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"We live in a country that is sexist and racist." - Jen Psaki

If you thought the fluorescent marker balls had something to do with increasing visibility, you were right.

From dystopian sci-fi classics to recent Oscar contenders, the best movies now streaming on Max run the gamut.

In 2016, My husband and I started renting our basement apartment out as a short-term rental on Airbnb. We live in a college town and figured we'd get some guests during football game weekends and graduations. We didn't realize how many people come to our town to visit their college kids or check out the school, so we were pleasantly surprised by how regularly we were booked. In 2019, we bought the house next door and now rent out both floors of the old house as separate units. We love being Airbnb hosts and have had a very successful run of it, with hundreds of 5-star reviews, Superhost status and lots of repeat guests. We also don't charge a cleaning fee or make guests do check-out chores. In fact, we find both things rather loathsome.What makes us good hosts is that we've been Airbnb guests for years. As a family of five that travels a lot, we've found far more value in Airbnbs than in hotels over the years. We love having a kitchen, living room and bedrooms and feeling like we have a "home" while traveling. We even spent a nomadic year staying at short-term rentals for a month at a time. When you've experienced dozens of Airbnbs as a guest, you learn what guests appreciate and what they don't. You see what's annoying and unnecessary and what's to be expected in comparison to a hotel. We started taking mental notes long before we started our own rental about what we would want to do and not do if we ever had one and have implemented those things now that we do. As guests, we know the pain of the cleaning fee, so we don't charge one. via GIPHYIt helps that my husband has a flexible schedule and grew up helping with his parents' janitorial service, so most of the time he cleans the apartments himself. We could charge a cleaning fee for his time and labor, but even if we were paying for outside cleaners, we still wouldn't put a separate fee onto guest bookings. It makes far more sense to us to just wrap the cleaning fee into the per-night price.From a host's perspective, the one-night stay is where the cleaning fee question hits the hardest. Whether someone stays one night or 10 nights, the cleaning cost is the same. But spreading the cost over 10 nights is a very different beast than adding it to one night, especially from a guest's perspective. On the host side, if we had to pay cleaners without passing that fee onto guests, we've barely make anything on one-night stays. But on the guest side, a $100 a night stay suddenly jumping to $150 because a cleaning fee was added is painful, and often a dealbreaker. You can see the conundrum. $200 cleaning fee Airbnb — (@) The way we see it, and as other Airbnb hosts have found, wrapping cleaning costs into the base price comes out in the wash over time, as long as you have some longer-term stays mixed in with the one-nighters. And it's a much better experience for the guest not to get hit with sticker shock on the "final cost" screen, which is already eye-popping when service fees and taxes are added on.(I will say, this may only ring true for smaller units. If you're renting a huge home, cleaning costs are going to be higher just because it takes longer to clean. But I still don't think the full cost should be passed onto guests as a separate fee.) If you charge a cleaning fee, you should not be allowed to include CHORES in your AirBnB rules — (@) As for check-out chores—asking guests to do things like start laundry, sweep the floor, take out the trash, etc.—those have never made sense to us. Hosts should have enough switch-out linens that laundry doesn't have to be started prior to checking out, and none of those chores save enough time for the cleaning people to make it worth asking guests to do it. I can see taking out trash if there wasn't going to be another guest for a while, but usually you'd want to clean right away after a stay anyway just in case it does get booked last minute. The only thing we ask guests to do is to start the dishwasher if they have dirty dishes (as a guest, I've never found that an unreasonable request), lock the door and have a safe trip home. Don't need to pull the sheets. Don't need to take out any garbage or recycling. Those things don't take that long, but that's just as much a reason not to ask guests to do it. Annoying your guests by asking them to do something extra isn't worth the tiny bit of time it might save the cleaning people. And you know what? This approach works really well. Approximately 95% of guests leave the apartments clean and tidy anyway. In seven years, I can count on one hand how many problems we've had with guests leaving a mess. That's been a pleasant surprise, but I think part of the reason is that guest are simply reciprocating the respect and consideration we show them by not making them pay extra fees or do chores on their way out. To be fair, it probably also helps that we aren't some big real estate tycoon buying up a bunch of apartments and turning them into short-term rentals run by impersonal management companies. People's complaints about how short-term rentals impact local housing economies are legitimate. We're more aligned with the original "sharing economy" model, renting out our home to guests who come through town. And in a small college town with a large university, there often aren't enough hotel rooms during busy weekends anyway, so it's been a bit of a win-win. I think being right next door, having personal communication with our guests (but also leaving them their privacy), and not charging or asking anything extra of them makes them want to be respectful guests. From our perspective, both as guests and hosts, cleaning fees and check-out chores simply aren't worth it. This article originally appeared on 4.4.24

Since 2019, Kodi Lee has wowed “America’s Got Talent” audiences with his next-level musical skills. That goes for whether he’s performing touching original works or putting his own personal touch on well-known songs.For “America’s Got Talent: Fantasy League,” the music savant was guided by his mentor Howie Mandel to cover “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen.It’s hard to imagine a version of this fan-favorite tune you haven’t already heard before, since the song has been covered quite a few times. But once again Lee delivered something epic and completely unique.Even though judges Mel B and Heidi Klum still prefer Lee’s original songs, all applauded his haunting and emotional piano rendition of the rock-n-roll anthem.Simon Cowell even said “You use these words ‘Star Quality’ a lot, but you genuinely, Kodi, over the years we’ve got to know you, you’ve just got better as an artist. You’ve never given up, and the Finals just wouldn’t be the same without you in it this year.”Other viewers applauded Lee for one-of-a-kind performance, agreeing that he did freddie Mercury proud. One wrote, “‘You can do whatever you want to do in my music, just don't make it boring’ -Freddie. What a magical performance.” Another added, “Kodi has an amazingly rare talent to be able to sing across different musical genres. He owns them all!!!”Last but not least, I think this comment sums up the general consensus pretty well: "This version is unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. It’s truly a masterpiece. Kodi is an amazing gift to our world. He continues to change the world just by being himself." Watch below. And enjoy. This article originally appeared on 2.13.24

Arguments start to take off when one partner begins to get defensive. So, therapist Lauren Consul shared her relationship-saving tip to "stop an argument in its tracks" when one partner goes into self-preservation mode. Lauren Consul is a couples and sex therapist who’s developed a following of nearly 160,000 people on TikTok and has received over 5.4 million likes. She is an infidelity expert and hosts retreats to help people "survive and thrive" after one partner has strayed."The next time you and your partner are talking, and your partner becomes defensive, I want you to do this: Pause, and say, 'I want to understand what happened there. What did you hear me say?'" Consul says in her TikTok video with over 42,000 views. "This question is key because it does one of two things," she continued. "First, it can allow for clarification. A lot of times when we've become defensive, we've interpreted something our partner has said incorrectly. We've run it through a filter, we've told ourselves a story about it, it's triggered something... So we're not actually hearing what our partner says, and it allows for clarification." @laurenconsul #communicationtools #communicationtools #defensiveness #couplesargument #learnontiktok #cyclebreaker #couplestherapist #relationshiptherapist #marriagecounseling #mytherapistsays #therapytol #tiktoktherapist "The second thing: If your partner did interpret what you said correctly, it gives you an opportunity to slow things down and understand what is happening for them and address the underlying issue, rather than get caught in a spiral of defensiveness," she continued.Consul's advice for stopping arguments before they explode is helpful because it clears up any potential misunderstandings. The key is to remember the tactic in the heat of the moment to prevent things from getting out of hand.This article originally appeared on 3.16.23

A recently posted story on Reddit shows a mother confidently standing up for her family after being bullied by a teacher for her culture. Reddit user Flowergardens0 posted the story to the AITA forum, where people ask whether they are wrong in a specific situation.Over 5,600 people commented on the story, and an overwhelming majority thought the mother was right. Here’s what went down:“I (34F) have a (5M) son who attends preschool. A few hours after I picked him up from school today, I got a phone call from his teacher,” Flowergardens0 wrote. “She made absolutely no effort to sound kind when she, in an extremely rude and annoyed tone, told me to stop packing my son such ‘disgusting and inappropriate’ lunches." "I felt absolutely appalled when she said this, as me and the teacher have, up until now, always maintained a very friendly relationship. She added that the lunches I’m packing my son are ‘very distracting for the other students and have an unpleasant odor.’ I told her that I understand her concerns, as the lunches I pack are definitely not the healthiest, but the lunches are according to my son’s preferences.”The mother added that she usually sends her son to school with small celery sticks, blue cheese and goat cheese, kimchi, spam and spicy Sriracha-flavored Doritos.“I ended the call by saying that I very much appreciated her worries, but that at the end of the day, I am not going to drastically change my son’s lunches all of a sudden, and that it’s not my fault if other students are ‘distracted’ by his meal,” the mother continued. “It is very important to me what my son enjoys, and I want him to like my lunches.”The teacher replied with an email saying the mom's response was "unacceptable" and that his lunches were “just too inappropriate to be sent to school any longer.”“I haven’t responded yet and don’t want to. I want to maintain a healthy relationship with my son’s teachers. I am confused as to what to do,” the mom ended her story.It’s clear that the teacher is way out of line in this situation because the child is eating food that is entirely normal in Korean culture. It may have a strong odor to those who aren’t used to it, but that’s just an opportunity for the teacher to explain to the children how people from different parts of the world eat different types of food. It’s not that hard.The only reason the teacher should have any choice over what the child eats is if it is egregiously unhealthy and may cause them harm.The most popular commenter on the forum suggested that the mother bring the issue to the principal’s attention."Report her to the principal," Thatshygal717 wrote. "Her comments regarding your son’s food are 'disgusting' and 'have an unpleasant tone' aka cough cough racist tone. She’s too inappropriate to be teaching at the school any longer."Another commenter, muffiewriters, assured the mother that she was doing nothing wrong. "Your son's food is perfectly normal," they wrote. "For a 5-year-old. Your family's food is normal. The teacher is TA for not recognizing that.”The mother hasn’t shared what she did next, but she’s handled the situation perfectly so far. She told the teacher that it’s not her fault if other kids are distracted by her food and that she will not change her son’s diet to please other people.The beauty of America is that we are a country of many different cultures mixed like a beautiful bowl of salad. It’s great that so many people supported the mother and reminded her that her family has every right in the world to eat the food they love, and if it bothers anyone, they can keep it to themselves.P.S. That teacher has no idea what she’s talking about. Korean food is delicious.This article was originally published on 3.20.23.