FBI director James Comey on Tuesday testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the government’s ongoing encryption battle with Apple—and, faced with an unexpectedly pro-privacy panel, found himself making increasingly dramatic arguments.

Asked about the potential repercussions of forcing Apple to write backdoor software that could unlock encrypted iPhones, Comey said, “Well, Apple’s engineers have this in their head. What if they’re kidnapped and forced to write software?”

The FBI is requesting that Apple help the agency unlock the iPhone of suspected San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, an order which the tech company has resisted on the grounds that it threatens the privacy of its users and sets a dangerous precedent for government authority.

“They [Apple] sell phones, they don’t sell civil liberties,” Comey said Tuesday. “That’s our business to worry about.”

However, the committee did not seem to agree. The panel heard five hours of testimony from Comey as well as Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell, but the typically FBI-friendly panel sided strongly with the tech company’s stance on privacy, with Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) at one point telling Comey that the government’s order to unlock the iPhone was “a fool’s errand.”

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle repeatedly said the FBI was attempting to undermine privacy in the name of national security and that its order constituted a serious overreach of authority. Ranking member Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) accused Comey of trying to undermine the panel itself, at one point asking, “Can you appreciate my frustration with what appears to be little more than an end-run around this committee?”

As Democratic voters head to primaries in five delegate-rich states on Tuesday, Bernie Sanders is riding a wave of momentum based on his call for a political revolution and an economic policy platform he says puts working people and the middle class above the interests of multinational corporations and the very wealthy. On that score, his campaign received a major boost on Monday when the nation’s largest union of transportation workers, the Amalgamated Transit Union, officially endorsed Sanders for president.

“His unabashed support of civil rights, public services, free tuition at public colleges, increases in Social Security and the minimum wage, make him an ideal candidate.” —Lawrence Hanley, Amalgamated Transit Union

“The sincerity of Bernie Sanders and his long standing fidelity to the issues that are so important to working people are what convinced us that standing with Bernie is standing with the 99% of America that has been left out of the mainstream public debate, cheated out of our jobs and denied the true meaning of the American dream,” said ATU International President Larry Hanley in making the announcement.

With primaries in Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Illinois, and North Carolina Tuesday, the ATU—which is now the fourth national union to endorse Sanders—said it will be mobilizing across the country as it urges members to put their support behind the Sanders campaign in all the states which have yet to vote. With more than 192,000 members in 253 local unions spread across 47 states and nine Canadian provinces, the ATU represents bus drivers, light rail operators, maintenance and clerical personnel and other transit and municipal employees.

In addition to his historic support for workers and organized labor, Hanley listed a range of issues which fueled the ATU’s endorsement of Sanders.

“His unabashed support of civil rights, public services, free tuition at public colleges, increases in Social Security and the minimum wage, make him an ideal candidate. But the Labor Movement owes Senator Sanders so much for his consistent opposition to right wing programs and his championing of first-rate healthcare for all – which is already the global standard,” Hanley said.

“Our political revolution can only happen if thousands of working people stand together and tell the millionaires and billionaires they can’t have it all.” —Bernie SandersSanders welcomed the news.

“I’m proud to have the support of the Amalgamated Transit Union,” Sanders said in a statement on Monday. “Our political revolution can only happen if thousands of working people stand together and tell the millionaires and billionaires they can’t have it all.”

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Though Hillary Clinton has so far won a larger number of national labor endorsements, Sanders has made steady gains by winning the broad support of rank-and-file union members, smaller locals, and unaffiliated workers. Last week in California, four separate UNITE HERE locals—representing nearly 20,000 hotel, casino and food service workers in the northern part of the state—endorsed Sanders. Workers in those local chapters explained why their votes were going to Sanders when their state—the most populous in the nation—holds its primary on June 7.

“Bernie Sanders is the best candidate for working people and the middle class,” said Robert Flatt, a cook at a casino Lincoln, California and member of UNITE HERE Local 49. “He believes in equal pay for women, expanding Social Security and raising the minimum wage. He supports bills that make it easier for workers to form unions and have a voice in their workplace.”

And Johnny Stake, a stand worker at the Oakland Coliseum and member of UNITE HERE Local 2850, added, “As a working-class African-American man, I’m supporting Bernie Sanders because he’s the only one who is talking about fundamental change in our economic system. We cannot continue to accept incremental increases in our income. We need a qualitative leap – or else we’ll be doomed to continue living paycheck to paycheck. Plus, I knew Bernie was cool when I saw a picture of him when he was younger, protesting in the streets for civil rights for black people.”

As the ATU’s Hanley said, putting this year’s presidential election in historic context, “This is no ordinary time in U.S. history and our nation is crying out for a leader who owes nothing to the corporate interests responsible for undermining the American middle class. Our executive board recognizes what’s at stake in this election and have made the bold decision of endorsing Bernie Sanders for President. Bernie is right for working people and right for America.”

Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger—two of the the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by the United Nations in 2015—may seem far out of reach. But, according to a new study, it could done with about ten percent of the world’s military spending.

The finding highlighting global priorities is from the the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), whose latest analysis (pdf) shows that global military spending is up for the first time since 2011.

Total such expenditures added up to $1.7 trillion in 2015, marking a 1 percent increase from 2014.

Spending $596 billion in 2015, the U.S. still ranks number one in terms of military expenditures, though that spending declined 2.4 percent, “its slowest annual rate since 2011,” the report notes. It still greatly outspent China, which holds the number 2 spot, which SIPRI estimates to have spent $215 billion.

Along with the U.S. and China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the UK are the biggest spenders.

While North America and Western Europe saw declines in military expenditures, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and Oceania saw increases, SIPRI’s analysis finds.

“Military spending in 2015 presents contrasting trends,” said Sam Perlo-Freeman, head of SIPRI’s military expenditure project, in a press statement. “On the one hand, spending trends reflect the escalating conflict and tension in many parts of the world; on the other hand, they show a clear break from the oil-fueled surge in military spending of the past decade. This volatile economic and political situation creates an uncertain picture for the years to come.”

Perlo-Freeman also looked at what could be achieved with those funds—or the “opportunity cost” of the military allocation of the funds—at his organization’s WritePeace blog. Take SDGs 1 and 2 on ending hunger and poverty, respectively:

Take about 50 percent of global military spending, and the achievements are clearly more far-reaching. He wrote:

Looking at such comparisons “gives some sort of perspective that can allow people to see what is the opportunity cost involved with global military spending,” Perlo-Freeman told Reuters.

“This could stir up some debate although we are certainly not expecting a 10 percent cut in military spending at all,” he said. “That is all about the politics of these countries.”

As Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of Oxfam International, stated following the SDGs’ adoption, “The goals are achievable, but it cannot be business as usual. Governments—rich and poor—must defy vested interests that seek to maintain the status quo at the expense of people and the planet.”

As dozens of world leaders convene in Washington, DC for the fourth and likely final Nuclear Security Summit, one advocacy group is saying the focus must be the urgency of “bold action” to eliminate the world’s nuclear weapons.

The summit convened by President Barack Obama is part of efforts he laid out in a 2009 speech in Prague. Obama himself referenced that speech in an op-ed at the Washington Post on Wednesday, writing that seven years ago he “committed the United States to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and to seeking a world without them.”

And there has been some progress during those years. Yet, as Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund writes, the accomplishments “fall short of the policy transformation Obama sought.”

“Obama hoped that by now he would have secured Senate approval of the nuclear test ban treaty, which he promised to ‘immediately and aggressively pursue.’ Didn’t happen.” Cirincione adds that Obama also “intended to negotiate with Russia truly deep cuts in both arsenals and then ‘include all nuclear weapon states in this endeavor.’ Russia refused.”

Obama wrote in his op-ed: “Along with our military leadership, I continue to believe that our massive Cold War nuclear arsenal is poorly suited to today’s threats. The United States and Russia — which together hold more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons — should negotiate to reduce our stockpiles further.”

As Vox notes, American and Russian

Russia isn’t even attending the summit, citing “a shortage of mutual cooperation.”

At any rate, as NBC News reports, this year, “the gathering of more than 50 world leaders will focus primarily on keeping terrorists from obtaining the ingredients for a dirty bomb.”

RT‘s Thom Hartmann asked Kevin Kamps, Radioactive Waste Watchdog with advocacy group Beyond Nuclear on Thursday why there would be “little discussion about nuclear power and nuclear weapons themselves” at the summit.

Following widespread disenfranchisement during Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Arizona, civil rights activists are warning that such debacles could be a harbinger of things to come during the general election in November.

“As we’ve seen in the Arizona and North Carolina primaries, the Shelby decision has ushered in a renaissance of voter disenfranchisement and Congress must step in to stop it before the general election,” stated Wade Henderson, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of national and international rights-defending organizations.

Because of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in its Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder decision in 2013, voters in North Carolina and Arizona, which both have a long history of voter suppression, are witnessing firsthand what elections in those states are like without the Act’s protections.

“Leaders said if federal scrutiny had been required before making changes,” as the Voting Rights Act once required, CNN reported, “Tuesday’s situation would have never happened.”

“I’ve waited my entire adult life, and I finally find somebody I want to vote for, and they deny me,” Jennifer Robbins, a Bernie Sanders supporter in Arizona, told the Huffington Post. “I left there crying. It’s always been my dream to vote, but I hadn’t found a politician I liked enough to vote for.”

Despite possessing a voter registration card that listed her as a registered Democrat, and after waiting for hours in line to vote, Robbins was told at the polling station that the computer system had her listed as an Independent. Robbins insisted the poll worker scan her registration card once again, and the second time the system had her registered to a party—the Republican Party. She was told she could file a provisional ballot for the Democratic primary, but that it “probably wouldn’t count,” according to the Huffington Post.

Indeed, Phoenix mayor Greg Stanton told Salon that “Arizona has a history of rejecting large amounts of provisional ballots and mail-in ballots.”

Stanton has written a letter (pdf) to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch requesting that the Department of Justice investigate the allegations of voter suppression in Arizona’s Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located.

Authorities have arrested four suspects in the assassination of environmental and indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres, the Honduran attorney general announced on Monday.

Adding credence to suspicions that Cáceres’ killing was politically-motivated, among those arrested were Honduran military officials as well as an employee of Desarrollos Energéticos (or DESA), the private energy company behind the Agua Zarca dam, which Cáceres fiercely opposed.

Central American-based freelance journalist Sandra Cuffe reported Monday that the arrests included Mariano Díaz Chávez and Edilson Atilio Duarte Meza. Cuffe wrote, “Honduran Armed Forces spokesperson identified Díaz as a major and Duarte as a former member of the military.”

Cuffe also identified Douglas Geovanny Bustillo as a “retired Air Force Lt. and head of DESA security,” citing a 2013 report (pdf) by the nonprofit Rights Action about the Agua Zarca landgrab, and reported that “Sergio Rodríguez Orellana, an employee of the DESA hydro-electric company, was also detained as a suspect.”

Before her death, Cáceres reported being threatened by Rodríguez and other “local thugs” employed by DESA during recent protests.