Welcome to Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Two warring factions of Sudan's military have announced a 72-hour ceasefire, coinciding with the start of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr. Despite the announcement, residents of Sudan's capital Khartoum and neighboring cities report gunfire and shelling have continued. The World Health Organization reports at least 413 people have been killed, and more than 3,500 others injured in the week since fighting erupted between Sudan's army and the rapid support forces paramilitary group. Earlier today, Sudan's top general and de facto ruler Abdel Fattah al-Burham made his first public remark since the fighting broke out. There remains hope that we are with our great people, and we will overcome this tribulation and emerge from a unified, strong and coherent, and our slogan will only get stronger, one army, one people. In his speech, the general claims Sudan's military is committed to a transition to civilian rule, even though he led the coup 18 months ago that toppled Sudan's civilian prime minister, Abdel Handak. CNN is reporting the Russian mercenary Wagner Group has been supplying Sudan's rapid support forces with missiles that could not be independently confirmed. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has been rotating more troops into its base in Djibouti to prepare for the possible evacuation of U.S. diplomatic personnel from Sudan, they say. A new study finds the vast ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica are melting three times faster than they were just 30 years ago. Study co-author Ruth Motrum described the findings as disastrous, warning coastal communities will face increasing amounts of flooding as sea level rise accelerates due to the melting ice. On Thursday, the European Commission's Climate Agency reported last year was the continent's second warmest year on record, and warned this year is on track to set more record temperatures across Europe and around the world. This is Samantha Burgess of the Copernicus Climate Change Service. We saw prolonged and extensive heat waves and also prolonged and extensive drought over much of the continent. We had the highest emissions of carbon from wildfires in a number of countries, and those wildfires were bigger than average. They started earlier than average, and the season persisted longer than average. We also saw record ice melt from glaciers in the European Alps. So climate change isn't a future problem, it is a current problem. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg made a surprise visit to Ukraine's capital Kyiv Thursday for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky. During a joint press conference, Zelensky said it's time for NATO to invite Ukraine to join the military alliance. Stoltenberg replied, the issue would be discussed at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania in July. This will be high on the agenda of the meeting, and also in the lead-up and the preparations for the Vilnius summit. Ukraine's future is in the Euro-Atlantic family, Ukraine's future is in NATO. All allies agree or not. This week, Ukraine received U.S.-made surface-to-air Patriot missile systems for the first time. Meanwhile, Russian officials have admitted a Russian warplane bombed the city of Belgrade near Ukraine late Thursday after it accidentally fired a weapon. Russia's defense ministry said some buildings have been damaged, but no one was injured in the blast, which left a huge crater in the street near several apartment buildings. President Biden's pick to lead the Labor Department testified before a Senate panel Thursday as her nomination hearings got underway. Julie Su appears to face roadblocks by both Republicans and conservative Democrats who oppose her pro-worker, pro-union track record. Su, who's serving as deputy labor secretary and is also a civil rights attorney, would be the first Asian-American to serve as secretary in Biden's cabinet. After law school, I spent nearly two decades representing workers. What I learned is that too many people still work full-time, year-round, and live in poverty. Too many are denied a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. At the same time, I learned that working people, when given a chance to organize, to be heard, not only make things better for themselves, but help to bring the American dream within reach to those around them. In Uganda, President Eurima Sevani has refused to sign into law a draconian anti-LGBTQ bill, which allows for the death penalty in some cases and criminalize even identifying as gay. Instead, the president urged the Ugandan Parliament to make the legislation even harsher. He made the announcement Thursday as he praised lawmakers for their efforts and rejected international pressure to undo the controversial measure. The intensifying violence against the LGBTQ community has forced many to flee. This is a Ugandan photographer and LGBTQ activist speaking from Johannesburg, South Africa.  Society rates are also rising, because again, within the crisis of this, it's traumatic.  To see our interview with Ugandan LGBTQ activist Frank Mogisha, go to our website, democracynow.org. Back in the United States, the Republican-controlled House has passed a bill that would ban transgender women and girls from competing in sports at schools and colleges that receive federal funding. The measure has no chance of passing the Democratic-led Senate, while the White House said President Biden would veto the bill if it made it to his desk. Bans on transgender athletes are being challenged by the ACLU in Idaho, Tennessee and West Virginia. This week, North Dakota became the latest state to enact a law criminalizing gender-affirming care for minors. Over 450 bills attacking the rights of transgender people have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide. In Atlanta, Georgia, protesters rallied outside the Fulton County Jail on Thursday, demanding the closure of the 11-story, 1,300-bed facility demanding justice for Lashawn Thompson. The 35-year-old black man, who was being held in the jail's psychiatric wing, was eaten alive by insets and bedbugs in his cell last year. According to Thompson's family, civil rights lawyer Ben Crump reports former NFL quarterback and activist Colin Copernick has agreed to pay for an independent autopsy of Thompson's body. Meanwhile, Fulton County commissioners have approved $5 million in funding for emergency improvements to the jail. Thompson's family and local activists are calling on the Department of Justice to launch an investigation. Tiffany Roberts of the Southern Center for Human Rights said, quote, how long will we hide from the reality that Fulton County is chronically dysfunctional and there is no humanity in a system like this, she asked. To see our Democracy Now! broadcast exclusive interview with the family attorney, as well as Lashawn Thompson's brother and sister, go to democracynow.org. Oklahoma's Court of Criminal Appeals has denied the latest requests by death row prisoner Richard Glossop for a new trial, paving the way for his execution May 18. Thursday's ruling came after Oklahoma's attorney general asked for Glossop's 1998 murder conviction to be vacated in a decades-long case in which Glossop narrowly escaped execution three times. Glossop has always maintained his innocence. Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and staunch Trump ally, was ordered to pay $5 million for losing his 2021 Prove Mike Wrong challenge after a computer forensics expert showed that there was no Chinese interference in the 2020 election, as Lindell had claimed. An arbitration panel found Robert Seidman, a Republican who twice voted for Trump, to disprove Mike Lindell's data, which he called manufactured and bogus. SpaceX is claiming success after the first launch of its massive new rocket-dubbed starship. The two-stage prototype lifted off Thursday morning from SpaceX's sprawling base on Texas Gulf Coast near the U.S. border with Mexico, becoming the largest and heaviest machine ever to fly under its own power. At least six of the rocket's 33 engines failed during flight, and the vehicle self-destructed over the Gulf of Mexico about four minutes after liftoff. Residents of Port Isabel near the launch site reported particulates rained down on their neighborhoods. The fiery end to the launch was the latest in a series of explosions around SpaceX launch site near the Lower Rio Grand Valley National Wildlife Refuge, after headlines will go to Brownsville, Texas for the latest. BuzzFeed News is shutting down. The announcement was made by BuzzFeed's CEO and co-founder Jonah Peretti in an email to staff, where he said the company is lying off 15 percent of its employees across multiple divisions. HuffPost, which BuzzFeed acquired in 2020, will now be the company's sole news brand. This came on the same day the digital news media company Insider, formerly known as Business Insider, said it would cut 10 percent of its workforce. And in Chile, President Gabriel Boric announced he is moving to nationalize his country's lithium industry. Chile has one of the largest lithium reserves of the world. It is a mineral that, being in bus and electric cars, energy storage, batteries, is key in the fight against the climate crisis and in the fight against climate change. This is an opportunity for economic growth that will be difficult to beat in a short term. Any private companies extracting lithium will have to partner with the state, which will hold majority stakes in new production contracts. This comes as environmental activists this week protested Chile's approval to extend Anglo-Americans' copper mining activities in the Andes, which advocates say threatens a nearby glacier and the area's water supply. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. It has been another deadly week in the United States as gun violence shattered families and communities across the country. In one of the most shocking cases, a white homeowner in Kansas City shot a black teenager in the head who rang his doorbell by mistake.  Yarl had simply gone to the wrong house to pick up his younger twin brothers. Yarl survived. He's now recovering from a traumatic brain injury. The shooter's grandson appeared on CNN Thursday and described his grandfather as a racist who avidly watched Fox News and embraced conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, in New York, a 65-year-old man has been charged with secondary murder for fatally shooting a 20-year-old woman named Kailin Gillis, who'd mistakenly pulled into the wrong driveway. In Elgin, Texas, two cheerleaders were shot by a man in a parking lot of a grocery store on Tuesday after one of them mistakenly tried to get into his car thinking it was her own. Meanwhile, a North Carolina man has turned himself in after shooting a six-year-old and her parents after the girl tried to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into the man's yard. The number of mass shootings in the United States this year has now reached 166. On average, there's been more than one mass shooting every day this year in the United States. In Alabama, six people have been arrested on murder charges in connection with the recent mass shooting at a Sweet 16 birthday party in Dadeville, Alabama that left four people dead and 32 injured. Over the weekend, the National Rifle Association held its annual convention in Indianapolis, Indiana, less than two hours from Louisville, Kentucky, where a gunman armed with an AR-15-style semi-automatic assault rifle killed five people at a bank where he used to work April 10th. To talk more about the gun epidemic in the United States, we're joined now by Andrew McKevitt, associate professor of history at Louisiana Tech University, author of the forthcoming book Gun Country, Gun Capitalism, Culture and Control in Cold War America. Drew, welcome to Democracy Now! It's great to have you with us, though under horrible circumstances. Why don't we start off where I just left off? And that is, as you have one mass shooting after another, right, Louisville followed Nashville, where six people were killed, three of them nine-year-olds and three adults. The NRA holds its meeting. Republican presidential wannabes flock to that meeting. It is less than two hours from Louisville, where a mass shooting had just taken place. Can you put this all in context for us? Sure, Amy. Well, thanks so much for having me. And I do wish this were not the kind of conversation we were having, but it does seem inevitable and perennial at this point. I do think—I think to put this in some context, I think we talk about our gun problem all wrong. I think this—the way we talk about it and the precise language we use to talk about these problems is the kind of language that the NRA and the gun lobby wants us to use. We often think about our gun problem in the language of rights and the law and the Second Amendment. We adopt the language of good guys with guns and bad guys with guns and the so-called law-abiding citizen. And when we do that, we're using the very same language that they've crafted to understand these crises that we're seeing more and more. Instead, as I said at the beginning there, I think we ought to conceive of our gun problem as a problem of gun capitalism. That is a material problem. We are rapidly approaching the point at which we will be a country of a half-billion guns. That will happen before the end of this decade. And I don't think it's possible to conceive of solutions to our gun problems without that larger—without recognizing that larger materiality of guns in which we live, in which we are effectively swimming. So you're talking about more guns than people in the United States. I want to go to this issue of the NRA just a day after the five people were killed in a mass shooting in neighbor in Kentucky. Indiana Senate Republicans honored NRA Chief Wayne LaPierre ahead of the NRA's annual convention in Indianapolis. Moms Demand Action responded in a report by WTHR13. They have the audacity, the audacity to stand on the floor of our Senate in our statehouse and honor the organization that far and away is most responsible for the proliferation of guns in our country. It's really a painful reminder that the Republican Party of the State of Indiana doesn't care. 13 News asked LaPierre directly about the criticism. We think all these federal gun laws ought to be enforced and we could dramatically reduce crime in America. That last voice, Wayne LaPierre, well, at the NRA convention, Donald Trump gave the keynote address and called for firearms training for teachers. I will also create a new tax credit to reimburse any teacher for the full cost of a concealed carry firearm in training from highly qualified experts. Who's better? Who's better? Five percent of teachers, people that are skilled with arms, we want that. Five percent were voluntarily armed and trained to stop active shooters. We would achieve effective deterrence and the problem would cease to exist. Your response to President Trump? Yeah, well, I don't know where the evidence for that claim comes from. We don't have any evidence that arming teachers in schools prevents mass shootings, will be a deterrent in any way, particularly for mass shooters who are often motivated who see what they're doing as a sort of end game kind of action, that they intend their lives to end in those particular instances.  But I think more broadly these comments speak to the extent to which guns are simply the material reality in which we live. Especially when it comes to things like handguns. This is a conversation we don't often have so much because we're so often focused on these fearsome assault weapons that have now become the target of even President Biden. But instead thinking of this problem more in terms of the sort of mundane and common place relationship we have with firearms, such that it makes perfectly sense to many people in this country, in certain parts of this country, to suggest that teachers go to school armed because those teachers already live in communities flooded with guns and they don't think it would violate any sort of moral or ethical norms for those teachers to go to school armed. I mean, Drew McKevitt, I mean, look, can you have a more gun-friendly state than Texas and look what happened in Uvalde as child after child was gunned down as SWAT teams, troopers, police, all of them, more than a hundred of them, waited for an hour, talked about fully armed. We're talking about military level arming and they wouldn't move forward. And yet you expect to have teachers. Right, teachers with essentially no or little training, the equivalent of perhaps the kind of training you might get in a concealed carry class or self-defense class or something like that. Not something like the kind of training you might expect. Police officers to go through. Many police officers, too, who've also had sort of military training. So the idea that we would arm teachers is simply absurd. When I think about my campus, I don't want any one of my campus armed, including any of the teachers, and I don't want myself armed. I think beyond the very obvious mechanics of potential violence that that creates, there's also that notion of intimidation. And the already the power relationships that already exist between students and faculty or students and faculty and administrators and introducing guns into that equation is just insane to my thinking. And of course, what it does for those that are promoting it, it's just buying more guns. And can you talk about the arming of Wayne LePair, the honoring of Wayne LePair? This is the NRA well known for its corruption near bankruptcy. How does it possibly maintain the power over state and federal public officials that do not represent even the NRA membership is for levels of gun control? I mean, for example, in Colorado now, the legislature just failed to pass an assault weapons ban, despite having a Democratic controlled House, Senate and governor, several House Democrats sided with Republicans to kill the bill and committee at 1 a.m. two nights ago. Yeah, so I think the NRA's power comes from three places. One is the one to which we usually point, which is money. The NRA can dump hundreds of millions of dollars into elections, and obviously has been doing that for a long time now. Though I think we tend to overestimate that a bit. The other two ways in which the NRA can wield this kind of power are a little more subtle. One is the way in which they're able to rally their base very quickly. They've been able to do this since the 1960s. They were one of the pioneers of direct mail campaigning and so forth that was able to rally a upwards of a million people already by 1968 to write their congresspeople, to lobby their local and state politicians, to vote against potential federal and state legislation. And the third way, which is the one we don't talk about and we don't really want to talk about, is that the NRA really wields a lot of intimidation and power in that sense. There are, I am confident, politicians who will not cross the NRA not because of the money issue and not because of the vote issue, but because they're afraid of violence, but because because they're afraid of the kind of violence, that social violence and political violence that the NRA could encourage if it wanted to. You talk about the connection between guns and gun capitalism. What does capitalism have to do with it? True. That's central to your forthcoming book. Yeah. So I and again here, my argument is that I think we focus a little too much on on questions of rights and abstract concepts like the interpretation of the Second Amendment and not quite enough on just how much gun capitalism exploded, expanded in the post war era, especially. This goes back to the end of the Second World War and in the 1950s in the 1960s, we see this incredible expansion of gun consumerism in the United States and 19 there's about 45 million. We're having a little trouble with with the Internet. A tree fell on Drew McKevitt's house, so there are some problems there. But I wanted to go to Tennessee as Tennessee is reeling. Legislators push this week to pass laws that shield gun manufacturers instead of children. There is this 2005 law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce and Arms Act, that protected gun manufacturers. We're going to go to break and then come back to Drew McKevitt. His forthcoming book is called Gun Country. Gun Capitalism, Culture and Control in Cold War America. Stay with us. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman as we continue our conversation with Drew McKevitt, author of the forthcoming book Gun Country, Gun Capitalism, Culture and Control in Cold War America. He's Associate Professor of History at Louisiana Tech University. We're talking to him in Shreveport. We only have a few more minutes, Drew. But if you got cut off right in the middle of you making that connection between this massive proliferation of guns in America, I mean, we don't see anything like this in any industrialized country in the world, the connection between that and capitalism. Yeah, that's right. And bringing the world in is a really important component there, too, because it's partly the world that helps arm Americans after World War Two. We often think of how the United States is responsible for the proliferation of weapons and violence after the Second World War, which is, of course, all true throughout the Cold War. But more so, arms come into the United States after the Second World War. And the American population is armed with the weapons that had been used in the Second World War and left over on battlefields in Europe and Asia. There's a whole cohort of widely entrepreneurs, gun entrepreneurs, who maximize the profits they can get by grabbing these guns from Europe, sometimes for as cheap as less than a dollar each, bringing them over to the United States and then selling them to an eager population now increasingly after the Second World War, with more leisure time, with more money, more income available for those kinds of activities. And, of course, the most famous of these war surplus imports, there are millions of them that come into the United States in the 1950s and the 1960s. The most famous of these is the Karkano rifle used by Lee Harvey Oswald to kill John F. Kennedy in 1963. But it's just one of millions that come into the country and truly remake the consumer market for guns in the United States. And they do that in two ways. They, one, they make it one centered around war and firearms that have been involved in war and firearms that can be used for war. And that's where we get that's where we see the trajectory leading to something like the popularity of the AR-15. And then the other aspect is that it simply emphasizes cheapness. American consumerism drives down the price of these guns and a ten dollar gun becomes just as accessible as a hundred and fifty dollar gun. And that's going to dramatically expand the gun market. As I said, the number of guns in the United States doubles every 25 years or so after the end of the Second World War, precisely because of that phenomenon. And then you have the other way, it going the other way. I mean, you've got the gun violence in the United States and the U.S. involvement in international small arms trade and trafficking and refusing to sign off on being an obstacle at the U.N. to sign off on treaties that would limit small guns in the world. Yeah, that's right. I mean, if we look back at the process in the United Nations, beginning in the mid 1990s and leading all the way up to finally the signing of a completely watered down tree in 2013, we saw the real powerful influence of the NRA there. And in particular, in particular, the NRA's kind of bulldog, John Bolton, who went to the U.N. in 2001 and tried to shut down every international effort that would have created any kind of substantive controls on international small arms sales. And then very quickly, two issues, Tennessee. I mean, perhaps the trying to get rid of the two youngest black lawmakers, the Republican House Speaker and his allies in the Tennessee legislature was about trying to prevent the push for gun control in Tennessee, which so many support, though you wouldn't know it within the legislature. And now, while they're not protecting the children, they want to protect the arms industry, a bill that's now going to Bill Lee's desk, the Tennessee governor who signed off on a gun deregulation bill in a Beretta gun factory. Yeah, so, you know, I heard you mentioned the 2005 law, the protection of protection of lawful commerce and arms act, which already shields law, which already shields gun makers from liability in a number of ways. And that law was written in the wake of a wave of lawsuits against gun makers by gun control organizations, by large municipalities that sought to force the gun makers to pay for the consequences of the seemingly uncontrolled proliferation of firearms that had ticked up dramatically in the early 1990s. In addition to the very obvious human trauma, there are, of course, economic costs to gun violence as well. And so the PCLAA or the PLCAA, the intention of that was to shield gun makers nationally. And of course, it's signed into law by the George W. Bush administration so that gun makers could not be sued for their guns working as they are designed to maim and kill human beings. What the Tennessee legislature is doing, I think, is essentially a kind of lip service to or it's essentially a moot point and that there are already those protections in place. But I also think the Tennessee legislature watched what happened last year when in the Remington case, when Remington, the rifle maker Remington was settled with the Sandy Hook families for seventy three million dollars. And that's what they're trying to prevent gun control organizations and activists from looking for loopholes in the 2005 law, like, for instance, in the case of Sandy Hook, targeting their advertising rather than the guns themselves. And Tennessee wants to cut that off because ultimately the sanctity of gun capitalism must remain secure. Drew McKevitt, I want to thank you so much for being with us, author of the forthcoming book, Gun Country, Gun Capitalism, Culture and Control in Cold War America, speaking to us from Shreveport, where he's an associate professor of history at Louisiana Tech University. As we turn now to South Texas, where Elon Musk's SpaceX is claiming success after the first launch of its massive new rocket, Dubb Starship. The two stage prototype lifted off Thursday morning from SpaceX's sprawling base on Texas's Gulf Coast near the U.S. border with Mexico, becoming the largest and heaviest machine ever to fly under its own power. At least six of the rocket's 33 engines failed during flight. The vehicle self-destructed over the Gulf of Mexico about four minutes after liftoff, residents of Port Isabel near the launch site reported particulates or ash rain down on their neighborhoods. The fiery end to the launch was the latest in a series of explosions around SpaceX's launch site near the lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge. This comes as three liquefied natural gas projects in the Rio Grande Valley. We're just approved by FERC. That's the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Indigenous environmental and community organizers responded Thursday to the SpaceX launch and explosion and denounced the new projects. This is Christopher Busseldew. Rio Bravo Pipeline and SpaceX, none of these companies consulted with the original people of this land, the Cariso Palma Crudo tribe of Texas. None of them consulted with the tribe. None of them have our consent.  We never gave our consent and they're moving forward. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. They never consulted with the tribe. They don't have our consent and they're moving forward anyway. That's not justice.  It needs to stop. These are all the histories of colonial genocide against native people and native lands. For more, we're joined in Brownsville, Texas by Becca Inajosa, an environmental and community advocate with grassroots collaborative Another Gulf is possible. She's one of the many people who spoke out against SpaceX and faced repression and persecution. Last year, police broke into her home and arrested her after she was accused of spray painting the words gentrified and stop SpaceX under a mural in downtown Brownsville. She's still fighting these charges. Becca Inajosa, welcome to Democracy Now! It's great to have you with us. So yesterday, Elon Musk declared success when his SpaceX rocket exploded. Now, actually, though he was, of course, mocked by many, what does a failure mean if your rocket explodes out of control? Scientifically, it's a chance to test different ways of trying to shoot off this rocket. But you're on the ground. If you can talk about what SpaceX means for your communities. You know, we're tired of living under the constant threat of flammable rocket explosions because of SpaceX. You know, Elon Musk is on his quest to colonize his Mars. And it's beginning. He's beginning by colonizing, you know, our community that's on the front lines of the US-Mexico border. You know, that's on the front lines of the Gulf Coast, where we're dealing with layers and layers of injustices. You know, our community is opposed to SpaceX's operations. Yesterday, you know, 27 organizations from the Rio Grande Valley signed on to a letter officially opposing the rocket launch. So talk about how who controls where he does this work. And in fact, does he choose this area of Texas and the Mexico border because of the deregulation of Texas and the fact what kind of regulation does he face and what kind of consent is required, if any, of the local community? You know, it's very clear that Elon Musk moved into our border community to take over to colonize the region. We're clearly being exploited by a billionaire and his pet project. You know, we are a low income community of color and Texas has a long history of deregulation of just rubber stamping permits and approvals for any big industry and also give out numerous tax subsidies. You know, that's what we've seen with with SpaceX.  It's at the point now where, you know, I hear a noise. My family and I, and we wonder, you know, is is that SpaceX? And we come to find out that the rumble is because of a rocket launch or I, you know, hear a huge explosion or blast from from 10 miles away. And it turns out that SpaceX has done some kind of unannounced rocket testing. You know, we're constantly dealing with just the growth of SpaceX and their operations. So, Becca, last year, you were violently arrested after police broke into your home without showing you a warrant. You were detained for what, more than a day for 26 hours. Police took your glasses. They placed you in a cold cell after you were interrogated, charged with what, a misdemeanor, accused of spray painting. These words gentrified and stopped SpaceX under a mural in downtown Brownsville. The outgoing Brownsville mayor, Trey Mendes, posted a photo of you on his social media thanking the police for your arrest. He also wrote, quote, Ms. Inajosa has been quoted in several anti-SpaceX articles. Can you talk about the former mayor, Mendes, as ties to SpaceX and how local officials have come after environmental and community advocates like you over opposition to SpaceX? You are still fighting these charges? You know, I'm still I'm still dealing, fighting to have this charge dropped against me. You know, SpaceX is growing into our community. SpaceX is an Elon Musk are actively handing out, you know, money here and there. And it's becoming political hush money. You know, it's buying out politicians. We've seen when a SpaceX testing goes wrong, which it always goes wrong and burns down wildlife refuge, you know, political officials just turning the other way. And, you know, I've been personally impacted now by, you know, SpaceX buying out community member, buying out politicians when, you know, last year for police broke into my apartment when I asked for a warrant and tried to put on my shoes. They threatened me with resisting arrest. You know, they jailed me for 26 hours. And then I come to find out once I'm released that Mayor Tremendez, who's still in office, you know, for the next month, has doxxed me. You know, he posted my mug shot on his official Facebook page. He's the current mayor. He is the current mayor. His term ends in May. He's chosen not to run for reelection. And I've come to find that the mayor has has doxxed me. He published my mug shot on his official Facebook platform. He posted my job trying to get me fired.  And what this means is that, you know, the city is signaling to us that, you know, community any community organizer speaking up could be next. They're targeting community activists. And we are actively rallying and pressuring the city to to to investigate Mayor Mendes for abuse of power. You know, we won't tolerate elected officials singling out and targeting and doxxing community members. You know, the city is signaling to us that they're selling out to a private space industry. Talk about how the environment has been impacted. For people who are watching TV to see the SpaceX launch, you see in the upper left Boca Chica. Talk about Boca Chica, where the fresh waters of the Rio Grande trickle into the Gulf of Mexico, the beaches and protected lands such as the Lower Rio Grand Valley National Wildlife Refuge near SpaceX. Yeah, I want to make it clear that Boca Chica Beach was was never for sale. You know, Elon Musk has come and colonized our region.  It's part of the lower near the Lower Rio Grande Valley Wildlife Refuge. It's part of an international wildlife corridor that's very important for, you know, species to migrate for genetic diversity. Boca Chica Beach and the entire region is also sacred lands of the Cariso Comocruido tribe. And, you know, families have been going there for generations to fish. Boca Chica Beach is considered the poor people's beach because it's for local people that go don't have to pay fees to enter and can go fish to feed their families. It's also where the Cariso Comocruido tribe hold their sacred ceremonies and Elon Musk's and SpaceX have been using their private police force and the local police to turn people away so he can host his press conferences and parties and test dangerous rocket equipment. You know, that's what we've been seeing, you know, some of the routine testing has caused, you know, over 60 acres of the Wildlife Refuge to burn down, has sparked grass fires. You know, we've seen threats and death of migratory birds and endangered species like the Ocelot. I also wanted to ask you about this point that we raised in the lead as well. And that is last year, the Federal Aviation Administration determined that SpaceX's plans for orbital launches would have no significant impact on the Gulf Coast region. The FAA's ruling came after SpaceX founder Elon Musk accused the agency of having a fundamentally broken regulatory structure after it didn't rapidly approve an early Starship test flight. The FAA has also reportedly faced pressure from major SpaceX contractors, including NASA, Pentagon and the National Reconnaissance Office, all of whom rely heavily on SpaceX to launch satellites and astronauts to orbit and beyond. NASA selected, for example, a version of SpaceX's Starship as a lander for its upcoming Artemis III mission, which aims to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in half a century. So they're using this private company for the Pentagon, for the FAA, for all of this NASA work.  And, you know, what we need are real solutions.  I wanted to finally ask you about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approving the Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, you know, liquid natural gas, and the Rio Bravo Pipeline Thursday, just hours after the SpaceX explosion. These projects are within a few miles from SpaceX and have faced fierce opposition from groups like yours. Talk about what's at stake and with these projects, especially in the Rio Grande and the Gulf of Mexico's area of the country that are in the front lines of the climate crisis. Yeah, we're dealing with layers and layers of environmental disasters here in the Rio Grande Valley, you know, communities. We've been I've been fighting back to stop these LNG terminals for nearly a decade, Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG and the Rio Bravo Pipeline plan to build, you know, next door to SpaceX within six miles, you know, and we're we're terrified of the very real threat that exploding rockets next to giant tanks of gas, next to giant tankers of gas, where we've already seen, you know, rocket shrapnel raining even further past six miles and we're being left in the in the dark. We haven't heard from regulatory agencies about the flammable risks. You know, and communities here have made it absolutely clear that we oppose these LNG export terminals. All of our communities have passed anti LNG resolutions.  We are one of the last little pieces of the South Texas coastline that doesn't have refineries or flare stacks. And, you know, LNG would completely change our way of life for for the for the worse. Well, back in Hoso, I want to thank you for being with us environmental and community advocate with the grassroots collaborative. Another gulf is possible. Coming up, we go to Yemen, a leading human rights activist there where at least 79 people died this week in a stampede. He'll talk about his country being devastated by the U.S.-backed Saudi War. Stay with us. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We end today showing Yemen, where at least 79 people were killed over 300 injured in a stampede Wednesday as residents of the capital, Sana'a, gathered at a school where local merchants were giving away charitable donations to mark the end of Ramadan. Hundreds of people gathered to receive what amounted to about $10. Witnesses told the Associated Press the crowdcrush began after armed Houthis fired into the air to control the crowd, striking electrical equipment and causing it to explode. The tragic deaths come as Yemen continues to face one of the world's largest humanitarian crises following years of fighting between U.S.-backed Saudi forces and Houthi rebels. While a ceasefire began a year ago, no agreement has been reached yet on making it permanent. Earlier this month, envoys from Saudi Arabia and Oman visited Sana'a for talks with the Houthis. This came weeks after China helped broker a deal to reestablish diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Saudi Arabia also recently exchanged more than 800 prisoners of war with Houthis in the largest prisoner exchange since 2020. We're joined now by Ali Jamil, the Accountability and Redress Director of Montana for Human Rights, a group that's based in Yemen. He's visiting New York, where he's joining us from now. Ali, thanks so much for joining us. Can you talk about what happened this week, but then put it into the larger context of the devastation of Yemen? Thank you very much. What we are doing now currently is investigating into this incident in which at least 78 people died in a charity event. But this event shows us a snapshot that illustrates the situation of starvation in Yemen. Hundreds of people were going to death to get donations of nearly $10. Montana for Human Rights have worked on the use of starvation as a method of war and have made significant investigations for a year long into the conduct and the attacks of different warring parties that led to starvation. So our report, the starvation makers, looks into the attacks that has been done by the Saudi, a led coalition and also the conduct of the Houthi armed, non-governmental armed forces that that really impacted the food and water security of civilians in Yemen. Can you talk, Ali Jameel, about this rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran? What kind of effect this will have? There isn't enough information available about the deal, but we're not even sure if this will impact the war in Yemen and to what extent it will have an impact, but what is clear is that there is also talks between Saudis and Houthis and that the Saudi ambassador to Yemen was in Sana'a a couple of weeks ago and there have been also detainees swapped for over 800 detainees. We see this as good steps in terms of building trust among warring parties and could have a good potential of reaching a peace deal, but this is not all what civilians want. It is very important for this war to end, but it's also very important to have accountability, justice, transitional justice, reparations. Yemen has a long history of armed conflicts that happened in the 60s, 80s, 90s, 2003, seven wars in Sana'a. All of these were ended in a political agreement that didn't have any accountability aspect, and because there is no accountability, no transitional justice, each conflict was just basically a seed for another conflict and looking into the conflict today, it's clear how much it has an impact from prior conflict. So this violent cycle should be broken and it will never be broken without transitional justice, accountability, and redress and reparations. You know, there is a lot being made now, as it should be, of war crimes when it comes to what's happening in Ukraine, but Moatana, for Human Rights, your group, has said war crimes are and have been committed at the highest level in Yemen. Can you talk about the parties responsible and what these grave crimes are that you've investigated? Moatana for Human Rights has a very big team, over 100 team members all over Yemen. We have almost a researcher and a lawyer in each Yemeni government rate. We investigate cases of violations of international humanitarian law, international law of human rights. We have until now documented over 8000 cases of human rights abuses committed by all warring parties in Yemen. I can say that there is no warring party in Yemen better than the other one. All warring parties in Yemen has been committing horrific horrific violations of human rights that may amount to war crimes. We have documented over a thousand cases of airstrikes, also land-chilling, landmines, child recruitment, arbitrary detention, forced disappearance, torture, attacks on schools, on hospitals, and a very wide range of other violations that has been committed by all warring parties in Yemen. We used to have in Yemen an independent mechanism formed by the UN, specifically by the Human Rights Council called the Group of Eminent Express that it was the only independent mechanism that investigate in these violations. Unfortunately, in 2021, the Saudis just put all of the sticks and currants to terminate the mandate of this of this investigative body. And currently, Yemen doesn't have any UN or international investigative body to investigate on those crimes. And this didn't only stop the investigations and the reporting on the violations of Saudis, but it stops all the reporting and violations on Saudis, Houthis, STC and other warring parties in Yemen. And finally, how will a peace process move forward that you think could stick, that you think would hold all sides accountable, Ali? Yeah. Any peace that doesn't has accountability, transitional justice, reparations, truth-telling is just a political agreement that can fall at any time. If we're really looking into a long-lasting, durable peace, we should really take the issues of accountability, transitional justice, also reparations to victims and truth-telling into considerations. Ali Jameel, we want to thank you so much for being with us. Yemeni Human Rights Advocate and Accountability and Redress Director of Marhana for Human Rights, visiting New York City from Sana'a, Yemen. That does it for our show. I'm speaking at two events this weekend. On Saturday, on April 22nd in Troy, New York, at a celebration of the sanctuary for independent media, 7 p.m. And on Sunday, we'll be in Boston, giving the 10th annual Dorothy Day Lecture at Emmanuel College at 1 p.m. For all details, you can go to democracynow.org, Democracy Now Produced, with Rene Phelps, Mike Berkdina, Gessner, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shea, Maratia Hussainah, Tammy Warren, Abterina Ndures, Sam Alcoff, Tim Moriastu-Judjim, Hamilton, Robbie Caron, Hannie Massoud, Sanji Lopez, Dennis Moynihan, our executive director, Julie Crosby. I'm Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.


The Belfouche Irrigation District, or Belfouche Dam, was a project back in the early 1900s. It was completed in about 1910. It diverts water from the Belfouche and Redwater Rivers and delivers it to the Belfouche Dam. From the Belfouche Dam, it's delivered through approximately 450 miles of canals and laterals to 57,183 irrigatable acres within the boundaries of the Belfouche Irrigation District. The project's been in existence since, I believe, right around 1911. Out of that 57,000 acres, there's approximately 520 farmers ranging in acres from 5 to upwards of 960 acres. In the Belfouche River watershed, there are three conservation districts in South Dakota, three in Wyoming and one in Montana. And I guess it was pretty much out of frustration that we called all of the districts together and decided that we'd like to try to do something as a group and deal with the whole watershed rather than deal with specific little pieces. The partnership has been very successful in working with a number of different partners, but the main funding that the partnership has pursued and has successfully won and invested within the watershed is through two sources, mainly through USDA NRCS and then also through the South Dakota Department of Ag and Natural Resources. The partnership has been very successful with utilizing and investing section 319 funding, which is a section of the Clean Water Acts from EPA, and also utilizing USDA NRCS funding through their EQUIP program and also the RCPP program, which is the Regional Conservation Partnership Program. I had heard about the EQUIP program from the NRCS just from, I guess, neighbors and people who had utilized it. At that point, I made a call to the office and spoke with Justin about it. He explained the process. We got together and filled out my application, channeled it up. It found out if it got approved or not, and then it went through the contracting process. At that point, once I knew it was funded, I was able to go out and get quotes on putting pivots up and kind of start the whole process. When my great-grandpa and grandpa and dad, it was all flood irrigation, open ditches, tarps, shovels. By conveying water through ditches, we aren't always able to get that water to where it needs to go, and so we can have issues with drowning out or increasing salt levels in areas of fields, even when we're not irrigating them. They're just getting a lot of that excess water, and we're having losses in efficiency and getting water delivered to the intended producer. So by doing projects like the CIS and the Conservation District Grant, we're able to get that water into pipelines, and those pipelines don't have the issues with water loss, and we don't have those problems where we affect producers in a negative way upstream or up the system from our intended project. Now we've stepped up, we have a couple pivots that we irrigate with now, and we do have a little bit of gated pipe that we will irrigate with. I need to order water. I work with the Irrigation District. I make a call to the ditch rider, and within three days at the maximum, he gets water from the canals and laterals to my irrigation point. From then, it's kind of up to me to do with it what I will, and then when I'm done with the water, I try to give him two days notice, that way he can kind of put it together, and then if somebody else is going to be wanting water at the same time that I'm turning off, he doesn't have to just send it on down the river. He can actually have another producer pick the water up. NRCS has been extremely helpful. USGS early on was very helpful, but we've worked with a wide variety of partners, agencies in the state. Right now, our board consists of one member of each of the three conservation districts and a member of the irrigation district here. All of the partners just try to work with those producers and get the job done on the ground to address their resource concerns. It doesn't matter if NRCS does it, if the partnership does it, or another partnership, we kind of throw it all in one basket and say, you know, we've got that done and we're going to move on to the next one. The nature of utilizing open ditches in these irrigation systems is we're experiencing at least a 33% loss in water to its intended destination, whether that be seeping into groundwater or seeping into fields along the way that is in our intended target. The soils that are experiencing water erosion are ending up downstream and impacting our fisheries and recreation areas that thousands and thousands of people use every summer. By converting these open ditches into gated pipe like we do with CIS and with the conservation grant, we're able to reduce that water loss by at least 33% there and then on soils that are suitable for pivot irrigation, we're able to improve that number to where once we're running it through a pivot, we're experiencing about 80 to 90% of effective water placement and water usage and that has great benefits for people downstream where we have cleaner waters and better conditions for recreation and everything for the general public. It's always been the partnership's goal is to conserve the land and water resources within the Belfouche River Watershed. And so as part of doing that, they've been able to implement projects in partnership with both livestock producers and irrigators to conserve both that soil and the water. One of the first goals is to get the Belfouche River to attain the water quality standards that the state has set for that for both sediment and bacteria. Recently through the river assessment for the state, they've delisted portions of the river and also a portion of Horse Creek from that impaired list of water bodies for the state of South Dakota. So we're making progress. Eventually our goal is to have no listed or impaired waters within the watershed and I think we're on track to do that probably in the next 5 to 10 years. The most important aspect is the conservation, the being more environmentally friendly. So if we can demonstrate how we can be very proactive in conserving that resource, I think that's a huge plus, not only for us as farmers, but for all of society.


Fantasy. I am the man who came back. Casey! Yes, Captain? Now you stay right there in that doorway and don't let nobody in or out. Right, Captain. All right now, all right, you heard him. Oh, but we had nothing to do with this. Okay, sister. If you didn't, Jane got nothing to be scared of. Hey, you. What do you think you're going? I thought I might get a little air if you don't mind. Well, I do mind. Now, back in the house with you. What's the big idea? You wear a nut mask. As you might have observed, my friend, this is a masquerade party. Oh, is it now? Well, according to Emily Post, it's masks off at midnight. We got this call to come out here just as the clock in Washington Circle was striking the oar. The call was placed by a most hysterical woman. And there is nothing you can do for the man in there. I assure you. Stop changing the subject. What I want to know is, why age you unmasked like the other? I prefer, sir, to wear my mask.  I want to look at your mug. It might be better, my friend, if you didn't see my mug. Now look here, Zorro. Perhaps while we are waiting, I might tell you a story. Eh? What is this? Bedtime at Grandma's? The only story I'm interested in is what happened here tonight. Exactly. Eh? I said exactly. Perhaps I can tell you the story. All right then, we find mysterious friend. Give. Well, you see, it's quite a long story. It really all began free. Yes, at least three years ago. I remember that evening quite well. I let myself into Grange's apartment. It was a golden key I used. A bright golden key. And there was no one there when I arrived. So I closed the door. Well, Grange, imagine seeing me here. Blake, oh, I say you startled me. Did I now? I daresay had I been someone else, you wouldn't have been at all startled. Incidentally, old man, how'd you get in here? I suppose it would be quite facetious of me to say that I came in the same way you did. Oh, I say, a new piano. Do you mind? No, not at all. Right ahead, help yourself. Have a drink? No, thanks. You'd better have one, though. Oh, yeah. I say, Blake, what's that you're playing? You've heard it before, Grange. Have I? I don't recall. You have a short memory. I usually remember pretty well. Well, when you choose to, you do, yes. What do you mean by that? My wife has played that tune for you every night this week and last and the week before that. You see, I happen to know. Oh. I see. Well, I'm glad you haven't the audacity to deny it. No. No, I don't deny it. Your wife has been here. Often. As often as she possibly could. And I assure you, she came of her own desire. And as a result of your oily persuasion, I might agree, Blake, that she is easily persuaded. And, of course, my curiosity prompts me to ask how you finally learned the truth. I accidentally found the key to your apartment here. It was in Sylvia's purse. A golden key. With your initials engraved on one side, hers on the other. Why, I thought that a rather handsome touch. Don't you agree? I've brought the key back to you. How gallant of you, old fellow. I'm serious. Sylvia will never come here again. Are you positive of that? Quite. For I shall ask her not to. You seem to believe she'll obey you. She will. And I ask you now, Grange, as a gentleman, kindly refrain from inviting her here again. In other words, hands off. Is that it? I'm glad I make myself quite plain.  What right of you to demand anything of Sylvia? You think for a moment, night after night, twiddling her thumbs while you're away from home? I admit I've been busy this past year, but another six months... You've no one to blame for Sylvia's being here with yourself. Here, she's found what you've denied her, Blake. And I doubt very much if she'll give it up. Why, you swine, if you think for a moment... Oh. I forgot you carried a gun. But if you'd care to put it away... Skip the heroics, Blake. You know, I think I've suddenly thought of a solution to all this. The only solution is for you to leave Sylvia alone. Oh, no. No, you're quite mistaken. This is the solution. Here in my hand. Indeed, I rather like the idea. Besides, with you out of the way, Sylvia need have no more cross. Why, you low, yellow rat. That's it, Blake. Come closer. Threaten me. Make me do it. Make me do it, Blake. You think killing me is a way out, Grange. You're very badly mistaken. It's the only way out.  I'll come back and avenge myself. One shot and that'd be all. I can prove self-defense. Sylvia will help.  I'll come back, Grange. Just one shot directly between the eyes. I'll haunt you, Grange, because by God in heaven, I'll come back. It's a perfect scheme. Yes, I like it. I'll pierce the veil, Grange, because I'll come back if I have to fight all the demons that helped it to it. Prepare, Blake. This is a chance of a lifetime. It's the way out. Yes, it's the way out, Grange. Yes, it's the way out, Blake. Extra paper. Walti playwright slain in millionaire's apartment. Read all about it. Hey, Mr. Keith Grange, plain self-defense in slaying of Phillip Blake. Here it is. Folks, get your extra paper. Read the headline news about the killing. It is the judgment of this court that the defendant, Keith Grange, did shoot and kill the deceased Phillip Blake on the night of April 16th, and that in so doing, he acted in a line of self-defense. The court therefore decrees that Keith Grange shall not be held to account for this unfortunate incident. Well, my dear? I suppose there's nothing to worry about now. Not the slightest thing. I told you from the very beginning, Sylvia, that I acted rightly in doing what I did. I still can't resign myself to it. But you must. It's all over. Phillip is dead. Now we can be together as much as we please. Keith, suppose you and I should have a misunderstanding. Suppose I should become angry sometime.  That, my dear, would be most unfortunate. But it's a possibility, and by no means should we overlook possibility. And so allow me to remind you, Sylvia, my dear girl, that you're hiding the true facts of the matter of the coroner's investigation automatically makes you an accomplice. Oh, I see. But why are we talking like this, darling? We'll both feel better after we've had a little rest. Oh, of course we will, dear. Kiss me good night, darling. I'm going home. I'll take you. Oh, no. I'll go alone tonight if you don't mind. As you wish, my dear. Good night. Good night, darling. Sweet. Will you call me in the morning? Yes, of course I will. Good night, Pam. Good night, darling. Pleasant dreams. That's strange. Very strange. Just a moment ago, there were only Sylvia and I here. Now she's gone. Yet I feel that I'm not alone. You're not alone, Grange. What? What was that? God, I heard a voice. It was my voice. Who are you? Where are you? I told you I'd come back. No. No, it's just my imagination. Is it your imagination, Grange? Yes. Yes, of course. I warned you. I warned you. Remember? Come out. Come out in the open. Come out, I say. Do you hear me? Come out.  What do you want? Tell me, what do you want? Oh, not now. The time isn't right now. But I'll be back. Watch for me and wait. Watch and wait. For I'll come back, Grange. I'm sure of it. It was no one. No one at all. I just imagined it, that's all. Yes, just my imagination. I'm so tired.  A present for you. A present? Yes, something I picked up today. I thought you'd like it. Sweet of you, darling. I think I can guess just by looking at the box. It's a ring. Oh, aren't you clever? Go ahead, open it. All right, darling, without hurrying me. That isn't the ring I bought for you. Keith, look at this ring. The initials. PB. Keith, this... this is his ring. Sylvia, what are you saying? It's his ring, I gave it to him. What's Sylvia? I swear to you, Philip Blake was buried with that ring on his finger. Come around to the other side, please, mister. That door busted and you can't get it open. Oh, very well. Sorry to ask that of you, but they had time to get the other door fixed. Where to, friend? All the way to the Arms Hotel. All right. Excellent. That's where I'm going. Oh, well, you startled me. I didn't know there was anyone in this cab. So dark tonight. Yes, isn't it? I see. I don't seem to feel anyone in the seat here beside me. Strange. You certainly bumped me hard enough when you crawled in here. Bumped you? I beg your pardon, sir, but I... Never mind, Grange. Never mind. You know me? I'm surprised that you don't know me. Why, yes. Your voice sound familiar? Good Lord. Philip Blake. Mind riding with me? I... Blake, you're supposed to be dead. You're supposed to be buried. I am dead, Grange. Let me stop this cab. Right, sir. Let me out of here. Let me out. What's the matter, Governor? Hey, hey, you hadn't ought to jump out of a moving car like that. What's in the name of heaven is in the back of that cab. Why? Nothing, Governor. Here, see? I'll turn on the light. See? But there was somebody in there with me. Oh, now, mister, there couldn't have been. Look for yourself. The seat's empty there. You just jumped out on this side of the cab. The other door won't open. No, brother, there wasn't nobody in that seat with you. Must have been your imagination. Yeah, this is Sylvia. I just wanted to remind you about the masquerade ball that keeps you home tonight. You'll be there? Fine. Now, remember, masks and costumes for everybody.  Yes. And heavily masked, my dear. Yes, at Keith's new place. Oh, darling, wait till you see the place. It's really a mansion. Honestly, it's huge, I believe. Sylvia, darling. So you've penetrated my disguise. Silly. I heard you order it from the customers yesterday. Darling, the music book starts soon. It's the first dance hour. Sylvia, my dear. Every dance is ours tonight. Are you happy I bought this place? Oh, it's lovely. Absolutely lovely, Keith. Darling, what's the matter? That man in black. I've been watching him all evening. He's been watching me. Do you know who he is? No. He just stands and stares at me. Everywhere I go, he's always just a short distance away. Look, Keith. He's going into your study. Well, he hasn't any business in there. That's strange. I locked that door this evening, so the guests wouldn't go into your study and disturb things. Well, he just walked right in. Dear, I'll go see who he is and what he wants. You may go with the guests, and I'll join you later. Very well, dear. But don't be long. I'll be waiting for you. All right, Sylvia. It's odd. This door is locked. Dark. Come, found it, where's the light switch? There. No, it can't be. The piano. Someone's playing, and yet there's no one seated there. Moving. Up and down. Playing the music. But there are no hands on them. That melody. It's the melody he played the night I killed him. He's playing it now. Yet he's not there. I'm here, Grange. I'm here. Great. Look closer, Grange. Here I am. I see you now. I brought you a little gift for your masquerade party. What? You'll find it lying on your desk. Turn around and see for yourself. That's right. There. You see? The gun.  Don't you recognize it? Where did you get that gun? I found it, Grange. And I've brought it back to you. I put one shell in its chamber. Just one, Grange. But that is enough. What are you trying to... Lord, am I mad? Was I dreaming? No, the gun is here. It is my gun. One cartridge, he said. Only one. One cartridge. Yes. Yes, it's the only way left. He knew it was the only way. Now he's left me to take it. All right, Blake. You can have your revenge. You can have it. And you are right. It is the only way. We shot him, sir, Faye. The evidence in there will indicate that he did. Yes. Say, that's quite a yarn you spun, Zorro. There is nothing but the truth. Come on now, come on, my friend. Let's take off your mask and have a look at you. One moment. Keith Grange shot Phillip Blake squarely between the eyes. Yeah? So what? That doesn't make a very pretty sight. Well, I don't see what that's got to do with... Here comes the captain. He'll take that mask off you. Captain Sullivan, come here a minute, will you? Yes, Casey. What is it? There's a mug here that won't take off his mask. He's been spinning me the most fantastic yarn I've ever heard in all my... Where'd he go? Huh? Where'd who go? Say, did you let somebody get out of this house, Casey? No, no, no, no, sir, Captain. No, I didn't. He was standing here just a minute ago. He wouldn't take off his mask. He told me the dirtiest story about a murdered man coming back from the grave. Casey, have you been near the punch bowl? Well, there's no one here now. Wait a minute. What's this stain here on the floor? Blood. A little pool of it. There on the floor. Right in the exact spot where the man in black was standing. The Man Who Came Back, an original tale of dark fantasy by Scott Bishop. Ben Morris was Keith Grange, Eleanor Naylor-Corin was Herda Sylvia. Fred Wayne took the part of Casey, Muir Height was Captain Sullivan, Murillo Schofield the cab driver, and Eugene Francis was The Man Who Came Back. Ladies and gentlemen, every Friday night at this time, the National Broadcasting Company will bring you dark fantasy, tales of the weird, adventures of the supernatural created for you by Scott Bishop. Listen one week from tonight for the breathtaking story of the tombs of ancient China, the soul of Shan Hai-Wan. This is the National Broadcasting Company.


I know that there are like so many PA programs and there's no guarantee that you're actually going to get into a program in the state that you actually like live and may have worked in. More often than not most people go to schools outside of the states that they've lived in because you know you kind of go where you get in and sometimes it's not very close. So because of that I had a question that was asked about how do you get a job essentially outside of the state that your school is in because I did that myself and I'm gonna talk about just kind of like my path to that and what I did because it wasn't easy. There was a lot of footwork that needed to be done and so if you this is a path that you're interested in then you should absolutely watch this video and you should be prepared to do some work okay. So let's get into the video right now. Hi Ike guys what's up welcome back to my channel if you're new to my channel I make PA related videos obviously about my life as a PA as my life when I was a PA student and then just a general like what a PA is and so I have all those questions on this channel so take a look around if you like what you see go ahead and subscribe. So Alexis Buckner asked me hey Adana thank you for a great video as usual I had a question regarding choosing a PA school I know in a previous video you said to go to school where you want to work but I was wondering how hard is it to get a job if you don't work want to work in the area that you went to school please never stop making videos you've been a godsend for my pre-PA journey hope you and your family are well all right thank you Alexis I appreciate all those well wishes and yes it is hard I'll answer it like from the jump it's hard but not as hard as you may think now obviously there are some factors that can make this a little bit more difficult and so I will tease those out with you on this video but there are things that you can do to try to like kind of negate those so for me you know that I lived in like the DMV like metro area and I went to school in Virginia and so it was about a three and a half hour like distance from my home base so we actually moved to Virginia for a year now it would have been longer had I have decided to do all of my rotations in Virginia but I knew for sure that I was not trying to live and work in Virginia after I got you know out of PA school more specifically the city that I was in and so because of that I was like look I asked them from the beginning from actually like I think my interview I asked hey do you all do you all accept like outside rotations do you allow your students to do outside rotations out of state rotations are you looking for new affiliations those are all like your keywords that you would kind of plug in and if the answer is yes then you are set you are good now you have to in yourself kind of choose and decide whether or not this is a deal breaker for you or not like so are you like with it or not because at the end of the day if you only want to be in the state and the city or within like a 40 mile radius of where you live then you know that's the deal breaker for you if they say no we don't if if you don't care then all right you're you're good then you can go out of the state and then come back and work or do your rotations in the state where your home base is so because my program was like yes they do what I did was as soon as I got in that summer that I got in I looked at when rotations would start and then immediately I started whole calling different people different offices in my home base and I was asked hey do you guys take students do you take PA students to do rotations if so what is that process like and then if they were like oh there's a charge or there isn't a charge to send me the paperwork then I immediately went to my clinical year director and I I spoke to her about it and then she put me in contact with I don't remember what her title was but she was the one that was setting up all of our rotations in in the state but she also worked with rotations out of the state and so she gave me all of the affiliation agreement documents that I needed to send to the various different hospital systems and also the various different offices now that is like the major part of getting rotations outside of the state and that is the thing that will allow you to easily get jobs within the state that you want to be in so if you can't get all of them even if you can get one or two like per se like an elective then it is important for you to actually try and do that because at the end of the day you're going to be working where for the most part where you build relationships like it's going to be so much easier for you to come in because you know like the PA community although we're large and getting larger like it's a small community I know people at my hospital that work at other hospitals and vice versa and so even if they don't necessarily like know me like somebody in another hospital they may know somebody that I work with and so that is the same thing if you are a PA student if you're a PA student and you came and you did a rotation at this hospital and you were like complete trash and you were like disrespectful and you didn't do a good job like that stuff gets around if now all of a sudden you know you're trying to get a job at another hospital and they're like oh I remember her or I remember him and they didn't really care like they didn't see their patients they came in late whatever the case may be so you're building those relationships and those bridges where you want to work so therefore it makes so much easier if you're able to go ahead and get rotations in the state that you want to work in even if it's one if it's one and it's an elective make that elective count and so that is how I was able to really and truly get a job and I like I got it really easily honestly when I got out of PA school but not withstanding that like honestly like you will wherever you're at start looking at the jobs now look at the market now because there are lots of PA jobs out there and so you should be able to apply to many jobs I applied to like over 60 jobs I think it was and then I think like my my interview ask was maybe about 20% of the jobs that I applied to so look at that ratio and see you know all right maybe I'll be okay because I did get job offers but I was sitting out here like teasing them out like trying to make sure that that worked for my family for myself because we had bills and so I wanted to make sure that not only was the office space right and the people felt right but the money was right and so these are all things that you will take into consideration but honestly like the easiest way to get a job in the state that you work that you were in prior to PA school or in a different state even if it's the state that you live in but you want to work in you know let's say you live in North Carolina but you want to work in Maryland then the thing for you to do is to realize that off the bat start looking for affiliations at hospitals or reaching out to you know PAs that you may see on Instagram or you may know and then go from there and see what bites because fortune favors the bold okay and so you gotta you gotta put yourself out there and make sure that you you do your part so that that end part of getting a job or getting an offer or applying a job is so much easier okay so Alexis hopefully answered that question for you it is difficult but it can be made easy as long as you know automatically off the bat where exactly you want to work and then start looking for rotations in that particular state if your school allows it and if your school does not allow it then you start trying to make connections you know immediately in terms of looking at PAs at my work there or looking at what the job market looks like in that particular state and then moving on from that okay thank you guys thanks so much for asking that question if you have any other questions for me leave them in the comment section below don't forget to like this video and subscribe to my channel follow me on instagram and on pa and on instagram and get that to university and be sure to join me back on Tuesday you guys because on Tuesday I will be doing another school live it will be 7 p.m that is our new time 7 p.m Tuesday evenings and so if you're interested in seeing the prerequisites that a school that you guys have listed is requiring join me on Tuesday thank you guys so much for watching I will talk to you guys next time


Microbial proteases have become increasingly popular alternatives to traditional chemicals due to their ability to break down complex molecules without causing harmful side effects. Scientific research has focused on understanding how these proteases work and how they can be applied in various industries. This review compares the differences between acidic, neutral, and alkaline proteases, discusses the challenges associated with producing them and explores potential applications. This article was authored by Abdul Razak, Sadia Shamsi, Arfan Ali, and others.