New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced that the country will ban military-style semiautomatic weapons, high-capacity ammunition magazines, and any parts that enable weapons to be modified into the style of weapon involved in the Christchurch shooting. 

Unlike most other mass shootings like this, the Christchurch shootings inspired immediate changes around the world.  Reddit has responded to the mass shooting by banning its most violent, goriest subreddits: /r/watchpeopledie and /r/gore. The New Zealand Jewish community has taken the unprecedented step of closing their synagogues for Shabbat in solidarity with the community.

New Zealand’s willingness to ban such guns has rankled many gun-control advocates in America, who feel frustrated by their nation’s lack of motivation to pass similar bans. 

Pundits from around the world have pointed to the Unite States for spreading white supremacist ideology, an ideology that inspired the Christchurch killer. Donald Trump denied that white supremacy is on the rise around the world a a consequence of the United States. But critics say otherwise Karam Dana, a professor of Middle East politics and director of the American Muslim Research Institute at the University of Washington, Bothell, has said that the “United States is the epicenter of the world in terms of how white identity is seen.” Whether the changes New Zealand has made will trickle back to the United States remains to be seen. 

John McCain has been dead for over half a year. His death saddened just about every patriotic American with one notable exception: Donald Trump. Trump didn’t like McCain then, as he famously said recently, and he doesn’t like McCain now. For the past week, in fact, Trump has been continually attacking the deceased war hero. Why on earth would Trump do this? 

Trump invents villains to make himself look better. He learned quickly that his fans like it when he insults people, so he finds people to insult. Terrorists, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, immigrants, or in this case John McCain, Trump paints himself and his supporters are living under siege. 

Making fun of alleged enemies is a great way to keep people on your side because it reminds audiences that it’s an “us versus them” world. You don’t have to do it all the time, of course, just when you’re in a spot of bother. And you don’t have to be too extreme, either, just casually mock them like a teenager might on the schoolyard. Say something like this:”They’re not dumb guys, but they’re not supersmart. They’re O.K. They’re smartish.”

And there’s another reason that Trump wants to mock McCain now. Trump knows that he can never go too far because he’s already stretched the limit of public acceptance. So he can attack someone like McCain just to stir the pot and to distract people from what’s really going on––things like the imminent Mueller report.

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In December, Elizabeth Warren launched an exploratory committee for seeking the Democratic National Committee’s nomination for president of the United States. The pool of Democrats aiming for the nomination is already very crowded and very competitive. Beto O’Rourke learned that the hard way recently––there is no room for gaffs. Warren has thus far avoided embarrassing herself, and has even made some positive headlines. But she recently had her best moment yet at a CNN town hall:
To be clear, Warren supports a constitutional amendment that will protect the right to vote for every citizen, essentially nullifying laws that prevent felons from voting. Part of that amendment, it seems, will be the abolition of the electoral college. That would mean that individual votes would be counted directly towards the presidential election rather than towards electors who would then cast their vote for president. In theory, this would mean that presidential candidates have to focus on every state, not just swing states. 

There has been a lot of complaints about the electoral college in the past several elections. Are those complains justified? Bloomberg points out that no single party has consistently benefitted from the electoral college. Vox points out that abolishing it is likely impossible. CNN suggests that electoral reform needs to be nuanced. 

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Since Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff, fallout has been spreading. The pilot issued a distress call after the plane struggled to ascend at a stable speed. The jet was cleared to return to Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, but it lost contact with air traffic control six minutes after takeoff and then crashed. The plane had 157 people on board, including passengers from at least thirty-five different countries. The crashed plane was a Boeing 737 Max 8. It was the same kind of plane involved in the Lion Air crash in Indonesia in which 189 people died. Since then, all Boeing 737 Max airplanes have been grounded.

Subsequent investigations have indicated that anti-stalling software in the Boeing 737 Max led to both crashes. Here’s the problem. The Federal Aviation Administration paid close attention to the Boeing 737 max as they were reviewing its designs. Elaine L. Chao, United States transportation secretary, has called for an inquiry into the F.A.A.’s approval process. 

The crashes have, obviously, proved disastrous for Boeing. There are nearly 5,000 planes on order, which would bring Boeing hundreds of billions of dollars. Boeing will be audited as a result of these accidents. 

It is not yet clear when the 737 Max line will return to the air. 

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Following a House vote to override Trump’s national emergency proclamation, twelve Senate Republicans broke ranks and also voted against the proclamation in a 59-41 vote. This Politico article details which Republicans voted to override the national emergency. The vote sets Trump up for the first veto of his presidency.

Trump almost immediately tweeted his intent to veto: “I look forward to VETOING the just passed Democrat inspired Resolution which would OPEN BORDERS while increasing Crime, Drugs, and Trafficking in our Country. I thank all of the Strong Republicans who voted to support Border Security and our desperately needed WALL!” True to his threat, he vetoed the bill. 

Quick government lesson, for those who need a refresher. When the president vetoes a law, Congress can actually vote to override that veto and enact the law. That’s so that the president doesn’t have too much power. But in order to prevent the Congress from being so powerful that it can continually override presidential vetoes, the Constitution dictates that Congress needs a 2/3 majority vote to override a veto. 

So maybe you can see the issue. The Senate only has 59 votes right now––it is highly unlikely that they would get the eight additional votes needed to tip the balance towards an override. This is unfortunate because the majority of Americans actually support the override.

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As the dust settles from the deadliest mass shooting in New Zealand’s recent history, more news about the attacks is surfacing and the country is struggling to deal with the tragedy. 

One man is being hailed as a hero for confronting the attacker and preventing an untold number of deaths. Abdul Aziz, 49, saw the gunman approaching the mosque, shooting anyone in his way. Though his wife and young sons urged him to take refuge in the mosque, he instead grabbed the first thing he could reach––a credit card machine––and sprinted into the parking lot. He shouted and ran towards the shooter. Aziz picked up an empty gun the shooter had discarded and launched it at the now retreating shooter, shattering his car windshield and scaring him off. The shooter was apprehended soon after. 

Reddit has responded to the mass shooting by banning its most violent, goriest subreddits: /r/watchpeopledie and /r/gore. 

Also in response to the shooting New Zealand will ban semi-automatic weapons. The Prime Minister made that bold announcement, but there have been other, unsuccessful attempts to change the gun laws in the past. 

The New Zealand Jewish community has taken the unprecedented step of closing their synagogues for Shabbat in solidarity with the community. 

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Although Beto O’Rourke’s bid for one of Texas’s Senate seats was ultimately unsuccessful, his electrifying campaign made national headlines. His fame was such that he believed––and many of his supporters and advisors believed––that he could be a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. 

Last week, he launched his campaign:

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1106155281845760000

The announcement was accompanied by a Vanity Fair piece. 

Almost immediately, O’Rourke came under fire for a variety of things. 

First, it was his wife’s silence during the announcement video. She sat quietly, gazing lovingly at her husband and smiling, for the entire video. Observers point out that the silent-wife routine does not fit into a candidate pool with powerful women leaders. 

Then critics accused Beto of having a huge ego, the result of white male entitlement. Other accused him of being a “poor man’s Obama.”

Beto himself soon increased his own problems by making inappropriate jokes about his marriage, white privilege, and his teen hobbies. He has made public apologies and vowed to be more thoughtful. He admitted to benefitting from white privilege. 

Beto was already coming off a deficit because he lost his Senate bid in the midterms. Trump already has a ready-made insult for Beto: He’s a loser. But it looks like Beto may not make it very far. 

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President Trump has just proposed the largest budget in history. The whopping $4.75 trillion dolor proposition includes massive increases in military spending––more money than the Pentagon actually asked for, as well as $8.6 billion  for a border wall. If that bit about the border wall sounds like déjà vu, you’re right. Trump’s $5 billion border wall ask shut the government down for the longest period in history. 

The budget will also $1.9 trillion in cuts (which the White House is calling “cost savings”) from domestic programs like Medicare and Medicaid. 

The budget is so bad that even some Republicans tried to shy away the from its key details. White House Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought said, “We need to continue to secure the country. We need to continue to secure the border. We’re not going to be bashful about that. But at the same time, we’re also going to say that we have many, many programs that are wasteful and inefficient that we can no longer afford.”

Congress sets the budget, so Trump’s proposal will likely have little impact on what actual government spending will look like. Nevertheless, the proposal is significant because it signals the President’s campaign strategy for the upcoming election. 

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Facebook has enjoyed a brief respite from all of the bad publicity it suffered a few months ago. At that time, employees reported that Facebook was being torn apart from within, with pro-Zuckerberg and pro-Sandberg factions feuding. Facebook was also grossly negligent in the genocide in Myanmar, and suffered other international scandals. But underneath it all, tension was building in a major fault line: privacy. One expert even said that the end of Facebook might be near because of its terrible mishandling of  privacy. 

Zuckerberg is no dummy. He knows that his company has mishandling privacy––he knows because they did it on purpose, in order to make money. But now that the company has expanded around the world and makes an obscene profit, Zuckerberg is ready to address the privacy question. In a recent essay, Zuckerberg proposed a social media platform that is more like WhatsApp insofar as it focuses on messaging and sharing information with close friends. 

According to Technology Review, however, “Zuckerberg’s essay is a power grab disguised as an act of contrition.” Zuckerberg has focused on the encryption side of privacy exclusively. He intentionally failed to address philosophical questions of privacy. Facebook still controls the means of communication, meaning that privacy is inherently limited. When you take into account Instagram and WhatsApp, in addition to this new platform Zuckerberg is proposing, Facebook has a monopoly on the free flow of communication. Tech Review suggests the answer is simple: Facebook, as a monopoly, needs to be broken up.

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Next time you have the chance, wander around a Whole Foods and pay attention to two things. First, look at how many times “organic” and “local” is written on anything but specific products: on the walls, on the signs, on the ads, and so on. Then take a look at how many ingredients are actually local and organic. 

From there, take a closer look at the products. Read the labels carefully. Some say “certified organic,” which is pretty clear. Others are more vague. “All Natural” or “Free Range” or “Certified Humane” comes to mind. One egg company, Nellie’s Free Range Eggs, has pictures of happy chickens wandering a big open space on the label. 

If you were to go visit Nellie’s, though, you’d find sheds with 20,000 hens stuffed in, with just 1.2 sq ft of floor space each. That’s about enough room for a hen to rotate in place. Some free range life, eh?

Four people are suing Nellie’s for deception. They are backed by PETA. 

The lawsuit draws attention to the treatment of chickens and label practices for so-called “free range” or “humane” products. Consumption of eggs is on the rise in America, and with some companies using those labels to charge a whopping $8 for eggs (like Nellie’s) this lawsuit might be one good thing PETA has done.

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A woman attacked seven people in two Manhattan neighborhoods––Harlem and the Upper West Side––with pepper spray over the span of seventy minutes. Two of the attacks occurred in subway stations. Police spokesperson Detective George Tsourovakas said that the suspect is black and the seven victims were all white. The woman has not yet been identified. 

The woman allegedly approached all over her victims without saying a word. The police have declined to state, however, whether they are treating this incident as a hate crime. The incident has all the ingredients of another controversy about race in the United States. 

Journalist Andy Ngo has pointed to a number of such false claims of hate crimes on his Twitter feed. Ngo claims that the Southern Poverty Law Center––an organization that has come under fire for its obvious liberal bias––is stoking panic against Trump and Republicans. This could be a political ploy amongst Democrats, a way of bringing attention to causes, or any number of things. Ngo’s Twitter feed compiles a list of hoaxes long enough to convince anyone that these hoaxes are occurring with increasing frequency.

This latest attack, however, inverts the general hate crime formula. We will update you when more information is available.

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Recent investigations have revealed that thousands of massage parlors, all around the country, are keeping women against their wills and forcing them to have sex with clients. The women are often from outside the United States. Searching for a way to get out of debt, they answer an ad for high paying work. Before they know it, they’re being shipped to the United States, taught the trade, and sent to a massage parlor somewhere. Some go to New York, others go to Texas, and so on.

Thanks, in part, to the recent incident with Robert Kraft, more attention is being paid to this $3-billion industry. News recently broke that Donald Trump is friends with Robert Kraft. What’s worse, as you can see in the selfie above, Trump took a picture with Li Yang, one of the human traffickers involved in this scheme. She herself carries a rhinestone encrusted MAGA clutch purse, and has also donated more than $16,000 to Trump and $42,000 to a political action committee for Trump. 

Trump said he was “surprised” by the news about Kraft. Interestingly, though, anyone who comes into close contact with Trump is supposed to go through an extensive background check. Apparently the background checks aren’t that extensive.

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