TV News LIES

Boston’s mayor Michelle Wu has hit back sharply at the Trump administration’s legal threats over sanctuary city immigration policies, declaring that “Boston will not back down”.

Wu told a news conference outside Boston’s city hall on Tuesday: “The US attorney general asked for a response by today, so here it is: stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston fhttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/19/boston-sanctuary-cities-michelle-wu-trump-administrationollows the law. And Boston will not back down from who we are and what we stand for.”

Last week, the US Department of Justice sent letters to 13 states, from California to Rhode Island, and 22 local governments, from Boston to Seattle, that it has deemed “sanctuary jurisdictions”, threatening their leaders with prosecution for allegedly “undermining” and “obstructing” federal immigration enforcement.

The letters warned that they could lose federal funds or face legal action if they do not assist with Donald Trump’s sweeping, aggressive and highly controversial immigration enforcement and mass deportation efforts.

Attorney general Pam Bondi has warned that she intends to prosecute political leaders who are not – in her view - sufficiently supportive of immigration enforcement.

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A panel of federal appellate judges ruled Tuesday that New Mexico’s seven-day waiting period on gun purchases likely infringes on citizens’ Second Amendment rights, putting the law on hold pending a legal challenge.

The ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sends the case back to a lower court. New Mexico’s waiting period went into effect in May 2024, and does hold an exception for concealed permit holders.

“Cooling-off periods do not fit into any historically grounded exceptions to the right to keep and bear arms, and burden conduct within the Second Amendment’s scope,” wrote Judge Timothy Tymkovich in the split 2-1 ruling. ”We conclude that New Mexico’s Waiting Period Act is likely an unconstitutional burden on the Second Amendment rights of its citizens.

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D.C. National Guard members patrolling Washington as part of the Trump administration's plan to ramp up policing may soon be carrying weapons, a Guard spokesperson said Sunday.

The Army had said last week that Guard members would not be carrying weapons and would not be making arrests.

But on Sunday, Army Senior Master Sgt. Craig Clapper told NPR in a statement that "Guard members may be armed consistent with their mission and training."

"Their presence is focused on supporting civil authorities and ensuring the safety of the community they serve," Clapper added. "The DC National Guard remains committed to assisting the District of Columbia and serving its residents and visitors whenever called upon."

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Director Spike Lee’s multi-part documentary series for ESPN Films about former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked a national debate when he protested racial injustice nearly a decade ago, will not be released, the filmmaker and ESPN said.

“ESPN, Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,” ESPN said in a statement to Reuters on Saturday. “Despite not reaching finality, we appreciate all the hard work and collaboration that went into this film.”https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/16/espn-spike-lee-colin-kaepernick-docuseries

Lee told Reuters on Friday that the series was not going to be released.

“It’s not coming out. That’s all I can say,” Lee said on the red carpet ahead of the Harold and Carole Pump Foundation dinner, a fundraiser for cancer research and treatment, in Beverly Hills, California.

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White House officials and attorneys for Washington DC have agreed to scale back the Trump administration’s takeover of the city’s police department.

Under an agreement announced early Friday evening, the US capital city’s Metropolitan police department will remain under the control of its chief, Pamela Smith, instead of Terry Cole, the top administrator for the Drug and Enforcement Administration (DEA), according to reports

A revised directive Bondi issued late on Friday referred to Cole instead as her “designee” for purposes of directing the DC mayor “to provide such services of the Metropolitan Police Department as the attorney general deems necessary and appropriate”.

Those services, according to Bondi’s two-page order, would include assisting federal immigration enforcement, contrary to DC “sanctuary city” policies constraining metropolitan police department action on immigration.

A former California correctional officer convicted of dozens of sexual abuse charges at a women’s prison was sentenced to 224 years in prison on Thursday.

Gregory Rodriguez, 57, worked as a guard at the Central California women’s facility (CCWF), the state’s largest women’s prison, and was found guilty in January of over 60 charges of abusing nine women in his custody, including rape and battery.

Rodriguez’s case became a huge scandal for the state, exposing a longstanding crisis of sexual misconduct and abuse behind bars. The officer was found to have targeted incarcerated women over the span of nearly a decade before he retired in 2022 while under investigation.

A Guardian investigation published in 2023 revealed the prison received a report of Rodriguez’s abuse in 2014, but did not terminate him and instead punished the victim. That survivor spoke of being sent to solitary confinement while authorities investigated claims of her abuse.

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