TV News LIES

The British government has said Jordan's custodianship of Jerusalem's holy sites "must be respected" in a statement to Middle East Eye.

Last week MEE reported that the US and Israel are conspiring to strip the Jordanian royal family of its historic custodianship of Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is enshrined in a long-standing status quo agreement. 

MEE put a recent letter independent MP Shockat Adam wrote to the British foreign secretary about the reported US-Israeli plans to the Foreign Office.

In response, a Foreign Office spokesperson said: "We value Jordan's important role as custodian of the Holy Sites in Jerusalem. The historic status quo arrangements at Jerusalem’s Holy Sites must be respected."

This is the first time the British government has reaffirmed its support for Jordanian custodianship since the MEE report.

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A Russian drone struck a private residential home in Konotop late Thursday evening, injuring five civilians, including three children, local authorities said.

Konotop is a city in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, near the Russian border, an area frequently exposed to Russian drone, missile and cross-border attacks.

According to Konotop Mayor Artem Semenikhin, the attack hit a house in the city’s Zahrebellia district, a residential area of private homes, sparking a major fire while people were inside.

Emergency crews, first responders and investigators were deployed to the scene to extinguish the blaze, clear debris and document the aftermath of the strike.

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A Los Angeles county jury has found the socialite Rebecca Grossman and former MLB player Scott Erickson negligent in the deaths of two young brothers whom Grossman struck as she drove in Westlake Village in September 2020.\

Following an eight-week civil trial, the jury on Wednesday awarded $176m to the family of 11-year-old Mark Iskander and his eight-year-old brother, Jacob. The boys were crossing the street with a skateboard and inline skates when Grossman fatally hit them with her car.

Grossman, 62, and Erickson, 58, were negligent and “acted in concert with each other in the course of their activities leading to the fatal collision”, according to the jurors.

Grossman is serving a sentence of 15 years to life after being convicted of second-degree murder in a separate criminal case in 2024. The civil jury also determined that both defendants acted with malice, allowing for a second phase of the trial to consider punitive damages.

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The United States has announced fresh economic sanctions on Cuba’s president and some of his immediate family, alongside members of the Castro family, in Washington’s latest ramping up of pressure on its communist-led neighbour.

Among those targeted were the son and a grandson of former president Raúl Castro, who no longer holds an official position but remains a key figure on decisions about the future of the island.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel, his wife and stepson were also hit by the latest Treasury department sanctions issued on Thursday, as was the ministry of the revolutionary armed forces and several other entities.

The US has had an embargo on Cuba for decades, but US President Donald Trump has drastically ramped up pressure on the island in recent months and openly muses about taking it over.

A de facto fuel blockade has deepened the island’s energy crisis and hit its already fragile economy.

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Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for the US Senate, has rejected an explosive new report about his treatment of women, insisting that allegations of abusive behavior are “politically motivated”.

Platner, a progressive running for election in Maine, was responding to a New York Times article published on Thursday that included an interview with a Republican operative who accused him of womanizing, physical misconduct and making troubling comments about rape.

The claims prompted fresh calls for Platner, 41, who has faced scrutiny over past social media posts and a tattoo recognized as a Nazi symbol, to withdraw from next week’s Democratic primary in Maine, though he gave no hint of doing so.

Platner also addressed the story in an interview on Thursday with MS Now’s Chris Hayes.

“There are some allegations in this piece that are simply not true. Anything alleging physicality, anything alleging I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of somebody politically motivated,” Platner said. “That is not true.”

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The House passed legislation Thursday that would aid Ukraine and sanction key segments of the Russian economy, overriding objections from Republican leaders who warned the bill would undermine negotiations designed to achieve a comparable but stronger result.

The 226-195 vote is a sign of impatience with Donald Trump’s approach to the war and represents the House’s second major foreign policy break with Trump this week. The day before, the House, for the first time, approved a war powers resolution aimed at halting US military action against Iran.

The legislation, sponsored by the Democratic representative Gregory Meeks, seeks to cement US assistance for Ukraine by providing more than $1bn in security and reconstruction aid. It would make another $8bn available for Ukraine’s defense through loans.

Once rarely successful, House members have used the petition tool this Congress to pass bills on releasing the government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein and to extend healthcare subsidies to many people who get health coverage through the Affordable Care Act, though the latter measure faltered in the Senate.

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A major gun control group is suing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department over the federal agencies' refusals to release documents and other information about who the largest sellers of crime guns in the U.S. are.

Brady is demanding in its lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia this morning that the court compel the ATF to release information related to what the agency calls Demand Letter 2s. These are letters ATF sends to gun dealers and other sellers that have been identified as selling at least 25 or more guns recovered at crime scenes in a calendar year.

"This is information that will save lives. It is information that helps us be able to analyze how our government is regulating the gun industry, particularly the largest sellers of crime guns, and it's information that we need to improve public safety in this country," said Josh Scharff, Brady's general counsel and senior director of programs.

Democracy Forward, a legal group that has sued the Trump administration over several policies and actions, is representing Brady in this case.

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North Korea on Thursday unveiled a new facility to produce nuclear bomb fuels, with leader Kim Jong Un announcing plans to bolster the country's nuclear forces "at an exponential rate."

Some experts still question whether North Korea has functioning nuclear missiles that can reach the U.S. mainland. But the nuclear plant's disclosure implies that Kim is eager to cement his country's status as a nuclear power and has no intentions of placing his bomb program on a negotiating table.

After visiting the site on Wednesday, Kim said he and other top officials "confirmed the order of priority for implementing the ambitious future plan designed to beef up our state's nuclear forces at an exponential rate," according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

KCNA said the facility used "more sophisticated technology" but didn't provide further details like its location. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff assessed the site as a uranium enrichment plant and said it was closely coordinating with the United States to monitor North Korean nuclear activities.

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