The Best, Wackiest and Most Memorable Red Carpet Looks From the 2024 Awards Season

Between the pandemic and the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes, the glamor of Hollywood has been largely on pause for the last few years. Which might explain why this awards season, the red carpet was back in a big way. During the run of awards shows over the last few months, stars showed up and showed out in looks that have run the gamut from strikingly elegant to boldly daring.

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Some, like Barbie‘s Margot Robbie—who’s spent the better part of the year in Barbiecore pink—have used the red carpet as a way to promote their films. Others have approached it more as an elevated extension of their personal style, like The Bear‘s breakout star Ayo Edebiri, whose cool, minimalist looks have earned her almost as many accolades as the awards she’s swept up. The element that unites all the best red carpet looks this season, however, is an adventurous spirit that isn’t afraid to have a little fun, be a little extra, or push the envelope. One need look no further than Rustin‘s Colman Domingo, a longtime triple threat who’s having a leading man moment and absolutely dressing for the part with aplomb, donning tailored suits in playful colors and accessorizing with metallic coats and regal jewelry.

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With that in mind, we’ve rounded up the most memorable looks from the many ceremonies this awards season, from the show-stopping to the wonderfully weird, below.

Read more: All the Best Looks From the 2024 Oscars Red Carpet

Menswear MVP: Colman Domingo

When it comes to red carpet looks, suiting is often relegated to the sidelines. But in the dapper hands of Rustin‘s Colman Domingo, menswear has taken center stage this awards season. From a mustard Valentino haute couture suit paired with a textured metallic gold coat at the Critics Choice Awards to his Oscars look of a perfectly tailored Louis Vuitton tuxedo with flared legs—accessorized with David Yurman jewels and a pair of Louis Vuitton cowboy boots—Domingo’s choices on the red carpet have easily made him one of the best dressed of awards seasons.

Best commitment to a theme: Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie’s press tour outfits for Barbie were a study in the many iconic looks of the world’s most famous doll, a theme she continued throughout the many awards shows this season. From a sparkling bubblegum pink Armani Privé gown and matching tulle boa that she wore to the Golden Globes to a dramatic black and pink Schiaparelli Couture mini dress she wore to the SAG Awards, Robbie remains the face of Barbiecore in Hollywood.

Rookie of the year: Ayo Edebiri

The undeniable breakout star of awards season, Ayo Edebiri swept multiple awards shows this year with her wins for The Bear, while capturing similar enthusiasm for her impeccable red carpet style. Among her best looks were a strapless red Prada sheath with a dramatic train, a sculptural black leather Louis Vuitton dress, and a cooler-than-cool white suit from The Row that paid homage to Whoopi Goldberg.

Best Easter egg as an outfit: Beyoncé

Though Queen Bey was only at the Grammys for part of the ceremony—that is, long enough to see her husband Jay Z call out the academy while accepting the inaugural Dr. Dre Impact award—she sent tongues wagging with her Western-inspired look from the Louis Vuitton men’s collection—a bedazzled black leather checkered suit accessorized with a ribbon tie and a white Stetson cowboy hat. The Beyhive correctly surmised that the cowboy chic look was a hint at her then-rumored upcoming album, which many believed could be a country project in keeping with her Houston, Texas roots. At the Super Bowl the next Sunday, Beyoncé seemingly confirmed this by announcing a release date for her long awaited Act II and releasing two new undeniably country songs, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages.”

Best coordinated looks: Aidy Bryant and Charles Melton

Though it was considerably less formal than most of the awards show looks this season, there may have been no better coordinated outfit than Aidy Bryant and Charles Melton’s collage shirts of each other at the Indy Spirit Awards.

incredible stuff happening at the indie spirit awards pic.twitter.com/iM8aEP2UUE

— bethany (@savesthecat) February 25, 2024

Bryant, who was this year’s host, used the shirts, which featured multiple pictures of each actor and their names, as part of a sketch during the show that paid homage to the May December star—but it also provided the most endearing fashion moment of awards season.

Best sartorial risk taker: Greta Lee

Of all the stars who have walked the red carpet of awards shows this season, none have raised the style bar quite like Greta Lee. The Past Lives star favors conceptual looks that skew more editorial than Hollywood glam, opting for outfits that are quietly striking and often sculptural. From a cream-colored Loewe gown with an elaborately draped open back to a bright red Bottega Veneta frock with a strong silhouette, Lee’s looks brought a sense of daring and intellect to award shows this season.

Best case for academiacore: Billie Eilish

Billie Eilish has never been afraid to make a fashion statement and during this awards season, when she was up for (and won) several awards for her Barbie song “What Was I Made For?”, she’s sported a decidedly studious look, wearing lots of suiting, ties, and pleated skirts and usually accessorizing with a pair of eyeglasses. From an oversized Willy Chavarria getup that brought to mind a private school uniform to her vintage Barbie varsity jacket, paired with baggy trousers and a crisp button down and tie, Eilish makes a compelling case for trying academiacore.

Most avant garde accessorizing: Doja Cat

Leave it to Doja Cat to have the most show-stopping accessory of awards season: full body tattoos. The musical artist shocked fans when she appeared on the Grammys red carpet in a sheer dress that showed to great effect numerous tattoos that covered her body, from head to toe. The ink, which turned out to be temporary, appeared to be part of her look, which was created by the Turkish-British fashion designer Dilara Findikoglu. Doja also prominently sported a temporary forehead tattoo of Findikoglu’s name as part of the outfit.

Most colorful: Andrew Scott

Throughout all of awards season, All of Us Strangers‘ Andrew Scott has made a case for ditching conventional black and white suiting, opting instead for technicolor options, like a lemon yellow Etro suit with matching shoes for the Indie Spirit Awards or an all-red ensemble by Berluti for the BAFTAs.

Best integration of their film in a look: the Godzilla Minus One team

Director Takashi Yamazaki and the rest of his crew for Godzilla Minus One (Masaki Takahashi, Kiyoko Shibuya, Tatsuji Nojima) took promoting their film to the next level when they showed up to the 2024 Oscars with some monstrous accessories. The team members, who took home the prize for Best Visual Effects, all carried a different miniature toy Godzilla to the ceremony and donned shoes with metallic clawed heels shaped like the hands of the legendary kaiju, a terrifyingly good style statement.

source https://time.com/6898429/best-fashion-awards-season-2024/

Experts Can’t Agree If We’re Still in a Pandemic

As a health journalist, I’ve written the phrase “the COVID-19 pandemic” more times than I care to count in the four years since the World Health Organization (WHO) first used that term on March 11, 2020. But lately, the word “pandemic” has given me pause.

Maybe you’ve noticed it too: these days, a lot of people refer to the pandemic in the past tense. “During COVID,” they say, or, “when we were in the pandemic.” The implication is that the virus is gone and the pandemic is over.

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The former is clearly untrue. The SARS-CoV-2 virus still kills thousands of people around the world each month, saddles still more with chronic symptoms known as Long COVID, and continues to evolve, with the highly transmissible JN.1 variant recently causing waves of infection across the globe.

But are we still a pandemic? No one seems to know for sure.

When I asked Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), she didn’t give a direct answer. “Rather than getting caught up in the semantics of it,” she says, people should feel confident that “we are outside of the emergency [phase]. But I don’t want folks to forget that COVID is still here and still poses a risk.”

Even Maria Van Kerkhove, director of epidemic and pandemic prevention and preparedness at the WHO, admitted that the issue is a “confusing” one. The WHO continues to describe COVID-19 as a pandemic on its website. Van Kerkhove says that’s reasonable given the virus’ continued global presence, even though we are no longer in the crisis state we were in 2020—but, she says, there’s no definitive, yes-or-no conclusion about whether that’s the right term to use.

“There is no universal, agreed definition of what a pandemic is,” Van Kerkhove says. “If you asked 100 epidemiologists to define what a pandemic is, or, ‘Are we currently in a pandemic?’, you’d get a lot of different answers.”

What’s a pandemic, anyway?

Epidemiologists consider a disease “endemic” when it spreads in a consistent way, as the flu does each winter in the Northern Hemisphere. An endemic level of disease is the baseline amount for a particular area, which might not be zero but is at least predictable. If a disease suddenly causes a higher-than-average number of cases in a set area, the situation becomes an “epidemic.”

The definition for a “pandemic”—when an epidemic crosses borders, infecting lots of people across multiple countries or continents—is perhaps the squishiest of all.

Calling something a pandemic is essentially a “judgment call,” because “there isn’t a precise number” of cases, hospitalizations, deaths, or affected countries that definitively denotes one, says Dr. Jonathan Quick, an adjunct professor at the Duke Global Health Institute and author of The End of Epidemics. “Anybody who gives you a precise number is just pulling it out of their head.”

Using that label is, in some ways, as much a political and public-relations decision as it is an epidemiological one. “If you’re trying to really reduce the number of deaths, you’ve got to be very strategic in what you do,” says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. Language is part of the calculus, in that it can spur action from officials and the public alike.

But, technically speaking, labeling something a pandemic has no immediate policy implications. Even the WHO does not formally declare pandemics. The agency’s highest official level of alert is a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), a designation meant to mobilize a global, coordinated response. (The PHEIC related to COVID-19 started in January 2020 and ended in May 2023, the same month the U.S. government stopped calling the virus a public-health emergency.)

But, Van Kerkhove says, PHEIC is “not a good acronym. It doesn’t evoke the kind of action like the word ‘pandemic’ does.”

Representatives from WHO member countries around the world are working on a formal definition of a pandemic—four years after COVID-19 came onto the scene—as part of a wider effort to strengthen global pandemic preparedness. An alleged recent draft, which was published in February by Health Policy Watch, is a mouthful: “the global spread of a pathogen or variant that infects human populations with limited or no immunity through sustained and high transmissibility from person to person, overwhelming health systems with severe morbidity and high mortality and causing social and economic disruptions, all of which requires effective national and global collaboration and coordination for its control.” (A WHO spokesperson declined to confirm the legitimacy of that draft definition, but said a new draft of the group’s work is set to be published this week.)

That reported definition doesn’t include numbers, but it does lay out more precise ground rules for what constitutes a pandemic. The pathogen in question must be contagious, novel—since humans don’t have significant preexisting immunity to it—and virulent enough to cause lots of death and disease, overwhelming health systems and disrupting society in the process.

Is COVID-19 still a pandemic, or is it endemic?

Under those terms, SARS-CoV-2 still has some pandemic-y features. It’s still highly transmissible and circulating widely in countries around the world, and it remains a major cause of death and disability globally.

But it isn’t novel anymore, says Katherine Xue, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University who has studied viral evolution. The majority of the world’s population now has some immunity to the virus through vaccination, prior infection, or both, which means that “even a new viral variant is probably not going to be able to infect everybody” in the way the original strain could in 2020, she says.

COVID-19’s spread isn’t perfectly predictable—new variants are emerging all the time, causing spikes in infections all year round rather than seasonally—but it is consistently circulating around the world. To Xue, that means it’s fair to call it endemic. “The picture of COVID that we have now is probably going to be very similar to what we have four years from now, [whereas] the way we dealt with COVID was very different four years ago,” she says. “The rate of change is different.”

COVID-19 also does not overwhelm health systems in the way it once did. Today, with masks, tests, vaccines, and treatments available to some extent around the world, fewer people develop severe disease, and it’s easier to care for those who do. The virus continues to kill people and cause Long COVID, but global death rates are way down from their peaks.

Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has stopped using the word “pandemic,” which he says was a “shorthand way to convey to the public” that COVID-19 constituted a worldwide emergency that required a global shift in behavior. But calling it a pandemic now “just doesn’t feel right,” he says. In his opinion, we’ve been out of the pandemic phase for about a year, given the widespread availability of tests, treatments, and vaccines.

So what’s the word to use now? Experts interviewed for this story were hesitant to pick one. “We really don’t have the language for things that are somewhere between flus and cold viruses and pandemics,” Quick says.

Does the label matter?

It may seem purely semantic, but ambiguity over the p-word has political and public-health implications. While many countries use other labels, like emergency declarations, to unlock funding and trigger coordinated governmental responses to a crisis, calling something a pandemic—even informally—has gravitas. And saying one has ended implies, rightfully or not, that the threat is gone, which may have trickle-down effects on research funding, disease-prevention efforts, and policies around sick leave and public services.

That may be why public-health experts are so loath to take a firm stance. “I would be worried if the headline of your story is, ‘WHO Says We’re No Longer In a Pandemic,’” Van Kerkhove told me. “That would have a different level of meaning from a political point of view.”

Saying a pandemic is over also sends a message to the public that they can move on—assuming, of course, that they haven’t already. Only about 20% of U.S. adults got the latest vaccine, and a similarly small percentage said they were worried about COVID-19 going into this past holiday season, according to KFF data from late 2023. Lots of people stopped paying attention long before COVID-19’s four-year anniversary, and “the pandemic is over for them” regardless of how much experts debate the right vocabulary to use, Osterholm says.

Contrast that with the daily lives of people who remain especially vulnerable to the disease— including those who are elderly, immunocompromised, or coping with Long COVID—and it can feel like we’re living in separate timelines, Osterholm says. “Is the pandemic over for some people earlier than it is for others?” Osterholm says. “That doesn’t seem to make sense. That’s kind of like saying that there’s two different temperatures in Minneapolis in one night.”

Still, even Osterholm wouldn’t say which view is the right one, or when a pandemic is definitively over. “I couldn’t answer it for you,” he says.

Reconciling those different realities is unlikely at this point. And to Quick, that’s okay. “The key messaging is not about terminology, but about what behaviors are appropriate,” he says.

For people who still observe the pandemic, those behaviors won’t be at all surprising. Experts recommend getting vaccinated, staying home when you’re actively sick, getting tested and treated if necessary, and considering additional precautions like wearing a mask and improving ventilation. But with emergency declarations expired, mandates gone, and public guidance relaxing, whether you choose to do those things is now largely up to you. “We’re in a different place with COVID,” CDC director Cohen says.

Is that place a pandemic? It seems that’s also up to you.

source https://time.com/6898943/is-covid-19-still-pandemic-2024/

The Zone of Interest Oscar Winner Jonathan Glazer Said What No One Else Dared to Say

Sometime between John Cena’s nude tribute to costume design and Emily Blunt’s playful scolding of Ryan Gosling for “Kensplaining,” at Sunday’s 96th Academy Awards, Jonathan Glazer accepted the Best International Feature Oscar for The Zone of Interest. “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present—not to say ‘look what they did then’; rather, look what we do now,’” said the writer and director of the German-language British production, in which a Nazi commandant and his family lead unbothered lives next door to the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst… Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza.” Glazer posed a question to the telecast’s global audience: “How do we resist?”

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His was not the only political statement made on the Oscars stage this year. From Jimmy Kimmel’s message of support for entertainment unions, interspersed throughout a painstakingly safe opening monologue, to 20 Days in Mariupol writer-director Mstyslav Chernov’s emotional appeal for Ukraine, many of the event’s participants had current events on their minds. Yet only Glazer explicitly addressed the bloodshed in Gaza and Israel—a devastating conflict that has dominated global headlines for the past five months but whose rights, wrongs, and collateral damage are a rare subject of disagreement, best avoided in public, within a predominantly liberal industry. His speech was a moment of moral courage inextricably intertwined with his film’s urgent message.

The Zone of Interest is, as Glazer noted, a portrait of dehumanization taken to a genocidal extreme. Everyone knows (even if a vocal minority, still in thrall to Nazism, continues to deny) what happened within the walls of German concentration camps. Images of gas chambers, mass graves, and emaciated bodies in striped uniforms have become disturbingly familiar reminders of the suffering millions of Jews and other outsiders endured under Hitler’s Third Reich. Each year brings another crop of movies and TV shows featuring cartoonishly evil Nazi villains. Yet The Zone of Interest flips perspectives to the other side of the mirror that is dehumanization. It illustrates how numbness to the torture, starvation, and death of innocent people you’ve convinced yourself are less than human turns even the most passive enablers of that violence into monsters. The more normal Commander Rudolf Höss’ (Christian Friedel) family life seems, the more ghastly it becomes.

So it stands to reason that Glazer would use a stage where Vanessa Redgrave expressed similar sentiments in 1978—and on which victors regularly opine, to mixed reviews, on contentious issues ranging from gender inequity to racism to war—to condemn an ongoing Israeli bombardment that has already cost more than 30,000 Palestinians their lives as well as Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 massacre. The filmmaker’s reference to an occupation that predates the current outburst of violence by decades grounded his assessment in history, in the same way that The Zone of Interest uses the atrocities of the past to speak to a present that has yet to learn the Holocaust’s lessons.

Glazer was taking a real risk by speaking up for Palestinians on Hollywood’s biggest stage. In November, Susan Sarandon was dropped by her talent agency and actress Melissa Barrera was fired from a role in Scream VII for expressing certain pro-Palestinian views. On social media, a number of prominent Israel hawks are already attacking Glazer and misrepresenting his speech as a renunciation of his Jewish identity.

But if he hadn’t read his deliberate, pre-written statement, the entire telecast might well have gone on as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening in the Middle East. While high-profile attendees including Mark Ruffalo, Billie Eilish, and Ramy Youssef wore Artists4Ceasefire pins, ABC’s red carpet interviewers ignored them. (“We’re calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for peace and lasting justice for the people of Palestine,” Youssef explained to Variety.) Cillian Murphy, accepting the Best Actor award for portraying a man who created the world’s most lethal weapon of mass dehumanization, made a conspicuously vague call for peace: “For better or for worse, we’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world,” he said. “I’d like to dedicate this to the peacemakers.”

For as long as popular artists have been speaking their minds at awards-show podiums, a contingent of viewers and pundits has admonished them to keep politics out of what is supposed to be a fun night. The thing is, politics are at the core of the art that the Oscars (and all entertainment awards) exist to celebrate. Even Barbie is political. So there’s certainly no separating the images of war conjured by Oppenheimer and 20 Days in Mariupol and The Zone of Interest from the carnage in Gaza. How refreshing to see a director honored whose humanism trumps Hollywood taboo.

source https://time.com/6899602/jonathan-glazer-oscars-speech-gaza/

U.S. Forces Fly in to Embassy in Haiti to Evacuate Nonessential Personnel

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The U.S. military said Sunday that it had flown in forces to beef up security at the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and allow nonessential personnel to leave.

The aircraft flew to the embassy compound, the U.S. Southern Command said, meaning that the effort involved helicopters. It was careful to point out that “no Haitians were on board the military aircraft.” That seemed aimed at quashing any speculation that senior government officials might be leaving as the gang attacks in Haiti worsen.

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The neighborhood around the embassy in the capital, Port-au-Prince, is largely controlled by gangs.

“This airlift of personnel into and out of the Embassy is consistent with our standard practice for Embassy security augmentation worldwide, and no Haitians were on board the military aircraft,” according to the Southcom statement.

In many cases, nonessential personnel can include the families of diplomats, but the embassy had already ordered departure for nonessential staff and all family members in July. The personnel ferried out of the embassy may have simply been rotating out, to be refreshed by new staff.

The statement Sunday said that the United States remains focused on aiding Haitian police and arranging some kind of U.N.-authorized security deployment. But those efforts have been unsuccessful so far.

Haiti’s embattled prime minister, Ariel Henry, traveled recently to Kenya to push for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country to fight the gangs. But a Kenyan court ruled in January that such a deployment would be unconstitutional.

Henry, who is facing calls to resign or form a transitional council, remains unable to return home. He arrived in Puerto Rico on Tuesday after he was unable to land in the Dominican Republic, which borders Haiti.

On Saturday, the office of Dominican President Luis Abinader issued a statement saying that “Henry is not welcome in the Dominican Republic for safety reasons.” The Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, has closed its land border.

“Given the current situation, the presence of the Haitian prime minister in the Dominican Republic is not considered appropriate,” according to the statement, adding that “this decision reflects the firm position of the Dominican government to safeguard its national security and stability.”

The statement described the security situation in Haiti as “totally unsustainable” and said that it “poses a direct threat to the safety and stability of the Dominican Republic.”

The statement predicted “the situation could deteriorate even further if a peacekeeping force is not implemented urgently to restore order.”

Caribbean leaders have called for an emergency meeting Monday in Jamaica on what they called Haiti’s “dire” situation. They have invited the United States, France, Canada, the United Nations and Brazil to the meeting.

Members of the Caricom regional trade bloc have been trying for months to get political actors in Haiti to agree to form an umbrella transitional unity government.

Caricom said Friday that while regional leaders remain deeply engaged in trying to bring opposition parties and civil society groups together to form a unity government, “the stakeholders are not yet where they need to be.”

“We are acutely aware of the urgent need for consensus to be reached,” according to the statement. “We have impressed on the respective parties that time is not on their side in agreeing to the way forward. From our reports, the situation on the ground remains dire and is of serious concern to us.”

In February, Henry agreed to hold a general election by mid-2025, and the international community has tried to find some foreign armed force willing to fight gang violence there.

Caricom has also pushed Henry to announce a power-sharing, consensus government in the meantime, but the prime minister has yet to do so even as Haitian opposition parties and civil society groups are demanding his resignation.

Henry, a neurosurgeon, was appointed as Haiti’s prime minister after the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.

It was unclear whether Henry would be in Jamaica for the Caricom meeting.

In Port-au-Prince, meanwhile, police and palace guards worked Saturday to retake some streets in the capital after gangs launched major attacks on at least three police stations.

Guards from the National Palace accompanied by an armored truck tried to set up a security perimeter around one of the three downtown stations after police fought off an attack by gangs late Friday.

Sporadic gunfire continued Saturday, and one woman writhed in pain on the sidewalk in downtown Port-au-Prince with a gunshot wound after a stray bullet hit her in the leg.

The unrelenting gang attacks have paralyzed the country for more than a week and left it with dwindling supplies of basic goods. Haitian officials extended a state of emergency and nightly curfew on Thursday as gangs continued to attack key state institutions.

But average Haitians, many of whom have been forced from their homes by the bloody street fighting, can’t wait. The problem for police in securing government buildings is that many Haitians have streamed into them, seeking refuge.

“We are the ones who pay taxes, and we need to have shelter,” said one woman, who didn’t give her name for safety reasons.

Another Port-au-Prince resident, who also did not give his name, described Friday’s attacks.

“They (the gangs) came with big guns. We have no guns and we cannot defend ourselves. All of us, the children are suffering,” said the man.

source https://time.com/6899377/us-embassy-haiti-nonessential-personnel-evacuated-attacks/

Why Ramadan Is a Time of Activism for Many Muslims

As the holiest month of the year for Muslims, Ramadan—which begins on the evening of March 10 in 2024—is a time of spirituality, self-discipline, and compassion. For many who observe, that focus on compassion also translates into an increased focus on social justice and activism.

“If Ramadan isn’t a month of activism, I don’t know what is,” says Hassan Selim, the Imam of the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids in Iowa, an extension of the first established mosque in America. Activism can emerge in many ways. Imams like Selim raise awareness for countries and people in need during community gatherings. There are often food drives and clothing donations. Others promote global causes online, or participate in protests. Many donate. During Ramadan, according to one Hadith—a text of the words of Prophet Muhammad—good deeds are multiplied, and the quality of the reward in the afterlife is higher for anything done during the month. “Any deed of spiritual significance then becomes magnified in terms of its reward,” Selim says.

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Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Muslim, the largest news outlet covering stories that affect the global Muslim community. “The Muslim community mobilizes for causes [during the holy month] because it’s a time when people want to be the most generous and give their time, effort, labor, money, and support,” Al-Khatahtbeh says, noting that some people even wait for Ramadan to make donations. “What that looks like for the Muslim community is creating different initiatives, especially for international causes. Muslims give billions and donate more than any other marginalized group, so during Ramadan it’s much more amplified.”

Much of that activism happens online, especially on social media. Al-Khatahtbeh says one Ramadan, Muslim gained 1 million followers across its social media platforms. The staff at Muslim, he says, plans out Ramadan coverage up to six months in advance. That includes identifying charity partners.

Ramadan’s forms of giving aren’t just fiscal ones, says Isra Chaker, Senior Campaign Manager for Amnesty International. Chaker traces her roots in advocacy to her childhood in Boulder, Colo., where, she says, she faced intense Islamophobia. “My voice was my most powerful tool to influence positive change and to create a better world for not just myself to live in, but anybody who identified in any different identity than my own,” Chaker says. Since moving to D.C., she’s focused on designing campaigns and influencing policy while shifting narratives and misconceptions of marginalized groups. Outside her work with Amnesty International, Chaker has worked on campaigns addressing the Trump Administration’s 2017 ban on immigration from some Muslim-majority countries, as well as indigenous rights and refugee resettlement.

Read More: Why More Non-Muslims Are Fasting This Ramadan

Protests during the holy month have been used to raise awareness for causes like human rights crises and religious freedom. Chaker says Ramadan can be a powerful time to convene and organize people. “People tend to be more active in Ramadan and more engaged in finding different ways that they can make a difference, and stepping out of their comfort zone to do what they can,” she says.

This Ramadan comes against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas War, during which over 30,000 people in Gaza have been killed, with thousands more missing, according to the Gaza health ministry. Al-Khatahtbeh, who is Palestinian himself, says Muslim sees an increase in support for the Palestinian cause during Ramadan every year and prepares coverage in anticipation. “It’s a recurring issue,” he says. “It’s always expected and it’s sad but we have to save time for that because it’s coming.”

But the presence of community helps during Ramadan, even when people who observe are fasting and exhausted. “Without spiritual resilience and refinement we can’t go out there in the world… Activism is very exhausting and taxing,” Selim says. “There’s a lot of work in our communities that needs to be done to restore social justice, gender equality, and empower our youth, and Ramadan is an excellent opportunity to do that because it brings the community together and allows us to have these bigger conversations.”

source https://time.com/6898929/ramadan-muslim-activism/

King Charles III Awards Brother Prince Edward With Top Honor to Mark His 60th Birthday

King Charles III awarded his younger brother, Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Order of the Thistle to mark the prince’s 60th birthday on Sunday, March 10.

The appointment is Scotland’s highest royal honor, named after the country’s national flower, the thistle. The appointment is given to 16 distinguished Scots and any members of the royal family the reigning monarch chooses: Last year, Charles gave the award to his wife, Queen Camilla.

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Also last year, for Prince Edward’s 59th birthday, Charles gave Edward the title of the Duke of Edinburgh—previously held by their father, Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, Prince Phillip.

Here’s what you need to know about the Order of the Thistle and the new appointments.  

What is Scotland’s Order of the Thistle?

The centuries-old tradition was formally established by King James VII of Scotland, who was also King James II of England, in 1687 to reward Scots who supported him, the U.K.’s official royal website says. Legend has it that the order informally dates back to 809, when King Achaius of the Scots made an alliance with the Emperor Charlemagne.

The King is the “Sovereign of the Order” and is responsible for appointments as a “personal gift.” The awards to 16 “ordinary” knights and ladies can only be given to Scottish nationals, but royals from the U.K. or other countries can be appointed as “extra knights and ladies,” the U.K. government’s honors website says.

Along with Queen Camilla, the King’s sister Anne, the Princess Royal, and his son Prince William, the Duke of Rothesay (the Scottish title of the Prince of Wales), also currently hold the honor. 

New members are appointed at a service in the Thistle Chapel at St. Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh. Knights dress in green velvet robes and white hats and join the monarch for a procession from the Signet Library in central Edinburgh to the chapel nearby, where they meet the ladies. After the installation service, the monarch holds a reception at the Signet Library, then lunch at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

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Who are the other new honorees in the Order of the Thistle?

This year, the King also chose three Scots to receive the award. 

Professor Dame Sue Black, also the Baroness of Strome, is a prominent anthropologist and professor who is currently president of St. John’s College at the University of Oxford. She is a member of the House of Lords in the U.K. Parliament.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, also known as Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, is a leading lawyer and academic who helped found the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at Oxford. She is also a member of the House of Lords.

Sir Geoff Palmer became the first Black professor in Scotland in 1989 at Heriot-Watt University, where he received a PhD in Grain Science and Technology in a joint program with Edinburgh University. He helped set up the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling at Heriot-Watt.

source https://time.com/6899351/king-charles-prince-edward-order-of-the-thistle/

West Virginia Lawmakers OK Bill Drawing Back One of the Strictest Child Vaccination Laws

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia’s GOP-controlled state Legislature voted Saturday to allow some students who don’t attend traditional public schools to be exempt from state vaccination requirements that have long been held up as among the most strict in the country.

The bill was approved despite the objections of Republican Senate Health and Human Resources Chair Mike Maroney, a trained doctor, who called the bill “an embarrassment” and said he believed lawmakers were harming the state.

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“I took an oath to do no harm. There’s zero chance I can vote for this bill,” Maroney said before the bill passed the Senate 18-12. The House already approved a version of the bill in February and swiftly approved the Senate bill on Saturday, the last day of the state’s 60-day legislative session.

“It’s a bad bill for West Virginia, it’s a step backward. There’s no question, no question there will be negative effects,” Maroney said. He added, “It’s an embarrassment for me to be a part of it, it should be an embarrassment to everybody.”

West Virginia, with some of the lowest life expectancy rates in the U.S. and a quarter of all children living in poverty, is one of only two states, along with California, that don’t permit nonmedical exemptions to vaccinations as a condition for school entry.

Mississippi had the same policy until July, when a judge allowed people to start citing religious beliefs to seek exemptions from state-mandated vaccinations that children must receive before attending day care or school.

The new proposed vaccine law in West Virginia, which now heads to the desk of Republican Gov. Jim Justice, allows virtual public school students to be exempt and for private and parochial schools to institute their own policies either exempting students or not.

All students participating in West Virginia school activities that result in competition, including but not limited to sports, still need to be vaccinated.

The bill stipulates parents can’t sue private schools and school owners, administrators, boards and staffers for deciding whether to allow exemptions or not, as long as the school provides families with a notice for parents to sign acknowledging the policy annually and upon enrollment.

“I personally do not urge passage, but your health committee urged passage of this bill,” Maroney said before introducing the bill in the Senate.

The bill’s original intent, as introduced in the state House of Delegates, was to eliminate vaccine requirements for students in public virtual schools. It was expanded in a House committee to allow private schools to set their own vaccination standards, unless a student participates in sanctioned athletics.

The bill also created a religious exemption for any child whose parents or guardians present a letter stating the child cannot be vaccinated for religious reasons. That was taken out in the Senate.

During the Senate Health Committee meeting earlier this week, West Virginia University School of Medicine Professor Dr. Alvin Moss argued for the bill, saying the state’s current compulsory vaccination policy is medically unethical because it doesn’t allow informed consent.

The number of parents who don’t want their children to receive vaccinations is growing, Moss said.

In 2017, the anti-vaccine requirement group West Virginians for Health Freedom had 300 families included in his members. That number has grown to at least 3,000 members in 2024, Moss said.

Former West Virginia Republican Delegate Chanda Adkins, a group member, said during the meeting that religious families who don’t want to vaccinate their children deserve to be able to live their convictions.

Former West Virginia Medical Association Dr. Lisa Costello disagreed, saying West Virginia’s current vaccine policy is the “gold standard” across the nation.

“West Virginia is seen as a national leader when it comes to our routine, child immunizations,” she said, later adding, “Measles does not care if you go to private school or public school. Measles does not differentiate depending on where you go to school.”

West Virginia law requires children to receive vaccines for chickenpox, hepatitis-b, measles, meningitis, mumps, diphtheria, polio, rubella, tetanus and whooping cough, unless they receive a medical exemption. West Virginia does not require COVID-19 vaccinations.

source https://time.com/6899339/west-virginia-lawmakers-child-vaccination-laws-exemptions/