The 2018 Sundance Film Festival was pretty subdued, absent of the obvious Oscar darlings and record-setting bidding wars that we've come to expect from Park City every year. There were still a few stand-outs in the sea of modestly-received films, like Boots Riley's wild Sorry to Bother You and that Mr. Rogers doc, but no movie from this year's crop managed to both amaze and completely terrify audiences quite like Hereditary.

Hereditary—which stars Toni Collette as a woman dealing with her young family's demons, both literally and figuratively—was praised as "a new generation's The Exorcist" by Time Out and "the most exciting movie" at Sundance by Variety. AV Club already dubbed it a top contender for scariest movie of the year.

On Tuesday we finally got our first glimpse of what everyone at Sundance seemed to be screaming about with Hereditary's first trailer—and, good lord, it looks like the critics weren't lying. The two-minute trailer doesn't give much of the plot away, but at one point, a young girl cuts the head off a dead bird, someone is briefly on fire, and there's a quick shot involving a swarm of ants on a sleeping body. All that aside, the trailer's scariest moments are the quiet shots of Collette as she slowly realizes that there's something foul in her bloodline. That whole thing with the realistic dollhouses is pretty freaky, too.

Hereditary was written and directed by first-time filmmaker Ari Aster. Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff, and Milly Shapiro star alongside Collette, and 2018 Sundance MVP Ann Dowd makes an appearance in the trailer as well.

A24, which previously brought us the Sundance horror movie The Witch, is set to release the film in theaters on June 28, so we'll have to wait until summer to see if Hereditary really is the "pure emotional terrorism" everyone promises it will be. Until then, check out the trailer above.

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The Morro Bay Aquarium, on California's Central Coast, is scheduled to close in September of this year. Open since the 60s, the aquarium is a relic of a simpler time in our history. A time when animals existed to either feed or entertain humans, and few shits were given about their wellbeing.

It landed on my radar after a coworker sent me a link to its Yelp page. The reason he sent me this was because the picture painted of the aquarium through its reviews is, well, pretty dark.

One Yelp user referred to the attraction as "the saddest place I have ever seen." Another called it "the most depressing place in California." Someone else warned that "it will ruin your whole day." Another said that it will "give you nightmares." One person called it "seal Guantanamo."

I made the drive up to Morro Bay late last year to check it out for myself.

The aquarium is made up of just two rooms—one containing pinnipeds (a seal and two sea lions), the other containing smaller sea creatures in tanks. It costs $3 to enter with the option of paying an extra $.50 for some fish to feed to the animals.

The larger animals were kept in what could generously be described as "pits"—lowered pools that were covered with algae. Signs on a wire fence surrounding them warned visitors not to get too close, as they might get scratched or have their bags snatched.

The sound inside was almost unbearable. Each time a person entered the room, the two sea lions would try to get their attention, presumably in an attempt to get food. One would bark, the other would make that croaking sound the little ghost kid makes in The Grudge.

When there was no one around that might potentially feed them, one of the sea lions stared at the door and the other swam in the same circle over and over and over again. The seal didn't really do anything for the duration of my visit.

The fish room was so bleak it felt as though each design decision had been specifically made to maximize its misery. The only light in the room came from the animal's brutalist, neon-lit tanks; a terrifying model of a whale sat grinning in a corner; TV screens on the walls played footage of the aquarium's staff collecting signatures for a petition opposing increased aquarium regulations; a dusty case sat at one end of the room, filled with bones, organs, and taxidermied bodies.

The sadness was so obvious and over the top that if you were to pitch photos of it as set designs for the Penguin's lair in a Christopher Nolan Batman movie, they would be rejected for being too on the nose.

The fish themselves were, for the most part, motionless. Just kinda suspended in their tanks, staring out at the world. I don't think I've ever assigned a complex emotion to a fish before, but they looked sad.

The only decoration in the fish's tanks were pebbles, pipes, and cinder blocks. Despite the fact that this place has been open for over 50 years, it seems nobody ever made the effort to drive to PetSmart and drop $10 on a little Easter Island head or a castle or something to make the place a touch less nightmarey.

Which is to say, the place was pretty bleak. Like, bleak in a I want to think of something as clever as "Seal Guantanamo" and leave it in a one-star Yelp review kinda way. I left the aquarium feeling thoroughly bummed out.

But I am very sensitive when it comes to animals. I haven't eaten one (intentionally) in about 17 years. And the last time I accidentally ate meat, I ended up google-imaging "cute chickens' on my phone and crying in the restaurant.

I figured it probably wasn't entirely outside of the realm of possibility that I was being overly sensitive, and projecting emotions onto creatures that are perfectly fine. None of the other visitors I saw while I was at the aquarium seemed too upset.

To find out if I was just being a baby, I reached out to Dr. Naomi Rose, a marine mammal specialist at the Animal Welfare Institute. Turns out, I wasn't. "Of all the facilities that are operating in the States right now that hold marine mammals," she told me, "they are the worst."

According to Rose, in the 25 years that she's been working in her field, she's received more complaints about Morro Bay Aquarium than any other aquarium in the country. "It is extremely outdated," she said. "[The aquarium is in] a constant state of deterioration. The concrete is crumbling, the algae build up, and rust [...] It's just so outdated and so low tech and so inappropriate to hold marine mammals in that kind of enclosure anymore that it genuinely boggles my mind."

Similarly, my assessment of the mood of the fish seems to be an accurate one. I sent photos of the aquarium's tanks to Culum Brown, a fish biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney. He told me that the conditions seemed "just horrid."

"The fish do not seem to be in good condition," he told me by email. "Healthy, happy fish would have fins up and would be moving around the environment. Clearly there is nothing for them to do in these conditions, no doubt they are depressed and probably stressed."

He suggested that a more appropriate environment would be one that replicates the animals' natural environments: "Make it structurally complex [with] places for them to hide if need be, and preferably allow for some social interactions."

So how is a place so cartoonishly heinous still open in 2018?

Well, the facility is operating legally and above board. When it closes in September, it won't be because of animal welfare, but rather because the aquarium's 50 year lease is expiring and the owners were unable to reach an agreement with the city to renew it.

Local news outlet KSBY reported that, in an inspection in October of 2016, the aquarium was deemed to be fully compliant with federal regulations. According to Dr. Rose, the issue isn't so much that Morro Bay isn't up to code, but that it is up to code.

Acceptable standards of care for US aquariums are dictated by the Animal Welfare Act—a federal law enacted in 1966 that details the minimum standards facilities like Morro Bay must meet. Rose called these standards "outdated" and "weak."

"[The] space requirements have not been updated since 1984," said Rose. "Marine mammal science has advanced exponentially in the the past 33 years, it’s advanced in the last 15 years [...] The idea that keeping them in those little boxes is appropriate for these beings who travel great distances both horizontally and vertically is ludicrous."

Despite having what one USDA inspector called an "an alarming mortality rate of captive born animals," the majority of Animal Welfare Act violations the aquarium has been cited for have been for relatively trivial things, like failing to keep daily food consumption records, or not having a proper area for medical treatment.

The aquarium has been run by the same family since it opened. First by married couple Dean and Bertha Tyler, and currently by their grandson, John Alcorn. I reached out to Alcorn, but he declined to comment or be interviewed, saying he was sick of people writing negative stories about the aquarium. So it's not clear whether any attempt to improve the facility have been made.

From looking at photos and videos of the aquarium online, it seems the only recent change is the removal of signs that suggested that the aquarium is a rehabilitation facility. These signs were taken down after an animal rights group sent the aquarium a cease-and-desist letter.

But luckily, this is the aquarium's final year. There's no word on what will happen to the animals once the facility closes. As they're captive animals, they will probably be relocated to another facility, rather than released.

Times are changing. SeaWorld San Diego is phasing out orca shows, Ringling Brothers has closed for good, and more people are vegan than ever before. Hopefully the animals from Morro Bay end up somewhere a bit nicer.

Follow Jamie Lee Curtis Taete on Instagram.

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Wait, whoa, hang on, stop everything. Remember that woman who was barred by United Airlines from bringing her emotional support peacock on a flight? Even after she apparently tried to buy the bird its own seat for the trip? Well, according to the Daily Mail, there's more to the story than originally thought—namely, the peacock's name is Dexter, he belongs to a Bushwick-based artist named Ventiko, and he has his own Instagram.

Here's Dexter posing for a quick shot in Manhattan:

And here's Dexter on a leash, taking a stroll through Brooklyn:

According to Bushwick Daily, Dexter's owner adopted the plumed beast along with a mate named Etta back in 2015 for a Miami art installation. She donated the birds to a Florida farm afterward, but when Etta and their young bird offspring wound up missing down there, Ventiko opted to bring Dexter back to live with her in the big city. They've been sharing a space ever since.

Now, the pair appears to be inseparable, going on walks and drives and even posing for some nude art photos together, since what else would you do with a pet peacock?

Even when Dexter wasn't able to get on that flight in Newark, Ventiko made sure they stayed together. After reportedly trying to buy another seat for him, she opted to scrap air travel altogether and just drive across the country to California instead.

"Spent 6 hours trying to get on my flight to LA," the bird wrote on Instagram, though it's still unclear how his talons managed to navigate an iPhone touchscreen. "Tomorrow my human friends are going to drive me cross country!"

A recent post on Dexter's Instagram shows he's already in Oklahoma, so it seems like he and Ventiko are making good time. Godspeed on your quest, sweet Dex!

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Related: The Weird, Wild World of Skunk Owners

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If 30-something Britni’s husband touches her neck during role play, she immediately shuts down, putting an abrupt end to the fantasy. “My husband and I have a safe word," she says. “If I feel triggered, I use it and everything stops. Safe words should be established before anything happens—they're really important in trauma recovery.”

Britni, who requested her last name be withheld, is a three-time rape survivor. However, in past relationships and occasionally her current one, role play and her fantasy life have involved her being 'raped.'

Britni joins a legion of people who routinely have rape fantasies and play them out in the bedroom. According to one study, 62 percent of women report rape fantasies. But researchers suspect that number is actually much higher, with many people too ashamed to admit they are aroused by such scenarios; in particular, women who have been assaulted and raped in the 'real' world.

Clinical sexologist Dr. Claudia Six says first and foremost it's important for rape survivors to know there is nothing shameful about having rape fantasies. “Rape is an act of violence. It’s not a sexual act. This is something that happened to you—you’re not responsible for what that person did.”

“If you’re turned on by being taken,” Six adds, “there is a way you can create that without putting yourself in [psychological] danger.”

In Britni’s case, she had had rape fantasies since her teenage years—although she didn’t quite understand what they were. She'd just pretend strong men were kidnapping her and using her for sex. Her current fantasies are therefore a continuation of that experience, rather than a product of her assault.

Sex therapist Dr. Madeleine Castellanos says this is typical of survivors who had already flirted with the idea of "rape play" before their actual rape occurred: their fantasies simply remain unchanged.

But understandably, the real-world experience of rape can complicate role play. Britni didn’t actually share or act on her fantasies until after she had been raped, and despite trying to help herself heal by doing so, she initially endured more grief.

“Because I'd never really done much to process my trauma, I don't think I was emotionally in a place where I was able to consent to what I appeared to be consenting to,” she reflects.

“The result was that my boundaries got pushed to incredibly extreme places I wasn't prepared for. In the end, I think that traumatised me even more. I can forgive the people who assaulted me much more easily than I can forgive myself for the trauma I allowed to happen to myself under the guise of sexual liberation."

"For a long time," Britni continues, "I used BDSM and the playing-out of rape scenes as a way to try to take back my power. I hoped that willingly giving up control would help me feel liberated.”

Six and Castellanos say enacting rape fantasies in search of liberation is not uncommon among rape survivors, who try to master their trauma by turning it into something positive. And it can yield positive results: “If they play out a rape fantasy and don’t get hurt or scared, [and] they only get aroused, it creates a positive interpretation of the action,” Castellanos says. "The fear and uncertainty gets replaced with an erotic association.”

“It’s a way of rewriting history and claiming it,” says Six.

But Six also emphasises that everyone should process their trauma, and attempt to overcome it, in their own way. Some people, like Britni, need to have talk therapy first; for others, just acting on their fantasy helps them feel a sense of control.

The role the rape survivor plays in the fantasy is important, too. Six says it probably wouldn’t be as empowering to play the role of the person doing the raping, for instance. “I don’t think somebody putting themselves in the position of being a violent, violating, boundary transgressing person is the best way of empowering themselves. Rewriting or reclaiming the event is more powerful than putting yourself in the skin of someone who’s violent and evil.”

After therapy and discussions with her husband, Britni is finally on a path to healing that allows her to partake in rape-fantasy power play. Before, she would put a stop to anything that caused the least bit of pain, but now she can express a desire to be degraded and held down. She stresses that it’s a work in progress, though, and she still chooses to keep some of those desires to herself, as what she dreams up is pretty violent and "extreme."

“There's a part of me that hopes to incorporate some of that into my sex life down the road, but for now it stays in my head,” Britni says. “What I ask for in bed now is still not [totally] in line with what I fantasise about. I don't know if one day the two will meet, but it's still a process for me.”

What she does know is that having these fantasies as a rape survivor is normal. It doesn’t mean you’re “sick,” or a “bad feminist,” she says. Most importantly, "There's no shame.”

Follow Jennifer on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE AU.

On an all-new episode of VICELAND's HATE THY NEIGHBOR, comedian Jamali Maddix heads to Berkeley, California, ahead of a conservative "Free Speech Week" touting an appearance from Milo Yiannopoulos. Before the rally, Maddix spends a day with the infamous alt-right icon Kyle Chapman, a.k.a., "Based Stickman," to hear why he believes there's a "war on whites," and what he's doing to fight it.

HATE THY NEIGHBOR airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on VICELAND. Find out how to tune in here.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

When Donald Trump glad-handed his way up the aisles of the Capitol to deliver his first State of the Union speech, there was an awful lot of chaos swirling around Washington. A day earlier, Republican House Oversight Chair Trey Gowdy wrote a critical, sarcastic note slamming Trump's Department of Health and Human Services for routinely failing to give his committee information and documents. Just hours before Trump spoke, Victor Cha, who was expected to be nominated as the US ambassador to South Korea, was reportedly being passed over because he was insufficiently hawkish; later Tuesday, he published an op-ed in the Washington Post all but confirming he was out of the running and criticizing the idea of launching a limited strike on North Korea.

Also on Tuesday, the porn star Stormy Daniels, who Trump reportedly paid $130,000 to keep quiet about an affair she had with him in 2006, claimed the affair never happened. This despite her having given an interview to InTouch in 2011 all about the allegedly nonexistent tryst. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress late Monday voted to release a memo that's reportedly critical of the Department of Justice's handling of a surveillance operation against a Trump campaign aide—a move that sparked multiple cycles of outrage and counter-outrage and renewed fears Trump would kneecap the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. (House Democrats have their own memo that is supposedly critical of the Republican memo, though few people have seen that either.)

Of course, Trump didn't touch on any of that stuff in his address to Congress. (He only referred to Russia once, in the context of being a "rival" on par with China.) State of the Union speeches are rarely interesting and generally calibrated to stir up the least amount of controversy possible. The state of the union is always strong, the administration is always achieving great strides while at the same time needing a united country and Congress to meet greater challenges. There are always genuinely admirable guests who illustrate whatever policies the president is praising, there are always applause breaks that go on for far too long. All of that was on display Tuesday night—Trump's two central innovations were displaying the names of donors on his campaign's livestream of the event and applauding himself at frequent intervals.

It wouldn't be entirely fair to say Trump made no news in his speech—which ran around an hour and 20 minutes, rendering it among the longest on record—but he barely cleared that threshold. The president said he wanted to make reducing the price of prescription drugs a priority, expressed a desire to enact prison reform of some kind, pledged to do something about the opioid crisis, called on Congress to pass a $1.5 trillion infrastructure bill, laid out his priorities on the immigration reform package being debated in the House and Senate, and announced he would be keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention facility open (and potentially bringing new prisoners in).

Though each of these points brought at least the Republican side of the audience to their feet, when seen in context it was all pretty muddled. How is his commandment to "get much tougher on drug dealers and pushers" to fight opioids supposed to square with criminal justice reform, and is Attorney General Jeff Sessions going to stand for any kind of reform anyway? Trump has been complaining about the high cost of prescription drugs since his presidential campaign—why has nothing changed? A $1.5 trillion infrastructure investment may sound good, but where's the detailed plan that Trump has been promising for months?

All presidents have to deal with the gulf between their soaring rhetoric and the grinding processes they must slog through in order to achieve their aims. But Trump may have set the land-speed record for making and then breaking a lofty-sounding promise: Near the beginning Trump told the crowd, "Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need to deliver for the people." Well under an hour later, he made a pointed reference to standing for the anthem that drew a big ovation—a clear callback to the petty feud Trump started with black NFL players who kneeled during the anthem in protest of systemic racism last season.

But it's probably a waste of time to closely parse a speech like this one. Fans of the president were always going to find it inspiring, his detractors were always going to jump over every word, and cable news was going to spin itself into a furor no matter what. In truth, these states of the union never quite live up to their trappings, and what presidents say at these things is rarely remembered. What will go down in history is how Trump's administration handles his second-year agenda, which judging by the speech will focus on opioids, immigration, infrastructure, and North Korea—all thorny issues that any American government would struggle to deal with.

Is this White House up to the task? Well, it apparently just axed its pick for South Korea ambassador, another sign of a State Department at sea. More officials could soon be questioned and even indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, as several Trump associates already have been. The president is unpopular and prone to tweeting inflammatory nonsense for no reason at all. And there's such a lack of attention to detail in this administration that some invitations to the speech called it the State of the Uniom. Whatever the current state of the union is right now, expect it to get worse.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

On Tuesday, adult star Stormy Daniels took a break from her "Make America Horny Again" stripping tour to stop by Jimmy Kimmel Live! after Trump's first State of the Union address. But although the host was eager to ask her the "MANY QUESTIONS" he had about her alleged affair with our president—one she reportedly detailed in 2011 with InTouch—the porn star continued to keep everyone in the dark.

Kimmel did just about everything he could to get Daniels—a.k.a. Stephanie Clifford—to confirm some of the details of the alleged tryst—one she was reportedly paid $130,000 to keep quiet about. He read from the InTouch transcript, used elaborate puppets modeled after Daniels and Trump for a game of "Never Have I Ever," and even brought out a tray of carrots for the star to choose from, since she reportedly told the tabloid she could "definitely describe his junk perfectly." She didn't budge.

"One last question," Kimmel said as he wrapped up the 11-minute interview. "Have you ever made love to someone whose name rhymes with 'Londald Lump?'"

"I'll call you whatever you want me to call you, baby," she responded.

Although Daniels stayed tight-lipped about Trump's junk, Shark Week, and whether or not she had a non-disclosure agreement (something she'd easily be able to deny if she didn't have one), Daniels did comment on a statement that turned up on Tuesday denying the affair ever happened. The statement, which featured a different signature from the one Daniels has used for autographs and the one on a statement Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen released when the story broke, said "I am not denying this affair because I was paid 'hush money,' as has been reported in overseas owned tabloids. I am denying this affair because it never happened."

"Did you sign this letter that was released today?" Kimmel asked.

"I don't know. Did I? That doesn't look like my signature, does it?" Daniels responded. "I do not know where it came from."

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Related: Trump and Stormy Daniels

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Consider the most annoying things in life. For the vast majority, "bursting for a piss" is surely up there with "wasps", "offensively slow walkers" and "plugging your phone in overnight and waking up to discover the plug was never on". I say the "vast majority", here, because for a small minority, desperately needing to urinate is an extremely desirable thing.

For the uninitiated, omorashi – from the Japanese word for "wet yourself" – is a fetish that involves being sexually aroused by the discomfort of a full bladder. Like any fetish, it has varying degrees of extremity: some members of the omorashi community experience arousal by encouraging someone to develop a full bladder, while others can orgasm after watching someone lose bladder control and experience the relief and embarrassment that comes with it.

Water sports are nothing new – golden showers and urophagia (drinking urine), for example, are well-documented fetishes. The difference with omorashi is that the focus is on clothed incontinence. There are no known stats on how many people share this kink (which isn’t surprising, considering the fact omorashi isn’t exactly first date chat), but it’s not new either. It has its roots in Japanese gameshow-style videos where contestants compete in urine-holding challenges, but interest in omorashi is certainly not just limited to Japan. Australian publication West Set Magazine is aimed at girls who "enjoy the thrill" of wetting themselves. The homepage reads: "Our girls are always desperate to go to the toilet, but love to pee in their pants instead!"

The question is, though, how exactly do you navigate dating and relationships when a full bladder gets you off? I spoke to Nick*, a retired estate agent from Mexico, who’s been part of the omorashi community sporadically since he was a teenager. Nick’s first encounter was as a 13-year-old in Arizona. Although his father banned him from teasing his same-aged neighbour, Amber*, whose medical condition meant she often wet herself, he recalls the arousal (and the accompanying shame) that came with it. "I often thought that lightning would strike me dead for being such a dreadful pervert," he tells me, "but I just couldn’t control it."

After Amber revealed she was aware that he became physically aroused when she had an accident, Nick says she proposed a different solution: "If you let me play with your penis whenever it gets hard, I'll wet my pants anytime you want me to." The pair engaged in this omorashi game for a year in 1970, a period Nick describes as "incredible bliss", until she left America.

After unsuccessful attempts to meet like-minded women, it was not until last year that Nick found another omorashi playmate, Isabel*, a nurse from California, after she rented a house he owned. As with Amber, it started with subtle hints. "She would text: 'Love to keep talking, but must find a bathroom, just about to wet my pants!'" says Nick. "I would make a reply like: 'Accidents will happen, my dear.' And she would respond with: 'They certainly do!'"

As Isabel had never shared this fetish with a man before, Nick says that by the time they were together, they had "almost convinced ourselves that we had found a potential omorashi partner". The pair were afraid to directly mention it to each other, though, and it took a picnic for them to realise they had "finally" found someone to share the fetish with.

"Isabel complained about how the springtime pollens were going to make her sneeze. Soon, she was sneezing quite uncontrollably, and she cried out, 'I’m gonna pee!' I saw her crotch darken, and then she just surrendered control," says Nick. "Her shorts were totally soaked, and she was also wet all the way down the inside of her left leg. She could tell by my reaction that I was aroused."

Since the pair only meet a few times a year due to the distance between them, they started to find various ways to incorporate the fetish into their sex life. "Often, it’s just as simple as giving her a good, robust tickling," says Nick, "but sometimes we make more of a game out of it." One such game included making Isabel laugh at a pub where the pressure on her bladder was unbearable. He fondly recalls: "She doubled over with laughter to the point where she lost control."

Although this made her "turn red with embarrassment", Nick recalls that she was aroused when thinking how strangers, particularly men, may have seen that she had wet herself in public.

Considering omorashi is largely based on fantasy, Nick is clearly fortunate he’s managed to share the fetish with women who also enjoy it. But it hasn’t always been that way: he recalls spending a "lonely decade on websites that never led to anything".

Having to contend with such secrecy due to fears of rejection, it's no wonder many are never able to incorporate the fetish into their intimate lives. Nick agrees: "It takes a great deal of trust to speak to another person about an unusual fetish. I know people who have been married for more than a decade and have never had the courage to mention their omorashi fetish to their wife or husband."

Nick himself says this was the same with his ex-wife, who he married in his thirties: "I knew that she had an adventurous sexual past and she had tried all kinds of things. All the same, we had been married for several years before I felt enough trust to broach the topic of omorashi."

It’s unsurprising, then, that many people congregate online, where there are myriad safe, non-judgemental spaces. In closed Facebook groups, users (some with Omo added to their names) share explicit photos and videos of wetting themselves or their partners, ask each other how long they should hold on – "Please can someone let me go peeeeee" is a common request – and either berate or congratulate each other. Meanwhile, omorashi Tumblr pages feature fan fiction and fan art, while community forums focus on sharing wetting experiences and even erotic stories online

Tom*, a US-based omorashi community member who makes desperation and wetting videos, tells VICE he first got into the fetish after a relationship in which he and his girlfriend would sometimes pee on each other during sex. Even so, he says: "It's not part of my day-to-day life. I just get into it for small periods of time; it depends on what's going on in my life."

You’d assume that sharing such a niche kink would bring people together, but building lasting relationships through fetish-orientated social media is rare. Nick says: "You can trade emails with all kinds of people who enjoy this fetish without ever encountering anyone with whom you share anything other than the fetish itself. I met both Amber and Isabel through ordinary means, and the fact they were willing to share the omorashi fetish with me had absolutely nothing to do with online activity."

Nick is adamant that there's nothing wrong with finding loss of bladder control sexy, even if it's not socially accepted.

"Society teaches us what we are 'supposed' to like in terms of sexuality," he says, "It tells us through messages, both subtle and direct, what ought to turn us on. So, if there is anything I would say to the world at large, it is this: don’t be afraid to go exploring."

*Names have been changed.

@layla_haidrani

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Japan's capital has topped a global weed price index, beating out 120 other cities. According to the survey, the Ecuadorian city of Quito has the cheapest weed—at just US$1.34 a gram. It's nearly 25 times more expensive in Tokyo, and will set you back US$32.66 a gram.

Asian cities featured highly in the most expensive list with Seoul, Kyoto, Hong Kong, and Bangkok filling out the top five. Dublin, Tallinn, Shanghai, Beijing, and Oslo also made it into the top 10.

South American cities were some of the cheapest places to buy weed with Bogota, Asuncion, Panama City, and Montevideo all making the top 10. According to the data, there doesn't seem to be a strong relationship between the price of weed and the amount consumed. Quito only consumed 0.6 metric tonnes of weed versus, say, New York where it costs $10.76 a gram and topped the world for consumption at 77.44 metric tonnes.

The survey, commissioned by automatic cultivator device Seedo, also looked at how much cities could earn in tax revenue if they were to legalise weed. Interestingly, Cairo stood to gain the most from legalisation, raking in a hypothetical $384 million. Egypt currently has very strict drug laws, and retains the death penalty for anyone caught smuggling in large quantities of cannabis.

When it comes to a weed tax, two Australian cities made the global top 10. Sydney took out the number four spot, with $138 million coming if marijuana was legalised and taxed. For Melbourne, the potential revenue was $132 million.

“That illegal cannabis use is so high in countries that still carry the death penalty, such as Pakistan and Egypt, those in power ought to see how desperately new legislation is needed,” Seedo's chief medical officer Uri Zeevi said.

“By removing the criminal element from marijuana, governments will then able to more safely regulate production, take away power from underground gangs, and as we’ve shown in this study, generate huge tax revenues.”

This article originally appeared on VICE AU.

Ed Sheeran is the world’s biggest pop star, and he sucks. North America is now waking up to this fact because this weekend Ed won the Grammy for Best Pop Solo Performance for "Shape of You" – over "Praying", Kesha's song about overcoming sexual abuse – but didn't even show up to collect his award, and then did a cat picture on Instagram to celebrate his eventual double-win.

Look, here’s the cat picture:

That's annoying, isn’t it? But not all the way annoying. And therein lies Sheeran's particular allure. He falters along this blurry grey line where he is always straddling two states of being: at once charming and un-charming, a banger machine and anti-music, good at pop and bad at it, annoying and irresistible, horny and homely, a pop star and not.

We have known of The Duality of Sheeran in the UK for years, and it's now time for North America to stop being quite so charmed by him and see through his many faces and, through that window, find themselves in a dark little pit of something stronger, something else. Welcome, guys, welcome. Come on in, the water is lovely.

IS ED SHEERAN A BAD DICKHEAD? AN ARGUMENT FOR THE DEFENCE

Ed Sheeran is not, I’m afraid, a bad dickhead. He actually seems fundamentally quite decent and sound. I bet he’s absolutely fine to have a pint with. Like: fine. Not good, but fine. No awkward pauses. Gets the rounds in. Brings back two packets of nuts for the table. Doesn’t have any loud opinions about real ale or "commercial lager". Decent enough at pool to not be a hindrance when you play doubles against two salty old lads who’ve insistently put a 20p piece down when it was your turn to play and said that, actually, the rule in this place is that it's winner-stays-on. You and Ed Sheeran leave the pub in different directions with a dry over-the-jacket-shoulders-hug and an empty promise of Yeah, We Should Do This Again Some Time.

Is Ed Sheeran a bad dickhead? No. He is not a bad dickhead. Are you going to text him for another pint some time? You're not. You've got other friends, better friends. He has his whole… his whole music thing, going. He’s probably busy, isn’t he. He’s probably got friends, right? Better friends. So let’s just leave it.

WATCH:

IS ED SHEERAN A BAD DICKHEAD? A MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH, MUCH LONGER AND MORE CONVINCING COUNTER-ARGUMENT

I'm going to have to break this down into the four sub-truths about Ed Sheeran that make him so largely hated by everyone who does not fiercely love him (it is difficult to be Sheeran agnostic: you either adore him with the power of a thousand suns, or you think he’s horrendous. There’s no middle ground, here. It’s like Marmite grew out a messy bowl cut and started singing at your wedding), thusly:

ED SHEERAN’S STAUNCH REFUSAL TO GLO UP

My dude is about as rich as it is possible to be from music alone (Forbes says he’s worth $37 million (£26 million), and literally any time he wants £15 million more he can just release an album or do a tour or whatever) and yet, despite that, he really very genuinely has the vibe that if his black jeans fade he will just scribble over them with a Sharpie while still wearing them, or that he just has a vague odour of damp laundry to him, or that he had a whole argument with his mum last time his mum's friend was having a wedding because he tried to wear the same trodden-down Etnies he always wears along with his suit, and when he got there he met up with some old college mates and they nicked a jug of scrumpy that was being saved for the reception and drank it, and Ed’s mum had to apologise to the bride because she was crying about the missing scrumpy.

This is it: the man is a multi-millionaire but he looks like your mate’s younger brother who broke his bed once so slept for three months across two beanbags squished in the middle and pressed into a fitted sheet. Ed Sheeran can sleep under absolutely any circumstances, I’m sure of it. I feel like I could blow Ed Sheeran's mind by slowly talking him through the concept of nail clippers. There is no way Ed Sheeran doesn't have a "formal hoodie". No other pop star alive has such a "if you spray enough Lynx on you, you don’t really need a full shower" vibe as Ed Sheeran. He is a human wallet chain.

IMAGINE THIS BRIEF SCENE:

You’re at your mate’s house and you are all smoking weed. It’s one of those halcyon days between lower sixth and upper: you’re all 17, your mums have left to go to work, you have a perfect endless summer against you, the sun outside is technicolor-bright and the wind is softly rippling the closed curtains against your back. Close your eyes and imagine yourself back there: that acrid, sharp smoky smell on the air again; a wet roach being passed around; one of your mates is cueing up a funny video he saw on YouTube. This is before you saw and became bored of every meme in the seconds after it formed. This was before you went to Instagram to get memes to send to your Twitter friends who sent them on to their Facebook friends. There was no meme hierarchy, no urgency. Only fun. On the screen, a dog leaps on a trampoline. You all laugh. "I haven’t seen that one before," you say. "That’s amazing." Hold the feeling.

Ed Sheeran’s there, isn’t he? Ed Sheeran’s there, with his legs folded underneath him on the bed. Ed Sheeran is wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt with a short-sleeved T-shirt over the top of it. Ed Sheeran has a single leather thong necklace tight around his neck. You don’t know where Ed Sheeran came from, or how and when he infiltrated your friendship group, but here he is, drinking flat supermarket-brand cola straight from a two-litre bottle, just a split-second of backwash, every single time he swigs. "Hey mate," Ed Sheeran says to you. "Here, mate," Sheeran says. "Pass the Dutch."

Ed Sheeran holds his hands out to you in a pinch gesture, and a thought crosses your mind. Make Sheeran do something gross for weed. And that’s how you all end up with shaky BlackBerry camera footage of Ed Sheeran licking a toilet bowl, crying, and saying, "Come on, guys!" before being allowed three small tokes on the communal joint. You can imagine it, can’t you? You can imagine that entire thing. This is the biggest pop star on the planet right now.

ED SHEERAN’S "SHAPE OF YOU" IS A GOOD SONG

Listen, OK, fine, I'll say it: "Shape of You" slaps. It slaps. I’m sorry about this. I’m sorry to admit this. It’s a good song! We wouldn’t be talking about him if he didn’t do enough good songs to get famous! But at the start of the year it was fucking everywhere, the same way his big fuzzy orange face (*1) on the cover of + was everywhere for an entire year when that came out; the same way there has not now been a single wedding since B.E. (Before Ed) that did not feature that fucking song about falling into your loving arms. Ed Sheeran is everywhere, he is everything, his ubiquity becomes an assault on the senses, and worst still he knows this. Look at this excerpt from a Guardian interview with him from last March:

He talks about how 2017 is going to be his year, how happy and settled he is with his girlfriend, Cherry Seaborn, an old school friend; how all the artists he sees as competition – “Adele, Beyoncé, Taylor, Drake, the Weeknd, Bruno” – have already put albums out, so ÷ has “kind of a clear lane”. When I ask how he would feel if it did well, but sold less than its predecessor, 2014’s 14m-shifting x, he says: “I’ll bet you anything now it won’t. I don’t think there’s any possibility it will. The next album, I promise you, will sell less, but this album will sell more. I don’t think I’ll have a year like this again.”

His ubiquity is, worst of all the things, incredibly calculated and cynical – he plays the music industry like a fun game that he just happens to be exceedingly, effortlessly good at, and he does it while acting and dressing like the meek lad who fits you for kit every time you play paintball.

HE DOESN’T EVEN ACT FAMOUS IT DRIVES ME ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NUTS

Every time I have seen footage of Ed Sheeran playing live – which has always been in the middle, unannounced, of something I did want to watch, like when he did the Olympics closing ceremony in a hoodie or when he turned up at [insert name of literally any awards ceremony in the last five years] – he’s always played with a sort of inverted stage presence, like a busker who sings the words "thank you" when you drop them 50p instead of just saying nothing. He is literally that kid from every town in the UK who got a loop pedal and beatboxes in the centre of town every Saturday so he can pay his mum rent, but on this timeline he is our most famous pop export.

That annoys me. As an expression of British pop, Ed Sheeran – Lad From Halls Who Electrocuted Himself Making Toast, Never To Be Seen Again Beyond Fresher’s Week – is the pinnacle of it. And he still looks like he woke up from a cider-and-watching-Blackadder party where he fell asleep and got drawn on with felt-tips and had to do his entire shift at Asda in a big fleece so no one clocked he was still drunk.

READ:

I’M STRUGGLING TO JUSTIFY WHY I DESPISE HIM BEYOND: THE FACT HE SEEMS EXTREMELY SOUND IS ACTUALLY WHAT MAKES HIM IRRITATING? GOD, I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA, DO I

Sheeran is just: he’s just that quite forgettable lad from your year at school who nobody really knows the surname of, or who his mates are, or where he goes at lunch ("Where does Ed go at lunch?" – everyone at Ed Sheeran’s school, at some point), and then despite all this, despite all this, he makes absolutely irresistible bangers that your body cannot help itself from liking. You cannot not pop a shoulder to "Shape of You". You cannot not feel weird and gooey while holding hands and listening to "Thinking Out Loud". But the kid who made these songs is also the lad who stood at the front of the tuck shop line, begging everyone for their spare change so he could buy some Nik Naks.

He’s just fine, isn’t he. He’s just the male Ellie Goulding: there, yes, and recognisable on the radio, but you’re not going to go out of your way to enjoy it. He did that annoying Game of Thrones scene and there’s something very fragile and irritating about some of the depths in his voice, and his songs are catchy but not likeable, and he sometimes says some very cocky things, but I say cocky things sometimes and I’ve never made £30 million even once in my life, and that’s it: that’s what’s annoying about him. That you cannot put your finger about what is annoying about him. He’s that feeling of plunging your hands into cold oily dishwater. He’s a bus parked in traffic that refuses to open its door for you. Ed Sheeran is that grim empty feeling you get after spending £7 on a Pret lunch you didn’t even like. He’s just there. Being so inoffensive it is offensive.

Welcome to this feeling, guys. We have been struggling with it for years.

@joelgolby

(*1) NOT a ginger thing! His face is literally orange and fuzzy! Look at the album cover! I hate it with my life! I have seen it one-hundred million times!

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Australians are now among women from tens of countries worldwide who are wearing anti-rape shorts and underwear to protect themselves against sexual assault. 'Safe Shorts' are made out of slash and tear resistant material, and feature an alarm system that activates when someone tries to tamper with them.

The product was created by German woman Sandra Seilz, and initially began as a personal project after Seilz was confronted by three men while jogging on a running track in the middle of the day. “Three men came in front of me, one tried to pull down my running trousers, and another grabbed me while the other tried to rape me,” Seilz tells VICE.

“I'm the lucky one, because there was a man with a dog, and the dog ran towards the men and they ran away. [Later], when I was sitting at home, I thought: ‘What could have happened there?’

A few months later, following the mass New Year sexual assaults in Hamburg and Cologne in 2015, Seilz decided the product should be made for all women and began working with a designer.

Photo courtesy of Safe Shorts

Seilz says she received an Australian order for Safe Shorts several weeks ago. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the number of sexual assault victims in Australia reached a seven-year high in 2016, with 23,053 cases recorded. That same year, 17 percent of women said they'd been sexually harassed in the past 12 months, compared with 15 percent in 2012.

Demand for the product will see production move from the Czech Republic to India in six weeks. Seilz says this will allow for higher quantities and better quality, as well as a big reduction in the selling price. The shorts currently retail for €95 (AU$145) for the underpants and €128 (AU$197) for the running shorts.

“We have a lot of requests from South America, South Africa, India and Asia, but the problem is the high price,” Seilz says. “We need a cheaper price so all women across the world can buy the Safe Shorts if they want.”

So far, orders from more than 35 different countries have been made through the Safe Shorts online store, and the company has distribution partners in Sweden, Norway, Spain, South America, Canada, and the United States.

The products have been criticised by some women, who say the onus should not be on women to stop rape. But Seilz wants women to have immediate protection. “When a man wants to rape a woman, he isn’t interested in rules and laws and so on. He wants to satisfy himself,” she says.

The 2015 New Year sexual assaults in Cologne occurred at the peak of the European migrant crisis, and caused some in Germany to take an anti-migrant stance. This can be seen in the far-right political party Alternative for Germany gaining representation in 14 out of 16 states in the 2017 German elections.

Seilz, however, is quick to stress that immigration into Europe was not why she felt people needed her product. “Rape is a problem we had more than a hundred years ago," she says, "and we’ll have the problem in years to come."

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This article originally appeared on VICE AU.

It’s early days in the investigation of alleged Toronto serial killer Bruce McArthur, but already comparisons are being made to other notorious murderers, including Jeffrey Dahmer, Robert Pickton, and John Wayne Gacy.

McArthur, 66, a landscaper, has so far been charged with five counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Selim Esen, 44, Andrew Kinsman, 49, Majeed Kayhan, 58, Soroush Mahmudi, 50, and Dean Lisowick, 47. McArthur is gay and several of his alleged victims as well as many of the men still missing had been known to frequent Toronto’s gay village.

Police believe there are more victims—though they have “no idea” how many more—and said Monday that they discovered remains belonging to three individuals in large planters at job sites McArthur worked on as a landscaper.

Kinsman had a sexual relationship with McArthur, police said, and went missing from the gay village, where he was an active community member, last June. Police said Esen also had a relationship with him but they couldn’t specify the nature of it; he disappeared last April from around Yonge and Bloor, not far from the village. Kayhan 58, was also a regular in the village, which is where he met McArthur. According to the Globe and Mail, he pursued a romantic relationship with the landscaper. He went missing in October 2012. Police would not elaborate on the relationship between McArthur and Mahmudi, who went missing from Scarborough in 2015. Police said Lisowick was likely killed between May 2016 and July 2017—Lisowick was not reported missing and stayed in the city’s homeless shelters periodically. The Globe reported that he was a sex worker.

History of violence

Sasha Reid, a PhD candidate in developmental psychology at the University of Toronto and specialist on serial homicide, told VICE one aspect of McArthur’s case that stands out is his 2003 assault conviction for beating a man with a metal pipe.

“In my research, almost 80 percent of serial killers I’ve studied had a prior conviction for assault or sexual violence,” she said. Pickton was charged with attempted murder in 1998 after he stabbed and nearly killed a female sex worker who escaped his farm.

“Nobody wakes up one day and is a serial killer,” added Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at the U of T who also researches serial killers. There’s a gradual process, he said, “where initially people engage in fantasy behaviours, where they begin to think about harming others and they begin to experiment and flirt with the idea that they might actually do it.”

Over time, he said, the impulse becomes so strong, the killer will act on it.

Marginalized victims

Lee told VICE what struck him about the McArthur case is how long members of the LGBT community have been raising a flag about missing men, while police were seemingly slow to address those concerns.

“Police for a number of months openly downplayed the fact that there was a serial killer,” he said.

He said serial killers are generally smart opportunists who know that if they killed someone from a marginalized group “it’s very unlikely to get the same kind of police and media attention that a missing white woman’s case would get.”

Robert Pickton preyed on women who were mainly sex workers or drug users in the Downtown Eastside, which is in part why many believe he was allowed to operate for decades without being caught.

“Often times, if you go back in time, people in these communities have been saying something is amiss for years and it’s only later that people put the pieces together,” Lee said.

Storing bodies nearby

Reid noted how McArthur allegedly buried bodies in planters at properties he worked on around the city. She said that’s a behaviour serial killers are drawn to, for a variety of reasons.

“There’s a spiritual connection between them and the body,” she explained. “They might consume the body, they might take sexual pleasure out of consuming the body, eating it.”

In the later years of his crime spree, Dahmer was known to keep body parts of his victims in his home. Ted Bundy, who killed at least 30 women in the 1970s, was known to revisit the places his victims were buried, sometimes to have sex with their remains.

Reid said another reason for keeping bodies close by is for protection against getting caught—keeping a body in your home allows you to control who would potentially have access to it. Gacy, a serial killer who preyed on more than 30 men and boys in the Chicago area, would stash his victims in the crawl space of his home, where police eventually recovered 26 bodies.

Sexual motivations

As for the question everyone is wondering—why these killers commit such horrendous acts—Reid said generally speaking, these are people who are hyperreactive to stress, or fear, or insult.

“When they encounter that, they overreact with fatal violence,” she said. “This is why some victims of serial killers are able to escape… they played the game right for that person at that time.”

Police have not yet stated whether or not McArthur’s alleged crimes were sexual in nature. But on the face of it, some aspects of the case seem reminiscent of Dahmer, who raped, murdered, dismembered, and cannibalized young boys and men—primarily black and Asian men—and sometimes performed sex acts with their bodies afterward.

According to the Globe, McArthur had a penchant for rough sexual encounters, and several media reports say police found a young man tied to his bed when they arrested him earlier this month.

Lee said Dennis Rader, also known as the BTK Killer which stands for blind-torture-kill, had vivid fantasies of bondage.

“He wanted to tie people up and would even tie himself up and use strangulation as a way of killing his victims.”

But he said he would be very hesitant to make any generalizations about people into BDSM and killers.

“Ted Bundy wasn’t necessarily into BDSM,” he said. “He said he enjoyed that rush of feeling like god. The thing that’s getting some serial killers off is the idea that they have absolute control over another human being.”

Late start

McArthur’s age appears to buck the trend found with most serial killers, Reid said.

“This guy is old for his category,” she said. “Most serial killers who are sexually driven start probably in their late teens, early 20s and then continue on throughout their 30s.” However, the investigation could still reveal that McArthur’s alleged crime spree started a long time ago. The allegations also suggest that McArthur may have “gone dormant” for a period of time.

Reid said other serial killers have taken long breaks too, including Lonnie Franklin Jr., who was nicknamed the “Grim Sleeper” because he appeared to stop killing people between 1988 and 2002. She said a break can be triggered by a killer finding a job, spouse, or something else in their lives that gives them a sense of power.

Double life

Both Reid and Lee said it’s not really all that weird that McArthur was a local mall Santa Claus. Gacy was a clown who would dress up for charity events and kids’ parties.

“When [people] encounter the idea of serial killer, they imagine a monster,” said Reid. “That person is still a human being and what they have is a very normal life usually… They just have this part of them, this world that they inhabit, that is a little bit evil.”

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Although he's well into his 80s, Quincy Jones still loves to play the field. In a recent interview with GQ, the music mogul explained that he has 22 girlfriends all around the world, all aged 28 to 42. In fact, he's really not interested in anyone his own age.

"You see me with an 84-year-old woman? Are you crazy?" Jones told GQ. "There's nothing... there's no upside. You gotta be kidding."

On Desus & Mero, the hosts talked about the messy interview, how exhausting it would be to juggle 22 baes, and Jones's aversion to dating people his own age.

You can watch the latest episode of Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Rania Matar’s projects feature women in the Middle East and the US who allow her to photograph them at their most vulnerable, alone in their homes, bedrooms, or other sacred, private spaces. “The fact that I’m a woman is defining my work,” she said. “As a woman I’m photographing the woman, there’s none of that layer of a woman feeling like she’s being objectified, I hope.” Matar has shown work around the world, but this year marks her first solo museum show. In Her Image, an exhibition of four photo projects, is on view at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Texas through June 17, 2018.

Matar did not start out photographing women from an explicitly feminist perspective. For her, it was more autobiographical. As her daughters grew up, and later, as she noticed herself also aging, she was curious about what that experience looked and felt like for others. “In some way,” she said, "I’m telling my own story and my daughters’ stories and those of all the girls and women that I’m photographing.”

Matar’s project A Girl and Her Room—allowed young women to express themselves however they wished, alone in their bedrooms. At first, it was only going to be shot in the US, but Matar quickly noticed she was seeing herself and her Lebanese/Palestinian roots in all of the young women she was photographing. “I felt like the story of women in the Middle East was under-told or told in a very specific manner, especially in the West where I live,” the Boston-based photographer said. “[The story] was always tending to focus on women being oppressed or ‘Oh my God, she’s wearing a veil’ and there’s so much more to a woman in the Middle East than that.

Christilla, Rabieh, Lebanon, 2010 from A Girl and Her Room series

“I am Lebanese and I’m Palestinian, and I was living in America, and I graduated college, and I was married, and I was working, and I had kids, and the fact that this whole categorizing of ‘the other’ [existed]... all of a sudden I was like, ‘Am I one of the other? But I’m here,’” she said. Tired of the narratives she encountered, she chose to photograph young women in the Middle East, in addition to the US, to tell a story about the similarities between American and Middle Eastern people. “I think it’s important not to forget that there are regular people and regular women living behind that and regular children do everything that they do in the United States. That for me is an important aspect of representation,” she said.

A Girl and Her Room spawned several other projects, like L’Enfant Femme, for which she photographed preteen girls; She, which features women in their 20s and focuses on physicality and the environment; Unspoken Conversations, which features teenage women and their mothers; Women Coming of Age, which features middle-aged women, and more. Each series is reflective of where both she and her daughters have been or are currently in their lifetimes.

Christina at 10 and at 14, Beirut, Lebanon, 2012 and 2016 from Becoming series

Matar’s body of work is arguably not one that would have the same results if a man shot it. “A man would not have been in the room with a woman nursing a baby in the first place in a Palestinian refugee camp, let’s put it this way,” Matar said. Similarly, Matar once tried photographing young men for her Room project, but found the experience uncomfortable. “I think women can understand other women more than a man would,” she said, and feels the opposite is also likely true. “In some way, our womanhood bonds us.”

Wafa'a and Samira, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut, Lebanon, 2016, from Unspoken Conversations series

Lindsey, 10, Needham, Massachusetts, 2013, from L'Enfant-Femme series

Samira at 12 and at 17, Bourj El Barajneh Refugee Camp, Beirut, Lebanon, 2011 and 2016 from Becoming series

Brigitte and Huguette, Ghazir, Lebanon, 2014, from Unspoken Conversations series

Leila and Souraya, Jounieh, Lebanon, 2015 from Unspoken Conversations series

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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

US News

Trump's SOTU Goes in on Immigration
The president used his first State of the Union speech to appeal for bipartisan unity on immigration, while still pledging to crack down on “chain migration”—the ability for legal immigrants to bring family members to the US. While Democratic lawmakers jeered at this portion of Trump’s address, white supremacists Richard Spencer and David Duke praised the president for saying “Americans are dreamers, too.”— Newsweek

Gitmo to Remain Open Under Executive Order, Possibly Get New Inmates
The president signed an order Tuesday reversing the Obama administration’s attempt to wind down operations at the notorious detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. During his State of the Union address, Trump said the order directed Defense Secretary James Mattis “to reexamine our military detention policy” and promised that “in many cases,” new suspected terrorists would be sent to Guantanamo Bay.—CNN

CIA Boss Said to Have Met with Russian Spy Chief Despite Sanctions
Sergey Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s foreign intelligence service, was in the US and reportedly spoke with CIA Director Mike Pompeo last week. According to the Russian embassy, the visit by Naryshkin—currently on a US sanctions list—was related to the “joint struggle against terrorism.” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded to know if sanctions were discussed.—CBS News

Justice Officials Beg White House Not to Release FBI Memo
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray reportedly met Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly on Monday in a bid to prevent the release of a Republican-penned memo alleging surveillance abuses at the FBI. After his State of the Union address, Trump appeared to tell a GOP lawmaker he was “100 percent” in favour of making the memo public.—The Washington Post / Politico

International News

Pope Sends Vatican Investigator to Chile
Pope Francis asked Archbishop Charles Scicluna to head to the South American country to review claims of sexual abuse and an alleged cover-up. The pontiff was criticized on his recent trip to Chile for defending Bishop Juan Barros, who is accused of knowing about the actions of a priest who abused young boys in his care. The pope subsequently apologized.—BBC News

Earthquake Hits Afghan-Pakistani Border
Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush region close to the border with Pakistan was shaken by a major (6.1 magnitude) earthquake Wednesday. At least one person died and eight others were wounded when several roofs collapsed in a village in the Pakistani border province of Baluchistan. Multiple injuries were also reported in at least one Afghan village. —AP

Four Arab Countries Condemn UN Report on Qatar Beef
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates denounced a United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) report on their economic blockade of Qatar as “misleading” and “inaccurate.” The UNCHR report found they had no legal basis for cutting diplomatic and economic ties with the neighboring country. In a joint statement, the four nations again accused Qatar of providing support for terrorism.—Al Jazeera

Egypt's President Warns Opposition Not to Boycott Election
Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi vowed action against anyone disrupting or casting doubt on the legitimacy of presidential elections planned for March, after several opposition figures called on Egyptians not to take part. The former general warned he would take “measures against anyone who believes he can mess with [Egypt’s] security."—AP

Everything Else

Stormy Daniels Says She Didn't Sign Denial Statement
Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night, the adult star distanced herself from a signed statement put out by her publicist, which refuted claims she took "hush money" not to talk about her alleged affair with Trump. She told Kimmel: “That doesn’t look like my signature, does it?”—VICE News

Facebook Bans Cryptocurrency Ads
The company said advertising related to Bitcoin and other digital currencies would no longer be allowed on the social network. Facebook’s blog post claimed many of the ads are “associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices.”—Motherboard

DJ Who Groped Taylor Swift Gets New Radio Job
David Mueller will host a morning show for Mississippi station 92.7 KIX despite being found liable for groping the singer. Delta Radio CEO Larry Fuss said the publicity Mueller would bring played “a tiny bit” of a part in the decision to hire him.—Rolling Stone

New Zealanders Face Lawsuit Over Lorde's Israel Boycott
Israeli rights group Shurat HaDin said it will sue Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab, the two women said to have persuaded fellow New Zealander Lorde to scrap her Tel Aviv show in an open letter.—The Washington Post

Wesley Snipes Almost Made ‘Black Panther’ in the 1990s
The actor revealed he attempted to bring the Marvel superhero to the big screen two decades ago. “I think Black Panther spoke to me because he was noble,” said Snipes, who wanted his version set in a futuristic Africa.—i-D

Federal Agencies Investigate iPhone Slowdown
The Department of Justice and the Securities & Exchange Commission launched an official inquiry after Apple admitted some iPhones models were programmed to slow down to deal with battery issues.—VICE News

Make sure to check out the latest episode of VICE's daily podcast. Today we’ll hear from VICE IMPACT about their recent advocacy campaign for voting rights ahead of the midterm elections.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

One day this year our well-coiffed, sexy one-hitter of a prime minister is going to legalize sweet lady Mary Jane. Obviously, this is good news despite the roll out of legalization being seemingly designed by someone who has never tried pot because they are worried it will make them paranoid. (One decidedly unsubstantiated rumor I heard was that there is only going to be one bong in Ontario and we all have to share it.)

After seeing my grandmother share another non-ironic link to an article about the widespread blight of people getting their pets high, I do have some hesitancy though. I wonder if Canadians are ready. Specifically, are Canadians ready for how much shit they are about to lose?

As someone who has dabbled in marijuana pretty much daily for the past ten years, I know the harsh truth that no object ever truly belongs to a pothead. The object and the pothead are on two separate journeys, destined to be intertwined for a moment before passing by one another. Pens, debit and credit cards, keys, documents, articles of clothing; I like to imagine that all the objects I’ve lost are twirling in a psychedelic afterlife, holding hands and dancing to CCR.

So in a bid to prepare Canadians for the legalization of misplacing-enhancing devil’s shrub, here is a step-by-step guide to finding what you’ve lost from a legitimate weed addict who is currently, as of this writing, looking for his (flip) phone.

Step One: Leave Rationality Behind and Roll One Up

If you are a true pothead you know that there is only one way to do anything that is slightly productive but also boring: get baked as hell (anyone who has spent an hour plus washing dishes because the warm water feels so nice knows what I’m talking about). Plus, listen, it was stoned you that got you into this mess and goddamnit it is stoned you that is going to get you out of it. You think a sober, clear mind is going to be up to the task of finding your checkbook? No, sometimes you have to think like a serial killer to catch a serial killer, and some sometimes you gotta get high to figure out that you left your checkbook in the drawer with all the ladles and wooden spoons in it. So the first step before you put on your searching outfit (I prefer camo shorts and a sturdy pair of binoculars) is to roll one up and get yourself in an exploratory mindset.

Step 2: It’s In Your Pocket

Oh my pockets, what frailties and weaknesses of my psyche do you hide within your seemingly endless twists and folds? Reaching into my pockets sometimes feels like I’m an archaeologist dredging through the ruins of a life not well lived, their subconcious depths stuffed with bus transfers, coins, scraps of paper with jokes on them that I confuse with money sometimes only to pull them from my pocket see that it’s not money and whisper to the joke, “Someday you’ll be a money-making joke...someday,” before releasing it into the wind.

Before you begin the nitty gritty work of getting on your hands and knees, check your pockets. There’s a good chance at least something important is stuffed in those things. The key is not being afraid of what you’ll find in your pockets—just keep digging around in there. This summer I was in a drink line at music festival, incredibly high, obviously. I knew there were drink tickets in my pockets but every time I reached into my pockets it felt like I was dipping my fingers into a strange anti-matter universe where the rules of physics did not apply but I kept rummaging and ignored the mounting panic and eventually found the ticket and attained a thoroughly unnecessary new beer. So keep rummaging you’ll be surprised at how often what you thought was a pointy, jagged coin is actually the house key you were looking for.

Step 3: Snacks

This is going to take a while, so you are going to want to fuel up. Chips, granola bars, so much juice. Also you can use the snacks to help with your search. Dust your room with Cheeto dust to find some clues, pour 7UP on the floor to find any hidden caverns or divots where your change may have tumbled into. Just be careful. You’ll be surprised at how easily you can lose things in the very chip bags you came to rely on. It’s shameful, the amount of times I’ve found the debit card I was looking for at the bottom of Ruffles bag emptied with savage ruthlessness.

Step 4: Escape the Physical Realm

Been searching for what seems like an eternity (which in pothead searching time is about six or seven minutes) with no results? Don’t worry, there are other ways of searching if one is desperate enough (cue sinister cackling). That’s right it’s time to appeal to darker power of the occult and supernatural. Find yourself a Ouija board and/or paint a pentagram on the floor of your living room and sacrifice one of your wilting houseplants hopefully summoning a helpful house spirit that will assist you in your quest. Myself, I’ll occasionally bust out a pack of Tarot cards. Admittedly, they haven’t helped me find anything but I am becoming increasingly convinced that my tragic death is imminent which makes all worries about misplaced objects seem irrelevant.

Step 5: Trust No One

You’ve stocked up on snacks, looked under every damn pillow in your apartment and even attempted to gain the assistance of Cthulthu and still no answers. Perhaps the problem is that you have been too trusting. Ask yourself: who is benefitting from my present situation, who are my enemies? Let that sweet pot paranoia into your heart while you tear your apartment apart. Did you ask your roommate if he knew where your wallet is? Did he say, “No”? Of course he did but how do you know that you can really trust him? Where does he go all day, who’s he talking to on his phone all the time? It could be anybody, it could be your parents, my god it could be the feds, who knows how deep this whole thing could go. On pot, every lost object presents a chance to fall into a delicious wormhole, a clandestine world of shadowy figures, secrets, lies and, like any good secretive intelligence operation, an opportunity to rummage through a trash can.

Step 6: Let It Go

Based upon my own history there’s a good chance that (like notorious tax cheat Bono sings) you aren’t going to find what you are looking for. That’s why the penultimate step is to let it go. Take this loss as an opportunity to reevaluate your relationship with the possession. It’s like the expressions says: God doesn’t empty a pop bottle without creating a sinker/water pipe.

You’ve done all that you could: you’ve flipped the couch cushions thricely, you’ve looked under various blankets and towels, you’ve cursed the heavens and your own hubris. Now is the time to take a step back and re-evaluate how much you really need the missing thing. Credit card? Hell, a good pothead should be aware that credit is a trap set up by the police to make us obey the rules. That other sock? Who said socks need to match anyways. Your keys? You’ve always wanted to be closer to nature, that journey can begin now. Once it looks like the object is gone forever, take a deep puff and realize that maybe you were just trying to free yourself from these fabricated obligations and responsibilities and now that you don’t know where your wallet is you can truly be free.

Step 7: Quit Smoking Pot (Optional)

The most desperate step of all and one that, if you related to this article at all, should probably consider. I’m attempting to do it right now. The pro is that things are normally in the reasonable spot where you left them. The con is that it turns out when you stop smoking weed you find all your repressed emotions like old food you forgot about it in your fridge and now searching for anything longer than ten seconds fills me with earth-scorching rage that quickly dovetails into seething despair. But also I’m having dreams again for the first time in a decade and they are killer and awesome; intense, sexual affairs where I end up in a long-term, Before Sunset-style relationship with one of the walking hammers from Pink Floyd’s The Wall so this step is worth it for the DMT-but-sober dreams alone.

So there it is: a quick seven-step guide to finding a lost object that admittedly will probably not help you find a thing at all. But, if you follow the steps accordingly, you just might find what you have been actually looking for this whole time: yourself.

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Last week, the beginning of an explosive corruption trial involving eight members of Baltimore's elite Gun Trace Task Force revealed that a handful of Baltimore cops allegedly kept fake guns in their patrol cars to plant on innocent people—a failsafe they could use if they happened to shoot an unarmed suspect, the Baltimore Sun reports.

Detective Maurice Ward, who's already pleaded guilty to corruption charges, testified that he and his partners were told to carry the replicas and BB guns "in case we accidentally hit somebody or got into a shootout, so we could plant them." The directive allegedly came from the team's sergeant, Wayne Jenkins, the Washington Post reports. Though Ward didn't say whether or not the tactic was ever used, Detective Marcus Taylor—another cop swept up in the scandal—was carrying a fake gun almost identical to his service weapon when he was arrested last year, according to the Sun.

The revelation is just one of many egregious abuses that have come out of the sprawling trial that the Sun has called "Baltimore’s biggest police corruption scandal in memory." Prosecutors say the squad, which was tasked with getting illegal guns off the streets, abused its power by robbing suspects and innocent people, raiding homes without warrants, and selling confiscated drugs, among other crimes.

But the BB gun testimony is particularly disturbing in light of 12-year-old Tamir Rice's death in 2014, the 13-year-old in Baltimore who was shot twice by cops in 2016 after he allegedly sprinted from them with a replica gun in his hand, and the 86 people fatally shot by police in 2015 and 2016 who were spotted carrying toy guns.

Six of the eight task force members charged in the corruption scandal have pleaded guilty to racketeering charges, but Taylor and Detective Daniel Hersl have pleaded not guilty. They're currently on trial while several of their former partners testify against them.

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Related: Carmelo Reflects on Marching Against Police Brutality in Baltimore

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

At a speech marking the first anniversary of the Quebec City mosque shooting that left six Muslim people dead, Canada’s Prime Minister took aim at one of the province’s largest far-right groups.

"It's easy to condemn racism, intolerance and discrimination against the Muslim community. We know who is who. It's the racists, it's the other, it's the ‘nonos’ who walk with a dog paw on the t-shirt,” he said in French on Monday night adding that it’s time to confront Islamophobia in Canada.

Nonos is a French derogatory term meaning, essentially, idiots.

The paw print comment points Justin Trudeau’s statement directly at Quebec’s active and large far-right nationalist group known as La Meute—La Meute translates to English as “the pack” and their logo is that of a paw. La Meute is a secretive group but it’s well known their membership, like many other far-right groups in Canada, rallies around a virulent anti-Islamic sentiment and an opposition to “illegal immigration” and multiculturalism.

Sylvain Brouillette, a former leader who still wields a lot of power in La Meute, responded to the Prime Minister on Facebook by essentially saying “we’re not nonos, you’re the nono.”

“An Nono is someone who thinks that those who criticize an ideology are racists and xénophobes while criticism of ideas is a fundamental right in a democratic society,” reads a translated copy of his post. “...An Nono is someone who sees a dog's foot instead of seeing the emblem of Quebec with its values of democracy, secularism, freedom and equality.”

Brouillette finished his response by calling Trudeau an “asshole” for comparing the far-right group with Bissonnette, the man who is accused of carrying out the mosque shooting. The same day Brouillette made his online post Trudeau was asked by reporters if he was lowering himself to the same level of La Meute by insulting them. Trudeau responded by stating that he will continue to take on all stripes of extremist groups and that pretending they don’t exist is a bad strategy.

"I will always be there to denounce those who don't want to build a better and more open society," Trudeau said. "It is my responsibility as a leader and as prime minister … to make it clear when there is hate speech, when there are statements or acts that are unacceptable."

Now, there is a little bit of a hubbub going around regarding the direct translation of the term “nonos” to English. There are some, like the CBC’s Jonathan Montpetit and the Globe and Mail, who translate it to meaning “bozos,” whereas the Canadian Press translated the statement to “dumdums.”

At the end of the day though the translation doesn’t really matter—Trudeau got his point across—they are totally “insert your best hoser prick insult.”

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On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump gave his first State of the Union address. Please clap. You can read all about that here, but let's get to the real nitty gritty of any SOTU, which is 50 percent speech—who cares?—and 50 percent applause—now I'm paying attention! For inside my hardened political commentator exterior lurks the soul of a humble clap critic, a pundit of praise, judge of jeers, the applause arbiter supreme.

Let's start with our supreme leader, the one and only Donald John Trump, who wasn't afraid to clap for himself very, very loudly.

President Donald Trump

Like a series of lizards falling from a great height onto a tin roof, the president's applause for himself was steady, loud, and grating. While the haters may argue that the president's physical display of affection for himself indicates how dangerously bloated his ego has become, I can't help but have an iota of respect for the fact that he was able to consistently applaud himself with such ferocity. It demonstrates his better-than-average wrist strength and palm endurance. Could someone with small hands do that? Probably not!

Clap score (graded on a scale from 1-5 claps): 3 CLAPS for effort.

Senator Bernie Sanders

While the Democrats kept their clapping to an absolute minimum in a ritualistic display of disdain almost no one cares about, Bernie's efficient, light patter of applause—where he used the fingers on his left hand to light tap his right palm—is clear evidence that he is a seasoned clapper. Clearly, the Vermont senator was not pleased with Trump's speech, but his dissatisfied demeanor, the forlorn look in his eyes as he engaged in a reluctant bout of applause, was deeply relatable. Brava, comrade!

Clap score: 4 CLAPS for form.

Senator Tim Kaine

Folks, I'm not going to sugarcoat this: Former vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine has a very weird clap. The senator did not engage in the traditional form of applause, instead holding his hands perpendicular to one another and crashing them together like a child trying to break a pair of toys. I have deep respect for any person who performs a physical feat such as a clap with such little enthusiasm and the absolute minimum amount of energy, but Kaine's clap was distractingly odd, and once I saw the camera cut to him I couldn't help but feel fixated on his technique for the remainder of the SOTU.

Clap score: 5 CLAPS for originality.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley

Haley, a mainstream conservative, is also a traditional clapper; clearly not the type to try out any new moves during the year's biggest event in political applause. Paws upright, her muscles are relaxed enough to sustain the amount of hand-cheering she needs to make it through the event.

Clap score: 3 CLAPS for technique.

First Lady Melania Trump

The first lady, who is reportedly displeased with the president after last week's reports of his infidelity with and subsequent $130,000 payout to the porn star Stormy Daniels, did not look particularly excited to be in attendance last night. Like Haley, Mrs. Trump is also a traditional clapper when it comes to form: hands upright, lightly tapping of her palms against one another. Her applause, however, appeared to be as reluctant as the Democrats'. She seldom suspended her grimace with any sort of smile, only giving her husband a standing O when she was required to.

Clap score: 5 CLAPS for bravery.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson

Sessions's applause was lighter, faster and somehow fiercer than your average clap, while Mattis's claps appeared both rushed and uninspired. Mnuchin and Tillerson exhibited interesting clapping techniques, lazily mashing their fingers against each other.

Sessions's clap score: 3 CLAPS for speed.
Mattis's clap score: 1 CLAP for energy.
Mnuchin's clap score: 1 CLAPS for form.
Tillerson's clap score: 2 CLAPS for consistency.

Energy Secretary Rick Perry

The Energy secretary slapped his right hand into his left palm like a child grabbing the hand of his sibling while yelling, "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"

Clap score: 1 CLAP for originality (or lack thereof).

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner

The president's daughter and son-in-law have remarkably similar clapping style, although Ivanka opted to join her hands together while her husband preferred to slap his right hand into the palm of his left. Ivanka's clapping was refined and engaged, while Kushner's applause looked obligatory, a thoughtless action he had to engage in while in the midst of a daydream.

Ivanka 's clap score: 3 CLAPS for effort.
Jared's clap score: 2 CLAPS for energy (which was low).

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson

Like Tim Kaine, Carson's clapping was curious: Not one to waste an ounce of energy, the doctor and author of Gifted Hands kept his mitts as close together as possible, lightly tapping his palms against one another. His hands were in an ideal position for prayer, except his fingers were too spread out. A mild-mannered clap from a mild-mannered man.

Clap score: 5 CLAPS for creativity.

Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan

The vice president's stiff demeanor had obvious influence on his applause methodology. He softly pounded his erect right hand into his limp left claw, his face stiffly locked into a half-smile. The House speaker, on the other hand, clapped as if he was about to shake his own hand, with a rhythmic, consistent form.

Pence 's clap score: 1 CLAP for looking so stiff.
Ryan's clap score: 4 CLAPS for successfully pulling off a clap that looked kind of normal.

The Congressional Black Caucus

When the president boasted that "African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded,” the Congressional Black Caucus looked nonplussed, most of its members declining to offer Trump, a man infamous for his racism, any applause at all. Although it was light on any actual clapping—and as your clap critic, I am always thirsty for applause—I'll admit it was the best cut to the audience of the evening.

Clap score: 5 CLAPS for not clapping at all.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

It’s a hard fact to wrap your head around: British Columbia’s overdose crisis worsened in 2017. And not just by a little.

Despite a public health emergency declared nearly two years ago—greenlighting a bunch of innovative harm reduction programs—more than 1,400 people died last year, compared to 993 the year before. Fentanyl was detected in the vast majority of those cases.

To a casual reader, these numbers can seem like proof of failure—a sign that what experts are doing to stop overdoses isn’t working. The stats can also feed into a fatigue that is familiar for climate activists—a sense that our problems as a society are too big to fix, that no matter what we do, there’s no end in sight.

I recently chatted with author (and sometimes VICE contributor) Geoff Dembicki about the ways the current opioids conversation mirrors climate discourse of the last decade. When writing his book Are We Screwed? he came across this doomed sentiment often. “It’s just this pervasive sense that human beings and society, we’ve created problems that have gotten out of hand and that are effectively too big for us to solve.”

Like climate change, the opioid crisis is a massively complex issue. BC Centre on Substance Use scientist MJ Milloy says we’re working against decades of failed drug war policy, as well as intersecting housing and inequality issues, which can’t be undone with one silver bullet solution.

“We’re now having to come up with not only means to try and reduce levels of death and disease in communities, but also try to figure out new policies at the same time,” he told VICE.

In the world of climate activism, this complexity has worked in favour of people trying to derail progress, according to Dembicki. “The problem is so huge and scary that all the incentives point in the direction of people ignoring or denying the enormity of problem,” he said. “I found this a lot with climate deniers. When someone comes along who seems to have scientific credentials and gives an explanation about why the world isn’t totally doomed… we’re primed to want to believe it. It removes a psychological weight from our shoulders.”

Because these debates are so emotionally charged, they can also be super polarizing. In Vancouver, we live in a progressive bubble when it comes to drug policy, but if you travel far enough outside that, you’ll find heated opposition to supervised injection sites, a life-saving program supported by science. If we can take cues from the climate change conversation, a growing death toll could fuel that opposition.

To avoid shutting down the conversation, Dembicki says it helps to move away from moral framing. There has to be some incentive to fix the problem beyond “it’s the right thing to do.”

“I think with any big intractable issue like climate change, there’s really not one way to communicate that to everyone and have it be satisfying.” Instead we should tackle the problem from many different angles, in all kinds of disciplines. That a recently-launched experiment giving users clean hydromorphone is very low cost can counter some of the denial.

“The problem with anything related to drugs and harm reduction—even talking about economic benefits—is there’s a whole section of the population primed to see addiction as a moral failing on the part of the individual,” says Dembicki. “They’re suspicious of any government program gives those people a helping hand.”

Even in the face of opposition and doomed thinking, Milloy says underneath the rising death toll there’s progress being made. Because the issue has become so mainstream, there’s a shift in tone and thinking among Canadians.

Milloy draws comparisons to the HIV crisis of the 80s and 90s, where we finally began seeing the discrimination inherent in our approach. “I think we’re living through a similar moment… We recognize that the old way of doing things was (reflecting) homophobia implicit in society.” According to Milloy, the way we treated drug users up until now simply wasn’t sustainable—and we’re only now starting to see the impacts of that paradigm shift.

The good news hidden within the BC Coroner’s latest release is there were significantly fewer deaths in the last four months of 2017. Is that sign of more good to come? “It’s difficult to really to say whether we have reached the apex or not,” Milloy told VICE. “But I think people are optimistic.

“When we hear the numbers from the coroner, I think it’s useful to keep in mind that without measures taken thus far, we would have seen a lot more deaths than we have now.”

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