TV News LIES

Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, announced Friday the investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is closed.

In a post on X, Pirro said the Fed’s inspector general “has been asked to scrutinize the building costs overruns — in the billions of dollars — that have been borne by taxpayers.”

While that’s happening, the investigation into Powell — which prosecutors have said is about potential fraud charges related to renovations of the Federal Reserve building, and statements during a testimony Powell gave to a congressional committee — is ending.

“The IG has the authority to hold the Federal Reserve accountable to American taxpayers,” Pirro said in her statement. “I expect a comprehensive report in short order and am confident the outcome will assist in resolving, once and for all, the questions that led this office to issue subpoenas.”

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Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced Friday he would veto a controversial “buffer zone” bill to restrict protests around educational institutions, calling it an excessive restriction of the First Amendment.

The veto is the first of Mamdani’s administration.

The mayor said he would not veto a similar recent bill restricting protests near houses of worship. City Council Speaker Julie Menin had framed both bills as common-sense safety measures to protect people from harassment.

But Mamdani said the implications of limits on protests at campuses and schools were too broad.

“As the bill is written, everywhere from universities to museums to teaching hospitals could face restrictions,” he said in a statement. “This could impact workers protesting [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], or college students demanding their school divest from fossil fuels or demonstrating in support of Palestinian rights.”

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When Kevin Benderman learned that the U.S. had entered a war with Iran, his mind teleported back about 20 years to Fort Hood, Texas — the day he received orders to deploy to Iraq. 

That deployment profoundly changed Benderman, an Army veteran now living in Augusta, Ga. Despite coming from a long line of military service, he said nothing prepared him for the trauma and loss that he endured.

" I'm just nervous and upset about what I know the young service members are going to be facing when they are in Iran and what they're already facing," he said.

That worry led him to drive to Washington D.C. earlier this week. He was joined by over 150 veterans and military families who occupied the Cannon House Office Building to call for an end to the war. The demonstration on Monday was abruptly ended by Capitol Police, who arrested a total of 66 people. About Face, a veteran group who helped organize the protest, said everyone arrested has been released.

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Two women reported to be relatives of assassinated Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani who were arrested in the United States are not, in fact, related to him, according to a news report.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Sarina were arrested in early April after their residency permits were rescinded. This came after far-right campaigner Laura Loomer claimed they were related to the late Quds Force leader on social media and said she reported the women to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for “posting content sympathetic to the Iranian regime and Ayatollah”.

However, according to Iranian birth records, identification papers, a family will and other personal documents seen by the US-based website Drop Site News, they are not related to Soleimani, even distantly.

Soleimani Afshar was, according to the outlet, involved in anti-Islamic Republic protests in the 1990s and 2000s and spent a week in prison for her activities before moving to the US.

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Soldiers and officers described widespread, routine theft of belongings, including motorbikes, televisions, paintings, sofas and carpets.

Despite being aware of the practice, both senior and junior commanders have largely failed to take disciplinary action to curb it, according to testimonies.

As Israeli troops leave Lebanon, they openly load stolen goods onto their vehicles without attempting to conceal them.

“It’s on a crazy scale,” one soldier said. “Anyone who takes something – televisions, cigarettes, tools, whatever – immediately puts it in their vehicle or leaves it to the side. It’s not hidden. Everyone sees it and understands.”

“In our unit, they don’t even comment or get angry. The battalion and brigade commanders know everything,” one person said.

Another described a case in which a commander shouted at soldiers carrying looted items in a jeep and ordered them to discard them, but no further action was taken.

“Commanders speak against it and say it’s serious, but they don’t do anything,” another soldier said.

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For two years, establishment Democrats have led a wide-ranging legal attack on University of Michigan pro-Palestinian student activists, aiming to shut down their protest of Israel. On Sunday, Democratic Party delegates symbolically rebuked the establishment’s draconian campaign. Two pro-Palestinian candidates notched upset wins against pro-Israel-backed opponents in statewide primary races in this critical upper Midwest swing state.

The races, decided by the Michigan Democratic Party’s delegates during a nominating convention, mark material and symbolic victories for pro-Palestinian activists at the University of Michigan (U-M)—some of whom continue to face investigations over their protests of the genocide. And, as more polling shows the extent to which support for Israel has collapsed across the political spectrum, the wins indicate that the pro-Israel playbook is failing even in lower, state-level races.

In the state Attorney General’s race, Ann Arbor’s progressive Jewish prosecutor, Eli Savit, beat Karen McDonald, who was backed by major corporations and pro-Israel donors. And in the race for a seat on the U-M board of regents, the school’s governing body, defense attorney Amir Makled defeated incumbent regent Jordan Acker, who helped lead the school’s legal attack on the pro-Palestinian students. Makled represented some of the students who beat the U-M prosecutions.

Makled, who is Lebanese-American, overcame an onslaught of allegations that he is antisemitic and supports Hezbollah. He told Drop Site the wins show “the electorate is done with AIPAC-aligned candidates and their smear campaigns.”

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The 41-year-old, an American-born Kuwaiti national, was arrested on 2 March while visiting family in Kuwait.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported that his arrest came after he made a series of social media posts related to the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The posts included footage of a US fighter jet crashing into a US airbase in Kuwait. The CPJ emphasised that he had shared publicly available footage and images.

“We are relieved that, after 52 days in detention, Ahmed has been found innocent on all charges. Our focus now is upon ensuring the liberty and safety of our client,” Caoilfhionn Gallagher, international counsel to Shihab-Eldin’s sisters, said in a statement.

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A display of 20,000 teddy bears appeared on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on Thursday to represent Ukrainian children that have been forcibly taken to Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, AFP reported.

The demonstration, organized by Razom for Ukraine and the American Coalition for Ukraine, was held near the US Capitol under the message: “Bring Them Home.”

Melinda Haring, senior advisor for Razom for Ukraine, said the display was meant to show the scale of the abductions.

“There are 20,000 teddy bears on this fence,” Haring said. “Each of these teddy bears represents a Ukrainian child that was taken since 2022. Now, there’s officially about 20,000 Ukrainian children. The number is definitely larger than that, but we’re here to draw attention to Vladimir Putin and what he did to Ukrainian children.”

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