TV News LIES

The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee plans to look into NPR's investigation revealing Epstein files related to President Trump are missing from the public record.

Asked if he is concerned about a possible Justice Department cover-up after NPR discovered documents related to an accusation of sexual abuse against President Trump weren't included in the database, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., said Oversight Republicans plan to investigate.

"We're looking into the accusation made by the NPR," Comer told reporters during a Thursday press conference ahead of the committee's deposition of former first lady Hillary Clinton. "We don't know the answer to that. We know what the administration says. We're still looking to get a definitive answer on that."

NPR's previous reporting found internal FBI and Justice Department outline documents related to allegations from a woman who, according to documents within the database, claimed that around 1983, when she was around 13 years old, Jeffrey Epstein introduced her to Trump, "who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out."

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Zohran Mamdani met with Donald Trump in Washington on Thursday, during an unannounced trip to the nation’s capital.

On social media, the New York mayor said he had a “productive” meeting with the US president and he was “looking forward to building more housing in New York City”.

Mamdani also said he spoke to the president on the phone after the meeting to discuss the arrest of Elmina Aghayeva, a Columbia University student who was detained by federal immigration agents on Thursday.

“He has just informed me that she will be released imminently,” Mamdani said. The White House did not reply to the Guardian’s request for comment.

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Transgender Kansas residents have begun receiving letters from the state’s department of motor vehicles notifying them that their driver’s licenses will be invalid beginning Thursday, as a new law goes into effect that demands that forms of identification must now reflect the credential holder’s “sex at birth”.

The bill, known as SB 244, also bans transgender people from using bathrooms in public buildings that match their gender identity, and creates a sort of bounty hunter system, in which citizens can sue transgender people they encounter in restrooms for $1,000 in damages.

The state law was rushed through the state legislature using an expedited procedure known as “gut and go”. This means the text of one bill can be taken out and substituted for entirely new language or provisions, bypassing standard committee vetting and speeding through the voting process, which is legal in Kansas.

Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the bill, arguing that SB 244 was “poorly drafted legislation”, but her veto was overridden by the state legislature’s Republican supermajority.

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The Pentagon this week removed a senior military official who had served on the Joint Staff for about 90 days, returning him to a role in the U.S. Navy. 

Vice Adm. Fred Kacher, who became the director of the Joint Staff in December, was yanked from the post and will “return to service” with the Navy, a spokesperson told The Hill on Thursday morning.

“A distinguished and highly experienced surface warfare leader, Vice Adm. Fred Kacher will return to service with the United States Navy, after most recently serving as the Director of the Joint Staff,” a Joint Staff spokesperson told The Hill Thursday morning.

It is unclear why Kacher was removed from the position. One source told Reuters, which first reported on the removal, that Kacher was not the right fit.

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The family of a sanctioned United Nations human rights investigator on Wednesday sued the Trump administration for sanctioning her over her criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, arguing that the sanctions violate her First Amendment rights.

U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s husband, Massimiliano Cali, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Washington. They argued that Albanese’s work surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with her work with the International Criminal Court (ICC), “is core First Amendment activity.”

“At its heart, this case concerns whether Defendants can sanction a person — ruining their life and the lives of their loved ones, including their citizen daughter — because Defendants disagree with their recommendations or fear their persuasiveness,” according to the filing.

Cali, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself, Albanese and their child, also argued that the sanctions have negatively impacted their ability to access their home in Washington, D.C. Cali said his wife also lost access to her bank account and the ability to travel to the U.S.

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A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in a head-on collision in western Texas that killed Laura Lynch, a founding member of a country music band now known as The Chicks, prosecutors said.

As part of a plea agreement, Domenick Chavez, 33, admitted that he was driving recklessly and caused the head-on crash that killed Lynch on Dec. 22, 2023, the El Paso District Attorney's Office said in a news release on Tuesday, Feb. 24. Lynch, 65, was killed instantly after Chavez attempted to pass four vehicles and collided into Lynch's truck.

The incident occurred on an undivided highway in Hudspeth County, about 50 miles east of El Paso. The El Paso District Attorney's Office also covers neighboring Hudspeth and Culberson counties.

"The death of Ms. Lynch caused profound sadness for her family, the Dell City community, and all those who appreciated her music. It is a loss made more acute by the fact that it happened just days before Christmas," El Paso District Attorney James Montoya said in a statement. "Our office will continue to hold accountable those defendants who choose to drive in an extremely dangerous manner."

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U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents detained a Columbia University student on campus the morning of Feb. 26 after allegedly misrepresenting themselves to enter a residence hall in search of a missing person, the school said.

In a morning update sent to the university community, Columbia's acting President Claire Shipman announced DHS agents entered a Columbia residential building about 6:30 a.m. local time and detained a student.

"Our understanding at this time is that the federal agents made misrepresentations to gain entry to the building to search for a 'missing person,'" Shipman wrote in the announcement. "We are working to gather more information, working to reach the family, and providing legal support."

The name of the student was not released by the school and it was not immediately known why agents detained the person.

Update: Student has been released from detention after intervention by NYC Mayor Mamdani.

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Almost 60 Palestinian journalists detained in Israeli prisons since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack have been beaten, starved and subjected to sexual violence, including rape, a report alleges.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reviewed dozens of testimonies, photographs and medical records documenting what it describes as serious abuses by Israeli soldiers and prison guards against Palestinian reporters. The report draws on in-depth interviews from 59 Palestinian journalists. Of those interviewed, 58 reported being subjected to what they described as torture while in Israeli custody.

“While conditions varied at different facilities, the methods those interviewed recounted – physical assaults, forced stress positions, sensory deprivation, sexual violence, and medical neglect – were strikingly consistent,” the report states.

The Israeli prison service and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have both strongly rejected the allegations.

Journalist Sami al-Sai, who has reported for the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera Mubasher and the local broadcaster Al-Fajer TV, said he was taken to a small cell in Megiddo prison, and soldiers removed his trousers and underwear, and penetrated him with batons and other objects.

“I did not speak to anyone inside the prison about what happened, except for two senior detainees who have been imprisoned for 25 years,” Sai said.

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