” said Dr. John D. Grabenstein, RPh, PhD, the general manager of Vaccine Dynamics, noted in his defense of the AstraZeneca vaccine. “Stopping a vaccination program should take more than the identification of an adverse event, it should be when it’s rising above a baseline value, not just when something bad happened in a vaccinee.”

Popular forms of birth control pills, which are widely available and commonly used, are also known to increase the risk of blood clotting in a woman’s body up to four times thanks to the increased production of estrogen, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Still, even in their defense of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the cautious approach taken by European medical experts has been understood to a degree by experts here in the U.S.

“It’s early and so I think we have to be cautious,” said Dr. Norman Baylor, the President and CEO of Biologics Consulting. “They were very clear this was out of an abundance of caution. You can look at the science and you can also look at perception. I’m only speculating, but I think they felt perception-wise, this was the best thing to do. The verdict is still pending.”

Should the AstraZeneca vaccine get approved for usage in the U.S., it certainly won’t be the first vaccination that comes with a risk of some sort. In the long run, its hypothetical approval will lead to more vaccine accessibility for those who need it.

Additional reporting by Molly Longman.

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A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has concluded that women are more likely to experience side effects after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. According to the “First Month of COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Monitoring” study published last month, 79% of reports of the more serious symptoms caused by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines came from women.

The monthlong study followed the first 13,794,904 Americans who received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, noting how they reacted to the shots from December 14, 2020, to January 13, 2021. People reported symptoms using the vaccine adverse event reporting system, or VAERS, for the study; the VAERS system also monitored the vaccine’s effect on the body. During this time, the most frequent side effects reported were headache, fatigue, and dizziness, along with 62 cases of anaphylaxis. One hundred and thirteen total deaths were also reported by the study’s end, including 78 among long-term care facility residents taking part. By the end of the study, it was found the vaccine’s side effects were overwhelmingly reported by women. Only 62.1% of the actual study participants were women.

Experts have pointed to differences in immune systems between men and women as a reason why one sex reported more symptoms. “We see more autoimmune diseases in women than we do in men and we know the effects of pregnancy on the immune system can be significant,” David Wohl, MD, an infectious diseases physician at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, told ABC7 on Saturday. He also explained that women are more likely to report their symptoms to a medical professional compared to men.

Microbiologist and immunologist Sabra Klein, PhD, who works at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, echoed the “sex difference” in how people are affected by vaccines in The New York Times earlier this month, stating that it was “completely consistent with past reports of other vaccines.” She also noted that “there is value to preparing women that they may experience more adverse reactions. That is normal, and likely reflective of their immune system working.”

Since the study’s end, Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine has been given approval for usage in the U.S., and AstraZeneca is applying for approval in April. Vaccine eligibility currently varies by state, but many frontline workers, public-facing government and other employees, and people over the age of 60 are among those being given priority. President Joe Biden announced earlier this month that all adults in the U.S. would be eligible to be vaccinated by May 1 in an effort to get the country largely back to “normal” by July 4.

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The conversations surrounding NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, may still be relatively new and ongoing, but that isn’t stopping some people from cashing in on how trendy these digital tokens are right now. Case in point: Film director Alex Ramírez-Mallis has decided to make additional money with his farts.

Ramírez-Mallis sat down with the New York Post on Thursday to share, without a hint of hesitation, that he has sold an audio recording of his flatulence for the NFT currency of 0.05 Ethereum, which equals roughly $85, to an anonymous buyer. He and a group of friends are also auctioning off the digital rights to one year’s worth of their fart sounds, called the “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts.” Why? Because they can.

“If people are selling digital art and GIFs, why not sell farts?” Ramírez-Mallis told the Post. He went on to describe the NFT boom happening right now as “absurd — this idea of putting a value on something inherently intangible.” He continued, “These NFTs aren’t even farts, they’re just digital alphanumeric strings that represent ownership.”

Despite equating the NFT moment the world is having right now to “technological novelty that masquerades as revolutionary,” Ramírez-Mallis remained upfront about cashing in on the craze. The idea to record farts with his friends began in March 2020 as a unique way of keeping in touch with each other over WhatsApp, just as stay-at-home orders began in New York. The group eventually compiled all of their fart sounds together into a 52-minute recording to sell. It clearly worked in their favor, since the recording currently has a top bid of $183.

“If the value increases, they could have an extremely valuable fart on their hands,” Ramírez-Mallis told the Post.

The speed at which NFTs are taking hold in the mainstream right now is being seen across popular culture, from music to the art world, and it’s either here to stay or another passing fad (is anyone still regularly checking the Robinhood app or talking about GameStop?). But based on the recent $69 million sale of the artist Beeple’s digital files to auction company Christie’s and the continuous million-dollar-plus sales of concept art around Hollywood, the former is looking more and more likely.

At least we have more to choose from than just hour-long fart recordings.

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The Biden administration is going back on its promise not to get rid of staffers over past marijuana use, according to a report from The Daily Beast published Thursday. Despite the administration telling staffers back in February that their history of using marijuana wouldn’t affect their jobs, numerous employees have since been asked to leave their positions, work remotely indefinitely, or been suspended.

“There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers — rather, ex-staffers,” a now-former White House staffer, who was reportedly asked to resign due to weed use, told The Daily Beast. “The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained.”

Last month, the administration said it would review staffers’ marijuana use on a case-by-case basis. It largely came down to who was eligible for security clearances, as a record of drug use can affect this eligibility. As a result, they decided that staffers who had “limited” past marijuana use — an amount determined by the administration — and were applying for positions where security clearances weren’t absolutely necessary could have their drug use overlooked.

Less than a month later, staffers have said this is no longer the case, as dozens of them have been temporarily or permanently affected by the Biden administration’s apparent change in policy.

A spokesperson for the White House stood by the administration’s decision, saying in a statement to The Daily Beast, “The White House’s policy will maintain the absolute highest standards for service in government that the president expects from his administration, while acknowledging the reality that state and local marijuana laws have changed significantly across the country in recent years.”

“This decision was made following intensive consultation with career security officials and will effectively protect our national security while modernizing policies to ensure that talented and otherwise well-qualified applicants with limited marijuana use will not be barred from serving the American people,” the spokesperson added.

The administration’s position is unsurprising given Biden’s track record of tough stances on drug-related crimes and laws. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988 — which he sponsored, and co-sponsored and helped write, respectively — not only created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, but resulted in increased prison time for drug possession and drug transportation.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ stance on marijuana legalization, has also been criticized, particularly her reluctance to vote in favor of California legalizing adult usage in 2016 as the state District Attorney. She has since come around in support of legalization.

Weed is legal in 14 states and the District of Columbia, and millions of people use it recreationally. It is, however, still considered an illegal substance at the federal level.

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After over three decades of maintaining his innocence, death row inmate Pervis Payne is moving closer to receiving an execution date — despite activist-collected evidence that could prove his innocence. Payne was arrested and charged with murder for killing a woman and her 2-year-old child in Millington, Tennessee. But Payne maintains that he wasn’t even there for the murder.

In 1987, Payne was living with his parents and siblings. According to his statement at the time, he was waiting for girlfriend, Bobbie Thomas, at her Millington apartment when he stumbled upon the homicide of her neighbor, Charisse Christopher, and her two-year-old daughter Lacie Jo. Both were found stabbed to death, while Christopher’s three-year-old son Nicholas survived. Payne, who has an intellectual disability, was later convicted of the murders in February 1988 and put on death row.

But over the past 33 years, he has stood by his original statement: He wasn’t the one who killed Christopher and her child. Now, activist organizations are rallying behind him to prove his innocence and have him released from death row.

Over the course of his sentence, Payne’s legal team has hit several roadblocks while seeking clemency — despite evidence that, at the very least, creates ample reasonable doubt. For one, the DNA on the murder weapon at the crime scene was never tested until September of 2020, so there’s no proof of Payne coming in contact with the murder weapon before he was convicted and put on death row. According to the Innocence Project, Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich allegedly blocked any DNA testing from occurring on evidence found at the crime scene until last late last year.

When the test was finally conducted, it revealed that an unknown man’s DNA was found on the murder weapon. Still, the additional DNA wasn’t enough to commute Payne’s sentence and was considered too degraded to charge another suspect with the homicides, with Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan stating that “Nothing exonerated Pervis Payne. Nothing.” Skahan later dismissed any additional testing on the DNA discovered.

“The Court concludes the results are not favorable to Mr. Payne,” Skahan wrote in a released statement on January 25. “The Petitioner argues the absence of his DNA from several of the items tested supports his trial testimony, but Mr. Payne’s DNA is not entirely absent from the apartment,” highlighting that his DNA was found on a washcloth in Christopher’s bathroom.

But Payne’s case is anything from clear-cut, and activists are continuing to point out that a lot of this has to do with him being a Black man accused of murdering a white woman in the ’80s. When Payne was initially scheduled to be executed on December 3, 2020, which was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, it provided a renewed opportunity to prove his innocence. In recent weeks, as his new execution date approaches, social media users have rallied behind Payne, with the hashtags #PervisPayne and #JusticeForPervisPayne, calling for the courts to revisit the specifics of the case, including possible bias from the prosecution. Many — including the Innocence Project — continue to argue that prosecutors and arresting officers must be investigated for explicit anti-Blackness and the use of racial stereotypes used during his trial.

Activist Martin Luther King III penned an op-ed in the Tennessean pleading with Gov. Lee to grant Payne clemency and detailing the racial bias associated with Payne’s arrest and trial.

“The prosecutor casted Payne as a hypersexual Black man looking for a white woman to assault, going so far as to refer to her ‘white skin.’ This racist trope echoed powerfully before a jury in a county where large numbers of Black men were lynched for perceived affronts to white women,” King wrote earlier this month.

“He was a young Black man accused of murdering a white woman in Shelby County,  a county with a long history of racial violence and biased criminal justice and where my father was murdered by a white supremacist.”

Payne’s reprieve expires on April 9, 2021. There is currently a change.org petition circulating to take him off death row.

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Now that President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package has been approved, the third stimulus check — perhaps the most highly anticipated one to date — is already starting to be rolled out. Since the president signed the American Rescue Plan Act, first announced back in January, on Friday, many people on social media have already reported getting their $1,400 checks by direct deposit. The IRS confirmed this, stating that “some recipients started receiving as early as March 12.” Others, however, are still wondering when they’ll be receiving their stimulus checks.

The rollout of this payment, like the two payments before it, will be a steady one. Those who are eligible to receive their $1,400 should start seeing a direct deposit from the IRS by this week, and the rollout will continue over the coming weeks. Eligible parties who have an updated mailing address on file with the IRS should be receiving their physical checks or debit cards in the mail following the same timeline as those receiving direct deposits, just as they had with the first and second checks.

During the release of the first stimulus check back in March 2020, the IRS created a page called Get My Payment, which people could use to track the whereabouts of their checks. The feature, according to the IRS, updates once a day, so those curious about where their stimulus checks are will be able to regularly review its status. Get My Payment was also available during the rollout of the second stimulus check back in December.

But you might get a few different responses when trying to log into the site. After you enter your social security number, birth date, address, and zip code in the Get My Payment feature, the system will show one of three messages: “Payment Status” means that either you’re approved to receive a stimulus check, your money is being processed, and it will be deposited either by the date shown or when a date becomes available; “Payment Status Not Available” means that either the IRS hasn’t processed your information yet, or that you’re not eligible to receive a stimulus check; “Need More Information” means that the payment was returned to the IRS because there was no way for the Postal Service to deliver it. People who receive this message will be able to provide their bank account information through the Get My Payment link.

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On Monday, the first day in-person learning restarted in Arkansas, one student was injured during a shooting at Watson Chapel Junior High School in Pine Bluff. According to the school district’s Facebook page, as of two hours ago, all district campuses remain in lockdown following the shooting, which the district described as an “isolated incident.” The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department and the Pine Bluff Police Department are reportedly on the scene to “control the situation.”

The shooting took place as students were changing classrooms to go to their next classes. Upon hearing gunshots, all students were abruptly moved to the gymnasium per protocol.

In a press briefing on Monday afternoon, Pine Bluff police detailed the events. According to Chief of Police Kelvin Sergeant, the department was alerted of the shooting at 9:59 a.m. and the first officer arrived at the school at 10:02 a.m. The victim, who is 15, was taken to Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff before being transferred to the Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. He is currently in “serious condition,” according to officers.

Police also announced that they currently have a 15-year-old male suspect in custody. The suspect had initially fled the scene to hide behind a home on one of the neighboring streets. When police found him, he was taken to the Jack Jones Juvenile Detention Center in Pine Bluff.

According to the school district’s Facebook page, which has continued to post updates throughout the day, the parents of the student who was shot were notified, and all other students were declared safe.

In the hours following the shooting, local news outlet KATV shared video footage of multiple cars backed up on the road leading to Watson Chapel Junior High School, mostly filled with parents who were attempting to pick up their children. Police officers remained at the scene the entire time.

Sergeant reiterated that the department believed the shooting to be an isolated incident and wouldn’t speak to whether it was the result of gang-related activity. Whether the suspect will be tried as a juvenile or an adult will be announced in the next 36 to 48 hours. 

The family of the victim has yet to release a statement.

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