TV News LIES

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) filed a lawsuit Tuesday over GOP leaders’ refusal to seat a newly elected Democratic lawmaker.

The suit asks a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to declare Adelita Grijalva a member of the House and allow someone else to administer the oath if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) won’t do so.

Mayes’s office wrote in the complaint that the case is about whether someone duly elected to the House may be denied their “rightful office,” only because the speaker has decided to keep the chamber out of “regular session.” 

“If the Speaker were granted that authority, he could thwart the peoples’ choice of who should represent them in Congress by denying them representation for a significant portion of the two-year term provided by the Constitution,” the suit reads.

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Most of the effects of the ongoing government shutdown are far-removed from the halls of Congress.

But the situation facing one group of federal employees who are working without pay is difficult for lawmakers to overlook: The Capitol Police officers who protect them every day.

The officers missed their first full paycheck Oct. 10th.

"They're asked to be everything to everybody," said Terry Gainer, a former Capitol Police chief. "You need to be ready at the drop of a hat to take very aggressive enforcement action, but you also have to be a person who will welcome visitors and be a tour guide."

Gesturing toward two officers guarding the ornate Senate Reception Room, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., says she feels for the force's more than 2,000 officers and that Democrats are to blame for the impasse.

Gainer says the job is tougher than ever, as public officials face growing threats and violence.

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A Florida county judge on Tuesday granted a restraining order against Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) requested by a woman who accused him of harassing and threatening her after their breakup earlier this year.

Lindsey Langston, a Florida Republican state committeewoman who was crowned Miss United States 2024, filed the emergency petition for injunction in August after separately telling law enforcement in July that Mills had threatened to release explicit photos and videos of her and to harm any other men she may date.

The judge wrote Langston has “reasonable cause to believe she is in imminent danger of becoming the victim of another act of dating violence” — in this case, cyberstalking, as defined by Florida statute — without the injunction.

Until Jan. 1, Mills is prohibited from contacting Langston in any way and is prohibited from going within 500 feet of her residence or place of employment.

The judge found Mills’s communications to Langston “were all intended to cause … substantial emotional distress.”

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As the government shutdown drags on, Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo and other facilities are the latest to be caught in the fray, with the federal trust announcing the closure of all of its sites beginning on Sunday.

"We will update our operating status as soon as the situation is resolved," the Smithsonian announced on social media. "We do not plan to update social media other than to inform you of changes to our operating status."

The closure affects all of the Smithsonian's 21 museums, its research centers and the National Zoo.

As worried social media users expressed concern about the well-being of the animals at the zoo, the Smithsonian assured its supporters that the animals would still be cared for during the zoo's closure.

"All the animals at the Zoo and at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, will continue to be fed and cared for," the Smithsonian said. "A shutdown will not affect our commitment to the safety of our staff and standard of excellence in animal care."

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The U.S. Department of Education fired nearly everyone in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in a wave of new layoffs that began Friday, according to the union representing the agency's employees.

Without an official estimate from the agency, it wasn't immediately clear how many people in the division were fired. Yet based on reports from staff and their managers, most employees below the leadership level were part of the workforce reduction, said Rachel Gittleman, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252.

Separately, employees involved in the college access program known as TRIO, which is located in a different office, were also let go, she said

The firings, which the union has challenged in court, "double down on the harm to K-12 students and schools across the country," Gittleman told USA TODAY.

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Arizona’s Democratic senators pressed Mike Johnson on Wednesday to swear in their state’s newest representative, Adelita Grijalva, but the Republican House speaker refused to budge until funding for the government was restored.

Grijalva, a Democrat, last month won a special election to replace her late father, Raúl M Grijalva, in a southern Arizona House district. However, she has been unable to assume her new role because Johnson has not administered the oath of office.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego, Arizona’s two Democratic senators, gathered to take questions from the press in front of the speaker’s office in the Capitol. Johnson soon arrived, and the Democrats pressed him on when Grijalva would be sworn in.

“We’re going to do that as soon as we get back to work, but we need the lights turned back on, so we encourage both of you to go open the government,” the speaker replied, according to video of the exchange.

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