One of the pinnacles of summer is Prime Day — Amazon’s two-day super sale where you can score mega savings on basically everything on the site. It’s consumerism at its finest. Just walking down the street, you’ll hear excited murmurs and the happy laughter of friends telling each other about all the super deals they got on Prime Day.
Because if there’s one thing we can’t resist as a society, it’s a good discount. No matter if you need a new television, vacuum cleaner, pink ice cube trays in the shape of bunnies or not, Prime Day makes you act in ways you normally wouldn’t. And all because it’s on sale.
And I’m no different. I love to shop a good sale, especially now that I’m moving and have a few actual needs. Even if I didn’t have a list of items to buy, I’d still find an excuse — any excuse — for retail therapy.
Amazon
From July 16 to July 17, you’ll save on top brands and best-selling products. Rarely do all of these items go on sale at the same time, which makes Prime Day so special. Prime Days usually feature discounts of up to 40%, so you better get your carts ready.
Of course, there are the classic television and electronic deals that your dad may love…but I’m looking for big trends that are on sale, including TikTok favorite recs and more.
If you’re looking to shop Prime Day 2024, but don’t know where to start…here are my favorite deals from Amazon you can shop today! But hurry, Prime Day is only two days long.
I know I said no electronics…but what about appliances? This CREAMi has gone viral because you can make the yummiest of yummy homemade ice cream, gelato, smoothies, and more with no effort involved. Save the trips to ice cream parlors for overpriced scoops… My mom has one and loves it (and yes, the ice cream is really delicious.)
CHI carries salon-quality hair products and tools at extremely reasonable prices. They’re one of my favorite hair brands on the market — are tried and true, have been around for years, are a staple at salons, et cetera. The Spin ‘N Curl makes curling your hair super simple (especially for those like myself who simply can’t use a wand) and quick. If you want beachy waves or big ringlets in no time, this is for you.
Dermatologist-recommended Youth To The People is my go-to skincare brand. From someone who’s tried everything that’s skincare related, Youth To The People’s Air Whip Moisture Cream is lightweight. It’s a great pre-makeup moisturizer, and it’s $12 off.
We’re all making sure our skin is in good shape this summer– and that starts with sunscreen. Yes, unfortunately, your mom and dermatologist are right. You will indeed get wrinkles and skin cancer if you refrain from the sunscreen train. This mini pack is great for your purse or beach bag this summer (and it’s $12 off!)
Hot air stylers are all the rage right now for a reason: better for your hair, quick-n-easy to use, and eliminates the need for separate hot tools. The Shark FlexStyle is a fan-favorite dupe of the Dyson AirWrap, and functions just as well at half the price…plus that extra discount for Prime Day.
We’ve all fallen for the teeth-whitening gimmicks. I’ve done it countless times and always go back to old faithful: Crest Strips. This whitening kit comes with 20 strips and a light to maximize your results. I don’t often plus teeth whitening kits, but this is worth the $30 discount.
Don’t waste your money on expensive speakers that will only break in a year’s time. Amazon Alexa-powered devices are great for room-to-room speakers. Plus, if you buy multiple, you can sync them throughout your home. I love my Echo and they’re always heavily discounted on Prime Day
These alarm clocks will seriously change your life. A clock that helps you develop a healthy sleep routine with customizable options fully curated to your schedule. With multiple sleep sound options, a gentle awakening setting, and a design made for your bedside table…this clock is all you’ll ever need.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is in a weird phase right now, and no, I don’t mean Phase Five which began with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Over just a few short days, it became clear that the shared movie universe is undergoing a lot of change, and not for the best reasons. From actors to workers and even top leadership, Marvel’s going through it right now.
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Marvel as a subset of Disney was just part of a huge set of layoffs earlier this week, with Mickey Mouse and friends slashing over 7000 jobs. Only the first wave of those cuts happened this week, and the final 7000 number is expected to come sometime in April. Company-wide, personnel is being dropped by one of the biggest corporations in the world, but even outside of egregious labor issues, Marvel has been dealing with a few more precise changes in its workforce.
Top executives are being let go
Marvel recently fired Victoria Alonso, who AV Club describes as “one of the biggest architects of the Marvel Cinematic Universe,” having been with the connected universe project for over a decade before her leaving the company earlier in March. At the time of her departure, she was Marvel’s president of physical production, post-production, VFX and animation. According to a Variety report, this came as part of a joint decision between Disney’s human resources, legal department, and executives including but not limited to Disney Entertainment co-chairman Alan Bergman. Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios, reportedly didn’t intervene, and Alonso was “blindsided.” The entire situation is wading into legal territory. Disney says Alonso’s firing came as part of a breach of contract because of her production work on Argentina, 1985, a non-Disney film, though Alonso’s team claims she had permission to do so.
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On top of this, there seems to have been conflict between Alonso and Disney/Marvel in regards to queer issues within the company, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Alonso, who is gay, reportedly clashed over an issue where Disney wanted a scene in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania altered to blur out a shop window that included Pride memorabilia in Kuwait, which has anti-LGBTQ+ laws in place. This is after she publicly spoke out against then-CEO Bob Chapek at the GLAAD awards for Disney’s reaction to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and was told she would no longer be allowed to do press for Marvel. Attorney Patty Glaser, who is representing Alonso, released the following statement to Variety:
“The idea that Victoria was fired over a handful of press interviews relating to a personal passion project about human rights and democracy that was nominated for an Oscar and which she got Disney’s blessing to work on is absolutely ridiculous,” Glaser says. “Victoria, a gay Latina who had the courage to criticize Disney, was silenced. Then she was terminated when she refused to do something she believed was reprehensible. Disney and Marvel made a really poor decision that will have serious consequences. There is a lot more to this story and Victoria will be telling it shortly—in one forum or another.”
While Alonso’s influence on the MCU is significant and dates back to the earliest films like the original Iron Man, she’s also been named in ongoing reports about the dire state of the animation industry as reported by Vulture and allegedly blacklisted artists working on Marvel projects that she took issue with. In general, Marvel’s animation and VFX workers have been coming forward about apparent toxic work environments and unfair contracts while working on the studio’s projects. This has reportedly been especially difficult on Disney+ projects like She-Hulk, with smaller budgets and shorter turnaround times still expecting movie-quality work.
Another high-profile departure is that of Ike Perlmutter, who was let go from the company this week. Perlmutter has had a long, storied history with Marvel, including a stint on the board of directors (as well as the chairman of the board), working as the vice chairman of the company in the early 2000s, moving up to the chief executive officer position in 2005, then remaining the CEO after Disney acquired the comic company in 2009. He oversaw Marvel Studios up until 2015 while reportedly being very tight on production budgets and also claiming Black people “look the same” regarding Don Cheadle’s replacement of Terrence Howard as James Rhodes in the MCU. He operated as a chairman from 2017 until his eventual layoff.
Jonathan Majors’ domestic violence case is ongoing
While executive departures will have an effect on things down the line, the most immediate problem Marvel movies have to contend with is the ongoing domestic violence case against actor Jonathan Majors. The actor, who plays Kang the Conquerer most recently in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, was arrested in Manhattan on assault, strangulation, and harassment charges. Majors’ legal team led by attorney Priya Chaudhry claims he’s innocent and released text messages allegedly sent by the victim in the case. The texts say this was “not an attack,” claim fault for the dispute because she was “trying to grab [Majors’] phone,” and disputed the strangulation charges. The alleged texts say the authorities were called due to the woman fainting, and that when there was a suspicion of a domestic dispute, Majors was arrested per mandatory arrest laws associated with domestic abuse cases in New York.
Majors’ future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is unclear as the investigation is ongoing, but the U.S. Army has pulled ads featuring the actor until the investigation is complete. The reason this is so significant in Marvel’s view is Majors’ character, Kang the Conquerer, is essentially Marvel’s main villain right now. He’s only appeared in two projects thus far, one being the Loki Disney+ show, and the second being Quantumania. But the shared universe franchise is leading up to Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars, both of which are set to feature Kang as the primary antagonist. He’s a Thanos-style character that Marvel can’t simply pluck from the story. Should the investigation lead to a guilty verdict, it’s likely Majors will be recast.
While all of these developments have happened for different reasons, whether that be corporate greed, office politics, and a domestic violence case, Marvel as a production is seeing some serious shake-ups right now. Not all of it seems to be of the company’s volition, but things are changing for Marvel at a time when the brand has been losing a lot of its staying power. Quantumania is the last movie Marvel released in theaters, and it was one of the series’ most poorly received and is sitting at a 47 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
While Marvel movies still make more money than you or I will ever see in a room at once, the franchise has been trending somewhat downward at the box office. Quantumania still made $470 million in its theatrical run, but that’s significantly lower than Ant-Man and the Wasp made in 2018, which was around $623 million. Several Marvel movies have made below the half-a-billion mark in recent years, such as Eternals and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Black Widow is one of the lowest-performing movies in the franchise’s lifetime with $379 million but was notably hindered by the covid-19 pandemic making fewer people willing to head out to theaters in 2021. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever did manage to bring in over $859 million, but that was even down from the original’s $1 billion.
It’s unclear what, if any, changes this might bring to the franchise, but figureheads and workers that have been with the brand for a long time are gone. Reading over it all now, ultimately, I sympathize most with the workers who were subject to the layoffs. Alonso and Perlmutter will be fine, but the people who worked (and apparently suffered) under them are in a much worse position.
We’ve reached out to Marvel, Majors, and Alonso for comment on this story and will update it should we hear back.
Update: This piece has been updated with information about Alonso’s reported disputes with Disney regarding queer content in its movies.
BEIJING — China on Sunday opens a twice-a-decade party conference at which leader Xi Jinping is expected to receive a third five-year term that breaks with recent precedent and establishes himself as arguably the most powerful Chinese politician since Mao Zedong.
Xi is expected to issue a lengthy address at the opening session, but little change is foreseen in his formula of strict one-party rule, intolerance of criticism and a hard-line approach toward COVID-19 including quarantines and travel bans even as other countries have opened up.
As with most Chinese political events, little information has been released beforehand and the congress’ outcome will only be announced after several days of closed-door sessions. How much has been decided in advance and how much is still to be hashed out in face-to-face meetings also remains unknown.
At a two-hour news conference Saturday, the congress’ spokesperson Sun Yeli reaffirmed the government’s commitment to its “zero-COVID” policy despite the economic costs, and repeated its threat to use force to annex self-governing Taiwan.
But Sun offered few details about what if any changes would be enacted to the party’s charter at the meeting, which is expected to last about a week. The congress is the 20th in the history of the century-old party, which boasts some 96 million members, over 2,000 of whom will attend the Beijing meetings.
The changes will “incorporate the major theoretical views and strategic thinking” concluded in the five years since the last congress, said Sun, a deputy head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department who is not well known outside party circles.
The amendment or amendments will “meet new requirements for advancing the party’s development and work in the face of new circumstances and new tasks,” Sun said.
Xi has left little room for further political aggrandizement, having placed himself thoroughly in charge of domestic affairs, foreign policy, the military, the economy and most other key matters overseen by party working groups that he leads.
The congress comes as China‘s economy is facing major headwinds amid a near-collapse in the real estate sector and the toll on retail and manufacturing imposed by COVID-19 restrictions that upped the regime’s already intense monitoring of the population and suppression of free speech.
In his remarks, Sun said China would exert all efforts to bring Taiwan under its control peacefully. But he said China would not tolerate what he called a movement toward full independence backed by hard-liners on the island and their overseas backers— presumably the U.S., which is Taiwan’s main source of military and diplomatic support despite the lack of formal relations in deference to Beijing.
Sun also offered no hope China would be backing away from “zero COVID,” which Xi and other leaders have made a political issue despite criticism by the World Health Organization and others that it is not a practical long-term solution given improvements in vaccines and therapies.
Many expect the policy to be continued at least until March, which Xi is expected to be given his third term as president and other top Cabinet leaders are installed.
While Xi faces no open opposition, his parting with the party’s former collegial leadership style to concentrate power in his own hands does rankle among the public and party officials, said political observer and dissident Yin Weihong, who has faced repeated police harassment for his opposition views.
“There’s a sense that he’s taken a cake formally divided amongst several and decided he’ll just have it all to himself,” Yin said in a phone call from his home south of Shanghai.
