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EPA Transition Team Tells Staff Not to Believe What They See in the News

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Last week, the president's former EPA transition team leader Myron Ebell cryptically warned that Trump would likely make staffing cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, he remarked that up to half of the agency's workforce could be eliminated.

An internal memo—first leaked to Motherboard by an EPA employee and later confirmed by the agency—sent to EPA staff by a senior White House advisor today indicates that Ebell's claims are causing unrest within the agency. The memo doesn't mention Ebell by name or say that the agency won't see major staff cuts, but notes that much of what's being reported in the news is not accurate, and that "no final decisions have been made with regard to the EPA."

Ebell's interview came less than a week after Trump implemented a communications ban at the EPA, and froze the creation of all new contracts and grants.

"Let's aim for half and see how it works out, and then maybe we'll want to go further," Ebell said. "President Trump said during the campaign that he would like to abolish the EPA, or 'leave a little bit.' I think the administration is likely to start proposing cuts to the 15,000 staff, because the fact is that a huge amount of the work of the EPA is actually done by state agencies. It's not clear why so many employees are needed at the federal level."

Ebell wasn't officially speaking for the White House at the time—and admits he's never actually met Trump in person—but his views on climate change and scientific integrity aren't that different from those belonging to the president. Ebell has long been criticized by environmental groups for seeding doubt in climate science, and trying to dispel what he has called "the myth" of global warming.

Continue reading on Motherboard


Why ISIS Are Using So Many Children in Their Propaganda Videos

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(Top image: the child ISIS had murder a man in a recent propaganda video)

The so-called Islamic State has seemingly done the impossible: earlier this month it released what is arguably its most shocking and abhorrent atrocity video yet.

This is quite a statement, of course: ISIS has made a lot of truly shocking and abhorrent atrocity videos. Some of these depict mass beheadings, burnings, drownings and stonings – all in horrible high definition close-up. The new video, titled "Made Me Alive with His Own Blood", features the murder of a broken and defenceless man at the hands of a three-year-old boy. A. Three. Year. Old.

There is something unedifying about rating ISIS videos for their shock impact, just as there is something off about marvelling at their "slickness" and sophistication when it comes to propaganda. But the latest atrocity video represents a qualitative shift in depravity, and it is important to understand why and what it means.

It is well known that ISIS has created a vast and sophisticated apparatus for recruiting and indoctrinating children into its brutal ideology, and this isn't the first time ISIS has used children as executioners in its videos. One of these, released in January of 2015, showed a ten-year old Kazakh boy shooting to death two men accused of spying. Another, released in July that same year, showed boys as young as 13 or 14 executing 25 Syrian soldiers in an amphitheatre in the ancient city of Palmyra.

But this latest atrocity video features not a boy, but a very young child. This is new: a radical innovation in political atrocity that goes beyond the paradigm of what we conventionally understand as terrorism. For this isn't terrorism, commonly understood. This is horrorism: a form of violence so monstrous and transgressive that it corrupts our most fundamental notions of what it means to be human and civilised.

According the political philosopher Adriana Cavarero, who has written a book on the subject, horrorism "has nothing to do with the instinctive reaction to the threat of death", and everything to do with "an instinctive disgust". Horrorism, in other words, arouses not fear or terror, but rather a deep repugnance that sickens us to our stomachs.

And few things are as disgust-evoking as the image of a three-year-old shooting to death a helpless and traumatised man. There are two central reasons for this. First, it violates our deepest beliefs about the innocence of children. For ISIS, the militarised child reflects the power and durability of its ideology: the caliphate may be shrinking, but its essential foundations are in good condition. For everyone else, this child represents the defilement of a purity to which we accord an almost sacred status.

Second, it presents a grotesque asymmetry: between the smallness of the killer and the magnitude of the deed he is forced to commit. It just doesn't add up: murder is such a heinous act, and yet here is a killer who has only just learned to walk and can barely hold a gun.

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WATCH: 'Inside the Islamic State'

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The image of the infant jihadist unnerves in other ways, too, subliminally reminding us of that most horrifying of all monsters: the demonic child. In Evil Children in the Popular Imagination, the English scholar Karen J Renner estimates that there are over 600 films in which "some kind of arguably evil child" is portrayed, with almost 400 made since 2000.

One of the most disquieting movies in this genre is Stanley Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shinning. The central character of the movie – Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicolson – descends into madness and tries to kill his wife and son. But it's the son, Danny, who is the more unnerving presence, seemingly in communion with a silent and ominous supernatural force. He sees and hears things. And what he sees and hears is horrifying, like the two little Grady girls down a hall, who in one second invite him to come and play, and in the next lie on the floor in a pool of blood, having been butchered to death. Or like the elevator whose doors release an ocean of dark blood.

Children, as Stephen King has observed, can be "uncivilised and not very nice". They are unruly and impressionable, and in some ways strange and "other". So it's not surprising that they serve as a repository of our fears. The monstrous child motif in horror movies mercilessly plays on these. And so, it seems, does ISIS, with its endless stream of videos featuring the so-called "cubs of the caliphate".

One of the biggest stories on ISIS since it came to global prominence in mid-2014 centred on three British teenage schoolgirls who had absconded to Islamic State-controlled territory in February of 2015. One classmate described the girls as "studious, argumentative and driven". The youngest, who was 15 at the time, apparently used to be a fan of the reality TV show Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Another had reportedly danced "in her teenage bedroom" the night before she left for Syria.

Yet, for all their reported ordinariness, the girls had somehow fallen under the "spell" of ISIS to become "jihadi brides". According to Britain's then-Prime Minister David Cameron, they had been "radicalised in their bedrooms". Keith Vaz, the then-chairman of Parliament's Home Affairs Select Committee, said in a special hearing to which the families of the girls were invited that what had happened was "every parent's nightmare".

This story, despite the haziness of the details about the girls' motives and how they became radicalised, was instantly generalised into a moral fable about innocent children and their vulnerability to ISIS's ideology. But what it really resembled was a script from a horror movie about teenage girls and demonic possession: a shadowy, evil force had inscribed itself into their minds – via an electronic screen – and turned them into sex-mad, husband-chasing, ideological fanatics, whose parents could no longer recognise them. They were once just "ordinary teenagers". And then they entered the jihadist twilight zone and became "jihadi brides", whose mouths frothed with monstrous bile.

As the caliphate shrinks, ISIS's ability to conduct large-scale terrorist attacks will correspondingly diminish. But it will continue to horrify us with its sickening videos of jihadist children, stirring up deep, primordial fears about our own mysterious and ever-so impressionable children.

@simonrcottee

More on VICE:

What It Feels Like to Lose Your Kids to ISIS

'I Wanted the Real McCoy' – A Brit Who Fought ISIS in Iraq Looks Back on Two Years of the Caliphate

Tracking the Online Life of a Female British ISIS Recruiter

I Played Illegal Pool with Mobsters in Communist Romania

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This article originally appeared on VICE Romania

Especially during the decline and fall of the Soviet Union, our Eastern European dictators and leaders could be absolute hypocrites. One example of that hypocrisy was the way in which the Romanian communist regime treated billiards – a game it considered a symbol of Western decadence, and so banned for normal Romanians, while dictator Nicolae Ceausescu continued to play away.

Ceausescu playing some pool. Photo via

The regime's issues were less about the game itself, and more about the potential for gambling that it offered. So while billiards wasn't officially illegal, there were just no pool tables made available to normal Romanians. The only places you'd find them were in the Romanian hotels and clubs designed for foreigners the country's elite.

That led to a unique type of dissidence – underground pool venues where people played for money. The most daring enthusiasts only played for high stakes with foreign currency, and went only by their nicknames, like "the Cripple", "the Butcher", "the Sailor" and "the Barber".

I got in touch with one of the last survivors of that era in illegal pool, Valerian Atomulesei. Atomulesei was nicknamed "Vali Carambole" after carom billiards, the kind of billiards where the table doesn't have any pockets, a game popular among Romanians who didn't have access to the luxury pool tables in hotels.

Photos in this article come from the personal archive of Vali Carambol, and were all taken after the fall of communism in Romania in 1989, when normal pool tables and cameras were more available to Romanians.

VICE: Where and how did you play pool in the communist era?
Vali Carambol: In those days there were three places in Bucharest with pool tables – all in communist clubs and institutions for foreigners. They weren't the pool tables you know now – they had no pockets in the corners, but small pins and holes in the centre of the table. The only place that had the kind of tables you see today was the Intercontinental Hotel. You had to insert a dollar to play with that table, so it was illegal for Romanians. But I knew a guy who worked there, and he let me play for free.

How did you get into playing pool if it wasn't available to normal Romanians?
I worked at the Ministry of Tourism, in the department that owned and operated those tables with pins and holes in the middle. I travelled around the country to deliver, install and fix them in clubs for foreigners and the elite. That's how I met all sorts of pool players who taught me how to play.

And when did you start playing for money?
In 1979. I was losing a lot of money at first, so I had to be careful not to get caught by the authorities [under communism, Romanians all received exactly enough money to live on]. We also played for meals, watches, salami, bacon, wine, whisky and vodka. The true mobsters played for apartments and cars. If we played for money we used our winnings to pay for dinner at fancy restaurants and the winning team always had to buy drinks for everybody. You were never able to spend it all, though, because you couldn't legally spend that much money at once in a communist regime.

Who were the great players of the era?
You couldn't beat the old farts who only played for money. But if you paid them a bit, you could practice with them. They all had nicknames, like Cornel the Barber, who was the manager of a hair salon in a very fancy area of Bucharest. Or Petrică the Sailor – every time we played together he would take my money and joke that his back was aching from his heavy wallet. But most people who played were directors and managers of those clubs: salon managers, union leaders and apartment block managers – the communist upper class. Gambling was illegal, but that didn't stop anybody.

Did you ever get in trouble with the police?
They were never able to pin me down for playing for money or gambling – although there were snitches who could report you and they'd have the cash as evidence. They could even lock you up just for suspecting that you were gambling – I did get arrested a few times because of that.

How did that happen?
Well, the first time it happened I was working at an amusement park – a place with a few rides, ping-pong tables and a club where some people could come and play. When Ceausescu came for a visit his men raided the entire park. We were supposed to keep the pool club closed, but we didn't because we were in the mood to play. Seven or eight of his guys broke down the door, confiscated our money and took photos as evidence. After that, they arrested us.

What did they tell you?
They threatened us with six months in jail. They argued that I had encouraged gambling, but I had hung signs all over the club explicitly saying "No gambling allowed!" I spent a night in jail, and the next day we went to court. I was released immediately after – I was an employee of the park, so they let me go. During another raid, later on, I was told to empty my pockets, which were stuffed with money. I lied that the money was from the club revenues, since I worked there. They confiscated the money and let me go. My boss then went to the police and got the money back.

How much money did you have when the regime fell and you didn't have to be so secretive about it any more?
A lot, but I lost it almost instantly – my house was broken into in the early 90s and all my money was stolen. Thankfully, I had a house and a car and a pool cue. In the 90s, the familiar pool tables with pockets started to appear in Romania. I opened my own billiards club in that same former communist amusement park I used to work at and called it the Atomic Club. I bought a carom billiards table for $700 at the time. And I ordered a pool table from Belgium for 1600 francs, which was about what I would have paid to buy a one bedroom flat at the time.

So what was the scene like after the fall of communism?
The stakes were low, all over Bucharest, especially between '94 and '96 when poverty and unemployment were at an all time high and corruption was rampant. We used to play for all sorts of currency – it didn't matter what. I even played for Dutch guilders. When I heard of a place that only had one pool table but much higher stakes, I went there at 6AM and booked it for the whole day. The British and Irish expats who usually played there were very annoyed that I took their table, but had no choice but to play with me – at $20 a match. The winner got to stay at the table, and I remained in the game almost the whole day.

Playing for money illegally, weren't you ever afraid about pissing off the wrong person?
Not really. We had a team and played for money in different cities. We had a manager in Bucharest who had our back. He would call teams we'd play on our behalf. We never played with gangsters unless we knew it was all safe. This one time, in 1999, we were at an official tournament playing for the $5,000 prize, but the people there blocked us from playing, so we called our manager, who's the kind of guy who wore grenades on his belt ironically. He just came in the club and shouted: "Hey, those three over there are with me! If anybody dares to bother them…" They didn't bother us and we won the tournament.

More on VICE:

The Faces of the People Who Believe Their Party Is Going to Take Control of Romania

Being Gay Is Beautiful in Bucharest

Photos of Romania's Neglected Orphans Then and Now

Being Gay Is Illegal in India, but That Doesn't Stop These Drag Queens

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"I started performing in drag in 2014. I came out the very next month," said Alex Mathew, laughing unabashedly. "For 6 months, I had been framing a coming out letter to my parents. I don't like being fit into boxes—I call myself queer, I think sexuality is fluid. So it didn't go well. But Mayamma literally yanked me out of the closet."

Alex is a 28-year-old communications professional in Bangalore, in India—a country where sexuality, gender and identity are deeply intertwined with religion, superstition and caste hierarchies, allowing little or no room to go against the grain. Coming out as gay or lesbian is much less publicly accepted than it is in many Western countries; to claim fluidity in one's identity, then, is an unapologetic and daring move, much less to perform publicly in drag, as Alex does when he transforms into Mayamma (aka Maya).

In India, homosexuality invites the potential for ridicule, social ostracization and the risk of persecution—Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, introduced in 1860 under British rule, criminalizes sexual activities that are "against the order of nature." But Alex, alongside a rising class of performers spreading the gospel of drag throughout the country, has taken his performances to nightclubs and stages throughout his home city, where Maya gets to push the envelope to incite progressive conversations and encourage LGBTQ acceptance.

Whether sashaying in a crisp white sari, singing an emotional rendition of Frozen's "Let It Go" with jasmine flowers strung through her hair, or belting a boisterous cover of "Lady Marmalade" with the lyrics changed to "Lady Mayamma," every performance encapsulates an idea Alex holds close to his heart: to be uncompromisingly true to yourself. It's as much a deeply held philosophy as it is a message about individualism, feminism and gender equality.

"Drag is a performance art; it's what I do. My sexuality is my identity," said Alex, carefully separating the two. Little wonder that it was a brush with drag that spurred his coming out: Growing up on a steady diet of Bollywood movies and classic Hollywood musicals, Alex developed a love of the theater. "I always wanted to be a Broadway performer, so I learned different forms of dance, acting, improv, and performed in local theater productions. But I always felt like I was missing the excitement and adrenaline rush that I expected from being on stage," he said. When he revisited the movie Mrs. Doubtfire as an adult, he was inspired to give drag a shot.

"Performing as a woman gave me a different rush," he said. "It was an entry into a creative life that had been waiting for me."

The act of men donning women's attire to perform as women is far from new in India—it was previously common in traditional and folk art forms, like Kathakali, Yakshagana and Theyyam. But in the western, RuPaul's Drag Race-sense, drag as we know it—as a political act and performance art—has only recently risen in the country. Ironic, then, that to embrace the life of a drag queen is still met with raised eyebrows, given India's cultural history of similar forms of performance.

Unlike Alex, who arrived at drag after searching for a creative outlet to better express himself, 23-year-old Sudipto Biswas' first performance happened somewhat by chance. Training in Western classical music, singing, songwriting and performing have been central to Sudipto's life, but he found performing to be more frightening than exciting, because he was scarred by early memories of being mocked for his effeminate mannerisms.

"I've been singing all my life. But I have also had huge body image issues and stage fright because I'm not exactly a 'manly man,'" he said.

He was introduced to drag in 2014 after watching Alex perform as Mayamma; RuPaul's Drag Race was also gaining in popularity at the time. By marrying his childhood fascination with fabulously unapologetic divas with his desire to sing, he developed his own drag avatar, named Rimi Heart. He had the opportunity to perform as Rimi at Bangalore's Queer Carnival last year, a fundraiser for the city's Pride celebrations, which he said liberated a fearless performer from within himself.

"Once I was on stage, I felt a radical different level of confidence!" he said. "You know the saying ' Give a man a mask and he'll show you his true colors'—I didn't hide my mannerisms. In fact, I was exaggerating everything!"

22-year-old Nilay Joshi is a graduate Engineering and Psychology student with a clear goal—to use his foundational knowledge of psychology to develop his drag performances and bring the realities of LGBTQ lives to stage.

"When you are a drag queen, you get to boldly take to a platform and talk to an audience who wants to watch and listen to you. I feel it's best way to talk about relevant issues," said Nilay. His drag character, Kashtaani, is a portmanteau of Kashibai and Mastani, the two wives of Bajirao I, the 18th century Peshwa ruler of Central India. "I was inspired by their diverse personalities. Kashi is caring and subtle, a typical Indian woman, and Mastani is bold and open-minded," he explained.

For some, drag becomes a way to make a direct political statement about the LGBTQ community itself, like Harish Iyer, a well-known Indian LGBTQ rights activist. You'll find him applying foundation as he reflects on what drag means to him for filmmaker Judhajit Bagchi's lens: "Even some of the supporters of the LGBTIQ community feel that it's okay to be LGBTIQ as long as you don't overdress or go over the top. I know what they mean—they mean drag," he said. He told Judhajit that he does drag to represent "the effeminate gay man, the masculine lesbian…(who) are still largely ostracized," even by the LGBTQ community.

Given the frightening rise of homophobia in India, people like Harish, Alex, Sudipto, Nilay and more are using drag to help subvert the idea that gender roles are binary and sexuality is rigid in a country trying to reconcile deeply ingrained tradition with our modern, global era.

"It's extremely important to understand that just being a man in heels and a dress dancing and singing is a political act," said Sudipto. "But there's a lot of genius and thought process there, and real talent. It would be nice to see people focus on that, too."

Homosexuality is still criminalized in India—in July 2009, a Delhi high court decriminalized private, consensual homosexual acts proscribed by Article 377; then, in December 2013, India's Supreme Court recriminalized them. Last February, the Supreme Court heard arguments against its constitutionality, then decided in June to decline to re-examine Article 377's validity.

The back-and-forth is indicative of the push-pull nature of LGBTQ rights in India. But whether it's Alex speaking in drag at prestigious conferences, Sudipto pushing gender boundaries with daring performances, or Harish going further still to point out self-hatred within the LGBTQ community, drag may be an art form whose time in India has come.

Revati Upadhya lives in Goa, India, and writes about food, travel, culture, women's issues, health and lifestyle.

The Citizen Scientists Using Mushrooms to Cure Their Cluster Headaches

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When Tyler Mann first started getting cluster headaches a little over a decade ago, he'd crawl into his bathroom, turn off the lights, shut the door, and scream as loud as he could for up to an hour until the pain went away. Sometimes he'd pass out before that happened. Other times he'd contemplate suicide.

"I've had headaches where I was literally considering hanging myself from the shower rod," Mann told me. "Literally, I wanted to just wrap a belt around my neck and make it stop, several times. That's why I don't own a gun."

In the beginning, he'd get the headaches as often as six times per day, for months at a time. His doctors offered no explanation. So, like many people with more symptoms than solutions, he turned to the internet for help. That's when he discovered a Facebook group where thousands of others said they suffered from the same condition—a little-known neurological disease called cluster headaches, for which there is very little research and no known cure. They referred to themselves as "cluster heads," and each was more desperate for relief than the next. Many of them, frustrated with the lack of clinical studies, had turned to extreme methods of treatment.

According to users of the group, one thing seemed to consistently provide long-term relief: psychedelics like mushrooms, LSD, and DMT, all of which consist of Tryptamine, an alkaloid that is believed to activate serotonin receptors in the brain. The most obvious problem, though, is that all of these drugs are illegal in the United States—scheduled in the same high-risk category as heroin—which means they're far from medically proven, and the self-administered dosing and its results can be wildly inconsistent. For people like Mann, who describes this form of self-medication as "citizen science," the risk is worth it if it means not having to endure debilitating pain and suicidal thoughts on a regular basis.

"We're basically experimenting on ourselves," said Mann, an Austin-based filmmaker who's worked as a camera operator on shows like CNN's High Profits and TLC's My 600-lb Life. "We're using ourselves as guinea pigs because we don't have any other options. We can either just live in pain or we can try and fix it ourselves."

A cluster headache sufferer receiving Oxygen Therapy

Since he started taking psychedelic mushrooms as medicine about three years ago, Mann, now 37, says the cluster headaches have all but come to a halt, occurring something like every year and a half as opposed to multiple times a day. He calls mushrooms a "wonder drug." And yes, even though he's technically ingesting them in the name of science, he still hallucinates every time. "Oh, I trip balls," he said. "You get used to it. It's just like taking a pill."

Of course, not every cluster headache sufferer wants to break the law or trip balls just to get some relief—and not everyone believes psychedelics will be beneficial to them. The absolute dearth of reliable treatment options is part of the reason Mann has decided to make a documentary about what it's really like to suffer from cluster headaches. He hopes the project, dubbed "Clusterheads" and funded largely using donations from sufferers, will draw more attention to the condition and ultimately help sway the US government to invest more money and resources into studying it.

"A cluster headache is like sawing your arm off with a rusty saw with no anesthesia." — Tyler Mann

Cluster headaches, named for their occurrence in cycles or groups, were first documented in the 18th Century. In a scientific paper, the Dutch-Austrian physician Gerard van Swieten described a middle-aged patient who suffered from the condition every day at the same hour as feeling "as if his eye was protruding from its orbit with so much pain that he became mad."

The British neurologist Wilfred Harris is credited with publishing the first complete medical description of cluster headaches in 1926. In it, he observed that the attacks could last for anywhere between ten minutes and several hours and might strike patients at the same time every day, recurring for weeks and then disappearing for months at a time (these are now referred to as episodic) or in some cases, every day for years on end (now called chronic). The pain, he wrote, was "likened to a knife being driven in through a point between the outer canthus of the eye and the hair line," far more intense and debilitating than even the most serious migraine.

"Some people say it's like an ice pick going through their eyeball," Mann told me. But for him, he said, "it's more like somebody drilling into my skull through my temple and scraping around in the inside of my skull and the back of my eye."

The number of people who suffer from cluster headaches is still relatively unknown. The World Health Organization estimates that cluster headaches affect fewer than one in 1,000 adults, often developing after the age of 20 and occurring disproportionately among men. That's roughly in line with a commentary published in the Journal of Neurology & Stroke in 2015 estimating that 400,000 people in the US and 7 million people worldwide were sufferers.

Still, those numbers are likely underreported since it's not uncommon for patients like Mann to go years without a confirmed medical diagnosis. "There's thousands of other people who are just like me who have this condition who don't know what it is," Mann said. "Some of them have probably committed suicide because of it. They just didn't know what it was and were living in pain and didn't know how to treat it."

For all the pain and suffering that comes along with it, cluster headaches remain largely a mystery to the medical community today. Doctors still don't know exactly what causes it or why, and supposedly preventive measures such as deep brain stimulation—or surgically implanting the equivalent of a pacemaker in the brain—remain experimental at best and expensive and ineffective at worst.

Meanwhile, treatments like oxygen therapy, which are believed to abort the headaches essentially by inducing hyperventilation through an oxygen mask, are only short-term remedies. Plus, they can be costly, Mann says, with few if any insurance companies covering it specifically as a treatment for cluster headaches.

"Getting mushrooms is actually easier than getting oxygen, believe it or not," he said.

But it doesn't have to be that way. In the last several years, grassroots groups like ClusterBusters—a nonprofit that was started in the early 2000s by sufferer Bob Wold after he discovered hallucinogens had helped his cluster headaches—have joined an annual advocacy event called Headache on the Hill. At the event at the US Capitol next month, the so-called cluster headache sufferers will meet with members of Congress to lobby for more research and funding through the National Institutes of Health, which they believe has long overlooked cluster headaches as a serious nerve condition.

Part of the problem is that "it's not a public-facing disease," Mann explained. "It's very much in the closet." Even the name of it is particularly misleading, or at least extremely understated. If a regular headache caused by a hangover or allergies is "like getting a paper cut on your finger," he says, then "a cluster headache is like sawing your arm off with a rusty saw with no anesthesia."

ClusterBusters at a Headache on the Hill event in Washington, DC

So far, progress has been slow. Sufferers like Mann expect an uphill battle with the Trump administration, which may seek to roll back marijuana legalization at a time when scientists are finally started to study the medicinal benefits of hallucinogenic drugs. But there are small victories worth celebrating: A landmark 2006 Harvard University study, for example, showing that LSD and psilocybin—the psychedelic compound found in mushrooms—had benefited sufferers of cluster headaches. The study of 53 patients, which Clusterbusters took credit for as a result of their lobbying, found that 22 of 26 psilocybin users reported that the drug had aborted their headache attacks.

"It's life changing, honestly," said Mann. "Without the psychedelics, I don't even know if I would still be here on this Earth, and I have the people in ClusterBusters and the Facebook support group [to thank] for that."

As they push to be taken seriously, "cluster heads" all over the world have banded together like a ragtag group of skull-rattling outsiders, sometimes with no else to rely on but each other and their own amateur insights. In Facebook groups, on message boards, and at an annual conference, they share their own stories of pain, experimentation, and recovery—one mushroom trip at a time.

Follow Jennifer Swann on Twitter.

We Asked People to Tell Us About the Most Elaborate Lie They Ever Told

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People lie for a lot of reasons: it helps them appear cool, gets them laid, helps avoid trouble, and controls the way others perceive them. But as any teenager with a boyfriend who goes "to another school" will tell you, lying can be hard work. The bigger the lie, the faster things can get completely, hilariously out of hand. We asked people to tell us about the most elaborate lies they've ever told, and their answers might make you rethink that "sick day" you were planning to take on Friday.

Progress Retort

It was the day before I knew I was going to get a terrible progress report, and I was willing to do anything to avoid going to school. My dad was an ER nurse and had a lot of medical textbooks laying around the house, so I spent a few hours reading up on the symptoms of appendicitis. On the morning of, I woke up complaining of a pain in my lower right side. My mom knew progress reports were due, and she called my bluff—but I was committed. After school, I continued to complain about the pain, adding in details I'd read about tell-tale signs of appendicitis. My mom still didn't believe me. I was lying on the couch complaining about my fake pain when my baby cousin accidentally smacked her arm on my stomach, and I let out a howl. My aunt was alarmed by this, and told my mom to take me to the hospital immediately.

When we got there, I was immediately admitted after I told them a detailed list of my symptoms. I had to get an enema, and I had to be poked with every kind of needle for blood work. Even though they found nothing in the test results, they decided to do emergency surgery to remove my appendix anyway since I was in "so much pain." There was no way for me to turn back—and my mom felt awful for not believing me. I was in too deep. Instead of being grounded for a bad progress report, I had an unnecessary, invasive surgery and weeks of painful recovery. - Isabelle, 33

Faint Praise

I was supposed to go with my mom to visit my grandma for the weekend, but I really didn't want to go. I'd hoped that she'd leave me at home alone. My constant complaining did nothing to move her, so I made the logical choice to fake a fainting spell in the middle of my French class the day we were supposed to leave.

After practicing with my friends the night before, I waited until there was a lull in conversation and collapsed onto the floor in the most dramatic way possible. The entire class freaked out as I laid still on the floor until my teacher ran over and frantically shook me "awake." Instead of sending me straight to the nurse's office, she dragged me out into the hallway and berated me for having what she thought was an eating disorder. She told me I "looked like the kind of girl who would stop eating because it's fashionable," and grilled me for 15 minutes on everything I'd eaten that day before finally sending me to the nurse. Sadly, my apparently failing health made my mother more determined not to let me out of her sight for the weekend, so off to grandma's we went. - Amanda, 27

Yoyo a No Go

I was 20 years old and working a shitty cook job in Austin, Texas, when I read about a music festival—the first ever Yoyo a Go Go—happening in Olympia, Washington. I had to go, but I knew work wouldn't allow me to take off an entire week, so I came up with a simple lie about a family-related emergency, knowing full well I'd have to tell another when I couldn't get back on time. On the Monday I was supposed to return, I was still AWOL; by Wednesday, they were calling my emergency contacts, so I needed some explanation. At this point, I recognized I was likely not coming home to a job, so I decided to go huge and tell the Mother of All Whoppers.

I called my roommate and fed him the following story to tell my manager: During my two days home, I'd gotten into a scuffle with some skinheads, and they'd kidnapped me. That was it. They were keeping me in an undisclosed location and the authorities had been notified, but there was no way to know when I'd be released.

When I finally got back to Austin, I knew I had a few checks waiting for me at the restaurant, but I was worried about picking them up for obvious reasons. When I finally went in to pick up my money, everyone froze—and then they started cheering like I was a conquering hero returning from the battlefield. They'd all been so worried about me! The manager asked if I could start again the next day; I said yes and worked there another year. No one ever asked for the details of my skinhead kidnapping, and to this day I don't know if it's because they could see through the bullshit, didn't care, or thought it might be triggering. - Sean, 42

Exam Scam

I didn't prepare for an important final exam, and needed to come up with something quick. On the way to class, I pulled over on the highway until a cop showed up. My registration was expired, and I figured now was a good time to deal with it. When an officer arrived, I told him my car had broke down, and copped to needing new registration. He filled out a report, I had my working car towed to a garage where it was inspected, and I drove home. The next day, I showed my professor the police report, and it got me the extension. It was the last day of finals, too, so I got an extra two months to take the exam. - Jim, 25

Smokey McJenner

My awful friend Jenny invited me and two other friends to a small birthday dinner at a fancy restaurant. We got there on time, but she was an hour late (again, she's awful). Half an hour into dinner, her boss showed up with Brody Jenner and his laughably big entourage in tow. (Jenny does PR for a shitty nightclub, and Brody was doing a DJ set there later that night.) Jenny's boss invited her to come sit with them, and she did, leaving us by ourselves because there was no room at Brody's table.

By this point, we were obviously pissed. Jenny had reserved a table with bottle service for us at her shitty club for post-dinner drinks, but there was no way in hell we were going to that after being ditched. When we'd finished eating, we told Jenny we would meet her at the club. Instead, we went to a different bar.

Jenny called and texted us 50 times each. She was alone at the reserved table at her workplace on her birthday. The next day, when she demanded an explanation, I texted her to say we'd been arrested and ticketed for smoking weed in an alley behind the restaurant (?!?!), and that's why we never made it. She didn't believe me, and we haven't spoken since. - Jane, 26

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Why Millennials Don't Run for Office

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Millennials have a lot going on. They're poorer than their parents were, they aren't buying property, they've been described as apathetic, asexual, and even lacking basic survival skills. Stereotypes of the current generation paint them as lazy but also beset by forces beyond their control, a bunch of emotionally stunted twentysomethings scrolling blankly through their phones because that's all they can do.

That archetype might not hold up to scrutiny, but according to Shauna L. Shames, an assistant professor of political science at Rutgers, it is true that few millennials have any interest in running for public office. Her book about the topic, Out of the Running: Why Millennials Reject Political Careers and Why it Matters, out January 31, features interviews with promising young adults who've gone to top schools but who refuse to get into politics because they see it as something that can't be fixed. (It's worth noting that a number of liberal groups are trying to change this.)

I spoke to her by phone recently to find out why these millennials rejected the most prominent kind of public service, how society can fix this problem, and why women of color are particularly opposed to running for office.

VICE: Why do you think millennials are not interested in running for office?
Shauna L. Shames: The people I interviewed or talked to are very elite. They're from Harvard Law, Harvard Kennedy School, and Suffolk Law School. The schools I picked are the ones most likely to send their graduates into politics. If these people don't want to run for office I expect the larger population of millennials to feel these things more strongly.

Among millennials there's a feeling that technology and particularly internet-based technology can solve a lot of problems; I think government feels outdated to a lot of young people. It feels not useful. It feels inefficient and ineffective—but to me that's painful. I'm a political scientist and I really strongly believe there's things only the government can and should be doing. There's all kinds of public goods that don't get produced by themselves in the marketplace.


How does government suffer from these people not running?
I think there are a lot of really earnest and thoughtful and dedicated people who run for office, but there's also right now a huge amount of gridlock, hyper-partisanship, and people who are elected that have no business being there. It's very much in our interest to have more competition and a better crop of candidates that makes democracy work better. My fear right now is young people are just turning away from politics and rejecting it. In the book I go out of my way and say how awful we have made running for office and politics in general at the national level right now. I don't fault millennials for not wanting political careers, but it ends up in a vicious cycle where we then don't get a good government that we would want.

How can we get young people more interested in running for office?
Higher rewards and lower cost would be a recipe to make a lot more millennials interested in running for office. I think if we could get young people involved through internships, through volunteering, maybe through clubs and civic groups, we could show them the rewards of politics. They could see firsthand that politics is actually people getting together to make the world better, that's what politics should be. Yes, it can be contentious and yes, it can be a lot of people disagreeing, but there's exhilaration to that too. There's something exciting about even if you don't agree, you're working together.

We could decrease the cost in a lot of ways. We could do public funding of campaigns, because it turns out that having to spend up to 70 percent of your time calling people to ask for money just so you can run a campaign sounds disgusting to young people, and I don't blame them. It's like signing up to make yourself a telemarketer. I think it's up to us to reform the system to make it far less costly. Also, the idea that your friends and your family will be subject to an invasion of their privacy [if you run for office] feels disgusting to a lot of young people.

I think a lot of them found this election disgusting. It's tough to blame them. I think it was a really distasteful election. Young people often don't vote—that's a longstanding trend over time—but if they like the candidate, they vote. For example, they voted much more in 2008 and 2012. I don't think either candidate inspired young people much this election and I do understand why, but I'm sad about it. I don't think the baby boomers were inspired either, but they know you have to vote even though you're not in love with either candidate.

What did your research tell you about women of color and why they are opposed to running for office?
They were the group least likely to want to run for office and that's scary for the country, because it means that we could get an even more unrepresentative government if women of color don't run. I think our country needs women of color in charge right now, a different set of life experiences and perspectives at the table. The problem, in addition to the higher costs [of running for office], was the lower rewards for women of color. They were the least likely to see politics as useful in solving the kinds of problems they thought were important. That was a question on the survey. It was largely the black and Hispanic women who stood out in this case and did not see politics as useful in solving problems—and that breaks my heart.

They felt like they wouldn't get a fair shot at [winning office] and unfortunately a lot of the social science research we have on things like implicit bias suggest that they might be right. If you look at just the cost side of the equation the women of color generally felt more keenly aware of some of the costs that everybody felt. Nobody likes the idea of having to raise all this money, but women of color liked it even less than both white women and men of color. They also saw far more racism and racial bias for example than even men of color or the white women. I thought that was fascinating.

This was more about gender than race—for the women of color race came into it, but it added to what they felt was kind of a female disadvantage. I think women of color are our future in this country. I think that's where our demographics are headed. I welcome that.

The men of color, at least the ones that I spoke to, did not see as much racial bias and part of that might be because of Obama. These young people came of age politically with Obama's rise into the presidency. There might be kind of an Obama effect, but it seemed weirdly only to apply to them.

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The Other 'Yellow Fever' – Why Are Some People Exclusively Attracted to Asian Women?

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(Top collage: Marta Parszeniew. Images: John Kline, via; Baldwin Saintilus, via; Michell Zappa, via; Antoine Taveneaux, via;

I once asked my first boyfriend what his friends thought about me. Apparently they were amused that he was dating a Chinese girl, and teased him about "riding her like a Kawasaki". I was humiliated by their crude fixation on my ethnicity, and they didn't even get it right.

Growing up in New Zealand, I often grappled with being different. I never believed in Santa and rice was my go-to starch. By my late teens, I realised that being Chinese also gave me a typecast sexual identity: bashful, privately kinky and rumoured to be in possession of an extra snug, sideways vagina.

I first heard murmurings about "yellow fever" at university. I wasn't surprised that a piece of slang had been coined for men – and, it seems, predominantly white men – who harbour a special affection towards Asian women; we all know a guy whose dating history reads like a copy of the Chinese Yellow Pages. Plus, there are other hints out there: several niche dating websites cater to those seeking Asian women; in Pornhub's 2016 Year in Review, "Japanese" and "Asian" took pride of place alongside "lesbian" and "step-mom" in the top 20 search terms; and if you're a woman of Asian heritage, you might have had the pleasure of being approached by someone who thought using the phrase worked, in some inexplicable way, as a chat-up line.

So we know that so-called "yellow fever" exists. The question I've always wanted to ask is: why?

Dr Ed Morrison, a senior lecturer in evolutionary psychology at Portsmouth University, says the main evolutionary theory for mate selection is "optimal outbreeding" – that "the best mate is one who is similar to you, but not too similar". We usually choose people from the same sub population, but avoid genetic relatives because of the risk of mutations in offspring.

It makes sense that white men could be attracted to Asian women because they're sufficiently genetically different. But there has to be more to the picture, especially when it comes to men who are exclusively attracted to Asian women. As Morrison points out, "Even in multicultural societies, you are more likely to end up with someone of your own race."

If "yellow fever" isn't merely a product of how people are wired, where does it come from? Like all great mysteries of human behaviour, there's another vital ingredient here mingling with our evolutionary history and genetic predispositions. This ingredient, of course, is culture.

Compelling arguments tracing the historical origins of "yellow fever" have been made elsewhere. But I'm curious about the influence of porn. If you've ever watched mainstream Asian porn (and of course you have), you'll be aware of its USP. Japanese porn in particular portrays women as meek, hyper-feminine and virginal – but also yielding readily to sexual advances. And lord, the squealing. No other category of porn has its stars wailing at such a volume.

It's obvious to me that these pigtailed actresses are, well, acting. As an Asian woman, I can say conclusively that penises do not make me cry. Erika Nishimori, a part-time Japanese porn actress, confirms that the giggly reluctance and pitchy shrieks are part of the job. "I play embarrassing gestures. It is acting to cry and be scared," she says. "I am making it so that men get excited. There are few such things in truth."

So there we have it: Asian porn isn't real life. But like every other flavour of porn that hyper-sexualises women, distorted portrayals of Asian women could shape beliefs about what Asian women are really like. A recent study from the UK revealed that the majority of boys believed porn was realistic. What could this mean for Asian porn aficionados? According to Dr Elena Martellozzo, co-author of the study and criminologist at Middlesex University, "If boys are repeatedly exposed to pornography where women are extremely subservient and submissive, it can be argued that they may have inappropriate expectations of women in their sexual relationship." To make matters worse, the submissive stereotype also thrives in mainstream media, where Asian women in theatre, films, books and TV are consistently characterised as subservient, vulnerable, hyper-sexual creatures.

The discomfort of misrepresentation runs deep here. Perhaps toes or clowns turn you on; and fine: your sexy time is your own business if it's consensual and no one's getting hurt. But I'm not so cool with people being sexually attracted to Asian women if that attraction is fuelled by beliefs that we're delicate flowers, exotic but unthreatening, shy but open to coercion, servile and, perhaps most troublingly of all, childlike.

Models at the AVN Awards 2016, including a number of Japanese porn stars (Photo: Baldwin Saintilus, via)

With porn being a multi-billion dollar industry in Japan alone, skewed representations are likely to stick around. Like my old economics teacher Mr Warren used to say of his beloved "market for chocolate milk" example: whenever there's demand, supply will flow.

So does this mean that all white guys attracted to Asian girls have had their minds warped by an onslaught of Asian porn?

Max* likes Asian women, and puts it down to being attracted to physical features like dark hair and slender frames. He's well aware of the stigma, and has "learned the hard way that admitting you like Asian women as a white man is looked down upon". Adam* is also "exclusively attracted to women with Asian features", but thinks "yellow fever" is idiotic. "Do white men who only like white women have white fever?" he asks rhetorically.

I get their point. If their attraction to Asian women is only physical, is it that different to declaring that you like redheads or curvy women? I understand the logic, but I'm not convinced it's that clear-cut. For one, it's overly simplistic to say you're attracted to the physical features of Asian women. This erroneously implies that Asian women are homogeneously petite, dark-haired and wrinkle-less. I also wonder if attraction can ever be "purely physical", or whether we're actually subconsciously making assumptions about personality whenever we assess appearance.

Ultimately, the reasons why people are drawn to each other are exceedingly complex. Dr David Frederick, assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University, studies how biological and social factors influence attraction. Further to the submissive stereotype, he hypothesises that a whole host of factors could contribute to the development of an Asian preference. For example, when white men have largely grown up around white women "Asian and other ethnic minority women [may] appear novel and exciting". Frederick also points out that good relationships can be positively reinforcing. "If a man has a particularly positive relationship with an Asian woman, this may increase his preference for Asian women," he says. "The physical features typical of Asian women can become paired with feelings of reward and pleasure, leading men to preferentially seek out relationships with Asian women in the future."

With so many conceivable explanations, the one thing I know for sure is that attraction cannot be reduced to umbrella terms like "yellow fever". I'm not keen on a term that indiscriminately labels men and objectifies women at the same time. I once heard a guy being diagnosed with "yellow fever" by his friends because he showed appreciation for an Asian woman passing by. Why was there a knee-jerk reaction to sexualise her ethnicity, like those stupid boys did when they compared me to a Japanese motorcycle? Surely a man can find an Asian woman attractive without necessarily having a deep-rooted and dodgy "thing" for Asian women.

Branding people with "yellow fever" is, in and of itself, pretty offensive. The term is used haphazardly and it commodifies Asian women. It might seem like a catchy little label, but it's not really that witty or accurate to conflate being attracted to Asian women with having a potentially deadly viral haemorrhagic disease. Even if our vaginas were particularly snug and magically sideways, they're not going to kill you.

* Names have been changed.

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10 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask an Albino

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This article originally appeared on VICE Netherlands

Albinism is a pretty well-known condition. What's not such common knowledge that it can involve much more than just pale skin and whitish hair. There are two main forms of albinism – one that affects just someone's eyes, and another that affects the skin, hair and eyes. There are four common types of that last form, Oculocutaneous Albinism or OCA. Someone with one type can have very white hair, pale skin and light-coloured irises, where another type is less severe and might not affect the hair. Albinism also often goes with nystagmus – involuntary eye movements. In the UK, approximately 1 in 17.000 people have the genetic condition.

Rosa de Groot, a 23-year-old from The Netherlands, has OCA 2, which means her hair is light and she has nystagmus. I spoke to her about what life is like if you're albino.

VICE: What was the moment you realised you looked different to other people?
Rosa de Groot: I've always known that I'm different. My sister has albinism too and my parents were always open about it to us. In elementary school I had a table at a special angle so I could read without having to bend over my desk all the time. But I specifically remember one moment talking to my mum one time when I was about nine, and saying something to her about having a car when I was grown-up. "Rosa," she said, "you'll never be allowed to drive a car."

What bothers you most about having albinism?
The most annoying thing is that I can't make out things at a distance. Once something is more than 20 inches away, it's blurry. It's just very frustrating, for example, when I'm taking a train and I have to stand extremely close to an information board to see where a train is going. I've often missed trains because I want to make sure I'm getting on the right one and have to walk all the way back to the information board. And friends or acquaintances tend to get insulted when they say hi to me from a distance but I don't say it back because I don't see or recognise them.

Have people ever been afraid of you because of the way you look?
Not afraid, but some people do get uncomfortable when they don't know how to look me in the eye. My eyes tend to go in every direction at once, and that's always the first impression people have of me. Some people gather from that that I have albinism; others just assume that I'm not right in the head.

What are the dumbest questions you get?
I find it particularly stupid when people ask me if glasses wouldn't help me see better. If they did, don't you think I would be wearing them? Another annoying one is: "Aren't your eyes red?" You can see clearly that they aren't, so why ask, moron? I usually try to politely laugh it off, though.

Does your condition stop you from doing things other people can do?
It has been very hard to find a job. During my gap year I applied for so many but was rejected everywhere because of my poor sight. I can't work in a restaurant, for example, because I can't see depth. I can't tell if people have finished their meal, while walking around with a tray filled with breakable stuff isn't a great idea either. I hate it that the moment people find out I'm albino they don't want me any more. One time, when I applied for a job as a cashier in a supermarket, they were so nice and positive over the phone and that changed completely the moment I walked in for the interview. The guy asked about my eyes immediately, and when I told him I have albinism, he said: "Okay, never mind then."

Do you ever try to hide it?
I never wore any mascara until I was about 20. When I don't wear it my eyelashes are white and there's not much expression in my face. I've considered dying my hair, too – not to mask anything, but because I'm curious what my hair would look like, because it's colourless. If I dye it red, would it be this extremely red colour?

Would you ever be attracted to an albino yourself?
Other than my sister, I've never met anyone else with albinism. The idea of two of those white heads walking down the street together just seems weird to me, but it would totally depend on the person. I don't pay that much attention to people's looks because I know from experience that it's more important to see someone's personality.

Do you ever go on holiday to sunny places?
Sure, I love going to Spain. I don't melt away completely when I'm in the sun for more than two minutes, and I don't burn to a crisp. I just use a lot of sunscreen – SPF 30, all day long.

What are the pros and cons of having albinism?
I'm not happy about my eyesight, because of what people say and just the fact that I can't see as well as other people. But I'm really happy with my hair colour – it's pretty and unique. When I go on holiday I get comments about my hair colour all the time. People call me Lady Gaga and want to take pictures with me.

Albinism is a genetic condition; how would you feel if your children inherited it from you?
There's about a 30 percent chance that I pass it on to my children. It's a difficult decision, because I know how hard life can be when you have bad eyesight. Having albinism does give you a different perspective on the world and I definitely think it's a beautiful thing. But I might find it troubling for my child to see so little, be bullied and not able to find a job – like me. I studied journalism for two years, and I spent those years bending over my laptop too deeply, which led to chronic pain in my back and neck. I worked so hard to pass my classes that I might have fucked up those muscles forever. I wouldn't want my child to have to go through that, too.

Thanks, Rosa.

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Last Night's London Protest Shows How to Fight Trump

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All photos by Oscar Webb. Click here for more photos from last night.

There's always something faintly weird about the cops guarding Downing Street. These are, presumably, the best of the best, but (maybe as a result) they always look faintly inhuman – not even in the usual way cops might look inhuman (body armour and visors and the cold menace of implacable authority), but more like pug dogs or garden gnomes, clutching their guns and staring with sad, uncomprehending eyes at traffic and tourists through the slits on the gate that separates them from the world. They have their job, and everything else is either baffling or irrelevant. I saw that look on quite a few of the cops standing around yesterday's vast and sudden protest against Trump's Muslim travel ban and our own government's complicity in it: the look of someone not sure if they're meant to join in with the demonstration or wade into the mass of people, clubs swinging. The look of a creature that doesn't know what it's supposed to do.

They're not alone; so few of the old rules make sense any more. In America, the cops are staging a slow and piecemeal riot. Executive orders are telling them to refuse entry to anyone from a list of seven Muslim-majority nations; rulings by federal judges are telling them to let the people they're holding free immediately. The state is no longer speaking with one voice, and in the gaps surplus sadism trickles through. Are dual nationals exempt? Our government says yes; the US Embassy says no. In some airports Yemenis and Iranians are being sent back on the next available flight; in others they're being detained for long hours, aggressively questioned and then released.

But everywhere strange stories are emerging: travellers turned away simply for getting a connecting flight through a Muslim country, one that isn't even on the list; legal US residents being forced to sign away their green cards; lawyers being denied access to those detained, even with a court order. It's not a matter of these people simply following unethical orders. The orders don't make sense, and in this sudden legal void people find themselves with something terrifying – a choice. Like so many, the border cops are using this freedom to project a grim facsimile of order, to inflict needless harm on other people. But there are others.

That's why the protests at Downing Street were so heartening. Of course, all the usual caveats about street protest apply. There were some embarrassing people with terrible signs and the strange idea that since we're on the brink of full-scale civilisational collapse, this would be a good time to make a Harry Potter reference. The whole great mass of people mostly politely went back home at around half past eight. And there wasn't any real sense of what this protest would achieve, beyond registering the displeasure of a population unlikely to actually burst through the gates of Downing Street, topple the government and start the work of dismantling Trump's imperial power worldwide.

Theresa May, our screeching tight-faced banshee-ruler, one claw wedged tight in Trump's clammy pig's-knuckle fist, is not going to cancel the state visit. Not for a million and a half petitioners, not for tens of thousands of protesters in just about every British city, not for her own MPs, not for anyone. We're foreign citizens, trying to stop the excesses of a country that has decided to no longer care what foreigners think about it. We don't know how to stop all this viciousness from happening; we don't, in the end, know exactly what to do.

But even so, people were determined to do something. The protest in London was called less than two days before it actually began, and it was vast. In the gloomy Bond villain lair or Westminster tube station, every escalator was broken down, and all of them were packed with protesters (some of them standing patiently on the right-hand side, waiting for a broken machine to carry them upwards – complete the political metaphor yourself). In the ticket hall a protest march in miniature shuffled towards the gates, already lifting placards and chanting slogans. Outside, the crowd stretched from the station steps all along Whitehall. The great palaces looked strangely spooky, as all buildings haunted by the state do, dark against the unhealthy gleam of London's night sky. And in the huddled closeness of the evening, despite the sheer number of people and the constant noise of their chants, the protest felt a little furtive, conspiratorial; it was frantic, desperate and alive. The hoary Trotskyites that usually dominate these things were all present, as were the career activists trudging through the latest in an endless series of fruitless marches, but far more were on the first or second protest of their lives: people who saw a world going badly wrong, and were determined to do something to fix it.

We're living in a strange moment, and it demands first of all the abandonment of a certain cynicism. There's the temptation to ask where these people have been all this time, when the British government was sending LGBT refugees to their deaths, when people were dying on deportation flights or being raped by contractors at Yarl's Wood. Why have they only come out now, in response to the edicts of a foreign autocrat, when everything here has been so deeply fucked for so long? None of this is wrong, exactly. But any serious movement needs first to constitute a social base and a collective subject – and with the old division of labour crumbling into millions of particles, unwilling entrepreneurs drawing precarious boundaries around themselves, this is how you do it. You bring people into the streets, together, to make a demand. Once the angry and disconsolate are no longer atomised, once it's been decided that something must be done, once they've made themselves into a weapon, that weapon might find out how it works.

@sam_kriss

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More Than 100 Food and Farm Groups Join Together to Oppose Trump’s Labor Secretary Pick

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Fast-food CEO Andrew Puzder, President Trump's nominee for Labor Secretary, could be a very big problem for restaurant and other food-industry workers. Puzder's record of opposition to increasing the minimum wage, dispensing mandatory paid overtime, and upholding other workers' rights regulations make him a contentious choice to defend the very laws he so vociferously opposes.

Now, Puzder's confirmation hearings have been delayed—for the fourth time—while workers' and women's rights organizations continue to protest his nomination.

Puzder's hearing, was set for January 12, then January 17, then February 2—and is now scheduled to take place on February 7, according to a statement released by Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee. Alexander is the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committee, which must approve Puzder's nomination before it goes to the full Senate for vote.

The committee says it is still waiting for Puzder to complete his application paperwork; according to The Washington Post, Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, wrote a letter to Puzder stating that the committee wants it now—including tax statements, which, of course, is a potential sore point for a Trump nominee, given the President's repeated refusal to release his own tax returns. Nominees are not required to submit tax returns by law, but the Senate has traditionally requested these forms for some nominees.

Read more on MUNCHIES

It’s Time for Justin Trudeau to Stop Tweeting and Show Donald Trump Some Backbone

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We are a little over a week into Donald Trump's America, and so far it is as much of an absolute horrorshow as he had been promising for the entirety of his presidential campaign. Every day you wake up to a new fresh hell—The Donald sitting in the Oval Office, ringed by a cadre of ghouls, gleefully signing executive orders to upend global abortion provision or eviscerate financial regulations or build that psychotic, Pharaonic Wall along the Mexican border. There is no State Department and Stephen fucking Bannon is on the Security Council. Welcome to the own zone, population everyone.

Then, to cap off a successful first week, Trump signed an order temporarily banning citizens (and international students, and business travellers, and green card holders, and…?) from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States, and putting the intake of Syrian refugees on ice indefinitely. The institutions responsible for organizing or enforcing this order were not aware that it was coming, consigning travellers to indefinite detention in airport customs and sparking massive protests across the country. Angela Merkel, the chancellor of Germany had to call Trump to explain the Geneva Convention on the rights of refugees. Protests raged across the country. The American executive declared open war on dissenters in its ranks. A constitutional crisis is imminent.

We are—again—less than two weeks in.

Against this backdrop of malicious idiocy, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal marketing machine sprang into action. The prime minister bravely tweeted "to those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you regardless of your faith. Diversity is strength #WelcomeToCanada," which sounded enough like a direct, principled response to Trump's travel ban that it fooled a few major international news outlets, but was also vague enough for the Canadian government to avoid having to actually commit to anything. So, in other words, Peak Trudeau. To underscore this point, the prime minister also tweeted a photo of his meeting some Syrian refugees in November 2015, to demonstrate how much nicer of a guy he is than Donald Trump. (If he so chooses, Trudeau can also prove himself braver than the stair-phobic American president by tweeting that video of himself falling down a flight.)

But given Trudeau's willingness to trade on Canada's international reputation as benevolent liberal paradise for a few glowing retweets... The prime minister now has no choice now but to put up or shut up.

All of this conveniently ignores the fact that just a few weeks ago, Trudeau's government capped the quota of Syrian refugees private citizens or groups could sponsor to come to Canada in 2017 at 1,000—a quota which had already been reached by the time Trump announced his ban. As it turns out, the Wizard is always less magnificent when you glimpse the man behind the curtain.

But the universe is off its axis, and hideous irony is the order of the day. Barely a day after Trudeau proclaimed Canada as the world's new multi-culti city on a hill, a Quebec City mosque was devastated by an act of white nationalist terror that saw six people killed and 19 others injured by a masked gunman during evening prayer.

It is a nightmarish act that offends everything good and decent about human life, so obvious it was immediately used by the White House in the most monstrous way possible. The same day the prime minister stood in the House of Commons to offer love and solidarity to Canada's Islamic community, Sean Spicer appeared in Washington to cite the mass murder of Canadian Muslims as a justification for keeping Muslims out of the country. It could only be more cartoonishly villainous if he was literally tying a teenage girl to railroad tracks during the press conference.

Trudeau's government is very deliberately, very carefully, trying to walk a fine line with the new Trump administration. Between the upcoming NAFTA renegotiations, Canada's economic and military dependence on the U.S., Trump's thin-skinned, vindictive malice and his reckless disregard for every American institution at home or abroad, the prime minister is between a rock and a hard place. How does Trudeau stand up to Trump without incurring the president's bottomless wrath?

Diplomacy by its very nature involves keeping your head down and carefully choosing your battles. But given Trudeau's willingness to trade on Canada's international reputation as benevolent liberal paradise for a few glowing retweets—and Trump's willingness to trade on a Canadian hate-crime in order to indulge in America's darkest impulses—the prime minister now has no choice now but to put up or shut up.

Terry Glavin has suggested that the absolute least the federal government can do is resettle the 2,248 Syrian refugees that Trump has stranded in limbo; that is, if #WelcomeToCanada is more than just a cynical marketing ploy. Trudeau can do more—like raising the quota for both privately-sponsored refugees, hiring more people to handle the application backlog, or fulfilling his 2015 campaign promise of scrapping the discriminatory Safe Third Country Agreement—but they should, at the very least, genuinely speak out and help those actively left in the lurch.

Trudeau told us that Canada was back; the idea of Canada as a cosmopolitan wonderland premised on the basic principle that anyone, of any race, creed, language, gender, sexuality, ability, or nationality can live peacefully and cooperatively together. The rusted war machine of our settler-colonial state falls short of this vision every day. But it's the standard to which we hold ourselves, our political process, our identity as Canadians. It is the most valuable idea worth defending as we mark 150 years of Confederation's improbably continued existence in bed with the American Leviathan—now more than ever.

READ MORE: Justin Trudeau and Donald Trump Are Going to Be Hilariously, Dangerously Mismatched Neighbors

But who are we if we capitulate, if we are pressed into de facto collaboration with Donald Trump's unhinged proto-fascism? Who are we, really, If we choose to just endlessly jerk each other off in one smug hashtag after another while Rome and its citizens and charges burn below us?

Kellie Leitch is rightfully being taken to task for her present role in stoking the fire of Canadian xenophobia, and trying to distance herself from the human cost of playing with political fire. But we can't let Trudeau off the hook either. He is the prime minister. He has the power and the authority and the mandate and the duty to take a stand against Donald Trump, if he really believes any of the things he's spent his political life preaching.

It has been said that the hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. Personally, I imagine it's more like indefinite cosmic detention inside an American airport.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

The Only Way to Prevent Another Nuclear Strike Is to Get Rid of All the Nukes

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The cosmologist Stephen Hawking recently suggested that civilization is at a critical juncture in its short—on geological timescales—career. We live in the "most dangerous time for our planet" due to climate change, the sixth mass extinction, and emerging technologies—and if we fail to proceed with great caution and wisdom, our species could follow the dodo into an existential oblivion.

To alert the public of the greatest dangers facing humanity, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock in 1947. Its time represents our collective proximity to a global catastrophe. The closest the clock has ever been to midnight—or doom—was in 1953, after the US and Soviet Union detonated thermonuclear weapons. The furthest away it's been happened in 1991, when the clock stood at a somewhat reassuring 17 minutes before midnight, following the official end of the Cold War.

Unfortunately, the minute hand has been ominously ticking forward in recent years, and on January 26 the Bulletin announced that it would move the clock forward even more to a mere two and a half minutes before doom. The only time the clock has indicated a higher threat level was in 1953—a fact that should make one uneasy, at the very least, about our collective future on spaceship Earth. While the Bulletin originally considered only the threat of nuclear weapons, it recently added climate change to the list of global, transgenerational risks. Given President Donald Trump's reckless statements about nuclear proliferation and the Republican's rampant climate denialism, it should not come as a surprise that "doom-soon" is now more probable than it was a year ago.

Read more on Motherboard

Trump Fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for Refusing to Defend Immigration Order

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President Donald Trump fired the acting attorney general late Monday night following her public declaration that the department would not legally defend the president's controversial immigration executive order.

"Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration," the White House said in a statement late Monday that said Yates had "betrayed" the Justice Department. "It is time to get serious about protecting our country."

Trump's dismissal of the Sally Q. Yates, a career prosecutor and an Obama administration holdover while Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions awaits Senate confirmation, has created a leadership vacuum at the top of the federal government's chief law body.

The lack of an attorney general and the firing of the acting one further raises the ante on the Senate's vote on Sessions. The Judiciary Committee was expected to vote on the nomination Tuesday morning but several Republican Senators on the committee criticized Trump's executive order the last several days including Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska.

Continue reading on VICE News

The People, Placards and Dogs Protesting Trump and May in London Last Night

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(All photos: Oscar Webb)

Last night thousands gathered outside Downing Street to protest against both Donald Trump's Islamophobic travel ban and the fact that Theresa May's has refused to criticise it in any meaningful way. Protesters shouted "Shame on May" and "No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here", while waving placards and listening to speeches from politicians, campaigners and lawyers.

To read our write-up of the evening click here, and to see some of the best signs from last night keep on scrolling down.

@owebb


An Unnecessary Critical Analysis of the Posters and Signs from Last Night’s #MuslimBan March in London

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Sometimes the voice of dissent has to come from within, so: with the caveat that last night's march was objectively Good and the so-called "Muslim ban" enacted in the US this week is definitely Bad, with all that out of the way, with all of us aware of those two above facts, we have to all sit down cross-legged here and say: some of the signs at last night's Downing Street march really needed some work, guys.

I know! I know that's not the point! But sometimes someone has to say it! Someone has to pop their head above the parapet and take that hit full on! That someone is me! My skull is exploding to smithereens with the force of this sniper's bullet! I take it willingly, in the holy name of content!

So, I mean, on one side of the argument you have simply this: fun signs are very fun and everyone likes taking photos of them, and photos share the message, and galleries like "Funniest Protest Signs from the British #MuslimBanProtest" (The Poke) and "The People, Placards and Dogs Protesting Trump and May in London Last Night" (VICE) help keep protests and marches in the news for a few extra precious hours. So there's that.

And then on the other side of the gate you have this: the idea that fluffy sort of joke signs actually detract from the pure rage a lot of people are feeling, and that they are symptomatic of a protest movement made up largely of those who have never been moved to protest before, and that Actually Diluting Resistance Is Bad and Please Stop Making Fun of Our Terror. That sort of thing. And then, in the centre, you have me, going, "Ooh. Penmanship could do with some work. Did you start with a biro then move on to a Sharpie? Yeah. Yeah. Amateur hour, that. 3/10."

You see how signs can divide us as well as bring us together? You see? Don't you see this is exactly what they want? Well, anyway, here: let us, for absolutely no reason at all, judge the signs.

NEWS: THERESA LIKES FASCIST PIG

(All photos via Oscar Webb @owebb)

Let's start off with a softball, just to put a line in the sand; just to pelt some softballs out, to get our eyes and arms in, just to get a feel for the piece. This is a 5/10 sign: "Theresa Likes Fascist Pig" is a very clunkily constructed catchphrase, the kerning on the word "NEWS" is causing me very legitimate distress, the triple underline under "PIG" suddenly makes the sign fraught and emotional right at the end when the whole thing is being framed as a neutral news headline up until now (pick a conceit and stick to it, people!). No idea what that Trump/May printout is saying. Green tube holding the whole thing up.

So there are flaws. But also there is hope: unlike many people who unfolded their latest Amazon package and wrote on that, this protester has actually bought a large new piece of cardboard just for the march; there is clear effort, diligent colouring in on the "N", "E", "W" and "S"; the slightly-off-to-the-side printout suggests a lack of total planning, but a strong effort nonetheless. This is our benchmark. This is our halfway point. This sign is exactly OK.

5/10

HANDS TOO SMALL, CAN'T BUILD A WALL

Ah: so close; so, so close. Because, in theory, this sign is brilliant: a catchphrase often chanted throughout the night, the perfect combination of Trump condemnation (wall = bad) and ego-puncturing mockery (hands = minuscule). I've also got a lot of time for people who properly punctuate their resistance (that comma absolutely sings) and the attention to detail to ink the brick motif into the words "TOO" and "WALL" is just lovely. Great sign. Great, great sign. Sadly, I have to give it zero points because that green colour is absolutely abominable. I'm sorry! Buy better pens next time!

0/10

NO MUSLIM BAN

I think this is a really strong sign – clear, concise message, great colour scheme, eye-catching cardboard layout, beautiful penmanship to tuck that "L" in with the "I" – but also reckon that the choice to go two-handed with the sign, rather than one, probably ruined this person's night. How your shoulders holding up today, my friend? How many times did a run of like eight oblivious dudes just try and walk through the middle of your sign while you and a pal held it up? Good sign, great message, one too many handles. When backlashing against the leader of the western world we must always be thinking about the logistics.

8/10

TRUMPY NUMPTY &C.

I've been listening to a lot of talk radio to get me up in the mornings – Capital FM crew wya!!!!! Shout out to my boy Dave Berry!!!! – and as a result I now loathe the concept of rhyming, because that's what every single radio advertisement is. Ah, yes: a man slowly saying a poem about carpet. Ooh, what's this: someone reciting a poem about 50/50 wholemeal/white bread. No. I'm sick of it. Death to this. Death to rhyming.

And so sadly I have to project this personal prejudice onto this sign. I mean, it's a good sign: considered, a good metre tall, it's a big print that's been neatly glued to a larger, sturdier polystyrene backing. But it's a bit long to really read in a march situation and, sadly, I just feel that anyone who uses the word "numpty" in a derogatory way probably makes a really good moussaka and has a 20-minute argument in them about how punching Nazis is technically bad. Come on, mate. You're at a march literally opposing everything Trump stands for and has done. Cut the twee stuff and call him a cunt, like everyone else.

7/10

SWIPE LEFT THERESA

I saw this sign a few times last night, and, like, it really made me think: there I was, paused in a crowd, slightly swaying from side-to-side, looking at this sign and going: they got his age wrong. He's 70. And then: someone really got some designing done, this afternoon. They have a good printer. We are dealing with a pro, here. And then, finally finally finally, I was like: I do not understand this sign. What does this sign mean. Are… is Theresa May going to… f— you know what. You know what. It doesn't bear thinking about. I don't think international politics works like Tinder, but I did overhear two ladies asking idly aloud whether they could get this on a T-shirt. Who would wear that T-shirt, and why, I don't know, but. You know. Maybe stick it on Redbubble.

9/10 LITERALLY MADE ME THINK

HUGH GRANT WAS A BETTER PRIME MINISTER

The left will never win another war until it fucking moves on from the film Love Actually (2003). Jesus fucking Christ, lads, do you know there have been other films since.

1/10

TRUMP IS A WASTEMAN

Enjoying this for a number of reasons – actually took the time to make a hardy, cloth banner; invoking the small pocket of "you ain't a Muslim, bruv"-style likeable British culture; clear, concise message – but sadly loses half a point because of the number of times I heard someone behind me last night read it from a distance out to their mate while chuckling. I genuinely think I heard the sentence, "Trump is a wasteman. Heheh. Heh. Harvey. HARVEY! Look. 'Trump is a Wasteman.' Classic." about 60 times last night.

9.5/10

DUMP TRUMP

Nah, sorry. You Googled "Trump emoji" and printed out the fourth hit. Appreciate the effort taken to box out the sign with faint pencil guidelines so the font size stays consistent throughout, but sadly without citation this is plagiarism akin to theft, and I will be forwarding this photograph to the relevant authorities. See you in jail.

4/10

THE ART ONE

There were moments last night when I was walking through the crowds and I was transported, instantly, back to the time I used to work in an art school and tried to go to lunch at the same time as the thousands of students there – just so many multi-coloured puffa jackets, so many retro glasses frames, so much Uniqlo heat tech, so many backpacks the size of a Fiat, so many people walking into each other and not thru, so many berets, and also, for whatever reason, always some dude with a drum – and no more was that so than when I saw any placards that were art, done by an art doer or artist. I mean, this is nice, isn't it: lots of colours, the effort has gone in. The paper has curled a little, but that's what you get with water-based paint, and I kind of – really, really almost – get what it's saying. But then I'm pretty sure it's been masking taped to an Ocado box, so points lost there.

6/10 (PLEASE ADJUST THIS SCORE TO 20/10 IF BIG BEN'S HANDS ARE DELIBERATELY IN THE POSITION CURRENTLY OF THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK, BECAUSE IF SO THAT IS DOPE AND IT BELONGS IN THE LOUVRE)

WHITE SILENCE COSTS LIVES

I want to buy every single zine this gang has ever produced.

11/10

I WILL HAVE NO HAND IN THIS

Great linework, good hand pun, wonderful detailing on the fingers, magnificent serif font. Only loses points for a slightly cramped-up, definitely-added-this-one-on-the-tube-on-the-way-there addition of the #SAYNOTOFACISM hashtag. If we're judging this like a school project to make an effective poster – which I absolutely am, those are the only parameters I am judging this by – then that's what I have to pull you up on. Detracting from the message. An A, but not an A*.

9/10

THIS SHITSHOW

Your boy's printed this out on the office printer at the third time of asking – first time it came out printed portrait when it should have been landscape, scattered across four pieces of A3; second time it printed out five times on A4; third time someone picked it up with a load of invoices before he could get to it – and, yes, the intention is there: a since-deleted Pence tweet which, in the cold light of hindsight, is really very self-sabotaging, isn't it. But also you've cropped the top of the tweet off, the blue tick is all fuck-a-do, and I count eight staples – Eight! Staples! – affixing this to a ripped up piece of cardboard, no handle or pole. Come on.

-100/10

THIS DOG

The mind of a dog is an unknowable diamond locked in a pulsating body made of innocence and gold but… like. You don't know, do you? You don't know this dog hates Trump. What if this dog is like, "I have very legitimate questions about immigration that I would like answered!"? What if this dog is like, "Gun control is necessary, a gun ban isn't!"? What I am saying is: if this dog could talk, if science made that happen, would its first words be, "I'm not racist, but…"? No. Of course not. Dogs are angels. Good doggo, would protest again.

ONE MILLION/10

@joelgolby

More stuff about marches:

The People, Placards and Dogs Protesting Trump and May in London Last Night

Last Night's London Protest Shows How to Fight Trump

Why Theresa May Won't Condemn Trump

Lawyers Are Demanding Canada Pull Out From Post 9/11 Refugee Agreement With the United States

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Lawyer associations across the country are calling on the Canadian government to pull out of a border agreement made with the United States that prevents US-based refugees from seeking asylum at the US-Canada border, or at either of the country's airports.

Both the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and Quebec Association of Immigration Lawyers (AQAADI) released statements Monday arguing for the immediate withdrawal of Canada from the Safe Third Countries Agreement (STCA)—a piece of border policy signed by both the US and Canada after 9/11 that forces refugees to make their claim for refuge in the "first safe country."

What this means, essentially, is that US refugees—if denied their claim in the US—are not able to try their luck at the Canadian border or at connecting airports. This was to prevent deportees from escaping to Canada—a scenario that now is an incredibly real possibility under President Donald Trump's new executive orders on immigration, the association's claim.   

"The United States is clearly not a safe place for refugee claimants under the President's executive order," Josh Paterson, executive director of the BCCLA, said in a statement. "If Canada ships refugee claimants back to the United States, the United States has made clear that it will refuse their claims. Sending asylum-seekers back to the U.S. will put Canada in breach of its legal obligations under the Refugee Convention. Canada cannot respect international law and continue in this agreement with the United States at the same time."

"We call on the federal government to suspend the Safe Third Country agreement effective immediately."

The call comes amid increasing pressure from both Ottawa politicians and Canadian activists/lawyers on Justin Trudeau's administration to take a firmer stance against President Trump's aggressive immigration policy. Since last week, NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair has been relentless in trying to get Trudeau to publically denounce Trump's hateful rhetoric and policy decisions.

Trudeau, when questioned about Trump's increasingly-aggressive stance on immigrants and refugees, has deferred to focusing on Canada's role in taking care of the world's weakest.

"We are a strong, united people, who are generous and open because we have seen how much openness to the world and diversity not only makes us more prosperous, but more safe as a country and as communities," Trudeau said during Monday's Question Period. "I will continue to stand for Canadian values any chance I get, in this House and everywhere."

Last week, VICE spoke to immigration lawyer Raj Sharma, who explained how the consequences of Trump's executive orders on immigration could be substantial for Canada if it doesn't figure out a way to mitigate the risk of US-based refugees illegally crossing the Canadian border in order to bypass the restrictions of the STCA.

Sharma, noting the story of two Ghanian men who recently fled across the Manitoba border in order to escape what they saw as unjust deportation from the US (and lost ligaments to frostbite damage in the process), says that the issue is not only a political one, but also a matter of empathy and human rights.

"These are troubling times. There's going to be a lot of deportations. We should get ready to see many, many more [similar] cases to the one we saw in Manitoba," Sharma told VICE. "[W]e could have people fleeing [the US] in large numbers, and immigration officials might have to start denying them because it's not what many see as dangerous."

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

Does Trump Actually Care About Protests

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After an astonishing weekend in which Donald Trump banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the United States, and British prime minister Theresa May refused to condemn him or rescind an invitation for a state visit, thousands of protestors gathered outside Downing Street. VICE joined them to ask whether they thought Donald Trump actually cared they were there, and why Brits should be protesting the actions of an American leader.

The VICE Morning Bulletin

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

US News

Trump Voter-Fraud Source Registered in Three Different States
The man President Trump has cited as a credible source on voter fraud was apparently registered in three different states last year. Gregg Phillips, a board member of conservative group True the Vote who claimed at least 3 million people cast illegal votes in the 2016 elections, a claim repeated by Trump on Twitter, was apparently registered in Alabama, Texas, and Mississippi. He voted only in Alabama.—AP

Trump Fires Acting AG for Defying Immigration Order
President Trump has fired the acting attorney general, Sally Yates, after she told Justice Department lawyers not to attempt to defend his executive order on immigration and refugees. The White House said Yates had "betrayed" the department by refusing to enforce his order. Dana Boente, a US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, has been installed as the new acting attorney general.—VICE News

State Department Dissidents Prepare to Protest
Hundreds of foreign service officers in the State Department are said to be preparing a public demonstration opposing President Trump's executive order on immigration. The officers will condemn the order for standing "in opposition to the core American and constitutional values," according to a draft of a memo obtained by LawFare.—VICE News

Boy Scouts to Allow Transgender Recruits
The Boy Scouts of America will allow transgender boys to join by registering with their gender identity, marking a reversal of the previous policy accepting only those listed as boys on their birth certificate. In a statement, the organization explained the old approach was "no longer sufficient as communities and state laws are interpreting gender identity differently."—Chicago Tribune

International News

French Canadian Student Charged for Quebec Mosque Shootings
Twenty-seven-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette has been charged with the deaths of six Muslims at a Quebec mosque. The student, arrested on Monday after calling police to say he wanted to cooperate, faces six counts of first-degree murder and five of attempted murder for the Sunday attack. A second man was also arrested, but is no longer a suspect and is instead now considered a possible witness.—BBC News

Alleged Mastermind of Mumbai Attack Under House Arrest
Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, the man accused of orchestrating the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, has been placed under house arrest by Pakistani police. Saeed, founder of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba militant group, was held at his charity's headquarters before being taken to his home in Lahore. He maintains he had no role planning the attacks that saw 166 people killed by gunmen.—Reuters

Austria Moves to Ban Full-Face Veils in Public
The Austrian government wants to ban most face veils in public places, apparently determined to head off a right-wing political insurgency. The country's coalition is set to impose the ban on both the niqab and burqa and may impose it on public employees as well.—The Independent

Everything Else

Samantha Bee to Host Alternative Correspondents' Dinner
Samantha Bee has announced she will host an evening called the "Not White House Correspondents' Dinner" on April 29 as an alternative to the official press gala on the same night. Proceeds will go to the Committee to Protect Journalists. "Obviously, the press is under attack," the comedian explained.—VICE

Ben Affleck No Longer Director of Next Batman Movie
Hollywood mainstay Ben Affleck has announced he is stepping aside as director of the Warner Bros. project The Batman. Affleck will still star as the caped crusader in the movie, but said he "cannot do both jobs to the level they require."—Variety

Memo to EPA Staff Tells Them Not to Believe Media Reports
A leaked internal memo sent by a senior White House advisor to EPA staff tells them "much of what we see (in the news) is just not accurate." It follows a claims by the former EPA transition team leader Myron Ebell that the Trump administration would likely make major staff cuts.—Motherboard

Drake Puts Yolo Estate on the Market
Drake has reportedly placed his home in the Hidden Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles on the market for around $20 million. Dubbed the Yolo Estate, the house has appeared in several music videos.—Noisey

Prince Music Reportedly Coming to Spotify and Apple Music
Prince's back catalog, famously absent from most mainstream streaming services bar TIDAL, is reportedly being made available to Spotify and Apple Music on February 12. Purple Spotify banners have popped up in London and New York.—Noisey

Here Are All the Researchers and Doctors Barred from Entering the US

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On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) with US visas from entering the United States for 90 days. It also blocks refugees from these countries for four months and, in the case of people fleeing Syria, indefinitely. (The Department of Homeland Security clarified on Sunday that green-card holders from these countries would be permitted to enter the country following additional screening.) It's a humanitarian crisis and despite a federal judge ruling that some of the people who'd already arrived in the US can't be deported, there are still many being detained and others who've been barred from even getting on a flight here.

Immigrants contribute great things to the US, and there are more than 25,000 students and workers from these seven countries living here on temporary visas, including in the fields of medicine and science. More than 7,000 academics (including 40 Nobel Laureates) have signed a petition denouncing the immigration ban as discriminatory and detrimental to both national security and higher education and research. ProPublica reports that citizens of Iran and Iraq have more visas than people from the other five countries on the list and are disproportionately affected. The petitioners themselves note that, "From Iran alone, more than 3,000 students have received PhDs from American universities in the past 3 years."

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