TV News LIES

Actor Val Kilmer died Tuesday at 65. His daughter told The Associated Press the cause was pneumonia. He had recovered from throat cancer.

More than a hundred roles in a nearly four-decade career let Val Kilmer explore a wealth of human experience. He gave life to characters from all walks of life – from superhero to alcoholic, thief to detective. Here are a few of the more intriguing moods he embodied along the way.

Top Gun was a testosterone fest in all its corners, from volleyball on the beach to dogfights in the stratosphere, but the reigning cock of the walk, and the one Tom Cruise had to contend with, was Kilmer's Iceman – a cool customer, until he got hot under the collar.

More...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has fired all of the workers in its program that seeks to help low-income Americans pay their energy bills.

Everyone who had been working on the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) was let go on Tuesday, according to now-former employee Andrew Germain.

“Every single federal staff member that worked on LIHEAP was let go, so there are no federal staff members left to work on the program,” Germain told The Hill.

He said that prior to both probationary cuts and the latest round of firings, there had been about 15 people working on LIHEAP.

The program doles out funds to states, which in turn use the money to help people pay to heat and cool their homes and prevent utilities from shutting off the air or heat.

More...

Late on Friday evening, the trustees of Columbia University announced that its interim president, Katrina Armstrong, was leaving her post.

Six days earlier, she had convened an emergency meeting with 75 faculty members after the university had cravenly surrendered to the demands of the Trump administration in the hopes of recovering $400m in federal grants and contracts. The president and her staff called their predicament “heartbreaking” and sought to reassure faculty that academic freedom and departmental autonomy remained intact.

A transcript of the meeting was leaked. Two days later, the president was “returning to lead” the university’s medical center. She was replaced by a trustee.

Richard Chamberlain, the award-winning actor who played TV's "Dr. Kildare" and starred in popular miniseries including "The Thorn Birds" and "Shōgun," has died at 90.

Harlan Boll, Chamberlain's representative, confirmed to USA TODAY on Sunday that the actor died Saturday from complications following a stroke. He would have celebrated his 91st birthday Monday.

Born in Los Angeles in 1934, Chamberlain was a U.S Army veteran who served in Korea before he began to pursue acting, getting his start in a 1959 episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." After popping up on episodes of shows like "Gunsmoke" and "Riverboat," Chamberlain landed his breakthrough role as Dr. Kildare, a young medical intern, on the medical drama of the same name, which ran on NBC from 1961 to 1966. He won a Golden Globe Award for the role.

More...

No one aboard a small plane traveling from Iowa survived after it crashed in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, on Saturday, police said.

The SOCATA TBM7 plane crashed around 12:20 p.m. in a residential area in Brooklyn Park, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told USA TODAY. The aircraft departed from Des Moines International Airport and was headed to Anoka County-Blaine Airport in Minneapolis before the incident, according to the federal government agency.

According to FlightAware, the single-prop plane began its journey in Naples, Florida, and stopped in Des Moines at around 10:30 a.m. The plane took off 45 minutes later. It crashed six minutes before its scheduled landing time.

More...

Columbia University’s interim president has stepped down, the latest leadership shakeup at the Ivy League school, which has been aggressively targeted by the Trump administration over pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

Katrina Armstrong is being replaced by Claire Shipman, co-chair of its board of trustees, who is stepping up as acting president effective immediately, the university said on Friday evening. Shipman is the university’s third president since August, when Minouche Shafik resigned amid intense scrutiny of her handling of demonstrations.

Armstrong’s abrupt departure comes just one week after the university gave in to pressure from the Trump administration after it pulled $400m in federal funding. The president and other critics have accused Columbia of failing to prevent antisemitism on campus, saying the institution did not do enough to clamp down on protests, even though the university last year facilitated arrests of demonstrators and suspended pro-Palestinian student groups.

More...