TV News LIES

A federal appeals court in New York Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to transfer Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student, from Louisiana to Vermont to continue her immigration detention in that state while a judge there decides whether to release her on bail.

The Trump administration has one week to comply with the transfer, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

"The District of Vermont is likely the proper venue to adjudicate Öztürk's habeas petition because, at the time she filed, she was physically in Vermont," the panel wrote in its ruling.

Öztürk has been detained at a federal facility in Louisiana after being arrested on the street in Somerville, Massachusetts on March 25 by six federal plainclothes immigration agents. The Department of Homeland Security later accused her of engaging "in activities in support of Hamas."

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Earlier this year, Utah and Idaho’s Republican-controlled legislatures passed bans on flying the rainbow pride flags and other “unofficial flags” on government property.

Leaders in both states’ capital cities, Salt Lake City and Boise, recently devised an inventive workaround – changing their official flags.

Salt Lake City’s mayor, Erin Mendenhall, proposed the adoption of three new city flags, which were unanimously approved by the city council. All three have the city’s traditional sego lily design, respectively imposed over a pride flag, a trans flag and a Juneteenth commemoration flag.

“Our city flags are powerful symbols representing Salt Lake City’s values,” said Mendenhall in a press release. “I want all Salt Lakers to look up at these flags and be reminded that we value diversity, equity and inclusion – leaving no doubt that we are united as a city and people, moving forward together.”

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The Trump administration’s reported plan to hurriedly deport immigrants to war-torn Libya would “clearly violate” an earlier court order barring such summary deportations, a federal judge warned Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s assessment followed an emergency motion filed by lawyers for a group of Asian immigrants seeking to block a military flight that appeared to be on the verge of taking off from Texas — even as the two competing governments that control portions of Libya reportedly indicated they would reject deportation flights from the United States.

Citing “alarming reports” in the media and accounts from some of their clients — nationals of Laos, Vietnam and the Philippines — the lawyers said the immigrants are at risk of being sent to Libya in defiance of an earlier injunction, issued by Murphy, prohibiting deportations to so-called third-party countries without notice and a chance to make a legal challenge. They asked Murphy to quickly prevent any deportation flights to Libya and to ensure the Trump administration is complying with his earlier order. They also asked Murphy to block flights to potential “stopover” nations like Saudi Arabia.

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The New York police department on Wednesday arrested dozens of pro-Palestinian activists who occupied part of the main library building on Columbia University’s campus on Wednesday evening, ending an hours-long standoff nearly a year after student anti-war protest swept the Ivy League school.

Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in a statement that she requested officers with the NYPD to help clear the building, after protesters had refused to leave despite being warned that a failure to comply would result in disciplinary action and possibly arrest for trespassing. A spokesperson for the NYPD said officers arrested “multiple individuals” who refused to disperse.

Video posted online by the student activist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) showed NYPD officers in riot gear entering the Butler library reading room, as protesters locked arms and chanted: “We have nothing to lose but our chains!”

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A federal judge on Tuesday blocked President Trump’s dismantling of three federal agencies that support libraries, museums, minority businesses and mediation services.

U.S. District Judge John McConnell agreed with 21 Democratic-led states that the shutdowns violate the separation of powers.

“It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” McConnell wrote.