TV News LIES

President Trump on Monday threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on imports from China, a massive escalation of a potential trade war between the world’s two largest economies.

Trump’s threat is the latest tit for tat between the U.S. and China in the last week. The White House last Wednesday announced it would impose a 34 percent tariff on Chinese imports as part of “reciprocal” tariffs against dozens of countries.

Beijing responded by announcing a 34 percent tariff on American imports, leading to Trump’s warning on Monday.

Trump said in a post on Truth Social that China made the move, “despite my warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs, above and beyond their already existing long term Tariff abuse of our Nation, will be immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set.”

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Two House Democrats sent letters to the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force on Monday demanding answers over the recent removal of books at service academies.

Reps. Adam Smith (Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), ranking member of the Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, sent the letter after the Naval Academy said it removed 400 books from the Nimitz Library collection.

The academy said the removal was to comply “with all directives outlined in Executive Orders issued by the President.”

The letters sent by the Democrats say the review focused on books that had topics relating to “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.”

“If true, this is a blatant attack on the First Amendment and a clear effort to suppress academic freedom and rigor at the United States Naval Academy. Moreover, this reported book ban — or any similar efforts that may be ongoing at the United States Military Academy — displays an alarming return to McCarthy-era censorship,” the representatives wrote.

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Information about Harriet Tubman has been restored to a National Park Service website about the Underground Railroad

The National Park Service said Monday that a portrait and a quote from Tubman had been removed “without approval.”

As the internet archive Wayback Machine shows, the website "What is the Underground Railroad" in February began with a picture and a quote from Tubman, the formerly enslaved woman who helped shepherd others to freedom in the North.

But by the end of February, the website heading showed a collection of stamps honoring those who helped people escape slavery, including Tubman among others. The website change was first reported in a Washington Post investigation.

The Trump administration can resume deportation of certain immigrants, a divided Supreme Court said on Monday in a partial victory for President Donald Trump’s hardline approach to immigration.

The court did not rule on whether Trump can use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants it says are members of a Venezuelan crime gang. And the majority said the immigrants should get a chance to contest their deportation.

But the ruling says the immigrants brought their challenge - which was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia - in the wrong court.

"The detainees are confined in Texas, so venue is improper in the District of Columbia," the majority wrote in an unsigned opinion that lifted a judge’s order temporarily blocking deportations without hearings. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The three liberal justices, joined in part by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, dissented.

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Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip killed at least 32 people, including over a dozen women and children, local health officials said Sunday, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu headed to the United States to meet with President Donald Trump about the war.

Israel last month ended its ceasefire with Hamas and has seized territory to pressure the militant group to accept a new deal for a truce and release of remaining hostages. It has blocked the import of food, fuel and other supplies for over a month to the coastal territory heavily reliant on outside assistance.

Israel’s military late Sunday ordered Palestinians to evacuate several neighborhoods in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah shortly after abrout 10 projectiles were fired from Gaza — the largest barrage from the territory since Israel resumed the war.

TVNL Comment:  Among the dead were journalist Islam Meqdad, and her 6 year old son.

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Two days after a Russian ballistic missile killed 20 people in Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town, Emmanuel Macron has called for strong action if Russia continues to “refuse peace”.

The French president wrote on X on Sunday: “My thoughts are with the children and all civilian victims of the bloody attacks carried out by Russia, including on 4 April in Kryvyi Rih.

“A ceasefire is needed as soon as possible. And strong action if Russia continues to try to buy time and refuse peace.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the West to amp up pressure on Russia after it launched its latest deadly air raid on Kyiv.

As one person died in Kyiv, and three were injured, Ukraine’s leader said that “pressure on Russia is still insufficient, and the daily Russian strikes on Ukraine prove ite

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Thousands of ‘Hands Off’ protesters – in the US and across major European cities – took to the streets on Saturday in a show of defiance.

Photos show: A protest in Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday. A protest near the Torch of Friendship monument in Miami, Florida.

A protest on the National Mall in Washington DC.  Demonstrators dressed as handmaidens from The Handmaid’s Tale at the Washington monument in Washington DCDemonstrators gather outside the Minnesota state capitol in St Paul, Minnesota.  A protest in New York.

A protest on the National Mall in Washington DC.  A protest in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

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Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency.

The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits.

An average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a social security benefit in 2025, totaling about $1.6tn in benefits paid during the year and accounting for 22% of the federal budget. While expensive and challenged by an ageing population, social security remains overwhelmingly popular with Americans. But the agency has been dubbed a “Ponzi scheme” by Elon Musk, the billionaire whose so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is currently slashing its staff and budgets.

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