TV News LIES

A California jury found Bill Cosby guilty of sexual assault in a civil trial on Monday, awarding Donna Motsinger $59.25m in damages. Motsinger alleged in the case that while working as a restaurant server in 1972, she was drugged and raped by Cosby after he gave her a glass of wine in his limousine.

Motsinger sued Cosby after California amended its laws to change the statutes of limitations on when accusers can file sexual assault cases. In remarks after the jury’s verdict, she described the trial as a five-decade-long effort to get justice.

Cosby, once one of the most successful men in comedy and an entertainment icon, has largely disappeared from public view in the past decade amid widespread allegations of sexual misconduct. In addition to the dozens of women who have accused Cosby of drugging and sexual assault, he has faced a series of civil trials – including Los Angeles county jurors in 2022 finding that he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl at the Playboy mansion in 1975.

More...

The US supreme court appeared poised on Monday to curtail how mail-in ballots can be counted if they arrive after election day, which would affect laws in more than a dozen states during a midterm election year.

The justices are considering Watson v Republican National Committee, a challenge over a Mississippi state law that was brought in 2024 by the Republican party. Mississippi allows mailed ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of election day, so long as they were postmarked by election day. Mississippi changed its laws in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Fourteen states, Washington DC and three US territories have similar laws that allow for late-arriving ballots to be counted. Based on the justices’ questions, it is clear the case is not focused narrowly on Mississippi’s grace period, but on other states’ rules, which in some cases allow for a longer grace period and don’t require postmarks.

Mississippi, a red state, is defending its ability to set its own procedures for elections against the challenge from the Republican party, which argues that the grace period violates federal laws that set election day for the first Tuesday of November.

More...

The union representing Transportation Security Administration officers has a message for President Donald Trump: Thanks, but no thanks.

On Monday morning, the president dispatched Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to several airports to supposedly alleviate long security lines created by the partial government shutdown. But union representatives for TSA officers say the president’s plan is unhelpful at best and could actually make things more dangerous.

“Our guys are going to be pissed,” said Joe Shuker, a regional vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees, the union representing TSA officers.

Shuker told HuffPost he received a text message Monday morning about ICE officers showing up at Philadelphia International Airport, one of 14 locations where the administration planned to send them. He wasn’t sure exactly what the ICE officers would be doing, but he knows they aren’t trained to do what TSA officers do: spot airport-specific security threats such as homemade bombs inside luggage and fake passports.

More...

The U.S. war in Iran is taking a mounting toll on America’s military, with rising casualties, dwindling munitions stockpiles, a sidelined aircraft carrier and numerous downed aircraft just three weeks into the conflict.

At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed, while another 232 have been injured since the U.S.-Israeli war against Tehran began on Feb. 28. In addition, some 16 American aircraft have been destroyed, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was damaged in a laundry room fire earlier this month and American forces are quickly blowing through stocks of air defense and long-range munitions.

Now, with reports that Pentagon officials have made detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran — a move that is almost sure to be met by fierce retaliation from Tehran — those losses could quickly increase. Experts say the developments in the Middle East threaten U.S. security in other areas of the world, namely the Indo-Pacific.

“The problem, I think, is several-fold,” said Seth Jones, a former Pentagon official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You’re taking an area that is not your top priority, and you’re now sort of blown through readiness and maintenance issues with aircraft and ships that will be important for a China contingency operation.”

More...

At least two people were killed and dozens were At least two people were killed and dozens were injured after an Air Canada Express jet collided with a fire truck on a runway at New York's LaGuardia airport late on Sunday, March 22.

The Air Canada Express CRJ-900 jet carrying 72 passengers and four crew members collided with the vehicle just before 11:40 p.m. on Sunday, Kathryn Garcia, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said at a news conference. The Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle was responding to another aircraft operated by United Airlines, which had reported an issue with odor, Garcia said.

Jazz Aviation, which operates as Air Canada Express, confirmed in a statement the incident involved a flight headed to LaGuardia from Montreal.

The company, citing Port Authority of New York and New Jersey officials, said the deceased were identified as the pilot and the first officer.

More...

With the help of two Democrats, the Senate on March 23 confirmed Markwayne Mullin to replace Kristi Noem as the head of the Department of Homeland Security.

The pugilistic Oklahoma Republican senator now is tasked with leading not only a critical federal agency in mounting crisis, but also the immigration agenda of a White House that has increasingly found its hardline enforcement policies to be a political liability – in a midterm year that could cost the president's party control of Congress.

The largely partisan vote, 54-45, was a break from precedent, as senators of both parties have in the past shown at least some deference to their colleagues in the legislative chamber to support them for Cabinet positions. It was a stark reminder of a staunchly polarized Congress, especially when it comes to issues related to immigration.

All GOP senators except for one, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, voted to confirm Mullin, a former mixed martial arts fighter who ran a multimillion-dollar plumbing business before he was first elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives over a decade ago.

More...

Dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged across the occupied West Bank overnight on Saturday, torching cars and houses.

Video footage showed the villages of Jalud, Fandaqumiya, Silat ad-Dhahr and Qaryut with buildings on fire, and residents scrambling to try to evacuate those inside.

The Israeli army reported on Sunday a spate of arson attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank the previous night.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said three people were injured after being beaten by settlers in the village of Jalud. Six others were injured from beatings in villages near Jenin.

The Palestinian news agency Wafa said several Palestinians were injured in the attacks. No arrests have been made.

The Israeli army said the attacks came after an Israeli civilian died on Saturday "following a report received regarding a Palestinian vehicle that hit an Israeli vehicle".

"Last night, IDF and border police forces were dispatched to several Palestinian villages... following reports of Israeli civilians committing acts of arson against structures and property, as well as engaging in disturbances in the area," the military said.

Six Palestinians have been shot dead in settler attacks in the West Bank since 1 March, according to the Palestinian Authority.

More...

Russian forces carried out around 700 strikes across Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhzhia region over a 24-hour period, killing two people and injuring eight others, regional authorities said.

The attacks targeted dozens of settlements and caused widespread damage to civilian infrastructure.

According to Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration head Ivan Fedorov, Russian forces launched a total of 700 strikes on 39 settlements in the region over the past day.

The attacks included airstrikes, drone assaults, artillery fire and multiple-launch rocket system (MLRS) strikes, with drones accounting for the majority of incidents.

Fedorov said Russian forces carried out nearly 400 drone attacks, mostly using FPV drones, alongside dozens of airstrikes and hundreds of artillery strikes.

More...