More than 200 million gallons of oil surged into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. To combat the worst environmental disaster in American history, BP and the Coast Guard dumped nearly two million gallons of the chemical dispersant Corexit into the Gulf. But instead of helping clean up the spill, Corexit made things worse. The seafood industry has been decimated, and cleanup workers have developed debilitating respiratory and central nervous system problems, along with skin rashes. Scientific studies have proven that Corexit exposure kills cells in the human airway, and makes oil 52 times more toxic to the environment. Four years later, mass quantities of oil still wash ashore, and the government has done nothing to ban this dangerous chemical dispersant. Shane Smith heads to Louisiana to report on the lasting effects of the BP oil spill.
Yemen, the fractured state in the Arabian peninsula, is at the top of the worry list for President Obama’s national security team, and the rise of Al Qaeda there is only half the reason. The Yemeni government, an American ally, has lost so much control over the years that many U.S. officials consider Yemen a failed state, declaring it the “next Afghanistan.” The real trouble is a current threat posed by the little-known Houthi rebel movement in the north of the country – a grassroots army, allegedly funded by Iran, that has never before granted access to a Western film crew. Ben Anderson goes deep into Houthi-controlled territory to learn about the group that’s fighting, and beating, Al Qaeda in the east, Saudi Arabia in the north, and Yemen’s central government in the south.
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