I'm glad I saw this bs early on and got refunded for my donations. Here is a link to the refund page: https://support.winred.com/en/articles/3044286-requesting-a-refund.
Another vote for protonmail, but keep in mind you will have limited storage for free tier (~500 MB I think) unless you pay a monthly fee for more. Overall, I like it, I tried their VPN as well and it was pretty good. Time will tell how secure it really is.
Having to work with some of these incompetent h1-b contractors in any tech field is an absolute dumpster fire. Hire Americans that are more than qualified. Instead management wants muh cheap foreign labor and muh diversity hires.
Downtown is lib central, especially the northshore area. Outside of downtown it is far more conservative; our county mayor is a RINO, so there is a bs mask mandate still in effect. Honestly, people won't give you shit for not following it, a good portion of us don't. I can't recommend any reasonable apartments downtown, but there are a lot and they are pricey. If you aren't set on downtown, look north of the city, you will find more reasonable apartments. Welcome, we need more patriots.