CNN: DOGE Cuts, Emil Bove, Police Violence, Trump and Epstein, Stephen Colbert

 

By Jade Walker The Trump administration has ended the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s specialized service for LGBTQ+ youth. Previously, people who called 988 for help could “press 3” to reach counselors specifically trained to respond to the needs of this community. Since it launched in 2022, the specialized service has received nearly 1.5 million calls.    House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks to reporters at the US Capitol on Thursday. Jonathan Ernst/Reuters 1 DOGE cuts House Republicans approved a package of $9 billion in spending cuts overnight, handing a win to President Donald Trump. Roughly $8 billion will be pulled from US Agency for International Development (USAID) programs and another $1.1 billion will be withdrawn from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund NPR and PBS. The measure will now head to the president's desk to be signed into law. A study published recently in The Lancet estimated that the USAID funding cuts could result in more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030. As for public broadcasting, Trump and many Republicans have long accused PBS and NPR of being “biased,” but public media officials said critics distort what actually airs. Although the funding will start to dry up in the fall, some stations are already laying off staff, preparing to cut programs and searching for “new funding models.” 2 Emil Bove Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Thursday to advance the nomination of Emil Bove, President Trump’s former personal attorney, to a federal judgeship. The decision came over the loud protests of Democrats who walked out of the committee proceedings. Bove’s nomination has been contentious. Earlier this week, more than 75 former federal and state judges called on the panel to reject Bove, saying his “egregious record of mistreating law enforcement officers, abusing power, and disregarding the law itself disqualifies him for this position.” In June, a whistleblower letter from a terminated DOJ employee alleged that Bove and other top officials intended to ignore court orders and mislead federal judges. Bove rebuffed such claims during his confirmation hearing. 3 Police violence The former police officer who was found guilty of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor — when she was shot and killed in her Louisville, Kentucky home during a botched “no-knock” raid in 2020 — will face sentencing on Monday. Although Brett Hankison wasn’t the officer who killed Taylor, he did fire blindly through her window. In a court filing Wednesday, the DOJ asked that Hankison be sentenced to just 1 day in jail. And in Philadelphia, a former police officer who shot and killed a motorist during a traffic stop was sentenced on Thursday and then immediately granted parole. A judge sentenced Mark Dial to 9 1/2 months in jail for voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of 27-year-old Eddie Irizarry — but then granted him parole because he had already been jailed for 10 months following his arrest in 2023. The city’s district attorney and the victim’s family condemned the sentence.  4 Trump and Epstein President Trump vowed to sue the Wall Street Journal and its owner on Thursday after the newspaper published a 2003 birthday letter to accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump’s name and a drawing of a naked woman. "I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story," Trump wrote on his social media site. "But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third-rate newspaper.” Trump also posted on Truth Social that he had ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony" about the Epstein investigation. It’s unclear if this order will placate many of his MAGA supporters who are upset that his administration didn’t release all of the Epstein files, as he had promised. Instead, the DOJ issued a memo that said Epstein had not been murdered in prison and did not leave a client list.

5 Stephen Colbert Late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert will soon be off the air. On Thursday, he announced that CBS was canceling “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” next year, citing financial pressures. “The Late Show” is typically the highest-rated show in late-night. The network’s decision comes just two weeks after Paramount, the parent company of CBS, paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit lodged by President Trump against CBS News. Colbert, who is one of the staunchest critics of Trump on television, condemned the Paramount settlement on air, likening it to a “big fat bribe.” “The Late Show” franchise has been a cornerstone of the CBS lineup for more than 30 years.