TV News LIES

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has assigned a dollar value to the lives saved and the health problems avoided through many of its environmental regulations.

Now, that has changed. The EPA will no longer consider the economic cost of harm to human health from fine particles and ozone, two air pollutants that are known to affect human health. The change was written into a new rule recently published by the agency. It weakened air pollution rules on power plant turbines that burn fossil fuels, which are sources of air pollution of many types, including from fine particles, sometimes called soot.

The EPA writes in its regulatory impact analysis for the new rule that, for now, the agency will not consider the dollar value of health benefits from its regulations on fine particles and ozone because there is too much uncertainty in estimates of those economic impacts.

EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch clarified that the agency is still considering health benefits. But it will not assign a dollar amount to those benefits until further notice, as it reconsiders the way it assesses those numbers.

More...

The Trump administration is terminating temporary protected status (TPS) for Somalis living in the United States, giving hundreds of people two months to leave the country or face deportation.

The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said in a statement that conditions in the east African country had improved sufficiently and that Somalis no longer qualified for the designation under federal law.

“Temporary means temporary,” Noem wrote, adding that allowing Somali nationals to remain was “contrary to our national interests”.

“We are putting Americans first,” she added.

Then Donald Trump said his administration was going to revoke the US citizenship of any naturalized immigrant from Somalia or any other country who is convicted of defrauding what he referred to as “our citizens”.

More...

Several faculty groups have denounced the Trump administration’s efforts to obtain information about Jewish professors, staff and students at the University of Pennsylvania – including personal emails, phone numbers and home addresses – as government abuse with “ominous historical overtones”.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is demanding the university turn over names and personal information about Jewish members of the Penn community as part of the administration’s stated goal to combat antisemitism on campuses. But some Jewish faculty and staff have condemned the government’s demand as “a visceral threat to the safety of those who would find themselves identified because compiling and turning over to the government ‘lists of Jews’ conjures a terrifying history”, according to a press release put out by the groups’ lawyers.

The EEOC sued Penn in November over the university’s refusal to fully comply with its demands. On Tuesday, the American Association of University Professors’ national and Penn chapters, the university’s Jewish Law Students Association and its Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty, and the American Academy of Jewish Research filed a motion in federal court to intervene in the case.

“These requests would require Penn to create and turn over a centralized registry of Jewish students, faculty, and staff – a profoundly invasive and dangerous demand that intrudes deeply into the freedoms of association, religion, speech, and privacy enshrined in the First Amendment,” the groups argued.

More...

A senior Greenland government official said Tuesday it’s “unfathomable” that the United States is discussing taking over a NATO ally and urged the Trump administration to listen to voices from the Arctic island’s people.

Naaja Nathanielsen, Greenland’s minister for business and mineral resources, said people in Greenland are “very, very worried” over the administration’s desire for control of Greenland.

She spoke a day before a key meeting in Washington between foreign ministers of the semi-autonomous Danish territory and Denmark and top U.S. officials, at a time of increased tensions between the allies over the stepped-up U.S. rhetoric.

The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity, declined to provide details about what the support entailed.

“People are not sleeping, children are afraid, and it just fills everything these days. And we can’t really understand it,” Nathanielsen said at a meeting with lawmakers in Britain’s Parliament.

Earlier, a Danish government official confirmed that Denmark provided U.S. forces in the east Atlantic with support last week as they intercepted an oil tanker for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions.

More...

A federal judge late Sunday ordered the Trump administration to restore nearly $12 million in grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), after the organization’s funding was abruptly cut last month. 

Judgeof  the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction that will restore the grants and block the cuts from taking effect while the case proceeds.

Howell concluded that the Department of Health and Human Services had a likely “retaliatory motive” for the terminations, due to the AAP’s outspoken opposition to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

“This is not a case about whether AAP or HHS is right or even has the better position on vaccinations and gender-affirming care for children, or any other public health policy,” Howell wrote. “This is a case about whether the federal government has exercised power in a manner designed to chill public health policy debate by retaliating against a leading and generally trusted pediatrician member professional organization focused on improving the health of children.”

More...

The top federal prosecutor on the Minnesota fraud case has reportedly resigned on Tuesday, the New York Times first reported. 

Joseph H. Thompson, the lead prosecutor on the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) investigation into social services fraud in the state, served as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) reacted to the news on Tuesday, calling Thompson a “principled public servant” in a post on the social platform X. 

“Joe is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state,” Walz wrote. “It’s also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants.”

The Times reported that Thompson and five fellow federal prosecutors resigned over the DOJ’s attempts to investigate the wife of the woman killed by a federal officer last week and lack of interest in investigating the officer who shot her.

More...

President Donald Trump's desire to annex Greenland will not be thwarted and there could be meaningful U.S. action related to the Arctic island within "weeks or months," according to a senior administration official.

That's the view of Thomas Dans, Trump's Arctic commissioner. He's regarded as one of the main proponents of the president's interest in Greenland, an idea first brought to Trump by billionaire and former diplomat Ronald Lauder.

Dans has been working on the issue since 2020.

"This is a train route with multiple stops," he said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY. "Things could move on an express basis, skip the local stops and go direct to the main station. That's where President Trump wants to move it − at high speed."

US official says Greenland action could come within 'weeks or months'
Next steps on Greenland could come as soon as a few 'weeks,' a US official tells USA TODAY in an exclusive interview.

More...

Scott Adams, the author and cartoonist whose "Dilbert" comic strip satirized corporate life to wide acclaim before racist comments he made sidelined him, has died following a battle with cancer. He was 68.

Adams' ex-wife, Shelly Miles, confirmed Adams' death during a livestream on the "Real Coffee with Scott Adams" show on Tuesday, Jan. 13.

"Hi, everyone. Unfortunately, this isn't good news," Miles said. "Of course, he waited 'til just before the show started, but he's not with us anymore."

Adams shared in May that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer that had spread to his bones. During a New Year's Day broadcast of "Real Coffee with Scott Adams," Adams revealed that his health outlook had worsened, telling fans that his chances of recovery were "essentially zero."

Following the announcement of Adams' death, Miles read a "final message" from the cartoonist, which he wrote on New Year's Day.

"If you are reading this, things did not go well for me," Adams wrote. "I have a few things to say before I go. My body failed before my brain. … If you wonder about any of my choices for my estate or anything else, please know I'm free of any crazen or any inappropriate influence of any sort, I promise."

More...