TV News LIES

Thousands of employees at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) accepted the Trump administration’s voluntary resignation offer, leading to a significant reduction in force.

The decrease accounts for about 15 percent of the total workforce at the department which regulates food quality, agriculture development and nationwide nutrition efforts. A USDA spokesperson told The Hill that as of May 1, 15,182 employees elected to take a resignation offer.

In the past six months, two babies in Louisiana have died of pertussis, the disease commonly known as whooping cough.

Washington state recently announced its first confirmed death from pertussis in more than a decade.

Idaho and South Dakota each reported a death this year, and Oregon last year reported two as well as its highest number of cases since 1950.

While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year.

Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure.

More...

A judge in former Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil’s case ruled against him Friday, finding he is eligible for deportation while giving his legal team a little less than two weeks to respond.

Jamee Comans, an immigration judge in Louisiana, found the government’s case is “facially reasonable.” She gave his team until April 23 to file its response.

The government had “established by clear and convincing evidence that he is removable,” Comans said, The Associated Press reported.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed for the first time on Monday that Ukrainian troops have been active in Russia's Belgorod region as they seek to protect Ukrainian towns near the border.

Ukrainian troops remain in parts of the neighbouring Russian region of Kursk eight months after a cross-border incursion, though Russian forces have recaptured much lost territory.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had presented a report "on the front line, our presence in the Kursk region and our presence in the Belgorod region."

"We continue active operations in the enemy's border areas and this is absolutely justified. The war must return to where it came from.

"Our main objective remains the same: to protect our land and our communities in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions from Russian occupiers."

More...

Los Angeles county has reached a $4bn agreement to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959, officials said Friday.

The agreement, which still needs approval from the Los Angeles county board of supervisors, would be the largest of its kind and have long-lasting financial effects for the county, officials said.

“On behalf of the county, I apologize wholeheartedly to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts,” Fesia Davenport, the county’s chief executive, said in a statement.