Hiroshima since u. S. Warplanes dropped the first atomic bomb on the city 71 years ago killing 140,000 people. We will speak to the Pulitzer Prize winning biographer of robert oppenheimimer, the father of the a atomic bomb. We will also speak to a survivor of the hiroshima attack. But first, we look at how puerto rico is facing a complete takeover by a federally appointed control board. Hillary clinton backs the deal, Bernie Sanders opposes it. It is morally unanacceptable that Billionaire Hedge Fund managers have been calling for even more austerity in puerto rico. Austerity will not solve this crisis. Amy we will speak to a young chicago immigrant rights activist is suing the department of Homeland Security for rejecting her renewal for deferred deportation status because of her activism including her arrerest at the , Democratic National convention. What you face deportation now that youre getting arrested . I dont know, but i am willing to risk it. I am proud to be doing this with my parents. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. President obama has become the first sitting u. S. President to visit the japanese city of hiroshima since u. S. Warplanes dropped the first atomic bomb on august 6, 1945. The bomb killed 140,000 people and another 100,000 seriously ininjured. Three days later, the u. S. Dropped a second atomic bomb on nagasaki, killing another 74,000 people. Obama spoke today at the hiroshima Peace Memorial park today. Among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a World Without them. This goal inalize my lifetime, but persistent effort can rollback the possibility of catastrophe. Amy in news from the campaign trail, donald trump has officially secured the support of enough delegates to become the Republican Party nominee. Trump is now supported by 1238 delegates, one delegate above the threshold required to clinch the nomination. He wont become the partys official nominee until the Republican National convention in july. This comes as trump spoke in north dakota thursday, where he pledged to push through the construction of the controversial keystone xl pipeline. He also vowed to roll back the paris climate accord. We are going to cancel the paris climate agreement and stop [applause] unbelievable. And stop all payments of the United States tax dollars to you and Global Warming programs. Amy this comes as the sister of vince foster, a white house aide to president bill clinton who died in 1993, has written a scathing criticism of donald trump, after trump revived conspiracy theories about fosters death earlier this week. Vince foster committed suicide in 1993 after a struggle with depression. Yet, his death was the subject of multiple rightwing conspiracies at the time blaming Hillary Clinton for fosters death. Trump revived these theories in an interview with the Washington Post earlier this week, calling fosters death very fishy. In an oped published by the Washington Post thursday, Sheila Foster anthony called trumps comments beyond contempt. Writing this is scurrilous enough coming from rightwing operatives. How can this be coming from the presumptive nominee for president . This comes as the Trump Campaign mistakenly cop on a political reporter on an email jury public and National Researcher asking him to work up ininformation on hrc whitewaters soon as possible. Whitewater refers to the scandal involving the clintons Real Estate Investments during the late 1970s, and a Trump Campaign space dust spokeswoman reportery copied thei on the email. Democrats are considering pressuring Democratic NationalCommittee ChairwomanDebbie Wasserman schultz to step down ahead of the National Convention in july. Bernie sanders has long accused wasserman of thing bias toward Hillary Clinton. This comes as she is in a tight race against progressive challenger tim canova for her own congressional seat in florida. And unusual move, sanders has backed tim canova. Two members of the Senate Intelligence committee are warning that a new bill would exexpand the fbis abilility to access amemericans online e res without t a rrant. T. Oregon s senator ronon wyden anw mexico senator Martin Heinrich say y the 2017 i intelligence authorizization bill could a alw the fbi to access email, chat and messaging records, as well as browser histories. On thursday, senator heinrich called the bill a massive expansion of government surveillance that lacks independent oversight. In brazil, the interim government has announced it announced plans to abandon the current limits on foreign land ownership, clearing the way for land grabs by multinational corporations. The interim government took power earlier this month after the legislature voted to suspend president Dilma Rousseff and begin impeachment proceedings, a move that a growing number of residents and latin american countries are calling a coup. This comes as brazils powerful landless workers movement, known as mst, has promised to launch a new wave of land occupations. Brazil already has vastly unequal land ownership, with 1 of the population owning nearly half of all the land. In israel, the environmental minister has resigned over the appointment of rightwing, ultranationalist politician Avigdor Lieberman as defense minister. Environment ministerer avi gabby announced his resisignation. I was unable to swallow the fraud that landed this week, a year after i was appointed. The stacking up an appointment lieberman. Amy Avigdor Lieberman is considered to be one of the most hawkish politicians in israel. A new report by the World Health Organization has found nearly 1000 people have been killed in attacks on hospitals and other healthccare facilities or workers over the last two years. Most strikingly, the report found more than 60 of these attacks were deliberate. The greatest number of attacks on hospitals and Health Providers were in syria, where recent bombings s of doctors without borderssupported hospitals has spararked international protests. This comes as the United Nations is warning of the risk of starvation in governmentbesieged areas if the delivery of humanitarian aid continues to be blocked by the assad regime. The United States, russia, and other countries have said they will to begin airdropping aid by june 1 if the sieges are not lifted. Meanwhile, the itatalian coast guard says a at least p people have drorowned trying to crorose memediterranean, while the c cot guard rerescued more thahan 4000 addition people on thursdaday. This comes as grgreeofficials have bulldozed t the idomeni refugee camp on the border n ner macedonia. A. Authoritieies began forcrcibly remomoving thousands o of refugs frfrom the idomemeni earlier ths week. The e mp had beeeen the site of frequent protests over macedonias decision to close its border. A new analysis of the mexican militarys kill rate suggests the armed forces have engaged in summary killings and extrajudicial killings while waging the socalled war on drugs. The analysis is based on the governments own figures. It shows the mexican army kills, rather than wounds, its enemies at a rate far higher than the average in modern warfare. The Mexican Armed forces have also been accused of thousands of instances of torture, although only about a dozen cases have resulted in convictions since 2006. The analysis comes as the parents of the 43 missing ststudents marched t to mark the 20th month since their childldrn disappeared on september 26, 2014. An independent investigation has found evidence the mexican military was involved in their disappearance. Spokesperson for the parents of the missing students Felipe De La Cruz spoke out. We have come to remind the world the case has not been resolved and the Mexican Government does not want us to know the truth. Today, we demand the government except the mechanism toto contie the invnvestigation and for the country to witness the truth and allow for this mechanism. Amy louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has signed a socalled Blue Lives Matter law, which expands the states hatecrimes statute to add pololice officer, as well as firefighters and emas personnel to the list. The new law is the first of its kind in the country. Its signing sparked outrage by civil Rights Groups. Louisiana naacp president Ernest Johnson said hate crimes law is based upon a history of discrimination against certain groups of people, and a bill like this just tries to water down that reality, because there is not a history of discrimination against police and firefighters. In new york, a new lawsuit accuses the new York Police Department of intentionally profiling and harassing people who live on the streets. The suit was filed by the aclu and the Group Picture the homeless. It says the nypd is engaging in discriminatory policing by targeting people who live on the streets with socalled move along orders, in which officers tell people sitting or standing on the sidewalk to go somewhere else, even though they have broken no laws. And holocaust survivor and peace activist hedy epstein has died at the age of 91. Hedy epstein was born in germany and left in 1939 on a kindertransport to england. Her parents died in auschwitz. She later returned to germany to work as a Research Analyst for the prosecution during the nuremberg trials. She was involved in civil rights and antiwar movements throughout her life. In 2011, hedy epstein was part of the gaza freedom flotilla and was a passenger on the u. S. Flagged ship, the audacity of hope. In 2014, just days after her 90th birthday, she was arrested in st. Louis during a protest outside missouri governor jay nixons office over the Police Killing g of unarmed African American teenager michael brown. She spoke about her arrest on democracy now i know what it feels like to be discrimininated against, to e oppressed, and i cant stand idly by when i see there are problems. I cant solve every problem, i probably caps off any problem, is i have to do whatever it able for me to do. I cannot stand idly by because if i did, anyone who stands idly by bececomes complicit in what s going on. Code that was amy that was hedy epstein, speaking on democracy now in 2014. She died at her home in st. Louis on thursday at the age of 91. To see our interviews with her, 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 with juan gonzalez. Juan welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. Juan, you have a new piece out in the New York Daily News that you retired from but your continuing to write columns for. Juan occasionally. Amy can you talk about this . Juan as we have discussed several times, puerto rico has been asking for nearly a year now for congress to give it Legal Authority to be able to restructure about 72 billion in debt the government of puerto rico says it cannot pay. Finally after months and months of wrangling and negotiations between democrats and republicans and the Obama Administration, on wednesday, the House Natural Resources Committee by y a vote of 29 to , a bipartisan vote, did finally pass a bill that will finally go to the full house and if it passes there, to the senate. That bill does have a restructuring mechanism in it for puerto rico, but it is now really a poison killed because in addition to providing the restructuring the government of puerto rico has asked for, it is also requiring the government of puerto rico to submit to a virtual total takeover of its economy. It would require a new Oversight Board of seven people, four of whom will be chosen basically by the republicans, even though they will be appointed by the president , the president has to take them from a list provided by speaker ryan and the Senate Majority leader. It is basically going toto be a republicandominated board. Most importantly come a what rankles most people on the island, only one of these seven actually has to be a resident or have a primary business in puerto rico. You are in essence creating a board, and oversight a oftrol board that will be nonresidents of the island running the Financial Affairs of puerto rico for the next five, possibly tenures. Amy is this similar to washington, d. C. . But much more tougher. In fact, there was a memo the Republican Leadership provided to the hearing on when they that said that this was that it puererto ricos government fails to comply with a fiscal plan that the board apppproves, the board may impose mandatory cuts, a power far beyond that exercised by the control board established by the district of columbia. The republicans are boasting this is much difficult and more in poorly the district of columbia, all five residents all five members of the control board had to be residents of the district of columbia. This is an outside board and this outside board will control not only the finances, any new laws that are passed have to be approved by the control board, any Capital Investments on the island have to be approved by the control board. It is a complete takeover of the islands economy. Amy is it a model for this somewhat the unelected city managers that michigan Governor Rick Snyder appoints in charge of places like flint . Juan yes, but with one big difference. The governor of michigan n did have the power under the laws that existed to dodo that. Puerto rico supposedly is a selfgoverning territory that was granted selfgovernment by congress back in the 1950s. This is the situation not just of a statete imposing ititself a city, but of one nation imposing colonial control on another nation. So this is the problem that has really rankled folks and become part of the president ial race because Bernie Sanders has come out strongly opposed to the bill today. He is supposed to be having a Conference Call with puerto rican leaders to discuss possibly presenting an alternative bill in the senate. And this bill still has to be voted on by before house next week. Then it will have to be considered by the senate. There are several senators who have come out against it. Anyone could filibuster the bill. Amy lets go to sanders for a moment. The democratic primaries june 5. Sanders s said puerto ricos 70 billion debt must be restructured in a way that doesnt deepen its economic crisis. It is unacceptable to me that vulture funds on wall street are demanding that puerto rico fire teachers, close schools, cut pensions, and abolish the minimum wage so theyy can reap huhuge profits off of the susuffering and the misery of te children and the people of puerto rico. We cannot allow that to happen. We will l not allow that to happen. Amy that is democratic president ial candidate Bernie Sanders. What is Hillary Clintons view . Juan she recognizes theres a problem with the bill, but she sports it as does the Obama Administration as does velasquez who is been a strong advocate of puerto rico because amy juan yes, and all of the supporters and democratic party, your argument is, look, this is the best possible deal you are going to be able to get that puerto rico can get under a republicancontrolled congress. It is either this or nothing. And because there is a julian dollar debt payment due on july 1 that puerto rico cannot pay, the total rush to the courthouse of all of the creditors will begin july 2. Theyre saying theres no time to be able to do anything different. We have to swallow this poison told. Others say, no, dont pay the debt on july 1, and let the legal title continued to play out. Battle continue to play out. We wont know what is when it happened, but the first thing right now that could happen is there will be a house vote a week after next when Congress Comes back into session, then the senate will consider it in late june. Amy we will continue to cover it and we will link to your piece in the New York Daily News that you retired from but ,ontinue to write columns for link to it at democracynow. Org. When we come back, we go to chicago to young activist threatened with deportation she says because she was exercising her freedom of speech. Stay with us. [music b