TV News LIES

A s protesters gathered outside the headquarters of US health agencies to call attention to mass layoffs devastating the federal service in recent days, more employees at health agencies were terminated on Wednesday, including employees with years of experience and stellar performance reviews who were not probationary.

Thousands of terminated employees across the federal government are appealing the decision. Some former employees are struggling to apply for unemployment or understand when their benefits expire in the chaotic termination process.

At the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the layoffs included all public health fellows stationed at state, local and regional health departments, as well as staff working on global health and outbreak response – even as the bird flu outbreak ramps up and the CDC suspends its seasonal flu vaccine campaign.

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Senator Mitch McConnell announced he will not run for re-election next year, bringing an end to a decades-long career for a Republican leader who marshaled his party through multiple administrations with a singleminded focus on power that enraged his critics and delighted his allies.

The Associated Press broke the news of McConnell’s retirement on Thursday, which marked the Republican senator’s 83rd birthday. McConnell formally announced his retirement in a Senate floor speech on Thursday.

“Seven times, my fellow Kentuckians have sent me to the Senate,” McConnell said.

Newsmax and Fox News are among the outlets who have reportedly signed onto a letter pushing back on the Trump administration’s decision to restrict the Associated Press’s White House access, in a dispute over President Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

At least 40 news organizations have reportedly signed onto a letter that the White House Correspondents Association circulated in support of the AP having its longtime reporting access reinstated. Oliver Darcy of Status News first reported on the “confidential” letter and the two traditionally pro-Trump outlets’ inclusion.

“The First Amendment prohibits the government from asserting control over how news organizations make editorial decisions. Any attempt to punish journalists for those decisions is a serious breach of this Constitutional protection,” the letter reads, according to Darcy’s report.

The Hill has not independently obtained a copy of the letter.

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A Mississippi judge issued a Tuesday order forcing the Clarksdale Press Register to remove an editorial criticizing city officials, sparking First Amendment concerns and pushback from press advocates.

The piece, titled “Secrecy, Deception Erode Public Trust” accused authorities in Clarksdale, Miss., of intentionally failing to notify the outlet about a City Council meeting on a proposed tax for alcohol, marijuana and tobacco products.

Judge Crystal Wise Martin ruled in favor of a temporary restraining order requested by city officials and scheduled a full hearing for Feb. 27, according to The Associated Press.

“I think it’s dangerous that a judge would issue a temporary restraining order without a hearing,” Wyatt Emmerich, president of the paper’s parent company, Emmerich Newspapers, told the AP.

“We’ll fight it and see where it goes.”

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An Alabama grand jury has recommended that a city's police department be "immediately abolished," finding there is a "rampant culture of corruption," officials said Wednesday while announcing the indictment of five of the agency's officers, including its police chief.

Five Hanceville police officers were arrested and charged amid a probe into the department, Cullman County District Attorney Champ Crocker said. The spouse of one of the officers was also charged, he said.

"This is a sad day for law enforcement, but at the same time, it is a good day for the rule of law," Crocker said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

Crocker provided limited details on the case. Though the investigation encompassed the department's evidence room and the death of a Hanceville dispatcher, 49-year-old Christopher Michael Willingham, who was found dead from a toxic drug combination at work, officials said.

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Victoria Porter spent two days last year fighting a small forest fire that sprang up from a hunter’s campsite in the Montana wilderness.

Porter, 28, helped dig a fire break to prevent the blaze from spreading and used a mule team to haul water to squelch the blaze.

Firefighting wasn’t Porter’s primary job at the time. She worked for the U.S. Forest Service on a crew maintaining hiking trails. But, like many Forest Service workers, she has basic training in fighting wildfires and is expected to help fire crews when needed.

Porter won’t be around to help when the next wildfire flares up. She was fired from her job last week as part of the wave of mass terminations of probationary employees by President Donald Trump’s administration, a move she believes will put a strain on the agency’s firefighters.

“They need our support, and now they don’t have it,” Porter said.

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Donald Trump is receiving widespread backlash after he likened himself to a “king” on social media following his administration’s decision to rescind New York City’s congestion pricing program.

On Wednesday, following a letter issued by his transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, to the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, that ended the transportation department’s agreement with New York over a new congestion pricing program for Manhattan, Trump wrote on Truth Social:

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!”

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A federal appeals court Wednesday evening declined the Trump administration’s request to partially revive the president’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship.

The Justice Department asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to immediately limit a district judge’s ruling, one of multiple indefinitely blocking Trump’s order nationwide, to only the individual plaintiffs who sued in an underlying case.

The three-judge appeals panel wrote in its ruling that the administration had “not made a ‘strong showing that [they are] likely to succeed on the merits’ of this appeal.”

Trump’s order would restrict birthright citizenship from being extended to children born on U.S. soil to parents without permanent legal status, part of a flurry of immigration actions he signed on his first day in office. Multiple judges have found the order is inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s longstanding interpretation of the 14^th Amendment.