TV News LIES

Several staff members have reportedly been fired from the US office of the director of national intelligence (DNI), multiple outlets have reported. These firings come less than a week after Donald Trump appointed Bill Pulte as the acting director after former director Tulsi Gabbard announced she was leaving the post in late May.

CBS reported on Tuesday that more than 50 career and political staff members had been dismissed, with six individuals fired and 45 “sent back to their home agencies”.

The DNI has not responded to the Guardian’s request for comment on the reported firings.

CNN first reported that Pulte, who also leads the federal housing finance agency, was considering the dismissal of hundreds of staff members on 19 June on the same day he assumed the role of acting director.

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A federal ⁠judge in California vacated the ⁠Trump administration’s ​nationwide policies expanding arrests at immigration courthouses and the duration for detaining noncitizens in short-term facilities, finding the actions of US Immigration ⁠and Customs Enforcement and another government arm “arbitrary and capricious”.

US district judge P Casey Pitts of the northern district of California on Tuesday vacated ICE’s ⁠policies that had rescinded previous strictures on arrests at immigration courthouses and allowed detainees to ​be held in short-term cells for up ‌to 72 hours. He ‌did the same for a similar policy undertaken by the US Department of Justice’s ‌executive office for immigration review that removed limits on courthouse arrests.

The 71-page ruling, issued in a case brought by an asylum seeker arrested upon departing a routine hearing at a San Francisco immigration court, struck down key parts of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies. Judge Pitts, appointed by Joe Biden, in effect reinstated Biden-era policies ‌that limited arrests at immigration courthouses to narrow circumstances and capped detentions in short-term facilities to 12 hours.

SinceDonald Trump retook office ​in January of last year, his administration has ramped up arrests of immigrants suspected of being in the US illegally as part of an aggressive deportation push.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is riding the wave of his candidates challenging mainstream Democrats from the left, as all three of his congressional primary endorsements came up big.

Brad Lander was quickly projected as the winner against incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in the state's 10th Congressional District Democratic primary race. State Assemblywoman Claire Valdez was the primary winner in New York's 7th Congressional District Democratic primary against Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and Queens Councilwoman Julie Won.

And, a third Mamdani-backed candidate, Darializa Avila Chevalier, also won, defeating five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat for New York's 13th Congressional District, which makes up parts of Harlem, Washington Heights and The Bronx.

Mamdani's slate – a trio who favor abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and label Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide – has shown how the mayor's influence could impact the national political scene.

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A federal judge on Monday blocked the Trump administration from using a revamped version of an immigration database for checking the accuracy of state voter rolls, dealing a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost the role of the federal government in elections ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Last year, the Department of Homeland Security revamped a system it uses to verify individuals’ citizenship and immigration status to make it easier for state and local officials to use it to make sure voters were U.S. citizens.

In a 75-page decision on Monday, U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan in Washington, D.C., sided with voting rights and privacy advocates who argued that the overhaul of the system, known as SAVE, made it less accurate and risked disenfranchising eligible voters.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” wrote Sooknanan, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

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Both chambers of Congress have now signaled support for ending the war in Iran, reflecting lawmakers' escalating unease with the conflict as President Donald Trump struggles to bring it to an official close.

Amid several Republican defections and absences, the Senate on June 23 passed a war powers resolution for the first time to end U.S. military hostilities in the war. The vote was 50-48.

The measure, which was largely symbolic and not actually binding, passed the House of Representatives weeks ago. It will not go to the president's desk.

Four GOP senators – Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Rand Paul of Kentucky – voted with Democrats in favor of the resolution. Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania did not vote. McConnell was recently hospitalized for an unspecified health issue. McCormick was at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.

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Until the World Cup began in mid-June, Caroline Corley had never watched a football match.

The 22-year-old graduate of Rutgers University says her interest piqued when she learned that both Brazil and Morocco, two powerhouses of football (or soccer in the US), would use her small hometown, Basking Ridge, as their base during the opening round of the tournament.

She could hardly believe that this quiet community in central New Jersey, was set to play a part in an event of such global significance.

She watched the USA vs Paraguay game on 12 June, then the Morocco vs Brazil game the next day, anMore...d has been a convert to the beautiful game ever since.

The Moroccan team, ranked sixth in the world and number one in Africa, set up residency at the Somerset Hotel and continue to train at the local Pingree School between games.

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For the past four years, I have witnessed the slow deterioration of our healthcare system. In the last two years, the situation has escalated dramatically - into something catastrophic.

Our hospitals are not simply struggling. They are being pushed beyond their limits, and our pharmacy shelves are bare.

Day by day, medicine by medicine, surgery by surgery, the system that thousands of patients depend upon is collapsing before our eyes.

This is not a natural crisis. It is the direct result of the economic collapse in Palestine and the withholding of clearance revenues - Palestinian tax funds collected by Israel. These funds, which constitute over 60 percent of the Palestinian Authority's revenues, have been frozen for months.

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Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations delivered a blistering warning to Russia at the Security Council, saying Moscow’s hold over occupied Ukrainian territories was temporary and that Kyiv may revise its ceasefire offer if the UN continues a “wait-and-see approach.”

“So, addressing the Russian representative, I can give you one piece of advice: you will never be able to hold the occupied lands. Never. So get out of Ukraine as quickly as possible, before it is too late,” Andrii Melnyk, Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN, told the Council.

Melnyk’s remarks came during a Security Council meeting on Monday, requested by Kyiv after a wave of Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, civilians and cultural landmarks.

He warned that Kyiv may “recalibrate and modify” its current ceasefire offer if the UN continues what he called a “wait-and-see approach.”

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