Today on CNN Newsroom
"West Memphis Three" out but not exonerated
The "West Memphis Three" were released today after serving 18 years in prison. Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Junior, and Jason Baldwin were convicted of brutally killing three young boy scouts, during a satanic ritual in the woods but today the court released them after some legal maneuvering in which the three agreed to plead guilty and then got credit for time served. They were released, but not exonerated. Brooke Baldwin chats with director Joe Berlinjer and producer Bruce Sinofsky, from the award-winning HBO documentary series "Paradise Lost". They've been following the case since 1993.
What to do about Syria
Right about the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was calling for the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a man described as a Syrian activist witnessed a shooting in Syria's capital, Damascus. He tells CNN it was carried out by Syrian security forces and he does not know if anyone was wounded. The violence continues each day. So what would happen if al-Assad were to step down? State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Mark Toner paints the picture for our Brooke Baldwin.
Can teaching more history now prevent repeating the past?
By Dave Schechter
CNN Senior National Editor
Not long after moving to Atlanta nearly 24 years ago, my mother came to visit. I drove her out to Stone Mountain to see its enormous bas relief of three heroes of the Confederate States of America: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. We rode the train that winds around the enormous, 825-foot-tall rock and listened to a recording about its history. At some point my mother, an Iowa native whose graduate degree in history is from an Ivy League university, asked me, in a conversational voice, “Don’t these people know they lost that war?” I shushed my mother and whispered, “No they don’t!”
Growing up north of Chicago, in Illinois, in the “Land of Lincoln,” my teachers referred to that conflict as the Civil War. Living in the South, I’ve heard it referred to more than once as “the war against Northern aggression.” And what I was taught was a war primarily fought over the issue of slavery is viewed by some Southerners as having had more to do with economics and states rights, animosities still playing out today. FULL POST
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