TV News LIES

New Jersey’s Newark Liberty airport, one of three major airports serving New York City, had just three air traffic controllers on duty on Monday, which was well short of the 14 called for and forced air regulators to delay arriving flights for up to seven hours.

The air traffic controller shortfall, first reported by the New York Times, comes amid a growing number of problems for the hub. In a little more than a week, Newark has suffered three communications blackouts, rendering the control tower unable to track or communicate with planes for up to 90 seconds.

The most recent failure, on Sunday morning, came as government and airline officials have made multiple efforts to reassure airline passengers that flying into or out of the airport is safe.

But on Monday evening, during the 3pm to 10pm shift, the group that manages Newark air traffic from Philadelphia was operating with one or two fully certified controllers, the outlet reported – far fewer than the 14 controllers agreed on between the controllers union and air traffic control regulators.

More...

A Los Angeles judge ruled Tuesday that the Menendez brothers are eligible for parole in the August 1989 shotgun deaths of their parents, a decision that moves the two men significantly closer to possible release from prison.

Erik and Lyle Menendez, held in custody since 1990 and originally sentenced to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, were each handed a new sentence of 50 years to life by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic.

"They (the brothers) had tears and they were smiling," Menendez attorney Cliff Gardner told Los Angeles television station KNBC-TV, relaying what he saw from the video link in court immediately after the ruling.

More...

Three climbers from suburban Seattle were killed in a fall on Sunday when their equipment failed while rappelling down a steep gully in North Cascades national park in Washington state, sheriff’s officials said.

A party of four climbers was descending the gully in the area of North Early Winters Spire when the fall happened. Sheriff’s officials presume the cause was an anchor failure but are still investigating. Three of the climbers – ages 36, 47 and 63 – were killed at the scene while the fourth person freed themselves and walked back to the trailhead then drove to a pay phone to call for help.

Sheriff’s personnel and county search and rescue volunteers responded to the accident late Sunday morning about 16 miles (26km) west of Mazama in an area of rock formations that are popular with climbers, the Okanogan county sheriff’s office said in a social media post on Monday.

More...

A group of Quakers were marching more than 300 miles from New York City to Washington DC to demonstrate against the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

The march extends a long tradition of Quaker activism. Historically, Quakers have been involved in peaceful protests to end wars and slavery, and support women’s voting rights in line with their commitment to justice and peace. Far more recently, Quakers sued the federal government earlier this year over immigration agents’ ability to make arrests at houses of worship.

Organizers of the march say their protest seeks to show solidarity with migrants and other groups that are being targeted by Donald Trump’s second presidency.

More...

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student and Turkish national, was released from federal custody on Friday, hours after a judge in Vermont ordered the Trump administration to free her. Accompanied by her lawyer, Öztürk walked out of the immigration detention center in rural Louisiana where she's been detained for more than six weeks, since masked federal agents picked her up on a suburban Boston street as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian student activists.

At a bail hearing earlier in the day, Judge William K. Sessions of the U.S. District Court for Vermont said that her arrest and detention appeared likely to have been carried out solely in retaliation for an op-ed she wrote in a campus newspaper criticizing her school leaders' response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

"I suggested to the government that they produce any additional information which would suggest that she posed a substantial risk," Sessions said. "And that was three weeks ago, and there has been no evidence introduced by the government other than the op-ed. That literally is the case. There is no evidence here."

More...

Former Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter, a Republican who sided with his liberal colleagues in many high-profile cases during his 19-year tenure, has died.

He was 85.

Souter died peacefully on May 8 at home in New Hampshire, according to a statement from the court.

Chief Justice John Roberts said Souter brought "uncommon wisdom and kindness to a lifetime of public service."

"He will be greatly missed," Roberts said in a statement.

A former New Hampshire attorney general, Souter’s background as a New England moderate put him at odds with the more conservative Republican Party forged by Ronald Reagan’s presidency. That perspective often left Souter in dissent on a conservative high court led by former Chief William Rehnquist.

More...