Among the most vocal opponents of President Trump’s widely lambasted ban on refugees entering the US earlier this year was Airbnb. Companies virtually queued up to slam the executive order but while some focussed primarily on the effect it could have on business and their own employees, the home-sharing startup’s response was pragmatic and – we hate the word, but – authentic. It would have a tangible impact on the lives of thousands of displaced people, to whom other companies appeared to be merely paying lip service.

"Closing doors further divides US. Let's all find ways to connect people, not separate them," tweeted CEO Brian Chesky, announcing that Airbnb was offering free accommodation to anyone left stranded by the ban. "Not allowing countries or refugees into America is not right, and we must stand with those who are affected." Just a few days later, the company took its commitment one step further, vowing to provide short-term housing for 100,000 refugees and other displaced people over the next five years, and pledging to donate $4 million over four years to the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the global non-profit that helps those affected by humanitarian crises.

“To help people around the world facing displacement, we'll work with our community of hosts to find not just a place to stay, but also a place to feel connected, respected, and a part of a community again,” its founders said in a statement.

By virtue of being a home-sharing giant, Airbnb is uniquely well positioned to help refugees. With a gargantuan network of properties and potential hosts around the world – more than 3 million properties listed in over 191 countries – there are myriad opportunities for refugees to be welcomed into new homes and communities. Earlier this month, the company revealed exactly how it's going to fulfil its commitment to them.

Open Homes is Airbnb’s ambitious new platform which aims to make it easy for normal people to host refugees in the same way they would paying guests. To become a host, all you need is a property to let or a spare room, and a willingness to house someone or a family for free. Hosts can choose between housing refugees or evacuees, the number of people they host and how long the home is available. The host is then matched with a trusted organisation that specialises in the right kind of need and it’s their responsibility to vet the refugee(s) and make the bookings. Less than a month since Open Homes was unveiled, more than 6,000 people have already signed up to be hosts – half of whom are completely new to the site, suggesting there is huge potential to seize the generosity of people who may not otherwise have known how to help refugees.

For years, Airbnb has quietly given hosts the opportunity to offer short-term salvation to people forced out of their homes by emergencies, natural disasters and the refugee crisis but, captivated by the escalating refugee crisis in late 2015, it was inspired to create a new programme to unite these efforts under one umbrella. It’s not the first initiative like this to exist – UK-based charity Refugees at Home and SINGA in France, for example, do something similar – but it’s a new step for the homestay network and, considering its worldwide reach, could prove to be the quickest and most efficient way to house those in need. Open Homes helpfully addresses the difficulties they can encounter when sorting accommodation for their temporary “soft landing” in a new country, before they’ve sorted permanent housing.

Currently, in the UK, the situation facing asylum seekers (those who haven't yet been granted refugee status) is “pretty grim”, says Rachel Mantell from Refugees at Home, which connects hosts with asylum seekers and refugees in a similar way to Open Homes. Most asylum seekers are entitled to accommodation provided by the National Asylum Support Service (NASS), which is dispersed around the country on a ‘no choice’ basis, and provided by third-party suppliers such as Serco. "It is often not great quality – dirty, crowded, far from support services, such as English lessons, in the cheapest and therefore most deprived parts of the country, and asylum seekers can be and are moved at short notice," Mantell told Refinery29. Personal preference, including proximity to friends and community, isn't taken into account except in very exceptional cases.

Strangely enough, Open Homes could prove to be even more crucial for those who have recently been granted refugee status, than for asylum seekers. In the UK, this is when people are most likely to become homeless, says Judith Dennis, policy manager at the Refugee Council. “Ironically, the worst problems occur just at the point when people are granted protection as a refugee. While people are going through the process of seeking asylum, they are given secure, albeit variable housing, but this support stops just 28 days after asylum has been granted." What should be a time for rejoicing is therefore often the start of a new misery.

During these 28 days, refugees must find a job, get a national insurance number, register for any benefits they’re entitled to, and move out and find a new home – somewhere that will take housing benefit and is refugee-friendly. This can be difficult because of new regulations designed to create a hostile environment for those here illegally, which mean many landlords simply won’t rent to refugees for fear of falling foul of them. Often, language barriers and the sheer amount of paperwork required to secure a job and rental property can mean time gets the better of them and they end up homeless and destitute, Dennis says.

Open Homes could therefore be revolutionary for both refugees and asylum seekers coming to the UK, and plans are underway for its launch very soon. Joe Gebbia, one of Airbnb's cofounders, told Refinery29 they "are currently working with local partners in the UK and hope to launch the programme there this summer". Britain received over 38,500 asylum claims in 2016, the sixth highest number of applications in the EU, according to EU statistics office Eurostat , so there is potential for Open Homes to make a lot of difference.

Refugees already in the UK have welcomed the platform's launch and believe it would be helpful for others forced to make the perilous journey here. Ammar Raad, 29, is a Syrian refugee who fled the country for his safety in August 2015. He spent 10 months in the Calais 'Jungle' before making the difficult journey across the channel to the UK to join his twin brother last July. When he arrived, he was detained for two weeks before being sent to a hostel in Cardiff, where he stayed for three months in "bad" conditions. When his asylum claim was granted in January 2017, he left Wales for London to study.

In London, Raad was put in touch with Refugees at Home, who, in a similar way to Open Homes, found him somewhere to stay. "A family hosted me and it has been the most amazing help, so I think it is wonderful that Airbnb are doing the same," he says. "It is so much nicer than staying in temporary housing which the authorities give. I feel like I have a home, and it has made me feel so welcome here in the UK. I will forever be grateful to the family for giving me a place in their home. It took so much anxiety and worry away. And it was nice to be treated as a human, and not just a refugee." That the prospect of staying in someone else’s comfy, well-furnished home is more appealing to many refugees, many of whom will crave sanctuary after a life-threatening journey overseas, than the substandard and often "disgraceful” housing they could be allocated, is unsurprising.

Open Homes could help to foster cross-cultural understanding, too. “Since founding Airbnb, we have seen that hosting can break down cultural barriers and make people feel more connected to the world around them," says Gebbia. "We hope to see that hosting a refugee creates greater understanding in their new communities at large, as the hosts ease the refugee’s transition into their new hometown.”

I will forever be grateful to the family for giving me a place in their home. It took so much worry away. And it was nice to be treated as a human, not just a refugee.

Refugees at Home and the Refugee Council both welcome the new platform. "We welcome anything that helps refugees and asylum seekers avoid homelessness and destitution, and are excited to see such a global company accepting there is an issue and trying to address it," says Mantell, adding that the charity is "hoping to talk to them about it soon". Dennis says it's a very promising initiative that could have a real impact on refugees' lives. "The kindness of strangers in opening their homes to refugees cannot be underestimated. Without them we would see many more people on the streets, with literally no place to call home.”

When Open Homes launches in the UK, it won't necessarily be plain sailing, however. Some have pointed out that because many refugees want to be in large cities, like London, so as to have more chance of getting a job, the pool of potential host volunteers will be reduced. Living in an expensive world city means many Londoners already have to make sacrifices to get by and don't own their own homes to begin with, so even if we want to, many of us simply won't be able to help.

People may also have understandable reservations about letting strangers, with whom they may not even share a language, into their homes and households. But Gebbia is adamant there is nothing to worry about, as the refugee guests will have been vetted by "an experienced third party who will book people on [the] platform", so there is minimal risk of letting dangerous people into your home. "We’ve partnered with the IRC for years, and these organisations have the best tools and are the most experienced people in the world at validating the status of these refugees."

“It’s also important to keep in mind that we’re not talking about dangerous people, we’re talking about families in crisis," Gebbia adds. "We’ve all seen the pictures, these heartbreaking images of families torn by civil war, with nowhere to go, when all they need is the security of a home.”

Going forward, Airbnb hopes to expand the platform to serve more evacuees and other displaced people. The company also wants to continue "breaking down barriers and building trust between people across cultures," Gebbia says. While it’s easy to feel powerless when you think about massive global challenges like the refugee crisis, there are things everyone can do that make a big difference. "The simple act of opening your home for a few nights can be life-changing for people who’ve had to leave everything behind.”

Further Reading:

Sleeping Rough & Losing Hope: An Update From Calais
The Lost Boys Of Dunkirk Refugee Camp

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Most women who come to the UK to seek asylum have experienced sexual violence. Some have been tied up and gang raped, beaten, burned with cigarettes, cut with razors, subjected to female genital mutilation of themselves or their daughters. Two-thirds of women seeking asylum in the UK under their own name (not with a husband) are rejected on their first application. Often this is because they don’t have sufficient, hard-copy evidence to prove the persecution they have suffered. Or because they don’t have the language to explain it. Or because they don't have the confidence.

London-based charity Women for Refugee Women was set up to support women claiming asylum in the UK, challenging the injustices they face at every stage of the process – from being locked up in the women’s detention centre Yarl’s Wood, to being denied critical legal advice on how to collect and present evidence to support their applications, to the further barriers to education and the right to work. The charity also publishes research documents using testimonies and case studies about what the women have been through, and how they are treated on entering the UK, to inform parliamentarians of what needs to change.

Women for Refugee Women also offers English classes, yoga classes, craft classes, lunches, employability classes in partnership with other support organisations, and mother and toddler groups, providing a social setting with a warm atmosphere where women can come and feel part of a community that understands them. “We wish we could do more,” says founder Natasha Walter, “the needs out there are so great. But where we’ve really had an impact is raising women’s voices.” On Saturdays, the charity runs drama classes, which are now held at the Southbank Centre, and in these, women are encouraged to write and perform poetry, and to learn, essentially, how to express themselves, slowly finding the words to tell their stories. During the Women’s March earlier this year, a group performed a poem about their collective stories in Trafalgar Square.

Below we speak to Natasha Walter, founder and director of Women for Refugee Women, author of The New Feminism and Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, and a prolific journalist for The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent.

What happens to these women on their journeys to the UK? Can you give any specific examples?

One young woman in her 20s made the journey from Ethiopia through Libya, where she was trafficked and imprisoned. She experienced extreme sexual violence while she was there, and then when she got on the boats [to Europe] she had an awful journey through the Mediterranean and the boat behind her sank, and she knew people on that boat. She was then in the north of France for a while and when she smuggled her way into the UK in a lorry she was actually pregnant and she miscarried in the lorry on her way to the UK. So you can see the layers and layers of trauma. Now she’s living in Wakefield. She’s isolated and she’s finding it very difficult. I think she felt that, when she came to the UK, everything would be alright, but she’s facing even more challenges in terms of trying to claim asylum and trying to prove to the authorities that she’s deserving of refugee status. She wants to access education too, which is very difficult.

Another woman I met was persecuted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She was suspected of being involved with the rebels and so soldiers came to her house, took her away and put her in an unofficial prison where she was tied up and gang raped. Eventually, a guy who cleaned the prison helped her to escape. She paid a smuggler to take her out of the DRC and to the UK, where she faced further barriers and was locked up in detention, bringing back all of the memories of what she had gone through.

Locked up in Yarl’s Wood?

Yes. Around 2,000 women who seek asylum in the UK are locked up in detention. Immigration detention is indefinite – it can last days, weeks or months. When we met this woman, she was very distressed, she had PTSD and she kept reliving the trauma and going back in her mind to what had happened to her in the prison in DRC, because she was so scared of being locked up again. But she has since been released and has received refugee status here and is now rebuilding her life.

How do these women go about proving their worthiness of asylum?

When people first arrive, they have a short screening interview where they give a few details of how they got into the country, who they are, the basics of their asylum case. They are then recalled for a substantive interview, which could go on for hours – and they can bring any evidence that they have of what has happened to them in their home country. But often, it’s very difficult for women to prove the persecution they have faced, because often it was unofficial, and even when it was official – when the government locks up a dissident, it’s not like they're going to give them documentation of their imprisonment.

Many of these women are escaping forced marriage, extreme violence in marriage, forced prostitution, FGM of themselves or their daughters – and they don’t have the documentation or witnesses. They may not want to get in contact with people back home. So it can be very difficult for women to prove what they have been through, and that in itself is very distressing. With cuts to legal aid as well here, they’re often not getting very good advice, so they don’t know what would be good evidence or what would be helpful to their case.

There was a lovely woman who has now been given refugee status who was persecuted for being a lesbian in Uganda. When she made her first claim, she didn’t disclose enough information about what had gone on because she didn’t really understand what would be relevant – she had a really poor lawyer who didn’t give her any useful advice. She was in Yarl’s Wood for a while, where she met other women who then helped her to find another lawyer. With that lawyer she was able to get evidence from Uganda because she had been imprisoned for taking part in a demonstration for gay rights, so she had some evidence to show.

If you’ve come from a very oppressive regime, and you’ve fled for your life, and then you finally get to this country – where you may not speak the language or you speak just a bit – and then you’re immediately interviewed by an official when you arrive about why you are here, you may not have the language or the confidence to talk about the details of the sexual violence you have experienced. Of what your husband did to you. And by the time women have plucked up the courage and gotten legal advice, it may be too late.

What do you offer women at the centre?

About 100 women come to us for English classes and yoga, and to our mums and toddlers group. It’s really just about friendship, support, being able to sit down with people who are thinking the same as you. Then there is lunch cooked by fellow refugees. It’s such a lovely atmosphere. We do other activities and employability courses in partnership with other groups. And then on Saturdays we have our drama groups and they’re hosted now by the Southbank Centre so the women go to the Royal Festival Hall to the rehearsal spaces, which is lovely. But they also write things and perform them publicly as well – they performed at the Women’s March.

Can you tell me about some of the women who come to the classes?

They are really on a journey... and I feel privileged, in a way, to meet them on that journey. There’s a lovely young woman who made the overland journey and stayed in Calais. She just got refugee status in the UK but she was homeless. She’s in her early 20s and she seemed so full of potential and the other day I asked where she was because I hadn’t seen her in a while, so somebody rang her, and she told them ‘I can’t come for the classes because I’m doing my Maths GCSE this term’. That is amazing! She’s integrated herself into the system so quickly. She did some workshops with us around women’s rights and how the political system works here and she was so enthused by it – by the idea of parliamentary democracy. She comes from Eritrea where it is so different. It’s so inspiring and you just think: she’s going to be a leader. We had this conference in March and she spoke on one of the panels with people who had worked in Calais and Greece and she was telling them: ‘It’s good that you provide food and clothes for us, but we want a system change.’ Over and over again, I am amazed by women like her who have been through everything, all of the shit the world has thrown at them and she's just like ‘I’m going to go and do my Maths GCSE now’, ‘I’m going to speak out for other women’. They are just so strong.

But there’s another woman who’s been coming to us for five or six years and she has had such a hard life, you can see it in her face. Recently she was in hospital and she came to the Monday session with a letter from her discharged hospital that she asked me to read because she couldn’t read it herself. And so I explained to her what was in it, and one thing that really struck me was that the letter said she was fine physically but the obvious issue was that she was low mentally, and that she lived a very isolated life, only leaving the house once a week to go to a women’s centre. She has been in the UK for quite a long time and she has not got much ahead of her.

How do you think Brexit has affected your work?

After Brexit, I don’t know about you, but it was almost like a physical shock for me. I didn’t realise people were feeling like that. Then it was such a relief to come to work, and to continue our work and to see more people come in to volunteer and to donate. Brexit – and Trump – have prompted a real rise in people saying ‘Actually, no, that is not the sort of person I want to be – I want to be the sort person who does see the dignity of other human beings'. The volunteers who come and work with us on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays are such amazing people; they’re professional journalists, university lecturers, they’re social workers and they’re making time in their lives just to give a hand to people in their community that need help.

How often do you publish research documents? And what effect do they have?

We’ve published four reports so far, two specifically about the women detained at Yarl's Wood. We showed that the majority of women in Yarl's Wood are survivors of sexual violence, so detention has a real impact on their mental health. And detention is unnecessary; most women who are detained after seeking asylum are not removed from the country but released back into the community. We really put that understanding on the agenda. We also found that if women were on suicide watch in detention they were being watched by male staff, even on the toilets, in bed, in the showers. That was something that had arisen before in women’s stories and the Home Office denied it ever happened. But now, after seeing the evidence, rather than saying it never happened, they said it’s not going to happen anymore. So now there are clear guidelines that state that male staff should not watch women on the suicide watch or go into their rooms without knocking. It's vital that women are treated with more dignity, but it's also vital that women are not detained in the first place!

So what can people do to help?

Volunteer and donate. We don’t actually take donations of ‘stuff’ but other refugees centres do, like the Notre Dame Refugee Centre. But if people want to support our work financially that’s amazing. There are always places to volunteer locally; there’s a lot that people can do in their own neighbourhoods in terms of making people feel welcome.

www.refugeewomen.co.uk

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Snapchat changed the game with its playful Lenses, which let anyone puke rainbows or transform themselves into Coachella-ready flower goddesses. Now, the app is introducing users to another major innovation that will put Snapchat on the map in a far more literal sense.

Snap Map, which debuts today, is an entirely new screen on Snapchat that shows you where your friends are, where the most Snaps are coming from at any given moment, and what's happening around the globe — in real time. This is not just Find My Friends 2.0.

"In a lot of ways, we're taking what a map is and turning it upside down," Jack Brody, a product designer at Snap, told Refinery29. "This map isn't about where am I, it's about where are my friends and what are they up to? It's not about figuring out how to get to your destination, but about discovering where you want to go."

When you open the updated app, you'll be walked through a series of onboarding steps which will show you how to get to Snap Map: From the main camera screen, simply pinch your fingers together, then the app will ask you to choose from among three visibility options. If you don't want your location to show up on screen, you can go into Ghost Mode. If you only want your location to be visible to select friends, choose those users. If you don't care which of your friends see you, you can select all.

The Snap Map itself looks like a more playful, Disney-fied version of Google Maps. It's populated with your friends' Bitmoji (if someone doesn't have a Bitmoji, an outline of a person will appear instead) showing where they are at any given time if they have the Snapchat app open. The app only updates a user's location on Snap Map when they open it.

While it's fun to see where friends are IRL, that information isn't as meaningful without a bit of context. The genius of the Map — in addition to showing you where your friends are — is that it also shows you where Snaps submitted to the collaborative "Our Story" are coming from. The more Snaps there are coming from one region, the more likely there's a special event, such as a big concert, or, a newsworthy moment occurring.

These moments are indicated by "heat" locations, spots of color on the map like the ones meteorologist use for weather forecasts. The redder a location is, the more Snaps there are coming from that spot. If a Beyoncé concert is happening, you'll probably see it on the heat map. There are also thumbnails featuring Stories that have been organised around a specific event or theme.

According to Brody, there's strong evidence that Snapchatters have been wanting a way to let friends know where they are via the app. "Interestingly, one of the habits we've seen with our users is that they'll take a snap where they are, put on the geofilter, and post it to their story with a caption like 'hit me up,'" Brody said. "They're basically saying come hang out with me here. Then, when they leave there they'll delete that from their story." With geolocations on the map, your friends will know if you're still at the beach, without you needing to update your Story.

Another benefit of the Map is if you see a friend is nearby an event, you can tap their Bitmoji to immediately start chatting with them to get all the details. "This is about layering relationships [with friends] on top of what is happening in the world," Brody explains. "It gives you more context on what your friend is up to. If I see a friend is at the Forum, I don't just see she's there. I see she's there and The Weeknd is performing. It triggers conversations that you wouldn't otherwise have had."

There is a playful purpose to Snap Map, but the tool also has the power to break news in the same way that Twitter does. On one of the first occasions that the Snapchat team tested out the Map function, in February 2016, a crane collapsed in New York. "Our Story" submissions immediately started popping up in Manhattan. According to Brody, these came in before police and media had even showed up on the scene.

"That was this moment of 'we have something here,'" Brody said. "We had newsworthy content 10 minutes before the first news company actually arrived."

In addition to breaking news, there's one more leisure element to the Map. Since you can look at Stories happening in any location around the world, you can use it to explore a potential vacation spot, do some travel planning, or just to satisfy your wanderlust from the office. While Snapchat Search, a feature launched earlier this year, does feature Stories from around the world, the Map provides an easier, and more visual, representation of where these Stories are coming from.

"There's definitely the aspect of where are my friends and what's happening around them, but then there's a greater aspect of what's happening globally," Brody told Refinery29. "There's something really powerful about seeing the diversity, but also the similarity of snaps around the world."

The Snap Map update will begin rolling out to both iOS and Android today. Head here for a detailed guide on how to use the Map to the fullest.

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It's hot outside, but things are looking icy in Westeros. Or, as HBO puts it in the tagline for the second full-length Game of Thrones season 7 trailer, "It may be the first day of summer, but #WinterisHere." Indeed it is.

A second two-minute trailer for the upcoming season of GOT dropped on Wednesday, to the shrieking delight of fans everywhere. And it's marvellous. We get a little bit of everything in this gorgeously edited sneak peek at all the action to come: Sansa being a badass; the Night King being evil as hell; Brienne and Podrick being the best duo ever; Arya crossing names off her list (hopefully); Jon Snow getting ready to kick some ass at the Wall; Grey Worm and Missandei making out; Petyr Baelish being a sneaky little shit; and much, much more.

Here's a rundown of the rest of the highlights. Watch the whole trailer for yourself, below.

- Winter is really, really here. That means White Walkers, which we're thrilled to see after being deprived of them in the first teaser. (It appears HBO heard our cries.)

- The Great War is also here. As Littlefinger tells Sansa, "Don't fight in the North or the South. Fight every battle everywhere. Always. In your mind." Damn, been reading Genghis Khan much, dude?

- Beric Dondarrion has a shiny new toy. We were right: Beric is back. The one-eyed the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners (you know, the one who never seems to actually die) is toting a flaming sword now.

- There's a Ned Stark homage. At the end of the trailer, Sansa speaks her late father's words, which he once spoke to Arya: "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." In simple terms: "United we stand, divided we fall."

- The music choice is on point. If it sounds familiar, that's because it's the same piece from the finale where Cersei blew up the sept. Epic shit. Does this mean someone (cough, cough, Sansa) is going to make a similarly earth-shattering power move?

- Daenerys is in Dragonstone. Arrival, confirmed. We see her looking fiercely contemplative at the island fortress once held by her Targaryen ancestry. We also see a giant-ass fleet of her warships moving across the sea.

- There are DRAGONS. Because you can't have White Walkers without dragons. And here they are in fine form, burning shit down as per Mother's orders.

- Jon Snow is making the North get its shit together. We see him leading troops into a snowy battle up north, possibly against the White Walkers. He tells his hopeful comrades in arms (whoever they're all fighting against): "For centuries our families fought together, against their common enemy. Despite their differences, together. We need to do the same if we're going to survive, because the enemy is real. It's always been real."

Game of Thrones season 7 premieres July 17 on SKY.

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After love and marriage, there usually comes a honeymoon. But more and more people are doing things a little out of order and taking a break from the stress (and strife) of wedding planning and opting to get away before the ceremony. Enter: the earlymoon.

Condé Nast Traveler reports that the phenomenon of jetting off before the actual wedding is becoming more and more popular with couples.

The magazine notes that Pippa Middleton may have started the trend by taking a jaunt to St. Barts before her May wedding. It Girl DJ and wellness guru Hannah Bronfman took a similar break by stopping at a spa in Spain with her then-fiancé Brendan Fallis before they said "I do."

It sounds like the perfect way to get away from the fervent activity that comes with the lead-up to a wedding. After cake tastings, dress fittings, guest lists, seating charts, florists, and bachelor-bachelorette parties, couple can sometimes feel alienated from one another while they're planning the ceremony that's supposed to bring them together.

"I often find with my couples that the wedding date becomes a deadline for perfecting everything in your life, not just your food, flowers, and guest lists. Many couples choose to buy a house and move at the same time they're planning a wedding," Amy Shey Jacobs, a NY-based wedding planner, told CNT. "So, I often plan a mini vacation for them before the wedding to unplug and reconnect."

Anyone planning a wedding can probably relate to the desire to drop it all for a few days, but may also think that it's a little bit unrealistic to escape during crunch time. After all, not every couple has a royal planner to keep things running smoothly. Jacobs has some advice for any couples looking to give the earlymoon a shot. It's all about timing.

"Go away before the invites go out," she explains. "Many of the big decisions and stressful moments happen at the two month out mark, when the invites go out. So, if you really want to get away, take a pause on planning before this time. You'll be recharged and ready to tackle the big decisions when you return."

That buffer lets couples deal with any last-minute changes and final prep work. Jacobs adds that getting away should be just that, so couples should plan on disconnecting, not answering wedding-related emails from a beachside cabana. Unplug and really get away to ensure that an earlymoon is a real respite and not merely a change of geography.

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On Sunday, Muslim teen Nabra Hassanen was assaulted and murdered after leaving her mosque in Virginia. The following day, a suspected terror attack on a London mosque rocked the city's Muslim community and provided a heartbreaking reminder that Muslims, especially women, are at a tremendous risk of violence.

Yesterday morning, a makeshift memorial for Hassanen in Washington, D.C. was set on fire at approximately 8:30 a.m. local time. According to district police, a 24-year-old South Carolina man was detained for the incident.

Dupont was one of several neighbourhoods across the country that held vigils for Hassanen, whose body was found in a pond last weekend. Darwin Martinez Torres, 22, has been charged with the teen's murder but authorities maintain the killing was a result of "road rage" and was not a hate crime.

“Nothing indicates that this was motivated by race or by religion. It appears the suspect became so enraged over this traffic argument that it escalated into deadly violence,” Fairfax County police spokeswoman Julie Parker stated at a news conference.

The Muslim American community is understandably skeptical about this conclusion. According to the victim's family, Hassanen was wearing a Muslim head covering and a loose Islamic robe when she was abducted.

“Road rage. Indeed. If you think for a minute that her appearance had nothing to do with this crime, you’re lying to yourself,” tweeted attorney Rabia Chaudry, a prominent Muslim activist in the D.C. suburbs.

Road rage. Indeed.
If you think for a minute that her appearance had nothing to do with this crime, you're lying to yourself. pic.twitter.com/zIo0YiVjjK

— rabia chaudry (@rabiasquared) June 19, 2017

Now, police say the fire at Hassanen's memorial wasn't a hate crime either. A spokeswoman for US Park Police told The Huffington Post that “the memorial does not appear to have been specifically targeted.” However, a video posted by Fox5 DC shows charred flowers and what looks like a burned painting.

The suspect was released from custody today and a court date has been scheduled.

Meanwhile, there's mounting frustration and anger that neither Hassanen's murder nor the desecration of her memorial are being treated as hate crimes.

Is this "road rage" too? #Nabra #JusticeForNabra #NabraHassanen https://t.co/NCPXvRaexg

— AZMIA (@AZMIAakaMIA) June 21, 2017

This is shocking, disgraceful anti-Muslim #bigotry and it has to end. May #NabraHassanen rest in peace. https://t.co/CsySZoxw6n

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) June 21, 2017

Police call it road rage, but Nabra Hassanen was kidnapped on the way to mosque, murdered, possibly raped. And her memorial was set on fire.

— Laila Lalami (@LailaLalami) June 21, 2017

“We are saddened to hear reports that a memorial site for Nabra may have been set on fire,” the civil rights group Muslim Advocates said in a statement released today. “The idea that this could happen while her family and friends are mourning her loss, and memorials are held across the country is appalling. This is a sordid reminder that hate is thriving in our nation.”

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A post shared by Glastonbury Festival (@glastofest) on Jun 24, 2016 at 6:15am PDT

Glastonbury is right around the corner and if you’re lucky enough to have a ticket, congratulations – you're about to have the time of your life. Secondly, how’s the planning and prepping going? If you're anything like us you'll be leaving everything to the last minute...

Whether you’re a first-timer or a festival veteran, it’s worth having the the lowdown on parking, where to camp, the dreaded toilet situation and, most importantly, where to get a drink in the quickest possible time. As we all know, Glastonbury, held on Worthy Farm in Somerset, is one of the world’s most iconic festivals, so it pays to know your Pennard Hill from your Pyramid Stage and your Other Stage from your Oxlyers.

Where to park

If you’re not getting there by coach or train, as many festival-goers choose to, you may have made the brave but understandable decision to drive (it means you get to bring more stuff, after all). The car parks open at 9pm on the Tuesday night before the festival and there are four main entrances for cars. The one you use depends on the direction you’re coming from, rather than where you’ve pitched your tent (more on that shortly).

Unsurprisingly, most people want to park as near to pedestrian entrances as possible (after an early start and a long car journey, the last thing you want to be doing is lugging a tonne’s worth of camping gear for several miles in the mud). Unfortunately, though, where you park is largely down to luck. You can choose which direction of the site you approach from (approach from the side you want to park: map here), but the stewards will direct you to a parking field. Some of the car parks are over half a kilometer from the site and, depending on which camp sites are full by the time you get there, you could end up dragging your belongings much further. Soz.

It’s also worth avoiding arriving by car between 7am and 2pm on the Wednesday. If you’re stuck in the A39 queue it can take many hours to get in. Double soz. If you do end up getting stuck in traffic, though, you can always get your brows and/or makeup done at Benefit's drive-thru beauty bar, GlastonBrow. The brand is offering free festival-essential products and brow waxes on Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd on the June A37 Fosse Way. Look out for a glistening pink beacon amid the sea of traffic.

Where to camp

A heated topic, this. No one wants to be left panic-printing a map of the camping site on the morning before you leave, so have a campsite of choice – and a backup (or two) – in mind beforehand. Good camping spots are like gold dust at Glastonbury and while having a decent one isn’t crucial to having a great time, it makes a lot of difference. Arriving on the Wednesday is crucial if you want a good one (unless your kind-hearted mates are saving you a spot).

These are some of the the most popular:

Pennard Hill – The busiest and it fills up shortly after the gates open on Wednesday morning. It’s on a hill so usually stays dry and is well located near the main stage, but it acts as a thoroughfare so can get pretty noisy at night. A good site for party animals.

Row Mead – Also on a hill, so another good one for avoiding flooding. It overlooks the Pyramid Stage, too, making it an ideal site if you’re lazy. It’s also very popular and fills up fast.

Big Ground – Like Row Mead, Big Ground is also spitting distance from the Pyramid Stage. It’s also home to the site’s only flushing toilets. This may sound like NBD right now, but once you’ve seen (and smelled!) the long drops, they’ll sound more appealing than a spa day.

Hitchin Hill – Along with Wicket Ground and Lime Kiln Ground, Hitchin Hill Ground is one of the smaller and quieter sites. They’re found in the north-west corner of the site and close to the bus and coach station – ideal for making a hasty exit on Monday morning. They’re far away from the action, though, particularly Shangri-La, which you won’t want to miss.

Oxlyers – Not for anyone who’s planning on sleeping. Oxlyers is central (between the Silver Hayes dance area and the Other Stage), but is the lowest lying campsite. Expect to find a sodden sleeping bag when you get back from a rainy night of raving.

A post shared by Glastonbury Festival (@glastofest) on Jun 25, 2016 at 4:43am PDT

Showers

Many, if not most, Glastonbury-goers last the whole festival without showering at all – wet wipes and dry shampoo are your friends. But if you don’t want to fully embrace the festival lifestyle and CBA to bring a portable shower, you have options. There are showers at the bottom of the Kidzfield and in the Greenpeace field but expect to queue for ages, particularly between about 8am and lunchtime. Either get up at the crack of dawn, which won’t seem very appealing after a big night, or have an early evening shower.

Toilets

After the first few days, you’ll have to embrace a certain amount of grossness, but make the experience less stomach-churning by walking to loos a little further out rather than queueing at the busiest (this is often quicker anyway). Aim to use the toilet furthest from the path, too. The composting toilets are your best bet for avoiding nasty smells – just do your thing and sprinkle the sawdust provided. There are also four “Sheepee” sites, aka female urinals, which make for a very swift wee and a... unique experience.

A post shared by Glastonbury Festival (@glastofest) on Sep 12, 2016 at 6:59am PDT

Food

There’s a plethora of cuisines available, so this is obviously subjective, but certain food stalls crop up time and again in people’s recommendations. The festival is heaven for veggies and vegans (there’s a list of options here), and Manic Organic is always mentioned as a highlight – find it between the Avalon and Greenpeace fields and expect hearty portions. The falafel at Goodness Gracious Healthy Foods is life-changing, The Parsnipship makes delicious and interesting food, and head to the Hare Krishna tent for free, healthy meals.

Omnivores rave about the Goan Seafood Company for its fish curries, Le Grand Bouffe for its tartiflette, Le Rac Shack for its Alpine-style cheesy goodness, Anna Mae's Mac N Cheese, Voodoo Rays for its 22-inch pizzas and Square Pie for its stodgy comfort food. People also recommend the Green Futures farmers’ market.

If you want to save some cash and don’t fancy buying every meal, bring food that doesn’t require cooking, plates or cutlery. Fruit, cereal bars, crackers, crisps and biscuits work well. The same goes for alcohol – day and night drinking quickly gets expensive if you’re relying on bars, so stock up at a supermarket beforehand (preferably not on your way to the festival, as this will mean you arrive later).

Just make sure nothing needs refrigerating and remember to decant everything into PLASTIC bottles before (glass is confiscated at the entrance). During the day, you'll often spot hardcore drinkers wandering around with liquid refillable backpacks, which remove the risk of spillage but greatly enhance the prospect of looking like a dweeb.

A post shared by Glastonbury Festival (@glastofest) on Apr 10, 2017 at 3:41am PDT

Bars

There are countless bars, but some are more interesting and less well-known than others and so are worth checking out. The Underground Piano Bar is no longer a secret but is still pretty special (and still can't be found on any maps) and The Rabbit Hole is weird, wonderful and hosts bands, although the queue can be long. Other favourites include The Beat Hotel, the iconic Cider Bus, the rustic Cockmill bar, the grand Avalon Inn, the idyllic Spike bar in the Glade area, and the hippy-dippy Bimble Inn.

After hours, popular hangouts include the dystopic and bizarre Shangri-La (expect a massive queue, as people often go straight there after the headliners finish), Block9 for underground dance music (also very busy), the Unfairground for subversive art and music, and the unmissable Arcadia. Strummerville was magical last year, too.

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Tomorrow, Sofia Coppola's latest feature The Beguiled will go on general release at what feels like the right time. Though gender representation in film remains off-balance, this month alone, Coppola's female-centric Southern gothic, starring Colin Farrell as a wounded Union soldier who unwisely attempts to seduce the women of an all-girls boarding school (including Nicole Kidman and Kirsten Dunst) as they nurse him back to health during the American Civil War, arrives on the heels of record-breaking feminist superhero movie Wonder Woman and flip-the-script women-behaving-badly comedy Rough Night. Those two films were rare – movies about women with sizeable budgets – but Coppola’s appears set to be something perhaps even rarer: a remake due more approval than its predecessor.

Coppola’s The Beguiled already has significant buzz and a Best Director award from Cannes, while the film that inspired it, a feminist statement made decades before such things were in vogue, flopped and has for years been somewhat forgotten. In 1971, the year of Don Siegel’s original The Beguiled, the biggest movies on release included A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs and Get Carter, all of which boast male-majority casts and feature the sexual abuse and torture of women as a means to progress plot. At this time, American studios were making more adult, thoughtful and downright experimental movies than ever before, but their boundary-stretching boldness rarely extended to matters of gender.

In 1971, cinema icons looked like Bond, Shaft and 'Dirty' Harry Callahan, brutish gunslingers with a taste for women physically and little more. The Beguiled somehow jostled its way into this world, sprung from an unlikely source. Siegel, along with star and monolith of masculinity Clint Eastwood – taking the McBurney role – delivered this picture of outrageous feminism the same year they unleashed their most macho movie, Dirty Harry, after they’d both spent careers producing features about near-parodically butch men. The Beguiled ’s own studio didn't trust that audiences at the time would get it. The promo poster features Eastwood brandishing a gun in classically dominant and heroic fashion, where the movie in reality emasculates him, transfers power to its female characters before the credits and acts as a searing deconstruction of cinematic gender roles.

From the off, we're lured into a trap. Siegel wants to wrongfoot us: A character who looks and talks like Corporal McBurney – charming, all-American handsome and always ready with the right honeyed words – is reliably the good guy, and Eastwood in this period represented a kind of throwback hero, ever-righteous and immeasurably desirable. In Play Misty for Me, Eastwood's directorial debut which came out the same year as The Beguiled, women are attracted to Eastwood's radio DJ character, to the point of violent obsession. In Eastwood's biggest hit of '71, Dirty Harry, women are disposable – either victims or sexual objects.

Those films' two lead characters, Dave Garver and Harry Callahan, are very different but they share a casual misogyny not uncommon in cinema’s male heroes at that time. Corporal McBurney of The Beguiled shares it too, but where Play Misty for Me and Dirty Harry condone such behaviour as male gaze movies, The Beguiled is viewed largely through the eyes of its women, and what they see in their film’s wannabe lead isn’t pretty. Matron Miss Martha (Geraldine Page) and her Mississippi belles, though initially attracted to the man they bring into their home out of compassion, ultimately come to view McBurney as despicable, a figure with primitive attitudes towards women, who we see in flashbacks mercilessly murdering Confederate soldiers and torching the Southern countryside.

This film suggests man is to be reviled for his macho qualities, not admired. Siegel’s uneasy gothic chamber piece reveals itself as a horror with a twist: whereas horror movies inspire revulsion, The Beguiled is constructed in such a way that we welcome our nominal protagonist's grisly comeuppance. In this film, the women display strength by robbing the male 'hero' of his, the aggressive, philandering 'man’s man' character meeting resistance when the usual male-heavy environment of early '70s cinema is swapped out for a group of women with actual agency. The eventual revenge on Eastwood's entitled hunk by the women of the Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies is depicted with such a delicious irony, it feels like the payback of every female character who was ever just eye candy to the viewer, a floozy for the hero to bed or a faithful stay-at-home partner left to ponder the movie on the sidelines.

Siegel’s The Beguiled opens with a montage of real Civil War photography, of men and their war toys, men in their death throes, massacred male bodies. It's clear that this is a man's world, and men have made a doggone mess of it. At the climax, the real protagonists of Siegel's film returning to a state of peace means closing the gates to foreign and friendly soldiers alike, and shutting out men from this idyllic space altogether. How much Sofia Coppola's remake will mirror Siegel’s movie remains to be seen, but there will be one major difference between the versions. Coppola's film has arrived at a time when there's healthy conversation around and analysis of a woman's role in cinema, but back in 1971, a film in which an all-female cast of characters forcibly took over the show and symbolically castrated the male for his ingrained misogyny must have seemed singularly radical.

The Beguiled is released in UK cinemas on 23rd June

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Diane von Furstenberg may have gained fame and following for her wrap dresses but it was actually renowned British designer Charles James who created the first wrap dress, way back in 1932. While James was known for his exquisite couture dressmaking for the likes of Marlene Dietrich, his wrap dress was a sartorial innovation. The designer, who inspired the theme for the 2014 Met Gala, called it his "Taxi Dress" because he intended the piece to be so easy that you could get dressed in the taxi on your way to a big event (fashion that considers practicality is the best kind, non?).

Diane von Furstenberg modernised the shape, of course, introducing it to a whole new audience in 1974. Her jersey wrap dress was worn by Studio 54-goers, the Park Avenue set and bohemians alike, with the flattering shape and varied prints surging in popularity. However, over the past decade or so, the wrap dress has been seen as slightly dated, banished to the back of wardrobes and replaced by more contemporary shapes. That is, until the catwalks of SS17 ushered in a 21st-century refresh.

Etro showed graphic monochrome dresses belted at the waist, Balmain presented sheer sparkly minis, and Topshop Unique gave the '80s suit dress a halter-neck wrap dress update. Emilio Pucci and Versace showed wraps that were low-slung on the hips, while Victoria Beckham and Bottega Veneta paid homage to '50s English tea dresses with chintzy florals. Now, the high street has followed suit, with the wrap dress taking its rightful place as your ultimate summer piece.

Click through to see the wear-anywhere shapes that'll see you from the office to the beach, the taxi to the bar.

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That 3pm slump is all too familiar (restlessness, a dullness to your skin, maybe reaching for your third coffee of the day...) but come summer, the heat can make it even worse. If you're looking for a revitalising and refreshing solution, add a facial mist to your bag.

Doubling up as a toner, the latest products include a lot of added benefits: SPF, pollution protection, even decongesting agents. So while your skin is getting a spritz of moisture, you can tackle the heat and the city, too.

Ideal for holidays (when traipsing round European cities can leave you tired), post-exercise or just to keep in your office desk drawer, these are the face mists we're repping this summer – without a makeup smudge in sight.

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Former residents of Grenfell Tower are calling on visitors to stop taking selfies in front of the blackened building, an act many are calling "grief tourism".

A number of signs have been placed near what remains of the tower, urging people to "stop taking pictures please" and "stop taking selfies", with another reminding them that "Grenfell [is] a tragedy, not a tourist attraction".

It's alleged that people have been taking photos of themselves with the 24-storey tower's charred remains without paying their respects to the 79 people confirmed to have died in last week's fire or volunteering to help the survivors.

“You don’t want to confront them because it’s all so sensitive but it gets to the stage you have so much upset and rage you just want to slap the phone out of their hands,” Wayne Kilo Lewis, who lived in the block attached to Grenfell for nearly three decades, told the Independent.

“It’s a disgusting sight which people who are trying to grieve do not want to see or ought to see. All the years in and out of that tower block, I could not physically stand there and look at the building because it was too overwhelming and emotional imagining the people trying to escape, and then people around you are having a laugh.”

#GrenfellTower

This sign placed under the Westway this morning. Its kind of depressing that this even needs to be said.#Selfies pic.twitter.com/lNOU9SEJxL

— Guy Smallman (@GuySmallman) June 18, 2017

Natasha Gordon, a Londoner whose family and friends lived in the tower, told CNN she had seen "loads [of people]... taking this as a party, disrespectfully coming to take photos without even so much as leaving flowers or a card."

Many on social media have also called the selfie-takers' actions disgraceful, with one person saying they "need to think less about themselves and more about that community".

People taking selfies near the Grenfell tower block are a disgrace. They need to think less about themselves and more about that community.

— Peter_Kirby30 (@PeterDavidKirby) June 18, 2017

Others said they saw people taking selfies with the tower while the fire was still ravaging it last week.

From day one, walking through West, I saw a ton of rich people taking selfies & Instagram pics of #GrenfellTower while it WAS STILL BURNING.

— Scully (@isthatscully) June 21, 2017

Yesterday the government announced that 68 luxury flats in the heart of Kensington would be given to those left homeless by the fire in the coming months.

This morning, Theresa May said around 600 high-rise tower blocks around the country are using similar hazardous cladding to Grenfell Tower, with a spokeswoman for the prime minister insisting it was a "matter of absolute urgency" to tell residents, reported the BBC.

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Netflix released the trailer for To The Bone earlier this week, its upcoming comedy drama about a young woman with anorexia, and many have accused the streaming service of glamorising eating disorders.

The trailer shows protagonist Ellen, played by Lily Collins, who has spoken about her own struggle with anorexia as a teenager, smiling triumphantly after counting calories, compulsively exercising and fainting, before reluctantly entering a treatment programme.

Many on social media said it made them concerned about how the disorder will be portrayed in the film, with some suggesting it could be triggering for vulnerable viewers and may romanticise mental illness.

IF U HAVE ANY TRIGGERS ATTACHED TO FOOD/ED DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THE NETFLIX SERIES "TO THE BONE"

— jenni (@Jenn1Monahan) June 20, 2017

just romanticize mental illnesses??? i'm so fucking angry i don't want suicide/depression/eating disorders to be some kind of tragic love -

— her (@mattyspinkwoman) June 21, 2017

u can already tell to the bone is gonna be another show romanticising mental illness and be dangerous for those who have eating disorders

— lana 🌹 (@alanna_samuel) June 20, 2017

Netflix's 'to the bone' is just a massive trigger to anyone with mental health problems or any form of eating disorder, it is not helpful

— morgan (@mxrganmc) June 20, 2017

To the Bone: When I was 13 and my ED was beginning, I watched every clip of anorexia depicted in every tv show/movie I could find. (1/10)

— tay (@bwaybabytay) June 21, 2017

i can see what netflix are trying to do with To The Bone but i can see it causing more harm than good

— nic (@circasIaves) June 20, 2017

To The Bone looks exactly like the thinspo I used to consume, but so does almost every piece of media on or about anorexia.

— Witch Hazel 🐀 (@HazelMonforton) June 22, 2017

The critics have been somewhat vindicated by the fact that many anorexia sufferers and pro-anorexia websites and social media accounts have already described To The Bone as "thinspiration". "I really wanna talk down on To The Bone, but honestly, Lily Collins looks so freaking good in it, I'm just using it as thinspo," one person wrote (which we're not going to link to for obvious reasons).

Some also accused Netflix of being irresponsible for making a recovered anorexia sufferer lose weight for a role.

to the bone is a whole mess but first up why the fuck would you have an ex-anorexia sufferer lose loads of weight for a role

— marianne eloise (@marianne_eloise) June 21, 2017

Not everyone was offended by it, however. Some said the criticism was overblown considering the film was made by people with experience of eating disorders, and the fact that no one's even seen the film in full yet, and they hoped To The Bone would portray mental health responsibly.

To The Bone was written by a woman who was anorexic & stars Lily Collins who overcame ED. This is NOT a 13rw case. pic.twitter.com/EKoEY9iGko

— Ariel (@fIoraIprints) June 20, 2017

to the bone isn't gonna be accurate for everyone but it is for me and lily and marti n saying it's Bad invalidates ppl's Real experiences

— tones pine 👓 (@CPlNES) June 21, 2017

before y'all go off about to the bone maybe do your research it's written and directed by someone who had an eating disorder

— n | was rhaegardied (@JEONSBEGlN) June 20, 2017

Some suggested the film should be praised for bringing attention to mental illness.

people with no mental illness: we need mental illness rep!!!
to the bone: hello
people: omg ur glorifying mental illness get out

— heroin chic (@raskolnovich) June 20, 2017

If the two-minute trailer has triggered such a reaction, it seems likely the full-length film will cause even more of a debate when it is released.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, please call Beat on 0345 634 1414. Support and information is available 365 days a year.

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Any self-respecting Londoner has a long list of sights visitors HAVE to see. Hyde Park, The Barbican Centre, St Paul's Cathedral – London is chock-full of places we love. So why do we insist on spending our nights out in basements? We appreciate a dive bar, dingy pub or underground club as much as anyone, but there have to be better things than the walls to stare at while we eat.

Some outings are endlessly improved by a view across our favourite city. Across London there are restaurants and bars offering stellar sights, as well as fine food and expertly mixed drinks.

Click through to see our favourite table-side vistas...

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Eating disorders during pregnancy are rarely discussed at OB appointments, but they’re not uncommon (a 2014 Norwegian review of studies surrounding women and eating disorders found that eating disorders in pregnancy are “relatively common” and may cause health risks for both mother and baby; some experts hypothesise one in 20 women suffer an eating disorder while pregnant). Bottom line: They should definitely be a topic of conversation between patients and health care providers, especially if a pregnant person has a history of disordered eating. “For women who have struggled with eating disorders in the past, a pregnancy is a time when special attention should be paid to their psychological wellbeing and physical health. Seeking support during this time may be wise,” says Ovidio Bermudez, MD, a psychiatrist and Chief Clinical Officer at Eating Recovery Centre , an eating disorder treatment centre in Denver, CO.

And the postpartum period is one where a new parent can be equally vulnerable: Stress, exhaustion, and pressure to bounce back to a pre-baby weight can all exacerbate disordered eating behaviour, even if the person hasn’t exhibited symptoms in years. But what’s particularly worrisome, says Bermudez, is the fact that many mums may hide their eating disorder because they’re ashamed. “A woman may feel like she’s not a good mum because she’s struggling, when it’s an illness, it’s something bigger than her and has nothing to do with her self-control or her parenting skills,” says Bermudez. That’s why it’s crucial to get help from an expert. If you are struggling with an eating disorder, please call Beat on 0345 634 1414. Support and information is available 365 days a year. Here, writer Anna Davies shares how disordered eating became an issue when her daughter was six months old.

I walked into the elevator of the office building of my new job, bracing myself for comments and hoping my put-together outfit — sleek black dress, chunky gold necklace and four-inch heels — would distract from the bruise blooming around my black eye.

But I could tell, from the sidelong glances given to me by other people in the elevator, that it hadn’t. By the time I got to my desk, I’d crafted a story.

“Lucy kicked me in bed,” I said, referencing my seven-month-old daughter. My coworkers laughed — I worked at a company that made baby products, there were plenty of other parents on staff: They got it.

It wasn’t the truth. The truth is, I had given the black eye to myself. I had made myself throw up that morning, and the force of the vomiting had caused blood vessels in my eyelids to rupture. I learned that from the ophthalmologist I visited the next day, who had asked me if I’d recently had a bout of the flu. I lied and said yes.

But I knew my eye was the least of my problems. I was anxious and stressed and exhausted as a single new mum, and, to cope, I’d been purging in the bathroom. I would do it while my daughter was in her crib, running the shower so she couldn’t hear. I felt guilty doing it as a parent — after all, the last thing I wanted was to model disordered eating for my daughter as she grew older — but I couldn’t stop.

I had been dealing with disordered eating since I was in my late teens, and by my 20s I was purging multiple times a week. I tried seeing a few therapists but none was the right fit, and I was surprised at the lack of knowledge that some of the therapists I confided in seemed to have about disordered eating patterns (one told me it “wasn’t like I was that skinny, anyway,” and another tried to psychoanalyse my purging patterns, convinced it had something to do with my relationship with my mother). I tried to manage my disordered eating on my own, and by the time I was 28 and training for a marathon, I stopped completely because I was afraid of the ramifications purging, combined with heavy exercise, would have on my body. As I became more interested in training for different races and trying workout challenges, I began to develop a more positive relationship with my body. By the time I was 30, I was convinced that my purging days were behind me.

And then I got pregnant. I was worried that my disordered eating might become a problem as my body changed, and I tried to bring up the topic with my OB. On the first office visit, I told her I didn’t want to see my weight. While she was okay with letting me look away from the displayed number, over time, it was clear she didn’t understand that my request came from a deeper place than vanity. One time, in my second trimester, she scolded me for gaining seven pounds. I burst into tears on the exam table — the only time during my pregnancy I cried.

The truth is, I had given the black eye to myself.

“It’s okay, I know how it feels,” she said, awkwardly trying to console me, even though I was pretty sure she didn’t understand at all. All I wanted to do was run to the bathroom and vomit. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that it wasn’t just my body anymore.

I was too afraid to ask my OB for a referral for a therapist; as a single mum, I already felt like I was under so much scrutiny. I didn't want my OB to think I couldn’t handle the challenge.

I didn’t purge during my pregnancy. It wasn’t until my daughter, Lucy, was six months old that I felt the urge again. And while I wasn’t 100% satisfied with my post-baby body, the urge was anchored in so much more than body image. I liked the control I felt when I purged; liked the feeling of an empty stomach. I never binged, my purges could occur after any meal or no meal at all. I was stressed about making money, stressed about finding a job, stressed about being a good parent, and purging felt, weirdly, like a form of self-care. It was something that could make me feel better, fast.

But when I got the black eye, I realised things needed to change. This time, I was very careful about which therapist I decided to work with. Before, anyone who took my insurance and worked within a five-block radius of my office was fine. This time, I asked other new mums for recommendations for therapists who specialised in postnatal depression or postnatal anxiety; while I wasn’t sure I had either, it was imperative the therapist I spoke with had extensive experience with new mums. Once I had a few recommendations, I asked about their eating disorder expertise: I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop purging right away, and I wanted to make sure that a therapist I worked with would help me figure out a way to stop that wouldn’t feel overwhelming. I also wanted a therapist to understand the pressure I put on myself — that I already felt so guilty for purging; I needed to feel like someone was in my corner.

Eventually, I found someone. Instead of focusing on not purging, I began focusing on the stressors in my life. One of the huge ones was my job — I began looking for new positions and left that one after a few months. I also had been putting a ton of pressure on myself to do everything perfectly. I didn’t want people to think I was struggling as a single mum, so I tried my hardest to make it look like everything was easy to me — even if it wasn’t. For example, one time, when my new mum friends and I planned a potluck barbecue, instead of offering to pick up napkins or tableware, I volunteered to bring desserts. I made five desserts that day while my daughter played in the kitchen, all for the I could never do what you do compliments.

And that was the biggest takeaway from therapy: That I didn’t need to prove myself, and that every parent — single, married, whatever — needs help sometimes. I began asking friends to watch Lucy, stopped trying to be Supermum when it came time to plan the playdates, and also confided in my friends when I was feeling anxious or stressed out.

Now, Lucy is two, and I’m so much better than I was. I don’t see a therapist anymore, and I feel so much happier and at ease than I was that winter morning a year and a half ago. But I’m not “cured”. I’m very sensitive to conversations surrounding weight. Discussions of losing the baby weight make me so angry; an innocuous message from a friend-of-a-friend asking me if I’m interested in her weight-loss coaching because she “specialises in new mums” led me to fire back an angry diatribe, explaining just how many new mums might be triggered by that type of language. I think eating will always be a fragile topic for me, and I know that if I do feel like I want to purge, it’s a sign I may need to check in with my therapist and figure out what’s out of whack with my life.

I’m also open about just how hard all of this was to navigate, because I wish I had known back then that I wasn’t alone, that new parenthood can bring up issues you thought were in your past, and that part of being a great parent is knowing when to ask for help.

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There’s this weird thing that a lot of us do when we find ourselves at the end of a relationship. We’ll be out with friends, sifting through the rubble of the breakup, and say something along the lines of this: That relationship taught me so much about myself. It’s like a consolation prize we give ourselves in order to feel like the relationship wasn’t a complete waste of time. And many times, that sentiment is true. You do learn things from relationships, whether it’s that you can’t date someone who doesn’t want children, or that you can’t stand being with a person who is always late.

But this past winter, as I realised that 2017 would mark three years since I’d been in a “serious” relationship, I started to question whether or not I was learning things about myself. Sure, I’ve learned things about “single Maria” — like she loves yoga, digs a Saturday by herself in the park, and isn’t afraid to take herself out to dinner.

But I wasn’t in a relationship, so I wasn’t learning about myself in relationships. I took this to mean that I was doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again. And I do have very specific patterns when it comes to romantic partners. Since I was always convinced that being with a terrible guy was better than being alone, I’d explain away bad behaviour in order to make myself comfortable. I’d stay in bad relationships, even when the little voice in my head was screaming at me to get the fuck out of there, Maria!The spine that I’d spent so much of my single person life developing would turn into jelly the second I met a guy with a sleeve tattoo who owned a cast iron skillet and a record player.

Then, back in February, I started talking to Jude*, a guy who I felt was way different from any of the men I used to date. He was upfront and honest about what he wanted, and he never played mind games with me. There were so many times when I expected him to act in a certain, shitty way — because that’s the way all of my exes would act — only to have him turn around and behave in the normal, sane way I never expected. It was nice, and we settled into that “we’re seeing one another but aren’t in a relationship ” situation quite well. And I found myself maintaining my spine: I wasn’t afraid to tell him exactly what I needed or wanted, and he seemed very receptive to it all.

After a few weeks, though, shit hit the fan, and I found myself repeating a mistake I’d always made: explaining the bad things away, and pretending I was okay with them. Did I care that Jude had had lunch with his ex-girlfriend the week my grandmother died and he was taking care of me? Of course not! How lovely was it that he was still on decent terms with his ex. How about the fact that he refused to spend time with me on Saturdays, because that was his “guy night,” even if he’d already spent Friday with the guys? I couldn’t be mad at that! He wasn’t my boyfriend, and doesn’t every guy deserve a night out with the boys?

The spine that I’d spent so much of my single person life developing would turn into jelly the second I met a guy with a sleeve tattoo who owned a cast iron skillet and a record player.

In the back of my head, I knew that all of these things were red flags. I knew that Jude would inevitably do something that would really test my resolve, and I was terrified that I wasn’t going to be able to walk away when he did. I’d get into long conversations with my friends and my mother in which I’d justify all of my behaviour, but then show some righteous anger in order to make them feel like I hadn’t (once again) lost my spine. “If he pulls this shit again, I’m walking!” I’d declare. But on the inside, I wasn’t so sure.

And then, one night, Jude invited me over for tacos and proceeded to tell me he’d slept with someone else two days before — after he and I hadn’t been intimate for a couple of weeks. I lost it. I started screaming, which made him cry, which then made me cry, which made the whole situation incredibly confusing. We both laid our shit bare for an hour, after which he begged me to stay the night so that we could just figure this out. Maybe it will be better in the morning, I thought. So I sat down at his breakfast bar and watched him plate tacos for us. But the voice in my head was screaming at me to get the fuck out of there, Maria. And this time, for whatever reason, I listened to it. I quietly packed up my things as he watched, told him I had to go, cried into his chest, felt my resolve waver, but then walked out the door.

In the cab home, I cried on the phone to my mother, telling her everything that went down. “But, this time, I left,” I told her. As I said those words, I realised that I had, in fact, learned something about relationships, even though I wasn’t actually in one. Living without a partner for as long as I have been has showed me that being single actually doesn’t suck so much. Do I get a twinge of sadness when it seems like everyone in my family is either getting engaged, married, or pregnant? Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. But that no longer hurts so badly that it makes me want to stay in a bad relationship. That’s a lesson in and of itself — and it’s one I learned outside of a formal partnership.

As the cab pulled up to my apartment, I said goodbye to my mother, and told her, “I’m getting closer.” I meant that I was getting closer to finding my partner, but I’d like to amend that explanation now. I may be getting closer to finding a relationship, but I’m also getting closer to being the type of person who won’t compromise herself in order to stay in that partnership. And even though I was alone when I learned it, I know it will help me recognise the mistakes I make in “serious” relationships — and, I hope, keep me from repeating them, too.

* Name has been changed.

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Airbnb started out as couchsurfing website for the young and cash-strapped. But possibly as early as this week, according to a Bloomberg report, the nine-year-old company is set to expand its services to the high-end market, poised to rival luxury hotels.

Anonymous sources told Bloomberg that the service is expected to launch as a pilot this week with a select group of hosts, with a full service to launch by the end of this year. Those hosts who pass a detailed inspection are eligible to be featured on a special section of Airbnb's website and apps. (The sources asked not to be identified, as they were discussing a product that hasn't yet been announced.)

The company is expected to invite these handpicked hosts to participate in the new service this week, the sources told Bloomberg. The inspectors will examine the houses for requirements "from new and matching bed linens to plush towels and single-use toiletries typically found in hotel bathrooms," as well as check for working appliances and a well-stocked kitchen.

Offering premium real estate will help Airbnb attract older and wealthier travellers, who aren't as likely to use it now for fear that it's more of a wild card than a well-known luxury hotel. And since Airbnb takes a percentage of the cost of each booking, more expensive rentals would help boost its bottom line, too.

"With Airbnb expanding its services to improve travellers' experience by including hotel-like features, it may be able to attract a wider customer base," write Bloomberg Intelligence analysts.

Airbnb has been referring to the service as "Select," but hasn't determined an official name. The company declined to comment to Bloomberg. An Airbnb rep told Refinery29 that there's nothing to share at the moment. We'll be sure to keep you posted when we find out more.

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Even as the Republican Party has moved to dismantle the Affordable Care Act (ACA), former President Barack Obama has stayed silent on the efforts to eliminate his signature initiative.

But that all changed today, when Obama posted on Facebook a lengthy, impassioned reaction to the unveiling of Senate Republicans' healthcare bill. The post, written as an open letter to Congress and the American people, cautions against the passage of the proposed Better Care Reconciliation Act. He started by saying, "Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen to Americans with whom we disagree, that’s what we need to do today."

Obama then went on to explain that he didn't work for a full year on the ACA, better known as Obamacare, purely for political gain. As president, he worked with Democrats and Republicans to pass a reform that, although imperfect, would make the lives of millions better.

He cautioned Republicans against rolling back the Affordable Care Act out of spite and said once again that he would publicly support a Republican bill if it was "demonstrably better than the improvements we made to our health care system, that covers as many people at less cost."

The former president added, "But right now, after eight years, the legislation rushed through the House and the Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it." He continued, "That’s not my opinion, but rather the conclusion of all objective analyses, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that 23 million Americans would lose insurance, to America’s doctors, nurses, and hospitals on the front lines of our health care system."

In the open letter, Obama asked members of Congress to really ask themselves whether they could stand behind a bill that would be damaging to so many and to consider working across the aisle to create a reform that will help the American people, not hurt them. He also asked you to get involved in the process — be it by calling your member of Congress, visiting their offices, or speaking out about what the passage of this bill would mean for you.

He concluded by saying the conversation surrounding health care is about so much more than the divide between parties.

"This debate has always been about something bigger than politics," he wrote. "It’s about the character of our country – who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fighting for."

The Better Care Reconciliation Act will go to vote in the Senate by next Friday. And if it passes, it would still have to go back to the House for another vote before landing on President Trump's desk.

Will Obama's words change some hearts? That remains to be seen. But if you agree with him, the time to act is now.

You can read his full post below.

Our politics are divided. They have been for a long time. And while I know that division makes it difficult to listen to Americans with whom we disagree, that’s what we need to do today.

I recognize that repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act has become a core tenet of the Republican Party. Still, I hope that our Senators, many of whom I know well, step back and measure what’s really at stake, and consider that the rationale for action, on health care or any other issue, must be something more than simply undoing something that Democrats did.

We didn’t fight for the Affordable Care Act for more than a year in the public square for any personal or political gain – we fought for it because we knew it would save lives, prevent financial misery, and ultimately set this country we love on a better, healthier course.

Nor did we fight for it alone. Thousands upon thousands of Americans, including Republicans, threw themselves into that collective effort, not for political reasons, but for intensely personal ones – a sick child, a parent lost to cancer, the memory of medical bills that threatened to derail their dreams.

And you made a difference. For the first time, more than ninety percent of Americans know the security of health insurance. Health care costs, while still rising, have been rising at the slowest pace in fifty years. Women can’t be charged more for their insurance, young adults can stay on their parents’ plan until they turn 26, contraceptive care and preventive care are now free. Paying more, or being denied insurance altogether due to a preexisting condition – we made that a thing of the past.

We did these things together. So many of you made that change possible.

At the same time, I was careful to say again and again that while the Affordable Care Act represented a significant step forward for America, it was not perfect, nor could it be the end of our efforts – and that if Republicans could put together a plan that is demonstrably better than the improvements we made to our health care system, that covers as many people at less cost, I would gladly and publicly support it.

That remains true. So I still hope that there are enough Republicans in Congress who remember that public service is not about sport or notching a political win, that there’s a reason we all chose to serve in the first place, and that hopefully, it’s to make people’s lives better, not worse.

But right now, after eight years, the legislation rushed through the House and the Senate without public hearings or debate would do the opposite. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, roll back protections, and ruin Medicaid as we know it. That’s not my opinion, but rather the conclusion of all objective analyses, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that 23 million Americans would lose insurance, to America’s doctors, nurses, and hospitals on the front lines of our health care system.

The Senate bill, unveiled today, is not a health care bill. It’s a massive transfer of wealth from middle-class and poor families to the richest people in America. It hands enormous tax cuts to the rich and to the drug and insurance industries, paid for by cutting health care for everybody else. Those with private insurance will experience higher premiums and higher deductibles, with lower tax credits to help working families cover the costs, even as their plans might no longer cover pregnancy, mental health care, or expensive prescriptions. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions could become the norm again. Millions of families will lose coverage entirely.

Simply put, if there’s a chance you might get sick, get old, or start a family – this bill will do you harm. And small tweaks over the course of the next couple weeks, under the guise of making these bills easier to stomach, cannot change the fundamental meanness at the core of this legislation.

I hope our Senators ask themselves – what will happen to the Americans grappling with opioid addiction who suddenly lose their coverage? What will happen to pregnant mothers, children with disabilities, poor adults and seniors who need long-term care once they can no longer count on Medicaid? What will happen if you have a medical emergency when insurance companies are once again allowed to exclude the benefits you need, send you unlimited bills, or set unaffordable deductibles? What impossible choices will working parents be forced to make if their child’s cancer treatment costs them more than their life savings?

To put the American people through that pain – while giving billionaires and corporations a massive tax cut in return – that’s tough to fathom. But it’s what’s at stake right now. So it remains my fervent hope that we step back and try to deliver on what the American people need.

That might take some time and compromise between Democrats and Republicans. But I believe that’s what people want to see. I believe it would demonstrate the kind of leadership that appeals to Americans across party lines. And I believe that it’s possible – if you are willing to make a difference again. If you’re willing to call your members of Congress. If you are willing to visit their offices. If you are willing to speak out, let them and the country know, in very real terms, what this means for you and your family.

After all, this debate has always been about something bigger than politics. It’s about the character of our country – who we are, and who we aspire to be. And that’s always worth fighting for.

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One of Donald Trump's first moves when he took office was an immigration and travel ban, which has repeatedly been struck down by federal appeals courts. Starbucks took immediate action upon hearing the news and announced plans to hire 10,000 refugees worldwide in the coming years.

“I write to you today with deep concern, a heavy heart and a resolute promise,” then-CEO Howard Schultz an open letter to Starbucks employees on January 29. “We are living in an unprecedented time, one in which we are witness to the conscience of our country, and the promise of the American Dream, being called into question.”

Although plenty of us cheered when we heard this news (and even bought an extra Unicorn Frappuccino to express our support), the company's sales took a hit. According to analysts at Credit Suisse, the decision may have had a negative short-term impact and caused "a sudden drop in brand sentiment."

Nevertheless, Starbucks is committed to helping refugees worldwide even if it means they lose some business as a result. Immediately following the January announcement, the company spearheaded an effort to recruit 2,500 refugee workers in America.

On Tuesday, Starbucks announced it will hire 2,500 refugees to work in European stores. Locations in England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands are currently recruiting refugee employees.

The move is especially meaningful because Starbucks announced its plans on World Refugee Day (June 20th). In a separate announcement also made on Tuesday, they pledged to recruit 1,000 refugees to work in Canadian shops.

Less than six months after announcing their commitment to helping refugees, Starbucks has already made significant strides to hire 6,000 refugee workers.

We'll drink to that (with an extra shot of espresso, please).

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In a new short Huck film entitled Mitad y Mitad – which translates as Half and Half – director Jordi Ruiz Cirera follows the life of a young mother, Karla Nutter, who knows all too well the struggles of being both American and Mexican in Trump’s USA.

"At 21, Karla has lived through the most violent years in Juarez, has married and had a kid, has suffered racism when in the US for being Mexican and is currently the main breadwinner in the house”, Cirera told Refinery29.

Since Donald Trump was sworn in as US president, every day in America has been unpredictable. His frivolous remarks have shocked the world and thrown a spotlight on his racist views towards Mexican-Americans and immigrants. But are his remarks having a tangible effect on their lives?

Unfortunately, as this film shows, yes. Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric is reflected in his economic and immigration policies, including the possible introduction of a “border-adjusted tax” on goods coming from Mexico (this will supposedly pay for Trump’s “big, beautiful wall”) and the abolishment of the North American Free Trade Agreement (a 13-year-old piece of legislation that has seen unemployment rates decline in border cities such as El Paso-Juárez).

Like many others, every day Karla makes the lengthy commute from her home in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, across the border to El Paso, Texas, where she works. El Paso-Juárez happens to be the largest binational region in the largest metropolitan area along the United States-Mexico border, and binationality provides the freedom to move and work freely between the US and Mexico. But what do you do if members of your family don’t share the same privilege?

Karla's husband, Jorje, was deported from the US after entering the country illegally. It isn't possible for him to apply for his papers unless he asks to be pardoned – something Trump's administration seeks to abolish. "I’m scared he won’t grant papers for my husband," Karla says, "But that’s what Trump wants to do: take away forgiveness permits."

Jorje’s immigration issues have affected not only their work and home life, but also meant that they commemorated one of the most important days in their lives in a very unorthodox way. The couple stood on one of the congested international bridges – Jorje's feet in Mexico and Karla's in America – to take their marriage vows. According to Big River Foundation, about 20% of all marriage licenses filed in Webb County, Texas, are for the "ceremony at bridge ".

According to Bloomberg, “There were 408,870 border apprehensions in the southwest U.S. last year – a large number of which were people presenting themselves to border agents and seeking asylum.” But with state authorities reporting 1,470 murders in 2016 in the state of Chihuahua alone, up from 1,151 in 2015, it's clear to see why so many risk their lives every day and why so many others are desperate to live a better and safer life in the United States.

“The current political situation in the US, especially regarding immigration, is absolutely dreadful, and it’s sad that it’s being carried out without considering the personal cost on so many people’s lives", Cirera says. Challenging the idea that Mexico and the US are worlds apart, through this film he's giving a voice to those who live in between.

You can now watch Mitad y Mitad: Half and Half on YouTube.

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If you're someone who turns their nose up at the bread served in restaurants and have stopped consuming dairy because it might make you bloated, you might need to have a rethink.

Recent research has shown that people who avoid dairy and gluten, despite not being diagnosed with an allergy or an intolerance, are risking their health in the long and short term.

Osteoporosis in later life is a real risk for the one-fifth of young people who avoid or completely cut dairy out of their diet, the National Osteoporosis Society warned recently. This risk may also be completely unnecessary, as the same study suggested that nearly a quarter of those who avoid dairy are not cutting it out due to medical advice. Dairy is a rich source of calcium and vitamin D, which are needed for bone health, and if these aren’t obtained from other sources, bone density can fall.

“Diet in early adulthood is so important because by the time we get into our late 20s it is too late to reverse the damage caused by poor diet and nutrient deficiencies and the opportunity to build strong bones has passed,” warned Professor Susan Lanham-New, head of nutritional sciences at the University of Surrey.

Essentially, those who restrict their diet without proper clinical supervision are risking ending up with an unbalanced diet, explains Linia Patel, a registered dietitian and British Dietetic Association spokesperson.

“The biggest risk if you exclude a whole food group is that you end up with an unbalanced diet. Eventually you end up with deficiencies, such as calcium if you avoid dairy or B vitamins if you avoid grains,” she says.

“I have lots of patients who have decided to exclude a food group on their own, and then come to me. Dairy and gluten are the big two, but sometimes people have completely excluded carbohydrates as well.

“I work in a sports clinic and I see people who end up with stress fractures. I want to say ‘I told you so’ – of course I don’t, but this is the situation you end up in where somewhere along the line you decided to exclude a food group and eventually it caught up with you,” Linia warns.

Gluten-free warning

If long-term health risks aren’t enough to put you off restricting your diet without medical advice, then how about the risk of obesity?

Gluten-free food availability has soared in recent years, which means that people who really need it, such as people with coeliac disease who have to avoid gluten completely, can get it a lot more easily. And so can everyone else.

Unfortunately, this may mean that people are putting themselves at greater risk of obesity by selecting these foods over their normal counterparts. A recent study showed that gluten-free versions of food were often much higher in calories, fat and sugar. This increased sugar content could lead to obesity, and the myriad problems that come with it.

So why are people so convinced that gluten- and dairy-free is a healthier way of eating?

Is social media to blame?

The National Osteoporosis Society found that not only were young people more likely to cut out dairy, they were also more likely to prefer so-called "clean" eating regimes, which encourage the exclusion of various food groups. It also found that they were more likely to consult social media and bloggers for nutritional information than older people.

Still, it would be presumptuous to suggest that's the only reason people are cutting out food groups, says Linia.

“I think there are a number of factors but I think it is because we are more faddy, and it is just a thing to do as everyone has an intolerance now.

“There are more readily available free-from foods out there and people may assume that they are healthier and that is not a correct assumption.”

A lack of medical testing and advice can also be to blame. “There is no way to measure an intolerance in the same way that you can measure an allergy, which means that lots of people are just getting anecdotal evidence. They say, ‘I feel sluggish’, ‘I feel bloated’, and ‘It must be the wheat’ or ‘It must be the dairy’,” she explains.

Linia also cites the rise of vegetarianism and veganism as another factor in this trend – after all, how many people have you heard shunning the dairy industry after watching Simon Amstell’s Carnage recently?

What should I eat?

There is one final factor in all of this that people rarely confess to: confusion. Food intolerances have risen rapidly over the past decade but our education, and that of medical professionals, hasn’t kept pace.

If you think you have an allergy or intolerance, then of course you should seek medical advice – not only for a diagnosis, but also for advice on how you can avoid nutrient deficiencies.

And if you don’t have anything wrong with you? Lucky you, you can eat whatever you like. Just make sure you question any faddy diet advice you get in future.

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