TV News LIES

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently barred President Donald Trump's administration from implementing most of his first executive order on elections, part of which sought to require people to show documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote.

The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper in Boston effectively converts a preliminary injunction she issued a year ago, in which she temporarily blocked many of Trump's efforts to overhaul elections, into a permanent ban.

Casper rejected the administration's argument that the lawsuit to block the changes brought by Democratic state attorneys general was premature because the rules had yet to be implemented. Instead, she agreed that the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to regulate elections, and that Trump's requirements violated the separation of powers.

The Constitution "does not grant the President any specific powers over elections," she wrote.

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President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a signing ceremony for landmark housing affordability legislation Wednesday, saying he wanted Republicans in Congress to pass a major election reform bill first.

A couple hours later, Trump arrived at Capital Hill for a previously scheduled lunch with Republican senators.

Addressing whether the SAVE America Act, a bill that affects voter registration laws, is more important than the housing bill, he said: “Every election is important. They want a lot of communists to come in.”

The housing bill, which passed the Senate and House of Representatives by large, bipartisan margins this week, was a significant – and rare – victory on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers and experts called it a sweeping "first step" in tackling the nation's housing crunch.

If Congress remains in session, the housing bill can become law without the president's signature 10 days after it was presented to him.

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Soon after President Donald Trump’s self-congratulatory tour for “ending” the Gaza war last October, replete with ceremonies in which various kings, emirs, and presidents praised him, Israel made clear it had no intention of respecting the terms of the deal. It continued to kill Palestinians on a near daily basis and began limiting the entry of the agreed upon life essentials to the Strip stipulated in the ceasefire agreement.

Nonetheless, Trump pulled off a coup the following month when he got the UN Security Council to endorse his Gaza plan. In an unprecedented move, the council endorsed the deployment of an international force that would not operate under the banner of the UN, but would instead be commanded and controlled by Trump and his private “Board of Peace”—to which states could buy in for $1 billion and receive permanent membership. In the big picture, Trump could wrap the future edicts of his board in the veneer of UN legitimacy.

As Israel steadily expanded its military attacks on Gaza and pushed its occupation forces deeper into the enclave instead of withdrawing and repositioning them as agreed, Hamas officials told Drop Site that they heard nothing from the Board of Peace until March.

Since then, the negotiations over Gaza’s future have been stuck in a diplomatic netherworld. Despite the pomp and circumstance manufactured by the White House after the signing of the deal and Trump’s promise to guarantee it, the U.S. has refused to hold Israel to any of its obligations. While Hamas fulfilled its part of the deal and handed over all of its captives to Israel, both alive and dead, Israel has repeatedly violated nearly every term of the agreement and has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians since the signing of the deal in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

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A Palestinian citizen of Israel held by the internal security agency, Shin Bet, has died in hospital after being found unconscious in his cell, with his family and lawyers saying they found severe bruising on his body. 

According to a Haaretz report, Saber Amitel, 21, was arrested earlier this month and taken to Shikma prison in Ashkelon, where he was denied access to a lawyer. He was suspected of arms smuggling

Police told his attorneys and family that he had attempted to take his own life.

His family and legal team were only permitted to visit him after Haaretz enquired about the case.

When his lawyers visited him at Barzilai Hospital on 8 June, they found severe bruising on his body, according to Haaretz.

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Palestinian children are "increasingly unprotected", as Israel forces human rights organisations to cease or curtail work across the occupied Palestinian territories, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child warned on Monday. 

The committee condemned Israel's designation of civil society groups as "terrorists". Labelling NGOs as terrorist entities gives Israel legal cover to obstruct humanitarian work, including military raids, travel bans, personal financial sanctions, threats of arrest, destruction of records and, in some cases, "threats of secondary sanctions against partners".

he committee is made up of a body of 18 independent experts that work within the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR).

The warning doesn't name any of the organisations they are alluding to, but in 2021 Israel outlawed six major Palestinian NGOs, including Adameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International - Palestine, Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees. 

In January of this year, more than 50 international NGOs operating in occupied Palestine warned that recent registration measures imposed by Israel threatened to halt operations at a time of acute humanitarian need in Gaza.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is growing increasingly frustrated with Donald Trump as Washington shows signs of greater support for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

According to the FT, senior Ukrainian officials believe Trump has begun warming to stronger backing for Kyiv after being impressed by Ukraine’s recent military successes, particularly its long-range drone strikes on targets deep inside Russia.

The shift appears to have unsettled Moscow, where officials had expected Trump to pressure Ukraine into a rapid peace deal more favorable to the Kremlin. Instead, Russia now sees the US moving closer to Kyiv on key defense issues, including air defense, long-range capabilities and possible technology licensing.

The FT reported that Trump was “hugely impressed” by Ukraine’s ability to strike Russian military and industrial targets far from the front line. Those attacks have increasingly exposed Russia’s vulnerability at home and challenged the Kremlin’s claim that time is on Moscow’s side.

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By the time Maria Ruhtenberg was fired from her job last September for posting about Charlie Kirk's assassination, few people even knew what she had written.

The posts and comments she had made on Facebook were only visible to her friends. Just one person, a Facebook friend she barely knew, complained to her employer. "I don't even know how we became Facebook friends, honestly," said Ruhtenberg.

After the conservative activist was shot, Ruhtenberg wrote things like "live by the sword, die by the sword" and "you reap what you sow" and that she disagreed with Kirk's views about the Second Amendment. Ruhtenberg also said that "whoever shot [Kirk] should go to prison."

Two days after that complaint, a right-wing outlet in Iowa emailed Ruhtenberg's employer to ask for a comment about her posts. The next day, she was terminated, less than five days after her initial post. Ruhtenberg had spent 15 years as a public defender for the state of Iowa.

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Several staff members have reportedly been fired from the US office of the director of national intelligence (DNI), multiple outlets have reported. These firings come less than a week after Donald Trump appointed Bill Pulte as the acting director after former director Tulsi Gabbard announced she was leaving the post in late May.

CBS reported on Tuesday that more than 50 career and political staff members had been dismissed, with six individuals fired and 45 “sent back to their home agencies”.

The DNI has not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment on the reported firings.

CNN first reported that Pulte, who also leads the federal housing finance agency, was considering the dismissal of hundreds of staff members on 19 June on the same day he assumed the role of acting director.

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