TV News LIES

California became the fifth state in the US to ban universities from admitting students based on their family connections, and the second state, after Maryland, to extend the ban to private, non-profit universities.

“Hard work, good grades and a well-rounded background should earn you a spot in the incoming class – not the size of the check your family can write or who you’re related to,” Phil Ting, the Democratic state assembly member, who authored the legislation, said in a statement.

A state judge has again struck down Georgia’s roughly six-week abortion ban.

The 2019 law only took effect in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The controversial legislation, backed by Republicans and signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp, prohibited most abortions in Georgia after about six weeks, or when fetal cardiac activity is detected.

Gavin Creel, a Tony-winning theater actor known for his work in shows like "Hello, Dolly!" and "Hair," has died. He was 48.

Creel died on Monday at his home in New York from metastatic melanotic peripheral nerve sheath sarcoma, a form of cancer, a representative for the actor confirmed to USA TODAY. He was diagnosed in July and received treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering before he transitioned to hospice care at home.

Creel won the Tony in 2017 for best featured actor in a musical for his performance as Cornelius Hackl in "Hello, Dolly!" He received his first Tony nomination for best leading actor in a musical in 2002, when he starred as Jimmy Smith in that year's best musical winner, "Thoroughly Modern Millie." The role was his Broadway debut, though he had been performing in stage productions since the late '90s.

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Pete Rose, Major League Baseball’s all-time hits leader who earned a lifetime ban from the sport after he gambled on Cincinnati Reds games he managed, died Monday at 83, the Reds confirmed to USA TODAY Sports.

Rose, whose 4,256 hits are a record that will likely never be broken, was ushered from the game in shame after an exhaustive 1989 investigation determined that he’d placed wagers on the Reds through illegal bookmakers. Rose and Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti signed an agreement in which Rose agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in return for the league not making a formal determination about whether or not he had bet on baseball.

Giamatti died on Sept. 1, 1989, just one week after Rose signed the agreement he crafted. Yet in the 33 years since, three successive commissioners – Fay Vincent, Bud Selig and Rob Manfred – have upheld the ban, and Rose remains ineligible for the Hall of Fame, to the chagrin of some of his fans.

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Kris Kristofferson, the country singer who ably balanced a prolific acting career alongside his music, has died aged 88.

Kristofferson’s family confirmed his death on Sunday night, saying he “passed away peacefully” at home on Saturday. “We’re all so blessed for our time with him,” read the statement, which was signed by his wife Lisa, his eight children and seven grandchildren. “Thank you for loving him all these many years, and when you see a rainbow, know he’s smiling down at us all.”

Admired for the grit, emotional vulnerability and literary craft of his country songwriting, Kristofferson frequently topped the US country charts and cover versions of his songs were hits for artists including Janis Joplin, Gladys Knight and Johnny Cash. In the mid-70s, he worked with film directors including Martin Scorsese and Sam Peckinpah, and won a Golden Globe for his work opposite Barbra Streisand in the 1976 remake of A Star is Born.

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The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 70 people so far, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating.

The storm killed at least 69 people, according to state and local officials in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. Officials feared still more bodies would be discovered.

“This is going to be a really complicated recovery in each of the five states” of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, the Fema administrator, Deanne Criswell, said.

She noted that a 15ft storm surge hit Florida’s Taylor county, where Helene came ashore as a category 4 hurricane late Thursday with winds of 140mph (225km/h), and pointed out that areas of western North Carolina, where search and rescue operations are continuing, recorded 29in (74cm) of rain when the storm stalled over the region.

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