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ICE Arrests Husband Taking Pregnant Wife to Hospital to Give Birth, Forcing Her to Drive Alone
In San Bernardino, California, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a man driving his pregnant wife to the hospital to give birth last Wednesday, sparking widespread outrage. The ICE agents detained Joel Arrona-Lara when he stopped at a gas station, forcing his wife, Maria del Carmen Venegas, to drive herself to the hospital for her scheduled C-section. The couple has lived in the United States for more than 10 years and has five children, including their newborn baby.

Horror at TX Detention Center: ICE Guards Separate Fathers & Sons After They Had Just Been Reunited
In Texas, armed guards forcibly removed 16 fathers from the Karnes County detention center, where they were being held with their sons after the families were separated at the border and then reunited. Authorities appear to have reseparated the parents and sons as retaliation for organizing a nonviolent protest. Many of the imprisoned fathers said they had been tricked into signing deportation agreements in English that ICE told them were reunification papers. The families have now been reunited, and some have been released.

In Memoriam: David McReynolds, the Gay Socialist Pacifist Who Twice Ran for President, Dies at 88
Longtime pacifist and socialist David McReynolds died Friday at the age of 88. Known to historian Howard Zinn and many others as a “hero of the antiwar movement,” McReynolds was a staff member with the War Resisters League from 1960 to 1999. There, he focused on counter-recruitment and helped organize one of the first draft card burnings. He went on to play a key role in some of major demonstrations against the Vietnam War and campaign for nuclear disarmament. McReynolds ran for president in 1980 and 2000 as an openly gay man. For more, we speak with two of his close friends. Ed Hedemann worked with McReynolds for decades at the War Resisters League. Jeremy Scahill is an investigative journalist and co-founder of The Intercept.

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Respect: A Tribute to Aretha Franklin, an Icon of the Civil Rights & Feminist Movements
Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul, died Thursday at her home in Detroit at the age of 76. For decades, Aretha Franklin has been celebrated as one of the greatest American singers of any genre, who helped give birth to soul and redefined the American musical tradition. In 1987, Aretha Franklin became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She held the record for the most songs on the Billboard Top 100 for 40 years. Rolling Stone ranked her the greatest singer of all time on its top 100 list, calling her “a gift from God.” Her hit single “Respect” became part of the soundtrack to the civil rights movement, which she also supported behind the scenes.

Angela Davis: Aretha Franklin Offered to Post Bail For Me, Saying “Black People Will Be Free”
In 1970, Aretha Franklin offered to post bail for Angela Davis, who was jailed on trumped-up charges. Aretha Franklin told Jet magazine in 1970, “My daddy says I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, I respect him, of course, but I’m going to stick by my beliefs. Angela Davis must go free. Black people will be free. I’ve been locked up (for disturbing the peace in Detroit) and I know you got to disturb the peace when you can’t get no peace. Jail is hell to be in. I’m going to see her free if there is any justice in our courts, not because I believe in communism, but because she’s a Black woman and she wants freedom for Black people. I have the money; I got it from Black people—they’ve made me financially able to have it—and I want to use it in ways that will help our people.” Activist and scholar Angela Davis discusses what Aretha Franklin meant to her.

Angela Davis: Aretha Franklin “Will Forever Animate Our Collective Sense of Desire for Change”
Aretha Franklin became the voice of the civil rights movement in 1967, when her cover of Otis Redding’s “Respect” became an international sensation. Franklin was a steadfast supporter of the civil rights movement throughout her long and remarkable career. She sang at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral after his assassination in 1968. The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Franklin anonymously helped fund the movement for decades. He said, “When Dr. King was alive, several times she helped us make payroll. … Aretha has always been a very socially conscious artist, an inspiration, not just an entertainer.” Angela Davis is an author, professor and activist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Other guests are Farah Jasmine Griffin, professor of English and comparative literature and African-American studies at Columbia University, and Mark Anthony Neal, James B. Duke professor of African & African American studies at Duke University.

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.

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Shocking Investigation Reveals Pennsylvania Priests Abused 1,000 Children and Covered Up the Abuse
In Pennsylvania, a grand jury report has revealed that more than 300 Catholic priests sexually abused 1,000 children, and possibly thousands more, over seven decades, and that church leadership covered up the abuse. On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro described harrowing accounts of priests raping young girls and boys, including one priest who raped a young girl in the hospital after she had her tonsils out. Another priest impregnated a young girl and then arranged for her to have an abortion. The report reveals that the church orchestrated a massive, systematic cover-up to conceal the abuse, including lying to the community about why a priest was removed from a parish, transferring predator priests rather than firing them, and locking abuse complaints away in what the church called a “secret archive.”

“This Church Is a Criminal Enterprise”: Former Priest & Survivor Speak Out on PA Catholic Sex Abuse
A shocking new Pennsylvania grand jury report has revealed that more than 300 Catholic priests sexually abused 1,000 children, and possibly thousands more, over a span of seven decades. The church leadership covered up the abuse, lying to communities, transferring predator priests rather than firing them, and locking abuse complaints away in what the church called a “secret archive.” Shaun Dougherty is a survivor of sexual abuse by a Pennsylvania priest. His story was included in Tuesday’s grand jury report. He was molested by a priest from the Altoona-Johnstown diocese in Pennsylvania for three years, starting when he was 10 years old. George Koharchick, the priest responsible, has been defrocked. Even though the FBI determined he was a child predator, Koharchick cannot be tried as such because of an expired statute of limitations. Bob Hoatson is a former Catholic priest and the co-founder and president of Road to Recovery, which assists victims of sexual abuse.

“I’m Bringing My Bullhorn to Congress”: Rashida Tlaib, Muslim Dem. Socialist, Appears Headed to D.C.
Detroit Democratic congressional candidate Rashida Tlaib is poised to become the first Palestinian-American woman and first Muslim woman to serve in Congress, after winning the Democratic primary for John Conyers’s old House seat in Michigan last week. Tlaib is a Democratic Socialist who supports the Palestinian right of return and a one-state solution, Medicare for all, a $15 minimum wage and abolishing ICE. The child of immigrants, she has spoken out against the Trump administration’s travel bans.

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.

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Parents of Murdered Parkland Student Joaquin Oliver on Using Art to Demand End to Gun Violence
Students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, return to class today, amid heavy security, after summer break. It was six months ago Tuesday when a former student, armed with a semiautomatic AR-15, gunned down 17 students, staff and teachers in just three minutes. It was one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. After the horrific attack, many of the students who survived the shooting became leading activists for gun control. Among the students killed at Stoneman Douglas High School was Joaquin Oliver. On Tuesday, Democracy Now! spoke to Joaquin’s parents, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, who have started a new nonprofit called Change the Ref to promote the use of urban art and nonviolent creative confrontation to expose the disastrous effects of gun violence.

John Carlos Frey: Deported Parents Say Trump Administration Is Still Separating Families at Border
Nearly three weeks after the court-imposed deadline for reuniting families forcibly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, the Trump administration has admitted that 559 children remain in government custody. More than 360 of these children are separated from parents who have been deported by the U.S. government. Most of the families separated at the border were seeking asylum from violence in their home countries of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Instead, the parents were charged in federal court with a crime for illegally crossing the border, then held in jail and detention. The children, some still breastfeeding, were sent to shelters around the country. Judge Dana Sabraw, who ruled the Trump administration must reunite all separated families, said, “For every parent who is not located, there will be a permanent orphaned child, and that is 100 percent the responsibility of the administration.” John Carlos Frey is an award-winning investigative reporter with The Marshall Project and special correspondent with “PBS NewsHour.” He is recently back from reporting trips in Guatemala and Nogales, Mexico, where he spoke with asylum seekers waiting for days and even weeks to enter the United States.

Military Cover-Up? 100s of Migrants Feared Dead in Mass Grave at AZ’s Barry Goldwater Bombing Range
As the Trump administration continues an immigration crackdown at the border, asylum seekers are being told to wait for days or weeks on end before being allowed entry into the United States. This practice is leading more and more immigrants to risk their lives on dangerous journeys through the desert to enter the country instead, says investigative reporter John Carlos Frey. He speaks about the Barry Goldwater bombing range in Arizona, a vast swath of land across the border from Nogales, Mexico. The area is part of an incredibly dangerous migrant path, but aid workers are not allowed access to the site. Frey estimates hundreds of immigrants could have died there in recent years but that their bodies have not been recovered.

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.

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Historic Ruling Against Monsanto Finds Company Acted with “Malice” Against Groundskeeper with Cancer
California jurors have awarded $289 million in a historic verdict against Monsanto in the case of a school groundskeeper who developed cancer after using its weed killer, Roundup. Brent Wisner was the lead trial counsel for Dewayne Lee Johnson, who has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Doctors say he is unlikely to live past 2020. Johnson’s was the first lawsuit to go to trial alleging glyphosate causes cancer. Filed in 2016, it was fast-tracked for trial due to the severity of his illness.

How Monsanto Plants Stories, Suppresses Science & Silences Dissent to Sell a Cancer-Linked Chemical
As Monsanto comes under scrutiny for allegedly hiding the dangers of its weed killer, Roundup, we talk to a reporter who says the company attempted to censor and discredit her when she published stories on their product that contradicted their business interests. Carey Gillam is a veteran investigative journalist and author of “Whitewash–The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science.”

40 Yemeni Children Dead by U.S.-Made Bomb? Outrage Mounts Over U.S. Role in Airstrike on School Bus
Thousands of mourners gathered in Yemen’s northern city of Saada Monday for the funerals of 51 people, including 40 children, who were killed in a U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition airstrike on a school bus last week. The massacre of school boys between the ages of 6 and 11 was one of the worst attacks on children in the history of Yemen’s brutal war. Images posted online suggest a U.S.-built Mark 82 bomb was used in the bombing. Shireen Al-Adeimi is a Yemeni scholar and activist and an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University. Her latest piece for In These Times is titled “Fine Print in Defense Bill Acknowledges U.S.-Backed War in Yemen Will Go On Indefinitely.”

AP Investigation: Behind the Scenes in Yemen, U.S.-Backed Saudi Coalition Is Working with al-Qaeda
The U.S.-backed Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has repeatedly cut secret deals with al-Qaeda, even paying its fighters to retreat from towns or join the coalition, a bombshell Associated Press investigation has revealed. The AP probe accuses the United States of being aligned with al-Qaeda in the fight against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, despite claiming to be fighting the extremist group in the region. One senior tribal leader told the AP, “Al-Qaeda wasn’t defeated. It didn’t fight in the first place.” Maggie Michael is one of the three reporters for the Associated Press who broke the story, headlined “U.S. Allies Spin Deals with al-Qaida in War on Rebels.”

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.

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Former Iranian Ambassador: Trump’s Re-imposed Sanctions Against Iran Are an Act of Warfare
Tensions are escalating between the U.S. and Iran after the Trump administration re-imposed economic sanctions against Iran last week. This news followed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. Trump has threatened other countries seeking to trade with Iran, tweeting, “Anyone doing business with Iran will NOT be doing business with the United States.” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemned the sanctions as “psychological warfare,” saying last week he would not begin negotiations until the sanctions are withdrawn. Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian is a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He served as spokesperson for Iran in its nuclear negotiations with the European Union from 2003 to 2005.

Meet the Two Protesters Who Confronted Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke over Corruption & Climate Change
In Steamboat Springs, Colorado, protesters Sallie Holmes and Jesse Brucato interrupted a speech by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday. Zinke has faced 14 federal misconduct investigations since joining President Trump’s cabinet. The protesters asked Zinke about his alleged ethical lapses and questioned why he refuses to acknowledge the role of climate change in the wildfires raging across the western United States. Politico reporter Ben Lefebvre broke the stories linking Zinke to a real estate deal with energy giant Halliburton’s chairperson David Lesar.

Interior Sec. Zinke Blames “Radical Environmentalists,” Not Climate Change, as 100+ Wildfires Rage
As more than 100 fires rage in the western United States, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke wrote an op-ed last week in USA Today about forest management on public lands that blamed “radical environmentalists” for the fires. “Most Americans get it, that climate change is no longer something we can just wish away with this administration,” responds Joel Clement, who served as director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department until July of 2017 and worked at the Interior Department for seven years.

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.

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Meet Gustavo Petro, Colombian Former Guerilla & Leftist Who Mounted Historic Campaign for Presidency
Right-wing politician Iván Duque has been sworn in as Colombia’s new president. Duque was hand-picked by former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe and has vowed to roll back key parts of Colombia’s landmark peace deal with FARC rebels. Just before Duque’s inauguration, Democracy Now! spoke to Gustavo Petro, who placed second in this year’s presidential race, receiving 8 million votes in his attempt to become Colombia’s first leftist president. In the 1980s Petro was jailed and tortured for being a member of the M-19 guerrilla movement. He later went on to lead efforts in Colombia’s Congress to investigate ties between paramilitary death squads and top politicians.

“All for One”: U.S. and Russian Filmmakers with Disabilities Collaborate in Powerful New Documentary
While tensions between the U.S. and Russia continue to heat up, one group of filmmakers has found a way to strengthen ties between the two countries through a common bond: their disabilities. A new film premiering tonight in New York follows the Media Enabled Musketeers, American and Russian filmmakers with disabilities, as they make original films to tell their stories. “All For One” tells the story of 35 Russians and 13 Americans who collaborated to create films about everyday issues to empower themselves, educate the public and provide more opportunities for people with disabilities. These include films about accessibility, finding love, confronting prejudice and following dreams.

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.

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Experts: If We Don’t Stop Climate Change, CA Fires “Will Seem Mild In Comparison to What’s Coming”
The Mendocino Complex Fire in Northern California is now the largest wildfire ever recorded in California’s history. It started burning in July—the state’s hottest month on record. Of the 20 largest wildfires in California history, 15 have occurred since 2000. This year’s fires have already burned nearly three times as many acres as the same time last year. Experts say climate change has increased the length of fire season. Michael Brune is the director of the Sierra Club. Michael Mann is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science at Penn State University and author of “The Madhouse Effect: How Climate Change Denial
 is Threatening our Planet, Destroying Our Politics, and Driving us Crazy.”

$1 An Hour to Fight Largest Fire in CA History: Are Prison Firefighting Programs Slave Labor?
California relies on thousands of prisoners, including many women, to battle the wildfires burning statewide. Prisoner firefighters gain training and earn time off of their sentences for good behavior, typically two days off for each day served. But critics of the program say the state is exploiting prisoners’ eagerness to earn time for early release. While salaried firefighters earn an annual mean wage of $74,000 plus benefits, inmates earn just $2 per day with an additional $1 per hour when fighting an active fire. According to some estimates, California avoids spending about $80-$100 million a year by using prison labor to fight its biggest environmental problem. Romarilyn Ralston is a member of the California Coalition for Women Prisoners-LA Chapter, and the program coordinator for Project Rebound at Cal State University, Fullerton. Ralston was imprisoned for 23 years, during which time she worked as a fire camp trainer. Deirdre Wilson was imprisoned for three-and-a-half years, and worked as a landscaper at a women’s fire camp in San Diego.

73 Years After U.S. Dropped Atom Bomb on Nagasaki, Survivor Warns About Threat of Nuclear Warfare
Seventy-three years ago today, on August 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people and forever changing the lives of those who survived the nuclear attack. The bombing came just three days after the U.S. dropped the world’s first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima, killing some 140,000 people. Terumi Kuramori is a hibakusha—that’s the Japanese word for a survivor of the atomic bomb—and Tatsuya Yoshioka is the co-founder and director of the Peace Boat.

Eric has now completed all 12 signs of The Sacred Space of Self, the 2018 Spring Reading on Chiron’s transition into Aries, and Mars retrograde in Aquarius over the summer. Order today and get all 12 signs for just $99. Check out our sample videos here, and the full Guide to Chiron Transits here.