TV News LIES

Crows are able to look at a handful of four-sided shapes and correctly distinguish those that exhibit geometric regularity from those that don't, according to a provocative new study.

It's the first time a species other than humans has been shown to have this kind of geometric intuition, says Andreas Nieder, a cognitive neurobiologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany.

"Claiming that it is specific to us humans, that only humans can detect geometric regularity, is now falsified," says Nieder. "Because we have at least the crow."

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A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze federal funding that was allocated to Maine from the U.S. Department of Agriculture — funds that had been withheld following President Trump's clash with Maine Gov. Janet Mills over the issue of transgender athletes.

U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock granted Maine's request for a temporary restraining order on Friday. The USDA is just one of the agencies where federal funding for Maine has been threatened. The agency did not immediately respond to request for a comment.

The feud between Trump and the state of Maine began after the president issued an executive order in early February barring transgender student athletes from playing on girls' sports teams. The order also calls for the federal government "to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities."

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Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport on Sunday. Makled said the expression on the agent’s face changed. He felt something “odd” was happening.

“So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn’t know,” Makled said. “And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they’re gonna take me in for questioning. And that’s when I felt like I was being racially profiled or targeted because I am Arab.”

But it quickly became apparent, Makled said, that the stop was different from the type of so-called random stop Muslims and Arab-Americans have become accustomed to at US airports. The plainclothes immigration officer said he knew who Makled was and what he did for a living, according to the lawyer; agents wanted to search his phone.

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The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders drew a record-breaking crowd at his rally in Los Angeles on Saturday, which included musical acts from Joan Baez and Neil Young, who encouraged the crowd to “take America back”.

Sanders’s Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go from Here tour has been drawing massive crowds. Aided by the progressive New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the team set the record in Tempe, Arizona, for biggest-ever political rally in that state three weeks ago. In Denver, Colorado, more than 34,000 people showed up – a career-high crowd for the 83-year-old Sanders. Saturday in Los Angeles saw another record: at least 36,000 people packed a downtown park.

A host of musical acts kicked off the high-energy event, including the indie rock band The Red Pears, Maggie Rogers, Indigo de Souza, and legends Baez and Young.

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Harvard University faculty sued the Trump administration on Friday over a federal assessment of the school’s spending amid allegations of their “failure” to protect students from antisemitism.

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and its campus chapter are both plaintiffs in the lawsuit which said failures were “unspecified” according to legal documents.

In the filing they noted that Harvard received policy demands from the administration in a letter outlining steps to keep $9 billion in federal funding.

“Harvard, like all American universities, depends on federal funding to conduct its academic research. Threats like these are an existential ‘gun to the head’ for a university,” the lawsuit reads.

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