Isis, a Mudlark student-athlete, was taken by ICE earlier this year, and she’s now being released after much protest by fellow students, and this big local news story with national implications is being covered by … local podcaster Marty Moon, using the same iPhone camera streaming setup he uses to comment on high school golf? Honestly, I’ve never been more concerned about the health of the Milford media ecosystem.
Fired journalist accuses CBS News chief of interfering with report because it did not echo Trump’s view of the shooting
Scott Pelley was fired from CBS 60 Minutes last week. Photograph: Charles Sykes/AP
The fired 60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley has accused editorial management at CBS of interfering with a broadcast segment on the killing of the Minneapolis protester Renee Good by an immigration officer in January.
The veteran broadcaster, who was recently dismissed from the show, said CBS News’s editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, had sent an email to his supervisor requesting changes shortly before the airing of the segment in question.
Pelley told the outlet: “Two of the things in the email include, ‘Can we make the protesters look more violent?’ Now, I’m paraphrasing. I don’t have the quote, but that’s what was communicated to me. And the other thing, Renee Good’s car. You need to describe her as driving toward the officer.”
Pelley maintained that was the direction contained in the email even though video of Good’s shooting did not support such a conclusion.
A CBS News spokesperson told the Times in response to Pelley’s statements that Weiss had made four points in an email exchange on the segment that had “no political motivation and were proposed solely to make the piece as strong, fair, and accurate as possible”.
“Not everything she raised made it into the final piece,” the statement added.
Pelley’s accusation comes amid turbulence at the flagship TV news show that has seen the 60 Minutes executive producer Tanya Simon replaced and several correspondents and producers leave over questions of editorial independence. Three of the show’s veterans – Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim – are staying on.
The newly installed executive producer, Nick Bilton, a former Vanity Fair journalist and film-maker, told staff in a memo that “the foundation of 60 Minutes is journalistic independence.
“We will always pursue stories without fear or favor.”
Pelley’s accusations to the Times followed a heated exchange at a meeting on Monday in which he accused Weiss of “murdering” the show. He was fired soon after.
In his latest salvo, Pelley said he was concerned that Weiss “had zero television experience and had never managed a large global operation like CBS News”. He also called her lack of TV news experience “red flags to me”.
Pelley also said that Bilton’s mission to modernize the 58-year-old show ignored changes that were already in play.
“Of course we have to reach out to a younger and younger audience, but their argument about joining the internet age is just disingenuous,” Pelley said. “It’s almost as if Bari Weiss and Nick Bilton were sealed in a time capsule in 1990, and it just cracked open. They’ve just discovered the internet, and they’re running around telling everybody how important it is.”
Pelley’s accusations over the Minneapolis segment in part centered on what took place in the seconds before Good was shot by an immigration enforcement officer.
“On the video, you see the officer standing slightly off the front of the car,” Pelley told the Times. “You clearly see Ms Good’s wheels turned completely as far as they will go, away from the officer. But he shoots her in the head [and] kills her.”
Pelley also alluded to cellphone video from the officer’s vantage point that was publicly released and captured him calling Good a “fucking bitch”.
As Pelley put it, the officer said “something about her that I can’t repeat in polite company”.
Pelley said that 60 Minutes had “gone out of our way in our plan from the very beginning to show the protesters for the responsibility that they had … somehow that wasn’t enough for Ms Weiss”.
He added that video of the shooting showed that the officer wasn’t standing in front of the car and she wasn’t “driving toward him”. He argued that Weiss “wanted it described that way” because it echoed what Donald Trump said of the shooting in his capacity as president.
Asked to respond to Pelley’s claim that Weiss “was putting a thumb on the scale on behalf of the [Trump] administration”, CBS News said there was “no credible argument” to suggest she was doing that.
The religious right in the US salivates over being able to do this here in the US. The goal is to enshrine being straight and cis into law so it makes being LGBTQ+ illegal. These people want to eradicate the entire LGBTQ+ community. They want desperately to return to a time when heteronormaty was assumed the only correct and natural way to present sexual attraction and gender. Why these people are so butt hurt over other people’s sexual attractions and gender feelings makes no sense. Arre straight men angry that lesbians don’t want to have sex with them? Are religious straight men terrified that they find the woman attractive only to learn she is trans which makes them hornier? And as always attacks on the LGBTQ+ follow the same script which is that LGBTQ+ are a threat to children, society, and family values. Family values mean what? That same sex people don’t have accidental pregnancies? What is not family about same gender couples? Oh right it doesn’t look like adam and eve to the hateful religious groups and it doesn’t look like mommy and daddy to the bigots. Hugs
On Wednesday, 11 members of the Turkish rights group Young LGBTI+ were tried over charges of “obscenity” and “violating the protection of the family,” their lawyer told Agence France-Presse.
The defendants face three years in prison for violating an article in the Turkish constitution that prosecutors say undermines “family values.” Among the activists’ offenses: posting images to social media that show same-sex couples kissing, a display deemed “obscene” by the government.
The trial in the western city of Izmir could result in prison time for the defendants and the suspension of their civil rights. It coincides with an appeal against another court ruling issued in December ordering Young LGBTI+’s dissolution based on the same charges.
While homosexuality isn’t illegal in Turkey as it is in most neighboring Muslim-majority countries, authoritarian President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has made the LGBTQ+ community a frequent target when it suits him. He blames Turkey’s low birthrate in part on gay people.
“This trial arises from a policy of excluding LGBT+ people from the public sphere,” said Kerem Dikmen, who is the Young LGBTI+ group’s lawyer and also a defendant in the case.
“This is not about obscenity. Activities that are perfectly legitimate, legal and in line with the Constitution are being criminalized. It is a form of dehumanization,” he said.
Turkey’s tenuous ties to Europe once moderated the country’s official treatment of LGBTQ+ Turks, but with Erdogan’s rise, the country’s integration with the West stalled. Talks on EU membership, first proposed in 1999, effectively ended in 2016 over European concerns on human rights, migration issues, and Erdogan’s democratic backsliding.
“Legislators could be considering the criminalization of any expression of LGBTI identities, consensual same-sex sexual activity, and access to vital gender-affirming healthcare,” Dinushika Dissanayake, Amnesty’s Deputy Director for Europe, said at the time. “Under these proposals, people could face jail terms based on gender stereotypes, how they present themselves, and who they chose to be in a relationship with.”
“These proposals present a grave threat to the rights of LGBTI people and those who advocate for LGBTI rights, and they must never see the light of day,” he warned.
While the legislation was withdrawn in November, the new case is testing the limits of current law to the same ends.
“We will not give up defending human rights,” said Young LGBTI+’s lawyer. “But they are trying to send a message to society through us.”
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Sam points out that the times interviewed at least four women. Only one had anything bad to say about Platner and the rest had only positive things to say about him. The Times couldn’t collberate the claims of the woman who accused Platner of being physically rough with her. The woman making the accusations is a republican operative and one of the co-founders of the group Ladies for Kavanaugh. A group that supports Justice kavanaugh who was very credibly accused of rape. This woman accusing Platner of abusing women is a longtime Republican operative who helped Susan Collins write the speech she gave supporting Kavanaugh. She used a lot of the same language in the Times smear article as she has used in in other republican-supporting articles and events. It seems the majority of the attacks aimed at Platner are being driven / created by centrist and pro-Israel groups. These attacks include hints of far more serious crimes to come to light but they can’t substantiate them. Hugs
I heard someone say the best thing they could do is offer their hand to those in need of a hand to grab on to, give support to those in need, to be the person I need others to be sometimes for me. Hugs
It is 4:34 pm here in my office. Today I was struggling. But before that I had written an email to Ali that I was doing so much better and wanted to tell everyone. I had to go out to get my morphines this morning so Ron could take Tupac to the vet. When I got home I did a few things. Then I started doing the dishes and laundry. But by 1:30 pm my pain became so bad I was in tears. I desperatly did not want to take more medications, I get set back on my getting better every time I have to do that just to function. The federal government is trying to force my pain doctors to lower my pain medications yet at my last virtual appointment my pain doctor noticed how much pain I was in and did not decrease my medications anymore saying she could justify giving me that which RFK Jr. the road kill harvaster wants to deny all of us in serious medical problems. Remember this guy was also a cocaine addict who talks about snorting drugs off toilet seats.
So when Ron Ron got home from mowing his sister’s lawn he found me limping and nearly in tears. He had me take my blood sugar and I was having an issue with low blood sugar which could explain why I was shivering. He had me take two glucose tablets and stop doing any more work. I had been doing dishes and folding clothing by using my very high rolling stool that I moved from kitchen to bedroom and back as needed.
Ron made supper and I want to let everyone know that even as I was in tears from pain I ate a lot of food for me. I had five slices of rare roast beef and three small baked potatoes with gravy and a small bowl of green beans. I took my evening insulin which I have not had to do a lot of as I was not eating. But Ron was concerned after I ate that I was still distressed. So I agreed to give up trying to make this post for the morning and just post what it is. I do have more to add to it but my pain is so bad that sitting in my desk chair is horrible for me. I will add them to the next day’s post.
I thank everyone who is worried about me and I love that everyone enjoys these cartoons / memes / news posts. But I did promise Ron I wouldn’t take more medication which will make me sick and eat into my meager supply and would go to bed. I will try to make a larger cartoons / memes / news post tomorrow. Best wishes, love, and hugs to all. Scottie
This is pure racism and entitlement. The boy put the bottles of water back. But even if he had not does stealing bottles of water rate or equate to a death penalty performed by a civilian? This is clearly an extra juditiacal killing. No judge or jury just a store owner and his son angry thinking a kid stole from them deciding to end his life. This automatic killing of Black people with no evidence has to stop. Black Lives Matter. Hugs
Gas station owner charged in shooting death of 14-year-oldRick Chow, 58, has been charged with murder after allegedly killing Cyrus Carmack-Belton in Columbia, South Carolina, on Sunday, police said.
The family of Cyrus Carmack-Belton expressed their indignation towards a South Carolina jury’s decision on Tuesday to acquit Chikei Rick Chow in the 2023 fatal shooting of the Black 14-year-old.
“Yesterday a jury watched our 14-year-old boy run away from two grown men on video. They knew one of them shot him in the back and they still said no one is to blame,” the family said in a statement first released to ABC News. “We are heartbroken. We do not accept it. Cyrus stole nothing. He was a child, and he was running for his life. Our son mattered.”
Chow, a 61-year-old store owner, shot the 14-year-old in the back outside of his Columbia, South Carolina, store in May 2023. He and his son were seen chasing Carmack-Belton outside of the store in video leading to the incident. Chow was charged with murder and denied bond multiple times before his acquittal.
An image of Cyrus Carmack-Belton is displayed in court during closing arguments in the murder trial against his shooter, Chikei Rick Chow, a convenience store owner accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of the 14-year-old, on June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C.
Erik Verduzco/AP Photo
Prosecutors alleged that Chow acted out of a false belief that Carmack-Belton had shoplifted four bottles of water from his store. The defense claimed that Chow acted to protect his son, after allegedly seeing Carmack-Belton point a gun at him.
“On behalf of the Chows, we’re very pleased at the jury’s deliberations and their verdict,” attorney Jack Swerling said in a statement to ABC News. “We think it was the appropriate verdict in this case, although it was a difficult decision to come to, because you have two different stories, two extreme differences.”
Video obtained by ABC News shows that Carmack-Belton returned the bottles of water in question and did not steal anything from the store. A 9mm pistol was found next to Carmack-Belton, with prosecutors saying it was in his possession during the chase, and it had fallen to the ground at some point.
In this June 1, 2023, file photo, mourners stop by a memorial to Cyrus Carmack-Belton, in Columbia, S.C.
Jeffrey Collins/AP, FILE
As the verdict was read in the courtroom, members of the Carmack-Belton family and the audience were seen breaking into sobs.
In their statement Tuesday, Carmack-Belton’s family drew a connection between their case and a larger history of violence against the Black community. “Black families have stood right here too many times — burying our children and then being told the law sees nothing. We feel every bit of that today,” the family said.
Troy Belton, center, father of Cyrus Carmack-Belton, reacts after a not guilty verdict against Chikei Rick Chow, a convenience store owner accused in the 2023 fatal shooting of his 14-year-old son, during a murder trial, on June 1, 2026, in Columbia, S.C.
Erik Verduzco/AP Photo
“To everyone hurting with us: honor Cyrus in peace. We will not stop. We’re taking this fight to civil court, and we will not rest until our son’s life is given the dignity this verdict denied him,” the family added.
According to family attorney Todd Rutherford, the family filed a civil lawsuit against Rick Chow in Richland County, which was put on hold until the conclusion of the criminal case.
Scott Pelley was fired from CBS 60 Minutes last week. Photograph: Charles Sykes/AP
Greg OwenApril 9, 2026, 4:00 pm EDTShutterstock
