TV News LIES

In this rural town just across the Massachusetts line, the Leavitt family runs a used-car dealership, with hulking work trucks lined up in the front lot. Inside the lobby, a giant TV blares Fox News, and a framed photo features President Donald Trump, posing with owners Bob and Erin Leavitt.

A New Hampshire family once best known for selling cars and ice cream, the Leavitts were thrust into the national spotlight this year when their 27-year-old daughter, Karoline, was named White House press secretary. Ten months later, the administration’s war on illegal immigration landed in the Leavitts’ backyard.

Bruna Ferreira — a Brazilian immigrant who shares an 11-year-old child with Karoline’s brother Michael Leavitt — was arrested by ICE in mid-November. Ferreira, 33, remains in custody in Louisiana. The boy lives with his father in New Hampshire.

Ferreira’s sister and lawyer had claimed there was no animosity between Ferreira and the Leavitts. But court records, police reports and family text chains reviewed by WBUR tell a vastly different story — one of a bitter custody battle, years-old allegations of a threat to call immigration authorities, and concerns for the well-being of the child when his mother was staying in a vacant mansion in Cohasset.

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The US Department of Justice has moved to eliminate rules protecting LGBTQ+ people from sexual abuse in prisons, a shift advocates say is “reckless and dangerous” and will lead to increased assaults behind bars.

A justice department memo issued on Tuesday said “effective immediately”, prisons and jails will no longer be held responsible for violations of standards meant to shield LGBTQ+ people from harassment, abuse and rape. It also directed inspectors to stop auditing facilities for compliance with those protections. The justice department is in the process of seeking formal updates to the rules, the memo said.

The directive relates to regulations under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (Prea), a longstanding federal law which says incarcerated people should be screened for their risk of facing sexual assault when officials place them in housing and that assessments must consider LGBTQ+ status.

Prea, passed unanimously by Congress in 2003, includes standards aimed at addressing the high levels of violence that transgender, gender-nonconforming and queer people face in jails and prisons across the US. Prea applies to all correctional facilities.

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The judge presiding over California’s lawsuit against the Trump administration challenged the federal government’s authority and rationale for continuing to maintain command over the national guard troops it deployed to Los Angeles earlier this year.

The Trump administration federalized the state’s national guard in June, dispatching about 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom. The state quickly filed a lawsuit, with Newsom calling the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.

During a hearing in San Francisco on Friday, Judge Charles Breyer appeared skeptical of the federal government’s case, according to a report from the Associated Press. He argued the situation in Los Angeles had changed since the troops were first deployed, and questioned whether the administration could command the state’s national guard indefinitely.

“No crisis lasts forever,” he said. “I think experience teaches us that crises come and crises go. That’s the way it works.”

He pressed an attorney for the government for any evidence that state authorities were either unable or unwilling to help keep federal personnel and property in the area safe and noted Donald Trump had access to tens of thousands of active-duty troops in California.

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As you walk down a particular hallway on the seventh floor of the Humphrey Building in Washington, D.C., you'll find a line of photographic portraits of all the people from years past who have led the Public Health Corps at the federal Department of Health and Human Services.

Only one of those portraits is of a transgender person: Adm. Rachel Levine, who served for four years as President Biden's assistant secretary for health. She was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation, and her portrait has been displayed in the hallway since soon after she was confirmed in 2021. The role is a four-star admiral position in charge of the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service.

Levine's official portrait was recently altered, a spokesperson for HHS confirmed to NPR. A digital photograph of the portrait in the hallway obtained by NPR shows that Levine's previous name is now typed below the portrait, under the glass of the frame.

"During the federal shutdown, the current leadership of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health changed Admiral Levine's photo to remove her current legal name and use a prior name," says Adrian Shanker, former deputy assistant secretary for health policy in the Biden administration who worked with Levine and is now her spokesperson. He called the move an act "of bigotry against her."

Levine told NPR that it was an honor to serve the American people as the assistant secretary for health "and I'm not going to comment on this type of petty action."

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The Biden administration withheld data from the public on the risks of myocarditis from the Covid vaccine, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary claimed Thursday — a bold accusation that clashes with years of public statements from federal health officials.

“We have done more to study myocarditis and to go back and look at deaths of people, of children from the Covid vaccine,” Makary told NBC News in an interview. “Internal data submitted on myocarditis, we found that the Biden administration was sitting on data on myocarditis in young people, and it was not made public.”

Makary’s claim comes less than a week after Vinay Prasad, the FDA’s top vaccine regulator, told agency staff in a memo that an internal review found that at least 10 children died “after and because of receiving” the Covid shot. Prasad suggested — without evidence to support his claim — that the child deaths were tied to myocarditis.

Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, is a known — but small — risk of the mRNA Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, information that federal agencies have discussed openly since 2021.

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A rescue helicopter was returned to Newport, Ore., on Thursday after local leaders filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for repositioning the aircraft and thus prolonging emergency response times.

“Some great news: I just got off the phone with the U.S. Coast Guard, who has returned the rescue helicopter to Newport and promised to keep it there,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a Thursday post on social platform X, confirming the move. “This is a big win to keep fishermen and the Newport community safe.”

Last month, the state’s Lincoln County and the nonprofit Newport Fishermen’s Wives sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Coast Guard for stationing the helicopter approximately 70 miles south of Newport in North Bend, according to OregonLive.

The two plaintiffs cited concerns for frigid water temperatures that can cause people to drown within one to three minutes of immersion, according to court records obtained by the outlet.

By shifting the helicopter’s base farther south, plaintiffs said it would impede on critical rescue missions.

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A federal judge has ordered the release of grand jury transcripts from the abandoned Jeffrey Epstein investigation that took place between 2005 and 2007.

The Dec. 5 order states that while the government's previous attempts to release the grand jury transcripts were denied, U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith was ordering their release in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed in November.

The law requires the attorney general to make publicly available “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of Justice” related to Epstein, the disgraced financier and accused sex trafficker who died by suicide in 2019.

The Justice Department has until Dec. 19 − 30 days after President Donald Trump signed the bill − to release the information it has, which is expected to go beyond the files Smith has released.

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Palestinian sources report that at least 11 Palestinians were wounded in multiple attacks by settlers across the West Bank.

Seven Palestinians were wounded in a settler attack on farmers north of Hebron in the southern West Bank, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency WAFA reports.

All seven were taken to a hospital in nearby Halhul after settlers from the Karmei Zur settlement attacked them with stones, clubs and tear gas, WAFA says.

Footage from the area published by Palestinian media appears to show settlers throwing rocks over a road. It was unclear if the incident captured in the footage was the same as the one reported by WAFA.

Citing a security source, the outlet also reports that four settlers severely beat an 18-year-old Palestinian man west of Ramallah. The victim was taken to a hospital, where his condition was described as stable, according to WAFA.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society reports that a 26-year-old man was hit in the foot by IDF gunfire in Qalqilya; a 64-year-old man was assaulted by settlers near the Allenby Bridge border crossing with Jordan; and a man and his daughter were assaulted by settlers south of Nablus, on the Ramallah-Nablus road and their vehicle was set on fire.

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