With the long-awaited special counsel's investigation finished but its contents still shrouded in mystery, Americans waited for details, yawned with boredom or stayed fixed to their long-cemented positions on President Donald Trump, the man at the probe's center. For all the expected splash of Robert Mueller's report, it arrived with more of a thud, thanks to the secrecy surrounding it. Few saw reason to think it would sway many opinions in a divided republic. Helen Jones, a 72-year-old retired English professor in Salt Lake City, Utah, who is Republican but despises Trump, knows whatever comes out, her relatives who strongly back the president won't budge — just as detractors like her won't be convinced he isn't a crook. She sees no simple end in sight. Get More

Beto O'Rourke leaves room for voters to decide for themselves what he is and what he could be. He's Bobby Kennedy and Barack Obama. He's nothing new. He'd be a great vice president. He's a man whose candidacy will be a melted candle in a matter of months. He's exactly what this nation needs. In interviews with more than 30 voters as O'Rourke campaigned for president in New Hampshire this week, the former Texas congressman meant conflicting things to different voters, though passion, one way or the other, was much more common than any semblance of passivity. Get More

Attorney General William Barr spent Saturday reviewing the special counsel's confidential report on the Trump-Russia investigation, but Barr's "principal conclusions" summary for Congress was not coming for at least another day. No summary for Judiciary Committee leaders — or the public — just yet, said a senior Justice Department official, speaking only on condition of anonymity because the person wasn't authorized to publicly discuss the review process. Barr has said he expected to send his version to the lawmakers as soon as this weekend after determining what should be made public. Special counsel Robert Mueller sent the attorney general the final report Friday on his 22-month investigation that cast a dark shadow of Donald Trump's presidency. Get More

For the first time in four years, fishermen are back on the water in the Upper Gulf of California fishing inside the vaquita marina sanctuary, the only place in the world where the smallest marine mammal can be found. In 2015, the Mexican government prohibited commercial fishing in what is also known as Sea of Cortez. On March 21, the government announced that it will place buoys to set boundaries around the reserve, where it is believed fewer than 10 vaquitas remain. Get More

Sunday will be the 34th Marathon of Los Angeles, and this year will have a different touch, since a woman of Mayan origin will run in a very special way. The annual Southern California event will feature more than 25,000 runners from the United States and 63 other countries that will compete in the streets of Los Angeles. Among the participants is the Guatemalan María del Carmen Tun Cho, a woman of Mayan origin who runs with huaraches and traditional clothing. Tun Cho does not train in the best scenarios in the world, nor in the best conditions, but wherever she does it, she does it with great humility and dedication because she is used to obstacles. Get More

A woman died from her injuries after her own two dogs mauled her outside an animal hospital in Irving Saturday morning, police say. Police shot and killed the dogs when they arrived because the pets would not allow authorities to come close to the owner, police say. Police said the dogs' owner was transported to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where she later died. Get More

To Democratic supporters, the Green New Deal is a touchstone, a call to arms to combat climate change with the full measure of the nation's resources and technological might. "A mission to save all of creation," in the words of Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey, one of the plan's lead authors. To Republican opponents, the much-hyped plan is a dystopian nightmare, a roadmap to national bankruptcy in pursuit of zealous environmentalism. "A big green bomb" for the economy, says Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. Lost in the clamor is the reality that, if passed, the Green New Deal would require the government to do absolutely nothing. It exists only as a nonbinding resolution because Democrats have yet to fill in the potentially treacherous details of how to pay for the Green New Deal, how to carry it out and what, exactly, it will do. Get More

The Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity said it has expelled four members at a chapter at the University of Georgia after video surfaced appearing to show men using a racial slur about black people and talking about picking cotton, NBC News reports. "Tau Kappa Epsilon is disgusted, appalled and angered by the remarks shown in a video of four expelled members," the national fraternity said in a statement. “TKE will not tolerate any actions such as these that would be defined as racist, discriminatory and/or offensive.” The video, which has not been verified by NBC News, appears to show one white man using a belt to slap another who is under covers in bed, and someone saying “pick my cotton” followed by an expletive. The person being hit says, “I am not black.” When someone else says “you’re not using the right words,” a racial slur can be heard. The University of Georgia said in a statement that it "condemns racism in the strongest terms,” that “racism has no place on our campus," and that "the fraternity has been suspended by its national organization.” Get More at NBC News

Families of the Columbine High School shooting victims gathered at the school on Saturday to tell their stories 20 years after the tragedy, and they spoke of forgiveness, inclusion and healing, and the balm that sometimes only silence can bring. It was on April 20, 1999, that two Columbine students gunned down 12 classmates and a teacher in the Denver suburb of Littleton. Get More

U.S.-backed forces declared military victory over the Islamic State group in Syria on Saturday after liberating the last pocket of territory held by the militants, marking the end of a brutal self-styled caliphate the group carved out in large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014. The nearly five-year war that has devastated cities and towns across north Syria and Iraq ended in Baghouz, a minor border village where the cornered militants made their last stand, under a grueling siege for weeks. On Saturday, the Syrian Democratic Forces raised their bright yellow banner from a shell-pocked house where the militants once flew their notorious black flag. Get More

Charging onto the home turf of their Democratic rivals, Sen. Kamala Harris campaigned in Texas for the first time Saturday while Sen. Bernie Sanders swung through California — both a test of early strength in a crowded presidential race and a peek at the country's two biggest states carrying big stakes in 2020. The timing of Harris' visit to Houston was hard to miss — the California senator came to Beto O'Rourke's backyard less than two weeks after the former Texas congressman jumped into the field with massive crowds, heavy cable news coverage and blockbuster fundraising. She chose the rally at Texas Southern University, a historically black campus, to roll out a teacher pay plan that marked the first policy proposal of her campaign. She did not so much as allude to O'Rourke or former San Antonio mayor Julian Castro, the first Texan in the 2020 race, but she drew a packed and diverse crowd in a city that will be the state's biggest Democratic battleground. Get More

Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg told voters Saturday that his marriage to his husband exists "by the grace of a single vote on the U.S. Supreme Court." The South Bend, Indiana, mayor visited South Carolina for the first time since announcing his presidential exploratory committee. The 37-year-old would be the first openly gay presidential nominee from a major political party. Buttigieg referenced the landmark 2015 Supreme Court ruling that granted, in a 5-4 decision, same-sex couples a right to marry. He married his husband, Chasten Glezman, last year. Get More

The warning and training requirements set for the now-grounded 737 Max 8 aircraft may not have been adequate, in light of the Ethiopian plane crash that killed 157 people, the chief of Ethiopian Airlines said Saturday. After the Lion Air crash off Indonesia in October, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing "came up with contents that we incorporated in our working manuals and also briefed all our pilots. But today we believe that might not have been enough," Tewolde Gebremariam told The Associated Press in an interview in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Ethiopian Airlines insists the carrier's pilots went through all the extra training required by Boeing and the FAA to fly the 737 Max 8 jet. The March 10 crash killed people from 35 countries. Get More

Schoolteacher raises of $5,000 are on the table in Texas -- a proposed pay hike that ranks among the biggest in the U.S. since a wave of teacher unrest began last year. But protests aren't why the money is suddenly available. Texas hasn't even had a teacher strike. But as in other GOP strongholds this spring, lawmakers who have spent years clashing with public schools by slashing budgets, ratcheting up testing and cheerleading private schools are blinking in the face of election pressure as much as picket lines. Rattled by a dreadful midterm election for Republicans -- and looking ahead to 2020 -- conservative-leaning states including Georgia, Oklahoma and South Carolina are pouring new money into schools. And to ensure it doesn't go unnoticed, Republicans are making a show of a renewed commitment to public classrooms, courting voters turned off by years of cost-cutting that catered to the party's base. Get More