Mayor doing mayor stuff. Photo via Facebook.

Saskatoon's bumbling mayor may soon be relieved of two of his most prominent distinctions, should his controversy-drenched reign end this October.

A driver sits in a car in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during floods in September 2015 caused by a combination of factors including sea-level rise believed to be caused by climate change. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On Tuesday, anonymous Democratic officials told CNN that the Hillary Clinton campaign is about to trot out 68-year-old former vice president Al Gore in an effort to reach millennials who are concerned about climate change. Curious choice. Sure, Gore won an Oscar ten years ago for a climate change documentary, but if he couldn't get young people to care about his cable channel (rest in peace, Current TV), how is he going to gin up enthusiasm for a candidate who many young people still aren't excited about?

Still, these super exciting new campaign speeches from Al Gore will at least resurrect an issue that's been mostly ignored since the Democratic primary. There were no questions about climate change during the first presidential debate—though Clinton briefly brought up Donald Trump's weird theory that climate change was a Chinese hoax—and no questions about it during this week's vice-presidential debate. And Democrats looking to score points by at Trump's expense find plenty of ammunition in his lies, his temperament, and his tendency to insult people, but they rarely mention that he's a climate change denier.

Not that Trump is alone in his denialism. A Pew report released this week on climate issues in politics found that a sizable majority of conservatives distrust what climate scientists say, and only 48 percent of Americans think the Earth is getting warmer because of human activity. It doesn't matter what Trump or anyone thinks, of course, because the climate is changing.

Last month, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced that atmospheric measurements had once again surpassed the 400 parts per million mark for carbon and that it looks like this time we're never going back—meaning many of climate change's effects are now locked in for good. Also last month, a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that there has now been record-breaking heat for 16 months in a row. And now there's Hurricane Matthew, a record-breaking storm set to rip apart Florida's east coast. Scientists generally don't like to link single weather events to climate change, but climate change does cause more extreme storms.

Meanwhile, the Paris agreement, the landmark climate change accord signed in April, has been ratified by enough nations to go into effect—though Trump, of course, would move to cancel it if he became president.

This election will be enormously consequential one way or another when it comes to climate change. So why aren't we hearing more about it about it?

"Politicians don't know how to talk about effectively," Renee Lertzman, a consultant who performs market research around climate change, told me. Lertzman assembles focus groups and works with climate educators to figure out what messages resonate, and she has observed people "hungering for an authentic way of talking about this issue."

But Americans also view greenhouse-gas-producing activities and industries as a "big part of who we are and our identity," which makes the general population defensive. "This leads to a taboo around speaking out about it," she said.

That might be why Clinton—whose website says she'll be "taking on the threat of climate change and making America the world's clean energy superpower"—has mostly kept quiet about climate. She's only mentioned the topic in one out of five speeches since Bernie Sanders endorsed her in July, according to the Guardian. Last month, when Clinton wrote an op-ed for Mic—part of an apparent attempt to get the youngins excited about her campaign—she didn't mention the environment at all.

Author and prominent climate change activist Bill McKibben told me that he thinks Matthew will find its way into the campaign, and bring climate change with it. "I have a feeling that just as Sandy finally got climate on the agenda a few days before the 2012 election, Matthew may be enough to remind us that we live on a physical planet."

McKibben also hopes that the moderator at Sunday's presidential debate will use the recent NOAA data as a way to talk about climate change. A good question might be, "What's your plan for going well beyond the Paris accords and actually limiting the rise in temperatures to the two degrees that is our supposed target?" McKibben suggested.

On Sunday, if one of the moderators, or one of the undecided voters in the crowd, fires a tough climate question at Clinton, Lertzman has some advice. "I would tell her to be as down to earth as humanly possible," she said, and suggested that Clinton avoid the temptation to just harp on how backward Trump's policy of denial is.

"You want her to acknowledge where people realistically are, and say that's why we have this opportunity to show what it means to be a human being," Lertzman offered, "instead of saying, 'You bunch of fucking ignorant people.'"

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Over the past seven days, America witnessed four mass shootings that left four dead and 14 wounded. These attacks bring the US mass shooting body count so far in 2016 to 322 dead and 1,161 injured.

Meanwhile, Europe suffered zero mass shootings over the same period of time, holding the continent's body toll in such attacks so far this year steady at 43 dead and 140 injured.

This week's American mass shooting figures pale in comparison to the number of attacks and victims over the past few weeks. In fact this was the quietest week for large scale gun violence in the nation since the middle of spring: Although one week in mid-August tied it for the least number of mass shooting deaths, the past seven days saw the lowest number of large-scale shooting events and total victims in a week since the last full week of May.

On Saturday at about 8:45 PM, a shooting near a home in Fresno, California, left four injured. On Sunday at some point soon after 2 AM, a drive-by in a parking lot near a San Antonio, Texas, club left one person dead and four wounded. On Monday at about 1:30 AM, a street shooting in Minneapolis (which may have been linked to a second attack nearby) left four more people wounded. Finally, at about 9:30 PM on Tuesday, another street shooting, this one in New Orleans, Louisiana, left three dead and two injured.

It is possible that this week is a sign of a coming drop-off in the frequency of American mass shootings, spurred on by cooling weather. As experts have explained to VICE in the past, warmer months can see more large-scale gun violence thanks to the greater number of people hanging around outside, making it easy for would-be shooters to find targets—and to catch others in the crossfire as well. Conversely, as we all know, fall and winter tend to mean more time indoors, especially in cooler states, lowering (on average) the risk of street shootings or drive-bys striking large groups of people. However, this effect, in theory, does little to mitigate the risk of, say, mass shootings inside clubs or domestic violence-related mass shootings in homes.

It's also possible that this week's relative calm was just a fluke. Mass shootings are ultimately random and chaotic incidents, which are hard to predict, even if trends can give us some insights into their likelihood in certain contexts. Next week could bring another relatively peaceful respite—perhaps even a week with no mass shootings at all, if we're exceptionally lucky. Or happenstance could see a large number of shootings, whether indoors, in warmer parts of the country, or even in the places where people are still out and about in cooler states.

No matter what happens in the weeks to come, it's worth remembering that quiet weeks like this one are no license to stop working against America's mass shooting epidemic. Four such attacks and four lives lost in a week is still an absurdity by most global standards—and should be by American ones as well. The fact that these lives were lost in what many see as routine violence is no excuse to let them fade into background noise. Rather, the lack of headline-ready violence this week ought to open up more space for a national discussion of less-commonly-covered mass shootings that fall by the wayside. We need to have those conversations if we're ever going to tackle large-scale gun violence in America. Otherwise, we'll go on living the farce in which a week with four mass shootings is somehow a good one.

'Portrait of Amy Van Doran' by Jenna Gribbon. All photos courtesy of the Modern Love Club

A new store is hitting New York's East Village with a very unique business model. It isn't selling anything—or, at least, anything you can carry out in a bag. Instead, the Love Museum is offering a much better deal: a shot at finding true love.

Sitting with her dog—which is wearing a collar that says "feminist" on the tag—Love Museum founder, Amy Van Doran, admits she falls in love with at least 16 people at a time. But these diverse individuals (including comedians, actors, and CEOs) aren't her potentials partners—they're her clients. Van Doran is the owner of the Modern Love Club, a boutique matchmaking company that aims to break the industry's patriarchal stereotypes.

Although she has a harder time attracting men to her service than women, Van Doran often grabs interesting individuals off the street in hopes that they'll join her comprehensive rolodex of clientele. Now, she's planning to take it one step further with the Love Museum's first women-centric art exhibit, Girls I Love!, which opens October 8. Van Doran wants the small storefront—which displays "witch-y" work from five of her friends hung on pastel walls—to draw intrigue from forward-thinking passersby, resulting in a potential interview for a selective spot on her matchmaking roster.

Before the Love Museum's official debut, I met up with Van Doran—a cartoon-obsessed free spirit rocking a bright orange bob with lipstick to match—to learn about the lost art of matchmaking, Tinder, and treating the world like it's your neighborhood bar.

VICE: What prompted you to create the Love Museum?
Amy Van Doran: I've been running the Modern Love Club for eight years as a matchmaker. I started off giving free love advice on the streets. The museum is this durational performance piece where I'm actively listening to the contemporary state of what's happening with love in New York City. I'm curating people's love lives, so I thought it would be cool to have this fun gallery that doesn't have to make a lot of money. Because matchmaking sustains the business, it can be a true labor of love.

Why did you choose to open in the East Village?
It's where my people are. I like the sense of community. I like that people just come in here and tell me their life stories. It feels really magically charged. In the East Village, people actually talk to one another. We set up this free date spot, so people will walk in and start hitting on one another. What I love is that it's the opposite of Tinder. People are meeting in real life. This has been a conduit for getting strangers to talk to one another again and use art as a way to open conversation.

A painting by Jenna Gribbon

Have you already noticed couples connecting in the storefront's " free dating spot"?
Yeah! I just sit there watching them. It makes me so happy! It doesn't have to be a big deal to talk to strangers. You can just sit in a chair and engage with whoever walks by. Every person that I've ever fallen in love with I've met while walking down the street or doing something I love. People like having that magical inception in this place, whether they are hiring me as a matchmaker or getting involved by making art. It's a place where they can come and not have to buy anything, not have to spend any money, but just talk to strangers. That's my life's work.

"If you went to ten of your friends and said, 'I want to meet someone great, you all set me up on a date with your favorite male person?' your dating experience would be so much more uplifting."

What are your thoughts on online dating?
With online dating, people keep looking for the next thing, so they're not focused on who's around, who's connected to who, who can vouch for who. If you went to ten of your friends and said, "I want to meet someone great, you all set me up on a date with your favorite male person?" your dating experience would be so much more uplifting. You would go in thinking that this person is going to be great instead of assuming that you're going to be disappointed.

So what do you do if you're new to a city and don't know many people?
First of all, you get to choose your friends. I remember when I moved to New York 12 years ago, I'd just walk around and say, "Hi!" But don't treat it like the stakes are high. Just look at each person and try to see the humanness in them and the humanness in you and connect. It's not about having a laundry list of what you require from other people, but rather that everyone is fucking special and interesting and surprising. It's like treating the world as if it's the bar you usually go to. Whenever someone goes into your bar, you're like, "Hey! I haven't seen you around here before. What's your story?" Just treat the entire city like that.

What do you have to say about love that differs from advice reality-TV matchmakers give?
Our culture is built on selling things, and I think the way that you sell things is to make people feel bad about themselves. It's really hard on us. I don't know how anyone is getting out of bed in the morning. You watch reality TV and all the women have blond hair, their skin is the same color, and their teeth are so white. It gives you this idea that love is for other people. But what I've found through doing this for a while is the people who are the most successful are not the people who are doing anything to make themselves homogeneous. They are clear about who they are and align who they are internally with their visual representation of themselves. If everyone is trying to be someone else, it doesn't feel special. I'd rather be one person's favorite person than everyone's passively fine person.

But I don't have any answers or solutions. I think that anyone who claims to have that is just full of shit.

Follow Sarah Bellman on Twitter.

Girls I Love! will be open to public on Saturday, October 8, 6–9 PM at the Love Museum on 156 First Avenue in New York.

All photos courtesy of Jonathan Sun

"look. life is bad. evryones sad. we're all gona die. but i alredy bought this inflatable boumcy castle so r u gona take ur shoes off or wat"

Trump likes the Ameircan flag, but the American court system, not so much. Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

You would think that someone who has spent a big-league amount of effort trying to become the ruler of a country would also be familiar with that country's laws, but that is because you do not think like Donald Trump. It's very difficult to understand how Trump thinks—sifting through all of his tossed-off public statements to divine his true opinions would require the patience of a Talmudic scholar and a graduate degree in doublethink—but one thing we can say for sure is that Trump has an utter contempt for the law.

Having contempt for the law isn't the same thing as being a lawbreaker. I don't know if Trump University—a company Trump promoted but didn't have much oversight of—broke the law, and it also remains to be seen if the various sloppiness surrounding the Trump Foundation rises to the level of a crime.

What contempt for the law means is you don't care about the set of legal norms that binds the country together. It means you reject the idea that the court system's decisions are valid, at least not when they don't conform to your own biases. It means—more on this in a second—that you hate America. That's a bad quality to have when you want to run America, and a bitterly ironic joke when you've made "law and order" one of your catchphrases.

Trump's contempt revealed itself most obviously in a recent statement to CNN where he opined that the Central Park Five—a group of black teenagers who were wrongfully convicted for the 1989 rape of a New York woman, then paid a total of $41 million in 2014—were guilty. "They admitted they were guilty," Trump told CNN. "The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous."

The fact that the authorities say you are guilty doesn't mean you are guilty, of course—Trump's companies have been investigated enough for racist practices that he should know that. And the teens' admissions of guilt we now know was false, since another man admitted to the crime in 2002 and DNA evidence showed that he, not the five, was responsible for the rape. Weighing against that evidence and the court's exoneration of them Trump has... what, exactly? Just his own contempt.

Trump has made it clear over and over again that he doesn't care about the system of laws that hold the country together. He's publicly embraced war crimes against terrorism, said a judge was biased against him because the judge had Mexican heritage, proposed a ban on Muslim immigration many experts said was unconstitutional, mused about "opening up" libel laws to make it easier for him to sue people who say nasty things about him, and rambled about how Hillary Clinton should be in prison, even though she wasn't charged with a crime.

As most of those examples suggest, Trump's contempt for the law tends to dovetail with his demonization of brown people. In 1989, during the trial of the Central Park Five, he bought a full-page newspaper ad that implicitly said the teens should be executed if they were found guilty. But back then, Trump was simply a rich guy with an opinion, part of the most entitled demographic in America. The ad was an ugly thing to put out there, with more than a hint of racism, but it was ultimately just a rant by a private citizen who liked to see his name in print.

The best thing about America is that unlike many other countries it doesn't spring out of a shared language or ethnicity but an idea. A good summation, and stay with me here, is in the Steven Spielberg movie Bridge of Spies, when Tom Hanks, that American's American, tells a sneaky federal agent, "What makes us both Americans, just one thing, one, the rule book—we call it the Constitution, and we agree to the rules, and that's what makes us Americans, that's all that makes us Americans."

The rules say that when a court exonerates someone, they're innocent. The rules say that what judges say matters, that the system, if not fair, is at least striving for fairness. Presidents disagree with court decisions all the time, but when they do they do not delegitimize the judges, or accuse them of bias. You may disagree with a court—there's nothing more American than disagreement—but when you do you go out and do the hard work of changing laws and norms, as activists and lawyers across the political spectrum have done for generations.

Trump's election, if it happened, wouldn't suddenly upend the system. He would still have to work with Congress and the courts to get things done, and it's likely he would face various legal hurdles to, say, bring back waterboarding. But he could do a fair amount of damage by simply running his mouth. What would happen if the president weighed in on a police shooting not to express sympathy during a tragedy but to say that an officer was justified? What about if President Trump went on TV and repeated his claims that Clinton should be imprisoned? Beyond words, would he actually direct his attorney general to look into individual people he doesn't like? That would sound like a ridiculous hypothetical if Trump didn't just imply that five innocent men who have spent two decades in prison should go back in. He would be the first president who actively rebelled against the rules—that is, the things that make up America.

And there's one more question, one that doesn't depend on a Trump victory: If you've spent your whole life bragging about how much you win and spent a whole campaign spitting out conspiratorial nonsense, are you going to concede when the votes show you've lost? Or are things going to get even uglier?

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

Luke Wilson, who is better and smarter than you. Photo via 20th Century Fox

You don't have to wade too far into the #hottakes to find someone saying this year's political shitshow is "just like Idiocracy." It's been such a hot opinion that the flick's been re-released into select theaters to celebrate its tenth anniversary/our impending doom. But while it may seem that the "Idiocracy's a documentary...about now" talking point is an indictment about Donald Trump the man, it's actually casting blame on the voters who gave his candidacy rise.

"These Trump voters—their children, their children's children—will be responsible for turning America into a Brawndo-swilling, 'Ow My Balls!'–gawking cesspool by 2506," is the lurking sentiment. Trump voters are the intro's Clevon, with his 84 IQ and rapidly expanding family tree. The rest of us are intelligent, like Trevor and Carol, as we deliberate about procreation's detriment to civilization—so we mock Trump supporters while queasily laughing at Mike Judge's prescient vision of our future.

If one believes the accuracy of film's central premise—that the dumb are reproducing at a higher rate than the smart, which will lower the world's intelligence until idiocy reigns supreme—it's only natural to want to stop that from happening. From there, it's not at all that great a leap to begin believing that maybe there should be some kind of policy only allowing intelligent people to reproduce—in other words, sterilize the dumb.

That, my friends, is a description of eugenics—the pseudoscience that rose in the latter half of the 19th century as a byproduct of extrapolating Darwin's theory of natural selection into the realm of human development. (In fact, it was Darwin's half-cousin, Sir Francis Galton, who posited that "genius" and "talent" were hereditary, which other half-witted scientists soon latched on to.)

An example is the 1912 book The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness by Henry H. Goddard, which examines the genealogy of a woman living in a New Jersey institution and tracks her "feeble-mindedness" to her great-great-great-grandfather, who had a tryst with a "feeble-minded" barmaid. While the other side of the man's family tree were all found to be "normal," that single dalliance lead to, as Goddard put it, "generations worth of feeble-minded." (This, as you may imagine, has subsequently been found to be a load of bullshit.) One person who was a big fan of these theories was—dramatic sound effect—Hitler, who utilized them in his attempt to create a master race.

That attempt began in 1933 when the Nazi regime enacted the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, which stated that any person suffering from a list of hereditary diseases—many of them not at all hereditary, like blindness, deafness, or "severe deformity"—could be forcibly stopped from procreating. It's estimated that 400,000 people were sterilized against their will.

Forget the moral quandaries that come with forced sterilization and selective breeding—let's talk about the science behind eugenics. This will be a short conversation, because there is none. There are any number of factors that can contribute to a person's intelligence, or lack thereof. One of the many reasons Goddard's treatise was bullshit was that he never examined the role that malnutrition—a factor related to poverty and not genes—played in developing his subject's "feeble mind."

So: Idiocracy's central premise—that dumb people create more dumb people—is wrong. Its other theme—that dumb people are also breeding more quickly than smart people—also happens to be way off.

A 2015 Pew study looked at how many kids that women with postgraduate degrees have given birth to over the past half-century. In 1994, 30 percent of women with a master's degree or higher were childless, a number that's since dropped to 22 percent. In 1976, 10 percent of said women had one child, while in 2014 that numbers up to 18 percent; those with two kids rose even more dramatically, from 22 to 35 percent. More directly, according to the vastly accepted Flynn effect—which has been proven and re-proven by having people take old IQ tests—the human race is only getting more intelligent, with no signs of slowing down.

But let's get back to viewing Idiocracy through the lens of today's political scene—specifically, through the critique of Trump supporters. Aside from the movie's bad science, its most damning offense is its "we're better than those idiots" point-of-view. Idiocracy is not a "smart person's movie," though—it's a movie for average assholes who think they're smart.

Laughing at jokes in Idiocracy is a quantum experience; you're making fun of fake dummies in the year 2506, sure, but mostly you're making fun of their distant relatives from the past, the very real people living right now in our contemporary times. You're laughing at the racists you believe to be flanking Trump's rallies, meaning you're laughing at the "poorly educated," meaning you're laughing at the poor—emotionally and fiscally—being duped by this orange huckster.

The "we're livingIdiocracy right now!" shtick fits very nicely alongside as Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables," or the Washington Post's heavily lauded profile of the mentally ill Trump supporter, or any slickly edited five-minute video chunk that gawks at assholes at a Trump rally. It's all elitist porn, allowing the fortunate to mock the poor and under-educated through the sheen of the Truth. Laugh it up all you want—just know what it is you're laughing at.

Follow Rick Paulas on Twitter.

A still from a promotional trailer for Skirt Club

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Emily Dievendorf is a self-described "bisexual social justice advocate" in Lansing, Michigan. She says dating while bi can be so frustrating that she throws in the towel every six months or so.

"I find it exhausting to be approached as a fetish by men, a potential option for a threesome by couples, and as a threat and a fraud by lesbians," she said.

Bi women looking to explore their sexuality face unique challenges, from the slow disappearance of the lesbian bar to misconceptions and stigma around their identity, which still reign large in 2016. Which is "sad and a bit ridiculous," said Anna Pulley, a writer who lives in the Bay Area. "When I date or go on apps, I don't identify as bi for that reason. I've been shut out and turned down on dating sites for it and gotten into stupid arguments with strangers trying to convince them that I'm a great date."

She notes that she has few female friends who will identify as bisexual, despite dating and sleeping with both women and men. "How can we be out and proud," as she puts it, "if we can't be... out and proud?"

A female-focused party called Skirt Club, specifically geared toward women who want to explore same-sex sexuality, often for the first time, may offer a promising step forward.

Skirt Club launched in London in 2014. It has since expanded to Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and Sydney; a Berlin party launches next week, and the organization is expanding to Paris later this year. They currently claim to have 5,000 members, an impressive rise in two years.

Skirt Club caters to bisexual or bicurious women. No men are allowed, but women with all levels of experience in same-sex sexuality, from bicurious to fully lesbian, are welcomed. To some extent, the club is geared toward women who may be dating men, but use the events as a way to enjoy one another's company—as the narrator of one trailer video puts it, "When your man is not enough, seek adventure outside."

At their twice-monthly parties, women enjoy free-flowing champagne or mixed drinks, sultry burlesque performances, risqué games, and lectures on topics such as kissing and female orgasms. Around midnight, the afterparty begins, and physical liaisons are not only allowed, but encouraged (though not mandatory).

"I'd been to a couple of nice play parties in London and the same thing kept happening," Skirt Club founder, Genevieve LeJeune, told me. "A man would grab me by the arm or slap my bottom, and there was this expectation that I was there, and therefore I was going to have sex with him. If there is constantly a predator trying to push you into a threesome or sex with him, then you are not going to have fun, because you are constantly feeling threatened."

While the organization does offer smaller "Mini Skirt" events just for cocktails and socializing, a full event typically costs $150 or more to attend. Skirt Club has no investors and nobody on salary, but admission fees cover various administrative costs, as well as fees for throwing each event, which often take place in luxurious venues; in New York, the club rents a two-story penthouse in the Lower East Side with a 20-person jacuzzi.

Skirt Club also offers an online community that's free to join, where members use pseudonyms to remain anonymous. Though some may choose to meet outside official events, many prefer to keep their sexuality a secret. "It's like having a second life," LeJeune says.

Therein lies an interesting dynamic. Skirt Club appears to attract a specific type of woman: those who are casually bisexual. One item on their admission questionnaire asks aspiring members where they fall on the Kinsey scale. The most common answer, LeJeune told me, is a 2, or "predominantly heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual." Some even identify as a 0, or "exclusively heterosexual," but are open to exploring otherwise.

That may turn off women more experienced with same-sex sexuality. I asked several women who identify as bisexual or pansexual if such a party would appeal to them, and some said they weren't interested in being anyone's "experiment." Others said they wouldn't mind, with women who admitted to having only a few or no same-sex hookups were particularly intrigued. Some liked the idea of the fancy setting, while others were turned off by the price.

It's also worth noting that Skirt Club is only for cisgender women.

While the club could definitely stand to be more inclusive, most seemed to at least appreciate that such a thing exists, even if it's not for them.

"I think we do need more spaces for women to meet women and to that effect, I say, brava to Skirt. It's a challenge to take up space as queer women, especially with all the recent bar closings, and even queer-focused websites like AfterEllen.com, which shuttered ," Pulley said.

Dievendorf expressed concerns that something like Skirt Club could reinforce the misconception that bisexual people are inherently non-monogamous, or that bisexuality is an emergent pop-culture trend, "which supports yet another stereotype that both lesbian, gay, and straight-identified people use as an excuse to not take us seriously."

But she does see a need for more safe meeting places. "Both spaces with same gender and opposite gender bi/pan/fluid people are in high demand," she said. "A mixed-gender bi space would best acknowledge and celebrate the reality that defines a non-monosexual identity."

But at Skirt Club, a woman may have her first, and maybe not last, sexual experience with other women; they may use it to become more comfortable and confident in her sexuality. And for them, at least they're living out their fantasies in a safe, supportive environment. In that way, it's a useful niche market that appears to be thriving.

Follow Juliet Bennett Rylah on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Karen Eliot

For weeks, a wave of "creepy clowns" has been terrorizing the United States. While it's hard to pinpoint where it all began, sightings have stretched across the country. Local police have become overwhelmed with calls of a potential clown sighting, and some schools have even gone on lockdown over potential clown threats. The trend has been terrifying for those who've been victimized by the creepy clowns, and highly entertaining for the rest of us on the internet. But for those in the professional clown business, it's been no joke.

We talked with some professional clowns about how the recent creepy clown hysteria has affected business, and whether or not it's making them fear for their safety. Interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Photo courtesy of Megan Anton-Kicinski

Megan Anton-Kicinski, a.k.a. "Gabby the Clown"

VICE: How has the recent clown scare affected you?
Megan Anton-Kicinski: I just got done with chemotherapy treatments , so I've been down for a while. Now that my health is coming back, my worry is there's just enough people out there who would love to take it to the next level. If they see a clown just walking around, I don't want somebody to come up and assault me. I don't have the energy to fight back. I just want to do some kids shows and have fun and face paint and make balloons, you know? I don't want to risk going out and possibly getting assaulted by some imbecile who feels the need to be a vigilante.

I've been doing this for 24 years, and I absolutely love it, but it just comes back to this mayhem and chaos with these clowns. Whether the stories are true or not, there are enough people out there that get a little stir-crazy and stuff happens. I don't want it to happen to me. I feel wary.

When's the last time you did a clown show?
I've been out since about a year and a half ago, since last spring.

Were there ever problems with business back then?
Six to ten years ago, there were a lot of shows. There were a lot of people who would call from all over the country to hire a clown. I remember getting phone calls from New York. The calls were there. The opportunities were definitely there at the time, but now it's way declined. I don't know if it's the economy or all this crazy clown crap going on.

What would you say to someone who was scared of you next time you did a gig?
Don't be afraid of clowns. We're really just nice people who want to make people smile. Really, that's what it comes down to.

Photo courtesy of Wendy Minson-Bush

Wendy Minson-Bush, a.k.a. "Daisy the Clown"

VICE: Has there been a drop off in business since the "creepy clown" epidemic?
Wendy Minson-Bush: I've had a decline in shows because of all these clown problems. I had a birthday party that canceled on me last weekend. They said that their daughter was crying and petrified of clowns. It's affecting business for me.

Had you run into problems with customers prior to this trend?
There are a lot of clown fetishists out there, so I have to screen my calls. But now I'm kind of weary of all of my leads that come in. I used to be able to just message back-and-forth and I'd get the details and I'd go, but now I need to verbally speak to the people because I don't know with all this clown hysteria. I don't want to waste my time putting on all my makeup just for somebody's shits and giggles.

How do you handle people who are scared of you?
Clown College taught me how to approach people who are scared of clowns. If I find a little child and they're scared of me, I need to make sure they shake my hand or give me a hug, or they'll grow up to be the adult who's scared of clowns. I go into Dollar General in town here, and if I'm in my clown outfit, a cashier who runs out of the room. I did a lot of learning on how to interact with people who are scared. I've been doing it for 18 years. It's a pretty good gig.

Photo courtesy of George Schneider

George Schneider, a.k.a. "Snacks the Clown"

VICE: How is the "creepy clown" trend affecting business?
George Schneider: gigs here and there, but for people who do this for a living, I'm sure it's made it harder for them. As a clown, I can only imagine going to a birthday party or something, driving in your car, it makes me worried: Would I get arrested going to a gig?

What are you anticipating when you do your next gig?
There will always be someone who maybe is afraid of clowns, but I'm sure that these recent sightings—if I had done a gig —I'm sure that would have increased the number of people who look at you like you're a bad person.

Some people are already scared of clowns, but now with all this extra-exposure, do you think that's being amplified?
I think people have the right to be afraid if people are dressing up as clowns and real clowns aren't meant to be scary. They're meant to bring joy. But if someone's had a bad experience from watching a scary movie or something, all we can do is try to change that image when we're doing a show. It's just kind of sad that this could potentially hurt people like me.

What does the "creepy clown" fear mean for the future of clowns?
It's just sad that people are terrorizing people in any form, but the fact that they're choosing clowns is bad. Clowns throughout history have always been a main source of entertainment for people of all ages. You look years ago, and everyone loved Bozo—that was the big thing. Every kid loved Bozo. I don't know if something like that would pass today. It seems like people don't really look up to clowns like they did back in the day. I don't want to say it's a dying art, but I definitely think that the clown world in general needs some sort of resurgence or something. They're likable, and they're not scary. They're good people, and they just want to bring entertainment.

Photo courtesy of Jim Caffrey

Jim Caffrey, a.k.a. "Jay J. the Clown"

VICE: Have you noticed any change in business recently due to the "creepy clown" epidemic going on?
Jim Caffrey: No, not really. That's because there's a very large difference between the way they look and the way I look. I don't look creepy. It's one of those nice, clean looks, and there's nothing scary or creepy about it. Everything they're doing now is basically buying a rubber mask and it's Halloween time.

How do you feel about people scaring others in the name of clowns?
The whole creepy clown thing doesn't even bother or phase me, personally. It's just a bunch of kids having fun. They're not going out killing one another or anything. It's just a bunch of kids being unnecessary and fun and scaring one another. If I was conducting myself in the mannerisms of hiding in the woods and jumping out from corners and yelling and screaming, yeah, I would be expected to be treated differently. But if you carry yourself properly and carry yourself to the code of ethics that we follow, then why would you have an issue?

Do clowns follow a code of ethics?
Yes, absolutely. More than anything, you want to treat people right. You want to be good to people. You're there to uplift spirits; you're not there to frighten anybody. I have run across teenagers who say they're scared even before this creepy clown thing came up. They're like, "Oh, I don't like clowns." Well, most of them are just looking for extra attention; they're not really scared. Little-bitty kids can be scared of you, but you just give them their distance and let them watch you interact with the other children, and before you know it, they're right there with the rest of the kids. If somebody's afraid of you, you just stay away.

Follow Sean Neumann on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user ella

When Lydia, 28, was forced to change her bartending uniform from Lululemon pants and a low-cut top to booty shorts and an even lower neckline, she said no.

Photo by ALEXEY NIKOLSKY/AFP/Getty Images

On Friday, US government officials said they were "confident" Russia was behind the Democratic National Convention hack, which was an attempt to sway the 2016 election, the Washington Post reports.

"The recent disclosures of alleged hacked emails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts," reads a statement jointly issued by the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Speculation about Russian involvement in the cybersecurity breaches has been going on for a while now. In June, the DNC's own investigation into its hack—one that ultimately led to the resignation of DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz—named Russian government hackers responsible, but this is the first time the Obama administration has publicly blamed Russia—and by extension Vladimir Putin.

"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities," Friday's statement read.

Trump, for his part, hasn't been particularly eager to admit that Russia was behind the hacks. "It could be Russia, but it could be China, could also be lots of other people," he said during the first presidential debate. "It could be someone sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds."

Read: A Cybersecurity Expert Told Us What the DNC Hack Means for the Future of Democracy

On an all new episode of ABANDONED,Rick and co-pilot Frank Gerwer drive along Route 66, once America's "Mother Road," to find out what remains on the historic highway.

ABANDONED airs Fridays at 9 PM on VICELAND.

Carfentanil imported from China seized in Vancouver. Photo via Associated Press.

For the first time, carfentanil, the highly potent opioid used to sedate elephants and also as a chemical weapon, has been linked to overdose deaths in Canada. Two recent deaths in Alberta have been linked to the drug that's been responsible for hundreds of overdoses across the United States.

It's around 50 times stronger than fentanyl and 10,000 times more powerful than morphine. Even a dose the size of grain of salt can be fatal.

The two individuals, men in their 30s from Edmonton and Calgary, tested positive for carfentanil in their systems earlier this week, federal police officers and public health authorities said in a press release on Friday.

"We are already in the eye of a deadly storm in fighting the horrific impacts of fentanyl in our communities. We are now even more challenged by the arrival of carfentanil on our streets," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police deputy commissioner Marianne Ryan.

The province's chief medical examiner explained that very few laboratories in North America have the ability to test for carfentanil in human blood. Last week, officials in Winnipeg, Manitoba said they believed two young people overdosed on drugs laced with carfentanil, but they were revived by paramedics with naloxone kits.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency has warned that communities everywhere should be high alert for the substance—that is being laced with other drugs such as heroin—and that agents should avoid coming into contact with it.

Ohio has declared a public health emergency over the matter, as authorities there have seen a record number of overdoses and more than 12 confirmed carfentanil-related overdose deaths in recent months. Detroit's medical examiner said on Friday there have been 19 deaths linked with carfentanil, and that it has been found in the local illicit drug supply.

In August, border agents in Vancouver seized one kilogram, enough for 50 million doses, of carfentanil bound to Calgary from China in a shipment disguised as printer accessories. Most of the illicit fentanyl coming into the US and Canada through the mail comes from China.

However, the Canada Border Services Agency does not officially track carfentanil seizures "as it is not tracked as an isolated narcotic," a spokesperson told VICE News in an email.

A recent investigation by the Associated Press revealed that Chinese companies would export the chemical to the US, Canada, and parts of Europe. The US government has been pressuring China to blacklist the substance.

In 2002, more than 120 people were killed after Russian special forces sprayed a version of the substance in a theatre where hundreds of hostages were kept for days during a stand-off with Chechen separatists.

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On Friday, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold released a video of Donald Trump in 2005, having the sort of conversation with TV host Billy Bush that you'd expect from a couple of dirty uncles. In the video, Trump, who is apparently unaware his mic is hot, talks about trying to fuck a married woman by taking her furniture shopping, and says that because he's "a star" he's able to kiss any woman he wants and "grab them by the pussy."

The married woman who turned down the opportunity to be fucked by Donald Trump is not identified, but in the video, the future Republican presidential nominee gives an account of the encounter:

"I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, I'll show you where they have some nice furniture. I took her out for—I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she's now got the big phony tits and everything. She's totally changed her look."

At the time, Trump and Bush were on an Access Hollywood bus on their way to shoot a Days of Our Lives cameo with actress Arianne Zucker.

Shortly before meeting Zucker, he says, "I better use some Tic Tacs, just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything."

"Whatever you want," Bush says.

"Grab 'em by the pussy, you can do anything," Trump replies, before the two men start talking about Zucker's legs.

On Friday, Trump published a brief statement in response to the video: "This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course—not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended."

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Robert De Niro doesn't think very highly of Donald Trump. While shooting a political testimonial intended as part of a non-partisan get-out-the-vote effort called #Voteyourfuture, the Oscar winner was asked the same question as everyone else: "What do you care about?" His answer didn't exactly follow the non-partisan format.

For more of Brian Blomerth's work, visit his website, Twitter, and Tumblr.

The financial crisis of 2008 is a story of winners and losers: The rich got richer, while most everyone else ended up with less. Lehman Brothers excepted, the major "too big to fail" banks were propped up and allowed to continue to thrive and expand. Some fines were doled out, but only one Wall Street executive went to jail—even after the industry's nakedly fraudulent ways were exposed during congressional investigations and on the blog of investigative journalist Matt Taibbi. Abacus Federal Savings Bank of Chinatown, New York, a small, family-run bank, was not as lucky.

Making its US premiere recently at the 54th New York Film Festival, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is the newest from legendary filmmaker Steve James. The 61-year-old documentarian, who helped repopularize the genre commercially with Hoop Dreams, has spent more than 25 years crafting moving meditations on gang violence in Chicago (The Interrupters), the life and times of famed critic Roger Ebert (Life Itself), and the CTE-related dangers football players face (Head Games). Abacus profiles the only US bank prosecuted for selling fraudulent mortgages in the wake of the 2008 crash.

"The way I heard about it was through Mark Mitten," James told me of the case, which didn't generate much mainstream-media attention outside of New York. "It's one of these really important stories that no one seems to know about. My joke was the tagline should be, 'The most amazing story you've never heard of!"

Founded in 1984 by Thomas Sung—a Shanghai-born lawyer who grew tired of the traditional banking system's reluctance to lend to Chinese Americans—Abacus is one of Chinatown's most significant financial institutions. Intercutting his interviews with scenes from Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, James clearly tries to draw parallels between Sung and Jimmy Stewart's good natured, small-town banker in the classic film.

At the film's start, Sung is 80 years old and still running the bank when the trouble begins. When various managers at the bank realize an employee named Ken Yu has been taking bribes and falsely inflating customer income claims, the bank reports itself to the authorities. The New York district attorney's office—which had been unable (or unwilling) to bring any of the "too big to fail" banks to heel for their behavior—digs in on Abacus, indicting the bank and 19 of its staffers and humiliating many of them with a chain-gang parade that looks like it could have been from O, Brother, Where Art Thou?. The DA, Cyrus Vance Jr., brands the bank "a criminal conspiracy fueled by greed."

"The fact that he related it in his indictment to 2008 and that there was a perp walk of these low-level, current, and ex-employees—all of those things I think are revealing of the motives here," said James.

The film portrays both sides of the argument surrounding Abacus's case, with James not just interviewing the Sung family and their employees, but Vance and Polly Greenberg, chief of the city's Economic Crimes Bureau—along with jurors who were skeptical of the Sungs' claims of innocence and found it odd that the bank would lend hundreds of thousands of dollars to people whose entire incomes resided in Chinatown's robust cash economy. "I think he legitimately thought that real fraud was going on and something needed to be done about it," James said in reference to the district attorney's motives for bringing the case.

Only 30 loans, all of which were performing well, were at the heart of the DA's case. Given how small a stake Abacus had in the actual drivers of the collapse—and the fact that, unlike most banks, they self-reported the malfeasance they were ultimately prosecuted for—the movie paints a portrait of scapegoating writ large. "Ken Yu was corrupt, but in his corruption, he's getting a few thousand dollars here and a few thousand dollars there," James explained. Compared to the crimes of the big banks, which Vance refers to as "less than ethical" and who, unlike Abacus, did not self-report, James said, "It's all incredibly chump change."

Although the grand, seemingly industry-wide scheme of subprime mortgage lending and collateralized debt obligation swaps was something Abacus wasn't involved in, the film shows how one untrustworthy employee and the unorthodox financing arrangements within New York's Chinese community led the New York district attorney's office to attempt to make a example out of Abacus. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail is a harrowing legal and political thriller, but also the portrait of a truly community-oriented financial organ becoming a pawn to New York power politics.

"Here's an institution that is the sort of mirror opposite of the big banks, in terms of assets or engaging in the types of practices that the big banks did, really taking advantage of people," James said, suggesting than no institution with more clout would have been treated this way. "The fact that this case could go on so long is really telling."

Follow Brandon Harris on Twitter.

Find screening info for Abacus: Small Enough to Jail on the film's website.

Install shot of 'Lovers & Friends' at Deli Gallery in New York

I first stumbled on John Edmonds's work in a roundup for bright young students in Yale's MFA photography program this past year. Since receiving his degree, he's been quite busy participating in private and public collections at places as legit as FOAM Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and, most recently, at Deli Gallery here in NYC.

Currently on view through October 9 is a project called Lovers & Friends that brings together the artist's photographs, writings, and musings about relationships, loss, and desire—those big, intense, abstract concepts hard to pin down with words. The show acts as a collage about internal life and how it clashes with external experience, and the artist/model dynamic. As Edmond writes on his site, "Through the accumulation and repetition of photographs, I want to complicate the notion of being, and challenge the viewer's preconceptions of race, gender, and sexuality." See a roundup of work from the series below, and visit the exhibition before it closes at the end of the weekend.

Visit John Edmonds's website to follow more of his work.

Photo by Kate Ausburn via

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

It's all systems go. This Thursday, almost a year from their initial proposal rejection, oil and gas exploration company Cuadrilla received the thumbs-up to frack away in Lancashire. Fracking—a process that uses water and chemicals shot at high velocity into the ground to break apart rock formations, releasing fossil fuels—has long been hailed by the Conservative party as a gateway to fuel independence for Britain. It's also used huge amounts of water and possibly caused earthquake tremors in some parts of the US, where it's already underway. It's kinda controversial and not officially safe.

But don't be alarmed! Even though this process might poison water and drain the earth of its already scarce resources, Theresa May has an idea. She's offering £5,000 to £20,000 per community affected by the giant drills.

"It's about making sure people personally benefit from economic decisions that are taken—not just councils—and putting them back in control over their lives," May said at the time. This control doesn't seem to be applicable to whether or not you would like your backyard to become a drilling ground, but let's not get into the fine print.

With the drilling in Lancashire officially going ahead, the money becomes a real question. Would £20,000 truly be enough to make us sell our souls for that sweet, sweet fossil fuel? We took to the streets to find out.

Audrey, 33, art dealer

VICE: Hey Audrey, how much money would someone have to offer you for you to be OK with the government fracking up your garden?
Audrey: I guess I'd have to think about the next best place I want to live before deciding on a price.

So you'd take the money and move?
Yeah. I guess that's a bit selfish of me to think.

According to Theresa May's plans, people in areas affected by fracking might get from £5,000 to £20,000. Is that enough?
No! I was thinking, like, a million pounds, minimum. You have to factor in the feeling that you're possibly going to have to leave your home behind. That hurts. Also, the compensation should allow you to go somewhere better, because to me it seems fracking would just destroy what you have in your backyard. It'd have to be a really attractive offer. One that allows you to get a new house anywhere you want in the world.

Siham, 20, uni student (who "could not handle a photo right now")

VICE: Hi Siham, can I ask you about fracking?
Siham: Sure! I'm not very knowledgeable about it. But I have a friend who goes to all the protests about it and stuff.

Cool. Theresa May implemented a plan that would potentially give £5,000 to £20,000 in compensation to people in areas due to be fracked. Is that enough money for you to let her do it?
No amount of money would be enough for me, really. It's so detrimental to the environment, I don't get how the money would help in any way... especially if it's around your home as well. It doesn't sound good at all.

Carl, 47, works for a bank

VICE: Hey Carl, Theresa May's going to give money to compensate people for fracking around their area. How much would she have to give you to frack your local park?
Carl: Probably considerably more than what she's offering. I overlook a park and I've got a young 5-year-old daughter, so I'd consider the future environmental implications for her as well. Also, I've worked really hard to own a property, so to have that potentially damaged by what I regard as a not fully developed way to look at gas, and the danger that goes with it, would be an extreme concern of mine.

I don't know if there'd be enough compensation to make me be comfortable with it, to be honest with you. I'd constantly be wondering what damage it'd do, not only to me and my property but also to my community and the earth. I mean should we be looking at developing fossil fuels further? Or should we be trying to develop sustainable alternative energy sources?

Do you think your answer would've been different if you didn't have a daughter?
I think if you'd have asked me that question 13 years ago I'd probably have answered "up the money and go ahead," but now the future isn't just me, so it's bigger than that.

Tennille, 19, art student

VICE: If someone offered you money to be able to frack on your back garden, how much would it have to be for you to say OK?
Tennille: Nothing, because I wouldn't let them do it at all.

What about £5,000 to £20,000? Does that sway you?
No. I don't think it should be happening in the first place, because you can't put a price on environmental damage. Even though Theresa May might be paying that much, nothing she offers to the families can outweigh the cost of the damage fracking does.

Why do you think she's offering it?
It's easier to compensate because there's no way of dealing with the real cost. It's got to do with the way society is structured. I was reading somewhere that if we use hemp as car fuel it'd be more sustainable than using diesel and petrol—people have said over and over, "this is more sustainable," but you have these big energy and gas companies who wouldn't see a profit in it, so we end up not doing it. I think with Western capitalism we put profit over everything.

Nobody gives a shit about the environment and healthcare and education if no one's making money from it. In this country especially—we don't plan for the future! The housing crisis is happening because no one planned to expand. How is it that we managed to live on this planet for hundreds and thousands of years without fucking up the environment majorly and now it's like "oh let's fuck it up cause we're bored today and everything has to be bigger"?

Alicia, 25, works with oil and gas; Richard, 26, works at Aberdeen city council

VICE: So, how much money would you accept for Theresa May to sign off the fracking of your back garden?
Richard: Nothing. I wouldn't want it to happen. I don't feel comfortable with it—from what I've heard, it's been linked to earthquakes in America. I don't want that in my backyard or my park. My park should be an earthquake-free zone.
Alicia: Yeah, I agree.

I have to say it's interesting that you happen to work at a gas company. What's your opinion on fracking in general?
Alicia: I'm not really involved in fracking or know much about that area, but I know that it's affecting the environment. The government just passed something in Lancashire—that was a completely different proposal originally. They were going to go to the sites where the ground had already been opened up for gas, but now they've okay-ed opening completely new sites.

That's why we're asking around. Where should that money go instead?
Richard: Schools, hospitals.
Alicia: Renewable energy.

Not compensating for drilling the hell out of the ground then. Got it! Thanks, guys.

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