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Foundayo, a new obesity pill made by Eli Lilly, was just approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Eli Lilly
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Eli Lilly
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the second GLP-1 pill to treat obesity, this time from drugmaker Eli Lilly.
The new pill, Foundayo, is taken once a day and will compete with the pill form of Wegovy, made by Novo Nordisk, which was approved by the FDA in December.
Patients now have a choice of pills instead of injections from both makers of the leading obesity medicines. The pill options could appeal to many patients. But the cost of the drugs and limits on insurance coverage remain obstacles.
The agency approved Lilly’s obesity pill on a fast track for drugs that FDA deems a national priority. The decision to approve Foundayo took 50 days, the agency said, and is the fastest for a brand-new kind of drug since 2002.
Even though Lilly is the same company behind Zepbound, the blockbuster injectable obesity medicine, Eli Lilly decided not to take Zepbound’s main ingredient and make it in pill form. Instead, the company developed a new ingredient, known generically as orforglipron, that’s not a peptide, like the injectable drugs, but acts like one.
“We’ve created a small molecule chemical which gets in your body very well,” Skovronsky says. “It can mimic the effects of the peptide and can be taken more conveniently any time of day without any food or water restrictions.”
Its competitor, the Wegovy pill is a peptide. Peptides are small chains of amino acids. The Wegovy pill has the same active ingredient as the injection with an added ingredient so it can be absorbed before the peptide is broken down by acid in the stomach. But, unlike Foundayo, the Wegovy pill has to be taken on an empty stomach and the patient has to fast for 30 minutes in order for it to work.
So for some people, Foundayo may be more convenient — and harder to mess up.
Data from one of the Lilly clinical trials the FDA reviewed found that patients who took the highest dose of Foundayo as directed for 72 weeks lost an average of 27.3 pounds, or 12.4% of their body weight, compared with 2.2 pounds, or 0.9% of average body weight, for those getting a placebo. The most common side effects were nausea, constipation and diarrhea.
Novo Nordisk came out swinging against the rival pill. “Not all GLP-1s are the same. Any reports claiming orforglipron is more effective than Wegovy pill for weight management are inaccurate and misleading,” said a statement from Jamey Millar, executive vice president for U.S. operations of Novo Nordisk. “There is no head-to-head trial comparing the efficacy of orforglipron and Wegovy pill … .”
In clinical trials, the Lilly pill appeared a little less effective than its competition, though it wasn’t tested head-to-head. How it works in the real world could be different, says Dr. Catherine Varney, the obesity medicine director for UVA Health in Charlottesville, Va.
She says she wouldn’t be surprised if her patients taking the new pill lose more weight because this pill is easier to take, especially for people with complex medical regimens or people who struggle with strict dosing. “That’s where, for example, one is going to have a little bit more of an advantage. So… to be determined,” she says.
Lilly’s Skovronsky says he expects Foundayo to appeal to patients who consider injections to be too big a step for them to take.
“I think ideally this medicine will be for people who haven’t tried a weight loss drug yet,” he says. “They’re wondering whether they’re sick enough, whether this disease is serious enough. Maybe they’re worried about an injection not fitting into their life.”
But Varney at UVA says her experience as a clinician has shown her patients aren’t really put off by needles. “I can tell you of over the 1,000 patients that I have on GLP-1 therapy, not once has needle phobia been an issue,” she says.
For her patients, the biggest barrier to getting care has been cost. She says all of her patients who are on the Wegovy pill versus injectable drugs are on them because they’re more affordable.
The starting dose for Foundayo, like the Wegovy pill, is $149 a month for customers going outside their insurance and paying cash.For comparison, the cash price for Eli Lilly’s obesity injection Zepbound is $299 a month. Both get more expensive at higher doses, but Foundayo is cheaper.
The company has not yet released a list price, which is the starting bid for insurance and what a patient’s copay is usually based on.
Lilly says its insurance coverage will become clearer soon. But for people with commercial coverage, copays could be as low as $25 a month with an Eli Lilly savings card. And starting in July, people with Medicare coverage may be able to get it for $50 a month. Medicaid coverage could take some more time.
As for supply, the company has been manufacturing these pills for a while and should be able to meet demand. Skovronsky says he expects them to be on pharmacy shelves within a “week or two.”
The X-Men’s Hellfire Gala, mutantkind’s biggest—and sometimes deadliest—celebration, is back for another drama-filled night of mystery, betrayal and Omega level fashion in X-Men: The Hellfire Murder #1, hitting stands in July.
As is tradition, X-Men: The Hellfire Murder #1 will be written and drawn by a spectacular lineup of current X-Men creators including Jed MacKay (X-Men), Gail Simone (Uncanny X-Men), Eve L. Ewing (X-Men United), Saladin Ahmed (Wolverine), Erica Schultz (Rogue), Tony Daniel (X-Men), Luciano Vecchio (Uncanny X-Men), Federica Mancin (Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant) and more! Once more, the giant-sized one-shot serves as a capstone to the last year of X-Men storytelling with reunions and romance abound, and simultaneously sets the stage for what’s on the horizon with startling developments like the formation of an all-new Hellfire Club and the murder of a key mutant figure.
When a mutant power player is murdered at an exclusive masquerade hosted by Sebastian Shaw, it falls to Wolverine and Jubilee to solve a locked-room mystery that has dire consequences for all mutantkind. Everyone is a suspect. And the party isn’t over yet.
Leading the design efforts will be Marvel’s Stormbreaker artist Luciano Vecchio, following his work on last year’s Hellfire Gala issue, X-Men: Hellfire Vigil. A
“Doing Hellfire Gala designs is always a pleasure,” Vecchio said. “This time around, it’s a masquerade, so the challenge was to come up with looks that divert from each character’s classic iconography to reflect their mask’s theme. The dress code is a callback to classic Hellfire Club attire, so there’s 18th-century fashion mixed with corsets and leather gear, but mixing up the gendering of those elements, resulting in something elegant and sexy.”
Check out Vecchio’s cover along with a variant cover by R.B. Silva and RSVP for X-Men: The Hellfire Murder #1 at your local comic shop today! For more information, visit Marvel.com.
X-MEN: THE HELLFIRE MURDER #1
Written by SALADIN AHMED, JED MACKAY, GAIL SIMONE, EVE L. EWING & ERICA SCHULTZ
Art by TONY DANIEL, LUCIANO VECCHIO, FEDERICA MANCIN & MORE
Adventurous Kate contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through these links, I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Thanks!
After two quiet months at home in Prague, while living through one of the coldest winters we’ve had in years, it was time for something better.
A bit of sunshine. A bit of warmth. And a bit of time in the South of France.
Here’s what I got up to in March 2026!
Destinations Visited
Prague, Czech Republic
Toulouse, Narbonne, Montpellier, and Marseille, France
Toulouse was a dazzling city from top to bottom!
Highlights
A fun and foodie trip to southern France. Charlie and I take each other on trips for our birthdays, and as soon as we found out that Les Grands Buffets existed, that’s what he wanted to do for his!
And with three of our friends in tow, we flew to Toulouse, had a decadent night at the buffet in Narbonne, spent a few pleasant days in Montpellier, and finished up in Marseille.
Toulouse was a revelation — and it quickly became one of my favorite cities in France! Toulouse is about the size of Prague, with just over one million residents. But it feels so chilled out by comparison.
Toulouse looks different from every other city in France, thanks to the pinky-red bricks of the buildings in the city. There are tons of cute little restaurants and boutiques everywhere, and I would genuinely come back here just to shop and eat. The city has a great vibe, too. I can see why people want to live here.
Our final photo at the end of the night at Les Grands Buffets!
The buffet experience at Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne was incredible — one of my top foodie experiences, ever, and we already want to return in the future.
I’ve already written a full post about the buffet experience, so I won’t repeat myself here.
I will only share that we ate SO much delicious food, and for 65.90 euros per person, we got fantastic value, at least double or even triple the value of what we would have paid for that much food in a regular restaurant. If you’re a foodie traveler or a French food enthusiast — or especially a cheese freak — you should make an effort to go once in your life.
These eclairs from Maison Bonnaire in Montpellier were SO good.
Next up was Montpellier. Montpellier is a small university city in the south, and it felt a bit like a baby Paris on the Mediterranean, thanks to its Haussmann architecture with a few palm trees poking out here and there.
We ate great food in Montpellier, especially after hitting up the markets and bakeries. The eclairs at Maison Bonnaire were especially memorable. Overall, I think this would be a great city to spend a week in when you need to recharge. Just go for strolls, visit the beach, eat good food, and repeat.
And we finished our trip in Marseille…and I’ll put that in the “Challenges” section. You’ll soon see why.
Belle and Sebastian were great in Berlin!
A nice and productive trip to Berlin. Charlie and I went to Berlin to attend ITB Berlin, the largest travel trade show in the world. Oddly, this was the first year we both went.
The show was successful for us both, with lots of good meetings. And we got to spend time with lots of our blogger friends, including some I hadn’t seen in many years.
On our final night in Berlin, we went to see Belle & Sebastian with our friends Daryl and Mindi. They played their first album, Tigermilk, and sounded just as good as they did 30 years ago. The venue, Metropol, was really cool — it kind of felt like a freaky church.
I’m happy to add that this was the first concert I’ve been to of an artist I discovered in my Rolling Stone 500 albums challenge. How awesome is that?
We won the toughest pub quiz in Prague on our first try!
Charlie and I joined a trivia team in Prague! I always feel like I can’t join a team or any kind of regular activity because of my travel schedule, but our friend Jamie invited us to join, and this is the perfect solution — you simply volunteer to join on the days you can make it. There’s no pressure to show up every week.
Our team plays the same pub quiz each week on Monday nights — Prague’s toughest quiz, in fact. Some of the questions will genuinely stump you, especially the cryptic questions.
But it’s been going well. I’m loving working together with a team of new friends. And the first week we joined, we actually won!
And in case you’re wondering, Lewis the cat is STILL being very snuggly with me. Last month, Lewis started climbing into my lap almost every day. I’m happy to report that he’s still doing it. Sometimes Charlie and I will sit on either side of the couch and battle for Lewis’s affections.
Marseille was pretty much rained out for us.
Challenges
Marseille was a bit of a bust. We knew we would only have an afternoon and evening there, and since it was a Sunday, we had to take a 2.5-hour bus from Montpellier to Marseille, rather than the train that runs the other six days of the week.
And once we got there, it was raining — a cold, intense rain that came down in sheets. And if you’ve been to the Mediterranean in the off-season, you know that they have no clue how to heat anything properly. People were eating outside in tents, shivering in their heavy coats.
But we made the best of it! We found a cafe with the heater blasting next to the open front door, then we grabbed a table at Les Grandes Halles du Vieux-Port, an indoor food hall with a lot of great restaurants. We spent the afternoon eating seafood and drinking rosé before picking up some Savon de Marseille (the city’s famous soap) and heading to our hotel.
I definitely want to return to Marseille and experience the city properly. There are direct flights from Prague, so maybe a long weekend in late spring or early fall sometime…
And then I got food poisoning. It hit once I was home, about 24 hours after we had our seafood extravaganza in Marseille. (Charlie and Nick were fine, so I’m thinking it might have been a bad oyster.) Thankfully it wasn’t a violent kind of food poisoning — just nausea and stomach cramps for three days.
Going to Les Grands Buffets? Don’t expect good photos.
Finally, Les Grands Buffets is NOT an easy place to make content. I kind of had that feeling going in, so I stuck to just doing quick phone photos and videos rather than bringing out the good camera or video camera.
But if you want to make Actually Decent Content at Les Grands Buffets, I recommend you book multiple seatings, because the night goes by FAST and you probably can’t eat what you want to eat *AND* make content about it.
On top of that, the lighting is dim, and it’s loud and crowded. So just know that. I thought I would share that as a head’s up for other content creators.
I put 50 crowns into a fortune-telling gumball machine, and I ended up with this!
Blog Posts of the Month
What’s It Really Like to Travel to Madagascar? — A huge, detailed recap about why this country, while so challenging at times, is absolutely worth it.
Les Grands Buffets — Worth It or Not? A Detailed Review — Les Grands Buffets in Narbonne, France, is an epic French buffet and one of my favorite food experiences I’ve ever had. But would it be worth it for you?
Most Popular Post on Instagram
Madagascar is not for everyone. My first video from Madagascar! I posted this video on Instagram and on TikTok.
While Madagascar is an incredible destination and I loved my time there, it is absolutely not a destination for everyone. Or even most travelers. You need to ask yourself a number of questions.
I only watched Top Model occasionally back in the day, but I did see some of the more memorable episodes (like the one where they made them up to be different races!). And through a 2026 lens, WOW. This show was MESSED UP and they did some truly horrific things.
The worst was getting the models and a group of local men extremely drunk, then one girl who was blackout drunk ended up hooking up with one of the men. She has no memory of it. This was all filmed. And the next day, and for years after (!), the show shamed her for cheating on her boyfriend — when she was a victim of sexual assault who couldn’t possibly consent!
It also made me think of Below Deck: Down Under Season One, when one member of the crew attempted to sexually assault another crew member, a woman who was blackout drunk, and 1) the film crew stopped it and 2) the assaulter was kicked off the boat immediately and fired the next morning. I’m glad times have changed and we are able to see an assault for what it is.
I also watched a lot of Season 2 of Paradise this month. I absolutely loved Season One of Paradise, but I’m not sure I’m loving it as much this season. I think it might be the influence of The Pitt — I love the hyper-realism of that show.
And Paradise, as with the show runner’s last show This is Us, there are a lot of overwritten monologues, strange coincidences, and manipulative emotional moments. Not sure I’m into that anymore. Make more shows like The Pitt!
Finally, I saw Project Hail Mary in IMAX, and it might be my favorite IMAX experience I’ve ever had. The movie is fantastic and flies by, and it’s beautifully filmed and so faithful to the book. An absolute joy, and so uplifting. One that is very much worth seeing in the theater.
What I Listened To This Month
I’m listening to all 500 of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which I am enjoying immensely. I am loving discovering new artists and listening to albums I’ve somehow missed my entire life until now!
In March, I listened to albums number 112-93. Not a big month for listening.
Favorite Discovery:Supa Dupa Fly by Missy Elliott. WHAT A GREAT HIP-HOP ALBUM. What I love about Missy’s music is that it feels so timeless. She always makes futuristic-sounding music without any of the cheesiness that weighs down other rappers. You could have made this album today and it wouldn’t have sounded dated at all.
This is an incredible album for dancing, grooving, driving, and just vibing. Everything on the album has a specific point of view, but the songs are diverse and each have a different sound.
Missy and Timbaland were a match made in heaven (and still are) — but I think she deserves more respect on her own, both as a rapper, a singer, and a producer.
Other Favorite Discoveries:When the Pawn… by Fiona Apple, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John, Automatic For the People by R.E.M., Take Care by Drake, Control by Janet Jackson, Court and Spark by Joni Mitchell.
Favorite Revisited Album: Nothing revisited! Everything was new to me this month. I think I listened to When the Pawn… once or twice as a teenager.
Favorite Songs: “Limp” by Fiona Apple, “You Don’t Wanna Fuck With Me” by Missy Elliott, “When I Think of You” by Janet Jackson, “Me Myself and I” by De La Soul, “The Ballad of Danny Boyle” by Elton John, “Car on a Hill” by Joni Mitchell, “Wild Horses” by The Rolling Stones, “The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight” by R.E.M., “Asking For It” by Hole.
Get the playlist: I’m creating a playlist of my favorite songs from the 500 albums — maximum one per album — on Spotify. You can listen to it here.
Random Music Thoughts: As the list ticks down, there are fewer and fewer artists introduced for the first time. The only newcomers this month were Television, Hole, The Allman Brothers Band, Drake, and Missy Elliott.
*Disclaimer: QUITE A LOT of the musicians featured on this list are problematic in various ways — there’s even a murderer in the mix. I’m looking at their music solely from an influential perspective.
There’s nothing Charlie loves more than posing Murray and Lewis like this.
What I Read This Month
Adult Braces: Driving Myself Sane by Lindy West (2026) — Lindy West’s husband Aham told her he was going to be polygamous and she had to either accept it or end their relationship. She didn’t want it. Aham had not one but two secret girlfriends. So she decided to go on a solo trip across the US to see if she could handle being alone. At the end of the book, she decided to start dating Aham’s girlfriend. And now they’ve been in a triad for years.
I am a big Lindy fan, and the book itself is really good in a lot of ways. I love her voice and her humor, and the parts about travel were the strongest parts of all, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with her on a lot of things. I loved how she wrote about Florida, of all places, specifically the Forgotten Coast and that whole lesser-known region of Florida.
But there are a lot of alarming things about her relationships in both this book, and its aftermath.
I wrote a lot about this in my newsletter last week, and I’m not going to repeat myself. But I will say this: since this book came out, it is clear to me that Aham has been publicly humiliating Lindy for a long time now, and has been emotionally abusive not only to her, but random women (including writer Scaachi Koul, who wrote a piece on the book).
I want her to get away from Aham, because she deserves much, much better. But I have the feeling that all this discourse is going to make Lindy double down.
Easter markets are now in full swing in the Czech Republic!
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021) — Middle school science teacher Ryland Grace wakes up from a coma on a space shuttle and can’t remember why he’s there. Soon, he remembers that the sun is dying, and that scientists on Earth have sent him there to find a solution. But soon after arrival, he discovers another ship, an unusual ship the likes of which he’s never seen — and realizes that he’s not alone.
It was my top priority to read Project Hail Mary before seeing the movie, in part because I thought Weir’s first novel, The Martian, was a much better book than a movie. I devoured it in 48 hours! I adored this story and how it turned into a buddy comedy. It almost follows the plot of a typical romantic comedy, only it’s platonic. More uplifting sci-fi!
I’ve heard the audiobook is great, too, but I chose to read it because I figured I’d zone out at the more science-y parts. You couldn’t go wrong with either.
Bukhara, Uzbekistan, via giuseppemasci.me.com on DepositPhotos
Coming Up in April 2026
This month I have a big adventure planned — I’m traveling solo to Central Asia! This is a new region for me and one I’ve wanted to cover from the perspective of a solo female traveler.
I’ll be visiting Kazakhstan first, mostly basing in Almaty, with an overnight trip to Charyn Canyon, Black Canyon, Moon Canyon, Lake Kaindy, and Kolsai Lake. Next I’ll fly to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and travel by train to Samarkand, then Bukhara, then Khiva, before flying back to Tashkent. While in Samarkand, I’ll be doing a day trip to the Seven Lakes of Tajikistan.
If all goes according to plan, these will be countries number 97, 98, and 99 for me.
In Uzbekistan, I’ll be trying out lots of crafty activities and diving into their textiles. They have some of the best silks in the world, and gorgeous traditions when it comes to embroidery, pottery, and wood carving. I also have a photo shoot planned in Samarkand.
I know a lot of people are apprehensive about traveling at the moment, so I want to share why I’m comfortable traveling here at this time. First off, these countries in Central Asia are extremely safe for travelers in general, and solo female travelers specifically. I’ve done lots of research and talked to friends who travel here often.
Secondly, these countries are never involved whenever violence or war kicks off in the Middle East. Life has been continuing as usual in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.
And finally, I’m not flying through the Gulf. I’m flying Prague-Frankfurt-Almaty on the way there and Tashkent-Istanbul-Prague on the way back, which is an itinerary that allows me to avoid flight disruptions.
I’m really excited to share Central Asia with you.
I’m 60 years old. And I’m just getting re-started.
That’s not a line I expected to be writing at this point in my life. Most people my age are thinking about winding down, wrapping up careers, simplifying, preparing for what comes next. But something unexpected happened to me over the last couple of years. I discovered AI, not as a tech toy or a productivity hack, but as a genuine partner. And it changed everything. All of the novels I’ve written over the years now being re-purposed for films. All of my scripts now coming to life. Waiting for budgets is OVER. But besides that…
I’m earning a living. I’m building toward retirement. I’m writing my stories: real ones, fiction ones, the kind I always said I’d get to “someday.” I’m locking in my legacy. Not because I suddenly found extra hours in the day, but because something shifted in how I thought about what was possible. And thank God for my good health and the drive and passion to push!
That’s the part most people miss when they talk about AI. They don’t consider mortality and llegacy. Meanwhile, they’re treating it like a new tool, a smarter Google, a faster assistant, fancier software. And yes, it can do those things. But the real change isn’t in what it can do. It’s in what you start to believe you can do.
The conversation we’re actually having
There’s a lot of noise around AI right now. Some people are certain it’s going to ruin everything. Others swear it’s going to save everything. Most of us are somewhere in the middle, a little curious, a little skeptical, and honestly a little overwhelmed by how fast it’s all moving.
But here’s what I’ve come to believe: the question isn’t whether AI is good or bad, transformative or overhyped. It’s already here. The more useful question is what you’re going to do with it. And that starts not with signing up for a new app, but with shifting how you see yourself in relation to this thing.
Adopt: Lower the bar for beginning
The hardest part of adopting anything new isn’t learning it. It’s believing you’re the kind of person who can. A lot of people have quietly decided that AI is for younger people, for tech-savvy people, for people who already have a plan. That belief is the only real barrier.
Adopting AI doesn’t mean becoming an expert. It means starting a conversation. Literally. You type something, a question, an idea, a half-formed thought, and something responds. You go back and forth. You get a little further than you would have on your own. That’s it. That’s the beginning. You can do it for free right now, on any of the platforms. Wanna know what is the best platform? RESEARCH IT! Try the brands you know… Claude, Perplexity, ChatGPT, META, Grok, Gemini… to name a few. Just go into their chat box and ask questions. ANY questions. And are the answers too advanced for you? Ask (in that same chat box) for the ai to speak to you on a 8th grade level… even a 3rd grade level. wherever you’re at, ai will meet you there and get you leveled-up.
For me, it started with something simple: I wanted to get my writing into audio & film formats, but every time I sat down, I got stuck. I had to learn some new software or tool. AI gave me a place to start that wasn’t a blank page staring back at me. It wasn’t magic. It wasn’t just removing one of the obstacles that had been stopping me for years. All I had to do was run (not walk) to youtube! The 24/7 college educator.
Here’s where the mindset piece really kicks in. AI, on its own, is just potential. It becomes useful when you bring your experience, your voice, your judgment to it. That’s the adaptation: figuring out how this fits into the specific texture of your life.
For someone starting a business, it might mean using AI to draft emails faster, think through problems, or map out a plan without needing to hire a whole team. For a teacher, it might mean building curriculum, generating examples, or just having a thought partner who’s available at midnight. For a 60-year-old with a lifetime of stories to tell, it means finally having the support to actually tell them.
The people who get the most out of AI aren’t the ones who use it the most. They’re the ones who’ve figured out how it complements what they already bring. You are not replaceable in this equation. You’re the reason it works.
Advance: Redefine what’s possible
This is the part that still surprises me, even now.
I didn’t expect that AI would help me feel more like myself: more productive, more creative, more clear-headed about what I want to leave behind. But that’s what’s happened. I’ve written pieces I’m proud of. I’ve put plans in place for my future that I wouldn’t have known how to build before. I’ve started thinking less about what’s behind me and more about what I still want to build.
Advancing with AI doesn’t mean becoming someone new. It means finally having enough support to become more fully who you already are.
There’s a version of this conversation that’s about market disruption and economic transformation. That conversation matters, and it’s worth having. But there’s another version, quieter and more personal, about people who thought their best chapters were behind them, and discovered they weren’t.
That’s the version I want to be part of.
Where to go from here
If you’re still on the sidelines, I get it. It’s a lot. The technology is moving fast, the claims are enormous, and it’s hard to know what any of it actually means for you and your life.
Start small. Pick one thing you’ve been putting off: a letter you haven’t written, a project you haven’t started, a question you haven’t known how to answer. Bring AI into it. Not because it will do it for you, but because it might help you do it yourself.
That’s what adoption looks like. That’s where adaptation begins. And if you stick with it, if you start to see it less as a tool and more as a collaborator, you might find yourself advancing in directions you didn’t know were still open to you.
I’m 60. I’m just getting started. You might be too.
There’s a moment you probably know. Someone you admired does something that makes you sit back and go, huh. Not shock. Not quite anger. More like recognition. Like the thing you’d suspected but could never name just walked in and took a seat.
That’s what happened when Chilli’s receipts hit the internet.
FEC records showed roughly $897 in donations across seventeen contributions. WinRed, the Never Surrender PAC, the Trump National Committee. Then a conspiracy post calling Michelle Obama a man sat on her page long enough for screenshots to spread. Her bandmate T-Boz, who has stood on the other side of that line for years, suddenly became more than a musical partner. She became a mirror.
Chilli’s response: “I am not MAGA.” She said she didn’t read the fine print. Thought she was supporting veterans and efforts against human trafficking.
Maybe. People miss details. Fine print is treacherous.
But this moment reaches far past one singer. It has little to do with Chilli specifically and everything to do with the world we’re all trying to navigate right now.
We used to call this a conspiracy theory.
Not long ago, if you suggested a beloved R&B artist was quietly funding conservative causes, you’d get waved off as messy. No proof without private ledgers and closed-door conversations. The curtain held. The image stayed intact.
That curtain is shredded.
The FEC database is public. What you repost lives on servers that never forget. Screenshots outrun deletions. The algorithm remembers what you lingered on, what you shared, what felt safe enough to attach your name to. Unlike memory, it doesn’t blur with time.
We’re living in total digital transparency. Most of us still haven’t absorbed what that actually means for the lives, careers, and legacies we’re building in real time.
Your digital footprint isn’t only your posts. It’s the shape of your attention. The content that felt good enough to forward. The causes that got your money when the window felt private and the audience felt small. It’s the version of you that existed before you realized everyone was watching.
That version is still out there. And searchable.
The feed becomes the foundation.
What you consume, day after day, scroll after scroll, starts to construct you. This isn’t metaphor. It’s how minds actually work. The information diet slowly hardens the frame through which you see everything else. What feels true, what feels plausible, which voices feel like home. Brilliant people get pulled into ecosystems that calcify their thinking. The feed doesn’t care about your IQ. It cares about your engagement.
So when someone reposts a conspiracy theory and leaves it up long enough for it to register, you’re not just watching a slip. You’re seeing the residue of an information diet. You’re seeing what felt normal enough to share. What didn’t trip the internal alarm. That comfort level is the tell. Not the dollar amount. Not the label. The fact that it passed through without resistance.
Once the technology exists to surface it, your private opinions aren’t private. They’re just delayed public record.
What this costs
The It’s Iconic Tour. Salt-N-Pepa, En Vogue, TLC sharing a stage. Real money. Real legacy. Three decades of surviving the industry, each other, and loss, crystallized into one cultural moment.
Now it’s also a conversation about whether to buy a ticket.
That’s the bleed. That midnight scroll where something inflammatory crosses your feed and your thumb hesitates just a second too long before you hit repost. Your opinions no longer stay in your chest or in rooms you thought were private. They travel through donation records, shares, metadata. They reach your career, your relationships, your reputation long before you finish explaining yourself.
The artists who built warmth and community trust face the steepest drop. The distance between the presented self and the private one becomes the headline.
The elephant in the room
The entertainment industry once ran on an unspoken deal: make the art, we’ll grant you the grace of ambiguity. Private politics, private contradictions. Keep them off the stage and we won’t ask.
That deal is being rewritten without a vote.
Fans aren’t just consumers anymore. They’re investigators. Archivers. They watch for alignment between the values signaled on stage and the choices made with money, platform, and attention. In a time when policy lands directly in healthcare, safety, classrooms, ambiguity has grown expensive.
You cannot wave the banner of Black girl power and financial independence under the lights, then quietly fund directions that pull against those very systems, without someone noticing. Not in 2026. That’s not moralizing. That’s the new physics of public life.
What now
This moment asks something of every person who has built anything that carries their name.
Own who you are before the internet does it for you.
The digital age doesn’t punish authenticity. It punishes the gap between image and truth. People can forgive conviction, complexity, even honest contradiction. What’s harder to forgive is the performance of values you weren’t actually living.
The most durable path. Career, credibility, legacy. The one where the public version and the private version sit close enough that no screenshot can rattle them.
Your digital footprint is your biography now. Written in real time. Permanent. Searchable.
The question isn’t whether you’ll be seen. You already are.
The question is whether what they find is something you can stand behind. Without flinching.
Federal agents have arrested the illegal immigrant who was tackled and zip-tied by onlookers during the California wildfires in a wild scene caught on video.
Residents of Woodland Hills ran down and subdued Juan Manuel Sierra-Leyva after they saw him trying to torch debris with what one resident described as a “flamethrower” soon after last year’s massive wildfires began last January.
Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested Sierra-Leyva, 34, for a felony probation violation and suspicion of arson.
Cops arrested Sierra-Leyva last January. CitizenActor Brian J. White helped with the citizens’ arrest. Chris Sumner via Storyful
The Ventura County Sheriff’s office identified him as a “person of interest” in the Kenneth fire, which burned more than 1,000 acres.
He was held until Thursday, when he was freed from Van Nuys Jail and immediately arrested again by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Viral security cam footage shared online showed Sierra-Leyva trying to ignite garbage and old Christmas trees with a blowtorch before neighbors chased him down in the disturbing Jan. 10, 2025, incident.
Neighbors said Sierra-Leyva used a propane tank in an effort to light garbage on fire. @reresellsvroomvrooms/Instagram
Local resident Renata Grinshpun said she was in her backyard when she heard a car screech to a stop and a man yelling, “Neighbors, he’s trying to start a fire! Call 911!”
Grinshpun saw Sierra-Leyva holding a large “propane tank or a flamethrower” — which others described as a blowtorch — as he tried to torch debris in the street, she told KTLA at the time.
Neighbors sprang to action and swarmed Sierra-Leyva as he tried to ride off on a bicycle, as caught in the video — with one man yelling at him: “Put it down!”
“We really banded together as a group,” Grinshpun told KTLA. “A few gentlemen surrounded him and got him on his knees. They got some zip ties, a rope and we were able to do a citizens’ arrest.”
Resident confronted Sierra-Leyva during the California wildfires last year. Chris Sumner via StoryfulPolice captured Sierra-Leyva after he was held in a citizens’ arrest. Renata Grinshpun/Instagram
LAPD officers later came to take Sierra-Leyva into custody, the video shows.
The LAPD responded and arrested Sierra-Leyva, video from the scene shows. The major crimes squad was called in because he was “a possible arson suspect” — but no arson charges were brought immediately against him, LAPD officials said.
It’s unclear if Sierra-Leyva was ever charged with arson.
Sierra-Leyva was released from jail and picked up by ICE on Thursday. Renata Grinshpun/Instagram
The Los Angeles District Attorney had no record of his case. Reps for the Ventura County Sheriff and the Los Angeles County Sheriff didn’t respond to requests for information on Sierra-Leyva.
Federal authorities are now seeking his removal from the US.
Sierra-Leyva has a lengthy criminal history and spent more than three years in US jails.
ICE officials said his rap sheet includes aggravated assault, trespassing, amphetamine possession, damaging property, violation of a court order, and disturbing public peace.
Records show Sierra-Leyva has been convicted of multiple crimes in LA County, including assault with a deadly weapon in 2023.
Sierra-Leyva illegally entered the US near Tecate, California, in 2009, according to ICE.
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ICE officials placed an immigration detainer on Sierra last January asking that he be kept in custody and handed over to ICE for deportation.
But local authorities refused to honor the detainer and released Sierra-Leyva under California’s sanctuary law, ICE officials said.
The state law, passed in 2017, ensures that no state resources are used to assist federal immigration enforcement.
The Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed an ordinance in 2024 that prohibits the use of city resources and personnel to carry out federal immigration enforcement.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in February rolled out several anti-ICE measures, including one that will bar federal immigration officers from using or staying at any city-owned facilities.
Bass also created a new law that would impose a fee on Los Angeles property owners who grant site control to the feds.
The embattled Democrat — who previously called for ICE agents to leave the city — said she felt compelled “to protect Los Angeles, unfortunately, from our own federal government.”
California’s anti-ICE laws remain controversial. A federal judge last month blocked another anti-ICE statute that would ban federal agents from wearing masks during law enforcement activity.
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Million dollar chicken salad totally lives up to the name. It’s creamy, cheesy, crunchy, and packed with bacon, so every bite is full of flavor. Serve it on croissants, with crackers, or straight from the bowl! It’s that good.
Why Your Lunch Just Got Better
Beyond the Basic: These simple, yet tasty ingredients turn ordinary chicken salad into a flavor packed superstar!
Meal-Prep Magic: Make it ahead, chill, and it’s ready whenever hunger strikes. Great for meal prep, it’s the perfect high, extra protein lunch!
So Many Ways to Serve: Pile it on croissants, over lettuce, in wraps, or with crackers… so many delicious options!
Million Dollar Chicken Salad Ingredients
Chicken: Use chopped or shredded chicken. I like to use rotisserie chicken when I’m short on time!
Bacon: Precooked, refrigerated bacon heats up quickly! You can use real bacon bits to make it easy.
Almonds: Slivered almonds are a classic million-dollar ingredient, but you can use sliced or chopped almonds as well.
Salt and Pepper: Season just to taste! The bacon and cheese add a salty flavor, so taste the salad before adding any salt.
How to Make Million Dollar Chicken Salad
Get ready to fall in love with chicken salad all over again! This million dollar version is a total game changer, and if you’re a fan of big flavors, don’t miss my other million dollar hits like million dollar spaghetti and million dollar chicken.
Combine: Add the chopped chicken, celery, shredded cheddar cheese, slivered almonds, crispy bacon, and green onions to a large bowl.
Stir: Add the mayonnaise and stir well until everything is evenly coated. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve: Enjoy on fresh croissants, on a bed of lettuce, or with crackers.
Alyssa’s Pro Tip
Add Some Tang: My OG chicken salad recipe has 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and I love the flavor it adds. Feel free to add some to this recipe!
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Add 3 cups chopped cooked chicken breast, ¾ cup chopped celery, ¾ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese, ½ cup slivered almonds, ½ cup cooked and crumbled bacon, and ¼ cup diced green onions to a large bowl.
Add 1 ¼ cups mayonnaise and stir well to combine.
Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve on fresh croissants, on a bed of lettuce, or with crackers!
Make Ahead and Leftover Instructions
Make-Ahead: Prepare it, cover it tightly, and store it in the fridge until you’re ready to enjoy! Before serving, stir in 1-2 tablespoons of mayonnaise to add moisture if the salad needs a refresh!
Fridge: Keep in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Meet the women at the center. Ksyusha keeps filing stories while her fiancé sits in prison. Anna hosts everyday acts of defiance on air while shielding her daughter from the threats that follow her home. Sonya records her podcast in a stripped-bare apartment, no decorations, nothing to distract from the work or the fear. Alesya hides her relationship from her traditional mother and wonders if her office is wired. These aren’t abstract symbols of resistance. They’re sharp, warm, funny, exhausted human beings trying to keep truth alive while surveillance tightens and the state labels them enemies.
Four months after Loktev starts filming, Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The film catches the exact pivot—the moment independent media gets strangled, outlets shuttered, and exile becomes the only exit ramp left. You watch them scramble, report against the propaganda flood, then pack what they can and leave. The world you’re seeing, Loktev warns early on, no longer exists. That line hits harder now.
The production itself feels impossible. Loktev shot it herself, mostly on an iPhone, moving light and invisible. Co-editor Michael Taylor (who cut The Farewell) helped shape the material, and consulting producer Riva Marker kept the focus tight. The result earned serious steel: Critics’ Choice at IDFA, shortlisted for an Oscar, winner at Gotham and New York Film Critics Circle. Critics call it staggering, heartbreaking, a historic record dressed as immersive reality. Five-and-a-half hours that feel like a Russian novel crossed with the most urgent documentary you’ll see this year.
This isn’t distant history. It’s a mirror held up to any place where power decides truth is negotiable. You watch these women navigate paranoia, loyalty, love, and the grinding daily choice to keep speaking when silence would be safer. Their laughter still cuts through the dread. Their ordinary moments—coffee, conversation, small rebellions—make the stakes feel personal, not performative.
If you’re in Atlanta or anywhere the platform reaches, clear some evenings starting April 3. Stream it. Sit with it. Let the weight settle. Because these stories don’t stay contained. They ripple. They ask you what you’d do when the air gets thin and the labels start sticking to your own door.
The trailer is already out there, pulling you in. The poster artwork lands with that same stark urgency. Two headshots above capture the faces behind the lens and the voices on screen—Julia Loktev’s steady gaze, the quiet command of someone who lived every frame, and Anna Nemzer’s presence, the co-director who knew the terrain from the inside. Look at them. Then watch the film. The courage is contagious. The questions it leaves you with won’t let go easy.
Emotional truth is mandatory here. Biographical truth is non-negotiable. The craft survives without costume because the women in front of the camera never had the luxury of one.
The ghosts of our ancestors don’t just haunt old houses—they live in our text messages, our arguments over dinner, and the way we flinch when someone raises their voice. Generational trauma is the uninvited guest at every relationship table, the shadow that follows us from our childhood bedrooms into our adult partnerships, whispering the same old scripts we swore we’d never repeat.
I’ve watched it play out countless times, in my own life and in the lives of those around me. The woman who can’t accept love without suspicion because her grandmother taught her mother that men always leave, and her mother passed that gospel down like a family recipe. The man who shuts down emotionally the moment conflict arises because three generations of men in his family learned that feelings were weapons that could be used against you. These aren’t choices we make consciously—they’re survival mechanisms encoded in our DNA, patterns so deeply embedded we mistake them for personality traits.
The cruelest part about generational trauma is how it masquerades as protection. Your great-grandfather lived through the Depression, so your grandfather hoarded everything, so your father never spent money on anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, so you feel guilty every time you want something beautiful or unnecessary. Your great-grandmother was abandoned with children, so your grandmother never fully trusted men, so your mother stayed hypervigilant in relationships, so you find yourself checking your partner’s phone at 2 AM, searching for evidence of inevitable betrayal.
In romantic relationships, this trauma shows up like a terrible magic trick—now you see it, now you don’t, but the damage is always there. It’s in the way we choose partners who feel familiar, even when familiar means chaotic or emotionally unavailable. It’s in how we love: too hard, too fast, or not at all. It’s in the stories we tell ourselves about what we deserve, stories written by people who lived through wars and poverty and heartbreak we can’t even imagine, but whose pain we carry like inherited debt.
I remember being in a relationship where every argument felt like the end of the world because, to me, it was. Not because the relationship was actually ending, but because I was hardwired to believe that conflict meant abandonment. My nervous system couldn’t tell the difference between a disagreement about whose turn it was to do dishes and the chaos of a household where arguing meant someone might not come home. I was fighting ghosts, defending against threats that existed thirty years before I was born.
The insidious nature of generational trauma is that it feels like truth. When you’ve been raised in patterns of instability, stability feels boring, wrong, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you’ve inherited anxiety about money, love languages get confused with financial security. When your family tree is full of people who never learned to communicate emotions in healthy ways, you find yourself either exploding or imploding, never finding that middle ground where adults discuss feelings like the complex but manageable things they are.
But here’s what I’ve learned through years of stumbling through relationships like a bull in a china shop: recognizing these patterns is the first step toward changing them. The trauma isn’t your fault, but healing from it is your responsibility. Not because you owe it to anyone else, but because you owe it to yourself to live a life that’s truly yours, not a rerun of your ancestors’ unresolved pain.
Breaking generational patterns requires a kind of courage that doesn’t get celebrated enough. It means being willing to feel uncomfortable in healthy relationships because healthy doesn’t feel familiar. It means having conversations with your partner about why you react certain ways, even when those explanations make you feel exposed and vulnerable. It means learning new languages of love and conflict resolution when the only models you had were silence or screaming.
The work isn’t pretty or linear. You’ll find yourself reverting to old patterns just when you think you’ve made progress. You’ll catch yourself saying things your mother said, reacting in ways that feel automatic and shameful. But every time you pause, every time you choose a different response, every time you communicate instead of assuming, you’re literally rewiring decades of programming.
Some of the most beautiful relationships I’ve witnessed are between people who’ve done this work, individually and together. They’ve learned to see their trauma responses not as character flaws but as information about what they need to feel safe. They’ve created new traditions, new ways of handling money and conflict and intimacy that honor their histories without being enslaved by them. They’ve become ancestors for future generations who will inherit healing instead of hurt.
This isn’t about blaming previous generations or pretending that trauma isn’t real. Our ancestors did the best they could with what they had, and sometimes what they had was survival mode, scarcity, and limited emotional vocabulary. The trauma they passed down often came wrapped in love, in their desperate attempts to prepare us for a world they experienced as dangerous and unpredictable.
But we have opportunities they didn’t have. We have language for things they couldn’t name, resources they couldn’t access, and most importantly, the chance to choose differently. We can love our families and their stories while refusing to let their pain dictate our present. We can honor their struggles while creating our own definitions of what it means to be in relationship.
The truth is, we’re all carrying something. Every person you love, every person you’ll ever love, is walking around with invisible wounds passed down through generations of people who were just trying to make it through another day. Understanding this doesn’t excuse harmful behavior, but it creates space for the kind of compassion that makes real intimacy possible.
When you can look at your partner’s triggers and see not just their individual psychology but the echoes of their ancestors’ survival strategies, when they can do the same for you, something profound becomes possible. Not perfect love, but conscious love. Not the absence of pain, but the presence of choice in how you respond to it.
What would your relationships look like if you could love each other’s wounds as tenderly as you love each other’s strengths?
And BTW, I’m doing the ABSOLUTE best to address these issues using my own creativity. Have you heard the music I produce? The videos ” produce? Join us:
