All photos by the author

"Yogurt, parmesan, orange juice, and oatmeal," said Fay Johnson, a medical instructor, listing her favorite ingredients for simulated vomit as she mixed them together in a bucket. "We'll put a little fake blood in there to make it pink."

Johnson was preparing her smelly concoction for the final day of medical drills during the most recent "Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC)" training course in Turin, Italy, during the last week in July.

Conflict zones are dangerous for all journalists, but freelancers are especially at risk. Most don't have the money to take expensive hostile environment and medical training courses, and freelancers often work without comprehensive insurance, which journalists under contract with media organizations are normally provided before going to the front lines.

RISC training provides freelance journalists and photographers with a four-day crash course in battlefield medical response. The course teaches participants how to treat everything from bee stings to blast injuries, and almost 300 freelancers have taken the course in New York, London, Nairobi, Kiev, and Kosovo since it began in 2012.

RISC was founded by Sebastian Junger, a journalist and author, after the death of his colleague, photographer Tim Hetherington.

Hetherington was mortally wounded in a mortar attack in Misurata, Libya while photographing the country's uprising against Gaddafi in 2011. At a memorial for the photographer in London, Junger discovered that the wound that killed him might not have been fatal if those at the scene had medical training. In an interview with Outside magazine in 2012, Junger said that after hearing this he decided to start a medical training program "for freelancers, only freelancers" since "they're the ones who are doing most of the combat reporting. They're taking most of the risks... And they're the most underserved and under-resourced of everyone in the entire news business."

He added that while insurers insist that big corporate news organizations send their field reporters to hazardous environment courses, the fees are often too expensive to send freelancers. "I just thought we should change that and make it free, and we managed to do it."

Teams of trainees work to save their patients while instructors pour blood over the bodies during the course's final simulation. Smoke and a sound effects tape filled with screaming and explosions are used to disrupt the trainees.

During the training in Turin, participants listened to lectures and studied essential life-saving techniques—how to administer CPR or apply a tourniquet. They ran through drills simulating medical emergencies and learned how to provide first aid while ensuring their own safety. Trainees were taught to approach anyone needing medical aid with caution by identifying the mechanism of injury to determine if it was safe to begin treating the patient. Drills focused on different strategies for communicating with patients and evaluating their injuries. The trainees took turns role-playing as the patient and their colleagues had to diagnose and treat them appropriately based on which symptoms they appeared to have.

On the last day, the students put all they learned to the test during a mass casualty drill. The sound of gunfire and explosions blasted from a set of speakers as the instructors set off smoke bombs and firecrackers to simulate the stressful conditions of a combat zone.

"He's bleeding out! Stop the bleeding!" Sawyer Alberi, the lead instructor, yelled as she poured a jug of fake blood over a medical training dummy to simulate a sudden hemorrhage. A couple of journalists hunched over the dummy frantically applied tourniquets while the sticky red liquid pooled around their feet. After the dummies were moved to safety, an instructor dressed in a burqa ran out, screaming in grief and pushing up against the journalists who were still working to stabilize their patients. By the end of the drill, the journalists were breathing hard, covered in dirt and simulated bodily fluids.

VICE talked with some of the participants to see what the RISC course was like for them.

Sawyer Alberi leads RISC trainees as they approach the scene of a mass-casualty incident during the final simulation on the course's last day. This drill simulates a medical emergency in a combat zone. The students must attend to their patients while dealing with an array of stressors and distractions.

Sawyer Alberi, RISC Head Instructor

My mother was a nurse years ago, and I drifted in and out of EMT work for a while once I left the Coast Guard. I joined Wilderness Medical Associates (WMA) in 2002 and started doing backcountry and remote medicine for them. Since then, I've expanded my medical knowledge working with the military. I was a flight medic in Iraq in 2006, and a combat medic again in 2010 in Afghanistan. I just retired from the military in November, 2014.

When I was in Afghanistan in 2010, we noticed there were a lot of contractors in war zones and conflict areas who didn't come over with any medical knowledge, had no first aid equipment, and no training. It stayed with me as something that was problematic. In 2011, when Tim Hetherington got killed, Sebastian Junger contacted WMA to look for a course for journalists. When I heard about it, I knew we had to get it done.

We just completed our 12th RISC course—that's 288 journalists taught, over seven continents. So it's really been an extraordinary four years. Working with journalists has given me a totally different perspective on a lot of world events. I live on a farm in Vermont, so I live vicariously through all of the journalists who are my Facebook friends now, doing these extraordinary things across the world. I truly believe anyone who is in conflict deserves the right to save themselves and the people around them.

What we try to do . That includes using a lot of blood because it's very visual, it's very slippery, and it's difficult to work with. We go through gallons and gallons of fake blood on that last day. Anyone who leaves these courses needs to have the confidence that they can do what we teach them to do under extraordinary stress.

These journalist have been gassed, they've been shot at. I've been counting and I think there's 22 percent rate of kidnapped people in the course. You don't get that in the average outdoor education class, it adds a different element to it. It also inspires me to do the best work that I possibly can for these journalists because they are putting their lives on the line for this.

Photographer/RISC attendee Federico Rios in a simulated battlefield.

Federico Rios, Photographer from Colombia

I'm based in Colombia and I'm covering conflict and daily life in Latin America, freelancing for the New York Times and other magazines and newspapers. This year was far away from my home, and I had to take one plane from Colombia to Panama, another from Panama to Amsterdam, a the third one from Amsterdam to Turin. But I think the training is worth all the money you need to invest because it's about saving your life.

In my work, I have seen shootings in Colombia, riots in Venezuela, shootings in El Salvador, and the violence in Mexico. In Colombia, for example, you have landmines, crossfire, battles between the guerilla fighters and the Colombian army. Every time you're thinking, I'm going to be shot, or, I'm going to step on a landmine. I really think RISC training can save my life right now. I feel lucky that I haven't been harmed before, and I hope not to be in the future, but in these places that I'm working there's a high chance to be injured. If that happens I would like to use all the knowledge I got during RISC training.

The exercises and the training are very well planned. Maybe from the outside this can be tricky or complicated to understand but once you're there with your partner you are completely focused on what you're doing and you try to push yourself harder because you know that eventually you're going to need to use this knowledge to save a colleague. The last exercise was kind of shocking because there's smoke, simulated war noise, and people running around and screaming—plus all the fake blood. But that's good because it puts you into a real situation.

Andrew Esiebo photographed during RISC training

Andrew Esiebo, Photographer from Nigeria

I'm based in Nigeria and I consider myself a visual storyteller. I've been working in the North East Nigeria and bordering countries like Chad and Cameroon for different publications like the New York Times, Time Out Nigeria, CNN, and others. I've been focusing on refugees and internally displaced people from the ongoing insurgency with the terrorist group Boko Haram.

Those are hostile regions, so it was a good opportunity for me to come to the RISC training and have an understanding of how I can take more careful measures and rescue myself or other people from a dangerous attack.

I remember working in the northeast of Chad in the middle of nowhere, and I was just asking myself, If there's an attack, how can I rescue myself? What can I do? I considered myself helpless, so those experiences made me want to take the course.

And the training isn't just for hostile regions; it could be for daily life. The other day, I was in the metro in Paris and a guy who I think had a nervous problem . In the past, I would have not done anything, but because of the RISC training, I walked up to the guy and tried to make him sit in a good position that would help him calm down and breath well. This happened in the middle of the city, there were people all around, but no one knew what to do. I applied the experience from the program and the guy was fine. Without the kind of knowledge I gained through RISC, I wouldn't have been confident to help the guy. I hope such an initiative can be extended to other parts of the world. It offers very valuable skills for reporters all around the world whether working in conflict regions or not.

RISC was the first time I became aware of how you can deal with all sorts of problems. The training was quite rigorous, it was intense—waking up every day to the drills and simulations, all within that atmosphere of war tension. You're imagining yourself in that situation and you feel like you're in that space of war.

Gabriele Micalizzi photographed during RISC training

Gabriele Micalizzi, Photographer from Italy

I've been covering Libya since 2011, and was recently there for more than two months on assignment for Le Monde. I was covering the conflict between ISIS and the Misurata force , and the fighting is not very organized, so it's very dangerous being there. You can follow the troops, but there are too many snipers. Also, they use landmines, so you can't follow the frontline. It's very risky. But I did four or five different advances with them, and during every advance there was always more than 200 to 400 injuries and 27 to 50 killed.

I applied to RISC because two years ago I lost a friend in Sloviansk, Ukraine who was part of my collective, Cesura . He got injured in an attack by shrapnel and died because of severe bleeding. I was there to bring the body back from Kiev to the family in Italy. It happened many times where people around me were injured and I didn't know what to do. Ten days ago, a mortar hit my car and injured my fixer. It happens often when you're working in war zones.

Before, I was a tattoo artist and knew some first aid but I never did something like RISC. So I'm very happy, especially because I just came back from the front lines. This course was amazing. They give you everything, including all the information, but it's very practical and it's very practice-based. That was the best part: You can study, but you need to practice to be ready and prepared for when something real happens.

See more photos from the RISC training course below.

Daniel Tepper is a freelance photographer and journalist. He completed a RISC training in 2013. You can follow him on Instagram and Twitter.

A RISC instructor, dressed in a burqa, distracts the trainees as they work on patients during the final simulation.

Photographers Andrew Esiebo, from Nigeria, and Federico Rios, from Colombia, carry a medical dummy using an improvised harness made from a single loop of nylon webbing.

A training dummy, dribbled with fake blood, lies in the sun before a drill.

Italian photographers Gianluca Panella and Federico Scoppa, give CPR to a medical dummy during a drill.

Medical dummies lie atop each other before a simulation.

Yes, I searched for self-improvement in a dumpster. All photos by the author

I'm a pale shadow of the person I can be and I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being an asshole and I know I could be a role model if I can just improve myself. Role models are often called better people and better people are complex, skilled, easygoing, beautiful, healthy, and resilient. I am none of these things.

At a loss, I turned to the internet, which is full of articles instructing you on how to be a better person. Most examples I found seemed too long, too tenuous, or too complicated for me. Plus, they all said the same thing: being a better person was a state of mind. Changing my state of mind seemed slow and tedious. I wasn't willing to commit a lot of time. I had been a disingenuous asshole as long as I can remember, so this was going to take a lot of effort. There had to be a better way.

I decided to fast-track the process with my own methods. My approach was simple: try one new thing every day for a week. For this to work, my seven things had to purposefully weird. It was important to me to step outside my comfort zone. These seven daily adventures were designed to challenge both my mind and body in strange new ways. I thought enduring the diarrhea, teasing, and shame would surely reward me with personal transcendence.

I was wrong.

Monday:

I read that embracing change would make me a more successful person. If you ever wondered how long it takes to embrace change, the answer is simple: three hours. At least that's how long it took me to completely alter my appearance by shaving my beard and bleaching my hair.

I was afraid to do this. I have body image issues. Even though I'm slim-ish my stupid brain tells me I'm fat. I was terrified to see my face under my beard. After five minutes with an electric razor I was feeling good. My neck bloomed with blood from a dull razor and lack of shaving cream. Once the pain subsided, I couldn't help but smile at the smooth baby boy staring back at me in the mirror.

Hello, Slim Shady

The bleach was another story. Bleaching my hair was like rinsing my scalp in napalm. It smelt like it too. As I was showering it out my hair felt like it was matted with bubblegum. The entire process was awful and left my already thin hair feeling delicate and ready to fall out.

Thanks to my new appearance people routinely mistake me for someone else, calling me Bieber, Malfoy, you name it. So it worked, I was already more successful and well on my way to becoming a better person.

What did I learn?

• If your bleached hair feels like bubblegum you're doing it right.
• If you are blonde people call you Malfoy, Blondie, Super Saiyan, and Slim Shady.
• Embracing change should be called embracing ridicule.
• Bleaching your hair makes your hair weak but your mind strong.

Tuesday:

Research told me that learning a new skill would take the limits off my life and open me up to lifelong learning. I searched high and low for a new skill. I couldn't be some Joe Schmoe playing piano, strumming guitar, or juggling fire. My skill had to be cooler. It had to be badass.

Enter Broadsword lessons. I figured swordfighting couldn't be that hard. Turns out, if you think that, you're dead wrong. My first lesson covered the basics of two-handed sword combat. My partner was a real showboat asshole named Tim. He took his time to strike me with sharp prods from the point of his sword. We weren't supposed to make contact so I spotted his typical hunk behaviour from a mile away. He wasn't using "level one speed" like my instructor encouraged. According to the poster on the wall, level one rested just beneath "deliberately slow" and "walking speed." Despite being locked in glacially slow combat, I was drenched in sweat.

Badassery: a journey

Turns out swordfighting isn't just for men with ponytails. It's a highly impractical skill that takes a lifetime to master. I had taken my first step toward lifelong learning.

What did I learn?

• Swords are heavier than you think.
• Using a sword requires incredible rhythm.
• I am weak and have the rhythm of a sedated child.
• Broadswords are highly impractical and insanely exhausting.
• As far as new skills go, it's pretty badass.

Wednesday:

Exercise seems to be a fundamental part of better people. While I too had the desire to improve part of my body, I lacked the will. Not anymore. I was ready to stop looking like Quasimodo and I was ready to suffer for it. I wanted to exercise away the droop in my left eye.

Facerobics were my answer. The strange practise promised to fix my uneven face with a few simple face symmetry exercises. Basically, I had to press my hands into my eyes like goggles and squint harder with one eye than the other. This would activate my "mind-body connection" and my face would fix itself. I shoved my hands into my eyes every hour for two minutes, squinting hard to ensure success.

Turns out putting immense pressure on your face while straining your eyes is painful. Facerobics left my eyes red and raw. I was in pain and my cheekbones were tender. My exercise left my eyes sore, my face red, and my left eye twitching.

I was in pain and from everything I heard that meant the exercise was working! It's a real shame I'll never do facerobics again.

Never again.

What did I learn?

• Straining your eyes all day isn't good for them.
• Facerobics exist and work based on the "mind-body principle."
• The "mind-body principle" is bullshit.
• I'm fine with looking like Quasimodo.

Thursday:

Since I'm a documented asshole, I thought it was time I repented with a good old fashioned fast. After exhaustive research, I realized fasting quickly delivered results that would make me a better person. Fasting meant having better blood pressure, mental clarity, and would allegedly put me closer to God. If it worked, the process would clean my body and my soul, making me the perfect candidate for a better person.

I challenged myself to go 24 hours with just water and black coffee. To start I had ham, eggs, and a mango smoothie at 7:30 AM. I figured I could get through to dinner without issue and I was wrong. At six hours in my hands were drenched in sweat.

Fast pregame

I rode into this fast on zero nutritional value and I was feeling it. I zoned out around 4 PM and started planning my dinner. I got about five minutes into the fantasy before realizing my mistake. Fuck.

After walking home in the sun, my fingers had swollen up and my feet were sweating, which was new. I was ready to pass out. 13 hours in, I was irritated, had no ability to focus and a general lack of interest in anything. I stopped talking and started emanating this acidic smell from my skin and mouth.

Fasting left me less in touch with God than ever. I totally forgot to repent too. Maybe I wasn't becoming a better person after all.

What did I learn?

• Fasting makes you smell terrible.
• When you have a terrible diet, fasting is exhausting.
• It doesn't put you on the mainline to God.
• But it does make you contemplate your life choices.

Friday:

I was in a real rough place after the fast, and I was hungry. I loved food and I was being too hard on myself. Better people were more forgiving. The only solution was to treat myself to a binge. Better people treat themselves to whatever they want all the time, and I needed this. If I was going to make it to the other side, I needed to know what it was like to live in excess.

I started the morning eating two Tim Hortons breakfast sandwiches and feeling sick. Things were off to a good start. I had an intense bowl of wonton soup for lunch with spicy prawns and peanut chicken. Topped it all off with a nice serving of sticky rice and a beer.

Round one

After a few hours, I ate a bag of cheese rings from 7/11 and my bowels felt like they were going to burst. I made emergency brown in the toilet. At 4 PM I drank two beers and finished my bag of cheesies. After work I ate an entire pizza and drank more beer. I was starting to feel a little woozy. I had a double shot of espresso to get the toxins flowing again. I take another emergency brown in the toilet. The night ends with pancakes covered in chocolate sauce, Nutella, whipped cream, and caramel sauce and one more emergency brown.

Round ???

Turns out following up a fast with eating as much filth as you can muster definitely makes you live in excess. Excess diarrhea that is. I didn't enjoy my treats but I certainly did forgive myself.

What did I learn?

• Your stomach shrinks after a fast.
• I like pizza and beer but it makes me slow.
• Eating terribly feels great in the moment, but...
• You can't sweat out the week's poison's with junk.
• Unless you consider diarrhea poison.

Saturday:

It's estimated that Metro Vancouver throws away 13,000 tonnes of healthy, edible food each year. I've heard dumpster diving could easily be the solution. In an effort to be more conscious, I ventured into Vancouver's alleyways to find something edible for myself and perhaps some baked goods for a food bank.

Locked out

Dumpster diving is hard. I headed out in the early morning on Saturday to rescue good food from the green bins and failed. Every dumpster I approached was locked. I retreated and found this map of unlocked dumpsters in Vancouver. I decided to hit as many locations as I could.

After four hours of sticking my face in horrifying pits of waste, the best things I found were a Friends soundtrack CD, and a box for a pregnancy test. My dreams of eating for free and feeding the homeless had been squashed.

With my first defeat of the entire week, I was more conscious but I wasn't any better for it. I was never going to be a better person.

What did I learn?

• Don't look inside pizzeria dumpsters. It is horrifying.
• Most dumpsters are locked.
• Dumpsters house lots of bees during the summer.
• If you're afraid to dumpster dive, fear not, no one cares.

Sunday:

I booked a ninety minute session in a sensory deprivation tank to see if I could reflect on where I went wrong on my journey. I arrived at the Float House and watched this video showing me that "floating" would help me escape stress. The guy at the desk was super mellow and gave me hope. He told me to poop before my float. I was honestly worried about shitting myself.

I pooped and hopped in. The first thing I felt was the scalding touch of salt water against my recently bleached scalp. The pain was only superseded by the fact that I couldn't control the direction of my floating body. My legs kept bumping into the sides and throwing off my float.

No poo zone

My body eventually stabilized, the pain subsided and everything around me faded. It was intense. My body felt like it was turning backwards in zero gravity. After a few backflips, I was sure I was going to see some insane visions. I didn't, but the whole thing culminated in a feeling of intense peace. I felt like I was dead and I was into it.

Ninety minutes went by in an instant. I climbed out of that sensory deprivation tank with a renewed sense of purpose. Am I a better person? Maybe. I did try a lot of new things and I no longer have to explain this article to anyone. I don't know if I'm any better for it but I'm certainly more interesting.

What did I learn?

• People often shit themselves in sensory deprivation tanks.
• Bleached hair and epsom salts don't mix.
• Reflecting on your week will make you feel dead.

Fast tracking my quest to become a better person was hell. I'm no closer to being a role model but I did learn some things. When approaching life, expectations are your greatest enemy. Behave in a way that surprises yourself and you'll see growth. If you open yourself up to new experiences you'll be better for it. Just don't destroy your bowels in the process.

Follow Zac Thompson on Twitter.

You should know the deal by now – previous instalments here and here. However, I got to tell you: UKIP leadership candidates are appalling at keeping their Wikipedia profile photos up to date. And even worse at uploading large-sized images to their Twitter bio to be crunched down. So you're going to have to give me a pass here on poor image quality. I'm sorry: blame, as ever, UKIP.

(via Wikimedia)

STEVEN WOOLFE (NOT ACTUALLY RUNNING BECAUSE HE FUCKED HIS PAPERWORK, LOL)

Steven Woolfe, the tough-but-fair village copper who seems to have it in for you and your skater mates. "OI!" Steven Woolfe says, as you do kickflips off the fountain at the centre of town. "What did I tell you!" He does a trained forward roll to your position and grabs his walkie-talkie. "Alright, names." He writes all your names down in a notebook. "I'm letting you off with a warning this time, but don't do it again." The vibe is broken. You all disband and go home.

That summer is full of grey, warm nights, the kind where the sun never seems to set even though you never see it; the sky is light and full of clouds, and you walk home under it, in your shirt sleeves, thin rain sometimes pattering on your skin, you dragging your trainers down winding country roads. There's a sense that this is the last real summer you'll be free: your dad mentioned something about you getting a pot-washing job next year to pay for your driving lessons, and you know that when you go up to the sixth form in the next town over you'll be leaving a few of your skater mates behind, to apprenticeships, shop jobs, or Guy, the one nailed-on to spend the next three years trying to teach himself graphic design long-distance while living at his mum's house, getting Really Into 4Chan. Your body is skinny and wonky beneath a billowing Slipknot T-shirt. Thin moustache hairs pepper your top lip. You trundle the last few hundred yards home and tiptoe up to your room, laying in bed for four, five hours, before you finally get to sleep. Everything seems both important and not. Your body aches with the stress of being.

Next day, and you and the boys are practising grinds out by the old abandoned bridge. All you can hear is the sound of rushing water, the occasional plink of a stone into the pool by the end of the damn. You're trying to nail this trick but you can't get the balance right: Guy says your toes are in the wrong position, but he rides goofy, so it's impossible to tell whether his advice is worth taking. Up, a moment of air, down. You can't stick the landing. You clamber up the embankment and shuffle over to the edge of the crumbling bridge. They only made it a few years ago – at the base, large columns rise up out of impossibly smooth and clean yellow-grey concrete, the perfect surface to break bottles and set off fireworks and try to explode spray paint cans by hitting them with a really big burnt-at-the-end stick – but the middle sagged and crumbled before they even had a chance to open it, and the whole thing is condemned. People in the town call it a folly. You dangle your knees over the edge and sit back on the palms of your hands. A moment of peace. And then: "OI!"

The Woolfe has found you, out here by the bridge. He runs up to your mates and does a tactical slide to make up the last couple of metres. "Names," he says, standing up, brushing off the glass and the dust. You know our names, Guy says, but he takes them all down anyway. There are, like, three kids in this town. That's all of you. "Where's the other one, the fancy-looking one?" they all shrug as he looks around. You scuffle back from the edge and lie perfectly still on the remains of the bridge, heart thumping in your chest. Distant, below you: "Well, I'm warning you this time. But don't let me catch you at it again."

The next couple of weeks are busy: your mum takes you to Nottingham to buy some clothes, you have a weekend at an aunt's house for a big family birthday party, you go to a hurdling lesson your school organised for over the summer, but soon you find yourself back on your board, in among your mates again. Someone has scored a really thin, measly looking blob of hash – you're convinced it's just a stock cube or something – but you take a long draw on a joint of it anyway, feel your forehead and cheeks glow tingly as you watch wisps of smoke pool above your forehead and the white sun sets. And then you hear a clattering, and Steven Woolfe scythes through the long grass at you with his truncheon, roaring, "AH–HAH!"

It's drugs, so this time he has to book you. You're bundled into the back of a squad car and the air screams in your chest. What will your mum say if you're arrested? What about your dad? You squeak about on the backseat while he goes out and takes down the names of each of your friends, every possible worst case scenario running through your head. What if college finds out and you lose your place on the photography course? What if you never get a job? You heard about a cousin who got booked for pot once, a black sheep, lived up near Liverpool, and now he's in prison. What if you go to prison? You'll die in prison. You've heard about prison. You're too nice for prison. Woolfe clunks into the front seat. The engine whirrs into life. The squad car crunches on the gravel, out away from the grass, down the shale-covered back roads that lead to home. Back to the end of the world.

The air hangs somewhere between grey and blue now, the moment the evening turns into the night. Headlights on but no traffic. A smooth silence. The car pulls over to one side and the engine turns off. Steven Woolfe turns around in his seat, seatbelt stretched appallingly over him. You're nowhere near home. You're nowhere near life. You just realised you don't know where your skateboard is any more. Woolfe is speaking in a low tone. "I can tell you're a good kid," Steven Woolfe says. "A good, good kid." There's a pause. He puts one hand on your exposed knee. It crawls there for a second. "Yo—you're a good lad." Is he... crying? He motions his head down the road. "Don't... don't get in with them." He's definitely crying. "Don't throw your life away with them." You can feel his heart pumping through the thin paper skin of his palm. His fingers squeeze and claw at you, just for an instant. And then he turns back in his seat and drives you home in silence. Somehow, you know it: the truth envelopes you like a shawl, this is the one moment in your life up until now where everything makes sense. As though whispered to you, a sense of knowing in your head: Steven Woolfe will protect you. Steven Woolfe loves you.

(via BillEtheridge.co.uk)

BILL ETHERIDGE

Face of a man who is trying to get a refund on a paddling pool he bought last week at a car boot sale.

(via Ukip.org)

DIANE JAMES

1980s-era Blue Peter presenter they no longer invite to the nostalgic cast meet-up episodes ever since Panorama caught her on camera saying, "Listen, I don't mind the flamers, but frankly I'd never want to touch one."

(via JonathanArnott.co.uk)

JONATHAN ARNOTT

"Embarrassing Bodies superfan Jonathan Arnott, 35, is hoping to meet up with the Channel 4 wart and goitre roadshow once again this year – for a record SIXTH time.

"Jonathan, a University of Sheffield graduate, first appeared on the show in 2012, when Dr Pixie McKenna treated him for a large flap of back skin that had somehow got infected with something.

"He's since been seen by Dr Christian for an ingrown toenail, seen specialists hired by the popular production to look at inflamed hormone pockets in his face and neck, and had a strange stringy piece of flesh and hair removed from the dangly bit between his underwear and his thighs.

"'I'm hoping to see Dr Dawn this time,' mega-fan Jonathan says, with the roadshow expected in Sheffield on August 18th. 'I've not had her and I've heard she's nice – soft, gentle hands, I hope!'

"Jonathan – who refuses to go to actual doctors, during actual GP hours, instead having all of his major medical advice over the past four years delivered to him on pre-recorded TV – is hoping an irritating anal issue that has confounded NHS Direct can be solved by the actual doctors.

"'I reckon it's worms,' says Jonathan, who is single. 'Although it could be a film canister up there as well. Could be owt, really. I don't often look where I'm sitting.'

"'I just hope they get it out,' he continues, the tears softly rising in his face. 'I can't live like this any more. I can't.'"

— Sheffield Telegraph, Saturday August 6th 2018

(via ITV)

LISA DUFFY

Your mum's Avon lady is really mad at her. Your mum never really likes Avon, never really asked for it – the Avon lady, your mum's, shuffles round every Wednesday regardless, from where she lives, some mysterious location two or three streets over – and they make small talk at the back door. Your mum, on the stoop of the back door, fag in hand, leaning on the jamb, quietly placating the Avon lady.

"So this is the mascara," your mum's Avon lady, Lisa Duffy, is saying, scraping a thin clump of it across the back of her hand, "and as you can see that goes on smooth as silk." And your mum is going, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm." Your tea – mash, sausages, gravy from a tin – is congealing on the side. The Avon Lady always comes at dinnertime. "No, I'm alright for mascara." The Avon Lady pauses. "What about foundation? We have a lovely range of true-to-skin foundation." And your mum, keen to shoo The Avon Lady away, keen to watch the Coronation Street she is missing, goes: "Okay." She goes: "I'll have that one, 003."

And The Avon Lady goes: "Well you can't have that yet."

And your mum goes: "What?"

And The Avon Lady says: "You have to fill out this complicated little Avon form, and then I will put the order in."

And your mum, who has already gone to the change jar you have on the side to get out £8 in 50 and 20p pieces, goes: "Oh for fu— no, fine, good."

And The Avon Lady smiles sweetly and says: "It'll be here in about four weeks."

And so the Avon nightmare begins. Wednesday night, little knock, hiya: The Avon Lady is here. "Just letting you know that I put the order in." The order has not come through. But it exists. Out there, in the ether. Avon has been instructed to make your mum prettier. "Alright, see you soon! Ta-ta!" A week later: "Still no foundation, but it's on it's way!" Your mum smiles in silence. "Have I showed you our line of glamour pens?" Another half hour. Your beans have gone cold. Your mum doesn't even wear make-up. Week three, and The Avon Lady is letting herself in now. "Ding-a-ling!" Lisa Duffy says, as you're both sat in the front room watching Catchphrase. "Just got some Avon for you here." Your mum sits upright. "The foundation?" "No," Lisa Duffy says. "Sadly not: they've discontinued that shade. Here's 006." Later, in the mirror, your mum tries the foundation. It's somewhere between purple and brown. "What do you think?" she says. You've never seen her so fragile. This is the woman who made you, raised you, pulled you up from the earth and shaped you into a person. She's the strongest woman you've ever known, will ever know; she's a lioness, she's a Greek God. Her face is brown and purple. "It's... I mean." She snaps and the moon collapses. "It's shit, isn't it? I look shit." Lisa Duffy has broken your mother. Here she is again. "Oh," Lisa Duffy says. "You're not wearing your make-up?" Your mum waves a hand through the air. "No, it— busy day." Duffy hands her a flyer. "We have Avon parties, we do," she says, brightly. "You should come." Your mum promises to look at it. Soon, the phone rings. "Lisa here!" it trills. "Avon Lisa: just wondering if your mum has had a chance to look at my pamphlet?" Your mum is doing a silent cut-your-throat gesture. "Is she there?" You don't know what to do. You can hear breathing. "Yes," you whisper, unaccustomed to lying. You pass the phone over. "Lisa," your mum says, "Hi." When she gets off the phone, 20 minutes later, she refuses to talk to you. That day a rift of trust forms between you that will never, ever heal.

Soon Lisa Duffy lives in your house. She's there on Saturday mornings, tinkling over tea, a spread of greasy lipstick samples fanned across the table. On Tuesday, she invites fellow Avon prisoners over to your mum's house for a party. Soon the sideboard creaks under the weight of contour kits. "But why do you have so much make-up?" you ask, at night, when you and your mum are alone. "I'm thinking we have to move," she says, suddenly, to the air. When the phone rings now, nobody answers it. When the door knocks – the door is always locked now – sometimes you both stand on the stairs and hold your breath. She is there for minutes, sometimes. Once she was there for 20 minutes. She calls through the gauzy window – "I'm just going to pop you a catalogue" – and walks slowly back out down the alleyway. Your mum stays later and work now, finds reasons to be out. She hates this friend she's made through politeness. Lisa Duffy keeps coming to your house at 10PM on Fridays, hauntingly made up and breathless, grabbing your mum by the arm and saying, "Save me, Lorna, I'm on a nightmare first date!" She's infiltrated your life like knotweed on an oak. You cannot escape. "Me and your mum are gal pals, aren't we?" she barks at you, when you climb downstairs to get a glass of water one night, and Lisa Duffy is there with a bottle of £4 rosé and a load of fags. "Love a giggle, we do!"

Soon your mum looks like her, and acts like her too. She streaks blue eyeliner above her lids for low-key Mondays at the office. One time you see her laughing at a pair of deely boppers. The bond she has been forced into has infected her. Lisa is over more and more, cackling in the kitchen, her menthol smoke filling the kitchen. And then one day she slides your mum another pamphlet, yellow and purple this time, like poison. "Have you heard about UKIP?" she says, as if selling an affordable and yet flattering lip kit. "Only, they feel the same about blacks as you and me." And you watch her say it but you can't quite believe the sound. You watch your mum say, "Tell me more."

(via Twitter)

ELIZABETH JONES

Dad's new girlfriend hates his motorbikes and she hates you, too. You didn't even know he had a girlfriend until you went over there last month, and suddenly he had a tablecloth down, and some candles, and his guitars had all been moved upstairs. "Ah, yes," your dad remembers, "that'll be Elizabeth. She'll be over any minute, actually." Dad and Elizabeth (never Lizzy, never Liz) met at a sausage-and-karaoke singles night at the local pub and, three weeks later, she moved in. She has a small son she doesn't see very often because he lives with his dad. She likes order and precision. She hates your father and all his things. She's put your dad's Harleys on eBay. "But dad!" you say. He promised you those. Elizabeth snaps at you. "Those Harleys aren't worth anything sitting in the garage," she says. "Me and your father are going on holiday." She's furrowing her brow at the old laptop screen. "Sixteen hundred, it's up to, Terry. That'll buy me that massage day and all." But dad seems happy, at least, doesn't he? "I'm in hell, son," he whispers to you, as you tuck yourself in on the sofa (your room, the spare room, is now Elizabeth's dressing room – your old records were considered "clutter" and put in the shed, where they succumbed instantly to damp). He's standing alone in the kitchen, lights off, staring out into the garden, darkness enveloping him. All he can see is his own tired, sagging face reflected in the mirror of the kitchen window. "I'm in a hell I can't escape by dying." He walks up the stairs like a condemned man. You're up for three more hours, haunted by the sounds of his fucking.

@joelgolby

More of these:

Judging the Labour Party Leadership Candidates Based on Their Wikipedia Pictures Alone

Judging the Conservative Party Leadership Candidates Based On Their Wikipedia Pictures Alone

Lorna Simpson, Frosty, 2016. Found photograph and collage on paper, 30 7/8 x 24 x 1 1/2 in. (78.4 x 61 x 3.8 cm) framed. Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94, New York

This story appeared in the August issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

Photographer Lorna Simpson, who had her 20-year retrospective at the Whitney in 2007, is famous for her work examining African American identity. In the series from which these images are drawn, Simpson took photos of black women from advertisements in old issues of Ebony and paired them with images from a 1931 textbook.

Spoilers ahead for the fifth episode of The Night Of

The Night Of drips out information so slowly and carefully that it was Sunday's episode, the fifth of the eight-part HBO miniseries, before I realized that, oh yeah, we don't actually know much about the protagonist, do we? Naz, played by Riz Ahmed, went through just a few character-establishing scenes in the first episode (still the series' best) before getting arrested. Since then, he's served as our everymannish guide to the digestive procedures of the criminal justice system. As such, we didn't really need him to have a personality of his own. We knew he was wrongfully accused of murder and terrified of what was happening to him, and that was enough.

After the latest episode, where Naz's motivations and movements on the night of the murder take center stage, we're left wondering: What if he's not so wrongfully accused after all?

We first get the sense that Naz is not pure as driven snow early in the episode, when Freddy (the prisoner-king of Riker's, played by Michael K. Williams) and his associates invite him to finish the beating of the inmate who attacked Naz last time. At first, Naz is horrified by the sight of the bloodied bully laid out on the shower tile, and gives him a half-hearted kick. But one stray insult from the man on the floor and Naz is kicking the life out of him and has to be dragged away. It's the first hint of violence from him, and viewers aren't the only ones surprised—Freddy is looking on, intrigued.

As he tells Naz later, during a rather unnerving midnight cell conversation, "You got some secrets in you, don't you? And some rage. I like it."

Freddy said in the last episode that he was interested in Naz as one of the only other educated men in Rikers, but now a new reason to care about the alleged murderer has emerged: Even if Naz wasn't a criminal before jail, he's clearly got potential to transform into something darker while inside.

Naz's state of mind is the focal point of the other characters as well. Detective Box (Bill Camp) makes a welcome return after a couple of episodes on the bench, and he spends his time reconstructing Naz's movements before the murder. The investigation turns up footage of Naz refusing to give a pair of guys a ride in his borrowed taxi before accepting Andrea, the victim, as a passenger. We know that Naz's infatuation with her was innocent (right?) but to the prosecutor, "He doesn't want two guys in the cab, he wants one girl... This is him making the decision: She's it... This is premeditation."

Another blow to Naz's defense comes in the form of the toxicology report, which finds the expected cocktail of ecstasy, K, and alcohol in Andrea's and Naz's systems—but amphetamine in Naz's alone. After getting the result, the prosecutor barely contains her glee as she crosses off "good boy" on a chalkboard listing Naz's positive traits.

The defense team of John Stone (John Turturro) and Chandra (Amara Khan) is blindsided by the news of the amphetamine. Why didn't Naz tell them about the amphetamine, which was probably as innocent as Adderall? "Because we don't know him," Stone matter-of-factly answers.

We really don't. Ahmed goes from a babe in the woods to a creature of the woods in this episode, joking with Freddy and his crew, buzzing off all his hair, standing in front of the communal rec room TV to demonstrate that he won't back down, taking out his hidden anger on a punching bag. In these moments, his blankness doesn't connote confusion, but hidden depths. When Stone confronts him about the amphetamine in the jail visitors' lounge—the episode's tensest scene—the defendant seems barely interested. He has drugs to smuggle for Freddy, and in the moment his case (let alone his life pre-murder) seem distant objects on a faraway shore.

Beyond Naz, the episode does a good job of showcasing the show's ensemble cast. You have Box on the case like a slightly bored bloodhound, Chandra replacing Naz as the viewer surrogate in her questions about drugs and defense attorney-ing, and the prosecutor (the fantastic Jeannie Berlin) is making sure the medical examiner knows what to say on the stand. Admittedly, a lot in this episode seems merely to be a prologue to the inevitable trial—not the best parts of what's been a fantastic show, but necessary business to move through.

Finally, there's Stone. We're seeing what makes him such a dogged advocate for his clients—if defending petty criminals is a parade of humiliations, well, so is pretty much his entire life. He explains to hostile and bored teenagers why the world needs defense attorneys; he saves Andrea's cat from getting put down even though he's allergic to it; he zaps his eczema under brutal UV lights and wraps his feet in cling film; he can't get an erection, then gets one via Viagra only to be brushed aside by the prostitute who is his sorta-girlfiend. This takes up a lot of time and could be a grim slog, but Turturro can sparkle through even the grungiest sequences. If you're not charmed by him saying goodbye to his cat through a door just after taking a boner pill, you have no soul.

Stone is also the only one really working to solve the murder. Box and the prosecution aren't considering other suspects, obviously, but the lawyer has to—hence his skillful shaking-down of Andrea's drug dealers and his zeroing in on a mysterious bystander named, um, Duane Reade. This was the guy staring at Andrea and Naz as they went inside her apartment on the first episode, a shot so unsubtle it might as well have been accompanied by a duh-duh-DUHHHHH musical sting.

We're going to have to wait at least a week to learn his story, however. At the end of the latest episode, Stone has lost Reade's trail and is alone in the dark. It takes a lot to learn a little in the universe of The Night Of, and that's true no matter which side of the TV screen you're on.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.

A still from Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider

Let's be honest, anything post-lunch is a write-off. Nothing great was ever achieved after a meal deal. Shit gets done between 11am and 1pm.

Clearly Jeremy Corbyn knows this, and has said he'll discuss proposals to reduce the working day to six hours. To put that in perspective, the average working day in the UK is 43.6 hours a week, or 8 hours and 40 minutes a day.

This isn't just a lazy person's fantasy, it makes total sense. The short working day has been supported by many psychologists and academics, who say it's better for worker's productivity, happiness and long-term wellbeing. Some other European countries have started trialling this, and early reports show workers are more focused and company profits have even increased. 

While doing a Q&A with Daily Mirrorreaders, Corbyn was asked what he thought about introducing a similar policy in the UK. He said, "I don't know if I could quite get my job done in only six hours a day but it's something we will be discussing in our recently launched Workplace 2020, the biggest conversation the UK has ever had on the workplace and workers' rights."

Workplace 2020 is a Labour initiative aimed at increasing workers' rights and encouraging trade unions. When Corbyn announced the scheme at the May Day rally in London, he said it was necessary because the UK "is one of the most unequal of modern economies".

Famously, Sweden reported it was moving to a six-hour work day in 2015. Employers at a Toyota centre in Gothenberg, Sweden's largest city, said that staff were happier, the company had a lower turnover of employees and profits went up after it had implemented the reduced hours a decade before. The results there encouraged other companies to try cutting down, and eventually it took off. 



However, some psychologists have suggested that implementing six-hour days could increase stress. "The risk is that people may work more intensively and try to cram more work into a shorter period of time which would increase rather than reduce pressure," Gail Kinman, professor of occupational psychology at the University of Bedfordshire, told the Independent.

This may contradict what we're seeing in practice, though. A year's worth of data from Svartedalens nursing home in Sweden, which implemented the six-hour day, compared staff at Svartedalens with a control group at a similar facility. It showed that 68 nurses who worked six-hour days took half as much sick time as those in the control group. And they were 2.8 times less likely to take any time off in a two-week period. "If the nurses are at work more time and are more healthy, this means that the continuity at the residence has increased," researcher Bengt Lorentzon said. "That means higher quality ." And of course, nurses were 20 percent happier and had more energy at work and in their spare time.

Seriously, please do this thing. Make us happy.

More on Jeremy Corbyn:

Why Corbyn Can't Be Measured Like Other Leaders

An Illustrated Guide to Corbynism

Watch: Jeremy Corbyn: The Outsider

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

Michael Phelps wins his 19th Olympic gold medal in Rio. Photo by GABRIEL BOUYS / Getty

US News

Iran Executes Alleged US Spy
Iran has executed Shahram Amiri, a scientist who allegedly gave the US intelligence about Iran's nuclear program. Amiri disappeared in Saudi Arabia in 2009 and resurfaced a year later in the US before returning to his home country. Iran accused the US of abducting Amiri, but American officials at the time said Amiri had defected of his own accord and provided "useful" information. —CNN

Rubio Against Abortions for Women with Zika
Florida senator Marco Rubio, one of the many Republican candidates for president last year, does not believe pregnant women with the Zika virus should be able to get abortions, despite concerns about birth defects. Rubio, running for reelection in the US state worst hit by Zika, said: "If I'm going to err, I'm going to err on the side of life."—CBS News

Clinton Has 23-Point Lead with Women
Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump by eight points in a new ABC News/ Washington Post poll, growing her support among women since the party conventions. Clinton now holds a 23-point lead with women, her highest mark among women to date, while Trump is leading by ten points among men. —ABC News

Michael Phelps Wins 19th Olympic Gold Medal
Michael Phelps won an unprecedented 19th gold medal for Team USA on Sunday night. Phelps led Caeleb Dressel, Ryan Held, and Nathan Adrian to victory in the men's 4 x 100 relay. The most decorated Olympian of all time, Phelps now boasts 23 Olympic medals: 19 golds, two silvers, and two bronzes.—NBC News

Japanese emperor Akihito. Photo via Wikipedia

International News

Suicide Bomber Kills 63 at Pakistan Hospital
An explosion at a hospital in Pakistan's Quetta has killed at least 63 people. The attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, but no group has claimed responsibility. A group of lawyers had gathered at the hospital after Bilal Anwar Kasi, of the Balochistan Bar Association, was shot dead in a separate incident.—AP

Japanese Emperor Signals Desire to Abdicate
Japan's emperor Akihito has said his deteriorating health means he is finding it difficult to continue in his role. The 82-year-old emperor made only his second-ever televised address to hint that he would like to step down (he's not allowed to directly say he wants to abdicate). Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government would "robustly" discuss the law regarding abdication. —BBC News

Airstrike Hits Hospital in Northern Syria
At least ten people have been killed in airstrikes on a hospital in northwestern Syria's rebel-held Idlib Province. It was not yet clear whether Russian or Syrian government jets targeted the hospital. Farther north in Aleppo, rebel groups have come under intense attacks from the air after cutting government-held supply routes. —Al Jazeera

Thailand Backs Military Constitution
Thai voters have endorsed a new, military-backed constitution, with preliminary results showing more than 61 percent voted in favor, paving the way for a general election. According to a senior official, a democratically elected government should take power in Thailand by December 2017. —Reuters

Author George R. R. Martin. Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Everything Else

'Suicide Squad' Opens Big with $135 Million
Despite receiving terrible reviews, Suicide Squad took $135.1 million in its first weekend, the biggest August opening of all time, and the third-highest opening of the year. Overseas, the Warner Bros. movie took another $132 million. —The Hollywood Reporter

More Bill Cosby Accusers Bring Total to 60
Details of two previous civil suits against Bill Cosby for sexual assault have surfaced. The claims of two women, known only as Jane Doe No. 6 and Jane Doe No. 8, bring the total number of accusers to 60.—The Washington Post

Another George R. R. Martin Project Heads to TV
The author announced that Wild Cards, a superhero anthology he has co-edited for nearly 30 years, has a TV development deal with Universal Cable Productions. "There are thousands of stories to be told," said Martin.—Variety

Russia Banned from the Paralympics
All Russian athletes have been banned from the Paralympics because of concerns over doping, the International Paralympics Committee (IPC) has announced. Philip Craven, IPC president, said the "medals over morals mentality disgusts me." —VICE News

Comet Captured Crashing into the Sun
Dramatic footage has been released of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) comet crashing into the Sun. The spacecraft, operated by NASA and the European Space Agency, was traveling at 1.3 million miles per hour.—Motherboard

Dozens of Alleged Mobsters Indicted
A federal sweep of the Cosa Nostra mob on the eastern seaboard netted dozens of alleged members: 39 suspects were arrested and charged for their alleged roles in a racketeering conspiracy. Feds have dubbed the network the "Enterprise."—VICE News

A suspect is transported from FBI Headquarters to Manhattan Federal Court after authorities arrested dozens in a Mafia takedown on Thursday, August 4, 2016. (Photo by Jefferson Siegel/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

Even if informants are running rampant in mob circles like never before, the Code of Omertà more pop culture catchphrase than criminal fact, the American Mafia is still alive and kicking. Or at least so suggests the sprawling indictment filed by federal prosecutors against 46 alleged members in a massive East Coast bust last week. Charging the men with a smorgasbord of crimes like gambling, loansharking, extortion, arson, gun- and cigarette-running, and conspiracy to commit assault, the feds are also alleging white-collar offenses like health care fraud, credit card fraud and extortionate extensions of credit.

Members of the Gambino, Bonanno, Luchese, and Genovese crime families from New York, along with a crew allegedly led by Joseph "Joey" Merlino in Philadelphia, were collectively labeled "the East Coast LCN Enterprise." Merlino and two Genovese caps—Pasquale "Patsy" Parrello and Eugene "Rooster" O'Nofrio—effectively called the shots, according to the feds. From Mulberry Street in Little Italy to Springfield, Massachusetts to southern Florida to Pennsylvania, the multi-family operation allegedly worked together by reverting to time-honored mob practices like running illegal gambling ventures, strong-arming businesses and (at least talking about) busting kneecaps.

"Today's charges against 46 men, including powerful leaders, members and associates of five different La Cosa Nostra families, demonstrate that the mob remains a scourge on this city and around the country," Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said Thursday.

For some perspective on the bust, we reached out to mob sage Scott Burnstein, co-author of Mafia Prince: Inside America's Most Violent Crime Family and the Bloody Fall of La Cosa Nostra and the man behind Gangster Report, a true crime site. He offered some context on the ideology of the modern mobster, the Joey Merlino-led Philly faction allegedly working with their New York counterparts, and how the game keeps changing—and staying the same.

VICE: At this point, in 2016, why do these guys think they can keep getting away with organized crime in big American cities?
Scott Burnstein: This is all most of these guys know—it's who they are. It's in their DNA. They literally don't know how to live their lives on the straight and narrow and away from crime. Most aren't embarrassed by this fact. They say to themselves,"Hey, I'm a criminal. I'm a bookie. I'm a thief. I'm a hit man. That's what I do. That's my identity." And in some circles that holds weight, so they don't have a negative stigma attached to their behavior in their social strata.

If you are raised in that kind of twisted environment, it's sometimes very hard to break away from it, go in the other direction. A lot literally don't want to.

It's one thing for the feds to make splashy arrests, but is the mob still a threat to public safety? Edward McDonald, who used to prosecute the mob in Brooklyn, told the New York Times, "The Mafia is just not engaging in the significant criminal activities they were involved in the past. I'm not saying the war has been won, but it's pretty close."
The mob in America might no longer be what it used to be in terms of overall power and reach, but it's hardly a thing of the past, and still quite formidable in many areas of the country.

The new indictment includes what most of us might think of as "normal" mafia crimes like assault, gun trafficking, and loansharking, but also a few that surprised me, like health care fraud and credit card skimming. When did the mob get into these white collar crimes?
Many of the Italian mafia families across the nation have sought to diversify their interests into more high-tech, white-collar crimes for a while now, dating back, really, to the 1980s. Smart mobsters in this day and age no longer just line their pockets with traditional rackets (gambling, loansharking, extortion)—and some try to stay away all together. When you compare prison sentences, it makes the most sense.

One name that caught my eye in the indictment was Philadelphia Mafia Don Joey Merlino, who tends to be romanticized as an old school mobster like John Gotii or Lucky Luciano.
For Joey, it's was only a matter of time before he was back in handcuffs. He doesn't know the meaning of keeping a low profile. Why be a gangster if you can't act like a gangster? He's been living like that since his 20s—now he's in his 50s. It hasn't changed. He turns the old underworld adage "Make money, not headlines," completely on its ear. He wants to make money and headlines and give the finger to anyone who gets in his way. His entire last five years since his release from more than a decade in prison has been documented on his and his friend's social media accounts. That's why I call him the "Instagram Don."

What else can you tell us about him?
Very slick, very intriguing, very confident, very vain, very hungry, very dangerous, very lucky. He's always lived life like he's playing with house money and puts a ton of stock in "cool," considerably more than any of his mob-don peers. You could put him on a poster as the picture of the New Millennium mobster, which isn't a good thing for the future of the mafia in this country.

Since Joey got out of prison the last time, what's he been doing? Didn't he say he was retired?
Joey got out in 2011 from a racketeering conviction in Philly and moved to Florida, opening a restaurant and, if you believe the FBI, kept running his mob family from afar through a group of intermediaries. Just like he did in the 1990s when he first made his name on the nation's mafia landscape, he fancied the finest threads, expensive cars and jewelry, frequent high-end steak and cigar dinners and trips to trendy nightclubs and bars with his ever-expanding entourage—all with no visible means of legitimate income.

Genovese crime family mobsters are peppered throughout the indictment. What's the story with this alleged honcho Pasquale Parrello?
"Patsy" is a major player in the Genovese Family, the Cadillac of mob regimes in New York City for years. He runs the Family's Bronx faction and headquarters out of his restaurant, Pasquale's Rigoletto, on Arthur Avenue.

There's also been a lot in the papers since the bust about the East Coast La Cosa Nostra, like it's all one group, instead of separate families working together. Is that the right way to think about it?
Crime families, especially ones on the East Coast and NYC specifically, have always worked together and partnered in mob rackets. In this case, four of the five "Five Families" were allegedly teaming with Joey Merlino's Philly crime syndicate on a series of illegal business ventures. Now, remember, these connections and ties between all these Families could be incredibly loose—except in a conspiracy it doesn't matter. If they're in for a penny, they're in for a pound.

And what about the fifth New York family, the Colombos? How'd they stay out of this sweep?
Rumors are rampant that a superseding indictment is imminent, maybe multiple indictments. I wouldn't be shocked if members of the Columbo Family make into one of those. If not, they're lucky, because make no mistake about it, the Colombos are still around and very active in the New York and New Jersey area.

What makes this criminal subculture so enduring despite bust after bust and prediction after prediction that the party is over?
As I call them, the "Three Pillars" of organized crime are gambling, loan sharking and extortion—they're the lifeblood of any crime family. They've always existed and always will exist. And that's why, in one form or another, organized crime will always hold a place in our society.

Follow Seth Ferranti on Twitter.

'Prey' screenshot courtesy of Bethesda

The Prey reboot revealed at the Bethesda's E3 2016 press conference leans in, just as Morgan Wu does toward the mirror, inviting viewers to speculate on the details—the vacant space station, the unsettling routine, his increasingly bloodshot eye. But I found myself focusing on another aspect: This is an Asian character and a protagonist at that. Not in an indie or B-tier game, seemingly not a paper-thin villain or "Engrish"-speaking comic relief, but the lead in a much anticipated and high-concept title. While we currently know very little about Wu, I will confess that those first glimpses were intensely evocative. You hear it a lot because, for one reason or another, some people still need to accept it: representation matters.

'Prey,' E3 2016 reveal trailer

Prey is not unique in this. It is heartening to see standout examples of positive Asian roles in recent years. It's an obvious starting point, but Mirror's Edge's Faith has been one of the most celebrated examples of lead-character diversity, despite the predictable affront at the lack of overt sexuality from the darker corners of message boards across the world. Elsewhere, Waking Mars's Dr. Qi Liang, a Chinese astrobiologist, is a quieter yet proactive lead with an autonomy that does not deny his ethnicity. Yes, he has a slight accent and, yes, he is a scientist. But neither is used to mock or accentuate his otherness.

F.A.N.G, as seen in 'Street Fighter V,' screenshot courtesy of Capcom

There is a reason Faith is an oft-go-to example. These exceptions are extremely rare and surrounded by the continuation of widely accepted tropes. Street Fighter V's F.A.N.G portrays some of the most classically derogatory Asian stereotypes—villainous, weak, conniving, effeminate—with such ferocity, it is astounding that it passed through so many eyes in Capcom without comment and continues to do so with its players. Asian and Middle Eastern characters are placed strictly as the enemy, cannon fodder in Call of Dutys and Battlefields or minor gangs in Grand Theft Autos, without the tonic of more nuanced representation elsewhere that might quell the dehumanizing effect of social stereotypes.

There is no doubt that games like Sleeping Dogs and SEGA's Yakuza series display a varied array of Asian characters, but the heroes are trained martial artists, triad members, tough guys. They do go out of their way to paint with more discerning brushstrokes on the sidelines of the main quests, but there are still plenty of disappointing stereotypes to be found in these games, likewise Koei Tecmo's Dynasty Warriors franchise. There's undeniably a degree of "Orientalism" about these productions, which can come across as a fetishization of established, and out-dated, Asian tropes.

'Yakuza 5' announcement trailer—the game is currently available (in August 2016) for "free" via PlayStation's PS Plus service

The issue of representation is perhaps more difficult to confront because Asians have always occupied a significant presence in games history, culture, and production, creating the assumption of a non-issue. China, Japan, and South Korea are strong markets for video games with their own idiosyncrasies, studios and market influence, and are certainly as responsible for propagating these tropes as Western developers and publishers. Nor do Asian men experience the same career barriers within the tech sector and generally are not currently under the extremities of harassment and hate felt by others: not under threat of deportation or assumptions of terrorist sympathies, nor under fear of trigger-happy law enforcement. Fortunately, there has been no organized social-media movement against Asians—although some of the coarser language certainly focused on ethnicity—but rather a continuous disregard.

Nevertheless, 49 percent of Asian American respondents to a 2015 Nielsen survey "strongly disagreed" with the statement of "all races have ample representation/inclusion in video game characters." This is more than twice as high as Hispanic and African American respondents, and similarly more than twice as high than women that "strongly disagreed" with the same statement toward gender.

Article continues after the video below

Not into the kicking and the stabbing? Watch VICE's film on the Japanese love industry.

Why is there so little discussion around this? While the dialogue surrounding diversity is becoming increasingly widespread, to exciting and brilliant results, there is a lamentable absence of discussion regarding Asians; neither celebrated during peaks of positivity and going largely unnoticed by communities passionately championing diversity in games. This absence of recognition can be seen in other spaces: most of us know African American/Puerto Rican Miles Morales as the new Spider-Man, Pakistani-American Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel, and presumably African American Riri Williams as the forthcoming new Iron Man. But from what I saw, at least, there was a lot less social-media buzz when Amadeus Cho became the (totally awesome) Hulk in 2015.

This quiet isn't a sign of acceptance. It does not denote the absence of the problem but an unwillingness to show awareness and forge a conversation around it. For as long as this absence is felt, there is no drive for improvement. There are bigger problems to deal with, or it's worse for women, or Asians have it good enough, or It's up to them to speak up about it are claims I have witnessed far too often for comfort. All are statements with varying degrees of accuracy and spoken not as resolution but evasion. There is always an excuse for passivity, a reason not to care or confront.

New, on Motherboard: Nutaku Is Building the Steam of Hentai Sex Games

'Mirror's Edge Catalyst,' the sequel to the original game of 2009, came out earlier in 2016

From this, the litany of micro-aggressions, of denigrating stereotypes considered acceptable to peddle will permeate unabated. In general terms, Asian woman continue to be prizes or villainesses, Asian men continue to be faceless martial artists or emasculated. Game makers, producers and, arguably most important, its audience have tremendous power to either assert these stereotypes or resist them. Mirror's Edge and its sequel, Waking Mars and, hopefully, Prey are steps to deliver a much needed change in representation.

This isn't a call to divert attention, or a protest against other minorities "that have it better," a falsehood I'm cautious to avoid. There is space within all of games culture to confront representation of the trans community, abuse of women in tech industries, and the desire to see a diversity of storytelling that reflects gaming's audience, among others. But perhaps it's time to realize that there has long been an invisible people who also need this conversation to happen for them. I sincerely hope to see this happen, soon.

Follow Khai Trung Le on Twitter.

More from VICE Gaming:

What Does a Former NASA Employee Think of 'No Man's Sky'?

The Old-School Arcade Classic 'Battlezone' Is Now an Awesome VR Game

An Arbitrary Top 10 of the Best Sonic the Hedgehog Games

Fentanyl patches typically prescribed for terminal patients. Photo by Tom Gannam/Associated Press

Palliative care doctors in Ontario are hoping the provincial government will back off a plan that would stop them from prescribing high doses of opioid painkillers like fentanyl and hydromorphone for patients near the end of life.

Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Game of Thrones creator and master procrastinator George R. R. Martin announced Saturday that another one of his projects will be making its way to television, Variety reports.

The author announced on his personal blog that the production company UCP has acquired the rights to Wild Cards, a comic book and novel series that Martin has been helping to edit since 1987.

It's not clear if the show could be the new obsession Game of Thrones fans are waiting for, as viewers can expect a wildly different fantasy universe from that of Westeros. The Wild Cards series is set in post-WWII America, after a deadly virus kills most of the population but leaves a small percentage of the survivors with superhuman abilities. The series spans a collection of 22 books, written by a bunch of different authors, but shares the central characters and ideas that Martin created.

"Wild Cards is a series of books, graphic novels, games... but most of all it is a universe, as large and diverse and exciting as the comic book universes of Marvel and DC (though somewhat grittier, and considerably more realistic and more consistent), with an enormous cast of characters both major and minor," Martin wrote on his blog.

The author won't be able to work on the show directly because of his exclusivity contract with HBO, but his assistant editor Melinda Snodgrass—who's helped him work on the series—will be an executive producer on the project.

Martin estimates that the series should make its way to screens in the next year or two, but there's no telling if fans will latch on to it the way they have with all the nudity, dragons, incest, and bloodlust that Game of Thrones has offered.

Read: 'Game of Thrones' Fans Should Probably Start Looking for a New Show to Watch

All images courtesy of Sony

Sony will reveal the first details on an upgraded PlayStation 4 at a September 7 event in New York, French gaming website Gameblog reported today. VICE Gaming can confirm that it's heard the same information from multiple sources familiar with the planned rollout for the new machine. These sources chose to remain anonymous because they are not authorized to speak publicly about Sony's plans.

The upgraded PlayStation 4 (which Patrick first reported on back on in March for Kotaku) has the internal codename "Neo." (Sony's VR project was codenamed "Morpheus," both a reference to the sci-fi movie The Matrix). It's unclear what it will be called when the hardware is formally released, though some developers have nicknamed it the "PlayStation 4.5."

Just prior to E3 this year, Sony confirmed the existence of an upgraded PS4 to the Financial Times,revealing it was "intended to sit alongside and complement the standard PS4" and that every PS4 game would continue to run on the current hardware. The company didn't comment on the technical upgrades, though Giant Bomb reported in April it would feature an updated CPU, GPU, and more RAM.

One source, who chose to remain anonymous, described the upcoming event as a "technical showcase." As recently as a few weeks ago, Sony was still nailing down what would actually be shown.

Another source indicated to VICE Gaming that finalized development kits would be sent to developers around the same time.

Follow Patrick Klepek on Twitter, and if you have a news tip you'd like to share, drop him an email.

Follow Austin Walker on Twitter.

Illustration by Dan Evans

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

In the modern British workplace, you can't be fired or discriminated against in any way on the grounds that you're HIV positive. That would be a criminal offense. Notifying your employer isn't a legal requirement, but if you do chose to disclose your status and are met with anything other than support, confidentiality, and reasonable adjustments, then your employer has almost certainly broken the law.

Part of the Equalities Act 2010 was created to lessen its impact in employment and ensure disclosure wouldn't jeopardize careers or future opportunities. Under the legislature, people with HIV cannot be treated less favorably under any circumstances. But thanks to the stigma and misunderstanding surrounding HIV, some have found it wholly ineffectual.

Had Shaun* stayed silent about his own diagnosis, he wouldn't be fighting to save his career. "I have felt over the past two years that they were looking for ways to get me," he says. For the last six years, Shaun has worked in the insurance department of a FTSE 100 British supermarket chain and has asked for anonymity as the situation is ongoing.

He received his diagnosis one Monday lunchtime in September of 2013. Disorientated, he returned to work the following morning, but by 9:30 AM, he found himself coerced into a meeting room while human resources tried to determine the cause of his visible distress. Despite his best efforts to resist disclosing his status—one he had barely begun to come to terms with—he was told he would be sent home if he refused to explain his discomfort.

"I felt forced. I wasn't ready to say it myself, to anyone, never mind the HR person who I don't really know," he recalls. "I disclosed. She literally just went, 'I'll need to go and check whether I'll need to tell all the first aiders.' I was like, 'I don't even have to tell you, never mind anyone else.' I got a message in the afternoon saying they had checked, and they didn't need to tell the first aiders."

Shaun was under no legal obligation to disclose his status to anyone in his company. Six weeks later, they displayed an offensive level of ignorance around the subject.

"They took me into a room and told me they'd done some research and that if I cut myself at my desk, or in the building, to make sure that someone comes into the room and cleans it up," says Shaun. "I believe my words were, 'Well of course, if you were a negative person you would just lie in a pool of your own blood, wouldn't you?' That just angered me even more because where have they researched it? Where have they got that information from?"

The Equalities Act 2010 states employers are to make reasonable adjustments with regards to people living with HIV, the most common being time off for clinic appointments. Despite an attendance track record Shaun describes as "exemplary" (before his diagnosis he hadn't taken sick leave since 2009), his employer began tracking his absences on a spreadsheet stored on the company server.

"My head of department wanted to know which appointments were not covered by the Equalities Act, with no details or explanation to me as to why they wanted that information," explains Shaun. "I said, 'You're making me feel like you're out to get me. And, allegedly, that's not the case. I don't believe them, but at the same time, they said because I'm spending so many hours out of the business, they were trying to quantify how much work I had done."

When he disclosed his status, Shaun was stunned by how little his employers knew about HIV—especially with regards to employment law. This was, after all, the well-resourced HR department of a FTSE 100 company; that they can brazenly display such ignorance—not to mention intolerance—and get away with it doesn't bode well for people living with HIV who work in much smaller businesses.

Alice* started working as a sales consultant at a London-based recruitment firm—a small company with five employees—four months after her diagnosis. Shortly after starting her medication, she fell ill and decided to let her boss know, meeting up with him in a pub outside of office hours.

"It was just awful," she says, recalling his reaction to her disclosure. "Straight away I could tell it was the wrong thing to do because his eyes widened and then he said, 'When am I gonna get AIDS? When am I gonna be ill?' He started to freak out and then said he needed to change the contract because if I fell over he was going to be sued. He said, 'Why the hell didn't you say? I think it's so unfair that you didn't say.' I thought he would thank me for telling him and maybe be a bit shocked. I was speechless."

The conversation lasted around 40 minutes, with topics ranging from the potential dangers of sharing cups and cutlery in the office (there aren't any dangers), the jokes he had previously made about people with HIV in the office (which he then denied making), the fact he needed her parents' number in case anything happened to her (he didn't), and his anger that he wasn't told sooner.

The discussion finished constructively with a promise that he'd put together a workable plan. She never made it back into the office. Instead, she received an email stating that she'd failed to pass her probation and wouldn't be kept on. Compared to a previous conversation Alice had with him, it made for a sharp change of direction.

"He honestly was like, 'You're gonna make loads of money,'" says Alice, considering their relationship prior to his disclosure. "We were working really closely together, starting to do other projects."

While Shaun and Alice have faced difficulty from their employers on account of their HIV status, Jayce Carberry, 26, from Medway, Kent, suffered from the prejudice of his clients. He received his diagnosis in 2012 and at the time was working as a freelance hairdresser. When the rumors about his diagnosis started to spread through his relatively small hometown, he chose to own the situation and address them with a Facebook status.

"I was doing really well, and I was busy all of the time," says Carberry. "I text to confirm appointments, and I would get a text or a phone call back saying, 'I read on Facebook about your HIV, and I don't really feel comfortable with you cutting my hair.' I would say I lost a good 40 percent of my client base."

The most common reason his clients abandoned him was their irrational fear of what would happen if he cut himself on his scissors, and they came into contact with his blood (very little, is the answer). With a sharply diminished client list, he tried to return to a salon he previously worked at and invested in. He was told hiring him "would be a risk to the reputation of the salon." He had previously left the salon on good terms, and the owner was supposedly a friend.

"I gave up hairdressing. It was demoralizing with all that going on," he says. "I got really depressed about it and hid away from the world for a couple of months and lived off my savings for a while. And then I went to sign on. I had no other option." Carberry has since moved to Brighton. As well as setting up a blog detailing his journey, he now manages a sexual-health website for the METRO Charity.

There's a definite sense that fighting, even if you're on the right side of the law, is difficult, if not impossible. While Shaun may yet find himself in an employment tribunal, Alice chose to avoid a lengthy and expensive trial. As Jayce Carberry was self-employed, he has no case at all.

Legal fees, time constraints, lack of evidence, ignorance around employment rights—the reasons why HIV discrimination in the workplace often goes unpunished and underreported are numerous. But the stigma and misunderstanding of HIV is what enables the law to continually be undermined. Until companies—and the general public—gain better knowledge of what the virus is, these stories will sadly continue to repeat themselves.

*Names have been changed to protect identity.

Follow Chris Godfrey on Twitter.

As society's grown more concerned with "clean-eating" and counting calories, we've become obsessed with how to burn those calories off. And since the dawn of Fitbits and Meat Free Mondays, "eat less, run more" no longer cuts it. We want quantifiable data – preferably something we can share on social media, between posting our daily 5K run times and endless photos of our moist, rippling, post-workout biceps.

What the world's content farmers have come up with are those snackable online factoids that tell you how to burn off your favourite junk food via absolutely implausible methods. A man has to lift weights for five hours and 53 minutes to work off a large Big Mac meal; a woman has to rollerblade for four straight hours to burn off a Chipotle chicken burrito; that kind of thing.

Of course, this represents a pretty unhealthy way to be healthy: a binge-purge approach that favours extremes over moderation. That said, I love Big Macs and bizarre physical punishment, so who am I to swim upstream? If it theoretically works for Food That Is Bad for You, could this "offsetting" tactic be applied to other vices, like regularly taking way more drugs than you ever should?

Are there ways to negate the effects of narcotics over time? Could I mitigate the harms of casual alcoholism by drinking more celery smoothies? Can you repair a cocaine-damaged heart by doing 900 press-ups every single morning for the rest of your life? To find out, I spoke to a handful of drug and exercise experts.

FOUR TINS OF BEER

Following my transition from late-teens to late-twenties, my fears over alcohol have shifted. Where I once worried, 'Will I get too shitfaced and puke on a dog at this girl's house party?' I now wonder, 'Will a fourth can on a Tuesday bring forward my early death from heart disease?'

To see if exercise could reverse the effects of a four-pack, I called up Joseph Van Der Merwe, a personal trainer and strength and conditioning coach from London. "There are about 600 calories in four tins, depending on the brand, so you're probably looking at 30 to 40 minutes of pretty hard running ," he said.

According to Dr. Adam Winstock, founder of the Global Drug Survey (GDS) and a Consultant Psychiatrist, there's one demographic that regularly practices this sort of approach. "The group of people that I've seen do this most would be gay guys who go out chemsex-ing," he said. "They will party hard Friday, Saturday, Sunday; then Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday they'll be in the gym." Does that offset the weekend? "The answer is no, it doesn't. But if you're going to cane it at the weekend, is it better that the rest of the time you're living a happy and healthy lifestyle; you're exercising, not smoking and going to the gym? Absolutely."

Joe agrees that it's better to gym than not gym, but adds: "The idea that you're gonna protect yourself from drugs and alcohol through nutrition and exercise is like trying to fight a house fire with a wet sponge."

A TEN BAG OF WEED

Someone smoking weed at a 4/20 rally in Hyde Park (Photo: Jake Lewis)

Guy Jones, a chemist working for harm reduction and drug testing organisation The Loop, explains that the THC in weed affects the endocannabinoid system in the brain, which is responsible for many things, including hunger control and sleep regulation. A few years ago, during a particularly heavy assault on my endocannabinoid system, a friend started choking on whipped cream. The prospect of my friend dying at the hands of a dessert topping really shook me, and I remember my high being totally erased by the ensuing panic.

I can't remember exactly how much I'd smoked, but I asked Guy if fear was a viable way to counteract the effects of an occasional ten bag, or about a gram. "The adrenaline won't stop the cannabis from being in the system," he said, "but it will absolutely affect what we call downstream signalling from the cannabinoid receptors... so yes, it is entirely possible to generate a moment of clarity ."

Of course, the primary issue with cannabis is the fact you're sucking burning plant matter into your lungs – and if you're European, there's most likely some tobacco in the mix. As Guy says, "Tobacco is a phenomenally toxic and carcinogenic drug. The number one harm reduction tip for cannabis is to not smoke it with tobacco." Unfortunately, according to Joe, spring-cleaning your lungs through exercise is just not a thing. "The idea that you can, say, run for ten miles to clear your lungs of carcinogens... it's not going happen."

A GRAM OF COKE

One big thing about cocaine – everywhere outside of South America, at least – is that it's cut with all sorts of nasty stuff because dealers are cheap bastards, and that stuff has varying effects on the body (although it's unlikely any of it will make your skin rot away, as was reported last year). But no matter how diluted your cocaine, it's going to "cause problems in the heart because it blocks nerve signals, interrupting the electrical rhythm that causes it to beat nicely", said Guy.

Everyone I spoke to said there's no surefire way to mitigate this side-effect. "People think drinking alcohol with coke is quite a useful way of offsetting that jittery effect you get," said Adam. "But that combination itself is actually much more dangerous, because of course you end up doing more coke and more alcohol, which is bad for your heart and liver." Guy agrees: "The harm reduction tip that I would give for cocaine, rather than focusing on its own specific effect on the heart, is to keep alcohol intake low."

How about, I asked Joe, if your heart is a well-tuned machine with a resting rate of 30bpm, like Lance Armstrong? "He wouldn't recover from it quicker, but he'd probably be less likely to die."

Long-term regular cocaine use can also lead to heart tissue swelling and scarring, and while the swelling is reversible via exercise and not doing loads of gear all the time, the scarring – which results in permanent damage to the heart and a potential early death – is not.

A GRAM OF MDMA

Some MDMA (Photo: Michael Segalov)

Unlike cocaine, MDMA doesn't directly interfere with electrical impulses in the heart. But, as Guy explained, "It does put extra stress on the heart because it constricts blood vessels, raising blood pressure and making the heart work harder."

Again, it's difficult to combat damage to the heart – but of all the drugs I asked about, MDMA was the only one where nutrition seemed to play a role in helping with the psychological comedown. Over-the-counter supplements, like the amino acid 5HTP, can help replenish serotonin – the "joy chemical" sapped from your brain during MDMA use, making you feel depressed the day after – as can amino acid-rich food like turkey, salmon and quinoa.

Thing is, said Adam, it's always better to eat healthily, whether you're on drugs or not. Ruth Kander Bsc, a consultant dietician, agreed with this slice of common sense – "It's always better to have spinach and a banana than a fry up" – and dismissed the notion that a good diet could outweigh the destructive nature of these drugs: "If you're drinking huge amounts and you're taking drugs, you're wreaking havoc with your body, and nothing is going to fix that."

A GRAM OF KET

Given the harmful nature of these drugs, coupled with variables like purity and personal tolerance, tuns out there really aren't many ways to reduce the damage they cause. Weirdly, though, the one drug most likely to totally and completely fuck you up is also actually kind of, vaguely, relatively safe. Here's Guy to tell you how ketamine works:

"Ketamine blocks nerve signals from the brain to the body and vice versa. In a very small amount it produces what many describe as a pleasant disassociation – almost a generic feeling of being high. Higher doses will eventually cause the user to enter a completely anaesthetic state, where they're unable to move and they 'exist' entirely within their head – commonly referred to as the K-hole."

And even if you're one of those weird idiots who does monster lines specifically so you can K-hole, you're using a drug that comes in pretty low on the harm scale—way below alcohol, tobacco and cannabis. "Ketamine is a surprisingly safe anaesthetic, to the extent that it's on the World Health Organisation's list of essential medicines," said Guy. "And the doses it would be administered as an anaesthetic would be much higher than the typical recreational dose."

Of course, this shouldn't be any sort of justification to hammer a gram of ket every weekend. The long-term damage of heavy use includes scarring of the bladder, which can become so severe that you may need a transplant. Everyone I spoke to said the only way to limit the long-term effects of K is to stop doing K.

FIVE NOS BALLOONS

People taking NOS outside Westminster in protest against the Psychoactive Substances Act (Photo: Chris Bethell)

According to the Global Drug Survey, NOS is now the seventh most popular drug in the world. Given the short high and small price, you can see why.

As I've previously done balloons and felt absolutely fine seconds later, I asked Adam if there are any long-term effects of nitrous. "Data from from over 16,000 nitrous oxide users recruited as part of Global Drug Survey 2015 and 2016 showed that about 4 percent of users reported symptoms that were consistent with developing a peripheral neuropathy – nerve damage – persistent tingling in their feet and fingers," he said. "And that's due to inactivation of vitamin b12."

So is there any way to protect yourself from this kind of damage? "The easiest thing? Take less balloons," said Adam. "But you could also supplement yourself with vitamin b12."

If you read all that and you're now thinking of popping out to Holland & Barrett for a bottle of b12 and some 5HTP, take note of what Adam told me: "Taking drugs isn't like debit and credit; there isn't the fat burning equivalent. What you need to do is use drugs smartly and, otherwise, stay happy and healthy. Don't smoke, do exercise, don't be overweight, because they're actually way more important – the things that predict whether you're going to die young aren't whether or not you do a bit of coke at the weekend or have the odd spliff, it's whether you're fat, whether you smoke, your family history and your socioeconomic status."

That last point stuck out. Speaking to Adam, it seemed that one of the few ways to prevent "the ravages of drug use" is to not be poor. Adam knows this better than anyone. "A lot of the people I treat have had very disadvantaged lives and very little resources. It makes them more vulnerable and less likely to go and see a GP, less likely to be able to afford to buy vegetables and salad and fresh fruit," he said.

"A very middle class, Guardian-reading clique like the idea that they go to yoga, and they're vegetarians, and therefore they can do these drugs and they're more protected. But it's not that they're protected; it's just that they've got more physical and social capital, so drugs are less likely to knacker them."

Sorry to be a giant buzzkill, but the long-term effects of these drugs are just too destructive to be abated by the addition of some organic food and a bit of exercise. So if you're looking for the best ways to minimise harms, just do drugs sensibly and in moderation, or don't do drugs at all.

"Everything you do – every decision that you make – has an impact on your life. So, yes, you can potentially increase your lifespan by eating more healthily, exercising more healthily and sleeping more healthily," said Guy. "But if you were truly dedicated to your own personal health then you would probably never take drugs. Mind you, you might also never leave the house, because crossing the road is pretty dangerous."

@JackBlocker

More on VICE:

We Went Drug Testing at Secret Garden Party to See What Weird Shit Ends Up in Your Drugs

Why You Get 'Brain Zaps' After Taking MDMA, and How You Can Stop Them

What Your Choice of Drug Slang Says About You

Image by Gustavo Larrazabal

Cincinnati, home of culinary innovations like putting chili and about a pound of cheese on spaghetti, now has the only ATM in America that spits out pizzas.

According to Cincinnati.com, the forward-thinkers at Xavier University have placed the machine in the common area of a dorm. When it gets switched on sometime in the next few weeks, it will extrude piping-hot, disk-shaped items that will apparently meet the accepted definition of "pizza."

Jennifer Paiotti, a marketer for student services at Xavier, told a local TV news station, "It is the best pizza I've ever had, and I hate to admit that as a New Yorker." It's a shocking admission, but it's easy to believe the pizzas will at least be palatable. Even Little Caesar's $5 Hot and Ready Pizzas—some of which are available near Xavier University—will fill the food void when you're in college, and those have usually been fermenting in an oven all day by the time you eat them. In contrast, ATM pizzas will be baked-to-order.

And unlike food from one of Cincinnati's many pizzerias, which often require customers to endure tyrannies like "saying words to people" and "making eye contact," the oven-fresh, Italian-flavored objects available from the Xavier's Pizza ATM can be purchased without anyone witnessing your shame, any time, day or night.

The ATM—reportedly the first of its kind on US soil—will be loaded with 70 uncooked pizzas per day. They'll be stored in a refrigerator onboard until someone orders via touchscreen. Once that happens, it will trigger a complex chain reaction involving inside the ATM that will eventually spit a pizza through a hole for you after three minutes.

It's probably worth noting that the pizza ATM doesn't seem to actually dispense money along with the pizza, so this is probably more of a vending machine and less "automated teller machine," but whatever.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Follow Leslie Stein on Instagram, Tumblr, and buy her books from Fantagraphics.

Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart are teaming up to bring VH1 a brand new cooking show, Variety reports.

The show, which pits the rapper alongside the lifestyle guru-slash-white collar criminal is tentatively titled Martha & Snoop's Dinner Party, and is being billed as some kind of cooking-competition show with a few celebrity guests.

Snoop and Stewart already have a history together. Snoop made an appearance on Martha Stewart's show back in 2008, where he helped her make mashed potatoes—the whole thing was basically her bossing him around while he threw out some catchphrases. Stewart loosened up a bit after they both appeared on Comedy Central's Roast of Justin Bieber, where Stewart later claimed she got a "contact high" from Snoop's nearby blunt. She'll probably have to get used to that once the new show starts.

"My homegirl Martha and I have a special bond that goes back. We're gonna be cooking, drinking, and having a good time with our exclusive friends," Snoop Dogg told Variety. "Can't wait for you to see how we roll together!"

Snoop also has a new scripted comedy in development for MTV, called Mary + Jane, so maybe we'll see Martha Stewart and their "exclusive friends" dropping by for a three-episode arc or something, too.

Watch: We Got High with Snoop Lion

Image by Whitney & Irma Sevin/Getty Images

This piece was published in partnership with the Influence.

Known in drug lore as "the businessman's trip" for its lunch-break-size 15-minute duration, DMT (N,N-dimethyltryptamine) is infamous for blasting its users into vivid alien worlds. It's among the most literally hallucinogenic of all the psychedelics, and now a pair of veteran researchers have proposed a method to safely extend the experience beyond its normal length.

Dr. Rick Strassman and Dr. Andrew Gallimore published their paper in Frontiers in Psychology last month, under the name "A Model for the Application of Target-Controlled Intravenous Infusion for a Prolonged Immersive DMT Psychedelic Experience." Its implications could turn DMT research on its head, allowing for new scientific (and potentially medical) insights into the principle ingredient in ayahuasca.

Using techniques borrowed from anesthesiology, the method will regulate the amount of DMT in the body and, more important, the brain. Though still untested on no-doubt-willing psychonauts, Strassman and Gallimore's technology is all but ready for assembly.

Strassman, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2001) and DMT and the Soul of Prophecy (2014) and perhaps the world's foremost clinical DMT researcher, argues the substance provides access to what users experience as mystical states, comparable to those described in the Hebrew Bible.

Gallimore, a computational neurobiologist, is also a historical scholar of DMT. His overview "DMT Research from 1956 to the Edge of Time" recounts a wide range of possibilities researchers have offered over the years (including the notion that DMT is a doorway into an alternate universe). Other theories involve its role in human brain at the time of death, as well as countless South American beliefs inseparable from ayahuasca and DMT snuff traditions.

But perhaps the only universal experience of smoked DMT is its brevity.

"DMT has a number of pharmacological peculiarities," says the British-born Gallimore, who is also a chemist and pharmacologist and currently works at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan.

Besides being nontoxic, he says, "It's very short acting, and it doesn't exhibit subjective tolerance with repeated use. This is quite remarkable, because all other psychedelics exhibit very rapid tolerance, so you have to wait for days before you can get the same effect. This lack of subjective tolerance suggested to me that you could use a continuous drip-feed of DMT rather than a bullous injection, which is what Rick used study of psilocybin," he adds, "was this reduction, this global decrease in neural activation, and everybody was expecting the complete opposite.

"They did find interesting effects in the visual cortices and how that connected to different parts of the brain," Gallimore continues. "With DMT, it's a whole different game: How does the brain seeing visions in the DMT state differ from seeing the world normally? What can we learn from that?"

To many people who have used DMT, or even just been gripped by sci-fi-like DMT experience reports, the single-most enthralling prospect is to find out what happens when a trip gets longer.

"One of the most interesting characteristics of the DMT space is the presence of what appeared to be sentient, intelligent, highly interactive 'beings,' of various structure and functions," says Strassman. Volumes of articles and books and Terence McKenna orations have been devoted to the DMT phenomenology, McKenna famously describing the beings as "self-transforming machine elves of hyperspace," an experience reported far beyond McKenna.

"A prolonged immersion in the DMT state would allow for a much more thorough investigation of the 'beings'' nature," says Strassman, "and in particular, provide a less hurried opportunity to establish communication with them. This was one of the issues raised by many of my volunteers: that there just simply was not enough time to establish effective and fulsome communication."

With ayahuasca moving into the global eye, and the climate for psychedelic research opening up to unprecedented levels, close examination of the brew's most central chemical seems more important than ever.

Some are studying DMT's exciting potential medical uses, including tissue regeneration, but the substance continues to be a part of the world's psychedelic spiritual practices, both as an ingredient in ayahuasca and on its own. In Australia, a debate is under way on the possibility of legalizing small amounts for religious purposes. In Israel earlier this year, a group was arrested for importing DMT and allegedly running ceremonies for hundreds of participants at a time.

Strassman, who chronicled the emotional strain of his large-scale DMT project in The Spirit Molecule, says he is "no longer doing hands-on research," though he points out that there are several active teams who might pick it up. Though they have yet to announce their formal plans, Gallimore recently helped review a DMT protocol for Robin Carhart-Harris at London's Imperial College, who intends to make DMT a focus of his work soon.

"At the moment, we don't have any immediate intentions to apply for funding or approval to actually implement the model," says Gallimore. "There are a couple of questions left, such as: What would this technology be used for? If you're going to get approval and funding for an implementation, you can't go in and say, 'Well, we want to establish contact with entities in an alternate dimension,' because you'd be laughed out of the room."

The methodology of any research remains very much an open question. The clinical set and setting of Strassman's 1990s work was criticized by some, notably then-imprisoned LSD chemist Nick Sand, the first underground chemist to synthesize DMT outside of a proper lab, making a batch in a Brooklyn bathtub in the early 1960s.

Writing under the pseudonym "∞ Ayes" in The Entheogen Review in 2001, Sand argued that to look for concrete structure within the experience was to misinterpret it. "What is important are the feelings and the hidden meanings you experience from entering into the vastness, and the new consciousness that can result," Sand wrote. "This is the glimpse that can open your soul to the sacred." Though he would step back from some of his harsher criticisms in a follow-up piece, the skepticism remains useful.

Given the inner-space parameters of any future DMT experiments with the new model, sending users to a space where the active aid of even a trained guide can't offer real-time help, finding the proper container for the DMT experience seems nearly as important any other safety procedure. In looking for objective properties to a subjective experience, any study will surely have to strike a balance.

Though Gallimore doesn't identify as a psychonaut—"I have a healthy respect for psychedelics," he says, "bordering on fear"—he imagines the end result of this innovation being built for more personal journeys.

"Although we frame the model in more academic terms for the journal," he says, "I actually envision a time in the not-too-distant future when you will lie down next to one of these machines, insert a cannula, input your desired journey time, and set off to the universe next door—a sort of anti-Matrix machine."

Many futures await.

Jesse Jarnow is the author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America (Da Capo, 2016). Follow him on Twitter, and check out his weekly Heads News bulletin.

This article was originally published by the Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.

All images courtesy of Biara Webster

Public speakers are often told to imagine that they are clothed and their audience is naked, in order to bolster their confidence. So the opposite—being naked when everyone else is clothed—is a nightmarish prospect for most people. We spoke with pro life model Biara Webster to find out exactly how it feels to stand for hours on end in your birthday suit while strangers pay very close attention to every inch of your exposed body.

This story appeared in the August issue of VICE magazine. Click HERE to subscribe.

Eva O'Leary's photography, with its crisp, bright colors, demands attention. Now based in Brooklyn, O'Leary grew up between Ireland and a remote part of Pennsylvania nicknamed Happy Valley. This left her feeling that she never fully belonged in either place, which made her acutely aware of the ways identity and experience are constructed, something evident in her beautiful, eerie portraiture and landscapes.