As millions celebrate Earth Day around the globe, we speak with organizer Dallas Goldtooth about indigenous-led anti-pipeline activism in the United States. President Trump signed two executive orders earlier this month to facilitate the approval of pipeline projects at a federal level, limiting states' ability to regulate such projects. The move is intended in part to clear the way for permitting on the northeastern Constitution pipeline, which has stalled after New York invoked the Clean Water Act to reject the project on environmental grounds. This comes as climate activists have filed a federal lawsuit with the ACLU challenging three South Dakota laws that they say violate the First Amendment rights of anti-pipeline organizers. Dallas Goldtooth is one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit and an organizer with Indigenous Environmental Network.

In one of the worst terrorist attacks to hit South Asia, Sri Lankan government officials say a local Islamist extremist group called the National Thowheed Jama'ath coordinated a series of eight bombings on Easter Sunday at churches and luxury hotels throughout the country. The attacks killed at least 290 people, injured more than 500 and left behind scenes of carnage and chaos. The government has apologized for not taking more preventative measures. Sri Lanka's telecommunications minister said a government memo circulated by Sri Lanka's top police official 10 days earlier warned of a possible attack, but that the warning was ignored. Officials have forced the country of 21 million people to go on a dawn-to-dusk curfew, and blocked many social media networks in the wake of terrorist attacks. We go to the capital, Colombo, for an update from Bhavani Fonseka, senior researcher with the Centre for Policy Alternatives. "The discrimination, the targeting and the ethnic tensions have been there for decades," says Fonseka. "This was most evident during the [Sri Lankan civil] war, but this has continued postwar, as well." We are also joined by Alan Keenan, Sri Lanka project director at the International Crisis Group, and T. Kumar, former international advocacy director for Amnesty International USA. Kumar was a political prisoner for over five years in his native Sri Lanka.

Easter Sunday Attacks Kill Nearly 300 Across Sri Lanka, House Judiciary Chair Subpoenas Unredacted Mueller Report, Sen. Elizabeth Warren Calls on Congress to Impeach President Trump, Afghanistan: 10 Killed in Suicide Attack as Taliban Peace Talks Collapse, Libya Death Toll Climbs to 227 as Trump Backs Renegade General, Hundreds of Thousands of Algerians March Demanding Democratic Reforms, Thousands March on Morocco's Parliament, Demanding Release of Political Prisoners, Sudan Protest Leaders End Talks with Ruling Military Council, Volodymyr Zelensky, Who Played a President on TV, Elected to Lead Ukraine, France: Weekly Yellow Vest Protests Channel Anger over Notre-Dame Donations, 2,000+ French Climate Campaigners Hold Civil Disobedience Actions, Police Clear Extinction Rebellion Sit-In Protesters as Arrest Total Nears 1,000, FBI Arrests Leader of Militia That Detained Migrants at Gunpoint, Washington State Rep. Discussed Violence and Surveillance of Opponents, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton Enters 2020 Presidential Race, 31,000 Stop & Shop Grocery Workers End 10-Day Strike with Contract Victory

The Justice Department has released a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report detailing Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia and President Trump's attempts to impede the special counsel's investigation. The report states the campaign "expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts," but Mueller concluded, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." Mueller also outlined at least 10 instances where Trump attempted to impede the special counsel's investigation, but Mueller came to no definitive conclusion on whether Trump broke the law by obstructing justice. In the report, Mueller suggests that this is a decision for Congress to make. We host a debate on the report's findings between two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists: Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept and David Cay Johnston, who has covered Donald Trump since the 1980s. His most recent book is "It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America."

Program Date:  04/22/2019 https://www.backgroundbriefing.org/2019/04/22/background-briefing-april-22-2019/ mp3audio:  Full Program

Program Date:  04/21/2019 mp3audio:  Full Program

Program Date:  04/18/2019 mp3audio:  Full Program

Program Date:  04/17/2019 https://www.backgroundbriefing.org/2019/04/17/background-briefing-april-17-2019/ mp3audio:  Full Program

FEATURING AMY WESTERVELT – A terrifying new study about Greenland’s ice sheet has found that the rate of melting is four times greater than it was 16 years ago. If all of Greenland’s ice sheet melts – a clear result of global warming – it will mean a 23 foot rise in sea levels, submerging...

The city of Los Angeles is home to thousands of oil wells and refineries, many of them found near homes, schools, parks, places of worship and hospitals. They harken back to the 1890s when the city discovered some of the most productive oil fields in history. As its population grew, the borders between oil producing...

FEATURING RAHUL MAHAJAN – Nearly 300 people were killed in a series of coordinated suicide attacks on the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka. The attacks, which also injured at least 500 people, were aimed at Catholic churches and several hotels catering to tourists. Authorities have so far pointed to a little known organization called...

Nearly 300 people were massacred in a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks in Sri Lanka on Sunday that stunned the nation and the world. About 500 people were also injured. The attacks targeted three Catholic Churches on Easter Sunday, as well as a number of luxury hotels catering to tourists. On Monday Sri Lanka’s...

On today's BradCast, new details from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report supporting the argument we've been trying to make for the last two years: Nobody ever checked the results of the 2016 election to make sure they were correct! [Audio link to show is posted below.] But, first, we open with an avalanche of important news [...]

And a belated #Happy420Day to all who celebrated it! * * * Perry Dorrell blogs as PDiddie at Brains and Eggs, usually on topics concerning the strange brew of Texas politics. He's also on Twitter @PDiddie.

On today's BradCast: It looks like Trump Attorney General William Barr's willingness to beclown himself to the level of Donald Trump didn't help much in protecting the President against his own clearly criminal and impeachable behavior as detailed by even the redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's long-awaited report. And Democrats in both the [...]

On today's BradCast: It should come as little surprise that Donald Trump's newly-appointed Attorney General William Bar has gone out of his way to obstruct justice in his attempt to misdirect from the repeated obstruction of justice painstakingly detailed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's 448-page report [PDF]. Still, it's remarkable to see in action, as [...]