RnB's reigning princess. All photos courtesy Jim Cooper/Associated Press.

"It's been too long and I'm lost without you, what am I gonna do? / Said I been needin' you, wantin' you," and I bet 98 percent of you will be able to finish the lyrics to I Miss You, one of the most popular R&B songs to come out of the 90s. This slow jam, courtesy of the forever swagged out Aaliyah Dana Haughton, better known by her first name is my favourite love song and it solidified my love affair with the Princess of R&B. It's been 15 years since she died in a plane crash in the Bahamas but she means more to me now than she did when I was a child.

Dylan Anne McEwen and Jason Dickens. Photo via police handout.

Officially becoming the worst former Degrassi High star, Jason "Byrd" Dickens and three women have been charged with making child porn after police found "thousands" of pornographic images and videos at a home.

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This article originally appeared on VICE Serbia

For the last 56 years, the small town of Guča in western Serbia has hosted the world's largest trumpet festival: "Sabor Trubača" ("trumpet assembly"). During the long weekend in August it takes place, the town of 2,000 people attracts hundreds of thousands of Serbians and visitors from around the world..

Some of them might come for the trumpet competition, but that's not really the heart of the festival. That would be the countless brass bands in the streets, the makeshift restaurants and bars popping up all around town, and the general inclination of visitors to indulge in one or more of the cardinal sins.

The Biebs pissing off animal rights activists. Photo via Instagram.

Even in death, it seems, the Bowmanville Zoo is destined for scandal.

The zoo, which rose to notoriety when its former director Michael Hackenberger called a baboon a "fucking cocksucker" live on Breakfast Television, is closing its doors Oct. 10. Yesterday, while announcing the news, the zoo promoted a fundraiser to help pay for the cost of transplanting its animals (hopefully to some place less embarrassing, but not Edmonton).

"BFF" which stands for "Bieber Family Fun Day" will take place this Sunday. The event, priced at an insane $295 per ticket, was to include a "meet and greet" with the entire Bieber clan.

"I can confirm Justin will be at the zoo on Sunday," zoo spokesman Angus Carroll told the Toronto Star.

As news of BFF made the rounds on social media however, Bieber's dad Jeremy denied being involved in any way.

"My family is in no way affiliated or supports any zoo. Nor are we apart of or the host of any fundraiser."

That's not entirely true. In April, the Biebs was seen in a photo posing with a tiger at his dad's engagement party, held at the zoo. He was promptly slammed by animal activist group PETA, whose senior vice president Lisa Lange said "Justin Bieber is lucky not to have had his throat torn out by this stressed captive tiger." Post Purpose, that would definitely have been a shame.

Carroll has since backpedalled, saying Bieber "may or may (not) attend." I'm willing to bet people would be less down to pay $295 if there's no chance of hearing "Sorry" live. (The zoo is reportedly refunding tickets to those who purchased them in Bieber-motivated haste.)

Info on the event page for BFF, meanwhile, has been replaced with private lion cub and lemur tour packages.

Given the zoo's reputation though, this fuck up doesn't seem out of character.

Going back to Hackenberger for a second. This is a man who cussed out a baboon for not being able to ride a mini horse like a pro, as if that's a skill that would come naturally to a monkey. Later, PETA posted a video of him in which he appeared to be repeatedly whipping a Siberian tiger, and, oblivious to the fact he was being secretly filmed, said "If we'd been running a videotape the whole time you were here and you did a 45-second montage of the times I struck this animal, PETA would burn this place to the ground."

He was later charged with four counts of causing an animal distress and one of failing to comply with the prescribed standards of care for an animal by the Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (OSPCA) and resigned his position.

The zoo was also investigated for allegedly shooting a giraffe with a BB gun, which, I'm no expert, but doesn't seem like standard animal care protocol.

In light of all this, the zoo's closure after 97 years feels somewhat less tragic.

Farewell, Bowmanville Zoo. Short of being responsible for the death of Harambe, there's not a whole lot more you could have done to disgrace yourself.

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Lol hi. Photo of a generic corn snake not stuck in a drain via Wikimedia

You know how you've always had an unreasonable fear that snakes live in the sewers beneath your feet even though snakes are not even native to where you live, and they could totally come up your drain at any moment to attack you? Residents of Victoria, BC are living your far-fetched paranoia and have been tormented by a five-foot snake that has been stuck in a drainpipe beneath the city, eluding capture for over a week so far.

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On a stifling summer day in Boston, while much of the country was still reeling from the police shootings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, over a thousand people gathered in Boston's South End neighborhood, behind the police department headquarters, for the Unity March Against Police Terror: Boston2BatonRouge. They were there to hear from survivors, family members, and activists; to chant, to cry, to take their bodies and voices to the streets in memory of those killed by police violence.

At the march, a group of kids dribbled a basketball, rode bikes, and swarmed an ice cream truck parked nearby. A police officer played with some of the kids, laughing and high-fiving. And if you looked closely, you could see another police officer inside the truck, passing out little cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

This was no run-of-the-mill ice cream truck. This was Operation Hoodsie Cup, the Boston Police Department's new(ish), innovative community policing initiative—a way to "build bonds and strengthen ties with the community and the kids," as one cop told VICE.

The Boston Police Department's two "Operation Hoodsie Cup" ice cream trucks at an event earlier this month. All photos by the authors

Official police-community initiatives have a long history in the United States. The New York Police Department first formed Precinct Community Councils—a sort of town hall for people to confer with cops—in 1943 and the Los Angeles set up a formal community outreach program after the Watts Riots tore through the city in 1965.

In Boston, as in other major cities, the latest push toward community policing dates to the 1990s. Those initiatives were more focused on preventing and reporting crime, rather than engaging citizens. That changed in 2010 when the BPD unveiled, to much fanfare and a few snickers, their first ice cream truck.

At the press conference introducing the initiative, commissioner Edward Davis characterized the police ice cream truck as a way to "collaborate with our community, including local corporate partners, in strategic ways to creatively address public safety issues," according to Business Wire. The New England-based dairy company Hood signed on to sponsor the program, supplying the trucks with their signature "Hoodsie Cups," which are given out for free.

"Operation Hoodsie Cup" was not initially designed as a way for the police to get to know their community, but for people to feel more comfortable reporting crime to the police. The Boston Police Department believes strongly that initiatives like this one help to reduce crime and break down barriers between the police and the community.

Certain types of serious crime have been steadily decreasing in recent years. The mayor, police commissioner, and lower ranking officers have made it clear in public statements that much of the success Boston has had in reducing crime, as well as the relative lack of violence between police and minority communities, can be attributed to Boston's police community outreach initiatives.

Watch on VICE News: With killings on the rise in Chicago, police are putting their hands up

At the launch of the BPD's second ice cream truck on August 1, police commissioner William B. Evans bragged that no other department did community policing better than Boston and that the relationships the ice cream truck, among other programs, helped to build within the community was what made Boston Police so successful at their job. Deputy Superintendent Nora Baston, who is the head of the Department's neighborhood watch program, told VICE proudly at the press conference that "this is the solution" to America's problem with police and minority relations.

And many police departments agree. Just days before the second Boston Police ice cream truck was launched, the city of St. Louis launched their own police ice cream truck. The Boston Police ice cream truck was also used as an example of how to build community relationship by President Obama's Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

Yet despite the high profile praise of Operation Hoodsie Cup, there are troubling questions about the effectiveness and driving forces behind police community outreach initiatives. These questions are not new. When the New York Police Department set up their Task Force on Police/Community Relations in 1997—after Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant, was assaulted and sodomized by officers in Brooklyn—dissenting members complained that:

"Instead of urging us to investigate how police officers who have abused citizens were able to become cops in the first place; what kind of training they received; why officers who are accused of excessive force are rarely disciplined, and what can be done to break the blue wall of silence, Mayor Giuliani gave his Task Force the assignment of developing a curriculum for establishing a structured dialogue between the police and the community."

These concerns are echoed by Dr. Stacey Patton, assistant professor of multimedia journalism at Morgan State University and outspoken critic of police initiatives like Operation Hoodsie Cup. While the intention is nice, Patton told VICE that systematic racism, poverty, and police tension won't go away by simply giving out treats. Patton also pointed out that members of minority communities, who are by and large the target of these programs, are rarely asked what they need or want from the police. If they did, the answer would not likely be ice cream.

When Boston Police Department unveiled a second ice cream truck earlier this month at National Night Out—an annual "crime prevention program" established in 1984, featuring cookouts, musical performances, bouncy castles, and a dunk tank—Mayor Marty Walsh emphasized that, "We need to build these relationships when they're five years old, not 19."

While younger children did seem to be enjoying the events, the teenagers and young adults VICE spoke with were more critical.

Malika, a 27-year-old who lives in an affordable housing development in Boston's historic South End, told VICE that in the 20 years she's been attending National Night Out events, not much has changed. These children who play with officers or eat free ice cream grow up to become the black youth that police target at the beginning and end of each month in order to meet their arrest quotas, she said.

Another group of black and latino teenagers told VICE that the community policing initiatives like NNO and the ice cream truck are "kind of a joke. They're trying to reach these little kids...trying to get them to forget, so they don't know what we've been through, what people older than us have been through. They'll only remember this moment while they're young, 'Oh yeah the cops are nice to us, everything's OK.' But it's not OK."

Police Superintendent-in-Chief William Gross told VICE that a number of the officers involved with the ice cream truck and National Night Out came from the neighborhoods they were now policing. Gross himself grew up in Roxbury and Dorchester—both predominantly black neighborhoods—and appeared to have friendly, almost familial relationships with many of the area's residents. Gross said it was important to acknowledge the mistakes of the past and to understand the history of racial tensions in Boston, to learn from the pain of the past and work to move forward.

For some, Operation Hoodsie Cup is a step in the right direction. But it is not nearly enough. Because, as Patton points out, it's "disturbing to give ice cream one day and shoot the next."

Follow Claire Sadar and Sarah Moawad on Twitter.

Last night, on a special episode of GAYCATION, hosts Ian Daniel and Ellen Page travelled to Orlando after the Pulse nightclub shooting to learn how survivors and those affected are healing from the tragedy. To further explore how Orlando's Latinx and LGBTQ communities are coming together to recover and what more needs to be done, Daniel spoke with Nadine Smith, CEO of Equality Florida, an organization working to advance LGBT rights in the state and creators of the Pulse Victims Fund, a history-making crowdfunded trust. He also spoke with Nancy Rosado and Zoe Colon of Hispanic Federation, a coalition of Hispanic community service agencies and creators of Proyecto Somos Orlando, a fundraising and social services organizational effort. Below is an edited and condensed version of their conversations.

Ian Daniel: Tell me more about Equality Florida and how the organization's been working to secure LGBTQ rights.
Nadine Smith: Florida has a long history of state-sanctioned LGBTQ discrimination, the consequence of which is the normalization of hatred toward LGBTQ people that becomes discrimination and violence. We've been working to end discrimination in schools, employment, housing, and public accommodations, and we've actually been pretty successful.

One of the most powerful moments after Pulse was hearing Orange County mayor Teresa Jacobs basically apologize for a message that made the world less safe for gay people. There's been a softening of hearts and an opening of minds in the aftermath of Pulse—an understanding that you really do have to uproot and end the normalization of hatred toward LGBTQ people, as well as the discrimination and violence that grows from it.

Daniel: When you heard about what happened at Pulse, what was your initial response to help?
Smith: I was vacationing with my family in Disney World, and my phone began to ring—it was five, six o'clock in the morning. We got everybody on the phone because we wanted to account for our Orlando staff. It wouldn't be unusual for our team to be there.

We immediately launched the GoFundMe page because we knew that in the aftermath, we needed funds to flow in a way that were sensitive to the demographic. We wanted to make sure that undocumented folks weren't denied access to resources, too. We were astonished at how quickly it took off. When we hit the $3 million mark, GoFundMe put together a powerful video that inspired more to give—and they pinned us to the front page so that anybody who went to Go FundMe saw this outreach. They were quite incredible.

Daniel: How are the funds being put to use?
Smith: We publicly committed that every penny collected would go to victims, their families, and survivors. September 25th is the cutoff for determining how much money has collectively been raised, and based on that number, funds will be dispersed on that date.

We insisted that these funds would include people who didn't get hit by a bullet but went through this horrific trauma—many were held hostage for hours, so crisis counselors and other help services were made available. At the feedback hearings on how funds would be dispersed, victims of other mass shootings spoke up and specifically lauded Equality Florida for making sure that this process unfolded in a way that honored the victims. We were honest and transparent about where the money was going, and they hadn't experienced that before.

Nancy Rosado, in a still from GAYCATION's special episode on the Pulse nightclub tragedy

Daniel: Nancy, I saw a glimpse of you in the video for Jennifer Lopez and Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Love Make the World Go Round."
Nancy Rosado: Yeah, I made a quick guest appearance on The Today Show for it.

Daniel: I loved seeing your face flash across the screen. Last time I was in Orlando, discussing the issue with you, you expressed a lack of celebrity support from the Latinx community. How did that shift and what was the impetus for the song?
Zoe Colon: Jennifer Lopez had already written the song, and she thought that after Pulse it would be a great way to motivate people to keep dancing and spreading love in the face of hate. Her and Lin-Manuel Miranda wanted to fund organizations that were going to ensure services were being delivered over the long haul, at the hands of bilingual, bicultural professionals that really understand our community.

As of July 4th, they committed 100% of the proceeds from the digital downloads in the first three months, and it was played at the Zumbathon, a huge annual conference for Zumba that takes place in Orlando. One of the survivors, Angel Colon, is a Zumba instructor, and he danced to the song. It's had a lot of meaning for the Orlando community and particularly the Latino community. We know that at least 27 victims were Puerto Rican, right? So to have two Puerto Rican global superstars take action and create a song that talks about resilience in the face of hate was really moving.

Daniel: Nancy, what has the healing process for the communities been like?
Rosado: I don't think the Latino community was as organized as the LGBTQ community to deal with something like this, but the effort that is starting to be made is positive. We're seeing young LGBTQ Latinos coming together, and the Latin community is coming together, whether straight or gay, to see how they can reach out. To pull something together at such a difficult time is heartwarming because, to be honest, before this it could be a very fractured community. We come from so many different countries and everyone pulls in their own direction. Because of religious beliefs, the Latino community has historically been a little leery about dealing with the LGBTQ community. An attempt is an attempt, and I'll take it before we have nothing.

Colon: I want to add that there has been little to no investment in Latino-led initiatives and community-based organizations, which is part of the reason we were not able to respond the way that the LGBTQ community was able to. At the end of the day, LGBTQ issues and immigration issues are Hispanic and Latinx issues. Out of this tragedy has come the opportunity to establish ourselves as key players and partners in the community. Hopefully there will be an investment going forward.

Daniel: What are the main issues in the Latinx and Hispanic communities that you think people watching our show need to be thinking about now?
Rosado: The economic situation for people in Florida right now is horrible. Congress' Promesas Bill, which would lower the minimum wage for men and women in Puerto Rico under the age of 24 to $4.25, is going to cause another wave of migration. With that comes LGBTQ young folks trying to establish themselves here in America—because who can live on $4.25 an hour? Now we have to keep our eyes open for our community that's coming over in bigger numbers. We are a community that is very affectionate and warm, so this isn't a terrible thing—but they'll require assistance, because life here is significantly different. It's not about sacrificing your culture, it's about learning to adapt to a culture that currently exists.

Colon: We want the mainstream media and the world to know the intricacies and dynamics of being alive in a Latino community, the need for culturally competent services. For example, they need to understand that there are undocumented immigrants in our community that are going to need new Visas now, that won't be eligible for cash assistance from the national compassion fund, which is requiring social security numbers.

Somos Orlando is offering case management services and sending people to mental health services of all different types, like art therapy and family and group counseling for those who may not be ready for one-on-one counseling. We're creating a roster of Attorneys that can provide provide pro-bono law assistance, and we're providing community education within the LGBTQ community, but also in the broader community.

We're providing safe spaces to ask questions—there were so many layers of what happened at Pulse that night that we want to unravel and have our community ask questions around. A big part of what we're doing is building confidence and working within the LGBTQ community with culturally competent, hispanic, bicultural, bilingual providers. We're training therapists, and partnering with both new and more established organizations to do cross-training. I think our response is going to be significant in the years to come—we're going to be able to respond to the support needs of the Latino LGBT community for the long haul.

Follow Ian Daniel on Twitter.

Watch GAYCATION's Orlando special above; the new season airs Wednesdays at 10 PM ET/PT starting September 7 on VICELAND.

Brian Maryansky

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Still Screaming is a traveling photography exhibition curated by Mark Beemer that documents the history of punk from the late 80s and onward. The show has already begun its run in Philadelphia at Arch Enemy Arts and will soon go on to DC, New York, LA, Detroit, Oakland, and Seattle. This weekend will be the last chance for Philadelphians to see it before it hits the road, and its previously unseen views of now-beloved punk artists make it well worth your time. Below is a selection of some of our favorite images and an explanation from Beemer about how the show came about.

For Christmas in 1977, my parents gave me The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl LP. I loved that double record. I played it endlessly, memorizing every note, every moment, and especially, every inch of the insert photographs. Each record was sleeved in a full-bleed image of a group of fans losing their collective minds for the four lads from Liverpool. I wanted to know everything about those fans: the moments each photo was taken, the song they were hearing, and why the photographer chose them to canonize. I knew then that I wanted to be part of the world that determined how moments were presented.

I saw my first punk show on May 9, 1986; Marginal Man, Government Issue, and the Slickee Boys ushered me into a world where the rules were different, the stakes were higher, and anyone could be anything. I couldn't get enough.

In 1990, I started to bring my camera everywhere to document everything I saw. Back then, punk shows were a perfect avenue for a young photographer to really learn everything: how to focus in near pitch-black conditions, change a roll of film while you are dripping with sweat, how to avoid the huge 300-pound skinhead stage-diving, and mostly how to capture a moment in time that will tell the entire story.

Over the course of nearly three decades, I have shared the stage with countless talented photographers, all skilled at capturing moments and telling stories. When I conceived Still Screaming I knew I would not have issue finding shooters to join, I just needed the right ones. I chose photogs who all shot transitional points in HC punk. The straightforward hardcore scene of the late 80s, the birth of emo punk in the early 90s, the rise of punk bands in the late 90s, and the new era of the 00s—it's all represented in this show by these seven talented photographers.

For more on the show, go here.

Hillary Clinton laughing at the Democratic National Convention. (AP Photo/Alex Sanz)

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A few weeks ago, a constellation of right-wing blogs, that few outside that fringe had heard of, started circulating an ominous rumor: Hillary Clinton was sick. She was regularly passing out, or having seizures, or she had difficulty walking—maybe it was Parkinson's—and a doctor was by her side at all times to administer treatment. All of this could be proved by way of a few videos and still images showing just how tired and sick she looked.Most ominously, the mainstream media was accused of COVERING IT UP.

On August 8, Dave Weigel at the Washington Post pretty thoroughly debunked all of this stuff, which by then was going by the hashtag #HillarysHealth. The photos and videos were all taken out of context, the "doctor" who was around her all the time was Secret Service Assistant Special Agent in Charge Todd Madison, Clinton's own doctor said she was in good health. There was no story here, just the usual collection of conspiracy theorists and trolls peddling nonsense.

Except the story refused to die.

In the days after Weigel's story, Sean Hannity, the Fox News host who has turned into a Donald Trump sycophant, devoted a whole series of segments to Clinton's health, bringing on doctors and asking them if Clinton was having seizures. Trump himself then questioned Clinton's "physical stamina" in stump speeches. A campaign spokesperson, Katrina Pierson, appeared on MSNBC last week to toss out the idea that Clinton suffered from a condition called dysphasia—a neurological condition that makes it difficult to communicate and comprehend speech—without any particular evidence. Rudy Giuliani, another Trump surrogate, went on Fox News this Monday morning and told viewers to "go online and put down Hillary Clinton illness and take a look at the videos for yourself." Ben Carson, the slow-talking neurosurgeon who ran a fairly bizarre Republican primary campaign, is going around saying that both candidates should release their health records. Even celebrity physician Dr. Drew has weighed in, criticizing Clinton's physician during a radio show appearance in which he also theorized that Trump might have hypomania, but "if someone were the president, I kinda want them to be hypomanic." By this week, the rumors had become so pervasive that Clinton opened a jar of pickles in front of Jimmy Kimmel to prove she was healthy. So how did all this start?

The Clinton health rumors spawned the same way that a lot of dubious tales spread on the right-wing corners of the internet. The vague outlines of the story were percolating through YouTube months ago—a video of Clinton having a "seizure" (really just moving her head about a bit as part of a joke) was posted on July 21, and now has over 2 million views. On August 4, British conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson put up a video examining what he called Clinton's "weird seizures, psychotic facial tics, over-exaggerated reactions, coughing fits, strange lesions on her tongue. Is Hillary on the verge of a mental breakdown due to stress, or are her strange outbursts linked to a medical condition?" That video now has close to 3.5 million views.

The really viral piece of "evidence" is a photo of Clinton being held up by staffers after slipping while climbing some stairs, which was circulated on a variety of no-name conservative sites and Twitter on August 7 before being picked up by the Drudge Report that same day. Drudge, the highly-trafficked conservative news aggregator, can grant semi-legitimacy to anything it touches, and from there the story went to WorldNetDaily—a conspiracy-minded right-wing site whose work Trump has cited before, and to Fox News. By the time something hits Fox, it's gone mainstream. Articles like Weigel's, and statements from Clinton's own doctor that she was "in excellent health and fit to serve as President of the United States" can't convince anyone who knows that Clinton is on the brink of collapse or even death.

The conspiracy theories about Clinton's health all point back to a very real 2012 incident when the then–secretary of state fainted and hit her head so badly it resulted in a concussion and a blood clot. This was a serious condition that put her in the hospital and led her to miss testifying before a Congressional committee on Benghazi. At the time, the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote, "It's clear that Clinton will have to answer lots—and lots—of questions about her health if she decides to get into the next race for president." (Presumably to get out in front of these questions, Clinton had her doctor publicly declare her fit to be president last year.)

As a ThinkProgress piece noted, none other than Karl Rove, the Republican operative's Republican operative, floated the idea that Clinton had a "brain injury" in 2014. But the guy who really got the ball rolling was Ed Klein, a rabidly anti-Clinton journalist who has been criticized roundly for, basically, being full of shit—he's maybe most famous for saying that Chelsea Clinton was conceived by rape, though he later disavowed that story. In two books published in 2014 and 2015 Klein claimed that her medical problems were worse than the public knew and that she had suffered a series of strokes that left her worried she couldn't win the election. (Klein's claims were reheated by sites on the #HillarysHealth bandwagon this week.)

No right-wing conspiracy would be complete without a Breitbart connection, and in January the white supremacist–friendly site published a hearsay-based story alleging that Clinton was impaired by post-concussion syndrome and had trouble walking to her car after campaign events. Breitbart quoted Roger Stone, the notorious Trump-aligned political hatchet man, as saying, "I don't think she has the physical stamina to be president" months before Trump used nearly those exact words. WorldNetDaily ran a similar article in February; both articles quoted physicians who hadn't examined Clinton personally but seemed happy to imagine medical conditions she could have.

Wild theories about the rich and famous are nothing new, of course. There's plenty of ugly gossip about Trump as well—that he's suffering from dementia, or that he's hopped up on speed. The difference is that during the 2016 election cycle both sides have been willing, even eager, to embrace conspiracy theories. Trump especially has gone down this road, hiring Breitbart executive Steve Bannon to oversee his campaign and having lunch with Ed Klein—both figures ordinary campaigns would keep at arm's length. And of course, Trump rose to prominence in the first place for his belief that Barack Obama wasn't born in America. But Clinton's camp is perfectly fine with spreading gossip as well, as illustrated by a recent ad insinuating that Trump is an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This sort of gossip-based campaigning distracts from actual issues, of course—but this election stopped being about issues a long time ago. Both candidates are viewed as untrustworthy by voters, and partisans from either side seem willing to believe any charge leveled at their hated opponent. So why not target Clinton as being not just shifty but hiding a fatal secret? Why not push the narrative that Trump is not just a blundering fool but might be an actual traitor? The high road has been not just abandoned at this point, but burned to the ground, so who cares whether these attacks are true? Who decides what "true" is anymore, anyway?

The toxicity of this campaign won't really matter in the short term. Someone is going to win, no matter how nasty things get before November. The problem is, these conspiracy theories won't stop spinning once Election Day passes. If you think things are ugly now, just imagine what's going to be said about Clinton when she's the president.

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Photo via Flickr user Heath Alseike

How young is too young for Canadians to legally buy weed? It's a question your doctor would like to be answered.

Ever since he kicked off his presidential campaign in June of 2015, Donald Trump has been pissing people off. He's pissed people off by being xenophobic, by being mean, and by just not making sense. Traditionally, his list of political adversaries has included most women, Muslims, Latinos, and a surprisingly large contingent of his own political party. But through it all, the American far right has largely been on his side—particularly members of the far-right who agreed with the hawkish immigration policies Trump has placed at the center of his campaign.

That is, perhaps, until now.

"He had a stated immigration policy position," said Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist and former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz's presidential campaign. "Now he's changing it." According to Tyler, Trump has become another in a long line of Republicans who "say all these things that sound terrific, then get to Washington, get assimilated by leadership, and drink the Kool-Aid, and nothing happens."

That's because all of a sudden, after months of campaigning on his plans to deport undocumented immigrants and limit migration to the United States, the Republican presidential candidate has started to suggest that he wants to be nicer to undocumented immigrants.

In an interview on Fox News Tuesday, Trump claimed he was "working with a lot of people in the Hispanic community," on a solution to the problem of illegal immigration in the US. "We want to come up with a really fair, but firm answer. It has to be very firm," Trump said. "But we want to come up with something fair."

Over on Twitter, where Trump turns to read and retweet supportive statements and memes, often from fringe right-wing sources, the statements—and the subsequent speeches Trump has made echoing those lines—have sparked a predicable backlash.

Three are dead after an apparent crossbow attack. Photo via Flickr user Juha Kettunen

Three people are dead and another person has been injured following an apparent crossbow attack in Scarborough on Thursday.

A 35-year-old unidentified man has been taken into police custody, a Toronto police spokesperson said at a press conference Thursday evening.

The spokesperson said that the crossbow incident is related to a suspicious package that was found at Queens Quay earlier in the day.

Not much else is known yet about the incident, and it's unclear whether a crossbow caused the deaths. A Toronto police spokesperson told VICE that three people were found near Lawndale and Aro Roads after police were called to investigate a stabbing. The Toronto Star reported that three people were found with crossbow bolts in their bodies, but the spokesperson wouldn't confirm this, saying only that a crossbow was found at the scene. The CBC is reporting that two men and one woman died in the incident and were found in a garage.

Paramedics are reportedly examining two other people, but their conditions are also unknown.

This isn't the first time a crossbow attack has happened in Toronto. In 2012, a 26-year-old was sentenced to life in prison for murdering his abusive father with a crossbow at a library.

Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter.

Photo via Creative Commons

Federal spies in Canada have ramped up the monitoring of phone calls and online messages—but it's not clear why.

Photo via Flickr user Martin Alonso

Here at VICE, we would never advocate for drug use, breaking the law, and especially not doing either of those things intentionally in the presence of a police officer. But some of us are getting a bit sick of waiting for the weed legalization that Daddy Canada promised is coming next year as we watch pot dispensaries get raided over and over and people continue to be charged for pot-related offences, in what seems like a complete waste of time and resources.

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Tonight on the season finale of Dead Set on Life, host Matty Matheson goes moose hunting in Newfoundland with two of the best chefs in Canada.

Dead Set on Life airs Thursdays at 10 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

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The idea that Leslie Jones, the Saturday Night Live star and NBC Olympic commentator, could keep winning at life is apparently too much to bear for some people. Earlier this week, somebody (or a group) hacked the actress's website to post nude photos of her and a photo of deceased gorilla (and deathless meme-generator) Harambe. The act played into the worst, and most tired, racial stereotypes of black people being akin to animals. This time, the attacks were aimed at a woman with darker skin, invoking the specter of colorism as the hackers revealed an inability to accept a successful, assertive dark-skinned woman in the spotlight.

"There are people who are just not used to seeing black women in positions of power and control," says Ava Greenwell, an associate professor at Northwestern University who has studied black women in corporate media. "When you look at the travel diaries of white men traveling throughout the South, they would write descriptions of slaves, describing black women as being very animal-like. It's not surprising we have not gotten over that."

Lisa B. Thompson, a scholar based in Austin, says she's horrified by the treatment Jones has endured all summer and hopes Jones's co-stars in film and TV take visible stands to support her as other celebrities and artists have already begun to do, including Octavia Spencer, Questlove, Katy Perry, and Patricia Heaton.

"The reaction to her being cast in Ghostbusters has been hysterical and not in terms of humor," says Thompson, whose areas of focus include the dating, working, and general ups and downs of black womanhood. "The amount of vitriol is so over the top, one has to imagine that the perpetrators are unhinged by her position in the world. The attention to her body in particular speaks to a centuries-old disparagement and mistreatment of black women."

This summer, when Jones shut down her troll-infested Twitter account, the social-media site banned one user who led the charge to harass her. After receiving widespread support, Jones did what some folks call "falling up," parlaying her Twitter ability into an impromptu role as a commentator for the Rio Olympics. She was well-received. When gymnast Gabby Douglas got dragged through the mud for perceived misbehavior during the Games, such as not putting her hand over her heart during the national anthem or not appearing to cheer fellow teammates, Jones put "shine theory" in action. She created a hashtag to support the 20-year-old Douglas, #LOVE4GABBYUSA, just as she was supported (#LoveforLeslieJ) during her own ordeals.

Darker-skinned black women face disadvantages in applying for jobs, and there's an assumption that lighter-skinned blacks are more capable of doing the work.

The trouble started this summer, when the female-centered Ghostbusters remake debuted with Jones as a lead character. Many complained about women (including Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon) helming the film classic. But detractors went particularly hard on Jones, the only black star, dusting off their worst racist tropes to keep her down. The online harassment she received reflects the experience of many women. According to a recent Pew Research poll from 2014, 26 percent of young women said they'd been stalked online and 25 percent were the target of online sexual harassment.

There's nothing virtual about how negative comments and suggestion of potential violence weigh on the psyche, according to Greenwell. When she wrote about her son's encounter with local police in her hometown a few years back, negative comments led her to fear being stalked or confronted at work. The Jones breach suggests another step in a pattern of escalated abuse that can lead to violence. Nasty, hurtful online comments are one thing; breaking into this woman's website and defacing it with sexualized, racialized imagery is criminal, which several celebrities, like Patricia Arquette, have pointed out: "FYI sharing stolen intimate photos like ‪@Lesdoggg's is illegal. You are participating in a sex crime."

"You even begin to doubt yourself," Greenwell says. "Should I or shouldn't I have not spoken up? I always come back to 'I should have.' It's as if we don't have the right to stand up for ourselves, and our loved ones because we're women, because we're black. But we do. We have that right."

"The attention to her body in particular speaks to a centuries-old disparagement and mistreatment of black women." —Lisa B. Thompson

The treatment of Jones has deep historical roots, says Dr. Kevin Cokley, a psychologist who directs the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin. "Several Englishmen in the 1600s and 1700s were obsessed with what they perceived to be the promiscuity and lewdness of Africans, which made them beast-like in the minds of Englishmen. It then became easy to link Africans with apes and being apelike in their appearance and behavior. This became one of the oldest and most enduring of racist stereotypes of African Americans," Cokley tells VICE.

The fact that Jones stands alone in her role and carries the weight of representation is a factor in targeting her, according to Claudette Roper, a Chicago-based documentarian and activist who teaches at Columbia College Chicago. Jones's adventures in misogynoir (a special brand of misogyny aimed at black women) are those that darker-skinned black women face daily. Jones's success troubles haters because the rules of colorism dictate that she must not have access, that she must fail. And research backs this up: Darker-skinned black women face disadvantages in applying for jobs, and there's an assumption that lighter-skinned blacks are more capable of doing the work. The fact that even people of color often absorb negative beliefs as a form of racial programming designed to replicate itself even through the people it harms is especially cause for concern.

Photo via Instagram

Roper maintains we need more inclusion across the board, including dark-skinned black women, more people of color, disabled people, and those who represent ethnic diversity. A critical mass of figures like Leslie Jones is what's in order. "If you want to be a change-maker, you have to change the game," Roper says. "It's too much pressure on one person. It's a set-up for failure."

And yet, from "bye, Felicia" and "girl, bye" to "talk to the hand," black women are well-schooled from girlhood on shorthand ways telling them to "shut up." So when society subtly—or not so subtly—suggests they should stay in their lane, be nice, take up less space, or disappear altogether, this is not new information. "I would guess if anyone else had to go through the things we have to go through being black and female, it would be hard to get up in the morning," Roper says. "But as Maya Angelou said: 'I rise, I rise.' We rise every single day."

Follow Deborah Douglas on Twitter.

Welcome to IKEA, the hallowed place where you're going to have an argument with your mum about how many tea towels you need for uni (answer: zero) (Photo: Michell Zappa, via)

Firstly, congratulations: you got your A-Level results and a load of 50-year-olds with newspaper columns told you your clean sweep of As and A*s don't matter "because the exams are easier these days", and "anyway, they just teach you to pass exams", and you go home and your mum allows you exactly one glass of champagne and says she is proud of you and then gets out a copy of a broadsheet newspaper with an article called "Uni Essentials!" in it and says, "Well, we'll have to find a day to do a big trip to IKEA." And this is your life now. This is adulthood. Welcome into it.

Anyway: those university "things you need" guides are essentially just glossy-spread things aimed at your mum to make her buy a load of cutlery sets and £150 duvets because "she's setting you up for an adult life", ignoring the fact that most of the things you own will be trashed, lost or broken by the end of first year. Like: here's a GQ one that says you definitely need a £22 pen. This Telegraph list says you need to take "an open mind". This Guardian article hints at saying you might want to take a cello.

Here's the deal: you need to, in an emergency, be able to get all of your possessions into one small Fiat in case you need to drive through the night to get home. You do not need anything from John Lewis. That is how university works. You need to work smart and work small. You need to be prepared for the entire rugby club to break all your shit for absolutely no reason other than they are pissed. You do not need to take more than one car journey to move all your stuff in and out. Here is a realistic list of things you need, and then a list of things you definitely do not need.

STUFF YOU NEED TO TAKE

A DUVET AND TWO DUVET COVERS (OBVIOUSLY)

You can technically get away with just one duvet cover if you launder it and dry it and put it back on in the same day, but we all know you're definitely not going do that and instead end up sleeping on a bare mattress under a bobbly cheap duvet for like six weeks before you actually do your duvet cover big wash, and in that time you will somehow conspire to spill an entire plate of Bolognese sauce on your duvet, leaving a large brown stain and just: right, no, just listen: no. Two duvet covers. Use them in rotation. Store the duvet cover folded inside the pillowcase so it takes up less room. Thank you.

A BLANKET, I AM VERY SERIOUS ABOUT BEDDING

People say blankets are unnecessary, but i. they make your bed more cosy and inviting for potential sex partners; ii. at some point in the summer your halls will organise an impromptu picnic or beach visit and you will want a blanket to take to sit on; iii. your halls central heating will fail in winter and you will appreciate my blanket advice; iv. literally nothing feels better on a hangover than traipsing through to your front room and flomping on the sofa with a blanket, and you are going to be hungover minimum of two days in every five, so you will need this. Get a blanket. Take a blanket.

A LAPTOP

You need a laptop. It is technically possible to get through university without a laptop, but buddy: you need a laptop. It's essentially your work machine, your TV, your music library and the thing you watch Netflix and porn on, and it takes up, like, zero room. If you don't have a laptop, get a laptop. Beg for a laptop. Get a used laptop. You need a laptop.

ONE OF THOSE COOL BLUETOOTH SPEAKER THINGS? YOU KNOW. YOU KNOW THE ONES I MEAN. THEY ARE LIKE WIRELESS? IDK. THEY ARE LOUDER THAN YOUR LAPTOP SPEAKERS. THOSE THINGS.

One of those Bluetooth speaker things is going make every Netflix & Chill session and every music listening event you have for the next three years like a billion times better. Plus: your mum really wants to buy you a "nice present" to "say well done" for doing well in your A-Levels, so you may as well let her drop a hundred quid on one of these.

A LAMP

There is always some lad who is like, "A lamp? What am I, a willy woofter? No, the sparse bare light of the university halls-issue bulb is more than enough for me, thanks," and thus lives a bizarre lamp-free life, and I ask you: can you even imagine getting fucked by this dude in the full, blaring, illumination of a halls-issue bulb? Every crevice of your body and his is lit in full HD. There is no escaping your pores, your flaws. You are young and you are beautiful but you are not ready for that. We need to make lamps cool again. If you go back to someone's house and they don't have a lamp, don't fuck 'em.

I HATE TO SAY THIS BUT TAKE A THING OF FACEPAINT

It's very hard for me to not to fall into a sort of chasm of self-loathing as I am saying this, but: students are obsessed with fancy dress, and every event somehow ends up turning into fancy dress, and you yourself – no matter how cool and cynical you think you are – are going to end up getting Bang Into Fancy Dress, and unless you want to take a legitimate dress-up box to university with you, a tray of like 16 facepaint colours can get you ready for a themed-party in ten minutes flat. This is going to make for what seems like some very cool – then, in hindsight, some very awful – Facebook profile pictures.

This is the exact arrangement of posters your second-year student dealer is going to have in his sharehouse front room, absolutely guarantee it (Photo: Kira Hart, via)

HEY KIDS, IT'S ME, YOUR GRANDPA! ANYWAY: BUY A STURDY AND PRACTICAL LAUNDRY BASKET

Get a decent laundry basket, because the most mess in your room is going to be your clothes on the floor. If you put them in a basket the room looks 100 percent better immediately. Ideally, find one that you can also carry to the laundrette with you. Nobody is going to fuck you because you have a cool laundry basket, but it's just going to make your life a little bit better.

A SMALL AMOUNT OF FLAIR TO MAKE YOUR ROOM NOT LOOK LIKE A SERIAL KILLER LIVES AND OPERATES IN IT

You need about four books that make you look smart, a pot plant and six DVDs (DVD cases are perfect for storing drugs in – and doing drugs off – as well as for storing DVDs, which you can watch, but let's be honest you have Netflix and know how to stream, so the DVD cases are essentially just for storing drugs in). If you are a girl you will get an overwhelming urge to put a string of fairy lights either around the head of your bed or along a corkboard that is inexplicably fixed to your wall, and just go with it. Just embrace it.

A DRESSING GOWN

If you sleep naked you should take a dressing gown for first year because you're going to get woken up in the middle of the night about six to eight times by fire alarms, and it's way easier to just bang a dressing gown on and run downstairs and outside than find and apply full pyjamas to your body while your entire room is screaming.

UNESSENTIAL PENS

A Sharpie and a chalk mirror pen are both essential for doing bathroom graffiti in pubs, which, by the way, as a student, you are now really, really into.

PLUG EXTENSION LEAD THING

If I actively have to tell you to take this I don't really think you're going to do too well in a place of learning, but w/e.

STUFF YOU DO NOT NEED TO TAKE

CONDOMS

You do not need to take condoms; they give them out like sweets at fresher's week. And plus: you are not going to get laid as much as you think, truly.

This is what a student kitchen looks like, before every single student plugs a kettle in in it and a load of rugby lads sit on the sideboard and put cigarettes out in your bran flakes (Photo: University of Exeter, via)

A FIRST AID KIT

If you hurt yourself that badly, go to A&E or a clinic. I do not trust you to fix yourself. You shouldn't either.

WEIRD SHIT YOUR MUM THINKS IS IMPORTANT

Your mum is going to make you try and pack like six tubes of toothpaste she bought on multipack offer at the supermarket. Do not let her pack this much toothpaste. She has, like, 800 bottles of Palmolive shower gel ready in the garage. Your imminent journey away from her has sent her into a frenzy.

Things I legitimately got convinced to take to university with me that turned out to be utterly useless: a miniature ironing board. An industrial-sized tin of dried milk. A fucking hoover.

A MINI-FRIDGE

A mini-fridge seems like a really good idea – you can keep your own butter, cheese and milk* in your own private fridge! Cold Coke cans whenever you want them! It's clean! – for like exactly one second, before you try and sleep in the same room as one and it clunks and whirrs and emits a small blue light, and sleep is just a fantasy, now, you will never sleep again; and plus, at the end of year the halls administration sends you a bill for all the extra electricity you managed to use just to keep half a thing of halloumi cold.

* Butter, cheese and milk make up the so-called "Dairy Triangle" of food that students give absolutely zero shits about stealing from share fridges, the absolute fucking cunts

STATIONERY

If you have a laptop you don't need stationery. You can get away with the aforementioned unessential pens and some of those special see-thru Post-Its you put in books to mark the page.

Lad on the left with half a tie on: that's you, that is (Photo: uclu photosoc, via)

A SUIT OR FORMAL OUTFIT

For some reason every fresher's guide seems to think that university is a heady string of formal ball after formal ball, which may be true if your rich dad spoke to his rich mate and got you into Oxford, but for normal people the main thing you wear at university is "a hoody with the name of your department's society on it", "a string bracelet that you think is important for some reason" and "the shittiest-fitting jeans you will ever wear in your life". If there's a Summer Ball at the end of the year and you really want to go, you can rent some formalwear then. Until then, the only person wearing a suit about is "suit guy", the fresher who, for some reason, literally every university has, who turns up and wears suits a lot, and when you talk to him he's like, "Yeah, I'm the suit guy," and you realise the suit is there in lieu of a well-formed personality. Don't let that be you.

A PRINTER

Do not bring a printer. You think you're going to need a printer because "you're an academic now", but in reality you will use it about twice a term for a couple of essays, and in the meantime it will just take up room and accrue dust. Also: even the smallest printers seem to take up massive amounts of room because they have huge power cables and for some reason you bought an entire ream of printer paper that you keep half-open on a shelf and it keeps falling off and paper keeps getting everywhere – plus, plus: everyone on your floor in halls now knows you have a printer and is like, "Hey, can I print something real quick?" and essentially any time a big deadline is coming up your room is just going to be filled with people you half-know who can't find their vital end-of-term essay on the USB stick they bought and your printer is just howling "CHK–CHK, WHIRRRRRRR" and no: just go to the library. Go to the library to print.

A GAMES CONSOLE

Don't bring a games console unless you plan to spend the entire first year eschewing friends and just playing Call of Duty online instead, like, oh, I don't know – and I'm picking an example entirely at random here – me. University console ownership goes one of two ways: you play it, alone, in your room, endlessly, missing coursework to instead play PES, get that PES team perfect, get really good at PES; or, you're the only console on your block, and everyone is constantly in your room trying to play Mario Kart on it, even when you're working, even when you're asleep. Essentially: there is no way taking a games console to university with you is going to turn out to be anything other than a curse.

A LOAD OF POSTERS

Hey, quick thing you might not have ever noticed: posters look like warm shit. Additional poster con: putting them up requires a load of Blu-Tak, which leaves these weird little oily marks on the walls, and your halls of residence will punish you for it when it comes to claiming-your-deposit back time. If you go to university completely poster-free, which a lot of people do, normally something happens about week two of term where living with entirely bare walls is just a little bit too "we put you in this special isolation room to calm you", so people tend to tape up a load of weird cheery colourful postcards that get handed out a lot at fresher's fares, and it seems quite nice until you go into someone else's room to borrow a liquitab or whatever and realise they have the exact same postcards in the exact same order taped up, and like: fuck. My advice would essentially be "bring one nice framed print, ideally not of Bob Marley or a poster for the film Amelie".

~THE COOKING EQUIPMENT SECTION~

You need a decent pan and a decent knife. Sainsbury's have this amazing £8 knife that you can't buy online (because: knives) but if you go to a Big Sainsbury's it's right there in some purple-and-black Taste the Difference-style packaging that says "Cook's Collection" on it. This will cut most things and stay more-or-less sharp for your first year. A good glass measuring jug is useful (you can literally make Supernoodles in it then eat the Supernoodles out of it; the perfect single-equipment zero-cutlery meal). A chopping board won't hurt, but most of your halls people will have chopping boards. Your halls mates will have colanders, sieves, cheese graters. Your halls kitchen will just be a thousand IKEA-brand cheese graters, a million boxfresh colanders. You do not need to buy these things.

But you do need two pans: a decent non-stick frying pan, maybe a decent deep pan for boiling pasta, and that's about it. Other people will have everything else. A big mixing bowl is useful for things, mainly for when you buy a big bag of crisps and want to serve them in a nice way, but it is not essential. Don't bring a sandwich toaster with you. You think you're just going to eat toasted sandwiches for every meal. You're not. The first time you have to clean cooked-in cheese off a sandwich toaster you're just going to wrap the chord around it and leave it outside on the pavement for the gods.

HERBS

You cannot cook. Adding dried basil to something never makes it better. The only herb you need is Nando's salt. Do not take any additional herbs.

This is where your wok is going to end up after you try and dry-fry an egg in it (Photo: cathys.klown, via)

THE WOK CONUNDRUM

A lot of university guides are going to tell you to bring a wok ("It's the perfect pan! You can cook anything in it! Wok!") but honestly: do you think you are a wok person? I can tell you that you are not. A big good non-stick pan will do that sort of bastardised stir-fry** recipe you eat for every meal to an acceptable degree. Do not buy a wok. Woks are just big and awkward to store in small halls cupboards, and already smell weird from where your dad tried to "season" it with half a litre of sunflower oil, and you do not know how to use a wok. Do not take a wok.

** A tablespoon of soy sauce, a teaspoon of fish sauce and some chilli flakes makes a Just About Acceptable stir-fry sauce, just FYI. You can literally just put that on broccoli and serve it with rice and it is a meal. You are going to really start to miss real food.

HOW MANY PLATES AND BOWLS YOU THINK YOU NEED, HOMEBOY?

Do not take plates and bowls. Do NOT take plates and bowls. You are one person: why are you taking like 32 pieces of ceramic to university with you? IKEA do these things called "FÄRGRIK" that are halfway between a bowl and a plate, and you can eat pretty much anything out of them. Get maybe four of them and hide one in your room for when everyone else who uses your kitchen somehow smashes all your crockery by December.

MUGS

Similarly: take ONE NICE MUG and GUARD IT WITH YOUR LIFE. KEEP IT IN YOUR ROOM WITH YOU. That mug will see you through anything if you treat it well enough. You know how, in the army, all the soldiers really care about their guns? This mug is your gun. Don't leave your gun in the kitchen where some dude called Elliot can piss in it "for the banter" and then break the handle off "for spectacular bants".

GLASSWARE

Glasses are free if you steal them from pubs, idiot. Don't take glasses.

AN OPEN MIND

You actually are honestly going to need an open mind – I know I took the piss up top there, but I've seen the error of my ways – because students are often the most awful people on earth, and living with students is often the most awful experience of your life, and unless you're going to let all your frustrations with that turn into "leaving passive-aggressive notes on the washing up", "dobbing in your flatmates to the halls front office" or "straight up committing a murder", an open mind is really going to see you quite far. Also: if there's a shared shower, don't ever shower with anyone else's shower gel in there. A boy a floor down from me in halls got full-on arrested and put in jail for hiding a webcam in one of those. Have fun! Don't forget to call your mum sometimes!

@joelgolby

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Life Inside is an ongoing collaboration between the Marshall Project and VICE that offers first-person perspectives from those who live and work in the criminal justice system.

I get sent to the hole all the time.

Not because I've done something wrong, but because I'm the barber, which means I'm also the best friend of every guy in there. I cut everyone's hair, from murderers and rapists to first-timers put in for a fight.

When you enter the hole, it's a new world—one that smells like death and shit. Men are hollering at the top of their lungs to be let out.

Inmates in the hole get haircuts only once a month, and also on the day before court—so when I'm there, it's a special occasion. As soon as they hear the door to their unit pop open and see me coming in with my supplies, everyone starts cheering. All you can hear is, "DRE, WHO'S FIRST?! I'M FIRST! ME NEXT!"

I let them know that I'm not leaving until everyone gets a haircut. Then I take out my things and get to work.

I arrange my stuff by the guard's desk, getting the clippers and brushes positioned, and stacking the hard, red plastic chairs on top of each other to get a little more height (I don't have a barber's chair that I can pump up and down). Then the officers start to bring people over one at a time.

Since they're in the hole, they have their arms and legs shackled whenever they're outside their cells.

As soon as they sit down, the first thing I do is take out my mirror and give it to them. For most of the inmates, it's the first time they've seen their reflection in a month—and they're always shocked. They look tired, ragged, and sick, more so than they thought they would. Lots of them will say something like, "Man, I'm dead, can you bring me back to life?"

That's exactly what I try to do. Haircuts in jail are supposed to be a "one-guard" buzz cut against the grain, but I'll ask the guys how they want theirs done.

And we talk about all kinds of things, just like at the regular barbershop. The difference is, everyone I'm working on is trying to find out what the news is instead of swapping it. They want to know what's been happening in the outside world, if their team won, what's going on on their old unit. They talk about how they miss their kids.

A little over a year ago, I remember watching television and seeing that one of Washington, DC's police officers had been arrested for rape. Because it was a high-profile case, and because he was a cop, I suspected he would probably be housed in the hole.

I thought about cutting his hair. During my time in jail, my youngest daughter was raped, and it filled me with rage. I couldn't be there for her, and now I despised every rapist. The prospect of cutting this guy's hair was more than I could take.

When the day came for me to actually do it, I was nervous. Every other inmate told me simply not to cut the cop's hair, and as the guards finally brought him out, the whole unit was yelling at me from all directions.

As soon as I saw him, I wanted to crack his head open until it bled.

When I started, I was a little rough with his head. It was clear the guy wanted to talk, but I just cut him off, asking him how he wanted his hair. He felt my vibe and started trying to make up for it by talking even more—saying that he didn't do it, telling me he knew how I felt.

I stopped, looked him in the eye, and said he probably didn't want to know how I felt. I told him about what happened to my daughter. He started crying, snot coming out of his nose. We didn't talk for the rest of his time in the chair.

The worst part was, when I finished, I think that he had the best-looking haircut out of everyone I did that day.

No matter who they are, when I'm done cutting an inmate's hair and show them the finished product, they don't want to let the mirror go. They'll keep looking at their reflection, saying they finally feel like themselves again. Lots of times, they'll offer to pay me, but I've never taken a dime. Sometimes the guys will joke around, saying, "You know I'm going home as soon as the judge sees this cut!"

The guards will occasionally have me come in at irregular times, just to keep the peace—when it's been too long since they've had a haircut, the men down there will throw piss and shit at the officers or break the sprinklers in their cells. The thing is, a cut means more inside than it does on the street, and that's especially true in the hole. These men don't get to talk to their families, don't get any visits, and live in a cage for 23 hours a day. If they're lucky enough to go outside, they're only allowed to sit in an outdoor cage.

After three years as a pre-trial detainee, I finally got sentenced and now I'm waiting to hear where they'll send me. Wherever it is, I'm hoping to take my clippers. Every prison is full of guys who would love to feel more human.

Andre Lyons, 40, will be transferred from the Correctional Treatment Facility in Washington, DC, to a federal prison. He pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to distribute drugs and was sentenced to seven years.

Illustration by Dola Sun

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

In a book about Santeria, photographer Rose Marie Cromwell came across a passage that asked readers to leave behind any preconceived notions and instead approach the religion with what the book called "an indelible mark of purity." Her photos here, taken in Miami, are inspired by this idea.