TV News LIES

A federal judge on Thursday blocked parts of President Donald Trump's executive order seeking to impose new rules on U.S. elections, which Democrats and other groups said risked denying eligible citizens the right to vote.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the Trump administration cannot enforce parts of the order requiring federal election officials to assess whether people who are registering to vote are citizens.

She declined, however, to block parts of the order that sought to force states not to count mail-in ballots received after election day.

The ruling came in response to lawsuits by groups including the Democratic National Committee, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the League of Women's Education Fund.

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The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS ) has terminated two grants for Black history and culture that were awarded to the Whitney Plantation, a former plantation in Louisiana that focuses on the truths of slavery and the experiences of people who were enslaved. IMLS provides resources and support to libraries, archives and museums in all 50 states and territories.

The termination comes as the Trump administration has both gutted federal funding aimed at arts and cultural institutions and has pushed to end state and federal initiatives in support of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Recently, federal webpages that included references to thousands of figures, including Harriet Tubman, Indigenous codetalkers, the US army Maj Gen Charles Calvin Rogers, were either removed outright or scrubbed to exclude references to the aforementioned people. After public outcry, some of these pages were restored.

The Whitney Plantation already received one of the grants this year, but the other, which was to help fund an exhibit about how enslaved people resisted on plantations, was set to be completed in June this year. Without the funding, the Whitney stands to lose about $55,000. The exhibit on resistance to slavery, on which the museum had worked for three years, was due to open in January 2026.

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Donald Trump signed executive orders on Wednesday targeting universities as his administration seeks to reshape higher-education institutions and continues to crack down on diversity and inclusion efforts.

The actions address foreign gifts to universities, directing the federal government to “enforce laws on the books” related to the disclosure of large donations, and college accreditation, which the president has referred to as his “secret weapon” to upend US universities. While reading the orders to Trump, the White House staff secretary Will Scharf said that the third-party groups that accredit universities have relied on “woke ideology” rather than merit.

Linda McMahon, the education secretary, added during the signing in the Oval Office: “We should be looking at those who have real merit to get in, and we have to look harder at those universities that aren’t enforcing that.”

TVNL Comment:  This is how Trusmp hopes to keep people of color in 'their own' colleges, and keep them out of prestigious ivy league schools.  Clever? You bet.

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Two major law firms faced judges Wednesday to ask for decisive relief from President Trump’s executive orders aimed at undercutting their business as retribution for representing his political adversaries.

The firms, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, say Trump’s orders “addressing risks” they purportedly pose to the country are unlawful and spell disaster for their ability to perform legal work involving the government.

They’re among a small handful of Big Law firms fighting back against Trump’s pointed attacks on the legal industry, especially focused on those who have represented Democratic interests or are associated with attorneys the president believes are against him.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is facing growing backlash in his state over allegations involving an organization linked to his wife.

The controversy concerns a $10 million payment to the Hope Florida Foundation, which is tied to first lady Casey DeSantis’s welfare assistance program Hope Florida and has led to criticism from some state House Republicans. Critics argue this money was inappropriately used to help campaign against a ballot measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana in the state last November.

That money, critics say, was part of a settlement agreement involving the state’s largest Medicaid contractor, Centene. According to them, a chunk of that settlement, all of which was intended to be returned to state and federal coffers, was sent to the Hope Florida Foundation and eventually ended up in the hands of political groups that campaigned against the ballot measure, which Gov. DeSantis was also opposed to.

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The poll surveying 1,625 U.S. adults from April 19-22 found 41% of respondents approved of Trump's job, compared to 54% who disapproved. That's down from the -10 net approval rating found in the prior week's poll by The Economist/YouGov.

Trump started off his term with higher approval ratings than those he received in his first term. But his approval ratings in April 2017 (first term) and April 2025 (second term) are the two lowest approval marks among any newly-elected president since 1953, historical data from Gallup shows.

President Joe Biden's approval ratings at this point in his presidency were positive by 11 percentage points, according to YouGov.

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