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

US News

Hawaii Launches Lawsuit Over New Trump Travel Ban
Hawaii has become the first state to launch a legal challenge against President Trump's latest travel ban. A court filing shows the state will seek a temporary restraining order against the executive order restricting immigration from six Muslim-majority countries. Neal Katyal, Hawaii's lead attorney, said the latest order "suffers from the same constitutional and statutory defects" as the previous one.—CNN

Apple, Other Tech Giants Address Alleged CIA Hack Secrets
Apple and other tech giants have responded to the release of documents from WikiLeaks that purportedly show the CIA's hacking techniques and ability to listen in on devices like phones and smart TVs. Apple said some issues were already "patched" in the latest iPhone update and that it would "rapidly address any identified vulnerabilities." Samsung and Microsoft said they were "looking into" the info dump.—BBC News

Women Across the US Expected to Join Global Strike
Some of the same organizers behind the recent Women's March in Washington are urging women to strike today to highlight their role in society and economic inequality. Rallies for "A Day Without Women" are planned across the US as part of International Women's Day, with some school districts in North Carolina and Virginia set to remain closed because teachers were asked to participate.—NBC News

Baltimore PD Disbands Main Plainclothes Unit
The Baltimore Police Department has disbanded its chief plainclothes enforcement unit following the indictment of officers from another special intelligence squad, the Gun Trace Task Force, on multiple racketeering charges last week. All 46 officers of the plainclothes unit will be reassigned to patrol ranks.—The Baltimore Sun

International News

Gunmen Storm Afghan Military Hospital, Killing Dozens
Gunmen dressed as medics have stormed Kabul's Sardar Daud Khan military hospital, with Afghan special forces then engaging in a prolonged battle to reclaim it. At least 30 people have been killed and dozens more wounded, according to officials. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.—Al Jazeera/NYT

China Urges North Korea to Stop Missile Tests
China has called on North Korea to chill out with missile tests and development of nuclear technology to avoid a "head on collision" with South Korea. Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the US and South Korea should suspend annual military drills in return. He also compared the "looming crisis" to "two accelerating trains."—BBC News

South Africa Pulls Plan to Withdraw from the ICC
South Africa's top court has blocked the government's attempt to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), ruling it "unconstitutional and invalid." The country isn't the only African nation that has flouted the ICC, but its remaining under the court's jurisdiction represents a boon for global legal norms. —Reuters

Fillon Accused of Failing to Declare Loan
French presidential candidate Francois Fillon has been hit by a new allegation of wrongdoing, accused by the Canard Enchaîné newspaper of failing to declare an interest-free loan of $53,000 from media mogul Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière. A lawyer for Fillon, the conservative candidate, said he had repaid the loan.—The Guardian

Everything Else

Statue of Liberty Goes Dark
Most of the lights illuminating the Statue of Liberty went off for an hour starting around 11 PM last night. Staff at the National Park Service said the power outage was probably related to work on a backup generator, and was not a political protest of any kind.—The Washington Post

Russia Stops Kids Under 16 Seeing Beauty and the Beast
The Russia culture ministry has barred children under 16 from seeing Disney's Beauty and the Beast because it features (possibly) gay character LeFou. The 16-plus rating follows efforts by right-wing lawmaker Vitaly Milonov to have the movie banned entirely.—AP

Vic Mensa Arrested for Carrying Weapon in Car
Chicago rapper Vic Mensa was pulled over and arrested at the end of last month before being charged with carrying a concealed weapon. Mensa spent the night in jail and released on $35,000 bail.—Billboard

Americans Are Having Less Sex Than in the 1990s
A new study in Archives of Sexual Behavior suggests Americans are having less sex than they were 25 years ago. The findings show US adults had sex between seven and nine fewer times per year in 2014 than they did in the 1990s.—VICE

Whites More Likely to Oppose College Pay-for-Play
A new study in Political Research Quarterly found white people were more likely than black people to oppose college athletes getting paid, and racial resentment was deemed the strongest predictor of white opposition to pay-for-play.—VICE Sports

Canadian First Lady Asks Women to Celebrate Men
Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, wife of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said women should "celebrate the boys and men in our lives" on International Women's Day. She suggested women post photos of themselves holding a man's hand with the hashtag #TomorrowInHand.—VICE

There was no better time than the 1990s to be young, female, and angry. Riot Grrrl's feminist thrash finally offered women an alternative-music scene of their own, while Alanis Morissette's more palatable brand of ferocity topped the charts. Authority-confronting comics like Margaret Cho and Janeane Garofalo used their guile to defy feminine expectation, and dark-spirited ingénues such as Winona Ryder, Christina Ricci, and Angelina Jolie lent their doe-eyed morbidity to the big screen. And television? Well, television had Darlene Conner.

If you were a sardonic proto-goth coming of age two decades ago, there was no teenager on TV more iconic than Darlene Conner, played by razor-sharp Sara Gilbert. The second loudest mouthpiece on ABC's Roseanne (inferior only to the explosive protagonist herself), the Conners's middle child personified Gen X cool. With a feral mane of black spirals and jeans expertly shredded at the knees, her perpetual plaid flannel button-down shrouded her in the don't-give-a-fuck spirit of grunge. Still, it was Darlene's puckish, wittier-than-thou smirk that epitomized her cunning. There was no one—and especially not a loved one—this bitterly derisive teen couldn't cut down a peg with her hatchet-like quips. (As she cracks in season six, "I don't smoke pot. It dulls my hatred.") What power-starved young kid didn't want to be her?

Darlene, however, was more than just an irascible heroine of adolescent disaffection: She was also the Conner to root for. An ambitious and intelligent truth teller, she dreamed of a career as a comic-book author and becoming the first in her family to attend college. And when her rising star faced the possibility of falling at the end of the eighth season due to an unplanned pregnancy with her on-again/off-again boyfriend, even little girls like myself understood the gravity of her reproductive choice. The pain stared us in the face: Both her mom and older sister set aside their goals to elope with their high school sweethearts. Darlene, who swore she'd never repeat their mistakes, ends up marrying and becoming a mom at the age of 19.

To this day, Roseanne remains one of the few sitcoms to embrace the realities of American blue-collar life and, over the course of the series, Darlene becomes the symbol of upward mobility for a struggling family. Although she originates as an 11-year-old smart-ass tomboy, she soon morphs into a depressive alt-nerd whose seeming laziness is actually a sign of under-stimulated intellect. (In the pilot, her teacher accuses her of barking in class—classic acting out behavior for a gifted student. Later, in season two, we learn she is a vulnerable and precocious writer, exhibiting the first hints of her all-too-relatable melancholy.)

Throughout the series, her progressive, contrarian nature bubbles to the surface, chemically reacting to her Midwestern factory town. Her goth tendencies, veganism, and misandry all mark her as an iconoclast in a stifling small-town culture where football kings and cheerleading queens reign supreme. In season six, she finally transfers from their stagnant suburb to an art school in Chicago, the first of many hopeful steps toward intellectual and financial freedom.

Her family isn't always supportive. In season eight, the Conners balk when she declines a well-paying job offer with an ad agency because it would entail quitting school. Roseanne confesses to Darlene that she toiled her whole life to give her kids a better chance than she had, but it has come with the price of her personal jealousy and Darlene's increasing classism, as the girl can't stop sniping about the worn state of the house or her parents' lowbrow tastes. "It's like you're one of 'them,' and you're putting 'us' down," Roseanne admits, ashamed. The conversation is heartbreaking to watch, as an omniscient viewer knows how this will end just a season later: with Darlene electing to move back home with her mother to raise her newborn daughter, giving up her dreams of city life.

Darlene's arc is a tragedy of thwarted female ambition undone by cyclical poverty, and her legacy can be seen today on such popular shows as Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, which take an explicitly feminist lens to how pregnancy and the expectations of womanhood can impede one's upward trajectory. Roseanne ended exactly 20 years ago this spring, but its lessons are more relevant today than ever, as we navigate our way through a political environment where reproductive rights are being challenged all over the country and our president has vowed to overturn Roe v. Wade. Although Darlene decides to keep her pregnancy, she is a seminal example of the dangers of revoking our ability to choose, and her story remains a stark reminder of the realities of living in a culture that pressures women into prioritizing family over career.

Darlene's dark, bellicose, and androgynous attitude was unlike any teenage girl seen on TV at that time, when vacuous or bubbly teeny boppers such as Full House's D.J. Tanner or Family Ties's Mallory Keaton were the norm. Now, Darlene's heirs are all over peak TV: from One Day at a Time's radical, queer, teenage feminist Elena and Transparent' s non-binary floater Ali Pfefferman to Jessica Jones's leather-fitted, swaggering superhero or Girls' adventurous, determined writer Hannah Horvath. Even characters such as Parks and Recreation's sardonic goth April and Orange Is the New Black's wild-haired, wisecracking Nicky owe their identities to the original rule breaker. With a mouth like a whip and an idiosyncratic style that invited the rest of us weirdos to look up to her, Darlene rewrote the narrative for young women on television.

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The White House is once again facing a crisis over its links to the Kremlin, after it emerged that Donald Trump met the Russian ambassador during his election run last April. Trump and his aides have previously strongly denied that the president had any contact with Russia during his campaign.

Having already seen his first choice for national security adviser resign over his contact with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and his attorney general recuse himself from any investigations into links with Russia, Trump is now directly in the firing line—not because of the meeting itself but because of his repeated denials.

"Russia is a ruse. I have nothing to do with Russia. Haven't made a phone call to Russia in years. Don't speak to people from Russia," Trump said at a press conference just last month.

While not denying that an encounter took place, a White House official called the reports of a scheduled meeting "disingenuous and absurd."

Continue reading on VICE News

A long, long time ago—like, eight or nine years—Democrats had a rare opportunity that comes along once a generation in politics: They could do something. After winning the House, the Senate, and the White House, the party set about reforming the American healthcare system, which was notoriously complicated, inefficient, and cruel. After months of heated debate and compromise between liberals who wanted government-provided health insurance and moderates who wanted something less drastic, the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, became law.

The ACA expanded Medicaid to a larger number of people and incentivized those too wealthy to qualify for Medicaid to purchase insurance by way of a set of penalties and subsidies. It failed to satisfy left-wing members of Congress like Bernie Sanders, who wanted "Medicaid for all"; Republicans uniformly opposed it from the beginning; it pissed off enough voters that Democrats immediately lost control of the House; it narrowly avoided being dismantled by the Supreme Court; the website it created was a clusterfuck; some of its state insurance marketplaces have been struggling; experts still debate its economic impact. It was an enormously complicated piece of legislation, in other words, that fell short in many respects—and yet it did succeed in giving millions of people health insurance, mostly through Medicaid.

With Donald Trump and the Republicans sweeping the 2016 elections, they have a similar chance to do something big, namely turn their long-held promise of repealing and replacing the ACA into concrete action. The most significant move of the repeal effort came Monday, when House Republicans, led by Speaker Paul Ryan, released a bill that officially outlined an ACA replacement. Like the ACA, the new bill—called the American Health Care Act, or AHCA—is an attempt at doing a whole lot of things at once. It gets rid of most of the ACA's unpopular features, halts the Medicaid expansion (after 2019), and lets insurers charge old people more than they currently can, among other things. It also appears to be an attempt to craft something that can pass the Senate through "reconciliation," a process that requires 50 votes rather than 60 and is intended to be used for measures relating to revenue.

It has the support of some Republican leaders, including President Donald Trump, but everyone else seems to hate it with a passion. Here's an incomplete guide to the who and why:

Democrats

Obviously, everyone on the left opposes a bill that strips away benefits and protections from people. The ACA was uniformly denounced by Republicans, so Democrats have been doing the same thing to its proposed replacement. Even those who criticized the ACA as being insufficiently socialist don't want to see it struck down:

Planned Parenthood

The ACHA would also defund Planned Parenthood for a year, so naturally the women's health care organization is against it.

Conservative Think Tanks

But the really bad sign for the bill is that conservatives have problems with the ACHA too, albeit for opposite reasons than Democrats. The bill would keep the government involved in healthcare to an unacceptable extent, say groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth. "Obamacare Lite" is the moniker that appears to be sticking to the ACHA. That's not a compliment.

The Koch Brothers

In that roster of conservative groups opposed to the ACHA are those backed by the anti-regulation, anti-tax Koch brothers, who have no problem throwing around the apocalyptic rhetoric of the Tea Party. From USA Today:

At a Capitol Hill rally Tuesday attended by about 200 Koch-aligned activists, Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips warned that Republicans "will have the shortest-lived majority in the modern era" [if] they don't toss the law on "the ash heap of history."

Conservative Intellectuals

Right-wing healthcare wonks hate the ACA for a host of reasons, but they appear to hate the AHCA almost as much:

• "House Republican leaders sent a signal loud and clear: liberalism has already won," wrote Philip Klein, a conservative who has written extensively on healthcare for the Washington Examiner.
• "If Republicans manage to pass this, they will richly deserve it when voters blame them for the resulting havoc it will wreak in the individual market," predicted Megan McArdle in Bloomberg.
• "The GOP's real problem, in terms of passing legislation, isn't that the party can't agree on specifics, or that legislators need to bargain their way toward a compromise that gives everyone something they want," wrote Jacob Sullum in libertarian Reason. "It's that they don't agree on, or in some cases even have, basic goals when it comes to health policy."
• Finally, a National Review editorial bent over backward to praise the bill, but concluded, "The bill is a disappointment. And it is not too late to get a second opinion."

Ann Coulter

Breitbart News

Two versions of the homepage of what is normally a very Trump-friendly media outlet:

Old People

Even before any bill was introduced to the public, AARP, the senior advocacy group with an enormous amount of political power, was gearing up to fight any Republican plan that would allow insurers to jack up rates on older people. The AHCA allows insurers to jack up rates on older people, so predictably AARP has come out against it. It even produced an ad against the "age tax" contained in the AHCA:

Senate Republicans

Meanwhile, several Republican Senators have problems with the bill too. Rand Paul and Mike Lee, both antigovernment conservatives, oppose it on the same grounds as the Freedom Caucus. Ted Cruz hasn't made up his mind about it. And Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican moderate, has voiced concerns about any ACA replacement that doesn't leave the Medicaid expansion in place or that defunds Planned Parenthood.

At Least One Republican Governor

"Illinois won't do very well under the changes they're recommending," is how Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner put his vague criticism of the ACHA. A lot of Republican governors in states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA (like Illinois did) have been nervous about a repeal that ends that expansion.

Hospitals

The American Hospital Association released a letter to congressional leaders Tuesday opposing the bill, presumably because fewer insured people means less revenue for hospitals.

Doctors

The American College of Physicians wrote a similar letter to Congress, highlighting a host of concerns about sweeping changes to Medicaid and coverage requirements.

Conservative Republicans in the House

Adding insult to insult, even Ryan's fellow House Republicans aren't united around the bill. After a meeting Tuesday evening, the Freedom Caucus—a group of hardline conservatives in the House—was reportedly very unhappy with the ACHA, saying that the Speaker would need Democratic votes to get the bill through the House. That's not going to happen.

Paul Ryan?

The ACHA plan is so hated that there's speculation that somebody as allegedly clever as Ryan would never have introduced it seriously. At the bare minimum, wouldn't he have at least consulted with the conservative groups who are tearing into the bill? Or try to get the fickle Freedom Caucus in line? Is Ryan really that dumb? Yeah, he's dumb LIKE A FOX according to one theory:

"Ryan couldn't possibly be this inept," wrote Scott Lemieux in the Week. He didn't get his allies on board for a simple reason: He doesn't actually want any major repeal plan to pass."

Soooooo, uh, the way this theory goes is that Ryan wants to be seen making a serious attempt to repeal the ACA, but the ACA is popular enough with voters—and potential replacements are so unpopular—that making changes to the healthcare system would wreck Republicans' electoral chances. Better to do nothing loudly, then, and make sure you're reelected.

If this is what the GOP's effort to do something big looks like, getting rid of the ACA is going to be even harder than it was to set up.

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The youngest MPP in Ontario history (and VICE's favourite little guy in Canadian politics,) Sam Oosterhoff, has won his nomination battle.

The 19-year-old social conservative first won a provincial by-election in November of last year—to the shock (and glee) of many pundits. Now, the one man youth wing of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives will be going into the June 2018 election to take on whatever loser the Liberals throw his way.

To get to where he is, Oosterhoff has had to take on some mighty challengers. The lil' guy had to start his quest by winning his riding's nomination. The riding, Niagara-West Glanbrook, was formerly held by Tim Hudak—the former leader of the party—and to win it Oosterhoff went head to head with PC party president Rick Dykstra and regional councillor Tony Quirk.

T'was a mighty task, but, in the end, Oosterhoff, like a little babe David, emerged victorious over the Goliaths on the party executive after rallying the evangelical vote in the riding. After vanquishing those mighty foes, our politically minded toddler easily won his riding in a by-election.

Photo via Facebook

Then, because the work of a warrior is never over, Oosterhoff was challenged for the nomination for his riding in the upcoming election, again by Quirk. While fundraising for this nomination, Oosterhoff found himself in the lamest fundraising scandal ever when he briefly used a Go-Fund-Me page to raise funds (which you're totally allowed to do if you follow the rules).

This time, the nomination battle wasn't even close, and the babe smashed Quirk with 903 votes to 313—he didn't decapitate Quirk and march around with triumphantly his head like the real David, but it was still an impressive victory. With that tally now in the books it makes three hard-fought wins in five months for our lil' guy. Say what you want about the Oosterhoff, but he is hell of a fighter.

When first elected, the Oosterhoff-inator got dragged a little for living with his parents, being home schooled, being such a staunch social conservative that he was endorsed by anti-abortion activists, and has been grilled on what seemed to be a homophobic stances. Since he started, the kid opposed a law that would give more rights to same-sex parents, called himself "100% pro-life," and missed his first day of work to plan a killer party for himself.  

But we must remember that the lil' baby MPP is only 19. Remember how dumb you were when you were 19? (I assume you were pretty fucking dumb.)

Let's just hope that, much like good wine, the MPP will get better with age.

Lead photo via Twitter.

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Grandmothers are generally packages of pure goodness, and none of us are truly worthy of eating their soup, washing our hands with their endless collection of cute little soaps or just watching dubbed Mexican telenovelas by their side. You might share some hereditary traits with your nan, but you won't have shared many of the same experiences. So much has changed in a few generations – 50 or 60 years ago, the expectations on young people were vastly different to what is expected of you now.

In honour of International Women's Day, VICE writers from Europe and Mexico spoke to their grandmothers about the choices they would have made, had they spent 2017 as millennials instead of septuagenarians.

UNITED KINGDOM

Sylvia, 68, from Nottingham

My grandmother Sylvia worked as a hairdresser and a barmaid before moving to Jamaica in 1990, where she worked as chicken farmer and dressmaker. After she returned to the UK, she became a family photographer and later worked in administration before retiring.
– Amy, 21, Intern VICE UK

VICE: Growing up in the 1960s, did you feel you had as many rights then as women do today?
Sylvia: At the time, young women generally felt very liberated because the pill had just been introduced. The pay gap was a lot worse back then, and women are much better educated now. Back then, even if they were bright, a lot of working-class women couldn't go on to do A Levels or a degree because their parents wanted them to work. So it was different in the 1960s, but I think a lot had happened by then to help our emancipation. It was a hopeful time.

Do you think your choices in life would have been different if you had been born in 1995 like me?
I'm not sure if I would have gotten married. I realise now that I got married too young – I was only 19, your granddad was 21. We had kids without thinking about it – getting married, moving in together and having kids was just the normal thing to do. We didn't think of how hard it would be. But the hard work wasn't the issue, it was the loneliness. Being a single parent is lonely of course, but even when you're married it can be very lonely at home when your husband's at work all day.

Is there something you really wanted to do but couldn't because you're a woman?
Well, [after I divorced your grandfather in the early 1970s] I wanted to buy a terraced house and I couldn't get a mortgage from a building society – despite having a job and enough savings to put down as a deposit. They just laughed at me because I was a woman. Eventually, I did manage to get a mortgage through a local council. I also wanted to be a policewoman but the reason I couldn't be one had nothing to do with women's rights. I just wasn't tall enough.

GREECE

Melpo, 86

My grandmother Melpo lives in Piraeus. She spent most of her life working as a homemaker, taking care of her five children.
– Melpomeni Maragidou, 27, News Editor VICE Greece

VICE: Do you think you and I made different choices in life because we grew up as women in different times?
Melpo: I had a good husband who gave me more freedom than other men gave their wives. But you and your mother were raised very differently than I was. I was never allowed to go out by myself, for example. I had an arranged marriage when I was 19. If I was young now, I guess I'd probably get married to someone I loved – although I got to love my husband as the years went by. I also wish I'd been older when I got married and that I'd lived my life before that. But if I were to do it all over again I'd still marry my husband. He was a good man. He never bossed me around.

Are there any other things you would have done differently if you were growing up now?
I wish I had gotten a job. My husband made enough money to support our family, but I would have liked to make my own money. Instead, I was trapped in the house looking after my five children and later, my nine grandchildren. I love them all, but it's not like I had a choice. I'd really have liked to have been a cook, or a chauffeur. But I never learnt how to drive.

My husband gave me a lot of freedom so whenever I had the chance, I just did whatever I felt like. He was an ardent right-wing supporter and I'd always tell him, "Don't worry, I voted for the guy you told me to vote for," but I would vote for the social-democratic PASOK party instead. I never told him, of course.

What rights do you think women should keep on fighting for today?
Many things have changed, but we're not there yet. There's no true equality behind closed doors – women still bear the brunt of having to balance their career, raising their children, cleaning the house and looking after elderly relatives. You need to make your own money, be good at your job, so that you can be independent and leave your partner any time you want. Never stay with someone because you feel obliged to. It doesn't matter how many men you've been with – one, two, three, ten – just try to find the one who's best for you and if he's not: Next please!

MEXICO

Image via María's Instagram

María Aguirre, 75

My grandmother María lives in Venezuela. Before having her children, she worked as a secretary for a few years.
– Diego Urdaneta, 27, Staff Writer VICE Mexico

VICE: Would you have made any different choices in your life if you had grown up now?
María Aguirre: Yes, I would have made everything of the freedom I'd have. When I was growing up, I was not allowed to go out on my own. I only went out with your grandfather – he was very protective and didn't let me go out by myself. I had your father at 17 – your grandfather made me quit my job as a secretary so I could take care of my sons. I was happy to do that and I never regretted it, but it would have been interesting to pursue a career like young women do today.

Was there anything about your position as a woman living in that time that bothered you especially?
As a woman with my skills, the only job I could get was as a secretary. I couldn't get promoted. I always wanted to be a senior executive or something like that – I regularly helped the guys in the office with their work, but I wasn't allowed to have an opinion on their decisions.

Do you think women have achieved equality in the corporate workplace now?
Women today do have jobs and careers that in my time were only for men. So, I think that we're very close to equality, yes. We even have female presidents!

POLAND

Janina, 65

My grandmother Janina grew up in Iława, Poland, and worked as a psychologist for 41 years. She recently retired.
- Maja, 18, Contributor VICE Poland

VICE: Do you think you and I grew up completely differently?
Janina: Yes, women didn't have as many rights when I was your age. Women were supposed to clean the house and discipline their children. Little girls were taught how to be a good wife and a responsible mother. Women's Day on the 8th of March was a national holiday in communist times, and women would traditionally receive a carnation and a pair of stockings on that day. Men would celebrate too, mostly by roaming the streets drunk.

What bothered you the most about your position as a woman in communist Poland?
I could never buy the clothes I wanted. And at the time, no one was talking about women's sexuality. The only thing we learnt about was how to prevent pregnancy – and if you had gotten pregnant, how to give birth to a healthy child. That changed after the publication of Michalina Wisłocka's book The Art Of Loving. Wisłocka showed that women were people with individual desires and needs.

Women in Poland still have a lot to take to the streets for – like when the Polish government tried to completely ban abortion last year. What do you think is the most important fight facing Polish women today?
We still have to fight for equal rights and equal duties in raising children. When a child is causing trouble, society usually blames the mother. And many employers aren't interested in employing women, because by law, employers need to guarantee child care for female employers with children. As a result, qualified and educated women remain unemployed and are forced to stay home to take care of their husband and children. If they do get a job, they'll get less pay than men for the same work. There's so much left to protest for in Poland.

SPAIN

Manuela Doral Pardo, 78

My grandmother "Lola" was born in Noceda do Cervantes but moved to Barcelona in 1954. She used to work as a kitchenhand at the Vall d'Hebrón Hospital in Barcelona, and has three children, who are now 56, 46 and 36.
- Laura Muriel, 31, Editor VICE Spain

VICE: If you had grown up around the same time I grew up, would you have gone differently about your life?
Lola: For starters, I would have studied nursing. I was born during the Spanish Civil War, so I never went to school because I had to take care of my family's cows and sheep. At 16, I moved to Barcelona and started working as a maid for rich families. I only learnt to read and write when I was 36 – I had two children by that time, the first one I had at 21. If I were young now, I'd have gone to school and would have had my family later. Not as late as women do today, though.

Was there something that bothered you in particular about being a young woman in that time?
I think that back in my time women were more ignorant and men were more sexist. I remember being really bothered when I found out I earned less than men in my workplace, while I was working longer hours. I had no idea. I spent 30 years working in a hospital kitchen, where men were cooks and women were the kitchenhands – we cooked too, but the women also had to serve the meals to more than a hundred patients per turn. The men didn't have to work as hard, while they made more money. When we protested to get the same conditions as the men, the hospital management threatened to fire us and said we complained too much. In the end, nothing changed – the men were the cooks and women were their assistants.

Do you think women and men today have equal rights?
There's still a lot to fight for, but I'm positive we'll achieve it. We don't have equal rights yet because men feel threatened by us, but they shouldn't be – our success doesn't discredit them or what they do. Also, men should realise that we need them in our fight for equality – if they help us out things will be better for everybody. However, I'm worried that issues such as drug addiction and unemployment in our society will delay gender equality.

ROMANIA

Maria Zeveleanu, 78

My grandmother Maria worked as a chemist in the steel industry for 32 years until she retired.
- Andrada Lăutaru, 26, Contributor VICE Romania

VICE: What was life like for a young woman in communist Romania?
Maria Zeveleanu: I got my job right after graduation, when I was 17. If I had been born in another time, I think I would have liked to go to college to study IT, or maybe a foreign language.

Was there anything about your position as a woman in that time that bothered you especially?
It was tough. We weren't allowed to have abortions or leave the country, we basically didn't have any freedom. The only thing we were allowed to do was work more than men and get paid less.

What would you have done differently if you were 26 today?
If I were 26 now, I would have been able to find a better job with a decent salary. I would travel – I'm sad I didn't have the opportunity to spend holidays abroad and see the world like you do. And there's so much corruption in this country – if I were your age I would have joined the protests against the government, too.

SWEDEN

Birgitta Andréasson, 74

My grandmother Birgitta lives in Kalmar and worked as an administrator at the Swedish Tax Agency before she retired.
– Benjamin Wirström, 24, Translator VICE Sweden

VICE: Do you think things are different for women today compared to when you were young?
Birgitta: I think the world is very different. I obviously don't know how women are living their lives today, but when I watch teen movies and see what kids are doing, it's a world of difference. We were so naive, I think we matured much later in life than young people today.

Would you have made any different choices in your life if you had grown up now?
Absolutely. What I'm jealous of is that young people today get to travel the world and learn so much by doing that. It's become so simple to go to different countries and meet people – you grow and you learn so much by meeting different kinds of people.

What rights do you feel women in Sweden still need to fight for?
Equal pay is a big thing, right? Even though our society have progressed in so many ways, our laws are antiquated when it comes to wages. I don't know if it is possible to achieve true equality, even in 100 years. Men and women simply have different sets of privileges, because we're so fundamentally different.

SWITZERLAND

Maria, 77

My grandmother Maria worked as a teacher and is now retired and living in Zurich. Women in Zurich were only granted the right to vote in federal elections in 1971 – the last Swiss canton to allow women to vote in local issues was forced to do so in 1991.
- Julian Riegel, 25, Deputy Editor Noisey Alps

VICE: Do you think you and I grew up differently when it comes to women's rights?
Maria: You were born on the day of a national women's strike in Switzerland, on the 14th of June 1991. There's a lot more awareness surrounding women's rights these days. I had the right to vote most of my life, but there wasn't a real public push for equality and we never even got close to wage equality. When I was teaching, I was paid a lot less then my male peers. The men were hired by the state and women by the town councils.

Would you have made any different choices in your life if you were my age now?
I was the very first girl in our village to go to secondary school. In those days, people just didn't think a girl needed an education. Because there weren't many options for a girl who wanted to study, I had to enrol in a boarding school run by nuns. That was terrible. In summer we had to wear white dresses, in winter dark blue ones. We weren't allowed to go for a walk alone, the nuns checked all of our correspondence. When I finished secondary school at 20, I joined the military because women's service had been promoted heavily and I thought it could help me. I don't know if I would have made the same choice today.

What do you think Swiss women still have to fight for?
We have to fight for equality, for the same opportunities in the workplace that men enjoy. And we need to fight to change men's perception of women. A lot of men feel threatened by women's rights, they feel they need to put women down to remain strong – but I think women and men need to work together to make life better for everyone.

PORTUGAL

Maria Sobral, 82

My grandmother Maria Sobral was born in the city of Beja in 1935. She worked as a social worker after her children were born.
- Madalena Maltez, 23, Contributor VICE Portugal

VICE: Were you aware of women's rights growing up?
Maria: I grew up as the daughter of a landowner in a rural part of Portugal, and women's rights were not something you'd talk about. Workers' rights were already causing my father sleepless nights – I can't imagine what he would have done if I had brought up women's issues.

Did you ever have a job?
Yes, I started working as a social worker in 1973, after my four children had been born and were in school. I had been busy raising my children before that. Women of my social class weren't expected to have a job or even leave the house without a chaperone. I confess that I never really felt the urge to work. At the time, a woman's salary belonged to her husband – by law, he managed the family income and could ask for his wife's contract to be terminated. But my husband never wanted that – my salary was mine. He still is much more of a political person than I am, a staunch supporter of equality.

Do you think you would have done anything differently in your life if you had grown up now?
I honestly don't think I personally would have, no. Things would have been different, of course. I grew up in a dictatorship, which meant I was shielded from politics. The education I got was designed in such a way that distracted me from social causes, and many of the families that owned land where I grew up were supporters of or related to the government and the dictatorship. I wouldn't change any of my personal choices, but I would have liked to have been more aware of what life was really like for many people under that status quo. I have no doubt that life for women is much better now.

(Top photo: Juliette Gibert, via)

While cheap-as-chips Ryanair flights have made it a hotbed for lobster-faced tourists posting Snapchat stories from gondolas, visiting Venice might require a snorkel if we carry on polluting the air with shite. According to a new climate change report, Venice will be underwater within a century if the acceleration of global warming is not curbed and flood defences installed.

The floating city will become like Atlantis (if Atlantis was real and full of beautiful architecture, discarded selfie-sticks and people not mermaids), because the Mediterranean Sea is forecasted to rise by up to 140cm before 2100, according to research.

The same rise in sea level is expected to swamp a 176-mile long coastline in the north Adriatic and parts of the west coast of Italy, due to greenhouse gas emissions. The report, published in Quartenary International, also claimed that up to 5,500km2 of coastal plains will be flooded before 2100.

"The subsequent loss of land will impact the environment and local infrastructures, suggesting land planners and decision makers [should] take into account these scenarios for cognisant coastal management," said lead author, Fabrizio Antonioli. "Our method developed for the Italian coast can be applied worldwide in other coastal areas expected to be affected by marine ingression due to global climate change."

The team also believes that 33 areas across Italy in total are particularly at risk from the predicted rise. The research also said that sea levels rose by just 32cm over the past millennium, which makes the predicted rise over the next 100 years look pretty terrifying – despite it not actually making up even one Danny DeVito in height.

If the prospect of being able to get less pissed because of the weakening pound hasn't tempted you to head for the bright lights of Skegness instead of an iconic European city, perhaps the prospect of your carbon footprint making it look like a scene out of Waterworld might.

A woman's aviation group has decided to honour Hanna Reitsch, who became the first woman to ever fly a helicopter back in 'ole 1937, which seems pretty cool until you learn she was totally a literal Nazi.  

Mireille Goyer, the Vancouver-based founder and president of the Institute for Women of Aviation Worldwide (WOAW), told CBC that WOAW is "not into making a political statement" and that "her controversial part in political history, to me, that's not relevant."

With the recognition of Reitsch coinciding with International Women's Day, WOAW has been blasted online for the decision to honour an actual Nazi.

Reitsch wasn't even an ordinary, terrible Nazi; she was an extreme supporter of Adolf Hitler and was in close contact with him (as in, there is a literal photo of her shaking his hand). Yet WOAW wants Reitsch's commemoration to be based on her achievements as a female pilot alone, rather than the part of career where she pitched the idea of enlisting a suicide squad of pilots to strategically bomb the Allies during World War II.

Honouring Nazis is a tricky affair at the best of times and the choice to commemorate Reitsch seems even more bizarre given it comes amidst a time where anti-Semitism and Neo-Nazism appears to be on the rise in Canada and the US.

But some members of WOAW seem fairly unbothered by it.

"Are we going to keep on talking about the past?" WOAW member Margureite Varin said a recent event in Montreal according to the CBC.  Varin even said there are videos of Reitsch on YouTube explaining how airplanes function, adding "It's really cute to watch her talk about it. It was amazing that a woman, 80 years ago, did such a thing." Another thing this woman did 80 years ago? Nazi stuff.

Air Canada, a sponsor of WOAW, is now reconsidering their funding given the controversy. The airline said in a statement they "were not involved in the planning and choice of theme, or consulted and advised of any people being recognized. Our support is determined on an annual basis and we will be reviewing it."

Follow Ankanaa Chowdhury on Twitter.

Some may know a dumpster fire as a fire that's in a dumpster. Others may know a dumpster fire as a disastrously mishandled situation, for example: the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act, or the most recent iteration of the Muslim ban, or the stripping away of protections and rights for trans students, or let's just say the increasingly-uphill struggle for equality—particularly among women and marginalized communities—in 2017.

Today is International Women's Day, and we thought a dumpster fire would be an appropriate, if not extremely subtle, visual metaphor for the continuously horrible conditions women face in contemporary society. It also represents what the world would look like without women and our countless contributions to the betterment of society.

In solidarity with women around the world who are engaging in one day of protest against economic inequality, Broadly staff will be on strike today. However, we also understand that not everyone has the ability to take a day off from paid or unpaid labor, and that the fight for full economic and social equality is ongoing, which is why we have prepared stories that we will be publishing today to highlight the continued injustice that disproportionately affects working class and poor women, trans and gender-nonconforming women, immigrants, as well as women from ethnic and religious minorities. We also will be publishing stories that highlight politicians and activists fighting for "feminism for the 99 percent" by making the women's rights movement one that is inclusive of all gender-oppressed people and standing up for all those who face ongoing discrimination and political injustice.

Continue reading on Broadly.

Leah Williams's career shows that fangirling can pay off. She once worked in a comic shop, where she was called "counter candy" for the mostly male customer base. According to Williams, after publishing a YA novel, The Alchemy of Being Fourteen, star Marvel editor Chris Robinson "emailed me out of the blue. He said he read my book and enjoyed it and asked if I had ever thought about writing comics before. I took 12 hours to calm down before replying, 'Yes!! I have'."

Robinson explained that this was a special case. "For years [Williams] has maintained a really interesting Tumblr account filled with anecdotes about the ups and downs (and way, way downs) of her life. That's where I became a fan of her writing style and of her encyclopedic Marvel continuity knowledge." Williams was a fan of Marvel, and Robinson was a fan of Williams. So eventually a meeting of the minds took place, even though the two have never met in person; instead they collaborated over the internet to find a Marvel property that would be a good fit for Williams's writing style.

The product of their collaboration is a story in The Totally Awesome Hulk #1.MU Monsters Unleashed—a mouthful of a title reflecting the ever-sprawling nature of the Marvel universe. This story, "Math Is Magic," has just two characters: Madame Curie (Maddy) Cho, scientist and twin sister of the new Hulk; and Lady Hellbender, a monster hunter superhero, the brawn to Maddy's brain.

Maddy's voice is fresh and relatable (even if her scientific genius isn't). She's plausibly proportioned, and she delivers lines like, "Dude, literally everything is just math," and, "I'm going to be pissed if you squelch on our deal because, you know, death." Williams connected to both of these preexisting characters."Lady Hellbender needs to date me," she said.

This issue, which was released March 1, is part of a larger trend toward inclusivity at Marvel. According to Tim Hanley, a comics historian tracking the gender balance of comic creators at DC and Marvel, March will be a record-setting month for Marvel in terms of the proportion of female creators. He explained, "By my count, there were 227 different creators in total in Marvel's March solicits, so that puts female creators at 16.3 percent."

How should people who aren't blessed with Maddy Cho's mathematical prowess interpret these numbers? Well, cautiously. Hanley, who has authored books on Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, and Catwoman, commented that the shift in female representation is decisive and steady, but "this shift is from 'barely any' to 'a few' relative to the rest of the line. While it's massive growth from where things were a few years ago, 16 percent women is still not very many at all."

And, as with so many things, the stats start to look less rosy when you peer into them. Hanley's analysis shows that that there's still a bit of a women's box, as "female creators are generally limited to certain kinds of books, specifically those starring female characters… Meanwhile, male creators write and draw comics with male and/or female leads. The mindset seems to be that men can work with any characters while women are better suited to female characters."

Also, women are under-represented in positions of authority, both on the business and the creative side. The lag between more progressive comics and the big-budget business of superhero movies, for instance, makes this clear. Hanley's analysis shows that over a third of Marvel's female creators working in March are only on the covers of their issues. He noted, "Not that this is a bad gig by any means, but writers and interior artists are the ones who are crafting the actual stories and steering the direction of the publisher."

Women are making inroads, but men are still largely the gatekeepers. An editor like Robinson may be "woke as fuck," to use Williams's description, but that's not the case throughout the organization. To take the highest level of examples, Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter, who donated to Trump's presidential campaign, has joined the ranks of billionaire businessmen advising the president. There's been little of the outcry over this that greeted, say, the Uber CEO's advisory role (now relinquished), but this may be because Perlmutter stays largely behind the scenes at Marvel, or because activists are reluctant to politicize veterans' healthcare, Perlmutter's issue of choice.

Speaking ofcommerce in comics, there's also an argument to be made that any positive trends that we might see emerging in the industry are largely driven by profit and, as a previous VICE article has pointed out, the fact that "inclusion is buzzworthy" right now. If the buzz fizzles, Hanley suspects, so will the push toward more diverse representation. Already, comic site Bleeding Cool has reported, Marvel is starting to move back to traditional "meat and potatoes" versions of classic characters.

Still, there are reasons for optimism. Hanley said that "both DC and Marvel are casting wider and wider nets to try to bring some [more female creators] in." This fits with what Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso told me: "We look for good writers from all over—indie comics, novelists, playwrights, screenplay writers, TV writers. The art is in the casting. We try to put new writers in the best position to display their voice."

Williams's voice is one of these, and she can attest to the power of this greater breadth of representation. Take sexuality, for example—specifically, the lack of nuanced portrayals of bisexuality in pop culture. She said, "I didn't know I was bisexual until I was an adult because I had never been presented with anything other than 'that's fake' regarding bisexuality... growing up in Mississippi it could have been a lot easier if I'd had access to some simple truths through media consumption." She loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the warrior/ordinary girl dynamic it shared with Sailor Moon (another favorite of hers), but the show's treatment of sexuality wasn't all that helpful to her. In her view, Willow was often defined by her feelings for Xander in the early seasons, and then by her feelings for Tara in the later ones. "There was no in-between—no bisexuality."

One surprisingly helpful pop-culture product was the Dragon Age series of fantasy games. All of the role-playing choices gave Williams a sense of freedom to explore identities that helped with her coming-out process: "I could kiss a prankster lesbian elf!"

Regarding her own work, Williams said, "Anything with an audience has a responsibility. I think now more than ever all art has a responsibility to empower its audience with strong and diverse representation."

The youngest son of former vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine was one of six people arrested in connection to a "March 4 Trump" rally in St. Paul on Saturday. About 400 people gathered at the Minnesota capital to hear speeches in support of the new president were met with about 50 counter-protesters, at least one of which was wielding a smoke bomb that hit a woman in the head. After that, chaos reigned, with fireworks and "chemical irritants" filling the air, according to police.

Linwood Michael Kaine—who at some point in his life made the unfortunate decision to go by "Woody"—was told by a cop to get on the ground but refused, according to the Pioneer Press.

"He then was taken to the ground, but continued to resist, at which point another officer deployed a knee strike to get him to cooperate with the officers and put his hands behind his back," a police spokesman told the paper. "After the strike, Mr. Kaine cooperated and was taken into custody without further incident."

While in custody, Woody Kaine tucked his long locks of hair behind his ears and turned his most smoldering gaze into the mugshot camera, like some kind of hot felon wannabe. Sure, his eyes in the resulting photo exude a certain exquisite longing and his cheekbones cut nice lines across his face, but the Kaine scion has a long way to go before he reaches Jeremy Meeks status, so he'll have to get a little gussied up in the next mugshot if he wants to secure his shot at a runway-modeling career.

The 24-year-old politician's son and four other protesters were ultimately held on suspicion of second-degree riot, but ultimately not charged. A sixth person was taken in for disorderly conduct and also released. Police say they had no idea who Kaine was, and that no one from the Democratic senator's office called them about his arrest.

Although as a vice presidential candidate, the elder Kaine was seen as being kind of bland, his taste in rebellious music did receive some attention, most notably his affection for the infamously drunken and pioneering punk band the Replacements. Relatedly, his son looks like he could definitely be in a Replacements cover band.

"We love that our three children have their own views and concerns about current political issues," the Kaine family told the Pioneer Press in a statement. "They fully understand the responsibility to express those concerns peacefully."

On a more serious note, St. Paul is not the only city to see violent protest in recent weeks. Another "March 4 Trump" rally in Berkeley, California, ended with people beating one another with sticks. Meanwhile, a talk by white supremacist Charles Murray at a college campus in Vermont ended with a dissenting student getting pinned against an administrator's car and another school official needing a neck brace.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

This article originally appeared on VICE Spain

Iratxe García is the socialist Spanish member of the European Parliament whose parliamentary telling off of Polish MEP Janusz Korwin-Mikke last week went wildly viral. Korwin-Mikke briefly took the European Parliament on a trip back to the 1950s, when he stated that women "must earn less than men because they are weaker, they are smaller and less intelligent" in response to a question from García about the pay gap. García, in turn, told Korwin-Mikke that however painful it must be for him, she was there to defend European women from men like him.

Since the video was published, García says she's received a lot of support from European citizens, "especially from Polish men and women who are ashamed of Korwin-Mikke's statements." I caught up with her to find out what it's like to deal with sexists in European politics and how she thinks we can achieve gender equality.

VICE: What was it like to hear that kind of statement in the European Parliament – a place that is supposed to represent every European citizen?
Iratxe García: I felt so angry. I didn't think he'd dare to say anything like that – even though we've gotten somewhat used to Korwin-Mikke's comments by now. He's made similar statements about immigrants and refugees, and he has been sanctioned for it.

He just laughed when you told him off, so it doesn't seem he's very worried about more sanctions.
Well, the European Parliament can put economic or administrative sanctions in place, but he can't be fired or forced to resign. Whether he gives up his seat depends on him alone. Of course we could take to the streets to protest his being in the European Parliament, but legally he can't be forced to do anything.

Those comments were made while you were defending wage equality in a session in the European Parliament. What do you think needs to be done to achieve it?
We need general European legislation on equality – that still doesn't exist. Not just on the matter of wage equality, by the way. Every European country has a different definition of domestic violence right now, and therefore a different classification of that crime. We need a common legislation on paternity leave, which should be non-transferrable. And when it comes to salary, we need to set quantifiable goals – to reduce the wage gap by 2 percent every year. If we don't develop legislation, we won't have wage equality until 2086. I think that's a little late.

Do you think all European countries are at about the same level when it comes to women's rights?
I do, and I think we tend to underestimate what southern European countries are doing. Spain, for example, is a pioneer when it comes to criminalising domestic violence. Northern European countries are an example when it comes to working couples sharing their duties at home. But those countries have welfare states that guarantee more equality – not just in terms of gender, but between all people.

What would you say to people who oppose gender quotas, who think that if men are consistently hired for influential jobs, that just means they're more qualified?
I'd say that unfortunately, quotas are necessary at present – but we're working to create a world where they aren't. Women are dealing with a glass ceiling that prevents us from getting into places of representation. It's just a ridiculous idea that women are structurally not being hired in positions of power and influence just because they're not good enough. Who can honestly believe something like that?

Has being a woman ever closed doors for you?
Of course, like it has for all women. Not as much for me as for women of previous generations or women of different backgrounds. But our society is not egalitarian and that affects me as a woman, for sure.

Can you give me an example of power being taken away from women?
The fundamental problem is that most examples aren't obvious. For example, a lot of important decisions in politics are made during after-work drinks or after-dinner meetings. Women are often excluded from those moments, either because they're not really welcome or because they need to be with their family at those times.

What do women need to do to achieve equality as soon as possible?
I think the best thing for women of all backgrounds is to unite in the political sphere and demand our rights. A lot of that should happen in the European Parliament. At the same time, it's a shame our ideologies divide us in Europe – for example, when it comes to abortion.

What role should men play in the fight for equality?
We need to make all men understand that this fight is a shared one, and that only together we'll be able to reach equality.

The first time I met my niece, I asked my sister what the birth was like. She looked me dead in the eye with the kind of chilling stare usually reserved for military veterans retelling the horrors they saw in action. After describing the different degrees of vaginal tearing a woman could potentially sustain when pushing out an eight-pound baby, she tried to reassure me with the comforting words: "Most women will tear to some extent during childbirth".

Suffice to say, pregnancy and giving birth are probably the hardest challenges a body can undertake. After this display of superhuman physical fortitude, one might rightly expect to enjoy a break – to get a bit of rest while finally tearing into all the raw fish, soft cheese and hard booze you've been missing for nine months.

Not if you're Jessica Ennis-Hill. The heptathlete won gold at the IAAF World Championships in 2015, just nine months after returning to training following the birth of her son Reggie. Ennis-Hill confessed that she found the period after Reggie's birth – during which she had to get back to training and give up breastfeeding – incredibly tough. So tough, in fact, that she even considered quitting athletics altogether.

Continue reading on VICE Sports

All photos by Mimi Mollica, whose book Terra Nostra is out now through Dewi Lewis Publishing.

Mimi Mollica is an Italian (or, more accurately) Sicilian photographer from Palermo, though he now lives in London. Over the past seven years he has been documenting the effect the Cosa Nostra has had on his home nation, and tried to capture the sun-kissed pain of those who still feel the punch of this bloody and violent local history.

In his new book, Terra Nostra, he shows us the faces of those who survived, and the hopeful smiles of those who didn't live through the peak of the turbulence, but are still somewhat shaken by its effects.

I spoke to Mimi about the book, Godfather-branded T-shirts and the societal dynamics of power in a place filled with terrible corruption.

VICE: Tell me more about the name of the book, Terra Nostra.
Mimi Mollica: Terra Nostra literally means "our land", and it's a deliberate evocation and reference to Cosa Nostra, which is the name of the Sicilian Mafia. I named it this because the book is a personal journey back to the country I left and a documentary on the legacy of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily that has exploited our land and created a massive difference between us and our landscape – and in society, politics and the economy. I felt that the Cosa Nostra disowned our land from us, and so Terra Nostra would be a provocative title to claim back ownership of it.

I was speaking to a Parisian friend not long ago who said he felt it was hard for new culture to emerge from Paris because of the imposition of the history of the place. Do you feel the same about Sicily – a past that isn't allowed to be forgotten or moved on from?
That's a very interesting perspective. I think it plays a very important role in how societies find cohesion, and if you look up some of the 1960s and 70s housing projects with a high density of Mafia you will see that one is exactly built with a kind of model without any infrastructure, and foreign to the real heart of the city. This creates alienation and isolation somehow, and is of course more prone to create division rather than cohesion. This is something that Mafia culture if not provoked consciously, found amazing advantages in.

Is there a collective trauma in the people of Sicily as a result of the Cosa Nostra and their crimes?
I think so. I don't know how conscious this would be, or in whom this could appear clear in the mind. There are definitely the signs of a traumatised society – this is pretty much what my pictures are about. You have some people who belong to a luckier, if you like, layer of society of people who discarded the culture and know about things that are clearly referring to the Mafia and Cosa Nostra as a traumatic element in our history. Then there are other people who are more involved in it as victims, or participants of the underworld, who more directly feel the impact of it and have less barriers to defend themselves from it. But they wouldn't necessarily have the cultural nous to break these things down, if you know what I mean. Overall, I think this is a traumatised society, and this is one of the main points I try to convey with my work. I'm glad you asked me that question because, to me, it is fundamental.

Following on from that, we did an interview with the photographer Letizia Battaglia last year, who of course has focused a lot on the Mafia, and I asked her the same question I'll ask you now: do you get a sense that the people of Sicily, who have been ruled over constantly for many years, are happier under the jackboot of oppression?
I don't know if you can define them as "happier", but being a Sicilian myself I have observed and thought about how power is articulated into the history of Sicily. If you notice, Sicilians look up to people and institutions that represent the power. The power is something to be feared, but also could allow you favours, and [those in power might share] some of the wealth. In a nutshell, I would say there is this kind of medieval relationship with power. You can see that with how corruption has flourished in Sicily, the power is used with a discriminatory and egoistic attitude. There's a picture I've taken that illustrates it pretty loudly. It's a picture of a [church representative] holding an umbrella for a politician to shield him from the rain. There, you can see the servitude towards power. Power is seen as more of a favour than something you are actually entitled to have. That goes with jobs, social inclusion, for money, for opportunity. We haven't really found emancipation from the obscene aspects of the darkest power that is still hijacking our democracy.

In one of the images there's a Godfather T-shirt reflected in a window. How much is the Mafia the subject of tourist tat?
This is something that has increased in the last 10 years exponentially. When I was little in Palermo there were none of these Cosa Nostra, Godfather-branded T-shirts to sell in the souvenir shops. But now, everywhere you go in Sicily, you will find T-shirts, hats, aprons, ashtrays, cups, mugs, glasses and scarves. The images that have been borrowed back from Hollywood movies. It's something that I find extremely sad because it's a national tragedy and is being defined somehow as a caricature. Mafia shouldn't really be taken so lightly and transformed into a profitable symbol to sell as a souvenir to tourists coming to Sicily. I find it really sad that a phenomenon that has caused death and has meant a general impoverishment of our land and culture is sold as a laughable token to take back once you visited the Island

What perspective does your distance as an expat give you?
The distance gave me the possibility to articulate a deeper understanding of the place I was coming from. Before, I was of course aware of the Mafia and knew of the killings and the tragedies, the legacy, all of this, but I was never really able to put this in a larger perspective. The distance, especially for a photographer, is the first necessity to be able to observe. If you're sat too close to something you're not able to see clearly. I'm not saying what I offer is an objective truth, but at least I have been able to gain a kind of vantage point conceptually that allows me to articulate my own thoughts on the legacy of the Cosa Nostra in Sicily.

Thanks, Mimi.

See more of Mimi's work below:

@joe_bish

More from VICE:

Letizia Battaglia on Photographing Sicily's Mafia Men and the Pain They Caused

What Happened to the American Mafia?

What It's Like to Grow Up in the Mafia

"If you take your medication, [HIV] is a perfectly manageable thing to live with," said Charlie Tredway. "What you have no control over is how others will treat you once you give them that information."

Tredway was recently reminded of that fact in a very public way. On February 12, he won the title of Mr. Gay New Zealand, a pageant that aims to build future leaders within the local gay male community. The 33-year-old HIV/AIDS educator made no secret of his status—in fact, he made it a central part of his campaign, promising that if he won he would use the title to promote HIV education and stigma reduction.

Stigma did not prevent him from winning the competition, but it did threaten to spoil his celebration. Within days of his win, commenters on a local gay blog post went wild, tying him to a profile found on an unnamed "barebacking website." The New Zealand Herald picked up the story a week later, with an editorial to follow decrying the dangerous and "disappointing" message Tredway had sent to his community by "support[ing] unprotected sex." It contends that Tredway's message was unwelcome because the New Zealand Ministry of Health and some public health organizations still promote unflagging condom use.

Condoms remain the safest way to protect against several STDs, but it's no longer the only way to prevent HIV. While the Herald article notes that "HIV infected people must take 'reasonable steps' to avoid transmitting HIV" by New Zealand law, it fails to realize that Tredway does, in fact, take an extremely reasonable step by maintaining an undetectable viral load, a transmission prevention strategy known as TasP (Treatment as Prevention).

The op-ed notes that Tredway informs his partners of his status, but makes no mention of his undetectable status. It's a key factor in HIV transmissibility, meaning that lab testing is unable to detect the virus in his blood. Multiple studies have shown that being undetectable makes transmitting the virus onto others nearly impossible; in one, called the PARTNER study, 888 straight and gay serodiscordant couples (in which one was HIV-positive and undetectable, with the other HIV-negative) had condomless sex 58,000 times. The virus wasn't transmitted once.

The CDC, which endorses TasP—alongside the World Health Organization's UNAIDS program and a slew of global health organizations and medical figures—predicts that if 80 percent of HIV-positive Americans were able to achieve undetectability, it would prevent over 160,000 new infections by 2021. (For context, over 39,000 Americans became HIV-positive in 2015.) For HIV-positive people, maintaining undetectability through rigorous treatment is as important a prevention strategy as any, including using condoms. Tredway also maintained that he uses condoms in the majority of his sexual encounters, and only has unprotected sex with HIV-positive men or HIV-negative men on PrEP, a treatment that reduces one's risk of acquiring HIV.

"Nobody needs to die of AIDS anymore, but it still happens," said Andrew Goodman, a practicing HIV specialist and the associate director of medicine at the Callen-Lorde Community Health Center in New York City. "It happens because people don't have access to healthcare or housing. It happens because of depression, anxiety, chaos. That's what kills people. That's what takes lives."

When we spoke, Tredway didn't seem too upset by the negative press—annoyed, yes, but not upset. But as someone who has lived with HIV for 11 years and works as an HIV/AIDS educator, currently serving as the community engagement officer of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, the implication that Tredway doesn't understand how to prevent the transmission of HIV felt like "a case of 'show me the receipts,'" he said. Just as bad, his critics relied on outdated science to make their point, ignoring that Tredway's sex life reflects current recommendations from medical and public health organizations.

"To tell me I don't know what fucking HIV is. I mean, come on," Tredway said. "What's actually outrageous and detrimental is outdated science and moralism that isn't grounded in where we are now with our approach to safe sex. Whether that means TasP, regular testing, condoms, PrEP, or many of those in tandem, they are all very, very important. If all we needed were condoms and moralistic judgment, we would've ended HIV decades ago."

Spreading misinformation about HIV can be harmful, as it contributes to an already prevalent stigma surrounding the virus and those who have it.

"Stigma can easily become violence," said Darlene Torres, co-director of client services at the Anti-Violence Project, an organization that aims to reduce violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected communities. "The point is to dehumanize a person. The shame is intentional, and the message is that they are dirty, shouldn't exist or have a life of happiness, safety, or respect."

That's the kind of callous cultural attitude that made a friend of Tredway think it was okay to say "Well, we always knew you were gonna get it" upon first learning of his HIV diagnosis. It's what made another think it was acceptable to tell random people at a nightclub about Charlie's status.

"The more visibility you get, the more you break through the misconceptions of what it means to live with HIV," said Tredway. "[I want to] break down some of those barriers that say we're not as good as the rest of our community. That we're not happy. That we're someone to be afraid of. That we're not just normal, wonderful people, in the same situation as everybody else."

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(Top photo: VICE)

If you're the sort of person who will staunchly defend your right to mutter "fuck sake" at late buses, rain and really anything you want to mutter "fuck sake" at, you might want to give Rochdale a wide berth.

Rochdale borough council wants to introduce £80 fines for anyone caught swearing in public. Understandably, critics have pointed out that punishing people for speaking would be a breach of their human rights. Under the same move, begging, "loitering", antisocial parking, playing loud music, loudly revving car engines, drinking in the street, unauthorised charity collections and skateboarding could also be banned, while a curfew could be imposed on under-18s that would prevent them from entering the town centre between 11PM and 6AM. Good luck to the Police Community Support Officers whose job it'll be to criminalise homeless people, OAPs with charity boxes and children.

Laraten Caten, the legal officer for Liberty, told Manchester Evening News that the plans would be hard to enforce: "These proposals would unjustifiably curb the rights and freedoms of Rochdale residents. The swearing ban is so vaguely defined it would prove impossible for anyone to know whether they were breaking the law or not, while a blanket ban on begging will criminalise some of the most vulnerable people in the town."

Richard Farnell, the leader of Rochdale borough council, hit back: "With all the horrific human rights abuses happening around the world right now, I would have thought Liberty had bigger things to worry about. We are clamping down on a small minority of antisocial ne'er-do-wells who drunkenly shout and swear and harangue shoppers in our town centre."

While it's admittedly refreshing to hear "ne'er-do-wells" used outside a Dickens novel, it might be appropriate to ask why Rochdale borough council isn't trying to tackle the bigger problems facing these people, rather than trying to squeeze them dry for swearing when it's not directly offensive to anyone. That said, some of Rochdale's residents are happy about the plans, including Gillian Duffy, the same woman who Gordon Brown accidentally publicly declared a bigot after forgetting to turn off his microphone after an interview in 2010.

Duffy, 72, told the Guardian she had once had a go at a schoolgirl for swearing on a bus in Rochdale. "She was swearing her head off, and there was this old lady – this was a while ago, I'm an old lady myself now – shaking her head and saying, 'Oh dear, oh dear.' I said to this girl: 'Shut your filthy mouth.' It shocked her."

A couple of years ago, feminist activist and writer Gloria Steinem, and activist Amy Richards, visited the VICE office in Brooklyn to discuss the critical (yet rarely discussed) issue that for the first time in documented history there are less women on earth than men.

It quickly became clear to VICE Founder and CEO Shane Smith and me that we had to use the VICE platform to highlight this global issue.

Months later, we created WOMAN, an Emmy-nominated VICELAND series spearheaded by Steinem, investigating how violence against women drives global instability.

Unscripted, raw, and revelatory, WOMAN captures on-the-ground realities – from sexualised violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to femicides in El Salvador – through the lens of a team of all-female journalists, overseeing the show from development to production.

Gloria Steinem (center) with Ariel. Image via author

At the end of each episode we partnered with an organisation working to address the problems facing these women and girls – like Camfed, working to give girls an education in Zambia; or Protect Our Defenders, which helps women who experienced sexual assault in the US military.

Though these problems are far from being solved, WOMAN allows the viewer to be a witness to these women and amplify their voices at home and across the globe.

Today, as Gloria says, it's a majority belief that we as people should be equal, something that wasn't true even in the 1960s and 70s. On International Women's Day we need to celebrate and support girls and women everywhere, and keep fighting for equality on every level.

What's so powerful to me is that WOMAN will be seen in countries and cities where women don't always have equal pay, access to reproductive health centres, education or the same job opportunities as their male partners or counterparts.

The more people who can bear witness to these challenges and inequalities, the more it will change. Gloria's been fighting her whole life for women and girls. On International Women's Day it's a reminder to keep that torch alive.

I will always be grateful to Gloria, for putting the V in Vice.

Follow Ariel Wengroff on Twitter.

'WOMAN' premieres tonight, the 8th of March, at 9PM on VICELAND UK, Sky channel 153. The first episode is about the women of FARC. Watch the series trailer below.

People are daft and sometimes you need to give them a good, hard smack over their stupid, little heads to prove a point—a lesson that the Alberta Securities Commission has apparently taken to heart.

To mark their Fraud Prevention Month and to show just how easily people get scammed by shady "investors," well, they decided to scam Albertans themselves.  In order to do this the commission created a fake company called Maple Stock Investments and Jonathan Fisher, a fake persona to head it.

Going to lengths only seen in those wonderful 80s movies that centre around a scheme, the commission used social media, Kijiji and other online classifieds to target 165,000 potential victims. They also created a realistic website, fake business cards and the like to make this seems as real as possible. Their ads promised attendees of the event would be able to earn "$$$ FROM HOME" and contained numerous red flags for investor fraud.

"When the economy turns, you'll be casting your retirement worries aside and reaping the rewards of a lucrative investment," reads one ad. "Remember, the best investment is a smart investment."

Everything used in the scam, from the tie to the font on the business cards was meticulously researched by the commission to seem trustworthy. They said it was worth it to go to this trouble because that's what real scam artists do.

When some Albertans took the bait, they invited them to a "free lunch" on Feb 22 for possible investors—48 people registered to go. So, taking this shit to the next level, they took some money, rented a banquet room and held the lunch. An actor playing the Fisher took the stage and started elucidating about investments and stuff—the exact talk a scam artist would give.  

In the coup de grace, the actor playing Fisher dramatically removed his glasses on stage and, for some reason, started taking off his tie.

"I'm not Jonathan Fisher," he said. "Maplestock is a fake company. I'm not a financier. In fact, I'm an actor."

The audience looked up from their free meal and stared, rightfully, in confusion. The Alberta Securities Commission said that they did the stunt because they "wanted to showcase how simple it can be to become a victim and highlight lengths that scam artists go to, to fool investors." Talking to the CBC,  Alison Trollope, the director of communications for ASC, said they were "flabbergasted with the response."

"We were concerned that people would feel tricked, but people were very appreciative of coming to the realization of how simple it can be for anybody to get caught up in an investment scam," she said.

"They seemed very grateful that they had been warned."

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A majority of Americans think that Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath during his confirmation hearing and should step down as a result, according to a Quinnipiac poll of 1,323 people that was released Wednesday.

What's more, a similar percentage say they disapprove of the way President Trump is handling US-Russia relations, and a whopping 66 percent say that there should be an independent commission tasked with investigating all of the potential links between his administration and the Kremlin.

"The gavel comes down hard on Attorney General Jeff Sessions," says Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "He lied and he should quit because of it, say Americans, who are clearly very concerned about the Russian affair and all the administration personnel involved with it."

During his confirmation hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 10, Senator Al Franken asked Sessions what he would do if he learned that the Trump campaign had been in cahoots with the Russians during the election. Sessions replied that he wasn't aware of the campaign communicating with the Russians, and that he had been a Trump surrogate and hadn't had any communications with Russia himself.

This month, Department of Justice officials said that he had in fact met with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the US, which led to Sessions saying he would recuse himself from any investigation involving Russian hacking of the November election. But based on the Quinnipiac results, it seems like a good number of Americans think that's not enough.

Predictably, however, the poll results skewed among party lines. For instance, although Trump's baseless tweets will probably lead to an investigation into whether or not Obama tapped his phones, 66 percent of Republicans oppose the idea of investigating the Russian connection as well.

Trump's overall approval rating is 41 percent, according to the poll, up three points since Quinnipiac last measured it.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.