TV News LIES

After months of late-night picketing in North Hollywood, the dancers of the Star Garden Topless Dive Bar have become the only unionized strippers in the US.

Their victory was finalized with a unanimous vote by 17 dancers in favor of unionization on Thursday morning , andmarks the first time that the Actors Equity association, a century-old union for stage actors, singers and dancers, will represent strip club workers, the union said.

The strippers’ campaign featured colorful, costumed protests, and attracted high-profile support, with the Amazon Union president, Chris Smalls, and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine both showing up in solidarity.

Deutsche Bank has agreed to pay $75 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that the German lender should have seen evidence of sex trafficking by Jeffrey Epstein when he was a client, according to lawyers for women who say they were abused by the late financier.

A woman only identified as Jane Doe sued the bank in federal district court in New York and sought class-action status to represent other victims of Epstein. The lawsuit asserted that the bank knowingly benefited from Epstein's sex trafficking and "chose profit over following the law" to earn millions of dollars from the businessman.

One of the law firms representing women in the case, Edwards Pottinger, said it believed it is the largest sex trafficking settlement with a bank in U.S. history.

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The Supreme Court on Wednesday denied a request from gun rights groups to temporarily block laws in Illinois that ban the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines, meaning the prohibitions will remain in effect for now.

The court turned down the request from gun groups in a one-sentence order that did not explain its reasoning, which is common for cases on its emergency docket. There were no noted dissents.

The decision, which is preliminary, is the latest in which the high court declined to intervene in a Second Amendment challenge following its decision last year to expand the ability of Americans to carry handguns in public. The type of weapons banned have been used in several mass shootings, including one outside of Chicago in July in which seven people were killed and dozens more were injured.

Illinois enacted a law in January banning the sale of AR-15 rifles and handgun magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. Gun rights groups and a gun shop owner sued over that law as well as a similar ordinance enacted in Naperville, Ill., last year that bans the sale of "assault rifles."

 

A heckler who was charged with assaulting Rudy Giuliani at a Staten Island grocery store last year – after slapping him on the back and saying, “What’s up, scumbag?” – filed suit against the former New York City mayor and prominent Trump ally on Wednesday, alleging he levied an empty accusation.

The lawsuit filed by Daniel Gill in Manhattan federal court also names as defendants the city and several police officers.

It says the defendants “participated in an unlawful conspiracy … to deprive [Gill] of his right to liberty, to his right to speak freely without retribution, and to be free from unreasonable seizures, in violation of his rights under the first, fourth and 14th amendments to the constitution of the United States”.

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The U.S. Department of Education has issued updated guidance on prayer and other religious expressions in public schools.

The guidance follows last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision Kennedy vs. Bremerton, which held that a public school district could not stop a football coach from praying on the 50-yard line after games. The court ruled that such prayer was a personal religious observance and that preventing someone from engaging in such a practice violated the First Amendment's protections for free speech and the free exercise of religion.

A high school student in Louisiana has received more than $9m in scholarship offers, an amount that leaves him at least close to clinching what is believed to be a US record.

Dennis Barnes has been offered aid from 125 colleges and universities, after maintaining a cumulative grade point average of 4.98, among other academic accomplishments, at International high school in New Orleans.

Hoping to collect more than $10m in offered scholarships, he is waiting on responses from a number of the 200 colleges to which he applied, school officials said.