Romper
Gillian Walters
Freelance Writer
United States of America
News Writer at Romper & Former Senior Writer & Saturday Editor at Perez Hilton
United States of America
News Writer at Romper & Former Senior Writer & Saturday Editor at Perez Hilton
Romper
On Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics released a report detailing the rates of pregnant smokers throughout America in 2016. Not only did the findings reveal that one in 14 pregnant people who gave birth in 2016 smoked cigarettes during their pregnancy, according to CNN, but it also identified states with the highest rates of pregnant smokers.
Throughout the past week, athletes across the United States have taken a knee in response to President Donald Trump's message that the NFL should fire players who chose not to stand during the national anthem, according to HuffPost. Although Trump's ...
On Friday, South CarolinaSen. Lindsey Graham met with President Donald Trump to discuss another alternative to the Affordable Health Care Act following the GOP's repeated failures to repeal the historic measure, according to The Hill. Graham's repeal proposal would use the ACA's budget to provide states with block grants, and each state would be able to spend the money however it sees fit.
Fiction & Personal Essays
I open my eyes when we stop at a vegetable stand on 25A. My mother gets out of the car to buy some eggplant for the parmesan she promises to make for dinner. A man is watching my mother as she walks over.
Sneakers can float, the television reminded us, so be on the look-out for limbs. Word of the inevitable slipped into our radios, conversations, and our children's ears when we thought they weren't listening. We took off work indefinitely and combed the beaches until the morning sun disappeared into the night sky, a taut canvas that revealed no stars.
Photo via Flickr user cobalt Baltimore is a dying city. Long past midnight and in any kind of weather, you'll find kids chugging 40s on dilapidated stoops. For two years, I taught those kids, kids who held oranges in their hands and asked, "How do we eat these?"
Lifestyle & True Crime
Non-believers of astrology love to say, I'm nothing like my Sun sign. Skeptics use this line as the bedrock of their arguments against astrology, and it's actually a good one. Yes, it's possible for you to be nothing like your Sun sign, kind of like how a person won't be a carbon copy of their parents.
On August 21, there will be a solar eclipse in the confident sign of Leo. A solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the sun and the earth, completely or partially obscuring the sun in the process. When you look up at the sky on August 21, you'll see the moon's shadow, a somewhat eerie yet beautiful phenomenon.
Mercury in retrograde is one of the most notorious phenomenons in astrology, mainly because it can be a huge pain in the butt. Seeing as Mercury is the planet of all things communication, it makes sense that us earthlings have the tendency to lose it when the universe sends it into reverse.
If you're like me, you fear being a burden. You avoid saying what you want and need because you don't want to be difficult. For us, suffering in silence is always easier than speaking up. Although there's no shame in wanting to be kind and accommodating, our desire to please can be seriously dangerous to our health.