Video Shows Apparent Gas Attack on Civilians in Syria’s Douma

Here’s what you’ll find on today’s show:

— On Saturday, nationwide town halls placed young, newly-galvanized activists in close proximity to legislators capable of effecting real change. The ‘Town Hall For Our Lives’ events, an offshoot of the massive protests against gun violence that swept the streets last month, took place in conservative and liberal districts across the country. According to Town Hall Project, the organizing partner behind most of the events on Saturday, 120 town halls occurred in one day alone.

— An apparent gas attack on civilians near the capital of Damascus has left at least 40 dead and hundreds more wounded. President Donald Trump and the European Union suspect Syrian government forces under Bashar al-Assad of perpetrating the attack, and early Monday morning Israel is believed to have launched a retaliatory strike against an Syrian air base that killed upwards of a dozen people. President Trump weighed into the reports directly in a rebuke of Assad and Putin on Twitter, vowing to respond proportionately.

— Residents of the U.S. territory of American Samoa have brought a new lawsuit against former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the State Department, alleging that their lack of automatic citizenship upon birth is a violation of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

— A mashup video created by the website Deadspin last month displayed T.V. anchors from local newsrooms alongside each other, demonstrating how they were reading verbatim the same scripts. The owners of these stations, Sinclair Broadcast Group, sends out ‘must-run’ scripts that it requires to be read by local newscasters on air. The eerie nature of the juxtaposition — dozens of local journalists, all reading the same lines in a growing chorus of voices — sparked a huge backlash online, with many calling on these reporters to quit before allowing corporate messaging to infiltrate the newsroom.