IKEA Monkey

I don't know about you, but most of the time I can hum along on my daily routine without being crushed by the sheer unfairness and brutality of the world. We all live on a spectrum between children born in a war zone and people who get Instagram famous because of their gross displays of wealth, but thinking about it too much makes existence unbearable, and ultimately leads to a shattering sense of a life unfulfilled.

So my advice is to not let your gaze linger on the jacket Melania Trump was wearing at the G-7 summit in Italy this week. It costs $51,500, and if you want to buy one just like it, you have to make a $25,750 deposit, only it's not available right now and also you can't afford it because who can? Not the workers at Ivanka Trump's Chinese clothing factory, who reportedly get paid around $60 a week. Not Americans making the federal minimum wage, who earn around $15,000 a year if they only have one full-time job (they probably have to have more than one in order to survive). Not you, unless you are fabulously wealthy, in which case congrats.

If you do start thinking about the jacket in a mildly obsessive way, like you calculate how many months of rent that would be, how that could represent the downpayment on a house or college tuition or 20,600 malaria nets—well, in that case I advise you not to get angry at this jacket in particular. Sure, it looks like something an art school kid would wear to a Halloween party, but rich people have been overpaying for clothing since time immemorial. Barack Obama's daughters once wore $20,000 dresses to a state dinner. Marie Antoinette spent millions (in today's money) on clothes every year, before the unhappy lower classes turned her into a symbol of inequality and killed her and her entire family.

No, it is not our place to condemn Melania Trump for wearing a jacket so expensive that it actually seems like she got conned. In America, we do not begrudge the rich for their baubles but instead celebrate them in magazine spreads in which they wear outfits that cost as much as our houses. The most radical among us think that they should be taxed a bit more, at least enough that maybe they can't buy several palatial estates and have to settle for just one or two, and maybe a regular LearJet instead of a private 757. But no one in power believes that sort of lefty drivel; Melania's husband has endorsed policies that would allow people like the Trumps to keep even more of their wealth, in exchange for making it more difficult for the poor to get health insurance.

So actually, that's another reason not to think about the jacket. These days, you probably have more urgent things to worry about.

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Melania has been visiting sick kids at children's hospitals while in Europe.

Service dogs deserve recognition for the great deeds they perform daily. To them, they aren't even great deeds. They are just ... deeds. Andrew "AJ" Schalk, a 16-year-old junior at Stafford High School in Virginia, certainly wanted to give his service dog, Alpha, the respect that was deserved for someone who has saved his life several times. So he asked his school if they'd be willing to give his dog a spot in the yearbook, and the result is adorable.  That's a GOOD dog if I've ever seen one. SEE ALSO: Inspirational golden retriever perfectly demonstrates how to get swole for the summer Just a boy and his (service) dog pic.twitter.com/uM5f9P9X3V — AJ (@t1dfighter_aj) May 18, 2017 Schalk was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes in 2009. "The decision to get a service dog came about just to have greater control over my blood sugar and A1C, and Alpha has even saved my life on multiple occasions," Schalk said. As Schalk's service dog, Alpha's job is to alert Schalk if his blood sugar is getting too low or too high by sniffing his breath. If undetected, Schalk could be in danger. But with Alpha on the case, he has peace of mind. Andrew Schalk and his good boy, Alpha.Image: Andrew SchalkAlpha joined Schalk's family when he was four months old, and has now been with Schalk for three and a half years. Halfway through the previous school year, Schalk started bringing Alpha with him to school. "I started by bringing him once a week, then twice, and so on and so forth until he was fully acclimated," Schalk explained. Alpha is now a consistent presence at Stafford High, attending classes with Schalk every day. Image: andrew schalk"Alpha is not a distraction at all!" Schalk said. "He lays under my desk during class, and even though everyone knows he is there, everyone still pays attention to class and loves having him there." Who wouldn't love knowing that there is a dog nearby at all times? We sure wouldn't mind. Alpha is so beloved at the school, in fact, that when Schalk asked if he could be in the yearbook the request was happily granted. "I talked to a friend of mine in the yearbook club and asked of we could get Alpha into the yearbook," Schalk said. "She took it to the teacher in charge and all the teachers and administration were 100% supportive." Good boy Alpha also got himself an official student ID. Alpha clearly dressed up for picture day.Image: andrew schalk"All my classmates loved seeing Alpha in the yearbook," Schalk said. "And people that I didn't know loved the surprise of having a service dog in the yearbook." Schalk, a junior, has one more year of high school left, and that means Alpha gets to make another yearbook cameo.  "I for sure plan on having him in the yearbook next year as well," Schalk confirmed. WATCH: These worms may solve the plastic waste problem

President Donald Trump's revised travel ban "speaks with vague words of national security, but in context drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination," a federal appeals court said Thursday in ruling against the executive order targeting six Muslim-majority countries.

In a 10-3...

If you’ve ever felt so hungry and angry at the same time — otherwise known as “hangry” — that you will do just about anything to get your hands on something to eat, perhaps you can commiserate with a bear in Colorado that ripped the bumper off a doughnut delivery vehicle in his desperate hunt for a treat.

The owners of the Moose Watch Cafe in Steamboat Springs, CO, shared photos of what the hungry bear did to the car they use to make wholesale doughnut deliveries this week, showing just how determined Yogi’s cousin was in his time of need.

RELATED: Bargain-Hunting Beavers: 17 Times Animals Went Shopping In Human Stores
“Donuts so good it turns bear to a life of crime… the smell was just too good to resist!” the cafe’s post reads:

There were no doughnuts in the car at the time, but if you’re thinking that maybe the bear was just grumpy in general or had a fight with its spouse and felt like letting off some steam, well, you’re probably wrong.

“It always reeks of doughnuts in there,” one of the owners told Steamboat Today.

A police officer on the scene confirmed the redolent doughnut odor emanating from the vehicle, joking, “I guess if anyone is an expert about this, it’s us.”

Bear, wherever you are, we want you to know: We feel you.

Imagine a world where you could spend your days cuddling adorable fluffy kittens. A Dublin-based veterinary clinic is making that dream a reality as they're advertising a "cat cuddler" role. It sounds like the best job in the world.  SEE ALSO: Stop working like a sucker and get paid to build Lego models instead Just Cats veterinary clinic in Clonsilla, Dublin, is looking for a "crazy cat person" who "loves cats". Among other requirements includes "cattitude" — whatever that means. The ideal candidate will have a track record of feeding stray cats in your locality and they'll feel "warm and fuzzy" when they pet cats.  Image: justcats.ieThat's not all you'll need, though... You'll also need to have "gentle hands capable of petting and stroking cats for long periods of time". *Better crack out that hand lotion now, eh?!* You'll also need to be "softly spoke" and "capable of cat whispering" to calm the nerves of more nervous cats.  It doesn't end there, though..... You'll also need to possess the rare skill of understanding different types of purring.  And, on top of all that? You'll also need a qualification recognised by the veterinary council of Ireland. Wannabe cat cuddlers can apply by sending CVs and cover letters to miaow@justcats.ie .  Good luck. WATCH: Watch dogs try cat toys for the first time

A Canadian hunter is lucky to be alive after being attacked by a black bear. Richard Wesley was bow hunting near Fire River, Ontario, when he noticed a large black bear roaming nearby. At first, the bear seemed unfazed by Wesley's presence, but when the hunter makes a sound in an attempt to scare off the approaching bear, it charges. Wesley attempts to make as much noise as possible, and even punches the attacking bear in the face. The camera falls and the hunter returns just a few seconds later, visibly shook by the near death experience. "I should have shot a long time ago," Wesley says into the camera just seconds after the attack.  Luckily, the hunter walked away nearly unscathed.  "No wounds except a bruised elbow and ego where the bear threw me down," Wesley wrote on YouTube.  "Genuinely happy that this was a non fatal or tragic outcome." 

The Trumps and some White House officials met with Pope Francis on Wednesday, but one figure was notably missing: Sean Spicer. And apparently, he's pretty upset about it. A source close to the White House told CNN that Spicer not being brought along to the meeting was "a slight," and that to meet Papa Francesco was "all he wanted." SEE ALSO: James Comey once pulled a Sean Spicer to avoid Trump Granting the one thing Spicer wanted was, uhh, just not on Trump's mind we guess.  Though he did manage to bring along Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, in addition to Jared and Ivanka.  Jared and I were honored to join the President @realDonaldTrump and First Lady @FLOTUS in meeting His Holiness Pope Francis #POTUSAbroad pic.twitter.com/oaugVOJGPI — Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) May 24, 2017 In a shocking turn of events, people really felt for Spicey! If the man wants to meet the pope, just let him! @dave_brown24 @jenniferemorrow pic.twitter.com/X814jTROEE — Andrew Miller (@heyapm) May 24, 2017 Ok, not everyone did. @dave_brown24 Karma pic.twitter.com/7n79DLRWmZ — samslackey (@samslackey) May 24, 2017 Of course, it was pretty in character for Trump to block him in the first place.  @dave_brown24 SPICER: So will I get to meet the pope at least?TRUMP: Is the Pope Catholic?[narrator voice] it turned out Trump was actually asking — Linguica (@andrewrstine) May 24, 2017 Surely Spicey will have a second chance at a papal visit, right? Right, guys?? WATCH: Scuba dive tankless with this floating air caddie

The Alamo Drafthouse is a fun place to see a movie. Their selection is good, they serve you yummy food, and they often pair movies with themed snacks and drinks; it’s a good time. And they’ve been known to do special, targeted screenings from time to time – for veterans and active military, students, that kinda thing. So last night, they announced one such event: A “Women Only Screening” of Wonder Woman. From their website:

Apologies, gentlemen, but we’re embracing our girl power and saying “No Guys Allowed” for one special night at the Alamo Ritz. And when we say “Women (and People Who Identify As Women) Only,” we mean it. Everyone working at this screening — venue staff, projectionist, and culinary team — will be female.

So lasso your geeky girlfriends together and grab your tickets to this celebration of one of the most enduring and inspiring characters ever created.

Well that sounds reasonable and fun, and since we all know male comic book movie fans in general and DC people in particular are totally agreeable and encouraging online, this is probably going over just fine, right?

Shockingly, no! Very angry dudes are seizing on this — which will be, without question, their only opportunity to see Wonder Woman in a motion picture theater —` as a prime example of the subjugation and exclusion they’re being subjected to every single day.

Anyway, the Facebook thread is a good read, as you can see the folks at the Alamo initially attempted to respond to these complaints reasonably and sensitively:

But as the male tears continue to fall, the Alamo’s people – who, don’t forget, have no qualms with pissing off unlikable customers – get increasingly salty:

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, anger was coupled with bold predictions:

Hmmm. Let’s check in on that:

According to their Facebook page, the Alamo is working on adding additional “women-only” screenings to meet demand. How about that free market, eh?

President Donald Trump's 2018 budget will push for the creation of a federal paid family leave program that will provide families after the birth or adoption of a child with six weeks of paid leave, a Trump administration official tells CNN.

While passing by a local grocery store this week, a woman in Warren, Michigan, happened upon an unsettling scene. She noticed a man standing in the parking lot of the Warren Food Market had plopped a giant mass of raw meat inside a shopping cart without any protective packaging. Freaked out by the thought of raw beef touching the same surface where babies often sit and birds certainly poop on, she did what any upstanding citizen would: She snapped a photo to post on social media.

It didn't take long before the photo went viral and local news station WDIV stopped by to investigate. After confronting one Warren Food Market employee with the footage, he had this to say:

"I have no concern about this."

The employee added that the 200 pounds of raw, potentially germ-ridden beef was sitting in the store's freezer, from which it will be sold to the public, who will ostensibly consume it.

Nazem Saad, the wholesaler who provided the beef to the store, said the explanation for the unorthodox delivery was simple: The boxes holding the meat broke before he could shuttle the product inside, leaving the man with no other option, apparently, but to find the closest grocery cart and stuff the load into that.

"When they lifted it, the meat came out," Saad told WDIV. "I don't think it's a big deal, you know?"

However, a number of folks—including those who work at the Department of Agriculture—would argue otherwise, and have reportedly promised to investigate the matter further.

"That's disgusting. That's unsanitary," the woman who witnessed the meat move told WDIV. "I don't wish anyone to get shut down, but I wish they would practice better sanitary practices because I don't believe it's sanitary, in my opinion."

Follow Drew Schwartz on Twitter.

Three juveniles were arrested after a 69-year-old man fought off carjackers on the Southwest Side late Tuesday, stabbing one of them in the back, police said.The man was confronted around 11:45 p.m. as he sat in his parked car in the 2900 block of West 59th Street in Gage Park, police said.  Three...

Update 5/23: On Tuesday night, Sean Hannity announced that he would not discuss the death of Seth Rich any longer "out of respect for the family's wishes." Original story below:

Sean Hannity, FOX News host and Donald Trump superfan, went out on a limb Tuesday in defense of his coverage of a conspiracy theory, calling his critics "phony hypocrites" and appearing to stand by a story his own network has retracted. Hannity wants to know who killed Seth Rich, even if the mainstream media, Rich's family, and his own colleagues just want him to stop.

For the blissfully unaware, the murder of Seth Rich, a young Democratic National Committee staffer, has inspired a lot of wild speculation in the fringe right-wing media and on FOX, the gist of which is that he was murdered by Democratic operatives as revenge for being a whistleblower who delivered the notorious DNC emails to WikiLeaks. If Rich were the leaker, the thinking goes, there wouldn't have been any Russian hacking, therefore the entire investigation into the Trump campaign's Russian connections would be nonsense. The latest round of speculation was prompted by a FOX story based on quotes from a private investigator who was also a FOX News talking head; that story was retracted after the PI denied he had said what FOX said he said.

The most prominent figure spreading this conspiracy theory is Hannity, who has been asked repeatedly to stop by Rich's family. On Tuesday, Rich's brother Aaron sent a letter to FOX pleading with the network to stop Hannity. "We appeal to your decency to not cause a grieving family more pain," the letter said.

But the theory is bigger than any one figure—it's so huge it has its very own subreddit. And Hannity is teaming up with at least one other peddler of nonsense.

Hannity spent much of Tuesday tweeting about Rich. His big "source" is Kim Dotcom, an outlaw webpreneur who appears to have patterned his lifestyle after the kid from 1994 movie Blank Check. Dotcom has been claiming for days that he knew Rich, and that he has information that proves Rich had delivered a collection of DNC emails to WikiLeaks. On Monday, he promised some kind of major reveal. On Tuesday, what was revealed was a blog post at Dotcom's website, Kim.com, about a person in 2014 who went by "Panda" chatting with Dotcom about "corruption and the influence of corporate money in politics." Dotcom claims that Panda was Rich (though he doesn't provide evidence for this), and hinted vaguely about more to be revealed in the future, but really it was a big fat nothing.

In his letter to FOX News, Aaron Rich wrote that his family had been in touch with someone calling himself Kim Dotcom, and that they've asked him to run any Seth Rich–related evidence past law enforcement, or the Rich family, and to keep it out of the media for the time being. They hadn't received a response from Dotcom about their request, but on Tuesday night, Hannity is scheduled to interview Dotcom on his show.

Throughout Tuesday afternoon, Hannity carried on talking about the Seth Rich case on his radio show, saying, "For those accusing me of pushing a conspiracy theory, you are the biggest phony hypocrites in the entire world," according to Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times.

"I am not FOX.com or FOXNews.com. I retracted nothing," he told listeners.

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Two (!) of the infamous plants could soon bloom in all their "spoiled-eggs-meets-roadkill" pungent glory. Do you dare? [ more › ]

Here are a few ad hoc tips, from my recent experience, for Chicagoans who might not want to spend their entire life savings on a wedding. [ more › ]

We’re pleased as punch to have Phantogram kick off our eighth season of A.V. Undercover, which has a moody new vibe, with a stellar take on Hole’s “Violet.” The moody cover finds frontwoman Sarah Barthel doing her best dark Courtney Love, all while the churning band takes full advantage of the new, well-lit Undercover set. It’s a great indication of where we’re going with this new season, which will feature all your favorite or soon-to-be-favorite bands doing covers of all your favorite songs. We’re talking groups like Minus The Bear, Lee Fields, Old 97’s, Passenger, Austra, and Fastball covering cuts by T-Rex, Dolly Parton, Fugazi, and Blink-182, though not necessarily in that order. We can’t wait for you to see what we’ve been working on for the past few months, so make sure to check back here every Tuesday for the ...

With summer on the way and at least 77 Chicago neighborhoods to explore, we've sketched out our ideal neighborhood staycation plans all over the city. [ more › ]

President Donald Trump on Tuesday will propose cutting federal spending by $3.6 trillion over 10 years, a historic budget contraction that would severely ratchet back spending across dozens of programs and could completely reshape government assistance to the poor.

The White House's $4.094 trillion...

The bride wore Giles Deacon; the most famous guest wore McQueen; the kids wore shenanigans. 

Texas' Republican-controlled Senate approved a bill early Monday that allows publicly funded foster care and adoption agencies to refuse to place children with non-Christian, unmarried or gay prospective parents because of religious objections.

The "Freedom to Serve Children Act" received a late...

With full benefits!

There was a time when my sweet prince Harry (of Styles, not of Wales) was regulated to riding bitch with One Direction during The Late Late Show with James Corden’s Carpool Karaoke segment, but now he’s all grown up, gone solo and, better yet, he’s ready for love.

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Welcome back to Dead Letters, the feature in which we reprint our favorite reader mail. We should take this moment to remind you that all emails to Deadspin and its editors and writers are on the record unless otherwise specified. Now for your letters.

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