TV News LIES

Donald Trump’s so-called “board of peace” has been announced as the US president seeks to manage the reconstruction of Gaza and its transitional administration amid a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

The seven-member board includes US secretary of state Marco Rubio, former British prime minister Tony Blair, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and World Bank president, Ajay Banga. Trump himself will serve as chair, with further appointments expected in the coming weeks.

Donald Trump’s so-called “board of peace” has been announced as the US president seeks to manage the reconstruction of Gaza and its transitional administration amid a fragile ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

The seven-member board includes US secretary of state Marco Rubio, former British prime minister Tony Blair, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and World Bank president, Ajay Banga. Trump himself will serve as chair, with further appointments expected in the coming weeks.

Each board member will manage “a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success, including, but not limited to, governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization”, a White House statement said.

Since the ceasefire, Israel has also demolished thousands of structures that survived the war, including homes and greenhouses, in the part of Gaza is still controls.

Hamas has yet to publicly commit to full disarmament – a key Israeli demand and one of the most contentious elements of the longer-term settlement.

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A federal judge ordered the reinstatement of a former Ohio State University student expelled for posting social media videos criticizing Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

The university first suspended Guy Christensen, an undergraduate student and social media influencer, in May after he posted pro-Palestinian videos, according to the federal court ruling.

Christensen sued in September, claiming Ohio State violated his First Amendment free speech rights and 14th amendment right to due process.

In a letter, the university told Christensen he was suspended “temporarily and immediately, from university premises and property as well from participation in all university activities, whether on or off campus property,” according to the court ruling.

The student’s presence on campus presence poses a “significant risk of substantial harm to the safety or security of yourself, others, or to property,” the letter stated.

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A US federal judge in Boston on Friday gave the Trump administration three weeks to “rectify the mistake” it made by deporting a college student to Honduras while she was traveling home to visit her family for Thanksgiving as he recommended it issue her a student visa.

The US district judge, Richard Stearns, imposed the deadline after a lawyer for the administration earlier this week apologized for having violated a court order that should have prevented 19-year-old Any Lucia López Belloza from being sent to Honduras. She is a Honduran national who was brought to the United States by her mother when she was eight while seeking asylum.

“There is happily no one-size-fits-all solution for seeing that justice be done in what all agree was an amalgam of errors that ended badly for Any,” he said.

Stearns said the “simplest solution” would be for the US state department to issue her a visa. The alternative, he said, would be for him to order the Trump administration to arrange for López Belloza’s return, with a threat of holding the government in contempt if it refused.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told USA TODAY that “electromagnetic radiation is a major health concern” a day after his department launched a study of cellphone radiation.

“Generally speaking, electromagnetic radiation is a major health concern,” Kennedy said in the exclusive interview, when asked for his concerns about 5G towers. “I’m very concerned about it.”

The department said 22 states had restricted cellphone use in schools to improve health of children under the "Make America Healthy Again" movement. Since 2022, there's been a significant push by K-12 schools nationwide to ban cell phone use in classrooms. But this is to curb mental health effects of social media, prevent cyberbullying and being online at all times, not EMF radiation.

Cell providers' 5G networks promise faster connections but have long been the target of skeptics who say they have negative health effects. USA TODAY has previously debunked online claims that 5G is dangerous.

The Food and Drug Administration under Kennedy has taken down old webpages saying cellphones are not dangerous.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in connection with a suspected conspiracy to impede federal immigration enforcement in the state, according to reports by Reuters and The Washington Post.

The investigation comes amid a growing feud between Minnesota’s Democratic leaders and President Donald Trump. The Department of Homeland Security has sent thousands of officers to the state in what it’s calling its "largest immigration operation ever" in order to combat fraud in social welfare programs officials say is linked to Somali immigrants.

Walz and Frey have called for immigration authorities to leave the state, especially after the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Macklin Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

In a statement, Walz blasted the administration for the reported investigation.

"Two days ago it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly. Weaponizing the justice system against your opponents is an authoritarian tactic," the former candidate for vice president said. "The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her."

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One-year-old Mohammed Bassiouni died of exposure to the cold on Tuesday. It was his first birthday.

That night, as winter storms lashed Gaza with cold winds and torrential rain, his family was shivering in a battered tent in Deir al-Balah where they had been displaced after fleeing Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

“It was a night of rain and wind. We were up all night, his mother and I,” Mohammed’s father, Maher Bassiouni, told Drop Site. “At 4 a.m., the wind and rain calmed a little and me and his mother slept a bit. I woke up at 6 a.m. and I found the boy dead.” He spoke holding his son’s lifeless body wrapped in a purple blanket. “We belong to God and to him we shall return. God is sufficient for us, and He is the best disposer of affairs. I have nothing more to tell you. He is one year old. Today is his birthday. January 13th is his birthday, the day he died.”

The family rushed Mohammed to Al-Aqsa Hospital, but it was too late. His tiny body, still in diapers, was kept in the hospital morgue before he was wrapped in a white shroud for burial. Mohammed is the seventh child to die from hypothermia since the onset of winter, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, including four since the beginning of the year—among them a baby just seven days old and a four-year-old girl. Another 25 Palestinians have been crushed to death as storms caused damaged buildings and walls to collapse on families seeking shelter inside or in tents nearby.

Israel’s continued strangulation of essential supplies during winter has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians shivering in the wet and cold and nearly three dozen dead. The genocidal war has displaced nearly the entire population and reduced Gaza to a broken landscape of rubble and collapsed structures. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are now living in flimsy tents that provide little shelter from the elements. According to the UN, the heavy rains and flooding have rendered thousands of tents uninhabitable and placed nearly 800,000 people, almost 40 percent of the population, in flood-prone sites at heightened risk—leaving families exposed to the winter cold without blankets, mattresses, or heating. Hundreds of tents have simply blown away and makeshift shelters have been heavily damaged.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has cast the U.S. announcement that the fragile ceasefire in Gaza would advance to its second phase as largely symbolic, raising questions about how its more challenging elements will be carried out.

Meanwhile, two Israeli airstrikes killed seven people in Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip ​on Thursday, local health authorities said. A senior figure in the armed wing of Hamas was among those killed, a Hamas source said.

Neither the Israeli military nor Hamas immediately responded to requests for comment on the incident. Hamas condemned the strikes on the Al-Holy family, in a statement that did not mention Mohammed or his role in the group. It accused Israel of violating the ceasefire deal in place since October, and of attempting to reignite the conflict.

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Questions also include the timing of deployment of international forces and the reopening of Gaza's southern Rafah border crossing, as well as concrete details about disarming Hamas and rebuilding Gaza.

In an interview on Wednesday with the West Bank-based Radio Basma, Ali Shaath, the engineer and former Palestinian Authority official slated to head the committee, said he anticipated reconstruction and recovery to take roughly three years. He said it would start with immediate needs, such as shelter.

"If I bring bulldozers, and push the rubble into the sea, and make new islands [in the sea], new land, it is a win for Gaza and [we] get rid of the rubble," Shaath, a Gaza native, said.

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Ukrainian troops from the National Guard’s 13th “Khartia” Brigade repelled a large-scale Russian assault in the Kharkiv region, killing about 70 Russian soldiers.

According to the brigade’s press service, over the course of the week, Russian troops have repeatedly tried to break through positions in its area of responsibility north of Kharkiv, but it said all assaults were repelled.

Kyiv Post was unable to independently verify the time and location of the footage, which shows Russian soldiers being targeted by drone-dropped munitions.

“Thanks to the coordinated actions of Khartia’s infantry, drone operators, artillery units, and other elements, the enemy’s attempt was unsuccessful. We continue to defend the Kharkiv region and keep Kharkiv secure,” the brigade said.

The repelled assault comes as Ukrainian forces retake control over the Kupyansk City Council building during efforts to lift the city’s blockade.

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