TV News LIES

US civil liberties groups have sued Louisiana for what they called its “blatantly unconstitutional” new law requiring all state-funded schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) joined with its Louisiana affiliate and two other bodies – Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation – for the suit against the law, signed on Wednesday by the state’s rightwing Republican governor, Jeff Landry.

Dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters arrested in April after occupying and barricading a building at Columbia University in New York City have had all criminal charges against them dropped, Manhattan prosecutors said at a court hearing.

The hearing at the Manhattan criminal courthouse came seven weeks after Columbia administrators called in hundreds of armed and heavily armored police officers to the university’s campus in a high-profile law-enforcement response that was broadcast live on national news channels.

Police arrested 46 protesters who had barricaded themselves inside Hamilton Hall, and cleared a weeks-old tent encampment on a nearby Columbia lawn that has inspired similar pro-Palestinian protests at universities around the world.

More...

With more than a hundred protesters outside of the Utah House chambers, lawmakers voted to go against the Biden administration's expansion of Title IX protections. The new federal rules cover pregnant, transgender and LGBTQ+ students.

The administration’s decision to diversify Title IX goes against a handful of laws the Utah Legislature has approved in recent years. Most recently, the governor signed a bill that prohibits transgender students from using the bathroom or locker room that aligns with their gender identity.

In the first test of the new Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act, the Legislature passed, along party lines, two resolutions in a special session related to the U.S. Department of Education Title IX extensions that go into effect on Aug 1.

More...

Donald Sutherland, the versatile Canadian actor whose prolific career in TV shows and movies showed diverse range, from authority-loathing surgeon Hawkeye Pierce in the "M*A*S*H" movie to authoritarian villain President Snow in "The Hunger Games," has died. He was 88.

"With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away," his son Kiefer posted on social media Thursday along with a black and white photo of the father-son pair.

He added: "I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived."

More,,,

The US government, in a report published on Tuesday, acknowledged for the first time the harms that federal dams have inflicted on Native American tribes in the US Pacific north-west.

The report by the interior department details the “historic, ongoing and cumulative impacts of federal Columbia River dams on Columbia River Basin Tribes”, including how dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers have devastated salmon runs, inundated villages and burial grounds, and deprived tribal members of the ability to exercise traditional ways of life.

The Columbia River basin, an area roughly the size of Texas, historically supported abundant wild salmon, which play an important role in tribal identity and spirituality, as well as steelhead and native resident fish.

The construction of large hydroelectric dams throughout the basin at the turn of the 20th century impeded fish migration and flooded entire villages and towns, forcing people to relocate and transforming the ecosystem.

More...

Louisiana has become the first state to require that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom under a bill signed into law by Republican GyonWednesday.