(All images: screen shots via E4 Skins season one advert)

Maybe it was because I'd just hit 15, or perhaps it was a direct result of the show, but when Skins came out in 2007 the house parties I'd been going to changed. Where they had previously involved drinking a bottle of Jacob's Creek stolen from your mum and hopefully getting fingered behind a sofa, they suddenly escalated to the point where people were doing coke and having actual full sex, very badly, surrounded by K-holing kids from schools other than my own.

We might not have been as hot as Tony Stonem or Cassie Ainsworth, and rural England wasn't as cool as Bristol—where, according to Skins, 17-year-olds can tick three ounces of "spliff" off legitimate drug traffickers—but everyone there was cut from the same cloth, or at least aspiring to be.

The E4 show, which premiered a decade ago today, made Britain's teenage parties look sexy, sweaty and confident in a way TV had never really attempted before, let alone succeeded in doing. And radically, while asterisking the potential dangers and after-effects of drugs, the show made using substances look like a lot of fun. While it wasn't without its cringy moments, it also wasn't Hollyoaks, where characters got "addicted" to weed and smashed up gravestones; it was as close as any show had come to representing how teenagers really use drugs.

Naturally, out of that first season came the phenomenon of "Skins parties"—house parties that aspired to be every bit as nasty as those on the show and in its ads: an American Apparel look-book made flesh, with just as much nudity, lots more vodka and a fist-full of pills.

For some, the term "Skins party" was pure irony; a knowing nod to the fact you'd bought some MDMA for a house party and that there would probably be some dickhead there waving glow sticks about. But for many, it became part of the common lexicon. The infamous party thrown at Rachael Bell's house, in which 200 people turned up and caused £25,000 of damage, was advertised online as having a Skins theme. So of course the tabloids picked up on this and jumped on the idea of cause-and-effect: that British teenagers had suddenly ramped up their partying because they'd been directly inspired by the casual sex and drug use they saw on Skins.

Of course, this is slightly ridiculous: teenagers have been having sex and doing drugs for decades. But you could argue that the show exposed a generation of underage small-towners to the kind of party culture they might not have encountered until university. Either way, the term is now immortalised on Urban Dictionary as "a huge party in someone's house where nearly everything is broke, lots of people are having sex and almost everyone is either drunk or drugged up", and that "self consciously aspires to be infamous, preferably on the evening news".

This was the era in which social media was really starting to come into its own, and it was via Myspace that all those kids heard about Rachel Bell's party, flocking to her home in a town near Sunderland from as far afield as London and Liverpool. Seven police vehicles, including a dog van, turned up to find "yobs" having sex in every room and curtains ripped down from windows. As Bell's mother Elaine put it dramatically to the Daily Mail: "The house has been raped. Every carpet's burned where they've stomped out cigarettes. They've urinated in wardrobes, pulled my clothes out and stubbed cigarettes on them. The beds have burns, food has been smeared everywhere and messages scrawled all over the walls."

After being arrested and released on police bail while a criminal damage inquiry was underway, Bell's defence was that her Myspace account had been hacked and that someone else had posted the open invitation.

Another infamous "Skins party" started out as a quiet "get-together" advertised by four female students from Bournemouth, and ended up being attended by over 300 guests, who vandalised the house and took part in "alfresco urination", according to the Telegraph. The party got so out-of-hand that one quick-thinking entrepreneur set up a stall selling alcohol in the middle of the road. It was broken up by 20 police officers and an air-support helicopter. Which is nothing, really, compared to the "Roman-style orgy" at a house in Sussex the week before, which ended with teens drugging the family dog.

It wasn't long before the trend made it overseas. By 2009, French students were going to "Skins parties" described as "the craziest thing in French nightlife, where girls are loose and drugs roam free". Except, by this point, they had become more legitimate club nights than parties that destroyed people's homes – a phrase promoters tacked onto posters and Facebook event pages to imply their parties would be decent. A "Dance Until You Drop" for the Myspace generation.

They were rowdy versions of new rave fancy dress nights in Oceana or Coalition, full of European frat boys and girls wearing neon glasses and hot pants. "Authorities are keeping tabs on them, sponsors are showing up, top DJs are part of the line-up and there is tighter security," one 19-year-old French student told a publication at the time. "I'd say there was too much security; at the last one I went to they were kicking out people who rolled joints."

Crucially, though, minors weren't allowed into these nights, defeating the beauty of what happened on TV, in a show that explored what teens too young to go to clubs or bars do to escape.

Looking back at Skins on the tenth anniversary of its first episode, it's hard to say what long-term effects it had on partying. Since 2007, going out has become both more expensive and just more difficult to do, thanks to the closure of half the country's nightclubs, so young people are undoubtedly staying in and more and more, and bringing the party to them. That said, to me, it's not since the mephedrone craze of 2009 and 2010 that UK house parties really felt like the debauched nights in that Skins featured in its season one ads.

What's certain, though, is that there's been no British teen drama that's caught the attention of the average suburban 15-year-old in the same way since. It wasn't the best written show, and it wasn't, by many people's standards, an exceptionally brilliant programme altogether, but the only thing that's come close to achieving what it did in the past decade is The Inbetweeners and its bumbling troupe of middle class virgins. Four guys who represented a very different type of teenage experience.

Skins, on the other hand, taught a very specific type of Bombay Bicycle Club-loving, NME reading British teenager how to party, and for that I doubt it will be forgotten any time soon.

@hannahrosewens

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Here's a question: Does Melania Trump even want to be First Lady? After watching this exchange between her and her husband at his inauguration ceremony on Friday, we're guessing the answer is: probably not.

But despite many people feeling sorry for the new First Lady for having to be married to a guy who talks about grabbing women "by the pussy"—which she defended as just "boy talk"—VICELAND hosts Desus and Kid Mero argue that Melania had to have known what she was signing up for when the Donald put a ring on it.

Sure, Mrs. Trump should not be shamed for trivial reasons, but we have to remember the things she's said in the past. Remember how she was all about the birther movement? Not cool, Melania. Not cool.

You can watch last night's Desus & Mero for free online now, and be sure to catch new episodes weeknights at 11 PM on VICELAND.

Donald Trump continues to believe that widespread voter fraud is why he lost the popular vote (by 2.9 million, something he apparently just can't let go)—and his press secretary backs him up.

During a press briefing at the White House Tuesday, Sean Spicer doubled down on comments Trump made Monday at a meeting with congressional leaders that three million to five million "illegal" votes caused him to lose the popular vote.

"He continues to maintain that belief, based on studies and evidence that people have presented to him," Spicer said to reporters, when repeatedly asked if the president still believes this claim, despite it being repeatedly debunked.

There was no actual evidence of voter fraud in the November presidential election, nor in any recent U.S. election. There's not even evidence of modest voter fraud, let alone "widespread," as the president suggests. There were just four documented cases of people voting illegally in the 2016 election, according to a close analysis by the Washington Post.

Read more on VICE News

(Top photo: Bob Jagendorf, via)

British prisons are pretty unpleasant places, as myriad reports and the recent spate of riots in prisons across the country will attest to. One report, released at the end of 2016, found that a "toxic mix of violence, death and human misery" has led to record numbers of suicides, with one in every 840 inmates killing themselves. Ten percent of suicides take place within the first three days of imprisonment, with the HM Inspectorate of Prisons acknowledging that the first day inside can have a major influence on the likelihood of suicide or self-harm.

I wanted to find out precisely what makes that initial 24 hours so daunting, so I asked four ex-cons to describe the day they entered the prison system in their own words. I spoke to former London gangsters Jason Cook and Paul Murdoch; Rob Butler, who was jailed for tax evasion; and Terry Daniels, who was remanded after being falsely accused of terrorist offences. Here's what they had to say.

JASON COOK

(Photo courtesy of Jason Cook)

The first time I went to prison was after being caught with an ounce of cannabis. The guards didn't offer any help or advice; they just barked orders at me and slammed my door shut. I was put in a cell containing a very dirty mattress, a blocked toilet and a green cover that someone had torn strips out of to make lines. A "line" is a strip of fabric that is attached to objects so that they can be swung out of the window and passed from cell to cell. I had no pillow, there was no heating and there were cockroaches scurrying around the floor.

I rang the buzzer on my cell door to try and get a guard's attention so he could get the toilet unblocked for me, and was told, "Don't fucking ring the bell unless it's an emergency." I said "It is! My toilet's blocked and I don't have a pillow." The guard laughed and said, "Welcome to prison, son. This ain't a fucking hotel. You'll end up in the block if you buzz for no reason again." The "block" is jail slang for the segregation unit, where they put prisoners who disobey the rules.

The hardest thing was dealing with all the time stuck in the cell. It took me a good four months to get used to that. I felt as if it was driving me mad at first. Listening to everyone shouting through the bars was also bad.

PAUL MURDOCH

(Photo courtesy of Paul Murdoch)

The first time I went to adult prison was for aggravated burglary with intent to cause GBH. I'd been to youth prison as a teenager, and wasn't as worried as I'd been during my first day there, but was still quite concerned about the fact you had to go to the toilet in a bucket and slop out each day. I didn't like the thought of that at all.

I knew a few of the inmates on the wing through other people, which was good because prisoners who don't know anyone are more at risk of being victimised or attacked. Almost immediately the other inmates asked me lots of questions about what I was in for. I was a little bit scared of being around murderers and people who had committed serious crimes, but wore a mask of confidence, because you can't show weakness in prison.

My first meal inside was lukewarm and the portions were very small. I remember there being lumpy potatoes with black bits in them. It was how I'd imagined prison food to be. All things considered, that first day was bad, but could have been worse if I hadn't already known some people.

WATCH: 'Young Reoffenders', our documentary about a group of young men trapped in a cycle of imprisonment and reoffending.

ROB BUTLER

When I first arrived at the prison it was how I thought it was going to be – intimidating and rough-looking. Funny as it sounds, though, I had actually been looking forward to starting my sentence because there had been a long gap between getting arrested and going to jail, and I wanted to get it out of the way. That meant I didn't see my first day as being as bad as some other people might have viewed it.

The guards were very authoritarian. They quickly told us the rules, but didn't spend much time making sure we knew what was what. I referred to one of them as "mate" and he said, "Don't call us 'mate'. We're not your mates." I'm Scouse, and it's part of our natural language to call everyone "mate", so it was actually quite hard to stop.

I soon bumped into a few people I knew from the outside, which made it a bit easier to settle in. I got asked a lot of questions by the other inmates about my crime, and the fact that I was only in for tax evasion seemed to work in my favour. It wasn't a bad crime compared to some of the other things that people were in for, so no one could really take exception to me because of it. There were actually lots of good people inside who had just made mistakes, and I soon settled in.

TERRY DANIELS

Terry in Northern Ireland prior to her arrest (Photo courtesy of Terry Daniels)

The first time I was imprisoned in the UK happened after I gave the key to my house in Northern Ireland to someone so that he could look after the place for me while I was visiting family. Without my knowledge he'd used it to store a bomb and a gun. I'd been remanded before in Spain after being falsely accused of another crime, which I eventually received a pardon for. As you might have gathered, I'm not the luckiest of people.

I was a lot more scared during my first day inside in Northern Ireland than I'd been in Spain. Northern Ireland has much more of an edge to it. Before being taken to my cell the guards confiscated all items of clothing that could potentially be viewed as containing sectarian symbols. That included anything blue, as the colour blue can be used to signify Protestantism. That left me with hardly anything remaining, as most of my clothes were blue.

When I landed on the wing I was appalled to find out that I was the only Protestant. I'm also English, and a lot of Northern Irish Catholics hate the English. I found it difficult to understand some of the thick Belfast accents, and was confused by the prison jargon the inmates and guards used. Some of the other prisoners had committed horrific crimes, including one girl who had cut someone's head off. Overall, my first day inside was extremely frightening and daunting.

Jason, Paul and Rob are now reformed characters. Jason has written a book about his criminal days, Paul now works for anti-crime organisation Directions Project and Terry has released a memoir about her time inside.

@nickchesterv

(Top image: Satirical artist Kaya Mar with one of his paintings outside the Supreme Court. Picture by Victoria Jones PA Wire/PA Images)

Archduke of Remoania Nick Clegg was on the radio yesterday morning trying to sell the idea that "the people will have to sign-off" on any Brexit deal.

The idea of "sign-off" is a cheery little way to sell his second referendum policy – the factory foreman of UK PLC inking the dotted line on his clipboard at the end of his shift. It's cute, it's visual. But it's definitely not going to work like that now, and his new hero Gina Miller (the figurehead of the legal fight for an Article 50 vote) is entirely to blame.

Paradoxically, by pointing out that sovereignty rests with Parliament, she closed the door to the people "signing off" any Brexit deal. The #2ndref team should be crying into their beer, not toasting this woman as though she'll soon be embossed on £5 notes.

Parliament is a balancing mechanism between two tyrannies. We don't rule by a government just whipping out Royal Prerogative whenever they feel like it – as the Supreme Court voted 8-3 to affirm. But we also don't rule by mob – the tyranny of the majority is something everyone from Hobbes to Payne to Isaiah Berlin feared as much as The Divine Right of Kings. The People don't rule – they simply get to appoint people they think might be good at ruling.

But Parliament can, from time to time, throw one back to The People, treating them as a bit of a sounding board. Which is why the June 23rd vote was technically "advisory" rather than "binding", which explains why Parliament needed to get involved the other side of it.

If Parliament hadn't been given a say, the stage would be ripe for the Lib Dems and maybe Labour to argue for chucking the question back to The People once any deal was done. But no longer. It's up to them now. And the logic of that scenario still favours the same ol' Brexit.

Confusingly, the breaking news hyperventilation in our press has illustrated quite how full of mirages and odd diversions this process is. People who don't follow these things inch by inch could be forgiven for thinking they're going mad. Didn't we already have a "hugely important" vote in Parliament? Like, only in December? And now, another one?

The technicalities are endless. The December one was "to approve the timetable for Brexit", and seemed like a very big deal at the time. That one sailed through Parliament with Labour support – 461 votes to 89. This time? Corbyn's statement yesterday afternoon left no room for ambiguity:

"Labour respects the result of the referendum and the will of the British people and will not frustrate the process for invoking Article 50."

So once again, we've got a milestone moment that, in effect, will change nothing, and there are a surprising number of these milestone moments still to come. It's bewildering, when you get down to it, how many different stamps it takes to fill out the democracy coupon book.

There's the vote on the timetable. Then The Triggering in the Commons, then The Triggering in the Lords, then both Houses get to vote again on any deal – though the government has signalled that this will be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis – then the EU Parliament has to give its own rubber stamp… but only after the governments of a full 27 different countries have passed any deal. If the "divorce" analogy still holds, then it's like a divorce if your ex-mother-in-law's hairdresser got to tie things up in litigation with her two cents on who gets custody of the Amazon Echo Dot.

The Commons, though, can't wreck this one without Corbyn performing the Charge of the Light Brigade on his own party – sending them off to certain death at the next election by defying The People. Parliament decides, but it also represents. It decided to hold a referendum. And now, each MP, beholden to their Leave-loving constituents, beleaguered by the Ukip threat, will have to decide how much to represent their views.

Of course, The People might have defied themselves with a #2ndRef on the deal (though Remain's patronising buyers' regret hypothesis doesn't seem to be holding much water just now). But thanks to Gina, saviour of good ol' Parliamentary Sovereignty, the chances that they'll ever get that opportunity have dwindled from slim to approaching nil.

Instead, at some point in 2019, if and when a deal is done, Parliament will be offered Hobson's Choice – Leave the EU or Really Really Leave the EU with Overnight WTO Tariffs and Lorries Lined Up at Dover Customs Belching Diesel Into the Channel Tunnel. Who knows which of those two options these deeply sovereign, profoundly independent souls will choose? Perhaps sovereignty and choice are not, as Miller and Clegg may like to reflect, the same thing. Sign-offs may differ.

@gavhaynes

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US News

Trump Expected to Order Mexico Wall, Block Immigrants from Seven Countries
President Trump is expected to sign a series of executive orders on immigration policy today, including moves to temporarily ban new refugees and suspend visas for people from seven countries. According to administration sources, anyone from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen will be denied visas. Refugee status will also apparently be denied, at least temporarily, except for religious minorities fleeing persecution. Trump also teased an announcement on border security, tweeting, "We will build the wall!"—Reuters

Trump Orders Revive Oil Pipeline Projects
On Tuesday, President Trump signed executive orders designed to resurrect the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipeline projects. One order stated that the Army Corps of Engineers should review the Dakota Access Pipeline "and approve in an expedited manner, to the extent permitted by law." Another reversed the Obama administration decision to reject Keystone XL. Environmental campaigners protested outside the White House Tuesday night.—The Washington Post / VICE News

State Department Examines $221 Million Sent to Palestinians
The State Department is reviewing a decision by outgoing secretary of state John Kerry to send $221 million to the Palestinian Authority for aid and development projects in the West Bank and Gaza. Republican lawmaker Kay Granger of Texas said the decision "defied congressional oversight." The State Department said it was possible that "adjustments" to the payments might be made.—AP

Only Two in the Running for Supreme Court Justice, Report Says
The Trump administration has apparently narrowed its choice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court to just two names: US Court of Appeals judge Neil Gorsuch and US District Court judge Thomas Hardiman. Both Gorsuch and Hardiman are viewed as firm conservatives, but the White House does not expect Democrats to fight hard to block either pick.—CBS News

International News

Hotel Attack in Mogadishu Leaves at Least 15 Dead
At least 15 people have been killed in an attack on a hotel in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. Attackers detonated a car bomb at the hotel gates early Wednesday morning, before armed men entered the complex and began exchanging fire with security guards. Militants from al Shabab are responsible for the attack, according to a radio station linked to the group.—The Guardian

UN Denounces Israeli Settlement Plans
The United Nations has criticized Israel's plans to build more homes in occupied Palestine. Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said that "any unilateral decision that can be an obstacle to the two-state goal is of grave concern for the secretary general." On Tuesday, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu approved the construction of 2,500 new homes in the West Bank.—Al Jazeera

South Korean President's Former Friend Claims Innocence
Choi Soon-sil, the woman accused of illegally influencing impeached South Korean president Park Geun-hye, has claimed she was forced to make a confession. "I am being forced to confess committing crimes jointly with the president," she shouted before leaving the Constitutional Court. The special prosecutor's office insisted the claim was "groundless."—Reuters

Three Convicted for $2.6 Million Taiwanese ATM Theft
Three Eastern European men have been found guilty of stealing $2.6 million from cash machines across Taiwan, having used malware to hack First Commercial Bank's ATMs. Latvian Andrejs Peregudovs, Romanian Mihail Colibaba, and Moldovan Niklae Penkov were convicted of causing public damage by breaching computer security in a court in Taipei.—BBC News

Everything Else

Nude Photo Hacker Sentenced to Nine Months in Prison
A Chicago man who used a phishing scheme to access the Apple iCloud and gmail accounts of 30 celebrities, eventually leading to nude photos being shared online, has been sentenced to nine months in prison. Edward Majerczyk, 29, was also ordered to pay $5,700 for counseling services for an unnamed victim.—Chicago Tribune

Orwell's 1984 Makes Amazon Bestseller List
George Orwell's novel 1984 has seen a sales spike since Donald Trump became president and Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway introduced the idea of "alternative facts." The dystopian classic entered Amazon's top-ten best-seller list this week.—CNN

Academy President 'Elated' by Oscar Diversity
Academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs has reacted to some diversity in the 2017 Oscar nominations, saying she's "elated about the inclusion." Six out of 20 nominated acting nominees are black.—Vanity Fair

WorldStarHipHop Founder Dies at Age 43
The founder of the WorldStarHipHop website and brand, Lee "Q" O'Denat, has died at the age of 43. The company issued a statement describing O'Denat as "one of the nicest, most generous persons ever to grace this planet."—Noisey

Badlands Park Twitter Shares Climate Change Facts
A former National Park Service employee gained access to the Badlands National Park Twitter account to share a series of facts about the speed of climate change. The service said the tweets were deleted according to current staffers' discretion.—Motherboard

World Not Ready for Next Epidemic, Says Health Experts
A new study by a team of international public health experts warns that the world learned little from recent Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks. The BHM journal report says we're "grossly underprepared."—VICE

There have been endless hot takes in the lead-up to and aftermath of the Women's March on Washington—Saturday's worldwide protest against the misogyny and racism embodied by Donald Trump. But until now, one key voice—the voice of Minor Hockey in Windsor, Ontario—has been absent from the discussion.

Thankfully, Dean Lapierre, president of the Windsor Minor Hockey Association, has stepped up to express his views on Canadian women who marched in the protest.

In a searing bit of political commentary, Pierre wrote on Facebook "Any of those CANADIAN women who wanted to protest the President of the USA and got turned around. Good u dumb bitches," according to Postmedia News. "Worry about your own Country CANADA. And your (sic) protesting what?," he added.

Read more: Windsor, Ontario Residents Tell Us Why It's Not The 'Worst Place On Earth'

Lapierre, told Postmedia he shouldn't have made the post, but "everything on Facebook was blown up about this protest regarding President Trump." He noted that he's mostly received positive feedback about it, with the exception of three complaints.

"But I don't even know them," he said of the people who criticized him.

Ian Taylor, executive director of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association, told VICE Lapierre's comments have "no place in minor hockey" and that the organization is looking into the matter internally. 

"We aim to teach our players the value of respect and acceptance of all members of our communities. Although this was posted on Dean's personal page, we believe he holds a prominent position and has a public profile within the community."

The OMHA's code of conduct states members "shall refrain from comments or behaviours, which are disrespectful, offensive, abusive, racist or sexist. In particular, behaviour, which constitutes harassment, abuse or bullying, will not be tolerated." Failure to comply could result in disciplinary action, including being kicked out of the organization.

Sexism with a smile. Photo via Facebook

According to Lapierre's social media profiles, he's a bus driver who loves the Toronto Maple Leafs and wears a lot of t-shirts that say Straight Outta something that isn't Compton.

He isn't the only person who played himself by making disparaging remarks about the Women's March.

Republican Senator Bill Kintner, who had cybersex with a government computer, stepped down from his position Wednesday after retweeting a post that implied some of the women marching weren't attractive enough to be sexually assaulted. The tweet echoed Trump's remarks to the women who accused him of sexual assault prior to the election, who he dismissed as liars.

While Lapierre's fate remains to be seen, we can at least take solace in the fact that he lives in Windsor. Of course he does.

Follow Manisha Krishnan on Twitter.

President Donald Trump may sign an executive order Wednesday that could allow the CIA to reopen its "black sites," or secret detention centers, reversing an order President Obama signed to shut them down in 2009, the New York Times reports.

According to a draft of the order obtained by the Times, Trump plans to rescind Obama's executive orders to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay and end CIA prisons, and replace them with an old 2007 order from George W. Bush that allowed interrogators to use tactics that were not defined by the Geneva Convention as war crimes. Trump was gearing up for self-described "big day" on national security on Wednesday, but it's not clear when he plans to sign this order.

Although the draft would not explicitly allow the use of secret prisons or banned torture techniques, it gives the power to top national security advisors to "recommend to the president whether to reinitiate a program of interrogation of high-value alien terrorists to be operated outside the United States and whether such program should include the use of detention facilities operated by the Central Intelligence Agency." It also reportedly would deny the Red Cross access to detainees in American custody.

The draft also calls on the Pentagon to keep using the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which Obama tried unsuccessfully to close, "for the detention and trial of newly captured" detainees, including suspected Islamic State terrorists.

Torture was one of the president's talking points throughout the campaign, who said he'd like to bring back waterboarding because even "if it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway."

Republican senator John McCain, a Vietnam vet and chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, "The president can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America."

We're tracking the laws and executive orders Trump signs in his first year in office. The updated list is here.

Photo by Paul Sableman

Teaching is in a state of crisis. In a recent survey by The Guardian, 98 percent of teachers reported "increasing pressure", while 82 percent described their workloads as "unmanageable". It's a tale of routine 70-hour weeks, arbitrary targets, perpetual shifts in government policy and a pervading culture of crushing bureaucracy. The question of pay is also a deeply contentious issue.

At the start of this year, teaching unions made a joint call for a "significant" salary increase, arguing that there's a "crisis" in recruitment to a profession that people are leaving due to relentless overwork, stress and pressure.

For those working in the unregulated shadow world of the humble teaching assistant, some of the concerns and pressures will be familiar. For many graduate TAs working through teaching recruitment agencies, it is a life of chronic insecurity, mandatory extra hours and the unspoken expectation of taking on a variety of the roles and functions of a qualified teacher at a fraction of the price, and with none of the training. All this, and the pay isn't even good. In fact, as I found out, Teaching Assistants can end up effectively getting paid below the minimum wage.

For the agencies, this arrangement spells easy profit, garnered through generous fees. For many schools – often financially overstretched and chronically understaffed – it means a stream of cheap, enthusiastic, highly qualified and expendable labour.

A typical advertisement presents a £60 to £85 day rate as part of an "Interim/Long-Term" role within a school. The reality on both counts is often somewhat different. The process works like this: after an initial screening meeting and interview with the agency, candidates start to be put up for interviews and unpaid "trial days" at schools. After receiving an offer of employment, you might start the next day, grateful for your new job, at least certain in the knowledge of an agreed day rate. It is at this point that things start to diverge.

At least, that's where it diverged for me. As soon as the first payslip appeared, it was accompanied by a jolt. Surely a glaring error or bog standard admin cockup? The figures made little sense. For a 40-hour-week – contracts stipulate working hours of 8 to 4, though they are often longer – the slip specified that I had been paid for 30. It meant that I ended up on less than minimum wage.

Colleagues reported similar stories, usually accompanied by protracted eye rolls. A few were mystified that I was getting paid "so much". As the weeks drew in it became clear that this wasn't the result of a one-off HR cock-up. I heard of opaque payslips with convoluted deductions.

Will Kosek spent a year as an agency TA at an inner-city London academy. The experience didn't stop him from becoming a teacher, he tells me, "because I knew it was only for a year. It certainly dissuaded me from ever becoming a teaching assistant again. I certainly felt undervalued, and that everyone there was getting a better deal than I was. Like I was the mug in the middle doing all of the work. I definitely wouldn't go through an agency again."

For many, it's a life plagued with financial insecurity. Particularly in London, it is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain paying rent with other basic necessities. No one goes into the role expecting to get rich, but the reality is that many are forced into second, sometimes third, jobs in the evenings to make even the most basic of ends meet.

Will was lucky, acknowledging that there would be no way to survive if he hadn't been getting "mates rates" on rent. He tells me that although he didn't necessarily feel he was being "robbed", he quickly realised that "whole payment process and deductions were horribly misleading as there's little to no chance of someone understanding how the process works unless A) you work for them, or B) until you get stung."

The terms of contracts tend to offer maximum flexibility to both school and agency, which means insecurity for TAs. There is no obligation to give notice and nothing in the way of sick pay (those lucky enough to be working directly for a school will have both, alongside a more generous rate of pay). Employment can be terminated on the same day with little or no explanation. My own faintly ludicrous experience was of turning up to work on a Friday morning to find I'd literally been erased from the system. Others have told me of similar experiences, which chipped away at their confidence and made them question their decision to launch careers in education.

Despite telling me that he felt little bitterness towards the individual recruiters themselves, ("you'd have to pay me a huge wedge to work in recruitment") Will also makes it explicit how the agencies' operations made him considerably more cynical and wary about the frontline realities in schools: "The positive effects of highly qualified teaching assistants working with small groups of children has been supported by several recent studies, and for many aspiring teachers it acts as invaluable professional experience. Yet these instances of exploitation push young graduates away from teaching as a viable choice of profession."

Jon Richards is head of education policy at UNISON, one of the UK's largest unions. When asked about TA working conditions he said: "Teaching assistants have heavy workloads, with long hours and low pay. Many are on part-time contracts and have to take on more than one job to make ends meet. This is despite playing a vital role in helping young people achieve their full potential. They deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and to be paid a proper wage – not face exploitation from unscrupulous employers."

Even aside from questions of basic scrupulousness, it is also a failure on a purely pragmatic level. There's an acknowledged crises in recruitment and retention of teachers, so it makes little sense to disillusion scores of motivated graduates in the name of short-term financial gain. Exhausted, poorly remunerated, utterly expendable. Does that sound like a viable and appealing career choice?

@FranDGarcia1

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A version of this article originally appeared on the Trace.

New offerings abounded at the 2017 SHOT Show, the industry's largest annual trade event, hosted last week by the National Shooting Sports Foundation in Las Vegas. But among the rows of retailers hawking the latest models of firearms and tactical gear, there was one surprising addition to this year's convention: a delegation from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). They had come to promote a unique partnership with the show's organizers on a nationwide suicide prevention program with the ambitious goal of stopping nearly 10,000 deaths in the next decade.

"It's really important that this kind of message is given from the gun owning community, to the gun owning community," said Cathy Barber, a suicide prevention expert at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who called the venue for the presentation "incredibly significant."

The collaboration is between AFSP, the country's largest suicide prevention organization, and the NSSF, which represents thousands of gun retailers and manufacturers across the country. The partnership, which is an arm of the AFSP's Project 2025, is intended to educate gun shop owners and shooting range operators on the risk factors and warning signs of suicide, and to provide guidance for family members who wish to restrict access to firearms from a loved one in crisis.

As The Trace has reported, the organizations have been testing the program in four states—Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, and New Mexico—since August. Appearing together on the SHOT show stage, NSSF President Steve Sanetti and AFSP Chief Medical Officer Christine Moutier announced the rollout of collaboration in all 50 states.

"Suicide is one area that we have not touched on in the past," Sanetti said at the launch event.

More than half of all suicides in the United States are carried out with a firearm, and gun suicides make up the majority of fatal shootings. In 2014, nearly two-thirds of all gun-related deaths in the country were by the shooter's own hand, according to an analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Historically, gun-rights groups have distanced themselves from suicide prevention efforts, reluctant to acknowledge that the presence of guns in a home increases mortality risks. Some gun rights advocates take it further, arguing that suicides should not even be counted alongside other types of gun deaths. Their thinking, as outlined by National Review's Charles C. W. Cooke, is that "suicides and murders are not morally comparable."

Suicide prevention programs often call for removing access to the means of self-harm, and are seen by some gun-rights activists as a cover for eventual government confiscation of firearms. Moutier, the AFSP's representative, sensed skepticism from the crowd at the SHOT Show.

"They wanted to know, is this really not about removing firearms from the home?" she said. "So we were able to address and clarify exactly what this initiative is and what it isn't."

To head off concerns about the project, officials from both organizations worked carefully on the language included in the program's educational materials. A brochure stresses that restricting a person's access to firearms while he or she is at risk for self-harm is a temporary measure, and put an emphasis on storing weapons securely.

"This initiative is starting with the reality that guns are in one-third of American homes so, given that, what can they do to keep someone safe?" Moutier said. "We're simply saying have that caring conversation that should include offering to help them secure their firearms temporarily if they're having this crisis."

Check out the VICE News short doc on gun violence in Chicago in 2016, the worst year for homicide in the city in decades.

Tailoring the collaboration's message for gun owners has been crucial, according to Barber, the Harvard researcher.

"When you use a phrase like 'removing a gun from the home,' that's very different than talking about choosing to store your guns away from home while somebody is at risk," she says. "Removal sounds somehow like, 'Wait a minute: is this an authority making a decision?' If it's cast in the framework of people making decisions that are in their interest, and in their family's interest, about where they're storing their guns, then it's easier to have that conversation."

Local chapters of AFSP are set to distribute brochures with the NSSF's logo to gun shop owners and shooting range operators. The organizers hope the materials will be distributed to customers and training-course enrollees. At the news conference, Sanetti encouraged gun retailers to be proactive in acquiring the materials.

"The messages couldn't be perceived in any way as anti-firearm," he said. "And we know that a lot of people in the medical community, unfortunately, sincerely believe the only safe home is a home without a gun."

Overall, Moutier said she was pleased with the reception at SHOT Show.

"I thought maybe we would have to prove ourselves," she said. "But it wasn't like that. The moment that we started saying that we share an interest, they were incredibly welcoming of us."

A key test for the project as it expands nationwide will be whether it can sustain the cooperation from gun stores that it found during its pilot phase. One of the several dozen gun retailers who participated in the program's first wave asked for a thousand brochures, rather than the 50 he was initially offered. He said he wanted to put one in every customer's bag. In New Mexico, in addition to distributing materials to gun shops and shooting ranges, AFSP members set up their own table at a gun show. Attendees reacted with a "mixture of surprise and curiosity," Moutier said. "Lots of people who have experienced a suicide loss would come up to the table and say 'Thank you, I'm so glad that you're here.'"

Still, some gun retailers remain reluctant to step into a role they think should be left to mental health professionals. Moutier said she is confident that the holdouts can be won over.

"Now that we've been living in this space for a while," she said, "it has become so much more clear that there is a common ground."

A version of this article was originally published by the Trace, a nonprofit news organization covering guns in America. Sign up for the newsletter, or follow the Trace on Facebook or Twitter.

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I can hardly recall a time in my life when comics weren't present. At a very early age, perhaps even before I could read, my parents would set aside the funny pages of the newspaper for me every day. I'd look forward most to the Sunday paper, which had the biggest section of comics, and in full color, which I'd pore over and eagerly try to decipher.

I specifically remember loving Gary Larson's The Far Side, which managed to pack so much profundity into one understated and idiosyncratic panel. Calvin and Hobbes was also an early favorite. I loved Marmaduke and was fascinated with the seemingly impenetrable sagas of Mark Trail and Prince Valiant. Out of my love of the Sunday funnies grew a natural interest in comic books. I started early, buying the comics from the most readily available source for a child: the supermarket. I'd go with my mom to buy groceries, but instead would end up devouring Archie digests, Casper the Friendly Ghost, and the occasional issue of Richie Rich.

One day, bored in the waiting room at a car-repair shop, I found a copy of something called MAD magazine buried underneath old sticky copies of TIME and PEOPLE. I couldn't fully understand the subtle and brilliant humor at 7 years old, but I also couldn't put it down. I felt like somehow the entire secret to life was encoded in its amazing pages. Even just Al Jaffee's back cover fold-in was enough to change my imagination forever.

And that was only the beginning.

Soon, I'd discovered a store in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan called Dave's Comics, which took up the entire second floor of a corner building on State Street, across from the University of Michigan "Diag"—an area with lots of hippies and counter-culture types, what I like to think was a small Midwestern version of Haight Ashbury. After my first virgin venture up the narrow stairway into Dave's world, there was seldom a summer day I wouldn't ride my bike to the store and spend hours sifting through their endless rectangular white cardboard boxes of comics. Comic books really had their hooks in me in a way I wouldn't fully recognize until years later, when death metal would do the same.

Comics illustrate life in a way that actually matches what being alive feels like.

Dave's, to me, was a whole new universe. I didn't know there were so many comic books, and so many people devoted to them. The fact that an entire store could stay open by stocking thousands and thousands of comics blew my mind.

And then I discovered the "Adults Only" section of the store.

I naturally assumed it was like the "Adults Only" section of our local video rental place, or our local Spencer's Gift shop—that these were just sex-themed or pornographic comics. Of course, I was instantly determined to get a glimpse of this off-limits material.

I'd walk by and peer at the half obscured titles, with only the tops of the comic sticking out from behind the shelf's wooden panel, intended to censor the "obscene" cover art. I was careful not to linger too long, for fear of being banned from the store I loved so much. To my surprise, most of the titles didn't sound very sexual at all: "Cocaine Comics"; "Weirdo Comics"; "Motorbooty"; "The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers."

After months of fantasizing about what could possibly be contained in the pages of these comics, I finally convinced my dad to go in and buy one for me. He got me a copy of very thick book-like comic called RAW (with a Gary Panter illustration on the cover). There was so much intense and provocative stuff going on in that issue, it felt more like an art magazine to me, which may have been why my dad was OK buying it for his pre-teen son. It was well above my age range, but I suppose even though I was only 12, he figured I could handle it. And I could... sort of. In addition to the comics inside, there were paintings and illustrations, some of which were highly sexual and extremely intense. I was deeply impacted, in particular, by the work of an artist named Pascal Doury.

Artwork by Pascal Doury

When I finally gained access to this forbidden realm, I felt a great rush, the kind you get when you know you're doing something illicit. The rush was so strong that it even had a taste, right by the back of my tongue, where my throat started and my tonsils and epiglottis pulsed. This strange sour taste was accompanied by a deep primal ache on the roof of my mouth. It was a palpable and euphoric moment—crossing a threshold, away from innocence.

From that first issue of RAW, my fascination grew deeper. I started getting into the work of S. Clay Wilson, John Howard, Robert Williams, Robert Crumb, Spain Rodriguez, Charles Burns, Jim Osborne, Peter Bagge, Bob Burden, and others. I was enthralled by nearly everything I encountered, and each collision with a new artist would in turn lead to finding a whole host of others. Every artist stood alone, with an iconoclastic style and feeling only they could provide. It wasn't only their artwork, but also their ideas that were so compelling. No prior experience of mine, or any extension of my dreams or nightmares, could've fully prepared me for these fantastic, and entirely new creative statements and explorations.

What was most striking about it all was the unique mode of delivery and process. The comics told stories, but they weren't exactly literature. It was definitely art, but it proudly defied classical artistic restrictions. The work was funny, but also dark, scary, unnerving, enlightened. These "adult comics" could do anything they wanted. It was all the best things combined, and yet entirely their own thing.

They were dead on about life, about reality. Reading these comics felt like I was witnessing a nail being hit on the head, over and over again. And then realizing that this nail head was actually my own head. They could present me with the most far out, bizarre perspective, and then illustrate that perspective so compellingly that it became the only one that made any sense.

I like to compare comics to a synthesizer keyboard. When synths first made their way into the culture, people didn't really know what to make of them. They were too new. People thought they were just noise makers, and for the longest time didn't really consider them legitimate musical instruments.

But nothing can really do what a synth can. No other musical instrument. Similarly, nothing can really do what a comic can. No other art form. And, as underground and "adult" comics have proven, when the medium is totally released from any creative or moral restrictions, it's able to explore the entirety of the human experience and illuminate parts of life that are not always so clearly visible to us otherwise.

Comics illustrate life in a way that actually matches what being alive feels like. And that is magical.

Follow Andrew W.K. on Twitter.

As a three-hour movie about a cell of slogan-spouting, frequently naked, and very angry French-Canadian radicals determined to destroy society by means both dangerous and kinda pathetic, Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves is bound to be way, way too abrasive for some people. Co-director Mathieu Denis discovered just how many at his film's premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

"We literally had 500 people walk out of the theatre," says Denis now. "And the people who were leaving were not just like, 'Oh, I've got something else to do.' They were angrily leaving and banging the doors. At some point, people who were staying were yelling back at the people who were loudly leaving."

When it comes to determining the best time to storm out, easily outraged viewers have a wide range of options. Some may choose not to wait and leave during the first five minutes, which consists of an entirely black screen accompanied by a classical overture. Others may prefer to wait for one of the four lead actors to stare into the camera and deliver a screed of rage-filled rhetoric while standing before a wall scrawled with slogans. Sometimes they may do it while performing some sort of interpretive dance, their bodies spattered with paint and muck. At one point, a character pisses into a toilet to the sound of a Justin Trudeau campaign commercial.

If none of that works, nothing says, "Get out now, you chicken shits!" like another black-screened intermission break set to the sounds of Norwegian black-metal gods Burzum. It was at that point in the premiere—at which Denis and co-director Simon Lavoie admit they were worried they'd run out of patrons—some audience members stood up and applauded. Says Denis, "When I saw that, I thought, 'We're fine—the boring people have left and the good ones are in!'"

The good ones were right to stay. The power, fury, and sheer weirdness of Denis and Lavoie's effort would make it remarkable even if it didn't represent such a break from the more restrained traditions of this country's cinematic output. Instead, their film is an unrepentant middle finger to that tendency toward timidity, which is why it was so gratifying when it won the festival's prize for best Canadian feature.

It's also one of the rare movies from any part of the world that truly captures the feelings of frustration, hopelessness, and political impotency that define this moment for many young people, especially the student protesters who first inspired this assaultive vision of extreme dissent.

Denis and Lavoie are friends and sometime collaborators with distinguished CVs in their own right—Denis' 2014 feature Corbo is a chilling drama based on the true story of a Montreal teen who became a bomber for the FLQ, the Quebec separatist paramilitary group whose actions brought Canada to a breaking point in 1970. The duo's first feature together was Laurentie, a stark study in youthful apathy and alienation. While promoting the film in Quebec in late 2011 and early 2012, they ended up meeting many students who'd become active in the movement against university tuition hikes, a fight that would involve half the province's student population by April of 2012.

"There were huge protests every day with thousands of people," says Denis of the groundswell later dubbed the Maple Spring, a name the filmmakers hate. "We'd met a lot of these students who were very much committed and it was a big, big deal for them. We thought that was very moving, especially because Laurentie is a film about political disengagement and we were meeting these young people who were not in that mood at all. In fact, they were asking us, 'Well, you've made this people about cynicism and apathy and look at what's going on—don't you think you missed the point?' What we said back then was, 'Let's talk about it six months from now because if this thing endures and it actually changes things, then yeah, we were totally wrong and we will have been happy to be wrong.' "

Alas, the Maple Spring dissipated with the arrival of summer and the end of classes. But the filmmakers kept thinking about what might've happened if the most hardcore protesters had stayed on the path of anger and righteousness. How much further could they go?

Pretty far, judging by the extremity of the circumstances in Those Who Make Revolution Halfway…, which largely takes place in a filth-strewn apartment where the four radicals strive to live a truly revolutionary lifestyle by preparing for an increasingly dangerous series of anti-establishment actions. As relentless as it is futile, their assault on societal norms includes their own determination to negate their own sexuality and upend gender identities. (Trans actress Gabrielle Tremblay delivers the most startling performance by the uncommonly courageous lead performers.)

"Neither of us is running around naked all the time and living in a commune so we're definitely not these characters. But at the same time, we're also wondering which way the world is going and how to change it in an actual way."

"It's a film about the difficulty of being an idealist in today's world," says Denis. "We're kind of asking the question, 'Well, when is too much? When is just enough?' It's so difficult for the characters because we're living in times when the enemy is not obvious. We're seeing that materialize in different ways now since a lot of people are dissatisfied with the way the world is going. Some people think the answer to that is having Donald Trump as their president. Some people turn to religion in a very extremist and radical way. It's very difficult and our characters are stuck with that and they're trying to change things. They don't exactly know how to approach it and they're going by these very high ideals that they have—sometimes they're just going too far and it becomes inhuman."

The film also taps into something deeper, a darker undercurrent that Canadians—especially those Anglos who know little about French-Canadians' history of political extremism—may be unwilling to recognize in their own society. Though some viewers have drawn parallels between the process of radicalization here and the kind that yields Jihadis, Lavoie notes that this association was not their intention. "This is rooted more in the historical tradition of the extreme left and the indépandiste movement that had previously occurred in Quebec," he says. In other words, the revolution imagined here starts very much at home if you live anywhere near Mile End.

That realization may be disturbing enough to drive some people out of the theatre when the film—which continues to tour nationally as part of the Canada's Top Ten festival and plays the Berlin film festival next month—opens in Montreal in February. Others may feel inspired to acknowledge and act on that deep-seated hunger for change in less self-destructive ways than the characters on screen.

"Obviously we didn't try to make a propaganda film," says Denis. "We're approaching this more as a self-interrogation. Neither of us is running around naked all the time and living in a commune so we're definitely not these characters. But at the same time, we're also wondering which way the world is going and how to change it in an actual way. We hope that people who see the film will bring something of it with them and reflect on that. Because that's the first thing, we have to collectively think about, notice how the world is and identify what we want to change about it and how. I think we're at the point in the process when we have to identify what we want to change."

"We only wanted to testify and be honest because we were very moved by these young people who were demonstrating and who truly believed there would be an opportunity to change things," says Lavoie. "To show the people the world in which they are living in is the first step to get to a solution."

Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves is screening across Canada as part of TIFF Canada's Top 10 and opens in Quebec on Feb. 3.

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The opioid crisis has claimed thousands of lives since its onset in Canada several years ago, and recently a Vancouver MP brought up a conversation about the necessity for our country to consider legalizing drugs in order to address growing public health concerns around overdose deaths.

"I think we are at the point, as a country, where we can start opening a dialogue about finding a better method of distributing drugs, legally, to those who are addicted to them so that we can avoid the unnecessary death, destruction, and crime that is so clearly associated with the current model [prohibition]," Don Davies, the NDP MP for Vancouver Kingsway, told the Georgia Straight.

Trudeau has promised Canadians legalization of weed, which won't happen until 2018 most likely. If that is successful (and likely it will be considered successful once the dollars start rolling into the government's coffers), there could be calls for further legalization of drugs as public attitudes soften.

But what would happen if Canada legalized drugs other than marijuana? We have seen full decriminalization, all the way from weed to heroin, in Portugal—but legalization is another concept entirely. Bill Bogart, who wrote the book Off The Street, which called for national discussion in Canada of this very topic, said that simply decriminalizing drugs only treats one side of the equation—it does not address drug supply issues.

"There's no quality assurance of what is being sold [with just decriminalization], so in an illicit market, people can be sold tainted substances that can make them sick or even kill them," Bogart told VICE. "If we legalize and regulate, people would know what's in them, how potent they are, etc." That reasoning is why legalization would need to be considered over simply decriminalization if Canada would want to use it as a way to remedy the destruction bootleg fentanyl has caused. By legalizing and regulating, the government could better ensure that substances people are consuming are not tainted, leading to a decrease in overdoses and deaths.

When it comes to legalization in Canada, however, a single country ending prohibition would have little effect on the global illicit drug market, including inhumane conditions in which drugs such as cocaine are produced. As Bogart said, an international effort toward ending prohibition would be necessary if we hope to address those kinds of problems.

"One of the central goals in legalization and regulation is to get rid of the misery that prohibition has caused… It's generated an illicit market run by the lawless; if we legalize and regulate, we'll confront that kind of market."

But what could happen in Canada to criminal organizations in control of the drug trade here if we ended prohibition?

"Just because we legalize and regulate, it doesn't mean the illicit market will disappear the next day," Bogart told VICE. "It will be driven out, and the object is to completely destroy it, but it will take time. Whatever portion of the market remains illicit, by definition, it's not being taxed."

READ MORE: What Would Happen in the Minutes and Hours After the US Invaded Canada?

That taxation is a major benefit to legalizing drugs, Bogart said, and soon we will get to witness firsthand a case study in what that looks like once we see the prohibition of marijuana in Canada officially end. The weed industry alone in Canada could have a value in the billions of dollars—if we considered legalizing other currently illicit drugs, the kind of revenue that would create could equal out to be a ridiculously huge amount of money.

"It's hard to quantify; because it is an illicit market, we don't have any good figures… It's certainly [at least] a billion-dollar industry."

We could see other drugs—like magic mushrooms and cocaine—sold in dispensaries like weed is pending their legalization. But, Bogart said, we are more likely to see legalization in waves, meaning single substances made legal in phases over time. Though he is for legalization, Bogart said he doesn't think it will or should be done all at once.

"Attitudes and norms can change; we mustn't despair of them never changing"

An additional benefit to taxing drugs in addition to marijuana, Bogart said, is that it is a form of harm reduction. The cost associated could impact our consumption.

"We'll take the money we've spent on the criminal justice system and on the enforcement system, and use it to build a system of regulation, one aspect of which is harm reduction… The message would be become, 'Well, we're not going to put you in jail for this, but that doesn't mean drugs are harmless." Ending prohibition, Bogart said, would have a significant impact on decreasing our prison population in Canada. And additionally, harm reduction, ideally, would become embedded in our education system in order to educate children from a young age about the effects of different kinds of drug use.

However, the stigma and stereotypes rooted in the War on Drugs mentality will take time to shift. "Attitudes and norms can change; we mustn't despair of them never changing." Bogart said. "Marijuana will get to the same place as alcohol… We could develop corresponding attitudes toward other drugs, [such as accepting] cocaine use in a way where there's no sign of dependence and you use it occasionally."

Bogart believes the opioid crisis has reignited the important conversation around ending prohibition of substances other than marijuana in Canada, but that "there's so many factors at play here. If Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions decide they are going to be drug warriors, this whole evolution is going to be enormously impeded."

Follow Allison Tierney on Twitter .

Now that digital video is pretty much globally ubiquitous—and it's as easy to film something as whipping out your iPhone or aiming your GoPro and loading it to your Facebook page—we're learning a lot about police behavior that might have otherwise gone unreported.

And not all of that behavior is pretty. A video that is circulating widely appears to show a Chicago police officer hurling a to-go cup of hot coffee at a passing motorcyclist. Unfortunately for the cop, the motorcyclist was wearing a camera on his helmet and the video is now being examined by the Chicago Police Department.

Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says he first learned on Monday of the 40-second video, which was posted by a group called Chicago United Riders on their Facebook page. The video has more than 98,000 views as of today. It depicts a group of motorcyclists proceeding down Hubbard Street in Chicago. One pops a wheelie (an illegal act, according to CBS local news, under the law in that jurisdiction) and the rider who is videotaping the journey says something unclear—some suggest it was "Ah man, we'll keep it down"—to a police officer, who appears to be waiting to cross the street.

Read more on MUNCHIES

Imagining a time before the Affordable Care Act is like trying to imagine a time before cellphones—it was only a few years ago, but it was a completely different world, and not necessarily one that anyone wants to go back to. Though estimates vary on how many people Obamacare gave insurance to, even those who aren't fans of the law admit it's well over 10 million. And as Republicans prepare to repeal the law without a concrete replacement, many of those people are rightfully worried about whether they'll lose the insurance they just got.

There are many people whose lives are affected by the battle over repeal. Some have preexisting conditions that insurers may not have to cover if Obamacare goes away. Others, who are healthy enough not to worry about that, haven't bothered to get insurance and might be unsure about whether they should bother with major changes coming soon. Still others may be contemplating leaving their insurance-providing jobs but now are concerned they won't be able to buy affordable individual plans.

To sort out the best course of action for people who either don't have insurance or at risk of losing it, I called up Paul Keckley, a healthcare policy analyst. (I interrupted his viewing of the confirmation hearing for Department of Health and Human Services head Tom Price, which he said was making him angry.) He took a few minutes to explain what he thinks will happen to insurance premiums after Obamacare is dismantled, as well as what young people should do in anticipation of the new system.

VICE: What should someone do if they don't have healthcare right now?
Paul Keckley: You really end up with two options. Let's assume you're in the "young and invincible" category, and you're employable. The first option: If you're employed, your employer is going to offer you a high-deductible product that's going to carry about a $1,000 out-of-pocket and a premium depending on what state you're in—somewhere between $100 and $400 a month. That's gonna be the safety net. Some will actually choose a deductible as high as $2,500 or $5,000, if they can go to mom or dad for that if they end up in the emergency room.

The second option is you kind of take your chances and go without, which there's an expectation that large numbers of folks will actually do. There are 6.1 million who got coverage who are 19 to 25 under the provision of the law, and it's likely that about half will simply go without, because they won't transition into a job where they're able to access that high-deductible product and they're not earning enough income that they can afford any premium. They'll take their chances on emergency rooms and walk-in clinics. That's the bottom line, that's where we are.

So with the executive order that Trump signed, no one's going to be penalized for not having health insurance at least, right?
What he's done is suspend the penalty. The current mechanisms that are being taken off the table are the individual mandate, and the mechanisms by which the IRS can come back at somebody and say, "You should have bought insurance, and you didn't."

What they're struggling with is finding out the mechanism to get all these flat bellies into the insurance market. How do you encourage that? And no one is coming up with that out of the five Republican plans. If you look at them, three say the way to do that is to let all the young, healthy people buy insurance across state lines. One of them, the Cassidy-Collins one, says, "Let's have everyone automatically enrolled unless they opt out." States would have the ability to throw you into the insurance market, and there would be some subsidies for people who don't make a lot of money. And Trump's plan is kind of mute, and basically says, "We'll cover everyone, and keep these folks under 26," but it doesn't say how. So we're kind at that starting line of finding out what they're gonna settle on between these five plans—Rand Paul's, Tom Price's, Cassidy-Collins, and then the Trump one. And there might be another two or three before we're through.

Do people with Obamacare need to worry that their benefits will be reduced or that their premiums will go up, or is that all locked in?
In 2018, people will have access to cheaper products that cover a lot less. That's the bottom line. Because that's what the view is of how a Republican model of health insurance would keep the insurance companies in the game. They would be able to say in the 2018 election cycle that they slowed down the growth of insurance premiums. The way to do that is to cover less and get people to pay more out of pocket and check the box and move on. Will people lose coverage? No. They'll just have a plan that covers less. One of the sticking points in the [ACA] was essential health benefits—there were ten categories that every plan had to address. What the [new] plans will do is say, "You don't need mental health coverage," or "You don't need obstetrics coverage," or "You don't need dental coverage." So skinner coverage and lower premiums.

What if you're 26 and on your parents' plan, but you'll turn 27 likely before there's an ACA replacement? Should you jump into the exchanges now or ride it out?
The quick answer is we're not sure what's gonna happen to the exchanges. The Republicans say they're going to have the states manage the exchanges that exist. Healthcare.gov handles about 40 right now, and there are ten states that do it on their own. So we don't know how these plans are going to dispose of the responsibilities of Healthcare.gov, but in all likelihood, it will be to let the states decide. If I was in a state where the exchange had been relatively good, like Kentucky, where it seemed to work pretty well, then I would want to stick with it. You would want to move to the exchange while you can. If I was in a state where there had been a lot of political garbage, and it's likely that the legislature is not gonna support it in any form, then I'd likely start looking for one of these high-deductible skinny products outside of the exchange.

What if someone is working part-time or freelancing and relies on Obamacare? Should they be looking for any shitty full-time job, so they can get coverage ASAP?
That's 20 percent of the workforce, and it's 30 percent of kids under 35. So it's real. You take a job in a bar, and you're working 20 hours, and you take a job at the Gap, and you take another 30 hours, and you hope you can pay your rent. Honestly, you're taking the highest-deductible product you can, which is about a $5,000 product, and you hope you stay well. That's it.

What if that person has a preexisting condition? Getting employer-provided insurance should be their top priority, right?
Yeah, but here's where how the law plays out will be kind of interesting. Depending on which study you read, anywhere from as few as 1 percent to as much as 10 percent of the population qualifies for a high-risk pool today. And 30 percent of the population has a preexisting condition. The magnitude of that number is what stumbles people up. So these Republican plans have to figure out how to fund the pool of those that currently have a major medical problem, which is this 1 to 10 percent of the population. So how do you fund that? Direct federal funding? Do you just pay the states to manage those high-risk pools? And then for this 30 percent that has a preexisting condition, which can be something like Type II diabetes, or heart disease, or whatever, then do you create a second risk pool where individuals pay a premium for that coverage? That first group, they can't afford to pay for their coverage. The next group can pay something. So how much of that can you recover from them as a policy, and how will the states do that?

How about someone who is working a job they hate and wants to quit as part of a New Year's resolution? Should they jump ship now or wait to see where the chips fall?
Well, the exchange market closes on Tuesday. So if they were gonna jump into the exchanges, they've got from now until then.

What about someone who only got insurance through Medicaid expansion? Are they totally screwed now?
There were 31 states that expanded Medicaid, and the Republicans proposed that they're simply going to send a check to the states and let them manage the fund. So they're not gonna be thrown off, but you can expect the state will skinny the coverage for a little bit. Or they may contract with one group of doctors in the state to manage all of them. There will be a lot of latitude at the state level. And the ACA set that threshold [for receiving Medicaid] of at 138 percent of the federal poverty level, and states will in all likelihood, or at least Republican ones, lower that to 100 percent, which does mean that fewer people will be eligible.

I think a lot of people's fears might be alleviated if they knew what plan the GOP was going to go with. What's Tom Price saying on C-SPAN, and what's making you mad?
He believes that the answer for Medicare is to do premium support, or let people essentially get money from the federal government to buy private-insurance products for their Medicare. So he says to allow people to buy insurance across state lines to drive premiums down, and essentially, he says to leave the doctors alone and let them treat the patients. He's a doctor, and his view of everything is that this is about doctors and let them do their thing and the rest takes care of itself. Get the suits out the way.

He has one of those five plans. He introduced it last year, and it's called the Empowering Patients First Act. It basically says, "Let's get rid of all this crap that gets in the way of the doctors, and get the government out of it, and let the states figure out who need obstetrical coverage or Planned Parenthood." He'll be confirmed, but here's the reality: There are inconsistencies between the proposed plans, and all of them have to be scored [by the Congressional Budget Office]. We have to figure out what they're gonna cost, and [House Speaker] Paul Ryan is more likely to push for ways to reduce Medicare spending. That really flies in the face of Trump saying we need to keep everybody on their insurance and that nobody is gonna lose theirs. So the sausage-making is now happening.

This interview has been condensed and edited for the sake of clarity.

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On Wednesday, a group of seven Greenpeace protestors scaled a giant crane at a construction site near the White House and hung an enormous "RESIST" banner from it, USA Today reports. The bright yellow, 70-by-35-foot banner is now dangling from the 270-foot crane, waving in the wind in view of Trump's new residence.

According to a statement from the environmental group, "The activists from around the country are still in place, calling for those who want to resist Trump's attacks on environmental, social, economic, and educational justice to contribute to a better America."

The stunt from Greenpeace comes just one day after Donald Trump signed two executive orders that could bring back the controversial Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, as well as a press gag order and grant freeze on staff members of the EPA and the Interior Department sent by the Trump administration.

Of course, the DC police department is pretty pissed about the whole thing. Wednesday morning, the DCPD released a statement on Twitter, calling the stunt "dangerous behavior."

As of about 1 PM this afternoon, the activists were still hanging around up there, and no arrests had been made. You can watch the whole ordeal via this livestream below.

"I think the scariest thing in the world is other people."

In just one line, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard producer Masachika Kawata has explained why his new game leaves behind so many of the monstrous mutations and giant bugs of previous entries in Capcom's survival horror series. Underneath the fantasy trappings that have been a franchise staple since that first zombie slowly turned and stared right through you, there's always been a human element to the antagonism—Umbrella wasn't founded by a foul fiend of the undead variety, after all. But here, more than ever, the real horror awaiting the player is decidedly, yet differently, human.

You'll have seen them in the trailers, on the posters, in so much of the promotional imagery: This game is all about the Bakers. The family that owns that house—or rather, the estate—that the player-controlled Ethan Winters finds himself searching from creepy, creaking attic to stinking, flooded basement, ostensibly in pursuit of his missing (presumed dead) wife, is the infected lifeblood of this first-person experience.

Read more on Waypoint

Memes and the alt-right go together like peanut butter and jelly that's been spread into the shape of a swastika. Internet memes are, by and large, the currency in which these young nationalists trade, eschewing the stuffy, articulated treatises of Mein Kampf in favor of more virality-friendly catchphrases and image macros to be proliferated around image boards and subreddits.

Additionally, the movement is in and of itself a semi-self-aware meme that seems to only exist within the safe, anonymous spaces of the internet. Just as memes tend to be cringey and ineffective when taken offline, one of the alt-right's most publicized IRL events, the "DeploraBall" was widely regarded as a colossal shit show due to the physical and ideological infighting.

Shitposting for keks is also trickier to dismiss when done out in the real world without the mask of anonymity. White supremacist and human punching bag Richard Spencer, the poster child of the alt-right, has claimed his "Heil Trump" chanting at a post-election rally was done in the spirit of "irony." This jives with Spencer's calls for "peaceful ethnic cleansing" at the 2013 American Renaissance conference but serves to highlight the notion that darker machinations often lay beneath the group's claims of simply wanting to troll SJWs.

We've put together a field guide of some phrases and memes white supremacists share with each other so that, if you happen across one in the wild, you'll be able tell whether your old college friend, Gary, is simply a fan of 11th century history or secretly wishes to eradicate all non-whites.

Pepe the Frog

If Richard Spencer is the human mascot of this group, Pepe the frog is its meme version. Much has already been said about the amphibian cartoon's ascension from fringe web comic character to neo-Nazi mascot, including by the Clinton campaign.

Despite the disingenuous incredulity offered by the alt-right (and garden variety Trump supporters) after the ADL added Pepe to its official list of hate symbols, there is no reason to believe that anyone using the character today is at all unaware of the Nazi sentiments attached to it and should therefore be regarded as complicit in spreading said sentiments with his or her usage of the cartoon. Plausible deniability divorced itself from Pepe usage a long time ago. The swastika was once an innocent religious symbol too. People have a tendency to ruin nice things.

Cuck/Cuckservative

Another one that's been covered to death so we needn't spend too much time on it. Trump supporters have long called those they disagree with "cucks," because wanting everyone to have access to healthcare is apparently akin to letting a stranger fuck your wife.

The white-supremacy twist on this oldie but goodie is the additional fear mongering of the cuckoldry being carried out by a person of color. Louis CK became 4chan's public enemy #1 target for race-based cuck meming in 2014 by daring to have stand-up material that broached the subject of white privilege.

Be careful about accurately judging intent and seriousness if you hear someone use "cuck" these days. As "normies" gained familiarity with "cuck" as an alt-right insult, the term began its toothless third stage of life as lefties playfully and sarcastically insult each other with it à la the "thanks, Obama" meme.

Deus Vult

Screencap via YouTube user Starbot Dubs

Crusader iconography has long been tied to Islamophobia, so white supremacists didn't have to tweak much when they lifted this Latin battle cry from Pope Urban II's first crusade. Translating to "God wills it," deus vult re-emerged, after nearly a millennium of hibernation, in a 2015 YouTube video of Christian Syrians bombing ISIS. Since then, alt-right message boards have glommed onto the words, using them as if they were a divine permission slip for wishing death upon Muslims. Vandals even tagged the phrase on a mosque in Scotland in December.

As with Pepe, the window is rapidly closing on claiming innocence when using the phrase.

Moon Man

Borrowing the crescent moon 80s McDonald's ad character, Mac Tonight, white supremacists co-opted this wholesome fast food mascot (ironically based off of black music icon, Ray Charles) as a face for text-to-speech rap song "parodies" (that aren't worth linking to) which explicitly describe myriad gruesome scenes of murdering black people, while dredging up every epithet you can think of. It's like if Stephen Hawking's computer and Weird Al had a really racist child that had an internet connection but no creative talent.

This is just a meme meant to get a rise out of you, of course. There's no true animus there, right?

(((Triple Parentheses)))

Perhaps you've noticed a number of your favorite Twitter accounts surrounded by triplicate parentheses. This is the result of a concerted solidarity effort to take back and render ineffective an alt-right tactic of marking—starring if you will—Jewish journalists.

Conceived of on neo-Nazi podcast The Daily Shoah, these parenthetical "echoes" were written around the names of Jewish journalists and public figures when mentioning them on Twitter. The idea was to aid anti-semitic Twitter search efforts. Twitter has since updated their search function to drop the parentheticals, thereby rendering this hateful branding tactic pointless. You can still see it, as used in the video title below, as a sort of racist vestigial organ.

"Global Special Interests"

All you need to know is that when Donald Trump uses this phrase, a contingent of his base hears "Jews." So now you know to be a bit concerned if cousin Wendy starts peppering that into the family newsletter come Christmas.

Operation Google

We've all encountered that one person who feels personally slighted by his (yes, his) inability to publicly use the n-word while black people have carte blanche. 4chan, that shitty friend writ large, pulled a code word scheme straight from the KKK playbook after Google launched a program meant to filter out such obscenities in searches.

Cries of "CENSORSHIP!" rang out, and the crafty teenagers quickly formulated a code of replacing filtered racial slurs with tech company names (Jew = Skype) and Fight Club references (trans person = Durden).

The spurious logic behind this scheme was that if enough of them started calling black people "Googles" online, the tech behemoth would eventually have to censor their own pages. That never happened, of course. Instead, a couple dumb Tweets like the one below cluttered up Twitter for a minute.

WE WUZ KINGS

The Black Egyptian Hypothesis is a widely disputed theory that the Egyptian pharaohs (and citizens they ruled) were more dark-skinned than how we picture them today. Despite this being a fringe theory, the alt-right has adopted it as another weapon in their arsenal for denigrating black folk.

Typical Kings/Kingz/Kangz memes revolve around low-effort posts wherein the poster mockingly asserts that, were it not for (implied non-existent) white oppression, black people would be royalty.

Dindu (Nuffin)

Look for this phrase primarily in comment sections of stories about slain African Americans. "Dindu nuffin" (often abbreviated as "dindu") is a bastardization of "didn't do nothing," in reference to the claims of innocence that parents, friends, and community members make about the victims of unlawful police shootings.

Even in cases not involving police or criminal acts, black people, simply referred to as "dindus," are still the targets of alt-right memes. The presumption of guilt every time a black person is injured or accused of a crime is the small price these white supremacists are willing to pay for the opportunity to mock grieving mothers.

Free Helicopter Rides

"Death flights" were a common form of extra-judicial execution during the Dirty War in Argentina and following the 1973 Chilean coup wherein dissidents were flown over the ocean in an airplane or helicopter and pushed to their death. From 1976 onward, thousands of political opponents to Argentina's Admiral Luis María Mendía and Chile's Augusto Pinochet were murdered in this manner.

This wanton disregard for human life is hilarious to many in the alt-right. Starting in mid-2015, certain boards began suggesting progressive political opponents be given "helicopter rides."

Die-hard fans of this murder meme can even purchase whimsical "Pinochet's Helicopter Tour" T-shirts (which we won't link to) that will fit even a 3XL-sized Übermensch.

Follow Justin Caffier on Twitter.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump moved forward to make good on one of his signature campaign promises by signing an executive order to start construction on his "great wall" along the US and Mexico border, Reuters reports.

According to Politico, the order specifically calls for tripling the number of US Border Patrol agents along the southern border to 5,000 and setting aside federal funds to pay for the wall's construction, rather than Mexico, as promised. Trump also signed a second executive order that aims to strip federal funds from so-called sanctuary cities that harbor undocumented immigrants and do not actively deport them.

The orders, which he signed at the Department of Homeland Security, were just a few of the many he was expected to sign Wednesday, after announcing via Twitter that it would be a "big day" for national security, initially with a glaring typo.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Trump will also be signing executive orders that would attempt to fulfill a different campaign promise—cracking down on Muslim immigration. According to the Washington Post, Trump may sign an order that would place a temporary visa ban on people trying to enter the US from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

We're tracking the laws and executive orders Trump signs in his first year in office. The updated list is here.

On Wednesday, Trump signed two executive orders fulfilling his campaign promise to build a wall between the US-Mexico border, as well as crack down on sanctuary cities that harbor undocumented immigrants.

According to Politico, the first order specifically calls for tripling the number of US Border Patrol agents along the southern border to 5,000 and set aside federal funds to pay for the wall's construction, rather than Mexico, as promised.

The president is set to address the country's new immigration plan at the Department of Homeland Security at 2:30 PM EST. You can see his remarks via the livestream below.