Packages of cocaine confiscated by the DEA. Image via Wikicommons

This post originally appeared on VICE Australia.

In Australia a gram of coke generally costs around $300 AU . One of the reasons it's so expensive here is because Australia is an island a long way from anywhere. All contraband has to be flown or shipped in, generally from South America, which, again, isn't close. But any quick business analysis of the situation would suggest it doesn't have to be like this. Cocaine is sourced from the coca plant, so why don't traffickers just grow it here?

Seed-grown plant of Erythroxylum novogranatense. Image via Wikicommons

Cocaine comes from four varieties of a South American shrub called Erythroxylaceae. Indigenous tribes were chewing its leaves for millennia before European settlement, but it wasn't until 1855 that a German chemist named Friedrich Gaedcke isolated the active alkaloid, benzoylmethylecgonine. Cocaine quickly became known as a powerful anesthetic throughout Europe. Famously Sigmund Freud promoted its use as a therapeutic tonic in his 1884 paper Über Coca, where he argued cocaine could cure depression and sexual impotence.

With recognition came an industry and soon colonial powers were looking for other regions to farm coca. The plants were transported to Europe, India, Southeast Asia, and even Australia. In the 1920s the then-Dutch colony of Java was the leading manufacturer of the plant in the world and exported tons of coca leaf to companies in the Netherlands. Of course, this all ended with the 1925 Geneva Convention banning cocaine as an addictive drug. But the point remains; you can grow coca outside of South America, so why not Australia?

Dr. John C. D'Auria is an assistant professor for Texas Tech University in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He's conducted multiple studies on coca plants, and according to him it all comes down to cultivation. Some illicit plants, such as marijuana, are easy to grow anywhere. Coca is not easily grown.

"Erythroxylum coca is a woody plant while Cannabis sativa is herbaceous," says Dr. D'Auria. "They differ pretty drastically in their cultivation." He explains that Coca usually grows at between 1,650 and 4,950 feet, in an unusual level of humidity maintained by the Amazon. This gives it an unusual proclivity for high moisture and low atmospheric pressure. These two variables exist in very few places outside of the Andes.

This makes growing it elsewhere challenging, but not impossible. The next hurdle however is the sheer level of industrialization required to produce coke on a significant level. A guy with far better math skills than me used a UN World Drug Report to estimate that approximately 297 grams of dry coca leaf will yield just one gram of cocaine. Compare that to weed, where 297 grams of dried marijuana will yield 297 grams of smokable marijuana, and it seems far more cost effective for small-time barons to grow pot.

Related: Watch our documentary on cocaine production in Peru: 'The New King of Coke'

As Dr. D'Auria says, "growing one or two or even tens of coca plants might allow for someone to make a tea or chew some leaves occasionally, but certainly won't be enough to purify the cocaine from the leaves with any expectation of high-yield for illicit sale."

According to him it's also quite difficult to extract any useful amount of cocaine from coca leaves. "Processing cocaine from coca leaf takes some chemistry knowledge and skill that most people don't have or are willing to do given the fact that so much plant material is required," said Dr D'Auria. If you're interested in that process, see this article we published a few years back.

In short, it's just easier for Australian drug barons to import coke than to produce it locally. However there is one more option that seems to have been overlooked. Erythroxylum australe, more commonly known as the Australian cocaine shrub, is a plant native to the Northern Territory, Queensland, and northern parts of New South Wales. Its leaves contain 0.8% meteloidine, which is an alkaloid similar to cocaine. Yet aside from a scientific study conducted in 1967, there seems to have been little interest in the plant. It's still illegal to grow in NSW though, just in case that changes.

All in all it seems easier to simply import coke, and accept that you'll pay through the nose.

Follow Charlie on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user Blind Nomad

Read: Life as a 'Digital Nomad' Is One Long Vacation

That faint sound you hear in the distance is Nick Lachey sobbing.

Issue 3, a proposed Ohio constitutional amendment under which recreational marijuana would be legalized, was soundly rejected by voters. Clobbered, 65–35. Its failure marks the end of a contentious campaign that saw even some marijuana advocates coming out against the state's proposed legalization scheme.

What made Issue 3 so controversial were provisions that would only grant growing rights to ten already-picked addresses, effectively handing over control of the industry to a set of rich investors, including Lachey. That kinda buckeye had opponents throwing around the term "monopoly" during the campaign (the proposed system would actually be an oligopoly), and made drug legalization advocates leery of fully endorsing Issue 3.

Another issue was that Ohio hasn't even legalized medical marijuana as an intermediate step, which may have made undecided voters nervous. There are a whole host of other reasons Issue 3 died a humiliating death yesterday at the hands of Ohio voters. But not one of them had anything to do with pot oligopoly mascot Buddie, who was cool and not at all a bad idea. RIP Buddie.

The author at the time. All photos courtesy of the author

I still Skype with "Bowie" from time to time. Seeing her still moves me, almost as much as it did that very first night we met. If I'm honest, I don't think we'll ever stop being interested in each other.

I first met her in a bar in Strasbourg, Germany, five years ago. It was my housemate Caroline's birthday. Our small group sat drinking pint after pint, when a dark figure came and stood right in front of us.

At first, I wasn't sure if it was a man or a woman. But then she turned around and her green eyes hit me. She looked like David Bowie—tall, slim, bony. So that's what I called her.

We started talking and it struck me how childish and broken her voice was. There was a fragility about her, which was quite at odds with her tall frame. We exchanged numbers and agreed to have a drink the following day. On my way home, I couldn't stop thinking about her.

The next night, she told me about her life. Her mom had been in a psychiatric hospital for a long time and she didn't get along with her father. Thinking that there weren't many people she can count on, I immediately felt protective of her. Less than an hour later, we decided to go home together.

That first night in bed was like nothing I'd ever experienced. She was powerful and androgynous. At one point she held me by the neck and whispered, pretending to be a man. For the next few months we were inseparable.

It didn't take long for Bowie to confess that she wanted to sleep with a woman. I know plenty of people who fantasize about threesomes (64 percent of men and 31 percent of women in France according to an IFOP survey) but it's never been the case for me. Still, I ended up suggesting Hermine—we used to sleep together in the past and we're still great friends. I connected them with each other on Facebook and they both seemed sufficiently into the idea.

Sixty-four percent of men and 31 percent of women in France fantasize about threesomes, but it's never really been the case for me.

One night, I was lying in bed when Bowie called and suggested that I invite Hermine over. They both ended up at my place but it was awkward and the two women barely touched each other.

It was not until a week later that I realized how much actually changed that night. The three of us were at Hermine's place, but the two of them were quiet. I fell asleep and woke up a few hours later to discover the two sleeping together, enlaced on the couch. The image was beautiful but I felt jealous. I left to go to a family lunch the next day, and when I tried to get hold of Bowie later, she wouldn't reply.

She didn't get back to me for another four days, after which she called to tell me that her and Hermine were now a couple. They even moved in together. I had just lost my girlfriend and my best friend.

A few months later, I bumped into Hermine and Bowie in a lesbian bar in town. Hermine tried to say hi but I ignored her. "Good night, cunts," I said when they passed by me on their way out. I couldn't believe what had come out of my mouth and I vowed that would be the last time I acted that way.

The author with his girlfriend and his girlfriend's girlfriend.

That was the day I dialed the number of my therapist for the first time in five years. I used to talk to her about problems with my family, but this time I was going to her with a very different set of issues. After a few weeks in therapy, I came to realize that my feelings towards Bowie were not love but fascination.

In time, the three of us managed to salvage our relationship. I went from being their lover to their confidant. Hermine, for example, would call me up to moan about having to share her apartment—she loved having a space of her own.

In June this year, we all went to my parents' country house for three days. We had an amazing time and our relationship felt more lucid and truthful than ever. In many ways it felt like honesty had brought us closer together. Then in July, Bowie left for a few days to go visit her ex in Brittany and never came back. Hermine was devastated and even though I didn't tell her, I was, too.

Months have passed and I have no regrets. Bowie and Hermine still talk occasionally, but it's a toxic roller coaster. Bringing multiple partners into your relationship will inevitably bring a concoction of emotions, which veer from hatred to elation. For me, being in a relationship with two women was complicated, dangerous, fascinating territory into which I'm not sure I should have ever wandered.

People holding pictures of their dead loved ones. They are asking for the resignation of all the corrupt political leaders in Romania. All photos by Mircea Topoleanu

This article originally appeared on VICE Romania.

Romania is in mourning following the Colectiv nightclub fire that killed 32 people and gravely wounded 134. The fire took place at a concert for the Romanian metal band Goodbye to Gravity in an underground venue in one of Bucharest's many former factories and was caused by the setting off of some small fireworks. However, the club's owners had insulated the warehouse with cheap, flammable material and only provided one exit, so once the fireworks ignited, people were trapped. The tragic fire has brought attention to Romania's shoddy safety laws, and has revealed that the government doesn't actually perform proper inspections on any of the country's clubs. Even the high-priced venues in the Old Town in Bucharest, usually filled with foreign tourists, could be considered death traps.

The city's collective grief exploded Tuesday night on the streets of Bucharest, when 25,000 people joined in protest against the local government. As a result, Romania's Prime Minister Victor Ponta was forced to resign, prompting an entire governmental shift. Bucharest's mayor who originally authorized the club also resigned.

Mourners lighting candles for the people who died, in University Square.

At the beginning of the action, thousands of protestors gathered in University Square, the same spot where young people died two decades earlier, fighting the communist dictatorship during the Romanian Revolution. The small number of local riot police troops stood aside as they marched in the streets towards the government buildings. Cars passing by protesters honked and raised the heavy metal hand sign in solidarity.

Protestors out in 46 degree weather, stand up for their dead loved ones.

In front of the government buildings, many protesters held out photos of their deceased loved ones. Some also held up banners with Goodbye to Gravity lyrics, as a statement against some Christian fundamentalists who have accused the victims of being satanists punished for celebrating Halloween.

A third of the protesters are kneeling in a moment of silence for the dead, while the rest of the march calls for the PM to resign.

Though several govenment-owned media outlets said that the protesters were being conducted by an invisible leader, the whole march seemed far too chaotic to be considered a well organized event. It was so large and it spread so far across Bucharest that, at one point, each area where the protest was taking place was involved in a different type of action. A third of the people were holding a moment of silence on their knees, while another third came behind them chanting "We want your resignations!", referring to the entire Romanian Government. The remaining third were booing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, where most of the riot police were stationed.

Next, the protest moved towards the People's House, dictator Ceausescu's former palace and Romania's current Parliament building. The building is protected by a large wall, which some of the younger protesters climbed, further defying the authorities. A few riot policemen guarding the Parliament building came to arrest them, but the protestors were protected by the rest of the group. Eventually the riot police gave up and left.

The Mayor's Office of Bucharest's Fourth Sector

After the Parliament building, the protest, still 25,000 strong, moved on to the Mayor's Office of Bucharest's Fourth Sector. The riot police surrounded the building and the entire protest almost devolved into chaos when someone from the crowd threw a plastic bottle and a firecracker at the Mayor's Office. Thankfully, the rest of the protesters remained calm. In the end, the general consensus among the protesters was that those who threw the firecrackers were plants trying to incite violence, as no one recognized them.

Even right-wing protesters booed the Patriarchal Palace

From the Mayor's Office, the crowd traveled to the Patriarchal Palace, the main religious building of the Romanian Christian Orthodox Faith. The Patriarch himself, the leader of the church, had previously refused to do any religious ceremony for the people who died at the concert and commented angrily to B1TV that "People should go to church, not to the club!"

This is what the people were doing, when Facebook spammers said they were being dispersed by riot policemen.

A lot of fake Facebook accounts spammed the protest's Facebook event, trying to convince the people that they were being manipulated by party members and that the riot policemen were planning to attack them. But the hack wasn't successful. At 11:30 PM, when the fake accounts said that the police had managed to disperse the protest, about three thousand young people were jumping with their fists held high, demanding "Justice!" in the middle of University Square. They held a giant Romanian flag and chanted: "We will not sell out our country!"

The protests will most likely continue this week, driven by the success of the first action. On Wednesday, people had already started gathering at University Square for another night of marching. Unfortunately, the politicians who resigned have simply been replaced by other, older politicians, from the same political parties, and no changes to the city's safety standards have been made. But the protesters are committed to their simple goal: to live, work, and party in places that are not horrible deathtraps.

Sally Field speaking in support of HERO in Houston on October 29. Photo via Associated Press

As VICE reported on Friday, for the past year there has been a large effort underway by conservatives in Houston to repeal the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO). The ordinance offered protection for 15 different categories of Houstonian from discrimination in city employment and city services, city contracts, public accommodations, private employment, and housing based on an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity, and pregnancy. The saga, which pitted the city's gay mayor Annise Parker against local conservatives and pastors, ended last night when the ordinance was repealed with a depressing 62 percent of voters casting a ballot in opposition of HERO.

Image via Flickr user Brian Turer

Chances are you've signed a contract containing an arbitration clause without even realizing it. They're sneaky little bastards that prohibit you from participating in a class action lawsuit against a company you may have a grievance against. More still, arbitration clauses prevent nearly any dispute you may have with a company from making it into a court of law and instead being heard by an arbiter. That's of great benefit to businesses, as a massive three-part series called "Beware the Fine Print" published over the weekend in the New York Times helped expose. As the Times's Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Robert Gebeloff learned after poring over "thousands of court records and interviews with hundreds of lawyers, corporate executives, judges, arbitrators, and plaintiffs in 35 states," when a dispute makes its way into arbitration, companies win a whopping four out of every five times. "In 2014 alone," the article states, "judges upheld class-action bans in 134 out of 162 cases."

In other words, Big Business has you over a barrel, baby.

Airbnb's San Francisco headquarters overlooks a nearby homeless encampment. Photo by the author

Airbnb's San Francisco office is objectively beautiful. The converted warehouse's high ceilings are awe-inspiring. The wall in the reception area is covered by a forest of greenery that's a living work of art. One of the conference rooms is a geodesic dome. There's a stuffed antelope head hanging in the men's bathroom, and employees have the luxury of hanging out in "padded reading nooks," whatever those might be.

Less than a 30-second walk away from the offices, there's a homeless encampment. When I visited the area yesterday around 6 p.m., many of the tents had already been zipped up.

This juxtaposition of architectural beauty and abject poverty is an appropriate illustration of a broader debate over housing and inequality in San Francisco, a debate that reached a frenzied pitch this week with the city's vote on Proposition F, a ballot measure that would have severely restricted short-term rentals in the city. Prop F was ultimately defeated last night, with 55 percent of San Francisco voters casting ballots against the measure.

Effectively, a vote for Prop F was a vote against Airbnb, which goes a long way towards explaining the chaos at the company's headquarters on Monday. Protesters flooded Airbnb's lobby, releasing house-shaped balloons that blamed the company for adding to San Francisco's complicated housing problems. There was chanting. There was drumming.

It's hard to deny that Airbnb has caused added issues for the city's housing situation. Landlords have discovered that they can make more money through Airbnb than by renting to long-term tenants, and many have essentially become mini-hoteliers without having to pay the taxes usually associated with running a hotel. In July, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that at least 350 homes in the city were listed as full-time vacation rentals on Airbnb. Some landlords are even allegedly removing long-term tenants in order to free up apartments and houses to rent on Airbnb.

When I paid a visit to the AirBnb headquarters Tuesday, the place was spotless. "Does it look like there's a protest here?" a receptionist said when I asked her about Monday's tumult. Before I could ask her any more questions, she told me that neither she nor anyone else in the building had a comment on Prop F. Did she see anything firsthand? "I was off," she replied.

Airbnb's headquarters were quiet on Tuesday. Photo by the author

With no one at Airbnb's office willing to talk to me, I headed a mile over to City Hall, where voters were casting ballots on Prop F. "This is one of my last votes in the city," said Michelle Gurisch, a San Francisco resident who told me she was being forced out of the city due to high costs. She voted yes on Prop F in the hopes that it would end unfair rental practices. As we spoke, she smoked a cigarette and fiddled with a piece of luggage at her feet, as if she was literally about to leave San Francisco after casting her vote. (She told me she doesn't plan to move until some time next year.)

"I voted yes," said another woman I talked to. She was caucasian, in her 30s, and walking quickly. "It was for a lot of reasons," she said, squeezing my arm, "but I should really go." Other people walking in and out of the building gave similar answers or ignored me entirely.

On the steps of City Hall, I spoke to a man clutching a smart phone and a pillow, who said he had no opinion on Prop F because he hadn't read up on each side's position. He would definitely do that before the election happened later in the week, though, he said.

"But the election's today," I told him, pointing to the massive red, white, and blue lights illuminating the building.

"Is it?" he asked. "I guess I missed it." He sat down on the steps and began typing something on his phone.

On VICE News: Outsiders and Social Conservatives Claim Victory in Off-Year American Voting

In the hour I stood in front of City Hall, lit up like an American Flag to remind people that an election was in progress, not one person admitted to me that they had voted against Prop F. Some people were open about voting yes, while others very gently told me to fuck off—but no one admitted to voting no.

That's perhaps not surprising. In the lead up to Tuesday's vote, Airbnb did little to endear itself to the city or its voters. The company launched a controversial campaign against Prop F that asked city residents to be grateful for the taxes short-term rentals provide for the city, implying that this revenue paid for public services like schools, trees, and libraries. (The offending ads were eventually removed.)

Then there are the horror stories, such as the case of a couple who left for Burning Man only to have their house-sitter turn around and rent their residence for $400 a night. Or the Oakland Airbnb host who returned to his apartment to find holes in his walls and "meth pipes everywhere". Or the San Francisco Airbnb host who had $35,000 in valuables stolen from her apartment. The list goes on.

Protesters in Quebec rallying for religious freedom. Photo via Flickr user ibourgeault_tasse

Recent stats showing nearly 50 percent of Quebecers are "bothered" by the hijab offers but just a glimpse of a bigger problem, according to a women's rights group.

A yet-to-be-published survey, ordered by the Quebec Human Rights Commission and reported by the Montreal Gazette, shows that nearly half of Quebecers have an "unfavorable" view of religion. But not all religious intolerance is created equal: while a mere 5.5 percent of Quebecers expressed their dislike for the Christian cross, a whopping 48.9 percent said they bristled at the sight of Muslim veils.

"I wasn't surprised," said Hanadi Saad, president of women's support group Justice Femme. "It confirms what we see out on the field." What's not illustrated, she said, is the fact that IRL manifestations of this disdain are becoming increasingly violent.

"There's this whole political and media climate that has brought people to have this fear," Saad told VICE. "And some people let loose and go directly to verbal and physical aggressions, which is inadmissible in this era, in 2015, in a society like ours."

The report comes on the heels of two years of increasingly Islamophobic political discourse: a federal election campaign that saw Muslims used as pawns and a 2014 provincial campaign that became overshadowed by the controversial Charter of Values debate.

While the Commission hasn't revealed when its full report will be published, president Jacques Frémont presented the findings at a Montreal symposium on Islamophobia last weekend.But according to Saad, the fact that instances of Islamophobia are seldom reported and poorly tabulated means the numbers paint an incomplete picture.

"Of the 200 calls isn't always part of that. It becomes a vicious circle."

There is also a sense that police lack the proper tools to deal with this type of crime. Saad describes one particularly vicious attack during which a victim suffered facial lacerations after another woman tried to rip off her hijab. "What's really surprising is that most of these women who are attacked on the street, the majority are attacked by women," she said.

In this instance, Saad said police didn't seem to take the assault seriously, asking the victim three times whether she'd prefer to simply file an incident report. "After several interventions on our behalf, the file was finally re-opened and recognized as criminal."

A long-time human rights advocate, Saad started Justice Femme in the midst of the proposed "secular charter" debate, a contentious Parti Québecois effort to ban religious symbols that was heavily criticized for singling out Muslim women.

"When the debate launched, I was out on the field, and I was a victim, people tried to assault me on the street," Saad recalls. "I got calls, I got a death threat." She was also contacted by a number of Muslim women who didn't know how to deal with the onslaught of harassment. "I found myself giving workshops on human rights, and so I decided to create this organization for women."

Since then, she's worked on several initiatives meant to empower Muslim women, including self-defence courses specially designed for Islamophobic attacks. "The first victims of Islamophobic acts and aggressions and discrimination are women, unfortunately, because they wear a visible sign."

Saad hopes to collaborate with the Quebec Human Rights Commission to improve the status quo. "What we really need to work on is bringing women to fully live their citizenship and reclaim their rights," she said.

A spokesperson for Human Rights Commission president Jacques Frémont declined an interview with VICE, stating no comment would be given until the report's official publication.

Follow Brigitte Noël on Twitter.

Dear VICE fans,

Over the past several years we've been making tons (thousands) of videos and documentaries for you, devoted to the topics and the subjects that you find most important, weird, or just plain funny.

Today we are thrilled to announce our latest venture–VICELAND–a 24-hour television channel featuring hundreds of hours of new programming. We've been shooting and cutting for months, and we can't wait to share with you our vision of what television should look like. The new shows are awesome. When we started making them, collaborating with our friends in the extended VICE family, we really didn't know how they would come together to create a TV channel. But when we saw what we had, we knew we were on to something really special.

Here at VICE Canada, we're extra thrilled to tell you all that we're producing ten original Canadian series for VICELAND, in partnership with Rogers, which cover the gamut of investigative documentaries, travel, food, film, and entertainment storytelling.

Oh, and don't worry, we're not going to do that lame old CanCon thing where the Canadian network is a wimpy knockoff of the American one. You'll get all the same goodies, and our shows are airing on both sides of the border.

Spike Jonze has been working with us on the new channel and he said it best: "It feels like most channels are just a collection of shows. We wanted VICELAND to be different, to feel like everything on there has a reason to exist and a strong point of view. Our mission with the channel is not that different from what our mission is as a company: It's us trying to understand the world we live in by producing pieces about things we're curious about, or confused about, or that we think are funny."

We posted a trailer giving you a peek into VICELAND, so watch it and tell us what you think. We're dying to know.

Love,

VICE Canada

Fox Lake Lieutenant Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. Photo via Lake County Sheriff's Office

When Lieutenant Charles Joseph Gliniewicz was found shot to death late this summer, the Illinois cop seemed like a hero gunned down by violent, vile criminals. The Fox Lake police officer had just radioed in that he was hot on the trail of three shady men, and a sprawling manhunt ensued to find his killers. Public officials of all stripes issued majestic eulogies, Gliniewicz's family and friends mourned, and cops around the country took notice of a case that seemed all the more significant thanks to a climate of increased suspicion and even hostility toward law enforcement.

But the demise of the man known locally as "GI Joe" was no murder.

After months of investigation, local police announced Wednesday that Gliniewicz's death was a "carefully staged suicide," as the Daily Beast reports. Authorities spent hundreds of thousands of dollars chasing suspicious characters who did not exist, and Gliniewicz had allegedly been stealing from his own department's youth auxiliary fund to pay for everything from his mortgage to a porn habit. Whether the 52-year-old's fear of his embezzlement being unearthed drove him to suicide remains unclear.

Thomas Rudd, the Lake County coroner who reportedly angered some local cops when he announced last month that the fatal shot came from the officer's own service weapon, indicated Wednesday that the shot was, in fact, delivered by Gliniewicz to his own chest, leaving no room for doubt on that front.

"This officer killed himself," Rudd said at a news conference.

As the Washington Post reports, fewer American cops have been murdered in the line of duty this year compared to the same point in 2014, and those numbers are down substantially from decades past. But some cities like New York have seen a dramatic increase in police killings over the past year, most notably the execution-style slaying of two Brooklyn cops in December. Cops across America have also supposedly been too spooked about getting caught doing terrible things to properly do their jobs, an alleged phenomenon dubbed the "Ferguson effect" and recently endorsed (albeit with zero evidence) by none other than FBI Director James Comey.

Ever since Eric Garner and Michael Brown were killed in the summer of 2014, police officers have grumbled about the public overreacting and expressed an increasingly urgent sense of victimization. As an active-duty New York City cop told VICE in an interview last week, "This country is becoming very anti-police." And there are, of course, plenty of legitimate reasons for cops to be nervous or even scared while they do their jobs, Likewise, there's a new video every week encouraging people to speak out against police misconduct. But the fake murder of Officer GI Joe in Illinois serves neither side—it's simply the tragic end to a troubled life.

Follow Matt Taylor on Twitter.

Photo via Youtube

Read: The World Health Organization Says Hot Dogs Are Giving Us Cancer

Imagine for a moment you were locked away in London's Wormwood Scrubs prison, removed from society for possibly the rest of your life, living on prison gruel, and paying off the guards with cigarettes and cash bribes. Now imagine you had a man on the outside, a friend who had your back, someone who would visit on open days, and offered to devise a plan to smuggle in a few things to make your life easier. Using a length of fishing wire he developed a way to sneak a bag of contraband over the 30-foot-high prison wall, across the partition, and in through your cell window—all in broad daylight—without attracting the attention of the guards.

What would you ask them to get? Cigarettes, cash, a mobile phone, drugs to sell to the other inmates? Those are perhaps the most traditional choices—and no doubt for good reason—but what about those creature comforts, the little things that make you feel safe and happy, that enable you to forget for a moment you are in a prison and pretend you are a free man?

I am of course talking about the humble Egg McMuffin. After the drugs and the cash and the weapons, would that not be what you would ask for—a bite of something that could transport you to cold mornings hunched in the corner of McDonalds stuffing your face with the taste of coronary heart disease while you wait for the rain to stop? I know I would.

And I'm not the only one. Karl Jensen, 27, and his 26-year-old girlfriend Lisa Mary Hutchinson, were sentenced this week for attempting to smuggle precisely that to an unknown inmate at Wormwood Scrubs prison in Shepherds Bush, west of London. Using a plastic bag attached to the end of a fishing line, Jensen managed to transport the McMuffin from outside the prison wall and in through a cell window. And he would have got away with it, if the whole thing hadn't been caught on CCTV by keen-eyed prison guards.

Now he is serving a two and a half year sentence on the other side of the prison wall; his girlfriend got off with a 12-month community order for her role in the operation. The whole thing sounds a bit harsh until you realize included in the package was a bottle of vodka, a wrap of cocaine, and a knife.

Detective Constable Andy Griffin said of the package, "Jensen and Hutchinson tried to smuggle prohibited items including drugs, alcohol, and a knife inside a prison; the combination could have been deadly. Thankfully vigilant prison staff foiled the plot and they were quickly arrested. This case serves as a strong reminder of the very serious consequences of smuggling prohibited goods into a prison."

He declined to comment on the McMuffin.

George H. W. Bush (Photo by AJ Guel via)

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

US News

• Red States Redder, Blue Ones More Blue
  America's electoral map has sharper borders than ever before. Voting analysis reveals Republicans gaining in red states and the Democrats also seeing demographic gains in familiar territory ahead of the 2016 election. —The Washington Post

• Paid-for Patriotism
  A Senate investigation has revealed the scale of the US military's marketing deals with sports teams. The military spent $53 million on advertising, including "paid-for patriotism" events like enlistment ceremonies and reunions of returning service members. —The New York Times

• Suicide Cop's Family Investigated
  Police in Illinois are investigating the wife and son of the officer who shot and killed himself in a "carefully staged suicide" to cover up theft. Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz reportedly implicated his family in a stealing and money laundering scheme. —Chicago Sun-Times

• Bush Senior Rips Cheney and Rumsfeld
  In a new biography, George H.W. Bush says his son's closest advisers were too hawkish in their response to 9/11, damaging America's reputation. He called Dick Cheney an "iron-ass" and Donald Rumsfeld "an arrogant fellow". —Fox News

International News

• Russian Plane Most Likely Bombed
  The UK government and US intelligence officials both say evidence suggests a bomb downed the Russian passenger plane over Egypt. The Islamic State has released more propaganda messages claiming responsibility for the disaster. —VICE News

• Mexico Might Legalize Weed
  A historic ruling by Mexico's Supreme Court could open the way for recreational use of marijuana to be legalized. The court allowed four individuals the right to transport marijuana for personal use, a move campaigners consider a big first step. —BBC News

• Canada Has a Gender-Balanced Cabinet
  New Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has named a cabinet equally balanced between men and women for the first time in the country's history. Asked to explain his decision, Trudeau answered: "Because it's 2015." —The Guardian

• Suu Kyi to Stay Above the Fray
  Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said she would be "above the president" if her party wins Sunday's election, the first in the country for 25 years. Suu Kyi is banned from taking the role of president by the constitution. —Reuters

(Photo by Gage Skidmore via)

Everything Else

• SNL Pulls Trump Promo
  NBC removed one of the promo spots for Donald Trump's appearance on Saturday Night Live. The clip saw Trump taking a swipe at his main rival, saying: "Ben Carson is a complete and total loser." —Variety

• California to Vote on Condoms in Porn
  A proposal requiring adult film actors to wear condoms has received enough signatures to be placed on the ballot for 2016. A similar measure which passed in Los Angeles County saw porn production drop 90 percent there. —The Huffington Post

• Twerking Hits Russia
  The noble art of twerking has taken Vladimir Putin's country by storm, provoking a backlash from prudish conservatives. A special committee has been launched to investigate. —Broadly

• Vape Regulation Is Coming
  The Food and Drug Administration is now just one final step away from regulating electronic cigarettes. People in the vaping industry say it could kill the market. —Motherboard

Done with reading for today? That's OK. Instead, watch our new film, 'How 11 Black Women Fell Victim to the Cleveland Strangler'.

Bernie Sanders, the only Democratic Socialist running for president in 2016 , just introduced a bill in the US Senate that would end the US prohibition on marijuana, following through on the promise he made to college students last week to take steps to legalize pot at the federal level.

Throwing his weight behind marijuana legalization might turn out to be a smart move for Sanders, and Independent Senator from Vermont, in the lead-up to the first Democratic presidential primary in New Hampshire. According to a poll released by Gallup last month, 58 percent of Americans support legalization—including seven in 10 young adults.

Tomorrow, the Sanders campaign is staging a rally at the New Hampshire State House as he officially submits his paperwork to declare his eligibility for the primary. New Hampshire has passed multiple laws aimed at legalizing medical marijuana, and preventing medical prosecutions.

Watch our documentary on the weed business:

Sanders' opponent, Hillary Clinton, hasn't voiced support for marijuana legalization, and has said she would like to see "more research" before she announces a position.

Sanders, though, has been hammering the issue for at least a week, citing it as one of the centerpieces of his plans to reform the country's criminal justice system. ""When we talk about criminal justice reform, we also need to understand that millions of people have been arrested for using marijuana," Sanders said in a statement last Friday. "We must recognize that blacks are four times more likely than whites to get arrested for marijuana possession, even though the same proportion of blacks and whites use marijuana. Any serious criminal justice reform must include removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act."

The new bill, formally titled the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2015, or EFMPA, would strike any mention of marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act, which famously places marijuana alongside other Schedule 1 drugs like heroin—the ostensibly scary narcotics deemed to have no possible medical use.

If passed, the law would allow states to set their own marijuana laws, although it would still be illegal to traffic marijuana across state borders into places where marijuana prohibitions remain in place.

This is the second Senate bill proposed in 2015 aimed at loosening federal prohibitions on weed. Earlier this year, Senators Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rand Paul, a Republican presidential candidate,introduced a bill known as the CARERS Act, which would end the federal ban on medical marijuana.

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

Note: A previous version incorrectly mentioned cocaine alongside schedule 1 drugs.

The author and his baby, eating food

I don't fucks with "baby food." It's called bananas, avocados, yams, berries, peaches, rice and beans, etc. Just take some food, mash it up if you need to, and the baby will eat it. That's the real baby food. Who knows what kind of preservatives and stuff they put in those baby food cans and jars? Not me. They probably be adding all types of wild fructose corn syrups to those shits, and I'm not trying to whip out my glasses and read the fine print at the grocery store. I don't like food that has writing on it. The only packaging I like on my food is skin, mane. Organic.

Dog, apples just grow off trees, like straight from out the ground. What I need to buy applesauce for? Why did they have to complicate something as simple and perfect as the apple? The apple has been wavy for a long time, man. That was the whole reason Adam and Eve got kicked out the garden in the first place. The apple was too nice; they loved that shit, couldn't stay away. Steve Jobs names his shit Apple and boom: $700 million company. Baby food... yeah right.

Actually Steve Jobs was a fruitarian for a while, meaning he only ate the reproductive organs of plants, like fruits and nuts, that could be removed from the plants without killing them. It's like super hardbody veganism where you're even concerned about the plant's feelings. Steve Jobs was a freak, but you gotta respect the dude. He really did his thing. I'm pretty sure the cancer was less about his diet and more about him being constantly surrounded by hella computers, hella radiations. Fool probably glowed in the dark. I bet the fruit diet thing kept him alive years longer than he was supposed to be to be quite frank with you.

The baby is Steved up, Jobsian in nature. Pre-agrarian, on the caveman diet, hunter-gatherer oriented, low carb, etc. I mean, the baby takes bites of meat here and there and messes with dairy here and there and she does eat bread and tortillas—we're not health Nazis—but on the whole it's a lot of fruits and veggies. Grapes go hard: bite-size, little to no mess to clean up. Actually, she was fucking with the whole berry fam heavy—black, blue, raz, straw—but those require a bit more careful curation and clean up.

The baby came out of its mom and is coming back to drink out of its old house.

But really it's hella titty milk still. They say you should breastfeed as long as possible because the baby needs those fats and it just can't get them anywhere else. Breast milk is like literally tailor-made for your baby. It's got all the thangs and particles and whatnot that help it grow.

Watching a baby drink milk from its mama's teat is a trip. It's like, damn, we really are just these weird meat machines. It's like gassing up the tank. The baby came out of its mom and is coming back to drink out of its old house. That's like walking out the front door of a house and drinking out the hose you water the lawn with. Surreal stuff, man.

You can and probably should breastfeed the baby for like two, maybe even three years. Some fools go as long as four years. Sounds crazy but hey, probably save a lot on food, tbh.

At around six months babies can start tasting solid food. At first you just want to give them some tastes here and there, get them accustomed to the idea. They might not even swallow it at first. They just need to sort of practice the technique and get familiar with the flavors. When they have the upper and lower teeth though, that's when they really go in and just start taking bites out of peaches and whatnot. Bread goes hard too. A baby will smash on some bread, fam. Watch, see if I'm wrong. Baby's like "Damn, what is this shit? Y'all crazy." Bread, man. Babies love the stuff. It's crazy to watch the kid pick up a piece of food with its hands and bite into it when like a few months prior it could barely move its body around. These things really develop fast. It's not a joke, human children.

Try to stay away from desserts and sodas, Cheetos, shit like that. That's all garbage. You should probably try to cut that out your own diet too, mane. Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell... that's all garbage and you should not feed it to yourself, let alone your children. If anybody ever told you otherwise they were full of shit.

Follow Kool A.D. on Twitter.

12205 Imperial Avenue in 2009. Photo courtesy of Melvin Smith.

In many ways, the Imperial Avenue murders opened the eyes of Clevelanders to the prevalence and impact of sexual violence. Rape and violence against women are not new and certainly not exclusive to Cleveland. Prior to this tragedy, however, it was easier for our community to ignore rape and sexual abuse and pretend that it doesn't happen here.

The National Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that 1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in the United States will be raped in their lifetimes. Most are harmed by someone they know, trust, and love. Only a small percentage of rapes are committed by strangers.

While progress never erases the pain and suffering that has been endured, I am heartened that positive changes have taken place since the world learned of Anthony Sowell. For example, Cleveland Police Department and Cleveland Rape Crisis Center have developed a much stronger partnership. There are now victim advocates, independent of law enforcement or prosecutors, stationed inside the Sex Crimes and Child Abuse Unit, working side by side with detectives to provide emotional support, information, and resources to survivors.

Watch: 'The Cleveland Strangler'

I believe this partnership increases victim engagement in the criminal justice process and helps connect survivors immediately to supportive services. But there are still a lot of lessons to be learned or, in some cases, re-learned.

First and foremost, when survivors of rape and sexual abuse come forward, they must be believed and supported. We must treat them with the same level of dignity and respect, no matter their race or ethnicity, their gender or sexual orientation, their neighborhood or residence or history of substance use.

Second, research is evolving to teach us about the impact of trauma on the human brain. As one's body endures trauma, the brain kicks into survival mode and processes events and details in a very different way. This explains why survivors' reports in the initial aftermath of an assault are often fragmented or disjointed. There is a lot to be learned about the neurobiology of the trauma, which can inform our criminal justice system.

Third, victim advocates are an essential part of a community's response to sexual assault. Advocates are not optional; they are necessary. We know that survivors who feel believed and supported are more likely to participate in the criminal justice process, which, in turn, puts more offenders behind bars and prevents future crimes from occurring. Advocates also help connect survivors to other supportive services, such as counseling.

Using a trauma-informed, victim-centered approach to investigation and prosecution of sexual assaults provides the best path to healing for survivors and increases the chances that offenders will be caught and held accountable. Ignoring these best practices would keep our communities vulnerable.

After tragedies happen, we must let all survivors of rape, abuse, and violence know that we believe and support them. We must remind them that what happened was never their fault and that blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the offender, never the victim. And rather than talk at a survivor about what she should or should not have done, we need to listen—sit and listen and let a survivor tell us how we can help her or him recover.

These steps are the beginning of healing for survivors, their families, and the community at large. It's that simple.

We believe you.

Sondra Miller is the President & CEO of Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. With a mission to support survivors of rape and sexual abuse, promote healing and prevention, and advocate for social change, the Center serves nearly 20,000 people each year in Northeast Ohio.

To support the survivors of rape and their families, donate to the Cleveland Rape Crises Center.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives on Parliament Hill. Photo courtesy Justin Tang/The Canadian Press

Patrick McGuire is VICE Canada's head of content.

On October 5—just two weeks before the federal election resulted in a victory for Justin Trudeau after nearly ten long years of Conservative rule—I sat down with the Liberal leader and some of our VICE News staff for a town hall interview in Toronto.

My final question to Trudeau that evening was around media access to the Prime Minister's Office. Stephen Harper's reign was a dark age for Canadian journalists who were consistently blocked from asking him about pretty much anything at all. And Trudeau's answer was a clear departure from Harper's policies:

"The fact is, and people forget about this, one of the reasons why we've had ten years of a government that hasn't done a very good job at the very basic things... is that it has marginalized so much of the media's capacity to ask compelling questions of them, it's minimized its contact with real people, and the ability of Canadians to hold their government to account... That's not what a digital, engaged democracy is all about."

Ten days later, Trudeau held a press conference in Montreal where he was asked a tough question by a reporter regarding advice given by the Liberal Party's national campaign co-chairman to the oil and gas industry on how to successfully lobby a Trudeau government.

The question was met with boos and groans from Trudeau's own supporters, to which Trudeau shouted in response: "Hey! Hey! We have respect for journalists in this country. They ask tough questions and they're supposed to. OK?"

For the Canadian media, that statement was a breath of fresh air. But we at VICE Media in Canada are undergoing a legal battle with the RCMP—Canada's national police force—that will serve as Trudeau's first true test of his pro-journalism rhetoric.

Farah Mohammed Shirdon

In February, VICE Media and one of our national security reporters, Ben Makuch, were served with a production order by the RCMP. A production order is similar to a search warrant, and it specifically seeks to get "any notes and all records of communications" between Makuch and one of his sources.

That source is Farah Mohamed Shirdon, a suspected Islamic State militant and former resident of Calgary. VICE was under a gag order and prevented by the courts from discussing this action from the RCMP for eight months. We finally were able to break the news on VICE News last week.

Makuch initially came into contact with Shirdon in the spring of 2014, when he was one of the first journalists on the planet to notice that individuals purporting to be part of the Islamic State were highly active on social media through Twitter, Instagram, and an instant messaging platform called Kik.

Shirdon and Makuch began a journalistic correspondence, which led to several articles where the most explosive details of their conversations were published. Shane Smith, VICE's founder and CEO, also interviewed Shirdon over Skype. In that video interview, Shirdon threatened the United States. In an interview with Makuch shortly thereafter, Shirdon threatened Canada.

VICE is not protecting the identity of Shirdon. It's well known, through our interviews with Shirdon and through other media outlets, who he is and what he looks like. We've shown the world his face.

We are not holding back information that is relevant to public safety. In fact, one of our interviews was enough for the RCMP to charge Shirdon in absentia with: "Commission of an indictable offence for a terrorist group. (Sec 83.2) – Relating to the utterance of threats made on or about September 23, 2014 during an interview with Vice Media.)"

Through their production order, the RCMP is attempting to use VICE as an investigative arm of its operations. Complying with such a demand would puncture the trust we are able to maintain with our sources, who often fall on the wrong side of the tracks legally and ethically. Journalists need to speak to people like that in order to get the stories the public needs to read.

This trust between sources and journalists allows for whistleblowers and activists to come forward with information they would rather share with a reporter than, say, a cop. Speaking to enemies of one's state also allows the public to gain a perspective on the point of view of the very people it vows to destroy.

So that's why we are fighting in court to have this production order dismissed. We feel particularly confident in our position because this is not about protecting the identity or location of a supposedly dangerous person; the RCMP clearly believes it already has enough information on Shirdon to charge him with several terrorism related crimes. I also have to presume they have enough evidence on Shirdon to trust these charges will stick—if they are able to extract him alive from the Islamic State, that is.

Now that Trudeau has been sworn into the Prime Minister's Office, I would hope this issue falls on his radar. His stance on Bill C-51, the controversial omnibus bill of new anti-terror legislation, has been non-committal. He claims to want to amend it, but has no firm specifics on what those amendments entail. Conversely, he is unabashedly pro-journalist. I would hope that his support of over-reaching anti-terror legislation, and his vocal advocacy of press freedoms, will not clash in this instance.

It was just last week that British police invoked new anti-terror laws in that country to seize the laptop of a BBC journalist who had spoken to British individuals who fled to join the Islamic State.

Our case against the RCMP is a serious test for Trudeau and his stance on the media. While the source in question here, an alleged Islamic State militant, is obviously one of the most controversial sources we could speak with, the issue rests completely on the barrier that needs to be upheld between an independent press and the authorities.

We look forward to getting Trudeau's comments on this matter, and we hope our fight will set a positive precedent for the press in Canada. As it stands, we do not even have blanket protection for journalists when it comes to protecting their sources in this country, despite many other western democracies having media shield laws. New Zealand's media shield law goes so far as to protect bloggers.

If Trudeau is serious about improving the relationship between Canada's federal government and the media, he should not only closely examine the ramifications of an RCMP victory in our case, but also at legislation that prevents journalists from enjoying a truly democratic freedom of the press in the first place.

Follow Patrick McGuire on Twitter.

Kris McCormick and his mother Erla. Photo by Colin Graf

A Sarnia, Ontario woman and her disabled son are appealing to the province's Human Rights Tribunal to force a local agency to pay him more than the 46 cents an hour he's been earning for his work. Erla McCormick says that rate—23 times lower than Ontario's minimum wage of $10.79 an hour—is what her son Kris has earned at a workshop for adults with intellectual disabilities over the past ten years.

"I can't start my car for that, so how is he expected to make a life that way," she said in an interview with VICE.

Kris, a soft-spoken 38-year-old, helps make crates, cremation boxes, surveyors' stakes, and similar items at Wawanosh Enterprises, a special workshop run by the local agency that supports adults like Kris and their families, his mother explained. A recent pay cheque gave Kris $12 for 28 hours he spent at the workshop, run by Community Living Sarnia-Lambton.

"The idea that paying 46 cents an hour because someone has a disability is a clear violation of the Code," said Toronto lawyer Mindy Noble, who launched the application to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal for the McCormicks. The McCormicks are asking for $25,000 for damages to Kris' dignity, and for him to be paid minimum wage in the future, Noble told VICE.

The Tribunal will hear the case, only the second of its kind in the province, next March in Sarnia.

In 2014, Noble's group, the Human Rights Legal Support Centre of Toronto, helped a developmentally delayed woman from St. Catharines, Ontario get a judgement for over $180,000 in back wages and damages. The tribunal found that the woman, Terri-Lynn Garrie, was discriminated against at her job in a packaging plant. She earned only $1.25 an hour, while others without disabilities doing the same job alongside her earned minimum wage. However, Garrie has not collected a cent so far because the company closed, and her employers declared personal bankruptcy, Noble says.

Community Living is defending its payment program, saying it is not a workplace.

The Wawanosh workshop in Sarnia is a "day support program" for people with disabilities like Kris, and isn't like a workplace, said John Hagens, executive director of the Community Living agency. His clients spend some of their time with sewing or woodworking tasks, and the products are sold to help fund the program, he says. But they also have valuable social time they might not get otherwise during their days at Wawanosh, and work only when they want to, he added. The money is not a wage, but rather an honorarium, paid no matter how many hours the clients work, Hagens says.

Wawanosh Enterprise. Photo by Colin Graf

Erla McCormick agrees the service is a respite for parents and caregivers, and clients don't work all day long, but she feels they should be paid minimum wage during the time they are actually making items that will be sold.

Paying minimum wage is not an expense "that's going to break them ," she said. If Kris isn't doing paid labour at the workshop, his mother wants to know why he gets a pay stub, a T4 slip each year, and why EI contributions are deducted from his meagre cheques?

"It's not like he's ever going to be able to collect employment insurance when he's contributing so little every two weeks," she said.

Hagens was quoted earlier this year saying the agency makes $100,000-$150,000 from sales of the products annually, though he declined to confirm that to VICE, saying, "I don't see any point in that ."

Hagens declined to comment on the specifics of Kris McCormick's case, saying his agency will address all questions when the hearing is held next year.

Kris has never had a raise during the 10 years he's been attending the Wawanosh centre, Erla says, even though she has approached the agency at least three times. "They just say they're working on it, but nothing ever happens," she said.

Surprisingly, the senior brass in the Community Living network are sympathetic to the McCormicks. The days of sheltered workshops such as Wawanosh are coming to a fitting end, according to Michael Bach, executive vice-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living. It's time to "move beyond" the workshop idea and to get disabled adults into the regular workforce, he argued. While he won't criticize the Sarnia agency, Bach told me in an interview from his Toronto office that "we're pushing to get closed."

"That segregation option is a hangover from the 1960s," he said. In those days, no one really believed adults with intellectual disabilities would take part in the labour market, he explained, but today "our vision is one of inclusion."

A copy of McCormick's T4

Trying to get real employment for those with disabilities is the focus of an ambitious program the CACL has recently launched called Ready, Willing and Able (RWA). Workers with the new plan are reaching out to businesses in 20 locations across Canada to see if they can employ Community Living clients. The RWA plan began as a pilot project in the York Region north of Toronto and in Peterborough in 2013-14, and a larger version of the program has been running now for over a year, reaching out to the leadership of national chains across Canada such as Costco, Home Depot, and Travelodge.

In the last year, around 400 clients of Community Living or with the Canadian Autism Spectrum Association have found full or part-time jobs through the program, according to Don Gallant, national director of RWA. Home Depot is hiring clients with both groups in 39 stores in major Canadian cities, and the Value Village chain is hiring in 20 stores across Canada, he said. The owners of Travelodge motels will add jobs for developmentally disabled people in over 30 places, he added.

Yet both Gallant and Bach admit there's a long way to go. Bach estimates up to 45,000 Canadians are attending day programs similar to the Wawanosh workshop in Sarnia and sees Erla and Kris McCormick's appeal to the Human Rights Tribunal as a "positive step."

"People are saying there is something wrong and they need to question the system," he said. He said he hopes the outcome of the case will "require everyone to find a new path."

Still, there will need to be a transition time from workshop to real work.

"We don't just want to close the door, shut out the lights, and say no one can come back (to the workshops)," he said.

However, the Ready, Willing, and Able program hasn't come to Sarnia, and Erla McCormick says the local agency is doing a poor job of helping her son find stable employment. "For three years I haven't heard from Community Living" about helping Kris find work.

"He's taken his resumes out himself," she told me during a meeting at her home. When Kris had an interview with a local restaurant, his mother asked for an agency worker to go with him.

"His speech isn't 100 percent, you know," she said.

No worker even returned her phone call, and when Kris went back for the interview he was told the job was filled.

It's not as if Kris can't work. His frustrated mother goes down a long list of her son's previous experience: janitor, restaurant dishwasher, auto shop worker, farm labourer, compost site labourer.

Still, Community Living found Kris his latest job carrying an outdoor advertising sign for an oil change shop only after the family launched the human rights complaint, his mother said.

Hagens said his staff are doing their best to get adults like Kris into the workforce, adding that he believes they are doing so with "a fair bit of success." He said the agency is placing nearly 20 people in permanent jobs each year in Sarnia.

Erla McCormick says work is more than just the key to financial independence for disabled adults. It also helps them become full members of society, she said.

Since Kris started his recent sign-carrying job, "he's a changed guy," she said. He's more comfortable about doing many things in life, and likes to take his Mom out for dinner, and even buy her a lottery ticket occasionally.

"I just want Kris to feel good about himself."

Follow Colin Graf on Twitter.

Read more about this case in the column 'The Cleveland Strangler'

At least 11 black women were raped and killed on Cleveland's East side between 2007 and 2009 by a man named Anthony Sowell. It's one of the worst cases of serial murder in recent history and has been largely left untold.

For Wilbert L. Cooper, who was born and raised in Cleveland, the real story lies in how Sowell was able to get away with these heinous acts for two years. These crimes say as much about the depraved killer as they do about race, class, and law enforcement in the city of Cleveland.

Part three of our series looks into the systemic breakdown of the Cleveland police force's overworked and under-resourced sex crimes department, which contributed to Sowell's ability to prey on vulnerable women for years.

To support the survivors of rape and their families, donate to the Cleveland Rape Crises Center. To support greater awareness around missing persons of color, donate to the Black and Missing Foundation.

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

Yesterday saw thousands of angry students take to the streets of central London in a protest against the government's cuts to higher education. Following a familiar theme, the students clashed with police, tried to storm a government building, and generally ran amok while trying to evade kettling and arrests.

The march, organized by the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, demanded "free education and living grants, funded by progressive taxation," and followed similar demonstrations which have been held pretty much every November since 2010. In fact, the organizers claimed Wednesday's demo was the biggest since the one in 2010, which ended with students trashing the Tory headquarters.

While there was something very familiar about it, it wasn't a total re-hash of past demos. As I arrived at the march's starting point students were snapping selfies with shadow chancellor John McDonnell. There's no way this would have happened in 2010, when Labour regarded student demonstrations with the sort of awkward embarrassment a parent feels toward their sulky teenager.

Times have changed. Yesterday's protest received the personal support of both the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his shadow chancellor, who gave a speech.

A key complaint for the student protest movement's new cohort is that in the summer budget, George Osborne announced the scrapping of maintenance grants for university students. The complete cut of the £1.6 billion-a-year subsidy, which is due to come into effect in fall 2016, will affect over half a million students. Currently, if your family earns under £25,000 . Under the new plan, students from poorer backgrounds will get nothing from the government, which will mean those poor kids who don't give up on their dreams of academia entirely taking on even more debt. According to the IFS, the poorest 40 percent UK students from 2016 will graduate with debts of up to £53,000 currently.

As the "book bloc" formed up—demonstrators with shields made to look like books—The University of London Union building (ULU) provided an ominous backdrop to the beginning of the march. The student union itself was shut down by university managers in 2014 in what was widely perceived as an attempt to shut up any mouthy student campaigns against further marketization going on.

Several thousand gathered to hear speeches before setting off toward Westminster. Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell was waiting in the wings of the podium before his speech. I caught his attention very briefly and asked if Labour's support now meant free education had a fighting chance. "Thousands of young people have turned out . I think that there's a sense of betrayal in this generation by this government. I think now in the Labour party we need to take that into account in our policy making," he said.

"We're campaigning within the Labour party now on the basis of what Jeremy won the leadership election on, which is free education. We need to ensure that demonstrations like this make a point, and this is what they are doing."

I asked him if he genuinely thought free education was a winnable policy. "Yes I do. Definitely." he said. "We need a lot of young people supporting us in the campaign, joining the labour party as well to help us shift the policy position."

As the march set off toward central London, I mused on whether or not a lefty Labour party might be able to save higher education in the UK from brutal Tory cuts and marketization, but was distracted by all the Cameron pig-fucking placards around me:

Following the pig fucking theme, one of the day's chants was to the tune of "London Bridge Is Falling Down" and Went: "David Cameron fucked a pig, fucked a pig, fucked a pig, David Cameron fucked a pig, and us students."

Meanwhile, some people eschewed dodgy puns and made their points more directly.

As we came into Trafalgar Square, I caught up with one of the black bloc-dressed students. A 26-year-old, who didn't want to be named, said that he believed universities were being privatized much in the same way that the NHS and other public services were. "You run down public services and then you say, oh look these public services aren't working—we need to privatize them. The NHS is a classic example; but the Post Office; higher education is definitely an example too. It's quite clear that, if you look at something like Oliver Letwin's book Privatising the World, written in the 80s, they're trying to realize that plan."

Outside the Department for Business, Innovation, and Skills, things started to heat up a bit. The "book bloc" clashed with police, trying to force their way into the building, and leaving fragments of polystyrene all over the pavement. At this point, half of the protestors ran away, presumably a bit scared at the prospect of being beaten up or arrested by the police.

Smoke bombs, bangers, paint bombs, and placards were thrown at the cops, who pushed the remaining crowd back and tried to kettle them, unsuccessfully: the crowd pushed through a police line and sprinted up the street toward Victoria station.

From here, the official march was over and the protest turned into several hours of running around Pimlico trying to evade the police. When they did catch up with the protestors, the cops dragged whoever they could grasp to the ground and arrested them.

Related: Watch 'Teenage Riot,' VICE's documentary about the 2010 student movement

The last rump of the protest ended up just off of Pall Mall, where more arrests were made and about a hundred people were kettled. I watched as police from the Territorial Support Group (TSG—riot cops) punched a guy in the head as he tried in vain to help out his arrested comrade who was on the floor.

Eventually those kettled were frog-marched by a massive police escort to Charing Cross train station where they were let go. Twelve protestors were arrested over the course of the day for public order offenses.

The organizers, NCAFC, condemned police actions as "unnecessary and aggressive." The above picture shows that in fact the cops were being their usual, chilled selves.

In 2010, the Tories and Lib Dems introduced £9,000 fees insisting—against a large body of popular opinion—that they were creating a better and fairer higher education system. That may have been spin, but in 2015, buoyed by an election victory in the summer, the Tories seemingly can't be bothered to even argue that they're making things better for students. When he announced the scrapping of the maintenance grant, George Osborne said that there was a "basic unfairness in asking taxpayers to fund grants for people who are likely to earn a lot more than them." His argument doesn't mention the fact that the majority of grant money goes to students from the poorest households, and that graduate earnings have been declining year on year for the past decade.

Students are planning further protests later in November. While the government is seemingly unconcerned that they're giving young people an even harder time, the student movement now has the backing of a Labour Party. That party has itself been radicalized by an influx of young members, and that relationship could be instrumental as demonstrations like yesterday's become increasingly relevant.

Follow Oscar on Twitter.

Claudie Haigneré pictured last year. Photo via Wikicommons

When Claudie Haigneré was a 12-year-old girl, Neil Armstrong climbed down a ladder and stepped onto the surface of the moon. As she watched on her television screen, she looked out of her window and the stars ignited something within her. In 1969, imagination finally became a possibility. "Space came a long time after," Claudie tells me. Twenty-four years after, to be exact.

Claudie Haigneré is an anomaly in space exploration: not only is she a female cosmonaut, she's France's first woman in space. "Oui," she nods, matter-of-factly. I don't need to remind this explorer of her incredible resumé, but many may not be familiar with it. Claudie rocketed into space twice during her career: the first trip was in 1996 as part of the Russian-French Cassiopée mission, and the second in 2001 when she became the first European woman to visit the International Space Station.

But it was back in 1985, when Claudie was still a hospital doctor, specializing in rheumatology and sports trauma injuries, that her space story started. When she saw a notice from the French Agency (CNES) advertising for a scientist to conduct research in space, Claudie jumped at the chance. "Even then I didn't think: this is just for men. It wasn't a question, it was just wonderful to have the opportunity. Why not take it?"

Thirty years later and we're sitting in a deserted canteen on the top floor of London's Science Museum. Claudie has just finished a walkabout of their latest Cosmonauts exhibition and by the time she comes up to meet me you can see the stars in her eyes. The memories are all still there. "Those 15 years of my life were an extraordinary adventure," she says.

But we're not at the Science Museum merely to admire the exhibits—Claudie is here to speak at an event called 'Women in Space,' but only 11 percent of space explorers have been women. What barriers does she think are preventing young women from signing up? "It's difficult for young girls to imagine that the door is open, specifically with hard sciences," she says. "What can we do? I think we need to do something with schools—with all forms of education—about stereotypes, cliches. They are everywhere: in newspapers, on TV..."

When I tell Claudie how, only yesterday, I walked into a toyshop and noticed how all the space toys were marketed at boys, she gleefully tells me about a collaborative European Space Agency toy called Lottie. She's not a Barbie, she's an astrophysicist, and after Googling this "Stargazer Lottie," I can confirm that I want one. "It's true that those stereotypes are everywhere and it starts very young," Claudie says.

Only this week the Russian Federal Space Agency announced a potential all-female mission to the moon in 2029. At a press conference six female cosmonauts, all experts in biophysics, psychology, and medicine, were asked how they'd cope without make-up in space (no, seriously). When I ask Claudie whether she was ever treated differently training alongside so many male cosmonauts in the 1980s and 90s, her answer is clear: "No, not at all. The training was exactly the same."

Is there any difference to being a woman in space? In Claudie's experience, "there was no difference. We need to destroy the cliches, to make these jobs more known. These girls need role models to help them gain confidence."

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We had a man on the moon in '69. Should the first human on Mars be a woman? "It would be wonderful," she smiles. "But I am not at all in favor of a purely female crew—what does it mean? Society is diverse and the crew should be balanced. But yes, why not have a woman as the first ? Symbolically it would be important."

When Claudie talks about her experiences in space an invisible line forms between us and it's palpable. It's a line that divides a handful of people who have seen Earth as a spectator and the rest of us who can barely imagine it. What did it feel like to see planet Earth through a window for the first time? She calls it "extra terrestrial": "Before we docked at the space station, the first thing I saw was the Aurora Borealis. It was unbelievable."

Claudie once revealed that she listened to Maria Callas when she was in space. "Oui," she replies. "I was on a short-duration you see one sunrise and one moonrise. It's noisy in the station, so in order to experience it completely I put some music on." The music she chose was "Casta Diva" from Norma. "It paralleled an orbit of the earth with constant speed... this music gave me the possibility to experience this feeling. Music is a good adjuvant to contemplation."

The conversation about the nature of space exploration soon leads to a discussion about fear. The mere idea of space travel scares me more than clown entertainers and vegan cafes do here on Earth. "Fear" isn't a word Claudie recognizes. I ask her whether she's ever felt afraid during her career—especially in that split second before take-off. She explains how her eleven years training after selection meant she was confident and impassioned. "I have a lot of questions about 'fear' and 'stress'," she says, "but that wasn't the case. You are on the top of the rocket and it's time to go. It is a wonderful moment."

What about microgravity? What's that like? "This is really astonishing because you cannot reproduce microgravity on Earth. This, for me, was one of the strongest moments: discovering the freedom of the body in microgravity. Slow movement, no weight, the possibility to use three dimension of space: it was really enjoyable. It's the revelation of something that you cannot imagine on Earth."

After dedicating eleven years of her life to train for a single journey, did the reality of going into space match up to her imagination? "More! You can be trained, you can exchange with cosmonauts, but to feel microgravity, and to see the planets through the window? With your own eyes, your gaze, and your body floating? It's something that you can't imagine. The reality is better than the dream."

We come back to reality—and that 11 percent. What advice would she give to a young girl in 2015 with dreams of space exploration?

"Dare in your life. Don't wait to be perfect. Why not you?"

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