TV News LIES

Hamas fighters entrenched in Rafah, the southernmost area of Gaza now under Israeli control, may soon surrender their weapons in exchange for safe passage to other parts of the enclave, according to sources close to ongoing mediation talks. The proposal, facilitated by Egyptian mediators, aims to preserve the fragile U.S.-brokered ceasefire that began on October 10 and has already been tested by renewed violence.

Under the deal, approximately 200 Hamas fighters would hand over their arms to Egyptian authorities and disclose information about tunnel networks in Rafah to ensure their destruction. Although neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly accepted the proposal, discussions are reportedly underway. U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff described the plan as a “test case” for a broader disarmament process across Gaza, part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s multi-phase peace initiative.

Since the ceasefire began, the Rafah region has witnessed deadly confrontations. Israel attributes recent attacks on its troops to Hamas, while the group denies involvement. These clashes resulted in three Israeli soldiers killed and dozens of Palestinians dead after retaliatory strikes. Two sources suggest that some Hamas fighters in Rafah may not even know the truce is in effect, having lost contact with leadership since March.

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A Ukrainian court has handed down the first jail sentence for life against a Russian soldier accused of killing a Ukrainian prisoner of war.

Dmitry Kurashov, 27, was found guilty of shooting dead Vitalii Hodniuk, a veteran 41-year-old Ukrainian soldier who had surrendered following capture in 2024.

Ukraine's national police said that "expert reports, witness testimony and video footage from the scene confirmed that the Russian soldier deliberately killed the POW on the orders of his commanders, who had instructed troops not to take Ukrainian soldiers captive".

In a months-long trial which began earlier this year, the court heard how Kurashov's unit stormed a Ukrainian position in the region of Zaporizhzhia on the morning of 6 January 2024.

The prosecution said that although Hodniuk crawled out of a dugout unarmed and surrendered, Kurashov shot him point-blank with several aimed AK-47 shots – a violation of the laws of war.

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The death toll in the explosion that saw a UPS cargo plane lose an engine and burst into flames, has risen to 13, Craig Greenberg, the Louisville mayor, has confirmed as UPS released the names of the three victims on the plane.

“On my way to the Teamsters’ vigil, I learned of a 13th person that died as a result of the UPS flight 2976 plane crash. My heart is with the families, friends and colleagues of all who were lost in this week’s tragedy. We will get through this together,” Greenberg wrote in a social media post.

McDonnell Douglas MD-11 as Captain Richard Wartenberg, First Officer Lee Truitt, and International Relief Officer Captain Dana Diamond.

“Our hearts go out to every UPSer who has been impacted and all in our Louisville community – supporting you and ensuring you receive the care and resources you need is our priority,” the company’s statement read.

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Pack your bags and flee, infidels: New York City has fallen to a cabal of socialist jihadists. With Zohran Mamdani to become the city’s first Muslim mayor, many are celebrating the democratic socialist’s historic win. Billionaires, Islamophobes and Republicans, however, are in the throes of hysteria. But what’s new? The New York mayoral race has been marred by bigotry so unhinged it’s almost impossible to parody.

Far-right activist and unofficial Trump adviser Laura Loomer posted on X, for example, that “there will be another 9/11 in NYC” under Mamdani. New York City councilmember Vickie Paladino called the 34-year-old a “known jihadist terrorist”. Actor Debra Messing, meanwhile, has been having a Mamdani-induced meltdown on Instagram, posting story after story about how the puppy-eyed politician is a threat to civilization. She recently posted: “In Judaism and Christianity, we are commanded to speak the truth. In Islam, they are commanded to lie if it means spreading Islam … Now, take a look at Mamdani … He’s revealing their goal: mass conversion.”

Mamdani’s goal, as he has made almost comically clear, is actually affordable mass transit and housing. One of the reasons his campaign was so successful is that it stayed laser-focused on affordability. However, Mamdani has addressed the attacks against him on a number of occasions, noting how common it is for Muslims to be branded as terrorists. And, it’s not just Muslims, I should note. Islamophobes don’t tend to differentiate between a Muslim of Indian descent who was born in Uganda, like Mamdani, and a Palestinian atheist like me. They don’t care if you’re a Christian Arab or even a Sikh. We’re all the same to them: brown barbarians.

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What future is there for Palestinians in Gaza? The announcement of the ceasefire brought profound relief, shaded by an equally deep sense of trepidation. Almost a month later, the picture looks bleaker. The Israeli offensive abated, Hamas has returned the surviving hostages and the remains of some of those who have died, and Israel has released some Palestinian detainees and the remains of others.

But more than 200 Palestinians, including children, have reportedly died in strikes that Israel says are in response to Hamas attacks. Thousands of bodies are still believed to be trapped beneath the ruins ­– debris which, it is estimated, would take a fleet of more than a hundred lorries seven years to shift. Aid is flowing again, but remains wholly inadequate, with NGOs warning that Israel’s new registration system is obstructing delivery. Israeli demolitions continue in the half of Gaza that its forces still hold. Unicef warned this week that the education system – in so far as it survives after two years of war and the destruction of more than 90% of school and university buildings – is on the brink of collapse. New babies are born literally in the rubble, to mothers who have neither homes nor working hospitals.

Fears about maintaining the ceasefire have not disappeared. Mediators are discussing a potential deal to give Hamas fighters safe passage out of Israeli-held Rafah if they surrender their arms, in the hope of resolving a possible flashpoint. But a senior Qatari diplomat, Majed al-Ansari, pointed to a deeper risk when he spoke to the Guardian last week: that Gaza slides towards a limbo of “no war, no peace”, in which deaths continue and reconstruction cannot occur.

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Nancy Pelosi, a California Democratic representative and the first woman to serve as speaker, announced on Thursday she will retire from Congress, two years after stepping down from House leadership.

Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in Congress for nearly 40 years, said in a video address to her constituents that she would “not be seeking re-election”. Smiling as the music swelled over footage of a storied 20-term congressional career that saw Pelosi rise to the apex of American politics, she said she would finish out her final year in office.

“I was able to represent our city and our country around the world with patriotism and pride,” she said. “I say to my colleagues in the House all the time, no matter what title they have bestowed upon me, there has been no greater honor for me than to stand on the House floor and say, ‘I speak for the people of San Francisco.’”

A force on Capitol Hill for decades, Pelosi will leave Washington as one of the most consequential figures in modern congressional history and as a trailblazer who expanded the boundaries of power for women in US politics. As speaker, she shepherded the major legislative accomplishments of Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s presidencies.

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A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to release full funding for November food stamps by Friday.

The oral order Thursday comes as nearly 42 million Americans have lost access to benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the record-breaking government shutdown. The Trump administration previously agreed to pay for partial SNAP benefits using emergency money but said that doing so would result in weeks, if not months, of delays.

“Last weekend, SNAP benefits lapsed for the first time in our nation’s history. This is a problem that could have and should have been avoided,” said U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr., an Obama appointee. The government “knew there would be a long delay in paying [partial] SNAP benefits and failed to consider the harms individuals who rely on those benefits would suffer.”

McConnell also noted that President Donald Trump’s post on social media that benefits wouldn’t be funded until the government reopened “stated his intent to defy the court order.”

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The man who slung a sandwich at a federal agent in Washington, D.C., and was unwittingly transformed into an opposition symbol of President Trump’s local crime crackdown has been found not guilty of misdemeanor assault after a trial.  

A jury handed down the not guilty verdict Thursday against Sean Dunn, a former Department of Justice (DOJ) employee who hurled a hoagie after confronting a group of officers patrolling a popular nightlife area of the nation’s capital.

The acquittal marks an embarrassing loss for federal prosecutors, who pursued the misdemeanor charge after a grand jury refused to return an indictment on the felony assault count they initially sought.  

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, the Trump appointed judge overseeing the case, said he expected the trial to last no more than two days and called it “the simplest case in the world.” 

But the trial dragged on three days, and the jury deliberated for part of both Wednesday and Thursday before Dunn was ultimately acquitted.

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