TV News LIES

A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's executive order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS, ruling it unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it targeted the broadcasters based on their speech. The decision was welcomed by the networks, while the White House signaled it may appeal.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss issued a March 31, 2026 ruling that the Trump administration cannot enforce the executive order cutting federal funding to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

The executive order, signed by President Donald Trump in May 2025, directed federal agencies and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to terminate all funding for NPR and PBS, and the corporation was dissolved in January 2026.

Judge Moss found the order violated the First Amendment because it lacked neutral criteria and singled out the two broadcasters for the content of their speech.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration “looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue” and called the ruling “ridiculous.”

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When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, New York State resident Ellen Robillard briefly looked into getting Canadian citizenship. Her mother, after all, was born in Nova Scotia.

As a Democrat, Robillard was despondent at the election results, but she abandoned the idea after realizing that her young son wouldn’t be eligible for citizenship under a law that barred Canadians born abroad from passing their citizenship to children if they were also born outside Canada.

In 2023, however, the Canadian courts ruled that law unconstitutional and the changes to eligibility came into effect in December, suddenly opening up a pathway to Canadian citizenship for many Americans at a time of political upheaval, violence and uncertainty in the US.

Robillard, 52, is applying for citizenship with her son now that the first-generation rule has been scrapped.

Since criteria for citizenship expanded with the passage of Bill C-3 of Canada’s Citizenship Act, millions of Americans have become eligible to claim Canadian citizenship. The amendment reverses a “first-generation” limit imposed by Canada’s Conservative government in 2009.

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President Donald Trump moved to exert federal control over voter rolls and mail-in ballots with an executive order that cracks down on a form of voting he frequently criticizes, even as he used it to cast his own ballot this year.

The move escalates the president's bid to place new restrictions on voting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake. The action was swiftly condemned by Democrats and voting rights groups, who said it interferes with state election administration and makes it harder for people to vote.

Trump's order requires the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with the Social Security Administration to create lists of voting-age U.S. citizens who are residents of each state and transmit them to state voting officials at least 60 days before an election.

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The Supreme Court sided with a Christian counselor on Tuesday in her free speech challenge to Colorado’s ban on counselors attempting to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the 8-1 majority, said lower courts used too lenient a standard in upholding the ban.

The law regulates counselors’ speech in an attempt to silence a certain viewpoint, Gorsuch wrote.

“Fortunately, that is not the world the First Amendment envisions for us,” the justice wrote.

The court’s decision is poised to have ripple effects across the country, with more than 20 states having enacted similar measures. But two of the court’s liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, signaled that states that write more tailored laws could still prevail.

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An Israeli court has drawn criticism after closing an investigation into the death of a Palestinian teenager in custody, despite finding indications he had been starved prior to his death.

Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old from the occupied West Bank, died in Israeli custody in March 2025, six months after he was detained for allegedly throwing stones, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Judge Ehud Kaplan ruled the case should be closed, stating there was no proven link between Ahmad’s deteriorating physical condition, such as severe weight loss and infection, and the immediate cause of his death. Details of the ruling emerged on Tuesday after a gag order was lifted.

Nadia Dakka, a human rights lawyer who has followed the case, criticised the decision as reflecting a narrow legal approach that fails to address the broader conditions contributing to detainees’ deaths.

Dakka said the ruling highlights the difficulty of establishing criminal responsibility in cases involving systemic abuse.

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The Israeli Knesset on Monday passed a death penalty law targeting Palestinians, in a move condemned by human rights organisations.

The legislation establishes two separate pathways for the death penalty based on national identity. The law makes the death penalty the default sentence for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank who are tried in military courts.

”This law institutionalizes the state-sanctioned, cold-blooded killing of individuals who pose no threat whatsoever,” Suhad Bishara, legal director at Adalah, a Palestinian-run legal centre, said in a statement.

“By design, this legislation exclusively targets Palestinians, violating the fundamental principle of equality and prohibition on racial discrimination,” Bishara added.

Adalah plans to petition the Supreme Court against the law.

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One of the Kremlin’s most widely viewed advocates of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, Yuri Podolyaka, on Friday, told Russian audiences the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is superior to the Russian army in fighting efficiency, and that a spring offensive attacking Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions would probably fail with heavy losses to the attacker.

“Little by little, the advantage is going to our enemies. Very experienced guys are working there. They are highly qualified specialists. They know how things work, and they are working to take advantage of the technical superiority that they have. Unfortunately, they are succeeding. I know it seems [to Russian viewers] like we [Russia] have more strength andhttps://www.kyivpost.com/post/72871 more resources, but the enemy is counterattacking, and he is succeeding,” Podolyaka said.

A former Ukrainian citizen transferring his loyalty to Moscow in 2014, Podolyaka, with his hugely popular Telegram news program “The World Today With Yuri Podolyaka” (Russian: “Мир сегодня с Юрий Подоляка”) has a Telegram audience of some 2.8 million subscribers and a YouTube audience of 2.7 million, making him one of Russia’s top two or three milbloggers.

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani is launching the city’s first undergraduate scholarship program for municipal workers, with applications opening Monday.

The Mayor’s Scholarship Program will allow full-time city employees to apply for financial assistance to pursue associate and bachelor’s degrees, in addition to advanced degrees, officials said.

The initiative expands the 60-year-old Mayor’s Graduate Scholarship Program, which has awarded city employees between about $360,000 and $530,000 a year in scholarships from participating schools, according to City Hall.

“Our city advances when our workers can too,” Mamdani said in a statement. “By connecting city workers to undergraduate and graduate educations, we’re empowering the next generation of civil servants who act ambitiously, think creatively and believe firmly in government’s ability to improve the lives of working people.”

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