Have you heard of a show called Game of Thrones? According to Wikipedia, "Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series," and you can really see what that means if you tune in every night at whatever time it's on! Everyone dresses funny, like they're from the past, even though it's not the past because there are dragons and every place is made up. Mostly, the actors are in Ireland, but they never admit that and instead go, like, "I will ride this morn to Dothraki" or whatever. You just have to suspend your disbelief because otherwise, how are you going to enjoy any television show?

It's a good thing Game is not real because it is a pretty scary show! I don't have kids, but if I did, I wouldn't let them watch Thrones. I'd send them to bed because otherwise they'd be all, "Wow, is that actually someone's actual labia? I know it's HBO, but can they really show that?" and, "Throwing time travel into a plot just seems like a lazy way to retcon various aspects of the story that George R. R. Martin didn't think about because he's just making this shit up as he goes along," and, "OH SHIT MOTHERFUCKER GOT OWNED OMG OMG." I also don't watch the show, so why would my kids be watching it? Sorry, I didn't really think this through.

Anyway, I wouldn't let my kids see these new photos from the next episode of Game either because they are super intense! I hope you enjoy them because I definitely don't.

All photos courtesy of HBO unless otherwise noted

Haha. Hey buddy, that is probably not the recommended way to fight horses—also, why are you fighting horses? Don't get involved in other species' battles! Seriously, though, what a wild thing to see.

Whoa, that is a big guy! Where does he even get shoes?!?!?

Damn, that is a LOT of people! One thing's for sure: This episode cost a bunch of money to make, because I think you have to pay all those guys!

Photo via Helen Sloan/HBO

What makes Game such a good show is that one minute it's all ACTION, and the next minute it's, "Hey, here is a man looking pensive and probably thinking big thoughts."

Photo via Helen Sloan/HBO

Hell yeah, glad that fans of this character finally get a chance to see him in action!

Photo via Helen Sloan/HBO

Good photo here of two people.

Photo via Helen Sloan/HBO

Man, a lot of people are going to be talking about how a bunch of guys are getting ready to fight one another here, but I think the real story is the guy on the horse. Lots going on here.

Photo via Helen Sloan/HBO

Is that guy angry at something in one of the other photos? Or something else? Lots of questions, but I guess we're going to have to tune in to find out! Game of Thrones!

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Nikoleta, a Bulgarian student from Plovdiv and one of the main characters in 'The Summer Help,' working as a housekeeper in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Still via 'The Summer Help'

When Melody Gilbert, an American professor, taught at a prestigious university in Bulgaria four years ago, she didn't expect her students to fall asleep in her class.

"After summer break, students are supposed to be relaxed and happy and comfortable," Gilbert told VICE. Instead, "the first week a lot of them were really, really tired."

The reason, it turned out, was that many of her students had spent the summer pulling 80 to 100 hour workweeks at minimum wage jobs in the United States.

The students come to the US on the J-1 Visa Exchange Visitor Program, which allows (mostly young) foreigners from select countries to temporarily work in the United States for the purpose of "cultural exchange." The US grants about 300,000 of these visas each year, according to the Department of State. But rather than spending the summer like exchange students, sightseeing and making American friends, some of these students come to know America through low-wage jobs, as maids, servers, and kitchen staff. They are "the help."

Not all students on the J-1 Visa Program have a negative experience, and for some, the summer amounts to an endless party. But for others—especially students from poor, non-English-speaking countries like Bulgaria—the experience can feel like a raw deal. In a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, some students said they felt "deceived" or "exploited" by the program, and in 2011, hundreds of J-1 Visa workers protested unfair wages at the Hershey's plant where they worked. "There is no cultural exchange," one Chinese undergraduate told the New York Times."It is just work, work faster, work."

Gilbert turned this phenomenon into a documentary called The Summer Help, which follows some of her Bulgarian students as they leave their country, often for the first time, to work in the US for the summer. One pair of students, Elena and Nikoleta, spend the summer working as hotel maids in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. As they settle into their new lives, working for Americans on vacation (who are not always welcoming), we watch them reconcile their expectations with the reality of being a foreigner in the United States.

VICE spoke with Gilbert about her experience making the film, the students she followed, and the contrasting realities of living and working in America.

Elena from Bulgaria, one of the main characters in the documentary, 'The Summer Help,'makes pizza at her second job. Still via 'The Summer Help'

VICE: The J-1 Program is meant to be about cultural exchange between Americans and foreigners, but these students come and basically just work for eighty hours a week in multiple jobs. Who benefits the most from the program: the students, or those who hire them?
Melody Gilbert: When I make a film, I'm not judging. I'm just showing the experience. It is up to you to decide how you see . I'm not positive about it.

One thing that shocked me in the beginning is that you had to pay to come to the US to work these minimum wage jobs. You pay a fee to a job placement company, you pay for your airfare, and then you pay for your own housing and meals. You pay for everything—for this opportunity to come to America and work minimum wage jobs. Some people succeed in making the money back and some people don't.

What was the goal of the film?
The aim was to show the experiences these students had. Also, for me, it was interesting to see how they saw us—Americans. At first, I thought I was making a film just about them and their experiences. Then I thought, Gee. Look at how we are, how they see us, how wasteful we are, how fake we are with our fake smiles and good mornings and all that stuff. It was very interesting to observe that.

The two girls you mostly follow throughout the film—how did their perception of America change from beginning to end?
They ended up having completely different experiences. In the beginning, they are both excited and open-minded. The only reference you have for America is what you see on TV or in movies. I think the first week, it is exciting to be here and little by little you find out... For one of the girls, there was someone at her job cleaning a hotel who lied about her—about something she did. Being a foreigner and newly arrived in the country, you can't really do anything about that. You learn to adjust your thinking and how you deal with those things. If she complained about that man who was American, she probably would have been fired. She ended up leaving that job anyway—there were trust issues, and just anywhere is not what you think it is going to be. I mean, is America ever what people think it is going to be?

"I thought, 'Look at how they see us, how wasteful we are, how fake we are with our fake smiles and good mornings and all that stuff.'" — Melody Gilbert

In your film, one of the girls enjoyed the experience and the other did not–why do you think that was?
It could just be where they went. Myrtle Beach in South Carolina is perhaps not the friendliest place for foreigners. That could be why, but I don't really know. It shows that you can have different experiences depending on where you are placed and the job you get. I think the in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and Martha's Vineyard—many of them had really positive experiences. Even though it is hard work, it's a nicer environment. There are a lot of wealthy people who treat them nicer and gave them bigger tips, and they felt a part of the community. In Provincetown, some of the students went back four or five times.

In Myrtle Beach, I didn't see a lot of students who felt that way there. It just so happens that the two main characters in the film were best friends, went to the same place, worked the same jobs, and had completely different experiences. Sometimes it is your personality or the places where you are and their tolerance for international students. Sometimes they are welcomed, and sometimes they are not. Sometimes they are just working. Sometimes they are a part of the community.

For the Bulgarian students, how much of the incentive is financial? Or is it the cultural experience?
It is financial, absolutely. They have the opportunity to make, in one summer, what their parents might make in one or two years. The mom makes $8 a day, and she comes to the US and makes $8 an hour. That's progress, right?

Coming here for the summer is an opportunity to get ahead. Once they are here, they are also motivated to experience the culture, to get to know people and try to get people to know them. But most people aren't really interested. They just see them as workers with funny name tags. One girl from Kazakhstan was working at a bar, and the people she was waiting on asked, 'Where are you from?' And she said, 'Kazakhstan.' Someone said, 'Is that even a country?' She has learned to laugh at this and realizes that you can educate people about your country too. I wanted to show that it is an opportunity for interaction. Sometimes it creates more, and sometimes it doesn't.

But some American bosses also saw these students as family. Was that common?
One boss who owned a fish store—when I first spoke to him, he was the typical, 'Oh yeah, doesn't know where his workers are from.' Then the more I talked to him, the more I realized he felt the same way I felt about the students. He could see that they were special people. They were not just workers—that they gave up a lot to come here for the summer to the US, that they are the future journalists and lawyers and bankers and doctors of their countries, and he could see that. He continued to invite students who even stayed in the family home with his family. Some of the employers are really lovely, and some aren't. Driving around the country, which I did for five thousand miles, I went to check where all these students lived. Some lived in places that had six or seven in a room. Others had a nicer environment. I wasn't there to judge it, but just to document their experiences.

At a few points in the film, there seems to be some sort of camaraderie between the Bulgarian students and other immigrants—such as workers from Central America who have been here for years. Is there a special relationship or understanding there?
There is a point in the film when one of the girls gets invited to a party by one of her Mexican co-workers, who is a cleaner at the hotel they work at. And I think the other people were saying to her, 'Why are you going to a Mexican person's birthday party?' She felt more connected to them because they were all here for the same reason. 'They were all there to work,' is what she said. Also, they are a very close family. They stick together, and it reminded her of her family life back home.

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Evalion, a self-described 18-year-old "free thinker", boasting a Donald Trump hat. Photo via YouTube

"I'm a homosexual, black Jew, how should I kill myself?" a tweet, sent to Twitter user @Evalion88, reads in what appears to be an attempt at crude trolling. The recipient account, prior to being suspended by Twitter earlier this week (the new account is allegedly a fake), responded.

(Sipa via AP Images)

Within hours of the horrific massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Sunday, media outlets associated with the Islamic State moved to claim "lone wolf" Omar Mateen as one of their own. Initial reports detailing the terrorist's searches for jihadist content leading up to the attack, along with confirmation that he pledged his allegiance to ISIS while inside the club, served to bolster the legitimacy of the self-described caliphate's declaration of solidarity. But rumors have since trickled out suggesting Mateen may have acted in no small part based on his own confused sexual orientation and attendant self-loathing. The narrative of a troubled gay man has led some observers to suggest that ISIS, a viciously anti-gay group, claimed Mateen too soon—and that the terrorist outfit might suffer from the irony of hastily inducting him into its bigoted ranks.

According to a number of terrorism analysts tracking the ISIS response to Orlando, however, the group's propagandists may be able to play Mateen's identity to their advantage. Even if they can't, experts suggest ISIS simply cannot back away from the attack, which arrived at a fortuitous time as it weathers a multi-front assault in the Middle East. Indeed, the tragedy may be used as fuel for a potentially powerful new ISIS propaganda blitz more explicitly targeting the LGBTQ community than ever before.

That ISIS would go all-in on Mateen is a bit surprising given the tentative nature of the group's initial claim to the attack. On Sunday, Amaq—the Islamic State's official news agency-slash-propaganda division—issued a statement that seemed more restrained than usual, almost like it was testing the waters, according to Veryan Khan of the Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC). The group followed up with further statements and basic images and videos, but even those materials paled in comparison to those released after the Brussels or Paris attacks.

"Nothing splashy, nothing in high-def," Khan tells VICE. "That's all just recycled material."

The Islamic State may have felt pushed to make a rapid claim, Khan suggests, because in the hours following the attack almost every major Islamic extremist group on Earth seemed eager to take credit as well. According to RAND Corporation political scientist and terrorism watcher Colin Clarke, once US outlets began linking the attacks to ISIS, it was almost natural for its propagandists to try and capitalize.

"We've seen people be guilted that way before and pushed toward the jihadist movement." —Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Now ISIS seems to be escalating coverage of the attack, creating higher-quality posters and distributing them via Telegram channels named after the shooter. Khan suspects these posters are the prelude to a new round of Orlando-focused propaganda videos, while Clarke posits that ISIS may eventually profile Mateen in Dabiq, its glossy apocalyptic magazine.

Post-Orlando ISIS propaganda courtesy of TRAC

According to Clarke, ISIS propagandists are doubling down in part because they've never really backed away from a claim of responsibility before. They can also easily brush off emerging details on Mateen and his sexual orientation as Western fabrications. "It just proves that infidels lie more than anyone can produce this kind of evidence at will." And according to Patrick Skinner, director of special projects and a jihadi expert at the intelligence consultancy Soufan Group, some ISIS fans may not be paying too much attention anyway. "They live in a fact-free bubble resistant to counter narratives," he says. "The hypocrisy of a secretly gay man acting for the world's most violently homophobic terrorist group will be lost on them."

Even if evidence of Mateen's sexual orientation grows too strong for ISIS to deny, the group might be able to spin it as a positive, according to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. ISIS often markets martyrdom not as a good death for unblemished men, but as a path to heaven for those who've led sinful lives in the group's eyes.

"We've seen people be guilted that way before and pushed towards the jihadist movement," Gartenstein-Ross explains. And as Khan notes, they could just come out and say, "Look how blood. Anything he has possibly thought or done, he has now atoned for."

Regardless of how ISIS handles reports about Mateen's sexuality, the experts VICE spoke to agree that the group was in dire straits before the attack. As its forces continue to suffer escalating losses in Iraq, Libya, and Syria and a crunch on their pipelines of supplies and foreign fighters, morale has to be low. And according to Khan and Skinner, the volume of supporters' Twitter chatter and of propaganda flowing out of its central command had slowed significantly prior to Orlando.

This attack gives ISIS something new to talk about, boosting its profile and, some argue, validating the strategy of encouraging attacks by supporters in their home countries if they can no longer make it to the front lines. This hit on the Untied States, which has mostly escaped the damage suffered by countries like Belgium and France, came soon after a major speech by ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani inciting violence at home during the holy month of Ramadan. This message was helped along when Orlando was almost immediately followed by another ISIS-claimed attack in France.

Post-Orlando ISIS propaganda courtesy of TRAC

Orlando also offers ISIS propagandists a new target of emphasis: LGBTQ people around the world. The group has always been open about its hatred of gays, posting videos of members throwing suspected LGBTQ people off of roofs in the Middle East. But until now, this hasn't been on the top of its agenda for international propaganda, according to Khan. Over the past few days, new posters have started to shift from a general incitement to kill non-believers toward targeting gays and specific gay pride events. Khan deems this especially important, as ISIS has endured tough press within the jihadi community for killing civilians and Muslims, which many radicals find distasteful. (That dispute was at the center of ISIS's rift with al Qaeda.)

"But this is something everyone can get on the bandwagon with," Khan says. "Everyone hates homosexuals worldwide in the jihadi mentality, and this will . Like: 'Oh shit, why didn't we think about this? We already hate them!'"

An Orlando-focused media blitz by ISIS operatives will do little to help the group weather attacks on its territories. But regardless of what we learn about Mateen, experts concur the group will use this attack to breathe new life into its propaganda machine, milking it for everything it's worth. And they're apparently willing do so with a new international focus on and vitriol toward LGBTQ communities. One can only pray they do not succeed.

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Photo via Flickr users Gage Skidmore and Sean Savage

The National Rifle Association may have endorsed Donald Trump back in May, but the enormously powerful lobbying group is still getting used to his freewheeling style.

Until now, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has sounded like your standard-fare pro-gun candidate, opposing stricter regulation even in the wake of last weekend's tragic mass shooting in Orlando. (Trump shifted his focus to his proposed Muslim immigration ban.) But a tweet on Wednesday from Trump indicated he plans to meet with the NRA about the question of blocking the sale of firearms to people on the feds' suspected terrorist watchlist, as CNN reports.

The NRA responded on its site, suggesting it'd be happy to meet with the Donald, but isn't willing to accept any kind of "outright ban," even if the buyer is a suspected terrorist.

The closest the group will come to agreeing to any real regulation, as far as its latest statement goes, is to say that "anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing." But the group also said that "due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watchlist to be removed."

The debate surrounding the sale of guns to possible terror suspects has been thrust back into the spotlight following the Orlando LGBTQ nightclub attack, the deadliest mass shooting in American history.

While the shooter, Omar Mateen, was not on the no-fly list nor officially a suspected terrorist at the time of the incident, he had been under FBI scrutiny twice and still managed to purchase multiple guns just days before carrying out his attack.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

A team of researchers from the Medical University of Vienna's Department of Clinical Pharmacology has developed the world's first vaccine for toxic shock syndrome (TSS). It would provide immunity from the infection for up to five years.

TSS is caused by an overgrowth of a bacteria called Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause fevers, fatigue, vomiting, and in serious cases, death. Half of TSS cases involve a person with a compromised immune system, like someone on dialysis. The other half of cases are related to tampon use.

While TSS is rare—there were only 26 cases reported in the United States last year—the infection can be devastating. In 2015, we broke the story of Lauren Wasser, a model who lost her leg and part of one foot after she contracted TSS from wearing a tampon. That same year, a string of teenagers in Michigan were hospitalized and a 13-year-old girl in the UK died from the infection, also from wearing tampons.

The new vaccine, which requires an initial shot plus a booster, proved to be safe, effective, and yielded virtually zero side effects in the first phrase of clinical trials. (The full findings are published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.) The research team is currently recruiting volunteers for the second phase of clinical trials.

"We are well on the way to having a vaccine that prevents this serious disease," said Dr. Martha Eibl, one of the study's authors, in a statement. "However, it will still take some years before it is in clinical use."

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There's this idea that nothing good ever happens after 2 AM. It's an idea that has been turned into a "Keep Calm and Carry On"-style poster, so you know that a lot of pretty terrible people think it's both hilarious and true. If you believe it's true, perhaps you're a boring person. Or perhaps you've been there, done that, and have to get up when the party's just really getting started because somehow you've found yourself in possession of three young children.

The late night and early morning may lead us down the path to bad decisions and worse consequences, it may sometimes be the backdrop to the kind of anger and heartbreak that takes half a lifetime to mend, but it can also be where connections are made, where ideas are encountered, where life happens. You may find yourself in an alien city, the light rising at the gray distant horizon, with a feeling that whatever happens to you, you will be OK, and that life, however hard it becomes, will always have something in it to hold your interest.

The author, engaged in some "mad little event" at god know's what hour of the night

It is in these hours when mad little events happen, when we might learn something new by listening to someone we'd never bothered listening to before. Yes, it's also about sex and drugs and drinking; yes, it's a time more suited to the young and the single, but the hours in and around dawn can also just be when our yearning to live becomes most arresting.

The afterparty is the stage for this. You need songs that get people up on their feet and dancing, you need songs that energize people when the night is in danger of dying. But those songs are more the preserve of the party proper than what happens afterward. At some point, when the threat of the sun is too present to ignore, the mood of your afterparty will have changed and you will need something that works for the people sitting down and lying back, the people chasing their own thoughts and crawling into conversational burrows.

The Roxy Music song "Avalon"––from the band's eighth and final album of the same name––is the song for this moment. It skims along the surface, hums underneath the tension; it's sexy and louche, full of ambiguity and veiled promise. The music writer Simon Reynolds called Roxy's last album "immaculate background music," and while he meant it critically, as a way of noting the difference between this and the band's earlier, more engagingly experimental work, in the case of the afterparty, "immaculate background music" can become something of a compliment. There is both everything and nothing in this song, just as there can be everything and nothing in the afterparty.

There's something literal-minded in this choice. "Now the party's over," Bryan Ferry sings over a sparse, spacious musical background, "I'm so tired." You're feeling like this, flopped back into whatever you're sitting on, thoughts and substances buzzing through your synapses––thoughts like, Can a thought buzz through a synapse? But the party isn't over. The night promises more. The promise lies in between the lines of conversation, in moments and movements. There's Bryan Ferry, in his white dinner jacket, crooning of possibilities:

"Then I see you coming, out of nowhere / Much communication, in a motion / Without conversation, or a notion"

Later, he will sing, "Yes, the picture's changing, every moment / And your destination, you don't know it," against the picked guitar lines and washes of synth. His words speak of the mysteries and potential of a late night and the music––spare and elegant; an immaculate, impenetrable surface––speaks of the frazzled sheen of those hours, the thrum of sex in the air. You and your fellow partygoers are sitting and lying down but you will also dance––"out of nowhere," as Ferry puts it. The music will take you and you will find yourself in the arms of someone you love or someone you could love, someone you know deeply or not at all.

Still from Roxy Music's 'Avalon'

In the video for the song, Ferry appears in his dinner jacket inside a grand 19th century house. What story there is seems to concern the penetration of this world––the elite, remote, cold, and desperate world of the British upper classes, in which refinement at the surface masks cruelty and unhappiness. Ferry, the outsider, is drawn to it, needs to continue on further down the path of the night, to wherever the afterparty might lead. He both does and does not want to be part of something.

This mystery is present too in the song's title, its chorus ("Avalon," simply crooned), and the cover art to the album, which shows a woman in armor, a falcon on her helmet, sailing toward an isle. This isle is Avalon, a place in the legend of King Arthur. After being fatally wounded by his illegitimate son Mordred at the Battle of Camlann, it is said that Arthur was taken to Avalon to recover from his wounds, fatal though they were. It is on this island that his sword Excalibur was forged and it is from this island that he will return to lead his people to victory.

There is mystery and mythology in the late hours of the night. There is a spiritual dimension that has been lost in the rest of our lives, a sense of communion, a reminder of being together in some distant Arthurian past, a fire burning on the banks of a river, the flames licking upward, lighting the faces of those you know and half-know, tomorrow something to be thought about and negotiated later, tension and togetherness, sex and subterfuge, surprise in a world stripped of surprises, the route unclear as you chart your boat toward what you hope is the isle of Avalon.

Previously - Why 'Suddenly' by Billy Ocean Is the Best Afterparty Song Ever

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Protesters supporting Senator Chris Murphy's filibuster on gun laws march onto the grounds of the US Capitol on Wednesday night. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

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

US News

GOP Agrees to Gun Control Votes After 15-Hour Filibuster
Senate Democrats, led by Chris Murphy of Connecticut, talked for 15 hours on the Senate floor on Wednesday in a bid to force legislators to take gun control seriously. Republican Party leaders have reportedly now agreed to allow two votes on Democrat-backed measures: expanding background checks and banning suspected terrorists from obtaining guns. —NBC News

Homeland Security Chair Wants Orlando Shooter's Facebook Info
The US Senate Homeland Security chairman, Ron Johnson, has asked Facebook to turn over material from five accounts used by Omar Mateen before and during his attack on Orlando's Pulse nightclub. In a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the Republican senator gave Facebook until June 29 to turn over all activity logs and timeline information. —USA Today

Boy Seized by Alligator at Disney World Resort Found Dead
Police searching for a two-year-old boy seized by an alligator at a Disney World resort in Florida have recovered his body. Divers found the dead body "intact," and police said he was drowned by the alligator. He was named by Orange County police as Lane Graves of Elkhorn, Nebraska. —CBS News

Trump Accuses Democrats of Faking Research Hack
Donald Trump has accused the Democratic National Committee of deliberately allowing hackers to access a 200-page research dossier on him. Trump said it was done "to distract from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader." —The Guardian

International News

34 Migrants Found Dead in Sahara Desert
The bodies of 34 migrants, including 20 children, have been found in the Sahara Desert in Niger, near the border with Algeria. Niger's interior minister said they had died of thirst after being abandoned by smugglers. The area is part of a migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. —Deutsche Welle

Venezuela Arrests Looters After Food Shortages
The Venezuelan military has arrested at least 400 people in the city of Cumana for looting during the country's food sortage. Crowds of people chanted "we want food," and at least 60 businesses were ransacked. Regional governor Luis Acuña claimed the opposition party organized the looters. —VICE News

UAE Claims its War in Yemen Over
The military role of the United Arab Emirates in Yemen is "practically over," says Anwar Gargash, the country's foreign minister. The UAE has been a key member of a Saudi-led military coalition backing the Yemeni government against Houthi militants. Gargash claims UAE's new role "is to empower the Yemenis in the liberated areas." —Reuters

Brazilian President Caught Up in Bribery Scandal
Brazil's interim president, Michel Temer, has been accused of being involved in a bribery scheme at the state oil company, Petrobras. Former Petrobras executive Sergio Machado accused Temer of asking for illegal campaign contributions while giving plea bargain evidence to prosecutors. Temer has denied the allegations. —BBC News

Indiana Jones. Photo via Wikimedia.

Everything Else

Broadway Unites for Orlando Tribute Song
Broadway stars are collaborating to fundraise for the families of the Orlando nightclub shooting. Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and other artists will record a version of "What the World Needs Now Is Love", with proceeds going to the LGBT Center of Central Florida. —Rolling Stone

Spielberg Says Indiana Jones Won't Die
Director Steven Spielberg has revealed one key detail about the fifth Indiana Jones movie: The hero will not be killed off at the end of it. The latest movie is expected to be released in 2019. —The Hollywood Reporter

Anti-ISIS Hacktivists Attack Online Archive
The Internet Archive, an open-access digital library, has been hit with a distributed denial-of-service attack for hosting ISIS material. The Twitter account @AttackNodes, part of an online campaign against ISIS, claimed credit. —Motherboard

Scientists Discover Vaccine for Toxic Shock Syndrome
Medical researchers in Austria have developed the world's first vaccine for the rare condition toxic shock syndrome (TSS). Clinical trials showed the new vaccine to be effective, yielding virtually no side effects. —VICE

Done with reading today? Watch our new video 'DOPESICK: Fentanyl's Deadly Grip' Dives Deep Inside Canada's Opioid Crisis'

MP Jo Cox in 2015. Photo by Yui Mok (PA Wire/Press Association Images)

Jo Cox, a Labour MP, has been shot and stabbed in her constituency in West Yorkshire. Details are still emerging but here's what we know so far:

• At around 12:53PM, Cox was shot and stabbed near the Birstall library, where she was meeting with voters for her weekly surgery. It's unclear how many times she was shot at this stage, but one eyewitness told the BBC she was shot three times. After the attack, she was taken by air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary where she is in a critical condition. Armed police have been stationed outside the hospital.
• A 52-year-old man has been arrested near Birstall in West Yorkshire in connection with the shooting, police have said.

Believed to be moment of arrest of man involved in

Why get your shit together when you can get lit together? Photo from Stepbrothers

If you're in your twenties and still living with your parents, don't feel too bad—42 percent of young Canadian adults are in the same boat, according to new data put out by Statistics Canada.

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Illustration by Dan Evans

This article originally appeared in VICE UK.

I don't tend to go on many holidays, and with Brexit looming ever closer, that won't be changing any time soon. But at least when I do, they are often fuelled by a pure faith in hedonism. So pure that I never get the chance to indulge in things like showering, eating, or really even talking coherently, and this has inevitably led to a reluctance in the opposite sex to engage with me in any way while I am abroad.

This did change recently, though. We met on a rooftop, we rode a moped through the countryside and we enjoyed being lost together. Yes, holy shit, it was set-piece, so fucking set-piece that the author of Twilight would think it was too much, but goddamnit, it felt nice.

Mine may have played out like a more saccharine version of The Only Way Is Essex Does Magaluf, but it made me wonder about all those other sweaty holiday romances out there. So I asked a load of people to tell me what happened when they hooked up abroad.

HANNAH-ROSE, 30: 'I SUDDENLY SAID, I'M GOING TO SHIT MYSELF'

I was 24 at the time. We met at Eden nightclub in Ibiza on the urban night. I had snuck in with a stag party. I was on my own for some chillout time, and not knowing when I was gonna return back to the UK. He was the best man and on his last night out with no money, which was a blessing really, because he had already spent a stupid amount. He was the kind of guy who liked carrying a champagne bottle, which I personally hate. He was surrounded by three hot Spanish babes and I spotted him as the only one really dancing in the crowd.

I was talking to a big guy from Texas who was also on a stag do, when Delroy made his way over, thinking I was foreign and might be an easy lay. He had just split up with his girlfriend of three years and had slimmed down by half. I had just split up with an overbearing mental case, so I guess we both weren't interested in meeting anyone.

He came over and said "Hi, I used to be 22 stone" and I was like "I don't believe you." I took his hat off to check his head wasn't a funny shape and then called him Professor Klump. We danced about and some girl threw her drink at me while Oasis' "Wonderwall" came on, and we left the club singing along and holding hands. As we walked I started questioning him on our way to the shop in the main town.

I asked things like:

"What's your name?" Delroy, he said. I called him Delboy for about a month.

"How many kids you got?" "Three," he told me, and I wasn't shocked.

"What car do you drive?" "Audi s3," he smiled, which made me want to vomit.

"Are you a drug dealer?" "No!" he cried.

The ice cubes were having a dodgy effect on my belly. As we sat and talked, I suddenly said, "I think I'm going to shit myself." He still held my hand while we walked to an apartment that I shared with a 50-year-old Buddha-shaped security guard. He slept naked in a bed next to me with a little towel to cover his lower regions.

Anyway, I did a massive poo and it was so shameful. Afterwards I went to Delroy's hotel. He came flying out to meet me near the swimming pool in a grey tracksuit, and I knew that he didn't care about my embarrassment, and I was in love.

When he got back to the UK we spoke for three weeks on Skype, so by the time I came back we were ready to start seeing each other properly. Long story short, we got married two years ago, have a three-year-old Staffy and a one-year-old son, and as much as we hate each other, we do everything together.

JOSH, 23: 'WE WANT HOLIDAY ROMANCES TO REMIND US OF BEING ABROAD'

I went on Grindr the moment I arrived at Hong Kong airport, and he was flying to Australia, so we messaged as we were both Australian. He then flew back to Aus so we didn't message for like a month and a bit, but I favourited him and then one day I randomly messaged him. He said that he was working every night so he couldn't come to Hong Kong as he was now living in Macau, but he said I could come to Macau and watch a performance that he was working on and then meet me after.

So after class one day I took the train to the ferry terminal and cleared immigration customs and took ferry to Macau. Then I took a bus to a casino, he met me and took me backstage and we watched the show together which was this insane water spectacular thing.

It was a bit awkward at first, but after we had a few drinks, it became more relaxed. We climbed an old abandoned Portuguese cinema and looked across Taipa City with some beers from a corner shop and made out and it was really nice. He actually went up the same cinema a month later and fell through the roof nine metres, breaking his leg. I came to visit him after he got out of hospital. He still needed to have surgery so he couldn't be too 'active', but we still visited each other every week. I would go to Macau, or he would go to Hong Kong. I lived in a two-person dorm so he would always get a hotel when he visited me and we had an awesome few months together. It was about the most significant emotional encounter I've had, but he was never my boyfriend and there was never any discussion of things being anything after I left. He had so much other shit going on that me leaving seemed a bit insignificant for him.

I'm quite an intense lover I guess. I fall in love really easy so I decide quickly if I like someone. I could see myself with him for sure but the reality is we live on different continents and he has done long-distance before and doesn't want to again. I guess we all have these holiday romances because we want a reminder of our time spent abroad. I know that I'll always have thoughts of Nathan when I think back to my time in Hong Kong.

WATCH: Locked Off – Britain's Illegal Rave Renaissance

CHRIS, 27: 'IT TURNED INTO THE KIND OF EXPERIENCE YOU SEE IN AN ANTI-DRUGS VIDEO'

I was in this garbage club in Laos with a friend and this Israeli guy we met on the way. This club had a decent traveller-to-local ratio, but the travellers were the worst. This place only seemed to sell bottles of Johnny Walker so we were fairly well imbibed. The Israeli bloke introduces us to two Laos ladies, but the Johnny Walker wasn't doing much for my chat and I start spewing the worst game, horribly basic stuff.

Luckily the Israeli guy must have overheard me flapping. He just told me, "less is more," and to see if the girl I was talking to wanted to leave, and surprisingly she did. We went to a friend of her's and attempted to do the deed. The booze wasn't letting my dick say anything of much use either, so we stopped while I tried to compose myself.

Then we just chilled for a bit and the chat got a lot better, I'd sobered up a bit and relaxed a bit more, laughing and joking, she was pretty cool. She pulls out this little red pill and starts making a bong out of a bottle of water and cigarette carton paper, lights up it up and smokes a bit. I ask what it is and she gets a bit shady, but I push it a bit thinking I can handle my shit, clearly not remembering how bad my chat was earlier. I take a couple of pulls and it instantly turns into the kind of experience you see on an anti-drugs video in PHSE at school – head spinning, weird paranoia, and she's cackling like a witch for a good couple of minutes and it's echoing.

I later found out it's a horrible drug called yaba which means "crazy medicine" in Thai and is methamphetamine, which was not what I was expecting. So I'm pranging out but she wants to get down again. I could only think about my mum telling me to use condoms because of HIV. I was pranging out about my mum and getting HIV while trying to keep an erection and put on a condom, which as you can imagine, is a bad combo. She was getting bored, and the paranoia really set in after a two-minute floppy session. I get up and say "NO!", which was a bit of an overreaction, and apologise and say I have to leave. She insists on driving me back. I'm pretty embarrassed, but she insists, so I agree reluctantly.

As we're heading for her motorbike, she's on the phone sounding pissed off in her language and I assume that she's setting me up to be mugged. I can't speak a word but I just had a feeling that she was telling someone a location. I get on the bike and carry on being friendly though but start thinking the nerdiest thing: "What would James Bond do here?" So I start asking her about the bike and how to change the gears and she answers politely, all the while I'm wondering if I'm going to have to boost her off the bike and ride away when her henchmen turn up. In the end, she dropped me right outside my guest house. Holiday romances are good fun and all, just make sure your body functions properly.

CAROLINE, 29: 'HE WALKED ME HOME AND EXPLAINED DUTCH CULTURAL BLACKFACE'

I was 21 and had just come off the back of a properly horrible relationship. It was one of those things where you know your partner is a terrible, terrible person, but also they are markedly more attractive than you rightfully deserve, so you sort of put up with it for a while. Imagine a young Daniel Craig, but if Daniel Craig vehemently denied the Holocaust. So, I went to Amsterdam for a long weekend with some friends. Here, I met Jaap.

We met in a club, chatted a little, kissed and stuff. Danced a lot, sang a lot, things like that. When the club closed, he asked me if I wanted to come back to his house, and I said yes. He gave me a backy on his bike, literally a cycling tour of Amsterdam as the sun came up. It was one of those "Oh, I am definitely going to remember this when I'm old and my eggs are falling out in clumps" moments.

We went back to his, danced naked, and, I think, fell in love a little. The next morning it was Dutch Christmas, or, that day in November where Santa comes to town and the children are inexplicably in blackface, because Dutch Santa has slaves for some reason. So I have a second tour of Amsterdam, and because all the roads are blocked off, and we have to walk for two hours to get back to my hostel. And there are hundreds, HUNDREDS of kids in blackface everywhere. He walks me home, and explains Dutch cultural blackface, and that's it. It was lovely, and it reminded me that bully boyfriends who deny the Holocaust are not the be all and end all of relationships. I've never had a one night stand since, because I know nothing will compare.

I thought for a good few years that we might meet up and get married, but I'm obviously over that now, I'm 26 and very much in love with someone else. We did chat again though, months later, I got a message from him because he said he suddenly remembered my last name while shopping. And to be honest, the magic kind of disappeared. We exchanged a few Facebook messages, but the broken English and "How are your studies?" questions didn't really fit the thing I had built in my mind.

I think the thing about holiday romances is that you get a little high on the serendipity of the whole thing. It's not the same as meeting someone you fancy in your local club. It feels a little like divine intervention: here we are, two strangers with nothing in common, we don't speak the same language, and yet we have this connection.

DUNCAN, 27: 'HER MATES SHOUTED "BE SAFE" AND SHE LED ME DOWN TO THE BEACH'

I was on holiday in Crete, an all-inclusive resort, with my mum and brother when I was 16. I got friendly with a group of kids all around my age, mostly Spanish, Italian and Dutch. On their last night we went to the hotel "disco" and one of the girls who I hadn't spoken to at all singled me out, ground up on me, winding and such, then after a while led me outside. One of her mates got a condom out of her bag and yelled "be safe!" at us, after which she led me down to the beach, which I assumed meant she realised we couldn't go to the room I was sharing with the rest of my family. I had to assume because she wasn't really saying... anything.

After an hour or so of sex (for the record, sex on the beach is fine on Greek sand and not fine at all on a pebble beach in Worthing), during which at least one security patrol totally failed to see us, we vaguely mumbled a goodnight, and went our separate ways.

Next morning, I met up with that same group again, and went to sit down next to this girl, asked her how she was. And that was when I realised she didn't speak English. I was then pretty much duty-bound to hang out with them til they checked out several hours later, feebly trying to work out enough mutually understood words to strike up a conversation. It didn't work out.

@williamwasteman

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We're not going to sit here and try to convince you that lunch isn't the best meal of the day. Dinner is stuffy and formal, breakfast is just a pile of carbs, but lunch offers the best of both worlds. You're allowed to eat whatever you want—even breakfast foods!—and you can eat it standing up, or at your desk, or at a giant table with a bunch of people. You can eat a lunch so heavy that it puts you to sleep, or you can have one that helps recharge your batteries and help you power through the day. You can have a liquid lunch, whether that means Soylent or a few martinis.

Because you can basically interpret the word "lunch" however you want, some people tend to use it as an opportunity to find momentary respite from the crushing weight of their 9-to-5 job. Other people seem to actually like their jobs, so for them lunch is less "adult recess" and more an opportunity to refuel.

But how does your career—not just how you feel about it—actually affect your lunch choices? I assembled as diverse a group of people I could think of—from therapists to teachers to truckers to Spencer Pratt—to find out what they ate for lunch on the job.

ELISE FRANKLIN, PSYCHOTHERAPIST

VICE: What do you typically eat for lunch each day?
Elise Franklin: It varies. I definitely, once a week, go to Sugarfish and I just did a party show, and they asked us where we wanted to go.

How much do you spend on food per day?
Seeing as I go to only Mexican restaurants, burritos are usually $6. If I don't get burritos, I'll get a couple carne asada tacos. I eat pretty cheap, but I'm not tryna throw shade at my spots—these are authentic spots.

Thumbnail image via Flickr.

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Ron Hopper, the FBI assistant special agent in charge, center, answers questions after the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Sunday, June 12, 2016. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack)

If what Noor Zahi Salman allegedly told the feds is true, Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen's widow could be in serious trouble.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, law enforcement officials revealed to multiple media outlets that Salman is a possible suspect despite not having been present when her husband murdered 49 people and wounded 53 more at the LGBTQ nightclub Pulse on Sunday.

NBC News reported Salman told federal agents how, last Saturday night, she begged Mateen not to do anything violent when he left their Port St. Lucie, Florida, home. In addition to not calling police to warn them, however, the woman allegedly admitted to once driving her spouse to Pulse so he could scope it out. Salman also apparently indicated she was actually with Mateen when he bought ammunition and a holster, the outlet reported, citing officials familiar with the case.

By Wednesday afternoon, CNN was reporting that a US attorney plans to convene a grand jury to hear evidence and determine if charges should be brought against the woman. (At least one conflicting report, citing people close to Salman, suggests she was not plugged into her husband's plans.) But experts canvassed by VICE suggest the early evidence against Salman, if reported accurately, is extremely damaging. Almost as important, history has not been kind to the friends and relatives of suspected terrorists and mass murderers who were found to have helped them conceal their crimes or have prior knowledge of them.

David O. Markus, the former federal public defender whose private practice has represented several high-profile clients including reggae star Buju Banton and NBA center Dwight Howard, says Salman could be charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism. "The law is so broad and so easy to prove," Markus tells VICE in an email. "She knew what he was doing and did an act in furtherance of that crime. Even if that act is minimal, that's enough."

Andrew K. Levi, a former federal prosecutor in Florida, believes the US attorney's office could plausibly charge Salman with murder, attempted murder, providing material support to terrorists, and misprision of a felony. That latter offense would mean she had knowledge of a serious crime but failed to report it—and maybe even took steps to conceal it.

If charged with any of these crimes, Salman is looking at three years to 15 years to life in prison, and possibly even capital punishment, according to Levi.

"If she just knew about it and didn't report it, the government would have a hard time charging her if that is all she did," he says. "But if is she is acknowledging that she drove him around to basically scout this specific location and she knew he was going to commit this act, then she is on the hook. She is helping him prepare for the crime."

In the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers case, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, widow of that attack's slain mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was a possible target for prosecution, according to statements her attorney made to the press last year. That's around the time feds decided not call her to testify at her brother-in-law Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's trial.

The widow, who converted to Islam, lived with her husband during the time he plotted the bombing, and FBI agents found bomb-making materials, including BBs, nails, and wires, inside their apartment shortly after the attack. The woman's laptop also had numerous videos, photos, and articles her husband sent her, according to testimony by a forensics expert in Dzhokhar's trial, as the Boston Globe reported. In 2012, her computer had apparently searched for, "If your husband becomes a Shahid may be still trying to figure out if this was related to some conflicting special preference he had, or whether it was motivated by his Islamic beliefs," Levi says. "She is probably in the best position to give them that information."

If Salman has her own lawyer, the attorney is most likely looking to bargain down the kind of charges and number of years she might serve in prison in exchange for her cooperation, he adds. However, she will have a tough time convincing authorities she did all she could to stop Mateen.

"To be considered as having abandoned her involvement in the crime, she would have needed to call the police or call the club," Levi says. "But she didn't try to warn anybody."

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Various vials of cannabis terpenes. Photo by the author

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

A cannabis producing and processing company based in California has been selling and shipping a range of its products to UK customers. It also ships to other countries where the import and export of the cannabis flower is illegal, such as Brazil, Spain, and Germany. This is the first time a cannabis-derived product has been shipped on an international scale, and the products have been reaching UK customers with no problem—but before you start to fret, everything is completely legal.

The products that Blue River Extracts sell are cannabis-derived extracts of terpenes. This means they contain no THC, CBD, or other independently psychoactive chemicals that are specifically targeted by legislation in the UK. Terpenes are essentially the molecules that produce the unique flavor and smell of any given strain of cannabis, and don't have any significant effects when consumed alone. But when combined with cannabis or hash, they supposedly produce a superior flavor and an increased or enhanced "high."

I called Tony Verzua, owner of Blue River Extracts and umbrella company United Cannabis, to find out more about terpenes, and what his motives were for setting it all up.

"Terpenes are found in nature—they are found everywhere in all kinds of plants and herbs," he explained over the phone. "They make up all the flavors and aromas that come through our senses, noses and mouths."

So when we smell a particular type of orange, for example, we are smelling the terpene profile of that orange. But what makes cannabis terpenes so special?

"Cannabis is a unique plant," said Verzua. "It is one of the oldest surviving plants on Earth. They have found at least one hundred forty different types of terpene available in the plant at any one time. Whereas, you take most other plants or herbs—something like lavender or eucalyptus—they produce a high abundance of a single type of terpene, as opposed to the one hundred forty or so ."

This is why, when you walk past someone smoking a spliff in the park, or pick up the scent outside somebody's open window, the smell is immediately recognizable. But what use do these terpenes provide beyond the nice smells and flavors?

"We call it modulation," says Verzua, referring to how terpenes can enhance the effect of cannabinoids. "What we have found is that particular terpenes that are found in cannabis turn on a part of our endocannabinoid system called CB2 receptors. THC and CBD don't really work without terpenes. If cannabinoids were the guitar, terpenes would be the guitar player."

Verzua stressed that what he sells are essentially aromatherapy oils. Even though cannabis strains have a relatively unique and complex terpene profile, these are the same molecules that are present all over nature—therefore, they're an entirely legal molecule, and one that would be virtually impossible to make illegal.

The idea and product is pretty revolutionary. "This is my way of being an activist," said Verzua. "This is a business way of saying: 'You know what? I'm testing the waters, pushing it.' How do you lock someone up and tell them what you're doing is illegal? How do you prove the molecules are actually from cannabis?"

Verzua's passion for cannabis is not a recreational one, but stems from his medical needs as a patient. "I have used cannabis as a patient since 1996," he said. "All the medical products I sell are ones I have invented for my own consumption over the years. Prohibition has dominated a big part of my life. It's the right time to do this; ten to twenty years ago I'd be in jail."

Considering his extraction work is carried out in states where recreational and/or medical cannabis is legal, Verzua is not breaking the law at any point along the chain. He told me that one of his biggest inspirations for his latest venture is the UK's GW Pharmaceuticals, which produces a cannabinoid medicine named Sativex, and has also been studying the interactions between terpenes and cannabinoids.

"What I find extremely fascinating," said Verzua, "is that a company like GW Pharmaceuticals exists and manufactures its cannabis in an illegal country like the UK and ships all around the world. It goes into the United States and can somehow import its drugs through Kansas, and then get them into the FDA, through a state that doesn't have legal cannabis at all. And yet people from our own country can't do that."

Of course, Verzua is not a multi-national corporation with global political leverage, and so has faced barriers in his business ventures. He's had his website taken down multiple times, his money taken, and his packages seized by FedEx—all with no real evidence or any cases brought against him.

Regardless, Verzua has big plans for his product. He hopes to expand beyond the cannabis market into areas such as food, drink, and aromatherapy. He sees cannabis terpenes as something that go way beyond the traditional cannabis market and industry. He already has a selection of products that are in research and development, such as candles, beard oils, and bath bombs—as well as other products he couldn't talk about freely due to being under contract. He told me he was being regularly approached by people interested in using the terpenes for new products.

I contacted a few people using the product via Instagram and found that the reasons for use differed; while some simply used it to improve the flavor of their hash and oils, others were experimenting, dropping terpenes into stuff like champagne and juice. The general impression was that they were a unique experience worth trying, and—if you had the money—experimenting with.

I decided the only way to get a real flavor for the "terps" was to buy some myself. So my friend and I did just that, buying one and two 0.25ml vials respectively, giving us a nice selection to test. I ordered the Sour Diesel for myself, as it's a strain with a smell I can identify, and therefore one I assumed I'd be able to assess better.

After receiving my parcel, I opened it up and unscrewed the lid. The power of it was pretty overwhelming, like the smell of a few ounces of weed concentrated into this tiny little vial.

Taking a hit with the added terpenes. Photo by the author

The next day I met up with my friend who has the whole professional setup: a dabbing rig, an e-nail, and some cannabis concentrates. We followed guidance through various user-generated Instagram and YouTube videos, dipping small dabs of hash into the terpenes and then hitting them. The result was a mouth-watering flavor of smooth smoke—a hit of an orangey diesel taste.

The taste lingered in my mouth and nose, and in the air, for at least five minutes. I could certainly see this being on par with something like wine tasting—at least for people who really enjoy their weed. Thing is, there's no doubt this is a luxury item; the price tag on the 0.25ml I got was about $90. Verzua explained that cannabis plants have 1 to 3 percent terpenes, and this, coupled with cost of cannabis, dictates the final price tag.

Whether or not the raw terpene product will ever take off into the mainstream is uncertain, and maybe improbable. However, once a range of products are developed using the terpenes, there is potential for accessing an entirely new market, beyond the committed cannabis community. Because, really, who wouldn't want an OG Kush orange juice or a Super Silver Haze bath bomb?

Just a few months after Pornhub brought VR porn and fuck-yourself-fit regimes to the masses, the site has announced that it will launch a collection of videos called "Described Videos," made specifically for the visually impaired, CNN reports.

The idea is pretty simple: a calm, semi-robotic voice thoroughly describes the action and description of the actors in the scene, including position and shot changes, on top of the video's original audio. It's kind of like those Disney Read-Along books but with more graphic descriptions of cumshots.

You can get a better idea of what it sounds like from Pornhub's PG-rated demo guide, featuring descriptions from short snippets of the site's top-rated videos. In one scene, a woman says, "The video begins with a small Latina with dirty-blond hair lying face down on a massage table with nothing but a small towel covering her ass." You get the idea.

Pornhub Cares—the empire's philanthropic appendage that also offers college scholarships and promotes testicular cancer and domestic violence campaigns—will launch the collection with an initial run of 50 newly dubbed videos.

In a statement, Vice President Corey Price asks users to get involved. "We encourage our users to check out our newest category and provide feedback based on their experience—with programs like this, we hope to open the door and inspire our community members, content partners, and other platforms to create more content with the differently-abled user in mind."

Read: Audio-Only Porn Is Putting the Mystery into Masturbation

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Since 2014, roughly 125,000 families and 115,000 unaccompanied children from Central America have been apprehended at the Southwest border of the United States, many seeking asylum. But Central American families and children arrested in immigration raids over the past month may have been denied a fair chance at claiming asylum, according to a report released on Wednesday by a coalition of immigration lawyers and nonprofit organizations.

The legal coalition, known as the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project, reported 40 cases of women and children arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) since the series of immigration raids began in May. The majority of those arrests took place in workplaces, homes, and schools, and the CARA project alleges that federal immigration officials engaged in "aggressive and inappropriate conduct."

The Department of Homeland Security has said that immigration enforcement actions would target Central American migrants who had exhausted their legal options to remain in the United States, but the CARA project's report suggests that in at least 21 of these cases, immigrants have valid asylum claims that have not yet been heard in an immigration court. Moreover, several of those arrested by ICE did not have an outstanding deportation order, according to the group.

Laura Lichter, a Denver-based volunteer for the project and general counsel for the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), said the root of the problem is that the Obama administration has treated the influx of Central American women and children as a matter of illegal immigration rather than a humanitarian crisis.

"The administration knows exactly who they're deporting," Lichter told VICE. "It knows exactly the merits of their cases, and it has chosen to go forward regardless."

In the past decade, gang-related violence has skyrocketed in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The specific causes of violence vary in each country, according to a January report by the Council on Foreign Relations, but each struggles with drug trafficking and ineffective criminal justice systems. As a result of the violence and poor economic conditions, millions of men, women, and children have fled their homes in recent decades. The Council on Foreign Relations estimates that 10 percent of the residents in these countries have already left, most of them relocating to the US.

Supporters of the Central American migrants arriving at the border say they face violence at home that could potentially qualify them for asylum in the United States, and sending them back without hearing their cases could subject them to serious danger.

"Anyone that studies migration will tell you that the least mobile group of people is going to be women with children, especially women with small children," Lichter said. "They don't leave unless things are really, really bad. And, of course, that's exactly who we started seeing showing up at the border in the summer of 2014."

While most immigrants CARA encountered had arrived after January 2014 and had been issued a final order of removal—making them a priority for deportation—their report suggests these immigrants haven't had their fair shake in court. According to the group, many of the detained immigrants never received notices to appear in court and therefore missed court dates that might have changed the outcome of their case. Others received legal bad advice or had no legal counsel, CARA claims.

Sarah Rodriguez, a spokesperson for ICE, said in a statement to VICE that agents routinely use discretion—including humanitarian factors—in considering which cases to pursue for removal, and that immigrants in removal proceedings "are afforded all appropriate due process under the law."

Rodriguez stressed that the agency does not conduct "raids," stating that enforcement actions "are targeted based on investigative leads and conducted in a professional manner."

The document released by the CARA project, however, presents a far more sinister view of the arrests that took place in May and June, sharing the details of ten anonymized cases. (The cases were presented with pseudonyms to protect the immigrants in the event they are deported to their home countries.)

In one case, ICE agents reportedly showed up to the home of "Sara," a 33-year-old mother in Houston, as her eight-year-old son "Giovanni" was boarding a bus to school on the morning of May 19.

"ICE waited until Giovanni got onto the school bus before shouting for him to get off the bus and arresting him," the document states. While schools are listed as "sensitive locations" (areas that immigration agents should avoid when making an arrest) in a 2011 memo from then-ICE director John Morton, school bus stops are not. The CARA project argues that the memo should be updated to include them.

Sara claims she fled domestic abuse in Honduras, and lawyers associated with the CARA project say her case could potentially qualify for asylum based on her claims of gender-related violence.

Related: Fear of Deportation Is Driving Migrant Kids to Stay Home from School

Several asylum-law experts consulted by VICE said the overarching claims laid out in the report are plausible and, in some cases, common. Michele Pistone, the director of an asylum clinic at Villanova University's law school, works with students on cases involving women and children arriving from Central America and told VICE the report is "very consistent" with her own experiences.

Pistone understands that many people arrested in the latest round of immigration raids had final orders of removal, but also believes some Central American families and children are being denied due process in the nation's immigration courts. "While on paper, these people have been ordered removed, the process behind obtaining the order is probably fraught with problems, which makes me question the legitimacy of the order," she said.

Other experts disagree. Jan Ting, a professor at Temple University's law school, took the perspective of a former government official (he was the assistant commissioner of the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service during the presidency of George H. W. Bush). "Nobody gets deported by an immigration judge without an opportunity to make an asylum claim or any other claim they want to make," he told VICE. He agreed that these high-profile immigration raids could be an attempt to discourage potential migrants in Central America—with the election five months away, Ting thinks Democrats fear that another rush of migrants at the border could swing popular support to Donald Trump. "The Obama administration is kind of hellbent to make an example of some of these folks," he said.

The report notes that federal immigration officials appear to have mostly targeted immigrants in four states—Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia—where immigration courts have some of the highest rates of asylum denials in the country. In Atlanta's immigration courts, for example, 98 percent of asylum claims were denied in the 2015 fiscal year.

"We believe ICE is focusing on these states because they know these are the states that have horrible judges the access to counsel is very limited," said Mohammad Abdollahi, a spokesperson for RAICES, a San Antonio–based group that provides legal services to immigrants. "They have a better chance, if they focus on these states, of finding people that have removal orders."

Related: Why It's Almost Impossible to Get Asylum in Atlanta

The network of nonprofit organizations and pro-bono attorneys in the four aforementioned states has been stretched thin by the number of Central American migrants who are rapidly being processed for deportation, Abdollahi told VICE. His group has been focusing on getting women and children out of immigration detention, but that's only one step to avoiding deportation.

"Once the families are released from detention, that's where the real work begins, which is trying to connect families with attorneys," he said.

Representatives of the CARA project stress that the larger problem is how the Obama administration has responded to the surge in Central American migrants. While the Department of Homeland Security announced in June 2015 that it would stop using family detention as a way to deter future migrants, Laura Lichter says it's still happening.

The message that the US will send migrants back to their home countries "is getting through loud and clear," she said. "But it's also having absolutely no impact."

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Photos of Omar Mateen taken from his MySpace account

This article originally appeared in VICE US.

In the days since the massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, much has been made of Omar Mateen's sexuality, as well as his alleged ISIS connections (or lack thereof). Depending on the person you're listening to, he was either a closeted homosexual lashing out, or a religious fanatic inspired by ISIS propaganda. While either or both of those things may well be true, Mateen was also surrounded by other forms of violence and bigotry that might help to paint a picture of his warped worldview. According to his ex-wife, Mateen had a history of domestic violence. He also spent most of his life in a state notorious for its antiquated views on sexuality. In fact, there is still an anti-sodomy law on the books in Florida, despite the Supreme Court having ruled that such laws were illegal in 2003. And according to Equality Florida, 22 percent of hate crimes in the state are motivated by homophobia and/or transphobia. Nationwide, violence against the LGBTQ community was the most common form of hate crime tracked by the FBI in 2014.

The fact that the attack occurred on a Latin night also fits into this country's traditional narrative of violence. Earlier this week, a report released by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (a group that "works to prevent, respond to, and end all forms of violence against and within LGBTQ communities") stated that more than 62 percent of anti-queer homicides in 2015 was aimed at queer people of color. Although Mateen apparently told victims he "didn't have a problem with black people," the vast majority of the dead and wounded were people of color.

Was Mateen a closeted gay man who put himself through the ringer of American masculinity in an attempt to fit in, before finally denying his true feelings in the most violent way imaginable? Was he just your garden-variety murderous straight man (98 percent of all mass shootings in America are committed by men)? Was he radicalized by ISIS, or was ISIS a prop to express violent and homophobic feelings he already harbored inside?

We might never know the answers to those questions. What we do know is that America still has some unsavory attitudes toward the LGBTQ community, even from the state level, and that we live in a very violent society—more than 33,000 Americans were killed in 2013 by guns, and the US leads high-income countries in the world in total firearm death rate. I sat down with Beverly Tillery, the executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project (AVP), to discuss how Mateen's acts fit into the broader pattern of anti-queer violence in America.

VICE: Let's start with the basics. How prevalent is anti-queer violence today?
Beverly Tillery: Unfortunately, hate violence is still very common. AVP coordinates a national coalition of anti-violence programs, and we track incidences of hate violence and other forms of violence against LGBT people. We are all seeing high numbers of instances of hate violence all across the country. It's still a reality for a lot of LGBT people. One of the things that we're seeing is that violence is particularly impacting LGBT communities of color, LGBT youth, transgender, and gender nonconforming people especially, and transgender women of color/women of color especially. The most vulnerable among us.

What's causing this violence?
A lot of things. We need to talk about the larger questions of what behavior is considered acceptable and what's not acceptable. I would say that the climate of violence is encouraged by the anti-LGBT laws that are sweeping this country. People are saying, "We think this is a group of people that does not deserve to have rights, and we're going to do whatever we can to make sure they don't have rights." Which is really the same as saying, "We don't see these people as the same as us, as fully worthy and human." This tells people that we're not protecting this group, and that it's OK to be violent to LGBT people.

"We want to change attitudes and the way people see LGBT people. The answer is not to lock everybody up who is not supportive or hasn't had an opportunity to deal in a really deep way with their homophobia."

What is internalized homophobia's role in anti-queer violence?
I don't want to make assumptions about this case, but I will say that if you are living in a society that tells you that it is not OK to be LGBT, whether you're on the outside of the community or part of the community, you're getting those messages. And those messages are powerful.

That doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to be violent. But it is certainly the case that we all are absorbing those messages of hate. How that plays out for somebody who may be questioning their identity? Well, it doesn't make you feel like the world is a safe place for you! We know that youth who do not get the support of their families and their communities are at risk for dangerous behaviors, and they're at risk to end up on the street. It puts us at risk when we are trying to figure out who we are, and society tells us that what we think we are is not good. So it does contribute to again a climate of both lack of security for LGBT people and violence.

In many of these situations, having someone just stand up and say this is not OK would make a huge difference.

What do you think about hate-crimes legislation as a way to combat anti-queer violence?
We really caution against any solution that contributes to criminalizing more people in our society. The LGBT community and communities of color are already devastated by criminalization, and we do not want to add any more people to the list of groups who are being overly policed, overly criminalized.

We want to change attitudes and the way people see LGBT people. The answer is not to lock everybody up who is not supportive or hasn't had an opportunity to deal in a really deep way with their homophobia. We really have to figure out how do we dismantle systems of oppression and hate, because that's the only way we're going to be able to build a better society and communities where we can all live together safely.

What can people who are concerned about anti-queer violence do?
There is so much that is happening in our country that we all need to pay attention to! I think it is in some ways easy for people to get distracted by saying that this was such a huge tragedy, and there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent it.

But violence is happening every day, and it's happening in all kinds of ways, throughout our communities, and there are ways people can intervene. People can stand up and let survivors of this violence know that they are not alone, that other people are watching and paying attention. In many of these situations, having someone just stand up and say this is not OK would make a huge difference.

Follow Hugh Ryan on Twitter.

A screenshot from 'Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare,' courtesy of Activision

Most years, Call of Duty hits me about as hard as a moderately sized cup of water. As in, just the water, the wet stuff that doesn't hurt, not the cup itself, which could easily cause bruising if launched at an unsuspecting mug. You got that already, obviously. Not that water would have much of a chance to splash against my LA-sweaty brow in the outer space (some of the time) setting for the forthcoming Infinite Warfare, which—and here's where we flip-reverse the whole Not Bothered Mostly narrative—is looking like a franchise revitalizer. It's a genuinely exciting production that takes a series arguably overdue an injection of true originality in a bombastic sci-fi direction where the player switches between ground combat and zero-G gunplay with grappling hooks via pulse-pushing spacecraft dogfights.

Because, you see, water in space wouldn't splash on anything, ever, because it almost instantly turns to ice. After it boils, that is. It's complicated. Just ask any astronaut who's seen their piss expelled into the near-perfect vacuum of space.

It's not all zipping between shattered parts of busted-up spacecraft and popping rounds off floating foes, as seen in the palpitations-all-up-inside-you trailer that ran at Sony's E3 2016 showcase (words on which can be found here). In a cozy room at the Los Angeles Convention Center, I get to see both the previewed-already "Ship Assault"—I'll get to that in just a moment—and "Black Sky," which is staged in the Swiss city of Geneva, near-or-maybe-not-so-future style. Here, the player is initially on the ground, standard CoD vibes abounding. Except the assailants swarming the city via dropped pods from above are a mix of humans and robots, sparking blue electricity as their American backwater mail-box heads are popped like Monster cans in lava.

"You," a guy called Nick Reyes unless I misheard (the internet confirms my hearing is sound), are joined by crewmates, including what looks like a robot buddy of your own. Nick has the ability to call in a nearby air ship to unleash bullet hell on clusters of enemies, aiding his progress towards a tower under siege. He can hack enemy bots, too, causing them to self-destruct, which can bring down entire ships with one simple command (or maybe two: one hack, one oh-shit-there-she-goes) of no-human-causalities aggression. Come the end of this section, through shrapnel-peppered European streets and brick-walls-like-colanders buildings, Nick and company leap into atmosphere-breaching crafts and it's into a different assault phase we go: rockets locked onto some sort of battle cruiser until it makes like a firework and explodes, burning itself out against the big black.

In the trailer, these spaceship passages look as if they could be on rails. Refreshingly, they're not, and the controls are largely identical to ground movement—point the stick up to go forwards, click it in to boost. This is a neat move on the part of intuitiveness, ensuring that CoD old-timers aren't about to be thrown by trigger-mapped acceleration. Dogfights are EVE Valkyrie-rivalling for stomach-tossing speed—just imagining this in VR is making me feel tingly—and while the ship piloting is over and done with in what feels like no time at all, making way for the grenades-and-grappling-hooks combat as depicted in the "Ship Assault" trailer, that it's there at all is reason to pay attention to a game that looks like it's committed to furthering the singular appeal of this mega-brand, rather than merely repeating winning formulas.

Which makes it a risk, too. Call of Duty is too big to fail by now, at least for the next few years, but Infinite Warfare's orbital assaults have already proved spectacularly divisive, to say the least, making the packed-alongside-it Modern Warfare remaster an essential sweetener for the bummed-out blinkered sorts bemoaning a departure from tradition. But truthfully, the fourth CoD proper, nine years old this November, looked like a relic when witnessed running after Infinite Warfare. You might come for the memories, then, this winter; but don't be surprised if you, too, wind up considerably more rocked by Infinity Ward's new baby than you were anticipating. Space, once again, appears to be the place.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare will be released for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on November 4. Visit the game's official website for more information.

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Drunk people deserve a better anthem. Photo via the Canadian Press

Last night, MPs in the House of Commons voted to change the lyrics of "O Canada" to rid it of that pesky "in all thy sons command" and replace it with a more gender-neutral "in all of us command."

In front of one of Marseille's pubs, invaded by English supporters. All photos by the author

This article originally appeared on VICE France

The match between England and Russia that took place in Marseille last Saturday had quite an outcome: 35 people injured, one critically. In three days, the Mediterranean city saw the best and worst of what soccer has to offer—a party followed by a battle. By now, most English and Russian fans have left France but a couple will be staying for a few more months. In Baumettes prison.

One of them is Alexander Booth, who found himself in Marseille's regional courtroom this past Monday. The English chef was celebrating his 20th birthday last weekend when he was arrested during a clash between the English, the Russians, locals, and police.

Booth arrived at his trial wearing an England soccer shirt. In spite of his translator's best efforts, he didn't seem to understand the arguments against him—but he did seem to know that it doesn't look good for him. He admitted that he threw a plastic cup and raised his middle finger during the clashes on Saturday. But he also claimed that he was there primarily to celebrate his birthday with his father, Chris, who was also present. "I apologize to the people of Marseille and the police," Booth said. "I'm truly, truly sorry... I was in the wrong place at the wrong time." The prosecutor added that Booth had twice the legal amount of alcohol in his bloodstream.

When his sentence was read out, his father didn't understand what it meant. "Two months," stammered Booth. Chris Booth almost collapsed but quickly recovered himself and said: "Be strong. I'll come and get you." In tears, he tried to make his way out of the courtroom through the crowd of journalists. Their lawyer commented that the family is "extremely disappointed with the verdict." Booth will most likely serve his sentence in Marseille's Baumettes prison and will subsequently be banned from entering French territory for two years.

Nine more people took their turn in the courtroom—five Englishmen, one Austrian, and three Frenchmen. They were all convicted, with sentences ranging from three months to one year.

Drunk English fans sing songs in front of one of the four British pubs on the Old Port

There are four pubs located side by side on Marseille's Old Port: the Queen Victoria, O'Malley's, Temple, and Out Back. This is where the English settle on Thursday, June 9. A territory marked out by England flags, each stating the city or neighborhood the supporters hail from. Dan, a 30-year-old England supporter, has come with a St. George's Cross that reads "Norwich." He's hung it alongside 20 other England flags on the quay opposite the Queen Victoria pub.

When I visit the English fans the next afternoon, I see that the place some started calling "the English Zone" has started to spread further than the four pubs. "It's an English city," Dan shouts at me. According to the police, about 50,000 England supporters have made the trip here, but the atmosphere is still pretty relaxed. "We're zen," one policeman tells me. "There's no provocation. But seeing as they're drinking it can quickly turn sour. This area is considered a fight zone."

A group of police intervenes in the Old Port to stop the advance of English supporters.

Even if the atmosphere is pretty relaxed, the media has had its eye on the English since Thursday night, when a fight erupted in one of the bars. Harry has come down from Leicester and explains the altercation while ordering a pint at the bar in O'Malley's. On his smartphone, he reads an article denouncing the behavior of the English supporters, illustrated with a photo of himself. "My girlfriend rang me in a panic when she saw the article. She couldn't understand what I was doing with that crowd—I'm not a hooligan. There were some local guys who came looking to stir up some shit," he says. Anthony Heraud, the manager of the pub, interjects to confirm this. "I have CCTV cameras showing that the English were attacked." Heraud explains that the city is planning to close the area off from fans: "They want to send everyone to the fan zone, but the English feel at home here."

They certainly seem comfortable. While singing and dancing to "Three Lions" and "Vardy's on Fire" to the tune of "Freed from Desire," the English spread over the road in front of the pubs. It's festive, but it's also stopping traffic. The police get involved—gently at first, but then using tear gas. It's effective—within a minute the road is deserted, while the four pubs seem like hastily abandoned saloons.

Tear gas being thrown at the English fans forcing them to leave

But the English remain in the general area, annoyed. They move a little further up the quay on the Old Port, in a tense face-off with the police. About a dozen Russians—likely attracted by the noise—put their black Lokomotiv Moscow T-shirts over their faces and take their position between the police and the English fans, ready to fight with both groups. But after some arrests, the calm returns without too much damage.

Meanwhile, I meet four Russians in shorts and flip-flops on their way to the beach. One of them is carrying stickers of an angry-looking guy who's missing a tooth. He hands me a sticker and smiles broadly at me—his missing tooth proves it's his own face on the sticker. About every 30 feet he finds something to stick his face on. "French gays, English gays: Tomorrow you see!" he explains to me.

The sticker in question, bearing the image of the Russian fan

I did see: On the day of the match, the area around the Old Port is out of control. In the early afternoon, an English fan in his 50s is beaten in the Cours d'Estienne d'Orves to within an inch of his life. He is rushed to hospital with a heart attack, where he is currently in a critical but stable condition.

Around 6 PM, the Opéra district turns into a battle ground. The locals fight the English, the Russians fight everyone, and the police are in the middle of it all. Beer bottles are flying around, breaking the window of the Garnier Cafe on Rue de Suff. It injures a lot of people.

The Russian supporters in their Lokomotiv Moscow T-shirts

Who started it? Who attacked whom? No one really knows. Most of the English say they were retaliating. On one side were the Russians, who were characterized by regional prosecutor Brice Robin as "a group of a hundred to a hundred fifty people" that "came to fight. They acted fast, which explains the difficulty the police is facing in identifying and arresting them." In fact, no Russian hooligan was arrested at that point. That changed last Tuesday, when 43 Russian hooligans were arrested in the southeast of France. Twenty of them will be deported, three will face a judge.

On the other side was a group of young guys from Marseille whose motives still remain unclear. According to some, the whole thing was about revenge for clashes with English supporters dating back to 1998. One local guy I met in the Belsunce district said: "We had to show them who we were! I ripped the shirt off one English guy. It's a trophy. He didn't give it to me when I asked, so I ripped it off of him."

The arrest of an England supporter by the police

All in all, 35 people were wounded that afternoon—one of them critically, three seriously, while one man was also stabbed. It took 590 firemen along with thousands of policemen from all sections of the force to calm things down.

What helps bring the temporary calm back to the streets of Marseille is the fact that the match is finally about to start. At the entrance of the Velodrome, excited English fans with blood stains and bandaged heads sing loudly. After the final whistle, there's a clash in the south section of the stadium, and about an hour after the match, another one in the Old Port again—this one is quickly diffused with tear gas.

The soccer match on Saturday, June 11, was a bit of a metaphor for the match on the streets: The English dominated, though at some point they were also ambushed by the Russians. In the end, the whole spectacle was rather sad.