[NYPOST] ''60 Minutes'' executive producer Bill Owens abruptly quit on Tuesday, citing a loss of journalistic independence as CBS' parent company, Paramount Global, looks to settle a lawsuit from President Trump.
''Over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for '60 Minutes,' right for the audience,'' Owens wrote in a memo to staff that was obtained by The Post.
He added: ''So, having defended this show — and what we stand for — from every angle, over time with everything I could, I am stepping aside so the show can move forward.''
CBS insiders have speculated for months that Owens, who is just the third person to helm the iconic Sunday evening news magazine in its 57-year history, could be on the hot seat.
Earlier this month, Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, has pledged to fast-track an investigation into CBS over alleged political bias. Last month, Carr rejected a bid by CBS to dismiss the complaint against the network.
[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] One of America's biggest villains received an epic beating on Fox News today when she tried to defend the indefensible and insulted her interviewer.
Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, is the chief proponent of trapping everyone in failing public schools and refusing to hold crooked school authority figures accountable.
She was also arguably the loudest advocate for shutting down schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused irreparable harm to the cognitive development of many children across the country.
Weingarten was invited on Fox News's ''The Story with Martha MacCallum'' to discuss the ongoing public school failures and pornographic books prevalent throughout school libraries.
Things got heated quickly when MacCallum lit up Weingarten for slamming school choice and for saying we should throw more money at the problem.
''So, if we can find other areas around the country where the proficiency levels are also ABYSMAL and should be embarrassing to every education organization, then we can start making assessments and say it's because of (school) choice or money,'' MacCallum said. ''We know that money does not equate to a better outcome.''
MacCallum cited an example from New Jersey that proves her astute point. Upon hearing this, Weingarten lost her patience and attempted to patronize the Fox News anchor.
''Martha, Martha, sweetheart,'' she began before an angry MacCallum cut her off.
''Don't call me sweetheart!'' MacCallum fired back.
[VANGUARDNGR] A judge on Tuesday ordered President Donald Trump's administration to restore funding to Voice of America and other US-funded media, saying its abrupt shutdown of the outlets broke the law.
The federal judge in Washington agreed to a request led by the outlets' employees for a preliminary injunction, a temporary order as a court examines the legal challenge in greater depth.
Trump, who has long jostled with the press and questioned the editorial rules that prohibit interference in government-funded media, on March 14 issued an executive order to eliminate the outlets.
The following day, Kari Lake, his firebrand supporter turned advisor, began issuing notices to terminate all funding, which was appropriated by Congress.
Lake and other Trump officials are ''likely in direct violation of numerous federal laws,'' wrote Royce Lamberth, a judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia.
The US Agency for Global Media, which supervises taxpayer-funded media, is allowed by law to redirect funds among its different programming by five percent or less, he wrote.
''Certainly, no law gives the agency the power to cut funding to the drastic degree that is alleged,'' he wrote.
Lamberth wrote that Voice of America's congressionally established charter states that the outlet will '''serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news (that is) accurate, objective, and comprehensive' but the defendants have silenced VOA for the first time.''
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders USA, said the media rights group was ''very pleased'' with the decision on VOA and other outlets.
''Every day they're off the air is a gift to authoritarian regimes that forbid the free press, like China and Iran,'' he said.
The judge called on the Trump administration to return all employees and contractors to their jobs and to provide monthly status reports on compliance.
[BREITBART] Left-wing Arizona Democrat Gov. Katie Hobbs has vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature that would require local and state law enforcement to cooperate with federal Immigration officials.
The Republican-led legislature passed a bill that outlawed local jurisdictions from passing ordinances that would prevent local police from working with federal immigration authorities or block federal immigration actions and funding, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named (AP) reported.
The bill would also have required locals to cooperate on immigration detainers and to inform federal officials about migrants colonists being held in jug or about to be released from jails and prisons.
Supporters of the bill said the measure was needed to help the federal government have a safer and more orderly system of taking foreign criminals into custody for deportation and for state officials to be a ''partner, not an obstacle'' to federal immigration policies.
But Hobbs insisted in her veto statement that it is wrong to ''force state and local officials to take marching orders from Washington.''
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[NYPOST] ''60 Minutes'' executive producer 
[VANGUARDNGR] A judge on Tuesday ordered President 
