TV News LIES

A trembling ceasefire has brought a pause to what had become the familiar sounds of explosions over Tehran. I was born in 1988, a year before the Iran-Iraq war came to an end. For my generation, war was something that belonged to the past – an impossible event, until this summer.

For 12 days, we lived in the capital under incessant Israeli attacks, and what we saw has changed us for good: dead neighbours, buildings gutted and worry – endless, deep-etched worry – on the faces of people.

There is comfort in speaking of “the Iranian people” as though we are one unified bloc. But like most societies, Iranians hold divergent views. When fighting first broke out, there were people who were glad to see a foreign power targeting the widely disliked Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) top brass, at least in the beginning. But others – though dissidents themselves – deeply resented the idea of foreign invasion. Some hardliners saw this war as a messianic mission to be carried through to the bitter end; others were numb to what was happening.

But as the news filled with footage of civilian casualties, and the attacks grew harsher and less targeted, different social factions began to unite around the notion of watan, homeland. Patriotism gained new currency, and national pride was on most lips. Scenes of solidarity – whether lasting remains to be seen – abounded: landlords cancelling rent in light of the crisis; people outside Tehran hosting those fleeing the capital; no rush to grocery stores, no chaos, no panicked evacuations.

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Israeli airstrikes killed 15 Palestinians in Gaza early on Friday, while a hospital said another 20 people died in shootings while waiting for aid.

Meanwhile, the U.N. human rights office says it has recorded 613 killings within the span of a month in Gaza near humanitarian convoys and as Palestinians try to reach aid at distribution points run by an Israeli-backed American organization since it first began operations in late May.

Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said the rights office was not able to attribute responsibility for the killings. But she said “it is clear that the Israeli military has shelled and shot at Palestinians trying to reach the distribution points” operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

In a message to The Associated Press, Shamdasani said that of the total tallied, 509 killings were “GHF-related,” meaning at or near its distribution sites.

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An 83-year-old retired priest has been arrested for defying a newly enforced ban on pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action, just hours after the group was formally outlawed by the UK government.

The Reverend Sue Parfitt, from Bristol, was detained for holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” She was among more than 27 people arrested on Saturday for acts of defiance against the proscription.

Parfitt’s arrest has sparked widespread outrage on social media. One user called it “the march of authoritarianism & crackdown on freedom of speech & expression,” while another questioned whether it was now illegal to call her “a hero.”

Her friend, Jerry Hicks, demanded her release, stating: “She is against genocide & that’s not a crime.”

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Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, unilaterally halted an agreed shipment of military aid to Ukraine due to baseless concerns that US stockpiles of weapons have run too low, it has been reported.

A batch of air defense missiles and other precision munitions were due to be sent to Ukraine to aid it in its ongoing war with Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022. The aid was promised by the US during Joe Biden’s administration last year.

Hegseth falsely cited weapon shortages in halting shipments to Ukraine, Democrats say

But the Pentagon halted the shipment, with NBC reporting that a decision to do so was made solely by Hegseth, Donald Trump’s top defense official and a former Fox News weekend host who has previously come under pressure for sharing plans of a military strike in two group chats on the messaging app Signal, one of which accidentally included a journalist.

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Musicians Pani and Sebastian Enequist sport once-suppressed Inuit face tattoos, hunt seals for food in remote fjords and honor nature "like a God." But they found their calling − and each other − while they were obsessing over the American heavy metal band Slipknot.

For thousands of years, Greenland's Inuit people survived the world’s harshest conditions by living off whales, seals, polar bears, fish and caribou. Now, gleaming new airports are opening up. TikTok stars are proliferating. A relatively isolated indigenous culture, long dominated by ruling Denmark, finds itself increasingly exposed to the world just as President Donald Trump pushes to take over the Arctic territory.

Still, if music can tell ancient and modern stories alike, then the Sound of the Damned, the Enequists' Nuuk-based hardcore metal band, has a musical plotline that wends across time and place. The group's raspy, guttural-growl vocals, introspective lyrics and aggressive beats are old and young. Native and foreign-born. They illustrate how change is sweeping through the island's unique heritage, even as some things.

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Dr. Marwan Sultan was taking a rare break from work to be home with his family Wednesday when, at 2:15 p.m., he became a grim statistic: the 70th health care worker to be killed by Israeli fire in the past 50 days, according to a Palestinian monitoring group.

Soon after at Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital, an NBC News crew witnessed grieving family members and colleagues surround the body of Sultan, a renowned cardiologist, who was killed along with his wife, daughter, son-in-law and sister.

In the morgue, hospital workers wiped blood off Sultan's ashen and scratched face as his body lay wrapped in a smeared white sheet. Visitors embraced and kissed him, their wails reverberating around the room, according to the video.

TVNL Comment: Rest in peace, Dr. Sultan and family.  The monsters who killed you will pay the price.  If not now, soon. The world is waking up to this horror.

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