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Uprising’s guest expert Robert Jensen (sitting in for Adele Stan), a Professor of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, analyzes today’s news headlines:

Syria has signed on to the international ban on chemical weapons but John Kerry says, the US may still bomb. Syrian President Bashar Al Assad has just signed the 1992 Convention on the Prohibition, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, and, as per the rules of the convention, pledged to turn over data on his weapons cache within a month. However, US Secretary of State John Kerry, in the classic American play of moving the goal post, has said that the usual rules do not apply to Syria and that Assad must speed up the process or face a military strike. Click here for an Al Jazeera America article about the story.

While the California Senate yesterday passed a bill raising the state’s minimum wage to $10 an hour, Washington DC mayor Vincent Gray vetoed a bill that would have forced big box retailers like Walmart to pay its workers at least $12.50 an hour. Meanwhile, Walmart continues its invasion of Los Angeles County with the opening of a store in Chinatown – a fifth of the size of a regular Walmart. Protests by local groups are expected to take place outside the store this morning. Click here for an RT.com article and click here for a Huffington Post article about these stories.

Staying in California, the state legislature passed a bill to bring greater transparency to the controversial practice of fracking. Governor Jerry Brown is expected to sign SB 4 into law but environmental groups are not celebrating – according to groups like Sierra Club, the bill, which was weak to begin with, was further weakened by numerous amendments. Click here for a Huffington Post article about the story.