Amy as Hillary Clinton looks to a november showdown against donald trump, Bernie Sanders vows to keep fighting for the democratic nomination. Will sanders win today in West Virginia . We will speak to former president ial candidate ralph nader on the democratic race, obstacles facing Third Party Candidates, breaking through power and the rise of trump. , he gets away with absurdities. Yes community that with tank any other political candidate because he is so outrageous in the press thinks he is outrageous, so they give him a pass. It is amazing. Amy all of that and more coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The Justice Department has sued North Carolina over its antitransgender law. The law bars transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity. It also invalidates local ordinances aimed at protecting lgbt people from discrimination. Attorney general Loretta Lynch announced the lawsuit monday, saying the government stands with transgender people. This law provide no benefits to society. And all it does is harm innocent americans. Instead of turning away from our neighbors, our friends, and our colleagues, let us instead learn from our history and avoid repeating the mistakes of our past. And let us reflect on the obvious but often neglected lesson that states ancient discrimination Never Looks Good and never works in hindsight. Amy North Carolina officials , meanwhile, have sued the federal government in order to defend the antitransgender law. North Carolina Governor Pat Mccrory criticized the justice the obama administrations involvement. Our state legislature believes this was an unnecessary government overreach into the private sector, imposing regulations and impacting ones personal privacy. The state legislature and this governor also believe the guidelines then need to be put in place because of this new public topic for government buildings, our schools, and our rest stops to ensure privacy and expectation privacy for everyone. Amy the American Civil Liberties union has also filed suit over the North Carolina law. Staff attorney chase strangio said the law will be struck will ultimately be defeated. It will either be struck down in the court or repealed by the legislature once they realize that doubling down in this way is not politically wise are financially viable for their state. It is just a matter of how long that will take and how much taxpayer dollars to North Carolina governor is willing to spend in the meantime the screaming defending their discrimination. Amy just hours after North Carolina sued the obama administration, lawmakers in california advanced a bill that would require all singlestall Public Restrooms to be genderneutral. Donald trump has moved to take over the financial apparatus of the Republican National committee, despite tensions within the party over his role as the presumptive president ial nominee. Trump has said he needs up to 1. 5 billion for the general Election Campaign after pouring 40 million of his own money into the primaries. Trump lacks fundraising infrastructure and republican megadonors like the Koch Brothers have so far hedged at backing him. On monday, House Speaker paul ryan said he would step down as chair of the Republican National convention if trump asked him to. While trump has all but sealed the nomination, voters still head to the polls today for republican primaries in West Virginia and nebraska. West virginia is also holding its democratic primary, with vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton for the 29 delegates up for grabs. Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton won West Virginia in a landslide, beating barack obama. The many polls project sanders will win today. More on was virginia with former president ial candidate ralph nader after headlines. Secretary of state john kerry says the United States and russia have agreed to press for the reinstatement of a nationwide ceasefire in syria. Kerry addressed reporters. As i said before when we were in vienna, these are words on a piece of paper. They are not actions. But they are a commitment by russia to in fact limit the Syrian Regime from its ability to fly in civilian occupation areas occupied areas as well as to work with commanders on the ground in order to try to deliver stability. And a reaffirmation of the cessation of hostilities. Amy the Syrian Military , meanwhile, said it would extend for two days a ceasefire confined to the embattled city of aleppo and its surrounding areas. Violence has continued despite the truce. The pentagon says an airstrike by the u. S. Led coalition has killed a senior isis official in iraq. Officials said the strike on friday killed abu wahib, identified as isis chief military official in anbar province. It hit a vehicle carrying wahib and three other people officials three other people described as isis members. Pentagon spokesperson peter cook said it is dangerous to be an isil leader in iraq and syria these days, and for good reason. Brazils senate has forged ahead with impeachment proceedings against president Dilma Rousseff, despite an earlier move by the interim House Speaker to derail the process. The previous House Speaker, eduardo cunha, had led the bid to oust rousseff, before he himself was ousted over corruption. On monday his replacement, waldir maranhao, sought to annul the lower houses vote in favor of impeachment charges, citing procedural flaws. A i am aware that this is delicate moment. We of a duty to save democracy through debate. We are not and will not be playing with democracy. Amy but the brazilian speaker apparently reversed course in the middle of the night, releasing a statement reversing his decision without explanation. The senate appears poised to vote wednesday on whether to put rousseff on trial. If a majority side against her, she would be suspended. President rousseff has been accused of tampering with government accounts to conceal budget shortfalls. She has accused her rightwing opponents of mounting a coup. In the philippines, Rodrigo Duterte has declared victory in the president ial election and vowed to rewrite the constitution. Duterte won the election despite periodically admitting to his role in death squads joking , about the gangrape of an australian missionary and , pledging to kill tens of thousands of people. Hes been dumped the filipino trump. Meanwhile, the philippines has also elected its first openly transgender politician. Geraldine roman will serve in the house of representatives. Canada has announced it will be backing a United Nations declaration to protect the rights of the worlds more than 370 million indigenous peoples. Four countries opposed the declaration when it was first adopted by the u. N. General assembly in 2007 australia, new zealand, canada and the United States. Canada is the last of the four to finally embrace the statement. The United States signed on in 2010. Ferguson, missouri, has sworn in its First Permanent africanamerican police chief. Delrish moss takes over for tom jackson, who resigned after a scathing Justice Department report found police and courts in ferguson routinely engaged in discrimination against African Americans. The bias came to light after the Fatal Police Shooting of unarmed African AmericanMichael Brown in 2014. The socalled Panama Papers scandal has widened as an International Team of journalists published a searchable database of documents online. A massive data leak revealed how the Panamabased Mossack Fonseca law firm set up a Global Network of Shell Companies for heads of state and other elites to store money offshore to avoid taxes and oversight. The International Consortium of investigative journalists says the database strips away the secrecy of nearly 214,000 offshore entities in 21 jurisdictions, from nevada to hong kong and the British Virgin islands. A mexican judge has ruled drug lord Joaquin El Chapo guzman can be extradited to the United States to face trial. Guzman has been moved to a prison on the u. S. Mexico border. He previously escaped from jail in mexico twice. His attorneys had fought his extradition in part by citing discrimination against mexicans, including the words of nowpresumptive republican president ial nominee donald trump. One in five species of plants worldwide are at risk of extinction amid threats from farming, logging, urbanization , and humanmade climate change. The global study led by the Royal Botanic Gardens in london is the first of its kind. Researcher Steve Stockman described the findings. If we completely clear the land and have a monoculture, what happens when a new plant disease emerges and wipes out the crop entirely . Having a more diverse and flexible approach to reducing our crops means were more likely to be robust for the challenge in the future, especially as the climate changes, more diseases, more insects start to infest the crops. That stuff is likely to happen. Amy in another sign of the impact of climate change, at least five tiny Pacific Islands have disappeared due to erosion and rising sea levels. They are part of the solomon islands. The social media site facebook has been accused of suppressing news stories on political grounds. Former facebook workers told the website gizmodo they routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers by keeping them out of the trending stories section on the sidebar. Among the topics they purportedly suppressed were those about the rightwing cpac gathering, mitt romney, and rand paul. They were also told exclude news about facebook itself Gizmodo Technology editor Michael Nunez wrote in other words, facebooks news section operates like a traditional newsroom reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Facebook has denied the allegations it filtered out conservative stories. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Were on the road today in minneapolis, minnesota, headed to cambridge, massachusetts. Polls have opened in West Virginia, where vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are vying for the 29 delegates up for grabs. Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton won West Virginia in a landslide beating Barack Obamay 40 , percentage points. But many polls project sanders will win today. Clinton has faced widespread criticism in West Virginia after she recently said were going , to put a lot of coal miners and Coal Companies out of business. While clinton maintains a lead in both pledged and super delegates sanders is vowing to , continue his fight to the democratic National Convention in july. There are nine more primaries and caucuses remaining, tomorrow what in West Virginia. We hope to win there. On june 7, there is the big day because it is new jersey and california. [cheers] and if we can win here in new jersey and went in california and win some of the other states, and if we can win a majority of the pledged delegates, we are going to go into philadelphia and the Democratic Convention [cheers] expect to come out of the democratic nomination. [cheers] this let anybody tell you campaign is over. Were going to fight for the last vote we can find in new jersey and california. Amy over the weekend, Hillary Sanders urged Bernie Sanders to help unify the Democratic Party. She spoke on cbs. 3 million votes ahead of senator sanders, nearly 300 pledged delegates ahead of him. He has to make his own mind up, but i was very heartened to hear him say last week that he is going to work seven days a week to make sure donald trump does not becomeresident. I want to unify the party. I see a great role in opportunity for him and his supporters to be part of that unified party, to move into not just november to win the election against donald trump, but to then govern based on the progressive goals that he and i share. Amy for more were joined by former president ial candidate and longtime consumer advocate ralph nader. His recent piece for the Huffington Post is headlined, the need for progressive voices. His forthcoming book breaking , through power its easier than we think. Welcome back to democracy now talk about the state of the president ial race today. The states corporatist and militarist Hillary Clinton is making a premature boast a victory. The only reason she is ahead is because her to antidemocratic systems. One, the unelected superdelegates, her cronies mostly in congress who are elected by nobody to be delegates. They were appointed. And second, the closed primaries. Primaries are paid by taxpayers. They should not be closed to independent voters. If the independent voters could have voted in these primaries, Bernie Sanders would have defeated Hillary Clinton. In fact, in one tuesday a couple of weeks ago, he lost four primaries in pennsylvania, delaware, connecticut because of closed primaries. The one that was open, and independent voters in rhode island, he won. So i would not be as boastful as Hillary Clinton. She has to divulge her transcripts. The wall street journal just reported she is getting more money from wall street than all other candidates combined and republicandemocratic Party Running for president. And that is one reason why she has to to hold those transcripts, which she had her sponsors, the big bankers others by 1000 each first and i prefer to write to have these stenographic transcripts. So she has got them and she has to double to them so the American People can see how she says one thing and close doors to the business lobbyists and another thing, sweet talking the public and members being just mimicking the language of Bernie Sanders. Amy i want to turn to the press secretary speaking on cnn in april. One week ago today in this very chair, sitting there talking to you, and you asked him, why did senator sanders decider of the Democratic Party . Pancetta vines that for some reason, he did not want to be a ralph nader, did not want to be a spoiler. If you did not win the democratic nominations, he did not want to spoil the chances to reach therats white house. Im afraid that is what he will be doing. This has been an extraordinary effort that the Sanders Campaign has embarked upon and brought so many people under the process but yesterday the tone of the attacks was suggesting that the Democratic Party does not see fit to nominate Bernie Sanders, then it is not a party worth supporting. That is poisonous rhetoric. Amy so that was Hillary Clinton press secretary brian fallon. Your response, ralph nader . The twoparty tyranny is so exclusionary of Ballot Access barriers, keeping independent candidates from being on the debates and on and on. Here we go again. That the hillary cowdrey is getting ready basically to say, drop out, dropout Bernie Sanders. I dont think anyone should be told to drop out. Theyre exercising their First Amendment rights of speech, petition, simply. You want to oppose them, fine. But to tell them