Citizen Journalism

At the United Nations, Russia is refusing to back a U.S.-supported Security Council resolution calling for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to a deputy. According to the Associated Press, the draft resolution insists there will be no use of foreign forces in the country. Russia has accused Western and Arab nations of putting Syria on the "path to civil war." Russia and China have also accused the United States and other Western nations of misusing a U.N. mandate to depose Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi. Voting has begun in the closely watched Florida Republican primary. Polls suggest former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will easily win today’s vote, securing the state’s 50 delegates in the winner-take-all primary. On Monday, Romney continued to attack his chief rival, Newt Gingrich. Some analysts have linked Mitt Romney’s surging popularity in Florida to the influx of pro-Romney TV spots airing in the state. According to Politico, Romney and pro-Romney super PACs have paid for almost 13,000 television ads, as of last week. Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour.

New York Daily News columnist and Democracy Now! co-host Juan Gonzalez reports the Treasury Department has approved payouts exceeding $5 million for 49 executives at firms that most benefited from the Wall Street bailout. The executives’ pay came despite the $500,000 salary cap established under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Representatives from the New York City Muslim community, together with local ethnic and interfaith groups, gathered at City Hall Thursday calling for the resignation of New York City Police Department Commissioner Raymond Kelly and police spokesperson Paul Browne after it was revealed an anti-Muslim film, "The Third Jihad," was screened to nearly 1,500 officers during training. We speak with Arab-American activist Linda Sarsour, who was honored last month at the White House as a "Champion of Change." Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour

Public school officials in Tucson, Arizona, have released a list of seven banned books that can no longer be used in classrooms following their suspension of the district's acclaimed Mexican American Studies program. We host a debate between Huppenthal and Richard Martinez, the attorney representing teachers and students trying to save the Mexican American Studies program. We speak with reporter Michael Hastings about the "disastrous past year" in Afghanistan, and the mentality a decade of war has bred there. Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings was with WikiLeaks founder and Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange when the pre-trial military hearing for accused Army whistleblower Private Bradley Manning was taking place in Fort Meade, Maryland, last month. Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour.

On the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed roughly 300,000 people and left more than 1.5 million homeless, we speak with Randall Robinson, author of "An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President." "Makeda," the new novel by TransAfrica founder Robinson, is set at the dawn of the civil rights era. The book follows a young man coming of age in segregated Richmond, Virginia, who discovers his roots in Africa through his blind grandmother. "Sometimes when we think of slavery, we calculate the economic consequence of it," Robinson says. On this eve of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, we host a wide-ranging discussion with TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson and author Michelle Alexander about the mass incarceration of African Americans that has rolled back many achievements of the civil rights movement. Today there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour