Emma Watson Has Finally Responded To Noma Dumezweni Being Cast As Hermione
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Anne Hathaway Hits Back At Paparazzi With Empowering Bikini Pregnancy Photo
“I figure if this kind of photo is going to be out in the world it should at least be an image that makes me happy.”
And now she has confirmed the lovely news with this photo. Although there was another message behind it.
Anne decided to post the picture after spotting paparazzi taking photos of her in her bikini. And the actress had this empowering message to share.
"I figure if this kind of photo is going to be out in the world it should at least be an image that makes me happy." ? ? ?
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Gas Canisters Thrown At Jewish Shoppers By Men Shouting "Heil Hitler"
Men in a white van shouted “Hitler is on the way to you” during the incident.
Police are investigating an alleged anti-Semitic incident in which metal gas canisters were thrown at three Jewish shoppers in north London.
Jewish men in the Stamford Hill area in January last year.
Rob Stothard / Getty Images
According to local activists, two men and one woman had laughing-gas canisters thrown towards them by men in a white Citroën Berlingo van who shouted anti-Semitic abuse including "Hitler is on the way to you" and, repeatedly, "Heil Hitler".
Shomrim, a volunteer neighbourhood watch for the Jewish community in Stamford Hill, told BuzzFeed News the incident took place in Tottenham Hale retail park on Wednesday evening. The vehicle drove off as one of the victims was noting down its registration plate, a spokesperson added.
In a statement he said the victims were targeted because they were "visibly Jewish".
"The verbal abuse was disgusting, and small objects were thrown towards the victims, making them fear for their immediate safety," Blayer said.
"Shomrim are supporting the victims. The incident has been reported to the Metropolitan police. I have absolute confidence in our local police that this will be thoroughly investigated. I encourage anyone who witnessed this incident or who may have experienced a similar incident to report it."
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15 Ways To Have Better Sex In 2016
Start 2016 off with a bang. (Sorry.)
Have sex with zero intention of having an orgasm.
You know how they say a watched pot never boils? Well, it's kind of the same deal with orgasms. If you're focusing too much on whether or not it'll happen, you can ruin an otherwise great time. So instead of making orgasms the end-goal, just make the goal to be present and feel really, really good.
Stop thinking of sex as just one very specific thing.
Sex isn't just penis-in-vagina (especially if you're not working with both of those parts). Regardless of your sexual orientation or gender identity, there's no reason to make penetration the benchmark of sex. If you're way more satisfied with oral, anal, hand stuff, pegging, using sex toys, or something else, then there's no reason that should be considered "less than" sex.
Have sober sex.
Naked touching with all of your senses intact > naked touching with your senses dulled.
NBC / Via nbcparksandrec.tumblr.com
If you haven't used lube before, go ahead and try it.
It'll probably make sex feel a whole lot different (in a less-painful-more-pleasurable way), especially if you have a vagina or you're having anal sex.
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Watch A Journalist Accidently Get Stabbed Whilst Testing A Stab Proof Vest
Er it appears to be faulty.
An Israeli journalist was stabbed on live TV whilst demonstrating a stab proof vest.
Journalist Eitam Lachover agreed as part of an educational segment to be stabbed on screen.
However, due to either a faulty vest or bad aim by his "attacker," Lachover was stabbed in the back.
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19 Struggles Of Trying To Correct Your Sleeping Pattern After Time Off
Congratulations. You played yourself.
You’ve become way too accustomed to sleeping when the sun rises and waking up when the sun sets.
CityTV
So your understanding of space and time becomes really jumbled.
NBC
You get too used to the fact you don't have to get up for anything in the morning.
CBS
So a few days before you’re due back, you force yourself to fix your patterns.
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What Are You Leaving Behind In 2016?
New year, new you, right?
Happy 2016!
Capitol Records
These first few days of the year are a prime time to start fresh.
NBC
Comedy Central
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This Angry Cat Was Rescued From A Shelter And Now Is Taking Over The Internet
Pearl’s owner, however, said the newly-adopted shelter cat is actually very friendly despite her grouchy expression.
A newly-adopted shelter cat named Pearl is becoming a star after her owners posted pictures of her angry expression online.
Pearl, a 6-year-old orange cat, was adopted by Will and his family on Tuesday, he told BuzzFeed News.
Will explained that he, his three kids, and his girlfriend fell in love with the cat while looking at a website for their local shelter.
The family headed out to the shelter the next day, but figured she would have already been scooped up.
"Low and behold she was not," he said. "She was there, waiting, boiling with rage. We adopted her immediately."
The family chose to adopt Pearl because of her unique look, and the fact that she was "6 years old and wasting away in a small cage."
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Indian Women Are Never Taught How To Be Alone, And That's A Problem
Rebecca Hendin / BuzzFeed
In January of 2012, I woke up alone. For a host of reasons involving children in higher education, looming eldercare, and an uncertain job market, my husband now worked in a different country. He would visit every few months. This arrangement was supposed to last a year. Owing to a series of unforeseen circumstances, as I write this it's been nearly four.
I learned that I wasn’t alone in my aloneness.
After a brief period of adjustment, I learned that I wasn’t alone in my aloneness. Never before have there been so many “single” women in India, unmarried, divorced, widowed, separated or in long distance relationships. A recent survey showed that there are now 71 million single women in India, a 39 % increase over the past decade.
And yet nothing about our culture, or the way we live, teaches us to be alone. Bollywood’s heroines rarely have characters or conversations beyond their relationships with men – Bechdel test super fails. They so seldom have professional ambition that when they do, it’s considered subversive. Queen was revolutionary for having a female protagonist who embraced being alone. TV ads show us men purchasing insurance and cars and homes, while women are marketed oils for their husband’s health, detergents for their kids’ clothes, and chai for the family. Everywhere, domestic couplehood is emphasised as the happy way for women to live. Indeed, the only way to live.
I had to find a different way.
I didn’t have to look far for role models. I come from a line of women who lived well into their late nineties, outliving husbands by decades. My mother was 64 when my father passed away six years ago. She is contemplating, very possibly, 30 years on her own.
She fills her days to the brim with gardening, music, family, charity and, recently, the internet. Every few months, she travels across India, often with other single women, to remote places like Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh. She took a tragedy and turned it into an opportunity. I know there are days she misses my father deeply. I also know that this is what it means to seize life by its throat, with or without a companion.
This, then, was what I wanted to do.
The initial stages of being alone were much like the stages of grief.
The initial stages of being alone were much like the stages of grief. First, there was denial. I simply refused to accept my dependencies, refused to learn the household tasks that had fallen in my husband’s domain. Then there was anger. Why do I have to go to a goddamn PTA meet on my own? Then bargaining. If the job market looks up, I will donate thousands to charity. Then Bridget Jones-style sadness, singing “All By Myself” with a bottle of wine. And finally, painfully, acceptance: I am alone, and you know what, there are worse things.
First, I had to concede that I was far less independent than I’d imagined. I knew nothing about car insurance, was baffled by printer cartridges, and had no idea which TV service man to call. There was a whole list of chores I had dismissed as “computer stuff” and never bothered to learn.
For a year, I was distressed. “Nothing works!” my children shrieked. By the second year, I had begun to accept that there would always be something in my house that needed fixing – a leaky tap, a defunct printer, a loose TV connection – but I was learning. “Deal with it,” I told the kids. They did.
Around me, I saw several women struggling with the effects of having gone straight from their father’s homes to their husband’s. My elderly neighbour had to borrow money from me when her husband was away; having spent 40 years taking money from her husband’s wallet, she didn't know how to get cash from a bank. Another friend confessed that she had never travelled alone. “First my father, then my husband won’t let me,” she said. At the bank, a young student away from her family asked me how to fill out a cheque deposit form. “Usually my father does it,” she said. I came to realise that men and women are taught select skills, bound into codependence with shackles called “love” and “family” and “culture”.
I saw other women struggling with the effects of having gone straight from their father’s homes to their husband’s
In your forties, friends your age have less time for you. It’s nothing personal. People are hemmed in by PTA meetings, jobs, elderly parents, traffic, doctor’s appointments, weekend brunches. You can feel resentful about this, or you can learn to enjoy your time with yourself.
Still, even when I learned to be alone, it seemed to disconcert other people. Relatives began to drop worried hints about how married couples should be together. “Separating the family is not good… Not a good idea at all.”
There were whole weeks I would go without talking to an adult.
Bank managers were most bemused. “Madam, you have husband?” they’d ask, and look horrified when I responded that I do, but I handle my own finances. What sort of man leaves his wife to manage the finances? It has taken me four years to get them to email me, and not just my husband, on important financial communications.
There were whole weeks I would go without talking to an adult. Three is not company when two of those are sulky teens. I discovered Twitter. Here were my people: wise-cracking, cynical, sarcastic, so different from the sugary sentimentality of Facebook. After a brief dalliance with outraged political Twitter, I found folks who tweet on books, music, food, travel – the solaces of singlehood.
Now, I enjoy solo-eating. Initially, I would put up with being seated at a noisy table near the kitchen. Now I don’t. I demand a decent table, and stare down waiters who stare at me. Rather than try to bolt down my food as quickly as possible and leave, I make an occasion out of it. When you think about it, a lovely, languorous afternoon meal is a luxury. I discovered the pleasure of cheap mid-morning movies in completely empty theatres. No screaming kids, no rustling packets of popcorn.
Of course, there were times when I would really, really, have liked company. When staying in a budget Delhi hotel (mistake), I was alarmed by the leering manager’s constant enquiries. “You are alone, madam?” He looked like he might turn up in the middle of the night. It was too late to find another hotel, so I dragged a chair across the door and spent a fitful night with one eye open. Nothing happened, of course. But I now travel with pepper spray and a padlock.
You can do all this, of course, and still have the long evenings to fill with the children fast asleep.
At other times, solo travel opened me up to huge discoveries. Travelling alone in Sri Lanka, I decided at the last minute to strike out for hill country on my own. In my former life, I would have waited until the man in my life was free. Or at least consulted him about itineraries. Now, there was no man and I began to find that freeing. I did things my husband would probably have not enjoyed, exploring back streets, visiting temples, eating dubious and grimy food from street vendors.
You can do all this, of course, and still have the long evenings to fill with the children fast asleep. It frightened me. Was there enough trashy TV and wine to fill them all? It took a while for me to realise that time and silence were gifts to cherish.
I read more than ever. I finished nearly 120 books last year.
December, 2015: I wrote a non-fiction book (with a co-author) in six months. When it was published, I began a novel. For years I had been telling myself I had no time to write one. Now I was tired of that lame excuse. Thinking about what my protagonists would do or say felt like having other people in the room. I finished my novel in a little over 18 months. Through it all, I read more than ever. I finished nearly 120 books last year.
I expect my long-distance marriage to end next year. I will be glad to be with my husband again, but I am also grateful to have had an opportunity to learn how to be alone – to overcome it, to love it. I know these lessons will stand me in good stead. When the children leave, when friends move away, if – the great unmentionable – my husband passes on. Then I shall be alone again, as we all must. I don’t imagine it’ll be easy. But at least I know I’ll be fine.
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16 Eyebrow Products That Are Actually Worth The Hype
Thou brow shalt stay on on fleek.
Sleek Makeup Brow Kit, £8.49
This Sleek kit never fails, it continually fleeks the eyebrows. The kit comes with shaping wax, setting powder, mini tweezers, an angled and blending brushes. The brushes could be a little bigger, but everything else makes up for that.
This tutorial tell you how to use the kit.
Sleek / Via superdrug.com
Clinique Instant Lift For Brows, £16.00
Eyebrow pencil and highlighter in one, it's a great little eyebrow pen that allows you to build on the colour. You can go from natural brows to bold brows, or to really bold, depending on what takes your fancy.
Here's how to use it.
Clinique / Via lookfantastic.com
NYX Eyebrow Cake Powder, £5.50
This kit will up your brow game by so many levels. It includes a wax which you apply before the colour, kinda like a eyebrow primer, so your brows will stay put all.freaking.day.
This easy to follow tutorial shows you how to use the kit. The actual tutorial starts at 0:37 if you want to skip all the talking.
NYX / Via boots.com
Make Up For Ever Aqua Brow Kit, £31.00
It's waterproof people! The gel is also easy to use, creates a natural looking brow and comes with a spiral brush. but best of all it's WATERPROOF!
Check out how to use it, the actual tutorial part starts at 2:30.
Make Up Forever / Via debenhams.com
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Can You Guess Why Ross Gellar Is Freaking Out From A Screenshot
It’s not always about Rachel, you know. (But it’s usually about Rachel, TBH)
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21 Struggles That Are Way Too Real For Girls Who Hate Bra Shopping
Why the hell am I paying so much for a bra when I don’t even want to wear one?
Your hatred for bra shopping started at a young age, when your mum would drag you to the nearest department store to get measured.
"Ah, good, my boobs have grown again. More bra shopping. Gotta love puberty."
Redbus Film Distributions
So now you only go shopping for a bra when you really need to.
Bravo / Via giphy.com
Entering the bra section immediately gives you a migraine.
So many bras, so little desire to rummage through them all.
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This Woman Is Poking Fun At Male Feminists On Tinder For Being Sort Of Ridiculous
“Feminist in the street, misogynist in the bed.”
Lane Moore, a New York comedian, has gifted us all with the Tumblr, Male Feminists of Tinder, after noticing a growing trend of outspoken men on the hookup app.
Moore told BuzzFeed, "I'd been seeing a few guys on Tinder saying in their profiles that they were feminists or saying really intense statements that were basically like 'I DO NOT HATE WOMEN' and it just struck me as an odd thing to open with. One night I tweeted out one of the screencaps and people really loved it and started sending me profiles they'd seen too. I made the Tumblr that same night."
Lane Moore / Via malefeministsoftinder.tumblr.com
She explains that the guys she pokes fun at have bios that tend to boast about their feminism.
Moore says, "It's more a matter of a guy whose profile goes on and on about how much he believes in equality and that women should rule the world, which is totally fine to think, but it just ends up reading as someone saying, 'I am a nice person! Look how nice I am! I am so nice!' instead of someone just being nice."
Via malefeministsoftinder.tumblr.com
The blog has been warmly received by women who know the story all too well.
Moore says, "They [women] get it, obviously. We've all known guys who kind of jump down your throat to tell you how much they don't hate women and it's really bizarre. Because on paper, it's like 'Yay!' but when you think about it more, it's like, 'OK. Good. You shouldn't. Why are you telling me this?'"
And while the blog is still in its infancy, she's already picked an early favourite.
Moore says, "Apart from the feminist thing, I love that he hates clothing and jewellery and drinking for fun."
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Do You Remember What Happened On January 7th?
Which couple called it quits and made us stop believing in love?
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Day 5 Of BuzzFeed's 7-Day Clean Eating Challenge
This is part of a 7-day healthy meal plan that will make you feel awesome. You should definitely start at the beginning, which is here.
Lauren Zaser / Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
There's no processed food allowed—instead there's lots of lean protein, healthy fats, and fresh produce. Every meal is homemade, but don't be scared! There are step-by-step photos to help you with the recipes, and nothing is too difficult for a beginner cook.
It's important that you follow the meal plan in order starting with Day 1 since most of the recipes call for leftover ingredients from previous days. But you can start any time and find full instructions here. Aim to eat every 3-4 hours and try not to eat within two hours of bedtime.
Lauren Zaser / Alice Mongkongllite / BuzzFeed
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This Might Be One Of The Creepiest Commercials You've Seen In A Long Time
This ad for a wearable translator has caused outrage by glorifying what appears to be street harassment.
This is a video called "Kisses For Tokyo." It was released by a Japanese tech company called Logbar to advertise its new wearable translator, Ili. You speak into Ili and it spits out a translation. It works with English, Chinese, and Japanese.
This is Dean. He's the spokesman for Ili.
In Logbar's newest ad for Ili, Dean takes the little translator around Tokyo. And while wearing a camera on his head, he goes up to random women on the street.
And then asks the women if he can kiss them.
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29 Toys Every '90s Boy Secretly Wishes They Still Had
RIP Street Sharks.
Mighty Max
The reason you loved it: Because you were secretly always jealous of your sister's Polly Pockets.
Micro Machines Super Van City
The reason you loved it: Vehicles within a vehicle – like a two-tier Russian nesting doll of awesomeness.
Finger monsters
The reason you loved it: You didn't ask for them, they just appeared one day and that was that.
Lego
The reason you loved it: It's Lego. Who doesn't love Lego?
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Here's How People In Nine Countries Like To Get Drunk
This is an edited version of a conversation I, a real ale-loving Brit, had with BuzzFeed colleagues and contributors around the world.
At what age do people generally start drinking? In Britain the legal age is 18, but most people get drunk for the first time in their early teens, in parks and at house parties.
Victor Stepanov, from Russia.
Loves: whisky.
Victor Stepanov: In Russia it's 18. But most people start drinking way earlier. Like at 12 to 14. There is a huge culture of drinking in parks or in front of apartment buildings, on benches.
Beatriz Serrano: Spain is a heavy drinking culture. We normally start around 14-16. We have a word in Spanish to drink in the streets that is botellón (literally big bottle) and we use it when we buy our drinks at the supermarket and then drink in the street.
Adrien Sénécat: In France there is often some kind of light initiation with family.
Beatriz: Wait, what?
Adrien: Yeah, like when you are 10 years old and people give you a little wine or champagne on family celebrations. It’s partly an attempt to educate kids: If they know how wine should taste they are less likely to binge-drink later in life.
Conz Preti, from Argentina. Loves: Bulleit on the rocks.
Conz Preti: In Argentina, similar to France, you drink with the family. My mom would give me a tiny bit of wine with seltzer, at age 12. She said it was a Spanish tradition but judging by Beatriz’s reaction I guess it’s not?
Javier Aceves: The legal drinking age in Mexico is 18, but we start drinking much earlier. The quinceañera (15th birthday) parties are pretty much the first experience with ~permitted~ alcohol parties. But since law enforcement in Mexico tends to be corrupt, you can buy alcohol everywhere.
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
Zainab Shah: It’s illegal to drink in Pakistan, but we start drinking bootlegged alcohol in high school. It also helps if your parents drink at home. We always spent the night at friends' houses whose parents had bars and then we’d sneak someone’s dad’s bottle.
Wale Lawal, Nigeria. Loves: Mai tai.
Wale Lawal: In Nigeria, the kids in my generation started drinking early. We’re the problematic generation, the ones who barely had anyone watching over them because while we were growing up, Nigeria was changing gears, money was beginning to flow albeit sluggishly after a recession in the '80s. I’m a '90s kid.
Ailbhe Malone: In Ireland, people expect you to be drinking before you’re 18. Parents will often buy beers with the proviso of "I’d rather you did it in the house, with what I’ve bought, than with spirits in the park."
Is it difficult to buy alcohol when you are underage?
Victor: It’s quite possible to buy hard liquor in Russia if you’re underage. Some shops won’t even ask you anything.
Javier Aceves, Mexico. Loves: Mexican craft beer.
Javier: Not difficult at all. You can buy alcohol everywhere. We call them tardeadas which can be translated to evening parties, where there’s supposed to be zero alcohol, but…Mexico. There was a big scandal a couple of years ago in Mexico City where police raided one of these places, they blocked the entrance and there was a stampede. Lots of kids died.
Zainab: It’s all bootlegged so you just have to know the right people. It’s not easy to buy alcohol for girls, actually. Some guy friend would always have to do it.
Is there a drink that is particularly associated with teenagers?
Beatriz: Cheap beers and also Martini with lemonade, Malibú with pineapple.
Javier: We call them gomichelas. It's beer (Mexican beer, like Corona) with lemon, chilli, salt, and gummy bears. They sell the best ones outside the Estadio Azteca.
Conz: That sounds horrible.
Javier: They’re actually good micheladas. They sometimes throw Clamato on it.
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
In the UK we have a lot more variety in this area. Lambrini, Woodpecker cider, alcopops like WKD. These are things no-one drinks after the age of about 21.
Beatriz: In Spain the equivalent is calimotxo, which is red wine with Coke, a cheapskate version of Sangria. And anything cheap. There are bottles of rum for 3 euros.
Adrien Sénécat, from France. Loves: wheat beer.
Adrien: In France your parents would be even more angry at you if they know the alcohol you drank was calimotxo. It’s blasphemous for French people.
Zainab: Moonshine, or beer. There is one Pakistani brewery despite alcohol being banned. They get away with it by claiming to cater to non-muslim expats. Bhang is popular. It’s made with marijuana, not alcohol, and people in villages drink it freely.
Conz: There was a very cheap brand of wine called Uvita that was super sweet and super cheap so you would get very drunk fast.
Javier: There’s this disgusting distillate which some criminals baptised as mezcalito (not mezcal at all) that’s called Tonayan. It’s available in every Mexican convenience store and is cheap AF. So you make what we call aguas locas with Tonayan. Pour the whole thing in horchata or hibiscus water and boom: You got your “crazy water”.
Mat: In Oz we have Passion Pop, which is like sparkling wine but cheap as hell and tastes like candy. Also goon (boxed wine) is hellishly cheap and very popular to pour directly into your mouth.
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
Adrien: In France we have a lot of artisanal eau de vie (strong fruit liquor). Whenever you try it in parties when you are 15 years old it ends really, really badly.
Beatriz: Eau de mort.
Adrien: Exactly.
How central a role does alcohol play in socialising? Is there a conformist pressure to drink?
Wale: Clubbing, especially, is very much a part of Lagos culture and so is alcohol as a social instrument. There’s peer pressure to drink in Nigeria but you can choose not to – people will simply assume you are Muslim, and are extremely understanding about that.
Beatriz Serrano, Spain.
Loves: White wine, gin and tonic.
Beatriz: In Spain we are social drinkers so it’s weird if someone doesn't even have a beer or something. They’ll ask you why you don’t, and you have to give a good reason (“I’m taking medication”, “I’m ill”) if you don’t want the questionnaire to go further. I have a friend who says that she doesn’t trust people who don’t drink.
Javier: This is a big issue in Mexico. It’s common for people to say you are a “puto” (derogatory word for coward, also used to refer to homosexuals) when you’re leaving, or won’t have another drink. There is social pressure for people to get shots, end up shitfaced.
Ailbhe: Booze plays a big part in socialising in Ireland. People would question why you weren’t drinking. "Are you on antibiotics?" is a question so common it’s almost a meme.
Mat: Yeah, Aus and Ireland sound similar. There’s a huge casual drinking culture here that’s accepted as part of the Aussie way of life. I’ve had a few friends do the “no booze for a month” thing and each time they’re met with...I don’t want to say contempt but…
Zainab Shah, Pakistan. Loves: Bourbon.
Are you familiar with the concept of pre-gaming? i.e. Getting really drunk at home before you go out.
Zainab: Pre-gaming is the only gaming in Pakistan.
Conz: YAAAAAS. Things start late in Argentina. Have dinner, take a nap, wake up at around midnight, change, go to someone’s house, pregame until like 3am or so, and then go to the party/club. Sometimes the pregames go so long we end up not going anywhere.
Javier: We call it pre-copeo. It started as an inexpensive way to get blown-off before going out. But as we grow up, and Mexico's cities become more and more dangerous, pre-copeo has turned into copeo only.
Ailbhe: Yeah, we’d call it pre-lash in Dublin. Drinking in Ireland is expensive – about 5 euro a pint, so it’s cost efficient to have a drink or two before you go out.
Are there any popular drinks that other nationalities might not be familiar with? What are the best and worst?
Victor: Well, things are simple in Russia. Russians drink beer and vodka.
Adrien: In France I would say Pastis, a strong alcohol you dilute with water.
Wale: Among young Nigerians, Orijin, which is a mixture of herbs, fruits, and alcohol produced by Diageo. I don't like it but everyone else loves it. Then there’s Alomo Bitters, which is really hardcore stuff. It separates men from boys, women from girls, the soul from the body. I had it once for a dare and even now I'm getting flashbacks.
Beatriz: We have different types of drinks depending if you are in the north or south of Spain. In the north you have a lot of liquors, like coffee liquor that is delicious. In the south of Spain you have different types of wine: manzanilla or Jerez (sherry).
Conz: We drink a lot of Fernet and Coke. Fernet is Italian, but the Coke touch is Argentine.
Javier: We drink a lot of mezcal – that’s the boho drink. In a clubby setting Bacardi and Coke will be the weapon of choice. But a cantina will be populated with tequila and/or brandy lovers.
Ailbhe Malone, Ireland. Loves: gin and tonic.
Ailbhe: You could give poitín a try, which is kind of like a potato vodka? It used to be moonshine but now there’s some ~artisan~ brands that probably won’t cause you so much trouble.
Mat: I’m trying to spread the Australian “drop bear” shot. That’s basically just a shot of Bundy rum into half a pint of beer.
Ailbhe: What’s it taste like?
Mat: Like being punched in the back of the mouth by an angry marsupial.
What are some colourful words for "drunk" in your language? I'll kick off with British examples: twatted, banjaxed, rat-arsed, pished.
Victor: I like the Russian “sinebol” which means alcoholic or even “v zyuzyu” which means totally drunk.
Adrien: French has "bourré", "cuité", "raide", "saoul", "torché", "déchiré".
Beatriz: In Spain we say “Voy muy ciego”, which literally means “I’m so blind.” We also use "piripi", "bolinga", “voy fino”, “mamado”, “llevo un pedal”, and “Como las Grecas” (Las Grecas were a famous band in Spain, two gypsy sisters who died by overdose).
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
Conz: Argentinians say "Estoy del orto" (orto means ass, so the literal translation is "I AM ASS"), or "veo doble" (which means "I see double").
Javier: In Mexico, "Estoy pedo". "Pedo" means fart. Also... "Estoy hasta la madre" (I’m up to my mother), "estoy hasta atrás" (I’m all the way to the back).
Mat: Wait, you say you’re fart if you’re drunk?
Ailbhe: Ossified (as in, you’re so drunk, it’s in your actual bones).
Wale: I done high. That’s how Nigerians say it.
Mat: Shitfaced, fucked off your tits, absolutely gone, cunted. Australians just get really aggressive and sweary when we describe being drunk.
Would you say it's common, and unremarkable, for people to drink every day? Or would that be regarded as alcoholism?
Victor: No, it’s totally OK! I mean if you keep drinking every day in Russia there will be quite a long time before anyone questions it – it’s a normal thing to do.
Mat: Russia is my spiritual home, apparently.
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
Beatriz: A glass of wine or a beer is OK. We Spanish are very tolerant with social drinking. If you drink a bottle of whiskey alone in your house every day, that's a problem.
Adrien: In France, if you drink with people it’s safe, if you drink alone you have a problem.
Beatriz: When I was living in London I saw a difference. In Spain, we have casual beers and go home, but I find your after-work drinks like… “Oh my god, this is drinking.”
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
Wale: It is definitely unremarkable for people to drink every day in Lagos. Understandably so. Life in Nigeria is harsh and there’s a relationship between the consumption of alcohol and the general wretchedness of one’s life.
Javier: Drinking alone is a sign of alcoholism here. Also, having drinks after work on weekdays (like you crazy Brits) is seen as a problem.
Conz: I’m an alcoholic according to Mexico.
Mat Whitehead, Australia. Loves: Negroni.
Mat: Yeah I’m a massive alco in Mexico apparently. I love a beer or two (or six) at home. But also if you want a vodka lime soda or jug of mimosas to yourself on a Sunday afternoon...get it, girl. A few glasses of wine with dinner – that’s just good health.
What's the national conversation like in terms of drinking to excess? Are there particular groups in society who are singled out as problem drinkers?
Wale: The only general perception of note is that Nigerians are the third-largest consumers of Hennessey, and we take this to be a good thing, a sign of prosperity. Young people in particular are singled out as problem drinkers. Nollywood has a role in this. In our films, the moment you see young people drinking, there’s trouble. Young female drinkers are pretty much terrorists.
Victor: Actually now drinking in Russia is becoming less popular with youths than before. But older generations still drink a lot.
Zainab: In Pakistan nobody talks about it. Everybody does it. Everybody hides it.
British people love to talk about being hungover. There's no taboo. It's seen as a necessary part of life. Is it different where you're from?
Adrien: Yeah, French people love to brag about how much they drank the night before, and how they feel destroyed the morning after.
Javier: Mexican food is great for hangovers, so we have a whole hangover culture that surrounds food, restaurants, and… more drinking. We have a word for that, conectarla (connect it), that means that the best way to survive a hangover is getting drunk again.
Sian Butcher / BuzzFeed
Is there a hangover cure everyone swears by? In Britain it's traditional to eat something greasy: a fried breakfast or a bacon sandwich. No one believes it actually dispels a hangover, but it's the done thing.
Victor: There’s no single recipe. Some people use more alcohol to cure hangovers. Some people eat special pills you can buy in a drug store.
Conz: Pizza. Or just sleeping until 3pm.
Javier: Tacos. Chilaquiles. Seafood. Anything spicy will do. Of course a couple of micheladas can help too :-)
Ailbhe: A fry, with black and white pudding. Or a chicken fillet roll (YUM).
Mat: A bacon and egg roll, some berocca, and a big glass of harden-the-fuck-up.
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She Was Raped By A Cop, Then Forced To Relive It
For five years, Lindsay F. relived the night she was brutally raped by Jose Rigoberto Sanchez, then a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, over and over again. She had to recall every detail — his come-ons, the route to the secluded area where he pushed her onto the hood of his car, how he followed her home afterward — whenever investigators asked her to retell her story. If Lindsay missed a detail or confused the timeline, even after years had passed, they accused her of lying, she said.
“To make sure the story didn’t change, I had to run it through in my head like a movie,” Lindsay told BuzzFeed News in a recent interview. “It’s just like pressing rewind. I wouldn’t let myself forget any of it.”
Lindsay was prepared for a long and challenging process when she reported her rape the day after it happened in September 2010, when she was 24. In November 2015, Los Angeles County approved a $6 million settlement in a civil lawsuit Lindsay filed in 2011.
But in her fight for the county to admit liability, Lindsay underwent a humiliating and interminably long process, one that experts in law enforcement misconduct litigation said is commonplace. Even after Sanchez went to prison — not just for raping Lindsay, but for attempting to coerce another woman into sex under similar circumstances just two days later — the county’s lawyers for the civil suit spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking Lindsay as if she had falsely accused Sanchez. (The county's office said it had "no comment on this litigated matter.")
They asked Lindsay about her sexual history: Had she ever had HPV? They deposed her friends: What had Lindsay been wearing the night Sanchez pulled her over? They even went as far as to hire a gynecology medical expert witness to testify that Lindsay’s vagina had not shown significant signs of trauma.
In the meantime, Lindsay’s life was put on hold for half a decade, she said, because the process was so retraumatizing.
“I always felt like they hoped I would drop the case,” Lindsay said. “They can’t claim that they’re trying to protect and serve when they completely tear down any woman who comes forward.”
The gas station where Lindsay was pulled over by Jose Sanchez.
Katharine Lotze for BuzzFeed News
On Sept. 22, 2010, Lindsay was trying to get her life in order. She was working at a gym and saving up money to move out of her parents’ home in Palmdale, a Southern California city on the outskirts of the sprawling Mojave Desert. Job hunting was tricky, as Lindsay was in the process of contesting a recent DUI charge and had missed a court date, meaning she had not only a suspended driver's license but a misdemeanor traffic warrant out for her arrest as well.
That night, Lindsay had an informal job interview with a friend who worked at a veterinary practice, a field she had worked in before and was hoping to re-enter. They planned to meet at 10 p.m., after they were both done working in nearby Lancaster. Lindsay was nervous about driving, but decided the job opportunity was worth it. They spoke for two hours, after which Lindsay stopped at a gas station before heading home. When she got pulled over, she couldn’t believe her bad luck.
The sheriff's deputy who asked Lindsay for her license and registration was Sanchez, then 25 years old. He asked Lindsay if she knew about her warrant. Lindsay told him she did, but that she was taking care of it, and that she had no other way to get to the job interview. When Sanchez asked her if she had been drinking, she told him the truth: only half a glass of wine her friend had offered her a few hours before. Sanchez gave Lindsay a breathalyzer test, which he told her she failed, although he refused to show her the results. Instead, he told Lindsay he had been watching her at the gas station while he ran her license plate number.
“You’re pretty hot stuff,” he told her, according to depositions. Lindsay asked if he was going to arrest her. “No, but what are you going to do for me?” he asked. That’s when Lindsay started to panic.
Lindsay tried to decline Sanchez’s advances by telling him she had a curfew and a boyfriend, but he told her to get in his car. At first, she thought she was under arrest for not having sex with him, but even that didn’t make sense: Where were the handcuffs? Instead, Sanchez drove Lindsay down a dirt road into the pitch-black desert, where he raped her as she cried.
He followed her home afterward and asked for her phone number. “This was fun, let’s do it again,” he said. He told her he would be watching her ass while she walked up to the door.
Most rape victims don’t go to the police, even when their rapists aren’t sheriff's deputies. Lindsay didn’t want to, either, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how cocky Sanchez was.
“I realized that if he was that comfortable with what happened, it must have happened before, and it was going to happen again,” she told BuzzFeed News. The next day, she reported him to the sheriff's department.
Sanchez was put on paid leave two days later, although not before he attempted to rape a second woman, an undocumented immigrant, under similar circumstances. Prosecutors said Sanchez falsely accused her of drunk driving, threatened to take her to jail, and tried to lead her into the desert before her friend, sitting in the passenger seat, intervened. Investigators found several California driver's licenses of local women in Sanchez’s locker — an unusual practice for police officers, who are supposed to give IDs back immediately after ticketing drivers.
The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics doesn’t track how many law enforcement officers are accused of sexual misconduct, but multiple studies have found startling rates of police-perpetrated sexual violence. Around 1,000 law officers in the United States lost their licenses from 2009 to 2014 due to sexual misconduct, according to a yearlong Associated Press investigation. That data only includes states that gave the AP records — excluding California and New York, which have some of the country’s largest law enforcement departments — and in cases where women reported.
A 2011 International Association of Chiefs of Police report found that sexual predators can thrive in law enforcement, thanks to a lack of supervision, an abundance of authority, and opportunities to interact with vulnerable civilians who are unlikely to report them. One example is Daniel Holtzclaw, the former Oklahoma police officer charged with sexually assaulting 14 women and found guilty in December of sexually assaulting eight. He was only charged after one woman was brave enough to come forward. Prosecutors say he targeted black women with felony records and outstanding warrants who were unlikely to report him under threat of arrest.
The woman Sanchez pulled over two days after he raped Lindsay was afraid to report him because Sanchez had questioned her about her immigration status, she and her friend who witnessed the incident later said in depositions.
Lindsay always trusted the police, she said, even after her DUI. Her confidence in law enforcement compelled her to report her rape, she told BuzzFeed News, even though she believed that’s why she got into Sanchez’s car that night instead of driving to a police station.
“I was always taught to respect authority,” she said. “I wish I wouldn’t have been as trusting.”
Lindsay in the Palmdale desert.
Katharine Lotze for BuzzFeed News
The L.A. Sheriff's Department Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau submitted Lindsay’s case to the district attorney's office in January 2011. Lindsay was on edge the entire next year, especially as the DA's office never contacted her with updates, she said, and didn’t schedule her first interview until Aug. 11, 2011. Whenever she checked in, the office told her they were still evaluating her case.
In an August email, the DA's office indicated it might drop the case entirely, according to Lindsay’s attorneys. In May 2012, it was reassigned. In 2011, Lindsay had filed a civil suit, which her lawyers believe may have moved the criminal case forward. Her attorneys had to go to court multiple times to get an unredacted copy of the internal investigation, which took about a year, they said. The same week they received it, Sanchez was finally arrested. It was July 27, 2013, nearly three years after the rape. (A spokesperson for the DA's office said these types of criminal cases "are complex and take extensive investigation.")
Until then, Sanchez had been out on unpaid leave, which terrified Lindsay, since he had followed her home the night he raped her, asked for her phone number, and said he wanted to see her again. She didn’t even remember his name or what he looked like, she said, which made it more frustrating when the DA's office repeatedly asked her whether she knew Sanchez prior to the incident.
Lindsay developed PTSD, which was triggered every time she saw a cop car — and by the prolonged investigation. When Sanchez raped her, she thought he would kill her and leave her in the desert, she said. At the time, she was more concerned with whether she would ever see her family again than noting every detail. Since the DA's office took nearly a year to interview her, it was even harder for her to be precise about those painful details, she said.
“If I left stuff out, they’d jump on me,” she said. “They expected me to remember everything, minute by minute, when I was traumatized and fearing for my life.”
In April 2014, Sanchez pleaded no contest to one count of rape while under the color of authority and one count of soliciting a bribe (from the woman he pulled over two days after Lindsay). He was sentenced to nine years in state prison.
Although Sanchez was already serving prison time for rape, “consent was [the county’s] position before the court at all times — and their claimed license to go through every shred of Lindsay’s personal life,” said Lindsay’s attorney, John C. Taylor.
But the county’s tactics were not atypical, said Philip Stinson, a criminologist at Bowling Green State University. “While distasteful and harsh, I don’t find the line of questioning, etc., to be outside the bounds of what is expected in high-stakes civil litigation,” he said.
Defense lawyers questioned Lindsay’s actions the night of her rape — for example, they wondered why she didn’t call 911 the second she got back in her car, even though she told them Sanchez followed her home. They were even more interested in her personal history. “Prior to this incident, you were already a carrier of the HPV virus, correct?” they asked her. “Based on my review of your medical records, I believe you tested positive for a methamphetamine ... I’d like to know about it.”
They also asked Lindsay if she had ever been a victim of sexual or domestic violence and if she had ever cheated on her boyfriend. They issued over two dozen subpoenas for her employment, medical, educational, and insurance records.
The lawyers deposed not just Lindsay, but also her parents, boyfriend, grandmother, and the veterinarian she met the night of her rape.
Her parents were asked whether Lindsay had ever accused another person of rape, whether she had ever been to rehab, and whether they had ever had “discussions with Lindsay about her inability to maintain relationships with men.”
Lawyers asked her then-boyfriend about their sex life after the incident, and for the names of bars they frequented.
They asked her veterinarian friend whether Lindsay was “flirtatious” with him on the night of her rape, how far apart they were sitting that night, what Lindsay was wearing, and whether Lindsay had ever been to his house before.
The defense retained a medical expert: Felice Gersh, a gynecologist who often testifies on vaginal injuries, and whether they indicate nonconsensual trauma, on behalf of defense teams. Gersh had not met or examined Lindsay. In a deposition, Gersh admitted that she had “never testified that someone was definitively raped.”
The defense never made clear whether they would even acknowledge that Sanchez had raped Lindsay, her lawyers said. On May 2015, Sanchez’s deposition was taken from his prison cell.
“Is it your belief that all conduct between you and Lindsay F. was consensual?” the county’s lawyer asked him. “Yes, sir,” Sanchez replied. “That’s all I have,” the lawyer said, ending the session.
Katharine Lotze for BuzzFeed News
All victims of law enforcement misconduct face an “uphill battle” in court, said Brigitt Keller, the executive director of the National Police Accountability Project. “Municipalities spend literally millions on defending officers, even in cases where you really have to wonder why,” she said. (Lindsay’s lawyers said that Los Angeles County spent upwards of $400,000 before they settled.)
But sexual violence is different from other misconduct because “there is never really that question of whether the behavior was reasonable,” Keller said. An officer might be able to defend excessive use of force, for example, by saying they were threatened by a suspect or feared for their life, but there are no circumstances that would allow an officer to sexually assault or even have consensual sex with a civilian while on the job. That makes aggressive defense tactics in sexual misconduct cases “particularly egregious,” she said, although not uncommon.
Anthony Luti, an L.A. attorney whose firm has represented clients suing the LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff's Department for civil rights violations, said Lindsay’s experience was “all too familiar.”
Even in cases such as Lindsay’s “where there is clear liability,” victims seeking justice and compensation due to actions of Los Angeles County sheriff deputies “basically go through hell in the civil litigation process before even getting to a jury — or a fair settlement,” he wrote in an email.
Sometimes, they’re successful, Luti wrote — plaintiffs give up, or settle their cases for less than they’re worth.
“This is the unseen horror in civil rights cases brought against the county,” he wrote. “Lindsay got violated twice — first, by Sanchez, and second, by the litigation system.”
That doesn’t make Lindsay feel any better. Five years later, she can finally stop replaying her rape: Her case was settled in November. But she’s still unable to call the resolution a success, she said.
“My twenties were lost to this,” Lindsay said. She couldn’t go back to school, move away from Palmdale, or focus on her family life until the legal process was over, she said. She couldn’t work on her anxiety and depression while still recalling all the details. And she no longer expects law enforcement to hold its own accountable.
“So few women report rape,” she said. “To blame them only makes it harder. And they’re the ones who are supposed to help us.”
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Priyanka Chopra Just Became The First South-Asian Actress To Win A People's Choice Award
And she even hung out with uncle Jesse.
Last night, at the 42nd People's Choice Awards, in Los Angeles, Priyanka Chopra bagged the "Favourite Actress In A New TV Series" award for her lead role in Quantico...
Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images
Making her the first South-Asian actress to win one.
Jason Merritt / Getty Images
She also appeared on stage with John Stamos while presenting an award to Furious 7.
Kevin Winter / Getty Images
And she pretty much owned the stage the entire time she was up there.
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