The rising death toll from fentanyl has devastated communities across Canada, but the struggling Downtown Eastside of Vancouver has been the hardest hit. With sometimes multiple overdose deaths in the area per night, it's the epicentre of the more than 900 total deaths in the province last year alone.

As local government grapples to respond to the ongoing opioid emergency, the tight knit community is in mourning. On Sunday afternoon, several dozen people gathered in Pigeon Park to pay their respects to all the people who have died.

Attendees—some of whom had lost family members to overdose as recently as three weeks ago—lit candles, left photos of family members, and shared stories. Many had criticism about how the devastating health crisis has been handled, and suggestions for what needs to happen next.  

Michelle Fortin, Downtown Eastside frontline manager 

VICE: Tell me about why you decided to attend this vigil.
Michelle: I've worked in the community for 25 years, and it's the first time I've ever wanted to say, you just can't use right now. Which is really hard when you're a harm reduction believer, to say, actually, please don't use. It's a struggle and good people are dying.

What has the response to this crisis been like from your perspective?
I think the problem is that there are a bunch of different intersections in terms of legislation that haven't necessarily happened quickly enough. Even access to naloxone and training. I think the fact that anyone has access now is great but the fact that you have to pay for it makes it unmanageable for some folks. The other thing, too, is we don't do a whole lot around prevention. We need to approach it from many different places. Naloxone is not the only answer.

Do you feel hopeful for the future?
I refuse to lose hope. And I'm here because I have hope and because it's important to honour the people who have passed. I think the message here for people who are still struggling is that people give a shit. People care.

Gerald Kematch, Indigenous outreach worker

VICE: Why are you attending today?
Gerald: I work for the Indian Residential School Survivors Society as a Downtown Eastside liaison. Fentanyl affects a lot of people down here, and my line of work is trying to deal with trauma, and why people do the things they do to cope. Drugs are just a coping mechanism.

What do you think needs to happen next for people in the Downtown Eastside?
I think more money has to be thrown into prevention and trauma and healing the trauma. The system also contributes to a lot of the issues: the lack of funding, the biases, the misconceptions about these people down here. These are human beings. These are authentic people down here.

Is there anyone in particular who you're thinking of today?
I've known quite a few people, but mostly just remembering my friend because we went through a lot of stuff together. I think about him.

Elizabeth Sutherland, Downtown Eastside resident

VICE: You live on the Downtown Eastside? Elizabeth:
I live in one of the two worst SROs in Vancouver, I've been there for a month. Never in my life have I experienced such stress as I have in the last month. 

How have you been impacted by the fentanyl crisis?
I have a naloxone kit. When I hear (an emergency) I run out. And I'm 68 and crippled from arthritis. My body hurts. It's not my job to rescue people, if the city had opened drug-testing sites, the addicts would have clean drugs and people would not be dying. 

You think drug-testing sites are the solution?
That's the absolute solution for this emergency. Drug-testing sites on every corner. It's not the addicts, the addicts are polite and respectful and human beings. It's the drugs that are bad, and they're killing us. It's unspeakable. There are only two or three drug testing sites in the whole city. That's Mayor Gregor Robertson's fault. Also, people walk down the street and they don't even notice a man ODing, they walk on by.

Sonny Dean, musician

VICE: Why are you here today?
Sonny: To comfort a friend. She's on her way here. She lost her brother.

This has been a painful time for many people, do you think this kind of memorial event is helping people like your friend heal?
Her brother who passed, he was my friend. He's one of those people who you feel this should not have had this happened to him. I heard he dabbled casually. I don't think anyone should be doing that. I think the people who do dabble, perhaps they're looking for a bit of joy that they don't have, and it's a shame.

Nesa Tousi, frontline worker

VICE: What brings you out today?
Nesa: I'm one of the frontline workers. I've just witnessed a lot of deaths.

It's been such a rough year here, as a frontline worker do you feel like the government has been handling this in an urgent enough way?
No. There's been a lot of delays and lagging. The crisis has been ongoing for about a year noow, it's been an ongoing concern for people who work the frontline. Our attempts at advocating unfortunately fall on deaf ears for the most part.

Is there anything else you want people to know about this crisis, as someone who's in the middle of it?
Just keep connected to community, and for the folks that aren't immediately affected, to do things in their capacity. Make food for someone, clean their house, shovel their driveway. Do the things that seem like menial tasks but can be really hard to do when you can't take care of yourself.

Audrey Siegl (with Victor Thompson), vigil organizer

VICE: This vigil is called "Love Heals." Why?
Audrey: Because love is the only thing that I've found that's actually helped me to heal at all. I've been on a healing journey, let's call it, for 15 years and I circle back to love over and over again. I circle back to rage, I circle back to pain, I circle back to disappointment, I circle back to confusion of not knowing why things are the way they are, but the thing I keep coming back to over and over again is love.

Can you tell me about why you decided to organize this event today?
I've been bringing medicines here to the Downtown Eastside for three months, specifically to support with the grief of the huge numbers of loss in the last couple of years. It does affect me personally, I have friends down here and I have loved ones down here. I have lost every single one of my uncles and my auntie to the life that they got accustomed to living here in the Downtown Eastside and three weeks ago my mom died of a fentanyl overdose.

I'm not just going to sit and be angry and immobilized with pain. My mom never had a moment of dignity or respect or peace in almost 63 years, so for her to die that way after living the horrific life that she lived, it wasn't even just painful, it wasn't just awakening, it was the ultimate form of disrespect because it's murder. It's murder that's carrying on the genocide that's existed here for over 500 years.

What do you want people to remember about your mom?
She deserved more. She deserved to at least have a chance. The fact that she died the way she did shows that there's still a lot wrong, we need to keep standing up, speaking the truth, fighting, uniting and putting things back to balance, to accomplish that peace that's necessary for all of us. I'm not stopping until we get there.

Follow Cara McKenna on Twitter.

In addition to the revelation that Trump's aides don't know how to properly turn the White House lights on and off, the New York Times reported Monday that the president was not fully briefed on the executive order he signed last week giving his chief strategist Steve Bannon a seat on the National Security Council.

According to the Times, which confirmed the account after interviewing numerous government officials, aides, and former staff members, Trump grew frustrated when he realized after signing the order that it gave Bannon more power than he initially thought. Trump was apparently more upset about that than he was with the public uproar surrounding his controversial immigration ban.

The White House chief-of-staff, Reince Priebus, has since decided to loop the president in earlier in the drafting process—which usually isn't necessary—and has had to create a ten-step checklist for the administration to follow before Trump signs off on another executive order.

Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, allegedly told his allies that he and White House policy director, Stephen Miller, had to move quickly to solidify their vision of Trump's "economic nationalism" before losing influence in the administration.

The order—reportedly crafted by Bannon and Miller—gave the chief strategist a spot on the National Security Council and lowers the influence of the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The move gives Bannon, who previously had no designated national security role, a say in decisions regarding the nation's diplomacy, counterterrorism efforts, nuclear power, and cybersecurity.

Maybe now Trump will start reading his executive orders as closely as he read that 17-page curtain catalog.

For two months, John Ramirez had been sitting in his cell in Texas' death row prison, counting down the days to his execution date and scrawling handwritten letters to anyone who would listen. His message: Get me a new lawyer.

Ramirez's execution was stayed last week just two days before he was scheduled to die, after a federal judge ruled that his court-appointed lawyer had failed to file a necessary clemency petition.

He's far from alone: Death row inmates around the country have faced the ultimate punishment after court-appointed lawyers abandoned them, declining to file motions or cutting off communication with their clients in the high-tension, high-stakes last weeks before an execution. It's one example of how America's criminal justice system remains skewed in terms of funding and resources toward prosecutors and away from poor defendants.

Ramirez was sentenced to death in December 2008 for the murder of Pablo Castro in Corpus Christi four years earlier, when he was 20. According to testimony at his trial, Ramirez and two women attacked Castro in an attempt to rob him for drug money, with Ramirez slashing his throat and stabbing him more than 20 times. He ended up with just $1.25 from Castro's pockets, and Ramirez wasn't arrested until three and a half years later near the Mexican border.

Now 32, Ramirez said in an interview with a local TV station last month that he was remorseful for his actions, but hoped his appeals would lead to a life sentence instead of an execution. "I was young and stupid and made a lot of bad choices that night," he said. "I never meant to do that—I didn't go out planning to take someone's life like that."

From the beginning, the man's legal representation has been lacking, to say the least, even if his own instincts about how to ward off capital punishment were suspect. At Ramirez's request, his attorney gave a closing argument at the punishment phase of his trial that consisted of reading a single-sentence bible verse: "For I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me. Amen."

Even so, the jury deliberated for three and a half hours over whether to give Ramirez death or a life sentence.

But the legal system's ugliest failure came when another, court-appointed attorney named Michael Gross represented Ramirez in his state and federal appeals, which were both unsuccessful. Last November, after his execution date had been set for February 2, Ramirez sent Gross a letter firing him and asking him to not file anything in his case. Meanwhile, Ramirez's godmother struggled to find him a new lawyer.

But federal law makes clear that once an attorney is appointed, they have a responsibility to represent their client all the way up to their execution, including by filing clemency petitions. The only way to get out of that responsibility is to go to the judge and have them substitute in a new lawyer.

Gross didn't do that. In a motion in federal court, he said that he attempted to find a new lawyer for Ramirez but was unable to do so. The deadline for Ramirez to file a clemency petition—January 12—came and went without Gross taking any action.

Finally, Ramirez's godmother got in touch with Gregory Gardner, another lawyer who agreed to help, according to court records. Gardner filed multiple motions in federal court two weeks ago, arguing that Gross had neglected his duties and urging the judge to postpone Ramirez's execution and appoint a new lawyer.

Last Tuesday, just two days before Ramirez was scheduled to be executed, Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos agreed with Gardner's argument, staying Ramirez's execution. "At the heart of this case is an inmate whose attorney neglected an important legal obligation," she wrote. An appeals court upheld her decision on Wednesday.

Garner said he was heartened by the judge's ruling. "We're seeing that the federal courts are not going to allow people to be executed when their attorneys stopped working for them," he said.

This doesn't appear to be the first time Gross has let a client down just before their execution. In March 2016, another of his clients, Texas death row inmate John Battaglia, came within seven hours of being executed before a court granted him a reprieve, ruling that Battaglia had been "abandoned" by Gross, who failed to file a key motion. In December, Battaglia got another stay of execution after a state court found that he may not be mentally competent to be executed. (Gross did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

The Texas Attorney General argued in court filings last week that Ramirez's claim of lack of representation was a ruse to postpone his execution. They pointed out that Gardner had intervened in both the Battaglia and Ramirez cases: "This is not abandonment; it is gamesmanship," the state said in its response in federal court. (The judge didn't buy it.)

Check out our documentary on debtors' prisons and America's for-profit justice system.

Lawyers and professors who study capital punishment say it's hard to pinpoint how many death row inmates are left high and dry by their lawyers when it matters most. "It happens more than we would like to admit," said Kathryn Kase, a senior counsel at the nonprofit criminal justice legal group Texas Defender Service. "Sometimes there are attorneys available to step in, but there's not always someone who has the capacity to do it."

For many years, attorneys in Texas (and other states) who were appointed to defend death row inmates didn't get paid for any work they did after their last appeal to the Supreme Court was denied, according to Kase. That meant that in some cases, if they filed a clemency petition or made last-minute motions to try to save their client's life, they'd essentially be working pro bono.

"Some attorneys make the decision that they would rather pay the rent than fight what they feel will be a losing battle," Kase said, adding that the law is now clear that this is not permitted.

And it's not just a Texas issue, although the state seems to have a disproportionate number of cases that involve some form of lawyer abandonment. "It is an outrageous and scandalous problem in the system," said Eric Freedman, a Hofstra Law School professor who studies capital punishment. "There's no question in the world that people are being killed under the radar screen without adequate representation."

In some cases, like for both Ramirez and Battaglia, the fact that a lawyer failed to fulfill their duties results in a last-minute reprieve for the defendant. Similarly, Missouri inmate Mark Christeson received a stay of his execution in 2014 based on a court decision that his lawyers, who filed a federal appeal almost four months late, had failed him. (Christensen was executed last week after another round of appeals.)

In other cases, courts let executions go ahead even when attorneys fail to do their jobs. Raphael Holliday, another Texas inmate, was executed in November 2015 after his court-appointed lawyers said they would no longer represent him. At one point, after Holliday tried to petition the court to give him a new attorney, the appointed lawyers actually argued against their own client's motion.

So what can be done about it? Part of the problem is funding, advocates say: courts should offer more investigative cash to court-appointed attorneys, in an attempt to promote strong representation. That could help avoid drawn-out appeals over an ineffective counsel, and even end up saving money overall by reining in attorney fees on both sides of cases. In the United States, budgets for public defenders are typically fractions of the budget for prosecutors and police investigators—state prosecutors spent almost $3.5 billion more than public defenders' offices in 2007, Mother Jones reported.

In some courts, federal public defender offices also have specific "Capital Habeas Units," teams of highly trained lawyers ready to represent death row inmates in federal court. "You don't see this kind of abandonment occurring in cases in which prisoners are represented by a Capital Habeas Unit," said Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. There's no such unit in the federal circuit court covering Texas—even though, at least until 2016, the state had executed more people than any other for decades.

"No one should face the executioner without the benefit of counsel," Kase said. "That's a bedrock value of the American justice system."

Follow Casey Tolan on Twitter.

(Illustration: Dan Evans)

This post originally appeared in VICE UK.

Imagine. It's tomorrow morning. You wake up, stagger to the kitchen and pour a glass of water from the tap. It tastes slightly bitter so you take a closer look. It's cloudy, murky. You switch on the radio and hear that the drinking water in London is contaminated by a poisonous toxin. It's way past the legal limit for safety and damages lungs, hearts and brains. The country is in uproar. The government escalates the health crisis to a number one priority.

This is fiction, but the reality is not much different. London's air – the stuff we breathe every day – is toxic, but the official reaction is, weirdly: meh.

In January, London's air pollution rose above Beijing's levels, leading to a "very high" alert for the first time. Headteachers wrote to Mayor Sadiq Khan, asking him to act on his promises to clean up the air. In November of 2016, the courts ruled for the second time that the government's air pollution plan is illegally bad.

Air pollution contributes to the early deaths of tens of thousands of people every year in London and across Britain. And yet one of the biggest emitters of toxic pollution – diesel cars, Chelsea tractors, SUV 4x4s, double-decker buses, VWs, Audis, Skodas and others – are still on the roads, choking us to death.

"Living in a place with long-term air pollution problems has significant impacts on your health," says Dr Ian Mudway, Lecturer in Respiratory Toxicology at King's College London. But it's not only the dangerous spikes that impact our health; the long-term consequence of breathing polluted air will get worse as you get older.

London does not fulfil its annual nitrogen dioxide EU limit value, and has breached it for five years. Other major cities – including Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Cardiff and Edinburgh – also breach NO2 levels.

Toxic air makes symptoms of pre-existing lung and heart diseases far worse – if you're asthmatic, for example, your chest may feel tighter in cold, still weather – but even if you don't have health conditions already, the long-term consequence of breathing polluted air has a cumulative effect, and increases vulnerability to disease later in life.

"If you're in your early twenties, you're one of the most vulnerable groups to the effects of toxic air."

Essentially, the state of London's pollution could make our older years suck. As Mudway says, when you get old, you want to be healthy. "It's not just about losing a short period of life at the end of life; it's about your quality of life as you age."

If you're in your early twenties, you're one of the most vulnerable groups to the effects of toxic air. Evidence suggests that it can affect the growth of your lungs – which only reach their final capacity at 23 for men and 20 for women. As lung volume decreases through age, you become more vulnerable to chronic respiratory conditions.

The dirty air could even have effects on our brains. "There may be effects of air pollution on cognitive development in children, and also potentially impacts on degenerative disease in the elderly," says Mudway.

So how did it get to the point where walking down a street in London literally comes with a health warning?

In the 1990s, diesel cars were promoted as "greener" than petrol, but concentrations of nitrogen oxide and other greenhouse gases increased. In September of 2015, it was discovered that VW was cheating emissions tests. Around 11 millions cars were fitted with devices which allowed them to produce false results. People thought they were buying environmentally friendly cars when in fact the engines were belching out gasses which amounted to, as German chemist Axel Friedrich put it, "physical assault". Later, it was found that the leniency of diesel emissions-testing was allowing other car manufacturers to sell vehicles that broke pollution rules.

"In the UK we've seen very little done to car companies since 'dieselgate' erupted," says Greenpeace's Ellen Booth. The expansion of the UK's motorways and the new Heathrow runway show that cleaning up our air isn't a priority of the British government, she says.

Other capital cities have taken action. Paris has banned diesel cars manufactured before 2000. Between 6.30PM and 9PM in Madrid, even-number registration plates are only allowed to drive on even-number days, and cars with odd-number registration plates on odd-number days.

Transport for London is planning an Ultra Low Emission Zone – an area stretching from Marble Arch to Tower Hamlets – where vehicles will need to meet exhaust emission standards or pay a charge. But it won't come into force until 2020. Sadiq Khan is trying to bring it forward to 2019.

"The [anti-pollution] advice isn't targeted to the polluter."

So what can you do? The government's current health advice is incredibly helpful: if you have lung problems or are old, stay inside! Avoid busy roads. And don't bother with a mask – they don't work because NO2 particles emitted at the roadside are so tiny.

"The advice isn't targeted to the polluter," says Medway. There are hardly any incentives to encourage drivers to stop using their cars. "The greatest thing an individual can do is not contribute to it," says Mudway. Walk, cycle or use sustainable transport. Think about what you're ordering online – a rise in Amazon deliveries and Deliveroo orders contributes to the problem.

At least we're now warned when pollution is high. "We used to be sitting here looking at air pollution episodes which were at the level where people with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions should be taking steps to protect their health, and there was silence," says Mudway.

Think of city smog and you might think of the 1950s pea soupers or the soft black drizzle of Dickensian London. But the insidious and invisible cloud we're now living in is the largest environmental health crisis the world is facing, according to WHO. So instead of breathing our way into a slow, painful, death, it's time to start caning our MPs with letters asking the question: why the fuck is the UK's reaction so slow?

@lucyjones / idrawforfood.co.uk

In a harsh rebuke of "sunny ways" Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Toronto described him as a "white supremacist terrorist" over the weekend.

A YouTube video taken from an anti-Islamophobia protest in downtown Toronto Saturday appears to show Black Lives Matter co-founder Yusra Khogali condemning Trudeau for tweeting about Canada's acceptance of refugees but not following that up with policy.

After US President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US, Trudeau tweeted "To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada."

However, when later questioned, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Canada would not be increasing its refugee quotas, prompting criticism that Trudeau's words were opportunistic but ultimately empty.

At Saturday's protest against Trump's order attended by thousands, Khogali said, "What did Justin Trudeau say? He said he wanted to accept everyone who is not allowed into the US border to Canada," which was met by some cheers.

"Don't cheer," Khogali said. "We know what that is, we know what that manipulation is, it is what this country is founded on—erasure and silencing of the real history of this land. The genocide of Indigenous people, in which the state is founded on. The enslavement and genocide of black people, in which the state is founded on."

Khogali continued, "When Justin Trudeau says that he is a liar, he is a hypocrite, he is a white supremacist terrorist."

Khogali then criticized Toronto Mayor John Tory for saying that Toronto is a sanctuary for refugees "when black people are being murdered in the city." She pointed to the deaths of Andrew Loku and Jermaine Carby at the hands of police as examples.

Khogali encouraged protesters to rise up and fight back.

"We are the people, we have the power."

VICE has reached out to the Prime Minister's Office but has not yet heard back.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

The thought of not drinking during the parade had occurred to me. After all, I was in New York, not my hometown of New Orleans, where drinking on the streets is legal and the to-go-cup is practically a birthright. Then again, I was participating in the city's annual Coney Island Mermaid Parade and every other scantily clad mermaid and merman seemed to be downing shots and clutching paper bag-covered beverages.

What hadn't occurred to me was the severity of the New York City Police Department's strict security measures and the virtually impenetrable parade route, which made for a pretty dire bathroom situation. Four hours later, my bladder was so full I looked more like a beached manatee than a svelte mermaid. When the parade finally disbanded, it was all I could do not to break out in a fevered dash for the boardwalk bathrooms.

"It's not a sprint, it's a marathon," is the common—and wise—adage offered to those grappling with their first Mardi Gras season and the requisite boozing that accompanies the festivities. But no matter how much one heeds that advice, Carnival is a multi-week affair, and by the time Fat Tuesday rolls around, most people have traded in good sense and moderation for excess and revelry.

Read more on Tonic

This story was co-published with the Marshall Project.

With Senator Jeff Sessions about to be the next attorney general, the likelihood that the Justice Department will continue to regularly intervene to reshape troubled local law enforcement agencies appears greatly diminished.

Under the Obama administration, 12 police departments signed court-ordered agreements called consent decrees—four times as many as in the George W. Bush era. Sessions, an Alabama Republican, has made it plain that he's highly skeptical of this option. "These lawsuits undermine the respect for police officers," he said at a recent Senate hearing on his nomination.

But an alternative to federal intervention—and a possible model for similar programs throughout the country—exists in at least one state law, specifically in the California Civil Code. The seldom-used 16-year-old statute allows the California attorney general to sue a local police agency whose officers have engaged in a "pattern or practice" of unconstitutional behavior. The statute's language hews closely to the 1994 federal law that underpins Washington's role in police oversight. California is believed to be the only state that grants its attorney general the power to root out and "eliminate" a local police force's bad behavior.

"I don't know what to expect from Trump," said former California Attorney General William Lockyer, who served from 1999 to 2007 and was the first prosecutor to use the state's police reform law. "Yes, local and state authorities ought to be prepared to do a lot of this work without federal help. There is a lot of anxiety about withdrawal from civil rights enforcement work."

Joseph Brann, a former Bay Area police chief who served as a federal police monitor in Cleveland, Seattle and Cincinnati, as well as in California's first state-led intervention, thinks the statute could be replicated widely.

"My personal observation is that this is something that state justice departments should have been looking at doing many many years ago. And I do hope, in light of what we will be looking at now under the Trump administration, and the Sessions Justice Department, that other states will give serious consideration to what they might be able to do."

Only one existing California police department, in Riverside, about an hour east of Los Angeles, has undergone the state reform process. A second department that came under state oversight was later disbanded. Meanwhile, the Justice Department undertook investigations* of eight law enforcement agencies throughout the state, three of which led to a reform plan.

The Riverside department attracted national scrutiny in 1998, after four white officers fatally shot a 19-year-old black woman named Tyisha Miller as she sat, with a gun on her lap, inside a locked car at a gas station. State and federal prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against the officers, saying that the cops may have made questionable decisions but didn't break any laws.

The state's police-reform law was approved by legislators two years after the woman's death in reaction to abuse cases that had plagued the Los Angeles Police Department throughout the 1990s.

"Riverside was groundbreaking for us, and what I am told, ground-breaking for AGs around the country," said Lockyer, the former attorney general.

Lockyer released Riverside from its state mandate in 2006, after Brann, the police monitor, certified that the police department had improved training, data collection and the tracking of misconduct, among other categories. The current chief, Sergio G. Diaz, who took over in 2010 after a long career at the Los Angeles Police Department, said most of the reforms are still in place except for the requirement that officers collect demographic statistics on who they are stop. "It was busy work," Diaz said. "There was no analysis that was significant."

Despite the outcome in Riverside, Lockyer stopped using his new police reform tool. "I don't recall there being other circumstances in which there were community efforts to bring the AG into a local matter," Lockyer said. "There are thousands of cases that the AG folks are working on at any given time. They tend to respond to events, rather than go out and look for work."

Lockyer's successor, Jerry Brown, now the governor, also did not rely on the police reform law. Louis Verdugo, a 36-year veteran of California's attorney general's office, and longtime head of the civil rights enforcement section who retired in 2012, recalled only one police reform agreement under Brown. It involved the now defunct Maywood Police Department, a 60-officer agency outside of Los Angeles, which was disbanded in 2010—nearly a year after it agreed to the state-ordered changes. The attorney general investigated Maywood in response to reporting in the Los Angeles Times that found the department employed cops who had been fired from other forces. "To me it (closing) wasn't a bad result. It was dysfunctional," Verdugo said. The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department—currently under federal oversight—now patrols Maywood.

Check out the VICE News Tonight segment on how big businesses try to use arbitration to block regular people from filing lawsuits.

California's Attorney General's office did not respond to requests to comment on why the law isn't used more often. But the police reform law hasn't been a popular option for California prosecutors for a mix of reasons, according to Lockyer and Verdugo. Federal intervention in local police departments was usually a preferred option because the federal government, rather than the state, had the time and the staff to undertake lengthy investigations. Also, using state prosecutors to investigate local police forces tends to breed tension within the usually tight-knit law enforcement community. "It would be harder to be a prosecutor in that environment," Lockyer said.

Yet Lockyer and Verdugo said they would encourage other states to adopt their own version of the California law. "Obviously, there will be political and resource constraints as a general matter. But that doesn't mean that law shouldn't be enacted," Lockyer said.

The law had stayed off the public's radar, and then in December, California Attorney General Kamala Harris—now a US senator—announced that prosecutors were investigating the Bakersfield Police Department and the Kern County Sheriff's Office using the powers of the state's police-reform law. Harris' announcement came after the Guardian, in a five-part series, dubbed Kern County, in central California, the nation's deadliest county for police shootings.

With additional reporting by Tom Meagher

*The federal statute went into effect in 1994. Since 2001, after the state law was enacted, the US Justice Department has opened three federal investigations of California police departments.

This article was originally published by the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization that covers the US criminal justice system. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter.

Democrats will speak on the Senate floor starting Monday and continue nonstop until Tuesday afternoon to protest the nomination of Donald Trump's pick for education secretary, Betsy DeVos, Politico reports.

After Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkoswki of Alaska agreed to vote against DeVos in the full Senate vote slotted for noon Tuesday, Democrats only need one more member from across the aisle to throw their support against the billionaire charter school advocate and block her confirmation. If that doesn't happen, the vote will likely result in a 50–50 tie, and Vice President Mike Pence gets to cast the tie-breaking vote—a first for a cabinet secretary confirmation.

DeVos has gained vocal disapproval from both Republicans and Democrats who argue that she lacks the experience needed to lead the Education Department. In addition to having virtually zero experience in higher education, DeVos has been outspoken about allocating taxpayer dollars for private schools, rather than public schools. She also said during her confirmation hearing that she thinks guns belong in schools to protect people from "grizzlies." She also allegedly plagiarized some of the written answers to additional questions from senators on the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions before their confirmation vote.

Rather than delay the vote further, which was originally supposed to happen last week, the 24-hour filibuster stands as the Democrats' way for bringing more attention to DeVos's contentious nomination and put pressure on Republicans to vote against her. Senators have already received thousands of phone calls from constitutes and concerned teachers' groups urging them to vote against DeVos, according to CNN.

This article originally appeared on VICE Denmark

January is generally a month for short-lived lifestyle changes, and short-lived lifestyle changes would be nothing without fad diets. I, like everyone, find all that conflicting advice on what to eat and what not to eat deeply confusing, so I tend to just mute all the noise about super grains and GMOs and what have you. That was until I came across a vintage Danish diet book, intriguingly titled The Sexy Pineapple Diet. The book was written in 1970 by Danish psychologist, sexologist and author Sten Hegeler and his wife Inge Hegeler – and originally published as Verdens Bedste Slankekur ("World's Best Diet").

The diet is pretty straightforward – you simply choose two days a week to eat nothing but fresh pineapple. On the remaining five days you eat whatever you like, as long as you maintain your new, lowered weight. The diet promises a slimmer body, more energy and an increased "sexual capacity". To highlight that last feature, the word "erogetic" is printed on the cover. I'm not absolutely sure what that means, but do I want to find out? Absolutely I do.

Since I love pineapple and sexual capacity and have never tried a diet before, I figured The Sexy Pineapple Diet would be the perfect healthy start to the new year for me. I bought the diet book and some pineapples, ready to test if the past 47 years of diet plans and books could have been replaced with a bit of fruit.

All photos by Amanda Bødker

Day 1: Pineapple day. Weight: 82.8 kg (182.5 pounds)

According to the handbook I should wait until I'm really hungry to have my first serving of the day. This isn't great advice for me personally – I tend to snap at the people I love once I start to get peckish. But I don't mind running the risk of alienating my loved ones if that means I can find out what it means to be erogetic. So here it goes:

10:14 AM: I haven't had anything to eat yet, but it's still early. I do feel like my mind is clearer than it usually is. Like, the question "where do pineapples come from" bubbles up and I decide not to google it but to just ponder it for a while.

1:25 PM: Then again, I might just be eroding my brain by not eating anything. Am I not just thinking less instead of more clearly? If there are fewer thoughts, the ones that are there might become clearer. Is that good or bad? I feel like I can't think properly any more.

2:23 PM: My body is numb and heavy. People talk to me and I keep thinking I'm saying something back, but I'm not.

3:41 PM: I often can't remember what I had for lunch or dinner the day before, or the week before. From now on, I promise to appreciate my meals more; to be thankful for them.

4:13 PM: I have my first meal of the day: three slices of fresh pineapple.

4:37 PM: I'm not feeling sexy or capable of any sexual activity – I'm not feeling capable of any activity in general, to be frank.

6:03 PM: Okay, so I did some more reading and the handbook says I can actually eat other foods too, as long as it doesn't exceed 500 kcal. So why call it The Sexy Pineapple Diet, then? I should've read ahead sooner.

7:12 PM: My boyfriend doesn't know about my new diet and bought me a frozen pizza. The box says it contains 225 kcal per 100 grams. The pizza is 350 grams, so 225 x 3,5 = 787 kcal. It's a little over 500, but I'm a 6'6" guy so I think I can get away with a few extra calories. Mind your business.

7:31 PM: The maths might have sounded sensible at the time, but they haven't stopped me from feeling weak and dirty. I wish I hadn't cheated. I wish I had more pizza. My heart bleeds for people who do these calculations for every single meal, and still end up feeling this way about themselves. That must be horrible.

10:11 PM: I slip up again – I have some oatmeal with raisins. I've never before in my life felt guilty about having some grains and a few bits of dried fruit.

Day 2: Pineapple day. Weight: 82.1 kg (180.9 pounds) Weight loss: 1.4 pounds

According to the handbook, the worst is now behind me. It says I will wake up "refreshed, happy and cheerfully looking forward to the day". I'm not surprised that doesn't happen – I've cheated, so what can I expect? "Keep pinching your waistline and thinking of your repulsive, fat appearance. But above all, keep going!" Can do.

The book isn't entirely clear on why, in order to get my new erogeticised dream body, I have to stuff my face with pineapple. Why, of all edible things, pineapple? Finally, halfway through the book, I stumble on a paragraph called "Why Pineapple?" The explanation reads: "Besides being an elegant and exotic fruit, three large pineapples are a lot to consume in two days," followed by the fact that "it doesn't make you thirsty", which, according to the book, is why you won't be tempted to drink any alcohol during your pineapple days. You can't argue with science.

The Sexy Pineapple Diet's author, Sten Hegeler, is 93 years old today, but still works as a psychologist from his practice in Frederiksberg, Copenhagen. It's been 47 years since the book was released, but when I call him he remembers it well. Sadly, he doesn't have much to say about why pineapple is the key to a healthier, sexier life. "I actually don't know," he says. "Pineapple with whipped cream was the preferred dessert back then, so I thought, 'My god, I can have as much pineapple as I want for two days,' and that sounded splendid."

When I admit I didn't find it that splendid and cheated a little the first day, he isn't happy to hear it. "Well, then it doesn't count," he says. "You have to stick to the plan. If you eat only pineapple, you will lose four pounds," he says firmly. "It's very effective."

Day 3: Regular meals. Weight: 81.8 kg. (180.3 pounds) Weight loss: 2.2 pounds

So it turns out that despite the fact I devoured a pizza the first day and had a small lunch and dinner the second day, I still managed to shed 2.2 pounds. When checking myself out in the mirror in the morning I do seem to look a little better than usual, and I wonder if what I'm feeling now is the erogenicity.

I call nutritional expert Per Brændgaard, who unfortunately doesn't see the point of pineapple: "It's neither slimming nor fattening," he tells me. "That distinctive acidic sweet taste gives pineapple it's reputation for being slimming, detoxing and – I guess – sexy. There's really no evidence behind it. You might as well tell people to only eat apples or bananas for two days."

Funny Brændgaard should say that, because that's exactly what I finally read in the handbook. If you're allergic to pineapple or just get sick of it, the book suggest alternatives like figs, apples, pears, cantaloupe, cucumber salad, bananas, oranges, shrimp, beef hamburgers with mushrooms and cottage cheese. Everything under 500 calories, because, well – just because.

Brændgaard explains that the concept of a diet based on a single food item is nothing new; it's called a mono diet. "There have been so many different kinds of mono diets over the years – even one centred around cucumber and white wine," he says. According to Brændgaard, eating one thing all day fools your stomach into thinking that it's full, which would make you eat less. "Being full just from the taste and feel of a certain type of food is called sensory-specific satiety," he explains.

So the pineapple isn't exactly the uniquely slimming wonder fruit it's made out to be – but the sexy part is still legitimate, right? I'll be erogised, right? Sadly, Sten Hegeler admits that part of the diet was also not based in reality. "Actually, the sexy part was something the American publisher made up. I had nothing to do with that," he says. "It's actually the same diet they're calling the 5:2 today. I haven't been recognised for that, which I think I should have been."

That only leaves my last illusion to be shattered – the idea that at least it was an achievement that I had lost two pounds. Apparently when it comes to pineapple diets, nothing is sacred. "You should keep in mind that the first pound you lose mostly consists of carbs and water," Per Brændgaard told me. "One gram of carbohydrate in the form of glycogen in your muscles and liver binds three grams of water. When those are burnt, they release the water and your scale will tell you that you've lost weight." So I can expect the weight back? "Oh absolutely, it will come right back. In a day or three."

So that's that. If you'll excuse me, I'll go and eat whatever I want for the rest of the year now.

More on VICE:

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Ask anyone around the world about Atlanta's place in music, and you will get a unanimous answer: Atlanta is no longer the trap rap capital of the world; it is the epicenter of the entire rap game. Many would claim "The A" as urban music's mecca. Our genetic composition has always included that 808 bounce and soul. But where did the soul go?

In the 90s and 2000s, the Atlanta R&B and rap worlds simultaneously kicked the door down to make the city a permanent fixture in the industry. As the Dungeon Family solidified itself among rap greats, LaFace Records artists like TLC and Toni Braxton also dominated the R&B airwaves. The crunk era birthed some of the biggest crossover hits from the city—not only for the likes of The Ying Yang Twins and Trillville but also for Usher and Ciara. R&B has always been synonymous with rap in Atlanta, but as of recently, it has disappeared from the spotlight.

Read more on Noisey

VoteVets, the largest left-leaning veterans PAC in the US, just dropped a new ad aimed directly at Donald Trump, and aired it on Morning Joe—which has already upped its ad prices because of Trump's known fandom—to make sure he sees it.

"President Trump, I hear you watch the morning shows," the ad's voiceover says, while the narrator does squats in his garage. "Here's what I do every morning."

"Look, you lost the popular vote, you're having trouble drawing a crowd, and your approval rating keeps sinking," he continues, "but kicking thousands of my fellow veterans off their health insurance by killing the Affordable Care Act and banning Muslims won't help. That's not the America I sacrificed for."

As the camera pulls out, we see that the Afghanistan vet only has one leg after losing the other in combat. "You want to be a legitimate president, sir? Then act like one."

A statement from VoteVets explains that the ad seems like the best way to speak directly to the president, since he took down the White House comment line and still has yet to launch that veteran hotline that he promised during his campaign.

"We're officially putting Mr. Trump on notice," the statement reads.

Growing up, you can't help but notice the absence of your language.

I come from Tsileil-Waututh and Squamish nations. My elementary school was mostly white, with a few native students. I don't remember learning history on our First Nations people. At the time I was more worried about being different from my classmates.

Then I moved up north in Williams Lake, where there were a lot more First Nations at my school. They have Shuswap, Tsilqot'in and Carrier languages up there, and my high school offered classes for all three. I was learning along with them, but it almost didn't feel right, because I didn't belong to it. I thought a lot about why there were so many elders up there, teaching their kids, because I didn't get that growing up.

I don't know the exact numbers, but I've heard there were less than 10 fluent Squamish speakers at one point, with around 30 less-proficient speakers. Residential schools have everything to do with that. Our languages were taken away from us. It was forbidden to speak them. And the result from that was our people being afraid to know their own culture. It was almost not worth it in some people's eyes to bring the language back.

But other elders were strong enough to keep it going for us. Now that I am learning Squamish for myself, it's raised my appreciation for those elders, who held onto it for us. It's our turn to bring it back, and bring it back stronger. At the same time, I think colonialism is still quite strong—you still see it everywhere. I don't think colonialism will ever stop, but this is our way of slowing it down a bit.

As a teenager, I would come back to my territory for the summer and winter breaks. Then I could reconnect with my own culture. My dad got me into traditional singing and dancing. We'd take kayaks out for the day near Belcarra, and he would teach me about the islands there, which was a really beautiful summer activity.

Language still wasn't a priority back then because I didn't think what we're doing now was even possible. I'd never heard of a program like Kwi Awt Stelmexw, with full immersion, though there more of them popping up. I didn't know too many Squamish speakers back then. It just wasn't something I thought was possible for myself.

It was one of my sisters who inspired me to immerse myself and learn the language. I watched her working to bring back the Henqeminem language for the Tsileil-Waututh. That's where the spark hit, seeing her passion for the work. I thought I wanted to become fluent in the language I belong to.

We're halfway through the program now, and some days it still feels scary. This is the first time something like this is being done, and it's up to us to succeed or fail. We've increased the speaking population of our nation by maybe 0.4 percent. Still, that's the biggest increase in years, all at once.

One of the main struggles for me is to get out of my English brain. We all grew up in education systems where reading and writing are the main resources for learning. Our people didn't read and write. Historically we didn't have a writing system. We talked to each other, handed things down, and were expected to learn that way.

We're all moving up through different levels of proficiency. We're past the Tarzan level, where all you can say is "that's an orca," or "my name is." The goal is to be able to answer a huge question, like "do you support Donald Trump?" and be able to back up that opinion with facts.  

I've encountered a surprising amount of skepticism. People will ask us: what is less than 20 people really going to do? They'll ask me: how do you know that's how our ancestors were speaking?

My take on that is, well, maybe this isn't for you, then. But don't worry about it. Languages evolve all the time. English has evolved, so of course Indigenous languages are going to change. We didn't have lots of things in our language: paper, pens, cars, phones. We had elder groups sit down and come up with the words.

Read More: Despite Trudeau's Promises, Liberals Haven't Made a Dent in the First Nations Water Crisis

Personally, I don't think our languages are dying. There's a quote I really like, from a video we watched about the Ojibwe language. It says the language isn't dying, it was just asleep. It's not going to die because we're waking it up now.

We know that now is the time to act, because we still have those elders with us. If we didn't take the opportunity now, who knows what would have happened. Those elders could have gone, and everything they carry could have been gone with them.

The next group of students is going to be able to learn in a different way. They'll benefit from our feedback, and the curriculum will evolve. And as for future generations, I hope that they won't have to struggle or say, "What's that word again?" It will just be a part of their everyday life.

It touches my heart to think about that—and to hear that our ancestors are watching and so proud.

Story has been edited for length and clarity.

America's political divide has never been wider and, with a historically unpopular president already digging his heels in with a flurry of controversial executive orders, that chasm is only guaranteed to grow.

Unsurprisingly, the protests and pushbacks have only galvanized the Trump faithful's commitment to their leader. And they aren't at all afraid to share their opinions of those standing in opposition to the Trump team's whims, be it online or in person.

Should you be on the receiving end of their vitriol—and as the majority of the country and world is anti-Trump, you surely will—you may need help deciphering some of the more arcane zings sent your way. Here's a little cheat sheet.

Beta

There's a sizable Venn diagram overlap between Trump supporters and dudes who got sucked into the icky world of pickup artistry. In the PUA realm, thanks to complete misunderstanding of wolf pack hierarchies, beta has come to be used as a catch all term for anyone who is not an assertive, overbearing alpha type (mostly liberals). This insult has begun to wane in popularity as the more popular "cuck" is used to the same effect.

Blue Pill

In The Matrix, Neo was offered a red pill and a blue pill by Morpheus. The red pill would wake him up to the hard truths of the world, and the blue pill would keep him to in the more comfortable fantasy world.

Some on the right see themselves as Red-pillers who have taken on the burden of enlightenment, having so-called epiphanies about why the races should not mix.

Don't feel too bad if if it's ever suggested that you've taken a blue pill. It's as hack a sentiment as "wake up sheeple" and red pillers are inextricably linked with impotent misogyny.

Blue/Purple-Haired

Referencing the propensity for feminists, SJWs, and other disliked groups to dye their hair bright pastel colors, this insult is, itself, a splash of color usually thrown in to modify a base slur.

BTFO

Ever the gracious winners, Trump supporters celebrate electoral, legislative, or endorsement victories with BTFO which is shorthand for "blown the fuck out." This is as much a cheerful rallying cry amongst each other as it is a taunt to the defeated adversary.

Coloring Book

Referencing a few colleges' misguided efforts to soothe the burn of Trump's victory with offerings like puppies, hot chocolate, and coloring books, this insult insinuates that young people on the left are infantilized and ill-equipped to deal with issues outside of their familiar bubbles that challenge their worldview.

CTR (Shill)

After the International Business Times reported that Hillary Clinton's campaign had potentially violated FEC laws by donating $280,000 to Correct the Record, a SuperPAC that engages in generating online political discussion, correction, trolling, etc., many pro-Clinton comments in various online threads were accused of being the work of "CTR shills." CTR is not as popular an insult as it once was—what with Clinton having lost and all—but shill is still thrown around with regularity to impugn a particular commenter and suggest they're being paid off by a cabal backing the opposing viewpoint.

Cuck

You already know this popular one. To the insulter, liberal ideology is akin to another man fucking your wife. How'd we get from point A to B there? Setting aside the potential projection issues, the simplest reason is that a cuck is regarded as a simpering doormat of a person. "Cuck" is basically just "pussy" rebranded.

While not always the case, some usages of cuck have a racist element added. The wrinkle lies in the fact that a fair amount of cuck porn features a black man or men having intercourse with a white woman while her white husband watches. Liberal ideologies, traditionally more tolerant and beneficial to minorities than those of conservatives, are therefore regarded as a sort of political cucking.

CURRENT YEAR

Comedian John Oliver frequently (ok, maybe too frequently) makes jokes along the lines of "it's 2017, why are we still having to argue for the womens' rights?" This irked segments of the right who believed that pointing to a date on a calendar was not a sufficient argument for a stance.

"It's [CURRENT YEAR]" eventually simmered into the reduction "CURRENT YEAR" and is now employed to mock liberals who think that maybe gay marriage should maybe be legal in the same epoch in which we're gearing up to colonize Mars.

Feminist

Feminism advocates for equal treatment of the sexes. Some people, Men's Rights Activists, in particular, insist that the philosophy actually seeks to diminish men. They're wrong, of course, but this hasn't stopped the word from becoming an insult that only has teeth when read or heard by others who are also anti-feminism.

Globalist

There are legitimate debates to be had over the economic ramifications of Globalism. Unfortunately, anti-globalism is also linked to nationalism, which is pretty much next door neighbors with "the races should not mix." If someone is calling you a globalist online, there's certainly a chance they're doing so with corporate taxation in mind. But given the nature of the medium, it's quite likely they're also concerned with the far more slippery slope of "national identity."

Libtard

A portmanteaux of liberal + retard. Pretty uninspired tbh.

Low Energy

Donald Trump called Jeb Bush "low energy" throughout the course of the primaries and now those who oppose Trump—who is high energy—are also be tarred with that brush.

Participation Trophy

Usually wielded by an older individual, a reference to a participation trophy is meant as a slam on the perceived inherent entitlement of Millennials and the left.

In '80s California, a task force gave kids from poor communities trophies to boost their self-esteem. Before long, T-ball leagues and elementary schools around the country were handing out golden prizes to everyone who participated in a particular activity.

What the participation trophy invoker fails to grasp is that the recipients never once asked for these baubles. Baby Boomers were the ones who decided to hand them out to a bunch of kids who unenthusiastically accepted them before putting them on a shelf and never thinking about them again.

PC

Short for "politically correct" and a vestige of the last century, PC isn't used too much as a personal attack these days as it's been supplanted by the far snazzier "SJW." That said, "PC culture" is still bemoaned as the invisible shackles that prevent people from "telling it like it is" or using terminology others find offensive.

Regressive Left

The term was coined by British politician Maajid Nawaz as a label for those on the left who would jump at the chance to attack an idea or person for expressing an idea. Calling any challenge of Islamic beliefs as Islamaphobia, in particular, is considered part and parcel with Regressive Lefties.

Agree with the sentiment or not, Nawaz presented his measured argument for the phrase reasonably and soberly. Naturally, all nuance has since been divorced from the term and it is now indiscriminately used against any utterance of the left.

Safe Space

Recently, college student groups have set up "safe spaces" as refuges from debating hot button issues. The right, wrongly insinuating that the "real world" has no such sanctuaries, has taken to using the term sarcastically or as a suggestion of where liberals ought to return to.

SJW

Short for "Social Justice Warrior," what once was an insult reserved for those so itching for a morality fight that they'd be willing to attack those on their own side, is now just a catch all term for anyone opposing a conservative ideology.

Snowflake

The current blue-ribbon insult of the right, snowflake refers to the presumption that everyone on the left believes the world owes them something on account of their individuality.

Though plenty has been written on the fact that it—ahem—actually originated as an anti-abolitionist insult, the sentiment of the modern usage is 100% lifted from a Fight Club monologue containing the lines "You are not special. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."

Ironically, these insulters who fancy themselves sage Tyler Durden truth-tellers are often the same ones simply aghast at the actions of the Black Bloc.

Trigger/ed

When sharing stories containing references or descriptions of graphic content like rape, suicide, or other upsetting material, people often attach "trigger warnings." Meant as a courtesy to readers who might have lived through the described situation and might experience PTSD, anxiety, or general displeasure if forced to mentally relive the experience.

Insulters on the right co-opted the trigger warning for mocking usage if a lefty is upset about something, even if justifiably so.

Tolerant Left

Imagine enormous 128pt quotation marks around the word tolerant here and you'll best understand the right's sarcastic usage of this term, reparations for decades of being told THEY were the intolerant ones.

Tumblrina

A term relatively interchangeable with "SJW," Tumblrina is an insult aimed at young, alt-looking lefty women, as Tumblr is a social media platform containing multitudes of liberal-minded youngsters who can occasionally lay on the self-righteousness a little thick. That probably has more to do with kids being obnoxious than political ideology.

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In what seems like an especially explicit episode of The Young Pope, a Catholic priest in Padua, Italy, will likely be defrocked after admitting to organizing sex parties in the rectory at his church.

According to the Independent, three women originally made complaints against Andrea Contin, a priest at the Church of St. Lazarus, regarding the orgies back in December. Now, 30-plus women have signed on to that complaint.

One woman, who claimed she also fathered a son from Contin, told investigators that the priest also encouraged her to have sex with a horse and beat her twice in the church's rectory. He was also allegedly using wife-swapping sites to lend his lovers out to other men.

Contin initially denied the allegations, but police ended up finding hard drives of porn and video evidence of the bacchanals, filmed by another priest named Roberto Cavazzana, in his possession. According to the Sun, the sex parties appeared to have taken place in the church's rectory, or clergy residence, rather than on the altar next to the crucifix or whatever. Regardless, both men reportedly admitted to the allegations and came clean to the parish's bishop, Monsignor Claudio Cipolla, last week.

"The behavior of Father Andrea was in complete contrast with the commitments he made to the church," Cipolla said at a press conference. "He had an objectionable lifestyle and, as such, is not eligible to exercise the priestly ministry. His actions have also compromised him to such an extent he can no longer represent himself as a priest, even after his repentance."

Contin also supposedly had more than 30 lovers who he took to fancy dinners and on retreats to a nudist camp in France, so the guy was keeping busy. "He always carried a briefcase full of vibrators, sex toys, masks, and bondage equipment," one of his accusers reportedly told authorities.

Of course, Catholic priests take a vow of chastity when they receive their holy orders—so he's at least guilty of breaking that rule, if not several others. Police are now investigating Contin for psychological and physical assault, as well as facilitating prostitution, although he reportedly hasn't been arrested yet.

"Even if, at the end of this affair, there are no legal consequences, we have a duty by canon law to take disciplinary action," Cipolla said, who has already started the process to get Contin defrocked.

Contin's filmmaking counterpart, Cavazzana, will likely not face expulsion from the church, Cipolla says, because his involvement was "partial and occasional," though still "unacceptable." Two other priests are also thought to have engaged in the orgies, which is almost certainly not the way the Catholic Church wants its ministers to come together.

On an all new episode of HATE THY NEIGHBOR, our VICELAND series following comedian Jamali Maddix as he confronts the groups spreading hate across the world, we attend a white power music festival where Jamali meets with Azov, a far-right militant group in Ukraine that has gained legitimacy despite its neo-Nazi roots.

HATE THY NEIGHBOR airs Mondays at 10 PM on VICELAND.

Want to know if you get VICELAND? Find out here.

You'd be hard pressed to find a rock musician with the international clout of Gutxi Bibang. Born and raised in the Basque region of Spain to African immigrants from Equatorial Guinea, he now lives in London. His (as yet untitled) debut album will be released on Oskar Recordings, a French label, later this year.

But the globetrotting is only one of the things about Gutxi (pronounced Gucci) that's got people talking. His first single, "System of a Gun," is a Led Zeppelin–esque kick to the teeth, anchored by a blistering guitar riff courtesy of Gutxi himself. In the song's video, Gutxi and his band (bassist and girlfriend Tabatha Beu and drummer Gary Lee) play live in a small loft space drenched in ever-changing psychedelic light. Released in December of last year, those unaware might think they were watching a video from the 1960s or 70s—the band looks and sounds like a throwback to the days when rock was a socio-cultural force for change.

We are so enamored of Gutxi—his music, his style—we decided to hang with him and Tabatha at their home. "We actually are quite reclusive," Gutxi says of the couple. "We try to just stay in our flat and tune out the world with art and music, because just going out or turning on the news makes us too angry."

Here's us tuning in to Gutxi's tuning out.