TV News LIES

Alexander Prokhanov — the aging ultranationalist novelist, editor, and chief ideologue of Russian imperial mysticism — has seen his latest book, Lemner, abruptly vanish from store shelves. It was printed, advertised, distributed across Russia, and then suddenly recalled. Bookstores received quiet instructions to return all copies. State television, which once glorified him, now pretends he doesn’t exist.

The reason is both banal and profound: Prokhanov’s fictionalized portrayal of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Kremlin elite revealed power as grotesque, delusional, and decaying. Even without naming names, everyone recognized the shadows behind the characters — and in one of them, the unmistakable reflection of dictator Vladimir Putin himself.

The self-drawn illustrations in Lemner are no less disturbing than the text itself. Cartoonish soldiers with haunted eyes, flaming skies, and surreal machinery create an apocalyptic parody of the very ideology Prokhanov once glorified.

The loyal mythmaker had spoken too clearly. And in doing so, he exposed something larger than a literary scandal: the beginning of the end of Russia’s ideological universe.

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A federal judge late on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the person would be an imminent flight risk.

The US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrants’ rights groups in a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security.

The lawsuit alleged that since Donald Trump declared an emergency in Washington in August, there has been a pattern of widespread, unlawful immigration arrests. Community members have reported living in fear of being stopped while driving or walking through their neighborhoods and many have avoided going to work, walking children to school or other daily activities in an attempt to avoid checkpoints and immigration enforcement agents.

Officers making civil immigration arrests generally have to have an administrative warrant. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, they may make arrests without a warrant only if they have probable cause to believe the person is in the US illegally and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, according to Howell’s ruling.

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Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) accused former Vice President Kamala Harris of telling “blatant lies” to write her postcampaign memoir “107 Days” and “cover her a–,” according to a profile about the governor published in The Atlantic on Wednesday.

Reporter Tim Alberta described Shapiro as “between outrage and exasperation as I relayed the excerpts” about him from Harris’s book. She accused Shapiro of taking over the conversation when he was interviewed to be her running mate, allegedly insisting on being “in the room for every decision,” Alberta wrote.

“I mean, she’s trying to sell books and cover her a–,” Shapiro responded before he backtracked and told Alberta, “I shouldn’t say ‘cover her a–.’ I think that’s not appropriate. She’s trying to sell books. Period.”

Harris passed on Shapiro, who was among the names floated to be her potential vice president, and instead chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D).

Shapiro also went after the Democratic Party, which lost the swing state he oversees to President Trump. The president won Pennsylvania with just more than 50 percent of the vote, while Harris received nearly 49 percent.

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The Pentagon’s watchdog found that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put U.S. personnel and their mission at risk when he used the Signal messaging app to convey sensitive information about a military strike against Yemen’s Houthi militants, two people familiar with the findings said Wednesday.

Hegseth, however, has the ability to declassify material and the report did not find he did so improperly, according to one of the people familiar with the findings who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the information. That person also said the report concluded that Hegseth violated Pentagon policy by using his personal device for official business and it recommended better training for all Pentagon officials.

The initial findings ramp up the pressure on the former Fox News Channel host after lawmakers had called for the independent inquiry into his use of the commercially available app. Lawmakers also just opened investigations into a news report that a follow-up strike on an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean Sea in September killed survivors after Hegseth issued a verbal order to “kill everybody.”

Hegseth declined to sit for an interview with the Pentagon’s inspector general but provided a written statement, that person said. The defense secretary asserted that he was permitted to declassify information as he saw fit and only communicated details he thought would not endanger the mission.

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A federal judge on Tuesday blocked U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from enforcing in 22 states a provision of the Republican’s signature tax and domestic policy bill that would deprive Planned Parenthood and local affiliates that perform abortions of Medicaid funding.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston said a group of Democratic state attorneys general who had challenged the provision were likely to succeed in establishing that the law constitutes an unconstitutional retroactive condition on their participation in the Medicaid healthcare program.

Talwani called the law “impermissibly ambiguous,” and said that allowing it to remain in effect would “increase the percentage of patients unable to receive birth control and preventive screenings, thereby prompting an increase in states’ healthcare costs.”

The judge, who was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, issued a preliminary injunction that covers the 22 states that sued to challenge the provision led by California, Connecticut and New York, as well as the District of Columbia. But she put her ruling on hold for seven days to allow the Trump administration to appeal.

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President Trump on Wednesday weakened vehicle mileage rules for the auto industry, loosening pollution restrictions.

The proposal reduces fuel economy requirements set by former President Biden. The administration claimed the reversal would boost access to and the affordability of gasoline vehicles.

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) warned that Republicans will face political “headwinds” ahead of the 2026 elections after the GOP won a closer-than-expected Tennessee special election.

“The opposition party tends to be more motivated, their voters are motivated. So in a special election or off-year elections the turnout models are significantly different than they would be in an even-numbered year. You probably saw that in Tennessee,” Thune told reporters.

And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remains under scrutiny as Republican lawmakers wrestle over how to respond to allegations the defense secretary committed a war crime with a deadly boat strike in the Caribbean. The military struck the alleged drug-trafficking boat four times.

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President Donald Trump on Wednesday, Dec. 3, announced he had pardoned Texas embattled Congressman Henry Cuellar.

Considered among the most conservative Democrats in the U.S. House, Cuellar won an 11th term in November 2024 despite facing a federal indictment over charges he took foreign bribes.

"For years, the Biden Administrhttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/12/03/trump-pardons-congressman-henry-cuellar-texas-wife/87584777007/ation weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them," Trump posted on Truth Social. "The Radical Left Democrats are a complete and total threat to Democracy! They will attack, rob, lie, cheat, destroy, and decimate anyone who dares to oppose their Far Left Agenda, an Agenda that, if left unchecked, will obliterate our magnificent Country."

"Because of these facts, and others, I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda," Trump wrote. "Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!"

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The fear is palpable in this Palestinian village. It’s clear in how farmers gather their harvests quickly, how they scan the valley for movement, how they dare not stray past certain roads. At any time, they say, armed Israeli settlers could descend.

“In a matter of minutes, they get on their phones. They gather themselves, and they surprise you,” said Yasser Alkam, a Palestinian-American lawyer and farmer from the village of Turmus Ayya. “They hide between the trees. They ambush people and beat them up severely.”

In recent months, Alkam says Turmus Ayya has weathered near-daily attacks by settlers, especially after they set up an outpost that the anti-settlement watchdog group Peace Now says is on his village’s land.

Alkam says he can’t reach hMore...is own fields for fear of being assaulted. In a particularly gruesome attack, he watched a settler beat a Palestinian woman unconscious with a spiky club.

The fear is shared throughout the West Bank. During October’s olive harvest, settlers across the territory launched an average of eight attacks daily, according to the United Nations humanitarian office, the most since it began collecting data in 2006. The attacks continued in November, with the U.N. recording at least 136 more by Nov. 24.

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