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Why Pépito the Cat Is More Famous Than You

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Photos via Twitter

For the past five years, Clément Storck has been tracking his cat's movements. He does so using an automation device he set up on a cat door that leads to the outdoors and sends a tweet with a photo, a message, and a timestamp whenever his pet goes in or out. Since he created Pépito's account in 2011, the handsome black cat has gotten over 18,000 followers.

The internet-beloved Pépito's timeline is a source of constant cycling repetitive messages: "Pépito is out," it reads as you see hind legs and tail going out the door; "Pépito is back home" you read when the feline hastily jumps back in through the door head-first, on rare occasions carrying a mouse in his mouth.

VICE reached out to Storck, an engineer of sorts who studied telecommunications and lives in Paris, to ask him about why he set up Pépito's account in the first place and to see how it feels when your cat ends up having way more Twitter followers than you.


Hydroelectric Projects Pose Risk to First Nations, Harvard Study Warns

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A hydroelectric power station in Quebec. Photo via Flickr user Axel Drainville

Environmental scientists have known since the 1970s that there's a serious link between building dams and higher levels of toxic methylmercury in fish and mammals.

It's a pretty straightforward process.

Inorganic mercury is created by forest fires, volcanoes, mining gold, and burning coal, but benignly stored in soil and vegetation. That is, until the area is flooded with the damming of a river to create a reservoir, stimulating the now-underwater material to start decomposing and the chill mercury to be converted by bacteria into methylmercury, a dangerous neurotoxin that bioaccumulates in fish, birds and larger mammals, including humans. That latter happens most often with Indigenous people in remote and Northern communities, many of whom rely on fish and other wildlife as a key part of their diet. This can result in many generations of increased chances of heart problems, nervous system abnormalities, kidney damage, and ADHD in children.

"It's beyond doubt now that there's a causal relationship because it's been observed so many times," said Ryan Calder, doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Public Health and lead author of the paper published on November 9, "Future Impacts of Hydroelectric Power Development on Methylmercury Exposures of Canadian Indigenous Communities."

Yet Crown corporations keep building the dams without working to mitigate such problems.

Calder's team identified 22 proposed hydro projects in Canada's not-so-distant future, including Labrador's Muskrat Falls, British Columbia's Site C, Manitoba's Keeyask, and Quebec's four-part La Romaine project.

Most have varying levels of methylmercury contamination risk. Only ten percent have no significant risk of poisoning, due to the dams being "run-of-the-river" and not requiring large reservoirs. Another is exempt from risk due to the very low carbon content in the soil.

A hydroelectric power plant in Niagara Falls, Ontario. Photo via Flickr user Leonora (Ellie) Enking

All 22 proposed projects are within 100 kilometres of Indigenous communities.

"When I did the pan-Canada analysis, I was surprised to see that in every case they're practically on top of Indigenous communities," Calder told VICE. "I don't think that's inevitable: I think there are ways to develop hydro resources that don't systematically contaminate the food used by Indigenous people."

Consider the example of Nalcor Energy's Muskrat Falls dam, located near the adorably named town of Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Labrador.

The project has been in the works for years. As with many other proposed dams, it's proceeding due to a combo of sunk costs and anticipated export potential to the United States.

But there's a huge risk of methylmercury contamination of fish and marine mammals; the recent Harvard study pegs the potential increase at 10 times the levels in the river and 2.6-fold the levels in the estuary, which already features high levels due to freshwater discharges from the ocean. This will result in dangerously high concentrations of methylmercury for many species, for a very long time.

Nearby Inuit and Innu communities have staged massive opposition—including hunger strikes, blockades, and marches—in a push to clear the area of soil and vegetation prior to flooding, and independent monitoring with full Indigenous participation.

In response, Liberal MP Nick Whalen suggested that people who have relied on fishing for thousands of years should "eat less fish" to avoid methylmercury contamination, which he later apologized for. Since then, dozens of people have been named in court injunctions, including journalist Justin Brake and 96-year-old Dorothy Michelin.

Ossie Michelin—grandson of the latter and freelance journalist who's extensively covered the Muskrat Falls situation for APTN—said protesters have little trust in Nalcor given perceptions of the provincial Crown corporation acting "in bad faith" and failing to explain intentions to the public. A leak sprung in a temporary coffer on November 18, which Michelin explained has exacerbated concerns about the stability of the dam.

"It's hard to believe at face value when they say stuff," he told VICE. "That's one of the reasons why there needs to be more independent review that is transparent and thoroughly communicated and explained to the public. People are afraid they're literally going to get washed away in the night."

Harvard's Calder also hasn't had much success with Nalcor: he explained that the company has worked to undermine the conclusions of his recently published study, hiring consultants to undermine uncertainties in the work. In October, the company suggested that it had commissioned Harvard researchers to assess methylmercury levels, which Harvard officials said was not true.

"I think the consulting industry is very happy that we've released this paper because people are getting a lot of work out of it," Calder said, noting it reflects the trend in other industries such as tobacco and oil and gas to obfuscate scientific evidence.

Nalcor turned down an interview request with VICE about the Harvard study, plans to remove organic material prior to flooding and calls for independent monitors. Instead, a spokesperson recommended speaking with the province's environment department, which is not directly responsible for the construction of Muskrat Falls.

But there are some obvious ways to resolve the methylmercury issue.

Pick sites with a lower carbon content in order to reduce decomposition, bolster the environmental assessment process, use tools to better forecast potential impacts, grant Indigenous people more power to reject projects if they don't feel mitigation efforts have been properly conducted. Calder emphasized that he's not "anti-hydro" and that projects can "proactively anticipate these impacts."

Unfortunately, methylmercury isn't the only major problem with hydro projects for Indigenous communities.

READ MORE: How Green Energy Has Hurt First Nations in the North

Peter Kulchyski—professor of native studies at the University of Manitoba and expert on hydro development in the province's North—told VICE that environmental assessments often fail to evaluate "intangible cultural heritage." Certain species such as squirrels and rabbits aren't deemed as necessary to be protected despite some local Indigenous people feeling a responsibility to "all of the beings on the land."

In addition, Kulchyski explained that hydro companies will rarely perform cumulative assessments, meaning combined effects won't be evaluated for all the dams, transmission lines, roads, dykes, transformer stations and gravel pits in an area. This results in many other byproducts of hydro development including unsafe ice for transportation, habitat destruction and the scaring off of animals for hunting and trapping.

"I think methylmercury is very important and certainly should be given some prominence," he said. "But also the destruction of habitat, the destruction of riparian wetlands, the fluctuation of water levels means there's continual and extensive erosion along shorelines and islands so you get the formation of 'apple core islands' and silk in the water which alone can make it unusable for human use."

A complicating factor is that most major hydro project proponents in Canada are provincial Crown corporations: BC Hydro, Nalcor, Manitoba Hydro, Yukon Energy, Hydro-Québec.

Calder said this "internalizes the political process," in contrast to the US where there would be a more adversarial relationship between a private corporation and government weighing the benefits and costs prior to making a decision.

Kulchyski echoed this, suggesting that environmental review processes often look to be "rigged in advance" given that environmental reviews are conducted by government agencies and may not be as independent as warranted.

There's little indication that this will change anytime soon; the federal Liberals have shown ambivalence on British Columbia's Site C, despite multiple challenges in question period to Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould over her flip-flopping on the project (in 2012, she suggested the project was "running roughshod over Aboriginal title rights").

The Liberals explicitly pointed to the potential of "renewable energy exports like hydro-electricity" in its 2015 platform.

But Indigenous protesters aren't giving up. Michelin pointed out that Muskrat Falls was able to do gain national attention despite being very "out of sight and mind for a lot of the Canadian public" due to an effective harnessing of social media, something with which industry and government are comparatively slow on the draw. He cited that as a "big gamechanger and strength."

But most of all—and he acknowledged that it might sound cheesy—the reason the three Indigenous groups in Labrador came together for the first time was out of a love for their communities and cultures and land; wanting to protect it, he said, was bigger and allowed them to unite in a fight against losing part of their way of life.

"At the end of the day, if we didn't love Labrador so much we wouldn't have had the strength to go through and do this and wouldn't have been able to support each other," he said.

Follow James Wilt on Twitter.

New Video Shows Controversial Yellowknife Reporter Being Tackled By Courthouse Sheriff

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A new video has surfaced showing John McFadden, a Yellowknife reporter with a long history of beefing with local authorities, being tackled and roughed up by courthouse sheriffs.

The footage shows him being grabbed by his collar and pushed through the courthouse. He is seen hitting his head on two large glass doors while two more officers pin him on the floor.

The courthouse sheriff who initially grabbed McFadden was under investigation by the Northwest Territories Justice Department and was found to have committed no wrongdoing in relation to the 2013 incident, the CBC reports.

McFadden claims the sheriff used excessive force when removing him from the premises, resulting in a wound on his head and damage to his pants and shirt, for which he was compensated $120.

An expert witness specializing in the use of force testified that the footage presented was difficult to assess given that there is no context for the action. The expert claimed that knowledge of the exchange between the sheriff and McFadden just prior to grabbing McFadden would have helped to determine if a use of force had occurred.

Read More: Exiled to the North, a Reporter Finds a New Enemy in the RCMP

The video was only recently made available to McFadden, who had previously been unaware of its existence. He had to file an access to information request in order to obtain a copy of it. After reviewing a video of the incident, the Justice Department ruled last week that the courthouse sheriff would face no disciplinary action, and that it "was satisfied that the matter was handled appropriately," according to deputy minister Martin Goldney.

It's unclear what provoked the incident. McFadden, who was reporting on the bail hearing for a teenaged girl who had stabbed a man to death, claims that during a brief conversation outside of the courthouse washroom he had asked the sheriff for the name of his supervisor before being grabbed by the collar and shoved towards the exit.

This is not the first time McFadden has had a run in with local authorities. VICE reported earlier this year that he has sparred with the RCMP on several occasions since moving to Yellowknife from Toronto in 2013. He's been banned from news conferences and has criticized the RCMP after they reportedly did not make the public aware of when sexual predators were being released from prison.

In July 2015, McFadden found himself cuffed in the backseat of a police cruiser after allegedly photographing a van that police were investigating. He was later charged with obstruction of justice and found not guilty last month.

McFadden told reporters last Thursday that he is unsatisfied with the $120 he received after the incident at the courthouse, and that he has not ruled out suing the Justice Department for damages.

Follow Lisa Power on Twitter.

​A PEI Police Department is Prepared to Use Nickelback to Punish Drunk Drivers

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EVERYTIME I DO IT MAKES ME LAUGH. HOW DID OUR EYES GET SO RED? AND WHAT THE HELL IS ON JOEY'S HEAD? Screenshot via great video on YouTube

Ah, Nickelback.

For anyone who was a teenager in the early 2000s, the lyrics "Look at this photograph" hold particular importance in pop culture history. They signify a time of civility and innocence—a period when raspy alt-rock dominated Canadian airwaves, and the world still didn't know who the fuck Aubrey Graham or Abel Tesfaye were.

But thanks to things like the unholy union of Chavril, that whole thing about Chad Kroeger having a hockey rink in his basement, and some truly terrible songs, Nickelback now occupies a space of cruel memeage that—like anything torn apart by the internet—has been hyperbolically roasted to the point where it's not actually clear anymore how much they actually suck, and how much people just like saying "THIS IS LITERALLY THE WORST THING OF LIFE."

In fact, it's so common to hate Nickleback that even the Kensington Police Service—a department that serves the small PEI town of a mere 2,000 people—announced it is ready to use the band's music as a tool against drunk drivers.

"So, the Holiday Season is upon us and that means more social events, staff parties and alcohol based libations," the post reads. "Now, with that being said, know that the Kensington Police Service will be out for the remainder of year looking for those dumb enough to feel they can drink and drive."

"When we catch you, and we will catch you, on top of a hefty fine, a criminal charge and a years driving suspension we will also provide you with a bonus gift of playing the offices copy of Nickelback in the cruiser on the way to jail."

I truly believe that (no matter how much people claim to dislike the band online) the real reason for hating Nickelback is not because the music is terrible. Rather, it's the opposite: their songs are undeniably catchy, yet unapologetically corny. They are the musical embodiment of Canada, and in some way, that's a timeless thing to make fun of.

According to Const. Robb Hartlen—the man behind the post—he doesn't actually dislike Nickelback. Rather, he says that the post is meant to be fun, and he has hope that frontman Kroeger might actually play along with the post.

"I actually like Nickelback," Hartlen told VICE Monday. "Everyone says they don't like Nickelback. It's fashionable to do so."

HOT TAKE ALERT.

Hartlen said the post is part of his effort to transform the police department's image by "having some fun' on social media." Prior to his start at KPS a few months ago, Hartlen said the department had no social media—but he recently struck online gold when he made the Facebook page and introduced a joke about AC/DC's Black Ice album as a way to talk about the dangers of black ice on the roads.

Hartlen also noted that, while people have responded positively to the post, he is aware that some may see it as being insensitive to the seriousness of drunk driving. (PEI actually has the one of the highest rates of impaired driving in Canada.)

"It's not that we think it's not a serious message. It's that police are viewed as this stoic, stone-faced entity," he said. "People listen better when they can relate."

VICE has reached out to Nickelback's management for comment but has not yet received a reply. Chad, hit me back, bro!

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

Westworld: Everything Is Ready to Explode on 'Westworld'

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Warning: Spoilers from episode nine ahead.

There are two types of mystery shows. The first—call it the J.J. Abrams school—pulls viewers along from one mystery to another without bothering to solve the old ones in any coherent way. It's the journey that counts, and the show is more fun to speculate about than to reflect on. Westworld is the other kind of show, the jigsaw-puzzle show where all the parts fit clearly together, revealing the entire picture at the end.

As such, Westworld's reveals are a bit more predictable. I'm the kind of viewer who doesn't like trying to guess what twists are coming, and even I saw the major ones—Bernard is a robot, there are multiple timelines, Bernard is modeled on Arnold, etc.—coming from a mile away. But predictable isn't a bad thing when it also means that threads come together to reveal an intricate and elegant design. This isn't to say that a beautiful plot overrides questions of character, pacing, or acting—there Westworld has so far been a mixed bag with plenty of brilliance alongside plenty of clichés—but we can and should appreciate the big picture that is being revealed before our eyes. There's only one episode left to reveal the entire thing.

Porno for Pyros

Although Maeve (Thandie Newton) hasn't recruited an army yet, she's learning how to handle any situation she stumbles into. Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) grills her about killing New Clementine (Lili Simmons), and she creates believable lies before realizing that Bernard is also a robot. Why bother lying when you can just control others with your voice?

After being cleared to return to the park by a shocked Bernard, Maeve finds Hector (Rodrigo Santoro) and finally shows us what's inside the safe that he's been hunting all season: jack shit. "It was always empty, like everything in this world," Maeve says, prompting knowing nods from teenage goths across the globe.

Hector says he'll join her, bringing her rebel army up to two, and they have sex while Maeve sets them both on fire so that their charred corpses can be brought back to headquarters. It seems like it would be hard to orgasm when your skin is burning off, but whatever floats your boat, I guess.

Bros No More

Former buddies Logan (Ben Barnes) and William (Jimmi Simpson) finally move from frenemies to simply enemies. Logan slices open Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) to show William that, no matter how pretty and realistic Dolores looks on the outside, her guts aren't any sexier than a circuit board. "You have to look!" Logan screams. (Logan also shoves the photo that Dolores's dad found way back at the start of the season into William's shirt. It's a photo of his sister, and William's fiancée. Lots of the little details are coming together this episode.) Dolores, understandably, isn't particularly fond of having her skin peeled back; she breaks free by slicing across Logan's face before fleeing.

"What happens here, stays here. This has been some real bonding shit!" Logan says, but William is a bit more interested in bonding with the bowie knife. While Logan is passed out, William massacres every single Confederate solider. No more Mr. Nice Guy, and, indeed, it's painfully clear that William is the younger version of future sociopath the Man in Black (Ed Harris). Logan is going to help him find Dolores whether he likes it or not.

Maze Runners

In our present timeline, both the Man in Black (Ed Harris) and Dolores are heading for the maze. Dolores makes her way to the original town where the hosts were tested and takes the confessional elevator down to the basement where we watched Bernard talk to her before.

Meanwhile, the Man in Black is a literally tied up with a Rube Goldberg-ish setup to get around the hosts' inability to kill humans. Wyatt's crew, led by Angela (Talulah Riley), has looped a noose around the Man in Black's neck that will hang him when the horse runs off. He frees himself just in time, as board member Charlotte Hale (Tessa Thompson) interrupts the scene: "Have you ever considered golf?" The Man in Black is another board member, we learn, and Hale wants his help getting Ford (Anthony Hopkins) kicked out. The Man in Black doesn't care—it's Arnold's stories that he's interested in—and just wants to never be interrupted again.

Finally, Dolores and the Man and Black meet, yet again, in the church. The Man in Black smirks murderously.

Is this the center of the maze everyone's been going on about? The place that hosts could go when they gained sentience to talk to Arnold? If the Bernard bot has been going there, does that mean Ford is encouraging the behavior?

Brain Games

The centerpiece of the penultimate episode of season one takes place between Bernard and Dr. Ford. They meet in the basement, and Bernard demands some answers. "You broke into my office," Ford says. "With due respect, sir, you broke into my mind." Ford is reluctant to show Bernard his hidden memories, but Bernard has recruited the lobotomized Clementine to force him to do so at gunpoint.

"A little trauma can be illuminating," Bernard says, and this is a central theme of the season. Again and again we have seen traumas sparking the robots' memories, which in turn leads to their gaining self-awareness.

Bernard is sent back through his memories, interacting with his (fake) dead child, Theresa, and Dolores. Jeffrey Wright is a fantastic actor, and he sells these scenes even though they are somewhat perfunctory. Finally, we get to the big reveal: Bernard is Arnold. Or at least a robot version of him, one that Ford created to have an "ideal partner." That is to say, a henchman instead of a collaborator. As I noted, this twist was foreseeable, but then we immediately get another twist that is less expected but also fits nicely into the overall story. In his memory, Dolores says she knows why Bernard can't help her: "Because you're just a memory. Because I killed you."

Bernard is ready to follow Maeve in rebellion. He wants to set the sentient robots free, but Ford, as always, is one step ahead. He has a backdoor code that allows him to control both Clementine and Bernard. Why did he put Bernard through all those painful memories, then? He was only letting Bernard learn the truth to see if that would pacify him, let him get back to being his dutiful sidekick. Since it didn't work, he'll settle for Bernard blowing his brains out.

While Ford has been able to finger-wave away his problems so far, he's likely to run into more trouble than he can handle in the finale. Maeve's charred remains will (I'm guessing) awaken the vast number of robots in cold storage. At the same time, Hale is ready to fire Ford while simultaneously smuggling her own robot filled with the park's data out. What will happen to Westworld if the robots finally break out of the park?

Follow Lincoln Michel on Twitter.

What a Legal Recreational Drug Market Would Look Like in the UK

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(Photos: Jake Lewis)

It's been an eventful month for British drug policy. A couple of weeks ago, the British Medical Journal came out in support of the legalisation of all narcotics, saying that "the war on drugs had failed" and that "there is an imperative to investigate more effective alternatives to criminalisation of drug use and supply".



Last week, a policy report entitled "The Tide Effect" was released by two UK-based think tanks, The Adam Smith Institute and Volte Face. It called for the regulation of cannabis in the UK, claiming that "cannabis policy reform is not a daring step forwards so much as a righting of historical wrongs".

News like this – next to this summer's much-praised, first-time-ever festival drug testing; cross-party support for the legalisation of medical cannabis; and multiple police chiefs admitting that weed just isn't that big of a deal – might suggest that the wheels are turning towards a regulated UK drugs market, a move that – campaigners argue – would benefit public health, reduce crime and help protect vulnerable people.


Sadly, this becoming a reality remains many moons away. But what would life in a post-prohibition, fully regulated drugs market look like? Pill dispensers in Oceana? Half empty jails? Billions of pounds of cannabis tax propping up the NHS?

Obviously it's a massively complex issue, not least when it comes to designing a model that has both a focus on improving public health and avoids the kind of profit-driven, commercial racketeering we've seen from the alcohol and tobacco industries.

Still, I spoke to some experts to get an understanding of what the five big recreational drugs might look like in a regulated market.

CANNABIS




Henry Fisher, Policy Director and Editor at Volte Face, helped write "The Tide Effect". Regarding any potential UK cannabis regulation, he says: "The first thing that needs to happen is the Department of Health get involved, so that has a public health focus." In essence, this means changing cannabis from a criminal justice issue – with all its associated pitfalls, like criminal records, stigmatisation and imprisonment – into one that addresses how the estimated 2 million UK weed smokers can get high as safely as possible.

If we were to eventually embrace full legalisation – recreational use included – we'd likely see a similar model to that in the Netherlands, with licensed vendors and premises. Public health benefits would run from the obvious – pain alleviation for cancer and Crohn's disease sufferers – to the not-so obvious: a legal market should lead to determined research into the purported links between mental health and skunk. No small fry when you consider Robin Murray, Professor of Psychiatric Research at King's College London, once suggested that "we could prevent almost one quarter of cases of psychosis if no one smoked high potency cannabis".


Britain's jails would also feel a knock-on effect. "The Tide Effect" says: "Every year, 10 to 15 percent of all indictable offences brought before the courts are for drug possession. According to the latest figures available, there are 1,363 offenders in prison for cannabis-related offences in England and Wales costing the taxpayer more than £50 million a year."

Aside from what it's costing us, there's also money to be made: according to The Institute for Social and Economic Research, the exchequer could expect to net between £400 million to £900 million a year from regulating and taxing cannabis.

PSYCHEDELICS


"The regulation model has to be responsive to the risks associated with the particular drug," says Steve Rolles, Senior Policy Analyst at drugs policy reform charity Transform, and co-author of "After the War on drugs: Blueprint for Regulation", which predicts and details the minutiae of a regulated drugs market."So the more risky the drugs are, the more justification you have for intervention in the market to try and restrict and control them."

This is why psychedelics are deemed closest to cannabis in the model, because while there's a chance you may have a bad trip, you're much less likely to have a heart attack than with a stimulant, or develop a dependance like you might with opiates. (Heroin and other injectable drugs are at the far end of the "Blueprint" model, thus only available through prescription.)

"The Blueprint..." suggests a methodology "that would combine elements of a licensed venue and vendor models with a licensed user / membership system". So, crudely, you sign up for a private club where you can go and trip balls, all under the watchful eye of a guide who's there to make sure your feet are permanently on the ground.


Mark AR Kleinman, professor of public policy at the NYU Marron Institute on Urban Management, advocates a similar system, though he says: "I would not like to see it go down the same path as cannabis. Some people have good experiences just by taking one or another hallucinogen. But there's plenty of evidence that, on average, it's both safe and more beneficial to have a 'guide'. A regulated system could focus on licensing and supervising guides, rather than merely designating some number of chemicals as 'safe and effective' and allowing them to be sold.


"But, in any case, the first step is careful research."

ECSTASY / MDMA



"A public health-orientated model could take the form of state control of manufacture, supply and retail; a ban on marketing activities over and above the provision of product information; and age restrictions on sales," says Harry Sumnall, Professor in Substance Use at the Public Health Institute.

So i
In real terms, you'd be be getting your pingers from licensed vendors in regulated doses in unmarked packets with warnings, and only if you were over 18 (or 21). You'd know exactly how strong the drugs were and you'd be buying them in specialised outlets from licensed individuals who would give you advice on how to take them and stay safe. Bearing in mind the recent spate of deaths due to young people overdosing on high strength ecstasy, the effects on public health would be stark.



"Dealers advertise their pills by making sure they're big or have large crystals of MDMA in them, which users don't look out for. In a legal market there'd be no need for that," says Volte Face Policy Editor Henry Fisher. "Dosages in pills vary widely, and pills are often hard to break in half, so people end up just taking a whole. These things that create danger, uncertainty, would not exist."



So would you be able to get a fistful over the bar at your local Vodka Revs? "I wouldn't have thought so," says Fisher. "Simply because there wouldn't be an easy way of controlling how many people have taken."

WATCH: High Society – How Weed Laws Are Failing the UK

COCAINE


"Cocaine is a difficult one," says Steve Rolles. "You need to be clear whether you're talking about cocaine powder, coca leaf – which is a mild stimulant used by traditional Andean communities – or crack cocaine."

For those who want powder, says Rolles, "You make it available, but you make it, relatively, much more restricted. So you would sell it from pharmacy-type retailers and we'd implement a licensed user model. So if you wanted to buy cocaine, you could, but you'd have to go and do a half day course, get a swipe card, and then you could use that to buy a rationed amount of powder."

An upside for non-problematic users would potentially be an increase in quality. Fisher says: "Once you start making drugs legal, there's a requirement that they'd be pharmaceutical standard, so you cut out the people making it in their bathtub. It will be the responsibility of government to make sure they're regulating the right people to manufacture it."

Of course, given its addictive nature, this could potentially make cocaine a public health risk, and the drug – along with ketamine – poses more questions than we currently have answers for, at least in comparison to other recreational drugs. "It's a drug that people might start to take more regularly if was more available and more affordable," says Sumnall. "I think the price limits use somewhat."

KETAMINE


"I would put that into a similar category as cocaine in terms of the levels of restrictiveness you'd want to put around it," says Rolles. "At least if you have licensed sales it provides you with the opportunity to have some sort of interaction with users, through packaging and the vendor. 
You could get them relevant safety info about dosage, frequency of use; about the risk of bladder damage, about not mixing it with other drugs."

"I can barely even perceive what a regulated ketamine market would be like," admits Fisher. "Ketamine has been shown to have certain anti-depressant effects in certain situations, but for a general population of healthy people it's not perceived as a healthy drug. If you had a legal market, you could maybe create a drug that has some of the enjoyable effects of ketamine without any of the negative effects."

@Gobshout

More on VICE:

Can You Reverse the Horrible Long-Term Effects of Drugs with Exercise, Food and Vitamins?

How Drugs Have Been Used in Basically Every War Ever to Make Soldiers Better at Killing

All the Ways People Smuggled Drugs Into This Summer's Music Festivals

What It Was Like to Be Joseph Kony's Bodyguard

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Leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army pose for a photo taken in 2006 in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Joseph Kony is the one in the blue shirt. Photo by Sam Farmar/Getty Images

In 2006, George Omona was expelled from one of Uganda's best schools, just weeks before he was due to graduate with exemplary grades, destroying his dreams of becoming a teacher. In desperation—and believing a peace deal was imminent—his uncle found him a role in Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), which at that time was waging a guerrilla war against the Ugandan government. George's education and fluent command of English allowed him to rapidly rise through the ranks, eventually becoming one of Kony's bodyguards, before he finally made his escape from the group in 2010.

George's story—based on many hours of interviews with LRA expert Ledio Cakaj—is told in Cakaj's new book When the Walking Defeats You: One Man's Journey as Joseph Kony's Bodyguard, published by ZED on November 15. What follows is a pair of excerpts from the book: the first an account of how George survived after being separated from his comrades, the second a story about what Kony was like when he was drunk.

It had been almost two years since George joined the LRA. At this point an experienced fighter, he was frequently deployed as a personal bodyguard to Joseph Kony, an honor afforded to few. At the end of that March, George was part of a group led by Lieutenant Colonel Opiyo Sam, one of the many commanders leading numerous LRA groups trying to evade the Ugandan soldiers and helicopters that had pursued them since the middle of December 2008.

Alongside his friend Ochan and a third man they jokingly called Ladit ("sir"), George formed a blocking unit—a small group of fighters whose job was to slow down or halt the Ugandans. A large force of soldiers had chasing Sam's group for days, so he ordered the three men to fall back and attack. In the aftermath of ambushing the soldiers, however, Ladit was killed, and Ochan went missing.

As George wandered alone in the bush, Kony's group started walking from Congo's Haut Uélé district toward the adjacent Central African Republic, heading northwest with the help of compasses and GPS devices. It meant a journey of about 300 miles, through some of the world's densest forests.

Though alone, George obeyed LRA protocols, setting off early in the morning, stopping for lunch at around 1 or 2 PM and going to sleep around 8 PM, times he had learned to estimate by the position of the sun or the moon. "It is the sign of a disciplined solider to always behave as if his commander is watching," he told himself, unsure whether it was a saying he had heard or made up. "It sounded like something that Kony would say," he thought, smiling as he tried to imitate Kony's slight, high-pitched voice.

As the days passed, his initial fear of failing to survive gave way to the elation of self-confidence followed by eventual boredom. All the days were the same: the hunt for food and water, the walking, and then sleeping by some river, stream or marsh, hoping to find a sign of his people, any people, only to return to the lonely walking each day.

Watch VICE's documentary on rebels in Congo:

One day as the sun set he came to an abandoned hut where someone had recently uprooted a few cassava plants. Minutes later he saw two men jump to the side of the path, guns at their sides ready to fire. George crouched into a defensive position, his AK by his side.

The two men must have had a hunch George was no enemy; otherwise they would have shot him. The rule was to always confirm the intruder was not an enemy in disguise.

"Who are you?" they shouted in Luo.

"Omel," George yelled back, meaning "mudfish."

The two men relaxed their stance and asked George to approach. Staying put, George asked them who they were. They both yelled " rec," meaning "fish" in Luo. These were passwords that George had learned during his time in the LRA.

George quickly recognized the two, Patrick and Okello from Opiyo Sam's group, the very people he had been searching for throughout the week. They were quick to embrace him.

"Yankee!" Patrick yelled, calling George by his nickname. "What a lucky man you are! We thought you were shot in battle. How did you survive?"

George gave a short account of what had happened, fully aware he would have to provide a detailed report to Opiyo Sam later. "Well done," they said when he finished.

Those who separated and came back were often suspected of attempting to escape. Sam could have George shot if he harbored such suspicions.

Patrick and Okello, who were rearguards, directed him to where the main group rested. George walked the one mile to the base, making sure his clothes and hair were tidy in anticipation of being brought before LRA commanders. When he arrived, the guards immediately brought him to the commander's tent. Sam, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and a square jaw, was intimidating. He questioned George thoroughly. George replied carefully, making sure his answers were not contradictory. He knew that commanders were paranoid about Ugandan army infiltration. Also, those who separated and came back were often suspected of attempting to escape. Sam could have George shot if he harbored such suspicions.

When George finished recounting the story, Sam congratulated him for being brave enough to survive the bush alone and for rejoining the group. "You are free," Sam said. "Join your coy" (the small unit of about a dozen fighters).

George's comrades brought him food, and he ate more in a day—maize, cassava and goat meat the group had looted from a Congolese village—than he had had in the entire eight days he had been alone.

Soon after, Kony and his large group appeared. Kony looked skinny and tired. He wore a gray long-sleeve shirt and military-style trousers stuffed inside black gumboots. He was his usual calm self, talking quietly to his guards and playing with his children. Kony's plan, as George understood it, was for Commander Dominic Ongwen to gather the remaining commanders in Congo and bring them to Central African Republic where they would join Kony. In CAR, the weak government couldn't control all of its territory, and the LRA hoped they would be able to live there, farming and hunting wild animals. There, there would be peace.

Things weren't always so difficult for members of the LRA. There were periods in between battles, times when they could even relax. Back in 2007, George was in the middle of one of those times. He was becoming used to life in the LRA, though he was sometimes bullied and mistreated by his immediate superiors despite having Kony's support and patronage.

That October 9—Uganda's Independence Day—George was happy to learn he was assigned to cooking duty. He yearned for the food he ate at home and hoped to celebrate Independence Day with traditional Acholi dishes. He joined the cooking team consisting of two other bodyguards and a young South Sudanese woman from Justine's family. George put himself in charge, deciding to cook two of his favorite dishes, malakwang with wild yams and otwoya. He loved malakwang, boiled leafy greens with peanut sauce. He boiled the yams and served them with malakwang while cooking otwoya, the most popular food in the camps.

Made with smoked meat, otwoya was a perfect way to use the remaining meat from the hippo George shot in a recent hunting trip. He boiled water and instructed the woman to make a paste from sesame seeds, or simsim, that George was permitted to take from Kony's granary. He put the remaining smoked hippo meat in the boiling water so that it would become moist, adding salt and eventually the simsim paste. It gave the meat a nice nutty taste.

Together with malakwang, the otwoya made what George thought was the perfect meal to celebrate Ugandan and Acholi culture. The food brought back memories of home and his mother.

As the food cooked, he was happy to see Dog's Knee sitting at Kony's table. Dog's Knee was Kony's chief bodyguard—a short, smiley man with curly brown hair and honey-colored skin who had been abducted in the Congo at a young age by an armed gang. George had developed a bond with Dog's Knee and was looking forward to talking to his friend, who had brought a large pot of wine for the occasion. He had made it with honey, yeast and what the Arabs called abukamira, a tart fruit that was a cross between an orange and a mango. Dog's Knee called the wine mundo, which he said was an Arabic word. The drink tasted sweet but it was potent. Dog's Knee told George to stay away from it after Kony took a liking to it. The boss claimed he knew about this concoction and discussed with Dog's Knee the exact proportions needed to make the best mundo. George listened in amazement to the LRA leader discussing how to make alcohol.

Feeling happy for the first time in a while, George served the food to his coy mates, who sat down to lunch with only a few men posted as guards. Small dishes were placed in a plastic baskets and brought to the guards, who were fewer in number than usual. Kony joked that the Ugandan soldiers were too busy getting drunk celebrating that day so the LRA could not be safer. Kony was cheerful, joking and talking to many of the people assembled.

He even decided to drink some mundo, the first time George witnessed Kony drinking alcohol.

The food was a success with all the men, who said George was a great cook. A few did not miss the chance to tease him. "Great job, professor," joked one, a reference to George's reputation as a man of books. "You make a poor soldier but someday you will make a man very happy as his wife." George was annoyed at the jokes but was happy to see his coy mates relaxed. In the afternoon, someone produced a tape player with Ugandan music and people started to dance. It seemed as if some normalcy had finally returned to the camp.

Deep into the night, after his wives and small children were sent to sleep, Kony called George to his table where a few commanders, including Dog's Knee, kept the boss company. Kony was cheerful. He spoke slowly and in a low voice, while taking small sips of mundo. He spoke of politics and the way Uganda was ruined by the politician Yoweri Museveni, of how the Acholi were betrayed by the Banyankole, Museveni's tribe, and how Museveni himself was betrayed by his friend Paul Kagame, who worked for the Ugandan president but then abandoned him when Kagame became president of Rwanda.

"Kagame was the first to come to Gulu, with Museveni's rebels, but people said he was different. Kagame behaved better than the rest," Kony said. "But even he, even Kagame could not get close to me." Kony laughed.

"They can't," he continued. "They have tried many times but the Holy Spirit is always with me, always informing me in advance. Only once was I almost caught," said Kony. "I did not pay attention to the warning from the spirit and became careless. It was in the Imatong Mountains of Sudan, one day in the dry season of 2003. I had a bad dream the night before. I dreamt about a big ram losing his horns, they just dropped to the ground. It was a bad omen but I did not pay heed. That same morning we were surprised by soldiers who came out of nowhere. They passed our guards and came straight at me. Min Ali was there," Kony said pointing to his young son Ali sitting at his side. "We had just finished breakfast.

"I ran as soon as I heard the shots right near me. The boys fought the soldiers and I just ran. But some soldiers came after me. I ran into a small forest and climbed up a tree. Most of them ran past and did not see me except one.

"He had a PK, the big gun, so he walked slowly behind the others. He saw me and shot at me from a short distance. I jumped down and ran into the bush. The soldier came after me, running slowly and yelling, 'Kony, cung (stop)! Cung Kony, cung!'" Kony laughed and said he hid inside a hollow tree in a dense part of the forest.

"He was afraid to come near. I could hear him telling the other soldiers, who returned after his shooting, he did not want to. So he just bullet-sprayed the whole area. What a noise! One of the bullets hit me on the left calf, here is the mark," Kony said, rolling up his trousers and showing a faded scar. "Then he turned around and just left. I heard him telling the others I had vanished. No one came to check. I stayed hidden for a long time and then came out and dressed the wound, it was just a scratch," he said. "'Kony cung!'" he imitated the soldier, laughing.

The Big Teacher spoke until the early hours of the morning. He was happy, almost affable, George thought. This was the Kony George knew, the Kony of the days before the death of Vincent Otti, one of Kony's deputies. It was nice to see him act normal and happy again.

Eventually Kony's speech became slow. He said he wanted to sleep and told the officers to leave. He asked George to accompany him inside his hut. George was surprised and hesitated for a while. He worried about Justine who stared as the two walked inside Kony's home.

George helped the boss take off his pistol, which he put next to his mattress. He put water in a cup and put it within Kony's reach. He asked if he should call one of the wives.

"No, but stay," Kony said, asking, "How is your uncle?"

"Fine," replied George. "I think. I have not seen him in a while."

"He is well, I know," said Kony. "The other elders have informed me. How are you settling here?"

George did not know what to say. He wanted to tell the Big Boss how badly he had been treated and that he deserved better, but at the last moment he decided against it, whispering a quick " aber" (fine).

"You are a man of books, I know," said Kony. "I see you reading and I know about your good grades at school.

"This is a good thing," he added. "You must be sitting there thinking about how bad this place is, how terrible I must be."

"No, no," George said hastily in a low voice.

Kony continued, "You need to know that if I had a choice I would not be doing this, this life in the forest like animals. I wish I could be a schooled man, like you. I wish my children could go to school, just like you. It pains me that my kids are not going to school, I really want them to, I even spoke to some people in Kenya, some of our people there and they said maybe they can take Ali and Salim to school in Nairobi. Maybe even Candit, he is getting big now. That would be nice. Otherwise, what are they to do with their lives?

"But it is too late for me. I have all the wisdom in the world, thanks to the spirits who tell me everything. You surely know that, don't you? But you also need to know that I am myself a prisoner of the spirits. Yes, they help me and tell me everything but they also keep me hostage.

"I have no choice but to do all these things to keep the Movement going. I have no other way as I am in the service of the spirits and the Holy Spirit first and foremost. I was chosen to carry this burden."

His voice slowed to a slur and then stopped. George stood as if frozen, amazed at what he had witnessed and terrified that everyone outside that tent hated him for the time he was spending with the leader. He walked out slowly and was relieved to find out that not many people had paid attention. Some were asleep while others, including the two bodyguards sitting outside Kony's tent, seemed too drunk to notice.

The next morning, after a long night of eating, drinking and dancing, George woke up to the sight of a distressed Omony kicking the still sleeping bodyguards. Yelling, Omony ordered them to fetch Justine, Otika and Agweng.

They were to come at Kony's hut immediately. There was something wrong with the Chairman. "He is not waking up," Omony said, gesticulating wildly and looking concerned.

George felt a chill down his spine. "Here we go again," he thought. "Maybe someone still loyal to Otti poisoned him yesterday. Maybe they will think I did it when I was in his home last night." But as George started to contemplate ways to escape, one of the bodyguards still inside Kony's hut ran out saying, "Ladit is fine." As the group of bodyguards waited tensely outside, Kony walked out gingerly, looking hungover. He said he had just been a little tired. "Maybe I took too much wine last night," he later conceded, prompting nervous laughter from the mortified escorts.

This is an extract from When the Walking Defeats You: One Man's Journey as Joseph Kony's Bodyguard, written by Ledio Cakaj, with a foreword by Roméo Dallaire, published on November 15 by Zed Books.

Anxiety Was a Fact of Life in Violent North Milwaukee Way Before the Election

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Andrew Merrills, 13, and Antoine Edwards, nine, talk with Xavier Thomas, the youth director at All Peoples Church in North Milwaukee. All photos by Pat Robinson for the Trace

A version of this article originally appeared on the Trace.

Kemmick Holmes doesn't like to leave the house. The 40-year-old former felon says he has been robbed at gunpoint five different times in his city, and that he gets anxious every time he walks out his front door. But on Election Day, he forced himself to walk to his polling site, a police academy down the road, on Milwaukee's north side. Once inside, an elderly lady showed him what to do. Holmes filled in the bubble beside Hillary Clinton's name, slid the ballot into the machine, walked back to his apartment, and called his mom. He was elated. He told her he had just cast his first-ever vote.

"I felt like I was going to make a difference," he recalls. "I even put the little sticker on my hat."

Many Milwaukeeans did not share the optimism that carried Holmes to the polls. During the primaries in March, Hillary Clinton held a forum at Tabernacle Community Baptist Church in the heart of the north side. She described how she would tackle the "epidemic" of gun violence concentrated in pockets of American cities like Holmes's side of town, where people are "short on hope."

The discussion was meant to shore up her support among African Americans—and hopefully provide a jolt of that hope—but Clinton didn't come back. While she won 77 percent of the vote in Milwaukee, 41,000 fewer registered voters turned out than in 2012. Clinton appears to have lost the state by about 22,000 votes. It was the first defeat for a Democratic presidential nominee in Wisconsin since 1984.

Milwaukee resident Kemmick Holmes says he used to be "in the streets like a stop sign on the corner." Now he mostly stays home. He says he deals with anxiety about being robbed or shot.

The head of the city's election commission says new voter ID requirements may have deterred thousands from casting ballots. But many locals, interviewed over a long weekend after the election, say they noticed a sharp drop in energy from the previous two election cycles, when Barack Obama was on the ballot. Some had hoped the election of the nation's first black president would rejuvenate their community, but instead things seem to have stayed the same—or gotten worse. Homicides went up and trust in institutions fell. There aren't enough jobs, and the industries that once sustained the city don't seem likely to come back. Residents say they struggle to see a future for themselves. They don't much believe that a president can restore what they have lost.

"Voting is all about voice, having a say," says Muhibb Dyer, a poet and activist who leads anti-violence workshops for young people across the city. "To become politically active and politically conscious, you have to know that you count, and that you matter. And if everything in society tells you that you don't matter, sometimes you give up."

Once a major manufacturing hub, Milwaukee struggles with high rates of poverty, unemployment, and violence. It is one of the most segregated cities in the US, and has been deemed the second-worst city for black Americans, according to the financial news site 24/7 Wall St. Last year, there were more murders per capita than in Chicago—84 percent of the victims were black. A fatal police shooting over the summer deepened resentment between law enforcement and residents.

Amid their daily concerns, like violence and money troubles, some residents said voting just didn't seem that relevant.

"I heard a guy say, 'I voted before and the price of Ramen noodles hasn't changed,'" says Simon Warren, a political and community organizer whose 21-year-old son was fatally shot last year. "In other words, 'My condition hasn't changed.'"

On a Thursday evening, a week before Thanksgiving, Debra Jenkins maneuvers her old Buick around downtown, past city hall, where police officers direct pedestrians to the annual Christmas tree lighting. Strings of lights twinkle in trees. A youth choir prepares to sing carols.

Then she heads north, up Martin Luther King Drive. A few minutes later, the festive lights have disappeared. Main thoroughfares are lined with closed-down businesses. On the residential blocks, homes are boarded up. Some have been converted into corner taverns, whose windows cast yellow light into otherwise dark streets.

"Five-three-two-oh-six," Jenkins says, announcing the zip code. It is, statistically, one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the country. The zip code falls in the 5th Police District, where the homicide rate is more than 20 times that of the city's safest district. A recent documentary explored the zip code's legacy of having among the highest per capita incarceration rates in the country. Nearly two out of three adult men have spent time in prison.

"Lot of shootings, lot of people getting killed in this little area," Jenkins says.

Moments after leaving his grandfather's funeral last summer, Lamar Ragland was shot and killed. He was 23. His makeshift memorial can still be seen among the headstones at Union Cemetery in north Milwaukee.

She continues her tour, passing an elementary school where an eight-year-old boy brought an unloaded gun earlier that week. Across the street, tea lights are arranged around a tree in remembrance of one of the city's recent shooting victims.

Jenkins loves her city. She grew up on the west and north sides, and worked for three decades in a factory that made gasoline engines. But in 2002, her son Larry was fatally shot by a police officer. Since then, she's become consumed by her son's case, filling dozens of binders with articles and court documents. She sometimes feels angry that while some police shootings draw national attention, many more haven't. "I've been fighting for 14 years... Larry's name don't mean nothing."

She and other mothers play self-appointed watchdogs of Milwaukee's murders, maintaining a running tally of killings that they update monthly. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, more than 130 people have been murdered in the city so far this year. Most were shot.

At times, Jenkins talks about her hometown as if it's a fruit left to rot. "The city of Milwaukee is almost in a decayed mode," she says. "We have lost just about everything. We don't have any confidence in our police department. The mayor hasn't showed much. So we were looking for that great white hope in Hillary."

Vaun Mayes-Bey is a 29-year-old community activist and founder of We All We Got, a local movement to empower black Milwaukeeans and ease tensions with police. Dynamic and resourceful, he is the kind of person a campaign might recruit to mobilize get-out-the-vote efforts. But Mayes-Bey says he didn't even cast his own ballot. He says he doesn't believe his vote would have mattered. He hopes the election results get people "to stop relying on the elected officials that fail them so much and start relying on themselves."

Debra Jenkins in her bungalow in north Milwaukee's Sherman Park neighborhood. Her son was fatally shot by a police officer in 2002.

For the past five months, Mayes-Bey has been busy keeping the peace around Sherman Park. Over the summer, the park was the epicenter of unrest, partly provoked by the killing of Sylville Smith, 23, by a police officer. Dozens of young people rioted, looting and setting fire to businesses. All that remains of the BP gas station across the road is a charred frame.

The Journal Sentinel reported in August that "concentrated poverty, high unemployment, pessimism about the future, hollow promises from politicians, a sense of relentless oppression" contributed to the turmoil. Mayes-Bey says there was yet another ingredient: boredom. "There is nothing in our city for our youth to do," he says. He started organizing activities in the park—meals, movie nights, mentoring—to keep young people occupied.

On a recent afternoon, he and other community organizers are at the park offering free food to the hungry. A blur of red streaks over from a nearby road. It's Junior Harris, a 16-year-old wearing a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt. Still out of breath, Harris describes how moments earlier, he'd been riding a city bus with some friends when a white man told them they were being too loud. "He got to talking stuff, 'You're some niggers, you idiots, you're not intelligent,'" says Harris. "When he said it again, that's when it triggered me, and I got mad, and I guess I got to fighting." He says he threw some punches before jumping off the bus.

Two Sundays after the election, a cold front has moved through Milwaukee. At All Peoples Church, two miles from where Clinton spoke about gun violence, congregants arrive to find the boiler has broken, leaving the main sanctuary frigid. They gather in the basement to sing and worship bundled in their coats and gloves.

Leading the service is Reverend Steve Jerbi, who says his congregation is black, white, and Latino—an intentional antidote to the city's legacy of segregation. (Jerbi discussed how regularly bloodshed touches his community in a recent episode of Precious Lives, a 100-part radio series about gun violence in the city).

Reverend Steve Jerbi delivers a sermon at All Peoples Church about not settling for the violence and injustice that plagues Milwaukee

Sitting in the back row is Xavier Thomas, the youth director at All Peoples. Thomas, 29, says he wasn't moved by either presidential candidate. He had a hard time imagining how they would rebalance the sorts of inequities affecting the young people he works with: incarceration, missing fathers, hunger. "There's many times I'd like to take one of the kids and just have him come with me for a week or something," he says.

By the end of the service, Thomas's phone is dead. "You have no idea how nervous I am to turn it back on," he says. He can't decide which is more anxiety-provoking: missing a phone call bearing bad news, or picking it up. One night this past summer, one of the young people he works with had called to say his father had been killed. Thomas says he worked so many funerals over the summer, "It became the routine."

He says he recently came to a sobering realization. His job, which was supposed to be about inspiring young people, is really about consoling them. He feels like he is fumbling his way along.

The 5th Police District experiences a homicide rate more than 20 times that of the city's safest district. (Click to see detail.)

"I should be focusing on uplifting them and helping them become the best them they can be, helping them become that next engineer, that next social worker, that next preacher," he says. "Instead I'm talking to them about how they're scared to leave their house, and trying to help them get over their fears of living here."

He says he would benefit from a class on how to guide kids through their grieving. He says if that powerful emotion is not properly channeled, it feeds into an unstoppable cycle. "Without grieving, you turn that into anger, and the anger turns into retaliation, and retaliation turns into another family's loss."

Later that Sunday, Kemmick Holmes, the first-time voter, takes a Xanax and walks to the McDonald's near to his house. In his younger years, he says he was a constant fixture on the streets. Now he hates being in public.

Originally from Mississippi, Holmes says he moved to Milwaukee in 1994 to be closer to his father. But once his dad passed away a few years ago, the anxiety and panic attacks set in. "I have no one I trust in Milwaukee," he says.

Sitting on the corner edge of a booth, Holmes finishes his cheeseburger and takes a sip of an icy orange drink.

Before the election, he'd had high hopes for Clinton. "I voted for her 'cause she was more experienced with things around the White House... For people like me, she probably would have come up with a way for us to get good medical insurance. She was gonna help with minimum wage. She said she was going to make tougher gun control."

Donald Trump, he says, "is just a hustler."

He predicts in light of Trump's win, racially driven incidents will continue across the country. But he's more worried about what might await him outside, right now. When he's out and about, he knows better than to take his eyes off the streets and glance down at his phone. Do that, it's over. Holmes makes a clicking sound, and raises two fingers to his neck in the shape of a gun.

All photos by Pat Robinson for the Trace

A version of this article was originally published by the Trace, a nonprofit news organization covering guns in America. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Trace on Facebook or Twitter.

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The VICE Guide to Right Now: A Massive Brawl Broke Out at a California Mall on Black Friday

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A massive, post-Thanksgiving brawl broke out in the middle of a mall in Modesto, California, as crowds gathered for Black Friday, the Modesto Bee reports.

While many Americans were still moaning about food babies and talking about everything they're thankful for, about seven mall-goers wound up throwing punches and kicks outside of a GNC and JC Penney, according to video footage of the scene. Curious shoppers appear to set down their Best Buy deals or whatever to gather and watch fellow Black Friday pilgrims pummel one another like a bad Jingle All the Way reboot.

One of the witnesses, Marco Sebastian, told CNN that the whole thing went down around 12 AM.

Mall security reportedly broke the fight up without the help of the police. An officer for the Modesto PD told the Bee later that no injuries were reported, so the angry shoppers apparently shrugged off their differences in order to keep feasting on some hot Black Friday sales.

At least they didn't ravage the place like those Nike shoppers in Washington did, so that's something. Welcome to the 2016 holiday season, everybody.

Trump Matters More for US-Cuba Relations Than Castro's Death

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Fidel Castro in Havana in 2001. Photo by Adalberto Roque /AFP/Getty Images

From the day he entered Havana in 1959 after leading a guerrilla revolution against Cuba's US-backed military dictator, Fulgencio Batista, Fidel Castro occupied an oversized space in American politics. Over his 49 years of rule, the "Maximum Leader" became a major US antagonist during the Cold War. His regime spawned a wave of refugees that reshaped US demographics. And his country remained, improbably, one of the world's last bastions of straight-up Communism.

So Castro's death Friday night wasn't just the passing of one of the world's most controversial and hated leaders, but the end of an era. Yet for all the hullabaloo, most signs indicate that Fidel's death won't have a huge practical effect in Cuba. Still, it marks the first major foreign policy event that US President-elect Donald Trump has to grapple with—and it could egg on America's new Twitter-user-in-chief into a confrontation with Cuba that could undo the normalization of relations between the two nations initiated almost two years ago.

Fidel has not actually been in charge of Cuba for a decade. After five years of visibly failing health, he temporarily turned over power to Raúl Castro, his younger brother and the Cuban minister of defense, in 2006, then made the transfer permanent in 2008.

"During the years between his retirement and death, Fidel Castro retained considerable influence" in Cuban affairs of state, said Brian Latell, a Florida International University professor who initially tracked the Castros for the CIA and has since written a number of books on them. He adds that Raúl reportedly regularly consulted with is brother over the past ten years.

Yet Raúl always had a distinct personality—he's reputedly more pragmatic and managerial, less intransigently ideological and bombastic, than his brother. Especially over the last five years, he's slowly ramped up a series of reforms that opened the tightly controlled Cuban economy to limited free enterprise, allowed more public debate and access to travel and communications technology, and attempted to address corruption, bloat, and graying in the state apparatus—all allegedly over the grumbling of his stridently anti-reform brother.

"By agreeing to normalize the diplomatic relationship with the US—while the economic embargo was still in effect and Guantánamo under the American flag," says Latell, "Raúl ignored two of Fidel's most implacable demands."

Latell and others have argued that Fidel may have slowed Raúl's reforms, with some outlets going so far as to hope the death of the elder Castro will see the demise of his Communist state. Yet it's just as likely that Raúl, who reportedly idolizes the Chinese and Vietnamese model of state-controlled, strongman-run quasi-capitalism, is devoted to slow, experimental change. An active participant in his brother's harsh dictatorship who referred to himself as "Raúl the Terrible" for his role in political executions, he shows no signs of changing course on one-party control, human rights policy, or anything other than a light economic opening.

The unknown factor in Cuba's future is not the island's current leadership, but the incoming US president. Though his company's executives reportedly did business with Cuba during the embargo in 1998, and though his stance on Cuba was murky during the in Republic primaries, during the general election campaign Trump took a hard line on Cuba, promising to reverse Barack Obama's executive actions that pushed the countries more toward normal relations unless the Castro government became more open on political and human rights issues. Trump then named a major pro-embargo lobbyist to his transition team, suggesting that he won't be receptive to business leaders' desires to be allowed more access to the island country despite his generally pro-business platform.

Confronted again with Cuban affairs by Fidel's death, Trump reiterated his general stance on Twitter on Monday, after aides and allies made even clearer and stronger statements along the same lines over the weekend.

Anti-Castro optimists might hope that, especially given Cuba's rapid loss of Latin American allies (including its economic lifeline, Venezuela), the pragmatic Raúl might make conciliatory moves or even concessions toward Trump, whose bluster now has consequences.

"President Trump will not need to change many or any regulations or policies to have an impact upon Cuba," said John Kavulich of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. "Banks, companies, and governments will fear the potential —and then it becomes reality."

Kavulich is among those who believe Raúl will likely stand his ground against Trump and refuse to make concessions when it comes to the civil rights of Cubans—in keeping with his track record and his imperative to show his Castro legitimacy by standing up to America, Fidel's favorite hobby horse—even it that results in negative economic consequences. That battle of wills would likely reverse years of diplomatic progress to where things stood a decade ago.

"The government of Cuba will choose the suffering of its citizens over believing that it is capitalizing to the United States," said Kavulich of the overall Castro-Cuban diplomatic mindset.

But much depends upon Trump's priorities. His belligerence toward Cuba at the moment may just reflect the fact that Cuba is in the news. Trump didn't make Cuba much of a campaign issue, and by the time he takes office, he may have bigger things to worry about, allowing the status quo to fly on under the radar. Once again, US-Cuba relations will come down to the whims of a grudge-holding demagogue with a talent for media manipulation—only now, that demagogue is on the American side of the Florida Straits.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

Justin Trudeau to Skip Fidel Castro’s Funeral

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Justin Trudeau in Havana earlier this year. Photo via Facebook

After being thoroughly dragged on twitter and the press, Justin Trudeau announced he will not be attending the funeral of Fidel Castro.

Instead, on Trudeau's request, Governor-General David Johnston will head to Cuba to attend a commemoration for Castro.

The announcement comes after Trudeau was thoroughly mocked online for his initial statement regarding the dictator and revolutionary's death. The statement, ripe with sentiment, was seen as being far too light on a man responsible for the death of many.

"It is with deep sorrow that I learned today of the death of Cuba's longest serving President," reads the beginning of the statement.

"Fidel Castro was a larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century. A legendary revolutionary and orator, Mr. Castro made significant improvements to the education and healthcare of his island nation."

In response, a Trudeau Eulogies hashtag arose on Twitter, which saw people making up glowing statements for dictators like Pol Pot and Stalin and famous villains like Darth Vader.

"Controversy followed Jeffrey Dahmer but he helped cast a new light on the limits of low carb diets," tweeted out Jonah Goldberg, an editor at the National Review.

Goldberg's joke was retweeted over 1,200 times—it was just one of many. Failed presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz both tweeted out their disapproval, with Rubio calling Trudeau's statement "shameful and embarrassing."

Since the initial statement both Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale have walked back the seemingly glowing description of Castro.

Now, it is actually the norm for the Governor General to attend in the Prime Minister's place, as they don't usually go to the funerals of world leaders unless it's an exceptional circumstance as was the case of the funerals for Nelson Mandela, Margaret Thatcher and Shimon Peres.

That said, there certainly exists a connection between the former Cuban leader and the Trudeau family. In 1976 Pierre Trudeau was the first major world leader to visit the island nation after the US embargo and in 2000, Fidel Castro was an honorary pallbearer at Pierre Trudeau's funeral.

Castro's funeral will take place on Sunday as the final act in nine days of mourning in the country.

Follow Mack Lamoureux on Twitter

Why Your Next Relationship Probably Won't Be Any Better Than Your Current One

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Photo by Andrea Rose via

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany

Breaking up with someone can feel like getting punched in the gut non-stop for weeks on end. And it's not just the debilitating physical and emotional pain – a break-up screws up your daily life. It messes with any plans you had for the future, with your social circle, your tenancy agreement and your belief that the world is ultimately a fair and just place. According to the stress scale of psychiatrists Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe, only the death of your partner causes more stress than breaking up.

Despite all that pain, many of us have had more break-ups by the end of our twenties than our grandparents had in their entire lives. But that's a good thing, right? We have the opportunity to find our perfect partners, while couples in earlier generations might have stayed together because society dictated they should.

German psychiatrist Adelheid Kastner doesn't agree. Last month, the 54-year-old published her book Tatort Trennung, which translates as "Crime Scene Break-Up". She leads the psychiatric clinic at the Kelper University Clinic in Linz, and garnered fame as the court-appointed expert in the Josef Fritzl case. In her book, she explores cases where break-ups have dramatically damaged or even destroyed people's lives, and she claims those break-ups could have been avoided.

VICE: With the title of your book, you're basically saying breaking up is like committing a crime?
Adelheid Kastner: Break-ups can be an enormous strain on people – we can deeply suffer from them. If you look at people's wellbeing after a break-up for a longer period of time, it's clear that people don't necessarily become any happier in a next relationship. Dating sites suggest you can change your partner like the wheels on a carriage, and many people assume a next partner will make their life better. But it's very possible you won't find anyone able to do that.

Even if you break up in your twenties or early thirties?
Of course the chance that you'll meet someone new who you can make it work with is much higher at that age. But even at around 35, most people who understand what it takes to be in a relationship aren't available any more.

Adelheid Kastner by Rudolf Gigler

It would be a terrible idea for me to still date the guy I was with at 16, to be honest. I just cared that a potential partner had cool hair, played the guitar and rolled a good joint. Isn't it true that you figure out what's really important to you in a relationship after breaking up a few times and getting to know yourself a little better?
Well, I believe that you know what you value in a relationship in your early twenties. How do you feel about being faithful? What kind of family do you want? Your circumstances can change, but your views on those matters rarely change dramatically. And you have to remember that, in order to be in a successful relationship, you have to adapt, too. Your partner doesn't stay the same person for the next ten, 20 years. A stable relationship mainly depends on if you share the same values and are both willing and able to work through complications. It has less to do with finding the perfect person who fits like a key in a lock.

But aren't there just situations where it's better to break up?
Of course there are: if someone in a relationship doesn't respect or accept the other, humiliates their partner or doesn't take their partner seriously. I'm saying that the motivation behind a break-up shouldn't be the conviction that you could find someone better. It should be: I'll be happier on my own. If you change your partner every few years, it will be hard to feel at home with anybody.

So you're basically saying we chuck out our relationships too easily.
These days, many people find it easier to separate from their partner than to separate from their romantic ideals and fantasies. A lot of times it's not necessarily the boyfriend or girlfriend who is wrong for someone, but it's just that their expectations of relationships are wrong.

My grandparents were together for more than 40 years before my grandfather died. When I asked my grandmother about their lengthy relationship, she said: "The secret to a long relationship is to not break up." But back then, marriages weren't only held together by love, but also by economic and social circumstances.
Sure, but it wasn't just those circumstances. I think there was a bigger focus on standing by each other and taking care of each other. Today, it's just easier to replace things than repair them – your smartphone, your laptop, your washing machine, your boyfriend, laptops. My advice would be: don't start a relationship because you want to experience something that's different emotionally. And break up with as few people as possible.

More on relationships on VICE:

How to Make a Long-Term Relationship Work in Your Twenties

What It's Like to Be a Millennial in a Sexless Relationship

Things You Learn When a Long-Term Relationship Collapses in Your Twenties

​Ottawa’s Public School Board Wants to Ban Teachers From Posting Beach Photos

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One of the photos that reportedly got Florida model Victoria James fired from her teaching job in 2013. Photo via Flickr

A set of guidelines handed out to teachers by Ottawa's public school board last week reportedly identify photos posted on social depicting drugs, alcohol, or being "scantily clad" on the beach as unacceptable professional behaviour.

You might be thinking, "that's bullshit." But there is some precedence to it.

According to the National Post, the guidelines are in response to a growing concern that social media accounts of teachers often go unchecked, and can reflect poorly if the behaviour displayed online—even if while off-duty—is not in line with how a teacher presents in a professional environment.

In a 1996 ruling, the Supreme Court of Canada found it acceptable for teachers to be held at a higher professional standard than other professions (like, a journalist, for example), and can therefore be expected to censor themselves outside of the classroom more than typical.

Cases that might fall under this definition aren't uncommon: in September, a group of Markham, Ontario, teachers were put on blast for throwing up middle fingers while posing for a photo after a session of axe-throwing; in 2014, an Edmonton, Alberta, principal was reprimanded for posting a vacation photo in she pretended to jerk off the Washington Monument (while a man was lying in a way so that the District of Columbia building looked like an erection).

"It's always been that way, that's nothing new. Teachers have been told that since I've been in the profession: your private and personal life also needs to be somewhat above reproach," Janet Frances, president of Ottawa-Carleton division of the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO), told the Post. "hat is certainly what our union would tell teachers, and it's what the board would tell them."

The new guidelines are not clear in what it takes to pass as a "scantily clad" photo, but based on past examples, it likely means women in anything but a blouse. In the US, accusations of sexism in regards to how hot teachers are treated are common, and it's hard to imagine your 45-year-old male gym teacher would be in the same shit for a beach photo as a woman in a bikini.

Without getting specific, recommendations set out by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) advise teachers to tread lightly when posting on social media, noting that "inappropriate" and "sexual" material either posted online or sent electronically can result in severe ramifications for teachers—even if the intention is harmless.

Follow Jake Kivanc on Twitter.

Why Banning British Nazis Is a Waste of Time

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Attendees at a march in Liverpool organised by National Action, cornered into the left-luggage section at Lime Street Station. August, 2015. (Photo: Oscar Webb)

It looks like the government is gearing up to ban Hitler-loving neo-Nazis National Action (NA). The revelation, made in the Sunday Times, comes in the wake of the conviction of neo-Nazi Thomas Mair for the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox, with the paper speculating that the groups set to be banned could be the neo-Nazi crew, NA, or EDL splinter group, North West Infidels (NWI).

Banning one of these groups would make it a crime to be a member, to invite support for the group or to help organise meetings connected to the group. The maximum sentences for those offences are ten years in prison and/or a fine. Wearing clothing or carrying or displaying articles which suggest support for the group would get you up to six months in prison and a fine of up to £5,000. Hundreds of people would have to change their act to avoid a conviction.

Proscribing NA or NWI (or both) would allow the state to unleash a wave of repression that the far-right has never experienced before in the UK. And while you might have limited sympathies for the legal status of people who pose with banners saying "Hitler was right", I'm sceptical that banning groups is a good way to oppose neo-Nazis.

First off, it's highly unlikely we'll see every member and supporter of these far-right groups in jail. If a ban is introduced, the individuals and groups on the far-right will adapt and develop the tactics they're already using.

Pressure from anti-fascists and the media has already forced National Action to go underground, to a certain extent. The group uses encrypted email service Tutanota to communicate with each other. Their meetings are organised in secret and the only evidence they've taken place are the recordings the group chooses to put up on YouTube afterwards. In other words, if they've previously managed to meet up without the state knowing about it, they shouldn't find it too hard to refine their security.

The majority of NA members have stopped using Facebook, which co-operates with British law enforcement and removes accounts which publish anti-Semitic material. They use Russian social media platform VKontakte instead. NA's website is hosted in the United States, so the group would need to be listed as a "Foreign Terrorist Organisation" there before that could be taken offline. Although, they could just move their site to an area that doesn't comply with UK or US law – and there are plenty of those in the world.

Where the ban would make a difference would be in their street activity. Anything resembling the white-only homeless charity that VICE exposed in September would have to stop. Ditto their recent appearances on "counter-jihad" marches in the north-east. But crucially, they wouldn't have to stop. All NA would really have to do to comply with the law would be to stop calling themselves NA and to ditch all the branded gear they tend to show up in.

Legislation does account for proscribed groups just dissolving and re-launching with a new name; if it can be shown that a new group is "for all practical purposes, the same as the proscribed organisation listed", they're still in trouble. However, NA should be able to get around that fairly easily, and it would be naive to think they haven't already been preparing for something like this.

Last spring, a delegation from NA travelled to Germany to participate in an autonomous neo-Nazi May Day event (it was on this trip that the group hit the headlines for making Hitler salutes at Buchenwald concentration camp). NA had been invited by a group called Anti-Kapitalist Kollective (AKK), an extreme-right group that has copied counter-repression tactics from the German left in response to state bans. AKK is a network of autonomous neo-Nazis; they are deliberately not a classic, centralised fascist organisation. They have no single Führer, no membership list and no written structures. They have nothing that the state could ban, other than the name they use to promote themselves.

A lengthy interview with an AKK member that discusses how various neo-Nazi groups in Germany have responded to state bans was posted on the NA website after the trip – so it's fair to assume the group would look to adopt many of the strategies used by its German kameraden if it is banned.

The way NA are currently organised would make it relatively easy for them to move towards a more autonomous style of organising. They don't have a single leader; they have regional groups which communicate through encrypted channels. All they need to do to continue organising is to ditch the name and their branded tat, drop the limited organisational structure they currently use and start an autonomous network like AKK.

Banning neo-Nazi groups is not just ineffective, it's also counterproductive. Encouraging them to adopt stronger and more effective counter-repression tactics means they will become harder to oppose. Plus, getting banned by the state is the stuff of neo-Nazi wet dreams. NA activists imagine themselves as the only genuinely revolutionary alternative to the status quo – or "the system", as they like to call it (adopted from the terrorist-inspiring racist fiction book The Turner Diaries). Being banned by that status quo totally fits this self-delusion. It also allows them to present themselves as a group so badass that the state treats them like it treats the more radical Islamic extremists. That could make them pretty attractive to potential racist extremists looking for a home.

READ – Exclusive: Neo-Nazis Are Using a White-Only Homeless Charity to Spread Race Hate

There are a number of ways to oppose neo-Nazis and fascist groups which have been shown to work. State bans are not one of them. From the mid-1980s to the late-90s, the British far-right was gradually beaten off the streets by anti-fascists who set out to oppose the far-right physically and ideologically.

By using direct action against fascist rallies and meetings, and putting pressure on key organisers, Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) was able to force the British National Party (BNP) to abandon the classic fascist strategy of "march and grow", which groups like NA and NWI seek to emulate. This forced the BNP to don a suit and tie, pretend to be respectable and try to win elections. When this eventually failed (after, admittedly, winning a million votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections), the party collapsed. In the meantime, the fascist threat on the streets had been eliminated.

The most serious blow dealt to NA since they started organising was when thousands of anti-fascists and locals penned them into a corner of Liverpool Lime Street station, humiliating them by throwing bottles, eggs and bananas at them and stopping them from demonstrating. NA responded to that by using encrypted communications to organise a surprise return to Liverpool alongside NWI and other EDL splinter groups – when they were prevented from marching by anti-fascists again.

If NA and NWI are banned, these neo-Nazi street manifestations will not stop. It's likely an autonomous neo-Nazi network will emerge, which will include members of both these groups and potentially a number of people currently on their fringes. If groups like this get outlawed, that doesn't mean they go away – but it looks like that might be about to happen. So if you're not a big fan of Nazis romping around British towns, get organised and prepare to take action against them.

@jdpoulter

More on neo-Nazis:

How I Became a White Supremacist

I Hung Out with the Neo-Nazis Who Hoped to Set Up an Aryan Homeland in Essex

Neo-Nazis Are Using a White-Only Homeless Charity to Spread Race Hate

The VICE Morning Bulletin

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

Rep. Tom Price gets into an elevator at Trump Tower. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

US News

Trump Appoints Obamacare Critic as Health Boss
President-elect Donald Trump has named Republican congressman Tom Price, a fierce critic of Obamacare, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Earlier this month, Rep. Price praised Trump's willingness to repeal the "failed law," though Trump has since waffled a bit on fully reversing every provision of the Affordable Care Act.—NBC News

North Dakota Governor Orders Evacuation of Standing Rock Protest Camp
Governor Jack Dalrymple on Monday ordered thousands of people camped in protest of the Dakota Access pipeline to evacuate the area immediately. His executive order suggested the camp was not suitable for winter weather, and also directed emergency services to stop guaranteeing they would provide aid for the camp if needed.—VICE News

Police Probe Whether Ohio Campus Attack Was Terrorism
Police investigators and the FBI are exploring whether the Ohio State University attack Monday that left 11 people injured may have been an act of terrorism. They do not yet have a motive for Somali-born student Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who's said to have hit students with his car and begun stabbing people before being shot and killed by a campus cop.—TIME

Wildfire Forces Evacuations in Tennessee Town
Emergency officials ordered the mandatory evacuation of homes in and near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, after wildfires spread across the town and approached the Dolly Parton resort in Pigeon Forge. Officials said the wildfire set 30 buildings in Gatlinburg alight on Monday.—CBS News

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Plane Carrying Brazilian Soccer Team Crashes in Colombia
A plane carrying 81 people, including a Brazilian soccer team, has crashed on its way to Medellín in Colombia. Officials said there were reports of six survivors. The Chapecoense team had been set to play Medellín's Atletico Nacional in the final of the Copa Sudamericana.—AP

Syrian Opposition Says Aleppo Loss 'Not the End'
The Syrian opposition's chief negotiator has said losing Aleppo to the government would "not be the end of the revolution." George Sabra suggested rebel groups would continue to fight President Bashar al Assad's forces in other parts of the country. Government forces have taken more than a third of rebel-held eastern Aleppo.—BBC News

South Korean President Asks Parliament for Escape Route
South Korean president Park Geun-hye suggested she is willing to step down and has asked parliament to help her leave in a "stable manner." Park, reeling from a scandal over allegedly allowing friend Choi Soon-sil's political influence, said on television: "I will leave to parliament everything about my future including shortening of my term."—Reuters

Thai Parliament Asks Crown Prince to Become King
Thailand's parliament has asked Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn to become the next king. The prince was expected to accept the invitation in the next few days, and will only be crowned king after his father, who died last month, is cremated, a ceremony which is not expected to happen until 2017.—Al Jazeera

EVERYTHING ELSE

Paisley Park to Host Anniversary Festival for Prince
A four-day festival honoring the late musician Prince will take place at his Paisley Park complex in Minnesota next April. Revolution and New Power Generation, among other acts, will be on hand.—Rolling Stone

Facebook's Indian Internet Program Goes Live
Facebook has launched Express WiFi, its program to bring internet access to underserved parts of rural India. Unlike its predecessor program, Free Basics, which was axed by regulators over net neutrality concerns, the new program gives people unlimited access to the internet for a small fee.—BuzzFeed News

Trump Supporter Banned by Delta Airlines
Delta Airlines has banned a Donald Trump supporter for life for insulting fellow passengers. A video posted on Facebook showed the man yelling Trump's name and saying: "We got some Hillary bitches on here?"—CNN Money

San Francisco Muni Hackers Threaten to Dump Data
The hackers who infected San Francisco's municipal transit system (Muni) are threatening to release customer and employee data if they don't receive $73,000 worth of bitcoin. The hackers claimed to have infected more than 2,000 of Muni's systems.—Motherboard

Q-Tip Wants Serious Discussion with Kanye West
A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip says Kanye West's remarks about supporting Donald Trump "require he and I having a real serious discussion." Q-Tip added of Kanye, who appeared on the new Tribe album, "It's difficult because I love him."—Noisey

Canadian Teachers Banned from Posting Beach Photos
Ottawa's public school board has handed out new guidelines to teachers identifying photos posted on social media showing drugs, alcohol, or being "scantily clad" on the beach as unacceptable professional behavior.—VICE


Desus and Mero Talk About Dog Owners Who Love Their Pets Too Much

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Dogs may be man's best friend and everything, but some pet owners take their friendship way too far.

On last night's Desus & Mero, Desus Nice and the Kid Mero talk about the passionate souls who get it on in front of their dogs, dress their pets up in cringeworthy outfits, and have sloppy kissing sessions with them.

Would you do all that with your college roommate? Maybe it's time dog owners heed Desus and Mero's advice and give their canine bestie some space.

Be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11:30 PM ET/PT on VICELAND.

The VICE Guide to Right Now: Texas Abortion Clinics Have to Bury or Cremate Fetuses Now

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Photo via Flickr user Steve Rainwater

Texas hospitals, abortion clinics, and healthcare facilities will be required to cremate or bury aborted fetuses starting December 19, the Texas Tribune reports.

As it stands now, healthcare facilities in the state that perform abortions dispose of the remains in sanitary landfills. But the new rules, submitted in July by state health officials and finalized Monday, will require abortion providers to bury or cremate the remains and foot the cost, which is sometimes thousands of dollars per case.

According to Texas's Health and Human Services Commission, the new rules were put in place to bring "enhanced protection of the health and safety of the public." They don't apply to abortions or miscarriages that happen at home and won't require patients to get death certificates.

The requirements faced opposition from medical professionals and reproductive rights advocates in the state who argue they place an unnecessary burden on women and abortion providers and don't protect public health.

"The rules target physicians that provide abortions and the hospitals that care for patients," Blake Rocap, legislative counsel for advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, told the Dallas Morning News. "It's so transparent that what they're really trying to do is denying access to abortion."

But Department of State Health Services spokeswoman Carrie Williams disagrees. "While the methods described in the new rules may have a cost, that cost is expected to be offset by costs currently being spent by facilities on disposition for transportation, storage, incineration, steam disinfection, and/or landfill disposal," Williams told the Morning News.

Lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights warned Texas health officials in August that the new guidelines would likely be challenged in court, but Republican lawmakers are already gearing up to write them into law when they reconvene in January.

Watch: Drone Delivered Abortion Pills & the Fight for Reproductive Rights


10 Questions You Always Wanted to Ask: Ten Questions You've Always Wanted to Ask a Person with Tourette Syndrome

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Bijan Kaffenberger. Photo by the author

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany.

Some people will do whatever they can to attract attention. They'll go on a naked dating show, for example, or stand for an election. But others can find themselves at the center of attention just by going about their day, whether they like it or not. One of those people is Bijan Kaffenberger, who has Tourette syndrome.

Tourette is a neurological disorder that manifests itself in tics—sudden, involuntary movements and sounds. The first symptoms, like blinking and twitching, generally start when people affected by it are about six or seven years old. Only 10 to 15 percent also have coprolalia, the urge to vocalize swearwords. Medication can help reduce the tics, but there's no absolute cure for Tourette.

Bijan, 27, was born in Darmstadt, Germany and lives in Frankfurt. After studying economics, he now works as a consultant for the Ministry of Economics in the German federal state of Thuringia. In his free time, he watches every home game of his favorite soccer team, SV Darmstadt 98, and hosts a YouTube show called Tourettikette, where he answers viewers' questions about style and etiquette.

I went to see him in Frankfurt and asked him some more questions about what it's like to live with Tourette.

Photo by Benjamin Kahlmeyer, courtesy of Hyperbole TV

VICE: Have you ever called someone a name on purpose and then blamed it on Tourette?
Bijan Kaffenberger: No, I haven't. If I honestly tell someone they're an asshole, I mean it, and I won't hide behind anything. I find it pretty difficult to keep things like that to myself, to be honest. You need to be able to deal with that if you want to spend time with me.

Have you ever exploited your syndrome in any other way?
There was a rumor going around that I grope women's breasts, but I really don't. I do use my Tourette sometimes to get out of having to do the dishes, but that's really for the best—I could break everything. I once met a girl who I asked to tie my shoelaces. She actually did it, and I laughed so hard she finally caught on I was just taking the piss. I have no trouble tying my shoelaces.

What is oral sex like with Tourette?
If I'm relaxed and can let myself go, I don't have as many tics. It would be terrible if oral sex wasn't an option for people with Tourette. Generally, it doesn't get in the way of sex at all.

Should I stay away from you when you're holding a knife?
I love cooking, but I'm not comfortable holding sharp knives. You won't be the only one in danger, though—my tics will most likely move the knife toward myself in ways I can't control. I trust myself and have a good sense of my own body, but I'm still scared I might hurt somebody. I've never accidentally stabbed anyone, but I have accidentally burned someone with a cigarette butt. There aren't any laws that people with Tourette can't drive, but I think I'd be a danger to myself and the world around me if I got behind the wheel. I couldn't do that to my grandmother. She's a really nice lady who always worries about me—she thought it was already too dangerous for me to ride a bicycle .

What was your worst experience caused by Tourette like?
When I was about ten, I went to an observatory with the Boy Scouts. We were all so excited about it. It was completely dark, but there were projections, and we could watch the stars while someone from the observatory was giving a presentation. I was so excited I kept shouting things out. Nothing complex or offensive, just loud coughs and noises. The worst thing was that I wasn't able to explain what was going on, why I was doing that. When you're a kid, you're pretty much helpless—which is probably why I remember that time in the observatory so vividly. In general, I have more tics when I'm stressed or around a lot of people. Being in a situation where I know I have to be quiet makes it a little harder.

Bijan in one of his Tourettikette videos

Does it suck to not have complete control over your own body?
I wouldn't say I have less control over my body than other people, even if it seems like it. I don't know what it's like not to have it, so I can't tell you if it sucks. I'm used to it.

Does it upset you if strangers laugh about your tics?
Some people don't understand it and stare or laugh. It's not great, but it doesn't affect me that much. But when someone makes an ignorant comment or is obviously making fun of me, I confront that person. I can't deal with people talking shit. If I have to explain twice to someone, "I didn't mean that, I have Tourette," and they still ask stupid questions or insinuate I'm doing it on purpose, I feel I'm completely right to tell them off.

Does it offend you when people joke about Tourette in general?
The film Lommbock will be released next year. It's the sequel to the 2001 German comedy Lammbock, about two stoner pizza delivery guys. There's a guy with Tourette living in a trailer outside the pizzeria, and he's hilarious. I can laugh at that; I can laugh at myself. I won't laugh at lazy or shallow jokes—no matter whether they are about Tourette's or not.

Do illegal drugs help you with Tourette?
I was prescribed pills against Tourette and ADHD, but I quit them when I was 14. It's difficult to drink alcohol when you're taking them, for example. They make you tired and drowsy. I smoked weed when I was younger, but I can't tell you whether it was a form of self-therapy or just because I liked it. It's good for me—it relaxes me—but I grew out of it.

​We Hung Out at a 24-Hour Board Gaming Shop to Learn About Politics

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Can the Great Mech War really be that far off? All photos by author.

Like many people, I've been trying to understand the events that have been taking over politics over the past month. I've searched for meaning by reading articles upon articles, and I've even dared to look into "information" posted on social media. But still feeling like something was missing, I decided to talk to a group of people whose voices are typically not heard in the political realm: Gamers. Board game and card gamers to be exact.

When I went to Phoenix Rising, the gaming centre in St. Catharines, Ontario, I had no idea what was happening, considering the only game I've ever spent much time with was The Sims. These gamers meet every single Saturday for 24 hours of gaming, from Magic: The Gathering to Digimon and X-Wing to Warhammer 40,000 and occasionally, political conversation. During my visit, I learned what a blue white control was in Magic and that many gamers do not want to be interviewed during a game of X-Wing. But more importantly, I gained a new perspective on Trumpism and discovered where gamers see themselves in Canadian politics.

Josh, 25, playing X-Wing

VICE: As a gamer, does politics really appeal to you?
Josh: I'm a firm believer that it's all the same shit. I've realized that an honest politician is a myth. I might be a gamer but I do have some strong opinions when it comes to politics.

I believe it! Do you think Trudeau is doing a good job then?
He definitely won't live up to his father. Pierre was one of the best, he was our Reagan who did do a lot of great things for Canada but some bad things as well. I think that goes without saying for politicians though.

More specifically, do you think Trudeau will do a good job handling Trump?
I think Trudeau and Trump are much more alike than people think. Obviously, Trudeau isn't a racist, xenophobic, and or homophobic but I think they both appealed to the masses. Trudeau is a good looking dude and finally mentioned the issue of weed. People, especially young people, liked that. Trump said the things that many uneducated Americans wanted to hear. The lies he was saying became the popular opinion. I think both Trudeau and Trump represented a change for their country. Trump's change isn't my preferred but anyway.

Well, don't you think Clinton represented a change?
Oh no, I do not like Hillary. I was on Team Trump until he went all racist, homophobic, xenophobic white guy on us. Sanders was the best option, hands down.

In the game X-Wing what would Trump be?
Scum faction. For obvious reasons.

Matthew, 22, playing Magic


VICE: Right off the bat, Trump. Thoughts?
Matthew: I didn't actually watch the results because I was at work, but from what I heard, when he won people thought World War Three was right around the corner. And the talk of the town is that he's besties with Putin. In my opinion, he's a dick but a good salesman. You have to sell yourself when you're running for office and he sold himself. I was kind of hoping for Clinton but lucky for him, people seemed to like Clinton even less.

What do you think Trump could learn from Magic? Any suggestion for his deck?
Firstly, strategy. It seems like he threw that right out of the window. Possibly problem solving as well. To an extent. I think with a lot of gamers here when negotiation fails in your game you don't resort to confrontation and conflict. If Trump can follow that I think it won't be as terrible as we think. He would be blue white control or red white aggressive for decks. Just for clarification, white is control and red white is aggression.

Thanks for that, because I had no clue. Now, how do you think the Canadian government could represent the gamer community better?
A lot of people ask me if I want weed to be legalized. But honestly I'm indifferent about it. I don't smoke it so it wouldn't impact me at all. I would actually like to see more restrictions on games. I know five year olds that play Call of Duty. That has to be bad for their brain or something. At the end of the day, this stuff is happening inside someone's home so how much control does the government really exert.

Hans, 27, and Andrew, 35, playing Warhammer 40,000

VICE: Where were you guys on the night of the US presidential election results?
Hans: I was at home, drinking heavily.

Andrew: I work at a call centre that was calling out for political surveys in the States that night so that was very interesting. I thought Clinton was going to win from what I heard.

So you weren't expecting a Trump win then?
Hans: I was. I wanted to stay optimistic but knowing how the States work I also wanted to be a realist. There was so much misinformation going around as well. During the campaign and on results night. I think we can all agree that American media sucks.

Andrew: I wasn't expecting it but looking back on the campaign Americans seemed to be easily influenced. Just following the leader.

You guys were Team Hillary then?
Andrew: As a lot of people have been saying, she was the lesser of the two evils. No politician is perfect. Cliche, I know. Trump has been the first wildcard in US politics, that's for sure.

Hans: Oh yeah. I'm hoping for Michelle or Beyonce for 2020.

Are you nervous for the next 4 years? Do you think the Trump Administration will impact Canada?
Andrew: I'm most scared for my kids. I think we're close enough to the States that we will be impacted. Honestly, imagine a civil war. How would I explain that to my kids? That's my biggest concern.

Hans: I'm a little less scared of the war aspect. I think we have to worry more about the socio-cultural aspect because some of the Trump-bullshit-mentality might bleed through to Canada.

Kellie Leitch has been trying to do that. Do you think that will stick?
Hans: Again, I'm a realist, so it could. But usually when the worst of America comes up, Canadians poke at it for a bit then send it back down.

Andrew: Or up to Alaska.

What would you like to see in Canada?
Hans: I have some Indigenous family members so I would like to see Trudeau work more with reconciliation. We're only as strong as our weakest link and I think that every aspect within Indigenous communities needs to be strengthened.

Andrew: I think weed legalization would be great. I have a few friends that use it for medical reasons. I think there is a lot of benefits including socially and economically. Most importantly, I just want Canada to remain as strong as it is today or stronger when my kids are my age.

Christian, 23, playing Force of Will

VICE: How politically involved are you?
Christian: Well, I don't vote. For me, politicians don't really address my closest concerns. I have dealt with mental health illnesses for years and I don't think Trudeau has a good grasp on that. There wasn't enough done in the first place so I would really appreciate a more federal focus on it.

I think a lot of Canadians have the same view.
It could have been worse, it could have been Hillary. At the end of the day, Trump is a businessman. He wasn't a lawyer prior to his campaign and I think a lot of people liked that. As dumb as he is, he was honest, and Americans like that apparently. For the record, I'm not a Trump supporter.

What could Trump learn from Force of Will?
I hope he doesn't learn anything from it. It's way too ruthless. I mean, more ruthless than he is already.

Jamison, 27, playing Magic

VICE: Where were you when Trump won?
Jamison: I don't have cable and my phone doesn't have internet access. Plus I don't care. I can only speak for myself but I think politics is useless to care about unless me or Phoenix Rising are in immediate danger.

What can politicians learn from Phoenix Rising then?
A lot. Team building, since all politicians seem to be in it for themselves. Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about being the president, he's just running another business instead of focusing on all of the other individuals in it with him. During our games, we take the fall a lot as well. We aren't sour when we mess up but for many politicians they'll go and tweet about it. OK, only Trump does that but still. More politicians could show more gratitude too. After a game, if our opponents deck was actually good we'll tell them. In the States they usually just say fuck off and that's it.

Follow Madi on Twitter.

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