TV News LIES

Eight backcountry skiers have been found dead and one remains missing after an avalanche near Lake Tahoe in California, officials said Wednesday, making it the deadliest avalanche in the U.S. in more than four decades.

Nevada County Sheriff Shannan Moon said during a news conference that authorities have told the families the mission has moved from rescue to recovery. It is the deadliest avalanche in the U.S. since 1981, when 11 climbers were killed on Mount Rainier, Washington.

Crews have faced treacherous conditions in their search for the missing skiers since the avalanche struck Tuesday morning. Search and rescue crews were dispatched to the Castle Peak area of the Sierra Nevada after a 911 call reporting the avalanche had buried 15 skiers.

Six of them have been found alive.

The group was on a three-day trek in Northern California’s Sierra Nevada as a monster winter storm pummeled the West Coast.

Two of those rescued after several hours of searching were taken to a hospital for treatment, said Ashley Quadros, a spokesperson for the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office. Heavy snow and the threat of additional avalanches slowed the rescue effort in the mountains near Castle Peak, northwest of Lake Tahoe.

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A government watchdog group is suing the FBI to force the release of a tape that reportedly shows border czar Tom Homan allegedly accepting a $50,000 bribe.

MSNOW reported in September that before President Trump won the election, Homan had been approached by an undercover FBI agent following a tip that he was taking kickbacks in exchange for helping companies secure lucrative government contracts should Trump be elected.

The act was reportedly caught on tape, showing Homan accepting the cash in a Cava bag. Homan in September said he “did nothing criminal” but did not deny taking a $50,000 cash payment. 

Democracy Defenders Fund is suing after the FBI rebuffed their efforts to secure the tape and other files related to the investigation into Homan

“These documents contain vital information that the American public needs to have in order to assess both Mr. Homan’s potentially corrupt actions as well as the Department of Justice and FBI’s potentially politically motivated decision to drop the investigation into Mr. Homan, one of the Trump Administration’s appointees,” the group wrote in its suit.

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Construction on the nation’s largest infrastructure project can resume after a court ordered the Trump administration to release funding it had withheld to gain leverage over congressional Democrats from New York.

On Feb. 18, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the U.S. Department of Transportation released nearly $130 million in funding for the $16 billion Gateway tunnel project in an ongoing lawsuit. The rail tunnel project, under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York, is meant to bolster tunnels along the Northeast Corridor, the busiest passenger rail line in the United States.

The funding resuming is a blow to President Donald Trump, who had vowed to terminate the project in a budget fight with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York.

"This funding freeze was unlawful from the start," James, who has herself been targeted for legal retribution by Trump, said in a statement. "We took swift action in court, and now every dollar that was illegally withheld has been released."

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Sen. Lindsey Graham has been accused of derailing a diplomatic meeting in Munich with an expletive-laden rant and sexist insult leveled at Denmark’s prime minister.

The close ally of President Donald Trump, himself no stranger to vicious verbal attacks against women, is said to have called Mette Frederiksen “little lady” as he looked her “straight in the eye” and “sneered” during the exchange at a Munich Hotel on Saturday, Danish newspaper Berlingske reports.

Graham had been meeting with Frederiksen to discuss Trump’s threats earlier this year to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO ally.

Also in attendance at the meeting, held on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, were several members of the House and Senate along with Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.

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In a statement, the Egyptian government called it a "dangerous escalation aimed at consolidating Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territories."

Qatar's foreign ministry condemned the "decision to convert West Bank lands into so-called 'state property'," saying it would "deprive the Palestinian people of their rights."

Jordan's foreign ministry said in a statement that the country "strongly condemns the actions of the Israeli government targeting the annexation of occupied Palestinian land, most recently the illegitimate Israeli government decision converting lands in the West Bank into so-called 'state property.' This constitutes a blatant violation of international law and international humanitarian law, underminesthe inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and obstructs the establishment of their independent sovereign state ."

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority called for international intervention to prevent the "de facto beginning of the annexation process and the undermining of the foundations of the Palestinian state."

Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now called the measure a "mega land grab."

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Two thousand Ukrainian children have successfully been recovered from Russian control as part of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.

In a statement posted to Telegram, the Ukrainian leader commended government officials, civil society groups and international partners for their role in securing each child’s return, but stressed that the effort is far from over.

“Today we have an important result – 2,000 Ukrainian children who were successfully returned home from Russian control as part of the Bring Kids Back UA initiative,” Zelensky said.

However, he cautioned: “We still have a long and difficult road ahead of us. Thousands of Ukrainian children still remain hostages of Russia, becoming victims of its crimes every day.”

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Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, is leaving the agency, the department confirmed on Tuesday.

McLaughlin has become the public face and voice defending the Trump administration's mass deportation policy and immigration tactics over the past year.

"McLaughlin started planning to leave in December but pushed back her departure amid the aftermath of the shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration officers, according to the people briefed on her exit," DHS said in a statement to NPR.

POLITICO first reported her departure. It is not clear where she is going next. McLaughlin in a statement said Lauren Bis, currently her deputy, will replace her as assistant secretary for public affairs, while Katie Zacharia will become deputy assistant secretary.

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An immigration judge has blocked the Trump administration from deporting Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist who was arrested by federal agents last year during a US citizenship interview in Vermont.

Lawyers for Mahdawi gave details of the decision in a court filing on Tuesday with a federal appeals court in New York, which had been reviewing a ruling that led to his release from immigration custody in April.

“I am grateful to the court for honoring the rule of law and holding the line against the government’s attempts to trample on due process,” Mahdawi, who is a permanent US resident, or green card holder, said in a statement.

He continued: “This decision is an important step towards upholding what fear tried to destroy: the right to speak for peace and justice. Nearly a year ago, I was detained at my citizenship interview not for breaking the law but for speaking against the genocide of Palestinians.”

The judge, Nina Froes, had ruled last Friday that the evidence that the Trump administration had submitted to the court was not admissible, due to an inability to “meet its burden of proving removability”. According to the judge’s order, the government failed to properly authenticate a memorandum purported to be signed by US secretary of state Marco Rubio.

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