This article originally appeared on VICE Alps

Truck driver Ürsu is parked in the lot of the Grauholz service area. The motorway outside of Bern is one of the oldest and busiest in Switzerland. "Being a lorry . It doesn't look like working conditions or wages will ever improve, given that shipping agents from Western European countries are employing more drivers from Middle and Eastern Europe who do the same work for half those wages.

These drivers from countries like Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Belarus, or Ukraine are often on the road for weeks or even months and sit, eat, and sleep on less than three square meters during that time. For many of them, it's the unemployment at home that forces them to drive for any wage—which some carriers will gladly use to their advantage.

I went to the Grauholz service stop to meet some of these long-distance truck drivers. Some did not want to have their picture taken, so they asked me to take one of their truck instead. We chatted in English or German, with our hands and feet, or with help from Google Translate. However we communicated, one thing was clear: they all longed to be home.

Fjodor, 53, from Kazakhstan

"I've been on the road for almost three months now. I'll drive home in two weeks, together with a friend from Belarus. He's a long-distance truck driver like I am, but he has two young children. It's a bit easier for me, because my son is all grown up. I don't want to complain; I get paid €750 —if I'd be able to make any money at all."

Kristjan, 26, from Estonia

"As a lorry driver, you're always waiting, always waiting. Hours—sometimes days. That's the worst part of the job. I used to bring a book with me when I started driving but nowadays I just stare at my phone. I immediately feel better once I start driving again—it relaxes me. I don't mind not knowing where I will be next week, as long as I don't have to wait for very long. We're under more pressure than we used to be. We're being watched the whole time—by carriers, by clients, and by the police. I'm not sure how long I'll keep doing this. I might quit when I find a girlfriend."

Alexandr, 36, from Belarus

"Fjodor from Kazakhstan is my buddy. We often drive together, talk about all sorts of things—about life at home, about our problems, and about what's next for us. What's next after we retire from driving, I mean. I'm sometimes afraid of going home, especially when I've been away for a long time. You never know if something at home has drastically changed in the meantime because we are under a post-Soviet dictatorship. Of course I call my family whenever possible, but you just can't be sure about what the next day will bring. Believe me, I've seen enough to know."

Anatoli, 35, from Belarus

"I drove from Belarus to Lithuania, then through Poland to Germany and on to Switzerland. First, I was carrying wood, later furniture, then flowers. I think I'm bringing something like coffee pods along on my way back. I'm away for months on end sometimes. I'm not sure how to explain this to you but I'm often very sad. I think of home—we have a little yard, it's beautiful there. But there's no work. What else can I do? Just getting my driving license cost me a fortune, I can't just quit. I need to earn money."

Mike, 56, born in Sicily, raised in Germany

"I used to own dozens of trucks. I carried all sorts of things—I mean, anything, really. I drove to places like South Africa, the United States, and Russia, to cities like Mexico City and Kabul. I made big money but then I got sick of it. I just wanted to get as far away from that lifestyle as possible. Now I drive for only €2,500 a month. I'm with my fourth wife—she's Russian. She still knows what family means.

Yes, our working conditions are shit. The traffic, the pressure, the drivers from Eastern Europe—everything's shit. But whatever. I am 56 and I will drive until I die. This is my life, this is freedom. And no, I can't let you on my truck. I won't even allow my own brother to go in—it brings bad luck."

Andriy, in his 30s, from Ukraine

"I've been driving for two years now. It's the only job I can earn a living with. I get these images in my mind—usually right before I fall asleep, but they sometimes come to me while I'm driving. They're flashbacks to this one time when I had to go to hospital because I was hurt. Everything was so bright. The guy next to me had lost a leg and had a hole in his stomach. It was horrible. Those images keep coming back to me. Do you think I am going crazy? I don't want to be in the picture, but please write down that I want to have a good life. Nothing more than a good life. Can you do that for me?"

Jakub, 34, from Poland

"I drive for four weeks straight, and then I go home to Warsaw to my wife and kids for a couple of days. I carry potted flowers and tulips from the Netherlands to Switzerland, Italy, Spain—wherever. I miss my daughters. Today is my younger daughter's birthday and I'm sitting here in the truck, far away from home."

Denis, 57, from Ukraine

"It doesn't bother me that I have to eat alone, sleep alone, drink alone. I mean, it's better not to think about how it would be if everything were different. But it can be difficult. My mother is sick, she's in a retirement home. When I think about her being there, I want to go home to visit her and talk to her about the past. She used to be a cheerful person, she always laughed a lot. I'm afraid she'll die suddenly and I won't be there with her. But there are other times when I'm very happy to be far away. That's just how it is—I don't know what else to say."

Lazio, in his 40s, from Romania

"I only drive for the Germans and the Dutch. For Romanian companies the truck comes first, before the man behind the wheel. That's why this life is fine the way it is for me—damn good, actually. I don't know why the others complain so much. I am able to think of my retirement for the first time in my life. I now have money to see a doctor when I'm ill. That's a good feeling."

Jan, 65, from the Netherlands

"I was supposed to retire in March but I'll keep driving until October, because that month I'll be working for the same company for 25 years and they'll throw me a huge party. I've been behind the wheel for over 40 years. A lot has changed since I started—more traffic, more stress, less time. More drivers from Eastern Europe. They'll spend a lot of money on a license in Romania, Poland, or Russia, come here and say: 'Take me, I'll drive for any price, no matter where or for how long.' Don't get me wrong—I don't blame them at all. The carriers who employ them for half or a third of our pay are to blame. It's wrong. It's so, so wrong."

Ronaldo, 54, from Portugal

"One Schnitzel with fries, a salad, a cup of coffee plus a proper shower—all of that together would cost about €36 . I bring my own food with me. Always enough meat, some eggs, vegetables in glass jars. My brother is a farmer and for everything else—well, you can always get it somewhere."

Toni, 46, from Macedonia

"I have my own company, we're four drivers. I'm getting by, but it's tough. A carrier can only save on two things—diesel and the driver. Whoever is most cost-efficient gets the deal. That's not going to change in the next few years.

What difference would it make if I told you I was worried about the business? My drivers are reliable, I am my own boss, I have a family, the kids are healthy. I have photos of them—wait, I'll show you."

Ürsu, 61, from Switzerland

"I started driving on the 3rd of September, 1976—almost 40 years ago. The business has gotten tougher, but that's the case everywhere. The lack of respect these days, that really gets to me. It used to be that drivers really were something out on the road, I used to feel proud to drive a truck. I made so many friends and we all used to look out for each other.

These days, everyone just looks out for themselves. And it's no wonder: many people drive for breadline wages. They work for carriers who try to squeeze everything out of their drivers—the most important thing for them is that it doesn't cost much. It's modern slavery, basically. Well—things like that often cross my mind during those long journeys."

Look, summer isn't all tanning and beaches and endless soft serve. The hot season also has its shitty parts. There's the heat, the sweat, and the bugs, not to mention this summer's election cycle that makes any sane mortal want to curl up inside with the AC on until December.

And now, thanks to the tragic tale of David Salmon and his waterslide accident, we have one more reason to add to the list of why summer actually kind of sucks.

Salmon was doing just fine as he zipped down a slide near Austin's Lake Travis until he rounded the slide's sharp curve and caught a little too much air. He threw out his arm, but ultimately the poor victim of summer wound up rocketing up over the side of the slide and out into the wilderness below. You can hear his friends say "ohhhh fuuuuckk" in slow-mo before they turn the camera off and go rescue the guy.

"I could have easily broken my neck or my back, and this could have been way worse," Salmon told Fox 4 News. "I posted basically so my friends could have a laugh or just know that I was OK."

Now, Salmon is spending the hot Texas summer recovering from a bunch of cuts up and down his body, a broken arm, and a few fractured ribs after rolling about ten feet down the rocky cliff. Hopefully he'll be better just in time for fall.

Read: You Can Say It: Summer Is Garbage

Last night, Michelle Obama joined James Corden on the Late Late Show for an installment of "Carpool Karaoke," in which they circled the driveway of the White House over and over and rocked the fuck out while being trailed somewhat ominously by what looked like a Secret Service vehicle. FLOTUS (Secret Service code name: Renaissance) admitted—or perhaps lamented—through a cheerful gritting of the teeth that she has rarely had the opportunity to sit in the front seat of any vehicle and just "listen to the radio" for the last seven and a half years.

And she made the most of her time riding shotgun, opening with Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" before launching into Beyoncé's "Single Ladies," during which James and Michelle flashed ringless right hands and did the single-ladies scoot, if constrained somewhat by seat belts.

After the musical interlude, Michelle promoted her latest project, LetGirlsLearn.gov, an initiative to empower girls around the world through education. The first lady shared a few facts and figures before they blasted the single "This Is for My Girls," produced to raise money for the cause, featuring Kelly Clarkson, Janelle Monáe, and... suddenly there was Missy Elliott, rocking a tangerine Yankees cap and diamond bling, jump cut into the backseat. She sang along, bopping in the back, sans seatbelt.

Who knows what will happen in November, and what a First Lady Melania Trump or First Dude Bill Clinton will sing when it's their turn in Corden's hot seat. For now, we have Michelle, the coolest first lady in history, and watching her belt out the hits unencumbered by politics makes us happy. Still, there was one lyric from "Get Ur Freak On" that seemed especially appropriate in light of this week's plagiarism scandal:

Copywritten so / Don't copy me
And y'all do it / Sloppily.
And y'all can't come / Close to me.

Follow Anelise Chen on Twitter.

A squatter in London. Photo by Jake Lewis

One of the best subplots of HBO's Silicon Valley this season was exploring how broke people manage to find housing in one of America's most expensive cities. The answer, as it turns out, is squatting: In one episode, an Airbnb guest declines to move out of an expensive condo; in another episode, a tenant simply decides to stop paying rent, announcing that he can stay there for one year before being forcibly evicted.

While those plots are obviously fictional, there are plenty of broke Americans who are struggling to pay their rent every month. Which raises the question: How long, and under what circumstances, can someone live on a property, rent-free, without penalty of the law?

The most basic form of rent-free living is squatting, or occupying an abandoned home or building. Rules vary from state to state, but for the most part, the law is on the side of squatters. Let's say you move into an abandoned house in California, for example. If you discover who the owner is, you can offer to maintain the property in return for a free place to stay. If you can't locate the owner, you can stake a claim to the property and stay there until the owner asks you to leave. Rules vary from state to state, but in California, if you pay the property taxes on an abandoned property for five years, the property becomes yours free and clear.

Originally, these laws were meant to protect people from getting evicted every time the landlord wants to squeeze more money out of a unit, like kicking out decades-long tenants to turn their apartments into Airbnb rentals. The laws also reward tenants who act as stewards of neglected property, which is known as the doctrine of "adverse possession."

Matt Derrick, who has run the squatter resource Squat the Planet since 2001, said legal squatting can help homeless or low-income people find places to live in cities where there are literally "tens of thousands of abandoned properties."

"I remember squatting in New Orleans shortly after Hurricane Katrina, which was a fairly positive experience," Derrick told VICE. "Folks in that neighborhood were just happy to have people occupying a property that could be a crack den or burned down by arsonists otherwise. Eventually, the property did get sold to someone, and we didn't really put up a fight when they came to inspect the property. We just moved elsewhere."

If and when the owner of an abandoned property shows up, the squatter needs the owner's permission to stay there. Without it, they have to leave. But with it, the person can be considered a tenant—whether or not they pay rent—which grants a person a long list of rights, including protection from being immediately arrested and charged with trespassing.

"A tenant is simply someone who is in a unit with an owner's permission," said Frances Campbell, a tenant right's lawyer with Los Angeles firm Campbell & Farahani LLP, in an interview with VICE.

The "owner's permission" part, though, is where things can get murky. Let's say a landlord discovers someone has moved into a vacant apartment, and the landlord wants this person out. "The landlord could say, 'I didn't give you permission to live here,' and the tenant can say, 'Why, yes you did!'" Campbell explained. "As long as that person claims they are not a trespasser, we have an argument that the person is not a trespasser but a tenant-at-will.'"

In that case, the matter has turned from criminal to civil. The landlord can't just have the person physically removed as a trespasser, and must instead go through the eviction process in civil court. During that period, landlords cannot do anything to harass the unwelcome resident out, like changing the locks or turning off utilities. In essence, a person could conceivably move into a unit, set up shop, and live in there until his or her day in court, without paying a dime.

"All told, I lived rent-free for a year and a half." — Warren Sandwell

Campbell said the process typically only takes six to eight weeks. "It's a common myth that it'll take six months or a year," she told VICE, but "once the tenant responds, a landlord can demand a trial, and the trial must be set in 20 days. When someone does sit there for months and months, it could be that the landlord's lawyer is not particularly competent."

Welcome to Slab City, an ex-military base-cum-squatter haven in Southern California.

Besides breaking into someone else's property, there are other ways to get off the hook for the rent. If a property changes hands and a new lease is not instated, the tenants are legally off the hook for the rent. That's what happened to Warren Sandwell when his house in Springfield, Missouri, changed ownership.

"After living in my house for four years, I called my landlord one summer to get my broken AC fixed, and he said, 'I don't own your house anymore,'" Sandwell told VICE. "So it didn't get fixed. After three months, the bank that had acquired the house contacted me. They said that they were now the owners of the house and that I needed to start paying them rent immediately. I told them that we had no binding lease agreement and that if they wanted rent, they would have to fix my AC and begin maintaining my property as landlord."

As he hadn't been served an eviction notice, Sandwell didn't have to go anywhere or pay anything in order to continue legally living in his house. Which is exactly what he did. And when the bank refused to fix the AC, Sandwell quit paying rent. "I didn't hear from them for a year, when they suddenly gave me 90 days to move out," he told VICE. "All told, I lived rent-free for a year and a half."

In these cases, Campbell said there's a clear dispute over whether or not someone qualifies as a "tenant." But other cases are more clear-cut.

"An Airbnb guest becomes a tenant the moment they move in," Campbell told VICE. If the building in question is rent-controlled, landlords can only legally evict someone for "good cause," which means it's almost impossible to kick him or her out. (If the building is not rent-controlled, landlords have a little more leeway in evicting tenants.)

"Let's say you're a tenant in a rent-controlled apartment, and you go to France for a month and rent out your place on Airbnb. You come back, and the guest is like, 'Eh, I don't want to leave.' By renting out your place on Airbnb, you have become a landlord," Campbell explained. "That person is now a tenant with tenancy rights, and you cannot evict them without good cause. It's a nightmare."

Consider the Pashanin brothers, who paid for a 30-day stay at an Airbnb in Palm Springs and then refused to leave, claiming tenant's rights. Eventually, the brothers vacated the condo in the middle of the night—a full six weeks after they were supposed to.

Which is to say, while you can live for free in a variety of situations, you should be wary about who you let into your own house. In some cases, they just may never leave.

Follow Jacob Harper on Twitter.

For the past few days, photographer Peter Larson has immersed himself in the bedlam that is the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. As one might expect, given presidential nominee Donald Trump's penchant for creating controversy, Trump's coronation has fostered an environment of contention and divisiveness that is as obvious among the #NeverTrump delegates on the convention floor as it is among the flag-burning protestors out in the streets.

Photographed primarily in Public Square, the space outside the convention's restricted zone has become the key place for citizens to demonstrate as well as show support for the candidates during the convention, and prove that the First Amendment is alive and well in city of Cleveland. These photos were captured while the subjects were in the midst of marches, hot debates, and fiery tirades. Through strained visages, they show the power and passion of communication at the RNC.

See more of Larson's work here.

Warning: Light spoilers for the first two seasons of 'Bloodline' ahead

We live in an age of Slow TV. To be clear, I'm not talking about the Scandinavian livestream-as-broadcast-TV sensation that's captivated scores of viewers just by airing eight hours of burning firewood. The Slow TV I speak of is the dramatic micro-genre perfectly described by critic Matt Zoller Seitz in his review of HBO's gritty crime drama The Night Of, one of many shows that in Seitz's words, " each scene maximum space to breathe, often more than it needs." Slow TV treats extended monologues, flashbacks, and close-ups with the same reverence that Michael Bay treats explosions and fighting robots.

Slow TV might sound boring when described, but its execution has yielded as many hits as it has snore-worthy misses. Better Call Saul, American Crime Story: The People Vs. OJ Simpson, and House of Cards all proved the value in pumping the brakes and letting a moment of beautiful cinematography, an engrossing character study, or a particularly juicy scene linger just a bit longer than necessary.

At the other end of the Slow TV quality spectrum sits Bloodline. The Kyle Chandler-led Netflix family drama was renewed for a third season earlier this week. The renewal wasn't entirely surprising in light of the season two finale, which featured a murderous whopper of a cliffhanger that, if left unresolved, would make for an untidy conclusion.

All photos courtesy of Bloodline's official Facebook page

The season's final moments, however, felt like a cannonball off the diving board after nine episodes of wading in the shallow end. Even though Bloodline's second season was only ten episodes, compared to the first's 13, it somehow felt twice as long. If the show's creators (brothers Todd and Glenn Kessler and Daniel Zelman, who previously helmed the brilliantly soapy Glenn Close legal thriller Damages) haven't started sketching out the show's final ending, they should.

The show centers around the wealthy, respected, resort-owning Rayburn family and the aftermath of—and, for the first season, lead-up to—police officer and second-oldest son John Rayburn (Kyle Chandler) murdering oldest son and family pariah Danny Rayburn (Ben Mendelsohn). To be sure, going into Bloodline with the awareness that Danny—played with pitch-perfect complexity by Mendelsohn, one of the finest working actors right now—kicks the bucket will not ruin whatever effectiveness the show's narrative might have on you as a viewer. Along with Chandler and Mendelsohn's performances, Bloodline's stronger moments are rooted in examining the not-so-perfect sides of a perfect family. Alcoholism, drug abuse, infidelity, dishonesty, financial problems, child abuse: Bloodline has it all, serving up an expansive buffet of dysfunctionality that not even your nearest Golden Corral could match.

Unfortunately, Bloodline's familial drama has thus far turned out to be more famine than feast. Despite ending with a cliffhanger twist that would make Days of Our Lives scribes roll their eyes, Bloodline's first season set the stage for a more energized second outing—a season that wouldn't bear the weight of answering all the "Why?"s and "How?"s and would instead focus on "What's next?" Instead, Bloodline's second season was all smoulder and no passion, not unlike a boat on fire in the middle of the water.

The few intriguing narrative progressions—John's bid for county sheriff, youngest son Kevin Rayburn's battle with abuse and financial turmoil—were muddled by dull, Danny-centric flashbacks and hackneyed hallucinations plaguing a guilt-riddled John. A few first-season plots were unmemorably resolved (specifically, the fate of local drug lord Wayne Lowry); other threads, from the emergence of Danny's wayward teenage son Nolan to the exploits of small-town criminal Eric O'Bannon, proved ultimately directionless.

Not even fresh thespian blood in the form of the always-reliable Beau Bridges (who plays shadowy political ally Roy Gilbert) and John Leguizamo (as former Danny affiliate and gun-wielding tough Ozzy Delvecchio) could raise Bloodline's pulse above a resting heart rate. Despite all this wandering from the show's creative team, though, the brutally violent closing minutes of Bloodline's second season were plenty enough to suggest that there's more story to tell. Is that a good thing, though? What do future seasons of Bloodline have to offer its audience beyond more Rayburn family members who aren't bad people, but have nonetheless done bad things?

Perhaps Bloodline's true Achilles heel isn't the show itself, but how its audience has grown accustomed to consuming it. With the exception of the critically maligned teen sci-fi joint Between, Netflix's TV shows are typically delivered all at once to their viewers—a method that's undoubtedly changed how we watch TV, redefining the notion of "appointment television" as taking up an entire weekend rather than just once-a-week. If there's an expectation that viewers are going to take in ten hours of TV largely all at once, then the expectation is translated into a creative approach in which ten hours of TV can be used to tell one story, rather than viewing every episode as its own controlled narrative detonation.

So the binge-era model means there's room to breathe and take artistic risks—or, conversely, room to dawdle and meander, room to get lost in meaningless tangents and employ heavy-handed artifice. As it stands, Bloodline is—like the Rayburn family's sense of morals—utterly adrift, and although we have no way of knowing how many people actually watch it, if the show doesn't create the type of purpose that presenting an eventual endgame lends itself to, it could risk losing whatever viewership it has. "Let me tell you something," John Rayburn tells fellow cop Marco Diaz during an interrogation in the second season's eighth episode, "My family needs this to end now." So do we.

Follow Larry Fitzmaurice on Twitter.

Photo via Flickr user tanjila ahmed

When we all grow old and decrepit, we will undoubtedly tell our youth long belaboured tales of antiquated contraband-begetting practices from our glory days.

York University PhD student Mandi Gray was raped by fellow student Mustafa Ururyar in 2015. Canadian Press photo/Chris Young

If the outcome of Jian Ghomeshi's sex assault trial was a disappointment for victims across Canada, the judgment in Mustafa Ururyar's was vindication.

Ururyar, a former grad student at York, was found guilty Thursday of raping fellow PhD student Mandi Gray. In a country where only around six percent of accused rapists are incarcerated for their crimes, the verdict itself felt like a victory for victims.

"Rape it was. No confusion. No uncertainty to this Court. Ms. Gray was raped by accused," Ontario Court Justice Marvin Zucker said in the downtown Toronto courtroom. His last words, "I therefore find Mr. Ururyar guilty of the charge before the Court" were met with applause from the dozen or so observers, some of them sex assault complainants themselves.

However, in a statement released Thursday morning, Gray, who filed a human rights complaint against York for the way the reporting of her assault was handled, implied the entire process left her feeling violated.

"I am tired of people talking to me like I won some sort of rape lottery because the legal system did what it is supposed to. My experience is regarded as a demonstration of progress in sexual assault cases in Canada. I am expected to feel good because a few people within the system believe me. If we are told to be grateful for receiving the bare minimum, and that we should simply allow for social institutions to further oppress us and violate our rights, I am incredibly concerned."

Zucker's reasons for judgement ripped into the criminal justice system's handling of sex assault trials, addressing many of the issues victims and advocates have raised.

Gray was raped by Ururyar in the early morning of January 31, 2015. The pair had been dating casually and on January 30, she texted him after having seven or eight beers at a bar, to "come drink and then we can have hot sex." When they left the bar, he started acting pissed off, she said, calling her "a drunk slut." Back at his apartment, he broke up with her, then forced his penis into her mouth and raped her orally and vaginally, saying "this is the last time I am going to fuck you, this is the last time... and you are going to like it."

"Power, power, power. He was the boss and he loved it," said Justice Zucker.

Afterward, she cried, and woke up to Ururyar masturbating. He put her hand on his penis, and she testified that she said "No, I'm not doing this" and left.

"The rape, the sleep and the waking up. Enough was not enough for Mr. Ururyar," said Zucker.

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

Ururyar took the stand in his own defence. His story was the he'd felt sick earlier in the night and once he got to the bar, Gray "groped" him. He said he had consensual sex with her as a consolation for dumping her.

Justice Zucker called bullshit on all of it.

"To listen to Mr. Ururyar paint Ms. Gray as the seductive party animal is nothing short of incomprehensible. He went or tried to go to any length to discredit Ms. Gray if not invalidate her. Such twisted logic," he said. "It never happened this way. None of it."

Rather, the judge said Ururyar was angry that a threesome between himself, Gray, another woman had fallen through.

In his 179-page ruling, Zucker also methodically went through persisting myths about sex assault victims—and eviscerated them.

"No other crime is looked upon with the degree of blameworthiness, suspicion, and doubt as a rape victim. Victim blaming is unfortunately common and is one of the most significant barriers to justice and offender accountability." He outlined the different types of victim blaming—the narratives that a victim "enjoyed it", "brought it on herself", or "lied."

He spent a good deal of time stressing that affirmative consent i.e. verbally saying "yes" is the standard for consent.

"It doesn't matter if the victim was out drinking, out alone at night, sexually exploited, on a date with the perpetrator, or how the victim was dressed. No one asks to be raped."

Memories and specifically the inability to remember the exact sequence of events is an issue that comes up in sex assault trials to discredit witnesses. At Ghomeshi's trial, complainant Linda Redgrave was hammered about details, such as whether or not she was pushed or pulled to the ground when she alleged Ghomeshi punched her. At Gray's trial, she was accused of being too drunk to remember consenting.

"Mandi Gray remembered what was important on January 31, 2015 and she is right. Asking her to remember the details is ridiculous," said Zucker.

Gray went to Women's College Hospital and then Mount Sinai Hospital to get a rape kit on February 1. Addressing the delay in reporting, Zucker said "is too long ever too long? Does pain have a time limit?" He noted that in reality, victims of abuse rarely disclose their attacks.

"For much of our history the 'good' rape victim, the 'credible' rape victim, has been a dead one."

Gray, in her statement, accused the police of not caring about sexual assault.

"There were witnesses willing to speak to the police who could have immediately discredited the perpetrators version of events. I attempted to provide evidence and the detective deemed it to be irrelevant," she said, calling for cops to be eventually "abolished" from having a role in sex assault investigations.

Zucker's judgment also pointed out that acting friendly towards an attacker is not something that should be used against a victim.

"The experience of rape invades not only the body but the mind of its victims. Dissociation kicks in, often with great efficiency. And often there is a desperate wish by the victim to please the rapist, a desperate hope that the rape will end and maybe just maybe, I will survive."

Near the end of his ruling, Zucker addressed the myth nice guys can't commit rape.

"We cannot perpetuate the belief that niceness cannot coexist with violence, evil or deviance, and consequently the nice guy must not be guilty of the alleged offense."

Afterward, Linda Redgrave and Stephanie Stella, both complainants in sex assault cases that ended in acquittals slipped across the street to have a celebratory drink.

"I just wish I could rewind and have (Zucker)," Redgrave told VICE. "This was justice."

Read more: First Complainant in Ghomeshi Sex Assault Trial Reveals Identity, Slams Judge's 'Condescending' Ruling

Stella, who alleged an acquaintance forcefully penetrated her with his fingers in 2014, agreed.

"This is how sex assault trials should be conducted. Both sides speak, both sides are considered, and the realities of the nuances of this very unique crime are taken into consideration," she said.

"Ultimately, that verdict was a work of art."

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

A woman during a rally commemorating International Sex Worker Rights Day in Cape Town. AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam

There's a police officer in Cape Town notorious among the city's sex workers. Reason being, he devotes most of his time to making their lives a living hell. Two weeks ago in the upcoming suburb of Woodstock, he and his police pals rounded up a group of eight sex workers and put them in the back of a van. They drove to the city's main river and let them out onto its bank. The officer allegedly gave them three options: either we throw you in the river, you suck our dicks, or we'll arrest you and bang you up.

This unconventional style of policing is the city's dirty little secret. It belies a tide of systematic abuse—including blackmail, beatings, and rapes—metered out against sex workers, a section of society seen by some as sub-humans deserving of anything that comes to them. It's all about power. Incidents are rarely reported to the authorities because sex workers know if they ask for help they will be ignored or even punished, especially if the perpetrators are themselves police officers.

Yet, on this occasion, one of the women pushed into the river made a phone call. She got through to the only people she trusted to get her justice: a team of five former sex workers trained as paralegals. Their remit: to be on the frontline to protect their former colleagues from this tide of anger and brutality.

"In Cape Town, police and clients think they can do what they want, without fear of the law," paralegal Eunice Griffith April explained outside the Cape Town office of SWEAT (Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Task Force), an umbrella organization for sex worker projects in South Africa. "Our job is to engage, reach out, and spread the word that sex workers can get help, that they can talk to us. We offer a shoulder to cry on, in the street, in their homes and in court. As former sex workers we have experienced it. We understand."

The paralegal team, part of the Women's Legal Centre, is lodging a formal complaint about the river incident with the deputy minister of police and the independent police investigation unit. They are pushing for the dismissal of the officer in question, who has a toxic track record of bullying and violence against sex workers going back to 2012, including allegations of rape and attempted murder.

Another paralegal is Lisa Gladile, who was a sex worker for 15 years before getting the job. "I decided to become a paralegal because I've seen how sex workers suffer. It happened to me too," says Lisa. "So I thought, 'If I get the job, I will be able to do my duty and assist them.'"

Like Eunice she works a mix of day and night shifts doing outreach and helping with bail applications, fines, and court appearances. She is currently assisting a case involving the alleged rape of a sex worker by a police officer in 2012, which only came to court as a result of relentless pressure on public prosecutors by the Women's Legal Centre. The team is also pursuing the alleged police killing of a sex worker named Lerato in 2012 after she died of breathing difficulties when she was pepper sprayed and driven around in the back of a police van for ten hours.

The police don't make it easy for the paralegals. "We get harassed by police because some don't like what we are doing. They threaten us and tell us to go away, saying, 'You are not proper lawyers,'" says Eunice.

While most violence against sex workers is carried out by clients, the police are not far behind. Police violence and harassment, including unlawful arrest, blackmail, and gang rape, is "a pervasive theme" in the lives of sex workers, says the research. Another study carried out by the Women's Legal Centre among 300 sex workers in Cape Town found that 70 percent of the women had been subjected to police abuse, such as beatings, pepper spraying, and sexual assault. Arbitrary arrests of sex workers are common, despite a High Court order in 2009 specifically banning it.

Stacey-Leigh Manoek, an attorney at the Women's Legal Centre told me: "Police officers act with impunity because they can." The center has taken witness statements about police smashing up known properties of sex workers; stealing and burning their belongings; forcing them to eat condoms; rape, and death.

SWEAT, the Women's Legal Centre and the charity Asijika are all calling for the decriminalization of sex work in South Africa. They say a change in the law is the only way sex workers can be protected against clients, police, and ingrained discrimination. It says it all when swimming coach Tim Osrin appeared in court for beating up a domestic worker in a Cape Town street in 2014. His justification was reportedly that he thought she was a sex worker.

Paralegals operate in a deadly landscape. In August of 2014, one of the paralegal team, Anita Mambumba, 38, was found dead from a head injury, thought to have been caused by a rock. No one has been charged with her murder.

There are no official statistics collected on the number of sex workers killed in the country. According to SWEAT, ten sex workers have been murdered in Cape Town already this year, almost double the rate for the UK, which has a population 65 times that of the city. Two were shot and one was strangled and stabbed in February alone.

Yet, this is nothing unusual. In the summer of 2014, for example, five sex workers were murdered in separate incidents in the space of five weeks; shot, stabbed or beaten, their bodies discarded in the street in hedges or under bridges. From the killings that do hit the headlines, it would seem the criminal justice system is not that bothered about punishing those suspected of being the culprits.

In April of 2013 a 23-year-old sex worker, Nokuphila Kumalo, was found beaten to death in Woodstock. What made this case stand out was that the prime suspect was the internationally renowned South African photographic artist Zwelethu Mthethwa. The artist denies the charge of murder and has pleaded not guilty in the case against him.

Once, when asked why he photographed marginalized people, he replied that it was so he could "portray these people in a different light ... as decent human beings. People like any other people." Mthethwa, whose work has been exhibited around the world and still appears in a collection at New York's Guggenheim Museum, was accused of "repeatedly kicking her and stomping her body with booted feet."

Yet three years later, despite CCTV footage allegedly showing the attack and indications that his Porsche was at the scene of the crime, Mthethwa is yet to stand trial due to a series of bureaucratic delays.

This kind of delay in bringing suspects to trial for murdering sex workers is not new. In 2008, a man called Johannes de Jager was arrested shortly after killing sex worker Hiltina Alexander. Nothing happened for five years, until he killed a 16-year-old girl in 2013, was put on trial and convicted of both murders.

Duduziem, a sex worker I meet at the SWEAT offices, says she personally knows 20 sex workers who have been killed in Cape Town during her ten years on the job. She says very few have been reported in the media. When I ask her if she's been raped, she says, "Yes, it's like bread and butter of the job."

Sex workers disrupting the International Aids Conference

A report into the benefits of decriminalizing sex work has been gathering dust in the government's in-tray since 2009. On Monday, hundreds of sex workers held a demonstration, interrupting the Minister of Justice's speech, at the 21st International Aids Conference in Durban to protest against stigma and violence, and to call for decriminalization.

At the conference, Chris Beyrer, president of the International AIDS Society, says: "Research has shown that interventions to reduce violence against sex workers turned out to have a big impact on reducing the risk of getting HIV. This is one of the reasons why decriminalizing sex work is one of the most potent methods of reducing HIV. In order to be eligible to receive the HIV prevention pill you need to disclose that you are a sex worker, which is tougher to do if you are admitting an illegal act."

In the meantime, as the South African government drags its feet, Duduziem and her fellow sex workers are doing what they can to combat the violence. They gather in safer places and carry whistles. Those with mobile phones can access a special WhatsApp group, whose members include sex workers and peer workers, where violent clients and cops, "bad" number plates, dangerous patches, and details of attacks are messaged live.

I ask her what she is most scared of. Her answer goes beyond the grave. "I'm most scared of my body not being found after being killed. That I will be buried and they will not get punished."

To find out more about the work SWEAT is doing, visit their website.

Follow Narcomania on Twitter.

Image by Lia Kantrowitz

Everybody loves Pokémon. Over 15 million people have downloaded Pokémon Go, and many of them are likely rekindling their childhood love for the addicting Japanese cartoons. Nearly everyone, it seems, is catching and training and breeding and evolving Pokémon. The creatures can feel embarrassingly, achingly, real—we watch them grow from eggs to lame fish or whatever to powerful, gym-conquering monsters with actual, genuine compassion.

But how do Pokémon fuck? That's all I'm asking.

You can't figure out the answer to this question by talking to Nintendo. (I tried, but didn't get a response.) Google is also no help, because you just end up learning about a 2015 Pokémon porn parody called Strokemon (Tagline: "Gotta bang 'em all!"), which features a scene in which Ash and Misty have a threesome with Pikachu. I contacted Woodrocket, the production company behind Strokemon, to ask if they'd done any research about how Pokémon fuck. Via text, a Woodrocket rep told me, "Lol no we did not."

OK, so what do we know from the games? All Pokémon lay eggs. Two Pokémon can create an egg together if they're of opposite genders and are members of the same "egg group" (loose categorizations of similar-ish Pokémon with names like "Fairy," "Mineral," "Bug," and "Field"). In the original games, you leave the two together at a Pokémon daycare and then come back to find an egg. In Pokémon Go, you just come across eggs with no explanation. Clearly, the game's designers did not want you to think how two Pikachus come together to make a third. And yet...

"I suspect there's a lot of different ways that different Pokémon go about ," said T. Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary biologist and zoologist who runs the Gregory Lab of Genomic Diversity at the University of Guelph in Ontario. He was nice enough to return my call, and even agreed to use the scant pre-existing info on Pokésex as a jumping-off point for "actually coming up with some hypotheses of what you're most likely to find."

The fact that all Pokémon lay eggs is logical from an evolutionary perspective, Gregory told me. If Pokémon are going around all day trying to find other Pokémon to do battle with, he said, "a prolonged period of gestation would be very difficult. It would make a lot more sense to have external eggs." But the fact that Pokémon all lay eggs also offer us a clue that there's a certain commonality between them that would allow wildly different-looking types of Pokémon breeds to produce offspring together. Said Gregory, "They all go through a very similar early stage—the egg stage—and then their differences arise later in their development."

With all this in mind, Gregory said that if he had to guess, most Pokémon probably have sex in one of two broad ways. Many Pokémon are bilaterally symmetrical, which Gregory defines as "two matched sides with a head at the front and a butt at the back," as well as a set of genitalia between their legs. Most bilaterally symmetrical animals engage in internal fertilization—a.k.a. penis-in-vagina sex. So essentially, any Pokémon that looks like it has legs, arms, and a head probably also has genitals, and probably uses those genitals in ways we're familiar with. In other words, maybe Strokemon is more accurate than its creators intended.

It gets trickier when you're dealing with Pokémon such as Cloyster (the one that looks like an oyster) or Bellsprout (the one that looks like a flower, kinda), which lack that same bilateral symmetry. Those breeds probably have sex via external fertilization, where a female Pokémon would lay an egg that would then be fertilized by a male, either by him shooting his sperm into the egg or through broadcast spawning, which basically involves males "shooting massive quantities of sperm everywhere, which females then take in."

Josh Dunlop, a concept artist who creates realistic renditions of Pokémon, told me he thought that legless, amorphous egg-type Pokémon such as the ghost-like Gastly and Koffing probably engaged in a similar, albeit more mythical form of external fertilization in which the male Pokémon would deposit his sperm by gliding through the female's eggs. And who is going to argue with him?

It turns out that Pokémon egg groups—the interconnected networks of physically similar Pokémon who can mate with each other within the game—might also explain how Pokémon with such vastly different sex styles might be able to exist within the same basic taxonomy. Egg groups, Gregory said, are actually fairly similar to a naturally occurring phenomenon called ring species, which he describes as "the series of connections that unify two things that appear to be quite different." Each egg group represents a "ring" in the network, he said, and if you were to pick two Pokémon at random—Squirtle and Rapidash, say—they might not be able to breed together, but you could link them through a series of Pokémon who could breed together. In this instance, Squirtle is listed under the Monster and Water 1 egg groups, which means that Squirtle could breed with any other member of those egg groups. Get a Squirtle and a Rhyhorn (a member of the Monster and Field egg groups) together, and they can produce an egg. And since Rapidash is also a member of the Field egg group, it too can breed with Rhyhorn.

But I digress. I imagine you want to know which Pokémon have dicks. Externally fertilizing Pokémon would generally not, but some Pokémon who fertilized internally, Gregory said, "might have really crazy ones. Duck penises are curved and really long, and cat penises are spiky. If you look at certain insects, the females have special shapes for scooping out sperm from the males, while other insects' penises break off." If you're keeping score at home, that means Psyduck has a spiral-y dick, Mewtwo has a spiky one, and Pinsir might have whatever the hell this is.

You're welcome.

Follow Drew Millard on Twitter.

Life Inside is an ongoing collaboration between the Marshall Project and VICE that offers first-person perspectives from those who live and work in the criminal justice system.

"The only way to help your people is to be a defense attorney."

My father was the first to tell me that, but definitely not the last.

He went on to explain that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and all the civil-rights leaders of the 1960s had great lawyers to call whenever they got jailed for protesting. Without these lawyers, my dad explained, African Americans would never have advanced toward equality.

When I was in college and law school, I was also told that as a black woman, the only way to look out for "my people" and defend the Constitution was to become a defense attorney—and more specifically a public defender.

I followed that path, interning with the Legal Aid Society in New York City while I was an undergrad. A couple of the attorneys I met there formed their own shop, and I later interned for them during law school. But during my final year, I got an offer to become a prosecutor in Florida.

I accepted and never looked back.

When I arrived at the job, I realized immediately I was in the minority. The lack of diversity in prosecutor's offices is sometimes the result of a failure in recruitment; it's also due to the misconception that prosecutors only "hold people down." I've been called a persecutor and a sellout, and have been accused of just wanting to lock up young black men for a living.

In the beginning of my career, other attorneys, and even some defendants, assumed I was the public defender or the courtroom clerk.

That first year in the felony division, a defense attorney approached me. I was standing at the podium assigned for the prosecutors in that courtroom, reviewing the prosecution files, getting ready for calendar call.

"Can you file this for me?" he asked.

I looked at him incredulously and directed him to the courtroom clerk's desk.

Here I was, in a suit, pearls, and with all my education, and a defense attorney who represents the people who look like me had serious trouble believing I was in this position.

What many people don't realize is that the prosecutor holds all the cards; they decide where, when, and what charges should be filed, if any at all. Once the case is started, the prosecutor has the ability to drop it altogether, especially if evidentiary issues arise. And when it comes to plea bargains, the prosecutor can offer alternative punishments that may not involve jail or prison.

This is why diversity is important. Just like police officers should resemble the neighborhoods they patrol, it's critical that decision makers in the criminal justice system reflect the populations they serve.

Every day, I work with victims who look exactly like me. The majority of people I come in contact with in the system are people of color. I have become very fond of the look of pride, especially on the faces of older African Americans, who never thought someone like them could be in my position.

I see the relief that comes over victims of color as they walk into this office, afraid they would be judged, or not believed. When they see me, they know they are speaking to someone who will be open to hearing about their lived experience.

Working with defendants has been important, too. I take the opportunity to talk to defendants and let them know, "Look, if you violate your probation, if you don't do something with this second chance, you will end up dead or serving a life sentence."

That means something different coming from me.

It's always interesting to see the looks on their faces if they do violate probation. When they see me in the courtroom, they hang their heads in shame.

Melba Pearson is a prosecutor in South Florida and the Immediate Past President of the National Black Prosecutors' Association.

Illustration by Dola Sun

(Photo via Martin Roell)

And in yet another instalment of the increasingly regular series, "People Doing Absolutely Wacky Shit on Planes", a plane had to turn around because people were doing some absolutely wacky shit on it, i.e. they were toking on the devil's lettuce in the toilets.

To the Telegraph:

British Airways flight carrying holidaymakers to Crete was forced to turn back when a "nasty smell" filled the cabin.

Passengers complained of smelling a foul odour – reportedly compared to the smell of cannabis by some – on the flight to Heraklion after take-off from Gatwick on Thursday morning.

The pilot turned back as a precaution and the flight was met by fire crews when it landed 90 minutes later.

Obviously, some notes:

i. I mean, let's just go ahead and assume that the smell here was actually cannabis and not a cannabis-derived smell, and that smell was happening because a person was honking on some cannabis on the plane, yeah? Because a lot of the reports are muddled – one passenger said it was a "nasty smell", another told the Sun that the smell was "unmistakeable", splitting the passenger sample set immediately into two, on one half the nerds – the oblivious nerdlords who wafted their hands and went "and just what is that nasty smell?" – and the other half the dads who used to be cool but now they just want to take the kiddies to Crete, and they can identify the smell of marijuana but don't like it. I mean, essentially what I am saying is: there were a fucking lot of squares on this plane to Greece.

ii. Massive shout out obviously to the dude who thought, in these times of heightened fear and clamped security checks, of guns to the head and military pat-downs, of air travel as tightly overseen as a visit to the bowels of the American government, someone went: "I reckon I can get a few zoots' worth of bud on the plane if I sock it."

iii. I mean, what kind of person cannot last the 3h 55m it takes from Gatwick to Heraklion without sparking up? Like, how many late-night cartoons does this dude watch? How many YouTube videos of slo-mo yo-yo tricks do they have saved to their hard drive?

iv. I still not do not understand this Hot Yung Trend for turning aeroplanes around midair because they smell bad (see previous). If we could not use public transport because it smells worse than death then why are Virgin Trains allowed to operate? I digress, I digress—

Just going to have to spin my moral conundrumeter to see if this incident is Actually Good or Actually Bad, because I am a little torn: on the one hand, smoking weed is extremely cool and excellent and good, and comes with all this cool paraphernalia and merchandise (weed leaf socks, my dude!) that makes it feel like you're part of an illicit club or movement; on the other hand it does smell, and whoever did partake in the leaf midair ruined about 200, 250 people's holiday, at a guess. Is that Actually Good or Actually Bad? Is this an argument For or Against legalisation? It's really hard to know for sure.

Anyway, a British Airways spokesperson said, "Our pilot returned the aircraft to Gatwick as a precaution following reports of an unidentified strong smell in the cabin. We are sorry for the delay to our customers' journeys," so no harm, no foul, really. But I suppose at least this – and the bad shit, and the midair fight, and the two Scottish pilots who tried to fly drunk – at least all this is maybe, possibly, a trend towards more relaxed air travel in this post-9/11 world. Could one person smuggling a joint onto a Crete-bound aircraft and smoking it obnoxiously in the toilet signal a change of things to come? Possibly. Possibly. I salute you, Greek Ganja Liker. I doff my cap to thee.

@joelgolby

More stuff about planes, lordy there is just so much to choose from:

Two Pilots Arrested In Scotland For Trying To Fly Drunk, Knight Them Immediately TBH

Someone Did a Shit So Bad On a British Airways Plane That It Had to Turn Around and Come Back Again

What It's Like to Be on a Plane When It's Hijacked

A group of people giving themselves cancer. (Photo via Pixabay)

Is anyone else just really tired at the moment? Every day I wake up I feel like someone has filled my skin with boulders and soldered my eyelids shut. I just don't want to do anything any more. I want to play Rocket League and eat Peperamis, I don't want to walk around and get on buses and type shit and think. I'm losing it, guys.

You'd think the sweet nectar that is our old friend alcohol would be a relatively safe release from this trundling malaise, but no – you'd be wrong, friend, because guess what? Oh yeah, that's right, baby: alcohol gives you fucking cancer now. Seven different types of cancer, in fact. You don't even need to drink a lot of it and you're still at risk of dying from the world's saddest disease. Good god.

"There is strong evidence that alcohol causes cancer at seven sites in the body and probably others," says Jennie Connor, of the social medicine department of New Zealand's Otago University. "The epidemiological evidence can support the judgment that alcohol causes cancer of the oropharynx, larynx, oesophagus, liver, colon, rectum and breast."

So your throat, arsehole and tits – all things you use regularly, depending on your lifestyle, are at risk of getting encancered just because you want a white wine spritzer in the sun. Just because you want a Peroni at your mate's barbecue. Just because you want to do two shots in a row at a wedding because, somehow, through some arcane witchcraft, you're not pissed enough even after drinking for literally six hours solid.

This is all according to a study published in a friendly-sounding journal called "Addiction", which, not gonna lie, sounds a little biased. Members of Cancer Research and Drinkaware have all obviously chimed in as well, saying there should be greater awareness about the links between cancer and the drink, with warnings added to labels.

Well let me tell you something, Cancer Research UK: I love drinking and I do it every day, and I'm not going stop now. What else is there to help me through the relentless barrage of shit that is 2016? The Nice attacks; Trump; the cop in America who shot that black guy with his hands in the air but was apparently actually trying to shoot an autistic man holding a toy car; the car bombing in Iraq; Brexit; the Orlando attacks; all the celebrities I like dying; ISIS; my carpal tunnel; my phone bill; my overdraft charges; my overdraft in itself as something that exists; the lack of lunch options near my office; the price of plane tickets; my brain-aching laziness. And now this.

Fuck you, 2016.

More from VICE:

We Asked an Expert: Why Haven't We Cured Cancer Yet?

This Is What It Feels Like to Have Cancer at 20 Years Old

People Who Combine Coke and Alcohol Are More Likely to Kill Themselves

Image via Wikimedia Commons user Masur

The Lincoln County Sheriff's Department tweeted on Thursday that the water supply in Hugo, Colorado had been tainted with THC. It is unclear how that might have happened. The department went on to warn residents of the town of less than 1,000 that they should refrain from bathing or cooking with the water, surely to the chagrin of Colorado-based Dixie Elixirs, manufacturer of THC-infused bath products.

The childhood dream of what getting kicked out of school is like. The reality is not so pretty. Illustration by Dan Evans

When you're a kid, getting kicked out of school sounds a lot like freedom. Your whole life could be watching TV, eating ice cream and making prank phone calls, and all you have to do is poison your teacher's coffee or punch someone really hard in the face.

Turns out it's actually not that fun at all. It's a miserable process that can fuck with your whole childhood. And sometimes you don't even have to do something terrible, you can just be mentally ill or gay and that's enough for you to get the boot.

Three recent expellees share their stories.

ELLEN, 23, ENGLAND

I had been sent outside of my maths class for being disruptive, throwing books across the room and pencils. Outside the classroom at each end of the corridor were fire hose pipe reels and fire extinguishers. I thought it'd be funny to let the hose off. It was much more powerful than I'd thought it would be though.

When I let it go on the floor, water sprayed along the corridor, the hose was out of control and I couldn't stop it. It was carpeted, so the whole thing was soaking. I panicked and ran off because it was quite a lot of water.

I went and sat downstairs in the canteen making sure members of staff saw me as I thought that way I wouldn't get the blame, because I'd have an alibi for the time of the flooding. Unfortunately, it was all captured on CCTV. The flooding was so bad that it came through to the ceiling tiles on the floor below. It blew the electricity and some of the ceiling rotted. I ended up causing hundreds of pounds of damage.

They rang my mum and told her she would have to come in. She received a fine for the damages and had to fork out £500. I refused to attend the meeting and that day, I ended up getting permanently excluded. I didn't kick up as fuss at the time. I thought it was great. I couldn't wait to brag to my friends about it.

But it didn't quite live up to my expectations: I just spent my days mostly in bed or on MSN. It quickly became boring because all my friends were in school while I was at home. Although I was allowed back for English, maths and science at the same school, that was it. After those lessons, I had to leave the premises straight away. It's not my proudest moment in life but you live and learn I guess: I have never let off another fire hose.

IZZY, 18, SCOTLAND

I went to boarding school for over six years. I got kicked out in my last year of school. I had struggled with mental health problems throughout and really hadn't received much support at all. In late 2014, when I was 16, my mental health took a turn for the worst. In January, I overdosed and ended up in hospital. I was told I could return any time I wanted. I chose to come back a few days later.

I went for a meeting with the headteacher and became clear she was adamant on getting me to leave. She basically said that she didn't care if I killed myself but if I was a pupil in the school, it will reflect badly on them. She made it clear that she cared more about the reputation of the school than my health and life. I was allowed to stay for two weeks on the condition I took medication. This was to be a trial period to see if I could handle school. If not, I'd have to leave.

Unfortunately, I had a mock exam that week and I ended up getting 0 percent, mostly because I was having no sleep because of panic attacks. Although one teacher said that I may be able to resit it, I was called into the head's office where she immediately expelled me, asking me to pack my things.

That day, I sat in my room crying. A teacher came every ten minutes to make sure I hadn't tried to hurt or kill myself. A friend came and packed for me. I left after six years of living there without saying goodbye to anyone. Only a few people knew I was expelled until I stopped turning up to class. I had a breakdown in my uncle's car and then stayed with him and his girlfriend for a couple of days while I looked for a place to live.

My parents took it surprisingly better than I expected. They were angry at how I'd been treated but were very supportive. Other teachers wanted me to sue and everyone in the school - staff and students alike - stood behind me and defended me. The head was suspended in the end but I don't think that had anything to do with me.

ROB, 16, CALIFORNIA

I've been homeschooled my whole life. With homeschooling in the States, there's this thing called Co-Op and you go once a week. They teach you what you're learning the next week, they give you homework, you come back and they check your work. These co-ops tend to be religious, where you're mocked if you don't follow Biblical practices.

Growing up, I felt like I was never good enough. I was different from most boys: most of my friends were girls, I listened to female pop music and in my teen years, I started to question the strict culture I had grown up in. It was around this time I discovered I was gay. I was deeply depressed and contemplated ending things at 14.

The school reverend told me to 'man up' and 'pray the gay away'.

The church that my family attended was also extremely conservative and was much like Co-Op. They're also well-known for their anti-LGBT measures and have been actively collecting signatures to stop anti LGBT discrimination laws. Knowing this, I was careful who I told.

Around this time, my school reverend would constantly lecture me why as to why I shouldn't listen to a certain type of music or wear certain clothes. He told me to "man up" and be the person God had made me to be. He even made me have 'therapy sessions'. He told me to "pray the gay away" and I complied not because I believed it, but because I thought it would make things stop. Near the end of these sessions, I ran away and was so close to ending it right there. My parents were against me, all my friends from church were against me. I felt the lowest I had ever been. After a month of attending the sessions though, everyone thought I'd been cured.

So I created a Twitter account to talk about what I was dealing with. It helped a lot to have an outlet I could express my feelings about being gay, but also somewhere where I could be out.

One day I got a text message from my mum saying that she was going to a meeting with the school. They told my mum that they dug through my social media and found hints of me being gay. On my Facebook it said that I liked men. I was getting kicked out of school. They said it wasn't about hate, but about their policy: that you can't be gay and attend school there. Their only excuse was that they were doing it for love and that it was for my own good. My parents were totally fine with me getting kicked out for being gay as they're anti-LGBT.

There's really no happy ending to this story. I'm at another school and hoping to graduate so I can go to university. It's a struggle, but it shows that there's still discrimination towards LGBT people, no one should get kicked out of school for being gay. I'm sick and tired of being put down by society for being myself. I want to let kids know that there are people out there like you and it does get better.

Vice has changed some names to protect identities.

The Samaritans help people who are feeling suicidal or struggling to cope. More information here.

More on VICE:
The Most Embarrassing Thing That Ever Happened to Me At School
We Asked Students What Drugs They Take to Study
What It's Like To Teach Teenagers When You're In Your 20s

Donald Trump addresses the Republican National Convention on its fourth day in Cleveland, Ohio. Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Contributor via Getty

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

US News

Trump Promises to Make America Safe from Violence
Republican nominee Donald Trump pledged to make the US "a country of law and order" during his convention speech in Cleveland. "The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end," he said. Trump also vowed to "defeat the barbarians of ISIS," and to ban migrants from countries "compromised by terrorism."—The Washington Post

North Carolina Responds to NBA Snub
The NBA will move its 2017 All-Star Game from North Carolina to protest the state law requiring transgender people to use public toilets matching their sex at birth. In response, North Carolina governor Pat McCrory attacked the "sports and entertainment elite" for "bypassing the democratic and legal process."—NBC News

US Lags Behind in Child Prosperity Rankings
Despite having the world's largest economy, the US ranks ninth among the world's 19 wealthiest nations for children's well-being, according to a Save the Children report released today. According to the Child Prosperity Index, the US is below average for children's health, and 22 percent of children live below the poverty line.—USA Today

Colorado Town Finds Marijuana Chemical in Drinking Water
Authorities in the Colorado town of Hugo warned residents not to drink or bathe with water because it has been contaminated with marijuana's psychoactive chemical Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). One of the town's five wells showed "signs of tampering," according to Lincoln County Sheriff's Office.—The Denver Post

International News

Possible North Korean Nuclear Site Discovered
A US policy institute said it may have located a secret facility used by North Korea in the early stages of a program to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. A report by the Institute for Science and International Security claims the site, 27 miles from a nuclear plant at Yongbyon, may have played a role in developing enriched uranium.—Reuters

Indian Military Plane Goes Missing
An Indian military plane with more than 20 people onboard has gone missing over the Bay of Bengal, according to the Indian air force. A search operation has been launched for the Antonov-32 transporter aircraft, which took off from Chennai at 8:30 AM local time.—BBC News

Five Suspected Accomplices Charged over Nice Attack
Five suspects have been charged with terror offenses in relation to the Nice truck attack, after appearing in court in Paris. Four men and one woman, all aged between 22 and 40, are accused of helping driver Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel prepare the attack months in advance.—Al Jazeera

Brazil Arrests Ten over Alleged Plot to Attack Olympics
Brazil has arrested ten people who were allegedly preparing an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack during next month's Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. The justice minister said intelligence services began monitoring the Brazilian nationals in April, but a plan to buy guns in Paraguay forced the authorities to take the threat more seriously.—VICE News

Photo via 'VICE' on HBO

Everything Else

Snowden Working on Surveillance-Protected Smartphone
Edward Snowden says he is working on smartphone to detect and fight against government snooping. He explained how it would use a phone's SIM slot to shut down a phone's radio in the event of unauthorized access.—The New York Times

George Harrison Estate Slams GOP for Playing Beatles Song
Harrison's family is unhappy the house band at the Republican National Convention played "Here Comes the Sun." His estate tweeted that its use was "offensive," then suggested Harrison's song "Beware of Darkness" might have been more appropriate.—The Huffington Post

Japan Builds the Last-Ever VCR
The last ever videocassette recorder (VCR) will be produced in Japan this month. Funai Electric has been producing video-playing VCRs for 33 years, most recently for the Chinese market, but demand has finally fallen there too.—Gizmodo

Roger Ailes Reign at Fox News Is Over
Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes has officially resigned, "effective immediately," according to Fox's parent company 21st Century Fox. Rupert Murdoch has assumed the role of "acting" chairman and CEO.—VICE News

Comedian Ordered to Pay $42,000 for Disability Insult
A Quebec tribunal has ordered comedian Mike Ward to pay $42,000 for the suffering he caused to a child singer with disabilities, who was the butt of one of his jokes. Ward called it a "sad day for freedom of expression," and said he would appeal.—VICE News

Scientists Built a Biological Computer Inside a Cell
Engineers at MIT have developed computational circuits inside a living cell capable of both remembering and responding to data. It has been hailed as a major breakthrough in synthetic biology.—Motherboard

Photo via Shutterstock.

"Can I actually afford to get married?" It's a question every lovestruck young person has asked themselves, and after crunching the numbers, it doesn't seem likely. According to TheKnot.com, the average cost of a wedding rose to $32,641 in 2015—for perspective's sake, the average amount of student-loan debt hit is expected to hit a colossal $37,172 in 2016.

And yet, your mailbox is still bombarded by weekly invites to the nuptials of your equally broke friends. How the fuck are they doing it? We talked to some recently engaged (and married) 20-somethings to find out.

SHINE BRIGHT LIKE A MOISSANITE

My fiancée and I are both ladies, and we both wanted engagement rings, so we had to be thrifty. Diamonds are pretty, but it's also hard to know for sure whether they were at the center of a bloody struggle before making it to your ring finger. When we first started talking about getting married, I did some research and preferred the look and history of moissanites to the traditional rock. They're cheap, they're good for the environment, a lot of talented local jewelers sell them. We got two custom-made rings with rare moissanite stones for about half the price that most couples spend on one ring. Etsy also has a lot of cute shit for a fraction of the cost of what you'd pay at Zales—and none of the pressure to spend more. - Sakura, 26

DIY YOUR INVITES

Be honest: How many of your friends' wedding invitations have you actually saved, and how many of them went in the trash? Why spend $600 on printing hundreds of beautiful little cards that are doomed to the landfill? I spent $183 total on "Save the Date" invites, information cards, RSVP cards, and envelopes by designing my own stuff on Photoshop and using Cat Print to print it out. It's not fancy, but it gets the job done. - Courtney, 29

RENT YOUR WEDDING DRESS

Spending thousands of dollars on something you only wear for a few hours has always seemed to me like a poor choice. When I got engaged, my mom took me to all the major bridal salons in our area, and even though I found some cute stuff, I couldn't justify dropping a month's rent on a giant poofy party dress that's designed to make me look like a virgin. Instead, I opted to spend $70 on an Allison Parris dress from Rent the Runway, which I sent back the day after my wedding and never thought about again. I got tons of compliments on it, too. - Shayla, 28

FIND YOUR VENUE ON AIRBNB

The venue is the most expensive part of having a wedding. The places we looked at were in the $15 to $20,000 range, which was out of the question since we're both public-school teachers. So we decided to rent a house with a nice backyard designed for big events on Airbnb. It's on a lake and has room for up to 16 people to stay the night, which means our wedding party won't have to book hotel rooms. If you want to browse for stuff in your area, pick your dates and "16-plus Guests," then filter for "Entire home/apt" and "Suitable for Events." Our venue has great reviews and only costs $1,000 for the night. - Jay, 27

HAVE A POTLUCK WEDDING

We got married on my uncle's farm, and our wedding was one of those DIY Instagram monstrosities with mason jars, string lights, and flower crowns galore. I loved every minute of it. The best part was our decision to make the wedding a potluck. It was a gamble, and I'm sure a lot of people talked a lot of shit about this behind our backs, but we ended up with a random assortment of delicious food and we were able to fund an open bar with the money we saved on dinner. - Sarah, 25

USE YOUR WEDDING REGISTRY WISELY

My mom was horrified when we asked for a cash donation in lieu of a gift on our invitations, but if people think it's tacky, that's their problem. You don't need a traditional wedding registry if you don't need a bunch of new household items. Use the money to fund your honeymoon, pay off the wedding, or go on a 10-day bender. It's your life. - Liam, 29

VEGAS ISN'T THE ONLY OPTION

You don't need to go to Vegas to have a quickie wedding: You can get married at a courthouse in most towns and cities for under $100. If you're devoted to your partner, don't have a ton of money to spend, and want those sweet tax breaks sooner rather than later, a courthouse wedding is a great option. Throw a reception at your favorite bar afterward and watch those free drinks roll in. - Meghan, 26

Photo by Jake Kivanc

This weekend, over 700 members of the Hells Angels are meeting up for the biggest gathering of its kind in Canadian history. From now until Sunday, the notorious biker club will be celebrating their "Canada Run" convention, which happens every four years, in Carlsbad Springs, a rural community near Ottawa.

This week, Jon Stewart emerged from his post-Daily Show life of pro wrestling and beards to make fun of the RNC with his old pal Colbert on The Late Show. For the first surprise appearance, it mostly entailed spit-takes and jokes about Jeb!, but Stewart pulled out all the stops on Thursday's show.

During the episode, Stewart commandeered the stage, throwing a blazer and clip-on tie over his T-shirt, and spent ten minutes laying into the Republican Convention and Trump in the way that only Stewart can.

"I'm not an expert on racial unity," Stewart said, "but I do believe that some of our more vaunted historical leaders in that area did retweet white supremacists less than Trump."

The entire thing is worth a watch, although seeing Jon Stewart back on his game does make the gaping hole of smart political commentary during this election even more apparent. Check out the whole thing—ending with one of Stewart's most blistering rants of all time—above.

Update 7/22/16: An earlier headline incorrectly stated that Stewart spoke about Trump's RNC speech.

Watch Laura Benanti's Perfect Melania Trump Impression on 'The Late Show'

Image via Eleia Samonte/Flickr

I spent a large part of my 20s confined to my bedroom with the blinds shut because of chronic migraines. When I'd cancel plans last minute, people assumed I was using my condition as an excuse, but they didn't understand how badly I'd have preferred to be at a bar or concert and not stuck in bed. My friends had real night lives, and I wanted to bash my head into a wall.

I was working as a gopher for MTV, as well as attending school full-time and working at a dentist's office part-time. The migraines disrupted all of this, and as much as I tried to power through long days—with a lot of caffeinated help—the pain shut me down.

At first, my doctor described me as "a headache-y person" when I expressed concern. Although the migraines did begin as headaches, they didn't just hurt my head. The pain traveled into my ears, back teeth, neck, and—worst of all—behind my eyes. I'd become incapacitated to the point that getting out of bed for pain medication was too much to bear.

I'd self-medicate with a travel-size bottle of Excedrin, which did the trick with headaches—but when I was experiencing migraines multiple times a week, it didn't work. My doctor prescribed Fioricet, which is made up of the same ingredients as Excedrin as well as a sedative called Butalbital. After six months, my body built a tolerance to it. I tried anything that was recommended to me: rubbing coffee grounds directly onto my forehead, massaging my temples with peppermint oil, strapping raw potato slices on to my head with a bandana. I took an herbal supplement called Migrelief for a year. I did yoga.

None of it worked.

Eventually, I was referred to a neurologist, who speculated there might be a cyst on my brain that was causing migraines. I got an MRI, and he was right—I had a 4 mm cyst on the most important part of my body. By that point, I was terrified, but a neurosurgeon told me afterward that the cyst wasn't located in a part of the brain that caused migraines.

At 28, I was visiting a migraine specialist three times a week, receiving electro-stimulation treatment and occipital nerve-block injections on my head and back. That doctor theorized I had a food allergy and had me keep a log of everything that went into my body over the course of a month. When the four weeks were up and we reviewed my notebook, he took a highlighter and drew a yellow line across two words staring me right in the face: "diet soda." I consumed nearly 3 bottles a day; most times, I drank it thinking that the caffeine would alleviate the pain.

After spending thousands of dollars on specialists, MRIs, medications, and emergency room visits, it turned out that an intolerance to aspartame—the artificial sweetener in diet soda—was what had likely handicapped me for the previous eight years.

It's anecdotally accepted that aspartame is a migraine trigger. Research from the 80s suggested that it could increase headache frequency in more than 50 percent of migraine patients, though subsequent studies attempting to establish a link have been inconclusive.

Aaron Carroll, professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, considered the evidence against fake sugar in the New York Times last year; he told VICE that the studies that do find correlation are case-control studies prone to "recall bias." "Recall bias refers to the fact that people who've had something happen to them search their memories and remember things differently than people who are healthy," he explains. "That can lead to differences in responses that bias the results of a study."

The chief thing I drew from the whole saga is the very basic fact that it's essential to be aware of what you put inside your body. My migraines disappeared as soon as I stopped consuming diet soda—along with various "low-fat" products made with aspartame. Now I read food labels while grocery shopping, and when dining out, I typically drink water or unsweetened iced tea. Like most people, I get minor headaches from hangovers or after not having a good night's sleep. But after a couple of ibuprofen, I feel normal again.

"There's no single migraine solution for everyone—the detective work is key," Jonathan Borkum, a licensed psychologist who has authored studies and a book on the subject, told VICE. "For you, it was aspartame; for someone else, it might be red wine, rainy weather, staying up late, even feelings of guilt. The lesson from migraines is the importance of taking care of one's brain, and a healthy diet and lifestyle are central to that."

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