YouTuber's livestream appears on White House website
A YouTube content creator whose livestream talking about investments mysteriously appeared to take over a White House website says he has no idea how it happened. The livestream appeared for at least eight minutes late Thursday on whitehouse.gov/live, raising questions about whether the site was hacked. The site is where the White House usually streams live video of the president speaking. It's unclear if the website was breached or the video was linked accidentally by someone in the government. The YouTube content creator says if he'd known his stream would go “super public like that” he'd have dressed nicer and had "more pointed topics!” The White House says it's "looking into what happened.”
Settlement calls for NPR to get $36M in government funds
National Public Radio will receive approximately $36 million in government funding to operate the nation’s public radio interconnection system under the terms of a court settlement. Monday's settlement resolves a legal dispute in which NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump to cut off its funding. On March 25, Trump said at a news conference that he wants to defund NPR and PBS because he believes they are biased in favor of Democrats. NPR accused the CPB of violating its First Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress.
Settlement calls for NPR to get $36M in government funds
National Public Radio will receive approximately $36 million in government funding to operate the nation’s public radio interconnection system under the terms of a court settlement. Monday's settlement resolves a legal dispute in which NPR accused the Corporation for Public Broadcasting of bowing to pressure from President Donald Trump to cut off its funding. On March 25, Trump said at a news conference that he wants to defund NPR and PBS because he believes they are biased in favor of Democrats. NPR accused the CPB of violating its First Amendment free speech rights when it moved to cut off its access to grant money appropriated by Congress.
Trump order on Smithsonian targets programs with 'improper ideology'
President Donald Trump has signed an executive order on the Smithsonian Institution that targets funding to programs that contain what he calls “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.” Trump says there’s been a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past decade to rewrite American history by replacing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.” He has signed an executive order putting Vice President JD Vance in charge of an effort to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
Judge tells agencies to restore webpages, data removed after Trump's executive order
A federal judge has told government agencies to restore public access to health-related webpages and datasets they removed to comply with an executive order by President Donald Trump. U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington agreed Tuesday to issue a temporary restraining order requested by the Doctors for America advocacy group. The judge instructed the government to restore access to several webpages and datasets the group identified as missing from websites. Agencies removed the material after the Republican president signed an order for them to use the term “sex” and not “gender” in federal policies and documents. The scrubbed material includes reports on HIV prevention and a webpage for providing clinicians with guidance on reproductive health care.
DOJ says TikTok collected US user views on abortion, gun control
In a fresh broadside against one of the world’s most popular technology companies, the Justice Department has accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion. Government lawyers say in a brief filed in federal court late Friday that TikTok and its Beijing-based parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to enable TikTok employees to speak directly with ByteDance engineers in China. One of Lark’s internal search tools, the filing states, permits ByteDance and TikTok employees in the U.S. and China to gather bulk user information based on content.
Supreme Court sends Trump immunity case back to lower court
The Supreme Court has ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. President Joe Biden said Monday night the ruling undercut accepted limits on the presidency dating all the way back to George Washington. But former President Donald Trump celebrated a “Big Win” that extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against him on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss. There is little chance Trump could be tried before the November election.
Supreme Court sends Trump immunity case back to lower court
The Supreme Court has ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. President Joe Biden said Monday night the ruling undercut accepted limits on the presidency dating all the way back to George Washington. But former President Donald Trump celebrated a “Big Win” that extended the delay in the Washington criminal case against him on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 election loss. There is little chance Trump could be tried before the November election.
Construction to begin on high-speed rail between Las Vegas and Los Angeles
A $12 billion high-speed passenger train line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area has started construction. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joined Brightline West company officials on Monday to hammer commemorative yellow rail spikes at the site of terminal due to open in 2028 just south of the Las Vegas Strip. The company plans to build track in the median of Interstate 15 to a Rancho Cucamonga, California, commuter rail hub connection to Los Angeles. Trains would whisk past at speeds comparable to Japan's bullet trains. A Brightline sister company operates a train about two-thirds that fast between Miami and Orlando.
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