TV News LIES

The US Senate on Wednesday unanimously passed a resolution declaring its opposition to any presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime Jeffrey Epstein associate who is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.

Introduced by Senator Jacky Rosen, a Democrat of Nevada, the resolution states that Maxwell “should not be granted a Presidential pardon or any form of clemency for her crimes with Jeffrey Epstein relating to the sexual exploitation and abuse of minors”.

Although Senate resolutions like these are non-binding and symbolic, Rosen’s office noted in a news release in February when she introduced the measure that the resolution was “designed to put the Senate on record opposing the prospect” of Donald Trump of granting a pardon or clemency to Maxwell.

“It’s frankly horrifying that Trump would entertain the idea of clemency for even a second for a convicted sex trafficker,” Rosen said in a floor speech on Wednesday.

The resolution was brought on Wednesday, as the Senate weighed Trump’s nomination of Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, to stay in the role permanently. Rosen said its unanimous passage sent a clear message to the White House and Blanche that “there should be NO special treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell”.

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A pause in fighting between the U.S. and Iran came to a screeching halt after Tehran launched what the Trump administration is calling a "surprise attack" that American forces in the Middle East had only minutes to shoot down.

The July 28 ballistic missile assault threatened to reinvigorate a conflict that President Donald Trump has aimed to wind down after months of negotiations. Trump vowed the U.S. would "beat the f------ s--- out of them," he told Fox News. The latest attacks raised fears of a wider war as Saudi Arabia joined the conflict and Iran seeks to test Trump's resolve with the midterm elections looming.

Trump's promised retaliatory strikes on Iran began at about 8 p.m. ET on July 29. Central Command, the arm of the military overseeing operations in the Middle East, announced the attacks, calling them "powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on U.S. forces."

"We're going to be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them. They know it's coming," Trump had told reporters earlier at the White House.

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Just one in three Americans approve of how Supreme Court justices are doing their job, according to a new Gallup poll that shows Republicans are particularly dissatisfied with the court.

The July 2026 poll revealed that 33% of Americans approve of the high court, a record low for the 26-year poll. Previously, the lowest bar was at 39% from Gallup data collected in July 2025.

Low ratings from Democrats and independents likely reflect their unhappiness with the ideological tilt of the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, Jeffrey M. Jones wrote for Gallup. But Republicans may be disappointed that the conservative court hasn’t gone far enough – and, in fact, thwarted key Trump administration policy goals, Jones said.

Only 58% of Republicans approved of the court's performance in July 2026 compared with 79% in September 2025 and 75% in July 2025. Democrats' approval rating of the court remained in similarly low range in that time period, only spanning 11% to 14%. The total approval rating during those three time periods was 39% in July 2025, 42% in September 2025 and 33% – the record low, in July 2026.

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As the U.S. war against Iran edges past 150 days, a controversial former ally of President Donald Trump is calling for his removal from office and warning of an impending draft.

Alex Jones, former host of InfoWars, said on his new show on the social platform X that Trump should be removed from office unless he “clarif(ies) that he’s not calling for a national draft” amid the ongoing war with Iran.

During a July 28 broadcast of the Alex Jones Show, Jones warned that the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for a national military draft guided by artificial intelligence, which he said will be implemented in December.

This, Jones argued, should be grounds for Trump’s removal from office, either through the 25th Amendment or impeachment.

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The Senate judiciary committee has postponed a vote, scheduled for Thursday, on the nomination of Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s former criminal defense lawyer, to be attorney general.

Blanche, who holds the role on an acting basis, apparently lacks the votes of two Republican senators who want him to confirm in writing that the Department of Justice will not proceed with a $1.776bn fund to compensate Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 2021, or a pledge to forever bar the IRS from investigating the tax returns of the president and his family.

The two senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, both lost their re-election bids this year in Republican primaries in which Trump backed their opponents.

A spokesperson for the committee, which is chaired by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley said in a statement:

“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure."

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Just one day before his funeral is set to take place in Washington, DC, video footage has emerged showing a gleeful Senator Lindsey Graham rejoicing at the launch of the US-Israeli war on Iran, and even single-handedly offering US military involvement to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his war on Lebanon.

The clips are from British filmmaker Alex Holder, who has been following Graham for the last three years for a documentary on his relationship with President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

Holder appears to have been granted access to staff meetings on Capitol Hill as well as discussions Graham had with national and foreign leaders, including the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. 

"I almost cried. How long have we been pushing this?" Graham is seen asking members of his office in one clip, as he watched Trump give remarks to the press five days into the launch of the war on Iran.

"[Trump] loves blowing stuff up," Graham said.

"There are a lot of people inside that didn't want to do it. So I've had my challenges. President Trump, when he gets into the zone, he listens, asks good questions. You know, no tweeting... He's been a great wartime president," he added.

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Washington has reimposed its naval blockade of Iranian ports after the collapse of a planned peace deal to end the US-Israeli war on Iran. 

For decades, the US has tried to isolate Iran, holder of the world’s third largest proven oil reserves, from the global shipping industry with a range of sanctions.

However, the Islamic Republic has been able to maintain some revenue through a network of rickety tankers often described as its “shadow fleet”, which occupy a legal grey zone and use subterfuge to skirt the US measures.

How do shadow fleets work?

Shadow tankers, also known as “dark fleets” or “ghost fleets”, are ships that operate on the fringes of the global shipping industry to transport oil and other commodities from countries facing western sanctions.

Many are ageing vessels that evade detection on marine traffic databases by turning off their mandatory tracking signals or broadcasting false locations. 

Iran is not the only country involved in such operations: Russia, which is also subject to oil sanctions, likewise operates a shadow fleet. Venezuela did so until the US attack on the country earlier this year and the seizure of many of its tankers.

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The sky outside is hazy orange, and my five-year-old son is screaming bloody murder. “Sorry, buddy, we have to stay inside,” I say. “It’s not safe to breathe out there.” I had told him we’d be going to the beach today. Something inside me tears a little as I wonder how many promises he’ll see similarly broken in the coming years.

Far too many parents were forced to have some version of this conversation with their children this month, as smoke from record-breaking wildfires poured across the midwest and north-east. Some of them already had to tell their kids that their Fourth of July festivities were canceled because of the lethal heatwave that caused numerous mass casualty events earlier this month.

According to scientists, these extreme weather events are not “natural” disasters. A team of researchers already published a study finding that the Fourth of July heat wave would have been “virtually impossible” but for the climate crisis. Other studies – using methods recently validated by the National Academy of Sciences, the country’s top scientific advisory body – found that the pollution from individual big oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP made some past climate-exacerbated heatwaves at least 10,000 times more likely compared with preindustrial levels.

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