While some drug dealers have tried (and failed) to hide their contraband in fairly innocuous disguises, others have gone down the more troubling route of smuggling deadly drugs in kid-friendly packaging, like candy or Star Wars lollipops. On Tuesday, however, the DEA made another alarming discovery, busting smugglers with 500 pounds of meth stuffed inside wax figurines shaped like beloved Disney characters.

According to WSB-TV, investigators in Gwinnett County, Georgia, found meth with a street value of roughly $2 million shoved inside 500 innocent-looking sculptures of Pluto, Piglet, Winnie the Pooh, and Donald Duck. While there's no word yet on potential arrests, DEA special agent Robert Murphy said investigators believe the shipment came from Mexico and was bound for Atlanta. He told WSB-TV a "major organization" is suspected of creating the figurines, as well as hundreds of ceramic decoy toys in an effort to conceal the ones containing the drugs.

It's not clear if the smugglers were actually trying to aim the products at children, like the brightly colored meth lollipops confiscated in Texas last year seemed to be. Back in 2007, a rumor spread that dealers were targeting kids with a flavored and brightly colored meth known as "Strawberry Quick," but the DEA reassured parents there was no evidence any flavored methamphetamine was deliberately being sold to children, despite the coloring often used by meth makers.

Crafty traffickers have previously tried smuggle meth in dick-shaped wax candles to move their meth and throw the feds off the scent. But as the Disney figurine bust shows, nothing is too comical or too cute to avoid suspicion entirely.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

The idea that Donald Trump might fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller and in so doing spark some kind of constitutional crisis has been gaining traction for months now. Political junkies, especially on the liberal side of the spectrum, have breathlessly discussed the scenario in neighborhood bars and on approximately 1,000 different podcasts. Protests against the firing have been preemptively organized by progressive advocacy groups. Even though Trump's 2016 campaign was marked by a contempt for the rule of law and bursts of actual violence, and even though he abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey last year (prompting Mueller's appointment), sacking Mueller would be different. Not only would it get rid of the man investigating Trump's disgraced cronies and their myriad ties to shady Russians, it might signal that the president is going to start flat-out ignoring the law from here on out.

This week, those fears took on a new urgency. On Monday, FBI agents raided the home, hotel, and office of Trump's longtime attorney-slash-consigliere, Michael Cohen. According to the New York Times, they sought evidence related to payments made to women Trump allegedly had affairs with in 2006. (They may also be interested in some of Cohen's other extracurricular business activities.) Even though the investigation of the lawyer does not appear to be a direct part of Mueller's probe—federal prosecutors local to New York have been leading the charge, acting on a referral from Mueller—the president was, by all accounts, deeply shaken by news of the raid, and promptly lashed out at the larger investigation that has haunted his presidency for well over a year now.

When reporters asked Trump Monday if he would fire the special counsel, he responded ominously, “We’ll see what happens.”

It's not the first time this president has put out a trial balloon about firing the man charged with investigating him. Recognizing the growing threat to Mueller's job security, a group of four senators (two Democrats and two Republicans) have merged bills to protect the special counsel from presidential retaliation, though It's unclear how likely such a bill is to become law. And, as they have before, some Republicans are publicly warning the president that firing Mueller would amount, as Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley put it, to "suicide" for Trump.

For some context on just how bad things are at this moment compared to October 1973—when an embattled Richard Nixon went on his own firing spree in hopes of scuttling the Watergate probe—I called up my favorite legal scholar, Noah Feldman. The historian and Harvard Law professor is usually pretty measured in assessing Trump's presidency, but he said some things that genuinely frightened me.

VICE: How do you think where we are now, historically speaking, compares to October of 1973?
Noah Feldman: It feels pretty different to me in terms of mood. There was emerging at that point, I think, some clarity to the effect that there had been a crime and there seemed to be increasing evidence of a cover-up. Here, we know there was serious Russian effort to influence the election—because there have been indictments on that from Mueller’s team. We know there are crimes associated with that. But the idea that there has been a cover-up directed from within the White House is, at this point, still very much in the realm of speculation. It may be that Mueller’s team has evidence of that, but if so they’re holding it pretty close to the vest.

Is your understanding that the president is correct in asserting that he has the power to fire the special counsel?
Technically speaking, the president would have to first repeal the regulation that is in place in the Department of Justice [governing Mueller's job]. Now, it is within the president’s power to direct the acting attorney general for this purpose—Rod Rosenstein—to rescind the regulation, and then [Trump] could direct him to fire Mueller.

That's because we have no evidence there's just cause to remove Mueller?
Correct, and the regulation requires cause. But the president could direct the Department of Justice to rescind the regulation. And at that point, Mueller is just an employee of the Department of Justice and the president has the authority to fire him. So there’s an intervening step that has to take place. So when Trump says, "I believe I can do this," we don’t have to take him literally to mean he can do it without rescinding the regulation. But what he’s saying is through that route, he has the legal authority to do it.

If Rosenstein refuses to play ball in this scenario, is the idea that the president would remove him and find someone who would repeal that regulation?
Yeah, that's the Saturday Night Massacre model. I predict Rosenstein would refuse to remove the regulation.

"Worst-case scenario for him is he fires Mueller and he fails to fire him, and Mueller is like, 'I'm not fired.'"

Then it would go to the solicitor general, also a Republican—I'm not going to ask you to speculate about who would do the president's bidding...
Someone in the building will do it at some point. Not every DOJ employee will quit. You could also imagine a scenario where Trump really would screw himself up: Trump could just try to do it himself. Just announce, "I have withdrawn the regulation and I hereby fire him." At that point Mueller will get on TV and say, "I am still in office, he has failed to fire me legally, the regulation has not been followed, he lacked the authority to fire me," and there we would have a genuine constitutional crisis over the question of like: Has he been fired? That would be a real crisis because there would be two competing views about what the Constitution demands under these circumstance. That may have to go to court or some other mechanism and under those circumstances Trump will have made it way worse for himself. Worst-case scenario for him is he fires Mueller and he fails to fire him, and Mueller is like, "I'm not fired." That could actually happen, frankly.

OK, so let's say Trump does decide to go nuclear. What do you think that actually looks like in practice? How do the key players and institutions respond?
Everyone will immediately draw an analogy to the Saturday Night Massacre, and then the $54,000 question is how will the Republican congressmen and senators react? Let’s assume this is all happening before the midterms, so we have the Republican House and Republican Senate. If Republican House members move to impeach, then the game will change very drastically and that will put also a lot of pressure on Republican senators. That would really be remarkable, transformational change.

If we don’t see that movement immediately, if they act like ordinary politicians and hold their cards close to their vests, then Democrats will probably find themselves screaming and yelling for impeachment using the parallel of the Saturday Night Massacre. And then Republicans will do a gut check and make a choice: Will they move in that direction—worried that they’ll be harmed in the midterms—or will they tough it out and think it’ll actually help them in the midterms that the Democrats are calling for impeachment? Right now the conventional wisdom is that talk of impeachment is bad for the Democrats and good for the Republicans. The question is would a firing of the Saturday Night type move the goalpost and change that? That’s a big gamble for Trump to take but it’s conceivable that he would take it. And if he did, what we would have to find out pretty darn quickly is what do the Republican House and Senate think? What would the Wall Street Journal editorial page say? We know what the New York Times editorial page will say. It will say, “Impeach.” But will the Journal editorial page say, “Well, we should impeach but not convict.” What will Fox News say?

If there is a coordinated effort to protect the president and the Republican House decides not to impeach, we will just be in a new world where all the Democratic yelling about impeachment in the world won’t have made a difference. And I have to say, I believe that is a possible scenario.

How could Mueller respond himself, short of a lawsuit or some kind of legal action?
Mueller has signaled [there may be] a report on obstruction of justice. That strongly suggests his team has a document ready to go right now. What I think would probably happen is that if Mueller were fired, the Mueller team report on obstruction would immediately emerge. And my guess is that actually includes a further paragraph they've prepared in advance that says the firing of Comey was obstruction and the firing of Mueller will be definitive proof of obstruction. I think there will be some way that the Mueller team will have an exploding mechanism.

One question is, we always talk about firing Mueller, [but] will he fire the whole team? if he fires Mueller and the whole team, then they can release this report in their private capacities somehow. If he fires just Mueller, whoever's Mueller's number two can immediately release this and can go public and can say, "The president has obstructed justice not just with Comey but with firing Mueller." And then so then our whole conversation is going to turn to: Is the president obstructing justice in firing Mueller?

Leaving aside Congress, what do you think would go on inside the law enforcement apparatus of the country if Trump did go nuclear like this?
The only thing I could imagine would be mass resignations. And I think a lot of people would not mass resign and be urged not to, because you don't want the whole Justice Department to shut down.

There are two tools. There's the legal tool, which is resignation, and then there would be like a shelter-in-place tool, where they would do a slowdown, or refuse to do the business of government, or sign letters. Or you could [see] like, walkouts at the Department of Justice, where DOJ employees in white shirts and ties could march silently to the White House, stand there, turn around, and march back.

Does it matter if it appears Trump is spurred to do this by his own attorney being searched?
That would make it far worse in terms of it looking like obstruction of justice. In fact you could make the argument that Mueller knew exactly what he was doing and that by making this about the president's lawyer, he really personalized it in such a way that if Trump fires him, he can go on television and be like, "I was fired for one reason and one reason only, namely that I was getting too close to the president, and therefore it's obstruction of justice to fire me."

Who has the power to check Trump if he goes this route?
Honestly, other than executive branch officials who can just resign, it's down to Congress. The only other option would be the judiciary, and they would only come into the picture if Trump fails to cross his t's and dot his i's. Short of that, the honest truth is the framers set up a system that depends on the separation of powers. If the president abuses his power, in the end, the popular check comes from the House and the Senate. If that breaks, then it's just a terrible design flaw in the Constitution, and a serious challenge to the legitimacy of our constitutional structure as capable of sustaining the rule of law.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Growing up, my perception of Australia came entirely from an episode of the Simpsons. It was a continent where toilet water went backwards and international affairs were settled with a swift kick to the bum. As I got older I started to learn other tidbits about the country. Nick Cave was from there, which was cool, and they had that animal guy who met an untimely death in a tragic stingray accident. I knew there was good surfing, that big rock, and that a lot of the wildlife could supposedly kill you. But that was about it. Australia was just another place I hadn’t seen on the other side of the world. It was about as real to me as Narnia.

This month a handful of friends are making their way to Australia, doing festival gigs, and touring. I decided to ask the performers about the biggest culture shock they found visiting the country and whether or not the wildlife is as menacing as the rest of the world thinks it is. Their answers are below:

Asaf Gerchak , comedian

Australia is basically louder Canada, but with more outdoors stuff and, I guess, more abbreviations. There are differences. Aussies love the shit out of beets, drive on the left side of the street, and have a secret ultra-violent kind of football, but my emotional stability isn’t going to be affected just because beets are icky. Australia has more overt racism (ickier than beets!) but that just seems to me like it’s a more upfront version of all the other white countries, so again—louder Canada.

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Some slang is different here. When I got to the country I asked an Australian friend if Aussies know the term narc. I needed to check for one of my stand up bits. He looked confused and said no, but then later many Australians told me they do know it. It was weirdly comforting that it’s not always Australians having a wildly different vocabulary; sometimes your friend is just a ditz.

Kyle Kinane , comedian

I’ve only been to Melbourne and Sydney so far so there hasn’t been much culture shock. Modern cities where English is the primary language are pretty easy to navigate. I do like seeing Utes though and was actually checking to see if they’d sell them in America anytime soon. As for ferocious wildlife? I know all the koalas have herpes or whatever but I don’t think they’re aggressive about it. From the photos it seems they’re more ashamed about it really.

Amy Cunningham , stand-up

I can’t say I experienced any shock when coming here. Just a slow erosion of my sense of self and safety when, after going to place after place, I realized that the water in all the taps is tepid and people just go through their lives listlessly drinking the filtered room temperature water. Cold showers are just wet living room showers! It must do something to the psyche. Like make it more resistant to marriage equality.

People draw a lot of parallels between Australia and North America, but two weeks after landing here, I exposed an unbridgeable gap between our continents. I plugged my hair clippers into the Australian wall and they exploded. It felt like an infringement of my freedom to express my queer vegan identity through the perfectly articulated boundaries of my undercut.

Gillian English , storyteller

The biggest culture shock for me was the language difference. We all speak English, but sometimes it really doesn't feel like it. So many words mean different things here, or can sound completely made up; wrapping my brain around the vernacular was a challenge. Also, no one says “excuse me.” It boggles my mind! Melbournians, god love them, they walk a little slow, and every time I say “excuse me” to get by, I get shot the dirtiest looks. I honestly don't know why!

The animals are mostly fine except magpies during swooping season, or anytime really. I was in Melbourne waiting for a tram, minding my own business, and a magpie body checked me in the head. Feathers went in my eye, it was full-on. I cried out, because I'd just been the victim of an urban animal attack! The guy standing next to me just goes "Steady on mate, it was just a magpie." Very nonchalant attitude towards urban animal attacks.

These responses have been edited for length.

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A man who led youth outreach programs for the Ontario government has been charged with two counts of sexual assault, VICE has learned.

Oluwasegun Akinsanya, 30, who previously spent two years in jail for killing a teenage boy, was a capacity building specialist for the Ontario Trillium Foundation, tasked with delivering programs that were part of the Youth Opportunities Fund. The Trillium Foundation is a provincial agency that provides millions of dollars in funding to community projects in Ontario, while the Youth Opportunities Fund specifically focuses on helping marginalized young people.

Akinsanya, who the subject of a 2016 Toronto Life cover story called “My Life in Street Gangs,” was charged with sexual assault in July 2017. According to his LinkedIn account, he worked for Trillium from September 2016 to December 2017, which suggests he continued working there for several months after he was charged with sexual assault.

A preliminary hearing regarding the charges began last week in a Scarborough courtroom, during which Akinsanya’s alleged victim—who is not a minor—described the accusations against him in detail. There is a publication ban on evidence presented during the hearing.

Akinsanya’s lawyer Marianne Salih told VICE her client maintains his innocence.

“Because this proceeding is ongoing, we will not be commenting on the case. Mr. Akinsanya maintains his innocence; he will fully address the merits of these allegations at trial,” she said in an email statement.

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Reached by VICE, Cynthia McQueen, a spokeswoman for Ontario Trillium Foundation said Akinsanya does not currently work for the organization. She would not confirm when he stopped working for Trillium, or whether or not he was still working for Trillium after he was charged.

“It is our policy not to comment on personnel matters,” she said. Trillium's code of ethics says, "the private conduct of each staff member and appointee is a personal matter except when such conduct compromises the reputation, image, or integrity of [Ontario Trillium Foundation]." McQueen told VICE the foundation follows an anti-discrimination policy for hiring, which includes people who have criminal records. Trillium’s workplace harassment policy says “sexual harassment will not be tolerated” and that any allegations will be treated seriously.

According to his website, Akinsanya’s role with Trillium focused on developing programs, resources, and workshops for young people in the province. He describes himself as someone who loves to “support people’s ideas, help them grow personally and overcome challenges.”

He is currently director of innovation and venture building at 9 Systems Inc., a firm that invests in media, fashion, and entertainment companies, according to his LinkedIn. He previously worked as a youth justice worker at the African Canadian Legal Clinic, and in 2009 he founded Bright Future Alliance, a non-profit group that does youth outreach work.

“I am a dreamer, doer and motivator and who is always looking to work with new people,” Akinsanya’s website says. A January Instagram post featuring portraits of Akinsanya is captioned, “I will always overcome and smile all the way through the struggle.”

Akinsanya’s criminal past and redemption story have been well documented. In the Toronto Life feature, Akinsanya chronicled how he assaulted people, stole, sold drugs, and eventually killed a teenage boy during a knife fight in a Coffee Time in Toronto in April 2006. He wrote about how racism and socioeconomic factors impacted his choices—his parents moved to Canada from Lagos when he was two years old and his mother died in a car crash when he was eight.

He said he joined a gang in Grade 9, and was given house arrest and a year of probation after he stole another kid’s CD player. In Grade 10, he said he was charged with extortion, possession of a weapon, threatening death, and violating probation, after he said he almost got into a fight with another student; he said the other student lied to police by saying Akinsanya had pulled a knife on him.

According to the Toronto Life feature, Akinsanya went to a Coffee Time at Keele and Wilson on April 20, 2006. There, he and some friends saw a 17-year-old named Danilo Celestino who they wanted to buy weed from. Akinsanya said Celestino stabbed him in the back of his neck after they got into a fight; he said he turned the blade on Celestino and stabbed him three times, wounding him in the aorta. Celestino died of his injuries and Akinsanya turned himself in a few days later. He was charged with second-degree murder but pleaded down to manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in jail, minus time served. He was out of jail in two years.

During his time in Fenbrook, a medium-security prison, Akinsanya said that he began to reflect and write about his choices in life. He took anger management courses. He decided he wanted to help marginalized kids when he got out of jail, which happened in February 2009.

He named his program Bright Future Alliance and said his first break came via a youth martial arts class for an organization called 360ºkids. He later worked with the United Way, before landing grants from the Laidlaw Foundation—a charitable organization—the city of Toronto, and eventually Trillium.

“Now I’m part of something important and productive. I’m defined by something good,” he wrote in Toronto Life.

His outreach work has also been featured in the Toronto Star.

The preliminary hearing continues next week.

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Weed is basically its own art form now, a medium for delicate joint sculptures, an inspiration for pot paintings, and—in its oil form—a kind of THC-packed molding clay for the miracle that is dab art. It only makes sense then, that because we already have a museum full of dicks and one completely devoted to ice cream, weed should get its own gallery space, too.

This summer, that hosting honor will fall to Las Vegas, when the city welcomes Cannabition, an "immersive cannabis museum" dedicated to all things dank. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the museum will open its doors on July 1 and feature a 360-degree theater, ostensibly playing trippy-ass visuals 24/7, along with several rooms of "multi-sensory art installations." And who said no one in Sin City cares about art?

But most spectacularly, the city, already home to the Pinball Hall of Fame and something called "leprechaun wrestling," will welcome the world's largest bong as Cannabition's pièce de résistance. Jerome Baker Designs, a glass-blowing operation in Seattle, is currently crafting the 22-foot monstrosity, and plans to ship the thing down to Vegas upon completion—hopefully all in once glorious piece.

Cannabition Floor Plan - World's Largest Bong. Photo via Kickstarter.

For many stoners, Cannabition might seem like the happiest place on Earth. But unfortunately, just like Disney World, you won't actually be able to blaze or buy weed inside. Still, with recreational weed now legal in Nevada, it shouldn't be too hard to toke up on your own time before you head in. Tickets, of course, will start at just $4.20 ("Duh") and will be available on—you guessed it—4/20.

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Related: Dab Art: Palm Tree

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

It’s a sad moment bordering on despair when you watch something you love fall to its knees—like seeing how terrible The Simpsons is these days.

That feeling I’m describing is one I felt watching a raccoon figure out how to get into this raccoon-proof garbage bin in Toronto. After some 30,000 years or so of pure, unadulterated dominance homo sapiens have finally been bested by another mammal—the wily trash panda.

This video, posted to Facebook by Graeme Boyce puts the nail in humanity’s coffin. It shows the raccoon proving once and for all they are smarter than humans by opening a supposedly “raccoon-proof” trash bin, which features a circular switch that locks on the lid. You have to twist the lock to get inside, but this wasn’t enough to stop this creature.

In his post, Boyce said that he was “minding his own business” when he heard a toboggan being thrown to the ground—something he set up as an “alert when the raccoon was atop the bins.” Then he got the video of the raccoon using its little paws to open the locking mechanism to get into that sweet, sweet trash inside.

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The raccoons have defeated our finest, most boring bureaucrats.

"We are ready, we are armed and we are motivated to show that we cannot be defeated by these critters," Toronto Mayor John Tory said as he unveiled the bin design in 2015. "I think people are with us on this one in wanting to make sure...we defeat raccoon nation."

“I told the raccoons this day would come,” he said a year later when we first saw them.

Well, joke is on you, John Tory, you got bested by the “raccoon nation.”

To put it bluntly, it's not just defeating the one trash puzzle we thought raccoons couldn’t solve that makes me worry about the raccoons. In recent years, the trash pandas have been in the news cycle constantly, whether for being zombified or riding majestically on garbage trucks, and I for one don’t think it’s just a coincidence—they’re planning something big.

And you know what, after seeing the hot mess humans have gotten themselves into lately, maybe it’s time to give raccoons a go.

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Being in love requires vulnerability. That’s what makes it so scary and painful to give your heart away. And back when you first started dating and hadn’t experienced heartbreak yet, you likely leapt into your relationship with an open heart. As a result, almost everyone does something silly that they look back on and wince; truly cringeworthy moments send a chill down your spine when you think back on them.

First relationships often involve messy emotional outbursts, embarrassing slips of the tongue, and other assorted adolescent fuckups. Everyone's got a story. We asked our friends and co-workers about their's. Here they are, in six words.

“Cried when he turned down sex.” - Lauren, 31

"Tried not to hate his mom." - Meredith, 26

"Performed duet of our love song." - Michael, 33

“Went to church on a Saturday.” - Justine, 22

“I tried to look more emo.” - Morgan, 19

"Broke up with her over AIM." - Matt, 30

"Puked in his bed, blamed him." - Lauren, 26

“Sang Blink-182 outside the window.” - Quinn, 23

“Tattooed his name on my breast.” - Noel, 31

"Commuted from Staten Island to Harlem." - Anna, 23

“Making out, whispered her sister's name.” - Leo, 37

“Slept with his best friend. Oops.” - Margo, 28

“Told parents I would marry him.” - Jenna, 30

“Threw love poems at him, literally.” - Sam, 26

“Tattooed initials after we broke up.” - Jason, 34

“I changed from scene to emo.” - Chantae, 27

“Carved her name into a tree.” - Bobby, 30

“Promised each other we’d remain virgins.” - Kelsey, 29

“For sale, riding crop, gently used.” - Jess, 34

“Brought best friends on our dates.” - Chloe, 30

“Burped into his mouth while kissing.” - Beth, 32

“Made him to lick my armpit.” - Lily, 23

“Got in spats at the mall.” - Rachael, 37

"Didn't date anyone else for years." - Beckett, 25

“Apparently his parents heard us fucking.” - Jennie, 34

“Smashed his cellphone during a fight.” - Lynn, 29

“Begged him to take me back.” - Annie, 36

“Got matching tattoos on our ankles.” - Derek, 32

“Anniversary dinner. Left wallet at home.” - Marc, 37

“I said her mom was hot.” - Ian, 33

“Confessed my love on first date.” - Katie, 25

“Outside her house drunk and crying.” - Dale, 31

“Left long ass voicemail messages.” - Tyler, 32

“Lied about being in the Army.” - Billy, 33

“He tried to kiss; offered handshake.” - Pete, 35

“Pressured him about marriage and babies.” - Liz, 28

“We banged in my parent’s bed.” - Pearl, 32

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Bad news, everybody. It looks like bathroom hand dryers, while more environmentally friendly than paper towels, might actually be pretty disgusting. Back in 2016, a study found that those fancy Dyson air dryers spread more germs than paper towels, and just a few months ago, a microbiology student did a similar test and found some equally repulsive results. Those studies seemed to suggest that hand dryers blow bacteria around like some kind of swirling germ vortex, but now, some researchers have found evidence that they might actually be much worse.

According to an independently funded study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, hand dryers can actually suck up poop particles floating around the bathroom and then blow them onto your hands during the drying process. Researchers at University of Connecticut's School of Medicine tested various bathroom hand dryers around the school, placing plates under the dryers' airstream, and then testing for bacteria.

"Plates exposed to hand dryer air for 30 seconds averaged 18-60 colonies/plate," the researchers write, while a plate exposed to normal bathroom air only had about one bacterial colony.

"These results indicate that many kinds of bacteria, including potential pathogens and spores, can be deposited on hands exposed to bathroom hand dryers," the study continues, "and that spores could be dispersed throughout buildings and deposited on hands by hand dryers."

Here's the deal—every time a toilet is flushed without its lid down, tiny bits of poop and bacteria get spun up into the air, and hand dryers can suck up those little shit bits through their intake and spit it right back out onto the next wet set of hands. The study found that using HEPA air filters can greatly reduce the number of bacteria the dryer shoots out, but still—according to the study's lead author, Peter Setlow, he's officially switched to paper towels now.

Yes, this means that next time you dry your hands with an air dryer, you might actually be dousing them with bits of someone else's dookie while you think you're getting clean. Yes, that is monumentally gross. Yes, you should probably go wash your hands again right now—just be sure to let them drip-dry.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

This article contains spoilers for season six, episode three of The Americans.

Not much really happened last season on The Americans, the Cold War–era spy drama on FX about a Russian husband and wife duo living undercover in the US. A lot of the spying had to do with agriculture… which, let’s be honest, isn’t why people love the show. I was like, Give us more crazy disguises! Give us more dead bodies stuffed into luggage! But three episodes into the final season, things are already off to a roiling start. For Elizabeth Jennings (Keri Russell) especially.

The women in The Americans are tough as nails. This season underscores it. One of the outstanding performances on the show has always been Russell's Elizabeth, partly because the character really resonates—she’s petite, and people often underestimate her. But there’s something fierce, almost feral, about Elizabeth when something she loves is threatened. She isn’t afraid to go in for the kill.

So far in season six, Elizabeth has stabbed a dude in the jugular, wound up with some general’s brains on her face, and flown to Mexico to receive orders to meddle in nuclear negotiations between the US and USSR. In case of failure, she got a cyanide tablet inside a locket to wear around her neck. We’ve watched her seduce a stranger then shower off in a strange hotel room, kill a dopey guy who could have blown her cover, and lots of other rough spy stuff.

Holly Taylor as Paige and Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings in The Americans on FX

This is partly due to where we’re at in the narrative. At the end of season five, Elizabeth’s husband, Philip, wanted out. He retired from espionage to run the family travel agency—their front—and for what it’s worth, it doesn’t seem like he’s doing great at that.

But Elizabeth has always been the stronger one in their relationship. She’s bearing the brunt of the spy work, because she couldn’t stand to quit knowing the value of the intelligence she could offer her country. And because she loves Philip, she couldn’t watch the work destroy his soul. So she’s going it alone, doing it all, attempting the impossible—being a high-stakes secret agent and keeping her family intact.

The way Elizabeth balances it all (though she’s clearly fraying at the edges) is admirable. It’s an exaggeration of the way women everywhere balance the myriad roles of provider, mother, lover, warrior in everyday life.

There’s a great scene in the episode “Urban Transport Planning” where Elizabeth, her daughter Paige, and her handler Claudia are cooking a Russian stew. Teaching Paige about the Motherland is part of Claudia and Elizabeth’s second-generation recruitment efforts. It’s such a tender scene. If you didn’t know better, you’d think it was a grandmother handing down family recipes to her granddaughter. But the moment Paige leaves, Claudia snaps into business mode and assigns Elizabeth a new target. It’s an amazing example of how fluidly these women juggle their roles.

After a bumpy start, Paige is finally exhibiting some real grit this season, too. She and Elizabeth are certainly closer than they’ve ever been. But Paige wrestles with the same demons Philip does. She wants to be good at spying, and she wants Elizabeth to be proud of her. But she’s definitely conflicted about the morality of it all. It’s a doubt that's driven home when a mission goes wrong, and Paige sees Elizabeth covered in a dead guy’s blood and guts. She’s understandably upset. Not only is she worried about losing her mom, she’s grappling with the knowledge that accumulating a bodycount is an inevitable casualty of the job.

When Paige voices this, Elizabeth shuts it down. For her, making sacrifices to serve her country has never been a question. Partly, it’s a mode of survival. She’s trying to protect her daughter, by making her understand that the best way to stay alive and avoid blowing her cover is by never wavering, even when it means repressing your emotions.

Keri Russell as Elizabeth Jennings and Holly Taylor as Paige in The Americans on FX

It’s screwed up, but some of the most tender scenes between the two are when Elizabeth gives Paige clandestine fight lessons in their garage. For Elizabeth, teaching her daughter how to protect herself is the ultimate expression of love. During one of these lessons last season, Elizabeth accidentally split Paige's lip. Philip tries to make a fuss, but you can see Paige is proud of her new merit badge. It’s kind of funny; she’s showing us she’s tougher than we all thought.

Though no longer on the show, Nina Krilova—a double, sometimes triple, agent in the early seasons of The Americans who was killed off in season four—was also a woman to contend with. The character got a nod from FBI agent Stan Beeman and former KGB operative Oleg Burov in “Urban Transport Planning.” Nina was a victim of circumstance, pulled into the spy game when Stan blackmailed her for selling American goods on the Russian black market. But she was also a savvy fighter every step of the way. She never stopped outsmarting those around her and trying to do what she thought was right.

You could say the same about Martha, the FBI secretary Philip seduced and recruited early on in the series. Martha's timidity was grating at times, but she betrayed her country because she thought Philip was the love of her life, and in Martha’s mind, loyalty to the people she loves comes first. Thanks to that agonizing choice, she’s living out her days in exile in the USSR.

Part of what makes The Americans so good is its examination of why people make the choices they do. The central conflict is between love of country versus love for family, and throughout the series, Elizabeth and Philip are on opposing sides of this debate. The final episodes will be fascinating, as we see how their marriage plays out through the waning days of the Cold War, with plenty of sex and death to fuel the intrigue.

But it's Elizabeth and the other women on the show who we should watch the closest. Their strength makes them the most complex. Elizabeth still doesn’t know how to reconcile her loyalty to the USSR, which involves making insane sacrifices, with her love for her family, who we sense she’ll do anything to protect. It'll be a showdown that'll be captivating to watch.

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Soderbergh's 2001 Ocean's 11 remake is one of the definitive heist movies, up there with Rififi, The Killing, and that one Fast and the Furious movie where Vin Diesel steals some shit in Brazil. Unfortunately, Soderbergh's franchise lost the thread a bit, cranking out a couple of sequels—12 and 13—that were convoluted and dumb, and then a little better but still kind of dumb, respectively.

But on Thursday, Warner Bros. dropped a new trailer for the upcoming, all-female Ocean's reboot, Ocean's Eight, and it looks like the thing could finally do what the last two Ocean's movies couldn't—be really, really fucking fun.

Like the first trailer, which we saw at the end of last year, the new trailer introduces us to Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), the estranged sister of George Clooney's Danny Ocean and the new heist mastermind. But this Ocean isn't interested in robbing any casinos, like her brother—she's got her sights set on the Met Gala in NYC, where she's planning to steal a very, very, very expensive piece of jewelry.

Of course, she can't do that by herself, so she has to recruit a team of—yes, you guessed it—seven other people. The cast is completely stacked, with Sarah Paulson, Mindy Kaling, Helena Bonham Carter, and Rihanna as a hacker named 9-Ball who seems to have a constant supply of pool balls on hand, naturally. Together, they're going to somehow steal a diamond necklace from around the neck of a celebrity named Daphne Kluger (Anne Hatheway). James Cordon is in there somewhere, too, for some reason.

"Why do you need to do this?" Cate Blanchett, playing the Brad Pitt to Bullock's Clooney, asks Ocean in the trailer.

"Because it's what I'm good at," she replies.

Ocean's Eight is directed by Gary Ross and based on a script he co-wrote with Olivia Milch, with Soderbergh onboard as a producer. If the trailer is any indication, Ross and Milch have been able to inject some fresh life into Soderbergh's formula without completely losing touch with the feel of the originals. Even if that's just some fancy trailer trickery, the cast looks like they're having a blast, so we probably will, too, once the movie hits theaters on June 8.

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On Tuesday, Twitter user @JoshSobo bestowed a very special gift onto the internet. His dad, like so many other hapless dads out there bumbling around this world, hit him up after he found himself in an unfamiliar situation, looking for guidance.

The photo is amazing, especially considering my own dad only asks for my help when he forgets my childhood home's WiFi password, or accidentally ships a karaoke set from Amazon to my apartment. Josh's dad, however, happened to bump into one of the most famous musicians in the world and required some youthful assistance placing her. Still, what's more shocking is that not quite everyone knows who Cardi B is, despite her having a chart-topping song, a new album that went gold in a few hours, and a co-hosting gig on the Tonight Show that could put Jimmy Fallon out of a job.

And although the photo has already gone viral, racking up nearly 23,000 retweets and counting, there are still a whole host of unanswered questions we have about the incredible snapshot. Namely:

Where can I get those glasses?

No, not Josh's dad's, although his seem pretty hip for an older gentleman.

Are Josh's dad's eyes even open?

Upon further inspection, it looks like the man has both his eyelids shut. Which, all things considered, would make it relatively difficult to identify who the woman next to him was.

If he doesn't know who Cardi is, then why did he stop to snap a pic?

Did he just stumble on a famous-looking woman surrounded by an entourage, ask what her name was, and snap the photo like some selfie ninja? (He did know enough to spell her name correctly, which is more than some other fathers can say.) Or maybe Cardi was doing some man-on-the-street interviews outside 30 Rock as part of her Tonight Show hosting gig, and somehow Josh's dad heard fans yelling her name. Or maybe he is actually a Starbucks barista who made Cardi a drink, noticed the muffled conversation around her arrival, and then sprinted out to get a pic, unsure what the big deal was.

In any case, does he know what Google is?

Has he not heard "Bodak Yellow"?

The song plays on almost every Top 40 roughly every ten to 20 minutes. Josh's dad might not be a huge rap fan, but I would be baffled if he had never seen her name scroll across the radio screen in an Uber.

Does he know it's "who's," not "whose"?

We get it. You see a famous person, and you want to show your son you're "hip." Grammar isn't at the top of the priority list in the heat of the moment. But, still, fair question.

How on Earth do you even respond?

Josh, although we're extremely grateful for this incredible photo, you really need to let us know how you responded. Perhaps Josh called his dad immediately after receiving the text to get the full story and graciously explained that Cardi B is the woman of the moment, a former stripper turned Instagram celebrity who's now one of the most important female artists of our time, not to mention, a mother to be.

Though, if he really wanted to give the guy a good rundown, he could have just let Cardi's lyrics speak for her—"Is she a stripper, a rapper or a singer? / I'm busting bucks in a Bentley Bentayga / Ride through your hood like 'Bitch, I'm the mayor!'"

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Early Thursday morning, a New York City neighborhood went on red alert after someone called the cops to report a tiger was roaming the streets of Washington Heights, NBC New York reports. A news chopper descended on the neighborhood frantically looking for the fanged beast, while reporters and police scrambled to track it down on the ground. Denizens scanned Citizen, a crime-reporting app, looking for any update on where the bloodthirsty creature might be.

At the end of a harrowing 20 minutes, the cops finally got their hands on the animal wreaking havoc on Upper Manhattan. Turns out it wasn't actually a tiger; instead, whoever reported the thing had, bafflingly, actually spotted a raccoon.

Because it's not already abundantly clear, this seems like an appropriate time to provide a PSA for the lovely, fauna-illiterate citizens of New York—a simple, go-to guide you can turn to any time you're wondering whether what your looking at is a vicious, jungle-dwelling killing machine, or an annoying little trash panda.

For starters, this is a tiger:

Photo by Flickr user Mathias Appel

This, on the other hand, is a raccoon:

Photo by Flickr user Neil McIntosh

As you can see, tigers are orange and white, with black stripes, as such:

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Whereas raccoons, an entirely different beast altogether, are typically grayish-black, with white underbellies, and a black "mask" across their eyes that makes them look like little rodent burglars. Take a gander:

Photo by Flickr user yel02

When riled up or threatened, tigers tend to bare their teeth, or perhaps even roar, displaying their sizable jowls and intimidating fangs:

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Raccoons, however, are virtually incapable of looking even remotely intimidating, unless they're inexplicably acting like zombies. Unlike tigers, even if they try to show off their incisors, they still just wind up looking cute, harmless, and a little bewildered:

Photo by christiankaff

Tigers can do things like kill people and shut down entire highways, which makes sense given that they look like this:

Photo by Flickr users Robert & Pat Rogers

Meanwhile, raccoons tend to spend their time getting into all sorts of adorable shenanigans, like hitching rides on garbage trucks and eating so much trash they get stuck in sewer grates. See?

Photo via the Zion Police Department

Let's do this one last time, just to be safe. Tiger:

Photo by Flickr user Bernard Spragg

Raccoon:

Photo by Flickr user AЯMEN

Got it? You sure? Great.

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Related: A Rare Sumatran Tiger Was Born at the National Zoo

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This story appears in VICE magazine's Dystopia and Utopia Issue. Click HERE to subscribe.

Roger Ballen's images are meticulously crafted nightmares. Over his decades-long career, he's created a visual language all his own, often documenting subjects on the outskirts of society in South Africa. (A recent retrospective even made his last name an adjective, labeling his work "Ballenesque." In short, he's always had dystopic leanings, and we knew, for this issue, we had to reach out to see if he had anything to contribute. Below are brand-new and unseen examples from his archive that he edited for our theme.

Retrieved, 2014

Beseeched, 2014

Snack, 2014

Underworld, 2013

Gloating, 2013

Kick, 2012

Employees, 2012

Airborne, 2013

Bedtime, 2014

Out of Body, 2012

Deprived, 2004.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

With the livelihoods of sex workers being threatened by the US “sex trafficking” crackdown, it’s an important time to listen to people who work in the sex industry.

Lindsay Irene, 32, is an Ottawa-based sex work photographer. The photos she has taken appear in sex workers’ online advertisements and on their websites, essential marketing tools that help them secure work. That work is increasingly under siege with the passing of SESTA-FOSTA—a new American law that seeks to tackle online sex-trafficking activities, but critics say promotes internet censorship and endangers consensual sex workers. Workers say that SESTA-FOSTA will literally kill them.

FOSTA is affecting sex workers in Canada too, especially since many popular sites used to facilitate sex work—such as the recently FBI-seized Backpage.com—are based in the US. A few weeks ago, Lindsay embarked on a project that she hopes will help humanize sex workers in a time when their very existence is being attacked. She plans to travel around Canada documenting sex workers’ lives through interviewing and photographing them in their homes.

“Whenever the media talks about sex workers, it’s a standard photo of the girl on the corner in fishnets,” Lindsay explained. “I feel like if the public could actually see a human face, they’d see these are actual real people who live amongst us—and maybe it could shift the perception that they have.”

She is currently raising funds to travel around Canada with her project, “Home Lives of Sex Workers in Canada,” and is looking for more workers to include.

Carina: “curvy west arctic Inuk companion”

VICE: You mention how the images we see of sex workers are often these cliché stock photos, which are a problem since these tend to be ridiculous and affect public perception.
Lindsay Irene: It is ridiculous. I feel there’s so much work to be done with changing the image of sex workers. It’s hard though, because a big thing is, for me, finding the subjects, they have to be very out already.

What are you hoping to bring to this project that people outside of sex work, civilians, that they don’t understand about sex workers?
Whenever I talk to anyone outside of the sex world, they just have this really negative view of sex work. They all assume that they’re being forced against their will... Everyone who I’ve met has been doing it because they want to or because they enjoy it or they’re financially gaining from it. But also, they’re real people. They’re beautiful-hearted people who are really complex… Another thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of them are big animal lovers, which I found very endearing. The biggest thing is to show that they’re people who work hard, and they deserve rights just like anyone else.

You said you noticed a lot of them have pets. What else have you noticed about the homes of sex workers so far with your project?
They’re all so different. Some have roommates. There’s a lot of diversity: I’ve gone from a basement apartment, to a girl who has a two-bedroom penthouse condo… A lot of their homes reflect their personalities, like one, her place was all decked out in Star Trek memorabilia. They still have their own personal flare—and some sex workers work out of their homes, too. Some will have a separate bedroom for sex work, and some will use their own bed. There wasn’t really any common link between any of them. They’re all vastly different.

Sienna: “Retro elegance with a modern twist”

In Toronto, I know it’s become popular for sex workers to work out of condos. Can you talk about that setting?
That’s common. In Toronto, I’ve heard that a problem is that a lot of the buildings have concierge up front. So, a lot of workers have been outed by that because they get suspicious. But another common thing is a lot of workers will have shared accommodations... In Montreal, there’s one I visited I want to say there’s about 50 workers who use it in this one building. In this building, there’s multiple floors and condos they’re using. Whereas, other workers are more protective of their space and don’t rent it out because they have a lot invested in it. It is really neat to see the camaraderie of everyone coming together and sharing resources.

Owen and Vivienne: “A spinning stripping sensation in the heart of TO” and “That sassy redhead your mother warned you about”

In one of your photos, there are two people sitting together at a table. Can you talk about them?
They’re both sex workers! I thought that was really cool.

I’ve noticed sometimes clients or fans get upset when they find out that a sex worker is dating someone in their personal life.
I know, isn’t that so ridiculous? I find it so odd when clients get upset over that. These two call each other “partners”—she recently moved out of their building, and he lives in their old place… She was feeling really unsafe about some neighbours. She just moved into this new place a few weeks ago. They’ve been together for a few years, really sweet, super supportive of each other. Vivienne (on the right in the photo) is a talented artist and studied fashion design. She plans on turning her place into an art space to feature local artists.

Someone once looked at another one my photos and said, “Oh, it’s not like she could ever have a boyfriend with what she does.” And I was like, “No, actually, her boyfriend was holding the reflector while I was taking that photo.” Yeah, it’s really frustrating. A lot of the people I’ve interviewed for this project have partners, open relationships or monogamous relationships. It’s not for everyone, but sex workers treat it as a job—and their partners know that. Some are more supportive than others, obviously.

Many sex workers are not open about their work. Can you talk about why this poses a challenge for proper representation?
This is just the very beginning of my project, so I still hope to find more diversity. What I’ve been doing is finding sex workers who already show their faces online and messaging them. It is really hard to find people of colour who will show their faces. I talked to a few of them about it, some who I’ve done their professional photos for, and some say it’s because of a fear of being the target of violence. As well, for some it’s about their families and their cultures too.

Chloe: “Independent midget escort”

Are there any photos you’d like to talk about the story behind?
Chloe, I knew her because she had reached out to have me take photos of her. She was one of the first people I asked to participate in the project, and she was really, really supportive of it. I went to her home, which she purchased herself… She works as an escort, but she also works as a phone sex operator and at a massage parlour. She had a really lovely cat. Something neat about her is how fiercely protective she is of other girls in the industry. She has actually chased clients into the parking lot of massage parlours when they refused to pay a girl who was new.

Madison was a really cool girl, the one with long, blonde hair. She looks like she stepped out of a Roots [Canada] advertisement… She’s probably one of the most pure-hearted people I have ever met. She was just so positive, just smiling the entire time. She actually left a career in finance to do sex work, and she does very, very well for herself and lives in a penthouse condo. I reached out to her, and a few days before, she was travelling to the States for work. At the border, they actually stopped her. Even though she never showed her face [online for work], they were able to find out by pairing a photo on her [sex work] Twitter to a photo on her private Instagram. They were able to link her to sex work, and they banned her for life from entering the United States… Afterwards, she said fuck it and decided to show her face [online for work]. She’s probably one of the most vocal people, is super loud and proud about being a sex worker. I’ve done two photoshoots with her since then, since she wanted to have ones that showed her face.

Madison: “Your girl next door”

Let’s talk about SESTA-FOSTA. Why is it so important right now in particular to show everyone that sex workers are just regular people?
So many people when they hear about SESTA-FOSTA, they don’t understand how it’s hurting sex workers. They actually think it’s helping them, when that couldn’t be further from the truth right now. Treating all sex workers as victims is not helping the situation. They are people who are trying to do their jobs, and now their resources are being taken away from them—such as being able to do proper screening [of clients]. How do you expect sex workers to thrive if you’re removing their source of income? It’s ridiculous. I feel like if the public could actually see the type of people who are being targeted by this… I was in Toronto when FOSTA onset. Workers were just freaking out. It’s a really tumultuous time right now. I know they will pull through this, though—sex workers are some of the most resilient people out there. They’re not going anywhere, either. They’re just going to have to find new avenues to advertise. But, I think the public needs to understand what the actual truth is.

You can find out more about Lindsay Irene’s project “Home Lives of Sex Workers in Canada” by visiting her Kickstarter.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Lindsay Irene on Twitter.

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Atlanta as a show is Atlanta-ish in its slant; real in the idea that it’s based on an actual place, but not that real thanks to its satire on “reality.” Episode by episode, the surreal plays footsies with the relatable—black Justin Biebers, polite rip and runs and Teddy Perkins creepin people steady Jacko’ing. In the case of episode “Champaign Papi,” none of that felt different, except for my own perception of reality.

Fresh off of a recent breakup with Earn, our girl Van (Zazie Beetz) takes to Insta-tracking her ex who seems to have moved on—at least if his Insta life can be taken as fact. And like anyone trying to dust off some old shit from their shoulders and move on, Van takes her phone and her girlfriends to a New Years Eve party at Drake’s mansion with a mission—get a Drake selfie.

A lot of the events that follow push on with surface level happenings that go with any shady night out; edibles, weird pickup boys, “thotty” happenings and the whole “bad decision” extravaganza. But in the midst of this, I got a reminder that nothing is what it seems with this show, as explained by Darius during one of his Master Darius moments.

Atlanta Fx.

“Future civilizations must have immense computing power,” explains Darius to a very high friend of Van’s, Nadine (Gail Bean). “Even if a fraction of this were to run an ancestral simulation, there’s a high probability that it would be indistinguishable from reality to the simulation ancestor, being us.”

I can’t speak for the truth of the Matrix-inspired philosophy; I’m no Darius-level thinker. But the concept of the real being fake speaks to our everyday lives. Atlanta as a show is a simulation of truth, because simulations are rarely perfect. The same can be said about our minds and how we interpret things. Take Van looking at Earn’s selfie for instance.

Her mind's eye reveals an ex whose moving onto greener pastures. She saw the smile, the woman over his shoulder; a moment captured in a moment that doesn’t show much beyond his smile. Social media aids and abets our slanted perceptions much like this whole episode tries to reverse it. We see those vacation images on Instagram, those sculpted bodies, those living-it-up celebrities, never really knowing their day to day lives of mundane shit, work and boredom.

Terry (Danielle Deadwyler), a girlfriend of Van is mind-shifting example. She zeroes in on a white girl dating celebrity Devyon Johnson (Brendon Hirsch) and we’ve seen this picture before—an entire history’s worth of the pretty and white going after successful black men—all of which could be read on Terry’s face.

Terry being Terry.

She goes in, “yeah, I’m staring at you, ho!” before labeling the poor girl as superficial, privileged, and trophie’d. There’s nothing completely inaccurate about what Terry says. The evidence of black athletes rocking white women around arms is an internet search away. Also, the negative ways that black women have been portrayed as far as beauty, in their hair, attitudes and skin follow the same path. But her information, while true, tries to define this white girl, who turns out to just be a supportive girlfriend long before Johnson was even famous. What’s perceived as real to her changed once again.

Other stuff came into play in this ep, including a charming dude that ends up as a weirdo loner, a Drake-selfie racket, and the revelation that Toronto’s Drake may also be Mexican. And it's almost like Atlanta's saying that everything we perceive is liable to be fake from here on out. And everything you expect this show to be, because of all the other little shows you watched, won’t be anything like you expect it to be.

When I think back on Darius and his sage self, he pretty much summarizes the whole damn episode; the whole damn series in fact, presenting it as a reflection of many of us.

“Is she real?” Nadine asks when looking at a bikini-clad woman slowly dancing behind Darius.

“Real-fake” he replies.

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Hollywood racism is nothing new. Growing up, I rarely saw people who looked like me in movies or on TV. When I did catch a South Asian performer, they were usually being forced to reduce themself to some one-dimensional stereotype—like the owner of a 7-Eleven or some sort of “model-minority” math wiz. While things are getting better thanks to shows like The Mindy Project and The Night Of, this unfortunate legacy continues unabated.

There is one thing, however, that seems radically different about our current moment: Never before has there been a critical mass of South Asian performers powerful enough to speak out against Hollywood’s racism.

In 2017, comedian Hari Kondabolu took the issue of representation head on with his Netflix documentary The Problem with Apu. It interrogates the way the Simpsons character has magnified problematic stereotypes of South Asian people. This week, when the iconic cartoon aired a dismissive clap-back against Kondabolu’s critiques, the comedian remained resolute and found a great deal of support in the media for his view that there is an ugliness to Apu that needs to be reckoned with. This dialogue around South Asian representation could also be found in the pages of InStyle, where Quantico’s Priyanka Chopra revealed that she had lost a movie role because of her skin color.

The fact that these two stars are using their platforms to speak openly and critically about in racism in the entertainment industry signifies a palpable shift. Those who used to be the underdogs, the sidekicks, the stereotyped are speaking out and people are listening.

This newfound influence of South Asian performers is evident to Rajan Shah, co-founder of the Association of South Asians in Media and Entertainment. “I think anyone would be foolish to argue there has not been profound change in the space in the last 20 years,” he said to me. “South Asians are suddenly seen in television in a way they’ve never been seen before.”

According to South Asian music and film scholar Nilanjana Bhattacharjya, this path was paved by performers like Kal Penn, Parminda Nagra, Maulik Pancholi, and Aasif Mandvi, who often held small roles in the 90s and early aughts. Penn, who broke out in 2004 with Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, was offered a slew of offensive roles throughout his career. Last year, he posted a string of tweets sharing the ridiculous parts people wanted to cast him in, which included snake charmer, lab buddy, and man with “slight Hindi accent.”

“There’s been a slow trickle of events that has led to this perfect storm,” said Bhattacharjya.

Utkarsh Ambudkar, an Indian American actor who plays Malcolm on Showtime’s White Famous and Mindy’s brother Rishi on The Mindy Project, told me that the way that South Asian artists approach roles in the industry has changed. “When I started working professionally [in the early aughts], if there was a role that came out, everyone who was brown would go out for the role, whether it was right or not."

There is still a dearth of roles, he said, as casting directors continue to peddle stereotypes. He pointed out that Hollywood still hasn't presented two leading South Asian actors in a relationship on screen. But there are also more actors rewriting and recreating the characters as they gain clout in the industry. His character in the movie Pitch Perfect, for example, was originally meant for Donald Glover, a black artist. And for his roles in Barbershop: The Next Cut and White Famous, Ambudkar said he pitched his own vision to the directors.

“I rarely go in and book a role for an Indian character, because Hollywood’s idea of Indian men is very nerdy, emasculated, and safe,” Ambudkar said. “When a dude [like me] comes in with diamond studs and has clearly had sex… I’m constantly having to prove something different.”

Utkarsh Ambudkar.

There is very little data on the number of South Asians in Hollywood or the entertainment industry today, and even less from past decades. A UCLA report published earlier this year said Asians made up a measly 3.1 percent of all top film roles in 2016, despite making up around 6 percent of the US population.

The South Asian trajectory in US entertainment has lagged behind other minority groups. Aseem Chhabra, an entertainment writer, told me over the phone that The Jeffersons and the Cosby Show marked a kind of silver screen revolution for African Americans in the late 1970s and 80s. According to Chhabra, the reason South Asian are having their moment right now is due to our social and political climate. The #MeToo movement has amplified more women and minority voices, while the election of Donald Trump has ignited a new conversation about race and identity.

“The fact that Hasan Minhaj was invited to give the keynote address at the White House Correspondent dinner… South Asian actors, comedians are being recognized, their voice is carrying much more influence,” he said. “The time is absolutely perfectly right, because America is getting more and more sensitive on race.”

Ambudkar agreed. He said more industry executives are aware that audiences want diversity and representation and are trying to deliver. But that doesn’t always play out behind the scenes. “It’s either we do it completely alone or we’re part of a narrative—a white narrative, or in my case, many times, a black narrative,” he said. “We’re so used to being tokens.” He said it’s easier for established actors—like Kumail Nanjiani or Aziz Ansari—to resist that narrative and start conversations that move the industry forward, which is why they’re speaking up.

“There are people who don’t have that luxury—people gotta eat. They play the terrorists, or stereotyped characters, and do accents for the sake of doing accents,” he said. “I think people who have the luxury, the financial stability, the creativity stability, [have] a responsibility to recognize how hard we’ve worked to get to this far.”

One indicator of progress is the amount of money that the industry is investing in the work of South Asians, largely to attract new audiences—like the approximately four million Indians and 500,000 Pakistanis in the US. Amazon Prime has looked to Indian performers for new talent. Netflix launched Hasan Minhaj’s Homecoming King, multiple seasons of Aziz Ansari’s Master of None, and specials by comedians like Vir Das and Aparna Nancherla. Fox and Hulu broadcast The Mindy Project, while NBC bought the Mindy Kaling-produced show, Champions.

“Netflix has been strategic about finding pockets of underserved communities and viewers across all demographics,” said Shaheen Sayani, a former Netflix employee who had acquired South Asian titles for the company. “Supporting both South Asians who have had success (Hasan Minhaj) as well as other up and comers (Aparna Nancherla in The Standups) is helping pave the way for more diverse creators by drafting off of each other’s successes.”

Meanwhile, everyone I talked to agreed that there is still a long way to go. There still aren’t any South Asian-dominant sitcoms on TV—though Priyanka Chopra is developing one. And actors still struggle to get lead roles in mainstream films or work alongside another South Asian actor. And while the critiques by performers like Kondabolu have made waves, it still hasn’t been enough to takedown one of the most racist characters on mainstream television.

Shah said this is partly due to the South Asian entertainment community’s failure to organize collectively against the discrimination it experiences. Ambudkar agreed. “I think there’s a lot of support and a lot of love,” he said, between South Asians in entertainment. But there’s also a lot of different perspectives. “That’s a challenge. None of us have come together and tried to do something.”

For him, and many other South Asian performers, there is a sense of responsibility to the next generation to keep creating spaces where more South Asians can thrive.

“Anytime I’m looking at scripts, I’m looking at lines, I want to show young brown boys they don’t need to hide in whiteness or blackness,” he said. “Everything I do is with the mindset of moving my community forward.”

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In the past month, a small town in New Brunswick has been rocked by a bunch earthquakes and no one really knows why.

Over the last 30 days, 22 earthquakes were recorded in the Maritime province—most of them are occuring in the small community of McAdam which has a population of about 1,200 and is near the province’s border with Maine. A seismologist at Natural Resources Canada told the CBC that the largest quake recorded was at a 2.5 magnitude and the most recent one was April 3rd. The mayor of the small village that is being hit the hardest said the quakes aren’t really something you can sleep through.

"It's like a very loud bang and it wakes you up in the middle of the night," Ken Stannix, mayor of McAdam, told the CBC. "It just sounds like you had a water heater in the basement explode. It's quite a little jolt."

The seismologist told the CBC that there is no real reason for why they’re occuring.

"This area seems to have swarms of events that occur," Stephen Halchuk said. "They turn on and turn off, and can be quiet for a few years."

This isn’t the first time that the village has shaken for unknown reasons. In 2016, the town was rocked with more severe earthquakes at a higher frequency (more than 100). Then, as now, there was no explanation given for the quakes.

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That doesn’t really bother the New Brunswickers who—as we have previously reported—are a hearty bunch. In fact, as the Globe and Mail reports, while the first time around the residents were nervous-as-all-hell given the fact their homes were shaking, this time they’re a tad more blasé.

“This time around people have not been so nervous, I suppose for two reasons—the number, although there have been quite a few in the last 30 days, it wasn’t like the 90-odd quakes that we had in 2016, and the severity hasn’t been there either,” said Stannix.

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Substitute teachers often take a hands-off approach to sitting in on someone’s classroom. Maybe they’ll put on a vaguely educational movie, or hand out a worksheet and basically let the kids chill while they dick around on the internet. But one sub in Connecticut decided to get a little more involved, allegedly taking the liberty of cheering on teenage boys while they beat the hell out of one another, the Hartford Courant reports.

Ryan Fish, the wannabe Tyler Durden in question, was arrested on Thursday after a months-long investigation. The 23-year-old acknowledged at least witnessing the fights, telling police the first brawl in his Montville High School classroom went down in September, followed by perhaps three more, according to his arrest warrant.

After presumably briefing his kids on the first rule of fight club—you do not tell your parents about fight club—he'd allegedly let them slap-box one another while someone filmed the beatdowns. One video that the cops obtained showed two kids "swinging full force at each other’s heads with open-handed strikes," according to Fish's warrant. Police suggested the two kids going at it were at least sometimes deliberately unevenly matched, ostensibly to keep things interesting.

The fights, which were said to involve four boys between 14 and 16, apparently got pretty brutal, even if the school superintendent said no one was hurt. One came to a close after a 16-year-old kid started vomiting—at which point Fish allegedly tried to keep the melee going by yelling "round two." A student involved told the cops Fish would set up a de facto ring by "moving things out of the way," so they'd have plenty of space to throw bows, and would count off the brawls like some kind of amateur UFC ref.

"I would let them be teenagers and let them get their energy out," Fish told the cops. "I will admit that I did at one point egg them on."

Fish was fired in October after school administrators saw cellphone footage of fighting, but the school never notified the cops, which the superintendent has since acknowledged was a mistake. It wasn't until December—when the Department of Children and Families told the police about a 14-year-old kid who had been "traumatized" by the fights—that the cops began their investigation, which culminated in Fish's arrest this week. He's now facing charges of reckless endangerment, risk of injury to a minor, and breach of peace.

Fish told the cops he "wanted to be the teacher that kids could come to"—that, essentially, he wanted to be the cool sub. That move never seems to work out well.

"The truth is I'm an idiot and wanted to befriend them," he said. "I'm immature."

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Related: Should Teachers Use Corportal Punishment on Students?

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Since the dawn of time, humanity has looked up at the stars and imagined a future augmented by the dual pillars of science and technology. Where are we going? What are we doing, and how do we fit in? Dissatisfied with the world around them and seeking hope for humanity in that which remains unknown, the sci-fi genre makes us question ourselves most.

This isn't quite a list of movies to watch while you're tripping. It's also unfortunate, but few of the selections below are movies that pass the Bechdel test. Instead, the best sci-fi movies on Netflix will make you more sensitive to today by asking you to judge the troubles of tomorrow. In order from oldest to newest:

Metropolis

Silent films are a tough sell when it comes to suggestions for binge-watching, but bold cinephiles will be rewarded by Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece, the first movie to ever feature a robot. Yes, the great-grandmother of all science fiction cinema demands concentration, but there are few films as prophetic when it comes to the humanitarian challenges posed by artificial intelligence.

Ghostbusters

"Goddammit, it took me two hours to get from 13th Street to here because they're making a fucking movie," said a man who stumbled into the Mayflower Hotel in 1983. That movie was Ghostbusters, and the man's name was Isaac Asimov. Actor Dan Akroyd, who was at the hotel at the time, was apparently crestfallen by the I, Robot author's words. But the movie is now legendary. Sci-fi makes us better humans, clearly.

*batteries not included

The screenwriting debut of Brad Bird (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) came from a story Steven Spielberg liked so much, he decided to executive produce it as a full-length film. Say what you will about the 'berg—his fancy for this alien robots versus evil developers sci-fi comedy says more than most critics ever will.

Armageddon

Aerosmith performed “I Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing” for this Bay/Bruckheimer blockbuster about Bruce, Ben, Billy Bob, and Buscemi nuking an asteroid from the inside, and basically it sums up the whole thing in under five minutes: an epic power ballad of a film.

The Iron Giant

If the Iron Giant’s appearance in Ready Player One had you feeling verklempt, Brad Bird's directorial debut is just as heartfelt and filled with childhood wonder as it was when it came out in 1999. British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes invented the original industrial fairy tale about a boy and his robot at the height of the Cold War, so you can expect there to be modern parallels.

Donnie Darko

At this point, anyone who has ever set foot inside a Hot Topic should be legally required to know what “28:06:42:12” means.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

The stories of Jules Verne and work of legendary comic book artist Mike Mignola ( Hellboy, BPRD) formed the basis for what would become, interestingly enough, Disney’s first feature-length animated sci-fi film. Gorgeously drawn and meticulously executed, this Journey to the Center of the Earth-style story features the voice talents of both Michael J. Fox and Leonard Nimoy.

9

Produced by Tim Burton, and pre-Pickle Rick, this post-apocalyptic steampunk tells of a scientist who injects his consciousness into a ragdoll in the wake of humanity’s undoing at the hands of evil robots. It features the voice talents of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, and more, so you know it’s serious enough, and in terms of computer-animated sci-fi on Netflix, it’s the cream of the crop.

The Road

The Road is such a heavy story about life after civilization that really pushes you to the limit of exactly how much post-apocalyptic stress you can handle. But Viggo Mortensen puts in a noble performance, and the cinematography is stark. Just don't say I didn't warn you: this one is sad.

Mr. Nobody

Most movie stars would jump at the chance to show off their range by playing multiple characters in the same movie. Jared Leto only plays one character in Mr. Nobody, but he appears as multiple versions of him, each one split off from a different set of choices he's made during his lifetime. It isn't a short movie, clocking in at 139 minutes, but if you're the type of person who wonders what they might be doing in another dimension, you'll wish Netflix had the director's cut.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

Melancholia isn’t on Netflix anymore, but apocalypse film fans can get their desperation-romance fixes in with Steve Carrell and Keira Knightly in this heartfelt love story about two individuals who find each other on the eve of an asteroid’s arrival. At this point, it isn't rare to see Carrell in a serious role, but his signature soft-guy charm makes what could have been a sadsack sci-fi surprisingly sweet.

Ghost in the Shell: Arise border: 1 Ghost Pain

For anyone curious about why people were so let down by the live action Ghost in the Shell movie, aside from its choice of casting, it’s because the original film and successive series (Stand Alone Complex) presented some of the richest and most prophetic storylines ever on the sci-fi screen. Don’t just take our word for it; the follow-up Arise storyline, of which Ghost Pain is the first film, makes for a quick entree into the sick, slick world of New Port City, Japan in 2029. You'll want to catch up.

Chappie

South African director Neill Blomkamp’s follow-up to District 9 and Elysium is a man-versus-machine fable starring a former police robot who gains artificial intelligence, hangs out with Ninja and Yolandi from Die Antwoord, and fights Hugh Jackman. Blomkamp’s work can sometimes breach the uncanny valley just a bit too closely, but the dude's got unassailable amounts of imagination.

Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World

Even though it’s a documentary, Werner Herzog’s tiptoe through the trappings and tulip bulbs of technology sure seems like science fiction. Does the septuagenarian filmmaker have a lot of feelings about the future? Assuredly. Does he know how to turn “live photos” off on his phone? TBD.

Okja

Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho's admirable assault on the meat industry is no easy watch, but you'll be glad you saw it the next time you're deciding which quality meat to buy. At the very least, you'll want to make sure it isn't a hock of Okja, the big, brown-eyed hippo creature whose salvation seats this girl-and-her-monster story. On second thought, maybe just avoid those burgers entirely...

Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters

Before we try and pitch you on a very-new CGI film, check out the trailer. Right off the bat you should be able to tell whether or not a feature-length Godzilla anime is right for you.

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Alleged sex cult leader Keith Raniere appeared in a Brooklyn federal court today for the first time since his arrest in Mexico last month on sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit forced labour charges. The judge issued a permanent order of detention, which means he will not be released on bail.

Prosecutors argued Raniere should not be granted bail because his history of abusing women and girls poses a danger to the community. In a letter to the court a US attorney described sexual encounters with underage girls first reported by the Albany Times Union in 2012.

Raniere is the leader of an international self-help empire called Nxivm and is accused of conspiring with Smallville actress Allison Mack to create a blackmail-based pyramid scheme that “enslaved” dozens of women. Court documents filed last month allege women who wanted to join a secret women-only group were coerced into giving nude photos and damaging personal information as a form of “collateral.” The women were told that if they left the group or spoke about it publicly, their collateral would be released.

Women who were recruited into the group were called “slaves” and were required to recruit more women to be their own “slaves.” All of them were stripped naked and branded with a cryptic-looking symbol near their crotch in an initiation ceremony that was filmed. Those allegations first came to light in a New York Times story last year.

Court docs filed by the US Justice Department describe serious sexual allegations against Raniere. One woman actress in her 30s referred to as “Jane Doe 1” was blindfolded, driven to an unknown location, and tied down to a table, according to the criminal complaint.

“Another person in the room, who Jane Doe 1 did not previously know was present, began performing oral sex on Jane Doe 1 as Raniere circled the table making comments,” reads part of the complaint. “Jane Doe 1 did not want to participate in this sexual activity, but believed it was part of her commitment (to the group).”

FBI investigators found women were regularly given assignments under threat, including having sex with Raniere, or refraining from sex and masturbation. The women were kept on diets under 1,000 calories per day.

Last week VICE reported on several Vancouver actresses who are linked to Raniere either as “slaves” or as former coaches in the self-help coursework he has been developing since the late 1990s. Former Nxivm insiders say actresses were used as a marketing tool to bring in more members.

An FBI investigation into Nxivm’s other business dealings is still ongoing. Raniere will appear in court again for a preliminary hearing on April 27.

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