TV News LIES

Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he received a letter from President Trump on Wednesday asking him to pardon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is on trial in three separate corruption cases.

Netanyahu has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing court cases, with no ruling yet delivered, and his supporters have dismissed the trials as politically motivated.

In a speech to the Israeli parliament in October, Mr. Trump urged Herzog to pardon Netanyahu, telling the gathered lawmakers: "By the way, that was not in the speech, as you probably know! But I happen to like this gentleman right over here [Netanyahu], and it just seems to make so much sense."

"This morning, President Isaac Herzog received the attached letter from U.S. President Donald Trump, calling on him to consider granting a pardon to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu," Herzog's office said in a statement, adding that the president could not initiate a pardon based on the American leader's request alone.

In his letter, Mr. Trump said he was writing to Herzog at a "historic time, as we have, together, just secured peace that has been sought for at least 3,000 years."

"I hereby call on you to fully pardon Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been a formidable and decisive War Time Prime Minister," it added. "While I absolutely respect the independence of the Israeli Justice System ... I believe that this 'case' against Bibi ... is political, unjustified prosecution."  

Netanyahu has long been known by the nickname Bibi.

Mr. Trump also framed his request for Netanyahu's pardon as something his Israeli counterpart deserved for working with the White House to reach the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, saying: "Now that we have achieved these unprecedented successes, and are keeping Hamas in check, it is time to let Bibi unite Israel by pardoning him, and ending that lawfare once and for all."

He and his wife Sara are accused in one case of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods including cigars, jewelry and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favors. He is also accused of attempting to negotiate more favorable coverage from two Israeli media outlets in two other cases.

TVNL Comment:  Birds of a feather should be imprisoned together.

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Ukrainian soldiers are fighting tense battles in the country’s east where Russian forces have exploited dense fog on the frontline to expand their efforts to capture more territory.

Top military commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said the Russian army overran three settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Ukrainian units are locked in “grueling battles” to repel the thrust.

Dense fog and weather conditions have allowed Russian troops to infiltrate Ukrainian positions in Zaporizhzhia.

The fiercest battles are still in the besieged Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, he said.

This comes as Ukrainian forces pulled back from several positions in the southern Zaporizhzhia region amid heavy fighting and adverse weather.

Russia is taking advantage of the weather to advance in small groups, moving on foot or motorcycles, with the adverse weather preventing Ukrainian forces from deploying drones against them.

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In a penny-pinching move, the U.S. Mint has produced its last one-cent coin.

The final penny was minted in Philadelphia Wednesday, 232 years after the first penny rolled off the production line. The government decided to stop making new pennies because each one costs nearly 4 cents to produce. The move is expected to save about $56 million a year.

If you have a jar of pennies on your dresser, or a few stuck in your couch cushions, don't worry. They're still perfectly legal for making payments. But of the more than $1 billion worth of pennies in circulation, most never circulate. And it was costing the government a lot of money to keep making more of them.

Some restaurants and retailers are already struggling with a shortage of pennies. The phase-out may require businesses to round prices up or down to the nearest nickel, although the growing popularity of non-cash payments makes that less of a headache. Fewer than one in five payments are made with cash, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.

Canada, New Zealand and Australia have also eliminated their one-cent coins.

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The longest government shutdown in U.S. history has come to an end after 43 days.

President Donald Trump signed legislation on Wednesday night from the White House that reopens the federal government and starts to resolve the mass chaos the shutdown created.

Trump's approval came after the House of Representatives voted 222-209 earlier in the evening on a funding package to turn the lights back on, moving past a political mess that has lasted for more than a month and left millions of Americans unable to travel or afford food.

After weeks without pay, hundreds of thousands of government workers will head back to work in the coming days. Under the terms of the funding package, federal employees will be compensated retroactively even though they have not been on the job.

Shuttered preschool and food benefit programs will reopen. So will federal agencies and national landmarks. Despite delays, government data that's crucial to understanding the American economy will start circulating again.

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Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) was officially sworn in to office Wednesday, more than seven weeks after she won her special election.

Grijalva was elected to represent Arizona’s 7th Congressional District on Sept. 23, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused to swear her in, saying he’d wait until the House was back in session during the longest government shutdown in history.

Johnson previously swore in two Republican House members when the lower chamber was out of session.

During remarks after being sworn in, Grijalva called her delayed swearing-in “an abuse of power.”

“It has been 50 days since the people of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District elected me to represent them,” Grijalva said. “Fifty days that over 800,000 Arizonans have been left without access to the basic services that every constituent deserves. This is an abuse of power. One individual should not be able to unilaterally obstruct the swearing in of a duly-elected member of Congress for political reasons.”

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A ruling by a federal judge could impact hundreds of Chicago and Midwestern immigrants who were arrested and detained by U.S. law enforcement.

A release order was issued Wednesday morning from District Judge Jeff Cummings, and came from a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) after Operation Midway Blitz resulted in the arrests of thousands of allegedly undocumented immigrants.

Those arrests were allegedly in violation of a consent decree prohibiting the detention of individuals arrested without a warrant on immigration charges in the state of Illinois, with that alleged violation prompting a lawsuit challenging the detentions.

The judge ordered the release of 13 individuals before Friday, while another 615 individuals could be released on bond in coming weeks.

A stay was issued on the release of those 615 individuals until at least Friday, November 21, and a stay was also issued on deportations for any of those impacted individuals, according to court filings.

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Venezuela said late Tuesday that it is launching a “massive deployment” of nearly 200,000 soldiers in response to the U.S. sending its largest aircraft carrier into the waters near Latin America and rising tensions between the two countries.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López said officials were placing “the entire country’s military arsenal on full operational readiness,” with preparations including the “massive deployment of ground, aerial, naval, riverine and missile forces.”

Padrino said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro directly ordered the massive deployment as part of the special operation, with land, air, naval and reserve forces to carry out war drills through Wednesday to “optimize command, control and communications” and ensure the country’s defense.

He said the move was in response to the “imperialist threat” posed by the U.S. buildup of warships and troops in the Caribbean Sea.

The Venezuelan military exercises also will reportedly involve the Bolivarian Militia, a civilian reserve force created by former President Hugo Chávez.

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Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and accused sex trafficker, wrote that President Donald Trump "spent hours at my house" with one of his victims, according to emails House Democrats released Nov. 12.

The White House called the release of emails a "smear." Trump attended parties and flew on Epstein’s plane during the 1990s. But Trump later ousted Epstein from his club and forcefully denied knowing about the sex trafficking. Epstein died by suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial.

The Democratic revelations came as the House prepares to swear in a new lawmaker from Arizona, Democrat Adelita Grijalva. She is expected to provide the final signature needed to force a vote on legislation that would release all Department of Justice records about the Epstein investigation.

Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the Oversight committee, called the emails "serious and disturbing."

"We won’t stop until we end this White House cover-up," Garcia said on social media Nov. 12. "Release the files, NOW."

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