TV News LIES

U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll has replaced FBI Director Kash Patel as the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, one of several law enforcement agencies under the umbrella of the Justice Department, three U.S. officials confirmed to USA TODAY on Wednesday.

Two Defense officials said Driscoll is now heading the ATF while remaining as Army secretary. A Justice Department official also confirmed Driscoll has replaced Patel but did not comment on the reasons for the personnel move. They were granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

In early March, the Trump administration sent warning letters to 60 US universities it said were facing “potential enforcement actions” for what it described as “failure to protect Jewish students on campus” in the wake of widespread pro-Palestinian protests on campuses last year.

The president of Cornell University, which was on the list, responded with a defiant op-ed in the New York Times, arguing that universities, and their students, could weather debates and protests over the war in Gaza.

“Universities, despite rapidly escalating political, legal and financial risks, cannot afford to cede the space of public discourse and the free exchange of ideas,” the Cornell University president Michael Kotlikoff wrote on 31 March.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration froze over $1bn in funding for Cornell University, a US official said. The administration also froze $790m for Northwestern University, which hosts a prominent journalism school.

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Two House Democrats sent letters to the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force on Monday demanding answers over the recent removal of books at service academies.

Reps. Adam Smith (Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, and Chrissy Houlahan (Pa.), ranking member of the Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, sent the letter after the Naval Academy said it removed 400 books from the Nimitz Library collection.

The academy said the removal was to comply “with all directives outlined in Executive Orders issued by the President.”

The letters sent by the Democrats say the review focused on books that had topics relating to “gender ideology” and “discriminatory equity ideology.”

“If true, this is a blatant attack on the First Amendment and a clear effort to suppress academic freedom and rigor at the United States Naval Academy. Moreover, this reported book ban — or any similar efforts that may be ongoing at the United States Military Academy — displays an alarming return to McCarthy-era censorship,” the representatives wrote.

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Thousands of ‘Hands Off’ protesters – in the US and across major European cities – took to the streets on Saturday in a show of defiance.

Photos show: A protest in Manhattan, New York City, on Saturday. A protest near the Torch of Friendship monument in Miami, Florida.

A protest on the National Mall in Washington DC.  Demonstrators dressed as handmaidens from The Handmaid’s Tale at the Washington monument in Washington DCDemonstrators gather outside the Minnesota state capitol in St Paul, Minnesota.  A protest in New York.

A protest on the National Mall in Washington DC.  A protest in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

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Office closures, staffing and service cuts, and policy changes at the Social Security Administration (SSA) have caused “complete, utter chaos” and are threatening to send the agency into a “death spiral”, according to workers at the agency.

The SSA operates the largest government program in the US, administering social insurance programs, including retirement, disability and survivor benefits.

An average of almost 69 million Americans per month will receive a social security benefit in 2025, totaling about $1.6tn in benefits paid during the year and accounting for 22% of the federal budget. While expensive and challenged by an ageing population, social security remains overwhelmingly popular with Americans. But the agency has been dubbed a “Ponzi scheme” by Elon Musk, the billionaire whose so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) is currently slashing its staff and budgets.

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