TV News LIES

A federal judge has decided that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis cannot unilaterally designate the largest Muslim-American civil rights organisation as a "terrorist" group because it infringes on First Amendment rights. 

The temporary injunction on Wednesday blocks DeSantis's executive order signed in December, designating the Council on American Islamic Relations (Cair) as a terrorist organisation, and opening up a potential pathway for state prosecutions of anyone believed to be supporting them.

“The question before this Court is whether the Governor can, in a non-emergency situation, unilaterally designate one of the largest Muslim civil rights groups in America as a ‘terrorist organization’ and withhold government benefits from anyone providing material support or resources to the group,” judge Mark Walker wrote in his order.

“This Court finds he cannot.”

He said his decision is based on DeSantis's "coercion of third parties to cut ties with Plaintiff" because Cair had lost contracts with Florida companies while other advocacy groups severed ties with them.

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Just months after President Trump's mass pardons for Jan. 6 rioters freed him from prison, a Florida man repeatedly sexually abused two middle-school aged children.

On Thursday, the man, Andrew Paul Johnson, was sentenced to life in prison, after a Florida jury found him guilty of five criminal charges, including molestation, lewd and lascivious exhibition and transmission of material harmful to a minor.

Police reported that Johnson, 45, tried to keep the children quiet by telling them he would share millions of dollars in restitution money he expected to receive from the Trump administration in connection with his Jan. 6 case.

"He said not to tell anybody," one of Johnson's victims testified.

Both children later testified that they were too afraid to tell any adults about what they had endured, according to trial records obtained by NPR.

"We were scared," Johnson's other victim testified. "Like, we didn't realize that this stuff was not okay because we were 12 years old."

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The Justice Department has published additional Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor after an NPR investigation found dozens of pages were withheld.

They include 16 new pages that cover three additional FBI interview summaries with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor. Also included are two pages of an intake form documenting the initial call to the FBI from a friend who relayed the claims.

NPR's investigation previously found 53 pages that appeared to be missing from the public database.

Now that these documents are published, there are still 37 pages of records still missing from the public database, including notes from the interviews, a law enforcement report and license records.

The Justice Department has repeatedly told NPR that any documents withheld were "privileged, are duplicates or relate to an ongoing federal investigation."

Last week, after NPR's initial story, the Justice Department said it was determining if records had been mistakenly tagged as duplicates and if any were found, "the Department will of course publish it, consistent with the law."

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Bernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died.

Bernard LaFayette III said his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack. He was 85.

On 7 March 1965, the beating of future congressman John Lewis and voting rights marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge led the evening news, shocking the nation’s conscience and pushing Congress to act. But two years before “Bloody Sunday”, it was LaFayette who quietly set the stage for Selma and the advances in voting rights that would follow.

LaFayette was one of a delegation of Nashville students who in 1960 helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which organized desegregation and voting rights campaigns across the south. SNCC crossed Selma off its map after some initial scouting determined “the white folks were too mean and the Black folks were too scared”, LaFayette said.

But he insisted on trying anyway. Named director of the Alabama voter registration campaign in 1963, LaFayette moved to the town and, with his former wife, Colia Liddell, gradually built the leadership capacity of the local people, convincing them change was possible and creating momentum that could not be stopped. He described this work in a 2013 memoir, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma.

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A federal panel reviewing Donald Trump’s planned $400m ballroom addition to the White House postponed an expected vote on the project until next month, after receiving thousands of negative public comments.

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) had been expected to cast a final vote on the proposal on Thursday, but instead, the chair of the commission announced at the beginning of the meeting that the vote would now be held on 2 April, citing the “large amount of public input” submitted during the public comment period.

A federal panel reviewing Donald Trump’s planned $400m ballroom addition to the White House postponed an expected vote on the project until next month, after receiving thousands of negative public comments.

The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) had been expected to cast a final vote on the proposal on Thursday, but instead, the chair of the commission announced at the beginning of the meeting that the vote would now be held on 2 April, citing the “large amount of public input” submitted during the public comment period.

“We’re going to take the time to deliberate, and we’re going to have a final vote on April 2,” Will Scharf, the NCPC chair and top aide to Trump, said on Thursday as the meeting began, according to CNN.

Before the meeting, the commission released more than 9,000 pages of public comments it received about the project. The commission has said that more than 35,000 people had submitted written comments, with the majority opposing Trump’s plans to build a 90,000 sq ft ballroom where the East Wing of the White House once stood, and condemning the demolition of the East Wing, which began in October.

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President Donald Trump announced March 5 he was replacing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after lawmakers grilled her this week about a $220 million ad campaign that featured her prominently.

Trump announced on social media that Noem would be succeeded by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, effective March 31.

Trump said Noem would become special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, his initiative for security against narcotics trafficking in the western hemisphere.

The shift came after Noem was grilled by Republicans and Democrats at the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3 and the House Judiciary Committee on March 4 about her ad campaign. She testified that she had discussed the campaign with Trump and he approved it.

"I never knew anything about it," Trump told Reuters in a phone interview.

The ads prominently featured Noem, including in a scene filmed on horseback at Mount Rushmore in the former South Dakota governor's home state.

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