ellsberg was charged with sifting conspiracy under the espionage act of 1917. but in the landmark routing, the us supreme court dismissed els books case and upheld the rights of the media to publish the documents. but the persecution of whistle blowers had begun. i identify very strongly with edward snowden and with chelsea man and when chelsea manning said to her informant, she was ready to go to prison for life or even be executed. quote, to get all this information. i thought i haven't heard anyone else say that for 40 years. that's why i felt my 19691971. in the late 19 fifties, ellsberg was the brains behind the americas top secret operational plan for all loud nuclear wall, with china and the soviet union. he held onto those classified documents for 50 years and the releasing them in 2021 key persistence, the question,

the motives behind war. something 2 decades of fighting and of gun is done. and the war and ukraine rises today. we control needle pretty much a needle position, execution or reason to show a norbish them off for large. he went from an audience, cold warrior, to campaigning for peace. and while he said so much of what those in the car doors of power wants to keep from the world are listening polk, he's sure to take some secrets with him to the grave. you know what the hell are we done? the headlines on ologist era, a humanitarian calamity, that's how the u, as a chief, is describing the situation and so don's west star for region. thousands are playing across the border into neighboring, tried to escape the fighting. at least a 1000 people had been killed in the past, month alone. of

a fighting also continues further north into john's capital. hard to wear an air strike, kill this least 17 people, including 5 children. at least 25 homes are reported to have been destroyed. earlier, the parent military rapids support forces said it shot down an army fighter jets soldiers and western new guns or hunting rebels, so attractive school killing at least 41 people. many of them children somewhere shot or hacked to death in a town near the border with the democratic republic of congo, guns and police playing the attack on the allied democratic forces. delegation of african leaders and russia is pushing for a peaceful settlement to the ukraine conflict. their meeting with the russian president vladimir putin in saint petersburg. on friday, they held meetings with the ukraine and presidents full of them are zalinski in keys. saudi arabia, as for a minister, is any wrong on an official visit after years of tensions. he's been meeting with iran for administering to ron. so the radio is reopening its embassy. 7 years after

it was closed. america's top diplomats is on his way to china for a long delayed visit. anthony blinking postponed his trip earlier this year after a suspect the chinese spied balloon flew over the united states. those are the headlines they tunes. fault lines is coming up. thanks bye. in a world where the news never ends understanding what's behind the headlines is more important than ever. it takes listening to the people behind the news and to the journalist for reporting their stories except intimacy that makes every international story local at heart. i'm only can be the host of the take a daily news podcast powered by the login reporting of elders era. bind us where ever you get your pod cast. on friday night, february 3rd. um my husband and i were in our living room. just normal friday night

watching tv, watching netflix and everything. and almost 9 o'clock, our house rumbled in. sure. i knew instantly that the train drilled on february 3rd 2023 a freight train carrying hazardous materials. the realtor in the small town of east pals, dean, ohio, after wheel bearing overheated and caught on fire. the gates of hell were open because you're just standing there in this wall of fire. i mean it's going up. i don't know. 2 stories, 3 stories up and it just fires all the way around. the skies lit up. it's just nothing you ever seen before. the woman has prompted questions about real safety in the us. the disaster could have been prevent it for years. well, both workers have warrant that changes in the industry or compromising safety. it

was a disaster waiting to happen, and it happened lines investigates to us real industry. and whether companies have prioritized profits, oversight, the kind of freaks me out. the money miller in our family have lived across from the railroad tracks and east palace the for nearly 3 decades. were about a 3rd mile down for that around here. and then how close is your home to? our home is roughly 200 feet from the rail line. and that's where we were the night as a drill man. and i knew instantly the sounds. i knew that the train derailed and

it was, it was terrifying. the sounds cause i could hear the impact in the cars one after another at some and it shook and it rattled the windows, but it also had like a, an echo like a reverberation to it. this is the 90 degree, almost that was 944. so that's only like 4045 minutes after the image that was right does that night that was 15 or 20 minutes after after it happened. and it was just me on the colors were just so vivid in neon pink and orange. and you can see the flames. i've been a trained enrollment, but nothing of this magnitude. i don't know. i mean stephen safely is an emergency responder who wendy's palace to try to put up the fire. and you've been and other

fires and you've been and other developments before, but this one, can you compare it to those august? this would be everything else would be like uh, on a, on a scale to about 3 this, this is the 10. i mean, as far everywhere this is put it, she took that night, the train owned and run by the railroad company. norfolk southern was a 149 cars, long, 38 cars, the route and 11 of them were caring, hazardous materials. you can smell something and you knew it was a chemical that was involved. you can smell like an acetone. it was like a sweet acetone, and it tickled the back of your throat and you knew that there was some chemical involve the concerns that you were there breathing that ok yeah, i mean, i mean i didn't find out what the chemical wasn't until the next day there was like 7 different chemicals involved in that relevant fire. and they were all flat levels

and toxic, you know, but the worst one was the vinyl fluoride vinyl to ride is using the production to plastics is also a known course indigent. that can cause liver damage and with programmed exposure cancer. 2 days after the development tanker caring vinyl, fluoride had become unstable and was at risk of exploding on sunday night. everyone's, um, cell phones went off at the same time with an emergency alert, telling us to evacuate immediately because catastrophic failure of the tank or a vinyl fluoride that was absolutely horrifying. hearing that sound the next day norfolk southern did what's called a controlled release. benting and burning up a portion of the train to avoid an even larger explosion. it looked like a bomb, went off right down the street from my home. the black smoke that filled the

air with sinister it was terrifying to watch that and know that that was going over our homes and over town and watching it. because as it on folded and the smoke was moving and or spreading out, it was blanket in our communities. 2 days after the controlled release, officials told residents they could safely return the money and her family waited a few weeks until they went home because they weren't sure if it was safe to to the spread of chemicals. what was it like coming home again? probably the 1st 3 or 4 days that i was home, i was definitely afraid to touch anything in my own home. everything that you have

in your home that you've acquired over the last 30 years of your life. and no, once you're afraid to touch it, i was afraid to clean a picture of my son that was hanging on the wall a baby picture. i was afraid to take it off the wall and tried to clean it. i am not, i feel i'm not 6 there. i just want to leave at one point i think my husband was just, we've just put everything into a u haul and let's just leave to reach it. because everything that we have isn't invested in that house. you know it's memories, it's money, and it's your time. and it's your member is, was your family and raising your family. when the train drilled, spill chemicals contaminated the sorrel in the area. but it took weeks for norfolk southern to begin removing. as soon as the evacuation order was lifted,

those trains rolled through our town. water contamination from the grill mc killed thousands of aquatic animals and after the control for some resident say, the experienced health issues leading to concerns about the long term impact and how far the talks and touch bread into the air. water in soil. 3 weeks after the development of local community group building, meeting to try and answer questions. my husband works here in town, which is almost on top of ground 0 and the shop. i didn't have the shot clean. they had them back to work on the night. what kind of dangers he and because of the soil out there, cuz they were actually cutting the train cars up in his shop working. i wish i could answer that question. i really can't. there has to be testing done. otherwise, nobody will understand really what the risks are,

but when you burn the chlorinated chemical like final chloride, you generate di ox, di options, this category, there's like 75 of these dioxin. it's. one of them is the most toxic chemical ever tested in the united states when that black cloud and when they were burning all that stuff, there was lots of dioxin in that how much nobody knows because they've not test for it. so i went down to the creek myself after watching the news, and it's not perfectly fine when i went down and still live to serve the water. the water and i, i called my wife and i said literally suffocated me for a minute. and this is a psycho suffice. it was literally the air was so i couldn't get dirty, a family physician to get a baseline physical. now if you own a, well, get a baseline. now, what is or is not in your water, because this is

a long term. the auctions will hang around for a long, long time. probably what about a 100 years, something like that? yeah, we'll stay in the slough for a 100 years. with the impact of the development expected to last for years, the communities anger has turned to the railroad company, norfolk southern world war with corporate green, with the politicians that have this money lined in their pocket. we're here for one issue, and that's to make our town space and to make sure none of this happens again in our town or any other town. but now we need to place the maintenance upon the railroad and need a ton of was residents of filed a class action lawsuit against norfolk southern and the justice department, along with environmental protection agency, are suing due to the toxic chemical release. the federal officials are also investigating the cause of the development. this was 100 percent preventable.

this is a community that has been devastated. they deserve to know what happened, how to prevent it from happening again. their investigation is expected to take at least a year to complete. the n t s b, which investigates transportation accidents took a rare step and announced that they would also be launching an inquiry into norfolk southern safety culture. at the heart of that is a corporate operating strategy that has taken over the railroad industry over the past decade known as precision. scheduled railroad, or p ups are the major freight railroads which run across the country to both small towns and large cities. and like, again, total floyd tsr with the stated goal of increasing efficiency and lowering costs to do the railroad companies close real yards and cut tens of thousands of jobs. their profit sort director ties. well, if they can run the workers harder, you know,

they need fuel workers that increases profitability, which increases the operating ratio, which makes well as read happy, which increases the bonus, the seo get. but with those changes became concerned about safety. i mean, the 1st time i heard of, of precision scheduled running, i thought that's it's anything but i mean, you know, it's not, it's, they're laying off workers. it's not going to be safe. norfolk southern cut. it's workforce by more than a 3rd over the past decade. meaning fewer people to do the work. another key part of p s r is running much longer trains to carry more freight federal regulators believe train link test played a role in the romans like this one in springfield, ohio just a month after east policy. when i started working on the railroad and the drains were miles, my own record are long. now they are 2 to 3 miles long. and it's

bad for train handling free reason. a lot of excess stress throughout the train is got wilcox was an engineer at norfolk southern for nearly 2 decades and frequently drove trains through east palestine between salem and he's palestine. you have a lot of hills and curvature and hills and curvature put more stress on that varying and cause of heat up faster. it was a wheel bearing that initially caught fire on the east pelting train, which was reported on security footage before the train the route. now investigators are examining the more defect detectors and the track caught the problem earlier and tell norfolk southern respects their traits before the depart during your time and norfolk southern to the culture typically around safety change . oh absolutely. yeah. and it's not just norfolk, southern is all of the class one railroads. it's hyper efficiency,

do everything you can to reduce the amount of time that that uh a rail car sits in the yard. so as soon as it comes into the yard, the clock starts running and you want the car out of the yard as soon as possible. i definitely within 24 hours. it doesn't leave time for inspections. it doesn't leave time for repairs or anything like that. it's just getting it out of my yard in the real good industry inspectors are known as carmen . we spent months reaching out to carmen to understand help us or has impacted their work the most were too afraid to speak with us fearing retaliation. safety's out the door, everything's out the door moving freight as fast as possible. but we spoke with carmen from 5 separate norfolk southern real yards. the asked to remain anonymous. so we've re voice their interviews. everything was profits about anything else. it

was get the job done and get the job done. and it was really bigger trains, less time, less people, and hurried down the track for our customers. they told us that they now have less time to inspect the trains. you can watch and start going downhill. about 2017. they drastically cut our time to do our job. we started experiencing management but stop watches watching us do our job. and then they would threaten us to get the time down and then ultimately down to one minute per car. are we talking 30 seconds on each side? that's correct. that's about, that's exactly what they expect is 30 seconds on each side. are you able to safely inspect a car in a minute or less? absolutely not. there's no way, there's way too many components and a real far for me to inspect in a minute or less. volt lines between the court document from 2021. in which at norfolk southern official confirmed the one minute inspection. you have 34 minutes,

a car to inspect, and now you're down to 30 seconds aside. you cannot make those drastic changes and it's not affect your operation. reducing your workforce, putting the beer in people that their jobs hang in the balance. that will trickles down as something as simple as people having the time or taking the time to look at those bearing to look at the parts and the real car didn't need to be inspected to make sure that car can get from point a to point be safely, norfolk, southern workers also told us they faced pressure to not bad order or tad cars with defects. we want to report a defect that slowed down their hurry up and get it done. process that meant that something had to be done about it. and they just want to afraid not at all costs. the bad order in a car was today and was considered a cn or my phone lines also spoke with several former norfolk southern workers. rob mullins was a carman for more than

a decade before leaving last year. it's production, money, speed. they don't care if it's fixed, right? they just want our, they worry about the oil time. you know, the time that the car is bad order to the time it's repaired and put back in a train. they had a threshold that they didn't like to get above. and if you got above that, then it was everybody's working, double shifts until you get them then. uh, i have heard of some places that wouldn't let you mad warner anymore course. if you got to a certain number, then they just told you no more man orders. what else do you think and if so, how that, that culture change contributed to what happened at his spouse and oh that's, that's exactly what it was. because it's, it's all keep the train moving. time is money and money is everything. you don't only have as a. the responsibility is other people, the worker, you got a responsibility to the public. these cars are rolling within feet of house and

community. norfolk southern declined our request for an interview, but in a statement said that the one minute inspection time is a guideline and not strictly enforced as to working with the federal government to encourage workers to confidentially report safety concerns. but this isn't just about norfolk southern during our reporting, we also spoke to carmen from other us bracewell books and they told us to inspection times have also dropped in that they face pressure to not tag cars with effects were having the same issues with all the class one routes another counting that some of the workers we spoke with describe them environment were raising concerns about safety is met with intimidation in are still with the something the main carmen june and confirmed. and there was a lot of whistle blowing. cases where people were able to get their jobs back, but it's, it's immunization, you know, you lose your job for a year or 2 years waiting for your case to go to arbitration and get back. the

rules making example on a one person is scares everybody else, but we're seeing the safety of the countries railroad system lines with the federal railroad administration, f r a workers say that the agencies enforcement isn't strong enough. they need to do more inspections. they need to hire more, they need to be out there. they, they need to be the police of the room. they're not out there. they're not doing their job. the public is at a greater risk without the proper inspection. and maintaining of these equipment is not just that, unfortunately this week. another issue that workers race with us is companies have trained crews to inspections instead of currently it's actually something that federal regulations allow. but only if they're new, carmen on duty, told us that this exception has been used to avoid more thorough inspections. like companies found a loophole in the regulation where they can set these cars out in,

in a outline track auxilary track outside the r. we're no carmen are employed, so as a mechanical inspector doesn't inspect it, so it speeds up the operation. plus they don't find the bad orders. so they know carmen fine, the bad orders for raise aware of this easily letter to all the major railroads about it. essentially asking them to stop or what needs to change so that a federal agency would safety oversight. doesn't have to ask in industry not to do something like exploit loopholes. they may need need or any to say definitively. you're breaking the rules and you're going to be fine. and the next time you do it the finds going to be bigger. stop doing this right now. essentially they almost have to bang like, oh,

we think this is bad. would you please stop doing it? that's not right, i mean they, they, they don't have enough. we're statutory authority to meaningfully deal with some of these products. the f or rate decline to request for an interview, but in a statement said that they're committed to quote, ensuring the highest levels of safety given f r. a more authority starts with congress. after the east coasting derailment, lawmakers are considering legislation that which strength and safety regulations we have allowed the rail industry to socialize the risk of their business while privatizing the rewards. among many things, the new bill directs the f r ray to come up with a minimum time for inspection and ensure that they be done by carmen since 2020, that we have had more crashes successively year after year for 3 years. our real system is becoming less safe, not more safe, but the bill space is unclear,

remain concerned that this bill is overly and needlessly prescriptive in certain places. is faced opposition for many republicans, as well as the railroad industry, which is often lobby picking stricter rules. this bill is changed a lot from what i introduced just a few short months ago. we've made a number of concessions to industry. well the, the freight railroad has an enormous amount of cloud in the united states congress . grissman, peter decides that you told us it was nearly impossible to pass stricter legislation for the railroads during his 3 decades in congress. i mean, they have been very resistant to anything that would deal with, you know, length of trains or, you know, safety issues and other things over the years. the industry's power comes from the fact that the freight rail is of lynch pen of the us economy. the 6 major railroads transport everything from orland chemicals to food and household supplies. and they

faced a lot of competition from any industry other than trucking. most both of those are captive to one river. you know the concentration in the industry with only like 6 class ones. i mean it's pretty extraordinary that they have that much quote, but it's been expressed over years. do you think there's a chance the current bill could be watered down by the industry? i fear and the it will be watered down by the industry by june more than 4 months after each palace to the house with debt to take up the bill. and it still stays republican opposition, leaving unclear. it will be passed by congress at all. we need to enforce the regulations. we need to have stronger regulations unsafe drains rolling through your back. you're not properly inspected. that should scare the hell out of the public. the f r a and congress needs to step

in. before we have another east pal assigned around, what is it going to take? how much profit is enough? when you're making millions of dollars, how much do you squeeze it? at what point is money more important than preventing something like that from happening again? the life planned for us, i seen in the future for us to leave this home to our son. so he could have a good start in life. we don't know what the future holds. it's just, i'm sorry. it's going to be safe and office, stay here. get out of dodge, we're still right next to the tracks where the memories are not, no 3 derailments a day when across the country, 3 to 3 day, 2000

a year. so pre safety and safety's for this from this priority list. how would they change? they have to flip humans 1st rather than their corporation and trans roll through everywhere in this country, they roll through the cities, the small towns. this could happen anywhere the between 2000 to 2008 colombian soldiers executed thousands of civilians, framing them as guerrilla fighters to make it seem like the army was winning, the conflict once incentivized to the ministry. come on there,

now. confesses in exchange for, i'm just didn't hope for gift fault lines. the confession on that just the village estates, control information that's controlling the narrative to dominate thing, the media. how does the narrative improve? public opinion and norma? spite, you might not be the most important story about china of today, but that's what the big piece attention to. how is citizen to listen? we played in the story. the listening post, i fixed the media. we don't cover the news,

we cover the way the news is covered. it's humbling and frightening. the width is the ever changing lose of mother nature. it was like heavier river here. the current was so strong, the risk us because of reach out. it's the worst flooding scene here in about a century. thousands of acres of vineyards, fruit grows, and festival farms are now submerge the damage likely to affect next year's harmons . as well. 6 months of to range of rain fell in a span of 36 hours before that. the concern here was drought and the soil was so dry that went back to rain to them for came. it couldn't absorb the hopeless and helpless we report on the plains of thousands leading to violence and switch on the west star for richard.