TV News LIES

A federal judge delivered a serious setback to President Donald Trump Tuesday in long-running civil lawsuits seeking to hold him liable for the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that evidence produced so far in the litigation brought by police officers and Democratic lawmakers indicated that Trump’s speech at the Ellipse that day was political in nature and not subject to the immunity the Supreme Court has found for a president’s official acts.

“President Trump has not shown that the Speech reasonably can be understood as falling within the outer perimeter of his Presidential duties,” Mehta wrote. “The content of the Ellipse Speech confirms that it is not covered by official-acts immunity.”

The 79-page ruling, years in the making, follows numerous efforts by Trump to scuttle the lawsuit by claiming he is protected by presidential immunity from liability for his actions on the day of the Capitol Riot and in the weeks leading up to that event.

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Lawyers for the man charged with killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk have asked to delay a preliminary hearing scheduled in May, saying they need time to review an enormous amount of material and a bullet analysis that could contribute to his defense.

Tyler Robinson’s defense team said in recent court filings that an analysis from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a federal law enforcement agency, could not conclusively connect a bullet fragment recovered during an autopsy to the rifle found near the scene. The FBI is running additional tests, according to court documents.

The agency’s report has been kept private, but attorneys have cited snippets in other public filings that say the results were inconclusive.

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A federal judge on Tuesday halted construction on President Trump’s White House ballroom project.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said that no statute “comes close” to granting Trump the authority he claims he has to execute the $400 million project, barring construction from continuing until Congress authorizes its completion.

“The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families,” Leon wrote. “He is not, however, the owner!”

The Trump administration has appealed the decision.

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A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's executive order to end federal funding for NPR and PBS, ruling it unconstitutional under the First Amendment because it targeted the broadcasters based on their speech. The decision was welcomed by the networks, while the White House signaled it may appeal.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss issued a March 31, 2026 ruling that the Trump administration cannot enforce the executive order cutting federal funding to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

The executive order, signed by President Donald Trump in May 2025, directed federal agencies and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to terminate all funding for NPR and PBS, and the corporation was dissolved in January 2026.

Judge Moss found the order violated the First Amendment because it lacked neutral criteria and singled out the two broadcasters for the content of their speech.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the administration “looks forward to ultimate victory on this issue” and called the ruling “ridiculous.”

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When Donald Trump was first elected in 2016, New York State resident Ellen Robillard briefly looked into getting Canadian citizenship. Her mother, after all, was born in Nova Scotia.

As a Democrat, Robillard was despondent at the election results, but she abandoned the idea after realizing that her young son wouldn’t be eligible for citizenship under a law that barred Canadians born abroad from passing their citizenship to children if they were also born outside Canada.

In 2023, however, the Canadian courts ruled that law unconstitutional and the changes to eligibility came into effect in December, suddenly opening up a pathway to Canadian citizenship for many Americans at a time of political upheaval, violence and uncertainty in the US.

Robillard, 52, is applying for citizenship with her son now that the first-generation rule has been scrapped.

Since criteria for citizenship expanded with the passage of Bill C-3 of Canada’s Citizenship Act, millions of Americans have become eligible to claim Canadian citizenship. The amendment reverses a “first-generation” limit imposed by Canada’s Conservative government in 2009.

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President Donald Trump moved to exert federal control over voter rolls and mail-in ballots with an executive order that cracks down on a form of voting he frequently criticizes, even as he used it to cast his own ballot this year.

The move escalates the president's bid to place new restrictions on voting ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake. The action was swiftly condemned by Democrats and voting rights groups, who said it interferes with state election administration and makes it harder for people to vote.

Trump's order requires the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with the Social Security Administration to create lists of voting-age U.S. citizens who are residents of each state and transmit them to state voting officials at least 60 days before an election.

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The Supreme Court sided with a Christian counselor on Tuesday in her free speech challenge to Colorado’s ban on counselors attempting to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the 8-1 majority, said lower courts used too lenient a standard in upholding the ban.

The law regulates counselors’ speech in an attempt to silence a certain viewpoint, Gorsuch wrote.

“Fortunately, that is not the world the First Amendment envisions for us,” the justice wrote.

The court’s decision is poised to have ripple effects across the country, with more than 20 states having enacted similar measures. But two of the court’s liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, signaled that states that write more tailored laws could still prevail.

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An Israeli court has drawn criticism after closing an investigation into the death of a Palestinian teenager in custody, despite finding indications he had been starved prior to his death.

Walid Ahmad, a 17-year-old from the occupied West Bank, died in Israeli custody in March 2025, six months after he was detained for allegedly throwing stones, according to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs.

Judge Ehud Kaplan ruled the case should be closed, stating there was no proven link between Ahmad’s deteriorating physical condition, such as severe weight loss and infection, and the immediate cause of his death. Details of the ruling emerged on Tuesday after a gag order was lifted.

Nadia Dakka, a human rights lawyer who has followed the case, criticised the decision as reflecting a narrow legal approach that fails to address the broader conditions contributing to detainees’ deaths.

Dakka said the ruling highlights the difficulty of establishing criminal responsibility in cases involving systemic abuse.

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