TV News LIES

As New Orleans’s bankrupt Roman Catholic archdiocese finalizes a plan to settle 633 clergy abuse claims filed against it, the church’s investors are arguing in US bankruptcy court that about half of those survivors could have their claims thrown out.

Church officials said on Wednesday they would not necessarily seek that, though the eligibility of claims will be determined by a court-appointed examiner. If the investors’ arguments prevail, it could have major effects on whether the US’s second-oldest Catholic archdiocese settles its expensive, five-year-old bankruptcy case – or if victims of abuse by its clergy will pursue their claims individually in civil court.

Meanwhile, documents filed in court on Tuesday outlined how the church has agreed to pay at least $180m into a settlement trust, with the total growing to between $210m and $235m if a number of affordable apartment complexes owned by a church affiliate can be sold.

After the eligible claimants are determined, they will get to vote to approve or reject the settlement by 29 October.

If two-thirds of the voting claimants do not approve the settlement, Judge Meredith Grabill has said she will have no choice but to throw the church out of bankruptcy.

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Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a staunch vaccine supporter, said he was “heartbroken” after hearing parents recount how their once-healthy children were injured or killed by vaccines.

The parents’ testimony, delivered during Tuesday’s U.S. Senate hearing, “Voices of the Vaccine Injured,” did little to sway Blumenthal from his belief that vaccines are “safe and effective” — but the gut-wrenching stories did lead the senator to suggest he may be willing to look into the issue of whether pharmaceutical companies should be held liable for injuries caused by their products.

“Maybe we ought to look at this system,” said Blumenthal, referring to the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which established a government compensation program for people injured by vaccines while granting legal immunity to vaccine makers.

Since 1986, the only recourse parents have had if their child was injured is to file a claim through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) — a bureaucratic labyrinth that rejects nearly half of all claims.

Blumenthal, ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which held the hearing, said the parents’ testimony “makes me want to do something.”

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Dr. Mehmet Oz, the current Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, doesn’t seem to know who actually relies on the programs he oversees.

In an interview with “Fox & Friends” Monday, Oz claimed the program was originally intended only to assist young children, the elderly and the disabled ― and that in the last few years it’s been gamed by “able-bodied” people who “just hang out” and watch television all day.

“When the program was created 60 years ago, it never dawned on anyone that you would take able-bodied individuals who could work ― and put them on Medicaid,” Oz claimed.

“Today, the average able-bodied person on Medicaid doesn’t work. They watch 6.1 hours of television or just hang out. That’s not fair. Go out and try to get a job.”

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A group of ice cream makers that produce 90% of the nation’s ice cream and frozen dairy desserts are pledging to eliminate many artificial food dyes from their offerings by the end of 2027.

The announcement, less than a week before the National Ice Cream Day on July 20, was made by the International Dairy Foods Association, a trade group for dairy companies, in conjunction with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has championed the cause through his Make America Healthy Again platform.

Kennedy, who has long blamed chronic health problems, including obesity and heart disease, on the food industry, announced in April that eight artificial dyes will be phased out from medications and the nation's food supply by the end of 2026, including those found in candy, ice cream, soft drinks and jams.

The voluntary effort will eliminate the use of certified artificial colors Red 3, Red 40, Green 3, Blue 1, Blue 2, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6.

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The Senate cleared President Donald Trump's domestic spending and tax cut bill that will enact steep cuts to the nation's safety-net health insurance program for low income families.

In addition to delivering tax cuts and increasing immigration enforcement, what Trump has called the "Big Beautiful Bill" would cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, the state-federal health program for low-income families and the disabled. The bill is projected to eliminate insurance coverage for 11.8 million people over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Another 5 million could lose coverage if Congress doesn't extend the COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits that have made Affordable Care Act plans more affordable for consumers.

The legislation amounts to "the biggest rollback in health care coverage in the history of the United States," said Joan Alker, a research professor and executive director and co-founder of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families.

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The Supreme Court on June 30 declined to to hear a censorship complaint brought by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former group against the owner of Facebook.

Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy before he joined President Donald Trump’s administration, argues its First Amendment rights were violated when Facebook restricted the group’s anti-vaccine posts.

Lower courts said Kennedy's group hadn’t shown that Facebook's parent company - Meta - was restricting the posts at the direction of the Biden administration. So they concluded Meta can’t be sued as a private business for restricting free speech.

As part of its "Vaccinate with Confidence" initiative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked with social media companies "to promote trustworthy vaccine information."

But the California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the evidence showed Meta and the government were often at odds.

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