It’s been nearly two months since alleged cult leader Keith Raniere was arrested on sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit forced labour charges. For the people who have been trying to expose Raniere’s alleged abuses—some have been working at this for more than a decade—his arrest, along with the arrest of Smallville actress Allison Mack, marked the end of an era.

But even with Raniere behind bars awaiting trial in Brooklyn, it doesn’t mean his many overlapping multi-level marketing schemes launched under the “NXIVM” umbrella have evaporated. Several offshoots, including the secretive one the FBI says branded and enslaved dozens of women, are still operating in some capacity thanks to Raniere’s most devoted followers. This inner circle believes that Raniere’s teachings may be necessary to ensure humanity’s survival (yes, you read that right), and that powerful people want to destroy him.

When I called up cult survivor Steven Hassan, who started the Freedom of Mind Resource Center to help others leave destructive groups, he agreed that the story of NXIVM is still far from over. That’s partially because years of conditioning have led die-hard followers to expect government crackdown. “The members believe they’re being persecuted,” Hassan told VICE. “They’re thinking this is my honour to be a martyr.”

Allison Mack has been released on bail, and has been ordered not to contact anyone from the NXIVM inner circle except through her lawyers. So far we know that US prosecutors are open to plea negotiations, but we don’t know if her loyalty to Raniere will steer her away from fully considering that route. I called up Hassan, who has been working with NXIVM clients, to ask why cults don’t disband easily, and what happens when followers reject help from the outside world.

VICE: As an outsider it’s hard to understand why the FBI charges haven’t scared away more of Raniere’s core followers. Is there a reason why a group like this might not disband easily?
Steven Hassan: Well we just had the 20th anniversary of the sarin gas attack in Tokyo by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. The leader Shoko Asahara is on death row—sentenced to death but not executed yet. Yet the group continues—it’s changed names to Aleph. People still believe Shoko Asahara is being persecuted by the CIA, the Jews, and a bunch of other conspiracy forces. I mention this group because 60 Minutes flew me to Japan after the attack when he was still at large, to be an on-site expert. I had a chance to meet a bunch of former members, and to look at some of their recruitment videos. They had a successful computer company, had the youngest lawyer in Japanese history—really brilliant people. And people in the armed forces and police department, which is underreported.

The big lure is often being told you are special, you have an incredible opportunity to be part of this historical movement. Mind control is a bidirectional process, so these people bring their own meaning and experiences into whatever the indoctrination is. They identify with certain aspects—they’re not just blank slates. We know from George Orwell’s 1984 that language can be manipulated and convoluted to make someone believe freedom is slavery, and a women’s empowerment movement is where they’re surrendering to a creepy guy who gets to tell them their pubic hair length and the amount a calories they eat.

How come so many reject deprogramming? Since they’re smart people, shouldn’t they be able to think their way out of it?
I hate the term deprogramming even though that’s what the media likes to use. I believe in helping people reclaim their own powers of critical thinking, to get back in touch with who they were before indoctrination—to teach people how the mind works, how social influence works. I’ve developed a system based on my own experience in the Moonies cult. I was deprogrammed in a forcible way 43 years ago. My model is known as the dual identity model, where a new cult identity is formed and the old, pre-cult identity is suppressed.

When a negative thought is raised against the leader or group, the cult identity is trained to shut down that thought, to neutralize it. Some groups chant, some groups pray, some meditate, some just have an automatic switch where they don’t allow the negative thought. The cult identity is also given phobias—irrational fears that terrible things will happen to the world and to them if they betray the Vanguard, the only hope for humankind. And the real identity is like holy crap, what am I in? And who can I talk to about this? But a lot of this is suppressed by the cult identity. So there are members who are actually questioning but are afraid to talk to anybody in the group about what they’re thinking. My strategic approach is based on the understanding that the last thing you want to do with a destructive cult is challenge the doctrine or group policy—that’s going to cause the person to feel persecuted, to lower rapport and trust. So in my approach, emphasis is always on trust building as a foundation, and asking questions in a non-confrontational curious way.

What tends to work for people?
Depending on what trusting relationships they have with non-members, that’s going to play a role in them potentially waking up. I helped a woman who fell in love with a non-member. He read my book and was able to say ‘you love me, and I want to spend my life with you, so I want you to read this book, and let's talk about it.’

As someone who has been working with people leaving NXIVM, are there any specific challenges you’re seeing?
What’s going on in this group is that [NXIVM president] Nancy Salzman was trained by Tad James in neuro-linguistic programing, or NLP. James was a protege of Richard Bandler, who modelled the practice off Milton Erickson the psychiatrist, who is considered one of the greatest minds in this area of healing. They modelled Erickson’s covert hypnotic style, but the problem with NLP is it’s amoral. If you’re a psychiatrist who has sworn an oath to do no harm, and people are coming to you for help, you’re being granted a license to do what’s going to work and help them. But when you’re talking about business and money and sex, and power differentials between teacher and a student, it’s so exploitative and so destructive. I’ve talked to more than a few ex-members now who talked about their first meetings with Keith—they have no memory of what happened. These are two or four hour meetings. As an expert who studied in NLP, I think that’s indicative of them being put into a hypnotic trance state, and specifically given a suggestion that they'll have no recollection of what was said or done.

Do you ever take it personally when people reject your help?
I wouldn’t say that I take it personally because I’ve been doing this for 43 years, and I understand that people are programmed. But I have a very strong passion to help everybody, and when I can’t help somebody, I feel a lot of frustration. I would love to help people get out as soon as possible so they’re not suffering for weeks and months and years. I don’t want to see them give away their trust funds and come out destitute, or have ailments that need medical attention, but group members are telling them to do group processes to fix it. I feel a level of frustration that after 43 years of activism and hundreds of lectures and TV shows and interviews, the public is still as ignorant as they’ve ever been. All these shows, at least they’re putting some spotlight on the cult issue, but they’re not teaching people about the nuts and bolts help inoculate them, to actually help a loved one.

Do you think the story of NXIVM is at least winding down?
I don’t think we’re close to winding it down. I think the Bronfmans could be indicted, the Salzmans could be indicted, the doctors who did the cauterization could face some type of consequences—criminal and civil. There is a large handful of women who were branded who have now woken up, and they are beginning to realize what’s been done to them. It will be going on for many years to come.

Interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Sometimes, when Pat Morrin has people over, a certain taxidermied creation—one with a big beard, brooding eyes, and a jutting snout—tends to catch the eye of his company.

“What is that thing,” they’ll ask the taxidermy collector and brocker, looking the creature up and down. From here, Morrin typically launches into a winding tale regarding a since-extinct monkey from the Louisiana swamp—a rare creature known as a swamp booger. “Oh wow,” they respond, “really?”

“Nah,” he’ll say. “It’s a deer’s asshole.”

And indeed it is—what they’re looking at is, to put it frankly, an anthropomorphized deer butt, also known as assquatches and they are spectacular. They fall into a realm of a folk art known as gaff taxidermy—the creation of mythical creatures out of other, real, animals —think of a jackalope or the Fiji mermaid. And much like the mighty jackalope, explains taxidermist Ryan Biracree who runs Black Bears on Bath Salts, the original creator of the assquatch isn't known.

Two assquatches that sold through ebay. Photo via screenshot.

“Like so many monumental achievements, it began with an overabundance of butts,” Biracree told VICE. "Taxidermists, as a rule, hate to see parts of an animal go to waste. The front halves of deer are in high demand, but the junk in their trunks would routinely go to the dump if there wasn't a creative outlet for them.

“I don't know what visionary taxidermist invented the swamp booger; probably, like the creator of the first jackalope, they'll be nameless but often-imitated.”

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Making deer butts into monkeys or aliens or sasquatches isn't new, it's been around for some time, half a century at the least. While the typical ass to use is that of a deer, there are exceptions. Biracree said the best thing he's created from a bum was an "opossum rump, with its long tail as a sort of Pinocchio."

A assquatch (made from a angora got) currently for sale on Ebay.

They're rare creations but not the rarest Morris told VICE—the creations are out there but you usually have to scour Craigslist or eBay to find one and if you do they’ll run you a couple hundred bones. Morris, who has sold a collection of assquatches, said that they’re not really popular among household collectors but more so among dive bars and tattoo parlours where they can live out their shock value potential and serve as a conversation piece. So if you want one, you can get one but it might take some work.

Or you can create your own.

A swamp booger sold on eBay.

Like an ass-obsessed Victor Frankenstein—you essentially take a deer rump, flip it upside down and make a monster out of it. Not much has been written about assquatches but luckily for us, one kindly soul decided to create a how-to guide for creating them in 2006. In it, the guide gives you tips like using a nifty little tool called a “butt out” which ties off the butthole from both the outside and inside.

“Many people say that the real redneck art is the shaping of the deer anus to look like a mouth,” reads the blog by Don Burleson. “This is the true test of the artist's loving hand.”

A screenshot from the how-to-guide. Photo via http://www.dba-oracle.com/.

Another taxidermist, Rickey Durham of White Tails Unlimited (who creates the assquatches Morris sells) agreed with this assessment to VICE saying, “Yes, the butthole mouth is the hardest part because you have to form lips out of putty and then cut the butthole to fit the lips you have formed, then add the teeth.”

However, this has been co-opted and mainstreamed by big taxidermy. Biracree, in explaining the process a little more in-depth to VICE, said that there’s no “particular trick to making them.” These days you essentially can buy a stock head (typically an imitation chimpanzee head with a wolf jaw set, and reptile or canine eyes,) and from here you will fit the rump hide over the mount and create it from there. This is why, Biracree said, they tend to “more or less all look the same these days.”

The swamp booger mounts offered by McKenzie Taxidermy supplies. Photo via screenshot.

However, somewhere out there, there exists true deer butthole artists who still create assquatches and swamp boogers by hand. This, Biracree says, is where assquatches exist in their truest form—by the careful eye of a creative taxidermist. The best he’s ever seen “used antique glass eyes meant to illustrate the effects of cataracts in people, an actual set of human teeth, and someone's shaved off dreads.”

“For the real folk art stuff you need to see some of the truly bizarre handmade ones," he told VICE. "They were an outlet for a taxidermist’s weird creativity, a place to have a little personality for a craftsperson who’s used to striving for fidelity to the animal, for the illusion that nothing artificial has been done."

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Bars can be treacherous territory if you're a conservative. You never know when you might be called "Nazi scum," or get kicked out for wearing a MAGA hat, or—if you're Richard Spencer—have to deal with the embarrassment of having your card declined for a $4.25 bourbon. But conservative firebrands apparently like a drink as much as the next guy, and so they soldier on, braving America's potentially leftist-riddled watering holes—even if, as Tomi Lahren learned over the weekend, it means possibly getting a drink thrown at your face.

According to City Pages, the FOX News commentator was eating brunch with her parents at a Minneapolis restaurant when, on her way out, someone threw a glass of water at her.

Lahren and her mother, who reportedly caught some of the splash, apparently turned around to confront the table of guerilla liberals who hurled the drink at them. While Lahren chatted with a bouncer, a few patrons started heckling her—yelling "racist-ass bitch" and "why you even out here?" while Lahren shuffled out of the bar.

On Wednesday, Lahren sat down for an interview about the incident on FOX News, telling her colleagues that while getting shit-talked in public was nothing new for her, getting splashed with water at brunch still sucked.

"This was something that was embarrassing for me and embarrassing for my family. At the end of the day, I'm a person too. And I do get humiliated and embarrassed just like anyone else," Lahren said. "But I'm tough, my family's tough. We can handle it."

On the same day FOX's segment aired, President Trump made a point to weigh in on the Lahren Water Crisis—which he apparently felt required a more pressing response than, say, the hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico in September.

It's not hard to understand why someone might want to throw a drink at Lahren—she's called immigrants "rapeugees," compared Black Lives Matter to the KKK, and has a bizarre relationship with hip-hop for some weird reason. Still, if the brunch goers really wanted to embarrass her, there are much more creative ways of doing it.

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If you’re looking to Netflix and nerd out, you’re in luck next month: June 2018 has a number of new offerings that will satisfy your biggest stan cravings and compulsions to comment about stuff on the internet. There's something for everyone: for baking fans, the second season of Netflix Original, Nailed It, makes its debut; while fans of spandex will rejoice for GLOW season two; Tarzan swings onto the streaming service for the Disney heads in the back; comic book fans get a new season of Luke Cage, season five of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Thor: Ragnarok; those looking for laughs get the eighth season of Portlandia; history buffs can take their pick between The King’s Speech and He Named Me Malala (or just watch both); and on top of all that there are some catch-all faves like Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. There’s never been a better month for staying in. While everyone else is outside enjoying what will likely be the hottest summer on record, you can hole up with these gems, all new to Netflix in June 2018. Below you'll find a list of what's landing on the service once the calendar changes, including a few highlights we recommend.

6/1

Just Friends (2005)

Ryan Reynolds' nascent talents have been on full display as early as National Lampoon's Van Wilder. And even though his turn as the glowed-up object of Amy Smart's spurned affections in Just Friends wasn't as satisfying as, say, the profoundly problematic Monty from Waiting..., he makes this romantic comedy, with standout supporting roles by Anna Faris and Chris Klein, totally a movie you should play more than around Christmastime.

Miracle (2004)

You'll know whether or not this movie is for you from the most cursory of descriptions: America porn. Kurt Russell sports an incredible haircut as US Men's Hockey coach Herb Brooks in Disney's version of the 1980 Winter Olympics's "Miracle on Ice." It's not as good of a hockey movie as Slap Shot, Mystery, Alaska, or any of The Mighty Ducks, but it's still well worth a puck (sorry).

Taking Lives (2004)

Angelina Jolie gets her hands dirty as an FBI profiler in D.J. Caruso's whodunit thriller about a serial killer who literally takes the lives of his victims by becoming them. Buried early aughts treasures abound, including Ethan Hawke and Kiefer Sutherland, blockbuster cinematography by Amir Mokri, and an original score by Philip Glass, but what really makes this one worth watching is an unforgettable performance by a then-unknown Paul Dano.

The Departed (2006)

Hate on Leonardo DiCaprio all you want, he's fucking great in this Scorsese remake of a Korean crime drama. And if he would have gotten the Academy Award for Best Actor back in 2007, maybe we could have avoided The Revenant entirely.

6/15

Step Up 2: The Streets (2008)

So what if Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan aren't in the sequel to Touchstone's 2006 romantic dance movie (rodance movie?). Step Up 2: The Streets has a great title, and blowout performances by relative-unknowns Briana Evigan and Robert Hoffman still proudly hold up the mantle borne of films like Footloose and Save the Last Dance.

6/23

Tarzan (1999)

Following in the heavily-trodden footsteps of George of the Jungle (1997) and Mighty Joe Young (1998), Disney's 37th animated feature film is mostly remembered for having original songs by Phil Collins. At the time, it was also the most-expensive animated film ever, costing Disney a whopping $130 million to produce. It was, however, totally worth it because Collins won an Oscar and a Golden Globe for "You'll Be in My Heart," and shared a Grammy for the soundtrack with producer Mark Mancina.

6/26

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)

A lot of angry, lonely, and sad people on the internet had a problem with the fact that Disney's first foray into the Star Wars universe had a female Jedi and a black Stormtrooper. The only legitimate criticism, however, should have come from the way it follows the original Star Wars movie a bit too closely to really feel all that original. That said, the original Star Wars trilogy isn't on Netflix for some reason, while The Last Jedi is. So suck it up, you babies.

Other stuff hitting Netflix in June...

6/1 Blue Jasmine (2013), He Named Me Malala (2015), National Treasure (2004), Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008), Rumor Has It (2005)

6/2 The King’s Speech (2010)

6/5 Marvel Studios’ Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

6/8 Alex Strangelove (2018) Marcella: Season 2 (2018) Sense8: The Series Finale (2018) The Staircase (2018)

6/10 Portlandia: Season 8 (2018)

6/15 Set It Up (2018), The Ranch: Part 5 (2018), Voltron: Legendary Defender: Season 6 (2018)

6/16 Grey's Anatomy: Season 14 (2017) In Bruges (2008)

6/17 Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Season 5 (2017)

6/22 Marvel's Luke Cage: Season 2 (2018)

6/23 Room (2015)

6/25 Hotel Transylvania: The Series: Season 1 (2017)

6/29 GLOW: Season 2 (2018), Nailed It: Season 2 (2018)

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Unless you're completely soulless, watching the rise of Lil Tay has been deeply unsettling. For the unfamiliar, she's a nine-year-old child who's famous for pseudo rapping, but mostly for using shockingly age-inappropriate language on Instagram. She also gained notoriety for getting into fights with older social media personalities like Danielle "Cash Me Outside" Bregoli—the teen who went on Dr. Phil, stole a car, and somehow parlayed the experience into a deal with Atlantic Records.

For a long time, no one knew who Tay's parents were, and it was the mystery that made her project slightly intriguing. But when that question was answered, her stardom didn't exactly fade. After a Canadian real estate agent named Angela Tian was outed as Tay's mom, the act seemed to grow bigger than before. In fact, it's gotten to the point that her family decided to make a mainstream news appearance Wednesday on Good Morning America.

Although Nightline's Juju Chang seemingly tried to take Tay and her family to task, she seemed more concerned with disproving Tay's claim that she's making millions of dollars than her family's role in her stardom. When she asks "if a nine-year-old is capable of making this kind of decision"—to generate content that will follow her for the rest of her life—she directs the question at Tay, who's literally nine, and not the adult woman sitting next to her. The only thing she managed to get out of the woman who should actually be in the hot seat is that her daughter is "well-mannered" and a "great kid" who has a "passion" and a "dream." There's a brief moment when Chang asks Tay's 16-year-old brother what he thinks, and his response is a masterwork in the art of saying nothing: "A lot of people are gonna say this and that, we just keep going." There's no follow up question.

She would have done well to keep grilling Tay's brother, as Tian previously suggested in an interview with the National Post that he's the "creative force" behind the videos. Earlier this week, a clip posted to Instagram seemed to support that statement.

"Go back and say like, 'You a broke-ass bitch,'" an unpictured man coaches Tay in the video, which was posted by DJ Akademiks on Sunday. "'You out here with your irrelevant ass. You making a video on me? Bitch, I'm way more relevant than you.'" A beat or two later, a seemingly very upset Tay yells that her mom needs to stop interrupting her as she's filming.

It's not clear how Akademiks got the video or if it was doctored in some way, but assuming the footage is legitimate, she's far from the only adolescent viral star to be manipulated by an older person who should know better. Take for instance the story of a skater named Steven Fernandez, a.k.a. Baby Scumbag. His cousin, Jose Luis Barajas, turned the then 11-year-old into a viral sensation after he coached him into harassing women on the street and put it on YouTube. The first time I spoke to Fernandez on the phone, I made the mistake of letting him do our interview in character, and didn't ask his family the hard questions. When I caught up with him in person a few years later, he had long been out of school, and had recently been arrested for allegedly attempting to solicit several young minors for sex with his cousin.

Later, in the Vine era, it was Lil TerRio, a six-year-old from Georgia whose teenage neighbor posted a clip of him dancing on the video platform. Soon after, he was hanging out with star athletes and people trying to make him into a rapper. After visiting the set of his first music video, I uncovered that he was pulled out of elementary school, sent to Miami to live with a manager who had been arrested for hitting his pregnant girlfriend and armed robbery, and being paraded around at nightclubs for $8,000 an appearance.

In both of those cases, a savvy teen discovered that a child in their orbit had some sort of X-factor and no sense of inhibition. They presumably saw dollar signs, and the kids' mothers didn't put up much of a fight once the money started rolling in. Celebrities and the media helped these families along—intentionally or not—in their exploitation by either turning a blind eye or running puff pieces celebrating the kids' charisma or savvy—perhaps because a story about the teenagers and adults pulling the strings would have been less inspirational.

Tay's story might be uniquely sad even among the other youngsters with that dubious distinction because of the sheer volume of the gendered criticism she's receiving. And given what became of her predecessors, that bodes very, very poorly. But the fact that Lil Tay is a young girl instead of a little boy might be the difference that's getting outlets like Good Morning America to pay attention to the plight of an exploited young social media star. That could ultimately be a good thing if the journalists at those outlets can get their acts together.

Trying to grill a nine-year-old about anything is pointless. And it's laughable to watch George Stephanopoulos congratulate his co-host for how she "pressed" Lil Tay with her questions. If anything, the show's producers just let an abused child perform on-air for millions of people who probably wouldn't have come across her Instagram. But if journalists with access to Tay's family can start asking specific questions about the young girl's schooling and where the money she's making goes, as well as pressing them when they don't give satisfactory answers, then stories like these might stop popping up every few years. If not, this is almost certainly going to be a formula that we see repeated over, and over, and over again.

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The original Men in Black movie is one of those rare summer blockbusters that is about 65 percent smarter than it had any reason to be. The jokes are solid, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones somehow have fantastic chemistry, and the script is so well-polished that it gleams like the burnished chrome shaft of a neuralyzer.

Unfortunately, the sequel managed to completely miss all the magic of its predecessor, and Men in Black 3—while a step in the right direction—never quite managed to come together. Now, an upcoming Men in Black reboot starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson is going to try it again—and this time, it looks like they're bringing in an actor with a particular set of skills to help them do it.

On Tuesday, Variety announced that Liam Neeson is in talks to join the cast of the new MIB movie. If he signs on, Neeson will play the head of the British branch of the secret government organization, where he'll presumably follow in Rip Torn's footsteps and try to keep the agency from dissolving into an intergalactic kegger.

Neeson, who's spent the last few decades playing heroic middle-aged men, announced his retirement from action movies last September, but apparently, that might not stretch as far as the action-comedy genre.

There's not a lot of news about the plot of the upcoming film yet, though some early rumours say it'll focus on Thompson's character, Em, who joins the MIB in London and "is paired with the former ace Agent H, played by Hemsworth." The new movie also isn't expected to be a hard reboot of the franchise, meaning the story will take place somewhere inside the same universe as the first three movies and we'll probably get a Frank the Pug cameo.

The movie will be directed by F. Gary Gray (Straight Outta Compton, The Fate of the Furious) with screenwriters Matt Holloway and Art Marcum working on the script. It's on track to hit theaters in summer of 2019, but hopefully it'll include Liam Neeson slipping into the last suit he'll ever wear or whatever.

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At first glance, you wouldn’t think Kelly Pocha and Aaron Schlossberg have much in common.

One worked at a car dealership in Cranbrook, British Columbia—a city with 20,000 residents; the other is a New York attorney in commercial law. But it turns out they are both extremely triggered by people speaking other languages around them, which is a roundabout way of saying they both recently went on viral racist rants.

About two weeks ago, a video surfaced of Pocha berating three men at a Lethbridge, Alberta Denny’s. In the clip, she repeatedly accused the customers seated next to her of not being Canadian and not paying taxes, gesturing wildly all the while. “Shut your fucking mouth then, ‘cause you know what? You’re dealing with a Canadian woman right now and I will leap across this table and punch you right in your fucking mouth,” Pocha said at one point.

Then, last week, Schlossberg was caught on video freaking out at staff and customers at a cafe for speaking Spanish, when, in his opinion, “they should be speaking English.”

“My guess is, they’re not documented, so my next call is to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to have each one of them kicked out of my country,” Schlossberg said. "If they have the balls to come here and live off my money, I pay for their welfare.” This isn’t the only time he’s been caught being a bigoted dick in public.

Pocha and Schlossberg have faced the consequences of going viral—the former was fired from her job at Cranbrook Dodge, while Yelp reviews of Schlossberg’s law firm are currently a trash fire and he lost his office space. After their rants blew up, they both also issued public apologies that rang so hollow I almost wish they hadn’t bothered.

Let’s deconstruct what Schlossberg had to say, line by line:

“To the people I insulted, I apologize. Seeing myself online opened my eyes—the manner in which I expressed myself is unacceptable and is not the person I am. I see my words and actions hurt people, and for that I am deeply sorry.”

Translation: I’m embarrassed that the whole world caught me being a total asshole.

“While people should be able to express themselves freely, they should do so calmly and respectfully.”

Translation: I secretly still hold this shitty opinion and I’m resentful that i’m being shamed into apologizing for it.

“What the video did not convey is the real me. I am not racist. One of the reasons I moved to New York is precisely because of the remarkable diversity offered in this wonderful city. I love this country and this city in part because of immigrants and the diversity of cultures immigrants bring to this country.”

Translation: I have some black friends who are also lawyers and I like eating butter chicken.

“Again, my sincerest apologies to anyone and everyone I hurt. Thank you.”

Translation: Please stop fucking with my business.

The whole thing actually reads like an exercise in insincerity (he posted it on LinkedIn ffs), but the part that really grinds my gears is the whole “this isn’t the real me” line. If this guy feels ballsy enough to berate a group of people in a crowded cafe in one of the most crowded and yes, diverse, cities in the world, I’m thinking that’s the real him. He wasn’t even drunk (though if he was, drunk words are sober thoughts). Plus, this is part of a pattern of behaviour, as he previously called a man from Massachusetts an “ugly fucking foreigner" when he bumped into him on the street and made anti-Semitic comments towards an Orthodox Jewish man who was in a protest, according to CNN. The fact that he’s a lawyer who threatened to call immigration on the people at the cafe strongly suggest Schlossberg is on a massive power trip. It reminded me of the reports that former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman told girlfriends he allegedly abused, “I am the law.” To be clear, there is no evidence Schlossberg ever physically assaulted anyone.

Pocha’s apology, if you can call it that, came through an interview with Lethbridge News Now in which she claimed she was drunk and became “provoked” when she heard her fellow Denny’s customers speaking in a language she didn’t know.

“If I could take it back, I would. But I can't,” she said, describing the incident as part of an “off” day. “I even went back to Denny's and apologised to the manager, to the server. I told the manager if I could apologise to the men that were there, I would, for my actions. Because I mean, that's not who I am."

An “off” day is when you screw up a job interview, or bail on the sidewalk while looking at your phone. Violently threatening strangers and demanding that they go back to their country doesn’t fall into the same category. And it’s telling that she mentioned apologizing to Denny’s staff before the men she actually attacked, as if Denny’s was the priority (maybe she eats there a lot, which is a tragedy in and of itself).

The rest of Pocha’s interview was even more revealing, as she spent it defending her actions.

"I normally don't get that angry, I have to get provoked,” she said. “He decided to hit record when I was extremely irritated and heated. You don't see the whole video, you don't see what was said to me, things like that. So yeah, I'm extremely upset about it, cause it's gotten, I think, way out of hand."

She also noted “I don’t know how to handle this kind of attention.” And that’s really the bottom line, it would seem —she’s pissed that she got busted and it’s really the only reason she’s saying sorry.

I’m not entirely sure what makes a “good” apology for acting racist. But I think coming clean is the first step. Be honest—dive deep into those xenophobic views you have and where they’re coming from, cause they aren’t appearing out of thin air. Do NOT pretend that it’s not who are, nobody is buying that. And maybe make a donation to a local grassroots organization that supports immigrants or people of colour. And then read a book. But if you can’t do any or all of those things, it’s probably best to do what you should have done in the first place and shut the fuck up.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

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Killing Eve is the newest great cat and mouse detective drama from BBC America. The show stars Sandra Oh as Eve Polastri, a desk job-trapped MI5 employee who is recruited to try and catch Vilanelle, a psychopathic assassin played by Jodie Comer.

It premiered back in April, and the finale will air this Sunday. The show has received thunderous critical approval, and has already been renewed for a second season, (that will hopefully consist of more than the eight episodes this season got).

The BBC is no stranger to detective dramas that center around a hero and a villain and the degree to which their pathologies are similar and dissimilar. Indeed, the heart of Killing Eve lies in the recurring theme that Eve and Villanelle aren’t quite opposites. The show is incredibly good—more than good, actually, the word I would use is “satiating.” It satisfies a desire for something I didn’t know I needed, specifically because I had never seen it on screen before.

Where Killing Eve really makes its killing is in the way it subverts so many of the expectations of the detective drama format. This is instantly apparent in the show’s primary cast, the majority of whom are women. This casting decision was made by Killing Eve’s writer and producer, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who previously created and starred in Fleabag. This cast allows Waller-Bridge to center the drama around the many subtle violations that women endure on a daily basis. The women of Killing Eve are quite literally superior in every way imaginable, and yet they still have to navigate constant minimization from their male peers. The majority of these instances of misogyny are casual to the point of feeling unavoidable. It’s only as we see Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer perform their outrage, that we come to realize just how maddeningly we have normalized such behavior.

When Eve is promoted, in the first episode, her white male ex-boss is, at first, utterly incapable of accepting her as a superior. By the end of the episode, despite his assholery, we learn this man is to be one of Eve’s closest allies. Later in the season, one of Villanelle’s new handlers repeatedly demands that she sit (and more largely, that she become placidly obedient). Another female assassin facetiously gets called a pumpkin by her male counterpart. Many of the show’s shitty men end up getting killed the hands of women. Normally, we see shows depicting the exact opposite.

Killing Eve is also unapologetically queer. Villanelle doesn’t seem picky about her bedmates, but her romantic obsessions are exclusive to women. Villanelle’s bisexuality is brazenly performed on screen, in a way that doesn’t feel catered to—or even aware of, really—the male gaze. Eve Polastri’s sexual fluidity is in constant question. Mid-season, Eve describes Villanelle to a sketch artist with an attendance verging on lust and adoration. In so many ways, Killing Eve forces us to contemplate the degree to which every obsession holds within it a kernel of romantic desire, and the degree to which we regularly police our own sexuality. It is absolutely thrilling.

As our lead, Eve Polastri differs wildly from typical detective drama tropes in a number of ways. First, she’s a woman. Second, she’s an Asian American woman. My initial interest in the show actually came from reading E. Alex Jung’s fantastic interview with Sandra Oh, where he addressed these disparities head on. The whole interview can be found on Vulture, but this bit really stuck out to me:

One thing I will share with you—when I got the script for Killing Eve, I remember I was walking around in Brooklyn and I was on my phone with my agent, Nancy. I was quickly scrolling down the script, and I can’t really tell you what I was looking for. So I’m like, “So Nancy, I don’t understand, what’s the part?” And Nancy goes “Sweetheart, it’s Eve, it’s Eve.” In that moment, I did not assume the offer was for Eve. I think about that moment a lot. Of just going, how deep have I internalized this? [So] many years of being seen [a certain way], it deeply, deeply, deeply affects us. It’s like, how does racism define your work? Oh my goodness, I didn’t even assume when being offered something that I would be one of the central storytellers. Why? And this is me talking, right? After being told to see things a certain way for decades, you realize, “Oh my god! They brainwashed me!” I was brainwashed! So that was a revelation to me.

It is only fitting then that Sandra Oh also portray an agent whose pathology vastly differs from the prototypical detective drama lead, effectively making Eve Polastri completely different from all of her predecessors. Unlike so many detective drama antiheroes whose main complication is their inability to connect to their peers emotionally, Eve’s primary character trait is her intense sense of intuition. Rather than watching a descent into brokenness as a result of a fundamental inability to relate to other people, we get to witness a descent into near madness as a result of an impossibly overwhelming obsession with a single person.

It is also worth mentioning: Jodie Comer’s portrayal of Villanelle is absolutely revelatory. Her absolute psychopathy is one of the few certainties of the twisting series—she kills with electrifying power, at one point lethally biting into an assailants neck. Despite this, we still manage to root for and empathize with her, thanks to Comer’s incredible performance and Waller-Bridge’s pitch perfect writing.

I will leave you with this final sell. In addition to being incredibly thrilling, Killing Eve is written with a specifically unhinged sense of dark humour, marked by the constant impulse to undercut some its most dramatic moments with absurdity. It is the type of show that has the audacity to smash cut from a fairly serious discussion of castration to a close up of sausages in a frying pan. This very specific attention to detail is reflected in every bit of the show, from the sharp dialogue to the wonderful cinematography. In the early episodes, Eve is shot in a near grayscale, marked by dowdy clothing and a boxy environment. Villanelle is given vivid colours, flowers in bloom, Parisian architecture, and a fabulous wardrobe—including a vivid green Miu Miu jacket, and a pink tulle Molly Goddard dress. Kudos to the costuming team.

This is to say: everything about Killing Eve is as sharp as its heroines. I will be re-bingeing in time for the finale. You should join.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

A half-dozen members of Atalante, a far-right anti-immigration group based in Quebec City, burst into the offices of VICE in Montreal around 4 PM on Wednesday afternoon, in an attempt to intimidate our journalists.

Most wore masks in the colours of the fleur-de-lis. Their leader, Raphaël Lévesque, wore sunglasses.

It appears that they made the trek from Quebec City to Montreal for the event, which will soon be on their Facebook page.

When they entered our offices, they offered flowers to the employee who opened the door. They then tossed leaflets and clown noses all over the floor. The group went to my office to offer me a trophy they had tinkered on which read "VICE media trash 2018."

The group reacted to an article published last week that spoke of Atalante's recent clashes, which are becoming more frequent.

Simon Coutu is on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE Quebec.

It's not uncommon for surgeons to listen to music while they operate: Procedures can last for hours at a time, and it's not hard to imagine that some thumping EDM or a soothing piece of Bach might help them concentrate. But one doctor in Lilburn, Georgia, appears to have taken the whole thing way too far, using the time to film herself making insane music videos while her patients were on the operating table, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

In more than 20 videos posted to YouTube and unearthed by the AJC and Atlanta's WSB-TV, Dr. Windell Boutte sings and dances to hip-hop while her patients look to be unconscious. In one clip, she bops to O.T. Genasis's "Cut It" while appearing to literally slice open someone's stomach. The rest of the videos are only slightly less insane. In a lyric video for a plastic surgery-themed remix to "Bad and Boujee," Boutte—who dubs herself "Dr. Booty Baby"—waves syringes above her passed-out patient, while rapping about how her clients are "building up fat in their booties."

Boutte, a board-certified dermatologist who's not authorized to perform surgeries, made music videos for everything from "Brick House" to "Shawty Got Low," J-Lo's "Booty" to TI's "Whatever You Like." Some feature her assistants as backup dancers and were clearly filmed by someone else in the operating room, and each appears to include an anesthetized, exposed patient as a kind of fucked-up prop.

But according to the AJC, the videos are far from the worst thing Boutte's done to her clients. She's been hit with at least seven malpractice lawsuits from patients who allege she botched their cosmetic surgeries. Once, a woman's heart stopped during an operation in Boutte's office, and—unequipped to deal with the emergency—Boutte called 911. But by the time the woman reached the ER, she had suffered permanent brain damage.

Despite Boutte's lack of qualifications, many lawsuits, and shameless use of YouTube, she's still operating as "Atlanta's most experienced cosmetic surgeon," according to her website. Although Boutte isn't certified by Georgia's medical board to perform surgery, the state allows any licensed physician to operate, according to WSB-TV.

"She is still getting up and going to work every day and making a great deal of money, subjecting patients who are none the wiser to her unsafe practices," Susan Witt, an attorney representing some of Boutte's former patients, told WSB-TV.

One look at Boutte's bizarre videos is enough to tell you that her practice probably isn't exactly up to code. It's just another horrifying example of the fucked-up shit doctors and dentists can subject their patients to once they go under.

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From a TV mounted on the wall at Annka Kultys Gallery in London, Molly Soda is saying that the blue eyeshadow she’s applying is inspired by a PJ Harvey look. On a different screen, Soda is applying blue lipstick, her face intermittently obscured by the words “SUBSCRIBE” and “LIKE.”

Dollz avatars and pixel art fairies are sprinkled generously throughout Soda’s new exhibition, Me and My Gurls. They appear almost as frequently as pictures of Soda herself. In another video, she's dancing to Madonna’s "Into the Groove" surrounded by CG ladies who match her enthusiasm, if not coordination. On a different monitor, a checkerboard of women with Soda at the center sing Rihanna’s "Stay ," all of them united by the decision to make variations of the same content.

There’s a simultaneously pleasant and unnerving nostalgia in the room—a relatable pang of being a girl on the web post-millennium. Balloons printed with scathing comments from Soda’s online audience are scattered through the space. And a stream of printed comments from YouTube spill across the floor, pondering repeatedly: “Is this a joke?”

She’s an artist with a venerable online presence—68K people follow her on Instagram, and last year, Soda and Arvida Byström released a book of images censored by the platform, called Pics or It Didn’t Happen. But Soda’s solo show doesn’t try to reproduce her online persona or curate a flattering, aspirational version of her life for others to gawk at. Instead, she is magnifying the very personal realities of being a woman online.

VICE caught up with Soda to chat about the show, femininity, and how the internet simultaneously liberates women and tears them down.

L: Molly Soda, New Profile Pic. R: Installation view of Me and My Gurls, courtesy Annka Kultys Gallery. Photo by Damian Griffiths

What's your take on girl culture and how that functions in your work?
I've always been interested in girl culture, especially on the internet, because I think it's something that doesn't get looked at. It's something that is dismissed as being shallow or superficial, but I think that is just wrong. My work itself also gets dismissed as shallow or vain or narcissistic, but I really think that says something more about the person looking at it than about myself, because I firmly believe that we're all shallow and superficial in our own ways. We're very interested in pointing the finger at other people, but I think that ultimately reflects something about us.

Molly Soda, Gif Haul

How did your collaboration with Arvida Byström come about?
We had both had images removed that we had posted and Arvida had been complaining about it on Facebook or Twitter somewhere, and I messaged her and I was like, “Oh, I think we should make a book about this because I've been seeing a lot of people complain about this.”

And do you feel like that’s more of an issue for women than men?
Yeah I think so. I think it's also the way that we're culturally expected to present ourselves. I think there's a lot of things at play there. I wonder if women are more likely to photograph themselves in such a way than men are. But I do think that bodies in general are very much policed, and I'm not so much anti-censorship as I am interested in collecting things on the internet and drawing lines. So whenever I'm making a piece or whenever I'm working on a book like this, I'm not telling people how to feel, I want to just blankly present information and let people reflect on how the internet they use is really not in their control, because I think that sometimes we kind of forget about that.

Do you hold onto your life on the internet so you don’t forget it? Do you consciously archive any of it?
I try to, yeah. I'm really interested in the content of what I upload, but I'm still very interested in how it lives on the internet. What the website looks like and how the comments look and everything as a whole is really important for me, and design is constantly changing. I'm really obsessed with charting all of that as much as you can, but it becomes daunting. What do I choose to archive and what do I see as negligible? And I'm always thinking about the future: will I want to see this in ten years or 20 years? So now I try and archive as much as I can for that reason.

Installation view of Me and My Gurls, courtesy Annka Kultys Gallery. Photo by Damian Griffiths

So what ties the pieces in Me and My Gurls together?
It's a very cluttered show, but I'm a maximalist so that's fine. Every piece is connected through the use of an avatar. There's a lot of abundance in the show. In all of the videos, there is the theme of multiples, collecting, or e-hoarding. I'm taking my collections and lists and making work out of them.

For example, in one video I'm singing a song, and surrounding me are 41 other women singing the same song. Then in another video I'm dancing, and as you watch me dance, you're seeing more and more dancing girls join me on screen, and as the video continues, I become the avatar—I become one of them. There's an element of blending in—the anonymity of everyone doing the same thing online. It’s simultaneously very beautiful, that we're all sharing these experiences and doing this stuff, but also very isolating and lonely.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

It's a good time to be a banker in America. Tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the rich passed last year, making it way easier for the top 1 percent—many of whom are in the financial sector—to spend big on luxury travel or new houses or just stash cash in offshore accounts. Banks just enjoyed their most profitable quarter in history. And the Trump administration has been corroding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), the agency set up after the last financial crisis to guard regular people against abusive behavior from banks and other institutions.

But on Tuesday, Congress apparently decided that Wall Street needed a helping hand, passing a significant rollback of post-financial crisis banking regulations imposed under Barack Obama. By doing so, experts on financial regulation said, lawmakers of both parties made another crisis that much more likely—while making it harder to see disaster coming until it's too late.

The proposed law has now passed both chambers of Congress and is expected to be signed by Trump. Tellingly, it had the support of moderate Democrats who have taken plenty of money from the banking industry like US senators Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Tim Kaine of Virginia (a.k.a. Hillary Clinton's running mate). It was framed by backers as a sensible measure easing the "burden" of regulations on small- and medium-sized banks that don't pose a massive danger to the economy—or at least aren't as worrisome as the JP Morgan Chases of the world. Specifically, it cuts the frequency of stress tests—basically, check-ups by the feds to see how ready the banks would be to sustain huge losses like they did during the financial crisis—for medium-sized banks, and eliminates them entirely for the smallest ones.

But as the New York Times reported, even the biggest banks are now slated to get less oversight from the feds about their own internal accounting and debt loads. Basically, the incentives are being aligned here for bankers of all stripes to be more reckless about loading up on shady assets. Those assets could be subprime mortgages like the ones at the heart of the last crisis, increasingly popular green-energy home improvement schemes that put borrowers on the path to foreclosure, or some new "innovative" financial product that has yet to catch regulators' attention. The bill also guts the "living will" requirement that banks have detailed plans for how to fold in the event they teeter on the brink of collapse, as so many did in 2008.

This is a big deal. Remember when a bunch of the biggest lenders in the country either disappeared or had to get bought up to avoid a total stock market crash? The 2010 Dodd-Frank bill forced banks to at least attempt to be ready to prevent that kind of too-big-to-fail madness. And while the killing of that rule only applies to banks with under $250 billion in assets, in 2007 and 2008 that threshold included some of the notorious meltdown institutions, like Countrywide and IndyMac.

"One of the lessons from the financial crisis and the housing crisis is we really did not have much forewarning that it was going to get very ugly very quickly," Brad Miller, a former Democratic congressman from North Carolina who helped write the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reforms, said in an interview. "The next crisis may come from practices that we're being told not to worry about. We were certainly told not to worry about much of anything a decade ago."

It's not just liberals or bank haters or populists who are pissed off or even downright worried about this stuff either. When the Senate version of this bill was about to pass in March, none other than the Wall Street Journal editorial page, hardly a bastion of left-wing sentiment, warned that while softening regulations on little banks made sense, easing "capital and liquidity standards for the giants will make the financial system more vulnerable in a panic."

"This is part of a broader trend," Sheila Bair, the former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), told me, referring to a "slippery slope" of letting banks load up on debt.

"This coming absolutely at the wrong time," Bair added, noting that student debt, credit card debt, and other kinds of exposure were entering worrisome territory. "There is no reason to do this. Banks are fat and happy. There's no evidence of any kind of credit shortage—on the contrary, credit standards are loosening. That typically happens toward the end of the cycle [of growth]. Lending standards start to loosen.... They should be preparing for the next downturn."

The bill will also, as the Times reported, make it easier for shady lenders to operate without scrutiny from the feds. This matters because America has a long and storied tradition of banks and other financial institutions discriminating against people of color. Most notoriously, this consisted of "redlining," or refusing (or just complicating) the issuance of loans to people in suspect—read: nonwhite—neighborhoods. It's not shocking that President Trump, who along with his father has been accused of housing discrimination in his buildings, would support such a measure, but that Democrats would be on board with such a throwback policy is stunning when they are simultaneously trying to seize the mantle of reform in government ahead of the 2018 midterms.

"It was just an extinction event for the African American middle class," Miller, the former Congressman, told me of the housing market's collapse between 2006 and 2008. "When you have a home, when you own your own home, you're in the middle class. When you lose your home to foreclosure, you really lose your membership in the middle class. The effect on the African American middle class, and a somewhat lesser extent on the Latino middle class, was catastrophic. And a lot of those provisions to get at, to identify racial disparities—those requirements have been eliminated."

So even when they aren't being bilked by fake accounts set up in their name or charged phony and excessive overdraft fees, consumers will face the prospect of doing business with unchecked predators preying on people of color. And while it's old news that the American legal and financial systems are set up to make the rich richer at the expense of everyone else, the risk to everyone from another crash is growing—fast.

"It's 2006 all over again," Bair, the former FDIC chair, told me, adding, "It wasn't that long ago and people already want to forget. I guess the campaign donations trump memories."

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On the cusp of Arrested Development's fifth season (which drops May 29), the star-studded cast sat down with the New York Times for a group interview. Most of it was pretty standard stuff—stories of fan interactions, a discussion of humor and Donald Trump—but then they got around to addressing what Times reporter Sopan Deb called the "elephant in the room": Jeffrey Tambor's departure from Transparent in the wake of allegations he sexually harassed two women. Tambor has denied the allegations but admitted to the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year that he had a temper and that on Transparent, "I was difficult. I was mean." He also said in that interview that he had had a “blowup” where he yelled at his Arrested Development castmate Jessica Walter.

With Walter and Tambor among the actors in the room, Deb asked Tambor, if Arrested Development continues with new seasons, "Do you expect to be a part of it?"

"I surely hope so," Tambor said. To which Jason Bateman added: "Well, I won’t do it without you. I can tell you that," saying later, "There’s no reason he shouldn’t [come back]."

That opened up an awkward portion of the interview where the male cast members (which is most of them) supported Tambor and minimized his bad on-set behavior, even as Walter—the person who was on the receiving end of that bad behavior—obviously was a bit more conflicted about it. At one point, Bateman said they've "all" yelled at Walter. Then:

WALTER: Oh! You’ve never yelled at me.

BATEMAN: Not to belittle what happened.

WALTER: You’ve never yelled at me like that.

BATEMAN: But this is a family and families, you know, have love, laughter, arguments—again, not to belittle it, but a lot of stuff happens in 15 years. I know nothing about “Transparent” but I do know a lot about “Arrested Development.” And I can say that no matter what anybody in this room has ever done—and we’ve all done a lot, with each other, for each other, against each other—I wouldn’t trade it for the world and I have zero complaints.

Batemen continued to back up his costar Tambor, this time with Alia Shawkat (besides Walter the only woman present, and who was largely silent during this bit) sounding a note of disagreement:

BATEMAN: Again, not to belittle it or excuse it or anything, but in the entertainment industry it is incredibly common to have people who are, in quotes, “difficult.” And when you’re in a privileged position to hire people, or have an influence in who does get hired, you make phone calls. And you say, “Hey, so I’ve heard X about person Y, tell me about that.” And what you learn is context. And you learn about character and you learn about work habits, work ethics, and you start to understand. Because it’s a very amorphous process, this sort of [expletive] that we do, you know, making up fake life. It’s a weird thing, and it is a breeding ground for atypical behavior and certain people have certain processes.

SHAWKAT: But that doesn’t mean it’s acceptable. And the point is that things are changing, and people need to respect each other differently.

Then:

WALTER [THROUGH TEARS]: Let me just say one thing that I just realized in this conversation. I have to let go of being angry at him. He never crossed the line on our show, with any, you know, sexual whatever. Verbally, yes, he harassed me, but he did apologize. I have to let it go. [Turns to Tambor.] And I have to give you a chance to, you know, for us to be friends again.

TAMBOR: Absolutely.

WALTER: But it’s hard because honestly—Jason says this happens all the time. In like almost 60 years of working, I’ve never had anybody yell at me like that on a set. And it’s hard to deal with, but I’m over it now. I just let it go right here, for The New York Times.

BATEMAN: She didn’t give it up for anybody else.

[TONY] HALE: But I will say, to Jason’s point, we can be honest about the fact that—and not to build a thing—we’ve all had moments.

WALTER: But not like that, not like that. That was bad.

This segment of the interview closed with Walter saying in front of everyone that she would work with Tambor again, and that she was letting go of her anger. But what came across to a lot of people who read it was that the men, while not quite saying Tambor did nothing wrong, were defending him and making excuses.

As for Deb's original question—would Tambor be back if they made more Arrested Development?—the answer seems to be, "Yes, obviously." According to Variety, Netflix is submitting Tambor for the supporting actor in a comedy category in this year's Emmys.

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

The staff room door: a portal to another dimension, of Kenco Rich Roast, profoundly bad breath and conversations about absolutely nothing but the curriculum. Or so we all thought when we were students ambling around outside that door, occasionally catching a glimpse of the regulation grey-brown carpet and air of utter sadness inside.

But what is it actually like for teachers on the front line of state education? Are they indeed humans, or the automatons we all thought most of them were? And what do they talk about on lunch break, when they're not tasked with keeping pupils from bullying each other or running riot in the halls?

As a teacher, I have the answers to your questions. Below are some of the conversations we have in the staff room, relayed in no particular order.

Kids Who Are Complete Pieces of Shit

I said no particular order, but this one is unquestionably at the top of every self-respecting teacher's agenda. If you were consistently in trouble at school and felt like staff were conspiring against you – no matter how much they said you weren't worth their attention – chances are they absolutely were.

I know there'll be a few liberal-lefties out there thinking, 'But no child is a "piece of shit" – they must have a tough home life, or something? Too much pent-up creative energy?'

Problem is: that kind of saccharine humanity and lack of cynicism has no place in the staff room. So shut up and go watch Educating Yorkshire about it.

A teacher just kicking back in the staff room, reading some text books to relax. Photo: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary / Alamy Stock Photo

How the Head of School Is a Clueless Piece of Shit

It's important to note that not all teacherly frustration is directed at children. Likelihood is that the single most reviled figure in any academy chain is the Head / Principal / Executive Chairman / whatever bullshit marketese the privatised academy system has settled on.

Why? Because he's the one taking home a six-figure salary while telling the staff body the school can no longer afford teaching assistants; because he's the one who hires a consultancy firm to see what's wrong with behaviour, while never leaving his office to tackle anything; because he's the one who decided not to expel that student who called you a cunt and brought a knife into school because it'll look bad on the Ofsted report.

In short, most teachers who get into senior leadership positions aren't there because they're great teachers; they're there because they're careerist scumbags; the kind of people who genuinely believe children are best quantified as data. As such, they're not just an obvious focal point for contempt – they're a necessary one.

How State Education Is (Sometimes Literally) Falling Apart

From misdirected management we work our way naturally to pure negligence. While it's no secret that the Tories have taken an axe to school funding, I don't think it's understood by anyone who isn't on the ground quite how terrible the situation is. In the space of three years I've seen a massive decline in standards, not through negligence of teachers or even necessarily of management, but through the sheer inability to provide for children with the funds available.

Essentially, all schools are funded per pupil, which means they are chocking themselves to the unsustainable rafters. Classrooms designed to hold 24 students routinely hold 34 – at worst, I've seen 40. Add to this the absurdity of budgets maxing out at the basics of board pens and photocopying, and it leaves children going without access to essential set texts or squabbling over the one glue stick between ten of them.

This is coming from someone who teaches in a previously well-funded Academy in London. Fuck knows what's happening out in the wilds of Sunderland or Hull. The NHS may be grabbing the headlines for a state service that's falling apart, but ours isn't far behind, and many of us are terrified about what the future holds.

Photo: Phil Rees / Alamy Stock Photo

Stress, stress, STRESS!

With all of the above comes a great deal of stress. As a teacher, your day is composed of several hour-long performances – performances you're expecting your audience to disrupt, heckle or disengage from. As such a touch of stage-fright is only natural. One only has to spend a five-minute spell in the staff toilets – a staccato mess of rips, groans and gasps – to understand the physical impact this is having on teachers.

While shitters whirr and struggle (but ultimately cope with) nervously expelled effluvia, our brains and faces remain stained with the mental torment of it all. It is not uncommon to see a Newly Qualified Teacher staring into the middle distance like a broken soldier out of Full Metal Jacket. Neither is it rare to see Heads of Faculties weeping into a freshly printed sheet of data, the realisation that their job is now on the line starkly wrought across their face.

The staff room is a place of recuperation and consolation from the chaos of it all. When a fellow teacher sobs brokenly that they don't know how they're going to do it, yours is the responsibility to get them back in the game. Equally, if your colleague's behaviour more closely matches the famous meltdown in Network – exclaiming that they're "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!" – yours is the responsibility to cover their next lesson; to give them time for their irate ramblings to simmer down into a gentle defeated shame.

As a rule of thumb, most teachers will experience at least one such meltdown a year. And they're the lucky ones.

How Fucked We Got at the Weekend

With great stress comes the need for great relief, and what’s the greatest access to relief we've got?Alcohol and drugs, of course. When I joined teaching I was initially tentative about sharing my weekend tales, until I told a story from Glastonbury to an elder statesman of my department – who I subsequently learned was an Ibiza casualty – omitting any mention of the magic mushrooms I’d taken, but none of the bizarre behaviour that accompanied them. He looked either side of us to check no one was listening and cracked a wistful, almost longing, smile – and said, "I fucking love drugs."

It may shock you to discover this, but the reason Mr Johns might have been particularly tetchy that Monday morning was because of the 16-hour coke binge he'd only finished ten hours earlier; or that the reason your art teacher acts like he's spaced out all the time is because he is spaced out all the time. While not all teachers use illicit drugs, almost all teachers I know are either functioning alcoholics or drug takers, and they love talking about it – and for good reason: there's something perversely pleasurable in regaling your colleagues with your messiest tales while knowing you're considered to be an upstanding, "real" human being with a proper, decent job.

More on VICE:

A Complete History of Happy-Slapping

10 Questions You've Always Wanted to Ask a Teacher

Searching for the Man Behind 'The Circle Game'

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Nearly half of all high-rise tower blocks inspected since the Grenfell Tower fire have failed to meet fire safety standards, according to data obtained by VICE.

Fire services across the country have been carrying out checks on residential tower blocks since the tower block fire in west London left 71 people dead and hundreds more homeless. VICE used Freedom of Information laws to obtain the results of nearly 3,000 safety checks, carried out by 37 fire services in England and Wales, which reveal that fire safety issues were discovered at 46 percent of properties inspected.

At least 75 enforcement notices have been issued since the Grenfell Tower fire, creating a legal requirement for property owners to take action to address serious fire risks. In addition, landlords were notified of fire safety deficiencies on more than 800 other occasions. Action plans to tackle fire safety matters were agreed in more than 350 further cases.

Labour's shadow housing secretary, John Healey, said VICE's findings on fire safety inspections illustrated the need for radical action. "These figures show the importance of overhauling our flawed system of building safety checks and controls to keep people safe," he said, reiterating calls made by Labour for the government to commit £1 billion to fire safety measures in high-rise social housing.

The findings come less than a week after publication of the Hackitt Review of Fire Safety and Building Regulations, commissioned by the government in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Dame Judith Hackitt, who oversaw the review, called for "a radical rethink of the whole system", but stopped short of making recommendations such as an all-out ban on the use of combustible materials on tower blocks or the retrofitting of sprinklers in high-rise buildings. John Healey described the report as "a missed opportunity to set new safety standards that ensure a disaster like the Grenfell Tower fire can never happen again".

Ronnie King, honorary administrative secretary at the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, said these new figures would add to the worries of tenants of high-rise buildings. "They are naturally and justifiably concerned at the moment," he said.

King expressed disappointment that lessons from previous tragedies had still not been learned. In July of 2009, a blaze at Lakanal House in south London killed six people. An inquest into the fire in 2013 led to calls for a series of improvements to fire safety and building regulations. King said VICE's figures showed not enough has been done. "It's indicative of the state of affairs that's been raised for the last five years," he said.

The inspections carried out in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire appear to have uncovered fire safety failings that had previously gone undetected. In the capital, the London Fire Brigade carried out inspections on 710 buildings. The inspections resulted in 33 enforcement notices and landlords were advised of fire safety deficiencies in 312 further cases.

Nick Coombe, fire safety regulation strategic technical advisor at the London Fire Brigade, said: "We were opening risers, looking in lift spaces and actually, in some cases, testing things like fire fighting lifts and smoke control systems. Previously, if [the building owners] gave you documentation that shows they have maintained that fire fighting lift or smoke control system, we’d accept that at face value. This time we were going there and making sure it worked, and, in some cases, it didn't do what it was meant to do."

Some fire services, including the West Midlands and Scotland, were unable to provide VICE with the results of inspections and said they had no means of reviewing inspection outcomes without accessing individual building records.

The West Midlands Fire Service declined VICE's FoI request, saying: "To obtain the outcome of inspections 349 records will need to accessed," and estimated that to provide details of outcomes would take more than 18 hours – the time limit given for FoI requests to be fulfilled. The Scottish Fire Service gave a similar rejection.

Phil Murphy – a former firefighter, fire safety campaigner and a tower block tenant – said it was unacceptable that high-rise residents are unable to access details of fire safety inspections at their properties. "That's why, 11 months after Grenfell, tenants are still feeling worried," he said. "There's no clarity, there's no transparency, and it feels to tenants like a cooperative concealment is going on."

The lack of a standardised system for categorising outcomes of safety inspections also makes it difficult to assess the seriousness of the fire safety issues that have been discovered. Each fire service categorises outcomes of inspections differently, and detailed assessments for specific buildings are rarely made available.

In cases where fire risks are discovered, the most frequent course of action is to informally notify the building owner of any issues – a process most commonly known as "notification of deficiencies". Murphy said notifications of deficiencies can cover a wide range of fire safety issues and give little reassurance to tenants. "The same people that have got their flats constructed wrong, with exceptional fire safety risks, are going to be in the same category as those that are found to have a deficient fire door."

The Hackitt report highlighted the Ledbury Estate in Southwark as an example of "deep flaws in the current system". Residents of the estate received letters in June last year informing them that structural issues had been identified at their buildings and that fire marshals had subsequently been employed. A few days later, residents were advised of "doubts" in relation to fire compartmentation and told that the buildings would be evacuated in the event of a fire, contrary to the London Fire Brigade's "stay put" policy. Further investigations prompted concerns that the buildings could collapse in the event of a gas explosion.

In August, the London Fire Brigade issued notification of deficiencies letters in relation to two buildings at the estate, advising the council that "emergency routes or exits were inadequate" and "combustible materials were being stored on the means of escape". Assessments carried out by Southwark Council at the end of 2017 gave buildings at the estate a "high moderate" fire risk rating. The estate has not been subject to an enforcement notice.

Stephanie Cryan, cabinet member for housing at Southwark Council, said: "Since June 2017, Southwark Council has been in regular contact with Ledbury estate residents regarding fire safety concerns and the action we are taking. As soon as we were alerted to the issues we acted swiftly to put in place a number of safety measures, including around the clock fire wardens in the four tower blocks, and carried out a structural survey of the estate. We have also worked with residents to ensure that escape routes are clear and accessible. The safety of residents remains and will continue to remain our top priority."

On the 21st of May, a public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire began with two weeks of tributes for those who died in the blaze.

@mark_wilding

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

It's a universally accepted fact that while drugs can be incredibly fun, they can also be incredibly dangerous, and make you say and do some very stupid shit. The spectrum of stupid shit ranges from texting your ex to thinking you can fly, but somewhere in the middle there is "sustaining a horrendous self-inflicted injury".

I spoke to some people who have caused themselves various degrees of pain or a life-long deformity while under the influence of narcotics.

DISCLAIMER: Obviously all of the drug use detailed below is wildly stupid and irresponsible. For some tips on safer drug use, read VICE's Safe Sesh editorial series or check out Safer Use Limits.

JESSIE, 28

I completely fucked my face up falling face-down at a rave in a tunnel in Glasgow. I'd ingested about a gram of MD, washed down with a lot of Cava and vodka, and ended up breaking my labial plates and knocking my teeth out to the point that the back of them touched the roof of my mouth and the roots broke. I pretty much just broke my mouth. I went into work the next day because I was still completely fucked and hadn’t realised what had happened, or bothered to look in a mirror. I was working in a horrid chain coffee shop and they made me do the dishes all morning because I looked liked Genesis P-Orridge, but then they found me vomiting into the dishwasher and my manager decided to drive me to A&E. I have a strong memory of "Better Off Alone" playing in the waiting room.

The roots have died, so it's basically an unknown time bomb in terms of my teeth – they were like, "Either tomorrow, in five years or maybe ten, you will get extreme pain and your teeth will turn black." I made my orthodontist cry because I'd had two operations, ten teeth out and years of braces – a work of NHS angelicism – and then I went and got fucked and spoiled everything.

WATCH: The Truth About Ecstasy

GAVIN, 23

I fucked up my back trying to do death drops to Drake's "Nice for What" while coked up. I don’t even like the song that much, but for some reason after a smashing my way through half a bag of coke I decided it was imperative that I do a perfect death drop to the bit where it goes "watch the breakdown". Seeing as I have absolutely no experience with death dropping, past binge-watching RuPaul's Drag Race, I was essentially just repeatedly slamming into the floor of my friend's house while screeching at her to rewind the song on YouTube to get to the right bit. I remember, while doing the cocaine, having a fleeting thought about feeling pain the next day, but I thought it would be because of the drugs and not because I would spend my evening fucking up my back to the point that it now hurts to get up. It's been a month.

TOM, 30

I was living in Norwich and just doing the standard weekend warrior thing – working in the week and then beer and packet till I die, or at least until the comedowns get too brutal – on the weekend. One night, me and my mate were stumbling back from the club really mashed when we spotted the Tesco bins were open and decided to have a look inside. Managed to get a few loaves of bread and some doughnuts, I think – was decent. As we were stumbling home with our arms full of bread, my mate said something really funny and I laughed so hard I fell backwards over a very high wall and landed on my head.

I don't really remember falling or landing, I just remember a white noise in my ears and sitting on the floor with bread around me, until my mates' screams permeated my head and I realised I must have fallen over. I got up and we walked back home, but the back of my head was pretty much open according to my mate, so he panic-called an ambulance eventually. I got to the hospital and had like eight stitches in the back of my head. I still have the scar on the back of my head today.

MAYA, 26

I was at an 18th birthday party in a community hall. It was actually quite a civilised affair, with the birthday girl's family there and everything, but I had a small to middle-sized drug problem so I was sneaking off to do ketamine in the toilets at regular intervals. At some point later in the evening, me and my boyfriend at the time – who had also been taking ketamine – decided to participate in a piggy-back race. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t go well, and he slipped, causing me to front-flip off his shoulders and land on my collarbone and left arm.

I hate attention, so I waved everyone off and told them I was fine, and pushed through to the end of the party. It wasn't until the ketamine had worn off and I tried to get into bed that I realised how much pain I was in: it literally took me 15 minutes to lower myself from a seated position to lying down. I woke up the next morning and cried to my mum until she took me to A&E, where I found out I'd sprained both my collarbone and arm. I spent the next month in a sling.

DANNY, 23

I had too much ket and K ciders at Printworks and I fell and smashed my face on the floor. My teeth went through my lip and broke. I got taken to A&E by ambulance and was just sitting in the back picking pieces of tooth out of my flesh. My teeth are only chipped, but they have to be removed at some point because they're dead. I'm going to get tooth implants at 23.

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

30-year-old Michael Rotondo was such a bad tenant that his own parents had to evict him, giving him five written notices to leave their house. After he failed to take the hint, Rotondo's parents filed a lawsuit, and, of course, won. During Wednesday's episode of Desus & Mero , the VICELAND hosts narrated the court case, and speculated about what happens next.

You can watch the latest episode of DESUS & MERO for free, online, right now. New episodes Monday to Thursday at 11PM on VICELAND.COM.

To stay up-to-date on all things VICELAND Canada, sign up for our newsletter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

So a new month is steadily approaching, which means Netflix is gonna Netflix by way of new releases with limited shelf-lives. In knowing that one needs to grab that fruit while it’s still ripe, I went through the list to inform you, my dear audience, as to what you should should check out first while the supplies still last. Here we go...

June 1

Anaconda

Don’t let that Rotten Tomatoes den of reviewers without a pulse fool you, one needs to only consider this: The 90s? Check! A big ass snake? Check! Snake hunter Jon Voight? Check! Pop/hip hop duo? (Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube) Check! Inaccuracies up the butthole? Check! Don’t come to Luis Llosa’s Anaconda (1997) with your bougie high brow, come with that basement brow. You’re here for camp, and good god, Anaconda serves up that camp nicely with a thick slice of cheese.

The Bone Collector

Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie are the headliners in this one, so my stanning ass doesn’t stand a chance objectively. But still, there’s something you can still call a decent plot here about a quadriplegic ex-homicide detective (Denzel), and his partner (Angelina), who’re attempting the, trying-so-hard-to-be- Se7en killer hunt. There are plot holes, you may even figure out the serial killer’s identity from the opening credits (Christ..), but still, give Phillip Noyce’s attempt at something thrilly a chance. If not to at least watch some classic Denzel Washington-isms.

Cinderella Man

Say what you want about Russell Crowe, but he’s got that depressing thing down pat. I’m not sure what it is, the Russell scowl, that deep and slow Russell talk, but he’s made for this (A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator). Ron Howard of course, in knowing this, put Russell in a Great Depression period. On the surface Cinderella Man can seem like a boxer’s biological drama (James J. Braddock), but beyond the Rocky-esque fall and rise story, it's about a man that will go to extreme lengths to provide. Something we can all relate to.

The Disaster Artist

Many of us witnessed the beautiful and terrible disaster that was Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. Deemed as one of the worst pieces of shit by folks who don’t understand pieces of shit, this complete cluster-fuck of a project managed the status of pivotal arthood. We needed to understand the eccentric creator that birthed this intentional mess. Enter James Franco, a problematic mess in his own right, who both directed and starred as Tommy Wiseau in a biographical re-telling of what made The Room a mesmerizing view of the foolish.

Jarhead

If you’ve ever wanted to understand the sausage factory of war; beyond the guns, beyond warpaint, and beyond the Hollywood bullshit, you’d watch Jarhead. The Sam Mendes version of events—based on US Marine Anthony Swofford’s 2003 memoir with the same name—is neither pro-war or anti-war. What we get instead is a look into the grunt work; war’s version of the toilet cleaners who were divorced from the action. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal (Anthony Swofford), Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard among others; expect a whole lot of introspection about the unknown, and the anxieties that come with waiting for the war.

Notting Hill

Here comes another Hugh Grant rom-com—ironic British, self-deprecation, compulsively blinking charm notwithstanding. Even after all these years, Grant can still charm the skin off of a snake, but with Julia Roberts and that mega-wide smile, he found an even match. In this one, Roberts plays celebrity Anna Scott, who falls head over heels for regular chap William Thacker (Grant). In this Roger Michell Hollywood self-parody of celebrity worship, there’s a believability in the dialogue exchanges and believability in its Netflix and chill potential.

Unsolved: Tupac & Biggie

As the story goes, two black men get shot up, and for some odd (or realistic) reason, the case never finds its justice; the story of America (and Canada) folks. Told in a biographical form that originally aired on the USA Network, it stars a few notables like Bokeem Woodbine (the everyday black man of the 90s), and Josh Duhamel who plays Detective Greg Kading who worked on the enforcement task force who investigated the murders. If you’re looking for a film that won’t solve a damn thing, but will still be insightful nonetheless, it's a worthy watch.

Panic Room

Even today, I can still appreciate how classically Home Alone-esque this plot is. Anxiety ridden mother (Jodie Foster) builds a panic room (no one can get in) for herself and her diabetic daughter (Kristen Stewart). Day comes when house intruders lead by Forest Whitaker force said woman to use their panic room, and tensions ensue when intruders realize that they must get inside said panic room. David Fincher did an amazing job of unintentionally replicating the trappings of a holiday classic ( Home Alone) with battles of wit, countermeasures and gambits between two opposing sides.

June 3

Lady Bird

Lady Bird by director Greta Gerwig is a coming-of-age drama, if coming-of-age-dramas were about messy people being regular in all their messiness. Marion McPherson played by Laurie Metcalf, is a nurse that works tirelessly to keep her family afloat while raising an unruly teenage daughter. The real funny though comes in Lady Bird herself, who’s an exact carbon copy of her off-the-wall mother. Both loving, both are hilarious, and both bounce off of each other with opposing personalities that feel refreshingly real to watch.

June 5

Thor: Ragnarok

At this point in American and Canadian history, there are two types of clearly defined people: those who enjoy decade long run’s of superhero movies...and the deplorables. That’s about it. Thor: Ragnarok by director Taika Waititi is perhaps the loudest, sparkliest, most 1980s-ish Marvel watch of the bunch. We’re getting plenty of Chris Hemsworth with a hammer in this one. He also has to fight the big green hulkish dude too while attempting to escape Jeff Goldblum’s “UH” world to kill his evil sister, Cate Blanchett. Good times.

June 8

The Staircase

I don’t know much about this Netflix Original, but we’re getting a story about the high-profile murder of novelist Michael Peterson which began with a phone call. French director Jean-Xavier de Lestrade is at the helm of one, who is better known for directing the Oscar-winning documentary, Murder on a Sunday Morning (2001), which delved into the murder trial of a black 15-year-old accused of murder in Jacksonville, Florida. If anything can be gained from this, it’s that Jean-Xavier will treat the subject matter of a unique incident with detail and objectivity.

June 22

Marvel’s Luke Cage: Season 2

Luke Cage isn’t a superhero in that dark, snarky, asshole way like a Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne. He more of a Captain America, if Captain America were privy to giving history lessons on the N-word before handing off copies of Between The World and Me. Big, black and bad Mike Colter reprises his role from the first season as the bulletproof black man rocking way too many bullet ridden hoodies. Irregardless of your taste, seeing a black man that can’t be gunned down will always be refreshing change of pace.

June 26

Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Chill out, it’s not as bad as the trolls say. Sure, they did my man Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker a little bit dirty, and bad guy Snoke was a glorified chump, but it still looked like Star Wars at least. There’s chosen ones (Daisy Riley), little guys winning over bad guys, and several of the best set pieces of any of the Star Wars movies.

That’s what caught my eye, but of course, here’s the rest coming and going in June.

6/1

About a Boy
Baby Mama
The Cave
Charlie Wilson’s War
Gridiron Gang
Hail, Caesar!
The Indian Detective: Season 1
Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Mothman Prophecies
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
November 13: Attack on Paris - Netflix Original
Savages
Sense and Sensibility
Stealth

6/3

The Break with Michelle Wolf - Weekly Episodes Every Sunday - Netflix Original

6/5

Delirium
Mr. D: Season 7

6/8

Alex Strangelove
Ali’s Wedding
All I See Is You
The Hollow
Marcella: Season 2
Sense8: The Series Finale - Netflix Original
Treehouse Detectives - Netflix Original

6/11

Lights Out
The Shallows

6/12

Champions - Netflix Original

6/14

Marlon - Netflix Original

6/15

Lust Stories - Netflix Film
Maktub - Netflix Film
The Ranch: Part 5 - Netflix Original
Set It Up - Netflix Film
Sunday’s Illness - Netflix Film
Voltron: Legendary Defender: Season 6 - Netflix Original

6/16

Nostalgia

6/17

Club de Cuervos presenta: La balada de Hugo Sánchez - Netflix Original

6/19

Kim’s Convenience: Season 2
Hannah Gadsby: Nanette - Netflix Original

6/22

Brain on Fire - Netflix Film
Cooking on High - Netflix Original
Derren Brown: Miracle - Netflix Original
Desolation
Kaleidoscope
Starbuck

6/24

To Each, Her Own (Les Goûts et les couleurs) - Netflix Film
The Last Laugh

6/26

Ghostbusters
Secret City
W. Kamau Bell: Private School Negro - Netflix Original

6/29

Bullet Head
Churchill’s Secret Agents: The New Recruits
GLOW: Season 2 - Netflix Original
Harvey Street Kids - Netflix Original
Kiss Me First - Netflix Original
La Forêt - Netflix Original
Nailed It!: Season 2 - Netflix Original
Paquita Salas: Season 2 - Netflix Original
Recovery Boys - Netflix Original
TAU - Netflix Film

6/30

Fate/EXTRA Last Encore: Oblitus Copernican Theory - Netflix Original
Suburbicon

Films Leaving Netflix in June:

6/1

A Little Chaos
Doctor Dolittle
Fatal Attraction
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ice Age: Collision Course
Independence Day: Resurgence
Seventh Son
Smokin’ Aces

6/2

Sherlock: Series 3
Unlocking Sherlock

6/8

Born on the Fourth of July
Knocked Up
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
Oz the Great and Powerful
Varsity Blues

6/9

The Great Outdoors

6/15

Miami Vice
Shutter Island

6/16

Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Civil War

6/22

Uncle Buck

6/29

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
True Grit

Follow Noel Ransome on Twitter.

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In a damning exposé from CNN, 16 people have come forward accusing Morgan Freeman of sexual harassment, claiming he touched women inappropriately, made sexually suggestive comments, and treated women on set and in interviews in a way that created a "toxic" work environment.

Eight people said they experienced inappropriate behaviour themselves, including one production assistant who said Freeman harassed her on set for months, touching her inappropriately and making suggestive comments about her body and clothing on what she described as a near-daily basis. The behaviour escalated, the PA told CNN, when—one day in 2015 while they were shooting Going in Style—Freeman "kept trying to lift up my skirt and asking if I was wearing underwear." She said she repeatedly moved away from Freeman, but he kept grabbing at her skirt until Alan Arkin, who co-starred in the movie, intervened.

"Alan made a comment telling him to stop," the PA told CNN. "Morgan got freaked out and didn't know what to say." Ultimately, she said, Freeman's behaviour led her to leave the movie industry. It's just one alleged incident in a pattern of similar behaviour uncovered by CNN.

Several women said they changed the way they dressed if they knew they might run into Freeman at work, hoping to avoid what one described as "constant comments" about how they looked and his alleged habit of ogling them.

"He did comment on our bodies," one woman who worked on Going in Style said. "We knew that if he was coming by... not to wear any top that would show our breasts, not to wear anything that would show our bottoms, meaning not wearing clothes that [were] fitted."

The behaviour also spilled into Freeman's production company, Revelations, where he acted like a "creepy uncle" to female staffers, according to one male former employee—allegedly asking women in the office to twirl for him, looking them up and down, and once massaging an intern's shoulder. Those who spoke to CNN said they never reported Freeman's behaviour to HR, fearing they'd be fired.

"It's hard because on any set he is the most powerful person on it," one male former employee said. "It's weird because you just don't expect it from Morgan Freeman, someone who you respect."

Although Freeman's spokesperson reportedly failed to respond to what CNN said was "multiple follow-ups by email seeking comment on the accusations," the actor released a statement on Thursday in response.

"Anyone who knows me or has worked with me knows I am not someone who would intentionally offend or knowingly make anyone feel uneasy," Freeman wrote. "I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected—that was never my intent."

It's too early to tell if or how the allegations might affect Freeman's career like the many other stars who have been accused of sexual misconduct. As it stands, he's attached to at least five upcoming projects, but the accusations have already prompted at least one institution—Vancouver's public transit authority—to distance itself from the actor, if only his voice.

Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

The “Well of Death” is a fairly well known carnival show in India. Spectators pay 40 rupees ($0.75 AUD) to see drivers climb the well’s 20-metre wooden slopes. Then the drivers climb outside the cars while rocketing around in tight circles, 20 times a day, for 11 months of the year.

Photographer Ken Hermann and art director Gemma Fletcher documented a group of riders at the Solapur fair. We spoke to Ken to find out more about this travelling tradition, its presence in Indian culture, and the how these drivers manage the constant threat of death and injury.

VICE: Hi Ken, tell me about the carnival group you followed.
Ken Hermann: The group was formed four years ago. They're headed by a guy we called the “Boss Man.” He was a mechanic and riders used to come to him for repairs and maintenance, which gave him a kickstart in the industry so he decided to purchase a transportable well. Most of the group’s members are from a province in Northern India called Uttar Pradesh. We were with them at the Solapur fair, but after that they went to Markanda. They’re now performing in the state of Maharashtra.

We see similar kinds of stunts in the US and Europe. What makes the Indian version different?
The main difference is that safety isn’t an issue. They don't wear helmets, but having said that, the female driver [Radha], who we were focusing on, she's been driving for 20 years without a single accident. So it's not safe but if you know what you're doing, I think you can manage it.

Do drivers ever die?
None of the riders have died but there have been injuries. There was one incident in 2016, where a car turned upside down during a show.

What was the single most shocking thing you saw while following the carnival?
Maybe it was when the female driver [Radha] got up onto the roof of the car and held on while driving. That was scary. But I think the most shocking thing for me was standing inside the well while three or four cars roared around above me. The sound was unbelievable and there was just so much noise and pollution, because there’s no wind inside the well. I felt a bit paranoid—like what if a car just fell on my head?

Out of all the people that you met, whose story resonated with you the most?
I think it was Radha’s because in the beginning the boss didn’t want her to drive. He didn’t believe she could do it because she was only 13 at the time. He told her to go back to her parents and ask for permission. So she did, they said yes, and then she did a test run. The boss could tell that she meant it and was able to do it. And today she gets paid a little bit more because she attracts a larger audiences.

Why does she get a larger audience?
Well I thought maybe they wouldn’t respect her as much because she was a woman, but in fact it was almost the opposite. She was very respected by the others, and they really looked after her. I think a lot of the audience are men because it's dangerous and there are engines and all that. Maybe that’s why you don't find many female drivers and it’s unique to see Radha.

How prominent are these wells in India? Are they still popular?
Some states have started to ban them. They can't run in Delhi anymore and I think it's just a matter of time until they’re banned throughout the whole country. There are not as many running wells as there used to be. Maybe another part of that is it takes them a week to set up, and then it runs for 10 days, and they have to take everything down again, and move on to the next place. It's basically an old traditional circus and they live on the road for 11 months of the year.

Do you think it’s a shame that this form of entertainment is dying? Do you think the danger is worth the entertainment value?
Yeah, I think it is. These people choose to do what they do. Maybe they should consider wearing helmets though. Some of the motorbikes look really rubbish. Because between each show there’s a sort of flight mechanic who checks each bike to make sure they can run. It looks like a big mess but underneath, they know what they’re doing. I think driving a car on an Indian road is a bigger risk than driving in the well. I regret not trying to drive in there myself, because I got the opportunity while I there. Not on the back of the motorbike, but just in the car. And I foolishly said no.

For more photos and info check out Ken and Gemma's site here.

This article originally appeared on VICE AU.