TV News LIES

Maine Senate Democratic candidate Graham Platner on Monday said his campaign is “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward,” just minutes after Politico published a story in which a woman who previously dated the oyster farmer alleged he had sexually assaulted her.

“I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious and false allegations against me. Any accusation of non-consensual behavior is categorically false,” Platner said in the two-minute video posted online.

Politico earlier on Monday reported that a woman Platner previously dated, Jenny Racicot, told the news outlet that Platner had forced her to have sex with him while he was intoxicated in 2021.

Platner vehemently denied accusations of sexual assault to Politico in his video.

The Hill has not independently verified the accusations. The Platner campaign did not respond to The Hill’s request for comment regarding the Politico story.

More...

The U.S. men's national team has been eliminated from the 2026 FIFA World Cup after a 4-1 loss to Belgium in the round of 16 on Monday, July 6 at Lumen Field in Seattle.

Mauricio Pochettino named an unchanged starting lineup after Folarin Balogun's suspension was suspended by FIFA and allowed to play.

Belgium got on the front foot at the opening whistle and piled on the pressure early leading to the opening goal by Charles De Ketelaere in the ninth minute. A failure to clear the ball from their own box led to a simple tap-in for the first goal of the match.

Malik Tillman got the U.S. level just after the half-hour mark with his second free-kick goal of the tournament. However, just two minutes later, the Red Devils retook the lead through another goal from De Ketelaere.

More...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in an interview with Fox News on Sunday that Christians in Lebanon had asked Israel to “annex” their villages, many of which Israeli forces have damaged or destroyed.

Speaking on the pro-Israel US news outlet with host Jacqui Heinrich on "The Sunday Briefing", Netanyahu said “we…take care of our friends, especially the Christians in the Middle East”.

“Christian villages in Lebanon some of them have actually asked to be annexed to Israel because we protect them against Hezbollah fanatics who want to kill them and we do the same things with Christians everywhere…in the Middle East,” said Netanyahu.

But Netanyahu’s remarks sit uneasily beside Israel’s own record in Lebanon, where its forces have destroyed churches, damaged Christian religious sites and filmed soldiers desecrating Christian symbols.

More...

Israel believes fighting in Gaza could resume within the next two months, potentially before October's elections, according to a report by Israel's Channel 12.

The broadcaster, citing Israeli officials, said on Saturday that Israel expects the US-led "Board of Peace" to conclude within the next two to three months that Hamas has violated the agreement by refusing to disarm.

Such a ruling could pave the way for Israel to renew raids in parts of Gaza outside their current control, raising the prospect of renewed fighting, the report said.

Channel 12 also quoted a political source as saying the board's director-general, Nikolay Mladenov, had considered declaring Hamas in breach of the agreement two months ago but postponed the move at the request of mediators.

"If nothing changes within three months, Mladenov will declare Hamas in breach of the agreement," the source said.

More...

President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that over the course of the week, Russia launched approximately 2,200 attack drones, more than 1,730 guided aerial bombs, and 106 missiles of various types at Ukraine.

In a statement on Telegram on Sunday, July 5, Zelensky highlighted the relentless nature of the campaign targeting civilian infrastructure and front-line communities across the country.

Outlining the volume of weaponry deployed by Russian forces over the past seven days, the president reported the following figures:

Zelensky noted that while Ukrainian air defense forces currently intercept over 90% of incoming attack drones, the military remains highly vulnerable to the ballistic missiles and heavy guided bombs included in these massive strike packages.

He referenced a recent ballistic missile strike on Kyiv that resulted in 31 fatalities and 102 injuries as stark evidence of this vulnerability.

More...

Super Typhoon Bavi is bringing intense winds to the remote U.S. territories of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, as forecasters warn of the potential for severe damage.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued typhoon warnings for the islands of Guam, Rota, Tinian and Saipan, the capital of the Northern Mariana Islands.

On Monday morning local time, the eye of the storm was passing over the island of Rota. "Widespread destructive winds in excess of 150 mph are occurring," the NWS said. Rota is located some 40 miles northeast of Guam.

"This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation," forecasters said in an update.

Local NWS meteorologist Landon Aydlett spoke to NPR from central Guam just after 1:30 a.m. on Monday local time. He said weather conditions were steadily deteriorating across all four populated islands, including torrential rain and strengthening winds.

More...

Donald Trump came to office in 2017 after decades of bankruptcies and business failures. Yes, he was rich, but his latest financial disclosure, published this week, suggests he will depart billions richer.

In the first year of his second term, he made more than $2bn from Trump hotels, Trump golf courses, Trump cryptocurrency, Trump watches, Trump cologne, Trump Bibles and more.

That means Trump has accomplished something none of his predecessors achieved, at least not on this scale: transforming the American presidency into a moneymaking enterprise.

Politicians have always enriched themselves but the chutzpah with which Trump is doing so raises the possibility that an ethical code is breaking down. And not just in the US. Across the west, from Clacton to Queensland, a new type of leader is emerging: the political grifter.

More...

The Atlantic on Saturday republished a JD Vance essay that dismissed Donald Trump as “cultural heroin” exactly 10 years earlier, bringing back to the fore his evolving from a critic of the president to his vice-president.

In an editor’s note, the magazine said it was republishing the essay on the occasion of its 10th anniversary – and the US’s semiquincentennial – “so that our readers can judge for themselves how well his assessment [of Trump] … has stood the test of time”.

The original essay was published during Trump’s first victorious presidential run, when Mike Pence was his running mate and before Vance entered politics. He worked at Mithril Capital Management, Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm, at the time and had just published Hillbilly Elegy, a bestselling memoir of his upbringing in the Rust belt that also served as a social commentary on the white working class.

In the essay, Vance said many Americans turned to Trump as a “pain reliever” in the midst of a social crisis in which mounting distrust in the government and economic decline were coming to a head. He invoked the phrase “cultural heroin” to describe Trump’s political appeal at the time – and said his supporters would eventually realize he was not the answer to their problems.

More...