Some cod just trying to get their freak on. Photo via Flickr user Naotake Murayama

While hooking up with foreigners isn't really a big problem for the human species, for fish, the language of love is not so universal.

Scientists are worried that Cornish cod swimming up the coast of England to cooler waters in response to climate change won't be able to breed or understand the Scouse cod in the northern waters. That's because research shows that some fish actually speak in regional dialects, the Guardian reports.

According to professor Steve Simpson, a researcher at the University of Exeter, cod produce all kinds of weird sounds to attract a mate using their swimming bladders. Apparently, cod fish let out a series of growls and thumps at different frequencies to help the lady fish get excited to bone, kind of like a school of sexy, gilled-Miguels.

But because regional cod mate in isolated areas, scientists worry that the Cornish cod from the south won't be able to woo the Scouse cod when they get up north, due to their different accents or whatever.

Environmental experts are also worried that humans—with their loud boat motors and various other marine activities—will drown out all the pillowtalk and make it harder for the two species to get it on and crack out some cod kids.

Simpson's hoping the cod can learn to communicate with one another, so long as humans pipe down on the seas and stay out of traditional cod-breeding grounds. "We may find that the 'gossip' essential to their society is being drowned out," he told the Guardian. "If we value our fish stocks—or our Friday night fish supper—we need to understand this."

Read: Fish Sing Weird Drone Music at Sunrise, Apparently

One of the cofounders of Double Double Land displays his new naloxone kit in the Kensington venue. All photos courtesy of Jon McCurley/Double Double Land

Casual drug users who normally do a bump of coke or take a pill of MDMA at a party on the weekend—people like you and me—are suddenly more susceptible to overdose because the deadly opioid fentanyl is increasingly being sold as or cut into recreational drugs. As venues and party organizers move toward the "safe space" mentality, making their stances on anti-harassment part of their mandates, what about the concern of keeping people safe by preventing overdose deaths?

Photo via Flickr

2016 has undoubtedly (and unfortunately) been the year of Donald J. Trump. No matter where you go, what you do, or who you speak to, Trump's presence has become a Rorschach test on how to view society—a true scale on which you can judge a person's character and tolerance for others.

Photo via Flickr user Victor

Police officers are being urged to treat drug overdoses as medical emergencies rather than crime scenes—and in some cases not show up at all.

Image courtesy of Microsoft Game Studios

Everything was going great on Sunday evening. My wife was having dinner with friends, my newborn was sleeping soundly, and I was sprinting toward the end of Quantum Break, the latest game from Max Payne and Alan Wake developer Remedy Entertainment. It's a flawed game but an enjoyable one. Yet everything ground to a halt during the game's final boss, an infuriating sequence that left an awful taste in my mouth.

Quantum Break is not a difficult game; it's a goofy playground for messing up soldiers with your absurd time-travel powers. Then, out of nowhere, with the end credits in sight, the game decides it's time to become something that pushes your skills to the edge. Actually, that's giving the game too much credit; if it really was about testing your skills, it might have been fun. It's just a bad, poorly designed boss battle, where the enemy's capable of wiping you out with a single hit, often out of nowhere and without giving you a chance to save yourself.

And it'd be one thing if the final boss was merely difficult, but each time you die, the game forces you to skip a cutscene and sit through a loading screen before the fight can begin again.

Sigh.

I quickly started having flashbacks to the many games with questionable final bosses: the weird human baby robot thing in Mass Effect 2, Naughty Dog's obsession with shoving QTE bits into their climactic fights, and whatever the hell was at the end of the original Half-Life.

Image courtesy of Wikia

The quality of a game is not defined by its final minutes, but it's hard to remember that in the moment. It's far easier to focus on the burning emotions you're feeling, like the one that was compelling me to throw a controller at the wall because, you know what, maybe the wall would have better luck beating the boss. In the span of 30 minutes, the hours of entertainment that had lead me to Quantum Break's conclusion were being muddled by a flash of frustration.

By all accounts, Quantum Break had a bumpy and protracted development. That might explain why the quirky final boss seems to come out of nowhere. It might also be the case that ending a video game is hard, and developers get it wrong all the time. You probably don't remember the final boss of BioShock, for example, because fighting against a weird statue dude hopping around the room has been collectively banished from our memories. Even BioShock designer Ken Levine admitted they didn't stick the landing.

"It's terrible," he told Glixel in an interview recently. "You have this great game, and then you end up fighting this giant nude dude. We didn't have a better idea."

Games have long struggled with how to end, and the growing importance of stories has complicated things. In the past, final battles were the ultimate trial for everything the game had been teaching you, an endurance run that let the player pull out all his or her tricks. Most bosses would go through multiple forms, never seeming to die. In BioShock and Quantum Break, you get the sense designers felt obligated to include a closing battle because that's what video games have always done, not because their game (or story) demanded it.

Look, I still had a great time with Quantum Break. I'd still recommend you play it, even if it's not quite as good as their other games. When you find this boss, if you feel yourself reaching for the button to turn off your Xbox or PC, take a deep breath and... maybe watch the ending on YouTube? You've made it that far, and it's not your fault the last few minutes of the game leave something to be desired.

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

Look at Stephen Maurice Graham's website, Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram.

Muslim American Mahroh Jahangiri, left, joins a group of protestors gathered in front of the White House, in Washington, Wednesday, February 18, 2015, during a rally to bring awareness of how "Countering Violent Extremism" measures continue to erroneously single out Muslims. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

In the early hours of a Sunday morning this June, Omar Mateen walked into Latin Night at Orlando's Pulse nightclub and opened fire. This was a space that often served as a refuge for the area's LGBTQ community, but by the time daylight broke, 50 people were dead and another 53 wounded. Speaking from the White House hours later that day, President Obama told reporters that the attack appeared to be "an example of the kind of homegrown extremism that all of us have been concerned about."

The attack rightfully outraged the American public. But the bloodshed that day was just the latest example of how the war on terror has changed since 9/11, when the greatest threat was generally understood to come from outside America's borders. Like that in Orlando, the attack on the Boston Marathon, and more recently in Brussels and in Paris have highlighted the fact that acts of terrorism are often committed by people born or raised in our communities. Governments from the United Kingdom to the United States and beyond have sought to address this emerging phenomenon by establishing multiagency programs to help them identify who might be vulnerable extremism.

But is it ethical—or even possible—to determine who's a terrorist in the making?

The answer to that question is no, according to a report released last week by the controversial British advocacy group CAGE (which, full disclosure, I worked for as a researcher from 2010 to 2013). The report, called " The 'science' of pre-crime ," examines what CAGE says is the unproven and potentially flawed scholarship behind the British government's program to prevent radicalization—one that is mirrored in the United States in what critics say is a feedback loop of junk science and shoddy tactics.

Under the British counter-extremism initiative, called PREVENT, public sector employees— including teachers, doctors, university lecturers, and social workers—are mandated to report people who may be at risk of radicalization. CAGE has been critical of PREVENT for some time, but its concerns seem to be going mainstream, with the UK government's own terror watchdog calling for an independent review of the program earlier this year. Now CAGE is offering what appears to be the first detailed analysis of the scientific history behind the Extremism Risk Guidance (ERG) 22+, or the 22 factors used to evaluate who may be vulnerable to engaging with a terrorist group or causing harm.

The initial study behind the ERG22+ was conducted by two psychologists in a prison setting and remains classified by the British government, though they did publish a piece about their approach last year—setting the stage for this new critical appraisal. According to CAGE, the ERG22+ criteria was developed based on casework and interviews with a very small number of terrorism- or extremism-related offenders, but the findings have been applied across wider society, apparently without much in the way of scrutiny.

It's worth pausing to note that CAGE has come under fierce media scrutiny in the past, and some human rights organizations—including Amnesty International UK—have distanced themselves from the group. One particularly controversial moment came last year at a press conference about the group's early efforts to assist Mohammed Emwazi (a.k.a. "Jihadi John"), who allegedly faced harassment from British security services prior to joining ISIS. London's then mayor and even the British prime minister castigated CAGE for suggesting the government had played a significant role in radicalizing Emwazi. But many others—including a former police chief in charge of PREVENT—have since embraced the general concept that marginalization of Muslim youth can contribute to their subsequent violence.

A wide array of advocates have been particularly concerned with how PREVENT has been implemented in the classroom setting. In one case, staff at a nursery school threatened to refer a four-year-old to a de-radicalization program after he misidentified a drawing of his father cutting up a cucumber. In another, a 17-year-old teenager was reported to PREVENT for wearing a "Free Palestine" badge and wristband to school.

And the concerns raised in the CAGE report are not solely relevant in the British context, according to experts and advocates we canvassed. Last year, the US Justice Department announced Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) pilot programs were rolling out in Boston, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles. CVE projects are now operating on a local, state, and federal level, although government agencies have been reluctant to release information about the range and scope of these initiatives.

Michael German is a former FBI agent and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law. "[CAGE's report] is very relevant to CVE programs in the United States, primarily because we're following the British model for the most part," he said. "There is a scientific consensus that there are no indicators of who is a future criminal, particularly who is a future terrorist."

At the core of this debate is the question of how to identify factors or traits that might predict future violent activity. Some people may adopt what are perceived as extremist beliefs but never engage in criminal or violent behavior—whereas others go straight into terrorism with seemingly only the most fragile ties to "extremist" political groups or religious attachments ahead of time.

For his part, German has no doubt about why the ERG22+ has remained classified. "The government agencies can fund studies that are meant to stay secret, and the reason they're secret is because each time they leak to the public, they don't withstand scrutiny," he told me.

Of course, some in the counter-terrorism field back the Anglo-American approach. Ryan Greer is founder and CEO of Vasa Strategies, a CVE strategic advisory firm, and is also a security fellow with the Truman National Security Project. (He was* a policy advisor for the State Department's Bureau of Counterterrorism, too.) In an email, he expressed concern that CAGE's critique of the ERG 22+ study was too expansive.

"It would be a mistake to claim that one isolated report on an admittedly small and unrepresentative sample size represents an entire discipline," Greer wrote. "Moreover, in order to ensure government policies are not constructed based on a false understanding of human behavior, we must invest in more research and data for the discipline of countering radicalization to extreme violence (in all its forms), not less."

As the CAGE report was released, more than 140 academics signed a letter calling for the declassification of the ERG22+ study, as well as greater scrutiny and public critique of radicalization programs. Noam Chomsky, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and former CIA operations officer Marc Sageman were among the signatories.

Likewise, countering violent extremism initiatives have met with rising opposition in the United States. Last spring, a range of groups, including Amnesty International USA, and the ACLU, signed a letter raising concerns about the civil liberties implications of CVE, including the potential the projects could be use for intelligence gathering purposes. The FBI's "Don't Be a Puppet" website also came under criticism for potentially encouraging racial profiling and referencing constitutionally protected activities as possible signs of extremism.

The science behind radicalization remains undoubtedly controversial—as does almost everyone talking about it. But that doesn't mean it hasn't had a real impact on people's lives. Asim Qureshi, research director at CAGE, said he was aware of "dozens" of cases where Muslim children had been taken from their families because they were found to be at risk of radicalization, based on the ERG 22+. Qureshi said that "the government presents its evidence of 'extremism' and 'radicalization' in secret, so the families never really know the case against them."

Arun Kundnani, an expert on terrorism and radicalization on both sides of the Atlantic who wrote a foreword to the new report, says the stakes couldn't be higher.

"CAGE's report shows the lack of academic credibility in the UK government's claims to know who is a terrorist risk," he told me. "What is supposed to be a rigorous assessment based on genuine scholarship is actually a process of suspecting thousands of young Muslims without any reasonable basis.

"The radicalization models that US government agencies have relied upon are equally empty of substance and are also little more than covers for the organized suspicion and demonization of Muslim populations," he added.

Follow Aviva Stahl on Twitter.

*Correction 10/6: Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article said Greer was still affiliated with the US State Department.

Former presidential candidate and low-energy American Jeb Bush had an interesting thought for us all to chew on in the lead-up to election day. During an appearance at Harvard last week he was asked if he was voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, since he's already publicly ruled out voting for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. He dodged the question, but when asked what would happen if normal voters followed his lead and avoided the major party candidates, he replied, "If everybody didn't vote, that would be a pretty powerful political statement, wouldn't it?"

Whoa, man.

Sure, Jeb has been known to smoke weed, but don't be too dismissive. Voter abstention—a.k.a. "not voting and being really smug about it"—is more than just a stoner thought experiment. It's a proud tradition in America, and it's part of that "free speech" thing Americans value so much as well as that "not really giving a shit" thing Americans also love. One political science paper from 2006 found that "alienation and indifference each motivated significant amounts of voter abstention in the 1980-1988 US presidential elections," which affirms every Gen X slacker stereotype in the book.

But no one voting, at all, period? That's a lot different than a bunch of longhairs deciding they'd rather listen to Hüsker Dü cassettes than punch a ballot for Reagan or Mondale. What would happen if, say, a brain parasite that prevents people from voting in any way infects everyone in America from now until inauguration day 2017? And while we're imagining things, let's also go back in time and give that parasite to the Americans who already voted by mail, so now they all haven't voted either. Jeb Bush's fantasy has come to life.

What happens now, and who becomes president?

Look, you have to have a president

OK, so technically *pushes up glasses on bridge of nose* the United States is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. When you vote, you're actually voting for electors, who in turn vote for a president. "Since a president isn't directly elected," Sarah Rosier, editor of federal politics at Ballotpedia told me, "electors would have to be chosen a different way."

"The Constitution says somebody has to be president," said Richard E. Berg-Andersson, creator of TheGreenPapers.com, one of the first election tracking websites. "You can't go around without a president of the United States."

It could literally come down to a coin flip

So how would states pick electors in the absence of votes? Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution says that electors are appointed "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct"—in other words, they have some latitude in picking these guys. If there were zero votes in a presidential election, the race would essentially be a tie, and according to Berg-Andersson state election authorities "would have to turn to the tie-breaking methods that are either statutorily established, or established by custom."

After reviewing the constitutions of several states, though, Berg-Andersson couldn't find a prescribed method in the event that no one votes, meaning states could resort to "flipping a coin, putting names in a hat, or probably drawing lots" to pick electors.

But an electoral coin flip—used during primary season to pick delegates—might not work, because "you would think they would have to include the major third parties," Berg-Andersson said. Drawing ping pong balls out of a hat—a method Wyoming used in 1994 to pick a state legislator after a tie vote—would be more suitable. That means Jill Stein and Gary Johnson could have a real shot at winning some electoral votes.

Then, electors would be chosen, and the electoral college could proceed as usual, right?

But what about that deadlocked Electoral College?

OK, but what if the electors, infected with the same anti-voting brain parasite, refused to cast their votes for president? In many states, electors are not legally bound to vote for any candidate, and "faithless electors" have occasionally cast write-in ballots. It follows that they could abstain, just as regular voters did.

As anyone who has watched Veep knows, if no candidate gets a majority in the Electoral College—which none of them would if no electors voted—the presidential pick would go to the House of Representatives, with each state delegation getting one vote to be doled out to any of the three presidential candidates who got the most electoral votes.

But wait! There wouldn't be a top three if no electoral votes were cast. In that case, according to Berg-Andersson, the legislature would have to get creative. "It may be down to Congress, coming up with some acceptable solution in order to get a president named." In the end, he said, "Congress is the referee."

And at this point, it's also likely that the courts would be getting involved. People would be deeply unhappy with the democratic shitshow playing out on the news, and there would be lawsuits galore. It wouldn't be long before a court case that Berg-Andersson called, "Bush V. Gore on steroids," would be making its way to the Supreme Court.

Bottom line: John Kerry would become president

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan swears in John Kerry as Secretary of State in 2013. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Donald Palmer is an attorney who was Virginia's top election official from 2011 to 2014. He told me that Berg-Andersson is right about Congress choosing the president independently of the American people. But if they don't pick anyone, the presidential line of succession kicks in, just as it would if the president were assassinated.

"By doing nothing or by not affirmatively choosing the next President by the new Congress, apparently the new Speaker becomes President," Palmer told me.

But remember: Our fictional parasite premise says no one can vote: not the general population, not the Electoral College, not Congress, and not the Supreme Court. "No one's voting for a new House of Representatives, so there's no Speaker of the House," Berg-Andersson said. There's no president pro tempore of the Senate either, so that means the presidency falls to the secretary of state—and that's John Kerry, who would remain at his post even as the terms of Congress and the president expire.

"The members of the cabinet don't leave office unless they resign or someone fires them," Berg-Andersson said. "There've been many times when the outgoing cabinet officer has remained in office after a new presidential term has begun, even when the new president is of a different party than the preceding president," he added.

"So it would be John Kerry. John Kerry could become president if no one voted," Berg-Andersson told me.

So there you have it, Jeb. That's what would happen. Now go out there and make sure you're registered to vote.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

All 'FIFA 17' screenshots courtesy of EA (this one is actually from "The Journey")

I would love to be pretentious right now and romanticise the arrival of autumn and how it's intrinsically linked to video game football. As the leaves begin to darken into a brownish hue and tumble from their lofty treetops, and the brisk cold air sweeps in as the football season hits its stride, ushering in the annual arrival of another EA Sports FIFA game. But I can't. Definitely not. Because it's still far too muggy and warm for the beginning of October, and we're currently in the drudged midst of an international break, so I'm more than a little bit miffed.

FIFA 17 is here, though, so I'm not quite as grumpy as I would have otherwise been. And that means another year of playing "Pro Clubs".

What's "Pro Clubs"? I can't say I'm surprised you don't know. Over the past couple of weeks I've read several FIFA 17 reviews, and not a single one has mentioned its most enjoyable game mode. This isn't an indictment of anyone's review process, but rather a telling indication of the near-clandestine standing of "Pro Clubs" in the FIFAsphere, something that can be traced all the way back to Electronic Arts itself.

FIFA 17's "The Journey" mode was given some time to shine during this year's expos, but that's because it's brand spanking new, reinventing the "Be a Pro" mode with a narrative straight out of the movie Goal!. Meanwhile, "Pro Clubs" has remained relatively unchanged since its inception in FIFA 09. It's not the enormous cash cow that "Ultimate Team" is, so there probably isn't any real benefit to dedicating too many resources to it, thus giving EA little reason to ever talk about it. Even at Gamescom in Germany – FIFA's presence is always more pronounced in Europe – this year's rare new features for "Pro Clubs" were relegated to a single, throwaway sentence.

But, basically, "Pro Clubs" fantastically captures the camaraderie of football. Embodying the ups and downs, from promotions and relegations, to last minute winners, cup final heartbreak, Istanbul-style comebacks and porous displays befitting of the England national team. And I know what you're thinking: all of this stuff applies to the career mode, which is true. But the career mode is a wholly singular experience, where you're the overseer. "Pro Clubs", much like football, is a team game.

You create your own club from scratch, picking a name, a stadium and (new to FIFA 17) creating a kit. Then, you invite all your mates and play together using your own created players against other like-minded teams, in matches that can accommodate as few as two players and as many as a full 22, goalkeepers and all. There are ten divisions in total, with intermittent cup windows sprinkled throughout, and matches are played across ten-game seasons, with point thresholds for relegation, promotion and title wins, ensuring you're always playing for something.

It's the perfect analogue for actual football. Not professional football, mind you. With no manager and no tactics to tinker with beyond picking a formation, the strategic aspect of the beautiful game is practically non-existent. No offence to the people who turn out for it week after week, but "Pro Clubs" is more akin to (okay, high quality) Sunday League football. Think of it as Messi and Ronaldo playing down the local park, being managed by your dad's mate. The tactical nuance isn't there, but there's enough quality on the pitch to create sumptuous, free-flowing football. Assuming that everyone is on the same wavelength, of course.

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Teamwork is the key to success and your own enjoyment in "Pro Clubs", so playing with friends is advisable. You can try going it alone, but drop-in matches are objectively horrendous: you always end up on a team with some lunatic in goal who has no intention of staying in net, let alone ever saving anything. There's always the bloke in midfield who refuses to pass to anyone ever, and the twit up front who thinks he's hot shit plays terribly for the entire match and then somehow manages to score a 30-yard screamer in the 90th minute, infuriating both teams.

Yeah, you really need to play with friends, which is a caveat I know many people might not be able to budge. I was fortunate enough to be part of a forum when FIFA 09 was released, and someone mentioned that there was this new mode where you could play full 11-on-11 matches. Despite none of us having ever really played with each other before, we were intrigued enough to check it out, and before long we had so many people playing we had to split the team in two, just to accommodate everyone. Throughout the years those numbers have dropped off significantly, but there are still a few of us that continue to play "Pro Clubs" on a weekly basis. Friends I've made, and talk to on the daily, purely because we all decided to try out this new game mode.

We've moved around to other games, from Call of Duty and Battlefield to everything else in between. But "Pro Clubs" has remained the one constant. There's just something undeniably special about playing as part of a team – as a collective – that transcends playing even the most accomplished football games on your own.

New, on VICE Sports: First-Hand Experiences from the Exile of Coventry City

Invariably there are also stories that arise when you play football with your mates – virtual or otherwise. If "The Journey" is Goal!, then "Pro Clubs" is Fash FC, the reality TV variant. I could easily rattle off a number of anecdotes if I had the time. Examples of footballing triumphs, like just earlier this year, on FIFA 16, when we finally won Division 1 for the first time, only to suffer the ignominy of a title defence worse than Chelsea's most recent effort. Our form dipped off a cliff and we were relegated for five seasons on the spin, resulting in much self wallowing before we eventually got our act together and climbed back up through the divisions, Swansea style. I could even recount interactions with other teams, such as during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, when after every goal a few members of our club would blare the irritable drone of vuvuzelas down their microphones, which was amusingly dickish, albeit in keeping with the spirit of a particularly discordant World Cup. Banter, innit?

Which brings me to something Arsène Wenger once said: "Football is an art, like dancing is an art – but only when it's well done does it become an art." Now, I'm not quite delusional enough to proclaim that playing well on FIFA is art, even if it's done as part of a surprisingly functional group of miscreants. But there's no denying there's something rather remarkable about "Pro Clubs" and its ability to bring people together, and create an experience as close to actual football as I've ever played.

When you're playing with other people there's always going to be an element of communication that doesn't exist when you're playing with AI. But perhaps my favourite parts are those wonderful moments sports commentators would gleefully describe as telepathy; where players seemingly know what each other are thinking, and an inch-perfect through ball connects with a perfectly timed run behind the defence without a word ever being uttered. You see this happen in the Premier League every weekend – from Mesut Özil finding Alexis Sánchez, to Dušan Tadić connecting with Charlie Austin – that it can't help but feel amazing when you do it with just a pad in hand and a mate a couple of hundred miles away. That's the strength of "Pro Clubs". And while it might not get the time and attention of FIFA's big money maker, I'm honestly fine sticking with the scrappy underdog.

@richardwakeling

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

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

Shoppers in Florida prepare for the hurricane. Photo by LEILA MACOR/AFP/Getty Images

US News

Florida Prepares for Hurricane Matthew
Tropical storm conditions are expected in Florida Thursday as Hurricane Matthew hones in on the southeastern coast of the US. The government has urged or ordered more than 1.5 million people to leave coastal areas, and evacuations were ongoing throughout Wednesday in Georgia and South Carolina. If it makes landfall, Matthew will be the first major hurricane—it was deemed Category 4 Thursday—to hit the US mainland since Wilma in 2005.—NBC News

FBI Arrests NSA Contractor Accused of Stealing Documents
A Maryland man who worked as a contractor for the NSA has been arrested for allegedly stealing classified material (which was found in his home and car), US officials have announced. The FBI arrested Harold Thomas Martin III in August for "theft of government property and unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials."—VICE News

Clinton Leads Trump in New Ohio Poll
Hillary Clinton has a two-point edge on Donald Trump in the often pivotal swing state of Ohio, according to a fresh Monmouth University poll. It found 44 percent of Ohio's likely voters support Clinton compared to 42 percent supporting Trump, though Clinton is not performing as well with black, Asian, and Hispanic voters in Ohio as President Obama did in 2012. Other recent surveys have shown her trailing there.—CBS News

Chicago Suspends Wells Fargo for One Year
Following the examples of the state governments of California and Illinois, the Chicago City Council approved a one-year-suspension of Wells Fargo from city business due to its scandal with phony accounts. The bank will not be allowed to do any work with the city for the next 12 months. Alderman Edward Burke said he hoped it would "make it clear to other institutions this conduct is unacceptable."—Reuters

International News

Haiti Struggles to Start Relief Efforts After Hurricane
Rescue workers in Haiti are struggling to reach parts of the country cut off by Hurricane Matthew, with a key bridge down and roads impassable. The hurricane has caused terrible damage, killing at least 23 people and destroying many homes. Haiti's presidential election, due to take place this weekend, has been postponed.—BBC News

Six Killed in Suspected Al Shabab Attack in Kenya
The al Shabab militant group is suspected of killing at least six people in an attack on a residential compound in northeast Kenya. Attackers used a grenade to break in before shooting those inside. The local governor said it was "obviously" al Shabab, the Somali Islamist group that has carried out attacks in neighboring Kenya.—CBC News

Israel Intercepts Activist Boat Bound for Gaza
Israel's navy has intercepted an all-female activist boat from Spain seeking to break the country's blockade of the Gaza Strip and deliver aid. The boat was boarded by the navy, directed to shore, and all 13 women—including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire—were taken into Israeli government custody.—Al Jazeera

Portugal's Guterres Set to Become UN Chief
Portugal's former prime minister António Guterres is poised to become the next UN secretary general, according to UN diplomats. A formal vote will take place in the security council on Thursday to confirm the choice to succeed Ban Ki-moon in 2017. Guterres, 67, was the "clear favorite," according to Russia's UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin.—The Guardian

Everything Else

Drake Postpones Summer Sixteen Shows
Drake has been forced to postpone his upcoming shows in Toronto, Philadelphia, and Newark due to an ankle injury. "I will make it up to you," the rapper wrote on OVO's blog, promising "new music and a stronger ankle."—Rolling Stone

Empire Cast Endorse Hillary Clinton
The cast of the hit TV show Empire have voiced their support for Hillary Clinton in a new video endorsing the Democratic nominee. "There's only one person in this race who said Black Lives Matter," according to actor Bryshere Gray, who plays Hakeem Lyon.—Billboard

Nine Australians Who Stripped in Malaysia Freed
Nine Australian men arrested for indecency after stripping down to scandalous swimsuits at the Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix have been freed. They pleaded guilty to causing a public nuisance and apologized.—TIME

Grimes Drops Four New Videos
The artist has released four new vids for tracks off her album Art Angels. She announced on Twitter says that she and her brother Mac have shot seven music videos in all while touring Europe, all filmed on phones.—Noisey

Theranos to Shut Controversial Blood Clinics
After months of scrutiny from regulators and the press, controversial blood-testing startup Theranos has announced that it will close its clinical labs and lay off 340 employees. CEO Elizabeth Holmes said the company will focus on a smaller blood-testing device.— VICE News

Feds Accuses Two Teenagers of DDoS Attack Hacks
The FBI is accusing two teenagers of being members of the hacking groups Lizard Squad and PoodleCorp. American Zachary Buchta, 19, and Dutch native Bradley Jan Willem Van Rooy, also 19, have been charged with crimes associated with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.—Motherboard

Today, Supreme released one of their always highly-anticipated artist T-shirts, which this season features Gucci Mane wearing a Supreme box logo shirt and a sort of red sweater thing on his head. As always, there was a huge queue outside the London store, full of people eager to get their hands on the tee before it makes its way onto eBay for triple the price.

We thought it would be fun to go down and ask these big Gucci Mane fans a few big Gucci Mane questions: among others, what's their favourite Gucci song, what's their favourite Gucci crime, and is it true that the Gucci released from jail earlier this year is actually a clone?

What's your favourite Gucci Mane song, Tam?
Tam: "Half", innit. It's full of swear words, though – I can't really sing that to camera. I'll play you a little clip after, innit. But it's not really family suitable.

Do you have a favourite Gucci Mane tattoo?
The ice cream cone, innit. From when he was fat Gucci. That was iconic.

How did you feel about his early release from prison?
He's a clone, innit, so you don't really know what it is. Some people say he's a clone. Is he real? No one knows. He's very skinny now. So he might be.

It's pretty obvious, I think. Like, if your friend got out of prison all skinny you'd definitely assume they were a clone.
Yeah, I'd be like, "Why are you wham? No carbs or something? What's going on?"

And what's your favourite crime of his?
I don't really respect crime. I don't respect him for that.

Good answer, Tam.

VICE: Hey, what's your favourite Gucci Mane song?
Rayyan: Probably "Guwop" with Travis Scott. And "Last Time" . What else? His songs just coming out of prison. I want to get his T-shirts today, actually – the blue one and the white one and stuff.

I think you're only allowed to get one actually, sorry.
Ah, well I guess I'll have to find it online somehow.

I think they all sold out online within a minute too.
Resale prices are ridiculous too. I'd be willing to pay £150, max, for one. They're selling now for £40, so... Not everyone keeps them – most people try making money off them. They just stand in line for two hours and make a hundred pounds. By selling one T-shirt.

That's a pretty good hourly rate, to be fair.

Everett and Freddy

What are your favourite Gucci Mane songs, guys?
Freddy: I think "Lemonade" or "Coca Cola". It's about cocaine and stuff, cos that's what a rapper does.
Everett: I'm going to be biased and take something off the new album: "Pussy Print". It's got Kanye on it and he's my favourite artist. It's like "Pussy Print..." That's basically the whole song. It's my life.

How did you feel about him getting released from prison?
F: I feel good because he's a trap god. I'm so happy for him.
E: It's good because he's living well too. Everything's Gucci, you know?

But is he living well, or is he a government clone?
E: No comment.

Do you know something we don't know?
E: No comment.

Yemi and Alex

What's your favourite Gucci Mane song?
Yemi: I'd have to go with lemonade (sings it)

And do you have a favourite tattoo?
Alex: The ice cream one, innit.
Y: No, I like the chest bit.
A: Nah man, the ice cream looks sick, though.

Apparently people lick his ice-cream face tattoo.
Y: Do they? Nah, only bitches can be licking that shit. If man came up to me like, "Oh, let me lick that..." Hell no. Isn't he getting it removed now? A little bit of laser surgery or something.
A: It's just faded, though – I saw it the other day.
Y: That's jail time.

Yeah I've heard jail changes you.
A: It fades out your tattoos.

Do you think maybe it's because he's a government clone that they did the tattoos badly on?
Y: Nah. If they was gonna clone someone I don't think they would clone Gucci Mane. They'd clone someone better than Gucci
A: There's only one Gucci. He isn't a clone.

What's your favourite crime that he's committed?
A: How do you have a favourite crime?
Y: When the judge asked if he was guilty and he said, "Bitch I might be." Bitch I might be. He actually said that.
A: He killed that guy... but that was self defence.
Y: That's your favourite crime?
A: Man, he was fucking this chick and then they came in the bedroom and he just shot them.

Hey Simon, what's your favourite Gucci Mane song?
Simon: Trap house 3. I'm not going to sing the lyrics right now though, that's pretty embarrassing.

And your favourite Gucci Mane tattoo?
The ice cream on his face. It's dope – he talks about ice cream and he has one on his face. That's pretty lit.

Do you know if it's true that people keep trying to lick his face?
Apparently. A lot of people try to lick his face, I assume. That might be a cool thing to do if you're a girl who likes Gucci.

Would you like to lick his face?
Not really. I'd like to smoke with him, though – that's cool. But not lick his face.

Do you think he's a government clone?
That's bullshit. People like to talk shit and sell things. Sell their information. I don't know. He's not a government clone, just a new man with a lot of time on his hands.

What's your favourite crime that he committed?
I don't know. I have buddies in Atlanta who say that when Gucci is in jail, drugs are hard to find. That's pretty cool.

Cool! Thanks, Simon.

Hey Amric, what's your favourite Gucci Mane song?
Amric: I don't really listen to Gucci Mane, to be honest with you. It's just not my kind of music.

Why are you in a three hour queue for his T-shirt?
I'm here with my little brother.

Cute. Do you have a favourite tattoo of his?
I like the ice cream on his face.

How did you feel when he got out of prison?
He lost a lot of weight, didn't he?

Or did he get swapped out for a slightly fitter government clone?
A government clone? Yeah, I guess so.

Thanks, Amric!

What's your favourite Gucci Mane song?
Peaky: "Pills", probably. It's just classic Gucci. To be honest, though, I'm not that into him. He's an iconic figure, though.

Why are you in this queue then?
I'm just here for Supreme. The reason most people are here.

What's your favourite tattoo of his?
The ice cream cone. There's so many stories with it. Like people licking it and then getting birded off. Who knows what actually happened.

How did you feel when he got out of prison?
Do you know what, yeah? I didn't really take him seriously. I slept on him for a while, I thought he was too drugged up and too mad. But then obviously he gained everyone's respect and he seems mature now. A very intelligent guy.

Because he's so mature and different now from when he went into prison, do you think there's a possibility he's a government clone?
No, I think that's just human growth. Or a marketing ploy.

What's your favourite crime that he committed?
When Jeezy tried to burn him off or whatever, apparently he... These are weird questions, aren't they?

Yep! Thanks, Peaky.

More on VICE:

Why Are So Many People So Obsessed with Supreme?

I Travelled to Every Supreme Store in the World to Understand the Meaning of Supreme

Photos of the Hundreds of People Who Queued Overnight to Buy the New Supreme Collection

Photos by Jake Kivanc

Last week, the Ottawa police confirmed they were investigating comments a local officer had left on an Ottawa Citizen article about artist Annie Pootoogook. Screencaps published by APTN show Sergeant Chris Hrnchiar brushed off Pootoogook's death, writing, "It's not a murder case... typically many Aboriginals have very short lifespans, talent or not."

Photo via author

If your parents forced you to become an engineer or scientist because they said it would make you a ton of money, you'll be pleased to know that a new study has confirmed that, yes, indeed, the average salary of somebody in the Canadian oil, gas and/or energy sectors (STEM) is high as fuck compared to their stupid and poor social science counterparts (it me).

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

The author at Dominator Festival, a Dutch hardcore event in Eindhoven

Watch the trailer for 'Big Night Out: Bastards of the Bible Belt' here, and see the full episode on VICELAND, on Sky channel 153 or Now TV.

The international sin-bin of Amsterdam aside, The Netherlands isn't a country particularly associated with extremity. Ask most people to think of an image of the Dutch countryside and they'll no doubt fall readily into cliché: windmills, dyes, rolls of cheese, rosy-faced maidens with dollies on their heads, ham and cheese toasties and tall lads called Ronald and Virgil with Van Persie haircuts.

Driving through the country, those clichés seem to be not a million miles away from the reality. The landscape is dominated by the endless plains of the lowlands, its climate is Northern European without being Nordic and its culture is steeped in Protestant ethics and decency. After all, this is a country whose national stereotype is tolerance.

But beneath the veneer of milkmaids, orange hats and "no worries, guys" permissiveness lies a staunchly Calvinist backbone that cuts across the country, from Zeeland in the West to the central-eastern regions of Overijssel and Utrecht.

This invisible line in the cornfields is widely known as being Europe's biggest "Bible Belt", and the beliefs here often sit to the right of mainstream Christianity. Homosexuality, abortion, sex before marriage and working on a Sunday are all highly frowned upon by many of the Bible Belt inhabitants, and the area was brought to even greater notoriety when a measles epidemic struck the region a few years back, no doubt due to their firm anti-vaccination stance.

But every action has a reaction, and the Bible Belt's Amish-lite approach to life has no doubt spurred the youth of these towns towards an unlikely obsession with the Dutch hardcore and gabber scenes. You wouldn't think to look at them, but almost every weekend one of these towns is bound to be invaded by hundreds of bored, riled up teenagers flocking to the massive out-of-town clubs to hear some of most fearsome, absurd music on earth. We were there to film an episode of the new VICELAND series Big Night Out, and when we found out about a night called "Fucking Bastards" happening in the one-windmill town of Beesd it not only played into a long obsession I've had with gabber and hardcore, but also made me wonder how a landscape so flat and uninspiring, with a culture so forbidding, could incubate one of the most extreme subcultures on earth.

The simple answer is that hardcore is no longer wanted in the city that birthed it. It's become an increasingly-gentrified Rotterdam's problem child, banished out into the provinces, where people are more likely to appreciate that kind of thing.

The story goes that hardcore could only ever have come out of Rotterdam, the Dutch city that stands out from the crowd like no other. Rotterdam doesn't look or feel like any other Dutch city because it was nearly decimated in WWII, due to its strategic importance as a major shipping port. Like Coventry, Rotterdam was nearly totally rebuilt, and instead of the leaning old buildings and quaint backstreets you'll see in many other Dutch cities, Rotterdam became a modernist, brutalist, industrial utopia with people from all over the world (and a whole lot of drugs) moving through its waters.

The Rotterdam of the 1980s was a rough, imposing place, and when the youth of Rotterdam started to play with making their own techno sounds it was if the feeling of the city seeped into the music, as it became harder and faster than anyone had ever heard before. In 1992 it was given a name, "hardcore", and its followers were given a name: "gabbers". The original gabbers had their own uniform, a kind of Lowlands take on the scally look: tracksuits from the sportswear brand Australians, number 0 hair-dos. It was Gosha way before Gosha. It even had its own dance, the Kossack-esque "Hakkan". Soon, the music became known as gabber as well, and the scene was cemented as one of the great original youth culture movements.

But 25 years later and hardcore has dwindled in Rotterdam. The city has seized an opportunity to reimagine itself in the Williamsburg-Kreuzberg model. The clubs now play tasteful Pitchfork techno, the warehouses that once played home to Thunderdome and Rotterdam Terror Corps now sell burritos and house start-up companies looking for a cheaper alternative to Amsterdam or Berlin. The young people of the city see hardcore as a kind of ghost scene, one for ne'er-do-wells, lunatics, zealots and speed heads.

But in the Bible Belt, hardcore is still the perfect enemy to sign up with. Something to put the fear of god in the older population, something to raise a bit of hell. And it's here that the scene lives in 2016, with its new obscurity pushing it into more and more extreme directions, with the old standard of 180BPM now an entry level. The tracksuits and the haircuts are still there, but the scene is consistently reinventing itself thanks to an enthusiasm to always make it as hard as possible.

Our film takes us deep into the heart of the Bible Belt, where we meet the Fucking Bastards crew; an 18-year-old Rotterdam scene queen; a young Christian who turned to the dark side of hardstyle, only to retreat back towards the light; and Press Terror, a producer who wears a bloodied pig mask and claims to be the inventor of a new sub-genre called "DRRRRRR!", which boasts tempos well into the four-figure mark.

In Holland, it seems, hardcore isn't a genre, it isn't a lifestyle; it's a religion.

@thugclive

More on VICE:

Someone Has Vandalised Our VICELAND Posters – But Who's to Blame?

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I Tried to Find and Join Britain's Remaining Style Tribes

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany.

Ihab Yassin stands a little over four feet. He is one of the 100,000 little people currently living in Germany, as estimated by the German Association for Little People. In the UK, the number of people with a restricted growth condition is strangely just 6,000.

The general definition of restricted growth—or dwarfism—is when an adult person's height is under 4 feet 10 inches, but that diagnosis can be caused by a number of medical conditions. In Yassin's case, it's achondroplasia—a genetic defect that caused his upper body to grow to a regular size, while his arms and legs are much shorter than average.

He calls himself "Little Parkour Hulk" because, for the last six years, he has been running and climbing on gates, stairs, bridges, roofs, and walls for fun. When Yassin's not doing parkour, he's studying for a computer-science teaching qualification or volunteering at a daycare center. He says children respond to his size in many different ways—some are anxious, others curious. Because children are basically drunks without any sense of shame, they're not afraid to ask him any question about his size that comes to their mind. We decided to follow their lead and ask him ten questions of our own.

VICE: Does it suck to be short?
Ihab Yassin: No, I don't think it's shit to have dwarfism at all—it's never bothered me. Of course, there are situations where I have to rely on other people's help, like in the supermarket if I can't reach certain stuff. But I don't find it embarrassing, so I have no problem asking for help. And I can unapologetically look at women's butts. That's pretty cool.

Has anyone ever accidentally farted in your face?
No. If that happened, I would hold my nose and quietly cross the street. No one has ever done it on purpose to me, either.

Do you date other little people?
To me, the most important thing when I date someone is that we have common interests. Looks do play a role in dating, and I look for women who have a positive attitude and who don't wear too much makeup. But I don't care if she has dwarfism or not.

Have you ever had a relationship with a tall woman?
No, I've never been in a committed relationship. But I'm also not the type for one-night stands. And anyway, most women—whether they are a little person or not—are into "normal" tall guys.

Does it hurt when women dump you because of your size?
Not so much—I've resigned myself to the fact that our society sees a certain kind of perfection as the norm.

All photos courtesy of Ihab Yassin

Do you laugh at jokes about little people?
My friends make jokes about my size, and that's fine. I also like the German saying "Lügen haben kurze Beinen" . If someone rhetorically asks me if I'm disabled, I always say something like, "Yes, it says so on my disability card—do you want to see it?" I think it would be shit if strangers approached me just for being a dwarf, but that luckily never happens. Nevertheless, I like making fun of my size, too—I only dress as an elf at fancy dress parties.

How do you feel about the fact that things like "dwarf-tossing" are actual activities people can do at parties?
Fortunately, no one has ever asked if he can toss me or catch me. But, yeah, there are places that hire little people for their height, and I think that stuff should be banned.

Do you buy your clothes in children's departments?
No, because I don't need to. The clothing from the men's department usually fits me in size X or XS, and I wear shoes in sizes 38 or 39 . So I generally buy my clothing at the same places as everyone else. My apartment looks quite normal, too. Wherever I can't reach, I just grab a stool.

Does it bother you when people think you're cute because you're not average sized?
Yes, people have called me sweet or cute in the middle of the street, and that really annoys me. Although whenever that happened—which hasn't been that often—the people saying it were usually drunk. It still bothers me, though. I want people to know me as a person and not reduce me to my size.

What would you do if you suddenly had an average height?
I'm small, so what? I can eat and drink and play football, go out and dance in clubs. I don't feel limited by my height, and wouldn't do anything differently if my height was "normal."

Illustrations by Joel Benjamin

I thought I was only moderately depressed. Then I took four different online depression tests—Psychology Today, Mental Health America, Psych Central, and Depression.org—and they all said "severe depression." They were like "seek help." I was like, bitches I already have more help than a toddler. I have weekly therapy, a monthly psychiatrist, an emotional support dog (granted, my dog needs an emotional support dog too), antidepressants, two mentors, a daily gratitude list, and, despite my best efforts to avoid humans, a number of close friends with whom I can be truthful. I run, meditate daily, "journal" as verb, perform acts of service, and take good care of my sobriety.

I was kind of annoyed. How is it that I do so much work on myself and am still "severe"? I should at least be, like, in the 60th depression percentile. Is it ableist to want to be less depressed than you are? Am I ableist against myself?

Of course, these tests—despite their mutual agreement that I am the fucking bell jar—are multiple choice. They don't allow for nuance. So I decided to take a more holistic approach. I went ahead and created an AP version: a mélange of questions from each test, to be answered in written format. Below are my results.

1. How often have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed, irritable, or hopeless over the past two weeks?

I've never not been bothered by a feeling. As a person who has anxiety disorder in addition to depression, I experience any shift in emotion, sensation, or tick in the body as cause for alarm: the first step on the sudden, inexplicable death express. If the sensation, such as hopelessness, is somehow not a symptom of death, then it likely reflects a doomed, vaguely psychedelic downward spiral in which I will be trapped eternally like Alice down the rabbit hole if Alice forgot everything she learned in cognitive behavioral therapy. So yeah, you could say I'm a little on edge about it.

2. When you wake up in the morning, do you feel like there is anything to look forward to?

When I find myself looking forward to something, it's usually a bad idea. Most of the things I've looked forward to—drugs, alcohol, a crush, a massive food binge, an ambition or achievement, an object to be purchased—have either eventually tried to kill me, hurt me, or ended up being a disappointment. Sometimes I still create little missions via obsession in order to distract myself from the wide-open expanse of meaninglessness that spreads out before me. I find problems with myself—my skin, my hair, the sudden notion that no one likes me—and set about trying to fix them so as to create a finite sphere of meaning within the larger expanse of nothingness. I see others doing this with political affiliation, religion, fashion, career, and other constructions of identity. I see them fighting with one another over these constructions. I don't blame them for fighting. It's adrenaline-inducing and a great distraction from the abyss. There are only a few things I've looked forward to that for the most part haven't tried to kill me, hurt me, or become a huge disappointment: writing (sometimes), helping other people who share common afflictions (often), horses (mostly), dogs (usually), mountains (yes but they tried to kill me once), and going back to sleep.

3. Do you feel trapped or caught?

Well, considering that I never asked to be born...

4. Do you overanalyze your relationships with others, finding problems that don't really exist?

Mostly I just want to be left alone.

5. Have you been told that you are unusually irritable?

I learned to smile from a young age, so no one would ask what's wrong. My tendency is to take things out on myself rather than others. Everyone is annoying, but they're mostly doing the best they can (which is actually a scary thought when you see what people are doing). I'm kind of too self-centered to judge. Why find fault in others when there is so much wrong with me? That being said, I can spend about two hours maximum with the people I love the most, and then I need time to myself. If I don't get that physical space, I sort of retreat inward: either by going online or through my imagination.

6. Do you have a persistent feeling of emptiness?

I am a persistent feeling of emptiness.

7. Do you feel worthless?

I'm built like a sieve, wherein any validation I receive, achievement I reach, or good thing that happens quickly drains through me, and I am once again rendered empty. On the one hand, this might be seen as a form of wisdom, or non-attachment: an acknowledgement that nothing external is permanent. On the other hand, I'm not actually wise or detached, as I continue to strive for all of these things despite their ephemeral nature. I still want. I am full of desire. But once I obtain my prize, it no longer seems worth having—because if I can have it, then something must be wrong with it.

8. Do you feel that you are a guilty person who deserves to be punished?

Until now, I didn't really realize this was a symptom of depression and just thought it was the way things are.

9. Have you gained or lost weight recently without making any intentional dietary changes?

My whole life is an intentional dietary change. I'm never not aware of every calorie I put into my mouth. This lends itself to a feeling of control over at least one aspect of my life in a very uncontrollable world. The way I eat is mine, and no one can touch it: typical disordered eating stuff. I am not pro-disordered eating. I'm simply stating the way it is. I feel bad about the disordered eating, as I feel bad about everything that pertains to me. But I fear that I would feel worse without it.

10. Do you constantly feel fatigued? Do you feel physically weak?

I've been exhausted since I was born. But I suppose this chasm of exhaustion scares me more than anxiety, because I've utilized anxiety and obsessive (often compulsive) action to distract me from the exhaustion. Yet recently, having bottomed out on most of my adrenaline-jumpers, I only want to sleep. To me, physical exhaustion is one of the most baffling depression symptoms. I am always trying to figure out why I feel that way or attribute it to something else. Usually it's my anxiety doing the attributing. It says, You have a fatal, undiagnosed disease! Other things my anxiety says about the exhaustion are: What's wrong with you? What if you never leave the house again? You are becoming a hermit. How could you ever hold a 9–5 job again? What if you fall asleep in front of these people?

I wonder what would happen if I allowed myself all of the sleep I wanted. Would I never get out of bed again? Or would going easy on myself ultimately help me to have more energy?

11. Do you compare yourself to others?

I just took a "restorative" yoga class that was supposed to be about self-love, except the teacher led with a story about how she drove to Nevada and helped deliver her best friend's baby, so throughout the whole class instead of loving myself I just thought about how I could never do what she did, because I'm scared to be still in a moment, and I don't like sleeping over at other people's houses, and also how I can probably never have a baby myself, because my body is a toxic Nicorette force field, and also how she is probably vegan and at peace with nature, whereas I eat animals despite knowing better and am in an ongoing fight with nature.

12. Do you have recurrent thoughts of ending your life?

Anxiety lends itself to feeling like I am dying multiple times a week. Despite all of this dying practice, I'm still so scared of those last moments. I don't want to have to do it myself, and I don't want to know that it's happening. I'm terrified of the dying process but find relief in the idea of death. If I could just vanish without knowing I was vanishing, that would be the best.

13. Do you feel like crying for no apparent reason?

Look around and look within. There's always a reason to cry.

If you are concerned about your mental health or that of someone you know, visit the Mental Health America website.

Buy So Sad Today: Personal Essays on Amazon, and follow her on Twitter.

Photo via The Canadian Press

At a press conference Thursday announcing upwards of $100 million in compensation for hundreds of harassed female RCMP employees, former RCMP officer Linda Davidson embraced RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson.

"It takes a great person to acknowledge what went wrong," Davidson, who was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of alleged harassment by her coworkers and bosses, told reporters Thursday. "This is a new step, it's a new beginning. We are headed in the right direction."

Davidson mounted a class action lawsuit against Canada's national police force in March 2015, alleging that she and other female officers were victims of systemic sexual harassment and discrimination within the force. It's the second class action of its kind after another such action by former RCMP constable Janet Merlo five years ago.

The Merlo class action snowballed into about 500 women who joined on with their own allegations of harassment. The RCMP said Thursday they expect 1,000 women to come forward, which is how they decided on the "ballpark estimate" of $100 million in compensation.

It was an emotional moment for Paulson, too, who choked up as he read his statement.

"For many of our women, this discrimination and harassment has hurt them mentally and physically," he said. Adding: "Their very lives have been affected."

"I stand humbly before you today and solemnly offer you my apology," Paulson said.

"We failed you, we hurt you. For that, I'm truly sorry."

Paulson said the RCMP has set up an independent, confidential claims process and compensation scheme for all women who have experienced bullying, harassment or abuse in the RCMP between Sept. 16, 1974 — the date that women were first allowed to join the RCMP — and the future date when the federal court's will, hopefully, approve the settlement. Paulson said that approval is expected soon.

The federal government has committed $100 million in anticipation of the process, but there is no cap on the compensation, Paulson said.

Paulson said the agreement showed the RCMP was accountable to its employees.

The compensation scheme is one step in a series of ongoing moves the RCMP has taken toward confronting misogyny, harassment and bullying in its ranks.

Paulson said the RCMP now has systems in place that will deal "swiftly" with those who continue to harass or discriminate against women.

Follow Hilary Beaumont on Twitter.

Mike Diver and Austin Walker discuss the pros and cons of Sony's imminently available virtual reality headset for the PS4.

Diver: We've both had PlayStation VR for a few days, and I see from Twitter that you're not so sure of it, just yet—that the kit's given you the jitters, that it's made you nauseous. That's bummed me out a bit, as I've got along pretty well with Sony's kit. Well, I've got along with all the VR headsets that I've had the pleasure of slipping over my face, so far, and this is no different.

I've felt a whoosh and a wheeze, a chill and a heave, depending on what's been on the screen so close to my eyeballs—but while I've walked away wobbly from some experiences, like Capcom's Kitchen and Until Dawn's Rush of Blood spin-off, which combines a roller-coaster sim with a bloody rail-shooter, that's mainly because of the content, rather than the method of delivery. In other words: I'm a massive wuss when this horror stuff is playing out before me, with nowhere else to look. Even Batman: Arkham VR made me jump out of my skin at one point—I really wasn't anticipating that game's dark turns, which are all the more extreme in VR.

'Job Simulator' screenshot courtesy of Owlchemy Labs

But I've enjoyed it. I've liked having VR in my home for the first time. I've laughed a lot, with my wife beside me. She's not a gamer in any respect, but she's got a kick out of the VR she's tried these past few nights. The PS VR headset is clearly the least well built of what's out there, in tech-specs terms, the feel of its assembly and the simple fact that I am always fiddling with it while it's on, yet to find that sweet spot of comfort. It also leaks a lot of light, as it doesn't "seal" at the bottom, which can break the atmosphere of scarier games. But as an entry point for the curious, which it's clearly positioned as, I'm definitely an advocate.

But on that note, while it's comparatively inexpensive versus its competitors, at £200 in the UK (save a penny). And that's before you buy a camera, or some Move controllers (the UK really needs a bundle, like the US has, which packs all of this in). Given your experience with it so far, do you think it's something you simply have to be able to preview, somehow, before bringing it into the home?

'The London Heist' screenshot courtesy of Sony

Walker: It's funny that you mention laughing, because as it stands, nearly every one of my favorite PS VR moments have been the comedic ones—both the games that have been explicitly designed to be funny and those that stumble into unintentional laughs. In the latter case, nothing has been funnier to me than "The London Heist," a brief, Guy Ritchie–style British crime caper that's packed in to Sony's VR Worlds. Imagine a huge hulk of muscle stomping around and intimidating you. Now imagine reaching out and scratching him under his chin as he glowers at you. Hilarious.

In the "intentionally funny" camp, I can't say enough nice things about Job Simulator. It's been out for a while on the Vive, but this was my first chance to put extended time into it. Job Simulator casts you as a person living in a bright and boxy future that has been taken over by artificial intelligences (in the form of talking, floating desktop computers yanked from the mid 90s.) There aren't any human jobs in the future, but there are horribly misunderstood simulations of old human jobs. So you work as an "office worker" where you eat mandatory donuts and use huge rubber stamps to hire and fire contractors, and you sabotage cars as a mechanic by replacing their most important parts with flowerpots. All of it relies on sharp, surprising dialogue—and, of course, motion controls.

Article continues after the video below

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

The problem, though, is that I'm having a hell of a time getting those motion controls to stay steady. Like you said, I've been facing a lot of strange jittering both with my PlayStation Move controllers and with the headset itself. No matter what I do with the lighting, no matter where I move the camera, eventually my view and my virtual hands start shaking unpredictably. Not only does it make it hard to play, it's also the first time I've ever found myself getting nauseous while in VR. So to answer your question: Yeah, I have a hard time recommending this to anyone before they try it. Your personal experience is going to be, well, personal—and that's a difficult variable for VR developers to account for.

That said, I'm glad to hear you're having a good time with it. If you had to hand me PS VR right now, with one game to play (or "experience" to "experience"), what would it be?

'Until Dawn: Rush of Blood' screenshot courtesy of Sony

Diver: As you're someone who knows his way around a controller or two, I think Arkham VR is "the one" in this launch window. I'm not sure any other VR game has so convincingly put me in the shoes of someone else. Dancing around in front of a mirror as Batman, and maybe a little later on as someone else: It can't be beat. That said, I don't have the Move controllers, which does make the (sub-60-minutes) experience of Arkham VR more fiddly than it should be—when I played it at E3, with Move, it was a lot more intuitive, and your hands are always on-screen then, too. And for that same reason, I am yet to play Job Simulator, as I didn't see an option to use the DualShock on its menu screen. From what you're describing, that makes sense. Problem is, over here in the UK, all the second-hand Moves that were £15 this week—the retailers know what they're doing, but that's not a dent my wallet's ready to take.

I'd also recommend Battlezone for those who're intimately familiar with a pad—I've written about it at length before, and it featured in our recent VR film too, but it really is a great arcade game (or, I guess, an update of one). It features online multiplayer, which I imagine—as I've not yet had the pleasure—is going to be a riot of exploding polygons and heated, yet hopefully friendly, trash talking. As you're seated, in a cockpit, throughout, its lightly undulating terrains shouldn't turn your stomach too much.

'Battlezone' screenshot courtesy of Rebellion

For anyone who doesn't immediately connect with a couple of analog sticks, though, the games that rely on the headset itself for control are evidently—based on my wife's time with it—the most immediately accessible. So from VR Worlds that's "Danger Ball"—a surprisingly addictive little Tron-aesthetics heading affair—and its "VR Luge" runs. Of the other software, Headmaster is great fun. It's literally a head-the-ball simulator, and those balls come thick and fast, but it's shot through with very British silliness. It's a bit like if Monty Python made soccer games, maybe.

I was thinking about your nausea, and the controller tracking—at home, I have only been playing sitting down, so far, even for Batman. I wonder if that's a factor. I don't have the space to really stand in my place, at least not with the intention to properly move about, to swing an arm—it's all been relatively small movements. I'll have to try it the other way by moving some furniture.

I'm not sure that, if I were looking at buying this tech, I'd be putting my money down right away. A lot of the first wave of software, as fine as a lot of it is in short doses, does fall into that gimmicky box. Arkham VR is terrific, but very much an "extra" to Arkham Knight in how if feels, and I could imagine it appearing on a future anniversary, or super special extra-deluxe edition of that game. I guess Job Simulator is different, but what so far do you see as being a "proper" game for PS VR? I suppose Sony is banking on RIGS: Mechanized Combat League being a significant first-party title, not to mention an eSports contender, but I'm actually yet to play it. You?

'RIGS' screenshot courtesy of Sony

Walker: I've said it before, I really like mechs, so I'm hopeful that RIGS—a sort of "what if basketball was played by giant armed robots"—will be cool. And yeah, the fact that I'll be playing it seated will likely help a great deal.

What has surprised me when it comes to "proper" games is that the ones I can see myself playing at length—partially because of sea-sickness and partially because of surprising novelty—are the ones with third-person views instead of a first-person perspective. Playing Rez Infinite, a VR-capable remake of the cult classic on-rails shooter, is the first time I've found myself reaching for celebratory words about VR and its great potential.

A big part of that was the third-person perspective that both gave me increased environmental awareness and also grounded my view on a single focal point—my character at the center of the screen. Wayward Sky, on the other hand, is an incredibly charming 3D puzzle-adventure that swings between fixed-camera views of a giant mechanical city in the sky and first-person views of puzzles (and cutscenes). The result is a game that moves between dollhouse style micro-scenery and one of the more impressive uses of scale that I've seen in VR so far—the city can feel like a board game or a like a massive, interconnected clockwork world.

The problem, though, is that I find myself needing to adjust the headset and camera with regularity right now, and the idea of playing a game that goes for more than an hour or so seems daunting. Many of the devs I've spoken to talk about that as the current normal, too, suggesting that they're building experiences explicitly for the suggested short playtimes. Maybe that will change as we get used to the tech, or as the tech changes, or as developers learn how to work with it in new ways. Or... well, we'll see.

I think it's too early to make any final calls about VR's future—or even about only PS VR's future. I'm not what you would call optimistic, but PS VR—with all of its bumps and bruises—finally has me genuinely interested in what all this could become.

'Rez Infinite' screenshot courtesy of Sony

Diver: I'm definitely optimistic—although I'm not sure that, even with PS VR, the greatest potential for this technology lies in games. They're an easy way into this next stage of how we interact with electronic entertainment, sure. But I hope the applications for this go far wider, and that's what carries the tech. I'm looking forward to visiting amazing places I could never go for real through this headset, or another like it—I've already done Everest, so is the moon so unreasonable, or the bottom of the sea? (I guess there is "Ocean Descent" in VR Worlds, right now, which is actually a very immersive, albeit entirely passive, diving sim. If you've a shark phobia, maybe give it a miss.) Being able to walk around an amazing museum from home, paying a small entry fee, would be amazing—and streaming movies on it, "in" a cinema, would surely revolutionize how we watch blockbuster productions. It'd be like having an IMAX in your house, but one that can be put away in a cupboard.

That's what I'm eager for—a broader selection of products, of experiences, for this peripheral, as if the PS VR's emphasis is entirely on video games, I don't think it'll have the longevity it needs. Of course, it's super early days, but as great as Headmaster is (which is: very), that's not as appealing to, say, my dad as having a seat at a famous soccer field, watching a simulation of a classic match, would be. And VR can't be limited of demographic: For this to really become the phenomenon that its many investors need it to be, VR has to connect with everybody—any age, any ability, any interest. I'll make my parents try it the next time they visit—I think that'll be a more telling litmus test than any length of time I, as a seasoned "gamer," spend with it. If they like it, in their 60s, then we're really onto something.

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PlayStation VR kits and software supplied by Sony. PS VR is available worldwide on October 13.

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"We were the last, we were the greatest, nothing anybody else does will be as big as Oasis." And so Noel Gallagher ends the new Oasis documentary Supersonic, with exactly the kind of cocksure bravado that made them—for a time—Britain's greatest rock 'n' roll band.

The film follows the early years of Oasis, up to its two gigs at Knebworth in 1996. More than 250,000 people went to those concerts; four percent of the UK population applied for tickets. It was a moment of mass cultural unification that it's hard to imagine now, especially over something as obsolete as a guitar band.

After Knebworth, Oasis's legacy was overshadowed by a string of disappointing albums, shifting lineups, and the metamorphosis of Liam and Noel Gallagher into tabloid caricatures. But Supersonic reminds us of the great years: how the songs were anthems of possibility and aspiration; that the band's music offered a radical hopefulness in an era of Conservative-driven decline after the bleak years of Thatcherism. It was a brief moment in history when, as Noel puts it, "The biggest musical phenomenon was a band from a council estate."

I spoke to the film's director Mat Whitecross—who was part of the team behind the Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy—about how he managed to get the warring Gallagher brothers together, the snobbery around lad rock, and what the true legacy of Oasis should be.

You spend any time with them, and the shit that comes out of their mouths on a daily basis is unbelievable.

VICE: It feels like, in recent years, Oasis fans have become kind of ghettoized—I was talking about them recently and almost felt I had to come out as a fan. Why do you think that happened?
Mat Whitecross: Music moves on; it's the same in every generation. You can't like the music that your older brother or your dad liked. There was a reaction against lad rock, and music became more sensitive with the Coldplays and the Keanes. But I also think it was the tabloid fixation around Liam and Noel. The more they became caricatured in the press, a lot of their intelligence and the humor was lost. People started feeling like they were just a bunch of lager louts. Which couldn't be further from the truth.

For me, the term "lad rock" is really just basic class snobbery—were you trying to dispel that?
A little bit. But really, I didn't know what to expect in terms of walking into a room with them. I was so surprised when I first met Liam and Noel. A lot of the arrogance that people perceive, is... well, it's not only confidence, but if someone asked you if you're the best band in the world, you're obviously going to say yes.

Well, a lot of bands now wouldn't.
Ha, yeah, it's very true. Now they all come from a position of humility. But I don't want my bands to be too humble. I feel like a bit of swagger and a bit of attitude is missing.

Liam Gallagher onstage at Knebworth in 1996

Why did you focus the film on the years leading up to Knebworth?
Every band you can think of, it's the first two or three years that define them. They can go on to become the Rolling Stones or become Menswear, but that moment is the prism through which you can really see what they're like. Afterward—and even Noel and Liam said this—there comes a point when you just become a big band.

Knebworth is such an important moment—it was a dividing line. After that, things weren't the same. We had a whole chunk of footage after Knebworth when they went on this American tour. Liam doesn't show up, Noel has to do the first gig on his own, then they had the MTV awards where Liam spits at the crowd—it really feels deliberately self-sabotaging. That's when the wheels really start to come off. What I wanted was to find a balance—it's supposed to be a kind of celebration, but I also didn't want to whitewash it...

At the end of the film, all the band members say they should have quit after Knebworth. It's actually quite extraordinary.
It's mad, isn't it? Really mad. Particularly because Noel was the first person to say it with us: "Even going in to Knebworth, I knew that it was the beginning of the end." It's so close to the beginning that you think, How did you carry on for ten years after that? But as Liam says, "Fuck, we were young. If someone said, 'Do you want to play on the moon?' I would've done it."

There's a bit in the film when Liam gets bottled onstage and he says, "Trouble just followed us." I saw them in 2000, and it definitely felt like the mood in the crowd had soured and their fans had shifted after Knebworth.
Well it became this bigger thing. In those early gigs, the footage is really sweet. It's all girls in the front, and they're all in love with Liam—they're all trying to touch him, and they know all the lyrics. In the later footage, you can definitely see the crowd becomes rougher—it's more boozy rock fans getting in fights. That wasn't the band's choice.

How did you manage to get Liam and Noel to agree to do something together? They've not spoken to each other for years.
I still, to this day, do not know. I met Noel first and said, in the nicest possible way, "Look, we can't make this film without the other band members." Liam took a bit of massaging. I get that it was a big deal—they'd been fucked about in the past. Inevitably, all bands have. This wasn't an official film; it wasn't made by them. But they never put any boundaries on us. They wanted it to be about the music, not all about the tabloid stuff, which is exactly what I wanted to do anyway.

You brought them together...
To be honest, a film doesn't really do anything other than maybe remind people of what they've lost. If anything it will allow other people to realize that, because I don't think Noel and Liam have ever been in any doubt of what the impact they had was, and the importance of that.

Do you think you've been responsible for reviving Oasis's legacy?
For me, whether you love their tunes or not, just hearing their stories for two hours is amazing. That honesty and the openness is missing in rock music now. They just don't give a fuck. You spend any time with them and the shit that comes out of their mouths on a daily basis is unbelievable. It's just an incredible ride.

Supersonic is in theaters on October 26 in the US.

All images courtesy of Brandon Bird

Brandon Bird's obsession with Sears Roebuck Inc. began as a joke. While the rest of his classmates at UC Santa Cruz were creating paintings of the lush California coastline, Bird imagined the most mundane, uninspiring landscape he could think of: the Sears department store his mom had dragged him to as a kid in suburban Sacramento. It was boxy and beige with big blue signage, not unlike any Sears department store you might find in any mall in any town across America. It was, against all odds, a thing of beauty, when rendered in the Impressionist-style pastel palette and textured brush strokes historically reserved for Monet's lily pads or Van Gogh's starry skies. Bird thought it was hilarious.

"It's funny because taking the time to do this thing that nobody cares about," he told me on a recent afternoon near his studio in Downtown Los Angeles. "You look at it, and you're like, Why did somebody make this?"

After the first Sears painting, he couldn't shake the feeling that there were other Sears stores around the country, each one slightly different but overwhelmingly familiar, just waiting to be immortalized in glistening oil. A "perfect slab" of Sears he spotted along Route 22 during a visit to New Jersey inspired the seven-foot-long canvas he exhibited at an art show not long after. It was made partly as a fuck-you to the gallery owner, who had been expecting something more commercial. It sold instantly. Bird was on to something.

So in the summer of 2013, nearly a decade after he'd made his first Sears painting in a college classroom, Bird dreamed up an American road trip unlike any other: He would travel from coast to coast photographing Sears department stores. Then, when he returned home, he would paint each one in oil, creating a series of paintings "representing the finest specimens of Sears from across the country," he wrote on his Kickstarter page. It was the kind of project that was just the right amount of dumb, but with just the right amount of ambition to gain support on the internet: Within a month, hundreds of backers had donated more than $16,000—double the initial goal—to make Bird's joke a reality.

"It was a commitment to a joke," he told me. "Once people have give you money for something, you're like, Well, I can't just not make any of these paintings."

Halfway through the road trip that October, the joke had lost some of its humor. Bird and his friend Erin Pearce had grown tired of staying in cheap motels and subsisting on meals from drive-thrus and diners. By the time they got to Chicago, they were both so sick that they skipped the landmark at the top of their must-see list, the Willis Tower, formerly known as the Sears Tower.

The tower is, in many ways, a symbol of Sears's sad fate. The company started in 1886 as a mail-order catalog that catered to rural customers, selling everything from farming supplies and sporting goods to cars and bicycles. Sears opened its first store in Chicago in 1926, and within a decade, hundreds had popped up around the country. By the 1970s, it had become the world's largest general merchandiser, erecting its namesake skyscraper in 1973, which at the time was the tallest building in the world. But since 2005, when Kmart bought the struggling company, revenues have plunged, and stores have rapidly shuttered. Sears was forced to downsize its corporate headquarters and lost naming rights to the skyscraper.

In a last-ditch effort to turn a profit, the company has begun spinning off its retail stores into real estate investments by leasing the properties to other businesses.

A Sears having its sign removed in Detroit. Photo by Brandon Bird

For Bird, the biggest symbol of the company's downturn came in Detroit, when he arrived at the Sears department store just in time to watch as the big blue letters on the front of the building were being dismantled. At first he figured maybe the decades-old signage was getting a makeover. But once the five letters came down, leaving behind nothing but a shadow on a blank façade, he realized they were never going to be replaced. The whole store was being shuttered, and this was the very last thing to go.

"That just sort of felt fortuitous," Bird told me. "Like, this is the last chance to see this, you know?"

Standing there amid the ruins of a former shopping center that looked as if it had barely survived the apocalypse, Bird felt as if maybe his project was about more than just committing to what he calls "a very, very, dry joke"—he was undertaking an anthropological survey of the end of an era, crumbling before his very eyes.

"That kind of retail store itself is a dying business model," he said. "For whatever reason, fate or my own idiotic doing, I ended up in a position to document all this stuff. So now, hey, I experienced it, I recorded it, I'm making my own art from it."

Today, Bird considers himself something of an expert on Sears department stores. After returning from the road trip, he got to work doing research, making postcards and trading cards that chronicle the company's history in surprising detail. He's been contracted by various projects to act as a Sears historian, and recently served as a consultant on a play involving a character who worked at the historic Sears department store in LA's Boyle Heights neighborhood.

Bird has already completed the ten paintings he set out to make when he launched the Kickstarter three years ago, but he still can't seem to move on from the project. Or, as he put it in a campaign update, "Once you get the itch to paint Sears, it never goes away."

He hopes to create enough Sears paintings to mount a pop-up art show in an abandoned mall or a department store some day. What began as a joke about painting something so ugly in such a beautiful way has since spiraled into a full-blown obsession with the unique qualities of each and every Sears store: the texture of their walls, the curve of their rooftops, the way the light reflects off their windows at sunset, the subtle differences in the color and shape of their signage, before they slowly disappear.

Follow Jennifer Swann on Twitter.