TV News LIES

The US military will no longer allow transgender individuals to join the armed forces and will stop performing or facilitating procedures associated with gender transition for service members, according to a memo from defense secretary Pete Hegseth filed in court Monday.

Hegseth’s memo comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order in January that took aim at transgender troops in a personal way. The president’s order had said that a man identifying as a woman was “not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member”.

To that end, the memo from Hegseth on Monday – filed with the US district court in Washington DC – said: “Effective immediately, all new accessions for individuals with a history of gender dysphoria are paused.

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Prosecutors began their case against Hadi Matar, the man accused of attacking the author Salman Rushdie, with a vivid and gruesome description of the stabbing they said came perilously close to killing him.

Matar, a 27-year-old Lebanese American, is charged with attempted murder and assault over the stabbing attack on the author on stage at an arts festival in August 2022. The 77-year-old Rushdie was grievously injured in the attack and lost sight in one eye.

In opening statements on Monday, the prosecutor Jason Schmidt told jurors in Chautauqua county court that Matar, from Fairview, New Jersey, had “come dangerously close to committing murder” when he assaulted Rushdie with a knife.

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Nearly half a billion dollars of food aid is at risk of spoilage following the decision of Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s “Doge” agency to make cuts to USAid, according to an inspector general (IG) report released on Monday.

Following staff reductions and funding freezes, the US agency responsible for providing humanitarian assistance across the world – including food, water, shelter and emergency healthcare – is struggling to function.

“Recent widespread staffing reductions across the agency … coupled with uncertainty about the scope of foreign assistance waivers and permissible communications with implementers, has degraded USAid’s ability to distribute and safeguard taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance,” the report said.

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A top Department of Justice (DOJ) official ordered federal prosecutors to dismiss corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), who had cozied up with President Trump in recent months as his bribery trial set for April neared.

In a short memo, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove said the DOJ reached the decision to dismiss the counts without assessing the strength of the case and indicated that the attorneys who filed the charges did nothing wrong.

However, Bove said the case “improperly interfered” with Adams’s 2025 mayoral campaign and alluded to the Trump administration’s efforts to end “weaponization” in the federal government as a reason to wind down the case.

A federal judge extended indefinitely the deadline for government workers to accept a government buyout, as a lawsuit to block the offer continues in court.

U.S. District Court Judge George O’Toole heard arguments Monday over the legality of the offer, in which the Office of Personnel Management has pledged eight months of pay and benefits for those wishing to leave the federal service.

It’s O’Toole’s second extension for employees to take the offer, making a ruling just hours ahead of the original Thursday deadline to punt the timeline for taking the deal.

A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to comply with his order to unfreeze federal grants, after attorneys general for several Democratic states claimed the directive was not being fulfilled.

In a short order Monday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell directed the Trump administration to “immediately” end any federal funding pause until he decides whether to indefinitely block the freeze while litigation is ongoing.

A third federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s order to stop providing citizenship to children born in the United States to parents without legal authorization.

U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante issued the injunction Monday at the request of New Hampshire Indonesian Community Support. He said both sides argued their cases well, but that the Indonesian community was likely to win the case and would be harmed if the order weren't blocked now.

“Nobody threw me any curveballs this morning," Laplante said. "I’m not persuaded by the defendants’ arguments in this case."

Laplante’s order followed similar restrictions from judges in Maryland and Washington state. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour called the order “blatantly unconstitutional,” in a separate challenge in Seattle.

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