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Uprising’s guest expert Arun Gupta, Journalist and regular contributor to the Guardian, In These Times, The Progressive, and Truthout, and co-founder of the Occupied Wall Street Journal and the Indypendent, analyzes today’s news headlines:

The South African athlete, Oscar Pistorius, has been found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend. In a case that gripped international media, a South African judge found Pistorius not guilty of the premeditated murder of Reeva Steenkamp. However the trial will continue on Friday and it is possible he may still be charged with what is called culpable murder, which carries up to a 15 year sentence. The rulings come in the wake of a high-profile domestic violence incident in the US with NFL star Ray Rice who lost his contract over surveillance video that emerged showing him punching his then-fiance Janay Palmer unconscious in an elevator and dragging her body out. The NFL dropped Rice’s contract only after the video became public but it now appears that they had known about it for 5 months. Click here for a Guardian newspaper article about Pistorius, and here for a Guardian newspaper article about Ray Rice and the NFL.

The state of Missouri just passed two extreme and regressive bills into law. One greatly broadened the rights of gun owners to tote their firearms in public, including inside schools, and lowered the age for concealed carry permits from 21 to 19. The second bill requires pregnant women seeking abortions to wait for 3 days before having access to the medical procedure. No exceptions are allowed even in the case of rape or incest. Gov. Jay Nixon called that bill “extreme and disrespectful” against women. Missouri’s legislature passed both bills with supermajorities, overriding the governor’s vetoes. Click here for a Washington Post article about the gun bill, and here for an ABC news article about the abortion bill.

Also in Missouri, the St. Louis town of Ferguson has continued its protests despite the waning of national attention. About 150 activists gathered yesterday in an attempt to shut down a major freeway. Police, who apparently also numbered more than a hundred, thwarted the attempt and arrested 35 people. Joining the protesters were unionized public transit workers. Meanwhile CNN aired a video yesterday showing the reactions of witnesses to the killing of 18 year old Michael Brown in Ferguson by officer Darren Wilson. The various witnesses were apparently interviewed soon after the killing and appear to agree that Brown had his hands in the air when he was shot. Click here for an Al Jazeera America article about the arrests and here for a Huffington Post article about new witnesses in the Brown shooting.