President Obama outraged food activists last week when he signed into law a spending bill with a controversial rider that critics have dubbed the "Monsanto Protection Act." The rider says the government must allow the planting of genetically modified crops even if courts rule they pose health risks. The measure has galvanized the U.S. food justice movement, which is now preparing for its next fight when the provision expires in six months. We host a discussion on the "Monsanto Protection Act" and the safety of genetically modified foods with two guests: Gregory Jaffe, director of the Biotechnology Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that addresses food and nutrition issues; and Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch and author of the book, "Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America." On Wednesday, Hauter’s group is releasing a major new report called "Monsanto: A Corporate Profile." [includes rush transcript]

• Report: Syria Marks Deadliest Month Since Uprising Began
• North Korea Vows to Restart Nuclear Facilities
• Iraq: Suicide Bomber Kills 9 amid Rise in Violence
• Connecticut Lawmakers Reach Deal on Strict Gun-Control Rules
• Georgia City Makes Gun Ownership Mandatory
• Prosecutors Seek Death Penalty for Aurora Shooting Suspect
• U.S. Criticizes Egypt for Curbing Free Speech After Comedian Faces Questioning
• Judge Rules Stockton Is Eligible for Bankruptcy in California
• Official Tally of Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike Continues to Rise
• Yemen: Hundreds Call for Release of Guantánamo Prisoners
• U.S. Soldier Fatally Stabbed in the Neck by Afghan Teen
• Judge Rules Reselling of Digital Music Is Copyright Infringement
• Former NYPD Captain: Police Commissioner Targeted Men of Color in Bid to "Instill Fear"
• New York City Resumes Search for Human Remains in 9/11 Debris
• Judge Dismisses Nearly All Claims Against Banks in Libor Scandal
• DOJ Official Who Led Financial Crisis Probe Returns to Law Firm to Defend Corporations
• British Forces Recount Abuses at Secret U.S. Prison in Iraq

ExxonMobil continues its cleanup efforts after a ruptured pipeline sprayed thousands of barrels of crude oil from Canada across a central Arkansas subdivision, forcing nearly two dozen homes to evacuate. The 20-inch so-called "Pegasus" tar sands pipeline burst late Friday near Mayflower, Arkansas, creating what the Environmental Protection Agency is categorizing as a "major spill." The incident is refueling calls for the Obama administration to reject the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which would deliver tar sands oil from Canada to refineries in Texas. "It’s almost as if nature was trying to send a message that it might be best to just leave this stuff underground in Canada, where it’s been safely for the last few million years, instead of trucking it, piping it, training it hither and yon across the countryside," says Bill McKibben, co-founder and director of 350.org. He is author of "Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet." [includes rush transcript]

Following the killing of Texas District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife, Cynthia McLelland, in their home, we speak to Linda Geffin, the senior assistant prosecutor for the Harris County attorney’s office in Texas, who herself survived a brutal attack by an unknown intruder at her home last year. Geffin, who says the incident may have been linked to her efforts against human trafficking, discusses her ordeal and explains why it has helped inform her public advocacy work, including backing the commuting of a death sentence for Duane Beck, whom she prosecuted. [includes rush transcript]

Although Duane Buck’s guilt is not in question for the 1995 murder of his former girlfriend Debra Gardner and her friend Kenneth Butler, critics say jurors in his case were led to choose a death sentence over life without parole based on testimony of a state psychologist who argued that African-American criminals are more likely to pose a future danger to the public. We’re joined by two guests: Linda Geffin, the second-chair prosecutor who helped win Buck’s death sentence in 1997, but now opposes his execution, and Christina Swarns, an attorney with Duane Buck’s legal defense team and director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Criminal Justice Project. [includes rush transcript]

A potential link to white supremacist prison gangs is being probed in the killing of a Texas district attorney and his wife in their home. Mike McLelland and Cynthia McLelland were shot dead inside their home just two months after Assistant Prosecutor Mark Hasse was gunned down outside the Kaufman County courthouse. The killings come just months after Texas warned of potential retaliation by the Aryan Brotherhood against law enforcement officials after 34 members of the white supremacist group were indicted. The murder of McLelland also comes less than two weeks after Tom Clements, the Colorado prisons chief, was shot and killed after answering the doorbell at his home. Two days later, the suspect, Evan Spencer Ebel, a former Colorado inmate and white supremacist, was killed in a shootout with Texas deputies. We speak to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, who tracks hate groups. [includes rush transcript]

• ExxonMobil Oil Pipeline Spills Thousands of Barrels in Arkansas
• White Supremacist Link Suspected in Shooting Death of Texas DA, Wife
• U.S. Sends F-22 Fighter Jets to South Korea
• NATO Airstrike Kills Child, Others in Afghanistan
• India Supreme Court Rejects Swiss Drug Giant's Effort to Block Generic Drugs
• Philippines Seeks Compensation for U.S. Ship's Damage to Coral Reef
• Lawmakers Report Agreement in Bipartisan Immigration Talks
• Federal Judge Invalidates Provisions of Indiana Anti-Immigrant Law
• Rep. Don Young Apologizes for "Wetback" Comment
• Obama Renews Call for Insfrastructure Projects
• Atlanta Educators Indicted for School Cheating Scandal
• KKK Members Rally Against Renaming of Memphis Parks
• World Social Forum Concludes in Tunisia
• Study: Cost of Afghan-Iraq Wars Grows to $4-$6 Trillion

At a ceremony unveiling a statue in her honor last month, President Obama called Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, city bus a "singular act of disobedience." But nine months before Parks’ historic action, a 15-year-old teenager named Claudette Colvin did the very same thing. She was arrested, and her case led to the U.S. Supreme Court’s order for the desegregation of Alabama’s bus system. Now 73, Claudette Colvin joins us for a rare interview along with Brooklyn College Professor Jeanne Theoharis, author of "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Theoharis says Parks’ act of defiance may not have happened if not for Colvin’s nine months before. Colvin says learning about African-American history in school inspired her act. "I could not move, because history had me glued to the seat," she recalls telling the bus driver and the police officer who came to arrest her. "It felt like Sojourner Truth’s hands were pushing me down on one shoulder and Harriet Tubman’s hands were pushing me down on another shoulder." [includes rush transcript]

While President Obama has forcefully called out Congress for not passing gun control, the United States has been one of the leading countries blocking a global treaty to regulate the $70 billion international arms trade, torpedoing it last summer and dragging its feet on it this week at the United Nations. While Iran, Syria and North Korea are generating headlines for officially blocking the treaty, less attention has been paid to the role of the U.S. — acceding to pressure from outside groups including the National Rifle Association — in stalling its progress. We’re joined by Andrew Feinstein, author of "The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade." [includes rush transcript]

• Arms Treaty Heads for General Assembly Vote After New Objections
• North Korea Orders Rocket Unit on Standby as U.S. Denies Provocation
• Newtown Shooter Had Massive Arsenal at Home
• Obama: "Shame on Us If We've Forgotten" Newtown
• Guantánamo Attorneys Say Guards Cracking Down on Hunger Strikers; Red Cross Visit Begins
• EPA Set to Unveil New Car, Gasoline Standards
• Bombing Kills 15 Students at Damascus University
• U.N. Approves "Offensive" Capability for Peacekeeping Ops in DRC
• Bahrain Clears 21 Medics of Charges for Treating Demonstrators
• Mandela Hospitalized for Lung Infection
• AFL-CIO Reports Progress in Dispute over Guestworker Pay in Immigration Reform
• Former U.S. Soldier Accused of Fighting Alongside al-Qaeda in Syria
• Lawsuit, Protests Challenge Michigan Emergency Manager Law

The lead plaintiff in the Defense of Marriage Act case before the U.S. Supreme Court is an 83-year-old lesbian named Edith Windsor. She sued the federal government after she was forced to pay additional estate taxes because it did not recognize her marriage to a woman, Thea Spyer. Windsor and Spyer met in 1962, got engaged soon after, but did not marry until 2007, near the end of Spyer’s life. Their life story was captured in the award-winning documentary, "Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement," directed and produced by Susan Muska and Gréta Olafsdóttir. We air clips from the film. [includes rush transcript]

As the U.S. Supreme Court heard two major cases this week on marriage equality, we look at how the issue has divided some in the LGBT movement. Longtime activist and blogger Scot Nakagawa wrote a popular essay this week called "Why I Support Same Sex Marriage as a Civil Right, But Not as a Strategy to Achieve Structural Change." The article drew so much traffic that it crashed his server, twice. We speak to Nakagawa and Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry, one of the leading campaigns to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. "The marriage issue, while very important and a step toward greater freedoms, is not the whole ball of wax, as there’s much more that we need to fight for. I think we recognize that most people in our society do not live in traditional nuclear family arrangements," Nakagawa says. "Most of us actually live outside of those arrangements and deserve to also have the protections of our government." Solomon, who attended Wednesday’s Supreme Court arguments, responds, "There’s a lot that you’re saying that I fully agree with, especially the idea that marriage for our LGBT community is not everything. And it’s an important milestone. ... I think the challenge is to use the power and the momentum that we’re building through the marriage fights to secure other gains." [includes rush transcript]

Two days of historic Supreme Court arguments on the legality of same-sex marriage have concluded. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. DOMA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996. The lead plaintiff in the case is an 83-year-old lesbian named Edith Windsor. She sued the federal government after she was forced to pay additional estate taxes because it did not recognize her marriage to a woman. We air Windsor’s remarks outside the courtroom, along with excerpts of the oral arguments made before the court, and speak to Marc Solomon, national campaign director of Freedom to Marry. [includes rush transcript]

• Report: 4 Children Killed in Night Raid by Afghan, International Forces
• Cyprus Banks Reopen with Tight Restrictions
• Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Defense of Marriage Act
• Thousands Protest School Closings in Chicago
• U.S. Flies Nuclear-Capable Bombers over South Korea
• Turkish Police Fire Tear Gas at Syrian Protesters in Refugee Camp
• Report: Official Promoted to Top CIA Post Linked to Black Sites, Destruction of Torture Tapes
• Priest Denies Role of Pope Francis in His Imprisonment During Military Junta
• 50,000 Activists Gather for World Social Forum in Tunisia
• Algerian Activists Barred from Traveling to World Social Forum in Tunisia
• Outcry Grows over "Monsanto Protection Act" Weakening Regulation of GMO Crops
• Wal-Mart Sues Groups over Protests at Stores
• Arkansas Senate Overrides Veto of Voter ID Bill
• Brazil Forcibly Evicts Indigenous Group to Prepare for World Cup
• Anti-Keystone XL Protester Climbs Flagpole to Denounce Tar Sands Oil
• Adbusters Calls for Actions to Shut Down Goldman Sachs Offices
• Study: Every 3 out of 4 People Found with Drugs by Border Patrol Are U.S. Citizens
• Nelson Mandela Hospitalized with Lung Infection

On Tuesday, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed into law three bills that could effectively ban abortion in the state and set up a major legal challenge to Roe v. Wade, which 40 years ago legalized abortion — at least in the first three months of pregnancy. One measure blocks abortions after an embryonic heartbeat can be detected, which can happen at six weeks of pregnancy or even earlier. Another bill would make North Dakota the first state to ban abortions based on genetic defects, such as Down’s syndrome. A third bill, aimed at shuttering North Dakota’s only abortion clinic, will require all physicians who perform abortions in the state to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. We speak to Tammi Kromenaker, the director of the Red River Women’s Center, which is the state’s only abortion provider. We also speak to one of the Republicans who voted against the anti-abortion bills. [includes rush transcript]

The U.S. Supreme Court continues its session on the issue of same-sex marriage, hearing arguments today on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. We are joined by Dean Hara, a plaintiff in another lawsuit against DOMA. He is the widower of U.S. Rep. Gerry Studds, the first openly gay member of Congress. Hara reflects on Studds’ decision to come out as a gay man. "I think that, as he demonstrated in that act, it gave a lot of other people the confidence and the courage to also stand up," Hara said. "And I think that act has brought us where we are today. Less than 50 years after Stonewall, 30 years after Gerry spoke out on the floor of the House, it’s a different world that we live in." [includes rush transcript]

Stuart Gaffney and John Lewis have been deeply involved in the struggle to legalize same-sex marriage. They were two of the plaintiffs in the historic 2008 lawsuit that held California’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the state constitution. They have been together for 26 years and married in 2008 before Prop 8 passed. Both work at Marriage Equality USA: Gaffney is the media director, and Lewis is the legal director. In addition, Gaffney reflects on the legal challenges surrounding his parents’ marriage — his mother is Chinese American, and his father is white. In 1948, the California Supreme Court legalized interracial marriage, but other states did not recognize their marriage. [includes rush transcript]

For the second day in a row, the U.S. Supreme Court is confronting the issue of same-sex marriage, hearing arguments today on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, that denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples. On Tuesday, the justices considered the legality of California’s Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriage. Representing two couples challenging the ban, attorney Ted Olson condemned Proposition 8. "It walls off gays and lesbians from marriage, the most important relation in life," he said, "thus stigmatizing a class of Californians based upon their status and labeling their most cherished relationships as second-rate, different, unequal, and not OK." We air excerpts from the court hearing and hear from the plaintiffs, who spoke outside the Supreme Court. [includes rush transcript]

• Supreme Court Weighs Same-Sex Marriage for 2nd Day
• Cyprus: Protests Continue as Economic Crisis Deepens
• Leading Egyptian Activist Questioned amid Fears of Crackdown
• Mass Protest Planned in Chicago over Plan to Close 54 Schools
• North Dakota Enacts Law Banning Nearly All Abortions
• Former CIA Head Petraeus Apologizes for Extramarital Affair
• Obama Appoints 1st Female Head of Secret Service
• BRICS Countries Plan New Development Bank in Challenge to U.S.-Dominated World Bank, IMF
• EPA: Most U.S. Rivers, Streams Are in Poor Condition
• Study: Major Oklahoma Quake Likely Caused by Oil Drilling Waste
• 2 U.S. Citizens Arrested After Refusing to Disclose Status to Border Patrol Before Domestic Flight
• NYC Activists Stage Flash Mob to Demand Universal Access to Morning-After Pill

In this year marking the 150th anniversary year of the Emancipation Proclamation, we speak to NY1 anchor Cheryl Wills, who uncovered the story of her great-great-great-grandparents, Sandy and Emma Wills. Sandy was a slave who escaped from his master and joined the United States Colored Troops to fight in the Civil War. Wills based her book, "Die Free: A Heroic Family Tale," on thousands of documents from the National Archives. The book’s title comes from a quote by Frederick Douglass: "Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even die free than to live slaves." We speak to Wills one day after the United Nations marked its sixth annual International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade. [includes rush transcript]