When Barr released his summary of the Mueller report, few besides die-hard republicans were happy. Apparently, Mueller was one of those people who were frustrated by Barr’s report. According to a source in the justice department speaking to the AP, Mueller wrote a letter to Barr days after the report dropped. According to the source, …

Oliver North, president of the National Rifle Association, has allegedly asked Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s chief executive, to resign. The move underscores an increasing divide in the organization. Lt. Col. Oliver North, best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal, has been president of the NRA since May 2018. From the earliest stages of …

Schools in the suburbs of Wichita, Kansas were failing. They were underfunded, test scores were dropping, and parents and students alike were growing frustrated. So Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan came to the rescue with their money and their technology. Their intention was, undoubtedly, good. They funded Facebook engineers to build a program …

As the dust settles from the Mueller report, there is increasing talk of impeaching President Donald Trump. Specifically, Sunday morning talking shows focused almost entirely on the subject of impeachment. Democratic chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, said that he can see impeachment proceedings coming in the future, but the time …

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has announced that France will invite architects from around the world to submit designs for a new spire to replace the one that collapsed in this week’s fire at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France. He hopes to build “a new spire that is adapted to the techniques and the …

Nick Akerman, a former Watergate assistant special prosecutor and a current MSNBC legal analyst, has claimed at the Attorney General Barr is part of “one big cover-up.” Akerman believes that Barr’s claim that the FBI spied on the Trump campaign is actually misdirection. Akerman notes that Barr did not say the FBI did spy on …

Elizabeth Warren has a proposed a 7% surtax on the country’s largest corporations. The tax would apply to companies whose worldwide profits exceed $100 million. Warren has said the tax “ will make our biggest and most profitable corporations pay more and ensure that none of them can ever make billions and pay zero taxes …

The small Philippines island of Siargao houses the White Banana Beach Club, a small cocktail bar with two “luxury dorms.” The owner, Gianluca Casaccia, has been receiving an increasing number of requests from so-called social media “influencers” asking for free room and board in exchange for content. Recently, Gasaccia received an email from yet another …

Donald Trump has said that he has not read the most significant document of his presidency, the Mueller report. He tweeted: “I have not read the Mueller Report yet, even though I have every right to do so. Only know the conclusions, and on the big one, No Collusion.” The admission is somewhat stunning given that many of Mueller’s own staff were not happy with Barr’s report, which seems to be the source of Trump’s conclusions. 

A House of Representatives committee has voted to issue a subpoena demanding that the justice department release the full Mueller report and all the evidence about the Trump campaign’s connections with Russia. The vote comes after Attorney General William Barr ignored the Democrat’s deadline demanding he submit the report to Congress.

Far from relaxing, tensions have only increased since William Barr’s controversial letter summarizing the Mueller report. Many on the liberal side of the aisle believe that the few people who have seen the report are those who are least trustworthy.

Trump’s tweet is likely to infuriate his opponents even more, especially as days pass without the report’s release either to the public. Congress is working to continue the Mueller investigations. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has said, “I think it’s inevitable that Bob Mueller is going to have to testify before Congress…[the committee has] a statutory requirement that the Intelligence Community, FBI, brief us on any significant counterintelligence or intelligence activity. And it’s hard to imagine something that rises more to that level than this investigation.”

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I live in San Francisco from 2011-2013, right in one of the city’s downtown neighborhoods. As residents might remember, rent and house prices were high at this point, but they were not yet astronomical. It was about two years after I left that prices went from outrageously high to who-the-f**k-can-pay-this?! high. I recently went back to visit for the first time in several years, and I was absolutely blown away by the changes. 

The city has struggled with homeless since the Summer of Love turned into the prolonged, drug-induced nightmare of the 1970s and ’80s. I was used to navigating aggressive homeless people on my walk to work, or learning to spot when someone was about to vomit in my direction, and I even got used to watching people inject drugs into their toes on city streets. In the few short years since I’d visited last, however, the homeless problem had reached crisis proportions. Everywhere I went there were homeless people, and many of them were covered in open sore––some of the sores were covered in flies. I had to keep my eyes on the ground to make sure I didn’t tread in human feces. 

Most blame the rising wealth gap for the change. It’s easy to blame the super-rich for driving up the city’s prices and driving more and more people onto the streets. And if it was easy to blame them before, boy oh boy is it going to be easy to blame them now that a group of the wealthiest San Franciscans are attempting to raise $100,000 to stop the construction of a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. The money is to go to a lawyer representing the neighborhood, which fears that the shelter will lead to a drop in property values and a spike in crime. So far, the neighborhood has raised $46,000.

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Michael Avenatti was arrested earlier this week for allegedly threatening to extort $25 million from Nike. Avenatti claims to have evidence that company employees authorized payments to top high school basketball players families. Avenatti was threatening to make those claims public. He also faces charges for embezzling a client’s money to pay his own debts. If convicted, he faces up to 100 years in prison and disbarment. 

Avenatti has denied the charges in a tweet:“I want to thank all of my supporters for your kind words and support today. It means a lot to me. I am anxious for people to see what really happened. We never attempted to extort Nike & when the evidence is disclosed, the public will learn the truth about Nike’s crime & coverup.” 

Nike has not responded to requests for comments, though Avenatti maintains Nike is involved in major college athletics fraud. 

In November of 2018, Avenatti was arrested on charges of domestic violence. Those charges were later dropped. Avenatti also made news for surrendering tapes that incriminated R. Kelly to Cook County State Attorney Kim Foxx in Chicago, Illinois.

Avenatti became popular by representing porn star Stormy Daniels’s attorney and suing Trump for defamation when Trump denied the payments. Avenatti then trickled information out to the media and promised to reveal facts that would further humiliate Trump. This catapulted him into the national spotlight.

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Jeremy Richman, 49, has died of an apparent suicide. His daughter, Avielle, died in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school––she was only six years old. Richman co-founded the Avielle Foundation, na organization aimed at reducing violent crimes such as the shooting that killed Avielle. Police have not yet confirmed the cause of death, but they have noted that some of the officers that responded to the call about Richman were also called to the 2012 shooting at the school. They also found a note next to the body.  

Richman’s apparent suicide comes just days after two teenage survivors of the Parkland shooting took their own lives. Sydney Aiello, 19, took her own life after struggling with PTSD and survivor’s guilt. She also struggled to succeed in college because she was afraid to be in a classroom. A few days later, a sophomore survivor took his own life. Police have not yet released his name nor confirmed that his suicide was linked to the shooting, though it is hard to imagine the shooting is not related to his death. 

The rash of suicides indicates that the survivors of mass shootings need continued care and love from their communities, and that the effects of such a tragedy have very long lives. 

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