TV News LIES

Sylvia Tisdale believes in feeding the hungry so much that, at 70 years old, she attempted to climb Mount Kiliminjaro to raise awareness about food insecurity.

"The altitude got me," she said with a small chuckle, "but my daughter made it."

Three years later, the pastor at Epps Christian Center in Pensacola, Florida, is still passionate about the work she and her volunteers do to feed the hungry. So when one of those volunteers, Mike Stephens, wrote to his local newspaper to highlight the impact of cuts by the Trump Administration to limit expenditures to food pantries and soup kitchens through the United States Department of Agriculture, she understood why.

"It hits people hard when they come and can’t get as much food," she told USA TODAY, "and it really hurts my volunteers when they have to turn people away."

The USDA announced cuts in March to the Local Food Purchase Assistance program and a similar program, the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement totaling more than $1 billion. Scheduled deliveries of food through the USDA's Emergency Food Assistance Program were halted or cut back.

More...

Air raid sirens have sounded across Israel as Iranian missiles struck the country in retaliation for deadly Israeli attacks on nuclear sites and military leaders.

The rumble of explosions could be heard throughout Jerusalem on Friday, and Israeli TV stations showed plumes of smoke rising in Tel Aviv after an apparent missile strike. There were no immediate reports of casualties. The army said dozens of missiles were launched, and the army has ordered residents across the country to move into bomb shelters.

U.N. member nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, and unrestricted access for the delivery of desperately needed food to 2 million Palestinians.

The vote in the 193-member General Assembly was 149-12 with 19 abstentions. It was adopted with a burst of applause. The United States and close ally Israel opposed the resolution, along with Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea and six Pacific island nations.

The resolution, drafted by Spain, “strongly condemns any use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon spoke vehemently against the resolution, especially for failing to condemn Hamas for its attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza. He denied that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war, calling the accusation a “blood libel,” and insisted that aid is being delivered.

More...

Russia has lost more than one million troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, the Ukrainian military has claimed.

The claim by the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces is in line with Western intelligence estimates and underlines the huge price paid by Moscow for its three-year-old invasion.

In a statement posted on X on Thursday, the UK Ministry of Defence also said that Russia has suffered more than one million casualties, including roughly 250,000 killed since it launched the full-scale invasion on February 24 2022.

The MoD said the figures highlighted “the devastating human cost Putin is inflicting on his own people”.

More...

The House of Representatives narrowly approved legislation Thursday to eliminate the next two years of federal funding for public media outlets.

It did so at the direct request of President Trump, who has accused NPR and PBS of bias against conservative viewpoints as part of his broader attacks on the mainstream media.

The measure passed largely along party lines, 214 to 212, with two key Republican lawmakers switching their votes from "no" to "yes" to push it over the finish line.

The legislation is the first request by the Trump administration for Congress to claw back money it already has approved through annual spending bills. The bill reflects a list of cuts totaling $9.4 billion that were requested by the Office of Management and Budget. The bulk of the cuts — $8.3 billion — are to foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.

More...

California national guards troops and marines deployed to Los Angeles to help restore order after days of protest against the Trump administration have told friends and family members they are deeply unhappy about the assignment and worry their only meaningful role will be as pawns in a political battle they do not want to join.

Three different advocacy organisations representing military families said they had heard from dozens of affected service members who expressed discomfort about being drawn into a domestic policing operation outside their normal field of operations. The groups said they have heard no countervailing opinions.

“The sentiment across the board right now is that deploying military force against our own communities isn’t the kind of national security we signed up for,” said Sarah Streyder of the Secure Families Initiative, which represents the interests of military spouses, children and veterans.

More...

A growing wildfire in Oregon has destroyed multiple homes and prompted evacuation orders in the Columbia River Gorge area, in what officials are calling an early warning of the fire season ahead.

The so-called Rowena fire had grown on Thursday to 3,500 acres (1,400 hectares) and remained 0% contained, prompting officials to issue evacuation orders for hundreds of homes and to temporarily close a section of an interstate highway.

The state’s governor, Tina Kotek, invoked the Emergency Conflagration Act for the Rowena Fire, allowing the state’s fire marshal agency to mobilize resources, it said in a statement.

The agency said it was mobilizing an incident management team and six structural taskforces, with three responding on Wednesday night and the other three arriving early on Thursday. The fire has already destroyed about 20 homes, according to local news reports, and is threatening nearly 2,200 structures.

More...

Donald Trump has ordered the US government to consolidate its wildland firefighting force into a single program, despite warnings from former federal officials that it could be costly and increase the risk of catastrophic blazes in the middle of peak wildfire season.

The order aims to centralize firefighting efforts, which are now split among five agencies and two cabinet departments. Trump’s proposed budget for next year calls for the creation of a new Federal Wildland Fire Service under the US interior department.

That would mean shifting thousands of personnel from the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service – where most federal firefighters now work – with fire season already under way. The administration has not disclosed how much money the change could cost or save.

In his order, Trump cited the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January as highlighting a need for a quicker response to wildfires.

More...