During the dog days of summer, New York City's molten core is Midtown Manhattan—a blisteringly-hot valley running along a scalding asphalt path called Broadway. It's true that the city runs from the Bronx down to the Battery, out to Brooklyn, back to Queens, and to all the boroughs in between—but Midtown Manhattan is fuckin' New York™, yaknowwhatImean®? It's iconic, one of the crossroads of the world, a spot that defines our country to so many of its visitors, and it's one heck of a concrete hell when the weather reaches the tippy-top of the thermometer.

It's a diverse town where it sometimes feels like we're all alone, together. But misery loves company, and when it's hot as hell in Midtown, our anguish at least provides us with something in common.

Chris Maggio is a New York-based photographer. Visit his website for more of his work.

In 1920, Italian Anarchists set off a bomb in front of J.P. Morgan Inc. on Wall Street. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

When a bomb went off in New York's Chelsea neighborhood last Saturday, it didn't take long for the specter of Islamic terrorism to engulf America's largest city. This, many thought—absent any evidence—was surely an act of jihad, whether orchestrated by a group like ISIS or otherwise. And even if a notebook authored by alleged bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami—who is charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a place of public use, among other offenses—suggests he was in fact a fan of al Qaeda luminaries, a blind rush to judgement never serves anyone.

Meanwhile, regardless of the bomber's motivations, it's fair to say heated rhetoric on the campaign trail and attacks by radical Islamists both here and abroad have helped ramp anti-Muslim sentiment up to frightening new levels. As the New York Times reports, hate crimes across the United States are the highest they've been since just after 9/11—and spiked by 78 percent last year. Rahami's alleged role seems poised to fan already white-hot flames.

But if you were hesitant to jump to conclusions after Saturday's blast, history is actually on your side. New York City has been rocked by blasts large and small over the centuries, thanks to bombs planted by groups with the healthy array of prejudices and ethnic backgrounds you might expect from a diverse metropolis. Some of them, like the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, are fresh in our minds. Others, less so. Here's a brief rundown of the some of the people and organizations who have tried to blow up a little piece of the Big Apple.

A Guy Upset at Con Edison

This really happened. George Metesky planted 33 pipe bombs around New York throughout the 1940s and 50s, 22 of which exploded. The target of his rage was the electric utility Con Edison, which had fired him after a workplace injury. He also justified his actions in terms of the unreasonable rates the company charged for electricity. Using his crude bombs, Metesky attacked Pennsylvania Station, Radio City Music Hall, the New York Public Library, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the RCA Building, and the New York City Subway. He was caught in 1957 and committed to a state mental hospital until 1973. Miraculously, he never killed anyone, but injured 15.

(Photo by Flickr user Fibonacci Blue via)

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Over the past few months, life in the UK has felt like an episode of The Thick of It. The man who began the year as our Prime Minister has now completely removed himself from politics; we had an EU referendum that's led to much hand-wringing over what "Brexit means Brexit" in fact means; Andrea Leadsom thought she could be PM.

But the implosion of Britain didn't happen overnight – it's taken years to screw the non-wealthy so royally. Young people in the capital can now spend up to 81 percent of their income on rent and George Osborne's beloved national living wage may not be enough to keep people from poverty. But it's not all horrendous news. We chatted to some of the people who've put their jobs on the line to fight for higher wages and more rights, to try and find some hope in all this bleakness.

Olivia Mansfield
Front-of-house manager

We were a team of 39 full-time and part-time staff. One day they announced they were cutting half the team. It was really quick; there was no pre-empt. They held this meeting with all the staff and gave us three weeks to assign union reps to speak for the staff at meetings before the redundancies hit. Apparently they were working at a massive deficit, of hundreds of thousands of pounds – and they're a charity, so this really needed to be addressed.

But their approach was just to get rid of the front-of-house staff because they're on zero-hours contracts and everyone else is properly contracted. I thought, what the fuck? They can't do this, and organised a meeting, getting everyone to join the union. Most people didn't even know what one was – why would you if you've never needed one?

I wanted us to put forward a counter proposal on dealing with the deficit while protecting our jobs and management were like, "well, you look at the financial and fiscal documents then,"; so I did, and we came up with a better solution. I wasn't about to stand by and let people just be walked over like that. On the eve of our first strike the redundancies were called off and we came to a deal – and saved everyone's jobs.

Maria Susanna Benavidez Guaman
Cleaner in a high street shop

I've been working as a cleaner for several years, throughout which I've felt exploited; working double or triple amounts of work than I expect, or not receiving fair holiday or sick pay as I am on a two and a half hours per week contract – but basically work full-time. Joining the campaign for a Living Wage was about fighting for a sense of independence, as well as being treated like a human being. It shouldn't matter if you are of a different nationality, or size or colour or speak a different language. We all need the same things to survive and I felt like a number, disposable. I wanted to feel valued for the work I do.

After going on protests, I was suspended from work. I wasn't surprised that they punished me for speaking up, but the hardest thing has been losing my hours. Financially it affected me, my family and my dignity.

But, I am continuing the fight, because we're human beings and deserve to be treated with respect and consideration. We aren't asking for anything extraordinary – only to work with dignity – and will keep fighting until someone listens and we feel there is justice in our workplace.

Nia Hughes
Cinema customer services assistant

I'm a union rep and I run a start-up called Living Staff Living Wage. Something snapped when I saw the trend in Brixton of working people being unable to afford their rent, and realised the disparity between my wages and the people running the multi-million pound profit making company I work for. I needed to make a difference for my colleagues, and for my own self-worth.

In 2014 we organised, and put in a pay claim for the London Living Wage, which was rejected. We ended up going on strike 13 times, with national news coverage. Eventually, through exhaustion, we accepted a 26 percent pay rise. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, we'd been through something so emotional, we'd even led Pride 2014. Then management announced mass redundancies. What they were doing was so transparent and our public support was so strong at this point that, purely using social media, we forced them to overturn it.

*Since Nia was interviewed for this piece, the Ritzy Living Wage campaign called a strike, for Saturday the 24th of September, after they say Picturehouse refused to negotiate this summer on the London Living Wage and other improvements.

(Photo by Meraj Chhaya via)

Emily Collin
Chief theatre steward

I was working in catering at The National theatre when I went to my first union meeting about wages. There wasn't anyone there to represent us and it concerned me that we didn't have a voice in our department, so I decided to become a union rep. The company and the union have learnt to work together in the best interests of the staff, and there hasn't been a strike at the theatre since the 1970s.

A couple of years ago, however, there was a de-recognition attempt. By this point I was the chief steward, and they announced the changes while I was on holiday. Management said they wanted to spend more time directly communicating with the staff, rather than through the union, which I disagree with. I know that if staff have a meeting with management and they're asked for input, they're unlikely to speak up – for fear of being seen as a troublemaker, stirring the pot or asking a seemingly obvious question. But when I go into those meetings, I know I'm there to represent people. It's invaluable, because it gives staff a sense of security.

I met a woman from Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners last year and she said, "Someone once asked why I campaigned with the miners. Was I scared? Yeah, I was scared. But the most important thing is that you feel the fear, and you do it anyway." I thought that was nice.

@daisy_field

More on VICE:

Why Deliveroo Riders Are Protesting in London

Things I Learned Working Every Minimum Wage Job in the UK

Companies Celebrated the New Living Wage By Finding Ways to Not Pay People

Don't need these anymore... Photo via Flickr user Brett L.

Young people have caught on to the fact that babies are one of the worst things that can happen to you. And due to an ongoing recession, and the mega-costs associated with having kids, this generation has hit the record for lowest reproduction rates of any before it.

It makes little sense to add costs to a generation already willing to donate an organ to get rid of student debt, and no chance of entering the housing market.

So what happens if we all decide to forgo the cost and forget the next generation?

It's not completely unrealistic. Forty per cent of Japanese women say they will not have babies. In Denmark the baby shortage has politicians shutting down nurseries and schools in some areas. In Canada, low birth rates have been a megatrend for over 40 years.

But a stable or growing population is key to a number of societal functions, like the economy and whatever. We asked two experts what would break if we all opted out of producing new copies.

Dr. Amy Kaler is a professor of social structure at the University of Alberta. And Dr. Susan McDaniel is a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge and the chair of the Prentice Institute for global population and economics.

VICE: What happens if we all stop having babies?
Dr. Amy Kaler: The whole world, the human race, would come to an end, within about a hundred years.

A hundred years is a lot of time... What happens to society as we tumble toward our end?
Kaler: There would be economic and demographic consequences, but there'd also be huge psychological consequences. If people became incapable of having sex or incapable of giving birth then you'd probably see a lot of strife, chaos and collective grief and unhappiness. Infertility or sterility on an individual level can be very stressful and if you multiply that by the population there would be a lot of people having a hard time. If by stopping reproducing it means we all collectively agree to stop engaging in sexual activity, we'd probably all kill each other long before we died off naturally.

What do you see happening to the economy and labour force?
Kaler: We'd first notice the collapse of economic activity that requires young children and parents, stores for babies, nannies, daycares. Then an upward ripple in elementary schools, kids sports. We might also see an upward ripple with people having more disposable income. If they don't have kids, no child care costs or RESPs, means more money for luxury items.

We'd also become completely dependent on immigration to continue to exist, as a country. See more efforts to attract immigrants, young immigrants, to bring more people in. But then again, we might just give in to chaos. A society that knows there is no generation after this one, might be a society saying 'I give up.' There's no point in me working hard, or trying to improve the world because there's nothing for the future.

McDaniel: Children are costly to the public purse too—schools, sports activities, facilities. So public savings would be large too and those public funds could be re-allocated to other issues. Children are a very costly factor to health care spending. That fact is often overlooked, although the data are clear, that children from before birth to adulthood, consume a substantial part of the health care budget in Canada and elsewhere. So, there would be savings there.

Is there an upside for women? How would an end to being stuck at home with kids change gender dynamics?
McDaniel: Mothers of young children are disadvantaged economically now, and that carries through their lives. The concept still is inequality and the notion that women are primarily responsible for children and housework. So, it might be that men and women would become more equal.

Kaler: If women were no longer people who have babies, that could lead to a delinking of gender from procreation. You'd ask the question what is the difference between men and women if our reproductive organs became kind of pointless.

Don't we also need a younger generation to take care of us when we're old?
Kaler: There would be a care gap. Caregiving needs of young children would cease to exist. But the caregiving of older adults would increase quite a bit. Currently we deal with the care deficit by privatizing within families, where it most often falls to women, mothers, wives or adult daughters, to care for those who need it. As a result women are financially disadvantaged relative to men, because they're more likely to provide their time to people in need of care like pre-school children or elderly parents.

In the world without children, fewer young people would need care, so potentially rebalancing the gendered earning discrepancies, but ultimately our public means of caring for older people, CPP and private pension plans, would collapse without new workers coming into the labour force. So we'd have a big care deficit on the elderly end—just before everybody dies.

Follow Samantha Power on Twitter.

London has lost half of its clubs in the last eight years. Well, so says mayor Sadiq Khan. If the same rate of destruction continues, that would mean a complete wipeout of the city's nightlife by 2024. Fabric recently joined a growing list of venues – from LGBT sanctuaries like the Black Cap to underground gems like Plastic People – that have been forced to close. When it's not due to rising rents, panics over "the drugs menace" or noise complaints, it's to make way for another gleaming set of pricey flats.

So if there's no party left to go to, what do you do? You make your own – and see if anyone joins in. Armed with some portable speakers, I set off to explore the not-too-distant future vision of post-nightclub London. I wanted to find out where will be left to dance and come together with strangers when the capital becomes even more sterile, corporate and privatised than it is today.

If coffee shops and luxury flats are the future, they're a good enough place to start. My first stop is Paternoster Square, one of many corporate developments, like Canary Wharf or Westfield, spreading across the city. While they might feel like public spaces, they're actually private land – and you have none of the rights you're entitled to elsewhere. Playing music, skateboarding or protesting are all banned. Top party vibes.

The afternoon sun is shining brightly as I crank up the latest Fabriclive album on my tinny speakers and start getting into it unselfconsciously as possible. Pretty quickly, I feel awkward. Soon, passersby are doing everything they can to avoid eye contact. These people are embarrassed for me.

Gordon, 42, and Gemma, 33, both from Aberdeen, are the first ones who take enough pity on me to join in – purely out of respect to Fabric, they say. I pause to ask for their fondest memories of the club. "I don't remember – I was on a lot of drugs," Gemma says.

I expected security would have thrown us out 10 minutes in, but I clearly didn't kick off a movement worth bothering with. I got four people to shake their boots, but didn't quite recreate the sense of togetherness from a big drop in Room 1. Onto the next.

The London of the future may not have clubs, but it sure as shit will have chain coffee shops – which is great because after raving alone without the usual stimulants, I'm in need of some refreshments.

When I hit play inside a Pret, rapper D Double E is "on the rhythm combined", but he's battling to be heard above the tinkly background muzak. I realise that the speakers aren't on full volume, then crank that dial to 11. Now it's going off, the bass reverberating around the room.

Reinforcements arrive in the form of Haile, 37, from Texas. "I'm not from the city but my experience was very positive, it's a culture worth preserving," he says, before sympathetically throwing a few shapes in support before leaving.

Federico, the waiter, admits he let my little stunt run because he's a big fan of Fabric – and thinks its closure over drugs was bullshit. Afterwards, he puts things in perspective. "Where I used to work, there was a person who went in the toilet and smoked crack," he says. "I didn't sell the crack to him, he was just going into the toilet to smoke it. If he died it wouldn't be my fault, it's that person's responsibility."

Crossing the river, I head towards Elephant and Castle in south east London, site of a controversial £3 billion "regeneration". Residents of the Heygate Estate were kicked out of their social housing despite protests and at a massive loss to the local council, to make way for luxury towers. I approach the shiny glass entrance to One The Elephant, where a penthouse will set you back a cool £2.5 million. I don't have the required security keycard, so I slip inside behind someone else. As the sounds of Flava D begin echoing through the lobby, the two concierges adopt a good-cop, bad-cop routine to try get me out of the building quickly, with as little drama as possible.

The guy keeps smiling, answering my questions while repeatedly asking me to turn off the music and get out. The woman stays silent throughout but pins me with a piercing glare. Do the residents at least like dance music? "It's really strict here, they don't like any of that," the guy says, as a woman scuttles scuttles past and into the lift before I have a chance to drag her onto the makeshift dance floor. A huge security guard appears, forcing us to retreat before I lose my treasured soundsystem. If there's any partying to be had here, it's going on behind closed, security-card accessible doors – and I'm not invited.

Then I spot the playground outside. Could the fun-loving innocence of children resurrect a so-far pretty soul-destroying day? I approach a parent, Luke, who's pushing his son, Coen, and his friend, Waleed, both eight, on the giant swing. Luke is feeling the sounds of Flava D, but the kids are hesitant. I demonstrate the big fish, little fish, cardboard box routine. They're having none of it.

"What if they choose the tune?" Luke suggests, before asking the kids what they play. "Drake?" I whine to the opening bars of "Hotline Bling", trying to encourage two bemused eight-year-olds to dance with me. "Sorry, their sugar levels are running low," Luke says.

Maybe the next generation don't care about dance music? Is it even worth trying to save club culture for them, to preserve a legacy they won't appreciate? Either way, it's time to face facts: there's no replicating the feelings of those unforgettable nights out, in coffee shops or luxury flat lobbies. Club culture is irreplaceable. So let's pray this dystopian vision of a post-nightlife London never comes to pass. In the meantime, I'll be finding the best house parties I can.

@alexjamesking89 / @theomcinnes

More on VICE:

If Sadiq Couldn't Save Fabric, What Chance Has London's Night Mayor Got?

I Held Parties on the Night Tube to Save London's Nightlife

Now Fabric Is Closed, It's Up to You What Happens to Clubbing

Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Mosef. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

This week the Globe and Mail revealed that Canada's Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef was actually born in Iran, not Afghanistan as she had previously stated.

Inquiries from the newspaper prompted Monsef to ask her mom about her roots, who informed Monsef that she was in fact born in Mashhad, Iran, about 370 kilometres northwest of where she thought she was born in Herat, Afghanistan. Monsef said the discovery was emotional and explained that even though she was born in Iran, she's an Afghani citizen and did spend part of her early life in Herat. Her father was killed at the Afghan-Iran border in 1988, and her mom fled with Monsef and her two sisters to Canada in 1996, after Herat fell to the Taliban. Monsef was 11 when she immigrated here as a refugee.

For the most part, this sounds like a harrowing piece of someone's personal history. And yet it's become a major news story—one that's put Monsef on the receiving end of incredulity and suspicion.

Ezra Levant of right-wing propaganda site The Rebel accused Monsef of lying so she could "rule over Afghans as some lady warlord" by pursuing a political career there.

Meanwhile Tory leadership candidate Tony Clement has suggested Monsef step aside pending "more of an investigation" of the mix-up and how the government failed to learn of Monsef's true birthplace when she was being vetted.

"It's a very strange story and there has to be more of an investigation," he said, while others have speculated that there were rumours about Monsef being born in Iran so it's unlikely she didn't know about it.

But for people who actually work with refugees, or know anything about immigration, the only thing that's strange is how much of a controversy Monsef's birthplace has become.

"(It's) a lot of fuss about nothing very serious," Jennifer Hyndman, director of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University told VICE.

"If you look culturally, we can see all the differences in terms of how important the notion of date of birth is, place of birth being sort of equally ephemeral," she said, pointing out that a number of refugees who come to Canada list January 1 as their birth date because they don't know what the real one is.

Hyndman said that after Monsef's father died, it would make sense for Monsef's mother to return to Afghanistan where she likely had extended family.

"I don't think (Monsef) intentionally tried to deceive or mislead Canadians."

Monsef has stated that she was angry at her mother for keeping this information from her; she said her mom didn't think it was important.

Read More: Canada Has a Race Problem And We Refuse to Talk About It

Christina Clark-Kazak, assistant professor in refugee and humanitarian affairs at York, speculated Monsef's mom might have omitted telling her she was born in Iran to solidify her identity as an Aghani.

"Sometimes parents do create an attachment to home, a mythology to home for their children in order to given them a sense of history, a sense of place," she said.

As for the security issue, Clark-Kazak said it can be very difficult to do background checks on people who come from war-torn parts of the world because of a lack of records.

"It might be difficult for them to obtain documentation all the way back," she said, which can sometimes present a barrier to employment for immigrants.

Both academics told VICE they didn't think Monsef would be facing this level of scrutiny had she been from a western country instead of Iran and questioned why the Globe was investigating the issue in the first place.

"I think politically Iran has been demonized by the previous federal government," said Hyndman. "I have talked about two tiers of Canadian citizens—those born in Canada and those born outside. Sometimes aspersions are cast on those who are born outside."

Added Clark-Kazak, "It seems discriminatory to me that so much attention and time have been spent investigating the birthplace of Minister Monsef. If this had been a Caucasian minister claiming to have been born in Canada, I doubt no one would deem it worthy of inquiry."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Maura and friends in a still from the season three trailer for Amazon's 'Transparent.' Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios

This article originally appeared on VICE US

Last Sunday, Jill Soloway won her second consecutive Emmy award for Best Director of a Comedy Series for Transparent, the third season of which premieres today on Amazon. Her acceptance speech included a telling shoutout to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos: "You invited me to do this thing that these people call television," she said, while pointing out to the audience. "But I call it a revolution."

And in many ways, Transparent is indeed revolutionary. In a world where cisgender white men are still seen as the only bankable protagonists in most every performed medium, Soloway's decision to focus a highly visible show on the story of a septuagenarian trans woman is nothing short of radical. "It's a privilege," she said later in her acceptance speech, "and it also creates privilege, when you take women, people of colour, trans people, queer people, and put them at the centre of the story, as the subjects instead of the objects. You change the world."

Though Transparent's showrunner is a cisgender woman and its star a cisgender male, Transparent has always made a concerted effort to place nuanced trans experiences at the centre of its story. In addition to casting trans women and men, Soloway hired 50 trans and gender-nonconforming cast and crew at all levels of production. The show has counted trans artists Rhys Ernst and Zackary Drucker as producers since the beginning, and added trans singer-songwriter Our Lady J to its writers room in the second season to add wrinkles of authenticity to its scripts.

Yet still, Transparent's first two seasons painted a somewhat idyllic picture of what it means to live as trans. When Maura first came out, announcing her transition to her family in season one, she faced few serious repercussions. Her ex-wife, Shelly, took it all in stride – even in divorce, the bond they share is evident. Her daughters, Sarah and Ali, had both been testing the binaries of sexuality and questioning the idea of gender before Maura's revelation took place. Even her son, Josh, who took the news harder than anyone else, eventually came around.

Though the second season did touch on more serious issues, such as Maura's run-in with TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists) at a cis women's-only retreat, or the implied murder of Gittel (Maura's presumedly deceased trans aunt, during a Nazi-era Berlin flashback), Maura's personal struggles always seemed to stop short of actually showing some of the more depressing realities of trans life.

In its third season, however, Transparent finally gets real about these larger issues by expanding the scope of its narrative beyond Maura – who, trans or not, is still white, well-off, and privileged in a way that most trans people are not. That doesn't mean Maura's problems aren't real problems, and the show's writers are aware of this cognitive dissonance. One of the season's earliest scenes finds Maura at her dining-room table with her roommate and best friend Davina. As she goes through a laundry list of all of the great things happening in her life – her girlfriend Vicky loves her, her kids are doing great and all accept her gender identity, she's excited to start volunteering at the LGBTQ call centre – she pauses. "I've got everything I need," she says. "So why am I so unhappy?"

Transparent finally gets real about these larger issues by expanding the scope of its narrative beyond Maura—who, trans or not, is still white, well-off, and privileged in a way that most trans people are not.

The season does, of course, contend with Maura's unhappiness. But it also uses its extremely visible platform to shed light on trans people who are unhappy and don't have everything they need. Such is the case in the first episode, when a young trans woman from a low-income neighbourhood phones into the Los Angeles LGBTQ call centre to share the struggles she's had finding proper healthcare. She tells Maura, who happens to pick up her call, that her clinic's location is inconvenient, they don't keep track of their patients, and they require approval from her guardians, who don't care about her wellbeing. Her storyline is short, but it's the kind of subplot that speaks volumes. These are issues we've never had to face with Maura, but which plague the trans community – especially the corners of the trans community whose narratives are woefully lacking from our most visible film and television – just as much, every single day.

Maura's close friend Shea is spotlit this season, and her storyline is another that brings the viewer underrepresented sides of trans life. She's an HIV-plus stripper who speaks frankly about how difficult it is to date as a trans woman. She makes it clear that getting gender confirmation surgery didn't make her situation any easier. Her storyline is intertwined with her budding relationship with Josh. But while it's great to see the decidedly heterosexual Josh openly acknowledge his attraction to a trans woman without shame, it's heartbreaking to see that he can't help but fetishise her. He ignorantly tells her that he loves the fact that she can't get pregnant, and later reveals he had no plans for anything long-term with her. Because we know that Josh isn't deliberately trying to hurt her, the emotional weight these scenes impart are even more effective at proving their point. "Dating while trans is a shit show," as Shea puts it. "It's a no-win situation."

Even with her privilege, Maura's trauma is overwhelmingly palpable this season. She decides to undergo facial feminisation and gender confirmation surgery, another privilege afforded by her wealth. But even with her means, she's stripped of her autonomy when asked to get permission for the surgeries from a psychologist – an unfortunate reality that implies that a self-imposed gender identity is worthless until it's validated by an outside licensed professional.

The show's third season also shows an astounding ability to humanise its trans characters while addressing common misconceptions about the trans experience – in effect, educating a broad swath of Americans about subtleties of trans lives not seen before on a platform of this scale. In the first episode, someone who was misidentified as trans at the LGBTQ call centre offered a calm correction: "I'm intersex. I was born with quote-unquote ambiguous genitalia. I'm one of those." Later, in the finale, after some difficult realisations, Maura finds herself questioned by her daughter Ali, who asks if she has stopped transitioning. Ali's "moppa" calmly corrects her: "I've already transitioned. I'm trans." These are simple declarations designed to help fill in the blanks for viewers without pandering, inching the show ever closer toward the revolution that Soloway claims she always wanted to incite.

At last year's Emmys, Jill Soloway won the same best director award in the same comedy series category. "We don't have a trans tipping point yet," she declared in her acceptance speech then. "We have a trans civil rights problem." The hope is that shows like Transparent will push us closer to that tipping point soon. If not, Soloway and her team will be the last people to blame.

Follow Michael Cuby on Twitter.

All photos courtesy of Bil Zelman

Rahul Jandial is one of those people who makes you feel bad about what you've done with your time on Earth. Now 43, Jandial became both a brain surgeon and scientist—an MD and a PhD—close to the age of 30. Last year, he earned a $700,000 grant from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program for his work studying how breast cancer spreads to the brain. A TV critic (he appeared on a program called Superhuman as a brain expert) once called him "the world's most dashing neurosurgeon." In other words, Dr. Jandial is essentially the human equivalent to the "100" emoji (plus the doctor one, of course).

Employed by City of Hope, a hospital in Southern California, the doctor performs brain surgery on children suffering from brain cancer at least two or three days a week, and runs a lab doing cancer and brain research another two days a week. Jandial also regularly travels to children's hospitals in underserved countries like Ukraine and Peru to perform surgical missions he organizes through International Neurosurgical Children's Association (INCA), a nonprofit he founded and serves as the director of. He follows-up on these trips by publishing papers in peer-refereed journals about the ethics of surgical missions, a practice that many doctors engage in but few do right, according to Jandial. Oh, and he's also performed brain surgery live on the National Geographic Channel as Bryant Gumbel watched.

VICE recently talked to him about his travels, the brutal techniques brain surgeons in poor countries have to adopt, and common mistakes doctors make when they go on missions abroad.

A bare-bones operating room in Kiev

VICE: At this point in your career, do you feel like you've made it as a doctor and scientist?
Dr. Rahul Jandial: It's cool being featured on these shows, but that's not really my thing . Helping people is my ambition. I never get that twisted. Recently, I received some recognition from three major institutions ... medicine, surgery, and science. That meant a lot to me. Six months ago, I was accepted as a diplomate of the American Board of Neurological Surgeons, and the US Department of Defense gave me the Breakthrough Award for my scientific work. Most importantly, my employer, City of Hope Cancer Center, promoted me after inviting outside experts to vet my resume.

And you run a nonprofit, INCA. What does that group do?
Well, first of all, it's completely under our control. INCA's out of pocket; it's our money, meaning me and Mike Levy, who's the head of pediatric neurosurgery at Rady's Children's Hospital in San Diego. The idea for the nonprofit came when I was 29 or 30 and started seeing those ads for doctors who were fixing cleft palates abroad. But the twist on that was that the things that were being done... they were elective, or what we call "schedulable." It's important, but it's not always life-or-death. So we're were like, Who's gonna do brain surgery on children? That need pops up all the time.

I came up with this idea that we were gonna go to underserved countries, handle some cases, give charity hospitals some of our used medical equipment—which, to them, is gold—we're going to teach local doctors certain skills they don't know through surgical collaboration, and then the local doctors will be able to keep crushing it the other 5 1 weeks we're not there. Our first trip was in 2003 when we went to Lima, Peru.

How did you pick the hospital you worked with there?
I started sending email blasts to cities with notable academic institutions or charity hospitals because we don't want private hospital dudes trying to make money, take our donations into private practices, or take advantage of the services we're offering. I'm not judging them at all; they're under a lot of pressure. They don't make a lot of money.

We started doing that reach out, and after people began responding, we sent them follow-up questionnaires. Then I flew down to Lima on my own dime when I was a resident, and I had to shake hands and see that these doctors we were speaking with were on point. Were they really down to help the poor in these charity hospitals? There's no money, there's no glory. There's just private, personal satisfaction.

So I met this guy named Victor Luis Benllochpiquer [head of neurosurgery at Maria Auxilliador a Hospital] in Lima, and he was down to collaborate. H e's a real soldier for the poor. We saw that the neurosurgeons at this hospital had skills, but they didn't have equipment. I brought him the used gear we were gonna throw away in the US, and his eyes teared up. So Mike and I started going down there three, four years in a row, and we ended up bringing him a microscope, drills, teaching him this new camera technique for surgeries. That was the original site, hence the acronym INCA.

What was the state of the hospital like?
The interesting thing about these charity hospitals is you've got the building, but there's nothing inside. The kids in Lima are facing the same medical issues as kids in the States. But if a kid is sick in a place like Lima or La Paz, Bolivia, mom's gotta get the kid on a truck or a bus and bring them to the one hospital, and then there are just a handful of doctors there. So you have all of those sick kids, limited doctors, limited supply—it's a real bottleneck. But it's also, for me, a place where you can have a high impact.

A Ukrainian nurse attends to a sick child.

What are some of the biggest issues facing surgical missions today that you think people should be more aware about?
I always ask , Are you doing the most you can, using the resources you're given? Because you should go on your own time, your own dollar, and when you're there you shouldn't waste a single penny. Or, are you just going to make yourself look legit in the States? This shouldn't be something you do for self-marketing and branding. It's a life journey that sometimes gets shared.

So that's one conflict and another is the follow-up. What happens when you go on a surgical mission for two or three days and leave and then there are issues? Who's gonna handle those issues? Some patients have to go back to the operating room; some patients' wounds open up. This is a structural plan that people going on surgical missions need to consider.

Finally, the host neurosurgeons. Have you really picked the crew that's gonna be perpetuating the largesse and the information? Or did you just pick somebody who's receptive to you going down and taking some pictures? These are all essential questions. You can't just go down there, drop some money, do a couple things, do a photo-op, and come back.

Jandial getting ready to operate under the glow of an operating room light.

What were some of the strangest or most surprising moments from your trips?
When we went to Kiev, they picked us up in a red van with a marijuana leaf on it. And then the super, super tough-looking driver was smoking these super, super slim cigarettes. I sat in the front with him and I buckled up. And he looked at me with his slim cigarette and he was like, "Nah, nah, nah. Real men don't wear seat belts."

And there are amazing stories about how we learn from the doctors we visit in these underserved countries. We learn about efficiency, and making use of resources. For example, I remember seeing a doctor in Lima cut off the heel of a glove to save money because they didn't have rubber bands. The hand drill is the best though. When they're doing brain surgery, they use a hand drill to get to the bone. It's got a ball with a handle like you would see on a hand drill you'd use for home renovation. The doctors there lean on the patient's head and spin the drill as hard as they can, and that's how they make the first few holes to get through to the skull. And then they put a wire through there and saw it open, MacGyver-style. And it can work, though we're obviously donating our equipment for a reason.

What's next for you and your work?
I've worked with about four or five hospital in foreign countries in the past decade, but I have about 20 more on my mind. We're going to beef up these operating rooms and help these doctors become the lifesavers we know they can be once they have the right materials and training. We're going to do this at children's hospitals all around the world, and I'm trying to plough through them as my own life legacy.

To learn more about INCA, Dr. Jandial's charity organization, visit the project's website here and City of Hope's website.

See more photos from Dr. Jandial's surgical mission trips below.

Mike Levy and Dr. Jandial after a long day of operating during a surgical mission.

American and Peruvian doctors discussing details of operative strategy as other members of their team put a patient under anesthesia.

Dr. Jandial outside the operating rooms in Kiev, where doctors change into scrubs

Photo by Jeanie Pawlowski, courtesy of Feral House.

When Harley Flanagan was growing up, he saw New York Dolls member Johnny Thunder stumble down the backstage stairs at famed nightclub Max's Kansas City with a syringe hanging out his arm before he asked the bouncers, "Are we up yet?" Flanagan, who was 12 at the time, later wrote, "As a kid you don't realize the level of wrongness in that."

To say the hardcore legend's young life was surreal is an understatement. A Lower East Side local who dropped out of school in 7th grade, Flanagan spent his youth drumming at venues alongside Hells Angels members, noted drag queens like Jane County, and NYC rock icons like Richard Hell and Debbie Harry. There's even a photo of the young musician mugging to the camera next to Andy Warhol, who he claimed to "not give a fuck" about. It was pure madness, even for a street smart pre-teen whose day-to-day existence in the late 70s centered on finding stores that were easy to shoplift food from, bathing in fire hydrants, and playing in punk rock bands, first as a drummer with The Stimulators, and later as a bassist for the Cro-Mags—the band that came to define New York hardcore.

Hard-Core: Life Of My Own, out September 27 on Feral House, is Flanagan's chronicle of his evolution from a street kid and downtown punk scene regular to a full-on hardcore hero. Equal parts punk rock manifesto and survival guide, the book covers Harley's ups and downs, including his rampant drug use, friendships with history-defining figures like Allen Ginsberg and members of The Clash, and the release of the Cro-Mags' acclaimed 1986 debut, The Age of Quarrel. It also details the musician's highly-publicized falling out with his band, which resurfaced in 2012 after Flanagan got in a fight with its current members, stabbed someone, and ended up in Rikers.

Today, Flanagan is 49 and teaches youth jujitsu in the city. He claims not to pay attention to the current punk and hardcore scenes, though he admits they will "always be a part of me just based on my contributions." VICE chatted with the punk rocker-turned-author about the improbability of a Cro-Mags reunion, his apathy towards famous people, and what made the punk community special back in the day.

Photo by Naki, courtesy of Feral House

VICE: I've been a big fan of hardcore and punk rock bands for years, but I've noticed that everything seems a lot mellower and calmer at shows today. There's no longer the feeling that anything could go down at a hardcore show. What do you think happened?
Harley Flanagan: I think New York City on a whole is a lot softer. I honestly don't know much about hardcore shows these days, but as time goes on things seem to always lose a little bit of that spark, whatever genre or generation of music it is. In the early days of punk, the bouncers were not really up on slam dancing, stage diving, and moshing. That used to cause a lot of problems at shows; people would get beat up by bouncers and mini-riots would break out. It wasn't as rehearsed back then. It was just spontaneous and it wasn't just the show that was intense. Getting to and from the show was intense too. Just being a punk rocker or a hardcore kid meant you got fucked with a lot on the street. More often than not, hardcore or punk shows weren't in good neighborhoods. The whole experience was pretty intense.

What's changed most?
The internet fucked a lot of things up. It's great you can research and it's easy to find stuff, but in a lot of ways it took the continuity and the natural progression and flow out of things. The early 80s were the last era that was really organic. Now it's such a cut and paste world. In those early days, you had to know where to get the records; it was more exclusive, more tribal. No matter what country or city you went to, there was always a little subculture that knew where the scene was. If you saw someone walking down the street with a mohawk, you'd run to catch up with them to find out what bands they liked. There was an instant bond. Nowadays, it's not as organic, you just have to google it, get a couple of tattoos on your neck, and pretend you're Mr. Hard Ass. We lost the exclusivity of the scenes and it's dummied down the artform.

Harley Flanagan and Debbie Harry. Photo by Marcia Resnick, courtesy of Feral House

What about the punk community originally attracted you?
One of the beautiful things about punk rock was that the people on the stage and the people in the crowd were the same people. The headlining band would be in the crowd watching the openers, and vice-versa. There wasn't that separation between the bands and the fans like there is now. That was more like the arena rock mentality. The Kiss-type fan and all that never appealed to me. Punk rock was more real. As a kid, you don't realize how bizarre your situation is because you don't have any perspective. I wasn't trying to emulate anyone.

I've followed the NYC hardcore scene and your work with the Cro-Mags since the 80s, but I never really knew your backstory or how young you were when you entered the scene. What was it like being a kid and hanging around all these punk and counterculture gods?
It's weirder for me looking back on it in hindsight as an adult because, at the time, that was just my life and I didn't know any better—I was a kid. For example, there's a picture of me, Andy Warhol, and Joe Strummer. I didn't give a fuck who Andy Warhol was. I don't even think I knew he was standing next to me because I was hanging out with Joe Strummer. I was in awe of The Clash. We were all punk rockers. Sure, they were punk rock royalty, but I felt that we were part of the same community and were on the same page. I didn't really give a flying fuck about all the other famous people that were backstage in the dressing rooms like your Warhol's or your Deniro's. In that picture of me as a kid with Debbie Harry, I just remember the photographer Marcia Resnick saying "Hey Harley, Debbie," and I turned and she took the picture.

Did it feel like you were in the midst of greatness? Did you think this movement would blow up like it did?
I never felt in awe of anyone. That was not what punk was about. I was in awe of some performances I saw—The Clash at the Palladium, Bad Brains, so many other great bands—but I was a punk. Punk was by the people, for the people. The bands and the fans were the same people, that's what made punk different. But no, I didn't think it would go "mainstream." Do I care? No, 'cause it's over for me. I still listen to the music, but scenes and genres are for kids. I'm not a kid anymore. I still play what I play, and I still listen to what I listen to. I'm friends with who I'm friends with, but I'm not a part of any "scene." I don't need to be. Hardcore and punk will always be a part of me just based on my contributions to it.

Photo by JJ Gonson, courtesy of Feral House

You describe yourself in your book as a "glue-huffing-dust-smoking-drug-taking-fighting-all-the-time nut." Can you talk about your relationship with drugs and violence as a young person?
Well, I wasn't trying to describe myself; it was just a fact. As far as drug escapades, there are too many to mention and you'll have to read the book. For the record, it's not something I'm proud of; it's just something that happened. And it wasn't that I felt a need to fight all the time, but rather that I had to. That was the life I was living. The neighborhood was tough—lots of gangs, lots of crime, and lots of violence. Who knew how long you would survive or what would happen? I certainly didn't. After a while, it became fun.

The Cro-Mags seemed destined for fame by the mid-80s, but instead you guys have lived on in infamy. Looking back, what went wrong and what held you guys back from reaching that next level?
Ego got in the way, then greed, and now there's just too much bitterness. I honestly tried everything I could to bring wants to be pissed about the past, then that is that, sadly. That is where it stays. I am happy with my life and can't force them to change their minds or ways. My door is always open. It's not just for them; it's really for the fans and I would be honored to give them one more show.

You haven't played with the Cro-Mags in 15 years and you had a well publicized confrontation with the band in 2012 where you ended up in Rikers. How do you feel about the band's fate today, and has the animosity, at least on your part, diminished?
I laugh at that whole shit. In some ways, it was almost fun looking back . A room full of people jumped me, I put three of them in the hospital, got arrested, made the papers, while John ran down the stairs like a bitch. It's all laughable. I mean, yeah, I got stabbed, but it was a fight, whatever. I care less and less. I just think it's sad John was such a coward that he caused that to happen. But hey, again, that's why there will never be a real Cro-Mags reunion. Those guys have too many issues, too much baggage, and if he is nutless enough to pull some shit like that, how could it ever happen? It's sad and funny, but I'm over it.

See more archival photos of Harley Flanagan and the Cro-Mags below.

'Hard-Core: Life of My Own' is out September 27 on Feral House. Pre-order it here.

Follow Seth on Twitter.

Photo by Bruce Rhodes

Photo by David Walling

Photo by Bernd Bohrmann

Photo by Joseph Henderson

(Photo by Jason Pratt via)

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Ten years ago, a bunch of researchers exploring condom use in the UK stumbled across something more interesting. Their study uncovered that British teens agreed that women expected oral sex much less than men – 20 percent of women, versus 43 percent of men. Earlier this year, researchers Ruth Lewis and Cicely Marston found that things were more complex – and contradictory – when they interviewed 16- to 18-year-olds for a study of their own, to find out their attitudes.

It turns out the teens already shared the idea that male and female pleasure is equivalent. "It's give and take," said one. But when compared to the realities of their actual sexual encounters, the boys reported being much more likely to receive head than the girls.

"Our analysis," wrote Marston and Lewis, "revealed two seemingly competing constructions of oral sex in circulation in young people's accounts: oral sex on men and women as equivalent and – sometimes simultaneously – oral sex on women as 'a bigger deal' than oral sex on men.

There's clearly a conflict there. Basically, the report found that while the teens interviewed said they were all for genital fun equality, blowjobs were seen as more of a given. But going down on women was seen as more significant – and, hint hint, may have meant that the guys weren't getting as much practice or learning how to actually find the clit. But why would cunnilingus be a bigger deal in the first place?

"There was definitely a sense that oral sex on women in a relationship was something you did to further the relationship or get something else," Marston says, speaking over the phone. "If it's just a one night stand, you don't necessarily have that incentive." The interviews in the report emphasised the prevailing idea among the teen boys that vulvas were "dirty", "disgusting", "nasty", "droopy", – come on, lads – "messy" and "stinking". That meant, therefore, that oral sex on women was undesirable work. By only resorting to them in relationships, hook-ups provided an acceptable escape route out of equivocal pleasure.

"When I was in school," says Angelo, a 22-year-old student, "a lot of my peers did think that it was pretty gross. I think there's less stigma attached now. Most guys I know would only do it to someone they were seeing and not on a one night stand." There it is again: the girlfriend exception rule.

This idea of vulvas as gross wasn't just echoed by guys interviewed in the study. Take Becky, a 17-year-old girl. "I think all males really like it being done to them but, um ... a lot of girls say, like, the same. It's just ... they don't really like it. They feel uncomfortable." When asked what some women's concerns might be, she went on: "I guess it's like, generally an area you're not very confident ... well, I'm not."

Mostly though, as Marston explains, the stigma against female genitalia provides an easy narrative frame for boys to explain why they'd refuse to engage in oral sex. Londoners in the study in particular referred to eating girls out as a reputational risk, with Malik, an 18-year-old, explaining that the derogatory term "bocat" refers to when "a guy does it to a girl. Boy, that is his life over because everyone knows about it."

I definitely gave more head than I received as a teen. It was like head for a dude was standard foreplay and head for me was a treat — Miranda, 21

Tom, a 21-year-old shop worker, remembers the same thing. "Yeah there was loads of stigma when I was younger, my friends at college used to call me a "motter".' Obviously, not all straight guys who eat women out have been called names for it. But there's still a sense that guys get an extra clap on the back for doing what's one of the most basic sexual acts. And the existence of this generally accepted tradition of viewing men who go down on women as an exception means that men can easily explain their personal objections as just conforming to the norm.

While "mostly for boys they get thumbs up from their friends for just about anything, is the only thing that was a bit more ambivalent," Marston says. "We were speculating whether that's because it steps out of that narrative of women's bodies being for men's pleasure. That's possibly a reason why the men who did like doing it really emphasised how much pleasure they got from it, because it helps to explain it. It's like 'obviously I'm doing it because I get off on it', and that's the only explanation that's acceptable."

Funnily enough, people of all genders can find each other's genitals gross or lovely or a bit of both. "It wasn't that were necessarily different in their feelings of disgust," Marston says, "it was just that what they did after with those feelings was different – they'd still do it, whereas the young men wouldn't. They weren't like, 'ew, that's disgusting I won't do it', they were like, 'ew that's disgusting – I'll use strawberry lube.'"

Girls are just expected to get on with it. "I definitely gave more head than I received at that age," says Miranda, a 21-year-old bisexual arts student, remembering her teen years. "It was like head for a dude was standard foreplay and head for me was a treat. So oral sex when I was around the age of 16, 17 was very much about sucking dick."

So what now? A combination of normalising oral sex, for everyone, and moving beyond myths of "perfect-looking labia" boosted by porn and sniggering sex-ed classes would be a good place to start. Of course, you could always take the practical route, too. "Now that I am older and have eaten out a couple of girls," Miranda says, "I've seen other vaginas in real life – and I guess this makes me more comfortable with my own."

More on VICE:

How Do Young People Feel About Sex, Relationships and Love?

Women Tell Us Why They Cheated

For Balance, Men Tell Us Why They Cheated

Issa Amro in 2015. Photo by Eli Ungar-Sargon

On Sunday, Issa Amro, a Palestinian human rights activist, will appear in the Israeli military court at Ofer to defend himself against 18 charges that could result in one to three years in prison. At 36, Amro is already internationally renowned as the founder of Youth Against Settlements, an organization devoted to ending Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories through nonviolent action. The Israeli authorities have arrested him many times before, a common enough occurrence for any Palestinian protesting the occupation. But this time, Amro says, is different.

"When I heard 18 , I took it seriously," he told VICE over the phone from Hebron. "This time it seems they just wanted revenge, to get rid of me."

The criminal behavior listed in the indictment includes things like resisting arrest, breaking a settler's camera, and interfering with soldiers trying to do their jobs. But many of the charges are what in the US would be called free speech, like "incitement," "insulting a soldier," "attempting to influence public opinion in a place or way that threatens public safety or order," and gathering without permission. In one instance mentioned in the indictment, Amro led a group of protestors wearing masks of Obama's face and shirts that read "I have a dream" to a printing house in Hebron.

"In doing this, the accused took part in a process with a political purpose or that can be interpreted as political, and this without a permit from the military chief," states the indictment. According to Israeli military law, Palestinians wishing to gather in groups of more than ten require permission from the Israeli military. Acts considered to be influencing public opinion can be prohibited as "political incitement," and can carry prison terms.

Israel's prosecution and persecution of Palestinians engaged in anti-occupation activities is nothing new. But Amro isn't just any protester—sometimes called the "Palestinian Gandhi," he's a high-profile activist who is steadfastly committed to nonviolence.

"It's about nonviolence in the community," he told an audience at NYU in May. "Ghandi says, if you want to win with violence, you will win with violence, but the violence will stay in the community after you win," he went on. "Nonviolence strengthens the civil society in the best way. This is why we try to educate, to convince the Palestinians about nonviolence."

Amro lives and works in Hebron—Al Khalil, in Arabic—the largest city in the West Bank and home to roughly 250,000 Palestinians, which I visited when I wrote about Amro for VICE last year. It is also home to a stronghold of about 500 Jewish settlers, who are guarded by twice as many Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers. The city is infamous for the close proximity in which Jews and Palestinians live, and the clashes that result.

Hebron is also striking for the starkness with which the Israeli Occupation is realized. Unlike in Israel proper, where at least on paper Arab citizens have equal rights to their Jewish counterparts, Hebron's Jewish and Palestinian populations are treated differently by the Israeli authorities. Palestinians living in the Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank report to military court for criminal matters, while Jews report to Israeli civilian courts. There are streets Palestinians are forbidden from walking on. They pass through checkpoint after checkpoint to get from one side of the city to the other.

It is these civil rights abuses that Amro has devoted his life to documenting and exposing to the international community, and to resisting at home, through creative, nonviolent means. If he continues to do this work, it may be from a prison cell for the next few years.

"The military courts have a high record of finding Palestinians guilty," Gaby Lasky, Amro's lawyer, told VICE. She says that the probability that Amro will be found guilty of at least some of the 18 charges is high. "We're doing everything possible to show the court that this is a political case and very biased and an infringement of Issa's rights," Lasky said, adding that it was surprising how far back the charges against Amro go: "One thing I can say about the military courts is that they are very efficient in the sense that if someone is arrested and brought to court, the prosecution will immediately take the file and present an indictment, in maximum two weeks."

"The decision to indict Issa this time around appears to be a clear-cut case of political persecution." –Suhad Babaa

Others were less surprised, like Suhad Babaa, executive director of Just Vision, an organization dedicated to increasing media coverage and support for Palestinian and Israeli grassroots leaders.

"The Israeli government has been actively repressing voices of dissent and nonviolent activists with an increased fervor in the past two years," Babaa wrote in an email. "The decision to indict Issa this time around appears to be a clear-cut case of political persecution."

"So many internationals have been asking where the MLK Jr or Gandhi of Palestine is," added Babaa. "Issa is one among hundreds of men and women who take on that role every day, and have been doing so for years, if not decades. But too often their stories are made invisible, and their actions are criminalized."

One of Amro's chief antagonists is Baruch Marzel, a leader of the settlers who live in Hebron. Marzel called Amro a "troublemaker." "I don't know why he's not in jail a long time ago," he told me on the phone from Hebron. Amro is "too smart" to commit acts of violence himself, Marzel said, but still blamed him for anti-Israeli violence.

The view of Amro as a provocateur is common in the settler community. "He doesn't care about any human rights of any Arab in Hebron," Tzippy Shlissel, another resident of the Jewish community of Hebron, told VICE. "He only wants to fight against the Jews and against Israel. For this he uses a lot of propaganda, mostly lies." She is bothered by the public nature of his work, for example, a video he made of a house she says belongs to Jews, "but he stands in front of the camera and says, 'This belongs to Arabs,' and all the anti-Semites buy it, like we took places that don't belong to us. This is what he's doing—thousands of provocations."

But even Marzel objects to Amro's being tried in a military court. "We want Arabs to be tried in civilian court instead of military court," he insisted. "I would like him being charged in the Israeli justice system." Marzel also says he supports the rights of Palestinians to protest. "I'm for the rights of everyone to protest, if it doesn't interfere in the military force's work."

In response to a list of questions about Amro's case, the IDF spokesperson emailed the following official comment: "Over a period of several years, the defendant has committed a number of offenses including repeatedly taking part in riots, attacks on soldiers, incitement, and interference with security forces. Following an accumulation of evidence against the defendant, he was indicted solely based on the evidence gathered as to his repetitive criminal behavior."

"They want to make Hebron empty from any moderate voices calling for peace or nonviolence." –Issa Amro

However his trial goes, Amro remains worried about the future of nonviolent resistance in the West Bank. He worries that the way he is being treated by Israel will make other Palestinians lose hope that nonviolent resistance can be effective. But his trial is also confirmation of a kind. His work embarrasses the Israeli authorities, Amro says, making them feel they need to justify their actions in Hebron, or even apologize for them.

"They want to make Hebron empty from any moderate voices calling for peace or nonviolence," he said. "They see it as the main threat to them," possibly even a greater threat than the violent stabbings that have plagued Israel recently.

"Israel manages very well regarding how to act against violence," Lasky, Amro's lawyer, said. "They can act violently back and they know how to do it, and how much strength to use. But Israel hasn't found a good way to fight nonviolence, so this nonviolence really presents a big riddle to the Israeli authorities. So the way they have chosen to treat nonviolence is to incarcerate the leaders to make people uncomfortable or afraid of coming to nonviolent activities because they see what happens to those leaders."

"They don't want civil disobedience because it's the best methodology to defeat them," Amro said. "They want to keep the Palestinians violent so they can kill them."

Follow Batya Ungar-Sargon on Twitter.

Mylan Hicks photo via The Canadiana Press/AP

Canadian football player Mylan Hicks is dead after a shooting at a Calgary nightclub last night. Calgary Stampeders staff confirmed he was killed "in an act of violence" this morning.

Police responded to shots fired outside the Marquee Beer Market at 2:30 AM, according to the CBC. The 23-year-old defensive back was rushed to hospital but later died from his injuries.

"Obviously this is an extremely difficult and upsetting time for the players and staff," Stampeders president and general manager John Hufnagel said in a statement. "It's a terrible tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mylan's family."

Hicks grew up in Detroit, and came out of Michigan State's college football program, where he played from 2010 to 2014.

"Mylan is dead," Hicks' high school coach Antoine Edwards told the Michigan football fansite Spartan Tailgate. "Got shot in Canada."

Calgary's homicide unit is investigating the shooting. Police told CBC they have three people of interest in custody.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.

This post originally appeared on VICE UK

It's been quite the journey. Afropunk fest started as an annual event in Brooklyn in 2005, under the broad remit of providing a place for black alt culture to thrive. Since then, it's expanded to being held in Paris, Atlanta and now London, giving members of the black diaspora the chance to come together and let loose without being called a "coconut" or whatever.

Photographer Angela Dennis headed to Alexander Palace in north London yesterday, to check things out. Not even a lineup controversy, in which MIA was pulled after comments she'd made about Black Lives Matter, could derail the day. Granted, having Grace Jones step in as a replacement headliner didn't hurt. Eleven years on, here's what Afropunk looks like once it crosses the pond.

@thespiritmovement

Aaryan and Jenny Dinh. Photo via Facebook

Finding out your kid has a rare and deadly blood disorder is scary enough, but for Jenny Dinh, there was extra bad news.

Her 11-year-old son Aaryan Dinh-Ali was diagnosed with aplastic anemia in November last year, which meant his body wasn't producing enough blood cells. What started as a few mystery bruises and bleeding gums after brushing his teeth escalated to internal bleeding in his brain, requiring constant blood transfusions just to stay alive.

Doctors told Dinh a stem cell transplant could potentially cure her son's condition, but no donors matched with Aaryan's genes. Then she heard that Aaryan's racial background was part of what made the transplant inaccessible.

"My learning process was a hard one," Dinh told VICE. "Doctors said there was no match for Aary, we had to put him on a drug therapy. We just had to hope and wait to see if the meds would work."

In Canada and in most of the world, race really affects how likely you are to find a matching stem cell donor. I didn't know this, but stem cell transplants have nothing to do with blood type, they actually require near-identical genetic markers so that the body doesn't reject the new cells. Apparently donors with the same ethnic and racial backgrounds are far more likely to match, though that's not a guarantee. Even siblings only have a 25 percent chance of matching.

Though the numbers are slowly shifting, Canada's stem cell registry still underrepresents many non-white groups, including Black, Indigenous, Filipino and South Asian people. According to the Canadian Blood Services' own data, 29 percent of registered donors are "ethnically diverse." That's up from 28 percent last year.

"I don't think people are aware of the pie chart—they don't understand that if you're white, this is your chance, and if you're Asian, you don't have this chance," said Dinh.

Doctors in the field recognize the whiteness built into Canada's stem cell donation system. As Dr. Dana Devine of Canadian Blood Services puts it in an upcoming Vancouver International Film Festival film called Mixed Match, "We tend to have a rather Caucasian view of the world, because that's where the HLA science came from originally. There were a lot of Europeans doing this kind of work, and it was a little bit limited in its view."

Canadian Blood Services regularly recruits donors on campuses, and has partnered with some South Asian, Chinese, Filipino and First Nations organizations on stem cell drives. But the registry has further to go before it reflects what Canadian society looks like. "We're trying to grow it to the 60-40 mark, which is more representative of Canada," British Columbia's stem cell territory manager Trudi Goels told VICE. When asked how much funding goes into recruiting non-white donors, a spokesperson said those numbers aren't readily available.

Umbilical cord blood, a relatively new source of stem cells in Canada. Still courtesy of 'Mixed Match'

It's possible that future technological shifts may make race less relevant to stem cell treatment. In the last few years, Canadian Blood Services started collecting umbilical cord blood donated by new parents, which can be used with more forgiving DNA requirements in some cases. The first-ever cord blood transplant on a Canadian patienthappened earlier this month. But for the 790 patients currently on the stem cell waiting list, waiting for a breakthrough isn't always an option. "They're there to help save lives, but more focus needs to be put on diversifying," said Dinh.

In Aaryan's case, Dinh says she's thankful that immune-suppressing drugs have mostly worked, which means he's been transfusion-free for a few months now. But long-term, his best option is still to find a donor with a genetic match, which is why families like Dinh's are increasingly part of Canadian Blood Services' efforts to "diversify" its stem cell registry.

Dinh finds most people don't know how the registry or stem cell donation works. She says she'll often have to go over the basics: yes, they take a DNA sample from your cheek, no, they don't take anything out of your spine. (Though some marrow procedures do tap your hip bone).

On Thursday, I went down to Burnaby's city hall and got my own cheek swabbed, at an event hosted by Aaryan's uncle, who works for the city's RCMP detachment. Since they started a website to find a match for Aary, Dinh says they've helped push 5,000 people to sign up.

"It sounds like a lot of people, but to be honest it's not," said Dinh. "From what I know, Canadian Blood Services has only registered one to two percent of people in the stem cell registry. It's not enough.

"Honestly I believe every person has a match somewhere."

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Photo courtesy of Zoey Roy

Prayers in a sweat lodge from women in Saskatoon. That's how Zondra Roy, who also goes by Zoey, began her journey to Vancouver to meet with the highest-ranking representatives of Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Prince William and Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge.

Roy comes from humble beginnings. She is a spoken word poet, orator, and community based educator. She left home at an early age and was in and out of detention centres until she was 15.

"I learned it wasn't a coincidence that I was in the system because everybody else that was in the system was Indigenous. And everyone who had decision making power over us were non-Indigenous."

She says she came to the conclusion that if she was truly a "rebel" she had to find a cause and fight for it. "Or I'd just become another statistic."

Now 27, she is pursuing a degree in education at the University of Saskatoon. She says the invitation came as a surprise after merely mentioning out loud in her class she was teaching that she'd love to have a meeting with Trudeau.

"While in class I said out loud, 'I want to meet with Justin Trudeau.' Not just to hear him speak but so I could speak with him and share ideas." She says the invitation itself came from the Prime Minister's Office through Senator Lillian Dyck's assistant. And although she's happy to be included, Roy says she doesn't want the meeting to be merely lip-service.

"It took many generations to get here. I feel good. A woman prayed for me in the sweat lodge, to make sure I am speaking the truth and representing my generations."

Roy says it's significant that someone like herself be invited to an event like this. "It is because of our ancestors' resiliency why we are able to have a voice and a presence today. They worked really hard for us to disappear and we're still here. So obviously we're here for a reason."

She says she intends on holding people like Trudeau and the royals accountable to the promises they've made to the the Indigenous people of Canada.

"I prayed to my ancestors' voices to define what the purpose of this visit is. I also reached out to leaders in the community, chiefs, and other leaders who helped ground me."

Roy says she still keeps in mind the role of the royals and prime minister Trudeau.

"Recognizing as an Indigenous person, I am going to meet with the Crown, representatives of the Crown and the colonizers. So there has to be forgiveness."

When asked about who has to do the forgiving and why—Roy's voice cracks and wavers a bit. "I have to do the forgiveness and be hopeful because no matter what angle you look at it—they are still the colonizers and they still have the goal to colonize."

Roy says she hopes the meeting with the royals and Trudeau is one of mutual education and understanding. She says one of her goals is to work with Trudeau's youth council.

Read More: Justin Trudeau is Creating a Youth Council and We Have Some Advice

"I'm an advocate for Indigenous education so we can at least give young people a chance."

"I'm trying to let them know that the Indigenous ways of knowing needs to be held in equally high regard as the colonizers see their power."

Roy will be meeting with Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prime Minister Trudeau today in Vancouver at an invitation-only panel with other young Canadians at the Telus Garden Centre from 11 AM to 3 PM.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Jeremy Corbyn just thumped Owen Smith in the Labour leadership race, with just under 62 percent of the vote. I'm in Liverpool for the Labour party conference and am pretty sure some Corbynistas are gonna get party-drunk fairly soon, but the immediate reaction was circumspect in its joyfulness. Maybe they know that it's not the game-changer they want it to be. The fact Corbyn proudly proclaimed "the second mandate in a year" tells you all you need to know about how winning a leadership contest isn't the be-all and end-all.

On the packed train (standing room only? I couldn't be sure) from London to Liverpool, Corbyn supporters joked that they didn't want to jinx anything by talking about his inevitable victory. On arrival at the Momentum fringe conference, "The World Transformed" the front page of stacked copies of the Morning Star proclaimed: "Things can only get better" – an obvious nod to Tony Blair's 1997 election victory. Elsewhere, I saw a guy wearing a "Don't Attack Iraq" tee-shirt.

Outside, the Spartacist League ­– a tiny far-left sect known for calling for the defence of North Korea against imperialist attack – carried signs letting everyone know that they're still angry about Neil Kinnock screwing over the miners' strike. In the hall of the Black E, the Liverpool Socialist Singers were trying to portray a more united vibe, singing a version of "Let's Stick Together" when they weren't singing "Solidarity Forever" and "Bandiera Rossa".

Before the victory, I spoke to 52-year-old Paula Robinson from Liverpool, who told me she was likely to join the party if Corbyn won. "I believe him, I trust him, it's the first time I've felt this way about a political person for a while." She said a Smith victory would be the result of some kind of fix and "the death of Labour". As for those who think the opposite, that Corbyn's victory would be disastrous, "they're on the road to capitalist junkie world".

Inside the hall, people watched a BBC News video stream. An Owen Smith supporter told the presenter that Smith could still win it. Everyone laughed.

Then came The Big Moment. Even though the newscaster had quoted a source claiming to know the result, to cheers, the sense of eye-rolling inevitability receded and met a brief moment of short-breathed anticipation. What if loling at that Smith supporter was hubris? What if Corbyn had somehow fucked it? Which quickly gave way to ...

... Woooo fuckyeah bruhhhh. We are the champions, my friends.

Sample line: "The media says he's goofy, toothy, sounds like a spoofy, a slate missing on his roofy – that Corbyn"

As I was about to start canvassing everyone's joy for the purposes of journalism, this guy took to the stage and started reciting a poem about the bloody media's awful treatment of Corbyn, which made the subsequent conversations a little more awkward than they could have been.

When I did get to talking, people were happy, but not ecstatic. "I'm okay" said a guy called Ted when I asked how he felt. "It's early days innit. I'm made up with the result, but I wanna know now, what are the MPs gonna do? Lynching is too good for most of them. They're all out for themselves. It's them that's causing all this trouble."

Maybe they'll unite behind the renewed mandate? I put that to Alan Roberts from North Wales. "I don't think it'll happen, I think MPs have always been distant... I think they'll settle for trying to disrupt as much as possible." The solution? "I think de-selection is absolutely fine – in certain circumstances."

Rob Potter, a 58-year-old postal worker from Liverpool, gave an analysis that seems to be fairly common across the political spectrum. "While some people may say we can't serve under Jeremy Corbyn, once this result is announced, regardless of what wing of the party they belong to, they belong to the Labour Party, and really where else are you gonna go? I think talk of a split is a bit alarmist and I don't think it'll happen."

Anna, 22, from Islington said: "MPs have to realise that this is the will of the membership. The party is not just what happens in parliament. The party is the movement."

A little poster I noticed inside

Shortly afterwards I bumped into James Schneider, national organiser of Momentum. I asked him what it was like in the conference hall. "Fantistic. Lots of support for Jeremy, lots of support for the speech he gave afterwards. Hit the right notes about how we're going to get back into government, what our massive membership means, how we get them to be active and how we unite the party."

But with the inevitability, wasn't it a bit ... meh? "Last year I was sobbing. It is different. But still I was really nervous this morning. There's like elation, relief, excitement, all of that."

As for unity, I suggested the right of the party might have to suck this victory up. "Let's not overstate the number of MPs who are opposed to that vision. It's been a very difficult summer... but I think there's a lot of scope for MPs to get on board on the changes that are taking place and to play significant leadership roles in the changes that are taking place."

That's the optimist's view. As a pessimist, it struck me that the vote is a bit like Brexit. It's seismic in its importance and will command the narrative from here on out, but at the same time won't actually change anything at all. The party is still led by a bumbling but strangely magnetic old man backed by a huge majority of the membership and hated by his own MPs.

@SimonChilds13

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One of the most enduring photos of Joe Cinque and Anu Singh, recreated for the film Joe Cinque's Consolation. Image supplied

In one of the few interviews she's given since she was found guilty of killing her boyfriend Joe Cinque in 1997, Anu Singh told News.com.au the makers of a new film about her mystifying crime never responded to her attempts to contact them. Sotiris Dounoukos, the director of Joe Cinque's Consolation, tells VICE that Anu never reached out to them. It's just another lie, another half-truth, another mystery to add to the pile that's built up since she killed Joe—drugging him with rohypnol and then forcibly injecting him with needle after needle of heroin as he slept, passed out, in the Canberra home they shared.

If you're to believe writer Helen Garner's 2004 account of Anu's trial, the 25-year-old law student was a master manipulator—privileged, highly strung, narcissistic. Anu invited her classmates over for "send off" dinner parties, informing everyone except Joe that she planned to kill herself, and take him with her. She bullied her dinner guests into not breathing a word, into lending her money, selling her heroin. Not once, but twice, after her first attempt to kill Joe failed.

Nearly two decades later, in a time of heightened awareness around mental health, Garner's judgement of Anu Singh reads as cutting. Sotiris Dounoukos' new film approaches her more softly, tackling the "why" but shifting the focus slightly, asking, "Why didn't anyone do anything to stop this young woman, who was clearly experiencing some sort of mental break?"

Dounoukos actually went to to university with Anu Singh. "I was in the same year of law school at the Australian National University with Anu Singh and many people who are mentioned through Helen 's account of what occurred," he says. "Even if you went to university with these people, the narrative is so extreme you ask yourself, 'How could this occur?' Even with what you might know about the individuals, we're talking about the execution of someone—a life being blacked off the face of the earth."

In Dounoukos' film, released in Australia on October 13, Anu's dinner guests aren't just witnesses on a stand in a courtroom—they are rounded characters, human beings who failed to act where many of us hope we would. I ask Dounoukos if, being so close to these horrible events, he ever wondered what he would've done if he was picked up by Anu and her friend Madhavi Rao, as they drove slowly around the streets of Canberra, looking for guests for their morbid dinner parties.

"I think one of the talents of Anu, and Madhavi, was the ability to try to select people that they could more-or-less control," he offers, explaining the girls picked up students who were from interstate, or overseas—people who didn't have strong ties. "These were students who were away from home, and perhaps it was easier for them to get caught up in their day-to-day lives. To not engage as much with what was happening in the lives of people around them in a very real way," Dounoukos says.

Madhavi Rao (left) and Anu Singh in Joe Cinque's Consolation. Image supplied

The bystander effect factors strongly into the why of Joe Cinque's death. It's a popular idea in social psychology—the phenomenon that the more people who witness someone in need of help, the less likely it is any of them will actually come to their aid. "One of the things the film is exploring is the distinction between spectatorship and being a witness," Dounoukos explains. "And the dangers when people remain spectators to the world around them; treating events like they're not involved."

"These people wanted to go to these dinner parties and their own inner-dialogue said, This has nothing to do with me. And yet the act of being spectators maintained Anu's momentum; it gave her an audience. To a narcissist, an audience is part of the air that they breathe."

But even after watching Dounoukos' film the question of whether Anu would've done what she did without an audience lingers. The young law student had convinced herself Joe, by all accounts a loving boyfriend, had poisoned her with the vomit-inducing cough medicine ipecac—she suffered delusions that some rare disease was eating her muscles. Anu told people she had to kill Joe to punish him for this. Others suggest Joe was finally fed up with Anu, and it was his deciding to leave her that tipped her over the edge.

Was she having a massive mental breakdown or did she know exactly what she was doing? Both Garner and Dounoukos come back to Anu Singh's triple zero call to get help for Joe around noon on October 26, 1997—the day after the second attempt.

"Could I get an ambulance please?... I had a person potentially overdose on heroin," she says. "Potentially overdose?" the dispatcher asks. "Well, he's vomiting everywhere blood... Is that a bad sign?" she questions. Singh had just spent the morning, and much of the night before, watching Joe Cinque's condition deteriorate—standing by the bed as his breathing slowed, and his lips turned blue. The 000 call stretched out for 20 minutes, while the dispatcher tried to get Anu to tell him where she lived. It's chaos and calculation in equal measure.

Originally charged with murder, Anu Singh was eventually found guilty of manslaughter. Expert witnesses at her trial pointed to evidence of borderline personality disorder to argue for diminished responsibility. For the death of Joe Cinque, she served only four years of a 10-year sentence. She got her PhD in jail, and published her thesis on female violent crime. Joe's family has never forgiven her.

The real Anu Singh and Joe Cinque, before his death. Image via YouTube

Back in 2004, three years after Singh was released, Helen Garner told 7.30 Anu's motives still baffle her. "I don't understand why she did it," said the veteran writer who'd spent months covering Anu's trial back in 1999. "I think empathy can take you only to a certain point." Anu Singh herself, thinking back on her crime 20 years later, also comes up short. "I don't understand, either... I was mentally unwell, and I still grapple with that. I still grapple with the whys," she told News.com.au. "I don't know. There's no rational explanation."

And Sotiris Dounoukos, even after making this film, still can't parse why former classmate did what she did, and why nobody stopped her. But he does qualify that whatever recovery has happened there, Anu's desire for control remains—he says she blocked every attempt by the film's producers to access evidence from the trial through freedom of information.

"She wouldn't allow any access to any of the evidence that she controls access to. She also chose not to participate in the writing of the book, after many attempts by Helen Garner to interview her," he says. "She also didn't want to speak at all during the trials as a witness. She remained silent at these critical times.

"Given Joe's voice had been extinguished by her... we wanted to avoid the introduction of her own take on what occurred in 1997 all these years later. She's had the time to reflect on it. But it's not a film about her reflection on that period, we're interested in what she did."

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Some egregious claptrap (Photo by Gene Hunt via Wikipedia)

The thing about this kind of article is that before you've even clicked on the link you've decided what it's all about, what you think about it, whether you agree with it or not, how much of a cunt I am for saying it – the list goes on. And in some ways, you'd be right. What is the point of being effusively derisory about a culinary national treasure? Whom does it serve? Surely it's just a piece of clickbait designed wholly to momentarily incense the roast-loving public, an unnecessary polemic on this widely enjoyed national dish? Sure, why not. But also, I feel personally attacked whenever I am forced to eat one of these things. A roast isn't just a bad dish, it's also a socially problematic emblem of anxiety, awkwardness, shame and guilt. Allow me to demonstrate.

The problem with roasts is the same problem with the majority of British food: it's bullshit. There is a reason that this country is internationally renowned for having bad food. Even the Americans, whose palette is as sophisticated as that of a new-born mountain goat, laugh at us and our assorted brown and beige sludge. The majority of our national dishes are born from struggle. This is the case in many other countries too, but here we've woven in the omnipresent melancholy of British life. Everything makes you feel uncomfortably full. It's stuffing yourself so you don't have to eat again for a couple of days. Though no one seems able to agree on how roasts came about, the general idea is that non-aristocrats would have to hand slabs of meat over to the local baker, to cook in a bigger oven while the family was at church. The origin of this meal is homes where fireplaces couldn't even accommodate a cut of beef. Misery.

I don't like roasts for the same reason I don't like jacket potatoes: I don't believe in meals that you have to put shit on to make them edible. Gravy as a concept is fine, but its importance to the very fabric of the roast – essentially a load of component parts cooked in the most basic way possible – is embarrassing. Somehow the dish relies on a brown goo of flavour, seeping into the crud on top of the plate of whichever poor sap has chosen to eat it.

Or not chosen to eat it, as the case may be. A big problem with roasts is that they're foisted upon you and the expectation for you to enjoy them is an unnerving social pressure. You don't want to be that picky eater guy who complains about everything all the time, and you don't want to kill everyone's joy, but goddammit do you want to eat anything besides that sad collection of unseasoned vegetables and meat. Because roasts are such a large part of both familial British culture and regular social culture, you immediately become persona non grata on announcing your hate for them. You're now a troublemaker, a rabble rouser, a nuisance. How could you not like this treasured, important national dish? Get out of my house, they'll say. And don't come back.

The dislike for roasts is often attributed to having "never had a good one". This is more often than not posited by northerners, who see themselves as the Michel Roux Jrs of this slop, and get wildly offended when you insinuate their roasts are inferior. The truth is there are only about three ways to cook this stuff and all of them are pretty similar – it just depends on whether or not you dump it all in a giant Yorkshire pudding.

There is perhaps nothing more offensive than the pub roast, which is almost always an overpriced, dry load of protein that's kept hot under a lamp until you are stupid enough to order it and pay through the nose for it. The worst thing is seeing a crew of lonely provincial expats in city pubs trying to replicate a family environ by eating it together, drinking pints and wine and ignoring the fact that the meat's overdone or the cabbage limp. Absolute peasantry.

Eating roast dinners makes me feel sad, and there's no other way to say that. The enforced sense of togetherness, bonding over this bland gruel, is lost on me – because I'm moping like a fucking child, poking a mushy pile of carrot and swede around my plate. There are so many other things that can make the family tighter, like Cluedo, or guessing which geriatric or maybe dead member of the archaic media elite is next to be arrested on sex offence charges. It doesn't have to be this way, guys. Put down the roasties, they're fucking crap.

@joe_bish

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This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

The Aftermaths is a series of portraits of my friends taken on their way home from the club, after one or more nights of partying. It's an attempt to capture their exhaustion and the purity that comes with it. It is in this moment, that I find something real to photograph, a way to get close from a distance.

My photography crosses many interests. More obviously, it deals with identity but my interest lies more in my connection to my sitters and their connection to me. As far as I'm concerned, portrait photography is about the distance we decide to cover to connect with each other, and the distance we decide to leave in between.

My friends are all remarkable individuals. They are brave enough to express themselves in a way that to the untrained mind could look vulnerable. I don't think I will ever tire of photographing them.