SHERO on Sunday

A lightning-fast recap of the week's most significant political and legal events for August 3rd - 9th, 2026, before we are on to the next!

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 15, 2026. (Photo by Mark Schiefelbein/via Getty Images)

Welcome to the Sunday Recap, where you can quickly check in to review the week with minimal time commitment and ensure you don’t miss a thing. Each snippet includes several links to credible and free sources, providing more details for those who want to delve deeper into any issue. This kind of newsletter model, which provides free, reliable, independent journalism that connects the political and legal dots for everyone, only works if subscribers support our work with paid subscriptions. There is a lot to cover for this week, so let’s get started!

Gun Violence This Week

At SHERO, we document all mass shooting incidents for the week every Sunday, so please take a moment to review them and remember to keep up the fight for sensible gun reform. There were 12 separate mass shooting events in the United States this past week, in which nine people were killed and 51 were injured.

1. Sunday, August 2, 2026: Portland, Oregon

2. Sunday, August 2, 2026: Dunn, North Carolina

3. Sunday, August 2, 2026: Huntsville, Alabama

4. Sunday, August 2, 2026: Yonkers, New York

5. Sunday, August 2, 2026: Greensboro, North Carolina

6. Sunday, August 2, 2026: Rochester, New York

7. Monday, August 3, 2026: Oak Park, Michigan

8. Monday, August 3, 2026: Boston, Massachusetts

9. Monday, August 3, 2026: Norfolk, Virginia

10. Monday, August 3, 2026: Raleigh, North Carolina

11. Tuesday, August 4. 2026: Pensacola, Florida

12. Friday, August 7, 2026: Tulsa, Oklahoma

• A new report from Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee this week confirms that more than a dozen bankers at JPMorganChase, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank were aware of suspicious transactions made by Jeffrey Epstein as far back as 2002.

• The Trump administration abruptly terminated tens of millions in funding this week for groups teaching children and teenagers about how to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections in specific states that did not vote for Trump in 2024.

• The judge hearing the antitrust case seeking to block the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger issued a preliminary scheduling order this week to start in March 2027, which is a substantial delay in the merger for Paramount.