I’ll be forever yours. Love always, Mandy. 

If you were a teenager in the ’90s, chances are you know exactly where that line is from: Mandy Moore’s debut single and Hot 100 hit “Candy,” released in August 1999. 

Remember? Mandy Moore, currently of “This Is Us” fame, was a bona fide pop princess when she began her Hollywood career at 15, touring the country with boy bands *NSYNC and The Backstreet Boys before “competing” with the likes of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. But after a few years of so-so success in the music industry, Moore decided to transition to acting. First she appeared in 2001′s “The Princess Diaries” as Anne Hathaway’s on-screen high-school nemesis. She went on to crush hearts as cancer-stricken teen Jamie Sullivan in 2002′s “A Walk to Remember,” starring in com-dram after rom-com thereafter: 2003′s “How to Deal,” 2004′s “Chasing Liberty” and “Saved!,” 2007′s “Because I Said So,” 2010′s animated Disney film “Tangled” and 2011′s “Love, Wedding, Marriage.” 

As the 2010s trudged on, however, Moore’s career hit a lull. Despite landing gigs on some TV projects, nothing quite took off. “I really seriously contemplated, maybe this is it. Maybe I had my moment, and I was lucky to find some sense of success as a young person, and that’s all that was in the cards for me,” Moore told me during a phone call this week.

That’s when the script for “This Is Us,” now one of the highest-rated network series on television, plopped into her lap. The show was greenlit in 2016, headed to NBC Upfronts that May and debuted a few months later to a ravenous primetime audience. 

Moore was cast as the Pearson family mom, Rebecca, who ages from her 20s to her 70s as the series unfolds in flashbacks and present-day narratives. Everything revolves around Rebecca’s marriage to Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and their decision to adopt abandoned child Randall (played by Sterling K. Brown, Niles Fitch and Lonnie Chavis) and raise him alongside their biological twins, Kevin (Justin Hartley, Logan Shroyer, Parker Bates) and Kate (Chrissy Metz, Hannah Zeile and Mackenzie Hancsicsak). Their family dynamics fuel a taffy pull of discussions on parenthood, race and death.

America’s confection princess no more, Mandy Moore was suddenly a matriarch with seasons of television runway at her feet.

I spoke with Moore ahead of Emmys season to discuss her escape from “Candy”-land, the back sweat she gets just thinking about touring with the Backstreet Boys as a kid, and that time she almost went back to school before she claimed her spot on the primetime throne.

How has your break from “This Is Us” been? I see you hiked Mount Kilimanjaro!

[Laughs] I feel very rested and rejuvenated after a crazy season. This is the way to enjoy the hiatus, just do a bunch of personal stuff. We go back in mid-July, so a few more weeks to soak it all in.

Congrats on such a successful second season, and an emotional one at that, what with the reveals about Jack and his death. Was that freeing for you as an actor on this show, to finally let people in on this part of the story?

It was really freeing. I think it relieved a lot of pressure for all of us. It was so unexpected, the interest people took in that specific detail [about how he died], and I just always had this underlying fear that I was going to sleep-talk or something and let the cat out of the bag. 

What it was it like to finally get to portray that moment in Rebecca’s life?

Because I knew in the back of my mind that that moment was coming, I felt a tremendous amount of responsibility to deliver, considering this was obviously such a pivotal moment and we’ve been building up to it for almost two seasons.

I sort of closed myself off from the world for those couple of weeks because it felt tremendously demanding emotionally and physically ― I went into my own little cocoon. We were shooting a lot at night, so that kind of makes it easier to check out from the world a little bit because you’re working very bizarre hours. I’ve never done anything quite like this before, episodically speaking, where we built this history and this family. There’s so much familiarity between Milo and I now that it really did feel like I was mourning the death of someone. Entirely bizarre. A very, very unfamiliar feeling.

Rebecca Pearson is one of those television roles an actor waits for, and it came at a somewhat slow period for you in your career.

It’s not lost on me. Every day I’m grateful. I think we all are ― we had no idea what we were stumbling into in that regard. But, sure, it’s the natural ebb and flow of this crazy industry and being an actor. There are slow times and there are celebratory times, and up until the point where I found myself reading the script for this particular project, nothing could get firing.

I mean, I did three or four simultaneous pilot seasons with nary a job taking off and I was... not frustrated but sort of beside myself with just confusion as to what I wasn’t doing or what was wrong. I really seriously contemplated, maybe this is it. Maybe I had my moment and I was lucky to find some sense of success as a young person and that’s all that was in the cards for me. I was just ready to figure out what the next chapter was, because I just felt like I couldn’t get momentum going anywhere.

I was thinking about music, I was thinking about maybe going back to school and it coincided with real [exhale] ... I was going through a divorce [from singer-songwriter Ryan Adams] and the personal side of my life was a complete mess and I was heartbroken and honestly didn’t know which way was up. So “This Is Us” couldn’t have come along at a better time, because I don’t think I would’ve been ready for a job of this magnitude any sooner. I don’t think emotionally I would’ve had the capability to take it on. I don’t know if there was room for it in my life on a personal level before. It’s funny, when I started cleaning up all the other aspects of my life, the sun came back out again and this part came to fruition. It’s pretty crazy how that stuff works out sometimes.  

Is that the hardest part of being a singer and actor, facing those highs and lows that you experience in your career?

Yeah. [Laughs] It’s really not the fun part of the job. You know that it comes with the territory, but I think it sort of all piled on at a certain point in my life where I felt overwhelmed by it. The rejection and the personal side of my life firing ― it all felt like too much. Normally ― I’ve been doing this since I’m 15 ― I’m used to the narrative of you win some, you lose some. And it doesn’t normally knock me off, but I felt very discombobulated by it at that point. I feel like I’m in the wrong business in that sense, because I don’t feel competitive and I was never someone who looked at somebody else like, “I wish I had that.” I’m an honest believer in things happen for a reason and there’s room for everybody. But as an actor, it’s only natural to feel like, “That’s my last job, so! Better appreciate it while it’s happening!”

[Laughs] I may never be in this situation ever again.

To go from a teen pop star to a successful actress is not an easy feat, yet you pulled it off. How did you navigate that transition?

I think it’s because I didn’t have a tremendous amount of success musically speaking. It allowed people to maybe see me as an actor and not just as, say, Madonna on screen. Some of my other contemporaries, the nature of the degree of success that they had, it just made it that much more of a challenge to segue into another part of their careers without people automatically questioning them. In my sense, it was great because I wanted to be Bette Midler ― I wanted to do Broadway and music and television and movies and float between all of them and see what things I would be allowed to do. So although the music thing took off to a certain degree, it still gave me the freedom to kind of dip into different things.

You are the same Mandy Moore who toured with The Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC and grew up a pop princess. When you look back on those days, what do you remember?

[Laughs] Oh my gosh. It feels like a totally different life ― not even a different chapter, a different book! I just remember being excited and never overwhelmed by it. Finding success at a young age was probably better for me, because I would be overwhelmed by it now. I think I would question myself now. The older you get the more you feel like you haven’t risked, and when you’re young, you’re fearless. I would get onstage and open up for those guys in front of thousands of people screaming in an arena with glow sticks and I wouldn’t think anything of it. I was just excited to have an opportunity that I wouldn’t even think about being nervous. Now, getting up in front of a room full of 100 people gives me back sweat! I want to go back and hug that girl and ask her, “What’s the secret to being young and clueless?”

It was just a different world without social media and people following or documenting your every move and your every thought. I don’t know how young people do it nowadays, like navigate those waters. It’s a tough business, even tougher now than I think it was 15 years ago or whenever I started.

I recently spoke to some of the members of *NSYNC for their Walk of Fame ceremony and they said the same thing ― that they were lucky to have been youngsters in the business without social media.

It’s just a completely different world now, the music industry especially. It’s nothing like it was when I was first starting out. The influence of radio and MTV and music videos, all of that had the biggest say in whether or not you had a hit. It could make or break or alter the course of your career, and now I feel like none of those things really matter. People put out records themselves or release a single and a year later they’ll maybe put out a record. There are not the same sorts of rules, I guess.

Was that time in your life difficult at all? 

[Pauses] That’s a good question. Honestly, I feel like I had the best of both worlds. I was still regarded as a young person, and I had friends and relationships and went to the mall and the movies and out to dinner with my friends. I was able to live that life simultaneously with being very much in an adult world and having the responsibilities of an adult. I made decisions for myself, along with my parents and managers, but I always had the final say. I always felt like I was in control. Nobody ever made me do something against my will. I don’t know how I stumbled into that fortunate situation because you hear those horror stories and I just had a completely opposite experience. I was able to be a teenager and don’t feel like I missed out on any aspects of normal life, for someone going through all that at my age. It was different, yeah. I didn’t go to prom, I didn’t go to football games, I didn’t go to college. But I just had a different track and I always acknowledged that and was totally fine with it.

Were you nervous to take that leap into acting ― with the role in “Princess Diaries” and then “A Walk to Remember” ― and leave music behind for a little bit?

No. I guess because I knew music was always going to be a part of my life. I wasn’t selling tens of millions of records and I wasn’t torn by my self-image, so the machinery of a pop career wasn’t fully realized for me as it was for some of the other girls I was kind of compared to. And I really wanted to act. I grew up doing musical theater and, like I said, I loved Bette Midler and wanted to try it all. I was just lucky the door opened because of the music industry and I was able to go on auditions and take meetings with people and have opportunities that maybe, if I was just a regular actress at 15 or 16 starting out, I wouldn’t have been afforded with. So in that sense I recognize how lucky I was, but I was never nervous because I always knew I’d go back to music and it would always be there for me. And I did! I kept making records for the next couple of years. It’s just that I found more success with the acting side of things more immediately than the music.

And then finding a role in something like “Tangled” allowed you to mesh both those worlds.

More than that, being a Disney princess was my 6-year-old fantasy life realized. It still remains one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever had. It was so, so, so much fun.

Didn’t you win a Grammy for “I See The Light”?

I didn’t because I had no part in writing it, but Glenn Slater and Alan Menken, who wrote the song, won a Grammy. And we got to perform on the Oscars! All types of crazy bucket list things fulfilled because of that movie.

Speaking of award season, it’s coming back around beginning with the Emmys shortly. How do you mentally prepare? Are you someone who thinks about recognition in that way?

I go with the flow and if it happens it happens. I’m just flabbergasted to be in the conversation at all. It was never something that ever crossed my mind growing up, and even now it’s crazy. A win is getting a job and keeping a job. The fact that you’re a part of a show that has gone multiple seasons, statistically speaking, it’s so unheard of and so rare. 

How does it feel to be on a show that makes viewers cry and feel good at the same time?

[Laughs] It’s very humbling. We’re all very humbled that people are able to feel alive and be filled with emotion. It’s a really turbulent time in the world and we’re all really proud to be a part of something that is positive and culturally unifying. It helps us be reminded of the things we have in common and that the differences we may have are really what makes us unique. It’s overwhelmingly hopeful, cathartic entertainment. There’s not enough of that these days.

Do you think the anxiety-ridden time we’re living in right now helps a show like “This Is Us” succeed, as it addresses everything from miscarriage to death to strained familial relationships?

I imagine, yes. Timing is key for everything in life and I think our show found an audience at the right moment where people had a lot of mixed emotions and needed a place to put all of them. What better way to do that than to take an hour a week to really hold a mirror up to yourself and your life ― asking yourself the tough questions and revisiting things that maybe aren’t the most comforting. Push the bruise a little bit; maybe it hurts but it’s nice to know that you still feel something.  

Looking at yourself, what are the moments you revisit during the show that help you heal in a way?

It definitely makes me take a closer look at relationships with my own family and my own parents. You know, relationships I had, maybe the smaller moments in life where you start to doubt yourself and check yourself ― all of that. Just like a big melting pot. Not necessarily you sit there and ruminate on one particular part of your life ― it’s more like flipping through a photo album of all these different experiences that you had.

As you think toward the future, what are some of the things you hope to do on the show ― and maybe even off it?

I’m open to whatever the show’s going to push me to do. I hope I get to cry a little bit less this season. [Laughs] Season 2 wiped me out! And I would love for music to still be a common thread in the show. I’d love to be able to sing with Chrissy and do a duet with her at some point. I wanna slap on those prosthetics and sing a song with her!

But in terms of the bigger picture, I’d love to do a musical on Broadway, I’d love to perhaps do a musical adaptation on film and I want to make more music in general, make another record. There’s a lot still that I want to do. I want to have a family and I want to make sure to have a good balance between the personal and professional.

A year back you said you were working on another album. Do you still have those songs ready to go in your back pocket?

Oh, yes! I still got all of the songs and I just have to figure out how and when and all the details. I feel like the show has opened up a whole new audience of people who didn’t know that I did music, so I got to get on it and strike while the iron’s hot!

This interview has been edited and condensed. 

President Donald Trump on Friday talked warmly to reporters about the “very nice” and “very interesting” letter he received earlier in the day from North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un.

“That letter was a very nice letter,” Trump said at a White House news conference. “Oh, would you like to see what was in that letter? How much? How much?” he quipped with the press.

The letter was hand-delivered to the president by senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol. The two men posed with the very large envelope in the Oval Office. After Trump received the letter, he announced that the June 12 summit with North Korea was on again in Singapore.

When asked if he could offer a “flavor of what the letter said,” Trump said: “It was a very interesting letter. At some point, it may be appropriate and maybe I’ll be able to give it to you, maybe.”

But mere minutes later, in response to another question, the president responded: “I haven’t seen the letter yet. I purposely didn’t open the letter. I haven’t opened it. I didn’t open it in front of the director. I said, ‘Would you want me to open it?’ He said, ‘You can read it later.’”

He added: “I may be in for a big surprise, folks.”

Check out the president’s letter versions in the video above.

For the weekend of June 2, Streamline recommends “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” in the top Netflix spot for the first time.

What’s New This Week

“Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” returns with half of a new season. Netflix is now splitting seasons in two, presumably so important shows don’t get immediately forgotten as the company premieres so much content every week.

This show has been one of my favorites over the last few years and these new episodes don’t disappoint. 

“Arrested Development” also returns with a half-season. The recent controversies surrounding star Jeffrey Tambor definitely leave some clouds hanging over the show.

For a long time, I considered “Arrested Development” my absolute favorite show, but this comeback just isn’t that great. The storylines are a mess, and at times this thing is hard to watch.

The show leans into Donald Trump jokes that probably seemed fresh while filming last year, but now seem dated and pale in comparison to the deluge of other Trump humor out there.

The characters have also gotten more ridiculous instead of more mature since the early seasons. I had felt that part of the brilliance of the original seasons was how the show found a way to still ground these characters in reality, so the ridiculous moments truly shined. Now nobody makes any sense as a person and the episodes are just a series of zany set-pieces.

It’s still funny. It’s still worth watching (Tambor aside). But, unlike the original, it’s far from the best show out there.

Anyway, watch the trailers for the new seasons below. And if you want to stay up to date with what to watch on a weekly basis, subscribe to the Streamline newsletter. 

Top 5 Netflix News Items From This Week

And here are the shows and movies arriving on Netflix through the rest of this week:

If you left the theater stunned after “Avengers: Infinity War,” you may need to emotionally prepare yourself for the still untitled “Avengers 4.”

** Warning: ‘Infinity War’ Spoilers Ahead **

During an interview with Esquire, actor Chris Hemsworth said he was blown away when he read both scripts, but that the second one takes it to yet another level.

“If you were shocked by [‘Infinity War’], I think the second one is even more shocking, for other reasons entirely,” Hemsworth said. “The second one I’m probably even more excited about. Just for people to see.”

“Infinity War” ends with the villain Thanos, having finally acquired all six infinity stones, snapping his fingers and eliminating half of the beings in the universe, including many of your favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe characters. It was brutal, to say the least.

“Infinity War” has been gangbusters at the box office, grossing an astounding $1.96 billion, globally. The $2 billion milestone appears inevitable, given that “Infinity War” hits theaters in Japan later this month. That’s a mark only three films have reached.

The fourth Avengers film, also directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, is set for release on May 3, 2019.

Leading global forecasts widely underestimate the future costs of climate change, a new paper warns.

The findings, to be released Monday in the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, say projections used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change rely on outdated models and fail to account for “tipping points” ― key moments when global warming rapidly speeds up and becomes irreversible.

The IPCC, established in 1988, is the leading international body for assessing climate change, and took on an expanded role after every country on Earth signed the Paris Agreement, the first global pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions. By relying on inaccurate economic models, the organization is misleading policymakers around the world about the risks of climate change, according to the researchers at the Environmental Defense Fund, Harvard University and the London School of Economics who co-authored the paper. 

Current estimates for how much climate change will cost take different forms. One recent study looked at projected damage by U.S. county, finding that some counties in low-lying Florida, for example, would see costs of up to 30 percent of their gross domestic product. Other projections are more broad, putting the worldwide figure at $535 trillion by the end of this century. 

“It’s difficult to quantify that,” said study co-author Thomas Stoerk, an economist at the Environmental Defense Fund, when asked to give his own estimate. “That’s part of the point of the paper. It could be a lot more than the consensus.”

The paper breaks down into three main points:

• Current projections virtually ignore a very real possibility: that events such as the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet or the faster-than-expected thawing of Arctic permafrost will act like kerosene on a bonfire. These could increase the rate of climate change astronomically.

• These forecasts are based on an average of all possible climate change scenarios, even though newer models account for the increased likelihood of more warming.

• The newer models are still largely abstract, but they also factor in how human uncertainty over climate change can potentially cause even more damage in the future.

“We have models that allow us to rank the probabilities,” Stoerk said. “There are some models out there that quantify how much the uncertainty itself ― not knowing what’s going to happen ― drives economic estimates.”

Models that rely on averages of warming possibilities fail to factor in new data that show the continued rise in emissions makes the lower-end projections impossible, he said. Newer models, however, account for that reality. 

“All the tools that we argue for already exist,” he added. “The IPCC could really just go out and use them.”

The findings come as policy attempts to rein in the world’s greenhouse gas output fall flat. Fossil fuel emissions hit an all-time high last year, causing global carbon dioxide pollution to surge for the first time in three years ― dashing hopes that the production of planet-warming pollution peaked.

In fact, 2017 was the world’s second-hottest year on record and the third-warmest in U.S. history. Climate-fueled natural disasters caused $330 billion in losses from uninsured damages just last year, according to a report from the world’s biggest reinsurer.

In the United States alone, extreme weather events caused $306.2 billion in damages and killed at least 362 people outright during the worst wildfire and hurricane seasons in modern history, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found in January.

In perhaps the most dramatic demonstration of domestic policymakers’ failure to account for climate change-fueled devastation, Harvard researchers found that 4,645 people died in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria last year ― mostly as a result of the failure to provide medication, treatment and electricity ― more than 70 times the official death toll.  

A whale found in a canal in southern Thailand has died after eating more than 80 plastic bags, according to officials.

The small male pilot whale was barely alive when he was discovered on Monday in the southern province of Songkhla, Thailand’s Department of Marine and Coastal Resources said. Rescuers attempted to nurse the whale back to health, but he died on Friday after spitting up five plastic bags.

A necropsy revealed over 17 pounds of plastic, including more than 80 plastic bags, in the whale’s stomach.

Jatuporn Buruspat, director-general of the marine and coastal resources department, told Reuters that the whale likely thought the floating plastic bags were food.

Thailand is one of the largest plastic polluters in the world, dumping over 1 million tons of garbage into the sea annually, according to the country’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. 

The ministry announced in September that it was focused on developing a better way to deal with the massive amounts of waste produced by Thailand each year.

At least 300 marine animals, including whales, dolphins and sea turtles, die in Thai waters annually from ingesting plastic, Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a marine biologist and lecturer at Kasetsart University, told The Guardian. 

“It’s a huge problem,” he said. “We use a lot of plastic.”

One of The Backstreet Boys’ most famous songs, “I Want It That Way,” has some confusing lyrics that have been hotly debated for some time. And now, model and internet den mother Chrissy Teigen has gotten to the bottom of it for all of us.

At the end of the song, the group sings:

I never wanna hear you say

I want it that way

’Cause I want it that way

Right now you’re thinking, “What on Earth does that mean?” And that’s OK, because you’re not alone. Teigen asked the same thing Friday.

For the rest of us at the bottom of the Twitter totem pole, those questions would have simply floated out into the ether. But when Teigen asks questions, people come with answers.

And that’s exactly what The Backstreet Boys did.

Still following?

What the boys are saying is, they don’t want to hear you wishing for bad things to happen in the relationship — for heartaches, mistakes or distance — and that’s the way they want it. 

Teigen continued the discussion with her followers:

But it seems like this mystery has been solved. And the world is safe again. Thank you, Chrissy Teigen.

For the more than 16 million Americans living with depression, antidepressants are often an option in providing some relief from their symptoms. However, as with any new medication, side effects are common. And that means for some, sex is impossible.

Antidepressants, particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, have been shown to impact one sex’s drive ― with symptoms like reduced libido, delayed ejaculation, erectile dysfunction and an inability or delayed ability to reach orgasm. But there’s no definitive answer on how common those issues are for users. The results of studies vary widely, with the estimated of number of people affected ranging from 25 percent to 73 percent of those who take the drugs, according to Ash Nadkarni, associate psychiatrist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

This doesn’t mean that all hope is lost or that you should necessarily find alternative methods of mental health treatment. As with most health-related medication, knowledge is power. Below, experts break down what you need to know about antidepressants and your sex drive, and what you can possibly do about it:

Your brain might be to blame for your lack of sex drive.

Nadkarnia said the potential sexual impact of SSRIs may lie in specific chemical occurrences in the brain.

“Pathways of sexual desire involve serotonin, but also chemicals such as dopamine and norepinephrine,” she said. “Dopamine is linked to the intense passion and arousal of romantic love, while norepinephrine is associated with the heightened attention and motivation of desire. Serotonin-enhancing antidepressants blunt sexual desire by reducing the capacity of dopamine and norepinephrine, or excitatory pathways, to be activated.”

Despite serotonin’s ability to lessen sexual desire, Nadkarni noted that in some instances, the chemical can also increase desire. It really varies depending on the person and the type of depression medication one is taking. For instance, some medications, including Viibryd and Wellbutrin, have been lauded for their lack of sexual side effects.

The dip in your libido might not last.

The changes antidepressants can cause in one’s sexual desire or experience of sex aren’t always permanent. It can also be difficult to determine whether depression or antidepressants are the reason for someone’s decreased sexual drive, according to John Christman, a psychiatrist at Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glenn Oaks, New York.

“When people are depressed they tend to be less social and interactive, and of course, that can have its affects in terms of libido,” Christman said. “It’s interesting because we always warn patients before starting antidepressants that one side effect of the medication can be sexual dysfunction. However in many patients their sexual performance improves because they’re less depressed.”

Men are more likely to experience a change in their sex drive.

The sexual improvement felt by some patients beginning antidepressants isn’t necessarily the experience of all. Christman explained that sexual dysfunction is the most commonly experienced side effect of antidepressants, especially in men. Those who experience sexual dysfunction as a result of their antidepressants may consider stopping their medication, but Christman cautions against that.

“I tell most of my patients to try your best to wait it out,” he said. “If you give the medication a little bit of time, in many cases, the dysfunction will improve.”

So, what can you do about all of it? Here are a few solutions:

Be mindful of other factors that could get in the way.

Sometimes, it’s not just your medication coming into play. Nadkarni said it’s important to be aware of other possible causes of sexual side effects, including age, alcohol usage, other medications or any leftover symptoms of depression.

Chat with a physician about tweaking your medication.

There are multiple ways of working through any sexual side effects, including switching medications, incorporating an additional medication, or taking a day off from your medication. But this “drug holiday,” as Christman calls it, should only be done with the approval and supervision of your doctor.

“Wait the symptoms out and many times it does get better,” Christman said. “It’s very important to have conversations with your doctor if you’re experiencing side effects. Don’t feel embarrassed. Sexual activity is normal human behavior not to be stigmatized.”

Above all, be honest with your doctors about the issue.

Before you reconsider taking antidepressants, or attempt to stop using them if side effects arise, you should speak with your physicians who prescribed you the medication.

Those on antidepressants and experiencing a decreased sex drive also may want to consider speaking with a sex therapist. 

“I suggest joint couples or sex therapy sessions (separate from the person with depression’s personal therapy) so you can feel like you’re both being heard, and so you can work together as a team on your sex life,” sex therapist Vanessa Marin said. “The tricky thing about these situations is that you have to make the space for both of your experiences. It’s understandable for the person with depression to be disinterested in sex, and it’s understandable for the partner to still want sex. You may have to be patient for a while, and you may have to get creative about other ways to experience intimacy and sexual satisfaction.“

How you choose to address any side effects that might arise from taking a depression medication remains up to you. And keep in mind that not every person will have the same experience.

“If you do have the side effects sometimes with time it will go away, and if it still doesn’t go away there are things you can do,” Christman said. “Not everybody gets the side effects, and you should not let the sexual side effects be a stumbling block in seeking treatment. It’s something to be discussed with your doctor, and it’s something you can treat together.”

Back in her single days, writer Zara Barrie almost always threw back what she called a “personality drink” prior to a first date. Thanks to the drink or two, conversation on her dates flowed as freely as a just-opened bottle of pinot. But there was a clear downside, too.

“Drinking gives me a false sense of connection with a person,” Barie told HuffPost. “If I’ve had two glasses of Champagne I can feel chemistry with anyone.” 

Barrie, a senior writer at Elite Daily, eventually gave sober dating a shot. It sharpened her dating spidey sense in pretty short order, and led to her meeting her fiancée, a woman Barrie loves “without any Champagne goggles” on. 

“Looking back, I realize that I drank so damn much in my early 20s because I was hanging out with people I didn’t have anything in common with. Booze masked that ugly reality,” she said. “I told myself I needed a drink for so long that I believed it with every fiber of my being.”

Barrie’s story probably sounds all too familiar if you’re currently single. A 2014 survey from Plenty of Fish found that 36.4 percent of singles drink before going out, and 48.9 percent drink during the date, averaging two or three drinks during the course of an evening.

The same survey found that 19.1 percent of guys have gotten drunk on a first date, and so have 16.8 percent of women.

It’s not entirely surprising that modern dating and drinking are so thoroughly linked. Most of us meet on apps, and the prospect of getting to know someone based on a short bio and four or five pics can be anxiety-provoking. Many people think drinking makes them a chiller version of themselves ― someone who’s more similar to the person in their dating profiles.

That’s particularly motivating for women who pregame, said Patricia O’Gorman, a New York City-based psychologist and the author of The Girly Thoughts 10-Day Detox Plan: The Resilient Woman’s Guide To Saying ‘No’ To Negative Self-Talk And ‘Yes’ To Personal Power.

“Women internalize society standards of perfection and then berate themselves if they do not fulfill them,” O’Gorman said. “With dating, a woman often feels obligated to be more relaxed than she is, even more sexual than she feels comfortable with, and these pressures can encourage her to drink before a date to achieve this.”

The problem? The line between “cool girl who can handle her liquor” and slightly hot mess becomes more blurred the more dependent you become on drinking, said Caitlin Cecil, a wellness coach in Houston who has written about sober dating. 

“I suffer from anxiety and sometimes the ‘what ifs’ before a date would be overwhelming,” Cecil said. “Drinking a bit before a date made me a little looser and I felt like I would be more fun to engage with.” 

Eventually, Cecil realized that pre-date jitters were bound to occur, no matter how many drinks she had.

“Now I know that nervousness is going to happen whether I am sober, drunk or buzzed, but it took a while for me to accept that sober, natural Caitlin is just as fun and exciting as the Caitlin I was after a drink or two,” she said. “These days, I’m able to go on dates and rely on good conversation, an actual connection, and I don’t have to worry about doing something stupid from drinking.” 

The solution isn’t necessarily outright abstinence. It’s just knowing that you’ll be a more discerning dater and choose better partners if you’re bringing a more sober version of yourself to the table, said O’Gorman

“If you want someone to accept you, then you need to figure out how to relax yourself enough to begin to reveal who you are,” she said. “And you’ll also get to see how your potential partner deals with the unexpected. Is he or she comfortable with you doing what you want in such a specific way? Do you even want a second date with this person?”

If you’re lost without a drink in your hand, order a soda with a dash of bitters, which contain relatively low amounts of alcohol. Then, let your sharper, wittier self lead the date with the confidence that you’re dating with a clear mind.

If you start craving a drink, take that nervous energy and focus it on your date: Pre-program some of those New York Times “The 36 Questions That Lead to Love” prompts into your head. Get down to the nitty-gritty and ask your date about their passions, work-life balance and thoughts on having kids.

“Turning the focus on the other person and setting an intention to listen to what they have to say, will set you free from your own prison of insecurity and stop those swirling self-obsessed thoughts,” Barrie said. “Before you know it, you’ll be deep into an authentic conversation and will have (most likely) forgotten all about the drink you never ordered.”

Bikini waxes are downright painful. 

And it’s understandable, considering that hair is literally being ripped from your most intimate, delicate skin. And if you’re one of the brave souls who does your own bikini wax, you know the anxiety that comes with the fear of pulling off the strips incorrectly. Yow.

Love them or hate them, waxes can lead to some pretty uncomfortable moments for both the waxer and the waxee. Let’s start with the waxers.

Kristen Whiting, owner of Silk Body Waxing Studio in Philadelphia, recalled a few uncomfortable moments she has experienced at work.

“I’ve been kneed in the boob before and farted in my face,” she said. “Yeah, that was nasty.”

Jenne’ Doyle, esthetician and co-founder of Philadelphia’s Heads & Tails beauty boutique, shared one particularly funny story with HuffPost. It involved a strip of hair-covered wax flying through the air during an appointment with a first-time client. Doyle’s salon uses essential oils to treat the skin, which contributed to this incident:

“So I pull and all of a sudden my whole life turns into slow motion as I watch the strip sail through the air and land directly on her face. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness!’ Thankfully, she was very understanding of the fact that these things happen. ... This is going to wake me up at 3 o’clock in the morning. I know I’m going to see this replay in my head again and again. It was hard wax, just to be fair. It wasn’t sticky, but still, the point is, your pubes just landed on your face and that’s usually not OK.” 

It could be argued that the waxees have a far more uncomfortable experience than the waxers, which Twitter users have so hilariously pointed out. Social media maven Chrissy Teigen even once pondered whether she could receive a bikini wax after an epidural. That’s how painful those things can be.

Here are some of the funniest thoughts about the pain and horror involved with bikini waxes: 

I was so thrilled to be asked to shoot the cover of Virgin Magazine, and even more thrilled to hear they were keen to honour my request for no airbrushing of my face or body. This means a lot and is a desperately important stance to take in honour of the tens of millions of women (at least) who struggle so much with their self-image, due to decades of impossibly demanding body standards being inflicted upon us, and false imagery being used to subliminally manipulate us into a feeling of (needless) disappointment in ourselves. 

It’s something I’ve been asking for since my career began 10 years ago. I only sometimes get my way, but I will never stop campaigning for it for these three reasons:

1) It is done in the name of “fantasy”. What message does it send to women (and men) everywhere, that a “fantasy” female is normally only ever one who is impossibly long, and thin, with flawless (and normally lightened) skin, with a thin face, a small nose, large lips, big eyes, and no wrinkles ever, at any age. Why can’t the fantasy ever have some back fat? Or be in a wheelchair? Why can it never be unsymmetrical? Why can it never show the dignified and important lines of a life lived and survived? What is that one, constant, “flawless,” doll like fantasy telling all normal women everywhere? That we are not to be fantasized about? We are excluded from the desirable group? We are the rejected? We didn’t make the cut?

2) The dishonesty of it. There is no mention of alteration, so we are left with the manipulative subliminal messaging that someone else achieved the forever pre-pubescent “fantasy” but we can’t. We have failed. Her breasts have been plumped, her legs lengthened, her skin smoothed. But all in secret. It’s so dangerous to put these images into the world of women who themselves often do not even meet the requirements, without the help of a computer, and say nothing of it. There should either be a detailed declaration in small print of the features altered, or we should see the original image and celebrate the humanity and reality of the subject and her photographer. Who, frankly, may as well not bloody be there if a computer is doing all the work. Where is the dignity in it? For anyone involved? 

3) It is offensive TO ME. To be airbrushed, which is never even discussed with you beforehand, is not a kind act. It’s a passive aggressive attack. To see a simulation of myself, a “flawless” version that I myself could never reach in reality, does not make me feel flattered. It explicitly informs me that I was not good enough on that day. Or on any day. What I am, must be covered up, altered and hidden from sight, or else people shall find me harder to look at. When magazines have in the past altered my ethnic nose to look more caucusian and button like, or lightened my skin… I feel racially offended. When I see that my cellulite and stretch marks that I spend my every day with have been deleted, it makes me feel bad about myself when I see them in the mirror. A feeling I didn’t want or need, which I then have to fight and dismiss in the name of feminism and basic bloody humanity. I am human. I have lived. I have been through a lot, and some of those things have marked me, and I do not feel shame about those things, I do not think someone else has the right to make me feel I should. 

Airbrushing is not supposed to be used for anything other than removing a stain on a wall behind the model, or maybe even a single hair out of place that ruins the shot. To use it to alter a face and body, to sell a lie to women, which will more often than not hurt the way in which they see themselves, and could well lead to a possibly unhealthy lifestyle in order to achieve the prototype you made with your computer… is a crime against an entire gender. It’s unacceptable. And it has to stop. “Perfect” imagery in magazines hurt me as a teenager, and made sure I never felt good enough. I don’t want to be a part of that for someone else. 

If I look tired/wrinkled, or chubby, then I look tired/wrinkled or chubby. Let my worth as a grown woman who has many parts to my existence live without shame for this. If these pictures that will come out of me on this cover repulse you, then what does that say about you? Because it says absolutely nothing about me. 

I had a fabulous time shooting for Virgin, with a talented team of artists, and I look forward to seeing what we made together. 

This blog also appears on Jameela’s personal blog, and can be read here

Marti Hutchinson, 29, had only 10 minutes to grab whatever she could and evacuate her childhood home with her brother and boyfriend on May 3. 

A volcanic vent had cracked open on her street and began spewing toxic gas and lava in the rural Leilani Estates subdivision of Hawaii’s Big Island, which prompted the Civil Defense Agency to evacuate the neighborhood immediately. It was the first of what would be 24 fissures (and counting) to break open with explosive lava and claim 87 homes.

As officials yelled through loudspeakers for residents to evacuate, Hutchinson grabbed her dogs, important documents, a few clothes and an urn with her father’s ashes. She looked desperately for her cats, but she knew they were scared by all the commotion. 

“There were [Civil Defense] trucks in the driveway with their hands on the horns nonstop blaring. It was really panicky,” Hutchinson said. “I had no clue what to grab. I was completely at a loss.”

As Hutchinson and her group drove away down Mohala Street where she’s lived nearly all her life, she said she could see lava “spraying up in the air” in the rearview mirror. She inherited her home nine years ago after her father, who built it, died. She couldn’t stop thinking of the photos of him that she left behind.

Once they were out of the disaster zone, Hutchinson’s group pulled over to the side of the road to take a breath. They were unsure of what to do next.

“It is very surreal,” Hutchinson said. “It’s really hard to put a feeling to it, except for feeling very lost.”

She added: “It feels really hard to know that you have nowhere to go and nothing to your name.”

Life has changed dramatically for residents living in Leilani Estates and those who live on the slopes of Kilauea volcano. 

About 2,500 people have been evacuated from their homes since May 3. They have been forced to stay with friends or family, or at one of three shelters in the area. An estimated 409 evacuees are registered in the shelters, though only 134 have a roof over their head. The rest, about 275 people, have set up tents next to the shelters or are sleeping in their cars.

If lava hasn’t claimed their homes already, they are monitoring the flows to see if it will.

Four days after she evacuated, Hutchinson, who is now staying with her boyfriend’s family, was allowed to go back home and retrieve anything else she needed, including the photos of her dad.

When she returned to her house, she could hear explosions from the fissures on the next street over. The ground shook as she packed her things. She found fresh cracks around her property, some two feet wide. She also found her cats.

“It was nerve-wracking because we could hear it nonstop,” Hutchinson said of the eruptions. “Big loud booms like bombs were going off in the backyard. ... The ground was shaking. ... It was like being in the middle of a war zone.”

Hutchinson’s house remained standing for three weeks, giving her hope that it would be spared from the lava. On May 25, the flow advanced and her home was gone.

She recently visited the area where Mohala Street once stood ― where she had grown up and where she had walked up and down for years. She couldn’t believe what she saw.

“I couldn’t really tell where my house was,” she told HuffPost. “It looked like an expansive wasteland. At this point, it doesn’t really seem like Earth.”

An estimation of Marti Hutchinson’s property before the eruptions:

Hutchinson’s home, circled in red in the post below, after May 25:

Home In The Disaster Zone

Fissures in the volcano’s east rift zone, which includes parts of the Puna district, continue to open up and disgorge lava, sometimes with no warning. Some cracks spew fountains of lava hundreds of feet into the air, while other flows have joined into one massive lava river. 

Officials continue to call evacuations as needed, with the latest evacuations ordered suddenly last week in a neighborhood known as Kapoho. On Sunday, Hawaii Civil Defense said that a lava flow cut off a road, trapping at least 12 people there with no electricity or water.

Like Hutchinson, some residents have chosen to stay in areas just outside the disaster zone in order to be near their community and, as Hutchinson had done, hold onto hope that their homes might be spared.

“For me, I’m camping out as long as my house is standing. I’m not leaving,” April Buxton, a Leilani Estates evacuee who is camping outside the Pahoa Community Center shelter, told Hawaii Public Radio late last month. 

“I could rent some place in Waimea [in the northern part of the island],” she added. “But I wanna be with my community and doing what I can to help out but I also want to be close so when it’s time to go home, I can get back home.”

For the past few weeks, Hutchinson has been monitoring the volcanic activity and helping her neighbors, many of whom she’s known since kindergarten. She recently had to tell one of her friends that their home had been taken out by the lava, too.

The whole experience has changed the way Hutchinson sees her childhood and the lush and manicured gardens of Leilani Estates. Now, it’s just a memory that’s completely out of reach.

“It does put a new light on things, on how precious memories are,” she said.

Chaos Is The New Normal

While the current eruptions are threatening only a relatively small part of the island, Hawaii residents have pooled their resources to support those affected.

The U.S. Geological Survey, Civil Defense, National Guard, fire and police departments. and volunteers who just want to help are working around the clock to find new fissures, keep residents safe and update everyone on whether their properties are still there.

In a Sunday morning update, the Civil Defense Agency said that first responders were actively doing search-and-rescue missions in neighborhoods isolated by lava, including Kapoho and Vacationland.

This kind of chaos is the new normal for locals living near the east rift zone on Kilauea volcano’s gentle slopes, and scientists aren’t quite sure when the eruptions will end.

To create a sense of stability, residents have formed a community organization headquartered near the affected areas called the Pu’uhonua o Puna. Pu’uhonua, a Hawaiian phrase, roughly translates to “a place of refuge.”

There, donations of food, water, clothes and respirators for the toxic fumes are dropped off by volunteers and picked up by evacuees. People also gather there to find more information on whether their homes are still standing or advice on what to do next.

Now, when Hutchinson talks about her hometown in Leilani Estates, she speaks of it like a faraway memory, even though she was peacefully living with her dogs, cats and fruit trees just over a month ago.

In the weeks following the eruptions, Hutchinson says she’s heard people criticizing her and others for choosing to live atop an active volcano. She says those people don’t understand the Big Island the way its residents do.

“We grew up with the lava, we understand it’s part of our world,” she said. “That doesn’t make it any easier when it shows up in your backyard.”

The comeback will have to wait.

Serena Williams withdrew from the French Open Monday with a pectoral injury, shortly before she was to play her round-of-16 match against Maria Sharapova.

“I unfortunately [have] been having some issues with my pec muscle,” she said at a press conference. “ ... Right now I can’t actually serve, so it’s kinda hard to play when I can’t physically serve.” She said the issue emerged in her previous singles match and she would have an MRI on Tuesday in Paris.

The match against Sharapova had extra intrigue because the two players had not faced each other since Sharapova served a 15-month doping ban.

Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion, was playing in her first Grand Slam since she won the Australian Open in early 2017 while pregnant. She gave birth to daughter Alexis Olympia in September and had mounted a comeback in what she called her “Wakanda-inspired catsuit” at Roland-Garros.

She dedicated the outfit, designed to prevent blood clots, to mothers who had difficult pregnancies. She endured near-deadly complications after her delivery.

Williams had some parting words for followers online: “You always live to fight for another chance. I’ve done a lot of fighting and this is just the beginning. ” 

 Williams is on the board of advisers to Oath, HuffPost’s parent company.

After an international scramble to salvage the briefly canceled summit between the U.S. and North Korea, it appears President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are on track to meet in Singapore next week for their historic tête-à-tête.

But the delicate diplomatic dance between the two nations is far from over. The latest question facing U.S. officials: Who will pay for Kim’s hotel room?

As The New York Times noted on Sunday, Pyongyang has been known to compel other governments or organizations to foot the bill when its officials travel abroad.

During the recent Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, for instance, the South Korean government earmarked about $2.6 million to cover the travel expenses of members of the North’s visiting delegation, including a cheering squad, an orchestra and an art troupe, and the International Olympic Committee bankrolled the 22 athletes who represented North Korea at the games.  

“These norms were laid in the early 2000s, when Seoul’s so-called sunshine policy took off,” Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korea expert at Tufts University, told The Washington Post last week, referring to a rapprochement policy adopted by South Korea. “North Korea can build nukes and ICBMs, but claim they are too poor to pay for foreign travel costs.”

The Post, citing two individuals familiar with talks about logistics for the summit, reported that “the prideful but cash-poor pariah state” was now looking for an outsider to pay for Kim and his entourage’s stay at the five-star Fullerton Hotel in Singapore, which the paper said is the North Korean delegation’s “preferred lodging” for next week’s meeting. A presidential suite at the five-star hotel costs more than $6,000 per night, and a regular room costs upward of $220. 

It’s unclear just who will pick up the tab, however ― though there appears to be no shortage of willing sponsors.  

The U.S. is “open to covering the costs,” the Post wrote, citing the two individuals, though such a payment would require a sanctions waiver and could cause Pyongyang to lose face. 

U.S. officials are thus reportedly mulling whether to ask host nation Singapore to bear some of the costs ― a suggestion that the small but wealthy city-state apparently would be happy to comply with. 

Ng Eng Hen, Singapore’s defense minister, said on Saturday that the country was willing to pay for some of North Korea’s expenses, though he did not specify how much Singapore was willing to spend or whether it was at Washington’s urging. 

“It is a cost that we’re willing to bear to play a small part in this historic meeting,” Ng said without elaboration, according to Reuters. 

The State Department denied the reports. 

“We are not paying for the DPRK (North Korea) delegation and we are not asking others to do so,” Heather Nauert, the department’s acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, said in a statement.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an anti-nuclear-weapon organization, has also expressed willingness to cover North Korea’s summit-related expenses, saying over the weekend that it would gladly chip in part of the more than $1 million cash award from its 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to contribute to the landmark event.

“Our movement is committed to the abolition of nuclear weapons, and we recognize that this historic summit is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to work for peace and nuclear disarmament,” ICAN official Akira Kawasaki said in a statement, according to USA Today. “The Nobel Peace Prize included a cash prize, and we are offering funds from the prize to cover the costs for the summit in order to support peace in the Korean Peninsula and a nuclear-weapon-free world.”

In addition to Kim’s hotel room and other budget matters, U.S. and North Korean officials have many logistical details to hammer out before next week’s summit, reported the Times,

“The two sides will be negotiating everything from the site of the meeting to which leader sits where at the table, who is allowed in the room with them, the number of meals and breaks, what to use in a toast between the two leaders (given that Mr. Trump does not drink alcohol) [and] what gifts could be exchanged,” among other issues, the paper wrote.

Williams said director Gary Ross gave him and Rihanna a lot of creative freedom to build Nine Ball’s style as they imagined it.

“We wanted this girl to be cool, chill, and very minimal. She would wear the same things over and over again. But I think the one thing she probably cared about the most was her hair,” he told Refinery29. “When people have locs, it’s kind of like their crown. It’s their pride and joy. It’s like a flower ... you gotta nourish it and watch it grow. Hair played a really big part in who Nine Ball came to be.”

Williams added that Rihanna loved wearing the locs during filming (except the fact that it “feels like you have a fucking Toyota on your head”).

“You know she’s from Barbados ― she knows what to do with dreadlocks. It probably was the easiest style she’s ever had, since she got to be free and cool and see herself differently,” he said.

“She’s a huge pop star, and then we kind of stripped her down and gave her locs that we didn’t make super, super pretty,” Williams continued. “She made them glamorous when she wanted, and then super casual when she wanted. I thought it was cool to see her locs own the night whenever she went out.”

Never fear, Williams added, we will be seeing locs on Rihanna at some point in the future: “You will be seeing her with locs again, for sure. I don’t know when, but it will happen.”

Head over to Refinery29 to read the full interview. 

When you next shop in H&M you’ll want to pick up a size smaller than usual as the brand has conceded to customer demand and increased the measurements of its items.

An H&M spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “Following customer feedback, we are taking the steps to change our womenswear measurements to be in line with UK sizing, for example the previous measurements and fit of a size 12 will now be the measurements of a size 10”. 

The Swedish high street store was prompted to review its sizing after feedback from customers including Rebecca Parker, who wrote an open letter to the brand after struggling to get into a pair of size 14 jeans, despite wearing a size 14 in other high street stores. 

Parker has told HuffPost UK she views the sizing change as “a small victory that I think will have such a great impact”. 

She previously wrote to H&M: “The more I thought about it, and those jeans, I realised it wasn’t my failure that prevented me from pulling on a pair of trousers, but yours.

“I am very proud of my body. It has taken a long time but I am thoroughly content with my large hips, squishy thighs and little tum, thank you very much. When I tried on your jeans I was annoyed, hot and frustrated. The pair of jeans clearly were not made for a woman who is a size 14. Why is that?”

The discrepancy was due to a difference of opinion between H&M and the rest of the high street about how European clothing sizes translate to UK ones. So while in the majority of shops a European size 40 would be labelled a UK size 12, in H&M it would be labelled a size 14. 

H&M has already started rolling out the new labels to bring their sizes in line with other high street shops in the UK, but it will take some time for all the stock to get the updated labels. 

“This will be a gradual process and we cannot confirm when this will be 100% complete,” the spokesperson said. “The new sizing is in effect already in our stores and shortly will be online, we aim to make this transition as smooth as possible for the customer and we urge customers to try on garments and check the measurements for guidance.”

In practice this means that an item that would have previously been labelled as size 12, will now be labelled size 10, and an item that was previously labelled a 20 will now be an 18. The brand will still be going up to a size 20 in its mainline and a size 36 in its plus-size range, but these will measure larger than they previously did.

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte asked a woman to kiss him on the lips while the two were on stage at an event in Seoul, South Korea, on Sunday. 

Duterte, 73, was in South Korea for an official visit to the country organized by the Overseas Filipino Workers’ organization. According to Reuters, there were over 3,000 people in the crowd, most of them Filipino workers living in South Korea. 

During the event, two women were called up to the stage to receive a book from the Filipino president. Both were visibly excited to meet Duterte and receive the gifts. As the two shook Duterte’s hand they brought it up to their foreheads in a sign of excitement and gratitude.

As they went to exit the stage, Duterte called them back and gave one of the women a hug and peck on the cheek. The Filipino president then gestured to the second woman ― later identified as Bea Kim ― to kiss him on the lips, and the crowd responded with applause and laughter. 

“Are you single? You’re not separated from [your husband]? But you can tell him that this is just a joke?” Duterte asked Kim, according to Filipino news outlet Rappler.com. 

Kim squealed and put her hands in front of her face while looking nervous, but eventually acquiesced and gave Duterte a quick kiss on the lips. 

“Don’t take it seriously. It’s just for fun, a gimmick,” Duterte, who has a longtime partner and four children, told the crowd after the kiss. The Filipino president is well-known for past sexist and controversial remarks including jokes about rape and violence against women. 

Kim, who has lived in Seoul for seven years, is married to a South Korean man and has two children. She told the government-run Philippine News Agency that meeting Duterte was a “once in a lifetime” experience.

“The kiss doesn’t mean anything except to entertain and make other Filipinos in the gathering happy. I assure you, for me and even the President, there was no malice in the kiss,” she said, according to Newsweek. 

Many people, including a number of women’s activists, were not happy with the public kiss from such a powerful figure. 

“It was a despicable display of sexism and grave abuse of authority. President Duterte acted like a feudal king who thinks that being the President is an entitlement to do anything that he pleases,” senator Risa Hontiveros said in a Monday statement.

“It was not a meeting of two consenting individuals on equal terms,” she added. “Uneven power relations were clearly at play. And President Duterte took advantage of that severe power disparity.” 

Joms Salvador, secretary general of Filipino women’s rights organization Gabriela, denounced the kiss as the “disgusting theatrics of a misogynist President who feels entitled to demean, humiliate or disrespect women according to his whim.”

“It is unfortunate that the woman found it her obligation to publicly defend the act as ‘no malice,’ when it is the President who is duty-bound to explain not only because it was upon his prodding but he is bound, as a public official, by rules of ethics to explain his unruly conduct,” Salvador wrote in a Monday statement.  

Apple has unveiled iOS 12 for iPhone and iPad and this year the focus is on helping you use your iPhone less as well as adding some fun new features for the iPhone X.

Unveiled at its annual WWDC 2018 developers conference, the new operating system includes a brand-new app called Screen Time designed to show you the apps you’re using too much and help you cut down.

Apple also revealed that it had drastically improved the performance of older iPhones, giving hope to anyone who has to wait 5 minutes for an app to open on their iPhone 5.

Finally as a fun finale, the tech giant revealed a new personalised Animoji called Memoji. These animated emoji characters can be completely customised from hair colour to accessories such as hats and glasses.

To cut through the noise, here are the biggest new features that Apple has just announced for your iPhone or iPad.

Screen Time + Do Not Disturb

iOS 12 features a brand-new app called Screen Time that has been designed to help you understand how much you use certain apps. It’ll show you how often you use apps, how many notifications you usually get from them and even let you set limits on how much you can use them. It’ll even suggest apps that it thinks you might be using too much and recommend ways to cut down.

The Screen Time app collates all the data from your different devices including your iPad so it’ll give you a clearer picture of how much you’re using them. Parents can also use Screen Time to help manage the time their kids spend on the gadgets and can even set digital curfews using the app.

Apple has updated Do Not Disturb to now work better during bedtime. It’ll show a minimalist lock screen, it won’t light up when you get a notification and yes, your alarm will still go off.

Older iPhones just got faster

Apple is drastically increasing the performance of older iPhones with iOS 12. According to the company you could see apps load twice as fast while the camera will reportedly open 70% faster and even the keyboard will feel quicker.

Memoji

Taking a cue from the Samsung Galaxy S9, Apple unveiled its very own personalised emoji called Memoji. Using hundreds of different customisation options you can create your own emoji and then incorporate it into Messages or even replace your own face with it and record video. The feature is sadly exclusive to the iPhone X as it requires the TrueDepth camera.

Siri Shortcuts

Taking on the likes of IFTTT, Apple’s brand-new Shortcuts app lets you create custom actions that can then be activated by your voice. Say for example you’re heading home, you can create a shortcut that turns on the heating at home, sets a map destination for your house and even messages your family to say you’re heading back. You then set the shortcut phrase as ‘I’m heading home’. Once you say that to Siri it will automatically set everything in motion.

Group FaceTime

You can now FaceTime up to 32 people at the same time simultaneously. To help initiate some form of crowd control, FaceTime automatically recognises when someone’s talking and makes their screen bigger, when they stop it shrinks back down again.

Augmented Reality

Rather than sticking with the crowd, Apple thinks augmented reality is going to be the future of immersive entertainment, not virtual reality.

In keeping with this Apple announced an entirely new file type specifically designed for augmented reality. Sounds dull but think of it like a new addition to photos, videos and GIFs. Now you’ll be able to create 3D objects and message them directly to friends who can then instantly place them in the real world using their camera, just as you would a picture.

Camila Cabello’s insanely catchy song “Havana” just broke another record.

The single, which has more than 888 million streams, is now Spotify’s most-streamed song of all time by a solo female artist, Billboard reported on Friday. The Cuban-American singer is the first solo Latina artist to hold the record.

Previously, the distinction was held by Sia’s “Cheap Thrills.”

The new record is just the latest milestone for Cabello. In January, her album became the first debut by a woman to hit No. 1 on Billboard’s 200 albums chart in three years. The same month, “Havana” also hit seven weeks at the top of Billboard’s Pop Songs radio airplay chart, which was the longest run for a solo female artist in a lead role since by Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” in 2013.

But apparently not everyone expected the song to be a smash. In January ― when the song had been at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 21 weeks, according to Complex ― the song’s producer Frank Dukes tweeted that the song had plenty of doubters early on.

“It’s just amazing to see that people have connected to it so much,” she said on the Billboard Chart Beat podcast. “When we were making the song, even though it was really special to me, I don’t think anyone expected for this to happen.”