• Listen to this segment with Courtney Morris

Uprising’s guest expert Courtney Morris, an assistant professor of African American and women’s Studies at Penn State University, analyzes today’s news headlines:

An explosive investigation by the New York Times has found that during the US’s invasion and occupation of Iraq which began in 2003, several caches of chemical weapons were found, but kept completely secret, even from troops themselves, some of whom suffered medical problems. It turns out those weapons were left over from past Iraqi collaboration with the US and other Western nations during the war with Iran. According to the Times, “The discoveries of these chemical weapons did not support the government’s invasion rationale.” Meanwhile, a recent secret study conducted by the CIA and also revealed by the Times, has found that over the decades of the agency’s history in arming and funding rebellions against regimes, that tactic has rarely worked. Even the one successful case of arming Afghan jihadis against the Soviet Union came back to haunt both Afghanistan and the US. Click here for a New York Times article about the Iraq Chemical Weapons story, and here for a story about the CIA study.

In a major ruling over reproductive rights, the US Supreme Court has decided to block the nation’s most controversial law aimed at shutting down abortion clinics. A law in Texas which forced clinics to upgrade their equipment and also acquire admitting privileges at nearby hospitals would have resulted in all but a handful of them being shut down in the nation’s second most populous state. Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voted in favor of the Texas anti-abortion law while the rest of the Justices chose to block it. Click here for an Al Jazeera America article about the story.

And finally, in another story about women’s rights, the prominent feminist gaming critic, Anita Sarkeesian has canceled a planned lecture at Utah State University after receiving threats of violence. Sarkeesian, who has a strong online following, tweeted that she, “Requested pat downs or metal detectors after mass shooting threat but because of Utah’s open carry laws police wouldn’t do firearm searches.” Feminists and other outspoken women have faced digital threats for years, reflecting a generally hostile environment online which has sometimes spilled over into the real world. Click here for an LA Times article about the story.