TV News LIES

Construction crews building a border wall in New Mexico were ordered to stop drilling new wells after ranchers said that pumping groundwater to produce concrete could threaten their livestock amid a severe drought.

The order comes as crews across the southern border race to complete one of Donald Trump’s key domestic priorities – barriers that span four states and received over $46bn in federal funding. Controversies have sprouted up in Texas and California, and border-town residents and environmentalists have reported a wide variety of issues with construction.

At a public meeting in July, ranchers said they were noticing unmonitored tapping of border aquifers that threatened the water for those nearby.

“It would put us in an immediate catastrophe and having to do something with our livestock. I mean, it could potentially put some people out of business, us included,” said Russell Johnson, a cattle rancher whose property runs along the border.

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We are constitutional law, civil rights and human rights scholars and practitioners who have spent decades litigating government abuse cases in the United States. Despite the US legal system’s flaws, our work – from securing a record civil settlement for George Floyd’s family to holding Bolivia’s ex-president accountable in US federal court for the massacre of Indigenous protesters – has demonstrated that US courts can rein in state power and provide a path to accountability. But this pathway is narrowing.

As Donald Trump attacks the courts, weaponizes the Department of Justice, and targets attorneys who challenge his administration, we have been forced to seek justice beyond our borders.

Earlier this year, we requested a thematic hearing at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on the United States’s violent suppression of protests against federal immigration policies. Never before had the commission granted such a hearing, but the extraordinary nature of the Trump administration’s actions – including allegations of excessive and lethal force against peaceful protesters, attacks on journalists and legal observers, and racial profiling and surveillance – warrants international scrutiny. On 4 August, the commission will hold that hearing.

The IACHR is unfamiliar to most Americans. Together with the inter-American court of human rights, the commission is the bedrock of the hemisphere’s human rights system. For decades, it has served as a safeguard against authoritarianism and state repression in the region, providing an avenue for victims when domestic institutions have failed. While the United States claims it is not bound by the inter-American system’s norms, it remains subject to the commission’s oversight under the American declaration of the rights and duties of man. Condemnation by the commission has directly led to policy changes by countries, including the United States.

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U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s clash with President Trump over the handling of the Reflecting Pool case is raising questions about her standing with the president, with whom she has enjoyed a friendly relationship for decades.

Pirro visited the White House Monday evening after Trump lashed out at her on camera hours earlier in the Oval Office, telling reporters she “folded like an umbrella” in her move to drop charges.

“The judge was extremely unfriendly to Jeanine, and frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious,” Trump said. 

“Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department,” he continued. “And I guess she choked. I don’t know what the hell happened.”

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Stephanie Grisham, the White House communications director during President Trump’s first term, filed a restraining order against Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) on Monday, amid allegations that Miller abused his ex-wife.

Grisham’s counsel, Mark S. Zaid, announced on social platform X that they filed for a temporary restraining order against Miller as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

The case began with an op-ed Grisham wrote in 2021 in the Washington Post that described an abusive relationship with an unnamed man. Miller filed a defamation suit against her shortly after the article was published, but the case was eventually dropped as both parties signed a nondisclosure agreement to not publicly disparage one another.

Grisham filed her new lawsuit after Miller said in a June interview with Spectrum News that any allegations should be taken seriously and it “should be noted” that an allegation against him “came out on the same day as somebody’s book launch and the other part.”

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Cases of cyclosporiasis, a parasitic infection known for causing explosive diarrhea, have now reached 47 states as the illness reached unprecedented numbers.

There have been 10,468 laboratory-confirmed cases of cyclospora infections since May 1, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly update Aug. 4. The new numbers represent an increase of more than 3,700 since the CDC's last report July 28.

Cases have also now been recorded in 47 states, up from 45 last week. At least 12,255 additional cases have not yet been confirmed by laboratories, the CDC said.

There have been 517 hospitalizations and two deaths, per the agency.

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As first light reaches the scattered tents and animal pens of Ras al-Ahmar in the northern Jordan Valley, the silence is broken only by the cries of thirsty livestock waiting for water that no longer comes.

Days after Israeli forces destroyed three of the Palestinian community's main water wells, residents are scrambling to secure enough water for their families, crops and animals in one of the occupied West Bank's driest regions.

For 60-year-old Ali Bani Odeh, the destruction of the wells was more than merely the loss of infrastructure. A father of four and grandfather of 14, he has spent decades farming and raising livestock to support his family in Ras al-Ahmar.

Now, like dozens of other families, he is uncertain how long they can continue living on the land without a reliable water supply.

"Water is everything for us," Ali told Middle East Eye.

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Several people with no apparent connection to the Nolan Wells case have been criminally charged with making threats amid questions surrounding the Mississippi teenager’s death in July.

The death of the 18-year-old Mississippi college freshman has drawn widespread attention since he was found dead following a boat trip to Horn Island, several miles off the Mississippi Gulf coast, with a group of friends.

Wells’s death has also heightened racial tensions: Wells was Black and three friends he was with were white. The case has prompted speculation on social media, with users questioning whether Wells’s death could have been racially motivated, as well as claims of defamation amid the investigation into the case.

In the weeks since Wells’s death, several threats have been made against Mississippi public officials.

One case centers on allegations against Michelle Francine Edwards of Cincinnati, Ohio. She has been charged with one count of transmitting a threatening communication in interstate commerce.

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A compromise between Todd Blanche and two Republican senators that potentially cleared the way for Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general is weak, Democrats and several experts said, as it makes promises Donald Trump can easily reverse.

Blanche, the acting attorney general, posted two documents on Sunday evening showing he was withdrawing an 18 May order allowing for the creation of a $1.8bn weaponization fund and clarifying that broad tax immunity the justice department granted to Trump only applied retroactively to the president, his sons, and businesses.

he agreement stemmed from a deal worked out with senators John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, two Republicans who had threatened to block Blanche’s nomination. Cornyn and Tillis said on Monday they would support Blanche when his vote comes up for the Senate judiciary committee Tuesday.

“We are pleased that the Department of Justice has issued a formal order terminating the anti-weaponization fund,” Cornyn and Tillis said. “Additionally, the department has acknowledged in a binding written order that the audit settlement is limited to the plaintiffs and the scope does not extend beyond the defendants in the lawsuit, the IRS and the treasury, addressing concerns that multiple of our Republican colleagues share.”

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