TV News LIES

The Justice Department agreement with President Donald Trump over his leaked tax returns includes a guarantee that the tax agency will no longer pursue any claims over tax liabilities it may have against Trump, his family members and his companies.

The nine-page settlement agreement made public by the Justice Department May 18, set up a $1.776 billion fund for "victims of lawfare and weaponization," did not include any mention of the government's efforts to go after Trump, his family and his companies over longstanding tax disputes.

On May 19, DOJ posted a separate one-page document on its website – signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche – with the new details. It includes what appears to be an all-inclusive release in which the Internal Revenue Service is “FOREVER BARRED and PRECLUDED” from “prosecuting or pursuing” any and all efforts to determine if Trump and the other parties are liable for non- or under-payment of taxes, interest, attorney’s fees or expenses incurred by the government.

Trump sued the IRS in January for $10 billion for a contractor leaking his returns, even though he had been promising since 2014 that he would release the returns to the public if he ran for president.

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The Israeli police is operating a special department in the occupied West Bank to monitor foreign journalists who wish to enter Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory.

According to a report by Haaretz on Tuesday, the special police department works closely with Israel's Population and Immigration Authority, which is stationed at international crossings as well as the Allenby Bridge Crossing in the West Bank.

Haaretz obtained a police document detailing articles and social media activity by Alessandro Stefanelli, an Italian freelance journalist, who entered Israel and the West Bank several times in the past.

The police deemed Stefanelli critical of Israel, branding him "a journalist and photographer who provides one-sided coverage of Israel".

In July last year, the Italian journalist was informed that his visa to Israel had been revoked, with the Israeli embassy in Rome not providing any explanation as to why his visa was cancelled.

Despite this, Stefanelli tried to enter the West Bank through the Allenby Bridge Crossing, which connects the Palestinian territory to Jordan, but was denied entry by the Population and Immigration Authority.

Stefanelli "calls for international intervention against 'settler violence' and draws a one-sided map" a police report said after he filed a petition to an Israeli court to grant him access to Israel and the West Bank, further accusing the journalist of being "in contact with militants".

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Mohammed Shalalda leaned on a cane to walk after a bloody night of Israeli settler violence that shattered his family's sense of safety in their own home.

At dawn on Sunday, a group of settlers, numbering in the dozens, attacked the Shalalda family home in the al-Daraja area near the town of Sair, east of Hebron, wounding Mohammed, his elderly mother, his sister, and his brother.

Mohammed was sleeping on the roof of his old house when he awoke to the sound of voices around 3am. More than 15 settlers then attacked him, brutally kicking him and beating him with wooden sticks before he had barely opened his eyes. 

The settlers dragged him to the ground despite his wounds bleeding profusely.

“I started screaming to wake the residents and rescue me, but the settlers put a blanket over me and continued beating me violently. I was bleeding, and I didn’t know where the bleeding was coming from; my whole body was their prey,” he told Middle East Eye.

The settler raid is part of a broader pattern of escalating Israeli attacks aimed at forcing Palestinian families to leave their homes so that settlers can seize their land, in a policy pursued throughout the occupied West Bank.

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The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court last month filed a secret arrest warrant application for Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, sources briefed on the matter told Middle East Eye.

Israeli media reports over the weekend claiming the prosecutor’s office had filed five applications for Israeli officials are inaccurate, MEE understands.

An evidence review took place on Wednesday last week to examine the possibility of two more warrant applications, including one for national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, but they have yet to be filed.

MEE understands that the charges against Smotrich include forced displacement as a crime against humanity and war crime, the transfer of Israel’s own population as a war crime, and persecution and apartheid as crimes against humanity.

If approved by the ICC’s pre-trial chamber the warrant for Smotrich would be the first ever issued by an international court for the crime of apartheid.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian long-range strikes have sharply reduced Russian oil refining in recent months, forcing Moscow to shut down oil wells and pushing its state budget deeper into deficit.

In his evening address, President Zelensky said Kyiv is expanding its deep-strike campaign against targets linked to Russia’s war machine, framing the operations as a justified response to Moscow’s attacks on Ukrainian cities.

President highlighted the growing scale of Ukraine’s long-range drone program, saying strikes that once would have been considered exceptional have now become routine.

“There was a time when dozens of Ukrainian drones striking Russia was a big deal. Now, hundreds of our long-range sanctions every day are no longer a sensation,” Zelensky said.

Citing a Ukrainian intelligence assessment, the president said Russian oil refining has fallen by 10 percent in recent months. He said Russian oil companies have been forced to shut down oil wells, which he described as particularly damaging for Russia’s energy sector.

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A jury in California took less than two hours to decide that Elon Musk waited too long to file a lawsuit against his one-time business partner Sam Altman over the direction he's steered the artificial intelligence company OpenAI since the two had a falling out nearly a decade ago.

In a unanimous decision, the nine-member advisory jury said Musk was beyond the statute of limitations when he launched his case in 2024. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, agreed, tossing the case out.

"I've always said I would accept the jury's verdict," Gonzalez Rogers said after issuing her decision. "I think there's a substantial amount of evidence to support the jury's finding."

The decision brings a swift end to a three-week trial that laid bare the fears and ambitions that led two of Silicon Valley's biggest personalities to team up 11 years ago to launch OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and then to part ways after a dispute over how to run it.

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The Trump administration has announced a plan to kill Biden-era drinking water limits on four Pfas “forever chemicals”, and to delay the implementation of standards for two other compounds.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing two separate rules to delay and rescind the limits. The rules must go through an approval process that can take several years, and almost certainly will be challenged in court.

The Trump administration’s plan comes just two years after the US Environmental Protection Agency set legally enforceable drinking water limits for six of the most dangerous Pfas compounds that have been studied. The chemicals include some of the most toxic substances, and are linked to a range of cancers and other serious health problems.

The new Trump plan aims to undo or delay those limits, which public health advocates say would put the nation’s health at risk. Pfas are ubiquitous in the environment and estimated to be contaminating drinking water for more than 200 million people across the US.

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When Billie Jean King left college in 1964, she had a purpose. Within a few years, she had become the top-ranked tennis professional in the world. Over a trailblazing career, she won 39 championships, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a congressional Medal of Honor – all while pushing publicly for gender and pay equality.

Last year, she finally returned to finish the degree in history she started more than six decades ago. On Monday, she graduated, at 82 years old.

“It is a privilege for me to be here as a member of your graduating class,” King said at her commencement. “Yeah baby, only 61 years!”

King recalled growing up in a working-class family, the daughter of a firefighter father and homemaker mother.

“Like so many of my fellow graduates, I am the first member of my immediate family to graduate college, like many of you,” King said.

She chose Cal State Los Angeles, then known as Los Angeles State College, because the tennis coach, Scotty Deeds, trained men and women together. He said it would help give her the level of competition she needed to excel.

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