Video via ABC News

Read: This Video of a Gator Eating Another Gator Is Metal as Hell

In an effort to either get out of the heat or some kind of elaborate attempt at a terrifying ding-dong ditch, a very polite alligator wandered up to a home in South Carolina Monday morning and apparently tried to ring the doorbell, ABC affiliate WVIC reports.

The visit was caught on camera by Gary Rogers, a neighbor in the area, who was out walking his dog when he saw the giant reptile casually strolling along in the front yard.

"The gator was not aggressive at all," Rogers told WVIC. "He looked like he was really trying to make an attempt to get over the fence and into this woman's pool in the backyard."

Homeowner Jamie Bailey wasn't home during the gator visit and presumably wouldn't have answered if she were, since no good can come from finding a huge-ass gator on the porch, regardless of how polite he is. Although alligators aren't totally uncommon sightings in the neighborhood, Bailey told the news station she thought she was being pranked until she saw the scratch marks all over her front door.

Turns out when gators aren't out eating their friends, being thrown through fast food drive-thru windows, or domesticated and dressed in Baby Gap clothes, they're just strolling the neighborhood like the rest of us, looking to see if anyone wants to hang out. What a world.

Photo via Flickr user Gage Skidmore

Read: Ted Cruz Just Handed the GOP Nomination to Donald Trump

On Wednesday, Ohio governor and failed prince John Kasich officially decided to call off his quest for the White House, NBC News reports.

The announcement comes on the heels of Senator Ted Cruz suspending his campaign for the Republican nomination on Tuesday night. Kasich is scheduled to give a statement this evening in Ohio about throwing in the towel, according to multiple sources close to him.

Trump took all 57 of Indiana's GOP delegates at Tuesday's primary, with Kasich only pulling in a measly 7 percent of the vote.

Ted Cruz, who was considered a more likely competitor for Trump in the battle for the nomination, was first to accept the fact that the Great Orange Menace will soon wear the GOP crown, and now it looks like Kasich has come to the same sad realization. Goodnight, sweet prince.

All photos courtesy of Martin Rost

This article originally appeared on VICE Germany.

Martin Rost had planned on finishing his photo project Narben ("Scars") in 40 days, but he missed his own deadline. "I just miscalculated," he says. "On day thirty-nine, I realized that it was already day forty-three." Instead, he finished it in exactly 100 days.

Rost skates, so he has a couple of scars himself. "I used to see a scar and mostly just want to hear the cool story behind it, but when someone tells you she's had twenty-nine operations over the course of her life, it becomes way more than just an interesting story," he says.

Rost's project is about telling the story behind a scar, whether it's from a pub fight or a life saving operation. Below are some photos from the project, followed by edited translations of the stories behind the scars.

"In the town where I grew up, there was a fleeting trend—or maybe not so fleeting—to buy ice spray in the drugstore, spray it in a bag, and inhale from the bag. You'd get so fucking high from huffing the fumes that you had no idea what was going on. I was so high that I got on my skateboard and made it about two feet before I crashed. I landed right with my mouth on the board."

"Well, on Thursday, I went back to the clinic with my ex, who luckily had time to come along because he didn't have to work. When the doctor came in, he sat down, and I'll never forget this—doctors really have to work on their ability to communicate with their patients—he sat down, dropped his papers on the table, and said: 'So, yeah, you have cancer. So...' He didn't say anything before that, or after. Just dry and to the point: 'You have cancer.'

"The doctor examined my breast again. I always try to make difficult situations a little easier with a bit of dark humor, so while he was touching my breast—no doubt thinking about how he would mess around in there—I joked that it would be practical if the lump were near my nipple so he could reach it more easily, so he wouldn't have to cut too deep, and it wouldn't be too noticeable afterward.

"He looked at me flabbergasted, like I was some kind of idiot, and said: 'Yeah, no, we have to get rid of the nipple.' He probably tells women they have cancer and that something needs to be cut off twenty times day, but still, he could have said more than just 'the nipple has to go.' I was only thirty-nine at the time."

From Rost's notes: "A fist fight. In front of a club. Defended ex-girlfriend. The guy had a big head."

From Rost's notes: "Oncoming traffic (car) cut a corner. Attempt to get out of the way failed. Collision."

"Other people pay money to get branded. I just burnt myself roasting potatoes."

"It started with stomach pain when I was pretty young. Nobody knew where it came from, so when I was thirteen I had a small operation to see what was wrong. They noticed that I had small growths that must have been there since birth; those growths made my intestines and everything stick together. That's what caused the pain, but it wouldn't get better, it just got worse and worse. And then I had more operations when I was fourteen or fifteen, and when I was 16, they realized that I had endometriosis.

"Endometriosis is like a wild splattering of tissue outside the womb that behaves like the lining of your womb. When I was sixteen—twenty-eight years ago—they had basically just discovered the disease. In any case, all that tissue develops just as actual tissue in the womb does during a cycle, and when your period starts, the blood doesn't just come from your uterus, but also from all that tissue outside the womb. So, for me, it bleeds wherever the tissue has spread—my intestines, bladder, urethra. Back then, they tried to stop it with hormones that made the body think you're pregnant."

From Rost's notes: "Don't want to talk about it."

Benjamin: I can ask you the same thing I asked you earlier: whether you want to hear some bullshit story, or the real story.

Rost: The real story.

Benjamin: On the April 6, 2014, I had an epileptic seizure at home, so they took me to hospital. I had my second epileptic attack there. They took an x-ray and realized I had a tumor the size of a tennis ball in my brain. Ten days later, they put me under the knife and pulled this tumor out of my brain. Now I have a checkup every three months to get a scan and talk to the neurologist. I'll probably die at some point because of it.

Rost: Wow, that's heavy. What's the prognosis?

Benjamin: It's not too rosy. There are tumors that grow fast, and some that grow slow. Some are benign, and some aren't. I'm right in the middle.

Rost: How do you deal with it?

Benjamin: This kind of shit can happen to anyone. I can cross the street and get hit by a car. That doesn't mean you hide inside. Fate's a bitch. I think I'm one of the people who deals with it relatively well. It doesn't bother me all that much. It doesn't keep me from doing anything. I have to go to ergotherapy after this, so I can feel things better. I'm happy it happened to me and not to some idiot who frames his X-rays. That's why.

Rost: So they can't cut it out again?

Benjamin: Well, they don't know where it may have spread. I could have done chemotherapy, but my oncologist said I'm young, and my immune system can also take care of it. I went for a second opinion in Göttingen, and they would have done radiation immediately. So I read up on it, and the thing is: If they do radiation, chances are they kill the stuff around it as well, and it's close to my language center. So there's just too much risk there.

Rost: It's impressive that you're so positive about it.

Benjamin: Of course! If I were to think negatively, I would be ruining my own life. That wouldn't help me at all. So I live my life as if nothing happened. Why shouldn't I meet a girl and have children? There's a ten percent chance I survive this shit—why shouldn't I be part of that ten percent?

From Rost's notes: "I had a punctured lung when I was born and almost suffocated. They stuck some tubes in so I could breath."

Rost: I'm making a book about scars, and I'd like to know how you got yours.

Grandma: Oh, heart valves. Two new heart valves—I had an aneurysm. And I have something down here on my leg.

Rost: Was it part of the same operation?

Grandma: I don't think it happened on the same day, because I only noticed it when your mummy came to visit me in hospital—that's when I noticed that I had a scar. I think they had to get back in later. If you must know, I first had to swallow a probe, like a gastroscopy, but this one just went to the heart. I had to swallow that, and then they noticed the aneurysm, which had grown—it was almost two inches. The doctor said it had almost ruptured, and everything would have been over if that had happened. I didn't even notice I was in the operating room, but they gave me anesthesia, and I came to three or four weeks later.

From Rost's notes: "Shotgunning a beer... headbanging."

Photo via IMDB/Twentieth Century Fox Film

It is a biological inevitability that just about every living organism will die—it's the how and the when that are up for debate. Some species barely make it to adulthood, while others go on for centuries. Ninety-nine percent of all species have already gone extinct. In nature, death is everywhere.

One might ask why this is so. After all, the ability to survive seems on the surface to be a pretty desirable trait to evolve. If something is around longer, wouldn't that give it more chances to reproduce? Could a species evolve to live longer and longer—until, eventually, it can live forever? On an even more fundamental level, how well defined are our basic notions of life and death to begin with?

Jules Howard—a zoologist, writer, and broadcaster based in the UK—tackles some of these questions in his new book, Death on Earth: Adventures in Evolution and Mortality. I reached out to him and we talked about it via Skype.

VICE: For starters, is there a consensus on the definitions of "life" and "death"?
Jules Howard: In the British education system, when we do science at around age fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, we do a module about "what is life?" I don't know if it's the same for you in America, but we were taught the MRS GREN acronym. It stands for Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion, and Nutrition. I kind of went into the book thinking: We can define life. Therefore death is just the bit where life ends.

But it's not as simple as that. Mules aren't able to sexually reproduce. They're sterile. So technically, by some definitions, they're not "alive"—but clearly a mule is as alive as anything else. So it's kind of amorphous. It's a nebulous concept, what life and death is. There's a immortality.

Let's say that humans became immortal. Does that mean humans would stop evolving at that point?
For me, nothing evolves without death. Animals evolve very quickly in environments with lots of death. With humans, we've kind of gotten rid of our predators. We've invented medicine. Many of the things that killed us in the past no longer kill us now. I think most evolutionary scientists would say our evolution has slowed. So I'm not sure we're evolving much anyway.

So going back to the original NASA definition: If we stopped evolving, would we still be alive?
Wow, that is a brilliant wrap around. Did you plan that?

As a matter of fact, I did.
Well, there's no doubt about it. I am not undergoing Darwinian evolution anymore. But I am alive. We know life. We know death when we see it. So I'd say we're still alive.

Death on Earth: Adventures in Evolution and Mortalitywill be published on May 10.

Follow Simon Davis on Twitter.

A lot of people thought this plotline was racist. But not me. Screenshot via 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt'

I can't stand when legendary comedians complain about the state of political correctness in the world. I grimace every time I read or see Jerry Seinfeld or John Cleese complain about how they can't even play colleges anymore. Complaining that colleges are too sensitive is like complaining that the library is too quiet. What did you think was going on there in the first place? Their complaints always miss the point of what's happening today in our age of safe spaces and trigger warnings. The motivating force behind The Trigger Age isn't sensitivity but anger. It's happening because we've progressed to the point where people who have been excluded from the conversation can say their piece and have it heard—and they're rightfully pissed off. It's important to listen to the outraged and not deride them as just too sensitive, because they usually have a good goddamn point to make.

These passions of mine were aroused with the release of the second season of Netflix's Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I hadn't watched it until my girlfriend told me how conflicted it made her feel. She thought it was hilarious but worried it was kinda racist: specifically, a plotline revealing that Jane Krakowski's vain, uber-rich trophy wife character Jacqueline White is actually Jackie Lynn White, an Indigenous American and member of the Lakota tribe who has been passing for white for years. She spends a number of episodes attempting to reconnect with her roots and her family.

When she told me the plotline I was dumbfounded. "That sounds crazy racist," I told her, just imagining the tone-deaf jokes being delivered by the white-as-hell Krakowski. This type of joke (haha isn't it funny when people who look white claim Indigenous heritage) in particular irritates me because it hits close to home. My grandmother is a member of the Batchewana First Nation of Ojibways whose mother lost her status and place on the Goulais Bay reserve when she married a white man. This policy of stripping status from women who married outside of their band was one of the techniques the Canadian government used in their attempted genocide of Indigenous people. The policy had its intended effect as well. For my mother, her background was a source of pain and shame. She was subject to all the racism and taunting that is rife in Northern Ontario, but without any of the strength an attachment to her culture could have provided. This painful ambivalence to our past extends down to me as well. While I look and was raised blandly white, the confusing phantom limb of my First Nations heritage contributed far more to my values and ethics than the oodles of French Canadian genes that makes up the rest of me.

This is all to say that as I queued up the first episode of the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I was ready to rip it apart as a racist, ugly extension of the colonial project. And then I began the episode and found myself laughing, a bunch. The episode chronicles Krakowski's misadventures on the reserve and, instead of the sweet, sweet outrage I was expecting to feel, I just laughed. A mounting panic filled me as the episode wrapped up and I apprehensively said to my roommate, "Uh oh, I didn't really think that was racist."

What!?

AAAAAHHHHH!

What the hell happened to me? I don't think Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt is racist—what do I even believe in now? Maybe it isn't even #allmen? Oh god, when I wasn't paying attention did I become the head of a police union?

I texted my girlfriend that I didn't think the show was racist. I explained that while I thought it was occasionally clumsy, I never thought the culture was the target of the jokes but instead the context or setting for them. The humour comes from Krakowski's idiotic character attempting to integrate, not from how silly or strange this other culture is. Instead of feeling it was disparaging, I was heartened to see Aboriginal culture and concerns as integral parts of a popular sitcom. It was also nice to see Aboriginal characters (her parents) who were not portrayed as desperate tragedies or stoic savages but instead as an ordinary middle-class couple who love their culture and are exasperated by their idiot daughter.

Read More: How is a Woman of Colour Suppossed to Feel About Tina Fey

As soon as I formulated this opinion though, the doubt started to creep in. The part of my brain that's read Edward Said poked and prodded. "It's unforgivable to have a white actress in this role," it piped in. "This show by white people and starring white people is appropriating the struggle of others, which is racist no matter how much of a positive light it's done in." In enjoying this show, am I supporting the white supremacy that has done so much damage to my family? Am I no better than the character of Jackie Lynn who bleached out her past? This may seem like an overheated response to a sitcom, but in a country where many still believe the solution to the dire problems on reserves is relocation (because look how that worked in the past), these issues are deadly serious and require consideration.

Still, I watched more episodes and enjoyed them, and as I did I began to relate more to those old put-upon comedians who can't perform at colleges. Not because I agreed with them but because I realized what underpins those opinions. I didn't know what to think about this show and this confusion—no longer being able to locate the line between right and wrong is a scary place to be. There's a sense of powerlessness to it. So of course we criticize people for being too sensitive, it's far easier than looking in the mirror and realizing you are on the wrong side of the issue.

So I, a progressive who is acutely aware of the plight of First Nations, watched Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and didn't think it was racist and I don't know what that means. Am I a liar or a secret racist, a conservative, a traitor? I'm confused and at the end of day probably wrong, as I'm sure people will tell me. But I'm OK with that because I'm willing to listen to why, something I hope the show (and its creators) would be open to as well.

Follow Jordan Foisy on Twitter.

Nintendo's unmistakable Mii avatars come to life for the American launch of the Wii U in 2012. Still via YouTube

Nintendo's next console, at least provisionally called the NX, is being released in March 2017. The Japanese gaming giant needs a hit with its next home system, as its current-gen (home) offering, the Wii U, has sold 12 million units worldwide, putting it way behind the performance of the PlayStation 4 (approaching 40 million by now) and Xbox One (somewhere just north of 20 million). VICE Gaming editor Mike Diver and Chris Scullion—former staffer at Official Nintendo Magazine, Nintendo Gamer, and CVG, and now a freelancer—discuss what the Mario makers need to do in order to become a video gaming heavyweight again.

Mike Diver: I'm looking to you as the Nintendo expert here, Chris, given your background. The company's seen the Wii U do, basically, not so well. Before we even get into the NX, and how it can send the Wii U off with a proverbial bang, what do you think Nintendo did "wrong" in pitching the Wii U to its audience? Was the messaging at launch, and in the run up to it, confusing? Has the relatively small number of quality third-party titles played a part in its commercial performance?

Most people I know who own a Wii U love it, and feel that if it's not their most-played console at home, it's certainly the one that feels unique, special, and they really like that about it. So why haven't more people experienced that feeling?

Chris Scullion: I think the Wii U's pitch was a bit of a mess from the start. When Nintendo first revealed the GamePad, it didn't even make it clear that it was a new console: There were some online who thought it was another Wii accessory like the Wii Zapper, Wii Balance Board, or Wii Wheel.

The biggest blunder for me though was Nintendo's E3 2012 presentation, where it made a complete meal of the Nintendo Land demonstration. When you look back to the Wii and Wii Sports, that was the perfect game to sell people on the console: You took one look at people playing it, and within five seconds, you knew exactly how to play it.

I watched that Nintendo Land presentation again last night: It took nine minutes to explain how to play the Luigi's Ghost Mansion minigame. It was pretty appropriate that Luigi had a vacuum cleaner because you could almost feel the excitement being sucked out of the room.

For me, then, the first big failure was not being able to effectively explain how the console works without it sounding like a complicated mess. It really wasn't—I still love Nintendo Land and think it's one of the best multiplayer games around—but pushing that "asymmetrical gameplay" buzzword around and using convoluted ways of explaining what was actually a fairly straightforward concept put it on the back foot from the beginning.

The other failure in my eyes was the lack of power. I know the Wii was massively successful despite essentially being a beefed-up GameCube, but it at least had simplicity on its side: Those who may not have been "hardcore," long-time gamers and didn't really mind that the system wasn't in HD or pushing billions of polygons were more than happy with what it offered.

What the Wii lacked in power, then, it had in approachability. Because of its ballsed-up marketing the Wii U had neither, and so it failed to appeal to both the "hardcore" and the new audience it had acquired in the previous generation.

Diver: So it basically boiled down to marketing, really the confusion over what the Wii U did differently, in simple terms that the legions of, I suppose, "casual" gamers that got into the Wii could grasp? Nintendo overcomplicated the selling of the system, tied themselves in knots, and the company never quite managed to untangle itself?

I guess you feel that's a massive shame, and an opportunity missed, though, because when it comes to innovation in video games today, I'd say Nintendo was the market leader. Sometimes the company tries a little too hard to switch gameplay where simpler systems would benefit the experience—a case in point being the latest Star Fox, though I concede it's as much a Platinum product as a Nintendo one—but I love that it tried. Is there a significant risk, however, in making the NX another radically different proposition from what the PlayStation and Xbox owners use day in, day out? Or, at this point, does Nintendo not need to care about impacting on that market, on taking players away from other consoles, and instead look to appeal to those former Nintendo diehards left cold by the Wii U?

Scullion: I think the diehards will always stick with Nintendo. Even as the Wii U launch approached, I still found myself getting excited for it: I knew it had made a mess of explaining the benefits of the system, but I still knew it was Nintendo, so it had to know what it was doing. I still feel I made the right decision, too: I've had enormous fun with my Wii U over the past few years. I think there are a lot of dedicated Nintendo fans like me, then, who have a similar trust in the company and will buy its hardware regardless.

The people I think Nintendo needs to work on winning over are the less dedicated Nintendo fans: The ones who, to be brutally frank, are a little less-informed and consider themselves the "hardcore" gamers Nintendo snubbed. Those who claim Nintendo "screwed them over" with the Wii because of a handful of casual titles (Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Wii Music), ignoring the fact that it brought them two Super Mario Galaxy games and new entries in the Super Mario Bros, Zelda, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart, Punch-Out, and Sin & Punishment series, among others.

These are the ones who think the Xbox One and PS4 are catering to the "core" gamers now and believe the Wii U is further proof of Nintendo's abandonment—again, despite the likes of Xenoblade Chronicles X, Bayonetta 2, Pikmin 3, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, and more. The whole thing's purely an image problem in my eyes, and I think it's this that Nintendo needs to remedy: Both by ensuring the NX is powerful enough to impress the so-called core, and in doing so ensuring more third parties are on board, because they can port their multi-format games over easier.

I do agree that the Wii U was a missed opportunity, though. It was clear Nintendo was trying to fix that relationship that had been "broken" through no fault of its own, by doing things like funding Bayonetta 2's development and getting Platinum involved (it's easy to forget the likes of The Wonderful 101). Even Star Fox Zero is a victim of Nintendo's image, in my eyes: People now associate Nintendo with simplicity, so when they're presented with a control system that takes more than five minutes to get used to, it's quickly dismissed as a massive failure. Ask people who've stuck with Star Fox Zero what they think about it after a couple of hours—other than those who decided to criticize it without finishing a single playthrough—and the reaction will be far more positive.

Diver: Do you feel there's any substance to the sometimes serious, more often tongue-in-cheek "claim" that Nintendo is specifically catering for a younger audience? For, as Videogamer might put it (in the video below), "babies"? Even despite the awesomely challenging games—I mean, ZombiU, come on—it's stuck with this image, probably not helped by having a mascot like Mario in an age of gaming where that sort of cuddliness has pretty much been left behind?

Scullion: I feel the whole "Nintendo makes games for babies" thing stems from what I was saying before. It's clear that a lot of Nintendo's games do appeal to younger gamers, but there's an image problem: There's a perception that because they're colorful and feature cute characters, these games are directly aimed at children and children alone.

What makes the likes of Mario, Zelda, and Pokémon so successful is that they appeal to all ages, not just children: We're not talking something like a Peppa Pig game where a thirty-year-old would look a bit odd sauntering into GAME to buy it. Again, though, it's an image thing: I'm sure many of those who dismiss Nintendo games as for kids—the ones who Videogamer are brilliantly mocking—happily snapped up the new Ratchet & Clank on PS4 last week.

Still, though, that's not really important now because I think we'd both agree the Wii U's run is over. Like you say, Nintendo needs to come up with a decent send-off for those of us who invested in it and have enjoyed what we got.

Diver: On topic, I do feel that Mario has a significant part to play in sending the Wii U out in the best possible way. I've been thinking about what Nintendo can do to have us dust off the GamePad pre-Zelda—assuming Zelda happens on the Wii U, which it surely has to, right? So, how about a Splatoon/Mario Kart 8 crossover. As a veteran Nintendo fan, what do you think of Sunshine-era Mario, FLUDD in action, appearing as an optional "third party" AI in Splatoon matches? Cleaning up the ink on both sides as they go, perhaps knocked out of the game for ten seconds with a good shot to the FLUDD? Makes for another level of strategy, there. And then in Mario Kart 8, we have two Inklings and related cars—with "oil slick" power-ups, rollers on the front to run rivals down, that sort of thing. I think that'd be awesome—and would totally speak to the people who bought that premium Wii U bundle with both games included late last year.

Some of this in 'Splatoon,' please Nintendo

Scullion: I like the Splatoon/FLUDD crossover idea, as well as the Mario Kart/Splatoon one. I'd love another couple more track packs for Mario Kart because the Zelda and Animal Crossing ones were fantastic. Maybe Metroid and Star Fox ones, with Samus and Fox added as extra characters? Turn it into a proper "Super Smash Kart."

The NX may see Nintendo facing the opposite problem as the Wii U. With the recent steps into mobile, with Miitomo, some Nintendo fans are already expressing unease that the company is changing into something different. And if the NX makes a big effort to appeal to Xbox and PlayStation owners, that concern might grow stronger. This time it might be the Nintendo fans who feel left behind.

The one thing Nintendo will always have over Microsoft and Sony is a back catalog spanning well over thirty years, and it should be using that to its fullest to appeal to Nintendo diehards in the Wii U's final year or so. It needs to be telling its fans: "We may be planning something different with NX, but we aren't forgetting you." Stuff like Super Mario Maker's un-lockable retro characters and Badge Arcade on 3DS are doing a good job of this.

Speaking of which, let's not forget that—if the rumors that NX is both a console and handheld are true—the 3DS might be on its way out, too. By focusing on the failed system, are we maybe all ignoring the potential imminent death of the popular one?

Article continues after the video below

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Diver: That's a damn good point and one I'd not considered. The New 3DS feels like a halfway house that nobody's really happy with. I mean, come on—why can I not play A Link to the Past on my ordinary 3DS XL? It can run N64 games, so what gives? SNES games on the New 3DS feels like a flopped marketing move, to shift consoles to a market that has them already. But I never paused to think about Nintendo abandoning the 3DS line entirely. Surely it wouldn't?

But then again, if it didn't, and the NX is as much a handheld as a home system, do you think Nintendo can afford to support two systems, simultaneously? One criticism of its releases right now is that you have your Wii U version of a game, then a very similar, perhaps slightly simplified version of it on 3DS, and actual identity of each system, or its personality, hardware aside, can be hard to pin down.

I suppose now the question is: What does the NX need to be, and how does that impact Nintendo's existing hardware? I imagine the Wii U will disappear quickly, unfortunately, in its wake. But the 3DS still sells shitloads. Nintendo can make Zelda cross-platform across Wii U and NX—but surely the same can't happen with NX and 3DS titles?

Scullion: It's going to be very interesting to see the NX later this year, because—while we all know the Wii U is on its death bed—as soon as Nintendo reveals the NX, we'll have a much better idea of the 3DS's fate.

To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the 3DS was approaching the end, too. It's a year and a half older than the Wii U, and other than a new Kirby in the summer, a new Pokémon in the winter, and that Metroid Prime: Federation Force game nobody's looking forward to, there are no first-party games in the release schedule for that, either.

If we take the "part console, part handheld" thing as fact, then it does stand to reason that the 3DS should be phased out. If it's marketed properly—and that's a big if—the NX could appeal to parents as a money-saver: a single purchase that lets the kids play Mario, Splatoon, Minecraft, and so forth at home, but also keeps them quiet with Pokémon and Animal Crossing games on trips. Even if it ends up being something like $500—which is expensive by Nintendo's standards—that's still you getting two powerful systems for less money than buying both a Wii U and 3DS, according to Nintendo's current RRP.

One thing Nintendo's always nailed is backward compatibility, so it stands to reason that the NX will probably be able to play Wii U games, even if that ends up being digital only. But who's to say it won't be able to play 3DS ones, too? When you look at what the Wii U does with Wii games, where it sort of quits out of the Wii U operating system, loads its own custom Wii firmware, and acts like a standalone Wii, it would be interesting if the handheld element of the NX could do the same and turn into a 3DS at will.

Of course, this would also necessitate the much-requested feature of being able to play your digital Wii U and 3DS games on more than one system. Which would lead to another brownie point for Nintendo, and another way of winning over lapsed fans.

Diver: Do you think the NX would benefit from a subscription service that allows users access to a wealth of old Nintendo classics? Like PS+, but rather than a few games at a time, actually have the 8- and 16bit-games available to stream all the time, for a small cost per month. I love that idea, and would eat it all up.

Beyond providing a platform to play what we know, though, what more does the NX need to do in 2017 to ensure it's not a Wii U, that it outperforms its predecessor, and, I guess, returns Nintendo to a major contender in what is currently a two-horse race for console supremacy? OK, a one-horse race.

Scullion: That subscription service idea is something I've dreamed about for years. I think I wrote about something like that back when I worked for Official Nintendo Magazine. It would be fantastic: essentially a Netflix for Nintendo.

Nintendo puts a lot of importance on its legacy games, and rightly so: It's fantastic. But many gamers feel they're massively overpriced, and no matter how great these old games were, you need to find a price point that will stop gamers saying, "Stuff that, I'll just download an emulator."

The original SNES Donkey Kong Country is currently $10 on 3DS Virtual Console. It's clearly a fantastic game, but in this day and age, that's simply considered too much.

Charge us something like $19.99 for access to the entire NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance vaults, though—even if it's just first-party stuff at first, until Nintendo sorts out a royalties system for third-party devs—and people will leap at it. Get just two hundred thousand people signed up to it, and that's $3.7 million in income every month. $45.2 million a year off old games just sitting there in the archive is nothing to be sniffed at.

This is NOT an NX controller. Thankfully. Photo via thenextweb.com

As for what the NX needs to do, I think it needs to find a balance between power and innovation instead of going all out with one of them. If it's a console and handheld in one, that's innovation enough: We don't need any other quirky nonsense like those non-button controller fakes that were doing the rounds a month or two ago.

By all means Nintendo should add existing stuff like amiibo support and StreetPass. Imagine playing a new Pokémon where you play the normal game on the move on the handheld element, then upload your StreetPasses to your console when you get home and battle the teams of people you passed on fancy Pokémon Stadium–style battles on your television.

Speaking of which, in terms of power, I think the console element needs to at least hold its own with the Xbox One and PS4 as they stand just now, never mind the rumored upgrades for those systems. The Wii and Wii U lost third-party support when porting "multi-format" games became a huge downgrading hassle, so make the NX easy to port like-for-like from Xbox One or PS4 and the third-party support will come naturally. If a developer sees a porting opportunity that takes little effort, that's easy money: Of course, it'll support Nintendo.

In short, then, my dream NX is one that's as powerful as an Xbox One, at least for its home console element; has full backward compatibility with all legacy Nintendo systems, be it directly or through Virtual Console; replaces both the Wii U and 3DS; and appeals to both the so-called hardcore gamers and long-time Nintendo fans. Oh, and it should have a system-level achievement system, too.

Not much to ask for, eh?

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Green Room, Jeremy Saulnier's follow-up to his 2013 cult hit Blue Ruin, is a grim and grisly horror-thriller. It focuses on a young hardcore punk band from DC, the Ain't Rights, who find themselves at the mercy of a group of neo-Nazi skinheads after witnessing a brutal murder at a remote white power club in the Pacific Northwest. Confined to the club's eponymous green room, with one burly white supremacist held hostage as a bargaining chip, the bandmates use whatever resources they can in order to attempt to escape their perilous situation.

The film has a timeless quality thanks to its remote, anonymous setting, the near-total absence of technology (the Ain't Rights proudly have no social media presence, and one cellphone between them), and Saulnier's obvious debts to veteran genre filmmakers like John Carpenter and Walter Hill. However, given the recent resurgence of openly white supremacist views in the light of Donald Trump's rise to prominence, Green Room can't help but feel stomach churningly timely: White power slogans and stickers pepper Saulnier's frame to nauseating ambient effect.

Green Room is also, at times, exceptionally violent, with Saulnier adopting a more-is-more approach to depicting the effects of grievous bodily harm. However, aside from the lingering images of disemboweled innards and hacked limbs, the film's most startling aspect is the presence of esteemed British actor Sir Patrick Stewart as Darcy Banker, the drably attired, soft-spoken club owner, who also happens to be a coldly pragmatic neo-Nazi. Darcy becomes the key player in deciding the fate of the Ain't Right's.

There's more than a hint of Breaking Bad's Walter White about Darcy's detached demeanor, while Green Room's marauding racists recall the antagonists who made the final season of Vince Gilligan's show such an unpleasant ride.

I recently caught up over the phone with Stewart to discuss his attraction to the script, the loneliness of the Oregon backwoods, and the chilling pragmatism of his Green Room character.

VICE: What attracted you to the Green Room script in the first place?
Patrick Stewart: I received the script via email, which is the usual way now, since they don't plop on your doorstep like they used to in the good old days. I started reading, and I was at my home in West Oxfordshire, England, which is just surrounded by land. It was evening. I got about thirty pages into the script, maybe a little more, and I closed it up quite suddenly, and went around my house checking that all the doors and windows were securely locked. I then put on the perimeter lights all the way around my property. I set the alarm mode for "stay," and I poured myself a large glass of scotch. That's what the script had done to me in about thirty pages.

That's a good sign.
It's a very good sign. I finished the script, very grateful for the whiskey in my hand, as the unease turned into fear, and terror into horror as the story developed. I was gripped by it. It seemed to me that if, under those circumstances, I could be so moved and involved with words on a page that by the time it was made into a movie, then this might be something very unusual, which I think it has proved to be. It was the script, and then it was the role itself.

You have an extremely convivial social media presence, while a younger public might be more familiar with your heroic roles, like Captain Xavier in X-Men. So the nastiness of this role will come as a shock to many. Was there a kick in that for you, to play such a villain, such a pragmatist?
I've been a professional actor for over fifty years, and I have played a multitude of very different roles. One of the last main stage roles I played was Macbeth. The very first date I went on with my now-wife was the evening after she'd been to see me as Macbeth—it said a lot to me that she had the stomach to go out to dinner with me having just seen my severed head being held up on a pole. So, this is not the first bad guy I've played, and yet, there was something about the tonality of Darcy Banker that drew me to it. There was something pragmatic, practical, logical, and rational about him. Something extraordinarily calm, given the situation that his business was in, that I found very appealing and interesting.

There followed a long, transatlantic conversation with Jeremy, who was days away from starting production [on Green Room]. They hadn't yet cast Darcy. He very much concurred with my feelings about the role. He wanted this man to seem reasonable: doing his best to help these kids get out of this situation, while at the same time causing their destruction. There was a wonderful paradox in this character, and, you know, sometimes all that actors are looking for are some nice contrasts and contradictions to get hold of. They sent me a plane ticket, I drove down to Heathrow Airport, got on the plane, and flew to Portland, Oregon. I was there about a week later when they started production.

And that was that.
That was that! I was there for four to five weeks. Darcy doesn't have a huge amount of screen time; he is an essential character, but he isn't seen too often, so it was fine for me to take on the role with only a few days' notice. I enjoyed the experience very much, although it was different from almost anything else that I've done, not just because of the subject matter of the film, but also the way the story was laid out. Darcy actually never comes face to face with the five young people who are trapped in the green room until very late in the day.

I felt—and I think this was shared by the others—that we just didn't have any relationship when the cameras stopped rolling. On most movies, you sit and chat between takes, you find out about one another, you go out to dinner and all that. It didn't happen ever, at all. I was on my own, but there was one night when their car didn't show up, and they shared my car, which was about an hour's ride from the wilderness where we were filming to Portland. But that was the only time I had informal, casual, relaxed conversations with the rest of the cast.

VICE Talks Film: Filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier Talks Punks, Neo-Nazis, and His Thriller 'Green Room':

So in a way, the setup was a bit "method." Do you think it was beneficial to the tone of the film?
I think it was terrifically beneficial. The only person I got to know quite well was Macon Blair, who plays my right-hand man, Gabe. It was a very intense atmosphere on the set. There was something about the story and the situation and the grimness of the location. I cannot tell you how bleak it was. That barn and industrial space was really there and something that can't be built. It was deep in the middle of the Oregon woods, up on a mountainside, and it rained all the time.

Did you do any research into the white supremacist ideology espoused by your character?
Yes, I did do some research right away. Thank God for the internet. I was able to get up to speed with how these kinds of groups operated. To my astonishment, I discovered that a heartland of the white supremacist movement is in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. [Editor's note: At one point, Oregon boasted the highest per-capita membership of the Ku Klux Klan .]

Now, I don't think anyone could have predicted the rise to prominence of Donald Trump. Not even Donald Trump could have predicted the rise of Donald Trump, but there's no question that his presence has certainly helped the kinds of extremist attitudes you see in the film become more prevalent. Did you ever think the film would be so timely?
Well, of course, we had no idea that Dreadful Trump would be up to these antics that he is up to now, and I call them "antics" because how could they possibly be taken seriously? But I've been interested in and involved in politics all my life. My first act of political civil disobedience was in 1945 during the post-war election, so I am interested in parties and groups. Particularly, in these days, we are confronted by extremist points of view and extremist actions, certainly since the troubles with the IRA.

Something particularly chilling is the respectable front Darcy puts up...
Yes, on the side of Darcy's van it seems to be some kind of electrical repair van: that is his conventional front. Then there is the music venue and the bar and the revenue for all of that. But, as we discover, neither of those things are his main cause for concern in having to protect his livelihood. What's going on underneath that floor is central to Darcy Banker.

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Green Room is now playing nationwide.

Photo by Artur Debat via Getty

In case you haven't already heard, we're in the midst of an STI crisis. Rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis have been on a steady incline in recent years, according to Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data collected through 2014. Young people between the ages of 15 and 24 account for the biggest portion of people with chlamydia and gonorrhea; the CDC has also noted a troubling spike in syphilis cases among gay and bisexual men and an increase in STIs among senior citizens. It's impossible to pinpoint a single reason for the overall trend, but slashed budgets for STD-testing programs and the closure of Planned Parenthood clinics across the US are likely key factors. Various studies also suggest that more sexual activity across wider groups (thanks to online dating) and inadequate public education may have something to do with it, too. STIs are often asymptomatic, so people having sex without being tested regularly are unknowingly spreading infections.

In response to this unsettling trend, there's a push to solve the problem the way every problem gets solved: through apps. The goal is to make regular testing and treatments more accessible, affordable, and discreet.

"Technology is so evolved, yet we were shocked to see that STI testing was still the same as what we grew up with: going to a physician or a clinic," Lora Ivanova, an e-commerce and digital marketing entrepreneur, told VICE. "We wanted to hack the healthcare mechanism to allow everybody to access those solutions in a much faster and easier way."

Ivanova and her business partner, Ursula Hessenflow, created MyLAB Box, a kit that allows users to test for HIV, chlamydia, gonorrhea, and the sexually transmitted parasite trichomoniasis from the privacy of their bathrooms. While there are several existing companies that offer at-home tests for HIV, MyLAB is the first to offer residents of all 50 states such a wide range of at-home testing. In addition to urine tests, it also offers oral, anal and genital swabs, which are more expensive but can be more accurate. The HIV test involves a finger prick to draw a sample of blood. Collected samples are sent via pre-paid envelope to a lab for testing and, if the results are positive, users will get a call from an STI counselor, as well as a free telemedicine consultation with a local doctor who can prescribe treatment. The kit starts at $79 for the basic urine test for chlamydia and gonorrhea. (While the costs for such tests at a doctor's office vary widely, Healthcare Bluebook predicts that a chlamydia test alone would cost about $91 for someone without insurance.)

Planned Parenthood has also gotten into this game, launching two pilot programs, PP Care and PP Direct. Like MyLAB Box, PP Care offers at-home testing kits for chlamydia and gonorrhea for $129, followed by a video consultation with a clinician for an additional $25, or less for those covered by insurance. If the test is positive for chlamydia, Planned Parenthood can send the necessary meds by mail for an additional fee. (For gonorrhea, a visit to the local health center is required to get treatment.) The program is available in Washington state, Minnesota, Alaska, and Idaho; Hawaii is slated for the coming months.

In California, called PP Direct and $120 can have a urine-testing kit for chlamydia or gonorrhea mailed to their homes. Results are delivered through the app, and if they're positive, Planned Parenthood follows up with information about treatment and a prescription to a local pharmacy.

These services are more vital than ever in a country where access to clinics is increasingly limited. A glaring recent example: Scott County, a small, impoverished corner of Indiana, suffered an HIV outbreak linked to heavy use of an intravenous opiate after a Planned Parenthood clinic that was the area's only HIV-testing center, was closed down.

"We have more users in populated areas, but we are also seeing people in zip codes that are miles from health care centers," Jill Balderson, vice president of Health Care Innovation at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told VICE. "What's been really surprising is that people accessing it are across a wide range of ages, income, and gender."

Reid Mihalko, a sex and relationships expert who hosts workshops and lectures at colleges about safer sex, sees at-home testing kits as a way to fill the gap in regular STI testing—since, while the general recommendation is that sexually active people get tested annually, he suggests doing it at least two times a year, to make the process a habit.

"There's so much stigma and shame that prevents people from getting tested," he told VICE. "It's often hard to talk about it with a primary care physician, and for many, the act of getting to an affordable clinic can be a challenge. I'm ecstatic about anything that offers shame-free testing."

The bulk of MyLAB Box users are adults ages 25 to 35—young people who are likely used to ordering everything from meals to romantic partners from the comfort of their couches. "We've seen good traction among college-aged kids who may be hesitant to go to their health center," Ivanova said, "as well as senior citizens who may want something more discreet than going to their local brick-and-mortar option."

Beyond access issues and concerns about discretion, there's a lack of education and awareness around testing. "For the past eight years, the entire public health system has been decimated in terms of funding," Jeffrey Klausner, MD, a professor of Medicine and Public Health at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, told VICE. "Major cities and counties have cut their sexual health promotion, communication and education."

For anyone who came of age in the 1980s and 1990s, most sexual health topics were centered on the fear of AIDS. Campaigns for safer sex to prevent HIV transmission naturally extended to other STIs, even if they weren't part of the conversation. Today, treatments and preventative options such as Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV and the HPV vaccine can lead to a false sense of security.

"People are not as fearful , and they have every right not to be—HIV is a treatable condition," Klausner said. "But old conditions like herpes are still out there, and new conditions like Zika virus may be sexually transmitted. Sexual activity can have serious consequences."

Back in 1999, when Klausner was director of STD Prevention and Control Services at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, he discovered an outbreak of syphilis associated with men meeting men in an AOL chat room.

"Any technology that facilitates people meeting each other, from the advent of the telephone to the internet, will increase sexual contact," he said when asked if modern hookup apps like Tinder and Grindr have led to the recent increase in STI transmission. But he also pointed out that the same online sites and social media can be used as tools to increase awareness and education.

With UCLA, Klausner launched a National Institutes of Health–funded campaign on Grindr advertising free HIV home-testing kits, which garnered 16,000 hits, 400 requests for the kit, and 20 newly diagnosed cases of HIV in a month. "That was a great conversion rate for just a hit on a website," he said.

According to him, there is new technology on the horizon that could take at-home testing to the next level—tests that wouldn't just collect samples but would also give swift and accurate results in minutes , like a home pregnancy test.

Regardless of how people will actually use these new apps, all of the experts VICE spoke to for this story expressed the opinion that at-home testing is meant to be a supplement and not a replacement for regular in-person testing. "A pelvic examination will also look for genital warts, ulcers from herpes, primary chancres from syphilis," Charlotte Gaydos, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told VICE. "This web-based alternative is not the end-all, be-all solution, but it is another tool in our box."

All photos via Helen Sloan/HBO except where otherwise noted

Jon Snow may know nothing, but neither do Game of Thrones fans anymore. After last week's resurrection of Lord Commander Snow (codename: "LC"), even book readers have no idea what will come next. If the show itself is any indication, Snow might be a very changed man. The two other resurrected characters—Beric Dondarrion of the Brotherhood Without Banners and Gregor "the Mountain" Clegane—came back, respectively, as a shell of his former self and a speechless zombie abomination. Be careful what you wish for, Ser Davos.

What clues do we have about the next episode, "Oathbreaker"? HBO just released teaser photos today to go along with the episode trailer. Tyrion seems to be attending the Essos Met Gala as he glowers with a glass of wine and a shiny tunic. Arya is still playing blind Donatello, despite winning the last round of the "my name is no one" game with her Faceless Men trainers. Davos is looking a little shocked to see... something. (Did Jon Snow's loincloth fall off during the resurrection?)

By far the most interesting photo features the twisted Maester Qyburn hanging out with a room full of children. Is Qyburn—last seen creating the Franken-Clegane knight—about to open the St. Qyburn School for Little Necromancers? Or is lonely Franken-Clegane about to get a new set of undead friends?

We also see the Three-Eyed-Raven and Bran chilling in a sunny locale. From the episode-three trailer, we know that they are witnessing one of the most pivotal—and mysterious—moments of the entire story: the battle at the Tower of Joy.

Here, Ned Stark and a few fellow soldiers defeated prince Rhaegar's men that were guarding his sister, Lyanna Stark. It was Lyanna's kidnapping by Rhaegar that set off the series of events that led to Robert Baratheon and his rebels overthrowing the Targaryen king. This moment also features an important promise Ned made to his dying sister. Could it have something to do with a certain resurrected bastard? We may just find out Sunday.

Check out the rest of the photos below.

Photo by Macall B.Polay/HBO

Photo by Macall B.Polay/HBO

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Game of Thrones airs Sundays at 9 PM on HBO.

The cast of 'Saved by the Bell' in the 1990s. Photo by NBC/Contributor via Getty Images

This piece was published in partnership with the Influence.

There are plenty of (mostly recent) examples of drugs being aptly fictionalized on TV. Whole series, like Breaking Bad, That 70s Show, Broad City , and The Wire have managed to pull off pretty realistic depictions of substance use.

And then there's the iconic time Jessie Spano on Saved by the Bell screamed, "I'm so excited! I'm so excited! I'm so scared," having spun out of control due to a caffeine pill addiction. The pressure of her mounting school work and her new aerobics-enthusiast girl group Hot Sundae is just too much. Jessie incurs and then kicks her addiction within a few days.

It's far from the only instance of television getting drugs hilariously wrong. For some writers, it appears to have been a struggle to grasp any kind of reality at all. In other cases, they're simply meekly perpetuating the "drugs are bad" trope institutionalized by America's drug war.

Evidently, caffeine pill use was an issue of major concern in the the early 90s, because The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had its own preposterous storyline. Will Smith, like Jessie, is overwhelmed by his commitments in the episode "Just Say Yo." He starts taking the pills, which he hides in a vitamin bottle in his locker.

Meanwhile, his cousin Carlton has a distressing pimple and unfettered access to Will's locker, so he ganks what he thinks is a "vitamin" from Will's stash on prom night. Oh, the fictive follies! What follows is an intense scene where Carlton dances like a maniac and yells like he's in Thriller, then collapses in the middle of the weakest prom ever thrown by and for private-schooled rich kids.

Carlton is rushed to the ER and forced to stay in the "chemical dependency unit," despite seemingly being pretty OK. Will confesses to his uncle that they were his pills. Uncle Carl reprimands Will—"My son could have died because of you"—and forces him to tearfully apologize to the family.

Absurd drug stories didn't end in the 80s and 90s (more on that later). Nowadays, it seems like they're the fodder for ill-advised efforts at edginess.

In February, HBO introduced its newest show in a long line of gritty dramas delving into the drug habits of a complicated (i.e. violent, taciturn, spiritually thirsty) male protagonist: Vinyl. The network has established itself as the foremost arena for alcoholic antiheroes and drug-addled supporting characters, a catalog that began with Oz and continued with The Sopranos, Deadwood, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Boardwalk Empire, The Leftovers, and True Detective. Vinyl is a sweaty, hedonistic, destructive love letter to the chaotic but vibrantly creative New York City of yore.

The show follows Richie Finestra, the coke-addicted overlord of degenerating record label American Century (and secondarily, a married father of two) in 1973 New York. Creator Martin Scorsese is the irrefutable master at crafting stories about drugs, violence, and men behaving badly. But while Vinyl skillfully depicts addiction, the use of cocaine in the series is straight-up laughable. It opens with a clammy and shaken Finestra buying a quarter of "Bolivian dancing dust" from a dealer he's driven up to on the street. Inexplicably, this runs to $280... in 1973?

In 2016 US dollars, that quarter costs him roughly $1,500. Yet even less believable than the price of his blow is Richie's reaction every time he snorts it. Inhaling a line off of the rearview mirror he tears from his own car, he dramatically jolts up, throwing his head back, panting and grunting like he just ejaculated from the world's greatest blowjob.

Despite being a blowcaine veteran, he has the same exaggerated orgasmic response when blowing lines off his desk in the third episode. As Richard Hell wrote, "Cocaine is not like getting a cattle prod up your butt. Everybody knows that. Cocaine is sweet. A warm smile would suffice." We never see Finestra wipe his nose or grind his teeth. He talks a lot, but that could have as much to do with him being a narcissist as him being high on cocaine.

But perhaps the most frequent mischaracterization of cocaine on TV is the idea that one becomes immediately addicted to it. Charlie Day, Dee Reynolds, and poor Rickety Cricket are instantly hooked to "nose clams" in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In "The Gang Gets Whacked (Part 2)," Charlie informs Dee that they need to gum the cocaine they're attempting to sell to "rev up," because if you snort it "that's how you become a drug addict."

Always Sunny is a live-action caricature—as evidenced by the velour tracksuit mobsters and the plotline in which Frank turns Dennis out, both in this same episode—so naturally Dee and Charlie become instant cokeheads (just like the time Dee and Dennis are immediately addicted to crack) from vigorously finger-brushing their gums with blow.

When a reluctant and tired Rickety Cricket is slow to sling more of their coke, they introduce him to "gumming," and he, too, is promptly addicted. Rather than gnashing his teeth or oversharing his feelings with an annoyed audience, he steals Dee and Charlie's drug profit and buys kettle drums for his new musical quest to achieve "total sexiness." You know, like most coke users. Once he "achieves" this, the velour-tracksuit mobsters break his legs, and so begins Rickety Cricket's downward spiral into a homeless, thieving, ringworm-having, crack-smoking, kidney-missing, suicidal, prostituting "Talibum" burn victim who dogs try to hump. All from gumming coke... and loving Dee.

Check out our documentary about how 'Sailor Moon' fandom became a refuge for 90s queer kids in America.

Few shows did a better job of capturing post-Reagan era fear-mongering than 90s teen soap Beverly Hills, 90210, with multiple characters developing sudden addictions during the show's run.

Reformed mean girl Kelly Taylor develops an instant dependence on blow when her dad stands her up for their lunch date, even using his consolation check to snort a line in her bathroom (her artist boyfriend, Colin, just left vials around, apparently). The daughter of an ex-model hot mess, Kelly has previously never touched any drugs on the show. Overnight, she's feeling up her boyfriend to get his coke and fighting about their "stash"—not to consume while drinking or partying, but just to get her "through the day."

Her friends confront her use of "lethal narcotics," though it's hard to imagine anything more horrifying than their severe makeup, which launched a thousand Bratz dolls. Kelly only quits after her drug dealer tries to rape her.

Donna Martin gets hooked on pain meds following a Jeep accident. Once she starts excessively using pain meds, Donna also needs "uppers" (because the medication makes her "so tired"), creating her own prescription drug symbiosis. She scores "deamphetamines" from her boyfriend's brother (which in the 90210 universe is traded in tiny, ornate metal boxes), a fictitious amphetamine. To further feed her swiftly acquired habit, Donna steals an entire bottle of "uppers" from her father's clinic.

When her "deamphetamine" source shuts down, Donna freaks out on a pharmacist, begging for pain meds, but he denies her because she's already crushed 60 pills in one week. Donna then cries to her daddy that she has "back spasms" and "like, eight million sketches due... tomorrow," so he hands her "enough pills to last a few days"—but that pill fiend does them all that night. Donna ODs and falls into a coma. Fortunately, she's quickly revived, so she can point her sad eyes at the camera and remind kids that drugs are bad.

The show doesn't stop there. Backward hat–wearing David Silver becomes addicted to "crank" while he's struggling to both study and stay awake for his college DJ shifts.

When he asks the station manager, Howard, who looks like a 70s suburban dad on his way to a key party, if he can play a recorded set, Howard scolds him that his show must be live and instead gives him crystal meth. The integrity of his graveyard DJ shift must be protected, but here, stupid hat kid, take some crystal meth!

Because this is 90210, David is now completely ensnared by "crank." Before long, he's gotten fired. David finds a new dealer, steals $150 from his dad, and then his house is raided by the cops for $150 of crystal meth (which he narrowly succeeds in flushing down the toilet with the help of his brooding alcoholic and formerly drug-addicted buddy, Dylan McKay).

Even square Brandon Walsh falls victim to drugs, when his mentally unhinged, Tom of Finland-inspired girlfriend, Emily Valentine, doses him at an "incredibly hip" underground club. After he declines her offer to take U4EA (90210's fictionalized version of ecstasy), the drug that "brings new couples closer together," she secretly buys two small packets from a hulking dealer in a leather jacket (of course). She orders two sodas, and looking over her shoulder at her unsuspecting boyfriend, dumps U4EA in both drinks, in full view of the bartender and everyone but Brandon. Aside from motivating him to awkwardly jerk his body at her, the drug just makes him kind of rude and annoying, and they seem more like they're drunk than like they're rolling.

Speaking of teenagers on ecstasy at a clandestine party, the maudlin crew of Dawson's Creek suffer their own bizarre MDMA plotline. In "Great Xpectations" (groan), overachieving crumpled flower Andie McPhee realizes her dream of being accepted to Harvard. Because she's not reeling from elation, Andie fears her antidepressants are inhibiting her ability to feel anything.

The gang decides to judgmentally frown at a rave when invited/challenged by the antagonist du jour, and through a ridiculous daisy chain of events, Andie finds herself in possession of the two tabs of ecstasy. Tonight, Andie (in her perpetually grating child voice) "just wants to have fun," so she decides not to heed the anecdotal wisdom of repentant party girl Jen Lindley and "sorta" pops a pill, asking Lindley to keep it a secret from her brother, Jack.

Things begin fine—she's dancing and molesting everyone's hair—until she launches herself onto a moon bounce, and the lights begin spinning menacingly, and she collapses, her fall whimsically cushioned by the inflatable bounce house. EMTs arrive, Jack suggests Jen should be the one who deserves to be hospitalized, and everyone does their best to look worried.

Andie's trip to the ER is blamed on the combination of ecstasy and her antidepressant, but in earlier episodes, we learn the medication she takes is Xanax, which is used to treat anxiety, not depression. Additionally, in "His Leading Lady," we see a close up of the pill bottle, which reads "Zanac 20 MG," and the pills are large and dark, nothing like Xanax.

Andie escapes unscathed, but her tearful brother says her antidepressant is a "time bomb when mixed with the wrong thing" and laments that "she could have died."

In this PSA masquerading as an episode, the message is universal: Work hard, get into Harvard, and one night of fun will probably almost kill you.

This article was originally published by the Influence, a news site that covers the full spectrum of human relationships with drugs. Follow The Influence on Facebook or Twitter.

On Monday, the Islamic Republic News Agency—Iran's official press outlet—reported that the nation's parliament had passed a law allowing the state to grant citizenship to the children, parents, and wives of foreigners killed while fighting for Iran. The legislation applies explicitly to those "killed on a mission for Iran during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980–1988," during which an unknown number of foreigners—mostly Afghans and Iraqis—aided the newly formed Islamic republic in its struggle against Saddam Hussein. But the law also creates a path to citizenship for families of foreigners who die in other conflicts supporting Iran, leading many to interpret it as a strategy to help recruit refugees into brigades bolstering Syrian president Bashar al Assad's forces against the Islamic State and al Qaeda affiliates.

"There's no other reason would come about now," said Philip Smyth, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who monitors Iranian-backed forces in Syria, where he said Afghan migrants are treated like cannon fodder.

Iran is home to a huge number of migrants from neighboring countries. About 3 million of them are Afghans, many from the ethnically Hazara, religiously Shia minority. Some have lived in Iran since the Soviet invasion of their nation in 1979; others are recent refugees fleeing war in the country, or short-term residents trying to build up the resources to move elsewhere.

"Many Afghan refugees, both documented and undocumented, are deprived of many basic and essential human rights and public services," said Khadija Abbasi, a former Hazara Afghan refugee in Iran now working on a PhD in Geneva related to her community's experiences. Reportedly, Afghan refugees are denied access to education, jobs, driver's licenses, or even phone SIM cards.

Afghans from Iran have been in Syria since 2012, just a year into the nation's civil war. By late 2013, they formed the Fatemiyoun Brigade, a militia force of between 10,000 and 20,000 Afghans that reportedly fights under the command of the Iranian Revolutionary guard.

The Iranian government has repeatedly denied any direct connection to the group, insisting instead that the hundreds to thousands of Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in Syria are there as advisors to the Assad regime or as volunteers who are helping to organize other groups of volunteers, including foreigners from Iraq, Lebanon, and Pakistan. The Iranian narrative suggests that the Fatemiyoun Brigade is made up of pious Shia volunteers who are in Syria to protect sacred shrines against Sunni extremists.

That may be partly true. A few of the brigade's numbers are Afghan migrants who'd lived near an important shrine since the 1990s, when they fled the Taliban to Syria, and mobilized around the structure in 2012 after a suicide bomber allegedly tried to attack it. Others have come directly from Afghanistan explicitly to protect the shrine.

But ample evidence suggests that the Fatemiyoun Brigade is actually a shock troop trained and coordinated by Iran. "The Fatemiyoun are a very significant fighting force," said Peter Bouckaert, the author of a recent Human Rights Watch report on the issue. "They were involved in the battles around Aleppo that retook two small towns just a few months ago... The same goes for the recent battles in eastern Syria around ."

Rather than devout volunteers, numerous accounts attest that Iran has used carrots (like the promise of citizenship and a salary of $500 to $1,000 a month for deployed fighters) and sticks (like the threat of jail or deportation for illegal migrants, or migrants involved in illicit activities) to coerce migrants into joining the Syrian conflict for years. They've also given them state funerals, attended by Revolutionary Guard, military, and other officials and reported in national media. According to Scott Lucas, a professor at the University of Birmingham who monitors Iran's activities in Syria, the state tries to recruit all Afghans, whether long-term or transitory refugees.

Amir Toumaj, a researcher examining Iranian domestic policies for the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, suspects the new citizenship law may serve to discourage desertion from the brigade. It also implicitly publicizes the incentives for fighting under Iran, which to date have mostly been communicated through one-on-one interactions, and sweetens the pot to potentially boost recruitment.

Given the recent crackdowns on Afghan migration into Europe, one might think that these carrots would siphon a number of mobile migrants into Iran. But Lisa Schuster, an academic at the City University London who recently conducted fieldwork on migration issues in Afghanistan, said that most of these migrants—even those temporarily camped out in Iran—are likely still intent on making it to Europe.

Still, Abbasi suspects that the new law will push a number Hazara Afghan refugees toward participation in the Syrian conflict—especially second- or third-generation folks who've never been to Afghanistan and who identify with Iranian culture, despite being discriminated against. "One can understand why people in order for their children to be able to go to school in Iran," Abbasi explained.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that these individuals' families will actually reap the benefits if they die fighting for Iran. The state's already broken similar promises to members of the Fatemiyoun Brigade, who say they were denied Iranian citizenship after fighting in Syria. And Lucas suspects Iran may not have the bureaucratic infrastructure to offer blanket citizenship. Instead, he and Schuster suspect the state will make just a few controlled and highly publicized citizenship grants to help the war effort.

No matter how many migrants the law draws into the Syrian conflict, or how many it winds up granting Iranian citizenship, the idea that Iran is coercing a marginalized peoples, many of whom cannot go back to Afghanistan for fear of their lives and whom need support, into entering a deadly war zone just for a vague chance at human dignity is disturbing, to say the least.

"To me," Abbasi said, "this law is disgusting."

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

Photo by Jake Kivanç

A standoff between Toronto's taxi industry and Uber that included comparisons to ISIS and rush hour joyrides moved toward a resolution Tuesday night as Toronto city council decided to make the ride-sharing service legal.

Following a raucous debate that lasted hours, Toronto councillors voted 27-15 in favour of new regulations for taxis and Ubers that will attempt to level the playing field between them.

Mayor John Tory, who pushed to keep Uber in the city, tabled the lengthy list of measures based off recommendations by the city's Licensing and Standards Committee.

"The public wants to have choices, and they should have choices," Tory said, while Uber Canada General Manager Ian Black called it "a great day for the riders in the city of Toronto."

But what will the new regulations mean for the average rider?

VICE reached out to Sunil Johal, policy director at the University of Toronto's Mowat Centre School of Public Policy and Governance, to break down some of the key takeaways:

Increase to Uber base fare
Uber's base fare is going up from $2.50 to $3.25, which is the same as what taxis charge.

"That's obviously not in consumers' interest," said Johal, "but it kind of levels out that number between Uber and taxis."

Rates for both taxis and Ubers are based on a mix of time and kilometres, but riders in Toronto can save up to 50 percent by using the latter service.

Johal explained the city has no jurisdiction over Uber's charging scheme outside of the base fare, whereas it does regulate how cabs charge customers, so it's reasonable to expect that Uber will continue to be the cheaper option in most cases.

Discounts/surges for taxis
Cabs booked through a smartphone app will be allowed to enforce surge pricing during busy periods—for Uber, surge rates typically start at 1.1 times the normal rate. By allowing taxis to do the same, the city is allowing them to stay competitive. However, Johal said he wonders how effective it will be considering many cabs are hailed by hand or ordered by phone.

"It wouldn't surprise me if during the next TTC shutdown if magically a lot of taxi companies' phone lines all of a sudden experienced technical difficulties," Johal said.

Taxis will also be able to offer discounts, though it's not clear in what situation it would make sense to do so.

Less training for taxi drivers
The city is doing away with its requirement that taxi drivers undergo 17 days of training (CPR and First Aid was specifically scrapped), which Johal said might not be a bad thing.

"A lot of people felt they weren't getting good service from drivers who were going through that training service anyway," he said, adding the city is hoping a more competitive market will force drivers to up their customer-service game.

While taxis are currently required to have cameras installed, Tory said there should be further study before the city decides if the same is necessary for Ubers.

Johal said he thinks it's because taxi rides are a more anonymous experience, where riders and drivers don't have access to the same kind of background and rating system as with Uber.

Read more: Uber Drivers Tell Us About Their Worst Customers

More competition
By bringing Uber into the regulatory fold, the city has opened itself up to more ride-sharing services including San Francisco-based company Lyft, which recently expressed interest in coming to Toronto.

Johal said the potential influx of competitors could push taxis to structure themselves more like Uber.

"You're going to see far more opportunities to book cars through smartphones than you will to call people up or hail down a cab on the street."

And even though Uber drivers will now need insurance to cover $2 million in damages/death/injuries, their rates are still likely to be much lower than what cabs pay.

"I think that will make it more attractive for people to be a ride-sharing driver rather than a traditional taxi driver."

Earlier this year, Edmonton became the first Canadian city to pass Uber-related bylaws but the service is now suspended there until the province makes insurance available to Uber drivers. Meanwhile, Calgary city council and Uber can't seem to agree on regulations that appease both parties; Mayor Naheed Nenshi was recently caught on camera calling Uber CEO Travis Kalanick a "dick." In Montreal, where Uber operates in a grey zone (it's common for riders to sit in the front seat to avoid scrutiny), taxi companies have filed an injunction against the company. There have been also been large-scale protests in the city, with taxi drivers reportedly egging Uber drivers and offices.

Johal cautioned that Toronto city council will likely have to revisit its rules, and there are bound to be corrections along the way, including potentially limiting the number of Ubers in the city due to issues like congestion.

"It's really hard right to know how these rules are going to play out in practice," he said. "It's very important the city in a year and in two years is assessing key performance indicators and making sure these rules are promoting the kind of fair accessible, safe system for taxis that we want in the city."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user whereareyousimon

On Monday, a dead body washed ashore in Brooklyn wearing a green jacket, blue underwear, and cement shoes. A community college student made the discovery at around 10:30 AM, and police may have used two tattoos—one of a Virgin Mary, the other of an eight ball—to help identify the corpse. On Wednesday, cops revealed the man was 28-year-old Peter Martinez, a career criminal with 31 prior arrests who survived a shooting earlier this year.

The victim did not have any stab or gunshot wounds, but it appears that he was tied up, forced to stand in poured concrete, covered in plastic bags, and thrown into the water. On Tuesday, the NYPD's chief of detectives said the crime was "obviously a homicide."

Of course, given the details we have so far, it's tempting to spin theories that sound like Sopranos plotlines. But even if the concept of "cement shoes" on a corpse is linked to the mafia in American folklore, it probably shouldn't be. Christian Cipollini, a self-styled organized crime expert, insists there's never been a credible recorded instance of a mobster being fitted with cement shoes, and calls the trope a "twisted-over-time variation of something that did actually happen." He explains that, in the early 30s, the power players of organized crime had a rolodex of hitmen, and the Brooklyn trademark was to truss victims with ropes or puncture repeatedly them with icepicks. The bodies were then put in the trunk of a car that might be lit on fire, or else tied to cinderblocks and thrown in the water.

But that's very different from the cartoonish concept of cement shoes. It's unclear who even dreamed up the notion, although reporters are obviously responsible for its endurance. In 1933, Danny Walsh, a famous rumrunner from Rhode Island went missing; two years later, the Associated Press reported that police were trying to substantiate the rumor that he "was stood in a tub of cement until it hardened about his feet, and then thrown alive into the sea." That story is probably apocryphal––even then, the outlet called it a "grisly underworld tale."

Perhaps the first substantiated case of anything even resembling cement shoes didn't involve known gangsters: In 1938, a gambler named John Paul Bathelt Jr. pleaded guilty to murdering a race-track tipster by putting his body in a coffin, filling it with cement, and dumping it in the Connecticut River.

In 1962, when infamous mobster Lucky Luciano died, a Florida reporter tracked down the cop who saved him after he was beaten and left for dead decades earlier. The officer, Henry A. Blanke, said that all the men who attacked the notorious gangster were subsequently whacked, and one was encased in cement.

"I have no research to confirm that and honestly believe Blanke was, way back at that time, going off the same rumors that everyone else in society was," Cipollini says.

Although there's no way to know if the old man was telling the truth or remembering correctly, the closest real-life approximation of the cement shoes trope came two years after those words were printed. In 1964, Ernest Rupolo, a hitman turned informant, was found at the bottom of Jamaica Bay with his hands bound behind his back and two concrete blocks tied to his legs.

But Tommy Hyland, a retired New York City homicide detective who started on the force in 1968, says he never heard of any bodies wearing cement shoes in his decades on the job. "That's like real old-school stuff, and I don't know how much of that is Hollywood," he tells me.

Part of that can be attributed to the American mafia's decline in prominence and influence; there are simply fewer hits happening now compared to when people like Meyer Lansky walked the Earth. This has been mirrored by a decline in law enforcement resources devoted to the Cosa Nostra: It used to be that each of New York's Five Families had its own team of FBI investigators; by 2014, those responsibilities were delegated between two units. And just this February, the New York Police Department announced it was disbanding its Organized Crime Control Bureau.

An autopsy was performed Tuesday to determine how long Martinez had been underwater, but the results have yet to be made public. Meanwhile, a source told the Daily Mail that his body wasn't too badly decomposed.

"Obviously whoever did this did not understand cement shoes," says Hyland, the former detective. "This is not the way they're supposed to work."

Follow Allie Conti on Twitter.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory. Photo via Flickr user NCDOTcommunications

READ: A Porn Site Has Started Blocking North Carolina Users Over the State's Anti-LGBT Law

The US government on Wednesday warned North Carolina state officials that they could lose a helluva lot in federal funding if they don't cut the shit and give transgender people safe and proper access to bathrooms, as the New York Times reports.

The Justice Department delivered the warning via a letter to Governor Pat McCrory. A copy obtained by the Charlotte Observer shows the feds are giving the state until the end of the day Monday to respond.

Specifically, Vanita Gupta—the top civil rights watchdog in America—wrote that the "the state is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination against transgender state employees," and cites Title VII, the federal law outlawing bias on the basis of sex.

People across America were incensed when McGrory signed the bill into law on March 23. It passed in the state House 82–26 and the state Senate 32–0. Senate Democrats actually walked out of the assembly in protest, and on March 28, three people filed a federal lawsuit against the North Carolina governor, arguing the new law is discriminatory and unconstitutional, because, well, it is.

Collage by Frances Smith

Mississippi is a difficult state for anyone to live in. With nearly a quarter of its residents living under the poverty line, the Magnolia State is the poorest in the nation.

While life may be difficult for many of its residents, life in the state just got even tougher for queer people.

In April, the state government passed a law essentially making it legal to discriminate against LGBT people. House Bill 1523, known as the "Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act," allows businesses to deny service to LGBT customers based on their "sincerely held religious beliefs." It means that employers can terminate their workers simply based on their sexual orientation or gender identity, with a blessing from the government. It even means that an organization can deny housing to a same-sex couple.

It is, however, especially challenging to live in Mississippi as a black queer person. In 2013, Marco McMillian became the first openly gay man of color to run for political office in Mississippi. His campaign would not last long: That March, McMillian's murdered body was discovered near a river. During the subsequent trial, his killer, Lawrence Reed, would use a "gay panic" defense, alleging that McMillian had tried to sexually assault him. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

As Salon's Irin Carmon reported in 2011, the state has the highest rate of HIV infection in the country. Of metropolitan areas in the nation, Jackson ranks fourth in new HIV cases. This rate disproportionately affects the state's African-American community, who are nearly eight times as likely to contract HIV as their white peers. Five years ago, the Human Rights Watch maintained that blame for the epidemic should be laid at the steps of the state capitol: "Mississippi laws and policies promote prejudice and discrimination against those vulnerable, and perceived to be vulnerable, to HIV, thereby contributing to the problem."

I traveled to the state to speak to Mississippians about what it's like to live there as a queer person of color, especially in the shadow of HB 1523. If queer black people were already marginalized, despite the fact that the state is 37 percent African-American, this discriminatory legislation only reinforces how unequal life in Mississippi really is.

Related: The Feds Just Told North Carolina to Stop Discriminating Against LGBT People

Soon after arriving, I met with Kells Randle, a junior at North Jackson's Millsaps college. We met at a Koinonia Coffee House in West Jackson. In the majority black neighborhood the establishment calls home, weathered houses teetered on the edge of collapse, one strong breeze from caving in. Other homes were boarded up, suggesting they were abandoned, but many had trucks parked in their driveways. These buildings weren't condemned. Their owners just couldn't afford to fix them.

Life in Jackson can be as harsh as the state is beautiful. Throughout the city, the roads are cracked and broken, due to decades of underfunding and mismanagement. There are potholes in West Jackson, which is predominantly populated by people of color, so large that on days after it rains, they look like concrete lakes in the middle of the street. In 2015, Jackson mayor Tony Yarber came up with a novel solution to the problem: He advised residents to pray the potholes away.

Against this backdrop Randle, 20, who identifies as genderfluid and uses gender-neutral pronouns, cut a striking figure wearing an Afrocentric headwrap and dark shades. Randle was born in Kosciusko, a small town located almost directly in the center of the state. Like Mississippi as a whole, their hometown has been defined by decades of segregation, even after the laws of the Jim Crow-era South were struck down. You had the parks in Kosciusko where the white people went, Randle explained, and the ones black people went to. There's one common denominator in the town: Southern Baptism, which Randle said "takes over the whole city."

Although Randle now identifies as queer, they first came out as a lesbian in middle school. Randle describes their peers as supportive; it's the adults who were the problem. Randle recalled that they were seen by other students as being a leader, so when they began wearing men's clothing to school, others followed. Their female friends even started to explore their own sexuality, much to their parents' disapproval. Outraged adults came to their mother, blaming Randle for the behavior. "Your daughter is influencing my child," they claimed.

Randle says the reaction from faculty was similar. According to Randle, they were forced by administrators to see the school counselor, after teachers observed the 14-year-old becoming close to another female student. The counselor, Randle says, sat the students down and gave them a speech about what the Bible preaches about homosexuality. "She gave us the example of Adam and Eve and told us that how two male frogs do not mate together, two female frogs do not mate together," Randle recalled.

Randle describes their college, in contrast, as a queer-friendly bubble in a conservative state—if a treacherously porous one. In February, the college held a "Black Cele-gay-tion" as part of its Black History Month programming. Per the name, the event was intended to honor the school's black queer student population. However, Randle and other students I spoke to say posters for the gathering were torn down, and on the monthly programming board where the event was listed, the word "gay" was repeatedly erased off the calendar.

When you're living in Mississippi, it's difficult to find places to hide, even in more tolerant, welcoming areas. Millsaps is adjacent to Fondren, a historic neighborhood where The Help was filmed. Fondren is known as a liberal enclave, called the "Brooklyn of Mississippi." It's also where Randle claims that they were all but refused service by a female shop owner, after visiting her store with their black, queer friends. According to Randle, the proprietor refused to speak to them or even acknowledge them. But when a group of white kids came in, Randle says, "She just glowed up talking to them."

In these situations, Chaz Curry, who serves as the president of Jackson State's queer student group, says that it's impossible to know why you're being discriminated against. "I get looks when I stop in a small town for gas," the 26-year-old said. "I don't know if it's because I'm not from around there, I'm black, or I'm a lesbian."

"If you're black, you're a second-class citizen," Curry explained. "Being LGBT, you're a third-class citizen. Being female, you're a fourth-class citizen."

Johnny Robinson, a 19-year-old student at Tougaloo College, said that these intersecting oppressions force black queer people to be very careful about their environment. "If we're not in spaces we created for ourselves, we have to be conservative... about how we express our personalities for the fear of being attacked or having racial slurs hurled at us," he said. In public, Robinson attempts to tone down or suppress any behaviors that might be perceived as "gay"—wearing more traditionally masculine clothing, lowering his voice, and not using hand gestures.

Katherine Day, a 34-year-old trans performer said living in Jackson can be difficult and lonely. But in order to survive, she's made peace with her surroundings. "I don't have a whole lot of friends here, and I'm really OK with that," she said. "I've learned to live my life whether people are there to support me or not."

Nat Offiah, a youth organizer for the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition, argued that Jackson's LGBT community is radiant and diverse, even in the face of harsh discrimination. Struggle is only a part of its story. "I don't think there's a single defining word that sums up the queer community in Jackson," Offiah said. "It's broad, it's vast, and it's in every facet of being a Jacksonian. It's not a community that's closed off. These people are your neighbors. They're your barbers. They're your cake makers and your beauticians. They're your post office workers."

In communities fighting for visibility and equality, Iihsaa-Milés Wrenn Jones sees a great potential for education. Jones, who identifies as genderfluid and uses gender-neutral pronouns, moved to Jackson from New Orleans four years ago. While the threat of violence is always a consideration, the 24-year-old believes that existing as a queer person in a conservative state can be a radical act. Jones said, "To be young and to be genderqueer here is to have moments like helping someone with groceries and the first comment will be, 'Oh, thank you young man' or 'Thank you young lady' and then I can say, 'I'm just a young person. I'm beyond gender.'"

Nat Offiah adds that following the passage of HB 1523, things are changing in Mississippi—if slowly. While the bill legalized discrimination in the state, its passage also signaled what she called an "activation period" for local activism: The kinds of people who would have never joined a picket line are suddenly becoming part of the movement to repeal the bill. "People are upset, people are angry, and people are ready to do something about it," Offiah said.

After the signing of HB 1523, outraged residents rallied outside the governor's mansion in Jackson to protest the legislation, holding signs that said "No Hate in My State." Katherine Day sees this moment as a ray of hope. "Some people find it easier to look at Mississippi as a locked door that they're beating on to open," Day said. "But life has taught me that when one door closes, another door opens—or just go through the window. When you lock yourself out of the house, you have to reach through the doggy door and hope your arms are long enough."

For black, queer people fighting decades of oppression in Mississippi, they may not have another choice.

Follow Nico Lang on Twitter.

Ankit Love

This article originally appeared on VICE UK.

Earlier this week, a mayoral candidate walked into the VICE London office. Not Zac Goldsmith, hoping to prove he does actually know the name of a Bollywood film, after telling reporters he "loves" Bollywood at the Asian Awards and then not being able to recall literally a single movie title. Not Sadiq Khan, either, hoping for some tips —any tips—on how to come across as even slightly charismatic.

No. Sitting by our front desk was Ankit Love, head of the One Love Party.

If you haven't heard of Ankit, don't worry; not a lot of people have—he doesn't have the campaigning budget of your Goldsmiths, Khans, or that smiley, thumby guy standing for the British Nationalist Party. But he is a candidate for Thursday's mayoral vote.

A self-styled "hippie 2.0" who's been affected by the housing crisis and is £20,000 ($29,000) in debt, he's at least someone you can probably relate to. So I spoke to him about his bid for London Mayor to see what kind of changes the One Love Party is hoping to introduce.

READ: All of the London mayoral election coverage on VICE

VICE: Ankit, what are your main policies?
Ankit Love: Our core policies are, first, on air pollution—to end the emissions in London, the nitrogen oxide, by basically converting all vehicles in the city into solar, electric, and hydrogen. It's such a core policy. The next one is the housing crisis, which is to build 1 million new social housing homes on land already owned by TFL, with a new breakthrough in modular construction. Our third policy is to legalize cannabis in London.

OK. Why are those three things so important to you and the party?
Well, I feel very passionate about them. I went through the housing crisis myself, and I'm still technically homeless right now—I live in a recording studio in a room with no windows and no heating. I'm all for fair business, but it's like feudalism—there's the land-owning lords and everybody else is paying them. I don't like that.

What about the weed?
I feel really passionate about legalizing cannabis, because it's actually a crime in itself that it's illegal. I think the law was originally based on racism, and it funds all the criminal activity in our society.

Surely cannabis legalization has to be dealt with at a national level, though?
Well, I would like it to be done through private enterprise and state-run dispensaries. In the US, states can decide these things for themselves. London has such a large population that, if we win, I've got millions of people behind me for this. So I'll have dispensaries licensed to sell clearly labelled products, and I'll instruct the police not to touch anyone who has clearly labelled stuff from our dispensaries—so if the government wants to mess with anyone, they have to take us to court.

Ankit's promotional flyer

Fair enough. Tell me more about your plans to tackle the housing crisis.
Well, the main political parties want the private sector to sort it out. I said, "No, I'm building high-rise social homes, but not the 1960s high rises." I'm a designer and film director who knows how to make beautiful things, so I'll oversee it. My plan uses flat-packed construction, which makes prefabricated skyscrapers. You can erect a 57-story building in 19 days, at a fraction of the cost.

What motivated you to run for mayor?
Well, I've always been involved in politics through my family, but recently I went through a personal crisis where I lost my house and ended up in a youth hostel. While in the hostel I met a lot of young people, and in talking to them I inspired them, and we ended up forming a political party in the youth hostel. So we formed the political party, and there was a mayoral election coming along, so I thought I could make a change. I know how to do it: I know how to legislate and I know how to campaign, so let's try.

Is this not your first foray into politics?
Well, I was born with the name "Love" because I was born in a war zone austerity and talking to the kids, they really listened to me, so I founded the party then and there with others who had hit hard times.

What sort of team do you have behind you at the moment?
We have Pax Brown—he's the general secretary for the party. He's 24. My cofounder, Ben, from Cambridge, is 30. We have an LSE student who's 19, and we have a party member who's currently in Kashmir. He's a filmmaker there.

OK. So who does the One Love Party represent?
Well, nobody really represents the youth in politics currently—just look at the other guys: Nobody relates to youth culture and what the people want. I think they need One Love because we're young—everybody in the party is young—and we share the same problems. Nobody champions these things.

The chances of you winning the election are slim. Do you think many people will vote for you?
I concur, they're very slim. But we're the One Love Party, based on techno-progressive values. We've put ourselves out here to solve these issues in a practical way using modern technology and modern values. If we just get 5 percent , that's 100,000 people, going by the 38 percent turnout last election. That would get us third in the election. If we come third, at least every young person in the country will know about us and want to be a part of the movement.

George W Bush and George H.W. Bush. Photo: U.S. Navy / Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jason Winn, via

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

US News

• Army Captain Sues Obama Over IS
  A US Army captain is suing President Obama, alleging that he doesn't have the proper constitutional authority to fight the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria. Capt. Nathan Michael Smith supports the fight against IS, calling them an "army of butchers," but he believes Obama must ask Congress to authorize military force.—NBC News
• California Raises Smoking Age to 21
  Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill raising the smoking age from 18 to 21 in California. It also raises the legal age to buy materials for vaping to 21. Senator Ed Hernandez, author of the bill, said he expected other states to follow. But the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association said it "stigmatized" vapor products. —Los Angeles Times
• Clinton May Testify Over Private Emails
  A federal judge has ruled Hillary Clinton may be deposed in a case related to her use of private email while she was secretary of state. The ruling is part of a lawsuit between conservative group Judicial Watch and the State Department, with the group suing for the employment records of Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. —ABC News
• Bush Family Won't Endorse Trump
  Neither George W. Bush nor his father George H.W. Bush will endorse presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, according to the younger Bush's personal aide. Trump became the GOP's presidential candidate-in-waiting after John Kasich ended his campaign on Tuesday. —The Texas Tribune

International News

• Syrian Ceasefire Extended to Aleppo
  An agreement has been reached between Russia and the US to extend the ceasefire in Syria to the city of Aleppo. The Syrian army confirmed the ceasefire, which began at midnight, saying there would be a "regime of calm" in place for the next 48 hours. The US State Department said there had been a "decrease in violence." —Al Jazeera
• State of Emergency Declared in Alberta
  A state of emergency has been declared in the province of Alberta in Canada after a wildfire forced all 88,000 residents of Fort McMurray to evacuate. Officials warned the blaze could destroy much of the city since the fire has resisted all suppression methods. Several oil companies operating in the province have shut down pipelines. —CBC News
• Turkey PM Set to Resign
  Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu is expected to resign after a reported rift with President Tayyip Erdogan. Davutoglu is also the leader of the ruling AK Party, and an "extraordinary congress" is now expected later this month to allow for the election of a new party head. —The Guardian
• Australian IS Recruiter Killed in Iraq
  An Australian man said to be a leading recruiter for the Islamic State group has been killed by a US airstrike in Iraq. Neil Prakash was the country's "most prominent" IS recruiter and had been "actively inspiring and inciting terrorism attacks within Australia," said the Australian Attorney General. —CNN

Timothy Littlefield, the so-called "godfather of weed," on the Yurok Reservation, Humboldt, California. Photo by Sierra Crane-Murdoch, via

Everything Else

• Feds Join Prince Death Inquiry
  Federal authorities, including the US Attorney's office in Minnesota and the DEA, have joined the investigation into the artist's death. An addiction doctor confirmed he was set to meet Prince a day before he died. —VICE News
• Weed Legalization Set for California Ballot
  Supporters of a drive to legalize recreational marijuana in California say they have collected 600,000 signatures, enough to qualify for the state's November ballot. The measure would allow anyone over 21 to possess up to an ounce of weed.—TIME
• White House to Investigate AI
  The White House is going to spend the summer researching how the government should deal with artificial intelligence. The administration's AI research program will look at how to regulate self-driving cars, drones, and worker robots. —Motherboard
• Brooklyn's Cement-Shoe Corpse Identified
  Police have identified a dead body washed found ashore in Brooklyn with cemented shoes. The man was 28-year-old Peter Martinez, a career criminal with 31 prior arrests. NYPD's chief of detectives said it was "obviously a homicide." —VICE

Done with reading for today? That's fine—instead, watch this retro action film about a crime-fighting taekwondo rock band.

Adélaïde at age six

This article originally appeared on VICE France

For most people, thinking about their childhood brings up some nostalgia—smells, songs, making your first friends, getting physically ill with excitement just thinking about Christmas coming up—great stuff, if you drown out the night terrors, the surprise projectile vomiting, and the scraped knees. When I think about my childhood, I don't think about any of that. I'm mostly just sad and ashamed, having gone from my school's favorite punching bag to an all out miserable bully.

I was born in Les Sables-d'Olonne, a seaside resort in the Vendée department. Each summer, thousands of French and foreign tourists flock to the beaches of my town to soak up the sun. Off-season, it's a very charming and quiet city, with only 15,000 inhabitants. My family—my parents, my two sisters, and myself—lived not far from the beach. Like my sisters, I went to a private school in my neighborhood. Despite our school being very Catholic, the kids there weren't loving their neighbors. They were cruel and I was their target.

We weren't very rich, so my mom always acted as my hairdresser. It wasn't one of her talents: my badly cut, thick bangs lay heavy on my forehead. On top of that, I always wore my sisters' old clothes that were way too big for me. I basically looked like a rag doll. You can't be expected to have great fashion sense when you're eight but, sadly, all my classmates came from rich families and they all cared about style. They went after me for how I looked. This one time, one of the kids picked up a broom from the playground, held me down, and brushed my hair with it. When I brought snacks, Pogs, or Michael Jackson Panini cards to school, they'd disappear in my classmates' pockets.

Looking back, I can't really blame them, because our teachers didn't like me either. I broke my wrist one morning, falling off a sled. My teacher ignored me because she thought I was faking it but a few hours later, I was at the hospital with a fresh cast on my arm. My parents frequently complained about the situation but nothing changed. They didn't want to move me to a different school.

When I finally left for secondary school, many kids from my old school came along so nothing changed. Each morning, one of my classmates would welcome me with a knee in the thigh. But that's when, I started observing the older students, who I thought were way more interesting and had more character than kids my age. They weren't bullied—they dictated the rules. I started befriending older kids in school and imitating them. To start a new life, I had to become a new person.

The first time I got in a fistfight was with one of my old friends, just before art class. I don't remember why we fought. After that, every time anything didn't go the way I wanted, I would systematically slap or hit the person connected to it. It didn't matter if they were a boy or a girl: I'd go for them as long as they were the kind of kid I had been—vulnerable and reserved. I laughed at them and mocked the way they looked. It was so easy. I knew perfectly well how to reduce my victims to tears.

I loved the fact that I was suddenly feared—it was a sweet revenge on exactly the wrong people.

Having been a victim of bullying myself, I knew well that I was destroying their already low self-esteem. But I loved the fact that I was suddenly feared—it was a sweet revenge on exactly the wrong people. I started having more fights with my parents, did really badly at school, and had to repeat a year. In retrospect, that's probably the best thing that could have happened to me at that time.

Friendship is a very relative concept when you are a teenager and repeating a year separated me from my new friends—even if it only meant they were in a different classroom in the same building. It was an opportunity for me to see them with some distance. When I talked to them, the girls only cared about boys and sex. They shared all details of their intimate relationships and their boyfriends with me, which I cared nothing about. I realized that I didn't want to be like them.

I was still impulsive but I managed to control my anger. I made some new friends who I still see today—they were a bit more stable than my old friends. I gradually became aware of the harm I had done to people and took care to apologize to everyone I had abused and assaulted.

Adélaïde with one of her friends

The story of my aggression, however, does not end there. The new experiences that adolescence brought led me to binge drinking. As expected, getting completely trashed every Friday and Saturday did not help me get over my bad habits.

Pretty much every party I was drunk at, ended badly. Living in a seaside resort means that you can hang out on the beach with your friends and a couple of bottles of liquor but it also means you have to put up with bratty surfers. One night, one of them noticed I was drunk and tried to kiss me. When I said no, he gave me an angry push. I reacted by punching him hard in the face. I hadn't expected him to do the same but he did, and that obviously started an all out brawl when my friends came to protect my honor.

My friends were usually the ones bearing the brunt of my drunken rage, though. One of them, Manu—probably one of the most open and sensitive people I know—had an especially hard time with me. Butter knives, shoes, PlayStation joysticks: I threw anything I could get my hands on at his face whenever I got drunk, along with some harsh, personal insults. My friends started avoiding me: I was an explosive and vodka was my detonator. The fact that they begun to distance themselves from me made me realize that if I didn't stop being a prick, I would end up alone. I had just left secondary school and I didn't want to lose the friends who had changed my life for the better.

It's been four years since I stopped abusing alcohol. These days, I just have a couple of drinks on a night out and my friends appreciate my moderation.

I still feel really ashamed about my childhood—especially the part where I hurt fragile people despite knowing what it felt like to be humiliated. I was just so angry, and that anger was directed towards everyone and no one at the same time. I guess I wanted to prove that nobody could hurt me. That doesn't really matter as much to me any more.

Mark Graham

In 2016, the idea of corporations running large-scale weed-growing operations is a relatively mainstream one. With attitudes relaxing towards cannabis, the plant now being legal in a number of states, and the "green economy" clearly being a very viable way of making big money, it probably won't be all that long until we start to see multinational conglomerates built on buds.

However, in the early 2000s, weed was still a dirty word; the notion of a cannabis farm being able to operate like a legitimate, tax-paying business would have seemed absurd. So you can imagine their surprise when, in 2010, North Wales police discovered that such an enterprise had been running out of a factory in a Kinmel Bay industrial estate since the turn of the millennium, right next to their helicopter HQ.

The business worked exactly like a regular company, conducting interviews with prospective employees and paying taxes under the guise of being a legal business. Authorities claimed that the company, which was Wales's biggest cannabis farm, generated profits of $2 million per year, and was described in court as "nothing short of a rolling production line."

I caught up with its former owner, Mark Graham, to find out how he managed to keep such a ridiculously large grow house going for over a decade.

A gardener tending to plants in the factory

VICE: What made you want to get involved in growing weed on this scale?
Mark Graham: I started off importing cannabis, working with a group in Holland known as the Amsterdam Mafia. I'm an engineer at heart, though, not a middleman, and like to make money by making something new instead of simply adding a mark-up to someone else's work. To grow cannabis properly while remaining undercover was a complex project to set up. The day-to-day growing was quite boring, and I think that's why I couldn't resist continually expanding the operation to increase the challenge.

What made you want to set up your cannabis factory right next to the headquarters of North Wales police's helicopter division? Was that to add to the challenge?
The police spin doctors regularly tell the newspapers they've closed down another drug factory, when they actually mean a dingy little room in a house. They wouldn't know a drug factory if one collapsed on them. They're so busy looking for misdemeanors they can big up that they miss the important stuff. My factories were so big that they couldn't recognize them for what they were. A massive factory next to the police helicopter hangar was invisible to them.

How did your factory operate? I read it was structured like a legitimate business.
I was the boss; I made policy decisions and controlled the overview of the enterprise. I was responsible for all engineering and equipment. I set the price, collected seeds from the Netherlands twice a year, made deliveries to the distributors, and mucked in with the gardening crew. James controlled the day-to-day conveyor operations. Three others were the gardening crew.

Over time, I developed two good distributors in the south of England, who acted autonomously. I knew very little about them, which was deliberate. They didn't trade at street level, but through a group of associates. At various times over the years, I recruited others, but soon dropped them, usually because they were either dishonest or lazy.

How did you source your employees?
I advertised in a couple of magazines and newspapers around London. The adverts were vague; I can't remember the exact wording. Like most job ads, they were comprised of words that meant nothing.

And what about the job interviews? You presumably had to be very careful about how much you gave away.
Yes. The average testosterone-fueled young man likes the idea of a little risk, but still has a sense of morality. I asked questions like: Do you have a problem breaking a meaningless law? Do you want a decent job that pays properly? Do you want to be part of a professional outfit? Can you follow orders and work as a team? And: Do you want respect for your efforts?

You're against the prohibition of cannabis—were you motivated as much by those beliefs as the lure of profit?
I don't promote the use of cannabis. Personally, I don't smoke it and never have. I do, however, drink the occasional glass of wine or whisky. The government's own scientific advisors are on record as saying that if alcohol was invented today, under the present rules, it would be borderline class A or B. Therefore, there's obviously no health-related reason for banning cannabis, so the government is lying. You have to ask yourself: Why? What's the nature of the conspiracy? The answer, of course, is money. They can't find a way to tax a weed that will grow anywhere. I didn't grow cannabis as some kind of political statement; I did it to make money. Earning a living honestly is a righteous thing to do, providing it doesn't cause harm to others. Just because you don't approve of a particular vice, it doesn't give you the right to make criminals of those who enjoy harmless pleasures that are different to your own.

Clippings about Mark's arrests

Are you for the legalization of all drugs, or just cannabis?
Our government deliberately banned scientists from researching the effects of drugs in this country, so no one could get to the truth. King's College London got around this by conducting twenty-five years of research in New Zealand. The college's expert conclusion was that cannabis is safe for adults. It's not safe for children, but who in their right mind would serve recreational drugs to children? I'm not knowledgeable about other drugs, and unlike politicians, I don't mouth off on subjects about which I know nothing.

You've previously claimed that the reason you were able to get away undetected for so long was that, apart from growing cannabis, you were a law-abiding citizen.
Yeah, the only reason nut cases are involved in cannabis supply is because our government has frightened off the sensible people. It was exactly the same with the 1920s alcohol prohibition in America; if you're not inclined to violence or dishonesty, there's no reason why plants can't be grown and the crop sold to willing customers for a fair price. In spite of what the government says, the market is huge and expanding—why would you want to resort to any form of criminal behavior?

One of the trickiest parts was declaring income tax and corporation tax, which I did. It's very difficult to pay tax on drug income, but I managed it. Perversely, the government calls it "money laundering" when you set up a front company to pay them tax.

You also claim that legally held cash and assets disappeared after your businesses had been raided, and then that three of your warehouses were burned down. Can you go into more detail about that?
Around £60,000 worth of goods were taken from three warehouses in Kinmel Bay that I had rented. As the police left the warehouses, all three of them conveniently burned to the ground. A substantial amount of cash was also seized from my distributors and never reported. It just disappeared from the face of the Earth.

The entire initial restraint and confiscation process was illegal as well. They used the wrong law—the Proceeds of Crime Act instead of the Drug Trafficking Act. POCA only became operational in 2003, and I was being indicted from 2000. You can't be indicted for a crime that didn't exist when you committed it! The police have no concept of legality; it's purely a case of what they can get away with.

POCA is designed to confiscate from anyone all assets that the government wishes to take. It's not necessary to have committed a crime, and the burden of proof is reversed so that those targeted must prove in court not only that their assets were acquired by legal means, but also that they'll never be used in the future for an unlawful act. Remember the Tom Cruise film Minority Report? POCA allows our judges to claim they can predict the future.

What are you doing now that your cannabis growing days are over?
After writing Cannabis Man, which was my first ebook about my experiences growing cannabis, I needed a website and internet presence, but couldn't find anyone who did what I wanted, so I taught myself coding and arranged everything myself. This has grown into a business for all kinds of independent entrepreneurs.

Nowadays, I try to tell my younger amigos that a disaster is something to be embraced, because as you climb out of a crater, you have a chance to examine the framework that holds everything up. I may not have encountered the breadth of the state's corruption, but I've certainly had a chance to witness the depth of its depravity.

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