John Fetterman was mad. We were looking at dilapidated homes in Braddock, Pennsylvania, the Pittsburgh suburb where he has been mayor since 2005—Fetterman estimated there are 450 of them between his town and the one just north. The figure seemed exaggerated until Fetterman turned his truck down a road where all but two houses were boarded up. "Gone," he said, shaking his arm at house after house. "Gone. Gone."

All through Braddock, the streets are lined with houses swallowed by vines, with broken windows and unhinged doors. The town looks so post-apocalyptic that parts of the movie The Road were filmed here.

More depressing is the fact that since Fetterman, 46, became mayor, life in Braddock has actually improved: Crime rates have decreased, an urgent care center opened, and there's now a youth program. Last year, Fetterman entered Pennsylvania's 2016 Senate race, hoping his success in Braddock would standout in an unconventional election cycle. But heading into Tuesday's Democratic primary, the latest poll shows Fetterman trailing his opponents, former Pennsylvania US Representative Joe Sestak and environmentalist Katie McGinty, by double digits.

That poll, conducted by Franklin & Marshall College, also shows that 29 percent of the state's voters are still undecided. With so many votes up for grabs, Fetterman has tried to make the Senate primary about the soul of the Democratic Party—specifically, as it is determined by the establishment and its base.

But while he has endorsed Vermont's Independent Senator Bernie Sanders—a move that seems to put him to the left of both Sestak and McGinty—the candidates otherwise agree on nearly every issue. As a result, Fetterman has been using his biography to stand apart. Last month, he campaigned at establishment events held by the Erie County Democratic Women, the Northwest Democratic Alliance, and Butler County Democratic Party, hoping to change minds with his story.

When Fetterman took office, Braddock was one of the poorest towns in the state. The population had dropped dramatically over the course of the 20th century, from 20,000 in 1920 to under 2,700 in 2005. The Edgar Thomson Steel Works, Andrew Carnegie's first steel mill, had remained open, but that was about it—no restaurants, no grocery stores, not even a gas station remained in Braddock. Fetterman gained national attention by inviting people to move to the town in a feature for ReadyMade magazine, and he soon became a media darling, appearing on The Colbert Report and getting the title of America's "coolest mayor" by The Guardian.

Part of the appeal stems from Fetterman's appearance. Six-foot-eight and bald, with a goatee, tattoos, and a closet full of Dickies shirts, the man looks like a bounty hunter. It's part of his charisma, and he uses it on the campaign trail. "I wouldn't answer my door if I knocked on it," he joked at the Northwest Democratic Alliance meeting. "I don't look like a politician. I don't even look like a normal person."

But while local Democrats admire Fetterman's blue-collar appeal, most admit they prefer a candidate with a more conventional résumé. Georgiann Kerr, chairwoman of the Butler County Democratic Committee, told me she wished Fetterman was running for a seat in the US House of Representatives instead of the Senate. " are going for the big thing. They're going for the whole ball of wax," she said. "Let's start out a little smaller."

Nationally, Democrats have a shot at taking back control of the Senate in November, and polls indicate that Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey is beatable, despite leading in head-to-head polls against each Democratic primary candidate. Sestak, who lost to Toomey by two points in 2010, seems to have an ideal resume: a two-term Congressman who served as a three-star Admiral in the Navy, director of the Navy's Counter-Terrorism Unit, and director of defense policy under President Bill Clinton.

But the state's Democratic establishment has thrown its weight behind McGinty, who trails Sestak by six points in polls, despite receiving over 110 endorsements, including from President Barack Obama and local unions. A former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, McGinty has a solid record as an environmentalist, having served as secretary of the state's Department of Environmental Protection and an environmental adviser to Bill Clinton, as well as worked in the private energy sector. It's an appealing record in a state that is now the nation's second-largest natural gas producer. Plus, if she beats Toomey, McGinty would become the first woman ever elected to the US Senate from Pennsylvania.

Watch: Bun B Explains Everything You Need to Know About a Possible Republican Contested Convention

Although Sestak leads in the polls, there are rumors that the state's Democratic Establishment simply dislikes the frontrunner, who defeated Arlen Specter in the 2010 Democratic Senate primary, running over objections from the party establishment, before losing to Toomey in the general election.

When I asked him about this act of insubordination, Sestak framed it as a naval metaphor. "When a US Senator says, 'Sestak, whenever I tell you anything, the only answer is to be yes,' you sit there and kind of think about what if a sailor in the Navy ever heard some admiral say that to me when I was captain of a ship," Sestak said over the phone. "If the sailors heard me say 'yes,' my gosh, they'd never follow the captain into war because they'd know he was accountable to the admiral, not to the sailors."

The establishment's contempt for Sestak stretches to the local level. Before Fetterman spoke to the Erie County Democratic Women, John Savelli, a Democratic Committeeman in District 4-2, characterized Sestak as an all-around bad politician.

"I believe in the establishment," Savelli said. "The establishment works. You have to be able to listen to everybody and work with everybody, make compromises, and get things done. You can't go off on your own against everybody. The real problem is the outsiders, actually."

Fetterman speaking to the Erie County Democratic Women

Fetterman would point to Braddock's three condemned bridges and disagree with Savelli. As outsiders, he and Sestak have ganged up on McGinty in the primary race, hammering their mutual opponent over her relationship with the energy industry. Fetterman also likes to point out that, though she now supports raising the minimum wage to $15, she backed raising it to just $9 when she ran for governor back in 2014.

It's not like Fetterman is perfect. He hasn't always worked well with Braddock council members, for example. But he keeps hammering McGinty over minimum wage because his life's work has been trying to help people escape poverty, and because he believes the difference between $15 and $9 says a lot about where the Democrats are headed.

Follow Gavin Jenkins on Twitter.

When family members and survivors of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School filed suit against Bushmaster in December 2014, it seemed a lot like a lost cause. After all, a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) was designed to prevent people from holding gun manufacturers accountable for wrongful deaths. Even last week, when a Connecticut judge shot down a motion to dismiss the suit, experts said she was just delaying an inevitable dismissal later down the line.

But then last Tuesday, that same judge, Barbara Bellis, of Connecticut's Superior Court, issued another ruling that determined the suit would be more than symbolic. Specifically, she said the discovery process could begin immediately and set a tentative trial date for April 3, 2018. A jury hearing the case would be historic, but Katherine Mesner-Hage, an attorney for the plaintiffs, says that getting the gun company to open its books for discovery is arguably just as huge.

That's because she and her co-council have constructed a creative PLCAA exemption, claiming, in essence, that the gun Adam Lanza used in the Sandy Hook massacre was specifically marketed as a killing machine. As part of discovery, they'll dig through the gunmaker's internal company memos and try to prove that the company was negligent.

I spoke to Mesner-Hage about how the gun industry became so protected from civil suits, what she and the other lawyers for the Sandy Hook survivors hope to find in discovery, and how their legal strategy is similar to the one used against Big Tobacco in the 90s.

VICE: What are you hoping to find in discovery that will be such a big deal?
Katherine Mesner-Hage: We're looking for documents, and we're looking to depose key people at Remington especially, but also at the distributor and the retail level. We're asking for internal memos about how to market the AR-15 and how to market specifically the patrolman's carbine, which is the one that Adam Lanza used.

We want to depose the head of marketing. We want to talk to the people at the company who are making the decisions about marketing. That's how we build our case, although the marketing speaks for itself on one level. This is our chance to kind of peel back the curtain and see what's really going on. One of the things about discovery in general is that you don't know what you're looking for before you start.

Has any other case against a gun company gotten to the discovery stage since PLCAA was passed? What are the broader implications of this recent decision?
I can't think of any case that's gotten to the point in which discovery was open in the post-PLCAA era. For the most part, the answer is no. You get thrown out on a motion to dismiss. A handful of cases, or less, have gone all the way. I'm not sure if you know about the case in Wisconsin that got a verdict in 2015.

The one where two officers were shot?
Yes, exactly, the Badger case in which someone got a weapon through a straw sale. That's when you buy a gun for someone who can't have one. And if the store has reason to know they're participating in a straw sale, that can give rise to a cause of action that is not barred by PLCAA. So, random trivia, but the lawyer representing the gun store in that case is representing Remington in our case.

Wow. Let's talk about your strategy: Is yours the first case to consider the marketing materials of the gun companies a cause for action?
Yes. That definitely doesn't have any post-PLCAA predecessor. And certainly nothing has gotten to open discovery. So I think it's safe to say some extremely passionate, articulate Democratic representatives and senators speaking out against the bill and describing exactly how unprecedented it was and how it would shut the courthouse doors to so many deserving plaintiffs. But they were outnumbered.

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

Fresh allegations emerged over the weekend from a woman claiming former CBC host Jian Ghomeshi choked her while they were at his home.

The woman, who has chosen to remain anonymous, told the Toronto Star she works in the music industry in Toronto and met Ghomeshi in 2013 at an industry event. They allegedly began a casual text relationship, with Ghomeshi, who was host of Q at the time, repeatedly asking her to hang out over several months. In July 2013, the woman accepted Ghomeshi's invitation to have dinner at his place. She told the Star nothing happened. Afterward, Ghomeshi continued to pursue her and she said she blew him off by pretending to be sick and making up other excuses. Eventually, she said she agreed to meet him for a drink on his rooftop.

"There was a different vibe than the first time. I thought, oh no, this is a thing," the woman told the Star.

While she was lying down on a reclining patio chair, she said Ghomeshi lunged on top of her and started making out with her forcefully, trying to shove his tongue down her throat. At the same time, the woman said Ghomeshi choked her with both hands. The woman said Ghomeshi also put one of his hands between her legs and said, "I'm going to fuck you so hard you won't be able to walk for a week."

The woman told the Star she managed to push Ghomeshi off and he then walked her to her car and gave her a kiss goodnight.

The woman said Ghomeshi continued to text her after the alleged incident, asking her to meet up again. She told the Star she deflected his invitations.

More than 20 women have come forward claiming Ghomeshi abused them.

While reading his not guilty verdict in Ghomeshi's sexual assault trial last month, Justice William Horkins said he found the post-incident behaviour of the three complainants "odd" in that they continued having friendly interactions with Ghomeshi after they said he hurt them.

Read more: What Day Two of the Ghomeshi Trial Tells Us About Victim Blaming, Credibility, and Traumatic Memories.

A woman who reported Ghomeshi to police, resulting in one of two sexual assault charges against him that was dropped prior to the trial, told the Star the Crown decided not to pursue the charge involving her after she revealed emails between herself and Ghomeshi that showed she was "extremely friendly" with him following the alleged assault. She said Ghomeshi squeezed her neck, slapped her, and put his hands in her mouth "like a dentist" in August 2002.

Experts on sexual violence have said keeping in touch with an abuser is normal for victims.

Part of Horkins' ruling came into question recently, when a Canadaland story pointed out Ghomeshi's lawyer Marie Henein never submitted evidence that proved Ghomeshi didn't drive a yellow Volkswagen bug in January 2003—which is the car the first witness Linda Redgrave said she remembers him having when he pulled her hair.

Under cross-examination Henein questioned the witness about the car, and seemed to suggest Ghomeshi might not have purchased that particular make and model until months later. Horkins, in his decision, said Redgrave's memory of the car was "demonstrably false."

One lawyer said that's grounds for the Crown to appeal the verdict because the defence never proved Redgrave was wrong.

But in a statement released Monday, the Ministry of the Attorney General said it would not be appealing.

"The Crown has concluded that there is no legal basis upon which to appeal the acquittals."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter

Cartoonist Chester Brown's self-illustration. All images courtesy Chester Brown

Creating a 270-page comic book about why Jesus "thought prostitution was a good thing" is typical Chester Brown: total nerd. Total shit-disturber. Zero fucks given.

Zika virus is usually transferred through mosquito bites. Photo via Flickr user AFPMB.

The first sexually transmitted case of Zika virus has been confirmed in Canada.

The virus is carried in Aedes mosquitoes (which don't exist in Canada) and is normally passed on through bites. But according to the Public Health Agency of Canada, someone in Ontario recently caught it by having sex with a partner who visited an infected country.

While the symptoms of the Zika virus are generally mild in adults, it has been linked to the birth defect microcephaly, which causes babies to have smaller than normal heads, and potentially suffer from developmental and cognitive delays. Because of this, the World Health Organization declared the virus a global emergency a couple months ago and pregnant women or women trying to get pregnant are being advised not to travel to affected areas.

Dozens of Canadians have contracted the virus while abroad, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The agency said Zika can survive in sperm, so men returning to Canada from high risk areas should use condoms for six months to prevent spreading it. Men whose partners are pregnant are advised to use condoms for the length of the pregnancy.

Women who've recently returned to Canada from a Zika-impacted region are advised to wait at least two months before trying to conceive a baby, while couples trying to get pregnant are advised to delay their plans by at least six months if the man becomes infected.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

All images courtesy of Film911.net

A handsome blonde man lies on a gurney with his medical gown pulled up over his hairy, distended belly. His legs are propped up and covered by a sheet. He rubs the thatch of fur over his abdomen and then suddenly perks up. "Oh, I can feel you moving inside of me," he says to the imaginary baby in his non-existent uterus. "You really want to get out of there, don't you?" In just a few moments, this same man will give birth to his child, which is a not especially lifelike doll.

Someone, somewhere, is masturbating to this scene.

Like many of the videos on Film911.net, a site devoted to only the most special of specialty porn, this one features no nudity, no dongs, no anal, and no money shots (unless you count the man finally popping out a baby after 20 minutes of straining a money shot).

MPREG, as the genre of pregnant man erotica is known, is just one of many incredibly niche categories at Film911.net. Others genres include "heartbeat" videos, where a shirtless dude runs on a treadmill and then viewers hear his racing heart through a stethoscope. There's "vore," short for carnivore, where one hungry dude pretends to swallow another dude whole and let him live in his stomach before "vomiting" him back up alive so we can see that he survived the ordeal, Jonah in the whale style. The " stuffing" series features models, often shirtless, being forced to eat large quantities of food and then showing off the burrito babies in their bellies. "Inflation" videos show guys blown up like hot air balloons with their bellies sticking out. Finally, there are "belly button worship" and "gut punching," both of which are exactly what they sound like. All of these genres are safe for work.

Jay*, the founder of Film911, admits there aren't a ton of gay guys who are into scenes of manly men sprouting baby bumps. Still, he says the site turns a tidy profit, at least in part because of its niche offering. People who want to watch a dude get his belly button played with for minutes on end aren't always able to find a scene to their liking on more mainstream tube sites, and so they will happily pay 911Films between $15 and $20 to download a single video. (There are also a few extended edits that include nudity and jerking off for a slight upcharge.) Even though the number of paying customers is only in the hundreds, ponying up that money for each new scene eventually adds up. Jay releases something in one of his categories about every other week.

According to Jay, the appeal of these types of videos comes from an attraction to domination. "It's the idea of someone dominating someone else," he told VICE. "There is a lot of domination and submission. The vore videos aren't about cannibalism, they're about swallowing someone whole, which is a way of dominating them. The pregnancy thing is different altogether but the CPR series with the gut punch videos, I think there is that element happening in those videos as well."

The company started about three years ago when Jay realized "There was no content out there catering to what I'm into. I own a production company, so why don't I produce content geared toward what I'm into?" Jay owns a "regular" film business, but started making his own videos for Film911 in 2013 with models he found on Craigslist, through amateur modeling sites, and through recommendations from friends. He says he gets lots of attractive, muscular straight guys to be in his films who wouldn't otherwise do porn. They don't mind pretending to be swallowed whole as long as they can keep their clothes on and don't have to touch another dick.

Overhead is kept low by doing the shoots mostly in Jay's house, and he started co-starring in some of the videos to keep costs down. However, he's reinvested in the business, buying tons of sets and props, especially of the medial variety for the MPREG and heartbeat videos.

Jay initially marketed his videos directly to fetish communities through message boards, selling each scene piecemeal, but eventually built his website as a hub for all the different wares. As the site grew, more and more people with more and more odd sexual appetites approached him about making movies. "I had never heard of these things before, but when people told me what they were into, I was like, 'Wow that's different,'" Jay says. "There are certain people who tell me their ideas and send me their scripts and feedback all the time. I'm very connected to them and they've driven the business in the right direction."

The scripts for the scene aren't written out word for word, but Jay or one of his fetishy collaborators will come up with scenarios and then the actors improvise from there.

"I guess it's just like any acting skill," Conner, who stars in one of the most popular pregnancy videos on the site, says about pretending he's going to give birth or that he just got swallowed by another swole bro. Conner works with Jay on his legit film business as well, but when he showed his boss how well he could push out his stomach, he was immediately hired to star in racier fare. Conner, who is gay, is often the man found worshiping muscles and belly buttons on Film911.

Like most businesses, in the fetish porn world one has to evolve or die, and so Jay is currently branching out into new areas. One of his models recently lost a leg in a motorcycle accident and approached Jay about making some amputee fetish films. He's going to produce a few and see how they perform.

According to the internet's informal Rule 34, if you can dream something up, there is porn of it. And as long as there are people thinking about how sexy stethoscopes are and how they wish they could live inside a dude's ripped stomach for a few minutes, they'll be able to find that porn on Film911.

Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter.

At their request, Jay and Conner's last names have been withheld.

Marissa Shephard will be back in court June 3. Photo via Facebook

The 20-year-old Moncton woman who was on the run for 10 weeks following a brutal murder hid from police with help from the father of her four-year-old kid, according to the man's guilty plea.

Read: Stop Rebooting TV Shows, You Lazy Assholes

The cast for the 2017 Twin Peaks revival on Showtime has been announced, and it is a long and inexplicable medley of indie rockers, 90s stars, and Michael Cera,Variety reports.

Trent Reznor, Eddie Vedder, Sky Ferreira, and Sharon Van Etten will be rubbing shoulders on set with a bizarre mish-mash of actors new to the Twin Peaks universe, like Jim Belushi, Tim Roth, Matthew Lillard, and Amanda Seyfried, as well as a bunch of returning alums like Kyle MacLachlan and Peggy Lipton, who played Norma.

The staggeringly large, 217-person cast list reads more like an invitation list to the 2007 VMAs, but at least its nice to see David Lynch bringing in some new actors to the bunch since the whole concept of seeing old cast members reprising their original roles years later sounds better in theory than practice.

David Lynch's new season, which will be brimming with cameos, is set to drop next year. Read the full cast list on Facebook and try to imagine Laura Dern in a cardigan playing the Log Lady or Michael Cera talking backwards in the Black Lodge or whatever.

If you're a screenwriter, and you have a question about science, you can call (844) NEED-SCI. Whether your question is about black holes, time travel, evolutionary biology, or brain surgery, Rick Loverd, or one of his colleagues at the Science and Entertainment Exchange, will answer the phone, and connect you with a scientist who is willing to inject a little bit of real-world accuracy into your movie, TV show, video game, or other entertainment property. And it's all free.

It's hard to say what's most puzzling about this service, which launched in 2008: That filmmakers would want it to exist, that scientists would be willing to help out the world's biggest sources of scientific misinformation, or that someone would pay for it to exist without asking Hollywood for anything in return.

But Loverd would push back on all these points: "Filmmakers operate in a world of a lot more structure than people give them credit for, scientists are a lot more creative than people give them credit for," he told me. And as for being free, he explained that the nonprofit aspect of his parent organization, the National Academy of Sciences, is "what makes us so powerful."

Souvenirs from the Science and Entertainment Exchange's many consulting projects

Loverd told me today the majority of requests come via email. The number is still accessible, but the phone it's connected to only rings about once a day.

As it happens, I need this kind of help. Something I do other than write articles on the internet is write screenplays, and one of them recently sold. I'm not allowed to give away plot details now, but I will say it's a thriller that takes place in the not-too-distant-future, and it's about people fighting for control of a biochemical agent with very specific properties: it has to be powerful, have a certain half-life, and must blow up under certain circumstances.

Loverd was eager to help, but there was instantly a problem: a script like mine that's already headed for production is way past what Loverd calls "that moment when you've just had an idea and you're wondering how to outline it." In other words, bad science takes root early on, and cleaning that up can be messier than if the writer starts out with a sound scientific basis.

Unlike me, major Hollywood players have found (844) NEED-SCI at the right time. For instance, when Marvel's Thor was in its early stages, the filmmakers went to Loverd's organization for advice. Mind you, Thor is about a Norse god whacking monsters with a magical hammer, so science might seem like the last topic on a storyteller's mind—but not so with Marvel. "They were looking forward already and thinking about The Avengers," Loverd said. So they needed a "grounded, plausible reason," for that Norse god to ever hang out with Tony Stark.

The team assembled by Loverd, which included physicist Sean Carroll, cooked up the canonical compromise you see in the Marvel movies. Inspired by the famous Arthur C. Clarke quote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," they rethought all of Norse mythology as alien technology. "If you were a viking subsistence fisherman, on the shores of Norway in 900 AD, and Thor and his friends come down to hide the Tesseract on Earth, and you saw them, you would think they were gods. What they were was a very advanced race of people," he said. At one point in the finished film, Natalie Portman's character paraphrases Clarke, saying "magic's just science we don't understand yet."

My information being added to the (844)NEED-SCI computer system

I asked Loverd to place my request in the (844) NEED-SCI system, and connect me with a scientist. The internal filing system for connecting projects to scientists was impressive. Searching any topic of interest to a screenwriter—biotechnology in my case—produced an instant cornucopia of geniuses. 2,065 of them, to be exact–all of whom had been vetted.

Not long after, noted biotechnologist Andrew Hessel was on the phone with me, and he was more than happy to talk to me about my screenwriting problem. I described it in detail, along with the fictional future world in which my fictional biochemical existed. And then I was in for a scientific ass-kicking.

"That's a stretch. In terms of just... physics," Hessel told me. "You're essentially creating something that doesn't exist in nature." But more than taking an issue with the central plot device in my movie, he simply didn't buy my fictional future, saying, "I think that premise is garbage."

Loverd, holding his organization's promotional Erlenmeyer flask

Reeling, I asked him to help me sort things out and get on a better footing. He told me it was going to be tough to do that in just one phone call. "If you really want to go into any kind of explanation—which you don't in a movie—it would require a few days of pulling papers to kind of give you a foundation," he said.

Without going into too much detail, Hassel streamlined some unnecessary aspects of my fictional invention, and schooled me on futurism. Without calling for changes to the plot of my movie, he pointed out some unnecessary bells and whistles in my idea that might send any real chemists in the audience into a rage. I said I'd see about trimming the unnecessary parts. "Just tweaking that chemistry would be kind of interesting, so you can make this work," Hessel said.

When all was said and done, we found common ground. "I really like this," he told me, adding, "there is some bizarre chemistry, but it's not super crazy."

According to Loverd's assessment of a typical consult, mine may have gotten more tough love than is typical. Ideally, he told me, "it's a little bit like taking an improv class." By contrast, mine was downright contentious for a few moments when Hessel felt like my movie misinformed people about climate change. But I had asked for his honest opinion, and when I stopped being defensive, positive results followed.

Scientists of good standing within their communities have every reason to be tough on screenwriters, and discourage them from playing fast-and-loose with the facts. For the scientist, Loverd told me, there's a "nightmare" scenario, in which a writer "misinterprets or outright manipulates the science that you give them," and that even worse would be if that writer, "takes it a step further to tell the world that you're the person that gave them that information."

Still, Loverd says he doesn't have a specific goal in mind. Screenwriters are under no pressure to reach a standard for scientific accuracy, and Loverd knows each project has different demands. His guiding philosophy is just to "create the community, and good stuff will happen."

Follow Mike Pearl on Twitter.

All photos by Kwele Serell

Come on, guys. It's 2016. After going over this many, many, many times, we've alldecided that wearing someone else's culture as a fashion statement shouldn't be a thing anymore. Some festivals have even gone so far as to ban headdresses.

Despite this, during Coachella this weekend, I saw a whole bunch of people wearing dashikis, bindis, cornrows, and headdresses. I wanted to know why people were still OK with wearing this stuff in the face of so much pushback. Did they feel conflicted about wearing it? Were they just unaware of the controversy? Or did they feel like it was a valid fashion choice—like the girl pictured above, sporting a headdress, who told me she absolutely did not feel weird about her outfit?

Here are some other people I encountered at Coachella who I asked to explain their questionable fashion choices.

VICE: Can you tell me what you have on?
It's a dashiki.

Do you feel weird about wearing it, because you're not black?
No. It's comfortable. I understand why somebody would wear this in the hot weather.

So that's why you're wearing this?
Yeah. Just because it's hot, and it's comfortable. It's artistic, too.

Can you guys tell me what you're wearing?
Girl 1: I'm wearing a very flowy shirt with some brown suede shorts. Very piratey. I'm kind of trying to go for that.
Girl 2: I'm wearing a long peach dress with a really warm sweater that has no sleeves, and some sandals that have really good arch support.
Girl 3: I'm wearing a romper with a bralette and some boots and a belt and like, five necklaces, and a scarf and a pound of glitter.

What about your hairstyles?
Girl 2: We've got some lovely cornrows going. All of us have cornrows.

Do you guys feel weird about wearing cornrows?
Girl 3: A little bit, just because I've never had this and I'm used to having my curly hair. It's out of my comfort zone, but I like it.

What about you?
Girl 2: I don't feel weird, no. I've had cornrows many times in my life. It's good, I like it. Really, I wore it this weekend not so much for any kind of statement but just to keep my hair out of my face and to keep it in one style for the whole weekend.

Related: Should you wear a Native American headdress to Coachella this year? Noisey made a handy flow chart.

What are you wearing today?
I'm wearing Free People. It's like a dress made out of gauze.

Do you have a Bindi on?
Yes, I do.

Do you feel weird about wearing a Bindi?
Honestly, I was a little skeptical at first because, you know, this is somebody else's culture. Projecting that and them not being comfortable with it is kind of strange.

Related: The Basic Bitch's Guide to Coachella

Can you tell me what you're wearing?
I'm wearing a dashiki. It's like my little African feel-good shirt. It's all easy breezy and I can dance real good in it.

Do you feel weird about what you're wearing?
I actually like to take pride in my clothing. Everybody thinks I'm cool. I can dance, and I feel funky in it. I put out good vibes and I feel good.

Tell me what you're wearing today.
Guy: A shirt?
Girl: Awesome clothing.

And why are you wearing this?
Guy: To... stay out of the sun?
Girl: And because it's comfortable.

Do you feel weird wearing what you're wearing at all?
Guy: No.
Girl: No. I feel free.

Follow Kwele Serell on Twitter.

Bernie Sanders. Photo by Michael Vadon via Flickr.

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

US News

Millennials Become America's Biggest Generation
Millennials have surpassed the baby boomers to become the largest living generation in the US, according to the latest census data. There are now 75.4 million millennials compared to 74.9 million baby boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964.—CBS News

54 Arrested for Protesting Anti-LGBT Law
A total of 54 demonstrators were arrested while protesting North Carolina's law restricting bathroom access for transgender people. Hundreds gathered outside the statehouse Monday night, while some went inside to stage sit-ins outside the offices of lawmakers. The 54 will be charged with second-degree trespassing.—ABC News

Sanders Admits He's Unlikely to Win
Bernie Sanders had admitted he's unlikely to persuade superdelegates to flip allegiance to him as Democratic voters head to polls in five states today. "If we are behind in the pledged delegates, I think it's very hard for us to win," he said. Clinton is significantly ahead in Pennsylvania and Maryland, while races in Connecticut, Delaware, and Rhode Island are expected to be tighter. —NBC News

Cleveland to Pay Tamir Rice Family $6 Million
The city of Cleveland has agreed to pay $6 million to the family of Tamir Rice to settle a lawsuit over the 12-year-old's fatal shooting by a police officer. Cleveland police union chief Stephen Loomis said he hopes the family spends some of it "educating youth of the dangers of possessing a real or replica firearm." —The Huffington Post

International News

LGBT Rights Activists Hacked to Death in Bangladesh
The editor of a LGBT magazine was one of two people hacked to death in Bangladesh's capital Dhaka. Six attackers posing as couriers entered an apartment and murdered Julhas Mannan and Tanay Mojumdar, the latest victims of murders targeting liberal activists. Mannan was the editor of the only LGBT magazine in the country. —Al Jazeera

Mitsubishi Admits Rigging Fuel Tests Since 1991
Mitsubishi Motors has admitted falsifying fuel economy test data since 1991. Company shares have fallen 10 percent in Tokyo today, bringing the slide since the scandal emerged to almost 50 percent. Company president Tetsuro Aikawa said its own investigation was continuing. —BBC News

Trudeau: Canadian Hostage Death is 'Cold Blooded Murder'
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau condemned the killing of Canadian hostage John Risdel, 68, by Islamist militants in the Philippines as "cold-blooded murder." Trudeau confirmed the death after a ransom deadline issued by the Abu Sayyaf group expired. A second Canadian, Robert Hall, 50, remains captive. —The Globe and Mail

Burundi Investigated for War Crimes
The International Criminal Court will investigate allegations of political violence and imprisonment in Burundi. The UN estimates that at least 430 people have been killed since April 2015 since President Pierre Nkurinziza launched his election campaign. —VICE News

Prince. Photo via Wikimedia.

Everything Else

Eight Prince Albums Back in the Charts
Prince is back into the Billboard album charts after fans rushed to buy his music, which is mostly not available on streaming sites. Eight of the singer's albums are now in the top 200, with The Very Prince of Prince sitting at No.1. —The New York Times

500,000 Christians to Boycott Target over LGBT Policy
A conservative Christian group, the American Family Association, claims to have gathered more than 500,000 signatures from people pledging to boycott Target over its transgender-friendly bathroom policy. —USA Today

Twin Peaks Cast List Packed With Musicians
The 2017 Twin Peaks revival will feature a medley of indie rockers, 90s stars and Michael Cera. Eddie Vedder, Trent Reznor and Sharon Van Etten are among 217 people on the cast list. —VICE

Candidate Who Believes in Time Travel Hits Out Against Trump
Fringe presidential candidate Andrew Basiago wants the government to disclose secret time travel technologies it has been hiding from the American people. But even Basiago thinks Donald Trump ideas are "crazy." —Motherboard



Done with reading today? Watch our new film 'Everything You Need to Know About a Possible Republican Contested Convention'

Keep out. All photos by John Howard

It's no secret that the American military is a fairly messed-up institution. If it's not being exposed for failing to combat the high rates of sexual assault and rape of female officers in the Oscar-nominated documentary The Invisible War, it's being investigated for concealing the deaths of multiple civilians in Afghanistan during the occupation of the country (read Jeremy Scahill's book Dirty Wars if you're interested in that one).

Despite that sullied reputation, it may come as a shock to many to learn that, in 1966, the American military accidentally dropped four atomic bombs on Spain but managed to minimize the incident to the extent that it's been virtually washed clean from history. A mixture of savvy PR from the US government and patchy reporting from international media means that most of us don't even know it happened.

So here's what happened: on January 17, 1966, a US B52 bomber collided with a refueling aircraft in Spanish airspace. The crash meant that four hydrogen bombs were dropped. Two hit the ground at speed, imploding and releasing plutonium into the soil of the Andalusian town of Palomares. Meanwhile, parachutes were deployed on the other two bombs. One hit the ground without detonating and the other landed in the Mediterranean Sea still intact. It wasn't until late last year that America agreed to clean up the resulting contamination and ship the soil back to the US, where it will probably end up in Nevada.

Professor John Howard is an American academic, author, and photographer. He has spent the last five or so years traveling to Palomares in order to document the remains of the nuclear disaster with his camera. While he can't photograph the remains of the plutonium—despite the fact it still sits within the soil—he instead captures the ramifications of this incident on the people, economy, and landscape of Palomares.

Howard's project, entitled White Sepulchres, was released as a full body of work earlier this year. It tells the story of the coverup and impact of the bombs through its eerie, desolate imagery, which stands in contrast to the visceral and violent images we might have seen of Chernobyl or Fukushima. Recently, I spoke to John about one of the forgotten stories of warfare in the 20th century.

Animals still graze in the affected fields

VICE: Do you want to start by telling us how you came across the story of Palomares?
John Howard: Well, I first travelled to Andalusia in 1993, but I didn't hear about this incident until 2010. I would hear the briefest mention on the wind, and it was always imprecise. I just followed; it was like detective work. As I found out more, I became hugely angry and ashamed that I had no knowledge of it. As an American citizen by birth and an American historian by training, it was really galling. The more I looked into the bombing, the more I found further levels of concealment.

How did America cover it up?
These events are called "broken arrows." That's the code name when the US government loses or breaks a hydrogen bomb. This guy in John Woo's film Broken Arrow says, "I don't know what's scarier—losing nuclear weapons, or that it's happened so often there's actually a code name for it."

Wow.
The US admit to 32 of these "broken arrows." Eric Schlosser, an investigative journalist, estimates 100 for the 1950s alone, and for the US Air Force alone, claiming that the Navy and Army failed to keep track. The template for US defense in the case of a "broken arrow" is to deny, and if people find out, to minimize. This means they forever belittle the event of Palomares in their reports—"tiny little village," "sleepy." Journalists were using these demeaning, trivializing discourses, too. They were shot right through all the narratives.

Farming on radioactive soil

Didn't people notice a huge explosion at the time?
Well, one thing is crucial to understanding the US response to the incident. The bomb that landed in the Med, it took them 80 days to get it out. They brought in 32 ships, closed the seashore. People couldn't fish—some people starved. This bomb became the object of international press attention, and very cunningly, the Air Force told Navy photographers to give the press images. The thinking was to give journalists something of interest so as to shift the attention away from the land to the sea. That bomb became the lost bomb—singular—and it worked brilliantly. Then President Lyndon B Jonhson's Spanish ambassador even went swimming in the Mediterranean to prove its safety—it was the front page of the New York Times.

Why do people in Andalusia not speak about it more today?
People with financial interests in the area—wealthy people, landholders who still have agriculture there—they don't want their migrant farmworkers to know they are harvesting soil that contains plutonium. Nowadays, there's also a tourism industry, and the proprietors of those venues don't want visitors to know that thousands of barrels of hot soil were filled and then shipped away for burial. Actually, not all of it was shipped away—some of it was left there and buried; a literal coverup.

What is that hazard exactly? What are the health risks from an accident like this?
We don't know how much plutonium lives on. Some have estimated that ten kilos of plutonium were spilled. To put that into perspective, one milligram of plutonium in your lung will give you lung cancer. So that's the level of severity. If a kilo or two is still on the ground, then anyone could inhale it on the wind. We know plutonium is in the food chain, but ingestion isn't as severe as inhalation, which they say is a guarantee of lung cancer. I'm not only worried about the people who have lived in Palomares a long time, but the people who pass through, who will never be told.

As agriculture has declined, the town has become a hotspot for nudism

Has anyone charted the long-term health effects?
They haven't, apart from a 150-person subset who used to have to get on the bus every year and go to Madrid for tests. They're still monitored. But because there was an exodus of half the population—1,000 people moved away—it's hard to systematically get at their medical records. We know some people have died, we know about a leukemia case and miscarriages. But there's little incentive for authorities to track this long-term. I think we need international, multilateral action; something like the International Court of Justice, or even the ICRP—International Commission on Radioactive Protection. The US has handled this badly for decades, Spain has, too—partly because they were in the throes of a dictatorship when it happened. So it needs to be done by a reliable international body.

Does Palomares still export produce?
Yeah. At the time the accident happened, the Germans and the UK were talking about how a lot of their produce comes from this area, but then six consecutive tomato harvests failed on the land, so the agricultural economy slowed. Now, they farm there again.

Couldn't this project end up having an effect on all that?
I'm ambivalent. Do I bring up the bombing and risk agricultural markets collapsing again? No. And yet I'm worried about those migrant workers, hands in the soil, kicking up dirt. They have the greatest likelihood of inhaling plutonium. And five years down the line, if they get cancer, we don't necessarily know where they are going to be. So attribution becomes very difficult.

A local gay club

How has the incident changed the economy in Palomares over the last 50 years?
A sex industry has sprung up for the economy. This is a destination of last resorts for nudists, the LGBT community, and straight swingers. There are sex worker's adverts on telephone poles. It's a rural sex district all around the periphery of Palomares. There's a cruising ground and people come from other parts of Spain. There's one four-star nudist hotel and their menus are in four languages—German, French, English, Spanish—so they are very much catering to an international clientele. There's a drag club, the name of which translates as "Who Cares?"—a reflection on that, "Fuck, it we're gonna die anyway" attitude.

Unsold apartment blocks

In terms of the photos, was it hard to decide what to photograph? You were really capturing a sense of absence, so how did you decide what to shoot?
It's probably my foremost regret around the project that there were not more portraits. I'm very careful around consent with portraiture—I only got portraits of people I knew well for that reason. I shot at an angle or distance to ensure the anonymity of the farmworkers, for example. Approaching them in the field would have created problematic discussions with overseers. I was documenting something not visible to the naked eye, so I suppose I was looking for poignant traces. The swingers club, the gay bar, the drag bar—they speak for themselves in their audacity.

Were you ever concerned for your health going to Palomares and doing the story?
Initially yes, but I dispensed with it. I decided the importance of getting the word out was more important.

Follow Amelia Abraham on Twitter.

(Photo: Fred Clifton)

There are exactly two types of long-term relationship. The first: where you're best friends who can make each other orgasm without it getting weird. And the second: where you both know that all you're really doing is watching each other die. Their jokes no longer make you laugh; their alcohol dependency isn't as fun as it used to be; their personality, it turns out, is extremely bad. You are the couple sitting opposite one another in Bella Italia: clinically silent, the reason the child watching you from across the room will one day develop serious commitment issues.

The good thing, though, is that 42 percent of marriages end in divorce. So the reasoning goes that plenty of couples – and I'm lumping together spouses and long-termers here – may well get a do-over. And that's heartwarming, because while the long-term relationship (LTR) might be testing – there are only so many times you can witness someone get truly red-in-the-face angry with subpar Domino's service and not scream at them to just fucking chill out – it can also be a very rewarding thing.

But how does one ensure this is the case? How, when long-termers are shaped by years of varied interactions unique to you and whoever you're in an LTR with, can one catch-all guide apply to your deeply personal relationship?

Read on and you'll find out.

ARGUMENTS

The thing about arguments is that they're mostly completely stupid and can be solved incredibly easily. Unless your partner* has "done a Judas" and betrayed you – or got really into drowning cats, or something – the vast majority of squabbles can be solved by stopping and thinking: 'Am I being a dick right now?' Because the answer will almost always be: yes.

The problem with being an adult is that, if you're in the wrong and you're being chastised for being in the wrong, you will lash out, because that scenario reminds you of being a child. But you're not a child any more, are you? You're a big bad grown-up. You have a contactless card. You could order 17 drinks, smoke 17 fags and set off 17 fireworks indoors all at once if you wanted to. But don't let that pride get in the way of common sense: if you know you're being a dick, just apologise and that'll be the end of it. No more slammed doors, no more tears, no more having to maintain the act that you're annoyed when really all you want to do is just be normal again, because being pissed off is actually incredibly boring.

*We used "partner" there to keep it gender/orientation-neutral, but be aware that, depending on how deep in you are, you may soon be using that word earnestly to describe the other person in your relationship :(

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

THE 'SPARK'

The "spark" is a very nebulous concept. What does it mean? Is it just a thing in Match.com adverts? If you feel like the "spark" is missing, it's probably because you're easing into a new phase of your relationship; there's only so long you can keep sneaking off during parties to do hand stuff in cupboards, or flirt all day on GChat, or get shitfaced on £11 cocktails every time you see each other. At some point, the hangovers will begin to seriously affect your cognitive function, and your work will start to suffer, and an emergency HR meeting will be called, and your employer will trawl your chat history and find literally hundreds of examples of you using the phrase: "All I want to do tonight is snuggle and bone." Which is just an excruciating thing to go through for everyone involved.

Part of being in a long-termer is becoming basically co-dependent. Alongside the joy you feel upon seeing your partner, you'll also start to notice a creeping sense of fear and sadness that one day they might not be there any more, the spark mellowing gradually into a humming log fire. This is no bad thing; do not let it freak you out – remain chill and it means you've successfully transitioned into what's arguably a much more meaningful stage of your relationship.

If you crave unfamiliarity and novelty to the point of holding a destructive obsession with preserving the "spark", then grab the Clearasil and studded belt my friend, because you are quite clearly a child.

DOUBT DAYS

Sometimes you'll get those horribly intense self-reflective mind-fogs that make you examine everything about your life and question, among other things, if your relationship is actually a good idea. That's normal. If you don't like yourself all the time, how can you be expected to always like somebody who still regularly Dutch ovens you four years into a relationship?

But again: don't freak out. Quietly wait until it passes, or until you can think rationally about what you really want, and don't do anything dumb in the meantime.

(Photo by Michael Segalov)

TEMPTATION

What are you, five years old? Can't resist the choccy bar resting on the kitchen top? Grow up. The grass is always greener, and a sloppy drunken kiss is not worth the overwhelming, all-pervading sense of guilt you'll feel for the weeks, months and years after.

SINGLE PEOPLE

The thing with single people is you'll sometimes look at them with longing and envy: don't they seem so happy in their aloneness? Aren't they just so much less tied down than you? They can stay up at the party an extra six hours doing keys. They can do that short-notice trip to Amsterdam with the lads. They can go on Tinder and have casual sex at any moment. They can spend an entire weekend growing stagnant in their own dirt, watching 100 consecutive episodes of Geordie Shore and rolling thin little blunts. Nobody is going to make them go to the shops. Nobody is going to tell them to shower and have brunch.

However: single people are largely unhappy and broken. That's why they complain about being single all the time. A universally-acknowledged truth: everyone else seems happy, but isn't. That's why we all inherently hate our lives so much. But finding a good partner to hate your life with alleviates that feeling somewhat. Remember that.

(Photo by Ed Zipco)

THEIR FRIENDS

Get a partner, get a partner's mates: that's the rule. Partner's mates always want to make a big thing about going to a pub and having a big group roast. Partner's mates always want to "quiz you" on "whether you're good enough for them". Frequently, partner's mates are bad twats and shitheads. Partner's mates make you call into question everything you thought you know about your partner.

But everyone has bad mates, don't they? Everyone has some posh girl called Jocasta who they hate but lives quite nearby. Everyone has some lad from halls who still talks about halls all the time and how good halls was. This is why you have to get on with your other half's mates, even if they're a shower of total cunts: nobody is perfect, and even fewer people have good taste.

It's important to avoid pressuring each other into integrating, unless that's what you both want. You don't have to show them off at the pub like a surgery scar. Leave them to their own devices. Unless you're some gross, controlling maniac who constantly tracks their movements on Find My Friends, their independence is probably what drew you to them in the first place, right?

THEIR FAMILY

Most people enjoy the company of at least one of their parents once they drag themselves out of the emotional mire of puberty, so they'll make a big deal about you meeting them.

You might have to meet a quiet stern dad who judges you exclusively on your posture and how well you can drink a pint of mild. You may have to meet a zany mum who seems exceptionally sweet until you accidentally put your feet on some forbidden sofa and she starts crying. The relationship between a partner's parents and yourself is often an odd one: fraught, high stakes, underpinned by a sort of begrudging search for likeable traits about one another, grey areas of small talk to revert to over silent lunches.

But generally, don't worry too much about "meeting the parents" – they're just old people like you see in the butcher or on a train platform. Main tip: don't be shy. Try to strike up a bit of PG banter to get everything going – the last thing they want is to think their child is entering into a 20-year pact with a flavourless oat cake.

SEX

Unless you're one of those self-conscious couples who schedule in regular joyless sex sessions solely to keep the numbers up, you're going to end up having less sex deep into an LTR than you did when you started. It's an inevitability, but it's not necessarily an issue: if the sex is still good, there's a bit of variation going on and everyone's still regularly #climaxing, then there's surely nothing wrong with slowing things down a bit.

Equally, if the sex starts to get a little stale, here's a quick fix: talk about it. Say, "I want to do weirder shit," or, "I want you to press my anus with your thumb a bit," or, "It would be great if we could try some foot stuff." By the time your sex is becoming tiresome, you'll most likely have been together long enough that you should be able to talk openly and honestly about whatever's on your mind.

MOVING IN

This is something people generally stress over way too much. You know how you've basically spent every night for the past two years sleeping over, while also paying rent on your own flat? You know how you really enjoy waking up together on a Saturday and splitting the cost of a Deliveroo so you don't feel so repulsive for spending £23.80 on two juices and a breakfast pizza? You know how mindlessly dull texting hourly updates to each other about what you're watching on TV can be?

Easy remedy: move in with each other.

Yes, you'll probably have some space issues and a few little quandaries to work out, but when the timing's right, suck it up and make it work: if you intend to stay with this person for the long haul, moving in is part and parcel.

THE INVISIBLE TIMELINE

We've had it drilled into our subconscious that, although it's totally fine to live your own way, you're a total idiot if you do because there are magic moves that need to be played at the correct time if you don't want to fuck up your one shot at happiness. Thank everything we've grown up with our entire lives for that: comedies starring relatable horny single people who are HOPELESS at relationships, passive-aggressive think-pieces telling us the "10 Reasons You Should Be Single In Your Twenties"; and, if you have a womb, the constant reminder that your fertility and time are inversely proportional.

And so an invisible timeline works its way into your subconscious: in your late teens you have a serious relationship that teaches you how to do sex; you fuck everything you can in your early-twenties; and then, between around 26 to 28, you meet the love of your life because you still want to look fit when you get married and be young enough to not have to splurge your pitiful disposable income on IVF.

The more you allow the invisible timeline to drift into your consciousness unchallenged, the more you will question everything. Don't get into this neurotic spiral. If you're happy in a relationship in your early twenties, who gives a fuck? If things don't work out, you can always slut around in your thirties or forties or fifties. In fact, by staying in an LTR in your twenties, you're doing just about the most subversive thing you could do.

More on VICE:

Seven Things Straight People Can Actually Learn from Gay Relationships

"There Was More Duty Sex" – How Moving in Together Can Change Your Sex Life

We Asked a Load of Women to Tell Us What They Find Attractive

Photo by Chris Bethell

Throughout the course of last year, the number of homeless people in England increased by almost a third. Following the release of those bleak new statistics, Jon Sparkes, chief executive of the homeless charity Crisis, said that more needs to be done to stop people falling into homelessness in the first place.

But what about those already sleeping rough or living in temporary accommodation? What kind of obstacles must be overcome to find permanent housing? I spoke to five formerly homeless people to find out how they got off the streets for good.

MARK HARVEY

The road to homelessness started when I sustained an injury while working as a cameraman. After being off sick for a while, my employers found a way to sack me, which left me very depressed, because I'd been working there for 15 years. One day, while in a particularly low mood, I randomly decided to hop on a train to Weymouth and live on the streets there. I'd never been there before and knew nothing about the place; I chose it at random from the departures list at Victoria Station. As you can gather, my mind was heavily clouded by depression at the time.

I spent six months sleeping rough in Weymouth, and then came back to London and did the same thing there for three months. The fact that I was so down all the time made it difficult for me to think straight, which was one of the reasons I avoided seeking help for so long. I was in a constant state of disbelief, thinking, How did I go from working a professional job to waking up shivering on the pavement like this?

When it got to September, I couldn't face another winter on the streets, so I went to Ealing Council and asked them for help. They sent me to another department to get the necessary paperwork to get a room in a hostel, but I had a panic attack and ended up running out. Looking back, I think that was partly because of the strain my brain was under from getting so little food or sleep. It took me two weeks to build up the confidence to go back there, apologize and pick up the documents. Luckily, the effort paid off, because I managed to get a place in a hostel in Southall.

I was eventually introduced to a housing organization called Paradigm, who paid for me to move into a tiny box room in a house. Since then, I've helped found an organization called City Harvest that delivers food to homeless charities. That's provided me with a sense of purpose. When I talk to the recipients of the food, it's obvious that we're making a big difference, which makes me feel better when I get a bit down. I haven't quite dealt with all of the issues that caused me to become homeless, but I'm getting there one step at a time. There's no chance of me going back on the streets, because I've found a way of giving something back, and am enjoying doing something positive.

AMY VARLE

When I was 16 I went off the rails a bit after the breakdown of my parents' relationship. One thing led to another and I ended up moving into a hostel for young people, where I stayed for ten months. I was lucky, because it was of quite a high quality, and the standard of care and support that I received was great.

The local council eventually offered me a flat. Everyone else thought it was a shit-hole, but after being in a hostel for so long, I thought, Oh my god, this is a palace! The flat had been sat there for two years, because all the other people who had looked at it had turned it down, which tells you something about it. But to me, it was perfection.

Fortunately, I managed to get a job relatively quickly—but this was pre-recession, so I'd imagine it's now far more difficult for someone who has recently experienced homelessness to find work. Because of my experiences, I naturally ended up gravitating towards working in the field of housing. I now manage a company called People's Property Shop, which works with homeless charities across the North West. I take pride in helping the vulnerable with their housing needs.

Through my work, I've learned that the issue of homelessness isn't caused by a lack of housing; the main problem is getting support to the people who need it. Many previously homeless people who have just gained accommodation are also vulnerable and require ongoing advice and assistance. Landlords aren't social workers, and aren't in the position to deal with some tenants' complex problems. I was lucky to be able to get my life on track and put my previous situation behind me. Unfortunately, many don't receive the same opportunities that I had.

DAVID TOVEY

While studying at university I became very ill, due to my HIV-positive status, and found myself unable to work. My family weren't in a position to help me out financially, so I ended up getting two months behind on my rent. I attempted to get assistance from the council, but they told me I wasn't entitled to housing benefit because I was a student. This triggered a severe case of depression, and I tried to kill myself by taking an overdose. Upon recovery, I returned home from hospital to find that the landlord had changed the locks. This left me with no choice but to live in my car for the next six months.

I repeatedly asked Islington Council for help, but their attitude was that I would be OK because I had a car to sleep in. There were also specific criteria that I needed to meet in order for them to re-house me, and I didn't make the grade because I hadn't paid my outstanding rent. In reality, a large percentage of homeless people end up with no fixed abode for this reason.

I eventually managed to get a place in a cold-weather shelter, and was later accepted into a homeless hostel, where I stayed for a year. I was lucky, as charities can't keep up with the demand for beds in hostels because there are too many people without permanent accommodation. They're trying, though, and I would definitely advise those who find themselves in the circumstances that I was in to seek help from charitable organizations rather than the government.

Because I'd previously served in the army, I was able to seek assistance from the Veterans' Nomination Scheme, who sorted me out with a house. Certain councils are obliged to house two homeless ex-servicemen a year as part of this program, which was a lifesaver. I'm fortunate enough to have managed to forge a successful career as an artist since my homeless days, but being isolated and self-destructive for so long is not an easy thing to get over. I'm still rebuilding my life now, and it first started to fall apart in 2011. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to get back to normal after a period of homelessness, but it isn't impossible, and I'm definitely making good progress.

ANASTASJA KATZINOVA

At age 15, I ran away from home. At the time, I was a suicidal, agoraphobic self-harmer, and the education system had given up on me. I ended up hitch-hiking to Scotland and sofa-surfing with my boyfriend for about six months. I started drinking copiously and taking drugs to blot out the seriousness of my situation. Because of this, I was unwelcome everywhere I went.

I'd been through a lot already at that stage, but never knew what it really meant to feel like scum until I experienced homelessness. I felt anchorless and realized how little I really knew about the adult world. Once I'd burnt my bridges in Scotland, I returned to my hometown and ended up in a relationship with a man ten years older than me. He probably saved my life in many ways, but it was a toxic, controlling relationship. I eventually left him and briefly moved back in with my family, but my stepdad didn't want me around and kicked me out.

After a lot of persuasion, I ended up getting my own room in a six-bedroom multi-occupant house. The landlord was a hippy called Les, who had a genuine desire to help others. In my semi-rural hometown, there were virtually no services to help people with the type of problems I had, so if he hadn't taken me in, I know for a fact I wouldn't be here now. I owe him a lot.

It was sometimes difficult living in a communal environment, as there was often conflict, gossip, and power struggles, but there was also a genuine sense of community, and I developed lifelong friendships. I also developed a much stronger relationship with my mum. We had both been through hell, but once I had my own room, our relationship became a lot more secure.

I'm very lucky to have been able to get an education in my thirties and now run my own freelance writing business, Word Magick. However, the feeling that I was once one of life's losers has never completely left me. That has definitely made me more determined to succeed.

HUGO SUGG

I plucked up the courage to leave an unhealthy relationship with an older man shortly after my 18th birthday. I stayed with someone I thought was a friend, but unfortunately he assaulted me while I was asleep in a completely unprovoked attack. I didn't even know what was going on at the time, and it was totally unexpected. He was arrested and jailed, and I was left homeless.

I spent the period between November of 2008 and January of 2009 sofa-surfing, with no stable accommodation. My friends were very supportive, but I still felt under an extreme amount of pressure and had to leave college because of the stress. The upside to this was that it gave me more time to concentrate on gaining permanent accommodation. I asked a local charity called the Supported Housing for Young People's Project (SHYPP) for help, and they supported me both physically and psychologically. They offered me places to stay when my friends couldn't put me up, and provided food and counseling.

One night, I was unable to find anyone to stay with and ended up sleeping in a cash point lobby. I had no covers to provide me with warmth, and it was the scariest night of my life. During all the time that I was homeless, I felt a constant urge to commit suicide. I would walk across a bridge over a river several times a day, imagining throwing myself off it into the water. I genuinely felt as if I wanted to end my life.

Fortunately, after a while, the SHYPP helped me get housed in supported accommodation. Around three days after moving in, I had a breakdown, which was clearly a result of all the stress that I'd been under. My hair started falling out, I couldn't eat, I found myself unable to get out of bed, and wanted to kill myself. These feelings of despair and severe depression continued for nine months after I got housed, but luckily eventually subsided. The horrors of being homeless still haunt me today, although I have grown stronger and more able to deal with them. I wouldn't wish homelessness on anyone, as it was degrading and soul destroying.

David Tovey is currently designing clothes for Hopeful Traders, a company that collaborates with homeless-affected artists, and Hugo Sugg is running a homelessness awareness campaign.

Follow Nick Chester on Twitter.

Kim Barker at maternal mortality class in Ghani Khel, Afghanistan by Kuni Takahashi

Tyrannical despots, vast quantities of narcotics, women seen as second-class citizens: it's hard to imagine how reporting on the war in Afghanistan could have prepared Kim Barker for Hollywood. But since her 2011 memoir The Taliban Shuffle was adapted by Tina Fey for her new film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Barker has been getting a taste of the Hollywood lifestyle.

Barker's book is a frank, funny account of her time as a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan and Pakistan for the Chicago Tribune, and is a world away from traditionally macho blood-and-thunder frontline stories. Barker was always an unconventional war reporter, already in her thirties when the 9/11 attacks first inspired her to head overseas. She eventually worked her way up to the position of south Asia bureau chief, reporting on the the resurgence of the Taliban and painting a nuanced portrait of life in the two countries that took her from maternal health clinics to interviewing notorious warlord Pacha Khan Zadran. The book contrasts these scenes with the adrenaline-lust of journalists working in war zones and the manic lives they lead there. She describes wild parties at the "Fun House" where she lived and at the notorious L'Atmosphere bar.

These debauched nights are exuberantly recreated in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. The film wears a thin veil of fiction: Fey's character is a TV news anchor; her surname is "Baker" rather than "Barker"; Barker's friendship with documentary maker Sean Langan inevitably becomes a romance with a Scottish photographer played by Martin Freeman. But the absurd theater of war it portrays is drawn directly from Barker's real-life journalistic experiences. As it becomes increasingly hard to get editors interested in Afghan stories, we see reporters go to ever more life-endangering lengths in search of an attention-grabbing scoop. It's a comedy with something serious to say about America's lack of interest in how its own wars are fought.

Here, Barker tells us how a prophetic New York Times review hooked Fey, what it's like watching a movie about your life, and what donkey porn can tell us about democracy.

VICE: You've seen unimaginable strife and tragedy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. What made you think: 'This war is going to make for a really funny book'?
Kim Barker: I wanted to write something that people would be able to read and not even realize that they were learning anything. I'm not going to pretend it's some great foreign policy book, but I think it gives people a good primer on Afghanistan and Pakistan and how we've got to the place we've got to.

In the book you write about how hard it was to convince editors to keep running stories from Afghanistan. Have we lost interest?
It was disheartening to be writing stories that you felt were really important but losing out to Iraq. You have that sense now that it's "last one out of Afghanistan, turn off the lights."

Do you think there's a lack of interest because it feels as though any change in the region was temporary?
I'm not saying nothing good has been done. There have been positive changes in Afghanistan. Having cell phones and the internet is a game changer for the media. It makes it really difficult to lock all that stuff out again like the Taliban did. You sense that if it could just get enough stability in time maybe things could change, but I don't know how long the West is interested in staying there. Things aren't going in a great direction. It's Afghanistan—and nobody wants to talk about Afghanistan.

Kim Barker in Kabul in June of 2005, Kuni Takahashi

The internet brought a certain amount of freedom, but you also stumbled across a hitherto untapped interest in donkey porn.
Yeah, when you looked in the internet cafés, the saved sites in the recent history were all porn, and bad porn: donkey porn. Folks who worked in offices had to have awkward conversations with their underlings about how you can't do that at work. People must have just been thinking: 'This exists, it's free, why not watch it all the time?' I did a lot of stories about what happens to a place where the West has been kept out, and the internet has been kept out, and then it all comes rushing in at the same time. In Afghanistan, you had folks equating democracy with freedom, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, booze, and doing whatever you want, without the more sober parts of a democracy, like voting, or what it means to be representative, or fighting corruption.

A New York Times review of your book said "she depicts herself as a sort of Tina Fey character." Then Fey made it into a movie. Was it that simple?
Apparently her people saw that mention so they got the book for her. She read it and within two weeks of the review coming out she had pushed Lorne Michaels and Paramount to option the book on her behalf. It really was that quick.

How involved were you in adapting it?
I met with the screenwriter Robert Carlock a few times, but I didn't get to look at the script. He told me from the beginning, "We've got to make this more Hollywood. It's not going to be exactly what you wrote—you understand that, don't you?"

I said: "Of course! You're probably going to give me a love interest, like make me have a relationship with the Sean character, right?" and he goes: "Yeah, we're going to have that be a romance."

Sean and I knew that if they ever made a movie out of this they would do that. It's fine, we're really good friends. Eventually they sent me the script but they told me I couldn't change anything.

Tina Fey and Martin Freeman in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

That sounds torturous.
Yeah, so I didn't read it! If I can't change it, why would I waste my time and stress out about something that I know is going to be fictionalized? My friend Rachael read it and said: "It's going to be a good movie, but you're not going to like the fact that they make you seem heroic." I'm totally not heroic. I'm anti-heroic, more than anything. I love the fact that the Kim Baker character in the movie runs towards the explosion. I would be going in the other direction, because I want to live.

Were you relieved they didn't make it a straight rom-com?
Yeah. I deliberately wrote a book that is not Eat Pray Love. That comparison pisses me off. Do women not get more than one adventure story? Eat Pray Love is a fine book, but I hate the narrative that you go to find yourself in travel and you find out that what you really need is a man. Love is great, and men are great, and I'm not saying that's a horrible ending to have, but it wasn't the book's ending.

Did you visit the set?
I went on set for two days. They had me come out for the explosion at the beginning, and it was really tedious. I was saying: "Why didn't I come out for the journalist's party scenes!" I could be an extra. That I can do.

So the partying is pretty true to life?
Well, watching them I was thinking: 'We did not have cocaine out on tables like that. We would not be wasting any booze by pouring it around like that.' Booze was a very precious commodity, so you were always trying to conserve it. A $5 bottle of Jacob's Creek would go for $40 in Afghanistan. Our parties weren't quite that druggy, they probably were that boozy and there were crazy dance parties on Thursday nights. There was definitely one party—no, two parties, maybe three—that were interrupted by bombs outside. Everything just stopped and people said: "Right, time to go to work."

What was it like watching the film for the first time? Were you worried for your journalistic reputation if they made you look like a fool?
Yeah, can you imagine? It was stressful. It took me about half the movie to sink into it and accept it was a movie. Before that I was sat there thinking: 'True, true, partially true, false, that would never happen.' Eventually I got into it. I teared up once. I was happy that it's not just jokes all the time. I think it's Tina's best role. I'm not just saying that because she's playing me.

It's funny because of the absurdity of the situation rather than just gags.
I'm excited for the film to go to Britain, because there's more of a tradition of understanding the dark humor of war. Americans are a bit more serious: "You can't joke about war. There's nothing funny about war."

I think we're hardened to it because a lot of us were raised on stuff like the Blackadder series where they muck about in the trenches for six episodes and then at the end all go over the top.
Oh my god, I'm going to have to watch that. It's horrible to watch that as a child. We just had M*A*S*H, and none of the main characters died in that except for one of the colonels in a helicopter crash.

What do you want people to take from your book, and now the film?
If there's one thing it's that most people—Afghans, Syrians, Iraqis—just want peace. They want security and for their children to be able to go to school. Whenever I'm asked about my time there I always talk about the hospitality I was shown, even in bad situations. I was taken into cracked-walled homes and offered food and drink during Ramadan, in the middle of the day when they couldn't eat or drink anything. When I think about how we treat people here in my country, and this election season, and the rhetoric that we hear, I wish everybody had seen the people I saw over there and had been treated with that hospitality.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is in cinemas now. Barker's memoir of the same name (originally The Taliban Shuffle) is published by Scribe Books.

Follow Kevin EG Perry on Twitter.

Illustration by Ben Thomson

The emergence of a pro-LGBTQI movement among Indonesia's youth poses a larger threat than nuclear warfare—that's what the country's defense minister Ryamizard Ryacudu believes. It's a statement that comes after turbulent months, which saw Indonesia's "gay panic" escalate from emojis to an outright political and cultural assault.

Ryacudu comments weren't metaphorical. He truly thinks the LGBTQI community poses a national security risk, leveraging long held suspicions around foreign influences undermining Indonesian sovereignty "under the guise of human rights concerns."

"It's dangerous as we can't see who our foes are, but out of the blue everyone is brainwashed," the minister said. "Now the (LGBTQI) community is demanding more freedom, it really is a threat."

While his words were widely ridiculed across social media in Jakarta, they've led to a doubling down of tough zero-tolerance policies towards LGBTQI citizens. The Indonesian Psychiatric Association quickly responded to Ryacudu's claims, advising LGBTQI identifying Indonesians to "maintain their mental health by guarding their behavior, habit, healthy lifestyle, and increasing their ability to adapt to their social environment."

Teguh, spokesperson for advocate group and support network Suara Kita (Our Voice), says the current anti-LGBT climate is "the worst" he's ever seen. While Indonesia's LGBT community "lived in fear" before this year's unprecedented backlash, they "could hold academic discussions in universities or gather to talk about rights, support each other, or just hang out. But he told VICE this hysteria has seen the group forced deeper underground.

Teguh points to both Islamic fundamentalist groups and politically-motivated public officials and police as the instigators of the crackdown, with the furore centered around a student-led support group at the University of Indonesia targeted by the Ministry of Education earlier in the year as the trigger.

"Now we must really be careful about what we're doing because at any time we can be raided by officials or a fundamentalist group," Teguh told VICE. "This fear makes sense, an Islamic hardliner group has already raided houses allegedly rented by a lesbian community."

Indonesia's defense minister Ryamizard Ryacudu. Image via

University student Sinar and her friend Gia struggle to understand how LGBTQI has managed to strike such fear with the country's leadership. "Indonesia has always adapted to cultures," Sinar says, referring to the country's tradition of religious tolerance. "This is just the same."

And it's true, Indonesia has long enjoyed a reputation of being one of the region's more tolerant to LGBTQI people, including a quiet acceptance of transgender waria (a portmanteau of wanita and pria, the Indonesian words for woman and man respectively). Both Malaysia and Singapore have laws on their books forbidding gay and lesbian "lifestyles."

This has unraveled most spectacularly in the Central Javan city of Yogyakarta, previously heralded as home to the world's first transgender Islamic school and mosque, welcoming to trans Muslims from around Indonesia who'd been rejected from their own communities.

Hardline Islamists, widely viewed as being on the fringe of the country's mainstream moderate Islam, launched a series of protests and raids on the school. The threat of danger prompted the mosque to close its doors for the first time since it opened in 2008. Then the police got involved, targeting pro-LGBTQI activists in Yogyakarta during counter rallies that called on the government to step in and protect the rights of the community.

Related: Watch 'VICE Meets Indonesia's Trans Waria Community'

The most damning moment came as Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI), Indonesia's top clerical peak body, issued a fatwa effectively "outlawing" the existence of LGBTQI Indonesians under Islamic law. MUI chairman Maruf Amin said LGBTQI "activities are forbidden in Islam and other Abrahamic religions."

He pointed to articles in the country's constitution as the legal basis for the ruling, as well as laws on marriage and an earlier MUI fatwa against gay and lesbian sex.

Linking the supposed "illegality" of LGBTQI Indonesians to the country's founding 1945 Constitution is a habit often indulged by the MUI and other conservative groups when targeting fringe minorities.

In an increasingly conservative environment, the message from MUI is clear: If you do not outwardly condemn the country's LGBTQI community, you are a bad Muslim, and a bad Indonesian.

But Jakarta's young Muslims aren't buying it. "Cuek," university student Yogi says while his friend Gaw nods. It's ignorant, irrelevant—they could not care less. He believes Indonesia's Muslim leadership are focusing on the wrong things.

"They give these statements, Indonesian people have to do this, they have to do that. They keep talking about wrong sexual behavior, but so what?" Yogi says, before pointing out that the existence of gay people is not a new thing. "This happened during the time of the Prophet. They are in our Qur'an."

"It's no crime," Gaw adds. "It's about the person and if they don't hurt anyone, what does it matter?' Although he clarifies that while he's fine with women being gay, men make him uncomfortable. Both men are hopeful things will change and get better for the LGBTQI community in Indonesia.

"Today, Indonesians are panicking. They think they've never seen LGBT people, they think they've never interacted with them," Tenguh says. "I believe when LGBT visibility increases and more information is available, Indonesia will understand and accept us. They think when they shut down anything about LGBT, our existence will vanish. But they're wrong. We're here and we still exist."

Follow Erin Cook on Twitter

All photos courtesy of Bret Miller

Breast cancer is largely a "female" disease, with close to 250,000 women diagnosed every year, but it can affect men, too. This month, the cancer-support organization Living Beyond Breast Cancer published a guide for the 2,600 men diagnosed with breast cancer every year. As the guide says, being a man diagnosed with a "woman's disease" can be isolating, even embarrassing. Here's how Bret Miller came to find out he was one of those men—and how he's coped since.

Miller, now 30, first noticed a lump under his right nipple when he was 17. His doctor, and doctors he mentioned it to during the few routine checkups he had over the several years that followed, told him it was probably just a harmless calcium deposit. The lump was never painful, and breast cancer was the last thing on his mind. Even when he squeezed his nipple and a yellowish-orange discharge came out, it didn't immediately raise a red flag. And why would it? Men aren't ever told to check their breasts for cancer. Men don't think of themselves as even having breasts. Pecs, maybe, but not breasts.

About a year and half after Miller, who lived in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri, first noticed the discharge, he made an appointment for a routine physical. On his way out of the doctor's office, he thought of his mom.

"I knew my mom would kill me if I didn't mention the lump," he told VICE.

This time, the doctor took it more seriously, and Miller was sent to a diagnostic imaging center for an ultrasound. There was no mention of the C word.

When he showed up for his appointment, he was directed to Suite 200, which was filled with women awaiting ultrasounds and mammograms. He filled out his name, address, and phone number on his patient registration sheet. "The rest of the questionnaire was like, 'Are you menstruating? Are you pregnant?'" he remembered. "It was awkward being the only male in there who wasn't waiting for his wife."

After a few uncomfortable minutes in the waiting room, Miller was called in for his ultrasound, and then a mammogram (which hurt like hell thanks to his lack of breast tissue). "They had to grab my nipple and breast and pull it to make sure that it was in the machine while I was hunched over," he said.

After being referred to a surgeon, the doctor decided to remove the lump, even though he too thought it was just a calcium deposit. Miller's insurance company was just as doubtful, and initially denied the claim for the lumpectomy.

The day after surgery, he got a call from his surgeon, who abruptly told him he'd read the preliminary report and it looked like Miller had breast cancer.

"I was like, am I getting Punk'd right now? Did that just happen? What the hell?" Miller recalled. "Once it sunk in I was like, 'Oh crap. He just said I have cancer.'"

At that time, Miller, 24, was the youngest man to be diagnosed with breast cancer in the US (since then, another man was diagnosed at age 22).

After rushing to some of the top doctors in the area, the message was clear: have a double mastectomy. "I was like whoah, whoah, whoah, hold up," he said. "I'm not going to lose both nipples."

His case was so perplexing, it was brought to the local board of surgeons in the Kansas City area, and he ended up in the hands of Lon C. McCroskey, MD, a surgeon at Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas, who had performed twelve male mastectomies, a relatively large number. McCroskey told him he could have the second breast operated on several months down the road.

On May 18, 2010, the day of the mastectomy, Miller was given a shot containing radioactive isotopes so the doctor could perform a procedure called a sentinel node biopsy. After removing the nipple, breast tissue, and a one-inch margin around the breast, the isotopes were "lit up," allowing the doctor to determine that his lymph nodes were clear—that, to their surprise, after seven years with the tumor, his breast cancer hadn't spread. He wouldn't be needing that other breast removed after all.

That July, he started his first of four rounds of chemotherapy, a preventative measure that his doctor said could lower his chances of the cancer coming back within ten years from 22 percent to 12 percent. "I figured that if we could drop this number to as low as possible, I have a better chance of doing what I want with my life without ever having to worry about cancer again," Miller said.

Miller never felt sick, but he did lose his hair, including his eyebrows and eyelashes. That's the first time he started to look sick. He thought he looked pretty good bald, but the experience of watching his hair fall out in clumps was deeply disturbing. "In my mind, I was healthy," he said. "I wasn't dying, I was living, but the chemo made me look as if I was dying."

Despite getting off relatively easy, Miller felt like he had nowhere to turn after his diagnosis. The large breast cancer advocacy organizations only serve women—one actually turned Bret away on account of needing "to dedicate their resources to women." Most men have their surgery, heal up, and go back to work like nothing ever happened. It was a lonely feeling not being able to connect with anyone in the same boat.

"There was no support," he said. "I didn't have anyone to talk to. I wished I had someone to tell me that I was walking into the women's clinic. I wished I had someone to talk to about the treatments, the surgery, and so much more."

When Miller decided to tell his friends, he knew they'd be pretty confused by his diagnosis. So he posted a long explanation on Facebook. People were shocked. He was met with a ton of questions. His girlfriend, whom he started dating shortly after treatment, was curious about his scar when they met. "She was like, 'Well, can I see it?'" he laughed. "I get a lot of girls saying that, and I'm like, well, can I see yours?"

Shortly after the experience, he started the Bret Miller 1T Foundation—"1T because there's one T in my name and I have one tit," he laughed. Through this foundation, and now the Male Breast Cancer Coalition, Miller helps share the stories of other men who have been diagnosed, and gives them some of the support he wishes he'd had.

More than anything, Miller marvels at his good luck. "I do wonder how much worse it could have been if I had let this go any further, or if it had spread more than it did," he said. "Would I be in metastatic stages? Would I have died?" But his focus on the grim alternative outcomes is less about his own fate and more about his chance to affect that of others like him. "If I had died, who would have been there to help these other men who don't talk about it?" he said, "men who end up dying because they don't know they can get breast cancer?"

San Zanobi by Sandro Botticelli. Immagine via Wikimedia Commons

This article originally appeared on VICE Italy

2016 is a Jubilee Year in Rome, which means that the Vatican is coming up with thousands of initiatives aimed at getting Italians more involved with the Catholic Church. Part of this effort was the announcement that Mother Teresa of Calcutta would be canonized as a saint, this coming September.

One fundamental prerequisite for becoming a saint is that the candidate has performed a miracle—one that is scientifically inexplicable. In Mother Teresa's case, her miracle was the healing of a man "suffering from a viral brain infection that resulted in multiple abscesses with hydrocephalus," say Church officials.

Whether an act is a scientifically inexplicable miracle is a question studied and decided by the medical board of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. I contacted a doctor who has a seat on this medical board and asked him to explain to me how they recognize a miracle, and how the process of creating a saint works. That doctor wanted to remain anonymous.

VICE: What are scientifically inexplicable miracles?
Doctor: The miracles we study are always related to sick people, to an illness that has developed a certain way. We try to discern from a scientific perspective whether this development is abnormal. In other words, whether it completely differs from clinical records and from what the medical staff treating the illness had expected to happen.

The process starts when priests or nuns who performed miracles in their life, people who are beatified or are in some phase of beatification, are suggested for sanctification. But no more than a handful of miracles are accepted of all the potential saints nominated by the Roman curia each year. If they are accepted, it's announced during the High Mass at St. Peter's square by the Pope.

What's the difference between being beatified and sanctified?
Beatification is one level lower than sanctification. It's assumed that a blessed person has performed the miracle, but it's just an assumption. The issue is always approached with skepticism, and church officials are very critical: the process is so strict because they need to avoid false or hasty sanctifications. So it's an assumption that a beatified has performed a miracle—if it's on record that they've performed a hundred, that's a different story. But even in that case, if there's no backing by the scientific committee, the Church doesn't proceed with the sanctification process.

So for sanctification, scientific evidence weighs as heavily as faith.
Exactly, every evaluation must include a scientific analysis and a subsequent acceptance or refusal of the medical situation. But it also needs the religious incentive linking the phenomenon to the person's calling upon the gravely sick person. We analyze that.

When does your committee of scientists come in?
After Church officials put a candidate forward, they send off the medical records of the candidate's miracle case, along with reports from possible witnesses claiming that the act was a miracle. The Roman curia analyzes it and, if it's accepted, that's when the medical tribunal comes in.

You've been part of that tribunal—is that right?
Yes, various times. The secretary of the Congregation for Saints brings together six or seven experts from different fields, as well as three prelates who represent the Roman curia—the secretary, the undersecretary, and someone taking notes. At the center of the room there's a lawyer representing the Vatican curia, a notary, and another secretary who writes up a final declaration that must then be countersigned by all those present.

After that, the tribunal starts off with the first speaker—an expert on the case. This expert has studied all the supposed miracles, and has written a report on it. We're talking about a couple of thousand pages for each report. The expert will have read the medical records, and has studied how an illness has developed.

How many of the cases you've evaluated were miracles?
I have done it about ten times now, and there has only been one time I had to conclude a case was scientifically inexplicable. I challenged the other nine. Those challenges have always been accepted by the cardinal and the archbishop within the Roman curia. Obviously, all the specialists present their own conclusions. I've been in some heated debates with other specialists when we'd accuse each other of being too gullible or not critical enough.

What criteria do you use to evaluate those cases?
I try to objectively evaluate all aspects of the illness—its symptomatology, patterns, the results of medical exams, applied therapies, and the effect of the supposed miracle. After that, I look at if and how that outcome holds up today; the cases aren't presented a month after they happen, but five, six, or even ten years after they've first been reported. So we need to take into account how things have progressed since the miracle.

What are the most common illnesses that are cured by a miracle?
Well, of course you have accidents: People drowning, getting shot, electric shocks, or struck by lightning—and surviving. And then there are illnesses people suffer from that, even when properly treated, worsen over time. Then, suddenly, someone seems cured. It isn't just about a life being saved because if you're saved but end up with half your body paralyzed and in a wheelchair, it most certainly isn't a miracle.

Are the accepted miracles ever updated? A miracle that happened in the 15th century can probably be explained by science today.
We only consider cases that have been recorded since the 20th century—all the older cases are simply oral tradition. People saw something happen and say they witnessed it with their own eyes. We can't do anything with that.

Do you believe in miracles?
I've had to acknowledge that they exist. There have been a few rare cases that are just beyond skepticism or criticism or cynicism. There are cases that even today, in 2016, are 100 percent inexplicable from a medical point of view. There's just no escaping from it, how ever hard you try to find an explanation. A lot of those cases involve internal body organs: Something happens to them, and then the next day everything is as it was before—no scalpel marks, no stitches, nothing. How was that possible? It just isn't, scientifically speaking.

Image via Pixabay user stux

This article originally appeared on VICE Romania

A lot has been said about Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. Vova. The Czar. The USSR's James Bond. Leading armies across Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria. Prime minister, president, prime minister again, then president again.

He has released tigers into the wild, basically has his own biker gang, loves hunting and fishing—sometimes shirtless—has a black belt in judo, is an accomplished hockey player, and sings "Blueberry Hill" in public.

The naysayers argue that the only thing he leads is an enormous propaganda machine, that he doesn't care about human rights, plus that he is a mobster with a nuclear detonation button. What the naysayers forget is that beyond all the propaganda served up in his name, Putin is loved by many Russians—his approval rating is apparently in the high 80s—so deeply that he inspires artists. Artists like amateur musicians.

To explore the ways Vova Putin has influenced the Russian speaking music scene, we have chosen some of the best songs about Putin we could find—some positive, some critical—and translated parts of their lyrics.

1. In the Open Field

Let's start off with a war tune. In the Open Field is a simple but effective video, showcasing the Russian army in action. It's also worth mentioning that the lyricist/composer, who was born in Moldova, is called Peleneagră—Romanian for Black Skin.

The song starts off like a power ballad, making you wonder if all those pictures of soldiers haven't been inserted there by accident. The singer mentions he looks at the stars in the sky, which remind him of fireworks, Lady Di's diamond necklace, and New York. Right as you're about to wonder what this guy has been smoking and where you might get your hands on it, he hits you with the chorus: "And in the open field, the Grad System / Behind us—Putin and Stalingrad." The Grad System is a platform that can launch 40 rockets in just 20 seconds. It's been used by the pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine.

It's also profound how the song links Putin, a self-professed fan of the USSR, with Stalingrad—the battle in which the Red Army overturned the course of the war against Nazi Germany.

2. A Tajik's song about Putin

Some bloggers have claimed that this song is actually a subtle jab of irony against Putin, but I doubt it is. Tajik crooner Tolibdjon Kurbanhanov's face is not the face of someone who jokes. And the lyrics are as honestly affectionate as they come:

Let's all remember those years when he wasn't there—all worries
The country was in crisis, the people hurt, and meanwhile God sent him
See when he came to power, at the beginning of a century, a new millennium
He is the messenger of God and he will give us many upon arrival—an improvement
A good strategy, you've noticed, is the country is in zero debt
He's proved to us, throughout his presidency,
That he keeps his promises and is a man of his word.

Tolibdjon keeps it a lot more to the point in the chorus:

VVP! He saved the country!
VVP! He defends us!
VVP! He's raised Russia!
And keeps developing it more!
VVP! He's saved the people!
VVP! He protects!
VVP! When he's in power, he's the safeguard of stability!

3. My Putin

Mashani seems like a true country girl, standing in a field, decked out in the Russian flag, with one strand of hair braided with a red thread to ward off the evil-eye. While in that field, near a wall and in a basement, she's singing her little heart out about her dedication to Putin. In the basement she's wearing a Ukrainian flag, matching with some of the lyrics of the song, applauding the annexation of Crimea.

The English translation of the lyrics mostly about what a man's man Putin is—can be found in the YouTube clip, but I'd like to highlight the chorus:

You are Putin, you're so Putin
I want to be with you
I'm howling for you
My Putin, my dear Putin
Take me with you
I want to be with you

I'm trying to make "That's so Putin" the new "That's so fetch." Believe me, it's going to happen.

Throughout the video, there are glimpses of a mysterious biker. Is Putin the biker's morning star, guiding him on his journey? Is the biker Putin? There's no telling. The video ends somewhat abruptly with Mashani looking into the distance, so we'll never know if she rides off into the sunset with Putin himself or with just some guy on a bike taking advantage of the situation.

4. Act, Putin!

Marina is a young girl, so no blame befalls her for the quality of this production. But the guy with the mustache behind her (father? Uncle? Grandfather? Neighbor? Music teacher?) could have mentored her better into giving a more subtle performance. Singing so loudly and closely into the camera is no ticket for getting into show business.

She does, however, get her message across: During the first three verses, she keeps repeating how great it would be if Putin goes to Crimea, and in the chorus she asks him to take the appropriate measures:

Act, Putin!—Russian president
And shine brighter than the movie stars
Russia has a strong argument
Putin, Putin, Putin—the President

The song ends with a positively idyllic scene, with people rejoicing at having been freed from under the Ukrainian yoke:

The people call out "Bravo!", they dance and they sing
The stars are shining in the sky and the fireworks rumble
It is because our President has acted wisely
By uniting us with Sevastopol and Crimea.

5. Someone like Putin

This song by Poyushie Vmeste ("Those Who Sing Together"), was so on point that the girls made an English version:

Again, the song is about what a fine, desired gentleman the Russian president is: The girl in the song has dumped her drunken bully of a boyfriend, and now wants someone like Putin:

Someone like Putin, so powerful
Someone like Putin, who doesn't drink
Someone like Putin, who won't hurt me
Someone like Putin, who won't run away.

But not all songs about Putin are about the glory of his decisiveness, stable character, and moderate alcohol consumption. There are some hate hymns about him as well, so let's discuss a selection of those:

1. Song for Putin

These burly blokes are veterans of the Russian Airborne Troops' special elite forces, also called "Desantniks." In the USSR, kids used to threaten each other by saying: "I'll tell on you to my cousin, who's a desantnik." The guys really dig into Vladimir Vladimirovici:

You're just like me—a man, not God
I'm just like you—a man, not a fool
We'll no longer stand by the lies, we won't allow the theft
We're the desant troops of freedom, we've got the Motherland on our side
You're a normal person, not a Czar and not God
To you, man is nothing more than a stupid monkey
The color of the ribbon of freedom means something good to us all
But to you it's nothing more than a condom.

To be clear: these are the kind of guys you'd want on your side—or not against you, at least. Unless maybe you're someone like Putin. Then you might not care about it all too much.

2. Bratuha ("Yo, Bro")

It's not just angry guys on guitar who aren't fans of Putin—there's critical hip-hop, too. Like this one from a couple of years ago: Vasya Oblomov doesn't waste any time on introductions and goes all in right off the bat:

My name is Vova P (Putin) and I'm here to stay
Grandpa Boris left me under the Christmas tree
I was the present, covered in needles
But, look at me, ain't I so pretty?!
I look undeniably well in photos so piss off, all you losers!
I'm generous, smart, brave, and strong
I'm real active when I talk to the people
Judo, sumo, karate, aikido
I dance the samba like a pro, I've got balls like action stars
If something's bothering you, ask for me!

That last line, about "something bothering you" is Russian gang terminology. When a gang member is trying to take over a particular area, he tells the people in the area that the gang will take care of everything—against a protection tax, of course.

3. Vova rules once more

The lyrics in this video could have been taken from any of the songs in the former category, and sung by a bunch of fan girls. But it's not, at all. It's sarcastic rap!

James Bond can't even be compared to him
He is a superman and the whole capital loves him
All public figures: professors, deans
All towns and villages, the Western countries
And in times of strife, as always, he is by your side
Because standing behind him is like standing behind a wall
And, if need be, he'll smack the bad guy in the mouth in the toilet
Yeah, Vova rules and he rules like he's supposed to

4. Vova IS A Plague

There's really nothing sarcastic about this next song—these guys get right to the point: "Vova, Putin Vova is a Plague." The song also talks about the opposition, which isn't doing well in Russia. It's much safer to just sing Putin's praises:

Everyone needs
A role model from the Opposition
Yelling to take him down
But, for now, everything's the same
The opposition is—there is no opposition
Just a finger drilling through your temple
The KGB is in the back
Jokes are not a good idea
Just praise him.

Aside from this last one basically comparing Putin to the Black Death, it can be hard to tell with these songs which lyrics are pure adoration and which are pure sarcasm. That should be a worrying sign to a world leader that you might want to tone it down a little. Unless maybe you're a world leader like Putin. Then you probably don't give a shit.

Making pancakes at home in Los Angeles with Johnny Jones

King of the Road is an institution in skateboarding. Started by Thrasher magazine in 2003, it's a demented, roving adventure that follows various skate teams across the country as they compete to accomplish a list of tasks, some of which carry great risk of bodily harm, and others that don't involve skateboarding at all (but still might carry great risk of bodily harm).

VICELAND has teamed up with Thrasher for the latest season, which will feature the Birdhouse, Chocolate, and Toy Machine teams hauling ass across America, throwing their bodies and whatever dignity they might have had into the wind for a chance to become the reigning King of the Road.

The Chocolate team is back to redeem itself after 2013's third place finish. This year, it's assembled an all-terrain squad, bringing in Raven Tershy, Stevie Perez, Elijah Berle, Justin Eldridge, and flow-rider Johnny Jones to try to unseat the Birdhouse army. Give the videos above and below a watch and keep an eye out for Toy Machine's introductory video, coming soon.

KING OF THE ROAD premieres Thursday, April 28 on VICELAND at 11 PM. Until then, watch the documentary following the last ten years of the competition.