A coalition of university professors and scientists around the United States have taken on a new role in recent weeks: Defenders of facts and truth against the impending antiscience Trump administration.

As we reported soon after the election, scientists and professors who rely on government climate science to do their research are frantically downloading terabytes of publicly available data based on the fear that much of it could become difficult to access under Trump's presidency.

Last we checked in with a handful of these researchers, they were rushing to organize archive-a-thons, identify potentially vulnerable sites, and were figuring out how to best work together to preserve as much data as possible before Trump's inauguration. Now, a week from the start of the administration, members of the movement are beginning to reckon with their new status as resistance members.

"It's something I've been asked about and thought about a lot lately," Bethany Wiggin, director of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities, told me. "Man, if believing in facts is an act of resistance well then, so be it."

Read more on Motherboard

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Photo of Chester A. Arthur, 21st president of the United States, who gave us the gift of Gavin

Presidential descendants come in every shape, but one of the GOAT presidential descendants was Chester A. Arthur III: He was an Ivy League dropout, an Irish Republican Army activist, an experimental-film actor, a commune leader, a gold prospector, a teacher at San Quentin, and a bisexual sexologist/astrologer. An early gay rights activist and a practical prototype for the hippies, Arthur lived out the gap between Walt Whitman and the Summer of Love.

Born in Colorado Springs in 1901 to the former president's spoiled-rotten, hard-partying, skirt-chasing only son, young Arthur III was raised mainly by his mother, Myra, a California heiress way into the Eastern mysticism that was just starting to make inroads among the American upper class. She passed that love of the esoteric down to her son, and by the early 1920s, both of them were members of the Tantrik Order of America, a sex-magicky group headed by America's first yogi: an Iowa barber's son by the name of Perry Baker, a.k.a. the "Omnipotent Oom."

Around the same time young Arthur was helping lay the cornerstone for today's "yoga-industrial complex," he was attending Columbia, where he became spellbound by the works of Edward Carpenter, a hardcore socialist poet/philosopher now known as the "Walt Whitman of England" and the "Gay Godfather of the British Left."

The film featured a transatlantic cast of Roaring 20s-style counterculture titans and sexual adventurers whose escapades made Fleetwood Mac look like Mormons.

Carpenter's massive prose-poem "Towards Democracy" electrified young Arthur. Since he felt it told him pretty much everything he needed to know and had no need for a pesky career (since his father's 250,000-acre Colorado ranch allowed him and his parents to pursue various interests without being employed), he dropped out of Columbia, married a writer/dancer named Charlotte Wilson, and dove into Irish nationalism. Arthur moved back-and-forth between America, Switzerland, and Ireland, funneling a chunk of his allowance to the IRA for bail and weapons.

While living in Ireland with Wilson, Arthur leaped at the chance to meet his hero Carpenter in England. Despite the fact that Carpenter was almost 60 years older, the two jumped in the sack together; Carpenter went on to tell him all about how he had once done the same thing with Walt Whitman, going as far to show him Whitman's "moves." (Decades later, Arthur described their fling in graphic detail in a letter to his buddy Allen Ginsberg.) At one point in their ensuing correspondence, Gavin told Carpenter that he hoped to become for Ireland what Whitman had been for America and Carpenter for England.

It didn't turn out that way, though: By 1930, Arthur had turned to acting. He co-starred in the British silent avant-garde film Borderline, which featured a transatlantic cast of Roaring 20s–style counterculture titans and sexual adventurers whose escapades made Fleetwood Mac look like Mormons.

There was Paul Robeson, the legendary African American lawyer, actor, opera singer, former All-American football star, and future Communist and civil rights activist, and his actress/writer wife Essie Goode. Goode published her first book, Paul Robeson, Negro, that same year, more or less an unauthorized biography of her husband that detailed his serial adulteries. Also: Hilda Doolittle (a.k.a. HD), the American British avant-garde poet and writer lionized by future generations of feminists, and her long-term lover Bryher (born Annie Winifred Ellerman), who was daughter of a shipping magnate and a famed writer herself.

Complicating matters, Borderline was produced and directed by Bryher's bisexual husband Kenneth Macpherson, a man who accepted that Bryher's trysts with HD were non-negotiable. For his part, Macpherson impregnated HD two years before the menage collaborated on Borderline. Given that the Wilson-Arthur union was also on the rocks, the tension on the set must have been unbelievable.

Trashed by critics after its release, the film has since been lauded as technically groundbreaking and thematically ahead of its time, as it revolves around the then-taboo subject of an interracial love triangle—and an adulterous one at that.

Nevertheless, it marked the end of Arthur's film career and his marriage to Wilson. He next washed up in California, where he helped set up Moy Mell ("pastures of honey" in ancient Gaelic), a utopian beach commune nestled in the dunes on the Central Coast. (You've probably seen those dunes and don't know it: Ansel Adams made them famous.) Every good commune leader needs a rad name, and it was here Arthur decided henceforth he would be known as "Gavin" Arthur. (It was an ancestral name he thought sounded cooler than Chester.)

As usual, he dreamed big. The "community of individuals" would support itself via the Dune Forum, a magazine he envisioned as the "New Yorker of the West." The artists, writers, nudists, astrologers, vegetarians, and other presumed societal misfits gathered around the campfire and shot the shit; those fireside chats were transformed into articles, and those articles were intended for the masses, who would presumably be inspired to form a New Utopian States of America.

That didn't happen. The Dune Forum folded after a half-dozen issues, but the "Dunites" seem to have had a hell of a good time along the way—especially considering the country was then in the depths of the Great Depression. Every time an issue went to print, Gavin's mom would send down a case of champagne. They feasted abundantly on netted fish and giant clams dug from the Pacific; every Saturday night, Gavin would roll out barrels of ale and casks of wine made from local grapes and honey, and they'd have a dance.

John Steinbeck dropped in and read selections from his still in-the-works book Tortilla Flat; John Cage also made a pre-fame appearance, and Upton Sinclair popped in a time or two—as did Indian mystic Meher Baba, decades before he publicly declared himself the Avatar, God-in-Human-Form. In 1935, Edward Weston shot nude photos of his lover Charis Wilson in the Oceano Dunes, some of which he deemed too hot for public display.

Gavin donated Moy Mell's land to the Coast Guard during World War II, and his cabin on the property was eventually moved to the train station in nearby Oceano, where it remains today. Following the demise of Moy Mell, Gavin dropped out of public view for a couple of decades. He'd lost his seat aboard his dad's gravy train, and then his second wife—Esther Murphy, an utterly brilliant, hard-drinking lesbian heiress—kicked him to the curb.

He had to hustle for the first time in his life: He sold newspapers on the streets of San Francisco, the city where he would spend his final years. He panned for gold in the mountains, 100 years too late. He enrolled at San Francisco State and finally got the degree he failed to complete at Columbia decades before. He palled around with Ginsberg and the other Beats and reportedly had sex with Neal Cassady, better known as Jack Kerouac's On the Road sidekick and the driver of Ken Kesey's magic bus.

And he delved deep into both astrology and sexology. Gavin took his star charts very seriously: When one self-administered reading told him he was heading to prison soon, he immediately drove to San Quentin and took a job as a teacher, the better to prevent going in as an inmate.

In 1962, he fused his passions for the heavens and knocking boots in The Circle of Sex, a sort of Zodiac of the boudoir, which placed all humanity into a wheel of 12 different sexual archetypes. That book put him back in the public eye, and soon enough, he was giving lectures and readings and appearing in San Francisco newspapers and on TV, identified as "a mystic" and a "renowned astrologist and grandson of the 21st president."

We're no Gavin Arthur, but the stars tell us we won't see another presidential descendant like him for many, many moons.

Follow John Nova Lomax on Twitter.

All of us have well-meaning family members or friends who didn't consider reading the synopsis before popping a movie on that would scar us for life. When I was nine years old and under the care of my eldest cousins, they put on Hollow Man, assuring me it wasn't scary. I asked them to turn it off, they said no, and by the time it got to Kevin Bacon's titular hollow man smashing a really cute dog to bits I was thoroughly ruined. That night, and for many that followed, I slept in a sleeping bag (so he couldn't get me) with the lights on. Every time I closed my eyes I was haunted by images of Kevin Bacon's body coming away in layers until he became just muscle, then a skeleton and, eventually, nothing. It remains the one film of Paul Verhoeven's that I absolutely refuse to revisit, not just because it left me scarred, but because it is shit. I hate it. I hate it with every fibre of my being, and so does Verhoeven – although maybe not for the same reasons.

My life can be split in two: a time before Hollow Man, when films were fun and people were to be trusted, and all the time after. But I'm not alone. I spoke to some people about the film that stole their innocence, some of which are more understandable than others.

Ben, 33, Poltergeist

My mum and my grandma were going to the theatre to see Dame Edna Everage and it was my grandad's turn to babysit me, which was rare for him to do solo. I think I was about seven – it was roughly 1991 – and me and grandad sat down on the sofa to watch TV. We had definitely checked the TV guide and I had seen a spooky movie was coming on, so I wanted to watch it. My grandad thought, 'Sure!' and fell asleep on the sofa, leaving me alone to watch Poltergeist.

I literally shit my pants. And that was the last time I ever shit my pants. It was very memorable. There was one scene in particular where someone went to the bathroom mirror and their face melted off or turned into maggots – I can't quite remember; I think my brain has masked the true memory to protect me from the horror – but it meant that a) for the bathroom break I needed during the movie,I was too scared to go alone, and b) that after this traumatic experience I didn't go to the bathroom alone for many, many months.

My mum came back from the theatre to find me on the sofa cowering in fear alone with shitty pants, grandad still asleep.

Black Christmas still via YouTube

Amelia, 20, Black Christmas

Black Christmas ruined my life. In year seven I tried to really throw myself into the acting society at school, so I got involved with the school play. I only had one line but it meant that I had to be at rehearsals every Sunday for two months, which meant a lot of time sitting in the corridor doing nothing. One of the sixth formers brought her laptop and deigned me special enough to watch a film with her: Black Christmas.

The film has all the classic horror movie tropes, (someone living in the walls of a sorority house, eye gouging, alcoholism, incest), but there was one scene in particular that freaked me out for years to come. It features the son, having been repeatedly sexually abused by his mother, strangling her to death with fairy lights and then making meat cookies. Using a Christmas cookie cutter and the flesh from her back. This, combined with the fact that an eye-gouging child of incest lives in their walls, made me convinced that someone was going to kill me around Christmas time.

I had nightmares for months, and recently decided to conquer my fears by watching it again, as an adult. For reference, it has a 14 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and I would really recommend it if you want to watch actual Gretchen Wieners of Mean Girls get her eyes stabbed out.

E.T. (Photo via Wiki)

Chloe, 24, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

There are no words to describe how vile E.T. is, but it will probably do me good to vent about it. My earliest and most traumatic memory of the film is from when I was really young and I watched the scene where ET has his first encounter with Elliott. I remember he had the world's most vile screech and his neck just grew disgustingly, unnaturally long. I hate him.

The funny thing is I thought I was over it until my friend in Australia showed me a clip from the film and I kept heaving. I used to have so many nightmares. I remember in one dream his neck just kept growing and growing and it didn't stop and his ugly head flopped on the floor but his neck kept just spiralling out of control. I hope his fucking ship crashed on the way home.

Edward Scissorhands (Photo via Wiki)

Owain, 24, Edward Scissorhands

My lifelong fear of Edward Scissorhands began long before I even saw the film itself, when I was reading a magazine at primary school and came across a section about robots. That was when I was first presented, without context, the horrifying image of Edward himself. In hindsight I am well aware that he is a sympathetic character with a heart of gold, but with no explanation about his character I was freaked out.

A couple of years later I caught the latter half of the film on TV. I thought I was feeling better about my fear when I realised he was just a nice fella, but when I saw that scene where he saves that kid from being run over and slashes his face up, that was it for me. It dawned on me that it didn't matter if I was his friend or foe; I could be on the receiving end of a slashing regardless. From then on I spent my nights worrying that he would come into my room and try to tuck me in or something. I never considered why he would do anything like that – all I could think about was those fucking scissors in my face.

Stephanie, 27, Psycho

When I was about ten, my aunt and uncle wanted to educate me on horror movies, once they found out I hadn't really seen any. They showed me Halloween, The Shining and Psycho. For whatever reason the first two didn't bother me, and are still two of my favourite films. But Psycho destroyed me. I was particularly traumatised by the shower scene.

I realise as an adult that it's a significant film, and that this scene was groundbreaking and blah, blah, blah. But at 10 years old, I didn't want to take a shower ever again, and I was pretty sure that any and every dude who talked about his mother was destined to become a killer. To this day I still have a great fear that my death is going to come while I shower. I have to open the shower and look inside it any time I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I still lock the bathroom door every time I take a shower – even when I'm home alone.

Candyman (Photo via Wiki)

Rebecca, 25, Candyman

Candyman was the first horror movie I ever saw. I was 12 years old and at my friend's house. We watched it while her mum was out and it scared the absolute bejesus out of me. Safe to say I wasn't allowed to that friend's house again for a while, and even when I was my parents ridiculed me with Candyman jokes. The first night after watching the mirror scene I truly believed that if I went upstairs the Candy Man would stick his hook all up in my torso. It was months before I looked in the bathroom mirror again. I thought I'd never like horror films after that and I didn't watch them at all until my late teens. Up until recently I still felt weird about looking in a bathroom mirror – that was until I re-watched the film and almost died laughing at what a wimp I had been.

@marianne_eloise

More on horror:

We Asked VICE Illustrators to Draw Their Nightmares

Why Are So Many Horror Films Christian Propaganda

How Stephen King Made Pop Culture Weird

Steve Jones has been a lot of things in his 61 years: a love-starved bastard, smooth criminal, an insatiable man-slut, a master thief, an insufferable prog-rocker, a would-be Yacht Rock A&R rep, SEX shop clerk, Chrissie Hynde's pre-Pretenders fuck-buddy; a teenage Sex Pistol, a 23-year-old has-been, a sticky-fingered junkie, a shit-hot guitar-slinger-for-hire, Iggy Pop's muse, a Fabio-haired solo artist, a buff and burnished Hollywood biker, a recovering addict, a childhood sexual abuse survivor, a jailhouse motivational speaker, an ascot'd elder statesman of punk, a beloved LA disc jockey, and—phew—a sexagenarian social media baller. All of which is confessed in absolute unflinching detail, with a nod and a wink and a pinch of Cockney slang, in Lonely Boy (published by Da Capo), his painfully honest, just-published must-read memoir, co-written with Ben Thompson.

Recently we got Mr. Jones on the horn to discuss just a few of the following: Stealing Keith Richards's favorite coat/Bryan Ferry's gold record/David Bowie's bass amp, his cloak of invisibility, his crap childhood, the tens of thousands of "birds" he's "shagged," his semi-tragic inability to forge a lasting relationship with a woman, and learning how to read, write and spell after 40. Then there's a bunch of other stuff like why he can't stand being in the same room with Johnny Rotten; watching Glen Matlock shag John Cale's wife; whether or not Sid Vicious kill Nancy Spungen; why Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols is the Dorian Gray of seminal DOA punk rock debuts.

Read more on Noisey

Police in the Vancouver suburb of Delta are starting to fire darts with GPS tracking on them at speeding vehicles that refuse to stop.

It's the first time the technology, widely used by police in the US and seen as a safer alternative to high speed chases, is being deployed in Canada.

And it's the latest example of police in the BC lower mainland taking new steps to crack down on crime. Last year, the mayor of Surrey gave police real time access to traffic cameras at intersections to help curb gang warfare spilling onto the street. Surrey also launched a crowdsourced database of security cameras around the city in November.

In nearby Delta, cops had apparently been having a hard time pulling people over.

Over 70 vehicles failed to stop when police attempted to pull them over last year, Delta police spokeswoman Sharlene Brooks told VICE News.  

Read more on VICE News.

For some, the impending inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump will serve as a grand celebration—while many others see it as a clear sign that the total collapse of civilized society at the hands of an unhinged megalomaniac is nigh. But for the DC service industry, inauguration weekend also means packed seats and massive profits.

Now, one campaign is bringing together the capital's top restaurants, bars, cafes, and distilleries to pledge a portion of their inflated inauguration profits to local service organizations and causes—many of which have been threatened by Trump's discriminatory political policies.

All in Service DC, the brainchild of local service industry professionals Amanda Carper and Alaina Dyne, launched in late December 2016 with the mission to highlight the diversity and compassion of their community as a whole. With an all-female staff of volunteers, the organization has already signed on 54 businesses to participate in the campaign and are hoping to recruit more before Inauguration Day.

A number of high-profile dining destinations, including Café Saint-Ex, 24/7 Diner, Chez Billy Sud, and the new Momofuku CCDC have joined the cause, pledging to donate funds collected over the January 20–22 weekend to a diverse group of nonprofits.

Read more on MUNCHIES

A longtime resident of Switzerland has been refused a passport because of her outspoken campaign against cowbells. Vegan animal rights activist Nancy Holten, who was born in the Netherlands but has lived in Switzerland since she was eight years old, has been labelled a "big mouth" by the resident committee in her village that has rejected her citizenship application twice.

Holten's argument? Wearing heavy metal bells around their necks is causing Switzerland's roaming cows physical pain and distress. Switzerland's argument? Cows look damn good in bells, especially when they're roaming around in the picturesque alps. Also, tourists are charmed by them.

In Switzerland, citizenship applications are partially assessed by a committee of residents who live in the same district as the applicant. It would appear that Holten is unpopular among some in her village of Gipf-Oberfrick, with a local representative of the Swiss People's Party Tanja Suter telling the Swiss media that she "annoys us and doesn't respect our traditions."

Cow bells aren't the only cause on Holten's mind. The self-described freelance journalist, author, model and drama student has staged multiple campaigns against other beloved national pastimes like hunting and piglet racing. According to Swiss news site The Local, the sounds of church bells irritate her too. Does this woman even eat Lindt balls?

Holten, who speaks fluent German, is not the first person to be refused Swiss citizenship on cultural grounds. In 2016, a Kosovan family who had lived in the village of Bubendorf for ten years were refused citizenship because a committee objected to their frequent wearing of tracksuits around town. In 2014, an American man who had lived in Switzerland for 43 years was rejected on the basis of not being able to correctly name the lakes in his district.

While she's devastated to be refused Swiss citizenship, Holten has vowed to continue her fight against cowbells. "I am still committed to what is important to me. Especially for the animals in particular. Their well-being is important to me," she said. "If I stop doing it any more, I am not being genuine and honest. So I will not stop just for the sake of the Swiss passport."

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Ten years ago, Michaela Coel was a celibate, ultra-religious Pentecostal Christian who wept when her friends got tattoos and begged them to believe in Jesus. Now she's one of the biggest rising stars in television, creating and starring in Chewing Gum, the BAFTA award-winning Netflix and E4 comedy described by the New York Times as one of the best TV shows of 2016. Losing your faith isn't exactly a typical route to stardom, but Coel is far from your typical comedy showrunner. She started off by writing and performing poems about Jesus, before abandoning religion at drama school and penning Chewing Gum Dreams, a one-woman play about growing up in public housing. Her performance electrified audiences in fringe theater, and Coel was asked to develop the idea for television. The result, Chewing Gum, is a filthily inventive, bubblegum-bright vision of inner city London that bypasses all the usual TV cliches about working class life and female sexuality.

Coel plays Tracey Gordon, a clueless 24-year-old virgin who lives on a council estate with her conservative family. They're expecting her to stay at home, worship God, and marry her equally uptight and religious fiance—but Tracey has other plans. In the first season, Tracey ditches her boyfriend for the sweet but dim-witted neighborhood poet, gets educated by her BFF about sex and Tinder bangs ("set the ting to find someone in your borough... and walk"), orchestrates her first threesome, and takes molly at an office party.

Read the rest of this article on Broadly.

In January of 2016, former Minnesota Wild and St. John's IceCaps coach Ian Andersen decided to leave the big arenas of North America for new adventures on some of the most remote and highest altitude natural ice rinks in the world.

Located high on the Tibetan plateau just west of the disputed border with China and with an average elevation exceeding 4,500 metres (14,800 ft) lay the sparsely populated eastern parts of Ladakh, India. For three months out of the year, when temperatures drop well below -20°C (-4°F) and it is too cold to keep the schools open, natural ponds and communal, hand-made rinks dot the arid landscape. It is on these rinks children and youth from all over the region come together to fulfill their need for recreation and camaraderie, giving them a counterbalance to the high demands of school and household duties while building self-confidence and developing a strong sense of community.

It was through a previous season coaching in Serbia with Hockey Without Borders that Ian first heard of the North American NGO named HELP Inc Fund, an organization that works with marginalized people in the western Himalayas. Every year they collect donated hockey gear from Canada and the US and invite North American hockey players, coaches and youth leaders to volunteer as a way to democratize a sport previously only available to a lucky few on well funded rinks in the capital city of Leh. Now, a truly communal and possibly the most extreme hockey movement in the world is starting to spread far beyond the administrative capital. It was here, among ancient buddhist temples, Shia Muslim villages and semi nomadic yak herders that Ian spent several months as a travelling hockey coach, sharing his love for the game in its purest form with the people of Ladakh.

Before first day of practice the children of Kargyam are taught how to tie their skates.

Ian Andersen demonstrating an exercise to the children of Thangnak village.

Boy from Kargyam village on his way back from the rink.

Parents from Shyok village gathers to watch their children play a scrimmage.

Children of Thangnak village learn skating techniques.

After a day of coaching Ian Andersen enjoys taking a few laps around the pond in Kargyam for his own pleasure.

See more of Andreas Bruhn's photos on his website.

A few years ago, as several states inched closer to legalizing marijuana, the beer industry began to worry about how weed would affect sales—and rightfully so.

If you can walk into a dispensary and spend $15 to legally smoke a drug that mellows you out but without the potentially aggressive, creepy behaviour or hangovers associated with alcohol, then why buy beer?

People are just looking for a cheap and cheerful way to disconnect momentarily from the drudge and stress of everyday life, and maybe weed can do that in a lower-risk manner. No hangovers. No DUIs. So, it's a no-brainer, right—more weed means less beer?

Wrong. Given how much money is at stake with the legalization of weed, it's not surprising that investment firms are keeping a close eye on how this market evolves. One of those firms, Bernstein, just published a report which suggests that legal marijuana is not making a huge dent in beer sales, and could actually be  helping the beer industry.

Read more over at MUNCHIES.

Check out Julia Ploch's website and Instagram.

There's something special about when Walmart pops up in news.

Earlier this week it was controversy over a dirty t-shirt allegedly found in a PlayStation virtual reality headset box. Last year we saw 30-person brawls, hidden meth labs, and a slow-motion electric scooter chase. And then there are those hall-of-fame worthy headlines, like the Saskatchewan woman that left a newborn in a Walmart toilet.

No matter how outlandish, stories like these always seem steeped in an essential Walmart essence. The same goes for the company's latest PR mess: 174 charges that it sold food contaminated by the Fort McMurray wildfire. Because of course.

After the devastating fire that razed a large chunk of the oil and gas town last May, city and health officials told grocery stores to throw out most food products, save for sealed canned goods. The reasoning was that potentially carcinogenic smoke and residue could have contaminated the food.

Read More: I Tried to Spend 24 Hours in a Walmart

Court documents allege that Walmart went against that direction, and even lied to health inspectors about it.

"Despite having received this guidance and direction from [Alberta Health Services], both in person and in writing, it is our belief that Walmart reopened selling wildfire-contaminated food to [the] public," reads a statement from the health regulator. "This was a direct and avoidable risk to the health of this community."

Walmart was supposed to throw out soft drinks, juice, chocolate bars, candy, chips, dried fruit, coffee and tea, cereal, dried pasta, yogurt, milk cheese, frozen pizza, eggs, frozen veggies, peanut butter, and bacon, among other things.

At this point it's not clear whether these items were rebranded as "lightly smoked," or whether Walmart took advantage of the obvious "fire sale" signage opportunity. If found guilty, the company could pay $2,000 to $5,000 in fines for each of the charges.

As the case now makes its way through the courts, we'll keep an eye out for more Walmart news for the history books in 2017.

Follow Sarah Berman on Twitter.

It's a thought that's crossed my mind on several occasions. If Super Mario is an Italian plumber, then where in relation to the Mushroom Kingdom is Italy? If I took out a globe could you show me? Could you trace your finger between the two? From where this thumb-sized man battles dragons and ghosts to a small farm in Campania where a tiny nonna weeps and wonders where her boys have gone. On Thursday night, during the Switch presentation, Nintendo shattered my perception of who and what Mario is, and has left me shaken ever since.

While the game lineup for the Nintendo Switch's launch is a little slim, the year ahead is made up of some big swingers. A new, expansive Zelda, a swift follow-up to Splatoon, and a brand new Super Mario Odyssey. Odyssey will take Mario to worlds outside the Mushroom Kingdom, including a misty forest and a desert villa. But none are disturbing as "New Donk City," a Sesame Street style reduction of New York City. New Donk City, you see, is full of humans. Plain-clothed, everyday humans. And they look nothing like Mario. That is painfully clear when you see Mario walk next to them:

Clearly, the figure on the left is an anatomically modern human. The figure on the right, by contrast, is something else.

Read the rest over at Motherboard.

Political tumult and provocative art have a symbiotic relationship that is being rekindled in the wake of Donald Trump's presidential victory. Before the Republican even takes office January 20, a new movement of protest art among women is beginning to emerge.

On Thursday night, the first of 30 "Nasty Women" art exhibitions opened in the cavernous Knockdown Center in Queens with more than 700 female artists' work hung on 12-foot-tall block letters spelling out N-A-S-T-Y W-O-M-E-N. A Trump voodoo doll, a painting of flaming high heels, a bracelet etched with "UNGRABBABLE," a photo of well-manicured middle-fingers, and innumerable depictions of vaginas were on display and all for sale for $100 or less.

Organizers said more than 2,200 people attended the show's opening night (it runs through Sunday) and they spent $34,950 on the art, all of which was donated to Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of reproductive health services in the United States.

"This show is a message to Trump and the government that you can't roll back women's rights without a fight," the exhibitions co-director Jessamyn Fiore said in an interview at the event. "I see art as action, an action of solidarity and presence." Fiore and her fellow organizers all sported bright-purple pageant sashes — not unlike the ones worn by contestants in Trump's Miss Universe contests. But these sashes identified them each as a "Nasty Woman."

Read more on VICE News.

Of all the times Steve Khan has been arrested, there's one time he'll never forget. Around four years ago, Khan was found by the police outside Liverpool Lime Street station, an area of the city from which he was banned. He tried to get away by running down an alleyway and scaling a wall, only to find a huge drop on the other side. He was detained and placed in a cell. Khan had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder over ten years beforehand. At the time of his arrest, he believes he was in the middle of an episode.

Khan can't remember many details of that day. He does, however, vaguely recall pissing on the floor of his police cell. "I was just that out of it," he says. He was given tranquilizers, but when his odd behaviour continued—"really strange stuff, like washing myself out of the toilet"—he says officers believed he must have been on illegal drugs and strip searched him. They found nothing. He claims: "They just left me with underpants and used my clothes to wipe the floor."

Nine months earlier, Khan says he had been released from prison after a 15-month sentence, the latest of many for offences involving drugs, shoplifting and burglary. Since that release, things had gone downhill. He'd been living in a flat, but couldn't pay his rent and bills, then moved to a hostel and was kicked out. After that, he says, he'd lived in squats or on the street.

Now aged 50, he estimates he's spent close to nine years of his life in prison. Several of these sentences have been served after his mental health diagnosis. I ask Khan if he'd ever received support while he was inside. "Nothing," he says. "You don't even get to see a psychiatrist. All they do is give you medication and put you on a [suicide] watch."

§

Professor Seena Fazel at the University of Oxford is one of the UK's leading experts in the field of mental health and crime. In November of 2016 he published research that suggested the use of antipsychotic medication could radically reduce rates of reoffending for high risk criminals. The Daily Mail hailed it as evidence supporting the use of a "chemical cosh" that could reduce 1,500 crimes a year, and made the terrifying observation that "there is growing interest in the idea of using drugs to alter criminal behaviour before someone has even committed a crime."

The mere suggestion in the Daily Mail of a "chemical cosh" for violent offenders is deeply troubling. Ian Cummins is a senior lecturer in social work at Salford University. He's also a former mental health social worker and probation officer. The reporting of academic studies like this "appeals to a particular agenda: the causes of crime, they are not social, they are individual; these people are individuals and this is a way of controlling them," he says.

Steve Khan was not considered high risk, and yet he says the support he was given in prison didn't go beyond medication. "For many, many people, the thing that makes a difference is whether they have somewhere to live, whether they have some money coming in, and what kind of relationships they have got," says Andy Bell, deputy chief executive at the Centre for Mental Health. "That is fundamental to recovery. If, for some people, medication is helpful alongside that support, then obviously that's something that should be considered."

But in recent years, funding for these kinds of mental health services has been falling dramatically. Research by health charity the King's Fund found that funding fell in 2011/12 for the first time in a decade, and that 40 percent of mental health trusts continued to see year-on-year cuts for the next two years. In November of 2016, every health secretary from the last 20 years signed an open letter expressing "alarm and dismay" at the government's failure to improve mental health services.

I call Professor Fazel to discuss his findings. Unsurprisingly, he didn't intend for his study to be interpreted as suggesting that prescription drugs are a solution to violent offending. "I think some of the media probably misunderstood what was going on," he says. "It wasn't that our study was saying 'chemical cosh' is a solution. It was looking at people deemed by medical services to require medication." He adds: "The important thing is not to take one thing in isolation and say: 'This is going to solve the problem of reoffending.' This is looking at one part of a complex jigsaw. An important part of a jigsaw, but a jigsaw nonetheless."

The misinterpretation of Fazel's study provides cause for concern. Mental illness in the UK is increasingly described as an epidemic, and it's magnified dramatically in prisons. Up to 90 percent of prisoners are estimated to have a mental health problem, personality disorder or substance misuse problem.

Ian Callaghan is national service user lead at mental health charity Rethink. I ask him about the implications of a potential "chemical cosh." "My worry is, we give someone a tablet and think they will be alright and we don't need to support them in the community," he says. "Mental health problems are complex. People's offending behaviour is complex. People leave prison and they offend again because they have no support. Giving them a pill isn't going to solve that."

Up to 90 percent of prisoners are estimated to have a mental health problem, personality disorder or substance misuse problem. Photo: Anthony Devlin / PA

Simon Kempton sits on the national board at the Police Federation, but also works as a hostage and crisis negotiator. When I ask him about the last time he was called to an incident involving someone with mental health needs, he replies: "About 10 o'clock this morning." A voicemail had been left on a police telephone number from a man claiming he was going to hurt himself. When officers responded, they found he had taken an overdose and was holding a Stanley knife to his throat. Kempton spoke to the man, who claimed he had asked the health service for help, only to be told he was not ill enough to require hospital admission. Eventually Kempton calmed the man down and he was handed over to paramedics.

Over the years, Kempton has observed a recurring theme. When dealing with a person in crisis, he says: "Normally that would lead me to have a long chat with that person, sometimes over many hours, so you get an understanding of what is going on in their lives. What they are saying to me is they have asked for help multiple times."

Incidents such as this are frequent and rising. Since mid-2010, police forces have begun logging the number of call-outs linked to mental health. According to data provided by 34 police forces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland obtained by VICE under the Freedom of Information Act, the number of these incidents rose by 43 percent between 2011 and 2015. Ken Marsh, chairman at the Met Police Federation, says: "Local authorities have had budgets reduced by 30 percent [in the last three years]. Who picks up the flak from that? The police. Mental health establishments and premises for secure units have been shut. Who picks up the flak from that? The police."

Mental health training for officers is "ad hoc," says Kempton, and varies from force to force. But all officers get first aid training. "I get how important it is, but in my 16 years as a police officer I've never had to give anyone CPR, I've never dealt with anyone having a heart attack, and I've dealt with hundreds of people who are in crisis to one extent or another," he says.

§

Jackie Davidson* was driving when she received a call from her husband. It was March of 2009 and, earlier that day, she had left her home in Hertfordshire and was now speeding up the motorway towards Manchester. In the last few days her husband had noticed her behaviour becoming more and more alarming. He was worried. "I just chucked my mobile phone out the window," she says. "I was completely psychotic at that point. All sorts of delusions. Driving with my eyes closed. It's amazing that I didn't kill someone or myself."

Davidson ended up in Warrington, where she remembers crashing her car, then running into a hotel and shouting about a bomb. She says she was arrested, taken to a psychiatric ward and, two weeks later, transferred back to her local mental health team. Shortly afterwards, she was discharged.

In the weeks that followed, she says her behaviour got worse. She split up from her husband but would turn up outside his house and at her children's school, refusing to leave. She says she went to A&E repeatedly, begging for help, but was offered nothing. Around three months after Davidson was arrested in Warrington, she says she visited a police station and screamed abuse at the officers inside, an incident that ended in her arrest. "They kept me in all weekend," she tells me. "My solicitor said, 'Because they don't know what to do with you.'"

Two years before her arrest Davidson was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Before she disappeared her husband contacted the local mental health team but, according to Davidson, they refused to intervene. "They point blank refused to come out," she says. "They said I should be able to deal with my emotions." After her arrest she spent two months in prison on remand. Only then, Davidson said, did she receive the treatment she needed.

With support from WISH, a charity that works with women with mental health problems in prison, Davidson began making progress through a mixture of medication and cognitive behavioural therapy. She now works with other women who find themselves in similar situations. "I hear all the time of people being failed by the mental health team," she says. "I just feel that it's so wrong. It doesn't need to be like that. I know it's understaffed, but people are getting left in the community that aren't well enough to be in the community."

In the time since her release, Davidson suffered another breakdown. This time, instead of going to prison, she was hospitalized. "They handled it very well this time," she says. Davidson still wonders why she had to go to prison to get help years before. "If you've got psychosis, it's not you. And yet you're treated in the criminal justice system as if you've just rationally decided to go out and commit a crime."

Brixton prison, London. Photo: Dan Kitwood / PA

Nobody knows for sure how many people end up in prison due to mental illness. What is certain is that large numbers of people either enter prison with mental health problems or develop them once they arrive. And beyond doubt is this: prison is not a good place to be mentally ill. Many prisoners spend 23 hours of every day locked inside their cells, isolated from friends and family.

In theory, prisoners are entitled to the same standards of healthcare as the general population. However, a report by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman in January this year found that—much like in the police force—a lack of training among prison staff meant mental health problems were often missed. When prisoners with mental health problems displayed "difficult and challenging behaviour" they received a "punitive rather than a therapeutic response."

Mark Fairhurst is an officer at HMP Liverpool and a member of the Prison Officers Association national committee. "Mental health nurses get three years training," he says. "We get three hours. We're just not able to cope." Fairhurst says understaffing has further reduced prison officers' ability to offer assistance: "When you're dealing with vulnerable people, especially those with mental health problems, you now don't have the time to sit down with them for even 10 minutes to go through their issues."

In November of 2016, 10,000 prison officers walked out in protest at understaffing and concerns about health and safety. In July of this year, assaults on prison officers hit an all-time high. Prison officers blamed job cuts, which have reduced the number of frontline prison staff by more than 25 percent since 2010. If understaffing has increased risks for prison officers, it appears to have had similar consequences for prisoners. In November it emerged that suicide rates had reached record numbers since current record taking began in 1978. Since the beginning of 2016, one prisoner has taken their own life every three days.

A government spokeswoman tells me mental health in prison is taken "extremely seriously" and that "established procedures" are in place to support people with mental health problems. "But we recognize that more can be done," she adds. "That is why have invested in specialist mental health training for prison officers, allocated more funding for prison safety and have launched a suicide and self-harm reduction project to address the increase in self-inflicted deaths and self-harm in our prisons."

§

While the tabloid press heralds the possible use of a "chemical cosh," there is little evidence that prisoners are currently receiving the mental health support they need upon release. A report published by the Centre for Mental Health in April of this year looked at offenders released from seven West Midlands prisons and concluded: "Only a minority are being supported by community mental health teams, and although virtually all are under probation supervision after their release, the support they receive is reported as minimal at best."

After his arrest in Liverpool, Steve Khan spent eight days in custody until space in a probation hostel could be found. Within months of his release he had left and moved to Weymouth, where he sold heroin and crack. He was soon arrested again and received a nine month prison sentence.

Reoffending rates for short-term prisoners have always been high. According to government statistics for 2014, adults who served sentences of less than 12 months reoffended at a rate almost twice that of those who served sentences of a year or more. In 2013, then justice secretary Chris Grayling announced: "This can't go on." And so the government introduced a radical reform of the probation service, splitting it into two. High risk prisoners would be dealt with by the publicly-run National Probation Service, while the responsibility of low and medium-risk prisoners would be privatized and run by 21 Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). The privatization was intended to result in "increased efficiency", which would free up funding to supervise all offenders released from prison, regardless of the length of their sentence.

"There comes a time when you just can't live with yourself any more. When you know that what you are doing is just disingenuous. It's an exercise in number crunching and not doing the job I went into, which was to actually listen to people." — Former probation officer, Greater Manchester.

But the addition of offenders who had served short term sentences meant that these CRCs had an influx of an extra 45,000 people on probation supervision every year. "My caseload went up from 40 to 45, to almost 70," one former probation officer in Greater Manchester tells me. "It was just unmanageable." She says the company was obsessed with hitting targets, but had little concern for the individual needs of offenders: "There comes a time when you just can't live with yourself any more. When you know that what you are doing is just disingenuous. It's an exercise in number crunching and not doing the job I went into, which was to actually listen to people."

Upon release, an approach known as "through the gate" was intended to draw together services including housing, substance abuse and mental health support. An October, 2016 report by the Inspectorate of Prisons and Inspectorate of Probation reviewed 86 cases and found 34 prisoners with mental health problems, but no evidence that their needs had been identified or met. Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, described the project as a "reckless experiment with public safety" and warned that "its impact will be felt for many years."

A prison officer (who was not involved with this article) walks through HMP Brixton. Photo: Dan Kitwood / PA

Some offenders with mental health problems, like Steve and Jackie, seem to be let down by services at every level—from arrest to prison to probation and in communities. So while antipsychotic medication may reduce violent reoffending, it's a small part of the picture. The benefits of attempting to treat offenders with mental health problems rather than putting them in prison seems obvious—one 2002 study found the re-conviction rate among offenders who were sent to hospital was 28 percent, half the rate among comparable offenders who were sent to prison.

But progress has been shockingly slow. In September of 1990, a Home Office circular stressed the "desirability" that "mentally disordered persons are not prosecuted where this is not required by the public interest." Two years later, the Reed Review recommended measures aimed at keeping people with mental health problems out of prison. In 2009, the Bradley Report on mental health in the criminal justice system concluded: "Reading back through the Reed review's recommendations... we are still struggling to resolve the same problems."

In January of 2014, the government announced a programme to install mental health professionals in police stations and courts to help identify offenders with mental illness and provide treatment.

Linda Bryant is director of criminal justice services at Together for Mental Wellbeing, which works with the government on the program. Of 50,000 people currently assessed under the program every year, almost 70 percent are found to require mental health support. It's hoped the program will be rolled out nationwide by 2020.

I ask Bryant about the significance of this progress. "I'm optimistic that the rollout will happen and we are able now to make a difference to those people with the police or in court," she says. "Where I'm less optimistic is I think we are still going to be seeing a large number of people going into prison. We're not going to catch everybody."

§

In place of the state, charities have had to step in. The Big Lottery Fund's Fulfilling Lives initiative tries to help people who can't get help through existing services. Most have experienced a mix of problems, such as homelessness, offending, drug or alcohol misuse and mental illness. Many have already been to prison.

Waves of Hope is the Liverpool pilot. Programme manager Gary Morris tells me each support worker has a maximum of eight cases—up to 10 times fewer than probation officers are expected to handle. "That's a very time consuming approach, and very few other services have that luxury," he says.

It may be expensive to begin with, but it appears to be working. Analysis conducted by Ipsos MORI after the first year of the project found people using the service had seen a reduction in visits to A&E, arrests and the number of nights spent sleeping rough – all of which costs the state money later down the line.

"One of the key things we need to take away from it is: by working with these people in an intensive way, whilst it's expensive at the front end, what we actually do is negate more expensive costs at the back end," says Morris.

Steve Khan is one of the project's success stories. After his latest release from prison, he returned to Liverpool. Like before, he ended up on the streets a few months after release. But this time he made contact with a homelessness service, which referred him to Waves of Hope.

Khan now has a new flat, is training to support homeless people and has taken up photography. "I just feel like, is this really happening?" he tells me. "Is this really me?" Khan says while medication has helped, counselling and the support he has received to help identify his problems and access help when needed has been life-changing. "I have my moments," he says. "But I now have strategies to be able to cope."

The Fulfilling Lives pilots will come to an end in 2022. I ask Morris if the pilot could finally change the system. "Nationally, we're not that optimistic," he says. "It would take a sea change in thinking in terms of attitudes towards criminal justice and offending. That's a really big ask."

If you or someone you know have been struggling with thoughts of self-harm or suicide, you can call the Samaritans seven days a week, at any time on 116 123.

On the 19th of January, 2017, the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool will display a collection of photographs taken by Khan, inspired by public perceptions of mental illness. It will be called "Connections".

*Jackie Davidson is a pseudonym.

Most Canadian students will have to take out a loan at some point in their educational career, a financial stress that can be painful to talk about and hard to repay. Then there are others who try to stake their independence in the world while still having their parents pick up the tab, which comes with its own conversational baggage.

We talked with a bunch of these family-supported students about the emotional complexities of asking for help, the value of a hard day's work, and checking your damn privilege.

All photos by the author.

Sydney Marshall, 20

Art History, UBC

VICE: Where do you go to school and what are you studying?
Sydney Marshall: I go to UBC and I'm studying art history and I've got about a year left.

Can you tell me about the last time you asked your parents for money?
I think it was around Thanksgiving time, which is really easy because my parents were in California with my grandparents and missing me and I got to slip it in there like, "Hey… I've got $5 in my bank account."

Do you remember what you used it for?
Just like living. Right now I'm in school full time and my only job is modelling which pays really well but it's really inconsistent and I just wasn't working a lot in November.

Do you think that once you graduate you won't have to ask your parents for money anymore?
Hell no! I don't know, my parents have always brought me up like they have a lot of money saved for me to go to school. They've always made it clear they'd rather me take a lot of classes and be really dedicated and do something at a high level that I love, rather than work my way up. Which I kind of regret because my work ethic is like not that good, but it gives me a lot of space to do things I'm passionate about and get opportunities that way.

So they don't have a weird guilt trip, you don't have to manipulate them into it too much?
No no no, my parents are way too nice to me. I'm the one who's hard on myself.

Lorenzo Ignacio, 18

Industrial Design, OCAD

VICE: When was the last time you asked your parents for money, does that ever happen? 
Lorenzo Ignacio: My parents pay for school, and they're also paying for my rent right now. I pay for living expenses like groceries and laundry and stuff. I probably haven't asked my parents for money in maybe the past three years? That's because I've been working for the past three years and also it's always just been a weird thing for me asking my parents for money. They also offer money to me a lot of the time when I'm going out. They only really do it in necessary cases where they feel like I might need a cab or whatever.

What kind of job did you have?
I was working at Nat Bailey Stadium for three years as a cook, and this past year I worked at Earnest Ice Cream.

And do you think once you have your degree you won't have to ask your parents for money anymore?
I don't know. There's that whole belief that an arts student leaves school and kind of perishes in this pit of no money. But I find my parents raised me pretty well in terms of how to use your money, how to work for your money, how to save it. So I don't know, we'll see. I believe that if I continue working through school, working through the summers, I'll be fairly well off on my own.

Do you think there's a taboo around admitting your parents help you out?
I do, but I also think it's taught by the parents as well, at least in my case. Because I actually do experience that, where my parents will be like, "Don't tell your friends that we're paying for your rent," or, "Don't tell your friends that we're paying for your tuition. Say that you took out a lot of student loans."

Really? Why?
They want to ensure this kind of idea that I'm independent, even though I may not be.

Do you think it's because they had a harder time growing up?
No, well actually, I was born in the Philippines but I moved to Canada shortly after. But my parents were born and raised in the Philippines and it was a lot harder for them. Especially my dad, my dad was actually close to the poverty line. So yeah, I guess because I live this very privileged life they don't want me to kind of get in over my head with it.

Because they didn't have that experience?
Exactly. But I think it's really important to be honest with yourself about what you have. And even if it's behind closed doors, sometimes you have to allow yourself to be helped.

Hannah Murray, 18

Arts, McGill

VICE: Where do you go to school and what do you study?
Hannah Murray: I go to McGill. Right now I'm in arts, so for McGill in your first year you don't have a major so I'm just doing general arts.

Do you know what you're going to go into next year?
I think I'm going to do political sciences but I'm not too sure. I just know that in the future I think my goal is to go to law school.

OK, that's intense.
Yeah, I mean that's like a tentative plan…

So when was the last time you asked your parents for money?
I think the last time would have been in the summer, and probably for bus fare. I definitely did ask my parents for money a lot in the summer.

How did it work, did you save up a bunch before school?
Well I had a job, I worked at Lee's Donuts. I worked there for a little bit more than a year so I had all that money saved. And also just saved a lot of birthday money or whatever forever, so that's all in my savings account. So I've been good with that for a while, and that's basically what I've been using.

Then your parents pay for school and everything?
Yeah.

Do you notice people don't really like to admit that their parents are providing for them?
Yeah, a lot of my friends have had jobs, if you've never had a job I think that's kind of embarrassing. I remember talking with my friend and she was saying how she'd saved up all this money, and my other friend was like 'Yeah, well she's never had a job so I don't know what that's from.' And I was like, oh, OK. So there is a weird thing around asking for money for sure.

Where do you think you'd be at if you didn't have that job?
If I didn't have that job, A) I wouldn't have any money but also just having a part-time job, even if it's at some shitty donut place, it does teach you a lot about the world. It kind of prepped me for university. You do have to realize that in big institutions like that you're just a very small thing and you have to be able to get your work done, nobody's telling you what to do. You have to be able to self motivate and be watching yourself and fulfilling how you want to be.

I guess if you've never had a job or you're completely reliant on your parents…
You don't really get that as much.

Wyatt Sjoberg-Fox, 19

Theatre, Concordia

VICE: When was the last time you asked your parents for money?  Wyatt Sjoberg-Fox:
Well I only ever ask my mom for money because she's the only one that has money.

[Laughs] I'll make sure that's the pull quote.
Make sure my dad hears that. No, because I've been working at an ice cream store for two years now so I've been pretty good at paying for my own lifestyle things. But at the same time my mom pays for my tuition and my residence so it's constant, it's constant.

Have you ever asked her for anything specific? 
I know I had to get her to send me money for a train ticket to Toronto because I couldn't miss Thanksgiving dinner with my friends because, I was like I'm going to rot away I'm going to be so depressed all weekend.

Do you think once you have your degree you won't have to ask your parents for money anymore?
I really hope so. Probably not. But I'm trying to take a more optimistic approach to careers in my future, because I've gotten this job quite easily and I don't want to think about it the way that millennials think about it.

There seems to be a taboo about acknowledging the fact that your parents support you. What do you think about that?
Well I think I'm definitely a very affluent person. I mean, my mom is someone who completely started her own business by herself, came from a lower middle class family and did it her own way, did it herself. So I think because of her I have a really good appreciation of it, so when I do need to ask her… I do it for the right things, I think. I have confidence in that. But I also don't tell my friends. I try to act like I completely fund myself.

You're not the first to say that. Why do you think that is?
I think people want this feeling of "I did this myself, I'm true, I'm a real person underneath it all."

People kind of want the struggle?
Yeah, I think that providing yourself with economic stability makes you look really strong.

Caroline Mawhinney, 18

Theatre, Concordia

VICE: So when was the last time you asked your parents for money?
Caroline Mawhinney: Well it's kind of weird because my parents are divorced so I can kind of do two different asks for money for two different things in like one go. Which is useful, gotta love divorce! The last time I asked my dad for money was a couple days ago and I asked him to pay for my gym membership.

What's the gym situation that you're working with, this is in Montreal?
Yeah, it's in Montreal. And it's only $20 bucks a month and it's only for four months, too. I'm one of those people that gets really stressed out if I don't physically do something. I'm not super fit or anything but it's something I need to de-stress. I was at the Concordia gym and I was like [sucks teeth] this is not doing it for me, I'll get my dad to help me with the Y. It's a biggy, but the classes are included! You don't have to pay separately and that's awesome, I want to go to bootcamp and Zumba!

Do you think that once you've got your degree you're not going to have to ask your parents for money anymore?
[Laughs] No! Especially with a degree in the arts. My parents are helping me, paying my tuition. I'm paying for my own expenses but they are supporting me right now. I think hopefully by that time I'll at least have some sort of reliable source of income that I don't have to ask all the time. I think I'll be at least 50 percent or 60 percent able to do it myself.

That's pretty good, that's a little bit above half. So have you found that it's sort of a taboo among your friends to talk about what they get from their parents or how they're supported?
I think there's this feeling of 'I'm better than you' if I don't have a lot of support from my parents... I know my friend is paying for her own tuition and she gets up at six AM to go work at Old Navy even while we're in Montreal which is hard because you have to bilingual to even get a job there. So it's not easy, and she's also in economics. I feel like I value the way that she's living more than I value my own way. But there's definitely a taboo around it. Like I would never ask my friends if their parents are supporting them, but I don't necessarily think it's bad.

Lily-Snowden Fine, 19

Illustration, OCAD

VICE: How do you feel about asking mom and dad for money?  Lily-Snowden Fine:
I try so hard not to ask them for money. And it's not because I'm so self sufficient or anything it's just that my parents they did pretty well so they're kind of too giving and I'm an only child they're very like "Yeah sure!" for everything. And I've never really had that experience of being ashamed to ask for something because I know that they'll say yes. I don't want to take too much because I don't think that's fair. Because they say yes a lot I try really hard to never ask them.

When was the last time you gave in and asked?
I think the last time probably was I wanted these really good acrylic paints for my class because I was buying the really horrible stuff and as much as I did the work the same as everyone else it just didn't look professional because it's insane how much of a difference that makes. So I just wanted these and they're really expensive so I kind of felt bad asking.

So are you making money off your art right now, are you selling your illustrations and stuff?
Yeah at the moment. Like it wouldn't be enough to live off of. I've had a couple times where I've done a lot of work and then just never got emails back, and didn't get paid for it which sucks. So it's a struggle. My friends and I always try and sell our art at shows and do as much as we can to earn our own money doing what we want to do.

So when you graduate do you think you're going to be able to support yourself off of your degree?
I have no idea, but that's my goal. I very much want to be able to do it just myself because my parents did that and they didn't have very much. So I don't want to be handed anything, I don't think that's fair. I don't want to feel like it was anybody else's help.

Do you think it's a taboo among people your age to be talking about money or their privilege? I feel like especially in art school that could be a thing.
Yeah, it is hard to talk about. I had this conversation with my friend. We were talking about how it's strange because our parents pay for school for us, and most people we know don't have that. So it kind of is a taboo, it's easier for people to talk about how they have to pay for everything. But then I would never want to talk about how you get things paid for in response. You never want to talk about where you're very privileged, because I know that I am.

Isn't it important to acknowledge privilege? Not to flaunt it, but to be transparent about how much you have, and not get caught in that trap of pretending to be some sort of martyr. 
Yeah! I am very aware of how much I've been given so I don't want to flaunt it. You want to appreciate it without becoming spoiled or always reliant on other people's help because you don't know how to do it yourself.

Follow Maya-Roisin on Twitter.

Facebook is trying to learn from its mistakes, it would seem, after it was heavily criticized for enabling the spread of "fake news" stories, which some say hijacked the minds of voters in the United States in the run-up to the election.

Amid that criticism, the social media giant developed a feature that essentially "flags" disputed news stories on its site. Now, Facebook plans to bring that feature to Germany, whose major election in September will determine Chancellor Angela Merkel's future as the nation's leader.

Last month, German intelligence officials expressed concern over "growing evidence for attempts to influence" the upcoming federal election, the New York Times reported, and have watched warily as U.S. officials attributed the flood of fake news to a carefully constructed Russian propaganda effort. Germany worries that it may be Russia's next target in its alleged efforts to destabilize Western democracies through the spread of misinformation about its political candidates.

Read more on VICE News.

(Left photo by Zcx, via; right photo—of a cab not involved in this story—by Walter Baxter, via)

Britain is full of drug dealers going about their business in the most conspicuous ways. Like the gang that set up its cannabis factory right next to a police station, or the urban legend of guys peddling pills hidden inside 99 cones from the windows of ice cream vans. People almost begging to be caught.

The latest addition to the canon are the three men who used a cab to deliver "very high purity" cocaine to the people of the East Midlands. Naeem Iqbal, Ishmal Khan and Yasser Shan have been sentenced to a collective 26 years for running a taxi drug smuggling service in and around Derbyshire. The men were arrested after a VW Passat taxi was pulled over on the M1 with £20,000 of coke stuffed under the front passenger seat. During the trial, the men were accused of regularly making similar trips without ever once collecting any fares.

Khan and Shan pleaded guilty at Derby Crown Court to conspiracy to supply class A drugs, while Iqbal was later found guilty following a trial. They have been handed sentences of nine years and seven months, five years and six months and 12 years respectively.

Speaking in court, Detective Sergeant Harry Rai, who led the case, said: "This was a complex investigation into a criminal syndicate who used various methods to distribute high purity cocaine around the country and into Derbyshire. Their tactic of choice was a taxi, thinking their journeys across the country would be less conspicuous. But the only fares they carried were drugs and we were onto them."