TV News LIES

It is early on a Sunday morning, and you are awoken by armed police officers banging on your door. They hand you a letter: the state will freeze your assets for a further six months, denying you access to your own bank accounts because they disagree with the anti-genocide stance you have publicly expressed.

The letter cites a tweet you posted several months ago, in which you criticised the Israeli and US bombardment of Iran. It cites the fact that you have shared an interview with a pro-Palestine activist and an article written by an academic historian on social media. These actions are proof, the letter explains, that you have failed to renounce your "pro-jihadist" convictions.

It sounds like something out of the pages of a dystopian sci-fi novel, but for Elias d'Imzalene, a French anti-genocide activist and founding member of the pro-Palestinian organisation Urgence Palestine, it has become real life.

The crime of which d'Imzalene is accused - and for which his freedoms have been restricted and his assets frozen for more than a year - is not so much a thoughtcrime, to use George Orwell's term, as a wordcrime.

In September 2024, at an anti-genocide demonstration in Paris, he used the Arabic word intifada to refer to the global non-violent uprising against Israel's occupation of Palestine that is still taking place regularly in cities all around the world.

More...

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Russia, for the first time in its history, can no longer sustain a war without North Korean support, warning that Moscow is simultaneously helping Pyongyang improve weapons and combat capabilities.

“This is the first time in Russia’s history when they no longer have a strategic reserve,” Zelensky said in his Monday evening address. “For the first time, they cannot wage war without help from North Korea.”

Zelensky said Moscow is now preparing to deploy an additional North Korean military contingent on Russian territory and has received another delivery of ballistic missiles from Pyongyang.

He warned that the consequences extend far beyond Ukraine.

“Everyone who thinks seriously must understand what this means,” Zelensky said. “This is not only about the lives of people in Ukraine, and not only about threats specifically to us.”

More...

Pine trees near Lake Tahoe are being poisoned in what authorities believe are a series of interconnected incidents in the popular tourist community on border of Nevada and California.

The incidents have damaged nearly 30 trees, some reportedly more than a century old, and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

Cedar beach, a restricted-access beach located on the north-east shore of Lake Tahoe. Six trees were also damaged in 2022, another six in 2024, and 16 more were discovered this year. In a statement released on Thursday, authorities said that the incidents appear to be connected, causing an estimated $300,000 in losses.

No suspect has been identified or arrested.

“We take these crimes very seriously and will utilize every available resource to identify and apprehend the person or persons responsible,” said the office of Darin Balaam, the Washoe county sheriff, in a statement. “The destruction of mature trees in the Tahoe Basin and the environmental damage caused by these deliberate acts are unacceptable.”

More...

Jackie – the beloved bald eagle at California’s Big Bear Lake whose livestream was followed by millions of viewers as she birthed and raised chicks – died on Monday due to a mysterious illness. She was 14.

Jackie had been receiving treatment at the Ojai Raptor Center since mid-July when she was found weak and unable to fly after a scuffle with two younger eagles. Experts at the center had discovered that she was suffering from severe anemia, and suspected she had been sick for weeks before the fight grounded her.

“We know this news will be deeply felt by the many thousands of people around the world who have followed her journey, hoped alongside us, prayed for her, and supported the people caring for her,” the raptor center staff wrote in an Instagram post announcing Jackie’s death. “Our team is heartbroken. It has been an extraordinary privilege to care for her. “

More...

Donald Trump’s media company – which owns the Truth Social platform favored by the US president – posted a $238m loss in the second quarter.

Trump Media & Technology on Monday reported that losses in the three months through June came as the company branched into new ventures including crypto. The company’s new chief executive, Kevin McGurn, announced at a conference call about the earnings that after a yearlong effort to expand into online betting and crypto, the company would be refocusing on social media.

“We made the disciplined choice to pivot in order to invest more time and resources in our most important initiatives,” McGurn said. “We will say no to things or change course as warranted.”

One key to the company’s new approach will be a a service called Truth API which will sell early access to Truth Social posts by Trump and other top users to Wall Street trading firms – allowing them to profit from the moves in stocks, bonds and interest that often follow major policy announcements from Trump on the platform.

More...

Flanked by top health officials including Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump unveiled a federal policy that looked skeptically at childhood vaccination.

The order recommends all children get 11 vaccines instead of the 18 previously recommended by the federal government — and would spread out the doses over a longer time.

The order also calls for the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps and rubella, to be broken up into three vaccinations. It’s nMore...ot currently available in that format in the U.S., and health experts said doing so would expose children to dangerous infectious diseases for much longer.

Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump made a range of misleading and incorrect claims about vaccines. He repeatedly linked them to rising rates of autism in the U.S., despite decades of research showing there is no link between the two.

More...

A deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is teetering over steep demands from Tehran for the United States and vice versa.

Iran on Sunday said the agreement to set up new shipping lanes was in its final stages but repeated ​that the vital waterway would only reopen once Washington met certain conditions. Those stipulations include that the U.S. withdraw its naval blockade, pay Tehran compensation for damages from the war, unfreeze the country’s assets, lift sanctions and permanently end the conflict against the regime and its regional allies.

President Trump, in turn, on Monday demanded compensation from Iran for “all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” as well as to the families of protestors the Iranian government has killed over the past 50 years.

He later amended his demand to insist Iran also be responsible for “the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!”

More...

A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 111 people, damaging hundreds of buildings and leaving many trapped under debris while their loved ones and rescue workers searched through rubble.

Search teams and civilians picked through the remains of destroyed buildings in the country’s third-largest city, Cali, passing large pieces of concrete and other rubble down a long line of volunteers.

“Our building has basically been left in ruins, and the building next to ours? Completely collapsed,” said Álvaro López, who cradled his dog as he watched the search. The desperate scene recalled the searches still ongoing in neighboring Venezuela weeks after that country was devastated by two powerful earthquakes.

Besides Cali, the quake ravaged cities across western Colombia, including Pereira, Quibdo and Manizales, and was felt in neighboring Ecuador and Panama. The epicenter was in San Jose del Palmar, a community of about 4,800 people in the Choco region about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Bogota, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

More...