Luis “AKA” Ramírez brings young and old together to heal a traumatized slice of Medellín.

By the time Luis Ramírez was 16 years old, he was well acquainted with death. Of his 25 childhood friends, 23 had been killed, and the other two were in jail. Now a hip-hop artist called AKA, hailing from one of the most violent neighborhoods in Colombia, he draws on that gritty background — but he’s not a gangster. No, Ramírez’s idea of radical resistance involves getting up before dawn to garden.

Donning a floppy camo hat and baggy shorts, Ramírez, 32, sets out to tend individually to each of hundreds of plants in a vertical garden, all dedicated to victims of the violence in Medellín’s infamous Comuna 13.

For AKA, agriculture works in unison with his politically charged hip-hop — taking on the forced disappearances and violence that have plagued his community — as part of the group Hip-Hop Agrario. Starting in Comuna 13, his collective, Agro Arte, takes control of sites of tragedy and turns them into green spaces that memorialize the victims. Agro Arte plants a combination of ornamental, edible and medicinal plants. They have mounted group agriculture projects called “Cuerpos Gramaticales” across Colombia and as far abroad as Barcelona. They talk about history and planting with local schoolkids.

It’s unlikely Robert Mueller could be subpoenaed to testify before Congress. The main reason? Ken Starr.

Back in August, the National Archives released a long-secret report from 1999 about the only independent investigation to result in the impeachment of a president — so far. Prepared at the order of a federal court, the report came in response to complaints that Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton, had violated the law by leaking grand jury materials to members of the press. The report’s release coincided with the Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, who was among the lawyers under Starr investigating Clinton. And while the report, which does not mention Kavanaugh, ended up having no influence on his confirmation, it did help confirm something else: just how leaky the independent counsel’s ship was during the Starr investigation.

Why should the porousness of the Starr team matter now, especially with Kavanaugh safely ensconced on the Supreme Court for life? Well, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, recently threatened to call Robert Mueller to Capitol Hill and subpoena his investigative findings if Attorney General William Barr does not make public the special counsel’s highly anticipated report. Could Schiff actually accomplish this end run around the attorney general and force Mueller to testify? In short, no. Why? You can thank Starr.

In this new documentary, three women show the many faces of revolution, from politics and activism to military might.

Young children smile and laugh as they slide down snowy hills on makeshift sleds made from fuel containers, the gorgeous whitecapped mountains of Afghanistan dotting the distance. But moments later, the tone is darker, as a young girl speaks of a deadly incident where a boy killed his sister in a nearby town. “I don’t want this, cook me something else. Make me eggs,” the boy said, and when his sister refused — saying, “I am not your maid” — he took a gun and shot her.

Such is the graphic beauty and sudden cruelty of the upcoming documentary I Am The Revolution, polar opposites often presented side-by-side by director Benedetta Argentieri. The Italian war-zone journalist shows the varied, female faces of revolution through three central characters in three separate nations — exploring political opposition in Afghanistan, grassroots activism in Iraq and military action in Syria. Their work echoes the legacies of some Western feminists, such as Gloria Steinem, but with a context where the stakes are much higher and the starting point “way backward” compared to the civil rights-era United States, Argentieri says.