TV News LIES

Bernard LaFayette, the advance man who did the risky groundwork for the voter registration campaign in Selma, Alabama, that culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died.

Bernard LaFayette III said his father died Thursday morning of a heart attack. He was 85.

On 7 March 1965, the beating of future congressman John Lewis and voting rights marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge led the evening news, shocking the nation’s conscience and pushing Congress to act. But two years before “Bloody Sunday”, it was LaFayette who quietly set the stage for Selma and the advances in voting rights that would follow.

LaFayette was one of a delegation of Nashville students who in 1960 helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which organized desegregation and voting rights campaigns across the south. SNCC crossed Selma off its map after some initial scouting determined “the white folks were too mean and the Black folks were too scared”, LaFayette said.

But he insisted on trying anyway. Named director of the Alabama voter registration campaign in 1963, LaFayette moved to the town and, with his former wife, Colia Liddell, gradually built the leadership capacity of the local people, convincing them change was possible and creating momentum that could not be stopped. He described this work in a 2013 memoir, In Peace and Freedom: My Journey in Selma.

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President Donald Trump announced March 5 he was replacing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after lawmakers grilled her this week about a $220 million ad campaign that featured her prominently.

Trump announced on social media that Noem would be succeeded by Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, effective March 31.

Trump said Noem would become special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, his initiative for security against narcotics trafficking in the western hemisphere.

The shift came after Noem was grilled by Republicans and Democrats at the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3 and the House Judiciary Committee on March 4 about her ad campaign. She testified that she had discussed the campaign with Trump and he approved it.

"I never knew anything about it," Trump told Reuters in a phone interview.

The ads prominently featured Noem, including in a scene filmed on horseback at Mount Rushmore in the former South Dakota governor's home state.

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State Rep. James Talarico defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas in the Texas Senate primary Tuesday, March 3 in a battle of two national Democratic rising stars.

Talarico will face whichever Republican prevails in a May 26 runoff, either incumbent Sen. John Cornyn or embattled state Attorney General Ken Paxton. Talarico, 36, is a Presbyterian seminarian and former elementary school teacher now running a populist campaign in the Lone Star State with faith-based undertones.

The Democratic contest provided a stark contrast for Texas primary voters. Talarico, who is White, faced Crockett, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, in a race that raised questions about race, electability and stylistic differences. No Democrat has won a statewide race since 1994, but former Rep. Beto O'Rourke came within about 2.5 percentage points of Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018.

While Crockett entered the race three months after Talarico, she was the favorite due to her star power and fundraising prowess. She had gained nationwide fame for her cutting comments about Republicans, such as slamming former House peer Marjorie Taylor Greene as a "beach blonde bad built butch body" for insulting her false eyelashes.

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Concerns about an extended conflict, the mounting U.S. death toll and a perceived lack of clarity about the mission’s purpose are percolating among President Donald Trump’s MAGA base as the military operation in Iran puts the president at odds with some of his most ardent supporters.

Hanging over the debate is the memory of previous Middle Eastern conflicts, which stretched for years and claimed the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers.

Trump's presidential campaigns tapped into the American public’s disenchantment with the long and costly conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. He described the Iraq war as a "disaster" and "one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country."

But Trump’s second attack on Iran has already resulted in the deaths of six American service members, and the president is warning that more lives could be lost in a conflict with an uncertain timeline.

The president has launched a series of dramatic military operations in his second term, though. The first two in Iran and Venezuela were quick, and no U.S. soldiers died, limiting the blowback from his political base.

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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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President Trump delivered the first official State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday night. The speech gave Trump the opportunity to tout accomplishments and outline his agenda for his administration's second year.

It comes at at time when Americans are divided on whether Trump's first year has been a success. A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll shows that six in 10 believe the country is worse off than last year and that a majority think the state of the union is not strong.

Reporters from across NPR's newsroom are fact checking his speech and offer context — on topics like immigration, the economy, tariffs and trade and foreign policy. (Newest fact checks show up first below.)

By topic: Immigration | Foreign policy | Economy | Energy | Government | Health | Crime

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