TV News LIES

Spain winning the World Cup just feels right.

That opener against Cape Verde aside, they were the best team in this tournament. Beating Argentina 1-0 on Sunday, July 19, to win their second World Cup title confirms it.

One goal conceded across eight games. Goals from seven different players, including Ferran Torres, who pounced on a Nico Williams header and buried it for the game-winner in the 106th minute. That’s the dominance worthy of a World Cup champion.

Besides, Argentina had no business winning a second consecutive title, even if it would have been nice to send Lionel Messi out on top. If you can’t get off a single shot — not just a shot on goal, a shot of any kind — until stoppage time of the second overtime period, you have no business winning an AYSO tournament, let alone the World Cup.

More...

The European Union could be leaning toward banning trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Foreign ministers debated various tactics to respond to the settlements on Monday at their monthly council meeting in Brussels, against the backdrop of rising violence by settlers and efforts by the government to expand settlements in the territory.

In a press conference following the meeting, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said one possibility had stood out.

“The option that got the most support was banning the trade with illegal settlements,” she said. All 27 member states consider settlements in the West Bank to violate international law.

Kallas added: “We tasked the ambassadors to take this work forward, and probably will also have an extraordinary meeting on this.”

More...

If there is one thing that has long defined the political career of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it is Iran. 

Retired general Isaac Ben Israel once described Netanyahu’s efforts to persuade the US to exit the nuclear deal as “the worst strategic mistake in Israel’s history” - one that has served only to push Iran closer towards seeking a nuclear weapon as a deterrent.

For decades, Netanyahu has framed Iran as an existential threat to the Jewish people, suggesting that the moment Iran acquires nuclear military capabilities, it will immediately attack Israel. 

The absurdity of these claims, which overlook Iran as a sovereign state of more than 90 million people with its own domestic challenges, cannot be overstated.

More...

Spanish authorities, operating on a US extradition request, arrested the 41-year-old Chambers, a US citizen and wealthy donor to leftwing and humanitarian projects worldwide, last Friday in Ibiza. He has been transferred to a prison in Madrid. The Trump administration’s Department of Justice is seeking his extradition for alleged financial support of Hamas, according to a spokesperson for the Spanish high court.

The court has two weeks to decide on Chambers’s appeal seeking bail, and 40 days to decide on the US extradition request. If the court denies the extradition, the case closes. If it grants the extradition, the council of ministers has the final decision, according to the spokesperson. The indictment against Chambers is sealed.

The court has two weeks to decide on Chambers’s appeal seeking bail, and 40 days to decide on the US extradition request. If the court denies the extradition, the case closes. If it grants the extradition, the council of ministers has the final decision, according to the spokesperson. The indictment against Chambers is sealed.

This is the first known case of the US seeking extradition of a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, veteran attorney Stanley Cohen told the Guardian earlier this week.

More...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) says he is reviewing whether his administration could arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his anticipated visit to the city for the U.N. General Assembly this fall. 

The mayor made these comments an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro on Saturday episode of The New York Times’ “The Interview” podcast.

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these past many years.”

The International Criminal Court issued a warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest in 2024 for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine, including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “other inhumane acts.”

More...

US President Donald Trump’s "Board of Peace" has shrunk its Gaza "recovery plan" from rebuilding territory to a temporary camp of "portable cabins" under Palestinian administration, police and a small international security force. 

The pilot scheme will be located in the so-called buffer zone along the ceasefire line near Rafah, according to a Guardian investigation published on Thursday. Its blueprint reflects little of what Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, presented in his "free market Gaza" slideshow in January, which assured basic infrastructure within 100 days.

No construction or preparatory work has begun for the scheme through the International Stabilisation Force (ISF), a United Nations-mandated multinational peacekeeping force establised by the 2025 Gaza peace plan. 

A logistical base for the ISF is nearly complete at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza, and the force is expected to be trained in Egypt with troops from Morocco, Kosovo, and possibly Albania and Kazakhstan. It will take months to train them, and a legal framework for their presence remains under negotiation with the Israeli government.

More...