TV News LIES

The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, sources briefed on the matter told Middle East Eye.

Israeli media reports over the weekend claiming the prosecutor’s office had filed five applications for Israeli officials are inaccurate, MEE understands.

An evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed.

MEE understands that the charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity.

If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian long-range strikes have sharply reduced Russian oil refining in recent months, forcing Moscow to shut down oil wells and pushing its state budget deeper into deficit.

In his evening address, President Zelensky said Kyiv is expanding its deep-strike campaign against targets linked to Russia’s war machine, framing the operations as a justified response to Moscow’s attacks on Ukrainian cities.

President highlighted the growing scale of Ukraine’s long-range drone program, saying strikes that once would have been considered exceptional have now become routine.

“There was a time when dozens of Ukrainian drones striking Russia was a big deal. Now, hundreds of our long-range sanctions every day are no longer a sensation,” Zelensky said.

Citing a Ukrainian intelligence assessment, the president said Russian oil refining has fallen by 10 percent in recent months. He said Russian oil companies have been forced to shut down oil wells, which he described as particularly damaging for Russia’s energy sector.

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A jury in California took less than two hours to decide that Elon Musk waited too long to file a lawsuit against his one-time business partner Sam Altman over the direction he's steered the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since the two had a falling out nearly a decade ago.

In a unanimous decision, the nine-member advisory jury said Musk was beyond the statute of limitations when he launched his case in 2024. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, agreed, tossing the case out.

"I've always said I would accept the jury's verdict," Gonzalez Rogers said after issuing her decision. "I think there's a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury's finding."

The decision brings a swift end to a three-week trial that laid bare the fears and ambitions that led two of Silicon Valley's biggest personalities to team up 11 years ago to launch OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and then to part ways after a dispute over how to run it.

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The Trump administration has announced a plan to kill Biden-era drinking water limits on four Pfas “forever chemicals”, and to delay the implementation of standards for two other compounds.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing two separate rules to delay and rescind the limits. The rules must go through an approval process that can take several years, and almost certainly will be challenged in court.

The Trump administration’s plan comes just two years after the US Environmental Protection Agency set legally enforceable drinking water limits for six of the most dangerous Pfas compounds that have been studied. The chemicals include some of the most toxic substances, and are linked to a range of cancers and other serious health problems.

The new Trump plan aims to undo or delay those limits, which public health advocates say would put the nation’s health at risk. Pfas are ubiquitous in the environment and estimated to be contaminating drinking water for more than 200 million people across the US.

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When Billie Jean King left college in 1964, she had a purpose. Within a few years, she had become the top-ranked tennis professional in the world. Over a trailblazing career, she won 39 championships, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a congressional Medal of Honor – all while pushing publicly for gender and pay equality.

Last year, she finally returned to finish the degree in history she started more than six decades ago. On Monday, she graduated, at 82 years old.

“It is a privilege for me to be here as a member of your graduating class,” King said at her commencement. “Yeah baby, only 61 years!”

King recalled growing up in a working-class family, the daughter of a firefighter father and homemaker mother.

“Like so many of my fellow graduates, I am the first member of my immediate family to graduate college, like many of you,” King said.

She chose Cal State Los Angeles, then known as Los Angeles State College, because the tennis coach, Scotty Deeds, trained men and women together. He said it would help give her the level of competition she needed to excel.

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Former LAPD Detective Mark Fuhrman, who gained infamy when his past racist comments came to light during Hall of Fame football star O.J Simpson’s murder trial, has died. He was 74.

Lynnette Acebedo, chief deputy coroner for Idaho’s Kootenai County, confirmed Furhman’s death but said no further information would be forthcoming from the office. TMZ reported that Fuhrman died on May 12 from an aggressive form of throat cancer.

Fuhrman’s testimony in Simpson's 1995 trial transformed what was already a sensational murder case into one nearly as much about racial injustice and law enforcement as the practices and culture of the Los Angeles Police Department came into question.

Simpson, a former NFL and college football star, went on trial in January 1995 for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman, 26. Days after the pair’s bloodied bodies were discovered just after midnight on June 12, 1994, spectators watching Game 5 of the NBA Finals were interrupted by live footage of Simpson in a white Ford Bronco leading police on a low-speed chase along 60 miles of L.A. freeways and city streets.

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A New York state judge threw alleged CEO killer Luigi Mangione a bone at a Monday hearing, determining that certain pieces of evidence are barred from the trial because of the way local police in Altoona, Pennsylvania, handled his arrest.

Critically, however, Judge Gregory Carro ruled that items that will be permitted at trial include a handgun found in Mangione’s backpack and a red notebook containing alleged references to the brazen daylight murder of Brian Thompson, head of UnitedHealthcare.

Thompson was shot dead in midtown Manhattan in December 2024, just before an annual investors’ conference, setting off a massive nationwide manhunt for his killer.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty to all charges as he faces a potential life sentence in a trial that is scheduled to begin Sept. 8. He appeared in court wearing a navy suit and pale blue shirt without a tie, and gazed in the direction of his attorneys as they conferred for several minutes with Carro.

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The Pentagon is pushing back on allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is politicizing the military with his planned Monday appearance in Kentucky to campaign for the man who is challenging Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

“Secretary Hegseth is attending this event in his personal capacity,” chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement to The Hill. “No taxpayer dollars will be used to facilitate his visit. His participation has been thoroughly vetted and cleared by lawyers, including the Department of War Office of General Counsel, and does not violate the Hatch Act or any other applicable federal statute.”

Hegseth has been accused of potentially violating the Hatch Act in stumping for former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, the Trump-backed GOP candidate challenging Massie. Under federal law, executive branch employees — with the exception of the president and vice president — are limited in using government resources or their official titles for partisan political activity.

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