TV News LIES

The Supreme Court on Monday unanimously restored Donald Trump to 2024 presidential primary ballots, rejecting state attempts to ban the Republican former president over the Capitol riot.

The justices ruled a day before the Super Tuesday primaries that states cannot invoke a post-Civil War constitutional provision to keep presidential candidates from appearing on ballots. That power resides with Congress, the court wrote in an unsigned opinion.

Trump posted on his social media network shortly after the decision was released: “BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!”

The outcome ends efforts in Colorado, Illinois, Maine and elsewhere to kick Trump, the front-runner for his party’s nomination, off the ballot because of his attempts to undo his loss in the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Friday rejected a request to reconsider the state's congressional maps ahead of the next election, ensuring the current district boundaries will remain in place for 2024.

The court's decision ends a last-minute push from Democrats to change the state's congressional maps after they successfully signed into law new legislative boundaries last month that weakened Republicans' grip on the state Legislature.

"This motion comes as no surprise after the court's new majority telegraphed its willingness to rebalance political power in the state of Wisconsin by overturning Johnson v. Wisconsin Elections Commission," conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote in the order, referencing the court's previous decision on the maps.

"While the court rightfully denies this motion," she added, "it likely won't be long until the new majority flexes its political power again to advance a partisan agenda despite the damage inflicted on the independence and integrity of the court."

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Ukraine’s president pleaded Wednesday for more ammunition to repel Russian advances as he co-hosted a summit with Albania’s government to build further support for Kyiv among southeastern European countries while signs of war fatigue grow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that increasing the supply of armaments, and especially ammunition, was paramount for Ukraine just over two years since Russia’s full-scale invasion. “I think this is the question of: Will we stand or not,” he said during his speech to the summit.

His impassioned plea comes as Russian troops have seized the initiative on the battlefield in Ukraine amid worsening shortages of weapons and soldiers for Ukraine’s military. Western analysts and observers say the Russians are attacking in strength along four parallel axes in the northeast, aiming to press deeper into the Ukraine-held western part of the Donetsk region and also penetrating into the Kharkiv region north of it.

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An attorney with the special counsel Jack Smith's team told a judge Friday that holding former President Donald Trump's classified documents trial before the November election would not violate Justice Department policy.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon is hearing arguments today on moving the May 20 trial date in Trump's federal classified documents case during a court conference in Florida that the former president is attending in person.

Special counsel Prosecutor Jay Bratt pushed for a July start, saying that holding a trial within 60 days of an election would not violate the Justice Department's typical aversion to bringing politically charged cases so close to an election.

Bratt told Judge Cannon a trial is permissible because the policy does not apply to already indicted matters.

"We are in full compliance with the Justice Department manual," said Bratt.

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• Israeli forces fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City. At least 100 people were killed and hundreds more were injured, Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the enclave’s Health Ministry, said today. NBC News has not independently verified the reported death toll, and it’s not clear how many people were killed from gunfire or the ensuing panic

• The Israeli military said that civilians surrounded an aid truck, causing pushing and trampling, and that it was reviewing the incident. An Israeli government source said Israel Defense Forces troops responded with “live fire” after people surrounded trucks carrying humanitarian aid.

• President Joe Biden said he knew the incident would complicate cease-fire talks. Meanwhile, Biden held calls this morning with the emir of Qatar and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

The leaders of 23 European parliaments are imploring Speaker Mike Johnson to take up and pass additional assistance for Ukraine amid its ongoing war with Russia.

"We believe that thanks to your personal leadership, the Congress will demonstrate historic bipartisan unity in support of the collective effort to assist Ukraine," they wrote in an open letter. Supporting passage of further aid would "provide Ukraine with the necessary funds to continue its fight," the leaders added.

Canada's 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with 6,551 fires scorching nearly 71,000 square miles of land from the West Coast to the Atlantic provinces, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center. It wasn't just remarkable for its destruction, however, but also for the fact that it never really seemed to end.

It's the middle of the winter, and there are still 149 active wildfires burning across Canada, including 92 in British Columbia, 56 in the western province of Alberta, and one in New Brunswick, according to the CIFFC, which classifies two of the blazes as out of control.

"Zombie fires," also called overwintering fires, burn slowly below the surface during the cold months. Experts say zombie fires have become more common as climate change warms the atmosphere, and they are currently smoldering at an alarming rate in both British Columbia and Alberta.

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The health care crisis in Gaza is unthinkably grim, even by the standards of war-ravaged regions. Infectious diseases from chickenpox to cholera are sweeping through the population; crucial medical supplies are blocked at the border; and hospitals are overrun with critically wounded patients.

Four months into Israel’s brutal war on Hamas, the situation looks set to get worse.

Israel is poised to launch an invasion into Rafah, endangering more than a million Palestinians who have sought refuge in the southern city, largely women and children. Hope for a humanitarian respite are fading as U.S.-brokered cease-fire talks broke down in Cairo this week. And the U.S. has frozen funding to the main United Nations aid agency in Gaza, further endangering the already tenuous efforts to provide medical aid.