It was a little like listening to right-wing radio, as one Republican member after another assailed Attorney General Eric Holder for the intrusion of big government into American life, a motivating principle among conservatives that the Obama administration has, with its handling of several issues, unwittingly given new life. A trio of scandals, a contentious nomination, and the generalized hostility that exists between the Republican-led Congress and the attorney general produced several contentious exchanges during Holder’s four hours of testimony Wednesday before the House Judiciary committee. 

Pressed repeatedly for more information about the Justice Department’s seizing of journalists’ phone records and also about the newly launched Justice probe of the IRS, Holder declined to answer most questions with any specificity because both matters are the subject of ongoing criminal investigations. By the time Ohio Republican Jim Jordan got his five minutes to question Holder, some two hours into the marathon hearing, the congressman said he was keeping a tally on how many times the AG said he couldn’t answer. He wanted Holder’s assurance that the Justice Department investigation into the IRS wouldn’t interfere with Congress’s hearing next week into the IRS targeting of conservative groups seeking a federal tax exemption.

By now, most Americans have heard about Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted in Pennsylvania for three murders, one case of involuntary manslaughter, and a slew of other charges. It is a shocking and gruesome case.

The indictment against him laid out nearly 300 pages of brutal crimes against desperate women who came to him seeking medical care, including safe abortion, and were instead subjected to unthinkable conditions.

The foundation associated with one of America’s most iconic, historical names is launching a challenge to bring better resilience and sustainability to cities around the world. The Rockefeller Foundation announced Tuesday that it will invest $100 million into cities worldwide to help make them better equipped for the ecological challenges they may face in the future.

“In this world today we will not be able to predict or prevent every catastrophe, take climate change—extreme weather, raging fires, vicious storms,” Rockefeller Foundation President Judith Rodin told the Daily Beast. “That’s where resilience comes in. We can prevent their catastrophic impact much better, by implementing resilience strategies that let us buffer those shocks more effectively.”

A new study from the United Nations is encouraging people to take a break from red meat, poultry, and fish and instead fill their plates with an alternative protein source: insects.

Supplementing a diet with bugs is not only nutritious but reduces pollution, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization writes. “Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint,” the report notes. Besides, they’re high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. Indeed, more than 2 billion people around the world already eat insects, but most Western countries have been slow to adopt the practice. The main problem? “Consumer disgust,” writes the agency.

The conviction of Kermit Gosnell on three counts of first degree murder, one count of involuntary manslaughter, and hundreds of lesser charges should make it very clear that the horrors he committed in his squalid West Philadelphia clinic were illegal. This should be crushingly obvious, but it’s been ignored by the right-wing pundits who have tried to turn this deeply disturbing case into an argument against legal abortion.

This has always been a story about illegal abortion, a phrase that appears over and over in the Gosnell Grand Jury report. It’s about what women will subject themselves to when they see no other option for ending an unwanted pregnancy. It’s about the appalling lack of health care for poor women in this country, especially when it comes to abortion, which, thanks to the Hyde Amendment, isn’t covered by Medicaid. It’s about murdered babies from pregnancies that never should have gone as far as they did.