President Donald Trump issued an executive order Wednesday that directs the Department of Homeland Security to start following through on his signature campaign promise: Building an "impenetrable and beautiful" wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

But the other part of Trump's wall pledge—his assertion that Mexico will foot the bill—remains very much in doubt. White House spokesperson Sean Spicer told reporters that "one way or another, as the president said before, Mexico will pay for it," but Trump later backpedaled and said the funds would likely have to be repaid "at a later date." Mexican President Enrique Peña-Nieto has scoffed at the notion, and considered canceling his visit to Washington next week over Trump's wall decree.

The projected cost of the wall ranges from $8 billion, Trump's own low-end estimate, to $38 billion, which is the best guess by MIT engineers for what it would take to erect a 50-foot-tall concrete barrier 1,000 miles long, as Trump has said he envisions, though his descriptions have varied wildly.

Builders are already salivating over the spoils.

But even those price tags might underestimate the actual cost. The complicating factor, as many others have already pointed out, is that Trump will have to acquire much of the land for the wall from private property owners in Texas, which could end up costing a fortune in legal fees.

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Everything you need to know about the world this morning, curated by VICE.

US News

President Trump Advocates Return of Waterboarding
Donald Trump has once again said he believes waterboarding works and also claimed "people at the highest level of intelligence" agree with him. "I asked them the question, 'Does it work? Does torture work?' and the answer was, 'Yes, absolutely.'" Trump said he would consult CIA director Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis before deciding whether to reinstate the interrogation technique, widely considered torture.—ABC News

Sanctuary Cities Vow to Defy President Trump
Mayors across the US have promised to uphold their sanctuary status and protect undocumented immigrants after President Trump's executive order threatening to strip federal funding from cities that harbor them. New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said it "won't change how we enforce the law," and Seattle mayor Ed Murray said, "This city will not be bullied by this administration."—USA Today

EPA Studies Subject to Political Approval, Trump Officials Say
Trump administration officials have informed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that all new studies and data dumps are under a "temporary hold" and must be reviewed by political appointees before being published. This follows Trump officials reportedly telling the EPA's communications team to remove the climate change page from the agency's website.—AP / VICE News

Democratic Representative Met Assad on Syria Trip
Tulsi Gabbard, a Hawaii Democratic congresswoman, confirmed she met President Bashar al Assad during a recent four-day trip to Syria. Gabbard said: "We've got to be able to meet with anyone that we need to if there is a possibility that we can achieve peace." Gabbard added that the Syrians she met told her there were no "moderate" rebel groups.—CNN

International News

Mexico Condemns US Border Wall Plan, Trump Responds
Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto has condemned Donald Trump's plan to build a wall along the US southern border and said his country will not pay for any barrier. Speaking in a televised address, Nieto said, "Mexico doesn't believe in walls. I've said time and again, Mexico won't pay for any wall." Mexico's foreign minister noted Nieto's trip to the White House, set for January 31, "stands for now," though Trump suggested the visit might not make sense without agreement on the funding plan.—BBC News

Yellow Fever Outbreak in Brazil Kills 40
Public health officials in Brazil are urging citizens to get inoculated against an outbreak of yellow fever that has killed 40 people. The country's health ministry said there had been 70 confirmed cases of the mosquito-borne virus, with another 47 deaths and 368 possible cases being investigated. Officials have ordered 11.5 million yellow fever vaccines.—Reuters

Protestors Demand Australia Day Date Is Changed
Protest marches are being staged in cities across Australia today as campaigners demand Australian Day, January 26, be changed in solidarity with the country's native peoples. For Aboriginals, the national holiday marks the invasion of colonial settlers in 1788. Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce said those who want the date changed should "crawl under a rock."—The Guardian

Cameroon Blocks Internet Access to English-Speaking Areas
English-speaking areas in Cameroon have now been without internet access for at least eight days following a dispute with the government over language bias. Officials in the mainly French-speaking country ordered an internet blackout in English-speaking parts of the northwest and southwest, and have banned two "Anglophone" campaign groups.—Al Jazeera

Everything Else

Shia LaBeouf Arrested While Filming at Queens Museum
Shia LaBeouf was arrested while filming for his anti-Trump installation "He Will Not Divide Us" outside the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens. The actor faces a misdemeanor assault charge, with police claiming LaBeouf scratched the face of a 25-year-old male when pulling his scarf.—USA Today

Mary Tyler Moore Dies at Age 80
Actress Mary Tyler Moore, star of the legendary The Mary Tyler Moore Show, has died at the age of 80. Her sitcom has been hailed for paving the way for shows like Girls by centering on a single-by-choice woman with professional aspirations. —VICE

Designers Want to Create 'Apocalypse Now' Video Game
A group of video game designers has launched a Kickstarter campaign, backed by director Francis Ford Coppola, to raise $900,000 for a game based on Apocalypse Now. The makers say it will be a "survival horror experience," rather than a shooter.—TIME

UFC Legend Visits Standing Rock Protest Site
Former UFC women's bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey has delivered supplies to anti-pipeline protestors at the Standing Rock site in North Dakota. She brought "fresh fruit, veggies, bread, tents, and wood-burning stoves."—Rolling Stone

Alt-Right Launches Crowdfunding Campaign to Sue Twitter
WeSearchr, a crowdfunding platform for the so-called alt-right, is trying to raise $250,000 to sue Twitter for alleged discrimination against conservatives and, even more bizarrely for a right-wing crowd, violations of antitrust regulations. "Twitter hates us, folks…It's time to $#@! them back."—Motherboard

It was Tuesday night when Heval Kelli got the news. The cardiologist was sitting on the floor eating kebabs in his friend's Clarkson, Georgia, home when he took a quick peek at his phone's Facebook feed and saw the headlines: President Donald Trump planned to halt refugee resettlement. Kelli, 34, who is originally from Aleppo and was resettled in the US at age 17, turned to his friend, a fellow Syrian refugee who'd arrived just a year ago, and translated the story into Arabic.

"At first, we just sat there quietly, and then we started looking at each other, saying, 'We have each other,'" Kelli told me. "It makes me scared now when I think of this change—I would have been devastated if I hadn't been able to come to America."

After basing his campaign off fiery anti-immigration rhetoric, Trump has begun his presidency with a wave of nativist and anti-immigration action. On Wednesday, he signed executive orders that began the process of building a wall on the Mexican border, deporting large numbers of undocumented immigrants, and pulling federal funds from "sanctuary cities" that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities. He is expected to temporarily block all incoming refugees, and indefinitely halt any coming from Syria as part of a broad executive order making it much harder for citizens of several other Middle Eastern countries to come to the US. The announcement of the policy earlier this week sent shockwaves through the country's refugee population, scaring many into hanging their heads low, uncertain of their fates.

"When you're a refugee running from war you're already traumatized, and now they're anxious, afraid," Kelli said of the refugees he knows who have recently arrived in Clarkston, a town known for its large refugee presence. "Is the funding for refugees going to be cut? How is the government going to provide for the refugees already here? This is something nobody expected to happen this fast," said Kelli, posing questions that Trump has not yet answered.

Kelli, who was resettled with his family just two weeks after 9/11, said he'd braced for the US government to turn them away in the wake of the attacks, but that they were allowed entrance and welcomed warmly by Episcopal church members in Clarkston. He said that the local community continued to receive newcomers eagerly, despite shifts in the federal policy.

"When we arrived, their welcome made us feel like nothing happened in this country. The power of the people made us feel integrated and welcome," said Kelli, who now volunteers with refugees in Clarkson and is a cardiology fellow at Emory University. "I washed dishes throughout high school and college across from the university where I'm now training to be a cardiologist*. President Trump is a businessman, and if he realized refugees are an investment, he wouldn't do this."

Since Kelli has spent years in the US, he felt comfortable speaking out, but his recently resettled friends were too anxious to give interviews, as were many newly arrived refugees I tried to contact through resettlement organizations around the nation. But more established refugees and immigrants told me they were dismayed and claimed the administration was blatantly discriminating against Muslims.

Isam Zaiem, 70, an active member of Cleveland's Syrian community who co-founded the Council on American Islamic-Relations and volunteers with refugees, called the executive order "a Muslim ban, not a ban to protect us from terrorism."

"This is not about refugees—this is about general hatred of Islam, a way to commence hatred and bigotry," Zaiem, a retired medical technologist who came to the US at age 25, told me, and warned of its devastating effects on American values.

"Is our country going to go back to that dark time when that ship that came over to our shores of people escaping Nazis and we turned them back?" he said, referring to the US government's infamous return to Europe of Jews who were aboard the St. Louis.

Like Kelli, Zaiem told me the local community was key in supporting refugees, and said Syrians in Cleveland had united in recent years to help newcomers recover from the gruesome Syrian civil war.

"Because of the disaster that struck Syria in the last six years, we have to do as much as we can, and one way is to help those who escaped," Zaiem continued. "My fellow Muslim Americans, particularly the ones without citizenship, are afraid their status here will essentially be liquidated. I'm going to encourage my community to stand up for their rights and not back down."

While many individual refugees fear for their future, resettlement organizations are at risk since they receive federal funding dependent on receiving new refugees.

Danielle Drake, community relations manager for the Cleveland resettlement organization US Together, told me there could be a "significant change in the way all resettlement agencies across the US are able to work." Drake said her team of 14 typically serves 300 new refugees a year—but the team would have to be cut if fewer refugees arrived.

"We all thought it would be business as usual until September and then we'd have to see how the new budget plays out, but if there's a pause, we could see changes sooner than September," said Drake. "At the end of the day, if there are fewer people in the office, there are fewer people available to provide help."

Update: An earlier version of this post misstated the specialty Kelli is training in—he is working to become a cardiologist, not a heart surgeon.

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"Some people think that all Kichwas don't wear clothes or understand Spanish. Or that we sleep in hammocks and have small houses. And that we don't have light," 25-year-old Jaime Calapucha tells me. "They tell me they saw this online. Seriously? Who's giving out this information?"

Like most 25-year-olds, Calapucha has a Facebook and Instagram account, is updated on pop culture, and enjoys a drink and the occasional night out in the nearest city. The difference is that he has lived in the Amazon rainforest his entire life.

Calapucha is full-blooded Kichwa (or Quichua), an indigenous group that spans parts of South America, including Ecuador. His town of Ahuano, with a population of roughly 4,000 people—most of them Kichwa—has been quickly modernizing in recent years. It's still a rainforest town; a great chunk of the population are subsistence farmers, which leaves its youth navigating the line that can often separate technology and indigenous culture.

Read more on Motherboard

Man, January, am I right? The two bookends of every year are famous for their "slow news day" phenomena. It's a little different this year, what with an actual mad man in the high chair of power, but then again all the news is about that, and you have to switch it up a little, right? Well that's what the Evening Standard, the Sun and the Metro did the other day when they made news out of a three-year-old article from a site called Destination Tips. Titled '11 Worst Travel Destinations in the World You Should Skip', it is essentially a list of war zones and places with drug gang problems and totalitarian governments – and Skegness tacked on the end of it.

Skegness, for the uninitiated, is a seaside town in the east Midlands, and is home to the first ever Butlins holiday camp. It has a beach. It has arcades. It has fish and chips. It has statues of a local character on which postcards are based. But is it quite as bad as the sort of place which, to step foot in, you would be risking the lives of yourself and those around you like the other destinations that make up this list? Well, there's only one way to find out! We got the train up to Skeggy to see how it compared to the most horrible places on earth. It's nearly February guys, things are almost back to normal.

DAMASCUS, SYRIA

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT: I mean… Damascus is a constant site of death and destruction as civil and proxy war ravages the entire country with hundreds of thousands risking their lives to escape the desolation and (alleged) government sanctioned chemical attacks.

IS IT BETTER THAN SKEGNESS: No.

WHY: Skegness may not have the terrifying daily realisation that your life could be ended at any moment, but what it does have is this pretty nifty Van Gogh's Studio machine on its high street. What you do, see, is you pop a 50 pence piece into it, sit down, and then the camera takes four photos of you. You choose the best one, and then you can choose what style you want it to be in, out of chalk, paint, charcoal or pencil. I went for charcoal. It's also very quick, so you're not waiting around for ages while the picture comes out, which is helpful as it was extremely cold. I wondered why they chose Van Gogh as the artist the machine was pretending to be, because Van Gogh wasn't really a photorealistic portrait guy. I suppose Chuck Close's Studio doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Oh well. It's still better than dying, which is what looks like what happened to these freakishly real baby dolls that were being sold alongside Gollywogs in this weird tat shop.

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT: Mogadishu is currently under constant terroristic attack by violent jihadist group Al-Shabaab. Just yesterday, the group were responsible for 28 deaths in a hotel siege in the Somali capital. Though it attempts to go through intense regeneration after each wave of attack, it is still wrought with extreme poverty and violence.

IS IT BETTER THAN SKEGNESS: No.

WHY: Skegness has a regeneration happening too, but it isn't a result of violent civil war or terrorism, it's because the town is growing. Cllr Dick Edginton is the Mayor of Skegness, and tells me about the Premier Inn that's going to be built there. "That says something. You have to bear in mind that companies like that, they wont invest unless they feel there's going to be a commercial return on that investment, so that bodes well." He also tells me that tourism has grown by 11 percent in the past four years. "Certain sectors of British society seem to regard [seaside towns] as the butt of jokes."

PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT: Pyongyang has, much like the rest of North Korea, not got a great deal going for it tourism-wise. If you like being followed around by government officials and not feeling freedom even when you're taking a shit, or looking at shop fronts designed to make you think there's healthy commerce when there's actually widespread unemployment and poverty, then Pyongyang is the place for you.

IS IT BETTER THAN SKEGNESS: I think it's highly unlikely.

WHY: Pyongyang isn't constantly on fire like some of the other places on this list, but that doesn't make it great. One thing I doubt very highly Pyongyang has is this fucking sick arcade that I came across that has things in it I've never seen in any other arcade. Maybe it's due to my lack of experience with arcades, but I've never seen a mini-bowling alley where you can play 10 rounds of mini bowling for just a pound. Also, it has this mini dodgems thing (two pounds but still) where I just sat on my own spinning around until I felt a bit ill. It was fucking great.

In fact, I would say the emptiness of this arcade is one of the things an out-of-season seaside town has in its favour. There were almost no kids in there, just a few assorted adults mucking around. I got some tokens too, and redeemed them for three bags of toy soldiers, a make-your-own spaceship and a Mr Burns keychain. Fucking lush.

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT: The problem with this fucking list, aside from the obvious fact that it's total bollocks, is that it is three years old, so Juarez is just not as dangerous as it was at the height of its cartel warfare. That being said, it's probably pound for pound more dangerous than Skeggy, and almost certainly has more murders.

IS IT BETTER THAN SKEGNESS: I'm going to say No, though the food probably is.

WHY: Well...that's not fair. We asked Mayor Edginton where we could get some nice fish and chips, proper seaside fare, and he was kind enough to escort us to The Blue Fin, a shop owned and run by Dave Wilkinson, Eileen Beckford and their youngest daughter Danni. It has a license, too, so I got a bottle of Stella. They were still open out of season – something the Mayor seemed afraid they wouldn't be, which he constantly reminded me of, so as not to get my hopes up. They seemed happy enough to just be serving the locals until the season started again, though they didn't think Skegness was without its problems.

"Last year we were the fourth busiest resort in the country. But people take these things to heart don't they? They think it's all old fashioned and old hat. I personally do…" says Dave.

"There's not much to do," says Danni.

"We are in the process of modernising," says Dave, "but there's not enough nightlife. Though you need to keep some of that culture back from older days a little bit."

"We need more upstream shops," says Eileen "There's nothing for people coming to shop for or to look at."

Skegness isn't even the worst place in Britain I've been to, let alone the world. Quite the opposite, in fact: out of season, and in the icy fog, it has a certain charm to it. Sure it looks a little rundown and old but so does your mum, and she's still lovable right? A walk along the beach is still a walk along the beach, it's still soothing to hear the crashing waves and watch the foamy water recede, taking a few soft pebbles with it. If anything, the all-pervasive grey that surrounded me at every turn added to a kind of spooky aesthetic, one of abandonment, though you can see how sprightly the place could be once there's a bit of sunshine.

"To make comparisons about, you know, warzones and North Korea, one of the last bastions of Stalinsim, is ludicrous. Fortunately in my experience, nobody takes those claims seriously." says the disgruntled Mayor Edginton when I ask him about the article. "I find these unsubstantiated comments hurtful, insofar as the town is a seaside resort, it's a major employer, and it's one of the best in the country. We have a loyal band of people that come here. We cater for all tastes and age ranges. We're a traditional seaside resort, a holiday which most people cut their teeth on. They get their first taste of sand and sea if they go to a British seaside resort. It's unhelpful, not only for Skegness but for British seaside resorts in general."

Anyway, next week we might go back to Hull to see if it's still a pile of fucking garbage! Stay tuned!

@joe_bish / photos by @CBethell_Photo

More from VICE:

A Short Holiday In Hull, the Future City of Culture

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Inside the Seaside Ghost Town on a Slow and Steady Decline

After a grueling 2016, some scientists have decided to adjust the hands on the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" because they believe the world has inched more toward the end of humanity, NPR reports.

On Wednesday, the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the clock's second hand 30 seconds closer to midnight, leaving the world two-and-a-half minutes nearer to the apocalypse. This is the closest the clock has been set to midnight since 1953, when it was at 11:48 PM because the Americans and Soviets were testing hydrogen bombs above ground.

According to a statement on the group's website, we're approaching "Doomsday" faster due to: "A rise in strident nationalism worldwide, President Donald Trump's comments on nuclear arms and climate issues, a darkening global security landscape that is colored by increasingly sophisticated technology, and a growing disregard for scientific expertise."

Scientists involved in the Manhattan Project created the clock in 1947, and since then, the group has been meeting a couple times each year to discuss and research global factors that could cause a nuclear disaster. This year, it made a special shout-out to fake news, automated military systems, and climate change for potentially hurtling us faster toward end times.

"The biggest thing is that they tore down these projects, but they didn't really rebuild," says filmmaker Phil James. He's the co-director of They Don't Give a Damn About Us, a new documentary focusing on the rise, fall, and repercussions of public housing projects in the city of Chicago. Based on the book Where Will They Go?: Transforming Public Housing by Dr. Dorothy Appiah, They Don't Give a Damn About Us offers a blunt introduction to Chicago's housing projects and draws a connection between the displacement of thousands of former housing project residents and the city's rising crime rates. Specifically, James and his co-director, Kenny Young, argue that systemic and generational poverty, hyper-segregation, and the neglect of local government all fuel the current violent crime epidemic in the city.

First built in the 1940s and 50s, Chicago's housing projects weren't always synonymous with neglect. Community-building and educational programs like public schools, on-site social services, tutoring programs, and medical facilities were offered as an incentive to its occupants. Because project buildings were capable of housing thousands of people in a small area, it was easier to neglect their growing problems, such as gang infiltration, gun and sexual violence, and dilapidated living conditions. Some projects, like the Cabrini-Green housing project, gained national attention for their violence and neglect from the city.

Dr. Appiah originally contacted James and Young to create a film accompaniment to her book. In the book, Dr. Appiah examines the city of Chicago's 1999 "Plan for Transformation," a redevelopment initiative that aims to rebuild or construct 25,000 public housing units. She speaks with current and former public housing residents as well as employees of the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), the governmental body responsible for the city's public housing.

James and Young felt the project aligned with their interests. The two are both from Chicago and were familiar with the reputation of the projects. "I didn't grow up in the projects, but I grew up terrified of the projects," Young told me. They no longer lived in the city by the time the "Plan for Transformation" was implemented and the high-rise projects were torn down, but they were intimately connected to the ongoing changes as a result of the displacement of public housing residents. Young's cousin was killed in an incident related to the removal of the high-rise projects. James's family lives in a neighborhood that saw an increase in residents from public housing.

The two spent a year-and-a-half working on the documentary, which is currently streaming on Urban Movie Channel. Obtaining access to interview subjects proved difficult for the filmmakers. The CHA would no longer offer a comment about the new redevelopment plan. Likewise, the women interviewed for Dr. Appiah's book were fearful of losing their new homes if they spoke to the filmmakers.

To work around this issue, James and Young expanded the scope of the film. The two looked at the different communities affected by the displacement. "We decided to tell the story from a lot of different perspectives, not just people who had been moved out of their homes," Young said. "We included people who lived in the neighborhoods where these people were forced to move." CHA workers were interviewed in anonymity. In total, more than 50 people were interviewed for the documentary.

Throughout the documentary, interview subjects cite a lack of organizational foresight and decades-long neglect from the CHA as determining factors in the disarray of the projects and the subsequent environmental problems that arose as residents were displaced. Rather than introduce public housing residents to the numerous other neighborhoods on the North and West Sides of the city, most people from the projects were settled in stable black neighborhoods and suburbs on the South Side.

"There [were] thousands of people who had nowhere to go," James said. "They just went everywhere. They went to neighborhoods that were built up already, and now the neighborhoods are being torn apart." Unfamiliar with the expectations of their new homes (subjects in the documentary cite problems such as home upkeep and respect of public places), the neighborhoods' new occupants returned to the day-to-day routine of their former projects. Residents of these neighborhoods were unfamiliar with the crime, poverty, and gangs associated with the projects, leading to increased levels of tension and eventually, cyclical violence between the differing populations. In 2016 alone, Chicago faced its highest number of gun-related deaths in 20 years, with violence increasingly found in once-stable communities.

The demolition of Chicago Projects

According to the filmmakers, the CHA neglected to implement a healthier transition process for housing project occupants. Many were unable to sign up for and receive Section 8 housing vouchers, which allow people to live in neighborhoods more or less of their choice. Instead, they were subject to inadequate housing conditions from slumlords who were more interested in obtaining consistent government dollars than providing a safe home for their new tenants.

With the destruction of the projects came the fracturing of once centrally organized gangs across numerous unfamiliar neighborhoods. Rather than dissolve, these gangs grew. By thrusting different gangs together into different neighborhoods, the city unleashed a new wave of crime stemming from warring factions. Previous renters and homeowners in these new neighborhoods as well as new public housing residents have been caught in the conflict.

And although many new low-rise buildings currently stand on the site of former high-rise projects, most former occupants haven't. The criteria for entering the new low-rise buildings eliminate numerous applicants. For example, tenants must not have been charged with a felony and must have a job. "I think they personally—from our interviews and research—never had any real intention for those people to move back," added Young. James agrees. "Do you know how many low rises you would have to build to compensate all those people? Oh my God," he said. "There's no way."

Despite the dire economic and social conditions of the dispersed population from the projects, Young and James remain optimistic, if not a little naïve, and simple in their solutions. "I think it starts at home. Every individual person has to start to raise their personal standards," Young said. He also believes longtime residents of newly occupied neighborhoods should work to connect with the new residents of their neighborhoods. "A lot of us complain, but we're not willing to take that extra step," he said. "We're not willing to go meet that neighbor or start a block club. Little things that make a difference."

But in the end, the ongoing problems will never truly dissipate so long as systemic governmental structures and generational poverty remain consistent among the occupants of public housing and throughout the city. Rather than offer solutions to leave the cycle of poverty, the city of Chicago facilitated its growth within the projects. And rather than integrate the differing people of the city, authorities let occupants fend for themselves. In order for change to be real and permanent, it will take the efforts of many, not just a few, to create the vision of the city most Chicagoans want.

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Sandra Jallow (Photo by Misha Sommerville)

There was a war in the offing, but the Thomas Cook flight to the Gambia on 14th January was around 80 percent full. Some knew that Senegalese and Nigerian troops might be steaming in to depose dictator Yahya Jammeh. A few didn't care.

These Banjul Brits drink Julbrew and smoke – a lot. Holiday cigs cost a quid a pack. Piccadilly. Monte Carlo. Benson. It's the fag end of the British Empire, a haven for small-town adventurists who are damned if they're going to be left behind watching the TiVo box, while Melanie Sykes flaunts her abs in Mallorca and Philip Green flabs out in Monaco.

So they head to the Gambia, a holiday destination long ruled by Yahya. Yahya came to power in a 1994 coup, lost elections in December, but refused to budge. Some of his regime's worst human rights abuses were committed a short drive from the tourist beaches, in an underground cell without light known as bamba dinka, or crocodile hole, at the National Intelligence Agency. Until Saturday, the tourists had been deliberately, and blissfully ignorant.

But then – after leading regional diplomats in a merry dance, Yahya eventually agreed to leave the country on 21st January. Before that happened, around 45,000 Gambians fled the country, terrified of the conflict between soldiers loyal to Yahya and UN-backed West African troops. Yahya declared a state of emergency.

The tourists ran scared, too, and since then the country's tourist industry has all but collapsed. Before that happened, I was there to interview the Brits who'd travelled there despite the country's ongoing political turmoil.

Bill from Birmingham told me he'd seen this kind of unrest before. Seventy-eight years of age, he started coming shortly after Yahya arrived on the scene and now escaped here every winter. He was wiry, watchful and spoke a smattering of Wolof – one of Gambia's five national languages. Bill said he knows people. Top military people who could get him out of crocodile hole, if needed.

So, in the middle of a national state of emergency, I joined him for a Julbrew, the local lager, at the scruffy café near the Palma Rima hotel to get a stream of sergeant major-ish punditry on why he thought Yahya was fucked. "Don't enter into a fight you cannot win," he said.

Bill was unfazed and planned to stay put until May. Back in UK, he told me, he's married. Here in the dustbowl, he has a Gambian girlfriend of 34. And while he thought all locals are kind of untrustworthy, he respects their tribal cultures. "They seem childish to us but they're real to them," he said.

He let rip at what he calls the "rent-a-cocks" – ladies of pensionable age who have holiday romances with young Gambian men. But, deep down, he said he understands that they too have their needs. "Then I say: What the hell. As long as she's enjoying it. She's paying for it."

Steve and Sonia

In the Sea Breeze café, I met Steve and Sonia, who were about to get married after a two-week holiday romance. A long-distance lorry driver from Northampton, Steve spoke at breakneck speed, like he was trying to outrun a stutter. He said he'd been coming here for 23 years and knew exactly what he thought of Yahya's regime. "Who cares?" he said. "I'm a holidaymaker."

Sonia was dressed in a sparkly mini-dress, was Nigerian and gorgeous. "I was a model. I sell cloths. I love fashion," she said confidently.

Steve said that he met her on his first day back, a week-and-a-half ago. "I just came down here and there she was. I gave her the English chat and it worked," he said, shaking his head slowly, still unable to believe his good fortune.

He told me he's 58. When he met Sonia he was in the middle of a divorce. "I thought she looked the same age as my daughter," he said. "Then she said 33 and I said: 'You're not!'"

"On the first day, she invited me to her room. And I didn't even want to kiss. But, three days later we slept together," he announced, with that same wide-eyed look of disbelief.

He'd given her a gold and diamond engagement ring the week prior to our meeting. In two days, he had a flight booked for the UK – just before Yahya declared a state of emergency, but Sonia was due to wait for his return in six weeks, when they had planned to be wed.

Matthew Reeves

Troops were already on the border when I bumped into Matthew Reeves, an electrical contractor from Barrow-in-Furness, who'd followed the cash in places like Kosovo, where he wired Nato bases. "I've seen a few bombs go off," he said. "It might sound crazy, but if there's no shooting, I'll be disappointed.

"As long as the bullets aren't coming for me."

He said he's 62, but in his crisp white t-shirt and combat shorts, he could pass for a decade younger. "Rambo Reeves," he quipped as he posed for the camera. He told me he enjoyed freaking out his mates back home. "I've gotta admit, I glammed it up a bit. I told them there were machine guns everywhere."

Matthew didn't get to see the troops marching in. His flight home was booked for 20th January, right in the middle of the evacuation that played out like Dunkirk on television screens back home. Many tourists like Matthew returned reluctantly, doomed to an in-flight meal of soggy sausage and beans, when they would much rather have been knocking back the Julbrew on the Sennegambia tourist strip, which is now devoid of life, bar the bolshiest Brits.

Yahya left for Equatorial Guinea, a country a bit like the Gambia but with oil, on 21st January. Mai Ahmad Fatty, a member of the incoming government, accused him of stealing around £9 million from the state coffers. Another adviser to the new President, Hallifa Sallah, later cast doubt on this claim. Senegalese troops marched into Banjul the next day, paving the way for Adama Barrow, the new president, to enter State House.

The Senegalese troops were greeted like heroes by locals. It's all gonna be okay. Maybe. A potent brew of glee, anger and frustration is bubbling away. Because, bar the odd Brit and the odd groundnut, they have nothing left now.

"We're not scared 'cos we're English," says Sandra Jallow, a 61-year-old carer from Gillingham, who ignored the Foreign Office warnings and is staying put until her flight leaves on 2nd February. She has a Gambian husband here, a 26-year-old Ragga singer with the stage name of Paper Chaser. It's some age difference, but Sandra dgaf what people think any more, especially not the sex tourists she's been surrounded by here.

"The English men are far more disgusting", she says. "With their fat bellies and their bad teeth and no hair. And they go with these young girls. It's awful."

As the crisis continues to play out, she watches local broadcaster GRTS, France 24, Al Jazeera and the BBC. "They should have just shot him," she says bluntly. "It was all blown out of proportion. It was the media."

To illustrate her point, she waves her hand around the Sennegambia strip, which is now unusually peaceful, devoid of beery Brits. Its bars and restaurants are still open, but business probably won't be coming back for another month or two. "We're in a warzone. Look at it!" she says.

She is joined by her friends, Tracey and Jackie. Tracey, a former hairdresser from Newcastle, says she fell in love with the Gambian people. "They haven't got much, but they'll share what little they have with you," she says.

Tracey remembers a pensioner friend who summed up the kamikaze logic of holidaying in a country on the brink of catastrophe: "If I was at home, I'd be sitting watching Eastenders. I'd much rather be sitting here in Sennegambia, waiting to die."

@lormalinder / @mishasommerville

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Fancy some cocaine pumpkins? How about 362 grams of individually wrapped Turkish opium chocolates? Or 137 grams of uppers in the form of "powdered strawberry drink mix"? Maybe 200 weed brownies is more your thing? 

This might sound like the most fucked-up potluck dinner of all time, but for the men and women charged with securing Canada's borders, it's all in a day's work. The dedicated agents who control the entry of food into the country are members of an elite squad named the Canadian Border Agency (CBSA). These are their stories.

Read more of this story on Munchies.

It looks like Donald Trump has successfully pissed off one of the first diplomats he was scheduled to meet as president. On Thursday, Mexico's president announced in a tweet that he would not be meeting with Trump next week, as previously planned.

"This morning we told the White House we won't attend next Tuesday's meeting with @POTUS," President Enrique Peña Nieto tweeted. "Mexico reiterates its will to work with the US to achieve agreements for both of us."

Peña Nieto's tweet follows a video he released Wednesday night condemning an executive order Trump signed that day that would use federal funding to start construction on a border wall between the US and Mexico. Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to make Mexico pay for the wall, and has said that while construction will initially use federal funds, he will get Mexico to reimburse the US for it eventually.

Peña Nieto has made it abundantly clear, though, that's not going to happen, reiterating in his video message Wednesday, "I regret and reproach the decision of the United States to build a wall that for many years, far from uniting us, has divided us. Mexico does not believe in walls. I've said it many times before—Mexico will not pay for a wall."

As of Thursday morning, the two had still been set to meet next week, but Trump apparently threatened to cancel it altogether, tweeting, "If Mexico is unwilling to pay for the badly needed wall, then it would be better to cancel the upcoming meeting." Looks like Peña Nieto agreed with him on that.

Some celebrities are more famous for their drink and drug intake than others. Hunter S Thompson, for instance, supposedly took cocaine for breakfast – and then again, repeatedly, throughout the day – before dropping acid after lunch. Bowie reportedly survived on a diet of coke, milk and red peppers for a period, while Lemmy boasted about drinking a bottle of Jack Daniel's every single day.

These tales all add to the myths already surrounding these artists, but really: all of the above is a lot to put your body through. What was this level of partying doing to these, and how did they last so long?

To find out – and to work out which famous party diet was the worst, bearing in mind none of them are "good" in any conceivable way – I spoke to some people who know what they're talking about: Dr Henry Fisher, Policy Director at drug policy think-tank Volteface; George McBride, Head of Advocacy at Volteface; Harry Shapiro, editor of Druglink and head of publishing at Drugscope; and Petronella Ravenshear, nutritionist at Chelsea Nutrition.

ELVIS: PEPSI; BACON, PEANUT BUTTER AND BANANA SANDWICHES; AND PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

Elvis (Photo: MGM Inc, via)

It's hard to nail down everything Elvis consumed in the darker period of his life, but here's a start: he drank so much Pepsi it was supposedly delivered in bulk direct to Graceland by Pepsi's distribution lorries. Famously, the basic element of his daily food intake was the "Fool's Gold Loaf", a 30cm-long bread roll, stuffed with bacon, peanut butter and strawberry jam. Each one contained 42,000 calories, and in his final days he ate two of them a day, together with little midnight snacks of hamburgers and deep-fried white bread. His calorific intake stood at an estimated 94,000 a day. An Asian elephant consumes only 50,000.

And then there were the prescription drugs: Diazepam, Methaqualone, Phenobarbital, Ethchlorvynol, ethinamate, Codeine; uppers, downers and powerful painkillers and sedatives such as Dilaudid, Quaaludes, Percodan and Demerol. Evidence showed that during the seven-and-a-half months preceding Elvis's death – from January to August of 1977 – his doctor wrote him prescriptions for at least 8,805 pills, tablets, vials and injectables.

"For some of us, gluten acts like an opiate – i.e. like heroin or morphine – and not only can it be just as addictive, but it can also have a sedating effect," explains Petronella Ravenshear. "His diet of high fat, high sugar and high carb food is not only liver and heart toxic, it's also fatal to the microbiome; all his friendly microbes would have curled up and died. Short-term effects would be constipation, low energy, mood swings and depression. The longer term effect would be death."

On top of all that food sedation, he was chugging downers, and his obesity would have changed how the drugs affected him. "In terms of body weight, if someone weighs twice as much as someone else, there's a lot more mass and they'd need more [drugs] to achieve the desired affect," say the guys from Volteface. "If someone's tiny, a much smaller dose will have a similar effect. Also, if someone's eating a ridiculously calorie-heavy diet like that it's going to have an effect on the drugs they're consuming – how they're metabolised, how they get around the body and how long they stick around for. In this case – Elvis' extreme case – it makes it a total mystery as to what affect they're going to have."

How dangerous is this diet? 5/5

"He was taking uppers, downers, all-arounders. The risk is very high for overdose with this, and there's also a problem with withdrawal," says Harry Shapiro. "If you stop taking all these – if your body lets you – you're going to be in a hell of a mess. He had a massive heart attack and that would have been caused more by the diet than the pills. I don't know how much physical pain he was in, but the emotional pain – where do you go when you're at the top?"

ERNEST HEMINGWAY – DEATH IN THE AFTERNOON

Ernest Hemmingway (Photo: US National Archives and Records Administration, via)

Notorious drinker Hemingway hated a lot of things – William Faulkner, women – but he loved his absinthe, so much so that he devised his own absinthe-based cocktail, "Death in the Afternoon", which he drank frequently, along with a load of other cocktails. In a 1935 cocktail book he wrote: "Pour one jigger absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly."

"Now, that drink is actually quite nice," say the Volteface team. "But if he's consuming that at the start of the day on an empty stomach it's going to have quite an effect. Absinthe is very high proof. He's consuming something that's potentially 70 or 80 percent ethanol. Someone consuming that much on a day-to-day basis is dependent on alcohol."

How dangerous is this? 3/5

"Alcohol is actually more dangerous long-term than drugs, in many ways," says Harry. "Heroin, for example, is not a particularly damaging drug in the way people think it is. It's not like alcohol. It doesn't affect the vital organs – your liver, your brain, kidneys, heart. But alcohol and coke will put the body under a huge amount of strain – heart rate, blood pressure. There's also the worry here with mental health from alcoholism. Of course, Hemingway shot himself."

LEMMY: JACK AND COKE; SPEED; AND CIGARETTES

Lemmy (Photo by Flickr user Alejandro Páez, via)

Kilmister was on a daily dose of JD-and-Coke, speed and cigarettes for over 40 years. Leading up to his recent death, his manager said he'd cut down on his vices but was still drinking about two bottles of wine a day. But hey, at least he ate food – kind of. No vegetables, bar potatoes and green beans. Cold spaghetti, cold chips, cold steak. There are nutrients in there somewhere.

"While eating healthy doesn't counteract the effect of the drugs, it is going to help you recover more quickly and effectively. In Lemmy's case, he's not eating well," say the guys at Volteface. "In terms of what speed is going to do for his mental health, amphetamine psychosis is a well-known condition that people who consume amphetamines long-term can suffer from, especially if you consume large amounts. That's going to be a significant worry if you're consuming speed every day. With the Jack-and-Coke, that's a lot of sugar that he's putting in. But just as how his chief concern probably isn't eating his five a day, he's probably not desperately concerned about the amount of sugar – until obviously he contracted diabetes and it became more of a worry."

Sadly, Lemmy died of cancer, which isn't surprising to either Fisher or McBride.

How dangerous is this? 3/5

"You can probably do this with a reasonable amount of ability when you're in your twenties and thirties, but when you're in your fifties and sixties that's really dangerous," says Harry. "Speed and stimulant drugs put a lot of strain on your ageing body. That said, Lemmy smoked a lot and drank and died of aggressive cancer. Again, I think the fags and drinking would be the problem more than anything else."

DAVID BOWIE: COCAINE, COFFEE, MARLBORO, MILK AND RED PEPPERS

David Bowie (Photo by Flickr user Auréola, via)

According to biographer David Buckley, who wrote Strange Fascination: David Bowie: The Definitive Story, Bowie's diet in 1976 consisted almost entirely of red peppers, cocaine and full fat milk. Bowie later said that he hardly remembered anything from this period in his life, which doesn't sound great.

Buckley wrote: "While planning the follow-up to Young Americans, Bowie would sit in the house with a pile of high-quality cocaine atop the glass coffee table, a sketch pad and a stack of books. Psychic Self-Defense by Dion Fortune was his favourite. Its author describes the book as a 'safeguard for protecting yourself against paranormal malevolence'. Psychic Self-Defense's instructions ('Sever all connections with suspected originators') seem like a paradigm for the isolated and suspicious mode in which Bowie conducted himself during this period, except, of course, for one of Fortune's key tenets: 'Keep away from drugs.'"

"Coke is an appetite suppressant, so it makes sense that he's only really eating milk and red peppers – because he's not going to be as hungry as he otherwise would be. It's going to help prevent him wanting to break his strict diet," explain the Volteface guys. "Besides that, milk has got nutrients in terms of fats and things, so I guess it's fairly well sustaining. It's better than nothing. Cocaine is by far the worst part of it, obviously. His mental health would definitely be affected if he's using every day. You could have one cocaine binge and suffer from paranoia and anxiety and paranoid delusions. But if you're doing multiple grams a day it's almost inevitable that you're going to suffer from paranoid delusions at some point soon."

This, of course, is reflected in Bowie's behaviour as outlined by Buckley's book.

As for the milk and peppers? "Bowie's diet prevented him from starving to death, but it was severely short on vitamins and minerals, as well as amino acids," explains Petronella Ravenshear. "His diet would have led to multiple deficiencies as well as muscle breakdown and general malaise. Maybe he thought he'd get the protein he needed from the milk and vitamin C from the pepper, and figured that was all he needed to stay alive. It goes without saying that there's a big difference between staying alive and staying well. Milk contains too much calcium and not enough magnesium – and magnesium is not only vital for energy, but also for relaxation. Magnesium deficiency literally leaves the body unable to relax and can result in muscle cramps and heart problems, including high blood pressure. This diet is also low in B12, which is vital for the nervous system, digestion and sleep."

How dangerous is this? 3/5

No one would survive long-term on this diet, but this specific menu only lasted for a short period in Bowie's life. "Bowie was a regular drug user, but he had lung cancer because he was a chronic smoker. Booze and smoking are the sorts of things are more likely to carry you away than drugs – which pose more of a threat through overdosing than anything else," says Harry. "[Alcohol and cigarettes are] likely to do long-term damage."

STEVIE NICKS: COURVOISIER; HEINEKEN; WEED; AND COCAINE

Stevie Nicks (Photo by Eva Rinaldi, via)

Stevie Nicks was bang into her cocaine. She believes that, over the years, she spent well over $1 million on it. On top of that, according to the biography Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams & Rumours, she was consuming a load of Courvoisier, Heineken and weed.

"This is a relatively normal combination," say the Volteface guys. "There's probably a million people in the UK who consume cocaine, tobacco, cannabis and alcohol. There's a lot of people doing it. Possibly not a gram of coke a day, though. If you consume cocaine and alcohol together it forms something that acts like cocaine but will have a more potent, dangerous affect, essentially. Health-wise, it's not great. The reason why it's quite dangerous but attractive to a lot of people to take coke and drink is obviously because the cocaine wakes you up from drinking all the alcohol, which allows you to drink more alcohol. The danger would come for her when the cocaine wears off and you've just drunk more alcohol than you otherwise would have done – and if you're doing cocaine and alcohol every day, almost inevitably your consumption is gradually increasing as well."

As Nicks has admitted, her addiction became hugely problematic – something she only took control of after her doctor warned her that she was risking permanent mental and physical damage, as well as heading for a brain haemorrhage or an early grave.

How dangerous is this? 3/5

Although this is obviously hugely dangerous, Stevie was ultimately able to break through her addiction to cocaine, and is still very much alive. "The body is able to recover very quickly," says Harry. "Even if you get cirrhosis of the liver, it can regenerate. It's perfectly possible to be a coke freak for ten years and then stop and be totally OK long-term."

HUNTER S. THOMPSON: EVERYTHING, ALL THE TIME

Hunter S Thompson (Photo by Wikimedia user Rs79, via)

For this bit it's simpler to just post his daily routine as charted by E Jean Carroll in the first chapter of her 1994 book HUNTER: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson:

"Based on that diet, he's getting enough nutrients, at least," say the guys at Volteface. "He's not suffering from David Bowie's problem of lack of variety in terms of the food. But that's a lot drugs to be consuming. Just on the fact that he's taking acid every day. If you consume psychedelics there's usually a period when they then cease to be so effective. Following that, he's not going to be hallucinating, or tripping to the same extent as a naive user or an occasional user. But you can keep doubling your dose. There's no overdose for LSD, so you can just keep taking more and more. You can build up a tolerance to any drugs, which he clearly has if he's consuming that many drugs. It may be that he needs to consume that much because if he doesn't consume that much he will go into withdrawal or experience some kind of side effects. He can probably only feel the desirable effects if he consumes that much, as well.

"He's drinking a huge amount of booze and then also taking [sleeping aid] Halcion alongside that, which is a pretty dangerous combination. It can kill you. The workings of Hunter S. Thompson's liver are probably just as mysterious as the workings of his brain. He did well to survive that long on that diet."

A huge contributing factor to this point – and the lifespans of others leading this kind of this life – is wealth. "He'd have healthcare and people around him to support him," add the Volteface team. "A lot of people who consume large amounts of drugs and don't last that long – or even smaller amounts of drugs and don't live that long – is partly because they don't have that support where they can check into the biggest and best hospitals. It's much easier to be a well-heeled drug user than to be a penniless drug user."

How dangerous is this? 4/5

"He's all over the shop, living on a total chemical carousel," says Harry. "He didn't die directly from the drugs, but he shot himself. If you're out of it you're not grounded in the real world. It's impossible to say what damage it was doing to his body, but it probably wasn't doing his stability a lot of good. Coke and caffeine would've put his heart under a lot of strain. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be around Hunter S. Thompson – he'd be completely unpredictable on this cocktail of drugs. It's more to do with your mental state than your physical state."

@hannahrosewens

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Our friend from Canada Mint who stole $138K worth of gold using his bum was back in the news again.

This time it was in regards to the Crown recommending three years in prison for 35-year-old Leston Lawrence's little rectal caper. But, his recent appearance got me thinking about my finances: what exactly can you steal via your rectum? I know you, my fair reader, would never do such a thing, but what if you got pushed to your limits? What if you could make number two, work for you?

And, if you did have to bum smuggle for a living, what is the best bang for your buck?

So, to do that we need to know, well, what you can fit up there. Thankfully, pop sci already figured out how much you can fit in your booty hole (so there was no need for, um, hands-on research). According to Dr. William Whitehead, of the University of North Carolina, the "maximum capacity of a normal rectum—meaning, before the patient is overcome by the urge to defecate—is about 350 to 500 mL."

Now, I know bums come in all shapes and sizes and if you put some time into it, you could stretch that sucker, but for this very important thought experiment, let's imagine it's just the regular ol' person off the street and go with 500 mL for my calculations.

(You may ask "what about my colon, I could fit a ton of stuff up there as well?" Yes you can, but you would risk tearing your little poop shoot and no one wants that. The colon is delicate—the rectum is a champ.)

So with that groundwork done, and without further ado, here is the market value of stuff you can fit in your ass.

[Mathematicians stop reading here, I am a journalist. Prices are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise noted, sorry everyone.]

Diamonds:
Here we go!

So if the butt can fit 500 mL, it means you can tuck around 500,000 cubic millimetres in there. With an one millimetre diamond weighing 0.005 ct and the going rate of a 0.005 ct diamond being $7.80 per millimetre, well, you can smuggle $3,900,000 US worth of small diamonds in your bum.

Cocaine:
Wolfram Alpha tells me that the density of pure cocaine is 1.216 grams per cubic centimetre. Using that we can find out that the average butt can fit, at max, 608 grams of pure cocaine. In the United States, in 2015, the average cost of coke was 62 bucks per gram. You, thusly, can fit $37,696 US of cocaine up there.

That's one hell of a party.

Gold:
The most amount of gold you could shove up your ass, going with the average price of a gram of 24K gold being $38.60, is worth $372,142 US. However, while that's a lot of money, you would have around 9.65 kg of gold in your ass, which is what, like, a small dog weighs.

Now you may say, "well Mack, that's a lot of gold to have in your butt. Wouldn't you just poop out the gold?" And to you I respond with, "look, this isn't a perfect science. Please don't yell at me on Twitter over an article about what you can fit in your ass."

Crude Oil:
Ah… oil—black gold, Texas tea. WTI crude is currently trading at around $52.83/barrel and one barrel is equivalent to 159 litres. So… you can smuggle 16 cents of crude oil in your rectum.

Not that great of a deal. However, with the volatile market, who knows, maybe your stolen bum oil will rebound?

Photo via Ebay

The worlds hottest hot sauce:
Imagine the hottest hot sauce you've ever had. Now times that by 1,000 and imagine it up your bum. Yeah, that's what we're talking about here. As far as my super in-depth research can tell me, Blair's Caldera, at 16 million Scoville Units, is the hottest hot sauce in the world. It costs $ 2,999 for 1.8 Oz from Peppers of Key West.  

So, if you really needed to, you can fit $28,195 US worth of the world's hottest hot sauce in your ass—which would certainly fuck up your day/life.

Milk:
To cool down your flaming insides from the hot sauce, why not try a little milk? The average cost of milk in Canada is $1.20 per litre. So, in Canada, you can steal around 60 cents of milk in your rectum to help out with the scalding pain from the hot sauce.

The world's most expensive honey
Did you guys know that "Elvish" honey from Turkey is the world's most expensive honey? Well, you do now—plus you're going to learn how much of it you can steal in your pooper. So, Elvish honey sells for about US $6,800 per kilogram and, apparently, one cup of honey weighs 12 oz.

When we plug that into our rectum calculation, we find you can fit around $4,600 US of the world's most expensive honey right up in there.

Maple Syrup
You don't fuck with people's maple syrup unless you want a bunch of angry Quebecers on your ass. But, if you were so inclined to pull off such a caper, the farm value of Maple Syrup in 2015 was $15.96 a litre, which means you can fit $7.73 of sticky maple syrup up there—organic farm to ass.

Good luck getting it out.

Gas
Unless you plan on waddling with a full ass the whole way home you're probably going to need to have a getaway car. With the average cost of mid-grade gas being $1.08 per litre in Toronto, at the time of writing, the most amount of gas you could pump into your bum is 54 cents.

Photo via Flickr user Craft Beer Market - Olympic Village

Craft Beer
According to CraftBeerRestaurant.com the ethical restaurant price for a 750 ml craft beer that costs $8 wholesale is $17 (We are going with fancy beer here for buttchugging.) So if you were going to go into a nice eatery and hook your ass up to the keg, you would be able to fit $11.22 of it up there.

Kraft Stove Top Stuffing Mix for Chicken
Look, I don't know why you would want to turn yourself into Thanksgiving turkey but I'm not going to judge. Anyhoo, you can fit $5.62 worth of Kraft stuffing in your ass.

Champagne
During the celebration for your newly acquired wealth from the smuggling, you should probably have some bubbly, right? And how else would you get it other than using your newly acquired skills?

According to Wine.com, a 750 ml of Dom Perignon costs $179.99, meaning if you you wanted to sip some of the finest you would be able to get around $120 US worth per bum-full.

Caviar: 
For a little snack to go along with your bum champagne, let's go full ritzy and get ourselves some caviar, why don't we?

If we're going to go big and shove fish eggs up our ass, lets go big. One of the most expensive caviars on the market is the Strottarga Bianco which goes for up to $40,000 a teaspoon. If you filled up your ass with this you'll be awkwardly waddling away with a cool $98,000,000 US.

So kids, if you learned anything today make it this: if you're going to shove stuff up your ass for money, make it fancy fish eggs. Just be sanitary about it.

Lead image via Flickr user muffinn.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter .

It's significant that the title of The CW's Archie comics adaptation isn't Archie, but Riverdale. While Archie Andrews is still the main character—though, thankfully, slightly less at the center of Betty and Veronica—the series cares more about exploring the town as a whole, looking at the more sinister aspects of a place that seems perpetually stuck in time.

Riverdale is exciting because it's the long-overdue live-action Archie Comics adaptation, but also because of the direction that promotion for the show has hinted at. Riverdale is serious and gloomy, a murder mystery that's a strange blend between Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, and Twin Peaks. It's the Twin Peaks comparison that has been most prominent, and Riverdale isn't exactly shying away from it—from the similar opening title sequence to the theme of darkness lurking within a small town. Even Twin Peaks' alumna Mädchen Amick is cast as Betty's mother, Alice.

The core of Riverdale remains familiar. Blonde, perfect-student Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) is in love with her best friend, redhead and literal boy-next-door Archie Andrews (K. J. Apa)—but the wealthy, ultimately good-at-heart Veronica (Camila Mendes) might like him, too. Archie plays both football and guitar, Betty wears a constant ponytail, Veronica's on the cheerleading squad, Jughead (Cole Sprouse, a surprising standout) is often found in a booth at Pop Tate's, Reggie (Ross Butler) is a loveable dick, and all eyes follow Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch) whenever she walks down the hall.

But it's the differences between the comics (specifically, the original run—which took place before weird zombie plotlines and the excellent Mark Waid and Fiona Staples reboot) and the television show that make Riverdale such a deliciously soapy watch—and it helps that most of the differences align in consistency with the characters themselves. Of course Betty takes Adderall; of course Moose might want to experiment with guys. Riverdale puts the subtext and fandom of the comics on display, as Betty and Veronica make out within the first episode, only to have Cheryl shoot down their faux-lesbianism. Later, bitchy bombshell Cheryl is actually called a "stock character from a 90s teen movie."

The show delights in small bits of meta-commentary, particularly when it comes to Archie's newfound attractiveness and abs; he's the most objectified character of the show—by all genders, too. (Another nice surprise: the male students of Riverdale High are frequently shirtless, while the women are not). Riverdale even comments on the ultra-whiteness of the comic book series with a diverse cast throughout—most notably, an all-black Josie and the Pussycats who are reminiscent of Destiny's Child and already deserving their own spinoff. When Archie asks for help with his song, Josie responds by explaining why they're called the Pussycats: "We have to claw our way to the same rooms that you can just waltz into."

Riverdale leans heavy into tropes—there's a requisite teacher/student affair that initially makes no sense—and even though it doesn't always quite work, it certainly has a lot of fun trying. Like all teen dramas, it suffers from eye-roll-worthy dialogue ("I don't follow the rules, I make them. And when necessary, I break them") and an insistence on trying to shove in cultural references ("Can't we, in this post-James Franco world, be all things at once?"). One episode takes on slut shaming and rape culture, with a revenge plot that shows the strength of "B and V" when they work together. (It should be noted that Riverdale doesn't care too much about the love triangle, instead focusing on the friendship between the two girls and their existence outside of Archie.) It's these teen-drama aspects that count as the series' weakest points.

The good news is that even as Riverdale goes full teen-soap (ramping up the parental/child drama, teasing mysterious hints about Betty and Jughead's respective families, routinely flashing back to steamy car sex), it never forgets the overarching murder-mystery that's introduced in the pilot. Jason Blossom is found dead, and the murder produces a ripple effect throughout the whole town. It's a genuine mystery, both the "why?" and the "who?" Riverdale makes it clear that no one is totally free of suspicion, from Jason's classmates to his teacher to his twin sister. Even nerdy Dilton Doiley doesn't come out completely clean. The story of the town—told through broody, misfit Jughead who narrates the series—is endlessly engrossing, and heightened by the overall look of Riverdale.

A good portion of Riverdale is purposely dark and bleak—it even rains during pep rallies—but in turn, the colors are jarring: Archie's comically red hair, the lights of Pop Tate's sign, the bright blue and yellow varsity jackets. But this extra attention on the more normal and safer aspects of Riverdale—a town where teens still go to drive-ins and drink malt milkshakes!—is just as misleading as everything else in the central mystery. What Riverdale really seems to be hinting at is that even the most all-American teenagers in Anytown, USA have the capacity to become unhinged.

Follow Pilot Viruet on Twitter.

"I'm a cross between a priest, a psychiatrist, a life coach, and a lawyer," says Larry Levine, from his Los Angeles office. "I got a guy in Maryland who went into custody this morning for a mortgage-fraud case. He told me I've given him more peace of mind than his lawyer has given him in the past two years—in terms of what's going to happen to him, how to minimize his time inside, and how to take advantage of programs so he could get out early."

Levine is the guy (rich)people call when they're out of options. They're busted, indicted, and about to be convicted. Jail time looms. It is here, in the worst moment of their lives, that some wealthy Americans consider hiring a prison consultant—someone who claims to know the system inside and out, and promises to work to make the incarcerated portion of your life as painless as possible. Someone like Levine.

Levine learned the tricks of the trade after spending ten years in a federal pen—low, medium, and high security, he says—for drug trafficking, racketeering, and securities fraud in association with an Italian crime family. After his release in 2007, he broke ground on American Prison Consultants—styling his time inside as expertise.

It might seem like a remote industry, but over the past few years, a number of prison consulting firms have popped up on the internet. This makes sense, considering white-collar crime isn't going anywhere and cyber crime is on the rise. The criminal elite of Bel Air and Boca Raton generally have the capital to seek out the services of someone like Levine. (Prison consultants usually only make the news when a big fish is caught on the hook.) It's his job to inform them exactly how different their lives are about to become.

"Somebody who's involved in the narcotics trade or the pharmaceuticals trade can use my help to shorten their sentence, but they're more prepared because they know the streets," says Levine. "But if you're talking about a guy who sits behind a desk, and he's used to getting orders and dealing with hundreds of millions of dollars—now he's going into custody and losing all his power, and he's got some 26-year old kid who just got out of the military telling him what to do. It's a culture shock."

Levine tries to convince clients they're hiring a well-informed friend with a ton of legal expertise and a prison-yard wiliness. He claims to offer peace of mind with straight, no-bullshit rhetoric. On one of Levine's many websites, you can find an introduction to his prison survival course; some of the 101 rules include "never cut in line for the phone" and "never change the TV channel without asking."

"I ask people 'What do you want to know about?' and then we start going through different things, and they start loosening up," Levine says of his consultations with clients. "They'll ask me everything they want to know, and the shit they should've asked me, I'll tell them."

And while this service is helpfulto scared execs facing hard time, perhaps the most valuable portion of Levine's (and other prison consultants') curriculum is how to shorten a sentence. One of the most common pieces of advice they give in this regard is to take advantage of the Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP),an intensive six-month rehab protocol for prisoners dealing with substance abuse that promises reduced time on the other end. Obviously that makes the program extremely competitive. But if you qualify, your prospects for a shorter sentence become a lot brighter.

Charles Burke was indicted as part of a wire-fraud ring, and was looking at a 33 month sentence. He hired Levine, who quickly educated him on RDAP. That program, combined with a plea deal, meant Burke only spent 13 months behind bars.

"[Larry] talked me off a cliff," says Burke, who I contacted through Levine, and whose glowing endorsement can be found on the "Inmate Testimonials" section of Levine's website. "He said, 'With good time and the RDAP, you could be out in no time,' and it made all the difference in the world."

Burke tells me he had a history of "alcohol and weed" addiction. With Levine in his ear, Burke had an attack plan to qualify himself for RDAP from day one.

Some of Burke's buddies who got indicted with him weren't admitted into the drug program because they weren't prepped by a guy like Levine, according to the satisfied customer. "When you see that psychologist the very first day, and you don't know how to answer their questions, you can be eliminated right there," Burke says.

To be clear, Levine insists he doesn't tell his clients what to say when applying for RDAP, which he says would be illegal. Instead, he says he explains the program, and what those doing the admitting are looking for. In other words, according to Levine, he provides the options, and the client makes the moral call.

There's a faint sense of capitalist nihilism to prison consulting, which at times can seem a bit like the Wild West, with rivals gunning for one another and attempting to destroy their competition's reputations. The people who seek out their services are mostly rich and powerful, and even within the equalizing compound of a prison, they still carry an advantage. In some ways, Levine has built a business by reassuring those who can afford him that a return to freedom, and their gilded way of life, is only a few tricks away.

The industry doesn't have any oversight or regulation, and rates can vary widely. For clients, it's difficult to know if they're being ripped off. (A quick scan of threads discussing prison consultants on the message board prisontalk.com illustrates this.) And in a 2012 New York Times article about the burgeoning industry—"Making Crime Pay: Prison Consulting Draws New Crop of Ex Cons"—Levine himself begrudgingly admits that the speed of growth meant it was "becoming saturated with people who don't know what they're doing."

"Here's how I justify it," says Levine of the way he makes his living. "I did ten years. I was in 11 different prisons. I was in multiple custody levels. I came out of custody with nothing, but I built something. I didn't have resources, but I took my time on the inside wisely, and I worked."

Knowledge is power, after all. Andfrightened execs entering a world where they have neither are willing to pay top dollar for some kind of roadmap.

Follow Luke Winkie on Twitter.

Photo by S Kahn via | CC BY 20

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy

One eternal truth about agoraphobia is that you're unlikely to run into someone suffering from it. Those severely affected can experience anxiety attacks and physical pain when they find themselves stuck in an open space, surrounded by people, so tend to stay indoors, out of sight.

Davide is a 32-year-old from Florence who has been living in his flat by himself for over ten years. He leaves his house only to buy bread downstairs, because going outside immobilises him and terrifies him to death. I spoke to him about what that's like.

VICE: How does one become afraid of going outside?
Davide: Ever since I was a child I've felt uncomfortable with outside stimuli. Crowds, loud noises, very bright lights – they almost hurt me physically. In my teens I would go to parties and clubs – I'd have fun like everyone else. Then, at 18, I had a series of panic attacks when I found myself in big open spaces with a lot of people. I felt like I was dying and the only thing that made me feel better was the idea of isolation.

After the last of those attacks I locked myself in the house – it was my final year of secondary school and I didn't show my face at school for a month. I became used to that kind of life, and as time passed the outside world seemed increasingly inaccessible to me. At university I basically lived like a recluse, and these days even leaving the house to go to the shop is a problem.

How does your agoraphobia affect your everyday life?
Well, it's simple – I rarely leave the house. The only time I feel relatively comfortable going outside is the early morning. I wake up around 5AM to go for a walk for about an hour, and stop by the bakery to get breakfast. The last few years I've had months where the guy at the bakery downstairs was the only person I talked to who wasn't a relative or one of my five close friends. They come visit me at home.

The rest of the day I spend in my living room or in the kitchen – I watch TV; play video games; eat; exercise; click around on the internet, which is heaven for agoraphobes; I read a lot; I masturbate. I imagine being agoraphobic is a bit like being retired when it comes to how you spend your days.

What exactly happens to you when you suddenly find yourself in the middle of a crowded square?
I don't know if you're familiar with derealisation and depersonalisation, but they are some of the symptoms of panic attacks. Basically it feels like my body doesn't belong to me any more. I get tachycardia, I lose feeling in my hands. It feels like my brain can't handle my thoughts and I'm going mad. It's only when I'm by myself at home that I regain control.

How do you earn a living if you don't get out of the house?
I'm very lucky in that respect, because I don't have to work. I'm an only child and my parents gave me the flat I'm living in. They have other flats that we rent out – I manage them and collect the rent. I live off that money. The only thing I have to do is go by the lawyer or our accountant every now and then.

What about relationships and sex?
I was going out with someone when I first started getting really sick, which despite everything lasted for another two years. She obviously got fed up after a while – I can't blame her. I've had two brief relationships since then, but it was almost impossible to keep them going. If I just want to have sex I call a prostitute. It takes about three minutes to find girls who make house calls; you just need to pay more for them. I do it four or five times a month.

What is the most annoying thing people assume about you?
It really pisses me off when people assume my problem is amplified by the fact that I'm well off and I can "afford" to be agoraphobic. As if there's no other, more rewarding way to earn and spend your money. "If you had to earn a living, you would leave the house" – what does that even mean? There are hundreds of people who suffer from agoraphobia just like me who are forced to work. They don't suffer any less. If anything, they stuff themselves with tranquillisers just to be able to do the simplest things. I'm lucky I don't have to do that. It's such a useless attitude. Have you ever met someone who's actually suffering who felt better after you remarked that "it could be worse"? I haven't.

Do you tell people about your phobia when you first meet them?
Yeah, it's a huge factor in my life, so it's too important not to mention. I feel safer knowing that the people I'm in touch with know I have this problem, so I say it straight away.

Has being agoraphobic changed you as a person?
Definitely, though I never really realised it. I think one thing is that I've become more understanding about other people, because I always expect it back.

How do you see your future? Have you resigned yourself to the fact that this is your life forever?
I always feel that at some point it will be easier to go out and live my life. It does happen – I have months where I can pretty easily go out for a dinner, see a friend or go to the park, but I always need to feel I'm in control. If I do go out I always evaluate the situation – how hard will it be to get home if I start feeling bad? I might never overcome that obsession with control. In the months that I'm feeling a little better I always go see a therapist. She thinks it will happen for me sooner or later.

Have you ever used your agoraphobia as an excuse to do something you just didn't feel like doing?
Oh sure – I managed to get out of going to my cousin's daughter's first communion once by saying I'd had another attack.

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One in two Canadians will be an immigrant or a child of an immigrant by 2036, according to Statistics Canada. The agency released a report this week that outlines key demographic shifts over the next two decades.

The report finds that immigrants will make up between 24.5 to 30 percent of the Canadian population 20 years from now, up from 20.6 percent in 2011.

Though the number of immigrants coming to Canada has increased under the Trudeau government, their numbers have been rising the 1990s, compared to the general population,  thanks to an aging population and low birth rates.

The report also predicts that about 58 percent of Canadian immigrants will come from Asia by 2036, up from 44.8 percent in 2011.  

Similarly, Canada's workplaces will look increasingly diverse as well, with nearly 40 percent (between 34.7 and 39.9 percent, to be precise) of the working population (15-64 years old) belonging to a visible minority group.

Don't expect all of the country to look like that, however, as the majority of immigrants will continue to remain concentrated in major cities like Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver.

It is expected that in some of those cities, visible minorities will actually make up the majority of the population by 2036.

This report comes at time when political tensions from the south of the border have generated serious questions about what Canada's immigration policies will look like over the next few years. With President Donald Trump talking about building walls to keep immigrants out, what happens next is anybody's guess.

Follow Ankanaa Chowdhury on Twitter.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Trace.

Responding to the latest uptick in Chicago's gun violence, President Donald Trump threatened Tuesday night to "send in the feds" if city officials fail to stop the shootings.

The provocative escalation of Trump's law-and-order rhetoric did not come with details on what such federal intervention might look like, beyond a vague explanation from White House spokesman Sean Spicer that Trump was referring to a variety of federal "resources," including help "through the US Attorney's office." But an outline of the new administration's plan for addressing what Trump has described as "American carnage" is emerging, via the confirmation process of Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions.

Sessions's central prescription for reducing gun violence is simple: Prosecute more firearms cases in federal courts. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and in written follow-up answers to senators, the Alabama Republican vowed to make enforcement of federal gun crimes "a top priority" and said that he expects federal gun prosecutions to increase.

"Properly enforced, federal gun laws can reduce crime in our cities and communities," he said.

He also pledged to prioritize "reduction of illegal interstate trafficking of firearms."

Sessions has joined other Republicans, conservative commentators, and gun rights groups in decrying a decline in federal gun prosecutions under former President Barack Obama. They argue that the stiffer penalties carried by federal laws pack a deterrent effect that make would-be shooters think twice before reaching for a pistol. But academic research casts doubt on those assumptions, finding no clear link between increasing federal prosecutions and decreasing homicide rates.

"I don't think there is good evidence on the effectiveness of the kinds of things that Senator Sessions is recommending," said Daniel Nagin, a criminologist at Carnegie Mellon University who has studied the issue.

Even more dubious to gun policy experts is Sessions's vow to crack down on interstate trafficking. There is no federal law against gun trafficking, and as a senator, Sessions opposed legislation to create one.

Sessions has also vociferously opposed an effort by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to crack down on shady gun sales by clarifying when a person is "engaged in the business of selling guns" and therefore must conduct background checks on buyers. Prior to the guidance, issued by Obama last January, the ATF complained that the rule's lack of precision frustrated prosecutions of thousands of "unlicensed dealers masquerading as collectors or hobbyists but who are really trafficking firearms to felons or other prohibited persons."

Additionally, Sessions indicated in his confirmation proceedings that he will not support additional funds for the ATF, which has primary responsibility for investigating gun trafficking and other significant gun crimes. The agency's ability to police those offenses is hampered by congressional restrictions on its functions and flat budgets, according to nonpartisan analysis. A 2014 Government Accountability Office report found that the agency had about 2,600 special agents in fiscal year 2010, just 11 percent more than 2001, despite annual guns sales (as measured by background checks) more than doubling during the same period.

"With proper support and with vigorous prosecutions, ATF can be more productive without large increases in funding," Sessions told Judiciary Committee Democrats.

How Attorneys General can influence gun prosecutions

If Sessions wants more federal gun cases, he will have the power to effect such an increase, via a policy memo to the 94 US Attorneys offices around the country. Statistics maintained by the DOJ show that US Attorneys have brought more gun charges when pressed to do so by past department officials. Sessions himself, while a US Attorney in the Southern District of Alabama, was among the federal prosecutors to sharply increase prosecutions of gun cases during the early 1990s at the behest of then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, a Republican.

Federal gun prosecutions peaked in fiscal year 2005, with 13,062 defendants charged under sections of the US code containing most federal gun laws, according to Justice Department statistics. The increase came in the wake of a 2004 order by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to "pursue the most serious, readily provable offense or offenses that are supported by the facts of the case" for all federal crimes. DOJ programs to try more gun cases under the tougher federal laws, like Project Exile and its successor Project Safe Neighborhoods, also boosted federal firearms prosecutions.

As Obama's Attorney General, Eric Holder issued a 2010 memo granting increased discretion for US Attorneys. Though federal gun prosecutions had fallen below 12,000 during George W. Bush's final year in office, critics fault the Obama administration for de-prioritizing such cases. In fiscal year 2015, there were 10,565 federal gun prosecutions.

As a senator, Sessions criticized Holder's "smart policing" policy. In his answers to the Judiciary Committee, Sessions said the greater goal should be "assurance of warranted punishment."

Check out the VICE News look at how 2016 was the worst year for homicides in Chicago in decades.

Current and former federal prosecutors contacted by The Trace said that US Attorneys offices could respond to the next Attorney General's marching orders by reviewing abundant "felon-in-possession" cases, which are typically pursued by local authorities, and prosecuting enough to meet the new directive.

"They can always pump their numbers," said Arthur Madden, a defense attorney who has practiced in the Southern District Alabama federal court since Sessions was US Attorney there. "Whenever they get down, they can always make those cases."

Critics say such practices can lead federal agents to focus finite resources on relatively low-level cases instead of bigger, time-consuming investigations.

"You'll basically deputize [federal] agents to being super-local police," Madden said. "States would love it because you're shifting costs. But then who is watching Hamas and who is looking after the next Bernie Madoff prosecution? Local police can't."

More prosecutions may not mean less crime

Sessions has lavished praise on Project Exile, a program begun in Richmond, Virginia, in 1997 that prosecuted gun crimes using federal sentencing guidelines, and warned those convicted that they would be "exiled" to lengthy stays in faraway federal prisons. The effort, versions of which were later implemented across the country, coincided chronologically with a 31 percent drop in Richmond's murder rate.

But studies have since cast doubt on Project Exile's impact. In a 2003 paper, two University of Chicago professors concluded that the city's gun violence might have fallen at about the same rate without the program; similarly sized cities enjoyed comparable declines in violence, while continuing to handle gun cases through local and state courts.

Steven Raphael, a public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley who co-authored the study, said it is consistent with other research that has found little evidence that stiffer sentences deter crimes "that already face tough prison sentences."

"States already prosecute felonies committed with firearms, as well as other weapons offenses," Raphael said in an email. "It's not clear that federalizing prosecution adds much deterrence."

Researchers have generally found police presence in high crime areas to be a more important intervention, Raphael said.

Beyond the question of its efficacy, a key challenge for Sessions's plans to step up gun prosecutions may be pushback from affected communities.

David Kennedy heads the National Network for Safe Communities at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He noted that during the 1990s, fears of violent crime associated with the crack epidemic and sharp increases in homicide helped tough sentencing efforts like Project Exile win public support. But today, Kennedy said he believes Sessions faces a "quite unfavorable social setting" for the approach he appears to be preparing.

In recent years, bipartisan concern has emerged toward the mandatory sentences that have resulted in disproportionately high rates of incarceration for young black men. Sessions's crackdown on individual illegal gun carriers would also likely come in the absence of a similar push against the traffickers who supply them, as the Attorney General nominee has given no indication that he will seek the resources and tools necessary for stanching the flow of firearms in the black market.

"Saying, 'We are going to use the power of the federal state to lock up as many young men as we can for as long as we can if they are found with a gun,' would not go over well at all," Kennedy predicted.

A version of this article was originally published by the Trace, a nonprofit news organization covering guns in America. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Trace on Facebook or Twitter.

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It's been a week since Pride Toronto members voted to exclude cops from participating in future gay pride parades, backing a demand made by Black Lives Matter Toronto last summer.

BLMTO has stated that their community and, in particular, black, trans people, have faced violence at the hands of police, and as such, do not feel safe or respected by having uniformed officers march alongside them. They called for the removal of police floats and booths. 

Although Pride's board of directors has not yet finalized the vote, they've made no indication that they are backtracking from what members decided.

In the aftermath, we've seen an outpouring of empathy for police, from politicians to media pundits, to (primarily white) members of the LGBT community.

"An inclusive @PrideToronto should welcome everyone, including police. Any cop is welcome to march alongside me at this year's Pride," wrote Tory leader Patrick Brown on Twitter.

Others have pointed out that, although Pride started as a protest to the 1981 bathhouse raids, cops and LGBT Torontonians have since made major strides in mending their relationship.

But a video that surfaced Tuesday couldn't more perfectly validate what Black Lives Matter has been saying all along.

The minute-and-a-half cellphone clip, first aired by CityNews, shows several officers surrounding a black man who is laying on the ground motionless at an intersection near Dundas and Church streets in the city's downtown core. Despite the fact that the man is not moving, police Taser him and stomp on his body; one of the officers even dramatically shouts "stop resisting!"

The man, later identified as Andrew Henry, 43, has since been charged with uttering threats, assaulting police, and mischief. Cops say prior to the incident caught on tape, Henry spat on a staff member at Seaton House homeless shelter, punched a female officer, bit a construction worker, and kicked out the back window of a cop cruiser.

None of this changes the fact that he appeared to be completely still when he was kicked and Tasered. And remember, Tasers can and have killed people.

The clip also showed cops bullying the bystander taking the video. The officer with the Taser points at him and says "Move back sir, if you want to be a witness," to which the man behind the camera, already several metres removed, replies, "I'm not obstructing your arrest."

Later, that same cop orders a female officer to "get that guy out of my face please"—referring the the witness—and she and a male officer approach the witness advising him that if he continues to film his cellphone will be seized as evidence.

This is flat-out wrong. The bystander was nowhere near close to impeding on the arrest and was completely within his rights to film the interaction, something that even the normally pugnacious Toronto Police Service spokesman Mark Pugash agreed on.

Black Lives Matter Toronto protest at last year's Pride Parade. Canadian Press/Mark Blinch

As the two officers are threatening to seize the witness' phone, the male cop warns him, "He's going to spit in your face, you're going to get AIDS."

What. The. Fuck?

We know Henry allegedly spit on someone during the first altercation, so we can assume he's the one being referred to.

However, aside from demonstrating a totally inaccurate, serophobic understanding of how a person contracts HIV (you can't "get AIDS" and you can't contract HIV from saliva), when one considers that this all took place near the gay village, the comment—was it a joke?—also smacks of homophobia.

Read more: Black Lives Matter Protest Raises Uncomfortable Questions About Pride's Identity

The cops have since issued a Twitter apology for the AIDS remark, noting they are bringing in an expert to explain how HIV/AIDS actually works. They are also conducting an "internal investigation," which many are rightfully skeptical will lead nowhere. The Special Investigations Unit, which looks into cop-caused death and serious injuries, has said the injuries from Henry's Tasering weren't bad enough to warrant opening a file.

Today, the man who took the video, Waseem Khan, filed an official complaint with the Office of the Independent Police Review. Meanwhile, gay activist group Queers Crash the Beat protested outside police headquarters during a police board meeting.

"These are the same Toronto Police who illegally card and harass Black, Indigenous and other Torontonian people of colour. The same Toronto police that continue to disregard violence against trans women, people living with HIV/AIDS, and sex workers in our communities. The same Toronto police who recently enacted an undercover sting targeting men who have sex with men in Marie Curtis Park," the group said in a written statement.

For a few days there, it seems much of city had forgotten about all that. We can thank the officers in this 90-second video for the brutal reminder.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Check out Dame Darcy's website, Instagram, and Twitter.

When Hong Kong residents Yan* and Janice* told their church counselor they were lesbians, he invited them to pray the gay away with the pastor. At a quiet church squeezed between bustling mega malls, they say the pastor then told them that homosexuality was wrong, and that they needed to ask God to clean them. After asking them for money, he told them the only way to be clean of gayness was through vomiting and fainting from exhaustive prayer.

Their experience is illustrative of the ex-British colony's complicated relationship with its LGBTQ citizens. Even as neighbor Taiwan makes strides towards legalizing gay marriage, people in Hong Kong take an extremely traditional view towards sex and marriage that extends to the LGBTQ community. Hong Kong doesn't protect its gay population through anti-discrimination laws, despite its development as a free economy separate from mainland China; in Taiwan and Macau, anti-discrimination laws plainly protect LGBTQ citizens from workplace discrimination, and those of the former extend to schools.

What's more, Hong Kong's government doesn't just ignore efforts to support its gay community—it sometimes actively works against them. Some have claimed that city social workers occasionally (and unofficially) refer youth to therapists who practice gay conversion therapy, which attempts to convert people to heterosexuality through shame-driven tactics that can leave patients deeply psychologically damaged. And through last year, the government provided funding to Post Gay Alliance, a fundamentalist Christian organization chaired by a psychiatrist named Hong Kwai-wah; though the city also funds pro-gay causes, Post Gay Alliance promotes "post gay" ideology to the city's youth, a practice closely linked to conversion therapy.

Hong Kong's general stance toward homosexuality stems from the outsized influence of Christianity and Catholicism in the city. While only some five percent of Hong Kong citizens identify as Catholic, making it a minor religion in a region dominated by Buddhism and Taoism, the church's roots run deep. "Its members hold a lot of social resources and have an influential social status," said Julia Sun, a prominent sexual rights advocate who founded a Chinese forum for accurate sex advice called Sticky Rice Love.

She added that many of the city's schools have a Christian background; according to Hong Kong's Yearbook,a yearly compilation of statistics published by the government, Christian schools outnumbered secular schools in Hong Kong by more than double in 2015. Christian schools tend to perform among the region's best on public exams, which makes them preferred choices for parents—but the education their children receive is deeply conservative.

"Christian schools here teach students that masturbation and homosexuality are sins," said Tommy Chen, an LGBTQ advocate with Rainbow Action, the city's only gay community center. "Although most Hong Kongers are not Christian, because of Christian education, they're sexually conservative—and this makes the situation much worse than in mainland China," Chen said. Mainland China is Communist, and the government there does not allow Christianity ideals to thrive.

Those religious roots influence the city's complex relationship with gay rights. On one hand, Hong Kong has pride parades and out pop stars, and in a 2012 survey of over 1,000 randomly selected working Hong Kongers, 50 percent said they were "accepting" of LGBTQ people. On the other, in a separate survey of 611 adults in November 2015, 68 percent said they agreed with the idea that society should tolerate anti-homosexual views.

One example of how those attitudes manifest comes via the practice of Hong Kwai-wah. In 2011, Hong was invited by the government's Social Welfare Department to speak to registered city social workers, which many felt amounted to a de-facto endorsement of his "post gay" therapeutic practice on the part of the Social Welfare Department. The invitation caused international controversy, including a protest in New York. Hong was hired by Gloria Lee, the head of training for the department at the time; a spokesperson would not let her respond to a request for comment. Since 2011, the government has continued to fund Hong's Post Gay Alliance and allegedly refer youth to conversion therapists.

Hong denies that he's ever practiced conversion therapy, and said that he has been practicing "post gay" therapy for the past 30 years, a counseling approach where the "objectives are to enhance self image, remove guilt and shame resulting from [a client's] sexual orientation, and to gain emotional satisfaction from other relationships such as family, friends, heterosexual or spiritual relationships, so that they can experience joy and peace in their lives," Hong told me.

Hong's organizations have been careful to avoid using the term "conversion therapy" in describing what they do. New Creation Association, another organization chaired by Hong, has said on its website that it can help people "give up a lifestyle of homosexuality" through counseling. Hong denies that the primary objective of "post gay" therapy is to practice abstinence from gay sex. "This approach is too negative and ineffective. Sexual abstinence with [the] same sex is just a natural consequence of positive changes in other areas of [a client's] life," he said .

While Hong gave little detail on what happens during a "post gay" therapy session, he said that he uses a therapeutic technique known as Sexual Attraction Fluidity Exploration in Therapy, or SAFE-T. It's thought to be a revival of gay conversion therapy that affirms sexual orientation is changeable, albeit with a softer name than "conversion therapy."

"We had noticed [Hong's practice] for quite some time," said Chen, the Rainbow Action advocate. "But it was international news in 2011, because Hong Kong may have been the first government in the world to commission conversion therapy."

Though Hong denied that he's ever practiced gay conversion therapy, Yeo Wai-wai, a sexual minorities advocate with the Women's Coalition of Hong Kong, said she worked with a young man five years ago who went to Hong after a referral from his government social worker. Hong prescribed the young man antidepressants to treat his homosexuality, Yeo said. "He didn't find himself 'converted' at all," said Yeo, "but more and more unhappy throughout therapy."

When asked whether the Social Welfare Department still refers its youth to conversion therapists and what they do to support LGBTQ youth in crisis, a spokesperson from the department's Information and Public Relations Unit wrote that "knowledge from multiple perspectives is essential for social workers to make professional, comprehensive, and independent assessment on their cases." They did not affirm or deny whether the department refers youth to conversion therapy, or comment on whether they will publicly condemn the practice. As for Hong, the spokesperson simply wrote that "Dr. Hong Kwai-wah was once invited in 2011 to deliver a talk to provide our social workers with information to enable them to have a better understanding of sexual identity and sexual attraction among the youth, and the skills [sic] when working with them."

Unlike a wide variety of American medical bodies and the Obama administration, Hong Kong's government itself has yet to officially condemn gay conversion therapy, and a government spokesperson declined to comment why. Taiwanese officials published a plan to ban conversion therapy this month (though Macau also hasn't condemned the practice). The chairman of the city's Social Workers' Registration Board, Lun Chi-wai, said that he could not comment on this issue; the Registration Board is the city's official licensor for social workers.

While conversion therapy is not particularly common in mainland Chinese society, when it is practiced, it is hidden from public view. A doctor in mainland China who openly practiced the therapy sparked protests in 2014, and was brought to court in a landmark case.

*Names withheld to protect sources' identity

Follw Justin Heifetz on Twitter.