Thirty Bob Ross paintings to be sold at auction to help fund public TV stations

Money will aid with licensing fees and ensure artist’s ‘legacy continues to support’ medium that made him popular

Thirty paintings created by the bushy-haired, soft-spoken Bob Ross will soon be up for auction to defray the costs of programming for small and rural public television stations suffering under cuts in federal funding.

Ross, a public television stalwart in the 1980s and 90s, “dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone”, said Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc. “This auction ensures his legacy continues to support the very medium that brought his joy and creativity into American homes for decades.”

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Republicans start vote-a-rama on bill for $9bn public broadcasting and aid cuts

GOP aiming to meet Friday deadline mandated by law for bill, known as a rescissions package, to pass Congress

Senate Republicans on Wednesday moved to pass legislation slashing up to $9bn in funds Congress had earlier approved for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, as part of Donald Trump’s campaign of dramatic government spending cuts.

The GOP is racing to meet a Friday deadline mandated by law for the bill, known as a rescissions package, to pass Congress, otherwise the Trump administration will be forced to spend the money. The Senate advanced the measure on Tuesday evening, with JD Vance breaking a tie on a procedural vote, after three Republican senators joined with all Democrats in opposition.

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NPR and PBS push back against Trump’s order to cut funding: ‘This could be devastating’

PBS’s Paula Kerger and NPR’s Katherine Maher say they’re looking at legal options to defend against White House

The heads of embattled US public broadcasters, National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), defended themselves against efforts by the Trump administration to cut off taxpayer funding, with both telling a Sunday political talk show they were looking at legal options.

PBS’s chief executive, Paula Kerger, told CBS News’s Face the Nation that Republican-led threats to withdraw federal funding from public broadcasters had been around for decades but are “different this time”.

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Trump signs executive order to cut funding for public broadcasters

President says neither NPR nor PBS ‘presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events’


Donald Trump has signed an executive order seeking to cut public funding for NPR and PBS, accusing the news outlets of being biased.

NPR and PBS are only partly funded by the US taxpayer and rely heavily on private donations.

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Pentagon swaps desk for New York Times reporters for New York Post

Other swaps due to new ‘rotation’ include NPR for Breitbart, NBC for One America News and Politico for HuffPost

The Trump administration’s program to shake up media representation at official briefings and press calls in Washington is set to affect the Pentagon, with credentialed media being rotated out of assigned workspaces for media newcomers.

The conservative-leaning One America News Network will replace NBC News, Breitbart will be given space held by National Public Radio, the New York Post has been offered the New York Times’ workspace and HuffPost will replace Politico.

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NPR editor who accused outlet of liberal bias resigns

Uri Berliner exits days after publication of an essay saying news organization no longer has an ‘open-minded spirit’

An editor at National Public Radio who publicly accused the news organization of having a liberal bias and a growing absence of “viewpoint diversity” has resigned, days after being suspended without pay.

On Wednesday, Uri Berliner posted a screenshot of his resignation letter to NPR’s CEO, Katherine Maher, in which he wrote: “I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years.

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NPR host says Pompeo shouted ‘F-word’ tirade when she asked about Ukraine

Secretary of state screamed obscenities and demanded host Mary Louise Kelly find Ukraine on a map, journalist says

Mike Pompeo is said to have unleashed a foul-mouth tirade at a well known US radio host after she asked him questions about Ukraine in an interview.

Mary Louise Kelly, a respected broadcaster on National Public Radio (NPR), sat down for a pre-arranged interview with the secretary of state on Friday, whose wrath was apparently triggered by a string of questions about Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine. Kelly asked Pompeo whether he owed Yovanovitch an apology for not defending her in the face of a smear campaign orchestrated by Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani and his associates.

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Charlize Theron details sexual harassment by ‘famous director’

Actor and producer of a film about Fox News head Roger Ailes describes self-blame and anger about alleged incident early in her career

Charlize Theron has spoken in detail about her experience of sexual harassment at the start of her acting career, saying she found it frustrating that she “didn’t do all of those things that we so want to believe we’ll do in those situations”.

Theron was speaking to NPR to coincide with the release of Bombshell, a drama about the ousting of Fox News head Roger Ailes over accusations of sexual harassment, in which she plays former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.

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