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Weinstein Allegedly Gave Employee $500 Bonus to Stock Erectile Dysfunction Meds

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The latest explosive Harvey Weinstein report from the New York Times not only sheds light on how the mogul allegedly used journalists and agents to help him cover up decades of sexual misconduct, but also how he manipulated low-level employees into aiding his toxic workplace behavior.

While some of Weinstein's employees, like Emily Nestor, were allegedly direct victims of his sexual harassment, others were tasked with the uncomfortable job of stocking up on their boss's erectile dysfunction medication. Former assistants Sandeep Rehal and Michelle Franklin told the Times they had to go out and get the injections, which Weinstein allegedly paid for on his company card. Rehal told the Times she stored the shots at her desk and delivered them to Weinstein in brown paper bags, sometimes running them to hotels where he met with women—a job that apparently earned her a $500 bonus.

Franklin told the Times she often had to guide women to Weinstein's hotel rooms, but grew uncomfortable when she noticed they left the meetings looking disturbed. She says she was fired shortly after confronting Weinstein about the strange task, telling him "it’s not my job, and I don’t want to do it."

Rehal and former employee Lauren O'Connor claimed they also had to escort their boss to sex addiction therapy in 2015. Rehal added that she had to rent Weinstein an apartment, personally keeping it supplied with lingerie, bathrobes, and flowers.

"You become more and more aware of everything going on, then you realize what it is you’re cleaning up, and you don’t ever want to tell anyone that—friends, family, my parents—what kind of job this is," Rehal told the Times.

According to former employees, the Weinstein Co. human resources department worked to protect Weinstein, and shrugged off workplace complaints. Lawyers like Steve Hutensky (reportedly nicknamed the "Cleaner-Upper") allegedly drew up harsh nondisclosure agreements preventing employees from saying a word about Weinstein and his family, friends, and associates, at the risk of massive financial penalties.

Even when higher-ranking executives attempted to raise the alarm about Weinstein's behavior, they failed to make headway out of intimidation. Amy Israel, Miramax’s former co-head of acquisitions, told the Times Weinstein and his brother Bob used "fear, intimidation, psychological and emotional abuse" to keep their executives from addressing his behavior at the company.

"As a spectator to the abuse you were silenced by the fear that you would become the next target," she told the Times. "The only alternative seemingly was to quit—to throw away everything you had worked so hard for and walk out the door."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.


Britain Has Never Faced Up to the Shame of Empire

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Ministers have had a tough time working out who Britain's new trading partners will be after it leaves the EU. At one point it was reported that the British government was hoping to reach out to countries that were once part of the British Empire. The idea is that, now the blood has dried and the dust from the cannonballs settled, the nations of the Commonwealth will be only too happy to jump into a vigorous new age of trade with their former colonial master. Some civil servants doubted this, dubbing the government's plans "Empire 2.0".

On the same morning these plans for a colonialism reboot were announced, I spoke to Shashi Tharoor, an Indian MP and the author of a new book, Inglorious Empire. The book details the enormous economic damage done to India by the Empire, takes apart the hypocritical notion that some of what the British did in India was for "the good of India", and calls for an end to the monumental ignorance surrounding the subject.

Tharoor laughs when I ask him about Empire 2.0: "Well, Empire 1.0 was a bad idea, to put it mildly. Why would you want a second version?" And yet, to listen to several leading members of the British government and to the fantasies of Britain's great importance conjured up during the Brexit campaign, a second version of the empire is exactly what a lot of people want.

It's understandable, in a way. Once upon a time, the sun never set on the lands Britain controlled. Those nostalgic for empire still dream of having the union flag ironed by a Nigerian servant, or getting an Indian boy to make them a nice, cool G&T.

It all seems so much more appealing than the decline and desperation we face now. Never mind that approximately 35 million Indians died because of famines caused by British misrule, or that Winston Churchill blamed one of these famines on the "beastly" Indians for "breeding like rabbits". Never mind that 5.5 million Africans were taken into slavery and the concentration camp was invented by the British Empire.

These imperial crimes – and many more – are either not known or glossed over, lost in the tide of colonial nostalgia and the fog of ignorance. During the EU Referendum campaign, the idea of "sovereignty" came to simply mean "making Britain great again", or, in the words of the Brexit camp, "taking back control". The Conservatives' "strong and stable" election mantra has an imperial ring, too, the conjuring up of something old, something dominant, something seaworthy

This longing for a return to greatness, combined with a lack of shame, was expressed in characteristic fashion by Boris Johnson when he said that the continent of Africa "may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more". In September of 2015, David Cameron told the Jamaican parliament that it needed to "move on from the painful legacy of slavery", before announcing his government's plan to build a £25 million prison on the island.

Sentiments like Johnson's were repeated again and again. "Now that's what I call winning!!! Well done Team GB & all our Commonwealth friends, now for Trade agreements," tweeted Conservative MP Heather Wheeler at the end of the Olympics, along with the slogan, "Empire goes for gold".

In the mind of Heather Wheeler, a sitting MP, it's as if, across Britain's former colonies, bright-faced sports fans were punching the air, shouting, "For Queen and country!"

Much of the public are with her. In January of 2016, a YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Britons (and 57 percent of Conservatives) thought their country's "history of colonialism" was something to be proud of, and 43 percent thought the British Empire was a "good thing".

"The polls didn't surprise me", says Paul Gilroy, author of a number of landmark books on race and empire, "because we're dealing with a politics of almost total ignorance in these matters."

While ignorance is often blamed on individuals, in a sort of, "Just read a book, you dumb bastard" kind of way, Gilroy talks about a manufacturing of ignorance that keeps the people of this country from learning about Britain's imperial past. Schools teach Tudors and Nazis. The man on the street shouts about "One World Cup and two World Wars." We remember the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, as we should, but we are not taught about the British concentration camps of the Boer War, nearly 50 years before.

Nor are we taught about the massacres, the famines, the slave ships and the prisons, or that the Empire was a system of wealth extraction in which the lives of millions of people were disregarded in favour of the greed of the British nation and those who served it. That millions of Africans were forcibly taken to the Caribbean colonies by British slave traders, that the wealth they extracted came at a horrific cost and that while that wealth continues to flow through British society today, its extraction is still keenly felt in the islands of the West Indies. Or that, when it was all done and the British were erratically carving up their empire into new nations, imperial officials attempted to obliterate the truth of what had happened during empire through the systematic destruction and burning of official documents. In Delhi, this destruction went on for so long that the smoke from the fires hung above the Indian capital.

When a conversation about the British Empire does happen, it is so often defensive or triumphalist. Niall Ferguson, a man who wrote a book called Civilization: The Six Killer Apps of Western Power – yes, he means "apps", like on a phone – has sold more books on empire than any other recent British author. He is, as Shashi Tharoor puts it, a "booster for empire". His sophisticated flag-waving comforts readers who don't seem to be able to handle the idea that the country they are from is not 100 percent awesome.

"Guilt is useless, counterproductive and usually just a source of resentment. Shame, on the other hand, can turn people towards the possibilities of redress and reparation."

This guilt is paralysing. Paul Gilroy points out that Freud associates guilt with melancholia, which the psychoanalyst described as a shameless condition, one that relates to the passing of something that cannot be fully understood and thus does not lead to positive change. Melancholia is related to mourning – the loss of empire is painful but it cannot be processed because, as Gilroy says, "Britain might learn too many uncomfortable truths about its history if it was known and considered".

Shame, for Gilroy, is far preferable to guilt because it can be catalysing – a stimulus to action. "Guilt is useless, counterproductive and usually just a source of resentment," he tells me. "Shame, on the other hand, is an appropriate response that can turn people towards the possibilities of redress and reparation."

In Warsaw, in 1970, then German chancellor Willy Brandt joined a commemoration to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, dropping to his knees in an act of humility and penance. As a socialist, Brandt had been an enemy of Nazi Germany and had been imprisoned for his political activity. He bore no personal responsibility for that government's crimes, but he recognised that as his country's leading representative, he could do something, and that, as he wrote in his autobiography, he was, "Carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered."

Such a response in Britain seems unlikely to happen, partly because many Brits do not know about – or refuse to accept – the darkness of empire. Last year, Conservative MP Liam Fox tweeted that Britain "is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history". Post-Brexit, Fox is now a cabinet minister, in charge of international trade – hardly the place you want an empire booster.

This gung-ho attitude to empire has spread much further than the corridors of power. Its legacy is still all around us.

In September of last year, a drinks consortium planned to open a "high-end rum bar" called Plantation. It wasn't until Black Activists Against Cuts stepped in and pointed out that plantations were "places where people suffered and died, where Africans suffered unimaginable violence and terror at the hands of their slave masters" that it was renamed Burlock.

There is already a Plantation Bar and Grill, though. It sells "unbelievable American soul food" and features "distressed wood". It has a "Philosophy" section on its website. It's in Wigan.

In another fitting piece of colonial nostalgia, the East India Company rides again as a seller of "exquisite loose teas and rich coffees; artisan sweet and savoury biscuits; a luxurious chocolate range; vintage and exotic jams, marmalades and mustards…" Their website is foggy about the mass slavery needed for the company to function during the colonial era, or the devastating famines it created by exporting crops rather than feeding people.

"A common complaint from students is, 'Why do we never learn about black history?' And I have to tell them that there isn't much of an option to teach this on the curriculum."

In 1948, the British Nationality Act established the principle of "Civis Britannicus Sum": that anyone born in the empire had the rights of British citizenship. As a result, former subjects of the British Empire came to the motherland as supposedly equal citizens. In response to the racism faced by Britain's former colonial subjects, the phrase "We are here because you were there" became a striking anti-racist slogan.

This remains largely untaught in most British schools – something history teachers across the country discuss. "In my view, there is a woeful lack of engagement on this topic across the curriculum in British schools, considering its importance to both British and world history," says William Bowles, head of History at St Mary Magdalene Academy in north London. "A common complaint from students is, 'Why do we never learn about black history?' And I have to tell them that there isn't much of an option to teach this on the curriculum."

To challenge this lack of public education, Jeremy Corbyn has said that the British Empire should be taught in schools, and various alternative groups are setting out to raise the public's awareness of Britain's colonial legacy. Organiser Elsie Bryant tells me that her project, "British Empire State of Mind", will take a nuanced approach and "help provide some context for what's going on in the world today, in terms of global inequality, poverty and how Britain helped create the conditions that caused and continue to perpetuate it now".

Projects like these are important, not just for the history lesson, but as a tool to understand Britain's current economic and political situation. Post-colonial British governments have shown a fondness for playing the white saviour in countries which need to be "saved", offering "aid" and "development". But it's not an accident that Britain is wealthy compared to its former colonies. The trade, natural resources and labour that could be gleaned from Britain's colonies turned it into a rich nation. At the beginning of the 18th century, India's share of the world economy was 23 percent. By the time the British left, it was a little over 3 percent. The money taxed, looted and traded out of India was used to fund the industrial revolution and the transformation of Britain into the world's pre-eminent imperial power.

Some of the ill-gotten gains of empire even came from a massive compensation package – £16 to £17 billion in today's money, or 40 percent of all government expenditure in 1834 – paid, after the abolition of slavery, to slave owners (slaves were given nothing). As UCL's Legacies of British Slave-ownership project discovered, around 46,000 individual claims and awards were made to those who "either owned slaves or benefitted indirectly from ownership".

Despite the vast effect the empire has had on our lives "we've never", as Paul Gilroy points out, "developed a way of talking about the imperial past and its crimes that allows us to see it for what it is". If we can't escape fantasies of empire, if we can't learn about what really happened in the name of the British crown, we will never be able to imagine a new identity for our country, an identity that can speak more fully to the multicultural nation we have become. Our current trajectory, careering away from Europe with some puffed-up idea about our own importance, is undoubtedly a result of this failure of education, to face up to our crimes and demonstrate humility.

@oscarrickettnow

Chinese Uni Students On Why They Still Use Western Names

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Most people try to reinvent themselves when they arrive at university, normally with a poorly-chosen bomber jacket or the sudden pretence they've read more than five books.

Many international students coming from Asian countries, however, adopt more than just a new affectation. Almost 100,000 Chinese students were enrolled in UK universities this year, with around another 50,000 enrolled from Hong Kong and across South East Asia. Many of these students will decide whether or not they should temporarily discard their real name and take on a Western one while studying in the UK.

But why does it happen?

The idea that students are compelled to take on an English name upon arrival sounds like a horrible postcolonial hangover, and by and large it's not something universities encourage.

"I've never encountered an official policy either here, or when I worked at Cambridge University, that advises foreign students to take on English names," one representative from the University of Nottingham told me. "Though, in my experience, around 50 percent of Chinese students I meet – and a smaller number of South East Asians – do choose to."

Other universities with large intakes of Chinese students, such as Manchester, UCL and Sheffield, also confirmed that they don't advise students to change their names – that free choice is the general policy.


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Feiyang Cai and Yifei Yan (otherwise known as Will and George) tell me there are good reasons for overseas students to use English names in general, but particularly if they are Chinese: "In most of my classes there are at least ten Chinese students," says Feiyang. "So if the teacher pronounces your name wrong they are all going to laugh, whereas nobody in my class realised we were saying a Thai classmate's name wrong because there were no other Thai students to find our bad pronunciation amusing."

Yifei claims that Chinese pronunciation can be tricky even for native speakers. "My name is quite complicated to pronounce," he says. "So, in fact, I use the nickname Tufei, which is easier to say and means something like 'bandit' in English. It's a nickname that makes people laugh, particularly as I study business, as it makes them think I'm being honest about wanting to take their money."

Some Chinese and English names are pronounced in a fairly similar manner, allowing students to pick an English equivalent that at least resembles the sound of their birth name. Baowen picked the name Bonnie when she came to the UK because it sounded like her name in Chinese and also like her favourite animal, the bunny rabbit.

"Non-Chinese speakers don't understand the meaning of my real name," she says. "When used together with another character my name takes on a different meaning. For example, the names in my family make up a set – mine means 'paper', my sister's 'ink' and, finally, my brother's name means 'pen'. My grandma chose these names because she was so proud of my mother becoming a university professor."

Fortunately, as they're not written on any official documents, choosing a Western name is not permanent for Chinese students. As Chuting Feng informed me: "A friend who was really good at English in high school told me 'Viola' was a good name, but when I was in Oxford everyone laughed at me and said it was an old lady's name, so now I've changed it to 'Val'." Another student changed his name from Gavin to Galvin when he met another student with the same name, and then to Calvin on the advice of his teacher.


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This flexibility can lead to cruel jokes; one Chinese student, Ting, says: "When I was in the States some American 'friends' told me a good American name was 'McLovin'. I thought it was just a regular name, like 'Jack', but a bit cooler. I didn't realise it was a joke name of a character from Superbad until much later."

There is no easy, politically correct answer to this issue. Chinese students are free to use their birth names should they choose, but using English alternatives is becoming increasingly common. Indeed, some have had one since school for use in online dealings and international correspondence, and it's even becoming more common in China.

"Some Chinese characters can be pronounced in a lot of different ways," says Feiyang. "So even though two people look like they have the same name, their names might sound completely different. That's why, in a lot of Chinese companies, people now use their English names. I like the fact that my English name makes me approachable to lots of different people."

Minha Lee, a researcher in moral conflict and emotions in Human Technology Interaction at the University of Eindhoven, claims this flexibility in name choice can be found in a variety of online interactions. "In online roleplaying games, Asian players may pick English handles from Larry to Lucifer666 at the start of the game, as English is the language of international communication," she says. "However, in other situations where the dominant social group is not English, handle choices change to reflect players' native languages."

Minha adds that just because many Chinese people agree to using an English name, it's not necessarily what they want: "On a personal level, I dislike having a name forced upon me," she says. "When I first moved to the US, my brother and I were taught English by a pastor who called me Michelle, which he said was similar to Minha and meant something like 'little angel'. I remember hating it and thinking, 'That's not me.'"

All of the Chinese students I speak to insist they faced no overt pressure to use an English name. Furthermore, Xuchen Guo / May alerts me to the fact that cultural differences can sometimes make it socially awkward to use a Chinese name in the UK. "In China, teachers will address you by both your first name and family name, as using just a first name implies emotional closeness. Here in England, where teachers tend to use just your first name, it'd be a bit weird for teachers to start calling me Xuchen, as it would suggest we're friends."

Either way, non-Asian students would do well to remember as they embark on this new chapter in their life: while they're just giving up Fat Face jumpers or World of Warcraft habits, their Chinese and South-East Asian friends are taking the reinvention game to a whole other level.

An Armed Robbery Ruined My European Vacation, Then My Life When I Got Home

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It was my last night in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where I had been living for a month as part of a three month working holiday. I had left a friend’s party, very drunk at around three in the morning. I got out of a cab at Rustaveli Avenue, the main drag in the downtown core, and stumbled to the studio apartment I was renting and passed out in bed.

An hour or so later, I was awoken by banging on my door. I looked out the window and saw a young woman, alone, in the courtyard of the centuries-old apartment building in which I was staying. She was shouting something in Georgian, I couldn’t understand, but she sounded distressed. I opened the door and asked what was wrong. She tried to force her way inside, wedging herself in the doorframe as I tried to close it. Two men ran from around the corner, into my apartment, and threw me to the ground. “Give us your money!” they yelled in English.

“Take anything you want,” I pleaded. I only had twenty Georgian Lari in my wallet, the equivalent of about ten dollars Canadian, a day’s wage for many Georgians, but certainly not enough for anyone to justify a home invasion. They became increasingly aggressive. One of the men grabbed a large kitchen knife from the counter and pushed my head against the ground, repeatedly stabbing the floor inches from my face and demanded more money as the other two ransacked my apartment.

He pulled my head back and pressed the knife firmly against my throat. The girl handed me pen and paper and they told me to write down the PIN for my bank cards and handed me my phone and instructed me to enter my password. They reset my phone to factory defaults (I’m assuming so they couldn’t be tracked with security apps), led me to the bathroom, shut the door, and turned off the lights.

When I emerged, they were gone and my apartment was trashed. Everything of value was stolen—my passport, computer, phone, and seemingly valueless things like my belt and a pair of cheap sneakers.

I walked to a high-end hotel next door in a state of shock and asked the receptionist called to call the police who showed up promptly and escorted me to the police station, where I spent about 15 hours, giving statements and filling out paperwork, all of which had to be painstaking translated between Georgian to English.

Georgia has a weak economy by European standards and tourism is one of its most lucrative industries. Crimes against tourists, especially Westerners, aren’t taken lightly. The police seemingly used all of their available resources to work on the investigation and apprehended the suspects the next day. I had everything returned to me except a few miscellaneous items including my sneakers, which I believe one of the assailants was wearing in the police line up.

The legal process seemed to be expedited on my behalf and I was able to leave the country two days after the robbery. I was told the thieves had confessed and agreed to four-year prison sentences, plus probation. I was wired some cash by friends and family and bought a flight to Istanbul.

Since I had already paid for my transport and accommodations, I continued to travel for two months, but I am not sure why. I found little to no interest in attractions or sightseeing. I wandered around Rome aimless and broke, I didn’t take a tour or step inside a museum. I opted to drink alone in a bar in Krakow instead of visiting Auschwitz—the reason I had gone to Poland in the first place. I spent three weeks in Budapest and barely left the apartment I was renting.

I still can’t quite articulate what effect the attack had on me upon returning to Toronto. I sought therapy on the advice those close to me. A diagnosis proved difficult for the therapists I consulted with, who said I didn’t have PTSD. I was not having trouble sleeping or nightmares. I wasn’t triggered into anxiety attacks or flashbacks. They offered no explanation for how I was feeling—the best label I was offered for my mental state was “lingering trauma-related symptoms.”

I felt socially isolated, as if no one understood what I had been through, which led me to feel a lack of empathy towards others. I believed anyone who hadn’t experienced a traumatic event like what I had been through was naive or a coward. This made me angry. Anger became my default emotion in times of stress.

Sometimes I would think everything was fine and I was my typical, cheerful self, before slipping into episodes of deep depression. I partied in an effort to self-medicate. I drank every night, doing coke and MDMA more and more frequently. My behaviour was becoming increasingly erratic and self destructive. Friends commented on how confident and outgoing I had become since returning from my trip, but they were confusing confidence with a loss of inhibition. When I would go social events, people would ask me to tell them my harrowing story, prefacing their request by asking if I felt comfortable sharing. I would say it was fine and indulge them. This attention made me feel that what I had endured had been worth it. This attention made me feel special and interesting and brave, as I continued to tell myself the attack had no effect on me, suppressing the emotions I was experiencing. Once I had shared my experience with most of my acquaintances, this attention began to diminish and I felt even more alone.

An image taken while Nick Martinello was vacationing in Rome.

I continued to get fucked up. I would go to parties or the bar jovial and in high spirits, only to end up crying alone afterwards, sometimes at home, sometimes in public. It was pathetic.

One night I was by myself in a parking lot, drunk and attempting to unlock my bicycle when the key got stuck. I struggled with the key but the lock would not give. I snapped and started punching and kicking a wall as hard as I could while shouting incoherently. I fell to the ground, writhing and screaming and sobbing uncontrollably. I hyperventilated until I was out of breath. I was soon surrounded by police officers. They asked me if I was on drugs, wanted to kill myself, or go to a hospital. I said no. I told them what I had gone and was going through. One of the officers told me that these sort of breakdowns happened to cops all the time. They drove me home in the back of a cruiser. I felt so ashamed.

Thrashing around on the asphalt was more terrifying than being threatened with murder. Nothing can quite describe how horrific it is to lose grip of your sanity. Afterwards, I became very paranoid it would happen again. I decided to turn my life around.

When people perceive you as a traumatized victim, they tell you that there is no way to heal on your own. You need therapy. Maybe I am cheap or naive or stupid, but I didn’t feel like shelling out thousands of dollars on therapy, when I hadn’t yet attempted to take control of my life under my own volition.

It’s been eight months since the attack and I’ve recently turned 30. I’ve been trying hard to introduce stability and discipline in my life and feel mentally sound. I’ve started exercising and eating well and lost about 20 pounds. I still drink more than I should, however, I am getting a lot better and controlling my impulsive behaviour. I haven’t sought therapy because I don’t want to. If things get bad again, perhaps I will. I am not sure how else to justify that I’m not in treatment to those who recommend I should, but I feel confident in my decision, and that’s all that really matters. I know it’s not totally resolved, but that doesn’t mean I’m not ready for another vacation.

Follow Nick Martinello on Twitter.

Tabloid Editor Allegedly Wanted to Make a Facebook Page for Employee's Vagina

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The chief content officer of American Media Inc. (AMI)—which publishes the National Enquirer, Us Weekly, and other celebrity tabloids—has been accused of sexually harassing company employees, the Associated Press reports.

Dylan Howard formerly ran AMI's Los Angeles office, where—according to 12 former employees—his alleged sexual misconduct included encouraging female reporters to sleep with sources, offering to make a Facebook page for an employee's vagina, and forcing multiple employees to watch porn unrelated to any ongoing stories. Howard allegedly talked about his female colleagues' sex lives in the office and went into detail about his own. According to the AP, he nicknamed himself "Dildo" and invited those in his office to a birthday party he called "Dildo's Dirty 30."

His behavior ultimately led to a handful of formal complaints, and AMI called in an outside investigator to look into the chief content officer, which resulted in a lengthy internal report. Howard quit just after it was released in 2012, but was re-hired at AMI a year later.

Though most former employees who spoke to the AP didn't reveal their names, two women—former reporter Liz Crokin and former RadarOnline editor Maxine Page—came forward publicly. Crokin said Howard personally harassed her, once asking if she was "going to be walking the streets tonight” when she wore heels to work. She later spoke with the outside investigator looking into accusations against Howard—and shortly thereafter, she said, she was laid off.

In early November, the New Yorker reported Howard once worked with Harvey Weinstein to dredge up damaging information about Rose McGowan, who has accused the disgraced Hollywood producer of rape. According to the magazine, Howard obtained a potentially damaging recording of a conversation about McGowan, promising to pass it to Weinstein. Howard told the New Yorker Weinstein never received the audio file, and that no one published a story about the information his reporter tracked down.

In terms of his behavior at work, Howard told the AP the allegations against him were "baseless." Cam Stracher, an AMI lawyer, confirmed that Howard was investigated—leading to a report on his behavior—but said nothing he did qualified as serious sexual misconduct.

"It was determined that there was some what you would call as horsing around outside the office, going to bars and things that are not uncommon in the media business," Stracher told the AP. "But none of it rose to the level of harassment that would require termination."

Page, who formally complained about Howard's behavior on behalf of two women at AMI, told AP she didn't think the allegations against him were ever sufficiently investigated.

"The behavior that Dylan displayed and the way he was and the way the company dealt with it—I just think that it has to be made public because it’s completely unacceptable," she said.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Hymen Reconstructions Are Still Very Much a Thing in Europe

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This article originally appeared on VICE Spain

To protect her identity, I decide to call Amanda, Alba. When I tell her, she laughs and insists I pick another name. "Alba is a common name in our community," she explains. "We don't want to accidentally ruin some poor girl's life." So we agree on the pseudonym Amanda.

The 20-year-old is speaking to me on the condition of anonymity because she is a gitana – a female member of the Spanish Roma community – who is about to get married but, crucially, not a virgin. If her secret became public, she tells me she would be shamed and thrown out of her home and community. "So now I have to do what I have to do," she tells me. And by that, she means getting a hymen reconstruction to convince her husband she's a virgin on their wedding night.

A few moments after we meet, despite some initial nerves, Amanda, unprompted, starts recanting the story of how she lost her virginity. "I fell in love with this payo [a non-Roma]," she explains. "I didn't want to lose him, so I felt like I had to have sex with him. After that relationship ended, I slept with another guy, but I wasn’t in love with him. It wasn’t like they made me do it, I had a good time too," she laughs.


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When Amanda was 14, her father made a deal that she would marry the son of a family friend. At the time, her fiancé was 15. "Luckily his father got a job abroad, so his family had to move to Portugal for a few years," she says. "It meant I could keep going to school and hanging out with my friends."

While she was leading a relatively normal teenage life, her Roma friends started to get married, one by one, until she was the only single one left. "None of my non-Roma friends are married," Amanda says. "If it were up to me, I would stay single for a few more years, but that's not really an option. Not getting married would really upset my father, and I won’t do that to him. By my age, many Roma women have three, four children." She's clearly disappointed that she doesn't have much say when it comes to her future, but at the same time she's excited it too. "I'd rather be getting married than not," she tells me. "And at least he’s a nice guy."

One of the most important parts of a Spanish Romani wedding – especially in the Andalusia region of Spain's southern coast – is the ‘handkerchief test’, done to verify the bride’s virginity. In this ritual, a female specialist – a juntaora – inserts a handkerchief into the women’s vagina, breaking the hymen and collecting smears of blood to prove her virginity.

But before they submit themselves to this test, non-virgins like Amanda often resort to what is commonly known as a zurcido, which loosely translates to 'mending' or 'sewing'. "I’m definitely not the first Roma girl to get a zurcido done, that’s for sure," Amanda tells me.



Over the past 15 years, Dr. Vilas has performed countless hymen reconstruction surgeries on women who, in her experience, want the procedure done either as a "either for aesthetic purposes, or because they belong to a culture that values a female's virginity."

In her office in Madrid, Dr. Vilas explains to Amanda what the operation will involve. As she draws complex diagrams of vaginas on her board, Amanda can't stop sniggering. "You don’t need to explain anything to me," she says. "As long as you know what you’re doing, I’m happy."

Dr. Vilas carries on regardless. "There are several surgical options to pick from," she explains. "The simplest one involves joining together the fragments of any remaining hymen. This can be done under local anaesthetic, and I'd recommend the patient waits at least three days before having sex to allow the new hymen to set."

Another method uses an easily tearable material called Alloplant, which is inserted in the vagina and imitates the hymen. Finally, the most invasive procedure involves making incisions on both sides of the membrane that covers the vaginal walls, before joining them together. As a consequence, though, patients must wait a long time before having sex, as it creates an open wound that must heal.


Watch: 10 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask a Tantric Sex Guru


"Whichever option you pick," the surgeon stresses, "the work must be carried out by a specialist. I’ve heard of so many cases of people opting for cheap, illegal procedures that lead to horrible infections that sometimes create a layer of fake hymen tissue that is impossible to break by having sex." A quick internet search of other budget alternatives turns up several different types of gelatinous membranes that women can buy, which promises to release a red liquid when it breaks during sex.

If surgery isn't an option, there is one last resort. Amanda tells me about a friend whose parents bribed the juntaora to pretend that she had passed the handkerchief test. "On her wedding night, she also tricked her husband by cutting her finger, then reaching inside herself before pulling her finger out to pretend like she was bleeding."

As we wait for Amanda's decision, Dr. Villas explains why the handkerchief test is ridiculous. "A girl can be a virgin and not bleed at all," she says. In fact, research has found that around one in every thousand women are born without a hymen, while nearly half of women don’t bleed when they first have sex.

Amanda eventually picks the first method, which means she will have to come back four days before her wedding. "My mum will have to make an excuse about needing to come to Madrid to sort out my dress," she tells me.

Amanda has told pretty much all of the women in her family, except her grandmothers, about the operation. She describes the issue as an open secret among the women in many Roma families. "It might be reluctantly, but it’s still talked about," she says. "Sometimes, if a girl can’t afford the procedure and doesn’t want to go to her father for the money, her friends will help her raise the cash."

Amanda’s operation will cost €2,300 (£2,000), which is a huge sum for her family. "If my mum didn’t have the money, I don't know what would have happened to me," she says. "I have to do everything I can to make it up to her."

On the day of the operation, Amanda arrives with her mother and a cousin. Our greetings are a bit tense – her family aren’t too happy she has agreed to speak to a journalist. But Amanda has more important things on her mind. "I don’t know why I’m so nervous – I've never heard of such a surgery go wrong," she tells me. "Right now, all I want is to be married and settled with my husband, and to pay my mother back for all she has done, by giving her grandchildren."

Her mother and cousin seem remarkably calm and patient. I can't see any signs of frustration or anger towards Amanda – they just sit in the waiting room, casually talking about the wedding, as if they were here for a routine check. As Amanda heads in for the procedure, her mother gives her two kisses and says a quick prayer. Before disappearing, Amanda glances back at me. I don't really know what to do or say, so I nervously respond with two thumbs-up, and then make the universal sign for "ok".

The operation is scheduled to last an hour. My plan is to wait for Amanda to come out, ask her how she feels, and then leave. But almost as soon as she disappears through the pre-op door, her cousin gets up and, very politely, asks me to leave. "I don’t mind you being here," she explains, "but it’s really making my aunt uncomfortable. This should be a private, family matter." Before leaving, I wish them luck, to which Amanda’s mother retorts, "To hell with luck. We need our €2,000 back, not luck."

***

A few days after her wedding, I catch up with Amanda. She tells me that she was a little nervous about dancing on the day because the surgeon had told her to avoid making too many sudden, physical movements, but everything was fine. The handkerchief test also went as planned – though if it hadn't, her mother was prepared to also bribe the juntaora at the last minute. And her wedding night was a success, too, she tells me, even though it hurt more than she had expected. "But, of course, not as much as my first time," she smiled.

It’s Slightly Less Shitty to Have a Phone in Canada Now

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Canada is, famously, a terrible place to get a phone contract. We pay among the highest rates in the world for service, the country’s major telecommunications companies exercise a virtual oligopoly over service provision, and those same companies are shielded by domestic regulation from any foreign-owned competition that might pressure them to improve service or lower prices.

But some new regulations came into effect on December 1 that may ease the burden of dealing with a Canadian telecom company.

Last June, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission announced new terms to the country’s Wireless Code of Conduct. This was primarily in response to consumer complaints about unexpected charges on their phone bills and ambiguously-worded contracts. Accordingly, the biggest changes came in these areas.

For starters, there is no longer an unlocking fee for a new phone, and it is significantly easier to switch your phone to a new carrier if you want a different plan. This also means that if you are travelling internationally, it will be easier to switch your phone to a local carrier and avoid the (often brutal) roaming charges.

The way that Canadian carriers charge customers for going over their data limit is also changing. The CRTC Wireless Code of Conduct had already capped data overage at $50 per month per account, unless the customer agreed to pay more. This was the case no matter how many individual devices were part of a single plan, e.g. in a family plan.

But there were no real rules governing who could actually request extra data, which meant that in some cases the account holder would get a much larger phone bill than expected because some member(s) of the plan had responded ‘yes’ to a text from their phone carrier offering to sell them more data. This has been changed so that all data overage must be authorized by the primary account holder, which should hopefully mean substantially fewer parents discovering that a minor in their household has ‘consented’ to running up hundreds or thousands of dollars in data overage unbeknownst to the person paying the bill.

The new rules also aim to make phone contracts less of a labyrinthine nightmare. The CRTC has introduced trial periods for new contracts. This gives customers 15 days to try a phone plan with the option of a free cancellation if they are unsatisfied—as long as they used less than 50 percent of their monthly data and return the device in near-mint condition, anyway.

Contracts are also now required to be in plain language and explicitly lay out the plan’s minimum monthly charges, as well as any optional fees. A permanent copy of the contract must also be provided to consumers, either in print or electronic form. And customers must be provided with a tool to measure how much data they are using, and any potential roaming costs they may incur.

The CRTC is also updating the rules around cancellation fees. Regardless of whether your contract is fixed-term or indefinite, an early cancellation fee cannot exceed the cost of the device subsidy. In the case of a standard two-year contract, the price you pay for the device must be spread out evenly over the 24 month period. This way, your cancellation fee gradually goes down, in proportion to the length of time you stay on the contract.

Canadians are still subject to some of the worst telecommunications contracts in the world, and that appears unlikely to change so long as the CRTC itself is stacked with industry executives charged with policing themselves. But these news regulatory tweaks certainly come as a welcome change.

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

This Tommy Wiseau Impression Is Officially the Best of the Best

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A few weeks back, in honor of the release of The Disaster Artist, A24 put out a challenge to fans of The Room: Recreate your favorite scene from the movie in a public space, upload it online, and the best "Hai Mark" or whatever wins a golden Oscar-style statue shaped like actor, director, writer, producer Tommy Wiseau.

Fans of The Room old and young alike raced to don their Wiseau wigs and shoot some footage, and the submissions were all pretty hilarious. Even the kid from The Florida Project got in on the action. Now, finally, the grand prize winner has been announced, and it looks like a guy named Josh Taube will be taking home the Tommy statue.

Sure, plenty of entries were good, but it's easy to see why Franco, Seth Rogan, and the other judges picked Taube's video for first place—the thing is the closest we'll probably ever get to seeing The Room on ice.

In it, Taube and a few friends recreate the film's climactic suicide scene—dress-humping and all—in the middle of a crowded ice rink. When the fake Tommy hits the ice, an unsuspecting skater cruises over to make sure he's alright, and the guy winds up becoming an unwitting audience to Johnny's tragic end.

The ten runners-up won't end up with a Tommy Award on their mantel, but each one scored a "prize pack" that included a football, a tuxedo shirt, and a signed photo from Franco, among other things. They're all pretty great in their own right, unfolding on the crowded subway and IKEA, and even one that stars a few cats and dogs.

Kick back, order yourself a half Hawaiian, half artichoke and pesto pizza, and watch some of the best reenactments from The Room below.


This Town Just Wants Its Toddler-Flipping, Tattooed Mall Santa Back

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Over the past 15 years, Scott Diethorne has worked as a Pennsylvania town's favorite Santa Claus. For no extra charge, he'd flip your kid upside down, pose with your pets, and flash the "Naughty" and "Nice" tattoos inked along his forearms for the camera. But this year, he's been asked to tone down his act—and a horde of his loyal customers are outraged.

Philly.com reports that the company managing the Santas at the local mall where Diethorne works told him he couldn't show off his tattoos or fling any toddlers onto his shoulders this season—traditional photos only. It's not clear what prompted the change, but the company, Cherry Hill Programs, explained in a statement that it's "dedicated to preserving the tradition and image of Santa with authentic holiday visits."

After hearing the company was trying to crack down on Diethorne, Amanda Nagy, a diehard Santa Scott fan, took to Facebook to round up some support for him.

"This new photo company won’t allow him to show his tattoos anymore, do fun poses, etc!" she wrote. "If you guys know him, you know this is all of the stuff he is known for—bring our Santa back!!!"

Her post was shared more than 400 times by folks who have come to visit Santa Scott over the years in Pennsylvania's Middletown Township, about an hour outside Philadelphia.

"Seriously?!" one fan wrote. "I swear I will protest. This is ridiculous my kids love going every year just because he's so awesome! No fair. This photo company FUCKING SUCKS."

Some called the prohibition on Santa Scott's nontraditional antics "very sad," "none sense," and "insane!" Others penned touching tributes to Diethorne about the visits they've paid him over the years.

"He is the very best why would you want to mess with the best Santa in our area!" one woman wrote. "Leave our Santa Scott alone let him continue to bring the magic of the holiday as he has done every year!"

Though some folks have threatened to abandon taking a photo with Santa Scott altogether this year, Nagy has encouraged his fans to keep paying him a visit, tattoos or no. She also recommended they check out a local photography studio he's partnered with, where he'll be up to all his old shenanigans.

"Please do not boycott photos with Santa Scott altogether," Nagy wrote. "We still want him to have work."

Santa Scott himself has stayed tight-lipped on the controversy. His daughter, Megan Greene, said that he doesn't want anything to ruin his hard-earned Santa career. She told VICE that even with hidden tattoos and toned-down theatrics, her father is still the same Santa Scott the community has grown to love.

"My father's tattoos and silly poses can be censored," Greene said. "But his big heart, love for others, and his joy in being Santa Claus will always set him aside from the others."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Finding Therapy Isn’t Easy for Queer and Trans People of Color

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In many parts of the black community, therapy is not something that we do. Especially if you’re queer.

After all, deep and pervasive stigma exists when it comes to mental healthcare and people of color, based largely on barriers to access and racial disparities in the field. In 2013, over 83 percent of working psychologists were white, and though African Americans face more mental illness than white people, we tend to seek out mental health treatment at half the rate of whites. LGBTQ people also face mental illness at three times the rate of non-queer people.

As a queer person of color, I can personally see why people might be reluctant to seek treatment. My first three psychologists were all “nice” white women, but I often found that my therapy sessions ended up being hour long onslaughts of racial and heteronormative microaggressions. I was made to constantly defend my sexuality and my way of life, or answer questions about why I preferred to use African American vernacular English when I was so “articulate.” One suggested I was exploring relationships with women simply because I was fed up with men. Another suggested that I “ignore” the racial aggressions I faced at school, as if it’s that simple. I felt like my words were heard but not really understood, and it seemed to me that a vast ocean of cultural differences existed between us that negatively impacted my relationship with therapy.

“When racial and ethnic minority individuals do receive mental health care, it is often of lower quality than that received by their white, non-Latino counterparts,” concluded a recent study published in the Journal of Counseling. And sometimes, that mental health care “includes client experiences of intentional or unintentional discrimination.” For people of color, the experiences I faced with my therapists are all too common. But when I managed to find a black queer therapist who accepted my health insurance after months of searching, she changed my life.

She was able to address my trauma at all of its various intersections, and therapy became an important ritual to me, rather than a medical appointment. She brought spirituality into my mental health experience, something I found lacking in my previous encounters. It was a breath of fresh air—and an experience too few queer people of color find themselves able to share.

These days, we have more resources that are bolstering QTPOC-centered therapy, like the National Queer and Trans Therapists of Color Network and the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective, but it's still not enough. Breaking the stigma that exists for POC around therapy is the first step—and to that end, we asked three queer people of color how they found mental healthcare that worked for them, and their tips for how others can do the same.

Liv Slaughter

I was born in Richmond, Virginia to a white mom and a black dad; I then moved to and grew up in a small town in New Jersey, where I was raised in a homogenous environment. My mom and stepfather put me in therapy in the second grade after noticing how angry I was. Being queer and multiracial with little context of my family of color made life really hard at a young age, and had me acting out in every way possible.

Therapy was always a process of healing for me, even from the beginning. It was the only place I ever felt listened to or cared for, and it’s where I formed most of my reliable relationships with adults throughout my childhood. It allowed me to grow on my own terms—I faced verbal abuse at home, and had no outlet to express my anger and frustration. As I got older my trauma and mental illness shifted, and I was diagnosed with bipolar I disorder in 2012 after a hospital stay. A couple years of antipsychotics later, it turns out that my doctors had failed and misdiagnosed me. I should have been diagnosed with PTSD. In my head this felt like a process of control and misunderstanding, because I was surrounded by white people who wanted to control me. As soon as I started speaking to doctors of color, I was given more information on how to heal and grow from previous experiences.

It’s hard to navigate psychology as a QTPOC. It’s a process of digging and searching and asking for help to find the right therapist. I only recently found a therapist who is a woman of color and psychiatrist who is a man of color. It wasn’t until I worked with doctors of color that I felt heard and seen—like they actually cared about me. Through them, I have come up with the best coping mechanisms and care plans I’ve had to date. After all, how can someone treat you if they can’t relate to you? Looking for people who looked like me and had a similar life experience changed my life.

Tanekwah Hinds

I am a bisexual Jamaican-American woman; I currently work at a Boston community health center that specializes in LGBTQ healthcare called Fenway Health. I organize community outreach events, such as workshops, film screenings, and panels, that support the physical, mental, and social health of LGBTQ women.

While this environment supported my intersectional identities, I did not seek therapy myself until earlier this year, after a breakup. I originally sought therapy to mend my first heartbreak, but my therapist has helped me delve into past and present personal issues around body image, activist burnout, childhood trauma, relationships with intimate partners, friends, and family members, and so much more. It’s helped me understand that past trauma, no matter how much we try to suppress it, always affects how we navigate present spaces and relationships. My therapist has given me the awareness to acknowledge them and communicate how they affect me in current relationships.

Like many in the Boston queer and transgender community, I have therapy at the Meeting Point, a collective of independent body workers and mental health practitioners who specialize in meeting the needs of LGBTQ individuals. I love having therapy that it is queer-informed. And while I was unable to find a therapist who was both queer and a person of color, I have a great relationship with my current therapist, a queer white woman. However, I still advocate that queer and trans people of color find therapists of color; as queer people of color, our experiences are informed by our intersecting identities, and a therapist who understands the reality of these identities can help our community heal from intersectional trauma.

Eddie Maisonet

I’m an Afro-Boricua, an African American Puerto Rican, and I live with depression and inattentive-type ADHD. I’m also a nonbinary queer boi. My queerness is a statement of identification as well as of political intent. I often say that I’m “good” at therapy, and that’s where I get my wealth of mid-crisis grounding exercises. I’ve always been a gender nonconforming kid, but in 7th grade I came out to my mother and have been in therapy on and off ever since.

When I came out, I was the one who sought out therapy. My mother didn’t speak to me for three days, but she eventually agreed, even though, as she put it, “we don’t do that.” But I think she thought it would “fix” my queerness. So I started seeing my first therapist, an older white straight woman. That’s how I learned I had no rights as a queer minor. She encouraged me to open up about complicated feelings about my mother and suicidal ideation, and then at the end of my sessions would tell it all to my mom.

I’ve seen four other therapists since and five psychiatrists. I’m currently seeing an excellent queer therapist at a practice that centers queer people—it even has trans and POC practitioners. And I’m crying even thinking about that, because that is some revolutionary shit. My therapist has become my guide through this murkiness that I have to accept is forever a part of my life. He provides a level of safety that’s impossible outside that room; it’s somewhere I can go deep into my emotional shadow realm, a place that inspires me to create art but scares the shit out of me. Therapy has saved my life and my relationships.

Having QTPOC represented in therapy is crucial. It can be the difference between someone like me going to therapy or not, between therapeutic practices being harmful or healing. People are often at their most vulnerable when seeking help, and it sucks to have to explain basic aspects of your humanity to educate your therapist. While it should be a requirement, cultural competency is a specialty one must seek out.

Arielle Gray is a Boston-based writer, journalist and artist. Follow her on Twitter.

Nicole Richie Is Thriving

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Sexing is an art, not a science,” Nicole Richie tells me, deoadpan, before bursting into laughter. Sitting in her Burbank office, the 36-year-old mogul-author-actress is skimming through the photos on her iPhone, trying to put a picture to the ridiculous story she’s in the midst of telling. The setup goes something like this: Two mornings ago, Richie discovered a rooster in her backyard chicken coop. “I woke up to this thing crowing and I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’” she says as she shows me a pic of the chicken in question—a flashy black-and-white bantam named “Mo”—who she bought a few months ago thinking he was a she. “He was in full drag,” she says with an exasperated laugh. “But I wanted an obnoxiously gorgeous chicken, so I guess that’s what I get.”

The irony of Richie’s urban farming fiasco is lost on no one. Fourteen years ago, Richie made her television debut in a similarly hilarious setup on The Simple Life. The show, which ran from 2003 to 2007, followed Nicole and her then-BFF Paris Hilton as they traveled the country doing odd jobs and attempting to shed their spoiled rich kid roots. The first season memorably featured the girls living and working on a dairy farm in Altus, Arkansas.

Richie poses in front of clothes from her fashion line, House of Harlow 1960.

Like the many (many) reality TV stars that came after her, the line between Richie’s public and private persona quickly blurred into nonexistence after the show took off. The adopted daughter of Lionel Richie and Brenda Harvey, Nicole says she was always an outgoing kid. But after The Simple Life, her social life—from partying and dating to friendships and diets—became fodder for endless gossip rag speculation and scrutiny. In the process, she and Hilton became the ringleaders of a growing set of mid-’00s models, actresses, and socialites looking for their 15 minutes.

Since then, Richie has blossomed into a fearless—though much more private—woman, branching out in about a million different professional directions. There was her book, 2005’s The Truth About Diamonds; her fashion line, House of Harlow 1960; and then there was a second novel and her own TV series for VH1 called Candidly Nicole, which she produced and starred in. All this while raising two small kids with her partner of 11 years, husband and Good Charlotte frontman Joel Madden.

Richie and husband Joel Madden take a break in the halls of their shared workspace.

Recently, though, Richie’s return to network television has generated headlines. Last year, she was cast as anchorwoman Portia Scott-Griffin on NBC’s Great News, Tracy Wigfield’s critically lauded sitcom about the inner workings of a local TV news show. While it’s technically Richie’s first scripted series gig, you’d never know it watching her. As Portia, she expertly plays up the character traits she’s been toying with since she was young, toeing the line between vain ditz and loveable diva like only she can. Thanks in part to Wigfield and executive producer Tina Fey’s rhythmic writing style, the show has also proven to be the ideal vehicle for Richie’s innate sense of comedic timing.

On a recent afternoon, I sat down with Richie to talk acting, parenting, body image issues, and how last year’s election impacted Great News, for better or worse.

Richie on The Simple Life: "I did it, and it was so much fun, but it lasted for five seasons... My life just went in a completely different direction."

VICE: How did you get involved with Great News?
Nicole Richie: My manager called me and said, “I have this script, I think you should read it. It’s a Tina Fey show. It’s really funny.” I’m a big 30 Rock fan, and the moment I opened the script I heard that rhythm. Then I came up with about 35 reasons why I couldn’t audition, all rooted in me thinking that it wasn’t going to happen. But I went and auditioned three times and I got it. They had already shot the pilot, so I was shooting four days later.

You shot the first season before the election, right?
Yeah, we started shooting in August of last year, finished in October, and aired in April. It was probably the first thing on all of our minds, moreso when the season came out. Like everyone, we thought the outcome would be very different. We had some Hillary lines in there that were cut, but there’s no mention of any political figures on the show, which I think is incredibly cool of Tracy. Her and Tina are such smart, elegant women, and the beauty of great comedy is when you’re able to keep aligned with who you are while making jokes too. The second season is a good representation of that.

Richie on being young and famous: "When you’re 22 and Vanity Fair wants to do a piece on you, you put yourself in that position of, “OK, I’ll do whatever they want.”

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a ballerina. When I was 16, I got real bold and I wanted to be Britney Spears’s backup dancer.

Did you always have aspirations to act?
I always knew I wanted to perform. When I was in high school, I wanted to do musical theater. I wanted to move to New York and go to college there, but my birthday’s in September, so I graduated at 17. My parents saw the look in my eye and were like, “You’re not going to the East Coast. We need to keep you here.” So I went to college in Arizona for two years—maybe two classes, but I had the time of my life.

Then, when I was done, The Simple Life just happened. At the time, there was no other show to compare it to. It was pitched to me like, “Do you want to take 30 days out of your life and go with your best friend to some city—but we’re not going to tell you where it is—and get paid for it?” And I was like, "Yeah, why not?" I did it, and it was so much fun, but it lasted for five seasons. I didn’t plan on that, my life just went in a completely different direction.

A mix of bohemian-inspired pieces from Richie's fashion line.

How would you compare doing Candidly Nicole to doing The Simple Life?
They were so different. Candidly Nicole I produced, and we had outlines for every show… by the third season of The Simple Life, we had outlines and our own lives and all of that, but in the beginning we weren’t even allowed to have phones. That concept alone wouldn’t fly now, which is so crazy because it doesn’t seem like that long ago. I was cut off from the world. I don’t think the show could exist now for that reason, but that was the whole point. The concept of just leaving your life just isn’t a thing. It was just a whole different time.

Your comedic chops on Great News have garnered praise. Where do you think your sense of timing and humor come from?
My dad is a jokester. He loves to laugh—and if he has to be the butt of a joke to create that laugh, he’s up for it, and I feel like I’m the same way. It’s definitely my goal to cry from laughter every single day. To lose myself in laughter—I love it in such a real way. It feels like going on a ride.

A collection of House of Harlow necklaces and rings on display in Richie's Burbank office.

Do you see that in your kids, too?
My son, yes. My daughter is much more shy, but Sparrow is a joker. He wants to laugh, he wants to have a good time. He’s also a Virgo like me, so he wants to stay home all the time. I love his vibe.

You definitely seem like you’re a Virgo.
I do. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy checking the Virgo box at every moment. It’s a badge of honor. When I listen to Joel talk about his day and how he’s so stressed and doesn’t know how he’s going to do it, I sit there and think to myself, Man, I could make this so much easier for you. I would be an amazing personal assistant. I love a list, I love to be on time, I love to make things [ makes checkmark in the air] tight.

Richie gets up close with a House of Harlow necklace.

You’ve parlayed a very public life into a pretty private one in the past few years. How much effort did that take on your part?
I definitely made a conscious effort. For me, when I became a parent, there was no question as to what I had to do. Joel and I have the same instinct to protect our kids and let them be kids, because you’re only a kid once. That’s their life, and my life is not their life. They need to have their own world.

I recently re-read your 2006 feature in Vanity Fair where they interview your nutritionist about your weight. It blew my mind, both for how invasive it was and how far we’ve come since then in regards to body acceptance.
Right? I haven’t yet gone back and re-read it—that’s too weird for me—but I have thought about it. I remember they pitched a photo of me standing on a scale, to make a joke out of it or something. I think about the people I was working with who thought that was what I should do. But I agreed to go and do that, so it’s hard for me to be angry when I didn’t necessarily have my own boundaries back then. It was also a different time. When you’re 22 and Vanity Fair wants to do a piece on you, you put yourself in that position of, “OK, I’ll do whatever they want.” Obviously now in 2017, I would hope that wouldn’t be the vibe with anybody.

How did being under that kind of public scrutiny affect your outlook on life?
My perspective at the time was that it was all kind of put upon me—that I was reacting to this attention that was put upon me. I know now that that’s not necessarily true. We all have to own our role, though, and that’s something I still have to work on. It takes effort to sit in your own power and decide for yourself that you’re actually going to guide your life and not just merely exist.

I don’t think most 20-somethings have that level of self-awareness.
I feel like maybe they have it a little more than I did. [ Laughs] Some people are born with it, and that’s really cool. I have some friends—one of my best friends is 27 and she’s killing it at work and she’s such a stand-up person and she’s not doing anything that she should be ashamed of, all the while I’m thinking, That’s so cool. I didn’t do that.

"It’s definitely my goal to cry from laughter every single day. To lose myself in laughter—I love it in such a real way."

What has motherhood taught you?
Lots of things. [Laughs] First of all, there’s no way to describe how you’re gonna feel about somebody until they’re here. I’ve said to people, "It’s almost unfair to use the word ‘love’ as a description of how you feel about your child, but also how you feel about Starbucks." It’s not fair to use that same word because it’s such a different feeling. You’re connected to these people—you feel like an animal. There’s instincts. For a woman, just physically what you go through and how you heal, and how your body reacts to them crying—you really think, Wow. I am so dope. It’s crazy. Even knowing that your breast milk can heal cuts like Neosporin—the whole thing is insane. Tracey Wigfield is about to have a baby and I told her that you have to know going into it that you’re gonna feel like, ‘What way is up and what way is down?’ You need a timeline. Everything happens and it takes over your entire life and then all of a sudden it’s gone and you move to something else. It just keeps evolving.

What’s one thing you still want to accomplish?
I want to be Britney Spears’s backup dancer.

Follow Aly Comingore on Twitter.

Five Questions for That Couple Who Fucked in a Moving Car

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Yeah, this sometimes happens where two people have sex so weirdly and so publicly that we all have to talk about it. Sex is normally done in a bed, is the thing, or on a big sofa. In the shower, I guess. Either way: there are blinds and curtains and closed doors involved, as a general rule of thumb. I’m just saying: most people do not have sex, in a car, in Argentina, while the car is going 70mph (Argentina is static or as near-to-static as a country can be, revolving as it is with the globe, don’t start), and they are also driving the car, the sex-havers.

That’s not the normal way to have sex.

Some questions:

JUDGE YOURSELF AT ONCE ON THE HORNY:URGENCY SPECTRUM

How horny are you? How much of a rush are you in? I think if you ask yourself these two questions, and answer them honestly and deeply, you can basically take a temperature check on your interior life at any one moment. How horny are you? Eh, maybe only a 10 percent. Do you have anything to do later? Yeah, three things planned: 75 percent in a rush. Urgency overrides your horny. Or: how horny are you? Sadly, you have a hangover, so for whatever reason you are maximum horny. Nothing much else going on today, so why not – and horniness trumps urgency. You see? Don’t you see? That everything in our life is dictated by sex and scheduling?

These guys: these guys do not give a hot fuck about that. Horny? Oh yeah. Yeah. As horny as it is possible to be. In a rush? They are going among the fastest speeds that human beings regularly go. Did they wait to get home to fuck? They did not. The horniness was unbearable. But did they undermine the urgency to do it? Also no: they transcended both horniness and urgency to satiate both human desires in one pulsating locomotive shag. Every time you have waited to get home to shag someone; all those times you lost hours to chores and admin: that time you wasted has been reclaimed, here, and now, in a speeding car in Argentina, by these two maverick shaggers.

IS THIS GUY THE BEST DRIVER IN THE WORLD?

Lewis Hamilton – the answer to the question, "What would happen if a lab created, from scratch, an athletic superstar, but for some reason forgot to give it dick and balls?" – has won the Formula 1 driver’s title four times. By that metric he is a good driver. I have been in a car with good drivers, and bad ones too: civilians who make smooth gearshifts and make three-steps-ahead-of-the-chess-board motorway overtakes, and people who clank it into reverse by accident and run down a low wall. A lot of people have the capability to drive. But to drive well: it’s a fine, balanced art. Not a lot of people can do it.

Okay, so this dude is driving at 70mph and doing all the 70mph stuff you have to do in a car to keep going 70mph – looking at the road, for example, and gently tilting the wheel, and hammering the pedals. He is also full on fucking someone at the same time. How many times does he crash? Zero times. How many times does the car explode in a ball of flames? It does not explode in a ball of flames even once. This guy is driving on the motorway, and making all the fine adjustments that come with that… and also absolutely fucking (*1). Give all of Lewis Hamilton’s titles to this guy. He’s the best driver on the planet, sorry. Sorry, Lewis! But he deserves them more than you.

CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT THE FLIP OFF

The dude is driving 70 miles per hour. And fully, fully fucking. And then. Like a zombie emerging powerfully from the grave for one last "fuck you", he… raises… his… non-shagging hand… and… flips… off… the camera. Imagine even being agitated in that situation! You’re living the best life it is possible to live! Why even get mad at people for watching! Because of the principle, and nothing else!

Is this flip off the peak of human coolness? Mate: this is The Fonz high-fiving The Rock in space. This is Donald Glover and Zlatan Ibrahimovic firing laser-guided sniper bullets into the exploding face of the president. This is Diddy ordering another bottle of Ciroc with just a very quiet, powerful nod. This is the coolest thing that has ever happened.

DID U EVER WONDER WHAT THE SPANISH FOR ‘SEX IN A CAR’ IS?

Ah, yes: it is "sexo en coche".

ARE YOU TRULY LIVING YOUR LIFE?

Are you? Are you, though? Are you truly living your life? What’s the fastest speed you’ve ever had sex at? Have you ever had sex, frantic and sweaty, eyes white and hands clenched against the road, while flipping someone off? Are you working to your full potential? Do you even know your full potential? If I asked you to shag someone while driving a car down some flat tarmac in fifth gear, could you? Or would you doubt yourself? Could you get into space? Do you wonder how people get into space, and how you don’t? There are people in space right now. You have all the same tools as them. A brain and a body. Why aren’t you in space? Why are you still in this job you hate? Why do you spend so much of your time so miserable? You shouldn’t be, should you. The world is huge and incredible. You can do anything you want in it. You can shag someone in a car while also driving the car. But instead, no: just you and the Tesco Clearance Aisle again, looking at reduced fat sausage rolls, wondering why it won’t get better. Get out there. Get out of here and out there. Fuck someone in a car while also driving a car. Live your life.

@joelgolby

(*1) Can We Also Please Note: remember when Hugh Grant got busted with that sex worker and the police only knew what was going on because his legs kept pumping the brakes of the car he was parked in, setting off the lights on the back? (I am sorry but this is a deeply important cultural moment for me) Yeah: now imagine that car was moving at the time. Anyone who can control their legs at all during any notion of sexual activity is, for my money, worthy of some sort of national honour.

10 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask a Second Wife

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This article originally appeared on VICE Arabia

According to Islamic Law, a man is allowed to marry up to four wives, which is why polygamy is legal across the majority of the Arab world. The role and status of each wife, though, depends on both the region and each individual family. Unsurprisingly, having to share your husband's attention often leads to tension between the women – with the first wife especially resentful towards all the so-called "intruders" on her original, happy setup.

To avoid this altogether, many men keep their multiple marriages a secret from their wives – a trick that only really works when you're rich and can afford to house them and all your children separately. In turn, some women don't tell their friends about their husband's other partners because young people in the region are becoming more outspoken on how polygamy is an arrangement that is designed to serve patriarchy.

VICE Arabia spoke with Shuh* from Egypt who is a second wife. She talked about what it's like to share her husband with another woman, what her friends and family think about it and about how'd she feel if her partner got a third wife.

VICE: Did you know your husband was married when you guys started dating?
Shuh: Of course. We were friends for two years before we got engaged, so I knew all about his married life. I turned down his first proposal because I wasn’t sure being a second wife was the sort of life I wanted to have. But he was very persuasive, and kept telling me that he couldn’t live without me and would never give up trying. So I agreed, with the mutual understanding that I would accept that he will always have commitments to his other family, and he would never ignore his financial and emotional responsibilities towards me.

Does your husband's first wife know about your relationship?
She only knew about it at beginning – she doesn’t know that we got married. She knew when he proposed and, at first, she was fine with it because she could see that I was an important part of our husband’s life. But she eventually changed her mind, and asked him not to marry me. That's why we've had to keep our marriage a secret. To be honest, I don’t care if she finds out about me, because nothing will change.

How do your friends and family feel about your marriage?
My family have known about it from the beginning. We talk about everything, and rely on each other for advice. My mother didn’t want me to become a second wife because she had been one and her experience was bad, and she did not want me to go through what she did. But she eventually gave me her blessing after getting to know my husband; he’s become very close to my family. My friends tell me that they're happy as long as I'm happy and the relationship is built on honesty and trust.


WATCH – 10 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask: Pussy Riot


Between you and his first wife, who got the better deal?
I haven’t really thought much about her or her feelings. All I care about is being a good wife to my husband. I can’t expect her to be happy with the situation. It's difficult for any woman to accept the idea of her husband marrying another woman.

Honestly, she probably has the better deal, because they have children together. If it really came down to it, he would obviously choose his children over me. It can hurt to think about it, and sometimes I do feel a little regret. I always wanted to be the first and last wife in my husband's life, but I can’t say I’m unhappy – I'm very satisfied. But things are getting better – my husband is giving me a lot more attention as time passes. This motivates me to be a more loving and caring wife, and fills me with confidence that I've made the right choice.

Would you like to have children?
Yes, absolutely. I would really love a daughter. But more importantly, I want to raise my kids in a stable environment. Being someone's second wife was my choice, and I would never want that decision to affect my children in a negative way. I won't have kids unless I can provide the right family setting for them.

Would you give your daughter away to a man who is already married?
Of course not. Even though I am happy and satisfied with my current situation, it’s not something to aspire to. It’s just a lifestyle that suits my personality. I love the amount of personal freedom I get when he is away with his family, but I wouldn't want my daughter to feel like she wasn't the most important person in her husband's life.

Is there anything you hate about being a second wife?
The best thing about my situation is also the worst: On the one hand, I'm a working woman who enjoys a lot of freedom and independence because my husband is away a lot. For half of the month, I don’t have to worry about cooking or tidying up for him. But on the other hand, I often miss him – he’s rarely around when I‘m sick or just need someone to care for me.

Do you understand why so many feminists are against polygamy?
No, I don’t think it makes much sense. Just as women have the right to marry whomever they want, men also have the right to find another partner who will cater for them in ways their other wives won't. Can all these feminists ensure that every wife can look after their husband well enough to stop him from looking for another wife? I don’t think so. In my opinion, it’s a woman’s responsibility to maintain a successful marriage. Men are like pampered children, that's why women have to be more understanding and responsive to their duties at home.



Do you think mainstream Arab TV offers accurate representations of what life is like for a second wife?
Not really. Most shows present ridiculously unrealistic models of polygamous households. For example, the show The Family of Hajj Metwalli shows the wives as being best friends, which is almost never the case – there is always something to be jealous or angry about. Sure it’s possible for the first wife to just ignore the "intruders”, but there won't be any love between them.

Would you allow your husband to marry a third wife?
No, I wouldn't. And I'm pretty certain that he would never want to. As long as he's open and honest about what I'm doing wrong as a wife, then I can't see why I won't be able to fix the problem. But getting married again just for the sake of having a new wife is completely unacceptable to me. If a woman looks after her husband, and takes responsibility for the upkeep of their home, then her partner should have no reason to look for another wife.

Big K.R.I.T. Doesn't Mind Being Vulnerable

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During his interview on VICELAND's Desus & Mero Wednesday, Big K.R.I.T. talked about why he wanted to reveal his true self on his double album, 4eva Is a Mighty Long Time. While the first disc focuses on his tougher public persona—"If just you want to tear your speakers up, I got you," the rapper told the hosts—the second is much more transparent, tackling tough subjects like anxiety and depression.

"It's a superhero aspect of music in general," Big K.R.I.T. said, explaining why artists are reluctant to reveal their problems. "I don't want it to be my end when you find out. No, I'mma tell you now and start that conversation, and lo and behold there's so many other artists who are going through the same thing; people in their lives that are looking to start having those conversations."

You can watch last night’s Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

'Ugly Ducklings' On How People Treated Them When They Got Hot

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In high school, people called Dani Pearsall "the dragon lady". Her ambition and drive meant many saw her as stern and rude, and kids often expressed "mild disgust" if partnered with her in class. By the time she got to college, people in her creative writing class were begging to work with her. "People were like, 'Wow, you’re so cool, you’re so honest,'" the now 25-year-old store manager says.

Jud Nichols, a 31-year-old public defender from Minnesota, played basketball with the same group of guys for many years. Initially, he never received any praise from his teammates. "I’m a very average basketball player," he laughs, "but suddenly people would be like, 'Dude, you played really well. Good game.'"

Dani's personality hadn’t changed – and neither had Jud’s basketball skills. What did change, undeniably, was their appearances.


WATCH: Behind Brazil's Extreme Beauty Addiction


In 1920, the American psychologist Edward Thorndike coined a new term. The "Halo Effect" is a cognitive bias which means that when we see one good trait in a person, we overestimate their other positive traits (the first trait is like a halo, shining light on an individual). In 1972, three psychologists demonstrated the effect by asking volunteers to rate people’s personality based on photographs alone. Overwhelmingly, participants assumed more attractive people were also more kind, trustworthy and successful. The paper was titled "What is beautiful is good".

This might not shock you. Many believe in "pretty privilege" – the idea that beautiful people have an easier life. Yet the halo effect is sometimes called the "horns and halo effect" – because it has a flip side. When someone is unattractive, people may assume they have bad qualities. But just how pervasive is this phenomenon? Just how damaging?

Five people whose appearances have changed dramatically agreed to speak with me for this piece. Each individual has gone from conventionally unattractive to conventionally attractive in Western society’s eyes. Thin bodies are valued in the West and studies have shown obese people face social stigma, so this article includes some people who have lost a significant amount of weight – though these individuals also changed other grooming habits to fit society’s idea of an "attractive" person.

Emma, before and after

"If I would’ve stayed bigger and not lost any weight, I wouldn’t have known that how I was being treated before was really any different," says Emma Passe, a 34-year-old account executive. "Now, I completely see a huge difference."

Overweight most of her adult life, Emma decided to lose weight aged 31 when she started struggling with sleep apnea, heart palpitations and body acne. "The more weight I lost, the smaller I became, more people wanted to talk to me," she says. She tells me people are kinder than she used to think – sticking around to chat more, saying hello when they usually wouldn’t, asking about her day. "I thought everybody was just regularly friendly, but now everyone is super friendly."

The fact people are friendly hit Ashley (who doesn’t wish to give her surname) the hardest. The 30-year-old from Portland tells me, over email: "Now, when I make eye contact, people’s faces light up and they smile at me!" Her shock is evident in an abundance of punctuation ("Wow, people smile???") as she describes other revelations. People go out of their way to help when she asks, and strangers strike up conversations. "People listen to me… I actually feel like a member of society."

Ashley, before and after

Like Emma, Ashley realised these things after losing weight. Bullied as a child, she says she felt like "hot garbage" before she met her husband and lost 165lbs, learnt about make-up and skincare, and altered her fashion sense. Although she predominantly feels "relieved" that people are now friendlier, there is some bitterness. At her heaviest, Ashley says people taunted her and others treated her with pity and disgust.

"I think a pile of shit would probably get less disdain than I did," she says. "When you see the duality in people so clearly it makes it difficult to like anyone new. They might be nice now, but would they have been nice when you were double your weight?"

"If you want something, you smile and you get it – it's really crazy."

Dani pauses for a long time when I ask if there are any downsides to her transformation. In high school she dressed in unisex clothing and avoided make-up, meaning she was often called "sir" by strangers. In college, she started wearing dresses, grew her hair and learnt how to contour via YouTube tutorials. "Umm," she answers eventually. "Honestly, it’s pretty awesome. It has lots of advantages."

Unsurprisingly, Dani – like many of my interviewees – started getting more attention from the opposite sex. "I was still Dani and I hadn’t changed, but suddenly half of the population had woken up to the fact that I existed." As well as an improved sex life, she also found that interactions with male and female customer service workers became easier. "If you want something, you smile and you get it – it's really crazy." She puts on a vocal fry, exaggerating a feminine whine: "Hiiii, I’m sorry but I can’t find this book. Could you, like, look in the back for me?" She says it works.

"It's crazy. It's crazy. You know what, I don't know how people who are pretty their whole lives aren’t just total egomaniacs, because it's just so easy to get what you want."

Kameron, before and after

Attention from the opposite sex is the most obvious outcome of an "improved" physical appearance, but Kameron Rytlewski, a 23-year-old from Michigan, thinks his increased confidence may also have played a part. "My weight was holding me back from being the person I really wanted to be, or at least the person I envisioned being," he says.

People used to ignore him or treat him with a "general negative disposition", but now they are far friendlier. "Comments and attention from the opposite sex have definitely been more positive. Friends and family still pretty much treated me the same."

If the fact the opposite sex treat you better when you become conventionally attractive isn’t shocking, the fact family members do probably is. Dani says her dad criticised her appearance growing up, often telling her to wear make-up. When she got older and used make-up, "he was definitely a lot more supportive of my life". Jud, the man who was complimented more at basketball after he lost weight and started taking advice from male grooming books, says family also treated him better. "Even the people closest to you tend to treat you a little bit differently," he says, explaining that family members were friendlier and wanted to chat more often.

Jud, before and after

Like Kameron, Jud wants to add the disclaimer that how he felt about himself potentially impacted how others treated him (this is something both of the men interviewed said, but none of the three women). With that disclaimer aside, however, he says people are now far more receptive to his jokes.

"My humour is kinda deadpan and sarcastic… When I looked less healthy, I think people were less inclined to understand that I was totally kidding, whereas now it seems more like they get it."


READ:


Out of everyone I interviewed, Emma seems to have experienced the most drawbacks from changing. "The biggest thing for me, the biggest surprise, is that I have lost friends," she says, explaining that overweight friends cut her off.

Emma describes another "nightmare" of losing weight. Although she is married, men hit on her often, which is especially frustrating at work. "I am always being asked for coffee or lunch or being told I'm pretty or beautiful," she says. "It feels pretty awful to feel like you're constantly being hit on, or someone is really only talking to you for that purpose and not to get to know you... it's really disheartening." These experiences show there are downsides to being conventionally attractive, and that lookism works in many ways.

In 1843, Hans Christian Anderson published his story "The Ugly Duckling". The tale follows a duckling who is shunned so relentlessly for being ugly that he decides to kill himself. But, surprise! He then becomes a swan, and the other swans love him! Like Rudolph (with his nose so bright), this children’s tale is uncomfortable to adult eyes. It tells a story of fitting in to avoid discrimination and bullying. It reaffirms our innate cognitive bias that pretty people are best. Most offensively of all, it tells the wrong people that they have to change.

@ameliargh


The VICE Morning Bulletin

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

US News

Don Jr. Refuses to Tell House Committee About Russia-Related Call
President Trump’s son cited attorney-client privilege as a reason not to tell the House Intelligence Committee details of a phone call with his father. Lawyers were allegedly also on the line.—VICE News

Chuck Schumer Calls for Franken's (Expected) Resignation
The Democrats’ leader in the Senate said the Minnesota senator “has a higher obligation to his constituents and the Senate, and he should step down immediately.” Schumer was one of at least 32 Democratic senators urging him to resign. Franken, who faces several accusations of sexual misconduct including groping and forcible kissing, was set to make an announcement about his future late Thursday morning.—CNN

Powerful Winds Worsen California Wildfires
The National Weather Service predicted “very rapid fire spread” in Ventura County and northwest Los Angeles County, warning powerful winds were set to “intensify” Thursday morning. Fire officials previously ordered the mandatory evacuation of around 200,000 people in the Los Angeles area Wednesday as the Skirball blaze reached Interstate 405.—NBC News

Volkswagen Executive Gets Seven Years in Prison
A federal judge sentenced Volkswagen executive Oliver Schmidt to seven years in a US prison for helping rig the car manufacturer’s diesel emissions tests. Detroit’s federal district court also handed the former Michigan plant manager a $400,000 fine. Schmidt, a German citizen, had pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy and environmental violation charges.—The New York Times

International News

Palestinians Denounce Trump’s Jerusalem Decision
Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, said recognizing the city as the Israeli capital and moving the US embassy was “tantamount to the United States abdicating its role as a peace mediator.” A leader of the militant group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, called for “an intifada"—or a Palestinian uprising—"in the face of the Zionist enemy.” Protests have taken place in Gaza.—Reuters

North Korea Says War Is Now Inevitable
Pyongyang continued to criticize this week’s US-South Korea military exercises and suggest conflict was unavoidable. A foreign ministry spokesman said America's words and actions “have made an outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula an established fact. The remaining question now is: When will the war break out?”—AP

Australia Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage
A huge majority of Australia’s House of Representatives voted to enshrine marriage equality into law following the success of the “Yes” campaign in a postal referendum. Supporters cheered from the public gallery and sang: “I am, you are, we are Australian.” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said: “Australia has done it.”—BBC News

China Accuses India of ‘Violation’ Over Drone
A top Chinese military official said India had “violated China’s territorial sovereignty” after a crashed drone was discovered in an area of the Doklam plateau near the border with India’s Sikkim State. “We strongly express our dissatisfaction and opposition,” said the official. India blamed a technical fault, claiming the drone had been on a training exercise.—VICE News

Everything Else

Appeals Court Rejects Meek Mill's Bid for Bail
The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has turned down a second attempt at getting the imprisoned rapper released on bail. Mill was given a sentence of two to four years in November for violating the terms of his probation.—AP

Pastor Denies Post Malone Claims About Justin Bieber
Carl Lentz, the pastor of Hillsong New York City, has responded to Post Malone’s claim that Bieber gave millions to the evangelical church. Criticizing the rapper’s “reckless” remarks, Lentz said: “Justin has not given our church $10 million, and we do not have gold ceilings.”—Rolling Stone

Saudi Prince Reported Buyer of Da Vinci Painting
Auction house documents showed Prince Bader Bin Abdullah was the purchaser of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi for a record-breaking $450 million. Louvre Abu Dhabi said the work was coming to the museum in the UAE.—The New York Times

N.E.R.D. Drops ‘1000’ Video
The clip for the group’s latest single features footage of recent political protests and an old interview with Mike Tyson talking about the best way to deal with fear. The collaboration with Future will be on the upcoming album No_One Ever Really Dies.—Noisey

Steam Will No Longer Accept Bitcoin
The popular video game platform announced it has “become untenable to support Bitcoin as a payment option.” Steam blamed the extreme “volatility” of the digital currency, but said the matter would be looked at again “at a later date.”—Motherboard

Make sure to check out the latest episode of VICE's daily podcast. Today we're diving into Noisey’s list of the 100 best albums of the year.

We Asked People The Story Behind Their Embarrassing First Email Address

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Like most tweens, I was a serious poser. I thought owning a copy of Big Shiny Tunes and listening to Gob made me hardcore. It was in that context that I chose my first email address, at around the age of 12: sex_n_candy13@hotmail.com. Those of you who also grew up in a Big Shiny Tunes era will recognize this is a nod to the Marcy Playground song “Sex and Candy.” (The “13” is a reference to my birthday.) Truth be told, I didn’t even care about the band or that song but I thought it sounded cool. And I’m guessing a lot of people just thought I was a super horny kid.

That email is now defunct—like most hotmail addresses—but I searched my current gmail to see if anything had been carried over from my old address. The only exchange I could find was between my high school best friend and I, and the subject line was “cuntface.” That should give you an idea of the kind of garbage person I was back then.

I don’t think I ditched sex_n_candy13@hotmail.com until I quit my Canadian Tire job when I was 19 and started journalism school. Maybe those things are related. Anyway, I know for sure I’m not the only 90s kid who grew up with a humiliating email address. So I asked people to share the stories behind their first emails. Let’s bear this shame together:

Laura Lloyd
Email: sexycow51@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 10

I thought the words were funny together and 51 was the channel MuchMusic was on. Did not realize saying “sexy cow” would mean I was referring to myself as a sexy fatass. After sexycow51, I turned punk and went with artificial_flavoring@hotmail.com, spelled the US way because the Canadian way was taken. I thought it sounded punk. I read it off a Jello package and I was like “yeah that’s punk that’s what I am.” That was Jello I bought with the intent to use in my hair by the way, to make liberty spikes.

Drew Brown
Email: i_see_da_reaper@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 12

I was 12 and a huge fucking loser. Me and my friends were super into RPG Maker 2000 at the time, which basically was a relatively simple platform that would allow you to make really basic video games. I was also getting super into metal and stuff at the time, so all this combined in my pubescent brain to make me decide that I was going to start a video game company called, like 'Da Reaper Games' or some shit, so that's where I got the idea for the email, and I kept using it for like an embarrassingly long time, until I got to university, basically, and one of my friends (who probably pitied me) gave me a gmail invite.

Liv Carville
Email: hornylildevil13@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 13

Mum told me it was a bad idea, but it was written on my devil toy key ring and I thought it was cool.

Mallika Viegas
Email: save_the_drama_for_your_mama@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 13

It was because of a boy I stalked, whose email was its_all_about_the_benjamins_baby@hotmail.com. It felt like a good move.

Sara Mojtehedzadeh
Email: thecolourofparadise@yahoo.ca
Age at the time: 16

It was a reference to an obscure Iranian film but was subsequently mistaken for a porno.

Victoria Ptashnick
Email: magically_delicious_vic@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 9

Lucky Charms was my favourite cereal when I was 9. Didn't understand why everybody lol'ed when I told them the address.

Colin Wolfe
Email: playa_hata_69@yahoo.ca
Age at the time: 14

A friend set my email up for me. I had it on my resume at one point in very small font.

Ashley Csanady
Email: iama100percentcanadiangal@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 13

I was super into being Canadian, I guess, cause my background is just European mutt. I was a very basic 13-year-old.

Sasha Kalra
Email: black_label2002@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 13

I was a child who wanted to start a clothing line called Black Label. I was gonna be a fashion mogul.

Seb FoxAllen
Email: sixteentimeworldchampion@hotmail.com
Age at the time: I don't recall but def got it to use MSN so highschoolish?

Because of Ric Flair.

Rachel Browne
Email: bat_girl_546@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 10

I didn't even like comics or super heroes or anything, I just thought it was sexy and I was literally about 10. I used to make my MSN name Good Charlotte lyrics and also *~MaYbE It'S MaYBeLline*~.

Noel Ransome
Email: Lunetik4raps@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 13

This was during my www.blackplanet.com phase. I thought the name was black as hell, and showed that I was really into rap.

Colin G.
Email: kool_kolored_kids@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 11

I heard a rapper say it in a skate video and thought it sounded cool haha . (Editor’s note: Colin is white.) I was totally clueless though when I made it originally.

Vanmala Subramaniam
Email: aquavan@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 12

Mine's just that I was 12 and deeply uncreative, stuck in a Malaysian school system. So I combined “Aquarius” with “Vanmala.” Plus the “Barbie Girl” song came out when I was 12.

Sarah Berman
Email: practical_n_magical@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 13

So I had two elementary school friends who were very into wicca. I feel like all preteen girls go through this phase. [Author’s note: accurate.] Practical Magic wasn’t even the best witch movie—obviously in retrospect I would have preferred The Craft—but it was one that I felt reflected my 13-year-old self.

MacKenzie Thomson
Email: princess_duckie11@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 9

I used to “yep yep yep” all the time like Duckie from The Land Before Time. But I also wanted to add princess in there, because, you know. It was also my neopets username.

Tyler Morden
Email: sweetnsassychickypoo6969@hotmail.com
Age at the time: 12

I was sweet n sassy, obviously. My password was "1one2twotwelve.”

But not everyone I know has a cringe first email story. In fact, two of my editors, Josh Visser and Chris Bilton, used joshvisser@hotmail.com and chris.bilton@utoronto.ca as their first email addresses because they were old when email came out. I guess that comes with its own kind of shame.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Australia Has Legalised Same-Sex Marriage

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It took them long enough. At the last possible moment, on the final day of parliament's sitting year, lower house MPs have managed to pass legislation that will allow same-sex Australian couples to marry. Australia finally has marriage equality—we've been wanting to write this news story for some time.

As the bill passed into law, a tearful chorus of "We Are Australian" broke out in the public sitting gallery, which was filled with marriage equality campaigners and supporters.

All those Australian same-sex couples who got married overseas are now automatically legally married here. Congrats! Now that equal marriage is legalised, no doubt we will see thousands of weddings take place across the country in coming days and months, too.

This historic day follows the results of an already infamous $122 million non-binding postal survey process, which saw 60 percent of Australians tick a box in favour of marriage equality.

Parliament then moved to legislate, and after spending most of their political careers avoiding the topic of equal marriage, Senators and MPs have spent the past weeks rhapsodising on it. More than 120 of them have made speeches on the topic, most speaking in favour. Several amendments have been proposed on both sides of politics, but none have passed. In his usual inexplicable way Tony Abbott went on and on about Safe Schools, thankfully to no real avail.

That's not the last we've heard of those amendments, however: arch conservative former Howard minister Philip Ruddock is leading a review into Australia's religious freedoms, the results of which are to be announced in March next year. It seems likely, therefore, that Australia's marriage laws will be debated once more. Great.

Get excited for the Federal Government to brag about this achievement, which came at a significant cost to the LGBTQI community over a period of many months. Years, really.

Malcolm Turnbull has already been confirmed as a guest on next week's Q&A, so expect some smugness.

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An ER Doc Explains How Not To End Up on Life Support

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I see a lot of people die in my emergency department and intensive care unit. To be honest, it usually doesn’t bother me. It’s not the deaths that keep me up at night; it’s the almost-deaths. The people who are horribly injured or critically sick and will never be the same again—but are not quite bad enough to die.

They’re usually young. Their circumstances are tragic, unexpected, and random. It gets under my skin because what happened to them could happen to me.

I’m 32. I’m healthy. And if it weren’t for my job as a physician, I would have thought about my own death as much as my friends have thought about theirs—which is to say, I wouldn’t have thought about it at all.

And that’s a problem.

When you can’t speak for yourself, doctors like me rely on a legislated hierarchy of “substitutes” to make decisions for you around quantity-of-life versus quality-of-life. Life support technologies like mechanical respirators, dialysis machines and intravenous nutrition have blurred the line between alive and dead; I can support vital organs for months or years even when no possibility for recovery exists.

Starting with your spouse, then parents or children, then siblings, the list works its way down a somewhat arbitrary ranking of relatives and ends at a government-appointed public guardian. Yep, a government bureaucrat could decide whether or not to pull the plug, which often is the default when families disagree.

When there is disagreement, it’s up to the courts to decide someone’s fate. Take the tragic circumstances of Shalom Ouanounou, 25, and Taquisha McKitty, 27. Both have been declared brain dead yet remain attached to mechanical ventilators in Toronto-area hospitals because of court injunctions sought by their families, who claim the two aren’t dead. These two cases serve as an extreme example of what can happen when grieving families are unable to accept the inevitable.

Now, lawyers are speaking out, begging millennials to think about their last days alive.

“I don’t think anyone wants a civil servant, however well-meaning, making those types of end of life decisions” Mark Handelman, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in health care law, told me. But only a quarter of people have taken steps to ensure their wishes are known, and only 7 percent have spoken to their doctor. “You don’t have a consequence as long as you stay healthy and that’s the problem; death is uncertain as to timing.”

Handelman says millennials need to speak to their families about their end-of-life wishes and assign substitute decision makers—or health care proxies, as some jurisdictions call them—through legal tools such as a written power of attorney, sometimes called a living will. “The worst possible scenario is if no one is prepared for it and if the person who is sick has not expressed any values or beliefs about how they would like to see their last days managed, it’s incredibly stressful on families and unfair to everyone who is still conscious.”

I see the grief and tension these considerations bring to the families of my patients many times each week. Families tell me they believe in miracles, or that the decision to pull the plug interferes with the will of a higher being. They often can’t grasp the facts of what is going on, agonizing in the process of coming to terms with death.

It’s heart-wrenching to watch, particularly when I know that those decisions become less difficult to make when families recall discussions about end of life care or can turn to documented wishes that describe what a person would want done in such dire circumstances.

But having those conversations are admittedly awkward. To help, websites like The Conversation Project walk you through the best way to bring up the end of your life with your parents, siblings, and friends. It provides videos, guides and other resources to help people work through the challenges of discussing the end of their life with those who matter most to them. The project, which coined the phrase “it’s always too soon, until it’s too late,” suggests everyone aged 18 and above choose a substitute decision maker.

Recalling a 24 year old who was in a coma after a motorcycle crash whose family infighting had to be settled in court, Handelman says the time is now for people in their twenties and thirties to put in writing who should speak for them when they’re on a ventilator.

While the lawyers and doctors of Ouanounou and McKitty duke it out, Handelman wonders if this chaos might have been avoided had there been conversations or records describing their personal wishes.

“Death is uncertain as to timing,” says Handelman. That’s lawyer-speak for “you could get hit by a bus tomorrow.”

And trust me, you could. If you end up comatose in my ICU with unclear wishes, it’s a shitshow. You don’t want a bureaucrat or a judge deciding your destiny.

“Get your legal paperwork in order,” Handelman says.

“No one lives forever.”

Follow Dr. Blair on Twitter.

Canadian Porn Performer August Ames Dies After Twitter Controversy

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Canadian porn performer August Ames was found dead on Tuesday, December 5. Ames, 23, died days after being attacked on Twitter and branded as homophobic after suggesting she wouldn’t perform in scenes with men who had done gay porn.

Ames’s death is being reported as a suicide. Her last tweet, posted on December 4, read “Fuck y’all.”

Ames, aka Mercedes Grabowski, was from Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and was 23 years old when she died. She had appeared in hundreds of porn films, won two AVN awards, and is currently ranked ninth for most popular pornstars on Pornhub.

Her brother, James Grabowski, wrote (and later deleted) the following post on Facebook following her death, the Toronto Sun reports:

“Bullying is not a joke. It took my sister’s life and I can’t get her back. This pain I feel cause people couldn’t keep their opinions to themselves is unbearable, although I have nothing but hate for each and everyone of you people who drove her to this i still do not wish this pain on you. This has forever changed me and who I am as a person.”

A number of big names in the industry, including Jenna Jameson and Brett Rossi (Charlie Sheen’s ex), have taken to social media to express their thoughts about how the internet backlash affected Ames.

This tweet, which is now unavailable, was quoted by Jenna Jameson in the aftermath of Ames's death. Image via screenshot

Jameson quoted a tweet (which is no longer available) in which a man suggested that the world was waiting for Ames to either apologize or swallow a cyanide pill. “You are directly responsible for her death. I will not rest until you are deleted from social media all together,” Jameson tweeted.

Ames was married to director Kevin Moore, who issued the following statement to AVN after her death: “She was the kindest person I ever knew and she meant the world to me… Please leave this as a private family matter in this difficult time.”

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