Arkansas carried out the U.S.’s first double execution in 17 years on April 24th, 2017. The last double execution to occur happened in Texas, in 2000, when the state executed two killers.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, or DPIC, Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were the inmates who were put on death row and executed on April 24, 2017. Both Jack Jones and Marcel Williams were convicted for murder, kidnapping, and rape, and were sent to prison with life sentences. These two were the second and third people executed in a eight day period.

After the two men’s trials, the Governor of Arkansas had to make a tough choice of whether to let them live with life sentences or to issue a death penalty. According to CBS News, the Governor decided to issue the death penalty, and the jury voted with Governor Hutchinson, backing his decision to issue the death penalty.

One horrific reason, that Governor Hutchinson used to justify his decision, was that the state needed to use up its supply of midazolam, a drug used for lethal injections before it expired.

Pharmacists have been hesitant to supply states with the drug midazolam because they don’t want to be the cause of someone’s death. Midazolam has also been involved in several botched executions according to Live Science. The term “botched” is used as in the drug either didn’t work as it was supposed to, and left the person conscious, or the IV was placed incorrectly and the drug never fully worked.

This story truly became interesting when the details of the other Arkansas executions were uncovered. According to lawyers, and other media sources present, almost all of the deaths were botched in some way, ways that would make the death slow and tortuous.

Immediately after the injection of Jack Jones, the lawyer of Marcel Williams filed an emergency stay in federal district court. His reasoning was that Jones’ execution had seemed inhumane and painful, so he made this last ditch attempt to try and keep his client alive. The state completely disregarded this saying his claims were: “Utterly baseless.”

Witnesses of the Jones injection said it took the officials in charge 45 minutes to try to find a place for the injection in his neck. When they were finished sticking him in the neck, unsuccessfully trying to find a place to kill him, they eventually had to move elsewhere on his body. When the poor, scared man was finally injected, the officials didn’t wait the required 5 minutes to perform a consciousness check, and he was gulping air and struggling against the restraints.

The execution of Williams was held off until 9:30 pm Central Time after one judge accepted the appeal for a stay in court, and a short uneventful hearing took place. The Williams injection looked much less painful.

This double execution was part of a schedule set forth by the Governor to execute eight people in eleven days. Of those eight scheduled, only four have happened with the others receiving stays in court, and/or some clemency.

Why is it so hard for the government to find an effective injection that kills painlessly and quickly? This question will need to be answered if executions are to continue, but at the same time, the government could care less, after all, it would be a shame if their store of drugs for lethal injection went to waste.

Following a months long battle in the Senate, and possibly years if you count former president Obama’s attempt to nominate Merrick Garland, Mr. Gorsuch was finally confirmed as the 9th justice on the Supreme Court. The final vote count was 54-45 (Johnny Isakson (R-GA) abstained), making the vote substantially more narrow than previous votes.

The process was perhaps most notable for the so called “nuclear option” – removing the ability to filibuster the cloture vote on a Supreme Court Justice. Cloture is distinct from the actual vote in that it is a vote to stop debate – had the democrats been able to filibuster at that point, debate would never technically end, and it would thus be impossible to fill the seat.

This has huge implications for the Senate, especially concerning future Supreme Court nominations. Unless the Senate is tied 50-50 (it hasn’t been since 2000), no bipartisanship is required to confirm a justice.

The problem here is bipartisanship has historically been a necessary part of operation in the Senate. This has certainly taken a backseat in recent years, due to extremism and partisanship on both sides, but even ObamaCare need some GOP votes, if only to avoid filibuster.

Confirming a justice without the opportunity for the opposition to filibuster sets a bad precedent, one that could have potentially devastating consequences on bipartisanship in the Senate.

If you remember, back before the break, I had published an article trying to give hope during these bleak days. At the time, the news cycle was all about the Trump/Russia investigations. It was pretty boring compared to now.

But then everything changed when the United States attacked.

Or, more precisely, the United States attacked the Syrian Government in response to the chemical attack against the Syrian people. Donald Trump launched 59 Tomahawk missiles at an Airbase in Syria. The airbase was also used by Russia. Perhaps Trump did this to try to convince people that he “totally didn’t work with Russia?” While Russia-United States relations had been warm, Russia then condemned the attack. However, most of the world agreed with Trump, and soon, people panicked.

I remember the day it happened. It was Thursday of spring break. My dad was out playing poker with his friends, and my sister was at an Anime Convention. My brother and I were home alone; I was working on an entry for a contest and my Brother was probably having a rave in his room. It was about 7:30 pm when my mom got home, and she suggested we go out to eat. We decided to go to one of our favorite restaurants.

Right when we walked in, before we were seated, I looked at the TV to see something about Trump. I thought, “What has that idiot done now…” until I looked closer. It showed the missiles flying through the air, one after another, lighting up the dark sky. I must have only looked at it for 6 seconds before we were seated.

While I ate my burgers and fries, I looked at Twitter. People were making jokes about WW3. Someone even said something along the lines of, “While we’re at it, can we wipe out that ****** Kim Jong-Un? Who wants to grab literal and metaphorical shotgun?” #WW3 was the top trending topic.

And now, they might get their wish. In addition to the Syrian situation, the U.S. and North Korea are getting more aggressive towards each other. Mike Pence says that the U.S. will no longer be “strategically patient.” Even China, who Donald Trump hates, is working on trying to contain the North Korean conflict. Japan and South Korea have been discussing evacuation plans. If WW3 does break out, it will probably be NATO, Turkey, China, South Korea, and Japan vs Russia, North Korea, and Syria.

All in all, pretty scary.

Who doesn’t love marsupials? Weird names, fun appearances, and ranks that include nature’s kick boxer, the creature that mastered playing dead, and a deceptively cute psychopathic bear-thing. Recently, there’s one species that’s made a return after its supposed extinction in 1936: the thylacine, or as most people recognize it, the Tasmanian Tiger.

The return was spotted by two people from the Queensland National Parks Service at the Cape York Peninsula. After scientists from James Cook University studied the description given, it was confirmed that it was not mistaken for some other Tasmanian or non-Tasmanian creature (in case it’s not obvious, I enjoy the word Tasmanian), and was 100% percent a thylacine. For those of you wondering, the Tasmanian Tiger doesn’t even look remotely like a tiger (receiving its name from the stripes running down its lower back), resembling a wild dog more than anything else, which is why it’s also referred to as the Tasmanian Wolf. But like both tiger and wolf, the thylacine was top of the food chain.

So, now the aforementioned scientists have packed up the camera equipment and are ready to begin the search. Fitting as there are several unanswered questions like: what has it been living off of thus far? Why was it spotted in Australia and not Tasmania? And the million-dollar question (or you know, probably less), how exactly did it stay hidden all this time? And even if this turns out to be a bust/hoax, there will be a substantial amount of data regarding endangered species within the area. But still, fingers crossed for beating extinction!

The controversial North Carolina bill officially called House Bill 2 and unofficially called the “Bathroom Bill” has been making waves ever since it was passed in March of 2016. Almost exactly a year later, on March 30th, of 2017, the law was repealed. To understand the swift about-face, you need to understand just what the bill meant.

First of all, it was the bill that made North Carolina the first state to openly restrict what public bathrooms, and locker rooms, transgender people were allowed to use, limiting them to the gender they were designated at birth, not the gender they identify as. Backlash against the bigoted bill was almost immediate, and was only worsened by the fact that North Carolina is a swing state; split between very liberal cities and very conservative rural areas.

The bill caused many businesses and celebrities to boycott the entire state in protest: Bruce Springsteen cancelled his stop on the River Tour there, and a PayPal distribution center that was supposed to open there withdrew from the deal, costing the state millions of dollars of potential profit. The NCAA gave the state until Thursday, March 30th (the day the bill was repealed, incidentally), to get rid of the law or lose the rights to host college tournaments in the state for the next six years. Many smaller businesses and performers boycotted the state as well. Eventually, North Carolina surrendered to the growing economic and social strain, and removed the law.

However, it did come with a catch. The conditions for the repeal included a temporary ban (lasting for three years, until 2020) on other anti-discrimination laws and measures; stopping local jurisdictions from creating new protections for LGBT+ people. Many are angry about this new measure, and there’s been debate over whether it’s even any better than House Bill 2. 

Overall, whether this is a step forward, or a step back, for LGBT+ rights has yet to be decided.