TV News LIES

Zanesville sculptor Alan Cottrill put the final touches – gold leaf gilding – on a 15-foot-tall bronze statue of President Donald Trump three months ago but he's been holding it hostage until he gets full payment.

"It's in an undisclosed location in Muskingum County, Ohio," Cottrill said. "I don't say any more than that."

Cottrill is in an ongoing payment dispute with $PATRIOT, a cryptocurrency group that commissioned the work in August 2024. The statue features Trump pumping his fist in the air following a July 2024 assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania.

Cottrill said he's been paid $300,000 for the piece, as agreed, and an additional $60,000 for the gold leafing. The hang up is over a copyright infringement when the crypto group used images of his original artwork to sell crypto tokens, he said.

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Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced Friday the investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is closed.

In a post on X, Pirro said the Fed’s inspector general “has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns — in the billions of dollars — that have been borne by taxpayers.”

While that’s happening, the investigation into Powell — which prosecutors have said is about potential fraud charges related to renovations of the Federal Reserve building, and statements during a testimony Powell gave to a congressional committee — is ending.

“The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers,” Pirro said in her statement. “I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas.”

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Friday he would veto a controversial “buffer zone” bill to restrict protests around educational institutions, calling it an excessive restriction of the First Amendment.

The veto is the first of Mamdani’s administration.

The mayor said he would not veto a similar recent bill restricting protests near houses of worship. City Council Speaker Julie Menin had framed both bills as common-sense safety measures to protect people from harassment.

But Mamdani said the implications of limits on protests at campuses and schools were too broad.

“As the bill is written, everywhere from universities to museums to teaching hospitals could face restrictions,” he said in a statement. “This could impact workers protesting [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], or college students demanding their school divest from fossil fuels or demonstrating in support of Palestinian rights.”

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For two years, establishment Democrats have led a wide-ranging legal attack on University of Michigan pro-Palestinian student activists, aiming to shut down their protest of Israel. On Sunday, Democratic Party delegates symbolically rebuked the establishment’s draconian campaign. Two pro-Palestinian candidates notched upset wins against pro-Israel-backed opponents in statewide primary races in this critical upper Midwest swing state.

The races, decided by the Michigan Democratic Party’s delegates during a nominating convention, mark material and symbolic victories for pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan (U-M)—some of whom continue to face investigations over their protests of the genocide. And, as more polling shows the extent to which support for Israel has collapsed across the political spectrum, the wins indicate that the pro-Israel playbook is failing even in lower, state-level races.

In the state Attorney General’s race, Ann Arbor’s progressive Jewish prosecutor, Eli Savit, beat Karen McDonald, who was backed by major corporations and pro-Israel donors. And in the race for a seat on the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, defense attorney Amir Makled defeated incumbent regent Jordan Acker, who helped lead the school’s legal attack on the pro-Palestinian students. Makled represented some of the students who beat the U-M prosecutions.

Makled, who is Lebanese-American, overcame an onslaught of allegations that he is antisemitic and supports Hezbollah. He told Drop Site the wins show “the electorate is done with AIPAC-aligned candidates and their smear campaigns.”

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A White House photo celebrating a champion women’s sports team has drawn backlash due to the positioning of Donald Trump and a group of men, who overshadowed the female athletes by lining up in front of them.

The University of Georgia women’s tennis team was one of several collegiate teams to visit the White House on Tuesday to mark a recent NCAA championship win. In a photo shared by press aide Margo Martin, Donald Trump and five Georgia staffers and coaches took up the front row of a stage setup, with 11 women standing in the background on a riser.

The men standing alongside Trump were, from left to right: Georgia deputy athletic director Ford Williams, athletic director Josh Brooks, head coach Drake Bernstein, associate head coach Jarryd Chaplin and assistant coach Will Reynolds.

The women standing behind him were, in the back row: Anastasiia Lopata, Mai Nirundorn, Aysegul Mert, Sarah Branicki and Alexandra Vecic; in the middle row: Tatum Buffington, Guillermina Grant, Haley Gaudette and Sofia Rojas; and in the front row: Mell Reasco and Hayden Mulberry.

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A day after Virginia voters passed a redistricting referendum expected to net Democrats more House seats, a Republican-appointed judge blocked its implementation.

Judge Jack Hurley ruled that the redistricting was unconstitutional and issued an injunction preventing certification of the election. Hurley previously ruled that the referendum should not go to voters, but the state Supreme Court overruled him.

Virginians for Fair Elections, a group that backed the referendum, also slammed the decision.

“Republicans lost,” the group said. “Now they’re trying to overturn the will of the voters in court and trying to relitigate an election they couldn’t win.”

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