Be proud at home with the virtual Latinx Pride Official Dance Party

In recent years, corporations have rapidly gone from viewing queerness as an abomination to seeing it as profitable aesthetic, and the origins of Pride celebrations have been lost in a sea of pink capitalism. Stonewall was an anti-cop rebellion largely led by transgender women of color, including Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans woman, and Sylvia Rivera, a Latina trans woman, and the protests against anti-Blackness and police brutality that have swept across the nation this month ring much truer to those events than banks covered in rainbows do. Still, the loss of Pride gatherings to COVID-19 this year is tough for many of us. Thanks to the Latino GLBT History Project, we can still be proud from our living rooms with the organization’s virtual Latinx Pride dance party, La Fiesta En Casa. For the past 13 years, the Latino GLBT History Project has organized Latinx Pride events in the District, and this year, they’re bringing their events online with a lineup that features 15 local performers, including Latinx drag stars Daddy Yank-Me and Darcy De La Cuadra. General admission is $5, with options to add $10 to enter a raffle for a sex toy or donate what you can to the organization’s Queer Families Covid-19 Relief Fund, a fundraiser they’ve organized to financially support queer undocumented and mixed-status households. La fiesta may be en casa, but there won’t be a Wells Fargo float in sight. The party will stream online on June 26 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com. $5–$10; donations encouraged. —Ella Feldman

Watch the black-footed ferret webcam

It’s time for a little chat about the birds and the bees, or in this case, the ferrets. In March, as the rest of the world entered lockdown, black-footed ferrets Potpie and Denver hit it off. The result of all the ferret flirting was a litter of six kits, born in early May at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. Thankfully, keepers at the SCBI use a webcam to monitor the family, which means working from home just got a whole lot cuter. It’s dark in Potpie’s habitat—so the webcam streams in black and white—but there’s still plenty to see. Like typical black-footed ferret mothers, Potpie is very defensive and nurturing of her kits. Much of her time on camera is spent grooming them and curling up around them to keep them warm. And while the SCBI’s webcam is an adorable experience, it’s also a testament to the Smithsonian’s important breeding and reintroduction programs. Black-footed ferrets are the only native ferret species left in North America, and they were once thought to be extinct. Potpie and Denver were both born in captivity, and now are part of a breeding population designed to change that. When their litter is old enough, keepers will return the kits to the wild, so their contact with humans is currently quite limited. The ferret webcam is a win-win scenario. Animal lovers can support conservation work all while enjoying Potpie in her maternal glory. The webcam is available at nationalzoo.si.edu. Free. —Sarah Smith