TV News LIES

Guy Joseph Guidry fondly remembers the moment he first encountered a bonsai tree, three decades ago.

Guidry spotted a cluster of the miniature trees in his neighbor's backyard in New Orleans. They were neglected, so Guidry adopted them. He became obsessed with figuring out how to care for bonsai.

"I would be late for work and didn't want to go inside," Guidry said. "I desperately wanted to learn."

He pored over books, picked up trimming tools and found mentors to help him get into the art of growing and shaping miniature trees in containers. The practice is derived from an ancient Chinese one known as penjing that was adopted by Japan.

Bonsai artists aim to realistically represent nature in the form of a miniature mature tree.

More...

A federal judge on Monday blocked efforts by the Trump administration and its so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to dismantle the US Institute of Peace, at least temporarily.

Doge, initially overseen by billionaire Donald Trump supporter Elon Musk, took over the congressionally created and funded thinktank in March and had fired most employees by a late-night email after the US president targeted the institute and three other agencies with an executive order.

The takeover prompted a couple of lawsuits against Doge and the Trump administration, including from fired employees, trying to impede the institute’s dismantling. The White House claimed the thinktank was in “non-compliance” with Trump’s executive order, whose purported aim was to shrink the federal government’s size. And Doge staff forcefully entered the thinktank’s building after cancelling its contract for private security.

US district court judge Beryl Howell on Monday ruled that Doge illegally took over the institute through “blunt force, backed up by law enforcement officers from three separate local and federal agencies”.

More...

Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, released just over two weeks ago from federal detention, crossed the graduation stage on Monday to cheers from his fellow graduates.

The Palestinian activist was arrested by immigration authorities in Colchester, Vermont, while attending a naturalization interview. He was detained and ordered to be deported by the Trump administration on 14 April despite not being charged with a crime.

Several students cheered for Mahdawi, 34, who was draped in a keffiyeh as he walked across the stage. He blew a kiss and bowed, one video showed. Then he joined a vigil just outside Columbia’s gates, raising a photograph of his classmate Mahmoud Khalil, who remains in federal custody.

“It’s very mixed emotions,” Mahdawi told the Associated Press. “The Trump administration wanted to rob me of this opportunity. They wanted me to be in a prison, in prison clothes, to not have education and to not have joy or celebration.”

More...

Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver is being charged with assault after a skirmish with federal officers who arrested the Newark mayor outside an immigration detention center, New Jersey's top federal prosecutor announced Monday.

Interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charge of assaulting, impeding, or interfering with law enforcement on social media, but court papers providing details were not immediately released or publicly available online.

At least 50 Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a prison in El Salvador had entered the United States legally, according to a review by the Cato Institute, a libertarian thinktank.

The report, published today, analyzed available immigration data for only a portion of the men who were deported, and focuses on the cases where records could be found.

“The government calls them all ‘illegal aliens.’ But of the 90 cases where the method of crossing is known, 50 men report that they came legally to the United States, with advanced US government permission, at an official border crossing point,” Cato said in its report.

This number aligns with broader trends among Venezuelan migrants, many of whom entered the country either as refugees or through a Biden-era parole program that granted two-year work permits to those with US-based sponsors.

More...

The Supreme Court gave the Trump administration the green light Monday to revoke special legal protections for thousands of Venezuelan immigrants, which could pave the way for at least some of them to be deported.

The high court granted an emergency application filed by the administration, meaning officials can move forward with reversing a decision made at the tail end of the Biden administration to extend protections for almost 350,000 Venezuelans under the federal Temporary Protected Status program.