TV News LIES

A federal judge on Saturday voided layoffs at Voice of America (VOA) while also ruling that the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s (USAGM) acting CEO, Kari Lake, unlawfully ran the independent federal agency.

U.S. District Court of Washington, D.C., Judge Royce Lamberth wrote that Lake oversaw the media agency in violation of the Constitution’s appointments clause and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.

Lamberth’s ruling comes after VOA’s White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara filed the lawsuit last year.

President Trump nominated Lake to be senior adviser to acting CEO Victor Morales in February 2025. Morales dncy during the period relevant to the motions.”9 out of the 22 duties that the CEO assigns,” Lamberth wrote. By July, she was made acting CEO and “exercised control over the agency during the period relevant to the motions.”

More...

The US justice department abruptly reversed course on Tuesday and decided it would defend executive orders made by Donald Trump to try to penalize law firms that represented clients or causes the president did not like.

On Monday, the department announced in a court filing that it was dropping its appeal against a ruling by a district court judge that blocked Trump’s retaliatory executive actions against four companies that refused to make a deal with him.

Trump’s “capitulation” was celebrated by at least two of the the companies that welcomed the DoJ’s voluntary withdrawal from the legal proceedings.

On Tuesday, however, the government filed a new, single-paragraph request to the US court of appeals for the Columbia circuit, announcing it had changed its mind, and wished “to pursue this appeal”.

It gave no reason for its sudden about-face, and quoted attorneys for the four companies who unanimously opposed “the government’s unexplained request to withdraw yesterday’s voluntary dismissal, to which all parties had agreed”.

More...

The FBI’s joint terrorism taskforce has been called in to help investigate a deadly mass shooting in downtown Austin, Texas, on Sunday morning in which a gunman opened fire in front of a bar popular with university students, killing two people and injuring 14 others before being fatally shot by police.

An FBI official, Alex Doran, told reporters at a press conference that it was too early to determine the shooter’s motivation. But he added that evidence found on the suspect and in his car indicated a “potential nexus to terrorism”

The Associated Press reported that officials had identified the suspect as Ndiaga Diagne, 53, a US citizen who first came to the US in 2000 from Senegal, married an American six years later and naturalized in 2013. He spent some years in New York before moving to Texas.

Law enforcement sources told Reuters that in addition to investigating potential terrorist motivations, investigators are also looking at the suspect’s previous history of mental health issues.

More...

Transgender Kansas residents have begun receiving letters from the state’s department of motor vehicles notifying them that their driver’s licenses will be invalid beginning Thursday, as a new law goes into effect that demands that forms of identification must now reflect the credential holder’s “sex at birth”.

The bill, known as SB 244, also bans transgender people from using bathrooms in public buildings that match their gender identity, and creates a sort of bounty hunter system, in which citizens can sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for $1,000 in damages.

The state law was rushed through the state legislature using an expedited procedure known as “gut and go”. This means the text of one bill can be taken out and substituted for entirely new language or provisions, bypassing standard committee vetting and speeding through the voting process, which is legal in Kansas.

Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, arguing that SB 244 was “poorly drafted legislation”, but her veto was overridden by the state legislature’s Republican supermajority.

More...

Newly released records show a US citizen was shot and killed in Texas by a federal immigration agent last year during a late-night traffic encounter that was not publicly disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security.

The death of Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, would mark the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers since the start of a nationwide immigration crackdown in Donald Trump’s second term. On Friday, DHS said the shooting on South Padre Island last March occurred after the driver intentionally struck an agent.

The records are part of a tranche of heavily redacted internal documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the non-profit obtained as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Though Martinez’s death on 15 March 2025 was reported by local ough Martinez’s death on 15 March 2025 was reported by local media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI. In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent”, resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public”.media outlets at the time, federal and state authorities did not disclose that the shooting involved the team from HSI.

In a statement Friday, DHS said the driver who was killed “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent”, resulting in another agent firing “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public”.

More...

Venezuela's acting president on Thursday signed into law an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of politicians, activists, lawyers and many others, effectively acknowledging that the government has held hundreds of people in prison for political motivations.

The approval marks a stark turn for the South American nation, whose authorities have for decades denied holding any political prisoners. It is the latest policy reversal following last month's stunning U.S. military raid in the country's capital, Caracas, to capture then-President Nicolás Maduro.

Acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who proposed the bill late last month, signed the measure into law hours after it was approved by the country's legislature.

She said during the signing that it showed that the country's political leaders were "letting go of a little intolre into law hours after it was approved by the country's legislature.

She said during the signing that it showre into law hours after it was approved by the country's legislature.

She said during the signing that it showed that the country's political leaders were "letting go of a little intolerance and opening new avenues for politics in Venezuela."ed that the country's political leaders were "letting go of a little intolerance and opening new avenues for politics in Venezuela."erance and opening new avenues for politics in Venezuela."

More...