Month: January 2022

In the early-to-mid ’80s, countries across the globe enacted strict bans on blood donations from men who have sex with men (MSM). The bans were a reaction to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that affected MSM at much higher rates than those who are exclusively heterosexual.

But over the past 40 years, tests that can detect HIV in blood have become much more sophisticated. A 2015 surveillance report by Canadian Blood Services found that the risk of HIV transfusion-transmitted infection was just one in 21.4 million donations.

The tests have become so sophisticated they can detect the presence of HIV in blood two to six weeks after infection.

France began to lift restrictions on blood donations in 2019 for MSM by allowing them to do so if they remained sexually abstinent for at least four months before donating.

Now, the country has taken things a step further by eliminating all bans on blood donation based on sexual orientation.

The change in rules was announced by public health chief Jérôme Salomon, who said there would be “no more reference to sexual orientation” in questionnaires prior to donating blood.

[#DonDeSang] @Sante_Gouv a annoncu00e9 lu2019u00e9volution des conditions du2019accu00e8s au don du sang et la levu00e9e de lu2019ajournement pour les hommes ayant des relations sexuelles avec des hommes u00e0 partir du 16 mars 2022. https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/les-actualites/2022/nouvelles-conditions-d-acces-au-don-du-sang-le-role-de-la-surveillanceu00a0u2026pic.twitter.com/t1FuOBpbyd

— Santu00e9publiqueFrance (@Santu00e9publiqueFrance)
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“Starting on March 16, 2022 all French people, whatever their sexual orientation, will be able to donate blood,” Health Minister Olivier Véra said. “We are ending an inequality that is no longer justified,” he added.

The move was met with cheers from gay rights advocates.

“Imposing a four-month period of abstinence on homosexuals wishing to donate blood is totally absurd and has always been seen as a form of discrimination, especially when we know that donations are in short supply,” Matthieu Gatipon-Bachette, the spokesperson for the French LGBTQ rights group Inter-LGBT told the newspaper Le Parisien.

“Obviously there must be a health safety framework to be respected, but this must not be based on the sexual orientation of the donor,” he added.

France’s new law means there are at least 18 countries in the world that have no blood donor restrictions for MSM including Argentina, Italy, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Hungary and the United Kingdom.

The United States is now a step behind France when it comes to allowing MSM to donate blood. In 2015, the U.S. began to allow MSM to donate blood if they were abstinent for one year.

Studies show that after MSM were allowed to donate with a 12-month period of abstinence, the increase in HIV infections through blood donations was insignificant.

Last year, on April 2, the FDA announced it had gone a step further by shortening the period of gay-sex abstinence from 12 months to just three.

“To help address this critical need and increase the number of donations, the FDA is announcing today that based on recently completed studies and epidemiologic data, we have concluded that the current policies regarding the eligibility of certain donors can be modified without compromising the safety of the blood supply,” the notice said.

The new ruling also reduced the ban on donations from women who have had sex with MSM to three months as well.

The slow change in MSM blood donor rules throughout the world makes sense across the board. It will greatly increase the pool of eligible donors while reducing the stigma surrounding men who have sex with men. There are few things more harmful to a community than promoting the idea that their blood is tainted or dangerous.

In the last month of Donald Trump’s one-term presidency, William Barr did the right thing: He refused to let him subvert the will of the American people with baseless claims of voter fraud. What it really was was a Hail Mary. For the nearly two years he was Attorney General, Barr had done whatever Trump wanted, acting more like his personal lawyer than an independent protector of democracy. It’s why his post-Trump rehabilitation was not so well received. But if he did little right, at least he’s gifting the world with an unexpectedly weird book title.

As per ABC News, a memoir by Barr is set to hit shelves on March 8. What will he say about his AG stints for both Trump and George H.W. Bush? Will it be as trashy and snipey as other tell-alls? Will it accidentally reveal damning intel about Trump, like Mark Meadows’ book? It’s too soon to say, but one thing we do know for sure: It’s got a title, and that title is One Damn Thing After Another.

The title is reportedly an expression Barr has heard others say about the job he held not once but twice. It’s still a title so unusual that you might do a double take, initially thinking it’s a photoshopped joke about Barr’s irritation with a job made even more stressful by Trump’s lunacy. Maybe that’s what it’s about.

A press release for the memoir promises a “vivid, forthright, and essential” look at both presidents, though surely more people will glom onto his accounts of Trump than Bush I. On one hand, Barr resigned prematurely, in part because he refused to rubberstamp his voter fraud lies. On the other, he misled the American people about the contents of the Mueller report into Trump’s dealings with Russia, leaving others to point out that, no, it was not an “exoneration.” Still, maybe the book will inspire a movie, which means they can finally cast Patton Oswalt.

(Via ABC News)

Pharrell has long been celebrated for his style as well as his youthful looks. The latter topic came up once again during his 2019 appearance on LeBron James’ HBO show The Shop, and Pharrell explained how he still looks so young. “You gotta exfoliate like a f*cking madman,” he revealed. Nearly three years later, the topic came up once again after 21 Savage tweeted, “Pharrell is the king of drip!! How the hell he do that sh*t for so long? [facepalm emoji].”

While many offered their own responses, Pharrell himself arrived to answer the question. “From Virginia,” he wrote. “It’s Something in the Water.” There was a double meaning to Pharrell’s answer. Something in the Water is the name of the festival he launched in 2019. The showcase had an extremely successful first year, but unfortunately, an attempt to hold another in 2020 was thwarted by the pandemic. In 2021, Pharrell announced that the festival would no longer be in Virginia Beach due the city’s “toxic energy,” which he made after his cousin was murdered by a local police officer who did not have their body camera turned on.

As for Pharrell’s ageless drip, the singer previously released a line of skincare products back in 2020. The Humanrace product line was released in collaboration with his longtime dermatologist Elena Jones and it included cleansers, creams, exfoliators, and more.

After months of largely carefree living, the Omicron variant has a lot of people worried again. But not everyone. Prominent Republicans are still playing devil may care. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn’t seem to mind that half of her salary (and counting) is going down the drain because she keeps accruing mask fines. Meanwhile, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has no problem forcing an immunocompromised colleague into hiding because he won’t put a simple some protective covering over his mouth.

As per NPR, fellow justice Sonia Sotomayor has had to do work remotely, all because one colleague won’t mask up. Sources say that soon as cases starting spiking again amidst the Omicron mutation, Sotomayor — who has diabetes, and is thus at high risk for illness — made it known that she didn’t feel safe around the maskless. Chief Justice John Roberts was sympathetic and asked his colleagues to start wearing face covering. They all did — except Gorsuch, who happens to sit next to Sotomayor on the bench.

Gorsuch’s reasoning isn’t known, but whatever the case, Sotomayor is now the only one not present during weekly meetings. Instead, she participates through a microphone set up in her chambers.

When news of Gorsuch refusing to help an immunocompromised colleague were made public, people were not happy.

Others felt the wrong person was being forced to isolate.

Gorsuch is, of course, one of the three appointed justices appointed by Trump during his lone term in office, including Amy Coney Barrett, who was rushed onto the bench in the final weeks of his presidency. Refusing to protect himself or others from a highly transmissible virus is not the only dicey opinion he holds.

(Via NPR)

The Dallas Cowboys saw their season come to an end on Sunday at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. Despite entering the game with a highly-flying offense, an aggressive defense, and a belief that the team had the pieces in place to make a run at the Super Bowl this year, the Cowboys just could not figure out the Niners, and as a result, they lost, 23-17.

The end of the game led to some controversy, as Dallas called a draw with Dak Prescott with 14 seconds remaining despite being out of timeouts with the hopes he’d be able to pick up some yards, spike the ball, and have a reasonable distance to throw into the end zone. But things worked out so that the referee couldn’t spot the ball in time, meaning the clock ran down to zero before he could spike it.

In the aftermath, Prescott gave “credit to” Cowboys fans for throwing debris at the officials. Unsurprisingly, he caught some flak for this, and on Tuesday evening, Prescott tweeted out an apology to the refs for what he said.

Prescott struggled against San Francisco’s defense, going 23-for-43 for 254 yards with a touchdown and an interception on the day. He also carried the ball four times for 27 yards, with 17 of those coming on the draw that ended up being the final play of the Cowboys’ season

The very public spat between Britney Spears and her younger sister Jamie Lynn Spears lives to see another day. The latest in their war of words comes after Jamie Lynn stopped by Good Morning America for a tearful account of her past experiences with Britney as well as her concern for the singer. Britney didn’t take too kindly to the appearance, which she said left her “disgusted,” as she later denied a story Jamie Lynn told about her. Jamie Lynn later explained that she’s now talking about Britney because she was “never allowed” to do so before. Now, Britney has returned with a harsh message for not only Jamie Lynn but her mother as well.

In the now-deleted Instagram post, Britney began by speaking about what she did after her breakup with Justin Timberlake in 2002. “I flew home to Jamie Lynn on the couch watching her tv shows right after Justin and I broke up… I was a ghost there [ghost emoji] !!!!!” Britney wrote. She then compared her sister’s lifestyle to her own. “I had worked my whole life and I didn’t know how to be served by Mamma … Sit there and get served the chocolate milkshakes with the perfectly crushed ice with the secret chunky sugar meanwhile Jamie Lynn is 12, she indulges with the TV for hours then goes to lay out on a raft at the pool … I’m in shock because this was never my life !!!!”

Britney continued, “Justin’s family was all I knew for many years … Things were different now and Jamie Lynn had a new Nickelodeon show … All I remember saying was ‘DAMN !!! How the hell does a 12 year old land a Nickelodeon show ????’ ….. HMMMMMMMM…. Well I never got my iced chocolate drink !!!” she continued. “I mean yeah … I’m grown up right ??? But then maybe I might need a little support …”

Britney then recalled a moment when journalists from People arrived to conduct an interview with her. “The people show up and as Jamie Lynn says, I was scared !!!! Fuck yeah !!!” she said. “My Mamma was on pain medication and could barely hold a conversation in the house because her and my dad split and she was more messed up than anything !!!! I remember her sitting on the floor in a conversation and she never got up…”

She concluded her message with a bold statement. “I’m sorry Jamie Lynn,” she wrote. “I wasn’t strong enough to do what should have been done … slapped you and Mamma right across your f–king faces !!!!!” Billboard states the post was deleted less than an hour after the singer shared it.

You can view a screenshot of the now-deleted post above.

Selena Gomez is pretty much good at everything she does. She’s a great actress, most recently on the brilliant Only Murders In The Building which earned her a Critic’s Choice nomination for Best Actress, no easy feat when you’re working alongside powerhouses like Martin Short and Steve Martin. She has a successful makeup line, a cooking show, works behind the scenes in Hollywood as an executive producer, and she’s dropped a string of pop hits throughout her career.

One of those hits, 2020’s BlackPink collaboration “Ice Cream,” inspired an ice cream flavor by Serendipity brands, a label owned by famed Upper East Side dining staple, Serendipity 3, which Gomez was an early investor in. Oh, we forgot to mention — she’s an investor too!

Serendipity Brands make a variety of premium quality ice cream flavors available in a few East Coast states as well as nationwide online (we’ve spoken well of them before). The brand’s ice cream flavors are beloved for being rich, creamy, pop-culture hip (they have a Friends flavor), and special-ingredient packed, and Selena Gomez’s Cookies & Cream Remix follows that trend.

Gomez worked alongside the brand, tasting a variety of flavor combinations until she landed on a winner.

We dug our spoons into a pint to see if this flavor lives up to the infectiousness of the song that inspired it or if it’s a simple cash-grab using a beloved celebrity’s name.

Selena Gomez’s Cookies & Cream Remix

Retail Price: $7.99 (per pint)

Like Chance The Rapper’s easy-to-love Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, the strength of Selena Gomez’s Serendipity flavor is its obviousness. Gomez isn’t throwing us a curveball or trying to challenge our taste buds, she’s taking a simple classic — cookies & cream — and giving it a minor remix that keeps it interesting.

It’s like sampling Lauryn Hill or asking for an Andre 3000 feature — you sorta know it’s going to be a hit at the outset.

Cookies & Cream remix features pink vanilla ice cream with a generous Moose Tracks fudge swirl with bits of broken Oreo cookies, or in this case, “chocolate sandwich cookies,” peppered throughout the ice cream. I tried to sample each element of this ice cream but it’s so well blended and mixed in, it’s hard to get a spoonful that doesn’t feature the perfect cookie-to-ice-cream-to-fudge ratio. Note: that’s a good problem to have.

It’s not as soft and creamy as your typical cookies & cream ice cream or as simple in flavor, it’s much denser and relies heavily on the cookie-fudge combo to deliver a rich and filling experience. If you’re a fan of the simple flavor combination of cream and cookies, you might find this a bit overwhelming and decadent but if you’ve always viewed cookies & cream as a boring and safe flavor, you’ll appreciate how this takes its best elements and elevates them by doing just a little more.*

*If you’ll allow us to remix this sh*t even further, instead of a simple scoop, serve up a few scoops in a bowl, drizzle some warmed fudge over it, add some crushed peanuts, crushed graham cracker, a chopped banana, a sprinkling of cinnamon, whipped cream, and a bright red maraschino cherry for a next-level sundae experience.

The Bottom Line:

It’s not so mind-blowing that we’re going to tell you that you have to order a pint as soon as possible, but if you’re already a fan of Serendipity brands it’s a great addition to a great lineup of delicious flavors and an even better place to start if you’ve always been interested in giving the brand a try.

Follow our sundae remix and you’ll be in heaven.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. It’s been well-known for a while that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been willingly fined for not wearing a mask while in the Capitol chamber. It’s also known that those fines aren’t cheap: $500 for the first offense, a whopping $2,500 every other time. But only now do we know how much of her salary she’s lost taking a deeply foolish and unscientific stand.

As per The Hill, documents Greene made public reveal that the Georgia lawmaker (who makes few laws because she’s been kicked off committees over her dangerous rhetoric) has been fined a whopping 36 times for not wearing a mask on Capitol Hill. Do a little math and that brings the total number of fines to a jaw-dropping $88,000.

But there’s more. A United States representative makes a lofty $174,000 a year. That means Greene has wasted about half her salary on opposing a rule that could protect her from a highly transmissible and ever-mutating virus.

Greene’s not the only one pouring a large chunk of his salary down the drain while putting their own life at risk. Andrew Clyde, another Georgia representative, has been fined 25 times, totaling $60,500. (Clyde’s the guy who infamously refused to shake the hand of an officer who helped protect him on Jan. 6, 2021.) Between the two of them, that’s almost $150,000 that could have easily been burned. But perhaps those fines are going to something more lofty, like giving raises to the Capitol police who’ve had to put up with Greene’s violent supporters.

(Via The Hill)

Cordae has plenty to celebrate. He just released his first album in almost three years, From A Birds Eye View, which featured 14 songs and guest appearances from Lil Durk, Gunna, Roddy Ricch, Eminem, and more. It marks yet another strong output from the DMV rapper, who has also shown improvement in other areas of his life. During a recent appearance on Big Boy’s Neighborhood on Los Angeles’ Real 92.3, Cordae spoke about the recent health changes he’s made.

Cordae began by explaining that he was inspired to lose 35 pounds due to a magazine shoot from last February. “I had to do a GQ cover,” he explained on the show. “I’m speaking my truth. I had to do a GQ cover and was like, ‘Man, if I don’t get in shape to do a GQ cover, what ever in life is gonna motivate you to get in shape?’” He noted that he began his journey in November 2020 and said that it led to creating a healthier lifestyle for himself, which he maintains today.

The rapper also revealed that he lost the “majority of the weight” during the first six to eight months of his journey, which sparked a boost in his confidence. “Like I said, I’m a little shallow,” he explained. “When you look good, you feel good; when you feel good, you do good; and when you do good, they pay good. That’s why it’s important to feel good.”

Cordae’s comments come after he held an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, where he performed songs from From A Birds Eye View and his debut album, The Lost Boy.

You can watch Cordae speak about his health journey in full in the video above.

From A Birds Eye View is out now via Atlantic. Stream it here.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Republican candidates have a habit of recording bizarre campaign videos. Think of the one for Rudy Giuliani’s son, which looked like it cost five bucks. Or think of the one for Mark McCloskey, one half of the wealthy Missouri couple who pointed guns at BLM protesters. But one Democratic senatorial candidate released one that’s bizarre in a good way: It shows him smoking pot while calling attention to harsh marijuana laws.

That person is Gary Chambers, a social justice advocate and organizer who’s running in Louisiana, hoping to unseat Senator John Neely Kennedy (no relation). Kennedy is an NRA-approved Republican who, among other things, opposes the House select committee investigating Jan. 6. Chambers, meanwhile, is angry at marijuana laws that punish Black people four times more than they do white.

The ad finds Chambers relaxing in a chair in a field in New Orleans. In one hand is a blunt, which he repeatedly smokes. In voiceover, he points out every 37 seconds in Louisiana, someone is arrested for possession of marijuana. It accounts for half of all arrests in the state. “Black people are four times more likely to be arrested,” he says. “Most of the people police are arresting aren’t dealers, but rather people with small amounts of pot. Just like me.”

Among Chambers positions is that marijuana be legalized in Louisiana, joining the 18 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia, where it’s already legal. He also believes state and local governments should expunge the records of those who’ve been arrested for the crime.

“For too long, candidates have used the legalization of marijuana as an empty talking point in order to appeal to progressive voters,” Chambers said in a statement, as per The Washington Post. “I hope this ad works to not only destigmatize the use of marijuana, but also forces a new conversation that creates the pathway to legalize this beneficial drug, and forgive those who were arrested due to outdated ideology.”

You can watch Chambers’ ad in the video above.

(Via WaPo)