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- Announcements:
- Very exciting: our agency is merging with Sirius XM, which means NDJ is becoming part of the Sirius XM family! But this switch WILL require some migration in our show’s hosting, so please bare with us – as of now, it looks like there will be no episodes going live Thursday + Friday of this week. If major news stories break during this time, we will be sure to post about them on our Instagram so follow us at www.instagram.com/newsdujour + www.instagram.com/itsanniebowles.
- Mini stories:
- Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist who was convicted of defaming families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, was just allowed BACK onto the platform X, formerly known as Twitter. I venture to say, this will probably NOT help the platform’s reputation of facilitating fake news and misinformation… Which has driven advertisers away and cost the company millions.
- Donald Trump has decided NOT to take the stand, after he had been schedule to for a second time, in his NY civil fraud case. This brings the court proceedings to a close. As a reminder, Letitia James is asking that Trump and his family be fined $250 million and be barred from practicing business in the state of New York, indefinitely. We’ll keep you guys posted on the sentencing, although Trump is likely to appeal whatever the judge comes back with.
- President Zelensky of Ukraine is visiting Washington today, in a lobbying effort on behalf of his war-torn country. He needs BILLIONS more in aid, and Republicans are holding that aid up, tying to it to efforts to secure the US Mexico border.
- Abortion back and forth in Texas
This may be one of the more bizarre, and maddening abortion cases I have ever heard of. So there was a sort of back and forth, Lucy and the football, bait and switch thing situation for a young woman, seeking an emergency abortion in the state of Texas. You see, the woman (whose name is Kate Cox), desperately WANTS to have children. But she is pregnant with a child who will not live – they have a severe anomaly that will not allow survival after birth. But if Kate goes through with the pregnancy, she risks losing her ability to bare children in the future.
So Kate went through the process of asking the Texas court system for an emergency abortion, to protect her fertility… And ability to create life that WILL live. The judge granted her request for an abortion.
But then, a higher court, The Supreme Court of Texas, said it wanted to have a say in this matter. So it is currently reviewing the case.
Meanwhile, Kate is still pregnant and passed the 20 week mark… As each minute ticks on, she comes closer to losing her ability to bare children.
Abortion advocates are pointing to this case as a perfect example of why women should not have to ask for permission, like school children, to protect their reproductive health. Kate WANTS a living child… And if the court takes such longer on this, she might not get to have one. And there is NOTHING pro-life about that.
- Iran’s Nobel Prize winner
There is a woman, sitting in Evin prison in Iran, simultaneously winning one of the world’s most prestigious awards.
Her 17 year old twin son and daughter, make their way onto the hallowed Oslo stage… Dressed in all black. Kiana, her daughter, solemnly read her mother’s words to the world. They were originally written in French, but here is an English translation of parts of it.
QUOTE “I write this message from behind the tall and cold walls of a prison… At the age of nine, I heard my mother’s cries of mourning after the execution of her niece, a university student, and my grand mother’s lamentations because her son had been tortured, my childhood dreams were cruelly shattered. At that time, I had no understanding of the concepts of execution and torture. In the 1980s, no one heard the stories or the voices of those mothers who were pleading for justice. It was the decade of executions, torture, rape, and assault in prisons. Crimes of the policy makers and enforcers which was Ibrahim Raisi, the current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. No one was hearing anything then, because authoritarianism was cloaked in the mantle of religion imposed widespread suppression, poverty, and unbridled misery on Iran.” END QUOTE.
She went on to advocate for the freedom of Iranian people – from ditching hijabs to getting their education, Narges made it clear that women in Iran are not free to make simple choices for themselves. Which sadly, the world already knows, but seems to tolerate.
Narges Mohammadi is a hero. She has dedicated her life to bringing freedom to the women of her country, and it has come at a price. She has been separated from her children since 2015. They have been unable to even speak to her for the past two years. According to the Nobel Prize committee’s statement on the award, Narges has been arrested 13 times, denied her career as a physicist and engineer, sentenced to 10 years in prison and 153 lashes. But she continued to organize women, from within the walls of Evin Prison. She used her time and her talents to map out the blueprints for protests, hunger strikes, creating slogans, and holding leadership roles in the movement, all while serving a prison sentence.
Her only crime has been advocating that women not have to wear the hijab, and be able to play sports, dance, and move freely around their country. She also advocated against the use of the death penalty in Iran.
In an interview with Time Magazine, Narges said QUOTE “when I heard I had received the Nobel Peace Prize, the name Masha Jana Amino emerged from the depths of my being. This movement is adorned with her beautiful name and I dedicate this award to her.” END QUOTE.
The letter from the Nobel Prize committee ended with QUOTE “In Iran, women have been fighting against segregation for more than 30 years. Eventually, their dream of a brighter future will prevail.” END QUOTE.
Yes it will.
And until then, we will continue advocating alongside you in any way we can.
If you haven’t listened to our BONUS episode about Iran, interviewing Elica Le Bon, I highly encourage you to listen today. You can find it in our feed, or simply by searching for News Du Jour Elica (spelled E-L-I-C-A).
And that, is the News Du Jour!
Today, I wanted to leave you guys with the quote:
“Zan, Zendegi, Azadi – woman, life, freedom.”