Daddy Canada and Sophie chillin' with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Mrs. Cheng. Photo via Twitter

Justin Trudeau downplayed concerns about an extradition treaty his government is negotiating with China, touting Canada's "high standards" as critics questioned its ability to enforce them.

On Thursday, Hillary Clinton made a plea to the alt-comedy kids by going on Zach Galifianakis's Between Two Ferns and stiffly worked her way through some jokes.

The long-running Funny or Die talk show hosted by Galifianakis has already had a slew of all-star guests from Brad Pitt to President Obama in its short 20-episode lifespan. Somehow Galifianakis managed to get Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton to sit between the two plants with him this week, just a few days before the first presidential debate.

On the episode, the two joke about Michelle Obama writing Melania Trump's wedding vows, the double standard about Clinton's clothing, and how there's a generation of kids who are getting ready to have their first white president. Clinton might not come off as effortlessly comedic as our current commander-in-chief or even Jeb Bush, but this performance at least comes out ahead of her Broad City episode or the Forrest Gump spoof.

The video ends with Galifianakis saying, "This has been a lot of fun, Mrs. Clinton. We should stay in touch. What's the best way to reach you? Email?" The two lock eyes for an awkward beat until Galifianakis slaps a red butting that exclaims, "You've got mail!"

Watch the full episode above via Funny or Die and try to forget that we still have an excruciating month and a half before Election Day.

Read: A Brief History of Embarrassing Attempts to Get the Youth to Vote

Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley. Image via Flickr user Ian Cochrane

Research published this week by Nature has confirmed Australia's aboriginal people are the Earth's most ancient civilization. "A Genomic History of Aboriginal Australia" is a world-first genomic study that helps reveal how ancestors of today's aboriginals reached what is now Australia about 58,000 years ago.

Led by Professor Eske Willerslev from the University of Cambridge, the study was co-authored by elders from indigenous communities around Australia. The team was able to sequence the genome of 83 aboriginal people, as well as 25 Papuans from the New Guinea highlands. Researchers collected saliva from widely dispersed geographic and linguistic groups to retrieve the DNA. Previously, only three aboriginal Australian genomes had been sequenced.

Prior to this study being published, some scientists had debated whether or not modern aboriginals are the descendants of ancient tribes who first populated Australia. This research, the most comprehensive genomic study of indigenous Australians to date, also helps to confirm that all humans share the same common ancestors from a single African migration event.

That event occurred when both Papuan and Aboriginal ancestors left Africa as part of a larger group of migrants around 72,000 years ago, then split with that main group of early humans about 58,000 years ago. Probably the first group of humans to cross an ocean, they reached "Sahul"—the supercontinent that was made up of modern day Tasmania, Australia, and New Guinea together—and then split apart about 37,000 years ago. The supercontinent only split up around 8,000 years ago.

"Australia has one of the longest histories of continuous human occupation outside Africa, raising questions of origins, relatedness to other populations, differentiation, and adaptation," the study concludes. "We find that Aboriginal Australians and Eurasians share genomic signatures... a common African ancestor."

As the research also shows, aboriginal civilizations have lived in Australia for so long that they've been able to adapt biologically to its environment. This means that groups living in different parts of the country adapted in different ways according to weather conditions. Because they were so geographically isolated from one another—Australia's landmass being particularly vast—genetic diversity between different tribal groups is huge. Aboriginal Australians living in desert regions, for example, were able to withstand sub-zero night temperatures without increasing their metabolic rates. Europeans can't do this.

The publication of the research about human migration comes at a poignant time, with government immigration policy making headlines in Australia and around the world. Yesterday, Essential Research published the finding that 49 percent of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration.

So if you're afraid of immigrants, perhaps consider this—you're a fairly recent arrival on land owned by the oldest-living civilization on earth.

Follow Kat Gillespie on Twitter.

Read: A Celebrity Super PAC Promises to Show You Mark Ruffalo's Dick If You Don't Vote Trump

The man, the myth, the legend. Illustration by Mike Feehan

The island of Newfoundland is a very strange place that is home to a very strange people. But far and away the strangest of them all was the local media mogul who spent nearly 40 years trying to bring mystical enlightenment to the human race through a surreal superhero comic book and transcendently weird late-night television.

Geoff Stirling has been dead since December 2013, but his spiritual quest lives on. Tune into NTV, the television station he founded, anytime after 2 AM and you will be transported on a cosmic odyssey to the absolute edge of outer (and inner) space. You will float across obscure vistas of hyper-saturated alien worlds soundtracked by psychedelic disco while flashing blocks of text admonish you to ADJUST YOUR MIND, ADJUST YOUR LIFE, ADJUST YOUR SEX. A strange man draped in the Canadian flag flies through the air and dances around on a rooftop. An otherworldly chorus of Christian hymns drone ominously while the "12 ETERNAL LAWS OF GOD" scroll up across the screen.

Every Newfoundlander is familiar with the wonders of NTV Late Night but very few people have ever known what, exactly, is actually going on. I certainly didn't, until I spent three months trying to get inside Stirling's head.

I'm still not sure I get it, but it's been one hell of a trip.

Welcome to the mystical world of Captain Newfoundland.

THE (OTHER) FIFTH BEATLE

There has never been—and likely never will be again—a man quite like Geoff Stirling. He was a visionary in the truest sense of the word; he glimpsed truths about the present and the future that other people could not, or would not, see.

Born on March 22, 1921, Stirling spent his life chasing new heights—literally as well as figuratively. He was an accomplished sprinter and high-jumper in the 1930s and 40s, attending Tampa University in Florida on an athletic scholarship for track and field. In 1946, while the moribund colony of Newfoundland was wrestling with whether it should join Canada or seek independence, Stirling founded a tabloid magazine (the Sunday Herald) that urged the island to link with the United States instead. Along with broadcaster Don Jamieson (who later sat in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet), Stirling founded CJON as a radio station in 1950 and expanded to television in 1955. This station—NTV, "Canada's Superstation"—eventually became the first colour station in the province, and in 1972 it pioneered 24-hour broadcasting.

But while Stirling could see ahead of his time in the media business, it often seemed like he could see beyond time and space itself. His occult side came through loud and clear in the dozens of hours of extra content that 24-broadcasting required every week. As Sarah Smellie chronicled in The Scope just before Geoff's 90th birthday:

"While every other station in the country would simply go off-air, NTV blazed all night, showing syndicated programming, movies, continuous live feed of a fish tank, Scenes of Newfoundland, and the Stirling tapes: hours-long interviews with Joey Smallwood; conversations with conspiracy theorist David Icke spliced with images of horrible grey aliens; the "Computer Animation Festival," featuring Atlantis characters and pulsating animation sequences from the Lawnmower Man; repeated showings of Pink Floyd's The Wall; images of crop circles, UFOs and the Egyptian Pyramids layered on top of one another and/or images of Barack Obama; and the laws of God—"The Law of Energy – All is Energy"—scrolling over random stills."

Because he was a profoundly weird man working through an eminently public medium, Newfoundland abounds with apocryphal stories about spooky Stirling: that he once injected liquid gold into his veins to cure arthritis; that he once called NTV in the middle of a prime time news broadcast to make them play an episode of Inspector Gadget; that he once ranted, shirtless, about politics for two hours on television when he ran against premier Frank Moores as part of Joey Smallwood's Reform Liberal personality cult in 1975.

(Despite being political enemies back in the 1940s, Smallwood and Stirling went on to develop a great—if bizarre—friendship, and once travelled to Cuba together in an unsuccessful attempt to meet Fidel Castro.)

Stirling was deeply influenced by the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s. When he bought CHOM-FM in Montreal—the first English FM station in Quebec—he used it to play multi-day Beatles marathons, live meditative chanting, and divination sessions with the I Ching. Famously, while vacationing in London in 1969, he befriended John Lennon and Yoko Ono when he sent Lennon a cryptic telex: "I've heard your Come Together. Here I am. Geoff Stirling." According to Stirling's son Scott, it was Geoff who invited John and Yoko to Montreal when they held their Bed In and recorded "Give Peace A Chance."

Geoff Stirling (right) with John Lennon and Yoko Ono in London, 1969. Photo via ntv.ca

ENGAGE IN A NEW AGE

Stirling's mystical inclinations ultimately culminated in a trip to India in 1975 to spend time at Swami Shyam's ashram. Upon his return, he wrote about the enlightenment he discovered there in his spiritual manifesto, In Search of a New Age:

"I got on a plane with the determination never to return to the West until I found what I was seeking... , we are in bondage... all of us have the potential to exceed even the wonders performed by Jesus"), an ode to LSD ("drugs give... a glimpse over the wall of one's potential"), and a paean to human freedom ("man is what he thinks, but man does not yet know his power to think is infinite... consequently, his own creative power is unlimited if he but believes").

Above all, In Search of a New Age reveals that Stirling was preoccupied with human spiritual liberation—in particular, freeing young people from 'indoctrination':

"Our traditions have so bound us that we have forgotten that we were born free men... we have accepted through indoctrination that man is born in sin instead of accepting that man is born perfect as a new born baby and descends into the sin of ignorance by indoctrination.... consciousness surrounding the child during these formative years... The terror of our position can be seen."

It was this genuine concern for human psychic liberation that led to Stirling's fascination with superheroes. "Canada has no superheroes," he would tell anyone who listened. Canadian kids needed their own superheroes who could teach them enlightened values—who would help them expand their consciousness and unlock the infinite divine power within themselves. And as the head of a media empire that virtually dominated his home province, Geoff Stirling was well positioned to give them one.

Thus, Captain Canada—and his cosmic guru Captain Newfoundland—were born.

The characters appeared regularly in the pages of the Newfoundland Herald in the late 1970s, and started popping up on NTV in the early 1980s (Captain Canada remains the mascot for the television station).

Everything we know about those strange figures dancing around in front of a greenscreen at 2:30 AM comes from two canonical sources: the Captain Newfoundland comic book (1981), and the epic Atlantis graphic novel (1983). The comics are notoriously hard to find, but I found both of them in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies archive at Memorial University in St. John's.

It's a shame that they're so obscure, because they're a real trip.

TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

Stirling's Atlantis characters can still be seen on the periphery of the NTV Late Night spot, but the stories behind them have long since faded from the collective memory of Newfoundland and Labrador. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the fate of the Stirling Press mural on Logy Bay Road in St. John's.

The mural, painted on the side of the Herald office, was a Mecca for Stirling mythology enthusiasts. The first time I saw it at the age of 20—wacked out of my mind at 4 AM after a particularly intense NTV session—we just sat, awed, in the car for a solid 30 minutes. Nobody knew what the fuck it was, but the gravity was undeniable. Holy shit, it's true, this is a real thing—Geoff Stirling is a real person.

Despite its sublime weirdness and central place among St. John's urban legends, the mural vanished shortly after Stirling died in 2013. It was replaced by stock images from a Newfoundland™ brochure: a humpback whale, a fjord near Gros Morne, Cabot Tower perched above the Narrows. The marketeers' vision of "local culture" dreamed up in a government focus group: absolutely safe, eminently profitable, utterly soulless.

It makes sense why they'd downplay it. Channeling thousands of years of Eastern mysticism through an obscure set of underdeveloped superheroes in mass-market comic books, advertised with five minutes of green-screen time, is a terrible idea—sustainable only by Stirling's own superhuman drive. The Atlantis mythology oscillates somewhere between patronizing and cheesy, but is mostly incomprehensible. That the source material is more than 30 years out of print doesn't help either; a guy shows up to the St. John's Santa Claus parade dressed as Captain Canada every year and no one has a fucking clue that he once saved Prince Charles and Wayne Gretzky from an evil cosmic wizard. (Yes, this was a plot line in the comics.)

The general weirdness of Geoff Stirling has been part of the background of Newfoundland's cultural life for decades. For weirdos like myself it's an enduring cult fascination, but it's otherwise increasingly unnoticed and unappreciated since its heyday 30 years ago.

The comics, the late night computer graphics, the glowing pyramid on Logy Bay Road—it's all part of the charm. But as a method of public enlightenment, all this is an oversell. It was Stirling falling into the Western excess he rails against, an unnecessary veil over what is otherwise his very simple, profound, and transformative promise: that if you spend 20 minutes a day quieting your restless windmill mind and listening to your heart, you will be less of a miserable piece of shit.

It's true. It works. And at the bottom of it all, maybe a goofy dude in a maple leaf suit teaching us how to chill out and love ourselves is the hero that the digitized stress nightmare we call the 21st century needs. It's this simple truth, shorn of the drug-fueled mania and 1980s psychedelia, that keeps the spirit of Captain Newfoundland alive.

We're due for a Stirling renaissance. After all, isn't it a testament to the man's power of vision that yoga and clean-eating obsessions have become a major mode of spirituality in the post-Christian consumer societies of North America? The dominant media model in the 21st century is a perpetual motion machine of instant, constant, cheap content syncing up across multiple platforms 24/7/365—a model Stirling pioneered, for his own obscure ends, in his own obscure corner of the world. It's a better track record than most oracles.

Everything old is new again. The Boris Vallejo Atlantis covers have recently appeared on a wall outside the NTV studio, not far from the old Herald mural. Captain Canada can still be seen somersaulting off the moon every Saturday night, proclaiming the Holy Gospel of Consciousness to anyone vibrating on Geoff Stirling's cosmic frequency, broadcasting his secret message to those few among us who have truly lived by the Captain's code: "This above all: to thine own Self be true."

Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.

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This piece was published in partnership with the Influence.

By 1968, the psychedelic age was in full swing, with the attendant culture starting to go national at the same time that it was the site of unceasing experimentation. Mirroring the political and cultural explosions of the decade, the drug world evolved past the early love-ins and pure Owsley Stanley LSD in nuanced and often forgotten ways.

Adding new richness to our understanding of the era, the website Erowid has recently been publishing never-before-publicized issues ofMicro-Gram, the government's internal drugs newsletter.

Micro-Gramwas first published by the "Bureau of Drug Abuse Control" (BDAC)—a division of the Food and Drug Administration—as an attempt to pool information from numerous government offices. In 1973, the BDAC joined with other agencies to become the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) we know and love. The DEA still publishesMicro-Gramtoday; in fact, a separate public edition ran for a decade beginning in 2003 but has since returned to restricted status.

After revealing the enthralling first four bulletins, spanning November 1967 through January 1968, Erowid has now made public two more editions from later in 1968—Micro-Gram #5 and #6. Suffice to say, things were just starting to get weird.

Boston Scene Report: LSD Candy Hits the East Coast

Cambridge was an early center of the American psychedelic explosion, centered on Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert's various projects at Harvard, with LSD sugar cubes turning up around Harvard Square even before that. The Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC) had reported on acid-infused bubblegum in Micro-Gram #4—in Micro-Gram #5, they document it turning up in Boston in early 1968 in the form of "chocolate-filled candies."

The first generation of the Cambridge scene was in the process of turning over, though it remained beyond Micro-Gram's scope. By early '68, Leary and Alpert were long gone, and former acolyte Lisa Bieberman was closing her Cambridge-based Psychedelic Information Center, disillusioned with the rampant, indiscriminate use of psychedelics, including by her ex-colleagues. "Flower power is no substitute for integrity," she wrote in a dark op-ed for the New Republic at the height of the Summer of Love.

The Government Sent Drugs By Train

The government's fight against drugs was still so new in 1968, apparently, that regional labs remained a rarity. Micro-Gram #5 offers handy step-by-step instructions for agents on how to send drugs to the Food and Drug Administration in Washington, DC, for proper testing. Registered mail worked, but agents could also send substances via the Railway Express Agency—the government-operated, train-based parcel-delivery system founded after World War I, and discontinued in the mid 70s.

New Strategies for the Ongoing Explosion—and "Rotten Barns"

Early 1968 was also as good a time as any for the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control to assess its drug control efforts, reporting that by the turn of the year, they had broken up 42 underground labs, 36 of them devoted to hallucinogens. Still, one can almost sense the government agents starting to freak out. Though they don't offer specifics, "the production potential of these facilities staggers the imagination," the bulletin remarks.

With the government starting to keep a tighter watch over university and other research facilities, "you can see that we have not only eliminated a lot of 'rotten barns,' but have fixed many others," the unnamed folksy correspondent notes. "This makes a lot more efficient use of money and manpower, than chasing the horses after they get out on the street."

"Carbona Not Glue" and Other Unpleasantries

A decade into the future, the Ramones would sing "Carbona Not Glue," about the brain-wiping non-pleasures of sniffing Carbona, an upholstery cleaning agent also used in the manufacture of fire extinguishers. While the New York punk band's reference was more a comic book–style caricature, Micro-Gram #5 reveals that Carbona's genuinely dangerous non-psychedelic effects were considered a serious enough threat in 1968 that the government considered banning it under the Federal Hazardous Substances Act.

Micro-Gram documents all kinds of new poly-drug combinations, many of them far removed from the counterculture and the idea of mind expansion and more about simply getting as high as possible. Heroin users are reported to be burning mixtures of Cogentin and Ritalin. A report about Europe notes the misuse of various prescription pills and the over-the-counter cough suppressant Romilar. Issue #6 notes that in Florida, aspiring heads were reportedly trying SANSERT, a new Sandoz drug for vascular headaches; teenagers in an unnamed location are reported to be smoking Queen Anne's Lace.

Meanwhile, the March 1968 edition follows up on the previous special issue devoted to PCP, then known to the government as the "Peace Pill," detailing that some users were reported to be smoking marijuana laced ("impregnated") with PCP. Often masquerading as other drugs, including LSD and cocaine, early 1968 seems to mark the beginning of the age of adulterated psychedelics. Micro-Gram #6 likewise reports tablets containing 270 micrograms of LSD with a bonus 0.9 milligram boost of STP for extra chaos.

MDA Arrives on the Government's Radar

A relative to MDMA, the similarly love-y MDA makes its first appearance in the government scopes in early 1968, with several pills confiscated in Washington late the previous year and a lab bust in New York.

Used in various cough suppressants and antidepressants, Peter Stafford's Psychedelics Encyclopedia reported MDA in use in the counterculture since earlier in the decade, and in the 21st century, it continues to turn up frequently in EcstasyData results, not infrequently being branded as some variety of ecstasy/molly/MDMA.

Explosive Love Beads in Minneapolis!

One of the most intriguing items in these editions of Micro-Gram is a mention of the Blue Hand, a mysterious group out of Minnesota. "We are checking out a report that 'hippies' in the Minneapolis area have formed an organization for protection against law enforcement officers," the item reads. Suggesting they are making explosive items out of friction-sensitive pellets, Micro-Gram warns, "Do not mistake for pills or love beads."

There is little further information available about the Blue Hand, perhaps a midwestern equivalent to the violent New York art radicals of the Black Mask, who evolved into the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers in late 1967. Both are evidence of the year's brewing political unrest, as portions of the once-peaceful counterculture merged with the politics of the New Left and began to move in less peaceful directions.

Not Every Drug Took Off

"NEW HALLUCINOGEN" notes the lead story in Micro-Gram #6, reporting that a drug called IT-290 was available for $17 a gram from the Aldrich Chemical Company's catalog and being used for tripping.

Known more properly now as AMT, and also sold in 1968 as IT-403, U-14, 164E and Indopan, it had been administered to the author Ken Kesey during his time participating in government psychedelic tests at the Menlo Park Veterans Hospital in the early 60s. "The Rolls Royce of psychedelics," Kesey was rumored to have called it (though that might have been Neal Cassady describing mushrooms). AMT never quite took off in the 60s and 70s. It turned up for sale on the internet in the late 90s, before the government finally criminalized it in 2003.

In that same issue, Micro-Gram notes that DET had been confiscated on the street, as well. Though it, too, would reappear over the years, DET remained so obscure even by the standards of Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin that for many years the legendary chemist wasn't even entirely clear on its effects.

The Government Couldn't Spell Albert Hofmann's Name Either

Albert Hofmann's only references in the Micro-Gram newsletters posted to date are just that—items on bibliographies—and none have to do with the Swiss chemist's invention of LSD.

Perhaps having Abbie Hoffman on the mind, who was starting to earn himself media attention in the East Village in early 1968, Micro-Gram gives the Sandoz chemist the double-F/single-N treatment multiple times. More significantly, though, in "References For Synthesis of Some Hallucinogenic and Stimulant Drugs," Micro-Gram provides a short bibliography for government chemists in its brief overview of the available patents and literature on a variety of substances.

Nobody Really Knew Much About Psilocybin Yet

"We have been telling the agents and police officers in our schools about the potential hazards in raiding clandestine drug laboratories," Micro-Gram notes in issue #6, and advises that experts should always be called in for safe dismantling.

The issue does, however, provide the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control's 13-page supplement, "Notes on Clandestine Laboratories." Mostly a checklist of the various equipment and reagents one might use to identify exactly which kind of underground chemists they'd busted, as well as what kind of tablet machines to look for, it also offers basic descriptions of the substances involved.

Though R. Gordon Wasson had moved psychedelics into the mainstream with his 1957 LIFE magazine report on his mushroom experiences in Mexico, they were still a rarity in North America. But Albert "Hoffman" had successfully synthesized psilocybin on behalf of Sandoz, and his earliest (and quite arcane) techniques are summarized for agents who might encounter a lab.

Heads would figure it out, though, and in another decade, Terence and Dennis McKenna would solve the problem of how to grow psilocybin-containing mushrooms in North American environments, revolutionizing their production and maybe even making them more prevalent than LSD.

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

A version of 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.

Amber Rudd arriving at Downing Street for a cabinet meeting. Photo by Jonathan Brady / PA Wire

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

A newly leaked cache of documents has put Amber Rudd, the UK's home secretary, under the spotlight, revealing the details of her business career before she entered politics. Among other things, she was director of two companies in the Bahamas, a tax haven, which she failed to mention when defending David Cameron over the Panama Papers revelations. She was also director of a company where her co-director was jailed for fraud. There's no suggestion that she was involved in any wrongdoing, but obviously this isn't a great look for a minister. Rudd has declined to answer questions, but says her previous business career is public knowledge. VICE has contacted Rudd for further comment.

The Bahamas Leaks are 1.3 million leaked files originating from the tax haven's corporate records. Just like in the Panama Papers, which were made public in April, they came to light after an unknown source handed files concerning offshore companies to Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier, journalists for the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. This latest leak is just one-tenth the size of the Panama Papers, but size isn't everything, and the leak sheds some light on yet another secretive offshore center, the Bahamas.

The leaked files reveal details concerning the offshore activities of prime ministers, governmental advisors, members of royal families, and convicted criminals. The ownership and management of an offshore corporation is not illegal and, in many cases, legitimate business reasons lie behind the creation of an offshore structure. Experts in transparency issues, however, stress how important it is for public officials to disclose their involvement in offshore entities.

The new data is available at offshoreleaks.icij.org, which is the same website featuring the Panama Papers that were published a few months ago, as well as the Offshoreleaks, which were made public in 2013.

Back in July, the two German journalists who received the leaked documents shared the data with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a nonprofit association with hundreds of members in dozens of countries across the world. The publication of the Bahamas Leaks creates, for the first time, a free, online, and publicly available record of the Bahamas-based offshore companies. Along with data from the Panama Papers and other leaked documents regarding offshore companies, these documents shed light on the secretive world of offshore corporations and make up the world's largest public offshore record in history.

Another big name in the cross-hairs is European Commissioner Neelie Kroes, whose involvement in an offshore company during her term as European Commissioner has been revealed. Kroes participated in the offshore corporation Mint Holdings Ltd., serving as the company's manager from 2000 to 2009. Kroes failed to disclose this in her declaration of interests upon assuming her position as commissioner for competition in 2004. She failed to mention this once again in 2010, when she became the European commissioner for digital ggenda.

According to the European Commission rulebook, its members are "not to engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not." They may only hold "honorary positions."

Kroes's initial response was that the allegations were false. Subsequently, the former commissioner's attorneys wrote that Mint Holdings never functioned properly and that due to an error of an administrative nature, Mrs. Kroes's name remained registered with the company, even though she never participated in the board of directors or any kind of business activities conducted by the company. Her attorneys admitted that the former commissioner never mentioned any administrative link to the offshore company in her declaration of interests. They also noted that Mrs. Kroes will inform the president of the European Commission and that she will accept full responsibility regarding this matter.

Related: Watch an interview with Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier

To turn on English subtitles, click "CC" and change the language to English

A Jordanian businessman, who was responsible for the United Arab Emirates's armament program in the late 1990s, and who later founded an investment firm, also participated in the same offshore company.

Also mentioned in the Bahamas Leaks is former Colombian minister of Mines and Energy, Carlos Caballero Argaez, who served between 1999 and 2001. He was registered as chairman and secretary of the Bahamas-based company Pavc Properties Inc. between 1997 and 2008. Argaez also appeared to be Norway Inc.'s manager, a company that had been registered in the Bahamas between 1990 and 2015. Argaez told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that Norway Inc. maintained a bank account in Miami, which belonged to his father. He denied any conflict of interests and claimed the company was set up in the Bahamas for "taxation reasons."

Companies, trusts, and bank accounts have often appeared in the Bahamas, following cases of dictators' or politicians' confiscated funds. Former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's son used such a company in the Bahamas, Meritor Investments Limited, to transfer $1.3 billion to his father. Pinochet's son, Marco Antonio, dismissed the allegations as "lies" and claimed no offense was committed. Pinochet himself owns another company in the Bahamas; Ashburton Company Limited, which was founded in 1996. Meanwhile, $350 million belonging to Aba Ampatsa, son of former Nigerian president Sani Ampatsa, remains frozen in Luxembourg and the Bahamas, due to a global "hunt" for the $3 million and other assets his father extorted from Nigeria during his five-year sovereignty.

The Bahamas have also been linked to politicians' and public officials' transactions mentioned in the Panama Papers. These include former prime minister of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabor al-Thani, who owned a Bahamas-based company called Trick One Limited. In January of 2005, while serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs, al-Thani signed a bank loan agreement of $53 million. To secure the loan, he pledged the bank an award-winning 435-foot yacht worth $300 million.

Argentinian president Maurizio Macri, his father, Fransisco, and his brother, Mariano, were heads of Fleg Trading Ltd.—a company that was established in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved 11 years later. Macri did not disclose his connection to the company in his property declaration in 2007 and 2008, when he was serving as mayor of Buenos Aires. Following the Panama documents publication, an Argentinian prosecutor sought information from the Panama and Bahamas authorities, as part of an investigation that was trying to determine whether Macri intentionally omitted his link to the company. Macri's spokesman told ICIJ that Argentina's president failed to report his connection to Fleg Trading Ltd. because he had no economic interests and did not hold any shares.

"Corporate registries are extremely important," said former FBI special agent Debra Laprevotte. "Offshore companies are often used as intermediaries to facilitate money laundering... thus the corporate registry documents, which might identify the beneficial owners, are part of the evidence."

*This article uses data from research conducted by ICIJ journalists' Will Fitzgibbon and Emilia Díaz-Struck, and the contribution of Juliette Garside (The Guardian), Gaby de Groot (Het Financieele Dagblad ), Michael Hudson (ICIJ), Carlos Eduardo Huertas (Connectas), Frederik Obermaier (Sueddeutsche Zeitung), Bastian Obermayer (Sueddeutsche Zeitung), Martijn Roessingh (Trow) and Vanessa Wormer (Sueddeutsche Zeitung).

The Buck-OFF masturbation sleeve. Photo courtesy Buck Angel

Over the past decade, the sex toy industry has exploded into a $15 billion market, and observers predict it will reach $50 billion by 2020. And the proliferation of toys of all shapes and sizes to meet any imaginable kink and fetish, plus the fact that any taboo about them has all but dissipated from our cultural climate in 2016, makes it almost unbelievable when charismatic trans activist and tireless entrepreneur Buck Angel says, "There is no toy ever in the history of the adult toy market made specifically for trans men."

That changes this week with the arrival of a new device in sex stores: the Buck-OFF, a masturbation aid made for people who have transitioned or are transitioning from female to male. The device, which is distributed by male sex toy manufacturer Perfect Fit, is Angel's own creation, and took over five years to develop. It represents a radical entry into the sex toy industry, one that could set a precedent for investors and manufacturers to broaden their horizons beyond strap-ons and slings.

The Buck-OFF is designed for people who are taking, or have taken, testosterone as part of their FTM transition, which often has the effect of enlarging their genitals; while the Buck-OFF resembles other masturbation sleeves in its basic design, there are two key differences: It's shorter and wider than other sleeves, and can create suction. That allows trans men to masturbate more easily—and also helps to curb gender dysphoria that might arise in the use of other toys.

A lot of people who are making or have made the transition from female to male "do not want to touch their genitals," Angel told VICE. "They are very disassociated from their vaginas because it doesn't feel masculine to them. When you transition you want to have a penis, you want to feel like a man, and so you don't necessarily want to touch your vagina." The Buck-OFF "allows you to masturbate without touching your vagina."

How have trans men escaped the sex toy industry's marketing radar until now? Alex Iantaffi, a Minneapolis sex therapist and educator who works extensively with the trans community, thinks the roots of the problem lie in our culture's view of trans people. Iantaffi told VICE that they believe trans bodies are seen "as existing for the cisgender gaze and, as such, almost as a form of titillation," rather than as people with their own sexual needs and sexual health rights.

And while you might think the possibility of exploiting an untapped market could trump personal bias for entrepreneurs, Marina Adshade, a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics and author of a book on sex and economics, notes that research shows investors are far from the rational calculators we think they are, and that stigma can drive their decisions as much as the pursuit of profit. "We know that venture capitalists can be discriminatory," Adshade told VICE. "Studies have shown that they consistently underfund female entrepreneurs, for instance. And sex toys are expensive to develop. That's why they keep appearing on Kickstarter. may have thought the market was too small. The VCs want the biggest bang for their buck."

Angel understands investors' caution. "It always comes down to money. Nobody wants to be the first," he said. But he also thinks the size of the market has been underestimated. "It's sort of like when they came out with the first computer. You had to show people: This is going to work, my friends."

Wyatt Riot, who works at She Bop, an adult boutique in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in female-, queer- and trans-friendly products, says they are stocking the Buck-OFF. "There is definitely a market for products like these; we have had customers ask for something similar," he told VICE, noting he'd like to see more products like Buck-OFF hit shelves. "Often, trans people have to alter toys in order to make them work for their bodies." He cited the Bro Sleeve, a masturbation sleeve that some trans men have modified to use for masturbation, though some have reported mixed results from trying to do this, and have encountered gender dysphoria as a result.

Iantaffi applauds the move to recognize the sexual needs of trans persons. He says it is essential that people have access to sexual aids that meet their needs, and that these "can be invaluable in a person exploring their own body and sexuality." However, he also has concerns about how devices like the Buck-OFF are marketed. "Marketing and selling sexual aids to trans people is another way to monetize our bodies," he said. "I think that seeing devices like this in sex shop might potentially reinforce the discourse that trans people are different to the 'norm,' which is implicitly cis people and cis bodies. I would like to see devices marketed on function and purpose rather than gender. After all the trans/cis binary is still a binary that potentially keeps reproducing cisgenderism, even when working towards the recognition of trans identities."

Angel believes that his product can help validate trans male identities. He would like to see the device become a teaching tool for therapists and sex educators, to help trans men connect with their bodies—all worthy goals. And with just one week on the market, the initial reception for the Buck-OFF among both customers and retailers has been enthusiastic. "We blew it out all over the world," he said.

"Ive tried everything under the sun to feel right masturbating, but now, i finally feel like the man i am when doin it, all thanks to you," one of the first reviews of the product said on Perfect Fit's website. "I love you with all my heart, Buck. You give me strength every day to be the best me i can be!!!!"

Neil McArthur is the director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at University of Manitoba, where his work focuses on sexual ethics and the philosophy of sexuality. Follow him on Twitter.

In 1975, Newfoundland media baron Geoff Stirling took a trip to India and attained spiritual enlightenment. Spoiler: it involves meditation, veganism, yoga, and a heroic dose of LSD.

Photo of someone w/ the most baffling shoes I've ever seen and their pants down (Photo: Bark, via)

A York man has been ordered to sign the sex offender's register, complete a 12-month community order with 200 hours unpaid work and pay £750 in compensation and £250 costs because he pulled down a ginger guy's trousers in a pub garden to see what colour his pubes were.

Now:

i. Pulling someone's trousers down in a pub garden to see what colour their pubes are – especially when this action is done immediately after pointing to the ginger hair on their head and then going "is that your natural colour?" and then searching in their pubes for truth – is not funny. It is deeply humiliating, especially when the ginger pube-haver is only 19 year old. Nineteen is a frail time: you are at once occupying a slender but grown adult body, but the mind hasn't caught up – you are excited for life but afraid of it at the same time; every touch is electricity, every second is a moment of dawning potential, everything is pulling you into adulthood and away from the yearning of adolescence. You are both sure and unsure, brave and afraid, a baby calf tentatively making its first steps – and so, generally, it is the exact worst time to have your trousers pulled down and your pubes flopped out in front of everyone in a pub garden. With one caveat:

ii. It's also extremely funny.

So you see the conundrum. On the one hand: not funny. On the other hand: very funny. I mean, let's look at the evidence:

NOT FUNNY

— The court heard that the victim was "angry and upset" by the actions (obviously) and that the landlord and landlady later noticed him crying, so we can definitely put those actions in the "Not Funny" category;

— Immediately after what we will now legally refer to as The Pantsing, the victim re-pantsed himself and sat down to avoid further embarrassment / pantsing, which again, if you think of it as having just happened to you is very much Not Funny still;

— The perpetrator clearly knew the severity of his crime because he repeatedly tried to apologise to the trouserless victim on the night in question, so even he knew it was Not Funny;

VERY FUNNY

— But it's also extremely funny.

We just keep coming round to this! Is it juvenile? Yes. Is it humiliating? Yes. Is it extremely funny? Also yes! And so we must come to an uneasy conclusion: the law does not account for banter.

I am invoking the B-word here because, when interviewed, that's exactly what the Pantser said re: the attack on the Pantsee. "It was banter," he said. "Nothing sexual." Can banter be sexual? It cannot. Can a pantsing be sexual? Not in my experience, but I'm sure there are niche forums. Can banter lead to an order to sign the sex offender's register? Apparently yes. So we're in a murky grey area where, basically, banter is illegal. Humiliating banter is illegal.

It's hard to know how to feel about this whole thing. A lot of this year has been about banter – the pursuit of, the definition of, declaring it over or peaked, banter as a language, banter as discourse, banter banter banter – and in many ways it feels like outlawing it would be a step in the right direction. Maybe we all need a year off of banter, a hard reset. Maybe that's what's just happened, in a court in York: that banter has been declared a crime, and we all need to think very hard about our bants or bantings, and that this is the start of a new era of banter: calm, controlled, nobody's pubes being exposed, in strict accordance with the law. In many respects: thank you, York Trouser Prankster. Thank you for taking the hit that banter as a universal concept so desperately needed.

@joelgolby

More from VICE:

Calculating the Exact Amount of Banter in That Photo of Those Eton Schoolboys Who Met Putin

There Is No More Banter Left After the Hijacker Selfie Became a Thing

A Tribute to the Impossibly Uncomfortable Banter of 'This Week'

You don't often see the poor on TV. Writers don't seem to have the interest or life experience to grasp the struggles and indignities that come from being a part of the bottom one percent. However, the fourth episode of Atlanta goes there.

"The Streisand Effect" dovetails nicely with last week's "Go for Broke." When we last saw Earn, he was reporting his debit card as stolen to get out of paying the amount he (over)spent on a fancy night out with his girlfriend and baby mama Vanessa. If "Going for Broke" explored the absurdities of being broke—holding desperately onto what one has until payday arrives—then this week's episode is a more surrealist, dream-like state, the heady effect of for-real poverty. We open with Earn mid-daydream, attention drifting, as he waits outside for Paper Boi, who eventually appears from a smoke-filled establishment. As they discuss the particulars of a new Paper Boi song, "Pussy Relevance," they are rolled up on by a mysterious stranger, an apparent fan—and online troll—of Paper Boi.

I wouldn't have expected the appearance of a troll so early in Atlanta's first season, certainly not in an episode in which money and resources—and their conspicuous absence from people's lives, namely Earn's—are the primary narrative thrusts. But Donald Glover—the show's creator and star—wrote "The Streisand Effect" with high ideas in mind.

Donald Glover doesn't appear interested in positioning Earn as a down-on-his-luck everyman, bumbling his way from scenario to scenario. Neither does he seem interested in portraying Earn as a self-righteous, cash-strapped millennial, all lofty ideals and empty checking account. We know very little about Earn at this point; he stands at a distance from us, even as he seemingly ends up on a quest with Darius. A routine trip to the pawn shop, so Earn can pawn his phone for cash, turns into a kind of multi-stop odyssey when Darius informs Earn that trading the phone for a samurai sword in the shop could lead to more money than the $190 offered by the dealer. Earn takes the sword—he needs money.

The cloying, ethnically ambiguous troll "Zan" ridicules Paper Boi, both as a drug dealer and a rapper, with online videos and memes. Zan (whom the crew speculates is either Dominican, Indian, or half-Chinese, despite his claims of being Paper Boi's "nigga") is a bully who inspires Paper Boi to furiously type on his phone. Eventually, Paper Boi tracks down and confronts Zan at his pizza-delivery job. Zan reveals himself as an opportunist, someone motivated by money to build a following online via "likes" and shares, exploiting the music of Paper Boi, which, Zan argues, exploits Paper Boi's past, and whatever ethos he gleaned from selling drugs.

In Atlanta's rendering, the online troll is a capitalist converting attention into money. But are money and attention the real motivations behind racist and sexist memes? I doubt Glover is suggesting all trolls are misunderstood businesspeople trying to make a buck, but he offers a perspective worth considering. Namely, that being broke can lead to elaborate ways to improve one's social and financial status. Not a new idea, but I hadn't thought of trolls—especially those who harass celebrities—in this way before.

As for the melancholic and disconnected Earn, he appears to be in something of a fugue state. The samurai sword is traded for a muscular dog, who is then given over by Darius to a flannel-wearing stranger somewhere in the Georgia hills (perhaps near Stone Mountain, where Glover was raised). Darius celebrates as the dog is handed over, while Earn, perplexed, asks for the money promised. "September," Darius says—the muscular dog will breed with another dog to conceive puppies that'll sell for up to $4,000 each—and one can appreciate the distress on Earn's face, bordering on nausea. "Van needed that money," Earn says to Darius. "My daughter needed that money. Not in September, but today. See, I'm poor, Darius. And poor people don't have time for investments because poor people are too busy trying not to be poor. I need to eat today, not in September."

For all of Earn's indignation, Darius points out the truth—if money was needed, maybe Earn should've pawned the phone for the $190 cash, but he wanted more, and Darius said he could get more. Earn's indignation falters and only despair remains. Being broke might be funny, but it spreads depression and destabilization throughout one's life. We know little about Earn, but we know the fright on his face, and so does Darius, who gives Earn his phone to pawn for money. The "thank you" that Earn utters is so meek, filled with a mix of relief and revulsion. It's the resigned appreciation from someone angry at needing to rely on others. Darius stands outside the car and opens the driver side door. He says, almost bouncing on his feet, "We're friends now." Friends are all Earn has left. His fortunes are tied to whether or not he can be equally generous to those who've given quite a bit to him. Time will tell.

Follow Mensah Demary on Twitter.

Atlanta airs Tuesdays at 10 PM on FX.

Screenshots courtesy of Telltale Games

Spoilers follow for Batman: The Telltale Series, and Telltale's Game of Thrones, too. So if you've not played either game, but are planning to, it's best to click away for now and come back later.

When the first episode of Telltale's interactive take on Batman came out in early August, I felt that, despite its intriguing redrawing of the Penguin, it was ultimately too safe, too familiar, to truly feel like a series I was ready to root for. In this story, Oswald Cobblepot isn't introduced as a dumpy guy with a deformed face and a hereditary penchant for feathered friends; rather, he's a slim of frame and scowling of face menace in waiting, an old pal of Bruce Wayne who's seen his family's fortune and reputation in Gotham thoroughly trashed. When, in episode one, Cobblepot explains that he's the head of a revolution coming to the city, Bruce can be sympathetic, understanding of his frustrations. Nevertheless, there's a barely veiled warning against the proposed storm: Wayne's famous alter ego is unlikely to take any kind of troublemaking sitting down.

Episode one was, as it often the way with such openers, exclusively preamble—but it was also oddly paced, shifting awkwardly between Wayne's two sides and introducing a Catwoman we felt we already knew from movies. It lacked narrative punch enough to truly impress in the way that debut installments in The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us managed. There wasn't a hook like Snow White's decapitated head on the steps of Bigby Wolf's apartment block, or the sudden murder of what looked like being a lead character at the climax of the first episode of Telltale's Game of Thrones. But with episode two, "Children of Arkham," this Batman story hasn't simply got its cat claws into me—it's piling up bodies, too, in devilishly freewheeling fashion.

Which is precisely what Game of Thrones failed to do. The Telltale game was staged concurrently with the television show, shadowing its events from the end of season three to the beginning of the fifth. That meant welcome cameos from small-screen characters and their actors—Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, and Kit Harington all played their parts, albeit this time their voices were heard coming from stiffly moving models rather than human actors slathered in fake blood. But because of the TV show taking narrative precedent above any other seam of Game of Thrones fiction—including the A Song of Ice and Fire books that informed it—Telltale couldn't do much of note with the established cast, as that'd take their story away from the HBO canon.

Ramsay Bolton is undoubtedly the biggest dickhead of the video game, significantly more than a thorn in the side of the player-controlled family, the Forresters. He is just as wicked with a PS4 pad in your hand as he is with your feet up in front of Sky Atlantic—but can you take any significant action against his evil ways? No, obviously not. That shit wouldn't get his comeuppance until season six of the show, when its writers went totally off the rails so carefully laid down by author George R R Martin and took a Transformers: The Movie approach to longstanding fan favorites: wiping them out with the kind of merciless abandon, so often suddenly and without lengthy foreshadowing, that we're more used to seeing dealt to mid-ranking video game NPCs, not heaving-budget, ratings-grossing, awards-gobbling TV productions.

A second run of Telltale's Game of Thrones is currently in development, and after the staggering body count of the TV show's sixth season, I'd like to hope that any established characters that show up in the game won't be guaranteed an easy ride. Fans of the franchise should be accepting that a death over here need not necessarily spell the absolute end of someone's story over there—after all, viewers have seen a "back from the dead" turn from The Hound on the box, while the books revived the late Catelyn Stark as the revenge-obsessed Lady Stoneheart (season seven, come on, seriously). While Margaery and Tommen aren't about to make a comeback, with the right approach Telltale could certainly "kill off" its share of famous faces. And the Californian studio really is setting a precedent for that boldness, that bloodlust, with episode two of Batman: The Telltale Series.

"Children of Arkham" is either a fan's wildest dreams made real before their eyes, or a complete nightmare of fan fiction running away with itself, tripping every step of the way. As someone who's only ever flirted with the wider Batman lore—anything that isn't featured in the Hollywood movies or Rocksteady Studios' Arkham series of games (I own a couple of the more renowned comics, but no more)—it's tough for me to really get a read on whether its slaughtering of some fairly central characters is an exciting, unexpected turn for games-makers who only tip-toed around the murderous potential of the Game of Thrones license, or a disaster for those really invested in Bob Kane's most famous creation.

Article continues after the video below

Related: Watch VICE's short documentary on the real superheroes of Montreal

While I prefaced this piece with a spoiler warning, I feel that going beyond "some people you've known to be a part of Batman for, like, forever get bumped off" is unnecessary here—it's better that you see it all unfold for yourself. But that they do, and how they are, is blindsiding in its brutality and bluntness. There are no carefully telegraphed clues as to what is coming, no unbothered breadcrumb trail that (albeit inadvertently) leads from a place of safety to the oven itself—it's straight into the fire with an almighty shove, shock value to the forefront. It's savage, and shockingly succinct—exactly how Game of Thrones was in season six, and precisely how Telltale's next Game of Thrones should be.

Telltale has also gone back into Bruce Wayne's past, to the moment where he lost his parents, and told that formative story in a new, fascinating way. Again, spoilers were promised, but that meager morsel of information aside I'm not willing to divulge exactly how they've framed the fate of Thomas Wayne in this story. He still gets shot, murdered, by Joe Chill—not Jack Napier, as the ten-year-old me was led to believe—but the circumstances are quite unlike any Batman origin story I've previously come across. A cursory cruise around various wikis shows that there are hints of what Telltale has pulled together here in past comics, but I've not seen it packaged, if that's quite the right word, in this manner before. It's designed, clearly, to make the player feel for Bruce, not just for Batman, and to bring them closer to the man behind the mask—for it's possible to play the vast majority of "Children of Arkham" without donning the cowl, one option allowing you to wear a shirt and tie to the mayor's office rather than Kevlar and latex.

"Children of Arkham" ends with an either/or decision that's of far greater significance to the on-going plot. It's essentially that awful scene in The Walking Dead, where you (as Lee) must choose between saving Carley or Doug from being torn apart by zombies, but with two massive Bat-lore characters in those roles. I've seen how both ways play out, and I'm happy that my main save is what I instinctively chose first; but the repercussions of the one I'm not progressing with are really interesting too, and just like the Penguin's reimagining, represent a new birth for one of Gotham's most infamous villains. I hope that my rescuing of said character means that they won't develop their darker side at all during the next three episodes, because if that fate is locked in it will completely undermine my choice here.

Batman: The Telltale Series' laissez-faire attitude to long-existing backstory is hugely refreshing. The tale that is playing out has already got me suspecting those closest to Bruce of not being as transparent about the past as he assumed they were, and that not everyone who wears the traditional appearance of a good guy is anywhere close to trustworthy. Episode two develops Catwoman beyond the archetype we saw previously, with players getting to see a confident Selina Kyle who can handle herself outside of the suit, and ends with so much more at stake—for Bruce, Batman, and Gotham itself—than the first chapter's climax. A downside to the experience is the hideously juddering frame rate, something of a Telltale trademark by now; but get over that and it's clear that all the pieces are in risky positions on the board right now, with some already knocked to the side, out of the game far earlier than anticipated. Where everything goes from here is an inviting mystery that even the World's Greatest Detective would be hard pressed to make a prediction on.

Episodes one and two of Batman: The Telltale Series are out now for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Follow Mike Diver on Twitter.

Read more gaming articles on VICE, follow VICE Gaming on Twitter, and like us on Facebook.

Illustration by Dan Evans

If you're about to head to university, you're probably focused on one thing. The pure, sublime joy of intellectual challenge? The knowledge that you're about to embark on a life-changing journey of personal growth? Nah, mate. Freshers week.

As we all know – as we are told by our elders and that one weird guy who's definitely too old to be hanging out with 17-year-olds – freshers is primarily about downing more fluorescent alcopops than is medically advisable, getting off with and then instantly hating new course mates, and learning new and exciting ways to be sick along the way. You will probably be sick in several sinks. You will probably be sick on, or near, someone you fancy. You will definitely be sick on yourself.

This, however, is just one side of freshers week. Alongside the drinking, the desperate attempts to make friends and your futile attempts to forget that you may, at some point, have to actually learn something, there's the less fun stuff. There's moving miles away from home, living alone for the first time, being away from support structures, having basically no idea what your personality actually is. And for some people, it'll be their first experience of mental illness.

A report released today by the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank says the scale of mental health problems among university students is "bigger than ever before". It also found that some universities need to triple their mental health funding.

"There are lots of burdens on young people today," says Stephen Buckley, Head of Information at Mind. "From stress about exams and student debts, to worries about appearance and pressures from social media. All of this can trigger feelings of low self-esteem, depression and anxiety."

For me, freshers week was a shock. I wasn't too far away from home, but it was the first time I had no real support network. My best friends from school were scattered across the country and I felt a nagging pressure to not rely on my parents. After all, wasn't I supposed to be supporting myself? I engaged in all the usual freshers week stuff – drinking way too much, kissing regrettable people, sleeping in until 3PM – but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something deeply wrong. Spoiler alert: I was mentally ill!

Even though I already knew I had problems with my mental health, it just didn't factor in when I thought about starting uni. I was nervous about moving out, but that was more to do with practical stuff: could I cook dinner without poisoning myself? Could I wash my clothes without shrinking them? Could I be bothered to change my sheets?

Thinking back, I didn't even consider what a huge impact uni would have on my mental health. So here are a few tips to hopefully help you get through freshers week if you're experiencing mental health problems yourself.

PREPARE YOURSELF

You could be the most mentally stable person in the world, but freshers week might still knock you back a bit. Your sleep schedule is totally fucked because your parents aren't there to drag you out of bed; you're probably eating like shit because OH MY GOD YOU CAN EAT POTATO WAFFLES AT LITERALLY ANY TIME OF DAY, WHAT THE FUCK; you're drinking about 56 times more than usual; and you're potentially taking quite a lot drugs, maybe for the first time. This has an impact on your mental and physical health.

"For someone with anxiety, freshers week was naturally challenging for me," says Tom, a trainee psychotherapist. "Socialising isn't just obligatory; it's forced upon you. My life became a blur of drinking, socialising, sleeping, eating, repeating. I barely had enough time or space to think, and it was exhausting." Buckley agrees, saying that not getting enough sleep can "seriously impact our mental wellbeing and quality of life".

So make sure you take some time to get some proper sleep, have a day off drinking – or at least limit your units – and eat something green (even if it's just a green juice or a smoothie or, like, one apple). Nobody's expecting you to eschew 2AM kebabs for a full on #cleaneating regime, and it's extremely important to note that even if you did, it is absolutely not going to make you Not Mentally Ill. But keeping on top of things like diet, alcohol consumption, hydration and sleep can help you stay slightly more stable.

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH EXISTING SUPPORT STRUCTURES

One of your main worries about university will probably be whether you'll make friends or not. It's scary, obviously – what if you hate your flatmates? What if everyone on your course is a dick? What if you're a dick? It's a natural worry when you start out.

What that often means is you start to neglect your old mates in the first few weeks of uni. Because who wants to be the saddo Skyping their schoolmates for three hours a day while everyone else is out making their BEST FRIENDS FOR LIFE? Even worse: who wants to be the saddo texting their mum at pre-drinks?

The good news is: you don't have to worry. Yes, everybody is going to desperately be trying to hang onto their new mates, but they're also going to be a bit adrift without their friends from home, and they're also going to be missing their mum. There's nothing wrong with spending a few hours – or even just a few minutes – a day talking to your existing support structures, checking in with them, and letting them know how and when you need them, and this can often be easier and less exhausting than telling your new flatmates your entire mental health history.

MAKE A LIST OF RESOURCES

You might think you're not prone to mental illness, and you may be right. But you may also be wrong. Lots of people have their first experience of mental health problems as students, and an NUS study in 2015 found that around 78 percent of students had experienced mental illness at some point during the previous year.

Even if you're aware of existing mental illnesses, they may start to manifest in different ways – what I thought was unipolar depression turned out to be bipolar during my first term, and I had my first psychotic episode after I went back to uni after the Christmas holidays. It was an experience that was totally alien to me, and I was wholly unprepared for it, meaning I had no idea where to get help.

Before this happens, prepare yourself. Look up the number of your uni health service, enrol at a GP surgery on campus and make sure you have the numbers of services like Nightline or the Samaritans. Universities also have specialised counselling programmes, which can be a good starting point, and if you're really worried, you can also talk to friends and family about what they can do in a crisis. Draw up a plan in case of emergency and write down a list of people you can contact if you need help.

Fifty-four percent of students say they sought no help for their mental health problems. Make sure that you do.

REMEMBER, YOU HAVEN'T FAILED IF YOU HATE IT

It can be hard to realise you're not enjoying freshers week, or that it's having a negative impact on your mental health – this is meant to be the best time of your life, right?! Not necessarily.

"I came to uni thinking it was going to be the best experience of my life – especially freshers week," says Sarah, an editorial assistant. "So when I realised how unhappy I was, I felt like I'd failed somehow."

Tom had the same experience: "As an 18-year-old male going off to university, there's a seemingly universal stereotype to which you're expected to conform. You were expected to drink like a man, snort like a champ and fuck like an animal." It might have been fun for some of his peers, but Tom found it to be a "dangerously self-destructive environment". He suggests establishing boundaries early, protecting personal space and trying not to "fall prey to expectations".

"I think if I could give myself any advice, now that I have a bit of space from freshers week, I'd tell myself not to stress out so much about it," says Sarah. "Even though I thought that making friends and being popular and going out loads was the most important thing, it wasn't. It was my mental health."

@rey_z

More freshers' stuff:

I Relived My Freshers' Week to See If Students Had Changed

Here's Everyone You're Going to Meet At Freshers' Week This Year

Classic Mistakes That British Students Make at University

Image by Sarah MacReading

A poll from earlier this month says 46 percent of Americans currently believe that electoral fraud in the US is widespread. Oh and hey, while we're on the subject of things Americans currently believe, many of them think evil clown attacks are widespread.

As multiple studies have shown, the US doesn't have a problem with voter fraud. In particular, there are almost none of the Groucho-disguise shenanigans that all those voter ID laws will supposedly curtail. Still, Donald Trump has this wild idea that the election might be "rigged" against him.

Just for fun, I decided to take Trump's insane prediction and actually game it out: What if an American presidential election were decided not by the votes but by a criminal act? How would the country's institutions respond, and would there be any way to overturn the results?

Here's my fake fraud scenario: Imagine a very close election that came down to two swing precincts in swing states: one in Ohio, and one in Florida. In both imaginary precincts, it appears that hackers have managed to taint the result in favor of Trump (these imaginary hackers are working independently of Trump's campaign). If the fake votes are counted, Trump's in the White House. If they're thrown out, Hillary Clinton wins.

It goes without saying, there would most likely be chaos: partisan clashes in the streets, a stock market plunge, and an epidemic of low productivity as America's workers checked their news feeds nonstop. But what could the government do? To figure it out, I ran my very implausible scenario past Joshua Douglas, an associate professor of law at the University of Kentucky and the author of a comprehensive state-by-state review of election contesting procedures.

He was generous enough to walk me step-by-step through my hypothetical in tremendous detail. He confirmed that it would be a clusterfuck.

VICE: What happens if there's election fraud in Florida and Ohio?
Joshua Douglas: I think the likelihood of this happening is extremely exceedingly small. We're talking in the world of hypotheticals here.

OK, hypothetically, what would happen?
It's the secretary of state in Ohio that would have the ultimate authority of certifying the results. The first things you'd have to look at are state statutes—regulations that say what would happen if the secretary of state has evidence suggesting that the margin of invalid votes exceeds the margin of victory. If the margin of victory is higher than the margin of fraudulent votes, you can still certify the winner because the fraudulent votes basically wouldn't change the outcome.

And who makes the call in Florida?
In Florida, it's now the "Elections Canvassing Commission" that would certify the result. One Florida statute a request for a recount before an election contest, if the margin of victory is small. That would certainly happen before any election contest. An election contest basically challenges certification and says that the secretary of state should not certify the results because there's a question about the proper winner. Then, depending on the state, and also depending on which office, it would take a particular path. So we look at Florida election code and Ohio election code to see what path that would take.

Let's start with Ohio. How do they handle this?
Ohio law explicitly prohibits election contests for presidential elections.

You're kidding.
There is no basis to challenge—through the state court system or a state mechanism—the validity of the presidential election in Ohio. It's very clear about that.

What about Florida?
In Florida, you can. In Florida, it's just treated like a regular judicial case. You basically file a lawsuit in Leon County, which is where Tallahassee .

How does it work if the state says there was fraud?
One precedent is the Miami mayoral election in 1997, in which the fraudulent ballots that made the difference in the election were the absentee ballots. the court found that the fraudulent activity was only in the absentee ballots. It was very clear based on expert testimony that the absentee balloting could not be explained by any other factor besides fraud. So the court found that the best remedy was to throw out the absentee ballots and certify the winner based on the regular ballots.

Crazy! Could voters just have their valid votes not counted in the presidential election if they happen in a batch tainted by fraud incident?
I think it's very unlikely to have ballots thrown out. But if all of the fraud is in absentee balloting, then the Miami case suggests maybe it can happen. The bigger the office, however, the less likely I think this would occur. A judge would really try to avoid throwing out any validly cast ballots. If the judge could separate out the fraudulent ones, then yes the judge would toss those.

What about in Ohio, where they can't contest an election—what would happen there?
What would probably happen is that the losing candidate would probably file a lawsuit in federal courts under the equal protection clause and argue that the conduct of Ohio's elections was flawed under the equal protection clause. would have a range of possible remedies. It could mandate certification of one side or the other. It could abandon certain ballots—again, like the Miami example—or it could order a new election.

How speedy would a new election be?
It's never happened, so who knows? I think the court would very, very strongly try to avoid that.

If that doesn't happen, and the loser keeps fighting it, it escalates to a higher court, right?
There's also another wrinkle in our crazy hypothetical. The US Constitution simply says that the state legislature determines how to allocate the state's electoral votes. So, in theory, the legislature could pass a law—after Election Day—simply awarding the state's electoral votes to one candidate or the other. Florida Republicans threatened this tactic in 2000.

A state legislature can just override everyone's vote?
Yes, the state legislature has the constitutional authority to take away people's right to vote for the state's presidential electors.

I'm imagining all these judges straining to avoid new elections, and not wanting to toss out votes. What happens if the vote tallies keep being upheld—let's say because the fraud can't be 100 percent proven—but the loser keeps contesting them?
Eventually it could go all the way to the US Supreme Court. So the state election contest would go through the Florida state contest system to the Florida Supreme Court, then to the US Supreme Court, and that's the exact path that Bush v. Gore took. In Ohio, it would just be through the federal court system up to the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court would have the discretion on whether to hear a case, so it might not take it at all. In that case, the Sixth Circuit in Ohio, or the Florida Supreme Court, would have the final say.

Is there any way to contest the result if the Supreme Court upholds it?
Once you get there, you then have to see if Congress would actually count the electoral votes. You can go to Congress and say, Congress, you shouldn't count the votes from Ohio because they're fundamentally flawed. Congress sort of has the authority not to count the votes.

Why "sort of"?
There's a federal law called the Electoral Count Act, which says to states: If you set up a procedure before election day to resolve any disputed elections, and you finish that procedure, by what's known as the "safe harbor deadline," the validity of your votes is conclusive—we will count your votes. This was the other big dispute in Bush v. Gore, which in many ways was a timing issue.

That part about finishing their procedure sounds legally tricky as well...
Whether the state actually followed its own procedure is certainly something that could be litigated in and of itself as well.

It sounds like the Supreme Court's decision would probably hold, right?
Another wrinkle you have on this now is either in Ohio or Florida in your hypothetical, if it goes to the US Supreme Court, it's possible that the US Supreme Court would tie 4-4. What happens in that circumstance is, basically, that result affirms the lower court. So there you have a situation in which you might uphold the Florida Supreme Court, or I guess the sixth circuit for the Ohio situation, without the Supreme Court weighing in.

Wow. So this year it would be an exceptional clusterfuck, legally speaking?
Very much so. It would be a clusterfuck.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

'Friends,' a model for how Americans behave. Photo via IMDB

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Even before my parents told me that we would be moving from Taiwan to the United States in 2000, I was already learning how to be an American. After all, American media was everywhere: My sixth-grade group dance performance was to Janet Jackson's "Together Again," and my earliest movie theater experiences were films like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Jurassic Park, and Titanic.

Looking back, I see how those products of American entertainment shaped my perspective of the United States—and of what it meant to be an American—more than almost anything else.

At its most basic level, television helps immigrants overcome the language barrier. While English is taught as a second language in much of the world, the ubiquity of American media has made it possible for immigrants to immerse themselves in the language before even setting foot on American soil. A 2012 study of more than 8,000 immigrants in the United States found that "pre-immigration uses of English language TV, radio, and print media, and post-immigration use of English language print media, were associated with higher English proficiency."

Madisyn Li, who moved to the US from China in 2013, said watching television shows like Friends and How I Met Your Mother taught her the language in a way she couldn't have learned in school. "When you learn English in class, you don't learn slang," she told me. "When I came here, I was already familiar with American conversations because of those shows and movies."

As a preteen, I used to rewind my VHS tapes of Mary-Kate and Ashley films to play back certain phrases until I could pronounce the words in the same way. Now, instead of a "foreign accent," most people think I'm from Los Angeles: I adopted the accent of the Olson twins.

Beyond language, television provides a model for immigrants to understand who Americans are—how they dress, what they eat, and how they behave in various situations. Jack Song, whose family immigrated to the United States in 1991, told me his mom obsessively watched The Golden Girls and used its characters as a template for their new life in the US. "She decorated the house a bit like the show," Song told me. "She would say things like 'Oh, this is how Dorothy would do it!'"

"When you watch an American show like Full House, you're able to see how they have conversations at the dinner table, how they greet their kids or spouses when they come home," said Jason Wong, who immigrated to the US from Hong Kong in 2005.

Of course, representations of the United States in popular culture don't always set realistic expectations about what life in America is like. Mindy Lo, who moved to the US in 1998, recalls watching Baywatch and Beverly Hills, 90210 and thinking everyone in America was "blonde and super fit." But they do provide valuable reference points for immigrants to begin to immerse themselves into American life.

Wong, for example, told me that watching popular television shows and movies gave him something to talk about with other Americans, which made him feel like less of an outsider. "I pulled jokes from TV and movies that I watched," he told me. "And people were like, wow, you're making these references, you're making these jokes I understand. Understanding American culture body language. That's where I learned everything," Wong told me. But knowing how to fit in as an immigrant in America isn't totally about assimilation. "I am an Asian guy living in America in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood, and I like African American music. What do I choose? I've decided that I don't have to give up one culture to enjoy another."

Follow Chin Lu on Twitter.

This article was published in collaboration with the Marshall Project.

As a former domestic-violence prosecutor, I could recognize the textbook case: prior abuse, a controlling relationship, an uncooperative complainant. I knew that it could happen to anyone.

But this wasn't anyone—this was my sister.

It was a busy Thursday morning when, climbing the Queens County Supreme Courthouse steps on my way into the District Attorney's office, my cellphone rang.

"Good morning, angel," my mother said in a cheerful voice. "There's something I need to tell you." She went on to explain that my older step sister, Julia*, was in the hospital. After driving herself to the emergency room the previous night, Julia woke up in the post-op intensive care unit. Doctors told her that she had sustained multiple broken ribs, a missing tooth, and a ruptured spleen.

Julia told them that she had tripped and fallen down a flight of stairs. But she was rarely clumsy.

I promised to be on the next flight home to Miami.

As I hung up the phone, I remembered a photograph I'd seen a few months earlier. Julia's face looked like a botched face-painting lesson—one eye decorated in reds and purples, swirls of blue indicating multiple points of impact. That time, she swore she had cooked a chicken for her boyfriend and had slipped while carrying the tray.

I did not press her on it, but even then, I knew better.

The night of that earlier assault, Julia had been the one to call the police. But soon she decided she didn't want to participate in his prosecution, and the case went nowhere.

When I got to the hospital, nurses zipped by and attending physicians paced the hallways of the intensive care unit. Everyone seemed to be screaming into cell phones. Then I saw my sister through an open door.

Plastic tubes dangled from her nostrils, and the gown revealed bandaging taped to her stomach and electrode stickers glued to her chest. The heart monitor beeped.

Julia looked up and tried to smile, and I tried not to stare at the gap where her bottom tooth belonged. When I sat down on the edge of the bed and asked what really happened, she began to cry.

"It's all my fault," she finally whispered.

She told me that, days earlier, she'd fought with her boyfriend about fidelity. Though she hadn't been unfaithful, he didn't like that she was text messaging with her boss after hours. He told her he felt disrespected by her backtalk.

He then punched her in the face, threw her to the floor, and kicked her repeatedly in the stomach, chest, and back, she told me. As she lay there on the bathroom floor, he promised it would never happen again.

By the time she got herself to the hospital two days later, the internal bleeding had brought her close to death.

When I began my career as a domestic-violence prosecutor, I had a difficult time understanding why my victims would return to their abusers—we had given them distance and safety through the law, and through restraining orders, batterer programs, and jail time. Part of me actually couldn't stand the women who sat across from me in my office and justified their partners' behaviors, or, worse, looked me in the eye and lied.

But after prosecuting these types of cases for years, I came to expect it. And over time I came to understand that these victims' choices are not always matters of strength, will, or resolve—that there were other hurdles in the way.

There are cultural and practical considerations: financial dependence, housing and immigration concerns. There are emotional considerations: isolation, shame. There is fear. There is hope. There is a blind belief that it will not happen again. There is of course, love.

After years of handling domestic dispute cases, I expected to arrive at the hospital and know what to do for my sister. I assumed I would be the voice of reason.

But my usual insights didn't seem to apply. I didn't know how to help her, maybe because I couldn't emotionally disassociate from the situation. I expected my sister—an independent, strong-willed woman with a solid family support system—to stand up for herself where many of the others had not.

As a prosecutor, I looked critically at the facts of every case that touched my desk and, in preparation for trial, envisioned how the proceeding might go. Corroborating evidence—medical records and photos, statements made by the accused, other witnesses' observations—tended to support the victim's testimony, but what evidence would the judge throw out? Would the jury hear only a portion of the facts? And which testimony would they discount?

At trial, in a room filled with strangers, the victim is asked to talk about humiliating and degrading injuries suffered at the hands of a man she loves.

In order to process what had happened to my sister, I began to view her reality differently—not as my sister, but as a case. I had to reconcile what I believed justice should look like, as Julia's sibling, with what I knew it would look like, as a prosecutor. It was ultimately my way of having a bit of space from what was happening. A way of coping.

So as I thought about my sister and her potential case, I weighed the good and bad facts:

Good: Her boyfriend called Julia numerous times after she went to the hospital, and left many voicemails. "Jules, call me," he said. "I want to come see you, but I don't know who's there with you." His voice had become more panicked with each message. "Julie, please, please call. I'm so sorry."

As a prosecutor, I would argue that these calls evinced not only his attempts at manipulation of and control over my sister, but also his consciousness of guilt.

Good: Before her boyfriend's arrest, I went to collect some of Julia's things and found that her home had been emptied. Her blood had been cleaned away and the house cleared out. All that remained was the lingering smell of bleach.

I assumed that when his apologies went unanswered, he chose to run—further evidence of his guilt.

Bad: In order to succeed on an attempted-murder conviction, the prosecutor would have to convince 12 jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that her boyfriend intended to end Julia's life. This might prove difficult in light of Julia's choice to stay with him after an assault. How could she explain that? I was concerned this would make her an unreliable witness.

Bad: She had also initially lied to hospital personnel about how her injuries were sustained. Though the medical records would show the extent of the injuries, they also show she claimed to have fallen down the stairs. Would a jury be able to move past these inconsistencies when evaluating her testimony?

More Bad: Julia has a history of substance abuse.

How you get the law to help someone is like a puzzle. Julia is my sister, but when I looked at her in that hospital room and she returned my gaze, she became just another woman with a story.

Deanna Paul is a prosecutor in New York City, where she handles felony sex crimes and violent crimes against children. She is also an adjunct professor at the Fordham University School of Law. Julia's boyfriend ultimately pleaded guilty to felony battery, and was sentenced to probation. He has since violated probation twice. There is an outstanding open probation warrant for his arrest.

*Name has been changed to protect her identity.

The scene of this week's shooting. Photo by author.

Grayson Delong, the Etobicoke man accused of shooting a Toronto criminal defense attorney on Tuesday afternoon before being shot himself by an undercover police officer, has a lengthy criminal history and is known to police across the GTA.

Thumbnail photo of Officer Shelby via Associated Press

Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby has been charged after fatally shooting Terence Crutcher last Friday, according to a local Fox affiliate.

District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler announced Thursday afternoon that Tulsa County will be charging Shelby with first-degree manslaughter and that a warrant has been issued for the officer's arrest. She is expected to turn herself in.

Shelby came across Crutcher last Friday night after finding his car stalled on a Tulsa roadway. The 40-year-old unarmed black man was tasered by another officer following a rapid confrontation, and he was subsequently shot and killed by Shelby.

Shelby claimed she felt threatened by Crutcher and that he may have been on PCP; the drug was found in his car after his death. Video footage of the shooting from a helicopter and dash cam shows Crutcher had his hands up before the officer fired on him. Chief Chuck Jordan of the Tulsa Police Department has said the man did not have a gun on him or in his vehicle.

Kunzweiler said that Crutcher has been "on the hearts and minds of many people in this community," during the press conference that addressed the decision.

Read: How to Film Cops

A soldier using 'Bravemind'. All photography published with permission from the University of California's Institute for Creative Technologies

This article is part of VICE Gaming's Mental Health Bar series – find more here.

In 2016, virtual reality is exciting. Be it dogfighting through space in EVE: Valkyrie, defusing bombs in Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, or making a complete ass of an operation in Surgeon Simulator, the past few years have seen the tech finally catch up with the vision. If you're old enough to remember the early 1990s, you'll likely recall similar fanfare—not to mention some excruciating hyperbolic advertising—that ultimately failed to deliver. The then new-fangled "transformative technology" was going to change the world, we were told—but underperforming hardware coupled with extortionate pricing and a lack of applications instead left the majority of us turned off and disenchanted.

For many, virtual reality as a medium and a concept had failed. For clinical application, though, it was enough to get the idea of VR-inspired treatment rehabilitation off the ground. "It was sufficient, though costly, difficult to create and not easily modifiable and so what ended up happening was maybe a hundred or so dedicated clinicians hung in there for the last 20 years and gradually the technology got better," explains psychologist Albert "Skip" Rizzo, the director of medical virtual reality at the University of California's Institute for Creative Technologies.

Rizzo researches the design, development, and evaluation of virtual reality systems via clinical assessment, treatment rehabilitation, and resilience. Although primarily focused on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in relation to the military, he and his colleagues have addressed social skill training in people with autism; cognitive tests in VR for kids with attention deficit disorder; and the development of game-based rehabilitation applications for people in the aftermath of a stroke or a traumatic brain or spinal cord injury, to name but a few examples of he and the ICT's work.

"PTSD and anxiety disorders are characterized and propagated by avoidance— the brain of that person doesn't learn."—Albert Rizzo

Through this work, Rizzo champions the idea that placing patients in relatable video game-like scenarios can be beneficial in helping them engage with treatment. "I was working with brain injured patients back in the 1980s and 90s and finding that it was hard to engage them in this repetitive drill and practice brain training work," says Rizzo. "But when you deliver that kind of stuff in a brain-like context—like having them play SimCity, which is an engaging game but requires executive function, multi-tasking, memory, attention all brought together—all of sudden you see patients that you couldn't motivate for more than ten minutes now deeply engaged in a cognitive activity. With the PTSD work, that's one element, and it's a well-matched one for VR."

While VR has potential to help patients with physical injuries, the benefits it has and continues to have for people with mental-health issues, like PTSD, are plentiful. Rizzo explains that much of his work is tied to exposure therapy—an evidence-based form of treatment for addressing anxiety disorders. In its traditional format, exposure therapy relies on imagination, and (in the case of PTSD) the patient to narrate his or her traumatic experience as if it's happening in the present. Naturally, this can be a very painful process; however, guided by a therapist in a safe setting, the idea is to confront your fears rather than avoid them.

Albert "Skip" Rizzo

"PTSD and anxiety disorders, like phobias, are characterized and propagated by avoidance," says Rizzo. "When you avoid something in fear, or it makes you feel anxious, you get a temporary sense of relief, and that reinforces continued avoidance. The brain of that person doesn't learn that was then, this is now, and that things that are reminiscent of the trauma are no longer going to hurt you, and you're in a safe environment."

VR is essential to this process because, although evidence-based, exposure therapy is not an exact science and not everybody is good at visualizing. Virtual reality, then, allows patients to be immersed in simulations of what has traumatized them, at a gradual pace, and helps them confront and process these difficult emotional memories and, crucially, get beyond them. War-based series such as Call of Duty or Battlefield might perpetuate a cathartic revenge fantasy, suggests Rizzo, but the idea here is to get patients to deal with their anxiety by placing them in a context that resembles a hurtful scenario, but at a pace they can handle.

The advent of affordable mobile headsets, such as Samsung's Gear VR, also means there is scope to decentralize the process of mental-health treatment, which in turn could help it reach more people. Earlier this year, University College London and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies published an academic paper that detailed how VR therapy could reduce depressive symptoms by boosting feelings of self-compassion. Via three weekly eight-minute sessions, the pilot study examined 15 adults aged between 23 and 61 with depression.

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Related: Watch VICE Gaming's short film on the new frontier of virtual reality video games

The group used virtual reality headsets to see from the perspective of a life-size avatar, before being asked to express compassion toward a distressed child. Afterward, the patients embodied the child and were made to listen to the adult avatar repeating their recorded words of compassion back. One month on and nine patients reported reduced symptoms of depression, while four experienced "a clinically significant drop in depression severity" following the therapy. Some patients also said they were less self-critical in real-life situations afterwards.

It's worth noting that this particular study was operated without a control group, and of course, 15 people is by no means a large sample; however, self-criticism is often a central tenet of depression. It would therefore be fascinating to see this kind of study undertaken by a larger, further-reaching group of people.

"Research shows that activating fear and anxiety, in a safe place, is the only thing that makes it go away."—Rizzo

"Now, we're all finally here looking at VR running off a mobile phone, and looking at high-fidelity headsets like the Oculus or a Vive that blow away the head mounts of ten years ago, that cost tens of thousands of dollars," says Rizzo. "So, we've got the technology, and we've got 20 years of research documenting it all. When a clinician can open their desk drawer and open up a headset like that, no computer, and just hand it to a patient and have a wireless connection so that their laptop or iPad or whatever device they're using can actuate the scenario and can collect the data of the interaction, now you've got a tool that by all intents and purposes should be very adoptable by any clinician."

The other end of this financial scale saw the Canadian government purchase the latest version of Rizzo's Bravemind—a PTSD treatment program that began life as a total conversion mod for 2004's Full Spectrum Warrior, which includes a vibrotactile platform and a scent machine that simulates diesel fuel, garbage, and gunpowder—for $17,000 each in 2014. "To engage the user, sometimes that multi-sensory experience really adds a lot," says Rizzo. "The vibrotactile platform is a cheap circus trick that stimulates multi-modal sensation because it's very inexpensive—we're using four subwoofers that cost 50 bucks a piece, a little amplifier, and we run all the sound into it."

'Bravemind'

While every individual seeking treatment for issues of mental health is different, Rizzo is of the view that supportive counseling on its own doesn't work. "The idea that doing supportive counseling alone where people are told, 'Don't worry about that stuff in the past, let it go, let's worry about the future'—that shit doesn't work, to be quite blunt. Therapists don't like to do it because they don't want to feel like they're arousing anxiety in patients, and no therapist wants to make his or her patients feel uncomfortable. But in the course of addressing this very difficult clinical condition, the research shows that activating the fear and anxiety component of it, in a safe place, is the only thing that makes it go away. It's hard medicine for a hard problem."

Rizzo's view here can't be applied universally—however, it can't be argued that the potential VR shows today, beyond simply being a video game peripheral, isn't exciting. Depression, anxiety, phobias, and, of course, PTSD are but a few of the areas that VR technology is already being applied in. Advancements in the technology's capabilities, not to mention wider affordability, could serve to help many people—many more than it already has over the past 20 years.

Follow Joe Donnelly on Twitter.

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In September of 2012, 15-year-old Audrie Pott was sexually assaulted by classmates at a house party in Saratoga, California after passing out from a night of drinking. A few days later, she took her own life after discovering her assailants had circulated photos of their crime on social media. Eight months earlier in Maryville, Missouri, 14-year-old Daisy Coleman was allegedly raped by an older boy after drinking, while another boy filmed it; afterwards, the boys left her nearly-unconscious body on her front lawn in the frigid January air. Her mother found her the next morning with her hair frozen to the ground. When Coleman went to the authorities, she was branded a liar, slut-shamed, and threatened on social media.

Netflix's documentary Audrie & Daisy, directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, follows the lives of these two teenage girls, highlighting their shared experiences of sexual assault and cyberbullying. The documentary also features the stories of other survivors—such as Delaney Henderson, who reached out to Coleman after hearing about Pott's suicide. Henderson worked through the trauma of her own assault and public defamation by seeking out and supporting fellow survivors. Through its subjects, the film explores the ubiquity of social media and how it blurs the lines of culpability and consent for an entire generation.

After acquiring Audrie & Daisy following a heralded reception at Sundance, Netflix reached out to legendary singer-songwriter Tori Amos to write an original song for the film, "Flicker." Amos's involvement is fitting: in 1991, she released the single "Me and a Gun," an a cappella account of her own sexual assault, and in 1994 she became the first national spokesperson for the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN).

VICE spoke with Cohen, Shenk, and Amos about the documentary, America's epidemic of sexual violence and cyberbullying among teenagers, the grief of losing Audrie Pott, and the optimism of Daisy Coleman's survival.

VICE: The film is bold and literary in its structure. How did you come to this approach?
Bonni Cohen: Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman's cases had gotten a lot of media attention for different reasons, and we started to see poetry in the idea of these two girls working together, in a sense, to finish each other's story. There were enough similarities to place them in the same structure—but the most awful thing possible happened to Audrie, while Daisy was able to crawl out of dark despair to the other side. We love that symmetry, and together their stories speak more broadly to a larger population of teenagers.
Jon Shenk: Though statistics show that one in four teenage girls will be either the victim or intended victim of sexual assault, it's rare that the girl and her family go public—let alone anticipate what might happen in social media as a result of coming forward. You wind up with this rather small group of girls under the age of 18 who actually want to talk. Delaney Henderson was one of those girls, and early on in the process, she became this concrete bridge between Audrie and Daisy. Delaney followed the story of Audrie's suicide on social media and when she heard about Daisy's case, she said, "I have to reach out to her—I have to help her."

One of many unsettling moments in the film is when we learn Audrie had to rely on Facebook chats with friends to find out what happened to her. In Daisy's case, the sheriff flat out refuses to entertain the possibility that her assault was filmed and shared.
Cohen: You're hitting at the nub of the issue: the confirmation that it is happening, paired with the denial of older generations who are in utter disbelief that these things can even be happening. Delaney's family shared with us an upsetting story about how, after going public with her sexual assault, she was being bullied online by members of her very tight-knit Southern California community—by kids and parents. Her parents were in such disbelief that they printed out the 65 abusive social media posts, went door-to-door, and said, "Look at what your son or daughter wrote about Delaney. Can we get an apology?" Of the 65, only one apology came through. That was shocking. You think that if parents knew what their kids were doing, they'd intervene—but the truth is the denial is just too deep, and that's something we have got to tackle.
Shenk: Social media technology is so young, and our world's changed so quickly. Everyone is on their phone at all times and has their head down—both literally and figuratively. For a kid who is 13 or 14 years old, that's just the way the world is. But old enough to remember when the world was not like that, so you have this new technology for which the rules of civilization haven't really been written yet. We don't yet have the language to have these conversations with our kids.

Audrie Pott. Still from 'Audrie & Daisy' courtesy of Netflix

Tori, with "Me and a Gun" you commanded listeners to confront the realities of sexual violence, and the sense of shame that plagues its victims. What compelled you to revisit this subject matter 25 years later?
Tori Amos: After I'd finished watching Audrie & Daisy for the first time, I went completely numb—I literally couldn't move. The conversation around this issue is so focused on what's happening across our college campuses, and this film puts a startling light on the fact that it's also happening in our middle and high schools.

Like Bonni and Jon, I'm the mother of a teenage daughter and I know how difficult and necessary it is to talk about this. I've been walking with "Me and a Gun" for so many years, and while that song continues to teach me, I knew right away that it shouldn't be the song that should close the film. The song had to leave us with Daisy's strength and pull through the threads of Audrie's story—to recognize that she didn't live long enough to step out of the role of the victim and become the survivor.

"The conversation around this issue is so focused on what's happening across our college campuses, and this film puts a startling light on the fact that it's also happening in our middle and high schools."—Tori Amos

In many ways, social media is its own character in the film.
Shenk: Absolutely—and reading Audrie's Facebook messages after her death was such an important archival element for us. Then, when we saw Delaney Henderson's Facebook conversations with Daisy, it created this yin and yang where Delaney was using social media to connect with someone in a positive way—to offer help. It's a powerful reminder that social media are neutral tools—we, as people, decide what we can use them for. Can they be a force of evil? Yes. Can they be a force or good for connection? Of course.
Amos: Twenty years ago, I personally couldn't have dreamed that the internet might be used as a tool to bully and destroy another human being. I always saw the internet as a benevolent force because, frankly, I wouldn't have a career without it—and it helped RAINN reach and connect so many survivors. Now that we're in this time of these daily digital lynchings, it's so easy for people to do and not think twice about it because they don't seeing their fingerprints on it. My mind goes to the end of the film, when the boys who assaulted Audrie are asked what they've learned from the experience and one of them says, "Girls, they gossip... and you know, guys are more laid back and don't really care." It's a chilling response, because these boys don't know themselves.

The filmmakers used an innovative illustration technique to keep Audrie Pott's perpetrators anonymous. Still from 'Audrie & Daisy' courtesy of Netflix

The interviews with Audrie Pott's assailants are difficult to listen to, but engrossing to watch because of the way they're animated to keep them anonymous. The irony is frustrating, though, that they're given anonymity when Audrie was so publicly and tragically denied her dignity.
Shenk: We knew we had a rare opportunity to speak with Audrie's perpetrators—who'd been convicted in juvenile court—so when we decided to do those interviews, we wanted to retain as much of their humanity as possible. It was a chance to get the boys' perspective, and in the end, this film—and this issue—is as much about boys as it is girls.

We worked with this incredible company, Left Channel, who helped us create animation out of the video we took, as well as the deposition footage from the legal team. We basically morphed their faces to the point where you'd never recognize them, even if you knew them. We hope that people can still see their nervousness, depression, and regret. Just blurring their faces would've criminalized them and made them into an "other," which would've prevented us from obtaining some grain of truth from this horrible situation.

Netflix seems like a dream partner for this film, because it creates 40 million potential opportunities for this conversation to continue.
Absolutely. We have this vision that parents might watch it in their rooms, teenagers might watch it alone in their rooms or with friends, and then maybe there will be some talk about it the next morning at the kitchen table. We're also thrilled that Netflix has helped us create a community screening program with a company called Film Sprout, which will host hundreds of screenings in schools, town halls, and community groups. We're in final draft stages of an excellent curriculum and discussion guide for parents. The film is working for people as a drama, which is great, but we hope it can be a jumping off point for really important conversations about this crazy nexus of sex assault and social media and technology—and maybe can help push the conversation forward in a positive way.

Audrie & Daisy premieres on Netflix September 23. Check out the film's website to find out more about upcoming community screenings and discussions.

These interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.