President Donald Trump on Monday defended his decision to bar reporters from three news organizations — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — from the White House after they announced they were filing a lawsuit to challenge the move.

“The White House is not instituting an assault on the Free Press, something which I cherish,” Trump claimed in a Truth Social post, despite his track record of targeting journalists.

“It is instituting an assault on the FAKE NEWS, something that has grown like Cancer in our beloved United States of America,” he said. “It is a threat to our National Security, and must be stopped, NOW!”

The lawsuit is expected to focus on the president’s vague explanation for instituting the ban.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” the lawsuit states, per MS NOW.

Hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza returned to in-person teaching on Saturday for the first time in nearly three years, albeit in damaged or makeshift school buildings and tents, and with uniforms, notebooks and pens unaffordable for many families.

The United Nations Children’s Fund says 98% of schools in Gaza were either destroyed or damaged during the war, and Gaza education officials say about 660,000 students have been deprived of in-person learning and regular participation in education.

The reopening is a fragile milestone for Gaza after a conflict that has killed around 22,000 students and more than 770 education workers, including 532 teachers, according to Ibrahim Ramadan, director of education for East Khan Younis.

Read more at Reuters:

President Donald Trump on Sunday urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop attacking Russia’s refineries, citing concerns about the rising price of diesel, The Financial Times reported.

Earlier, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Zelenskyy said he had an “important conversation” with Trump.

“There is diplomatic momentum,” he added. “I thanked the President for Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s visit to Kyiv. We went through the key details thoroughly, and they saw the situation in Ukraine firsthand. The peace track is our number one priority. There are ideas for de-escalation steps and for addressing fundamental security issues – energy security, food security, and the protection of human life. We are working together with the American team and are ready to take really serious steps.”

Zelenskyy and Trump are expected to meet for in-person talks this week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.

In a joint statement issued on Monday morning, CNN, MS NOW and Politico said they have notified the Trump administration that they intend to file a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s ban of the three news organizations from the White House.

“Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists’ credentials because it objected to our reporting. Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom and the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference,” the statement reads.

Joint statement from CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO: pic.twitter.com/ZBt2qioLD8

CNN has retained First Amendment lawyer Ted Boutrous as it reportedly prepares to file a lawsuit with Politico and MS NOW against the Trump administration after their reporters were barred from entering the White House, CNN’s Brian Stelter said on Sunday night.

“There are some indications it could be filed in the coming hours,” Stelter added.

Boutrous previously represented CNN when the network sued the White House after it rescinded its then-correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials in 2018. A judge later ordered the White House to restore Acosta’s press pass, prompting the network to withdraw the lawsuit.

The main Kremlin party retained its majority in Russia’s parliament, election officials said Monday, after a carefully orchestrated balloting that excluded most opposition candidates and helped the government maintain its tight grip on power.

Results from over 95% of the polling stations gave the Kremlin’s United Russia party just under 58% of the vote for the 225 seats apportioned by parties, according to the Central Election Commission. Another 225 lawmakers were chosen in single-ballot races, and the results showed United Russia candidates leading in 208 of those races.

Central Election Commission chair Ella Pamfilova said the preliminary results indicated that United Russia would get 355 seats out of 450, a record high for the party, if confirmed.

Read more at The Associated Press:

CNN will no longer serve as the TV pool representative for the White House press corps on Monday, according to a note circulated by the White House on Sunday, as President Donald Trump’s fight against the press escalates.

CNN was one of the three news outlets whose reporters were barred from entering the White House this weekend after President Donald Trump announced the ban, baselessly accusing them of spreading falsehoods about him and his administration.

“Media Outlets shouldn’t be able to constantly write or report FICTION and LIES when they’re covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of America. Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Prior to the announcement, CNN was set to be the main TV pool network that would join President Donald Trump on his trip to New York City for the U.N. General Assembly.

But the White House’s daily guidance and press schedule for Monday no longer lists CNN or any other network as the primary TV pool.

Meanwhile, the three news organizations targeted by Trump are preparing to sue the administration on First Amendment grounds over the ban, CNN noted.

Scott Wheaton thinks a lot about why people vote the way they do in elections. He doesn’t work in politics; he’s a retired geologist. But sitting outside Dark Horse Coffee one sunny day earlier this month, Wheaton described himself as a “super voter” who takes elections very seriously, which is why he’s become fascinated by what makes someone ultimately pick one candidate over another.

“We vote for these bullshit reasons,” said Wheaton, 77, reclining in an Adirondack chair with a dog-eared book on his lap. “But I really think one of the big bullshit reasons we vote is we look at people and we say, ‘Do I like this person? Would I want this person to help me out?’”

That’s how he’s weighing his vote in Alaska’s Senate race, one of the most competitive in the country. Voters have a choice between Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, the two-term incumbent, and his main challenger, Mary Peltola, a former Democratic representative. With the Senate teetering on the edge of flipping to Democratic control in November, Peltola is one of the Democrats poised to help her party potentially pull it off. She’s been narrowly leading in the polls for months and outperformed Sullivan in last month’s primary election.

Read more here:

A slew of Democratic candidates running in states and districts won by President Donald Trump are breaking with the party on transgender rights issues, especially on the question of allowing transgender girls to play school sports, often in the face of criticism from the party’s base.

The most recent was Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who is trying to win reelection in a northwestern Ohio district Trump won by seven points in 2024. Kaptur, an 80-year-old who has spent most of her career in Congress as a stalwart populist liberal, touts her vote for a Republican bill that would require schools to obtain parental consent before changing students’ pronouns on official forms.

Read more here:

President Donald Trump’s decision last week to ban three major media outlets from the White House reportedly came after one of his closest aides showed him clips of TV hosts criticizing him.

Trump on Friday said CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would be banned from the White House after he baselessly accused them of “fake news.”

By Saturday, the reporters were denied entry to the White House and stripped of their credentials.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the precise moment his frustrations with the media “reached a fever pitch” came after aide Natalie Harp showed him videos of MS NOW hosts criticizing his administration.

Read more here:

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