The alarm a about the metroropon Correctional Center in manhattan for over a decade. For years, there has been an urgent situation at the metropolitan Correctional Center. Conditions are dirty, decrepit. Many people are held in profound isolation. Many of us have been trying to raise this question for years. And hopefully, one good thing that could come out of Jeffrey Epsteins death is real attention paid to the inhumane conditions. Amy we will also speak to attorney lisa bloom representing two women suing Jeffrey Epstein for sexually assaulting them when they were minors. What happens now that he iss dead . . We will meet to new York Lawmakers who helped pass a landmark held this week to allow survivors of childhood sex abuse in new york to sue their perpetrators even if the statute of limitations hasunun out d ihought ias goingo witht ever hing spoken about what happeneto me. When yohave bn sexual abused as child, it can tee yes or even decades t to process what happened. That is how we change the law. Amy hundreds of lawsuits have already been filed. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The u. S. Justice department hahs asked authorities in gibraltar to halt their planned release of an iranian supertanker seized by british marines in july in the Trump Administrations latest escalation of tensions with iran. Erin condemned britain seizure of the ship last month saying it was a violation of the land mark nuclear deal from which the Trump Administration withdrew last year. Britaiain accusese the tanker tranansportingng oil to syrian o syria. Iran retaliated days later. In china, hundreds of paramilitary soldiers have masseded at a sports statadium n shenzhen as prodemocracy activists continue to hold protests day and night in neighboring hong kong. Video shows scores of militarysstyle vehicles s and hundreds of uniformed members of the Peoples Armed police force in riot gear c conducting exercises earlier todaday. On wednesday evening, Hong Kong Riot Police fired tear gas to clear protesters who flashed laser pointers at a police station. Local officials threatened to jail protesters for life, and the ruling communist partys official newspaper called on authorities to use the sword of the law to stop violence and restore order. Meanwhile, President Trump offered to mediate a solution to the hong kong crisis, writing in a tweet i know president xi of china very well. He is a great leader who very much has the respect of his people. He is also a good man in a tough business. i have zero doubt that if president xi wants to quickly and humanely solve the hong kong problem, he can do it. Personal meeting . On wall street, the stock market took its largest singleday loss since october, with the dow jones dropping 800 points, or more than 3 , amid mounting fears that a recession may be around the corner. The drop in share prices came as germany announced its economy contracted during the last quarter and as news emerged of a key Economic Indicator known as an inverted yield curve that has preceded the last seven u. S. Recessions. In more economic news, a new study finds corporate ceos in the ununited states have seen their income grow exponentially over the past four decades, while ordinary workers salaries have largely stagnated. The Economic Policy institute found income for top u. S. Executives has increased by 1000 since 1978, even when adjusted for inflation. A typicacal workers salary increased by less than 12 during thehe same period. Ceos at the 350 largest u. S. Companies have salaries that are 278 times higher than the average worker. Among the biggest beneficiaries, the walton family, heirs to the walmart fortune. Bloomberg reports the familys combined wealth has reached 191 billion, with the waltons earning 70,000 per minute, 4 million per hour, or 100 million per day. Facebook secretly paid hundreds of contractors to transcribe audio clips shared by users in private messages. Thats according to bloomberg news, which reports the practice rattled the contract workers, who were often subjected to vulgar and intrusive recordings, and were not told whose conversations they were transcribing or why. In a statatement, fafacebook sad the practice was aimed at improving its Artificial Intelligence transcription service, but that the company had paused human review of audio more than a week ago. An irishshata Privacy Commission saidednesday itts investstigating whether facebook violated European Union privacy laws. Bloomberg reported earlier t ths year that amazon, apple, and google similarly hired thousands of workers to listen to users recorded audio. Mexico citys mayor has ordered the suspension of Six Police Officers as part of an investigation into charges that officers raped two teenage girls. The officers suspension came a day after hundreds of women protesters marched on the offices of mexico citys prosecutor to demand justice. Some of them doused mexicos security minister with pink glitter, while others broke glass windows in the prosecutors office. In the mediterranean, a spanish rescue ship is headed for an italian port with 147 migrants on board after a court overturned the italian interior ministrys order keeping thee shipip out of italian watersrs. The ship, open arms, was trapped at sea for nearly two weeks after it was banned by farright interior minister matteo salvini. Another rescue vessel, the ocean viking, has more than 350 migrants aboard a ship equipped to hold no more than 250 people. Both malta and italy have denied a berth to the ship since it rescued migrants over two weeks ago. Aid groups say more than 600 migrants have died at sea trying to reach europe from n north africa. Nbc news is reporting that immigration and customs enforcement, or ice, is holding more than 8000 migrants in 13 new jails in mississippi and louisiana, a nearly fourfold increase since late 2017. It is believed to be the largest population of ice detainees outside texas. Meanwhile, in pasadena, california, hundreds of protesters rallied wednesday outside a federal appeals court, calling on judges to uphold an injunction against President Trumps attempts to end tps, or temporary protected status, for more than 300,000 immigrants. The injunction was ordered last october by a u. S. District judge who ruled that trumps move to cut off protections to people from el salvador, haiti, nicaragua, and syria may have had a discriminatory purpose. On wednesday, the ninth Circuit Court of appeals considered the Trump Administrations challenge to that order. This is the director of the Central American resource center. This is just a temporary fix to make sure that families are not separated and that children, like a little girl you saw here today, dont have to make the choice whether to live without their parents in their country or to live in exilele just so ty can be with their parents. S. That is not justice. Ththat is not the American Value and principles that we have been sold. That is not right. T. Amy y police in philadelphia he arrested a gunman who sparked an hour standoff afterr he o opened fifire on officers serving a war it for drug crimes. He shot six officers. A 36yearold suspect was taken into custody around midnight after a swat team fired tear gas into the building where hed been holed up. The man was reportedly heavily armed and had an ak47 assault rifle. This is philadelphia mayor jim kenny. It is aggravating, saddening, and something something we need to do something about. If the state and federal government dont want to stand up to the nra and some other folks come and then let us police ourselves. Deserve to be protected and they dont deserve to be shot at by a guy for hours with an unlimited supply of weapons and unlimited supply of bullets. In boardman, ohio, the fbi says an 18yearold man who frequently praised Mass Shootings online had 10 pistols, more than a dozen rifles, and some 10,000 rounds of ammunition when agents raided his home last week. Justin olsen was arrested after he wrote online he would shoot every federal agent in sight. The fbi says olsen also praised the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and discussed violence against planned parenthood clinics. Olsens arrest came just days after Mass Shootings in dayton, ohio, and el paso, texas, left 32 people deadad. Iowa republican Congressmember Steve King made incendiary remarks about Sexual Violence wednesday asking without rape and incest there would be any population in the world left. What if we went back through all of the family trees and pulled those people out that were products of the rape and incest, would there be any population in the world left considering all of the rates thatat have taken place and whatever happened in s society . Amy congressmember kings comments sparked a fresh round of calls for his resignation, not only from prominentt democratats and 2020 presisidenl hopefuls, but also from many rerepublicans. King h has frequently y shared racicist posts on social media d has made a allies of farright politicians in austria, canada and the netherlandnds. In january, House Republican leaders stripped king of his Committee Assignments after he praised White Supremacy in an ininterview with the new york times. Planned parenthood says it will end its Family Planning program for lowincome people next week, unless a federal court blocks a Trump Administration rule barring title 10 federal funding for any organization that provides abortions or refers patients for abortions. Trump ordered the sweeping changes to title x in february, and recently the department of health and Human Services ordered all title 10 recipients to sign a pledge by promising to august 19 comply with the rule. Planned parenthood says it will refuse. Acting president Alexis Mcgill johnson said in a statement unless the ninth circuit intervenes, this gag rule will destroy the title 10 program putting birth control, breast and Cervical Cancer screenings, and sti testing and treatment at risk for millions of people struggling to make ends meet. Newark, new jerseys water crisis grew worse wednesday, as authorities halted their distribution of bottled water to families whose tap water is contaminated with lead. Earlier this week, the Environmental Protection agency told officials to disistribute water after they determined the filters were not safely filtering led from the homes of thousands of homes. On wednesday, they began offering free bottled water to 15,000 newark households and hundreds of people queued up in long lines in the summer heat for their allotment, but the official stopped handing out the water after discovering many of the bottles had exceeded their best buy date. A new study finds tiny pieces of plastic pollution permeate the earths atmosphere, falling down to earth in snowfall even in the most remote corners of the globe. Samples s taken off a a remote arcticic island showowed an avee of nearly 1800 microplastic particles per liter of snow, with pollulution levels at some european sampling locations more than 10 times higher. Writining in the journal science advances, researchers called for more studies on the effects of plastic pollution on human health. They cited a 1998 study that found inhaled microplastics may contribute to the risk of lung cancer. And the worldrenowned swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg has set sail from southwestern england, bound for new york for the united climate talks the United Nations climate talks next month. 16yearold sparked a Global Movement of weekly student strikes for the climate last year when she skipped classes each friday to stand outside the Swedish Parliament demanding action to confront the climate crisis. Thunberg refuses to fly because of the heavy Carbon Footprint of air travel. Shees inststead makingng her n voyage aboard the malizia ii, a 60foooot racing yacht covered n solar papanels. Greta thunberg hopes to be in new yorkrk in time for thehe u. Climate action summit on september 23, before moving on to south america for more u. N. Climate talks in santiago, chile, in december. Just before setting sail, Greta Thunberg dismissed climate deniers whove launched an Online Campaign seeking to discredit her activism. Im not concerned about reactions. What i am concerned about is whether we will do something or not, whether t the people in por will react and act with necessary force. Amy to see our interview with Greta Thunberg, as well as her historic speeches to the United Nations and other coverage, you can go to democracynow. Org. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Nermeen and im nermeen shaikh. Welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. New questions are being raised about the death of Jeffrey Epstein after an autopsy found the accused sex trafficker had multiple breaks in his neck bones, including his hyoid bone. This according to a report in the washington post. Epstein was found dead in his jail cell on saturday morning at the metropolitan Correctional Center in manhattan. Authorities had said epstein had hanged himself. The president of the National Association of medical examiners, jonathan arden, who was not involved in epsteins autopsy, told the post if, hypothetically, the hyoid bone is broken, that would generally raise questions about strangulation, but it is not definitive and does not exclude suicidal hanging. Many conspiracy theories have circulated about epsteins death in part due to his close connections to many wellconnected people, including President Trump and former president bill clinton. Epsteins death came less than 24 hours after hundreds of pages of Court Documents were unsealed with testimonies from former employees and new details of sexual abuse committed by epstein. Amy Jeffrey Epsteins death has brought new attention to the staffing and conditions at the federal metropolitan Correctional Center or mcc. Reports emerged tuesday that epsteins guards may have been sleeping during their shift, failing to check on epstein for three hours and then falsifying time logs. They were supposed to check on him every 30 minutes. Epstein had been on suicide watch last month but was then removed. Him every 30 minutes. The warden at the mcc has since been reassigned and two guards who were tasked with monitoring epstein were put on leave. Although, it is believed one of those people was not even a guard. We are joined now by jeanne theoharis, a professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College who has written about the metropolitan Correctional Center, or mcc. Her latest book a more , beautiful and terrible history the uses and misuses of civil rights history. Welcome back to democracy now it is great to have you with us. So here you have an extremely wealthy white, high profile prisoner who dies at mcc. Time this is not the first someone has died there, but most significantly, as the description of this jail started coming out and the expressions of horror from around the country, how is this possible, you have been sounding the alarm bells for quite some time. Tell us about what you might call barrs bars, attorney general William Barrs jail, the jail that is not run by the city of new york, but by the justice department. Federalarify, mcc is a pretrial facility. It holds people awaiting trial in the Southern District of new york will stop it is run, as you said, by the bureau of prisons that is underneath the department of justice. Conditions at mcc have been horrifying for years. In fact, my very first time on democracy now a decade ago, we talked about conditions at mcc then. As we talklked about then, as journalist aviva stahl wrote about t in a searing expose last year, conditions are dirty, te facility is to crack that, it is vermininfested. Things break. Sometimes the elevators break and lawyers cannot visit their clients. Aviva stahl reported how often the sewawage system breaksks. Nermeen you refer to the facility as a good log. Right. And iy ways, it is hard think it is been hard for people to wrap their heads around a federal jail in Lower Manhattan on wall street with conditions that seem akin to a third world dictatorship. Dirty, too hot and too cold, fruit flies, mice, extreme isolation in parts of mcc. Conditions vary in the facility. Reportedly, Jeffrey Epstein had been moved to the special housing unit on amy essentially, solitary co