TV News LIES

Donald Trump has been condemned by a leading US Muslim civil rights group for seeking to use the word “Palestinian” as an insult when he attacked the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, as “not Jewish any more”.

“President Trump’s use of the term ‘Palestinian’ as a racial slur is offensive and beneath the dignity of his office,” said Nihad Awad, the national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or Cair.

“He should apologize to the Palestinian and American people. It is the continuing dehumanization of the Palestinian people that has resulted in horrific hate crimes against Palestinian-Americans, the US-enabled genocide in Gaza, and decades of denial of Palestinian human rights by successive presidential administrations.”

TVNL Comment: Let's see if the members of Congress and other 'leaders' will show outrage at more ugliness by the Donald. Again, just when you think he's hit rock botttom....

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A federal judge on Wednesday said she will temporarily halt President Donald Trump's new restrictions on law firm Perkins Coie, which represented Hillary Clinton during her failed 2016 bid for the presidency.

In a March 6 executive order, Trump directed federal agencies to terminate contracts with Perkins Coie "to the extent permitted by law," to limit the firm's approximately 1,200 lawyers' access to federal buildings and federal employees, and to halt security clearances for employees at the firm. By explanation, the order claimed the law firm hired Fusion GPS to compile of dossier of information critical of Trump while it was representing Clinton, and − in reference to its workforce diversity and inclusion policies − that the firm discriminates on the basis of race in hiring decisions.

Judge Beryl Howell said at a hearing Wednesday that she would issue a temporary restraining order to block Trump's order while the firm's lawsuit challenging it plays out.

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A federal judge deciding whether to pause Trump administration restrictions on transgender servicemembers chided the Defense Department on Wednesday for misrepresenting studies in an attempt to justify the ban.

“Do you agree that you can’t just pick and choose sentences from a study, right?” U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes asked the administration’s lawyers during a nearly five-hour hearing. Reyes is weighing whether to put the policy on hold while it's being challenged by transgender members of the military. She expects to decide by next week.

Reyes, who was equally blunt with the Defense Department lawyers about her concerns with their argument at a previous hearing, said the administration wants her to ignore “why someone would so misleadingly characterize a study other than to come to a preordained conclusion.”

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The Department of Agriculture has cut over $1 billion in funding aimed at helping schools and food banks purchase from local farmers, according to a news report and a school nutrition nonprofit. The cuts come amid the Trump administration's push to purge federal spending.

States were notified recently that the USDA had cut the funding for the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program for 2025, the organization School Nutrition Association said in a news release.

The agency also cut funds for the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, which operates similarly for the food supplies for local food banks and organizations in underserved communities, according to a report from Politico. Citing an unnamed spokesperson within the USDA, Politico reported that existing LFPA agreements would continue but that there would not be another round of funding this year.

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President Trump's proposal to move all Palestinians out of Gaza has taken on a life of its own in Israel.

Israeli officials say they're working on a plan to create a migration authority to help relocate the vast majority of Gaza's two million people. A senior Cabinet minister, Bezalel Smotrich, says Israel is working with the Trump administration to locate countries that would take them in. Surveys suggest the majority of Israelis are open to the idea.

Whether it will actually happen is another matter. Dozens of Arab and Muslim-majority countries have rejected the notion as ethnic cleansing. Trump said he would not force the idea after Egypt and Jordan rejected it.

"We paid Jordan and Egypt a lot — billions of dollars a year, and I was a little surprised they'd say that, but they did," Trump said on Fox News Radio on Feb. 21. "I think that's the plan that really works. But I'm not forcing it. I'm just going to sit back and recommend it."

What remains is a radically changed discourse in Israel.

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The United States will resume sending military aid and intelligence to Ukraine after Ukraine agreed to a Trump administration proposal for a monthlong ceasefire, the U.S. and Ukraine said after talks in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

It was the first high-level meeting between Ukraine and the U.S. since the Trump administration froze military aid and intelligence sharing for Ukraine in the wake of a televised blowup between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in late February.

In a joint statement, both countries' governments said Tuesday's talks in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, marked "important steps toward restoring durable peace for Ukraine."