TV News LIES

A century-old water pipe buried below a bustling boulevard in a Los Angeles county city burst early Thursday, sending a shock of water spewing into the streets and snarling traffic as several major roads shut down.

The 36in riveted steel pipe’s rupture left a protruding sinkhole and cracked pavement in West Hollywood. Images of the aftermath showed local metro buses partially submerged in murky brown water.

No injuries had been reported, according to John Heilman, the city’s mayor. “All of our residents to our knowledge are safe,” he said during a Thursday press conference, adding that there was no immediate need for evacuations.

“We know these road closures and traffic impacts are disruptive, and we appreciate everyone’s patience as crews work to stabilize the area, assess the damage, and begin repairs,” Heilman also said in a statement.

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President Donald Trump called for ABC and NBC’s licenses to be revoked over not airing his July 16 primetime address focused on election security.

Toward the end of his nearly 26-minute long address from the White House, Trump criticized the networks for not broadcasting it live, alleging that the decision was made “because of the fact that they don’t like the topic.”  

“Fraud like this should mean a revocation of their licenses,” he said. “They use our public, multi-billion dollar in value, airways for absolutely no money. They pay nothing. All we want is honesty in our elections and honesty in reporting.”

The networks did air his speech on their respective streaming platforms and provide coverage of his statements afterward.

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Several Palestinians have been injured in separate attacks across the occupied West Bank amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reports.

A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was shot in the chest by Israeli forces in Bani Naim, east of Hebron, on Thursday, according to Wafa. He was taken to hospital and is in a stable condition.

Israeli settlers beat a 30-year-old man in Abu Njeim, southeast of Bethlehem. He is receiving treatment at a nearby hospital.

Elsewhere, settlers attacked several members of the same family in Khirbet Emneizal in the South Hebron Hills.

The assailants also stole the family’s sheep before Israeli forces arrived, assaulted residents and arrested seven people.

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The paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein was connected to the “highest levels” of US and Israeli intelligence, JD Vance said on Monday.

“He clearly had connections to the upper, the highest levels of American intelligence,” the US vice president told podcaster Joe Rogan, in relation to Epstein. “He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence.”

Told by Rogan that “most people think he was Mossad”, Israel's external intelligence agency, Vance replied: “Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or some other country… or both.”

The vice president, who describes himself as “an OG Epstein conspiracy theorist”, said that Epstein’s connections were to “elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of centre”, most notably former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

“It wasn’t like he was super connected to the right of centre of Israeli politics,” Vance said.

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A Muslim mall worker was stabbed more than 15 times in Utah in an Islamophobic attack where the suspect admitted to targeting the victim "with the intent to kill him" because of his faith.

Syed Sohail Uddin, 37, was working at a kiosk inside Valley Fair Mall in West Valley City on Monday afternoon local time when he was repeatedly stabbed.

Police arrested 48-year-old Peter Michael Larsen, with court records saying that he told investigators he had targeted Uddin because he was Muslim.

Uddin survived the attack but remains in critical condition after sustaining more than 15 stab wounds. He is expected to face a lengthy recovery and has undergone treatment for severe injuries, according to local reports and a fundraising page established to support his family.

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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has defended his decision to dismiss the country’s popular defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, and confirmed reports that relations had broken down between the ministry and the country’s top army leadership.

Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, Zelenskyy said there had been a “challenging dialogue” between Fedorov – widely seen as a reformist and moderniser – and the military’s commander in chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi.

“I would very much like to see unity. The sides have not found it. And the problem lies not only with the sides, but with me as well,” Zelenskyy said. “But things are as they are. And in such a situation, you have a choice: either one side or the other.”

He has appointed the acting head of Ukraine’s security service, Yevhenii Khmara, as acting defence minister and asked parliament to approve him in the position.

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Donald Trump fired the new top federal prosecutor in Seattle on Wednesday less than an hour after the attorney was unanimously appointed by the federal judges in the district, highlighting tensions between the courts and the president over the powerful positions.

Roger Rogoff, a former judge and veteran state and federal prosecutor, was sworn in as US attorney before 8am at the US courthouse in downtown Seattle. In a phone interview, he said he then went to the US attorney’s office and asked to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, whose 120-day interim term in the position ended in February.

As he waited in a lobby, Rogoff said, he received an email from the Trump administration informing him he had been removed from the position. He is consulting with other lawyers about suing over his firing, he said.

Presidents normally appoint US attorneys, the top federal prosecutors in each judicial district. The positions require Senate confirmation, except in temporary appointments. When temporary appointments expire before a nominee is confirmed, the judges in a judicial district can name a US attorney.

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Liz Oyer, a former pardon attorney, condemned Todd Blanche, Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, over his Wednesday testimony to the Senate judiciary committee. Blanche fired Oyer after she refused to recommend restoring firearms rights to the actor and Trump ally Mel Gibson, who was previously convicted of domestic violence.

“I declined to rubber-stamp a political favor for a friend of the president, and it cost me my job,” the former US pardon attorney told the committee on the second day of Blanche’s confirmation hearing.

Blanche said on Wednesday that Oyer’s recommendation last year did not lead to her termination. “The decisions that she had made as pardon attorney in the weeks and months leading up to the end of President Biden’s term were completely inconsistent with President Trump’s authority,” Blanche said.

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