TV News LIES

Senators crafting an immigration bill have agreed that foreigners who crossed the U.S. border illegally would be deported if they entered the United States after December 31, 2011, a congressional aide said on Friday.

The legislation by a bipartisan group of senators would give the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally a way to obtain legal status and eventually become U.S. citizens, provided certain measures are met.

The Senate voted Thursday to proceed with debate on a package of gun legislation, clearing an early hurdle for supporters of firearms restrictions, but they’ll probably face many more in the days and weeks to come.

In the 68-31 vote, 16 Republicans joined 50 Democrats and two independents in favor of the procedural motion, and two Democrats – Alaska’s Mark Begich and Arkansas’ Mark Pryor – joined 29 Republicans in opposing it.

A Republican Congressman cited the biblical flood as an example of climate change that had not been caused by humans. Texas Rep. Joe Barton made those remarks Wednesday at the Subcommittee on Energy and Power hearing on H.R. 3, the Northern Route Approval Act, a bill that would give Congress the authority approve the Keystone pipeline.

"I don't think it's a secret that I'm a proponent and supporter of the Keystone pipeline," Barton said. Barton continued to say he didn't deny the climate was changing, but argued that the change was due to natural causes, as he has in the past.

A bipartisan group of senators has struck a deal to expand gun background checks to all commercial sales — whether at gun shows, via the Internet or in any circumstance involving paid advertising, according to Senate aides familiar with the talks.

The amendment to the guns legislation already proposed in the Senate would not cover private transactions between individuals, unless there was advertising or an online service involved.

Two Republican members of Congress have asked the U.S. Treasury Department for information on what type of license American pop star Beyonce and rapper husband Jay Z obtained for a high-profile trip to Cuba to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

Beyonce and Jay Z celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary this week in Havana, where big crowds greeted them as they strolled hand in hand through the Cuban capital.

As I reported a couple of weeks ago, a recent Senate bill came with a nice bonus for the genetically modified seed industry: a rider, wholly unrelated to the underlying bill, that compels the USDA to ignore federal court decisions that block the agency's approvals of new GM crops.

I explained in this post why such a provision, which the industry has been pushing for over a year, is so important to Monsanto and its few peers in the GMO seed industry. (You can also hear my talking about it on NPR's The Takeaway, along with the senator who tried to stop it, Montana's Jon Tester, and see me on Al Jazeera's Inside Story.)