This article first appeared on VICE UK.

In five short years, Uber has transformed our ability to get around. That means more than saving squiffy Londoners from the petrifying glare of the night bus in the small hours of Sunday morning. Thousands of businesses have switched their corporate spending power to Uber to transport workers across the capital, and the NHS is even considering using Uber to transfer non-emergency patients to and from hospital.

But while business is booming, the company has been plagued by negative news stories, from the #DeleteUber campaign to CEO Travis Kalanick being caught on video arguing with a driver about fares. There's also the issue of employment rights, with some drivers arguing they should be treated as Uber workers, benefitting from all that would entail: access to the national living wage, paid holidays and sick pay.

A spokeswoman at Uber told VICE that the vast majority of drivers say they want to be their own boss, but in October of last year two British Uber drivers – Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar – contested that in an employment tribunal. And they won, guaranteeing them basic rights to sick pay and holiday. Uber has since appealed the decision.

We asked Yaseen, who has since left Uber, if we should stop using Uber altogether, and what it's like to be behind the wheel when you and your wasted friends get in the car.

VICE: You have said many of the drivers in your union, United Private Hire Drivers, have suffered from depression and anxiety because of the work. Why is that?
Yaseen: If you have a driver working 90 hours a week, or seven 12-hour days, you don't get that quality time with your family and the mood is down all the time, so when you come home you don't really engage with your family. There is a high level of depression going on. It's to do with the trade and it's getting worse, because you've got no security, and if you've got a family there's a lot of pressure put on you. If I can't make my mortgage money this month, what do you do? You work longer and longer. This is why you get drivers driving tired.

You stop talking properly, your mind is not working properly, you're isolated, you start shaking when you're driving. They are all signs of low mood. Lots of drivers are stuck with this. But it's a pride thing – a lot of people don't like talking about it.

What do you think about the ruling that drivers must take an English test?
The problem with the English test is that many drivers can speak good English but might not be able to write to essay standard. You have people who have been doing this job for 15 or 20 years, who know their way around and are good drivers; they're suddenly out of a job.

It's going to temporarily sort the problem because TfL will see a reduction of licences being issued, but over time you're still going to get more drivers on the streets. How Uber works is they want to flood the streets with as many drivers as possible. As long as drivers have no workers rights, Uber has no commitments. If you have lots of drivers on the street it's good for Uber, it's good for the customers, but it's not good for the driver. You get drivers working longer and longer hours. [Uber told VICE they sign up new drivers to keep up with demand.]

Do people treat Uber drivers differently to minicab drivers?
Back in the day we would pick people up, drop them off, if the fare was £8 they would give you £10 and say thank you. Now it's become a culture thing where the customer controls you because of the rating. So you have to be nice to them.

Your Uber driver may smile and make conversation with you because they are afraid you'll rate them badly. When a driver hits 4.4, the threshold for being deactivated, they feel pressure to give out free drinks and sweets to try and push up their rating. That puts pressure on other drivers. Let's say one driver gave you sweets and opened the door for you, and the next driver didn't do that, you might rate them down. Uber doesn't force you to do this, but that's the way it works.

Why would a driver switch to Uber?
Drivers don't have any alternatives. All operators have been abusing drivers for years, which is why when Uber came to London drivers grabbed it with both hands, because they wanted to get away from controllers. But as Uber got hold of the market they started exploiting people at another level.

When I first started with Uber, around 2014, I was averaging £1,000 after expenses for around 40 hours, which was really good. We're not expecting the same, even if drivers are making £500 for the same time – that's good enough. But I've seen the prices go down three times. [Uber says UberX fares have only changed once, in August of 2014.]

What can users do?
We're not asking people to boycott Uber because it makes the situation worse, because you've got more drivers sitting on the street doing nothing. Tipping drivers is a good sign of appreciation. Especially around London, if people can tip drivers they would help.

But really the answer is for Uber to guarantee these drivers rights. I just don't see the prices being able to go back up again.

@HazelSheffield

Sunday evening saw the conclusion of Big Little Lies, HBO's wonderful seven-episode limited series that wasted no time sweeping up scores of captivated viewers. What could have been a tiresome outing—a group of affluent, caterwauling helicopter moms grappling with scandal in the ranks—proved to be a deeply felt, expertly paced puzzle that only grew more compelling with each hour-long installment. Last night, the show ended with a degree of feminist catharsis that feels uncommon in an era defined by political drudgery.

The satisfying finale stayed true to its source material (Liane Moriarty's book of the same name) while also functioning as a tiki-candle-lit showcase of the lead actresses' strengths: Reese Witherspoon's wobbling chin! Shailene Woodley's stalwart doe eyes! Nicole Kidman's palpable vulnerability! When these main leads end up frolicking by the ocean together in the final shot, their joy felt sincere and earned rather than born out of a need to tie off loose ends. Screenwriter David E. Kelley created a realistic community at odds with itself, but one that eventually finds the women putting aside their differences to defeat a greater evil.

Though Big Little Lies undeniably served up a satisfying murder mystery, the show's true innovation was its unflinching portrayal of violent abuse and all its nuances. The women and girls at the core of Big Little Lies are painfully aware of abstract dangers that could manifest at any second. It's fascinating to watch how each individual chooses to reckon with her vulnerability.

Most notably, Nicole Kidman was mesmerizing and alarming as Celeste, a retired lawyer and the mother of two young sons. Rigorously composed and elegant, Celeste is the target of relentless physical and emotional abuse from her husband, Perry, who's played with menacing duplicity by Alexander Skarsgård.

Perry's smothering presence looms over Celeste like a shadow, whether he's in a scene with her or not. Even her fluttery sundresses and frank little cardigans are a rebuttal to his perspective; she wants to project innocence and vulnerability because her fatally insecure husband assumes she possesses neither.

Celeste's initial inability to acknowledge her partner's brutality propels the show's plot to its conclusion, but in the interim, the audience is made to watch as Perry smashes Celeste's head against their glass shower door, rapes her while their children play nearby, and berates her for every perceived refusal to acknowledge his imperiled position as master of the house.

He beats her and then apologizes with utter sincerity, saying he's frustrated because he travels so much. He calls her "Sparkles." He insists, repeatedly, that he adores her. All the while, Celeste denies she is a victim, and even chastises herself for the fever pitch of cruelty in their interactions—but when the couple starts seeing a therapist (Robin Weigert), their facade falls apart. As Dr. Amanda Reisman, Weigert pulls off a performance infused with empathy and restraint; you really believe that this is a person capable of getting through to the evasive and intellectual Celeste.

Reisman initially encounters the couple as a united front devoted to fixing their marriage. Celeste says their fights are "volatile," and in an extraordinary scene in episode three, Perry admits to his own raging behavior, explaining to Dr. Reisman that he's afraid of losing his wife. His ability to acknowledge the reason for his abuse while still perpetuating it is terrifyingly rendered: the show has been lauded as uncomfortably realistic for good reason.

While other longer-running series (such as The Sopranos) rely on therapist-patient relationships in order to provide the audience with handy insight into a charismatic character's motivations, Big Little Lies instead uses its limited episode count to its advantage. Celeste's breakthrough—and the enormity of her pain—is devastating to behold. "He hurts you," Reisman states definitively in the fifth episode. "Oh, no," Celeste scoffs, already halfway off the couch, "I didn't say that. We both become violent sometimes. I take my share of the blame." "He hurts you," Reisman repeats, insisting.

While Celeste's actions are defined, to a point, by her denial, the other two leads (Shailene Woodley and Reese Witherspoon) serve as excellent foils with their clear-eyed energy and the voracity of their compassion. Jane (Woodley) has a son who is a product of rape, and she makes her way through Monterey armed with an impressive, ropy grace. Reese Witherspoon transcends type, elevating her morally ambiguous brown-noser wheelhouse to a characterization that's nearly operatic.

The abuse against women in Big Little Lies even trickles down to the children, seen in first grader Amabella Klein, the daughter of adrenaline junkie executives Gordon and Renata. The tiny girl with lamp-like blue eyes ends her first day of school covered in bruises and is bullied throughout. The identity of Amabella's assailant is tied up in the show's bloody conclusion, but the satisfaction of seeing the case solved feels plain when compared to the gravity of the show's central thesis. Abuse is not random. It does not exist in a vacuum, and most importantly, it can be taught. Big Little Lies forces you to reconcile with the idea that it can even be inherited.

Follow Helen Holmes on Twitter.

Amber Rose, the model and famed ex of Kanye West, recently stated that although she is attracted to men and women, she would not date a bisexual man. "Personally—no judgment—I wouldn't be comfortable," she said. "I just wouldn't be comfortable with it, and I don't know why." Rose isn't alone: Last year, a magazine survey found that nearly two-thirds of women "wouldn't date a man who has had sex with another man."

Despite this lingering stigma, the experiences of heterosexual women in committed relationships with bisexual men have never really been examined. But the new book Women in Relationships with Bisexual Men does exactly that. Co-authored by Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, a lecturer in Social Diversity at Deakin University, and her co-researcher Sara Lubowitz, the work is based on the insights of 79 Australian women involved with bisexual men. We spoke to Pallota-Chiarolli about her findings.

Continue reading on Broadly.

Senator Chris Coons of Delaware became the 41st Democrat to vow to oppose Neil Gorsuch for Supreme Court Justice on Monday, lending the Democrats just enough votes to filibuster his appointment, Politico reports.

As the chamber's rules stand now, appointed Supreme Court justices need a 60-vote majority from the Senate to be approved for the gig. By Monday, only four of the Senate's 48 Democrats—Michael Bennet of Colorado, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota—had agreed to back Gorsuch, according to Politico. Without the support of eight Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will likely pursue the "nuclear option," by seeking a vote to change the rules so that Gorsuch can be approved with a 51-vote majority.

"Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed this week," the Kentucky Republican told NBC on Sunday. "How that happens really depends on our Democratic friends."

Senate Democrats vowed to filibuster Trump's SCOTUS pick back in January before Gorsuch was even nominated, partly in retaliation for McConnell's decision to block President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the bench in March 2016. Now, with Trump in office, McConnell wants to put an end to the filibuster option, effectively streamlining future SCOTUS nominations.

But not all of his Republican colleagues agree with the decision, though. Back in November, Republican senator Orin Hatch said, "[The filibuster is] the only way to protect the minority, and we've been in the minority a lot more than we've been in the majority."

On Monday, the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve Gorsuch's nomination, sending the Colorado judge through for a contentious full Senate vote later this week.

Welcome to "Only the Worst." In this new column, actors talk specifically and exclusively about the most notoriously bad film on their resume.

In 2003, before Bee Movie and our current definition of the word meme, Warner Bros. released a family-friendly proto-meme of a film called Kangaroo Jack. Starring Jerry O'Connell and Anthony Anderson, the movie follows two lifelong buddies as they flee from the New York mob into the Australian outback. The film also stars Christopher Walken and Michael Shannon, as well as a CGI kangaroo that sings "Rapper's Delight" for some reason.

I spoke with O'Connell, a beloved actor likely more used to fielding questions about his seminal classics like Jerry Maguire or Stand by Me, about his time working on the project that Nathan Rabin of the A.V. Club described as "some of the longest 90 minutes ever committed to film."

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

VICE: When was the last time someone talked to you about Kangaroo Jack.
Jerry O'Connell: It came up yesterday, actually. Young people always come up to me. If they're 20 years old, they come up and it's always about Kangaroo Jack. They probably had a DVD of it. I have children now and I know how they can watch one particular movie ad infinitum. I was at the gym and this guy was sorta hovering. I saw he was making eye contact and could tell he was not hitting on me. I stood up and took my earbuds out and he pointed at me and said "Kangaroo Jack."

But, I have to tell you, nobody has ever really talked to me about Kangaroo Jack. I usually only hear about it on social media when someone is using it to make fun of me like "oh, you mean the guy from Kangaroo Jack?" That's what's so funny about this. I understand people wanting to talk about Jerry Maguire. I really understand people wanting to talk about Stand by Me, but nobody has ever asked to interview me about Kangaroo Jack. Y'know what, maybe there's a part of me that's been dying to talk about it.

Photo by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete

How did you get involved with this project?
It started as a pretty dark spec script [titled Down and Under] about two shitty mafiosos who have to go to the outback. A lot of cursing, a lot of sex, and it was really funny.

Jerry Bruckheimer came on board and, as someone who knows how to make an earning in this business, said "we need to make this a little cleaner."

At what point, if ever, did you have a sense that the project had gone off the rails.
So we made the film, they immediately tested it, and it didn't do well. I thought what a bummer, this was supposed to be my big Bruckheimer-starring film. Story of my life. Back to the drawing board. I guess the fat kid from Stand by Me will have to figure out another way to make it.

And then, a while later, someone called me up and said "I guess they're gonna make this into a kids movie and really heavily animate the kangaroo."

In entertainment, everything changes and you can't hold onto your ideas of what something is because hundreds of other people are working on it. If you read a script and think this is how this is going to be, it's never going to be that way. So, you come in and do your job and then someone else will do theirs.

I remember my representation was like "you didn't get into this to be in a kid's movie" and being all concerned but, to be honest, I didn't really care. I'm still very good friends with Mr. Bruckheimer and some of the producers on it and I didn't see any of them sweating it at all. But Jerry also told me to never read reviews on it so I don't know how it was regarded by the world.

It has an eight percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Eight?! As opposed to Logan, which got 93 percent? Yikes. What's the general consensus?

Critics seemed to think that it was muddled and there was too much sex and violence for a kids' movies and not enough for a compelling PG-13 caper.
That's interesting. I remember thinking there were a lot of boobs jokes. I guess we were the Deadpool of kids' movies. I suppose we paved the way for Deadpool, which paved the way for Logan. Oh man, please make sure to indicate that I'm joking there.

Did you ever get shit from anyone or feel any negative career impact for being in the movie?
Nah. I don't think most people even know about it, honestly. I've been on stage for UCB's "Asssscat" a few times and nobody's gone there. I think when people have "the fat kid from Stand by Me" card to use, it trumps any Kangaroo Jack stuff.

Speaking of Stand By Me, what do you think your character, Verne Tessio, would think of Kangaroo Jack?
Oh, he'd love it. He wouldn't see any of the inherent flaws you and I do. He'd have the DVD and watch all the extras and eventually come up to me in a 24 Hour Fitness and point at me and say "Kangaroo Jack!"

How long were you on location and what did you get into when not working?
We were there six months and we partied a lot. I was 28. Anthony and I went out every night together. There was a casino in town. I gambled a ton. Actually won a decent amount of money. I don't know what the statute of limitations is but I don't recall if I claimed all my winnings when I came back to America.

Did you bring anything else back from Australia with you?
I did bring back a didgeridoo. Just to let you know how dumb and American I must've looked back then. Imagine me carrying that thing through the airport. I may have also gotten a rainmaker.

What was it like working with Michael Shannon before the world became aware of his talents.
I was able to recognize Michael Shannon's immense talent immediately. I've been a Shannon fan since day one. It was interesting seeing him interact with Christopher Walken because Walken intimidated me, but he did not intimidate Shannon. They'd just go toe-to-toe and you could just tell he was destined for greatness.

There's a recurring theme in the movie where your character, Charlie, has his manhood questioned and is compared to a woman for being a hairdresser or complaining. You also hug Anthony Anderson in a scene and it's stated that you're having a "non-gay moment." As someone who famously bucked gender norms and took a break from Hollywood to be a stay-at-home dad, how do you feel about this movie's take on masculinity in hindsight?
More than anything, that stuff just makes it sound so dated. You repeating those lines back to me, I'm a little shook. I'm ashamed to say that, at the time, I didn't recall thinking those were offensive lines. But, it was fifteen years ago.

Jesus. Did we say anything else offensive?

There's a scene where Anthony Anderson's character claims he struck out a bunch of Taiwanese teens in the Little League World Series and, after that, the "people of Asia" called him "Sun Luc Dong" which he claims translates to "big black man pretending to be 12" but is just gibberish.
Oh, man. I wish I could tell you I tried to protest this stuff but I really just showed up and did my lines as they were written, trying to sell them as inoffensively as possible. I was not one to question these things.

Also, as the father of daughters, I'm going to watch this film with them and hopefully it'll have an educational purpose about what the world used to be like.

There are definitely some teachable moments about consent like when your character jumps in the water with a woman, disregarding her pleas for privacy while she's bathing.
Wow. That's right. Again, different time... but still. I remember there also being a boob-grabbing joke where I go in and squeeze them right when I see Estella Warren and comment on how real her boobs feel.

You probably get a pass on that one because your character thought she was a mirage and not a person with agency.
I remember feeling so awkward touching her breasts in that scene, asking her if I should fake touch them, even referring to them as "her bosom." Unlike that chauvinistic dialogue you just called back to and any other lines that may have offended the Asian community, I was never fully comfortable with inappropriate touching, let alone someone's breasts. I know we did a lot of bad thing in KJ, but I do remember bending over backwards to make sure Estella was cool with the whole grope scene.

Speaking of uncomfortable scenes, In one, apropos of nothing, your character starts beatboxing. Did you just have that skill on deck and they wanted to fit it in the movie somehow?
I'm from NY so I grew up with the older stuff. I'm a De La Soul and Tribe and east coast rap guy so I've always been a fan. And we had all these driving scenes and the cameras would just keep rolling and Anthony and I would just do these raps and they decided to keep them in. I think when they landed on the kid-friendly rapping kangaroo thing they decided to put that in as a way to tie it together somehow.

Can you still beatbox?

This article originally appeared on VICE Serbia

Elections in Serbia are generally pretty eventful – there's usually some talk of voter fraud, or threats made to opposition candidates. But whatever the result of the elections, one fact remains unchanged: relatively few young Serbs show up at the polls.

Yesterday's presidential elections in Serbia were a different story. Young people took to the polls in droves – mostly inspired by a satirical candidate who started out as a prank during the local elections in 2016. Ljubisa Preletacevic "Beli" is played by 25-year old student Luka Maksimovic, and the character is a corrupt, lying populist who promises the most outrageously impossible things just to win votes. He claims to be pure and innocent at the same time, which is meant to be highlighted by his nickname "Beli" (which means "white" in Serbian) and the fact that he always wears a white suit. His young supporters were happy somebody finally mocked the self-absorbed and corrupt local politicians, and the joke eventually led to Luka Maksimovi's character becoming an official presidential nominee. The hope was that his win could mean an overthrow of the whole system.

Yet neither Maksimovi, nor the young Serbs who were finally feeling excited about voting, nor the main opposition candidate Sasa Jankovic were able to prevent a victory for conservative Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic. Vucic was once a hardline nationalist but turned pro-European centrist, and has been accused widely of corruption and autocratic rule during his time in power. The opposition in Serbia has been in disarray for years, and it failed to collectively get behind one candidate, enabling Vucic and and his Serbian Progressive Party to win 55 percent of the votes.

The main opposition candidate Sasa Jankovic received 16.2 percent of the votes, and was mostly backed by a number of prominent intellectuals and young people fed up with Vucic's government. He was a fierce critic of Vucic during the campaign.

Vucic will take on the largely ceremonial post of Serbian president for the next five years, while his Serbian Progressive Party will keep helming the government. That means not much will change in Serbia, where an average salary is still only about £320 a month for people who manage to find a job – according to UN numbers, the official unemployment rate is at 19.7 percent, while youth unemployment is at 44.2 percent. Corruption is still widespread and the government recently sponsored sketchy investment programmes, like the Belgrade Waterfront project, which sparked a wave of street protests last year.

I asked some young voters I met at the end of election night and this morning how they felt about the election results. One of them, 18-year old student Jovana, voted for Vucic and is feeling "very, very happy that Serbia has a 'real president'".

Jovana, left. Photo: Nenad Vujanovic

When I ask what she means by that, she tells me: "I'm too excited to talk now. I just expect that he'll make sure that Serbia will continue on the path of progress that it's already on."

Srdjan Radjenovic, is a 30-year old construction engineer who also voted for Vucic.

Srdjan Radjenovic. Photo: Nenad Vujanovic

"His victory was expected, but I'm especially glad that he won with such clear and convincing numbers. He'll continue the changes that we've seen here recently, but I also expect much, much more from him," Radjenovic said. "Vucic and his party are just plainly superior to the other candidates."

Vucic's victory wasn't a happy fact for all – 26-year old historian Marko Todic is one of the many young people who are seriously disillusioned with this outcome. "I was really hoping for a change," he says. He tells me that he feels that Serbia has become more corrupt since Vucic and his party came to power in 2012, and that they've given out jobs to people connected with the party. "So many young people have left the country, and I think corruption is the main reason for that."

Marko. Photo by Ivan Dinic

"I don't like the direction he has taken Serbia in at all," he tells me.

25-year old student Nevena Sredojevic says she's thinking of leaving Serbia, because she's very disappointed with the outcome of the elections. She won't be alone – an estimated 30,000 Serbs move abroad each year. Especially university graduates are unable to find work in the country.

Nevena. Photo by Lazara Marinkovic

"I don't know if it's out of fear or something else, but people here don't want to fight for something better. That makes me feel less at home and less inclined to stay here," she says.

26-year old actor Amar Mesic also thinks about leaving, although he does find it exciting that these last elections have stirred up something in young people that led them to the polls.

Amar. Photo by Lazara Marinkovic

"But I need to take control of my life and earn a living with what I've studied for. I'm a trained actor and I want to work as an actor, but it's very hard here. So I'll have to look for jobs somewhere else," he tells me.

Sonja, 28, had also hoped the results of the election had turned out differently.

Sonja. Photo by Lazara Marinkovic

"Well, I'm planning to pack my bags. If people haven't realised by now that they should vote to change the crisis Serbia is in, nothing is likely to get better in the near future," she says.

Kristina Ivanović is a 21-year old graphic designer, and her hopes have been squashed, too. "It's especially painful because these were the first elections I was optimistic and excited about."

Kristina. Photo by Ivan Dinic

"I expected more. Now that Vucic has won 55 percent of the vote, there won't be a second round between Vucic and a candidate from the opposition. That would have been the case if he had gotten less than 50 percent. He just won the presidency in one round, which means there will be absolutely no change now – nothing," she says.

The election results have made 21-year old Milan Stojković feel trapped in his own country. "It's gotten so hard to make something out of my life."

Milan. Photo by Ivan Dinic

"It's become so clear that this country doesn't want to get worse or better – people just want to hold on to the status quo," he says.

In Mladenovac, a small town near Belgrade, supporters of the young satirical candidate Beli celebrated his "victory" last night, although he lost this presidential run. With his Beli character, Luka Maksimovic won over 300,000 votes. That's about 9.4 percent, which is pretty impressive for a newcomer running against career politicians – especially since he's just taking the piss. His supporters, with no experience in politics whatsoever, organised a grass-roots campaign ranging from making memes to setting up big political events in Serbian towns and villages. Young people showed up and seemed to take an interest in politics – as long as it meant overthrowing the passive, conservative system Serbia has been stuck in.

"Beli leading this country would melt this corrupted system. This will be everyone's victory." Luka Maksimovic said before election day.

His supporters generally didn't seem all too disappointed – they knew it was highly unlikely he would win.

Jelena, left. Photo by Aleksa Vitorovic

27-year old Jelena Jevric tells me: "It's just really great that young people have had their political awakening during these elections. Vucic's victory might be a humiliating defeat for us, but I know now that I will never leave this country – there is so much to keep fighting for."

When Trump won the election, it became clear that we would probably never get to see his rumored TV channel. Comedy fans, however, will now get a chance to see what a reality show featuring our former reality TV star president might look like on Comedy Central's The President Show.

On Monday, the network announced the launch of its new late-night series in which pseudo-famous Trump impersonator Anthony Atamanuik will interview guests and host desk segments from the "Oval Office." He'll also have help from Mike Pence, played by Peter Grosz, who's written and acted for The Colbert Report and Veep, among other shows.

Atamanuik—who's performed and taught improv at the Upright Citizens Brigade for more than a decade—has spent about a year sharpening his Trump impersonation. In 2016, he set out on a nationwide "Trump v. Bernie" tour, debating a phony Bernie Sanders (played by James Adomian) in 40 cities. Along with reprising that bit for a Fusion special, Atamanuik has played Trump on the Howard Stern Show, the View, and CNN's Newsroom.

According to Atamanuik, The President Show won't just harp on Trump, but will try to poke fun at everything going down in the wild world of American politics today.

"Laughing at the President is a proud American tradition and we hope not to disappoint anyone in that department," he said in a statement. "But our political system is too broken for us to be content joking about one man, even though he is a disastrous silly little toddler boy."

The President Show debuts on April 27, and will run on Comedy Central Thursdays at 11:30 PM EST, right after The Daily Show. Check out the teaser below.

So, you can't just indiscriminately murder snapping turtles in Ontario anymore.

I know it's lame, but it's true. After a bunch of people got mad at the summer open season on snappers in Ontario, the government decided to change the hunting regulations around the animal. Now instead of being able to stomp all the shells you want, there is a full on ban.

"Based on public feedback, there was significant opposition to maintaining any open season for snapping turtles," reads a statement from the ministry. "Snapping Turtle is a long-lived species that reproduces slowly and is subject to other significant stressors such as road mortality. The Ministry has closed the Snapping Turtle season to help maintain populations of this species into the future."

Before the ban, if you were skilled enough to track down two snapping turtles in one day, you could off both those suckers (but no more). I'm from the turtle-free province of Alberta, so I don't really know why you would hunt a snapper but I assume it's for like a soup or something. However, a bunch of party poopers got together and started a movement to end the hunt. In the end, the ministry receiving almost 14,000 complaints about the turtles.

The David Suzuki foundation commended the province on their decision.

"At a local scale, the hunt can have disastrous impacts on some populations," said Rachel Plotkin, the David Suzuki Foundation Ontario science projects manager, in a press release. "Ending the hunt is important not only at the local scale but also on the global stage, as turtles are in decline across the planet."

The snapping turtle can be hunted in Saskatchewan still but it is banned in Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and, now, Ontario.

On the government website for the animal, they are listed as being under "special concern"—meaning that they are not currently threatened but "a combination of biological characteristics and identified threats" can lead to them being endangered. The turtles currently live mostly in the southern part of Ontario and, over time, their liveable habitat in Canada is shrinking.

In the meantime, I guess Ontarians going to have to find another reptile to satiate their bloodlust.

May I suggest snakes?

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter.

Check out Benji Nate's website, Instagram, and Twitter.

Illustrations by Chris Kindred.

The human dater is living in an unprecedented age. We simultaneously have more choice than ever, yet feel increasingly the weight of such little, little choice. Dating apps are a carousel of faces and body parts, none of them quite right, and the more you use them, the more you start to wonder if it even matters who you swipe right on, because to successfully do the sex sometimes we must compromise.

Also, individuality is a myth – people aren't the "same but different"; they're the same – and the majority of people out there fall into exactly 12 categories, so what does it matter if you just wantonly swipe right without reading, in great detail, every match's profile information?

Look: here are those people, i.e. everyone you're going to meet on a dating app.

Sam, 28
His bio hints at what he might be like in bed – "Dressed as Willy Wonka for World Book Day", "Voted most likely to be Prime Minister when I grow up by Oakfield Primary Year 4 Class" – but you can look past that for now because the back and forth is surprisingly easy. When you stalk him on social media you find he only faves tweets by women on Twitter and follows feminist publications. Good sign? You have "friends" in common, so ask the one you know best what she knows of him. She replies: "No do not date sam, he's so creepy in real life and this one time bragged about sleeping with a 16 year old. also facially looks a bit like the stick insect from 'A Bug's Life'."

Angel, 29
ARE THERE ANY ACTUAL GENUINE GUYS OUT THERE WHO AIN'T JUST INTERESTED IN ONE THING? MY KIDS ARE MY WORLD YOU NEED TO ACCEPT THIS IF YOU'RE GOING TO GET ANYWHERE WITH ME. Doesn't like: time wasters (if you're just looking for a quick bunk-up jog the f*#k on) and anyone who takes themselves too seriously. I'm always laughing at myself. Lol. Never really have time for reading lol. Like carbonara.

Stussy, 31
"Heyyyy" "Whats uppp? lol" "Yeh, work for Stussy. Its cool" "Not the shop. Did some freelance graphics for them" "Not a lotttt lol. Been skateboarding all day. Now chilling loads. you?" "Yeh." "No haha" "Blazed, skating then went to meet some mates." "Yeh my parents are in Paris, they help me out with rent and stuff lol" "What you doing on the weekend?" "Been busy?" "Heyy" "whats up lol"

Damien, 23
"Creative for an ad agency", but you can tell that from his photos. High contrast black-and-white pictures from an unbranded photobooth. A portrait of him close to the camera with a middle finger defiantly drawn at The Man. An action shot of him lunging in the streets, taking photographs in tracksuit bottoms. A pastel wide-eyed pic edited on a Chinese photo editing app. A meme he has made that involves the holy triad of shutterstock image, corporate food brand and ironically bad text overlay.

Madame de la Lune, 33
I am: master. You are: sub looking for a contract with a professional owner. You will: accept whatever treatment I deem worthy of you, to include but not limited to: ensuring that my butter is soft enough to spread on toast and will not tear the bread; making sure there is no cat food left on spoons put in the dishwasher so that the dishwasher doesn't smell when I open it; being there for if the Amazon guy comes and I've gone out; various other chores regarding groceries and sundries. You won't: receive any kind of sexual gratification from this whatsoever.

Dylan, 28
"Not emotionally available" and an isolated emoji is all his bio offers. He's in an open relationship. He's here because their rules dictate that they can't sleep with a) people they both know, b) people either of them know, c) people they've found on social media, d) the same person more than once, e) most people. He's also studying too much for his MA to go out right now. He talks a lot about how you just have to respect the rules of an open relationship and says not everyone can deal with it – that it takes a certain type of person to not see it as a problem. But as you're having sex and his girlfriend who is supposed to be away for the weekend comes back to the flat and starts smashing pots and pans around very very loudly in the kitchen, you realise that there is a problem, and that the problem is definitely Dylan and his girlfriend's relationship.

Gina, 22
Gina liked rugby boys at university because they made her feel safe and like she was still at school, rather than severed from her father and two brothers and thrust into a world where she had to learn what fabric softener was. Gina has one request for you, and you better not screw it up: you must have good banter. You MUST. What Gina would like, if you want to roll with her – if you want to roll with a girl who is mostly unbearable to be around – is for you to bring the banter. And by that she means: just absolutely the worst, most basic banter you can imagine.

Jake, 25
"Cries at The Notebook. Seriously." He did warn you. This SadLad has a wine and then spends a lot of time talking about how he was hooking up with his ex again last month and it's hard to stay away because of the energy they both share, you know? It's was an emotional energy and a sexual energy, and something about it is probably a bit psychic? It's not that he's using dating apps to find a relationship specifically, but if he found the right girl that'd be really nice.

Brian, 31
Don DeLillo. Good coffee. Music (doesn't everyone?). Dance, not trance. Radiohead. Red wine. Friends. Running. Going to new brunch places. Steak. Sun. Fun. Sleeping in. Gym. Steven Spielberg movies. Hot sauce. Autumn. Netflix. Eggs benedict. Kink. Strangulation.

Bella, 26
On her Books/Films/Music/Food section she lists 28 books, plus "everything by Hardy", and 79 films ("If you look talk act or think like Wes Anderson, prolly message me"). In her pictures she is whimsically guileless and probably wearing face-paint. And gin cocktails. She likes gin cocktails.

HarleyQuinn, 34
The list of Xbox games Harley would like to play with you. The words "fantasy" and "role-playing" used in the least-stimulating way possible. The sexiest picture will always come from ComicCon, where she will have gone as Harley Quinn, Tank Girl or some niche video game character you will definitely message her about if you're the kind of guy who knows about niche video game characters. You will, sadly, never hear back from her, as she only set up this profile after temporarily caring about her body clock while waiting for Final Fantasy XV to load, and will never check it again.

Matt, 36
I wanna know what love is. Here is me plus a pic of my dick against a ruler.

@hannahrosewens and @TobySprigings

More on Tinder and dating apps:

Vegan or Vaper: What Do the Men of Tinder Really Want?

The Guide to Tinder for Men, Written by a Woman

The UK's Most Right-swiped Universities

On Monday, Trump did what he does best: play to the cameras. During Sean Spicer's daily hour of pain, also known as "press briefings," the White House press secretary announced that the president would donate his first quarter paycheck, $78,333.32, to the National Park Service. While that might seem like a sweet act of charity it's effectively pennies to a federal agency like the NPS, which has an annual budget of around $3 billion and a backlog of $11.9 billion of maintenance work the nation's parks need. Eighty grand is pennies compared to numbers like that—and Trump isn't interested in giving the NPS more than pennies.

Trump hasn't demonstrated a particular hostility to the NPS relative to other government agencies. Trump's hotly contested proposed budget would cut the budget of the Department of Interior, which oversees the NPS, by $2 billion, but it's unclear how the NPS will be affected by that. Trump certainly is not interested in attempting to fund the additional maintenance work the country's park need, and the federal hiring freeze instituted by Trump has the agency very worried about its future.

If Trump deserves any kudos at all it's for following through on his promise to donate his presidential paycheck—that's noteworthy because he hasn't always followed through on his charitable promises. But if he really wanted to support the National Parks, he would be working to make sure they were properly staffed. Or instead of donating one measly paycheck, Trump could figure out a way to get rich guys like him to pay their fair share of federal tax?

Follow Eve Peyser on Twitter.

Illustration by Ralph Damman.

We drove 60 hours to see the show.

It was the middle of winter, early 2013. Somehow, seven of us had managed to save enough money, book a few days off work and convinced ourselves it was a perfectly sensible idea to drive a borrowed, decrepit van from Calgary to Detroit and back again to see the legendary Christian metalcore band Underoath play one of their last gigs.

Along the way, we blew two tires, somehow fucked up the van's starter, were instructed by a random gas station attendant who generously gifted us his jumper cables at 3AM not to turn off our engine until we got home due to the starter problem, got sick from watery Wisconsin beer, threw the case of beer down a snowbank in frustration at the second tire blowing and had to keep the van running for three straight hours while we waited at the border because our friend was arrested by the RCMP for an outstanding transit ticket.

Obviously, the trip was entirely worth it.

Watching Underoath and two other favourite bands perform in the packed hall—featuring an elegant domed roof and massive stage flanked by two actual suits of armour—was a quasi-religious experience for me which served as effective closure to a very long obsession with the genre and culture.

Christian metalcore had been my life for years. I've since abandoned the religion for agnosticism, and the genre for trap and techno. But I still possess a sincere fondness for Christian metalcore—as do many of my old friends—and I wanted to put some thought into what we were actually doing for all those years and why it has such resonance.

Hitting up the local Christian record store—which has since been converted into a sizable strip club—was a highlight of the week, resulting in me building up a collection of literally hundreds of albums by the likes of August Burns Red, Norma Jean, As I Lay Dying, Demon Hunter, Oh Sleeper and Haste the Day (as well as less metal-oriented but equally as devout bands such as Project 86, Thrice, P.O.D. and Pillar).

I collected the posters, the documentaries, the shirts, the signed set lists. The band Becoming the Archetype once crashed at my friend's place while on tour but I didn't introduce myself to them as I was too intimidated—the result of spending far too many hours listening to their then-impressive tracks on MySpace.

For about a year, I was seriously planning to get an Underoath lyric tattooed on my forearm with each of the two-dozen words to be handwritten by a different friend in order to help me to stay "accountable" and resist the temptation of looking at internet pornography; whenever I felt the urge, I would blast that particular seven-minute song in my parents' basement, praying for reprieve from the Devil. It often worked.

It's really rather tough to overstate the role of Christian metalcore in the life of a socially and sexually anxious white Evangelical male teen growing up on the Prairies.

The genre is clearly linked with a fairly toxic form of white masculinity: for instance, the lead singer of a favourite band, Pillar, was a soldier in the US Reserves and often wrote songs with names like "Frontline" (the username of my Nexopia profile was an embarrassing reference to a different song by that band).

But there's also an undeniable bit of repressed sexualities and homoeroticisms at play.

Think the moshing, the climax of the breakdown, the camaraderie of the pit. Entering the washroom with a bloodied nose after getting hit with an errant elbow at an August Burns Red show was a bit of a rite of passage, cleaning up the mess alongside other sweaty bodies, often without shirts. Same with hopping into the circle pit at a Haste the Day performance at Edmonton's weak iteration of Warped Tour.

Somewhat ironically, that sense of ritual and community helped fulfil a fair few of the higher-order needs promised via the same religion that birthed such bands.

The history of Christian metal is deeply defined by that particular tension.

I recently chatted with two professors and experts on the genre: Marcus Marr of Finland's Abo Akademi University and Eileen Luhr of California State University, Long Beach. Both pointed out the same trend: Christian metal bands of the 1980s—Stryper, Whitecross and Stryken, the latter of which once tried to crash a 1987 Motley Crue show by arriving with a 14-foot cross—were explicitly religious, pairing their glam-heavy sets with altar calls and tracts.

Luhr says that many bands wrote songs about abstinence, abortion and gay rights. The idea was that Paul the Apostle and Jesus himself went to the "farthest reaches" in order to evangelize to heathens. So why not to metal fans?

It never really worked. As Marr put it: "It was too much for the Christians and simply too Christian for the metalheads." Secular metal fans could tell it was merely a proselytizing exercise. Over time, the overtness of the faith displayed by Christian bands largely diminished, following the path of other "crossover" artists like Amy Grant and King's X.

But that didn't mean it wasn't still a central component of the project; while altar calls and concert-ending "God bless" still happened at occasional shows, it was often much more about deciphering cryptic lyrics and music videos that served as subtle nods to the piety of each band.

After all, screamed and growled vocals allow singers to get away with saying some pretty ridiculous stuff, such as August Burns Red's "Truth be told, they'll get what they were promised / Crawling away, burning with regret, to the deepest, darkest depths of Hell." Knowing such lyrics allowed for multiple layers of kinship with fellow fans: not only was one a devoted enough follower of the band to be able to yell the memorized lyrics at shows, but was also a devout enough follower of the Christ in order to not have to crawl away burning with regret to the deepest darkest depths of hell.

Shannon Low—lead singer of the Missouri-based once-Christian metalcore band The Order of Elijah—said in an interview with VICE that religious metal bands often write music that's "centred towards the believer."

"You are trying to keep that demographic in mind at all times," he says. "You lose so much of your own artistic freedom because you're trying to pander to a certain demographic and you know that if you show any sign of being a human in there, then they're going to consider that not textbook Christian and you're not a 'real' Christian band."

In May 2016, Low posted a lengthy "testimony" on the band's Facebook that detailed his process of ditching his faith, a process which included divorce and alcoholism and reading Richard Dawkins (aka the Unholy Trinity).

The band's page is now loaded with endorsements of Bernie Sanders, Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Charles Darwin memes. He says the band has had a clear "transition in fans" since that original post, and that they've "attracted a lot more of the secular community and pushed away a lot of the fundamentalists."

Evangelical fans such as my former self often demand strict adherence to the religion, even if it's just via cryptic lyrics and the occasional shout-out to Jesus in interviews. I likely would have shied away from bands like The Order of Elijah following the kind of reversal that Low posted about.

It wasn't even so much that a band had to be necessarily explicit about their faith. It was far more about ingroup mentality.

Knowing a band's faith meant that I could count on certain bands to chat with fellow believers about, or where to turn to when I needed music to listen to fight the constant temptation to look at porn, or simply to establish an incredibly nerdy expertise about.

Low says he's met many fans who can tell him about every underground Christian metal band out there "but not a single Slipknot song to save their life" (that was definitely me). He adds that such religious bands rarely allow themselves to openly channel anger or grief or any relatively normal emotion that people experience and which more aggressive music can ostensibly help serve as catharsis to.

That includes the complex process of leaving Christianity. In 2013, Tim Lambesis—lead singer of the extremely influential As I Lay Dying—was convicted of hiring a hitman to kill his estranged wife and admitted that he'd faked being a Christian for years to maximize their fanbase.

At the time, he stated that "I would say maybe one in 10 Christian bands we toured with were actually Christian bands."

That's of course not to suggest that suppressing one's religion results in one attempting to kill one's spouse. But there's perhaps something to be said about the way in which the genre traps musicians—and by implication, fans—into buying into a certain set of collective narratives.

The often challenging story and obligations associated with evangelical Christianity can become a lot more digestible when your hyper-masculine role models presumably believe it, even if they don't always loudly announce it anymore.

But the inverse is also very much true, and freeing.

Underoath's lead singer was rumoured to have been dealing with addiction issues with years; Low notes that most Christians in metalcore bands that he knows of drink and smoke.

Although not at all in the metal genre, indie Christian heavyweights like Derek Webb of Caedmon's Call and David Bazan of Pedro the Lion publicly wrestled with their faith, with the latter getting ejected from a Christian music festival he was playing in 2005 for being sloshed and carting a milk jug of vodka around (this now sounds positively excellent.)

Seeing such heroes "fall" was tragic for me at the time. Eventually, such evolutions became a symbol for me of personal weaknesses and public questioning as qualities to be embraced rather than quarantined.

In the process, I started listening to non-Christian metal bands that I'd never considered before due to their lack of religious qualities: Between the Buried and Me, Parkway Drive, Lamb of God. Hearing the rage in Dillinger Escape Plan's Greg Puciato screaming "save us from the nonexistent / teaching that suffering is love / suffering is not love" meant a great fucking deal to a kid who literally starved himself for consecutive days in a show of fasting for the Lord.

It's why the trip to Detroit meant so much to me at the time: it was a means of acknowledging the conclusion of a personal era for both myself and the band.

Underoath commissioned an artist to design a unique T-shirt for each of their final tour stops. The one they released for the Detroit show featured a hazy mountain range, black and greys on a fading yellow. It was meaningless for the local context, seeming a lake or car might have been more appropriate.

But it well represented my circumstances at the time: driving back towards the Rockies, uncertain of my own faith or future, ears ringing from three hours of music, still a bit sick from that watery Wisconsin beer.

That shirt's still in my closet. Sometimes, I still think about getting that tattoo as a memento to the pilgrimage.

Follow James on Twitter.

In most television shows set before the 20th century, there are very few characters in them who aren't straight. At most, they will feature a supporting character who's "revealed" to be gay or bisexual, with maybe a love interest who gets killed or disappears tragically. Sometimes—very rarely—there will be one relationship that lasts more than a season, though chances of that decline the more seriously a show tries to take itself. If marginalized people often don't see themselves reflected in modern media, the problem only intensifies when it comes to stories set in the past.

Starz's Black Sails was different. Although it aimed to be prestige TV for much of its run, the queer characters on Black Sails were never secondary. In fact, their choices, romantic and otherwise, were the bedrock of the show. The series was a violent, big-budget production about politics, power, civilization, colonialism, and piracy in the 18th century. Yet it was also ultimately about a bunch of queer people choosing between struggle and a quiet, peaceful life with their lovers—and all the nuances and complexities of those decisions.

Black Sails is an explicit prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 book Treasure Island where Captain Flint is a fearsome, legendary pirate who buried a great treasure in the ground, sparking a hunt for it many years later. Black Sails's adult version of Flint is everything Stevenson's book—written as children's fiction—implied. He's a born leader: cunning, ruthless, and a brilliant strategist. In the first season, we see him covered in blood, lying to his entire crew, dueling to the death, and murdering his own best friend—all in the pursuit of some hidden ulterior motive that none of his subordinates understand.

However, by the second season, Black Sails uncovers Flint's secret. The only reason he became a pirate was because England took away the one thing he cherished most: his boyfriend.

As a young naval officer, Flint unwittingly chooses between gaining power over the lawless, pirate-infested island of Nassau, and a quiet life with the English nobleman he's in love with. But power is precarious and uncertain, as the show keeps emphasizing. As a result of his choice, Flint loses everything and leaves England to become a violent outlaw.

Another main character, Eleanor Guthrie, is faced with a similar choice. Brought to Nassau as a little girl, Eleanor manages to cobble together a criminal empire based on selling stolen pirate goods. By her early 20s, she's practically in charge of the island, with every pirate captain desperate to remain in her good graces. But when disaster strikes, she's given a choice between remaining in Nassau and fighting for more power or leaving to live with her girlfriend, Max, who's tired of working at the brothel across the street from Eleanor's tavern.

Eleanor chooses power, only to see everything she built—including her relationship with Max—crumble soon afterward.

Max is presented with the same predicament twice. After Eleanor, Max becomes part of a triage with historic pirates Anne Bonny and Jack Rackham (who in reality were likely in a similar arrangement with a woman named Mary Read). In season three, Max must choose between betraying Anne's trust and retaining the power she's worked so hard to acquire in Nassau. Max chooses power, as Eleanor did. Then Max witnesses the destruction of all that she worked, just as Eleanor did. In season four Max does it differently: She refuses to choose power of the island over distancing herself from Anne. She thinks of Eleanor and demands to be given both power and her lover—or only Anne.

Flint, meanwhile, gets his own second chance. Hell-bent on a rebellion against England, Flint's new best friend (Treasure Island's Long John Silver) offers him a choice between giving up the war effort and reuniting with his lover, the English nobleman Flint had thought to be long dead. Eventually, Flint chooses love over power, and he and Max both get their happily-ever-afters in the show's final episode.

It's frankly stunning that the fabric of an entire show about 18th-century pirates can be summed up entirely through the choices made by its queer characters. Queer love and desire play such a huge, fundamental role in everything the show has to say about history, narrative, power, sacrifice, civilization, politics, and criminality.

But Black Sails doesn't stop at being a character drama. It loves to make meta statements, as befitting a piece of fan-fiction. In one of the show's final scenes, when Long John Silver is working hard to convince Captain Flint to give up his war against England, Flint replies with, "This is how they win, you realize."

Long John Silver has tasted resistance to the empire and would rather rather bury his sword and live happily with his wife. But Flint points out that this is precisely the mechanism through which England stays in power: making the cost of resistance too high for most people. He explains that if Silver dismantles the war effort, history will be written by the victors. In one way, Black Sails is referencing Treasure Island and the role of pirates as morally repugnant villains. But in another way, Flint's words are about how history remembers queer people, which is to say, mostly not at all.

By giving up the fight, Flint seems to say, you're resigning yourself to letting them twist our stories and erase the parts of us they don't want to remember. But is being remembered correctly—and making an indelible impact on history—worth a life defined by a violent struggle? Most of the characters on Black Sails spend the series wrestling with that question.

Queer people rarely get to see themselves represented in historical narratives, let alone represented positively. But on Black Sails, the 18th century was full of queer characters, and their stories mattered. Their lives were riveting and their choices determined the fate of the world. These characters and stories were revolutionary for a period show, let alone TV that aims for a serious and prestigious tone. If anything should be the legacy Black Sails, it should be us demanding better from the rest of television.

Follow Marina Berlin on Twitter.

Donald Trump's travel ban has been temporarily blocked not once but twice by federal judges, and his administration hasn't stopped looking for sweeping, aggressive new ways to tighten security at the nation's borders. This might mean going so far as to ask all visitors to the US for their phones, social media passwords, financial records, and more, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The amped-up screening protocol—which could potentially include grilling visitors about their ideology—might apply to people across the globe, even those from long-standing US allies like Australia, the UK, and France, whose citizens can travel fairly freely to America thanks to Visa Waiver Program.

Additionally, according to Trump administration officials who spoke to the Journal anonymously, the US might subject visa applicants to more stringent security reviews and require embassies abroad to spend more time conducting interviews with applicants.

"If there is any doubt about a person's intentions coming to the United States, they should have to overcome—really and truly prove to our satisfaction—that they are coming for legitimate reasons," Gene Hamilton, an adviser to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, told the Journal.

Trump has been preaching "extreme vetting" since he was a Republican primary candidate, but mostly he's focused on refugees from the Middle East and undocumented immigrants who illegally crossed the southern US border. If the procedures described by the Journal's reporting become reality, they will affect a much broader group of people, including many tourists—who already may be avoiding coming to America.

Could looking at all this information help weed out the "bad hombres" that Trump has spent his entire short political career denouncing? Maybe. But Leon Rodriguez, who led the US Citizenship and Immigration Services under Barack Obama, told the Journal that it was far from a silver bullet.

"The real bad guys will get rid of their phones. They'll show up with a clean phone," Rodriguez said. "Over time, the utility of the exercise will diminish."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Ah, friends. They're like family but cooler. Fully customizable. Fall and one of them will be right there to pick you back up. But as great as friends can be, they also do a lot of really stupid stuff. Stuff that blows your mind. Like, sometimes it seems crazy that you even hang out with people who make such crappy decisions. Stuff that, were it to get out, would be mortifying for anyone with even a shred of self-respect. Lucky for your friends, they've got you to ask their deepest, darkest questions for them. And lucky for you, we started this column to answer those most embarrassing of queries.

The scenario: It's Saturday morning, and your friend wakes up with a raging headache. His usual Pedialyte-plus-greasy brunch isn't going to cut it; he needs pharmaceutical-grade help. He reaches for a bottle of OTC painkillers and pops three, brushing off the boldfaced warnings that it say to take two and to skip it if you've had more than three drinks. His tally from last night came out to, oh, about three drinks times three, so you're convinced he might be putting his name on a liver transplant list any day now—both because he's taken too many pills and also because he clearly still has booze in his system.

Continue reading on Tonic.

Check out Marlene Krause's website, webstore, and Tumblr.

A 17-year-old Toronto-area girl has told VICE that vigilante pedophile hunter Justin Payne, the controversial subject of the VICE documentary Age of Consent, has allegedly been using her photograph without her consent to lure suspected predators.

The girl, whose identity is not being revealed to protect her privacy, told VICE she found out Payne was allegedly using her photo at the end of March when she commented on one of his Facebook statuses and several people—including Payne's former cameraman—reached out to her saying they recognized her from decoy profiles Payne uses to lure suspected predators.

The girl said she's known Payne since childhood because her mother and Payne have been dating for the last 12 years. Her relative, Lisa Gaudet, told VICE she filed a police complaint last week on the grounds that Payne was using the teen's photo without consent. Toronto police confirmed there is an open investigation into the matter but no arrests have been made nor have charges been laid.

VICE has viewed a partial screenshot of a chat log between Payne and one of his alleged predators. The girl said she believes the small photo icon in the chat log is her, but she doesn't remember taking that particular photo and does not have a copy of it.

Reached by VICE over Facebook, Payne denied the allegations and said he has never used the girl's photos. He did confirm that the chat log screenshot was from one of his profiles but said those photos aren't of the girl in question.

"What is being said is lies and rumours," he said. "I've had consent for the pictures I use. Same pictures for the past few years." He said he has never used a decoy photo of a boy or girl without permission.

He said the girl's mom is his ex-girlfriend.

Gaudet told VICE she's enraged and feels the teen was put in danger by allegedly having her photo circulated in her own neighbourhood. It's impossible to know what men are doing with the photos, she added.

"He's literally put her picture where he's luring these men where she lives. It's disgusting," she said.

Payne told VICE he doesn't use photos of decoys in the same areas that the decoys live.

Photo by Nam Phi Dang

Gaudet said the girl's mom was warned around Christmas that Payne might be using the teen's photo but nothing came of that. VICE has not been able to reach the girl's mother.

The girl, who doesn't live with her mom, said she replied to one of Payne's statuses on March 22 saying that he's not a hero and "and he needs to stay away from my mom."

"Instantly people contacted me and said you're the girl he uses to lure pedophiles," the girl told VICE.

BC-based lawyer Craig Jones, who has been closely following the pedophile hunting phenomenon, told VICE Payne could potentially be breaching privacy laws or even be charged with impersonating someone if the allegations are proven.

That aside, he said this alleged behaviour "puts her at risk."

"The predators that only engage in the first part of the conversation and for whatever reason never actually get stung have that image of her as the target of their affections and presumably as a willing [participant]."

Payne's former cameraman Gerry O'Brien told VICE he is 100 percent sure that the girl is the same person from Payne's decoy profiles. He messaged the girl via Facebook and said, "I have seen your photos on his profiles. I am trying to find the profiles. But I have seen you before." O'Brien said he and Payne no longer speak.

Another woman, Julie Timms told VICE she's a former friend of Payne's who used to help with his operations. Timms recognized the girl when she posted on Payne's wall and reached out to say she'd seen her photo, one she described as a bathroom selfie, used on one of Payne's accounts. "I actually saw it on his computer. I held his phone in my hand reading conversations with that picture," she said.

The girl told VICE O'Brien showed her which photo Payne allegedly used of her and that it was a "bathroom mirror selfie" from her old home. She said she is not sure how old she was in the picture, just that she was "younger." 

Read more: The Real Story Behind The Rise of Creep Catchers

The girl told VICE Payne has been in her life since she was five years old and would have access to lots of her photographs. She said learning that her photo is allegedly being circulated makes her feel violated.

"I'm scared to walk down the street now," she said. "It's great that he's protecting kids but he's ruining other kids' lives to do so."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

In the wake of one of the worst chemical weapons attacks to hit Syria in years, Donald Trump appeared to pin the blame for the deaths of at least 58 people—11 of them children—on former president Barack Obama.

The attack, believed to have been carried out by the Syrian government of Bashar al Assad, struck the province of Idlib early Tuesday morning. At least 250 people, including children, were wounded or sickened by the chemical assault, the New York Times reports.

In a statement on behalf of President Trump, White House press secretary Sean Spicer called the attack "reprehensible," stressing that it "cannot be ignored by the civilized world." Then he blamed it on the Obama administration.

"These heinous actions by the Bashar al-Assad regime are a consequence of the last administration's weakness and irresolution," Spicer said in the statement. "President Obama said in 2012 that he would establish a 'a red line' against the use of chemical weapons and then did nothing."

It's true that Obama was criticized heavily for not following through on his "red line" pledge and for not taking more decisive action during the Syrian Civil War, which started all the way back in 2011. But Trump himself actually advocated for not getting involved in Syria in the past. And if Obama is "weak" for not going after Assad, the Trump administration has signaled that it has even less interest in deposing the brutal strongman. The UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, called Assad a "war criminal" days ago but said that removing him from power wasn't going to be a "top priority," a sentiment echoed by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

But even though forcing Assad to step down is no longer a central goal for US policy in Syria, Tillerson still used harsh language to condemn him in a statement on Tuesday that went after Assad allies Russia and Iran.

"While we continue to monitor the terrible situation, it is clear that this is how Bashar al-Assad operates: with brutal, unabashed barbarism," Tillerson said. "We call upon Russia and Iran, yet again, to exercise their influence over the Syrian regime and to guarantee that this sort of horrific attack never happens again. As the self-proclaimed guarantors to the ceasefire negotiated in Astana, Russia and Iran also bear great moral responsibility for these deaths."

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The 2009 finale of Prison Break—marketed as a television movie subtitled "The Final Break"—ended with protagonist and prison breaker Michael Scofield's (Wentworth Miller) death. In a video pre-recorded for his loved ones, Michael stares at the camera and ends the series by announcing, "We're free now. Finally. We're free." In 2017's fifth season premiere, the narration begins "Freedom has a price," as Scofield explains that he "died seven years ago" but doesn't explain why he's now alive. That is Prison Break in a nutshell: It's ridiculous, it makes no sense, but it's watchable because you need to find out answers.

While other television revivals make sense—Gilmore Girls, Full(er) House, The X-Files—the return of Prison Break seems like the punchline to a joke about peak TV. Even when Prison Break first premiered on FOX back in 2005, it seemed like a baffling series—how do you sustain a story about a guy breaking out of prison? What happens when he does break out of prison? The answer, it seemed, was to just keep ramping up the wild insanity, which is the same strategy this limited series is employing and with even stranger results.

It's hard to top the strangeness of where Prison Break ended up. The first season (particularly the first 13 episodes) made for fascinating television, with a compelling, edge-of-your-seat escape plot alongside a love story between Michael and his prison doctor as well as a surprisingly emotional relationship between the show's two brothers. But once they broke out, it got a little weird.

After a season on the run, Michael ended up in a Panamanian prison—one ruled by inmates, not guards—but he broke out of that, too, only to spend another season collecting cards to break into a facility with ties to a conspiracy. (Honestly, no one really knew what season four was about.) It was eventually clear that there's no rhyme or reason to Prison Break: in season three, Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Collies) was decapitated and her head is put into a box—but in season four, she was alive (head and all!) with basically a shrug from the writers. In "The Final Break," Michael breaks into a prison in order to break his wife out of the prison, but he dies in the process. The best way I can think of to describe Prison Break: The Final Break is that a lone DVD copy sat in the bargain bin at my local Rite Aid, untouched, for over a year.

This all said: I've watched all of Prison Break, numerous times, and enjoyed every second of it, but even I had a hard time sitting through the first four episodes of this revival. Even outside of the absurd timing—why did we need Prison Break 2.0 now?—there is very little that makes sense, though I suppose that's keeping with the general feel of the series. Michael is alive, though we don't get immediate details on how he survived, or what exactly he's been doing. All we know is that he's in prison, again, presumably because he needed something to break out of.

Some of the old gang is reunited, including his brother Lincoln (Dominic Purcell), who's still a small-town crook; Sara, now remarried and raising Michael's son; creepy T-Bag (Robert Knepper) who sets everything in motion; C-Note (Rockmond Dunbar), now a peaceful Muslim whose main job is to hang around and help everyone else feel comfortable in Yemen because, for some reason, this show now takes place in Yemen.

But Prison Break isn't concerned with "reasons" or "logic" or "the fact that death isn't reversible." The willingness to just say "fuck it" and go with what writers think is purely entertaining or adrenaline-fueled has always been part of its charm. Putting aside the two most egregious problems with season five—the overly convoluted conspiracy plot is more frustrating than entertaining, and much worse, the setting allows the series to occasionally dip into lazy and offensive Middle Eastern stereotypes—Prison Break is still, well, Prison Break. The performances—particularly Wentworth Miller and Robert Knepper—are worth sticking around for, as is the basic prison-break plot. See, there is but one guarantee in Prison Break: Because Michael's brain works as a Rube Goldberg machine for breaking out of prisons, he will certainly break out of this one before the season's end.

It's why it's so unfortunate that all the fun of the escape gets bogged down in all the heavier, less interesting plots. As expected, there's a confusing conspiracy theory throughout in season five, but it's hard to pay enough attention to actually try and parse what the conspiracy is about—if it's about anything at all. What works better are all the nonsensical aspects that become more and more laughable as the season progresses: a robotic prosthetic hand, terrorism, brainwashing, game theory, ISIS, frustratingly cryptic notes folded up into paper cranes, a seemingly endless parade of bombs, and a piece of gum that will "start a sequence of events that will finish on the other side of the world."

Based on the first four (of nine) episodes, Prison Break hasn't given us a compelling case for its return, but it has taught us one key to watching ridiculous television: Never take the show as seriously as it takes itself.

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