Robyn Cory says daughter Kristen was not protected, amid questions about why it took six years to identify remains

The Platner disaster and the perils of for-profit politics.

The truth is much worse than most people realize, and they knew a lot of it.

Ben Mueller’s assignment for his journalism class was to tell a news story—any news story—in the form of an extended Instagram slideshow. Having lived his whole life in Marin, one of the wealthiest parts of America, the high school senior couldn’t help thinking his area probably had some ties to Jeffrey Epstein. “I think it’s very difficult to get an immense amount of money without—this is my opinion—without doing something a little shady,” Mueller says. So he sat on his bedroom floor and spent the next five hours combing the federal database for links to the towns and cities of Marin.He found thousands. Most of them were trivial, but a few things stood out: a 2014 art gala in Sausalito that Epstein helped promote; a meeting with Woody Allen in Tiburon; and—above all—a 2013 email exchange between Epstein and a woman from a modeling agency called Mill Valley Connection.Two days later, on February 12, Mueller posted his story to the Instagram feed of the Redwood Bark, his school’s student-run publication. It was a carousel-style slideshow pitched at readers across the county. “Which Marin towns were mentioned in the Epstein files?” the first panel reads. “Scroll to see how many times your town was mentioned.” Mueller kept his descriptions fairly general and brief: “Mill Valley was mentioned in the context of providing models to Epstein from a woman named Gisele Attias Bonnouvrier.”More than 4,000 people liked the story. The comments filled up with praise: “This is the kind of journalism we need.” “Higher quality reporting than local outlets.” “High schoolers doing better reporting than national news.”About a week and a half later, his journalism teacher, Erin Schneider, called with bad news: Bonnouvrier, the modeling agent, was threatening to sue the school district.What happened next would place Mueller, then-social media manager Madison Bishop, and other Redwood Bark staff members in the middle of a free-speech flash point. The students say they were just doing their homework.Tap the 🔗 in bio to read the full story.📸: @amyharrityView all 1,604 comments

The master of the attention economy is drawing the world's attention to a story that makes him look pathetic.

Jasmine Clark, a PhD microbiologist who won the democratic primary for Georgia’s 13th Congressional District, tells C&EN how being a scientist is propelling her toward Congress