TV News LIES

A Vermont state lawmaker has resigned over racist and antisemitic chat messages that circulated within the Young Republican political group, another substantial consequence in a scandal that on Friday saw the New York state Young Republicans’ charter revoked.

State senator Samuel Douglass, the only elected official known to have taken part in the leaked group chat exposed by Politico, resigned Friday over his participation.

In a statement posted online, the 26-year-old Douglass said he was “deeply sorry for the offense” caused by his comments. He added that his decision to step down, effective Monday, “will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe”.

Douglass had been under pressure from Vermont governor Phil Scott and state senate minority leader Scott Beck to step aside since Politico obtained and published the chats online.

In one exchange, Douglass replied to a message about a “very obese Indian woman” by saying: “She just didn’t bathe often.” In another, Douglass was said to have described how a Jewish person may have made a procedural error. His wife, Brianna Douglass, also on the chat, responded with an antisemitic remark, Politico reported.

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The Trump administration is moving to send the two survivors of Thursday’s strike in the Caribbean overseas rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four US officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.

The source, who like the US officials spoke on condition of anonymity, said the survivors were being sent to Colombia and Ecuador.

The US military staged a helicopter rescue for the survivors on Thursday after the strike on their semi-submersible vessel, suspected of trafficking illegal narcotics. The strike killed the other two crew members on board, sources told Reuters on Friday.

The US military flew the survivors to an American navy warship in the Caribbean, where they were detained until at least Friday evening. It was not clear if they had already been flown off the ship as of Saturday morning.

The US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expected the survivors to eventually be sent to their home countries.

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US Customs and Border Protection implemented a rule this week that will require airlines to disregard “X” sex markers on passports and input an “M” or “F” marker instead, sending those people with an “X” marker into panic.

“X” markers became available to US passport holders in 2022, in an effort to allow people with gender identities other than male and female to obtain more accurate travel documents.

Now, the new CBP rule has many people on social media and beyond worried that they will no longer be allowed to fly internationally.

“It’s a little bit too soon to say how this is going to practically work out,” said Andy Izenson, senior legal director at the Chosen Family Law Center.

Passports with “X” markers should still be considered valid travel documents; the US district court of Massachusetts issued an order in June ensuring that they would remain valid after the Trump administration attempted to ban them under executive order 14168, titled Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.

While the courts have continued to prevent the Trump administration from outright banning a third gender marker, this week’s rule can still serve to make the lives of trans and non-binary people more difficult, Izenson says.

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A new study released Friday says President Trump’s immigration enforcement policies will decrease the country’s workforce by 15 million people over the next decade.

“The Trump administration’s policies on illegal and legal immigration would reduce the projected number of workers in the United States by 6.8 million by 2028 and by 15.7 million by 2035 and lower the annual rate of economic growth by almost one-third, harming U.S. living standards,” the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) wrote in its analysis of deportation efforts led by the White House.

“The reductions in legal immigration include suspending and reducing refugee admissions, the travel ban enacted in 2025, ending Temporary Protected Status and humanitarian parole programs, prohibiting international students from working on Optional Practical Training and STEM OPT after completing coursework and other changes, such as an expected public charge rule, to restrict legal immigration,” researchers wrote. 

“The analysis does not include the likely significant economic impact of restricting U.S. companies’ access to high-skilled foreign nationals through regulatory and administrative action, which could affect productivity growth,” they added.

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A major southern California highway was shut down for a U.S. Marine Corps demonstration on Oct. 18. The event pitted California Gov. Gavin Newsom against the federal government yet again.

Interstate 5 shut down from Harbor Drive to Basilone Road, a stretch of the main artery over 15 miles, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. local time, according to the California Highway Patrol. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth attended the event at Camp Pendleton, commemorating the Marines' 250th anniversary.

The news comes after days of back-and-forth between Gov. Gavin Newsom, federal officials and the Marines over whether the demonstration would require any roads to close.

Standing atop a seven-ton military truck with his wife, Vance watched the largest Marine exercise in a decade on Oct. 18, featuring F-18 and F-35 flyovers, parachute landings, Navy Seals swimming ashore, offshore destroyers and amphibious ships, simulated village explosions, and MH-60 helicopters dropping additional Seals over the water.

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Millions of people turned out nationwide on Oct. 18 to protest actions by the Trump administration and celebrate their Constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly.

The crowds at an estimated 2,700 rallies across the country included older Americans who protested Vietnam or never protested anything before, veterans who said they didn't fight for a country led by a dictator, and young people who are frustrated by the lack of opportunities available to them. Many said they were upset by the Trump administration's treatment of immigrants and other vulnerable populations.

If crowd estimates hold, the one-day "No Kings" event was the largest civil action in the United States since the first Earth Day, 55 years ago. No major incidents or arrests were reported during the day.

Republican leaders spoke out ahead of the Saturday protests, blaming them for the current government shutdown and labeling them "hate America" rallies.

In Cathedral City, California, protesters waved handmade signs and one carried a Trump-lookalike mannequin. In Fort Collins, Colorado, one man brought his horse to the protest. Several protesters in Fort Myers, Florida, were seen wearing inflatable costumes, as they lined the side of a highway.

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Hamas intends to maintain security control in Gaza during an interim period, a senior Hamas official told Reuters, adding he could not commit to the group disarming - positions that reflect the difficulties facing US plans to secure an end to the war.

Hamas politburo member Mohammed Nazzal also said the group was ready for a ceasefire of up to five years to rebuild devastated Gaza, with guarantees for what happens afterwards depending on Palestinians being given "horizons and hope" for statehood.    

Speaking to Reuters in an interview from Doha, where Hamas politicians have long resided, Nazzal defended the group's crackdown in Gaza, where it carried out public executions on Monday. There were always "exceptional measures" during war and those executed were criminals guilty of killing, he said.
Pressure To Disarm

While Hamas has broadly expressed these views before, the timing of Nazzal's comments demonstrates the major obstacles obstructing efforts to cement a full end to the war in Gaza, days after the first phase of the ceasefire was agreed.

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The Israel Defense Forces are investigating reports Israeli troops who were occupying a key sewage treatment plant in Gaza set it ablaze amid a drawdown of their forces from much of the enclave's territory last week as a part of the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

The Sheikh Aljin sewage treatment plant, located to the southeast of Gaza City, was badly damaged in the reported fire, according to Gaza's Coastal Municipalities Water Utility.

The CMWU told ABC News that an in-person investigation of the site on Tuesday, Oct. 14, confirmed that four of the plant's six biological treatment towers had suffered massive fire damage.

According to the CMWU, the plastic cells and hydraulic systems inside the treatment towers had been destroyed and their concrete walls cracked by the fire.

Photos taken by the CMWU's staff after the fire and provided to ABC News reveal the damage to the plant. The photos show multiple treatment towers with charred walls, their interiors burnt out and strewn with garbage. The treatment towers are scattered with Hebrew-language graffiti, including one reading, "I'll be back soon."

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