TV News LIES

The Defense Department will issue new press credentials but is still looking to keep some reporters out of the building by closing its media offices after a federal judge ruled last week that the Pentagon’s restrictive press policy was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., sided with The New York Times, which had sued the Trump administration for banning journalists who refused to sign a contract that put limitations on how they could solicit or report on information on the military.

The nonprofits’ case was consolidated with a similar suit brought by a group of 14 states last year.

The groups brought four claims, including that DOGE staffers lacked legal authority to carry out the firings and grant eliminations and violated the separation of powers in doing so. They also alleged Musk violated the Constitution by exercising “the power of a principal officer without having received Senate confirmation.”

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine were “disappointed” by the idea of a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire with Iran, President Trump said Tuesday.

Hegseth and Caine were “the only two people that were quite disappointed” the U.S.-Israeli war against Tehran may soon come to an end, Trump said in the Oval Office following the swearing in of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.

“I think this thing’s going to be settled very soon and they go, ‘Oh, that’s too bad.’ Pete didn’t want it to be settled,” Trump said. 

“They were not interested in settlement. They were interested in just winning this thing,” he added.

Trump has repeatedly given contrasting signals as to the potential length and scope of the war, which is now in its fourth week. At one moment he suggested talks are taking place that could have the conflict quickly coming to an end, while suggesting at another that new attacks could take place on Tehran’s energy infrastructure should negotiations fall through.

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A federal judge on Monday determined a lawsuit against Elon Musk for his former advisory role in the Trump administration’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) can move forward.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a memo Monday tossing out a dismissal request from the federal government, stating the claims that Musk and other DOGE leaders unlawfully assumed an expansive role in the federal government can play out in court.

The plaintiffs, a group of nonprofit organizations, “amply allege that the head of DOGE himself makes decisions and issues directives on matters as weighty as the termination of federal grants, contracts and workers,” Chutkan wrote.

The nonprofit organizations first filed the suit last March as the Tesla CEO, then serving as a special government employee from the Trump administration, led a team in initiating mass firings and contract and grant terminations across the federal government.

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Casualty count: Over the three days of the Eid holiday, nine Palestinians were killed—one due to wounds sustained in earlier attacks—and 30 were injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 72,263 killed, with 171,944 injured. Since October 11, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 687 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 1,845, while 756 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Israeli strike kills three Palestinian police officers in central Gaza: An Israeli strike on Sunday hit a police vehicle in central Gaza, killing three Palestinian officers and wounding eight, according to local reports. The attack comes amid repeated Israeli attacks on police units in recent weeks, in which it has targeted civilian law enforcement to disrupt basic governance and sow chaos. One more person was killed in a separate attack in Gaza City, according to Al-Shifa hospital.

Settlers torch West Bank villages in coordinated raids: Dozens of Israeli settlers carried out coordinated attacks across at least 15 Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, setting homes and vehicles on fire and assaulting residents. The attacks were reportedly “retaliation” for an incident in which an Israeli settler died in an accident with a Palestinian driver. At least nine Palestinians were injured in the attacks, with incidents recorded in Jalud, Fandaqumiya, Silat ad-Dhahr, and Qaryut. Over 15 Palestinians were detained and no settlers were arrested.

An additional 10 Palestinians were injured on Sunday in attacks by rampaging settlers on four Palestinian villages in the Nablus area. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich used the funeral of the settler killed in the accident to advocate for unimpeded settlement of the West Bank, saying that, “We will erase the lines, the definitions, and the letters, and we will settle our land in all its expanses.”

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Up to 10 Palestinians are dying every day in Gaza due to severe Israeli restrictions that prevent them from accessing urgent medical care abroad, the Palestinian health ministry has said.

Zaher al-Wahidi, the director of the ministry's information department, said on Monday that "every day, between six and 10 patients who are waiting to travel abroad for treatment die".

He said there were at least 195 cases classified as life-threatening and warned that if they were not evacuated within the next few hours, their lives could be at risk. 

There are 1,971 other emergency cases that need to be evacuated within weeks, or they could reach critical levels amid their deteriorating conditions. 

Among these cases are 4,000 children and another 4,000 cancer patients.

Medical evacuations out of Gaza have long been a difficult trial for thousands of Palestinians with Israel's years-long siege on the territory. 

Since the start of Israel's genocidal war on the strip, these limitations have only increased, especially with Israeli forces occupying the Rafah crossing and its surroundings.

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Hundreds of doctors in the UK have signed a petition accusing the country's medical regulator of fostering an “environment of fear” by pursuing what they say is a politically motivated campaign against the prominent British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah.

The petition, organised by Health Workers 4 Palestine, calls on the leadership of the General Medical Council (GMC) to resign after the regulator said it would challenge the outcome of an independent tribunal which cleared Abu Sittah of wrongdoing following a complaint brought by a pro-Israel advocacy group over an article he had written for a Lebanese newspaper.

The petition also raised concerns about financial governance at the regulator, after noting that legal costs in the Abu Sittah case reportedly exceed £200,000 - an amount that requires approval from the GMC’s most senior leadership.

Last week a second medical regulatory body, the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care (PSA), said it had joined the GMC in challenging the tribunal's judgment in favour of Abu Sittah.

The United States and Israel expected a rapid internal uprising in Iran to help bring the war to a swift end, but the plan has failed to materialize, The New York Times reported on Sunday, March 23.

According to the report, Israeli and US officials believed that early strikes on Iran’s leadership and infrastructure could trigger mass protests and destabilize the government.

The plan, presented by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency ahead of the war, envisioned riots and internal unrest that could potentially lead to the collapse of Iran’s leadership.

Over three weeks into the war, no large-scale uprising has emerged, and Iran’s government remains in control, the report said.

US and Israeli intelligence assessments concluded that, while the government has been weakened, it remains intact – with security forces still deterring potential protests.

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In the latest battle over the future of Voice of America, a fresh group of veteran Voice of America journalists are suing Trump administration official Kari Lake, alleging that she is promoting pro-Trump propaganda on air. They also contend she has trampled the network's editorial independence in violation of federal law and First Amendment principles.

"The Voice of America has been breaching the Constitutional and statutory rules that require that outlet not to push propaganda or censorship," one of the lead attorneys on the lawsuit, Norm Eisen, tells NPR. "In a time of crisis and conflict, like what we have right now in Iran, people count on the U.S. government broadcasts, and in particular, the Voice of America, to tell the truth."

Lake did not respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the network, put out an unsigned statement that it said came from "an agency official."

"American taxpayers fund USAGM and Voice of America, and those funds by law must support broadcasting that reflects U.S. policy and the interests of the American people," the statement read. "USAGM is responsible for oversight of its networks, including Voice of America, and for ensuring compliance with the VOA Charter, which requires authoritative, accurate journalism that is reflective of and clearly presents U.S. policies."

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