TV News LIES

Israel’s plans to explore for gas off the coast of Gaza have drawn condemnation from rights groups and environmental advocates.

Since 2024, Israel has granted exploration licences for natural gas in areas considered part of Palestine’s maritime boundary off Gaza’s shores.

In February, energy minister Eli Cohen approved Israel’s fifth offshore gas licensing round in the Mediterranean.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the plan would allow energy companies to explore around 8,600 square kilometres of sea, divided into six search zones.

Adalah, a Haifa-based legal centre focused on Palestinian rights, said two of the six zones fall within recognised Palestinian maritime territory off Gaza. The group said Israel’s previous offshore licensing round had also encroached on Palestinian waters.

In a letter sent last month to Cohen and Israel’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, Adalah argued the new licensing round was illegal because around 1,000 square kilometres of the designated area lie in waters claimed by the State of Palestine. The group urged the government to halt the exploration plans.

The letter, shared with Middle East Eye, said Israel “has no authority to operate” in Palestinian maritime areas, adding that exploration there would breach both Israeli and international law.

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US President Donald Trump has threatened or used force against countries representing roughly one in 11 people worldwide, according to a CNN analysis.

The report followed Trump’s remarks during a White House Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, where he warned Oman over tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route.

“Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ‘em up,” Trump said.

The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 20% of global oil shipments, has faced growing risks amid tensions in the Middle East.

According to The Guardian, the comments came amid reports that Iran and Oman have discussed possible arrangements involving control or fees for shipping through the strait.

“The Strait is going to be open to everybody,” Trump said while discussing regional tensions. “Nobody’s going to control it.”

CNN said US forces have conducted strikes in multiple countries during Trump’s presidency, including Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Oman is at least the 15th country Trump has threatened, suggested he could attack, or targeted militarily during his time in office.

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Many people in the workplace struggle with expense reports and imposter syndrome. And then, according to the FBI, there is David J. Rush -- a former CIA official who is accused of taking gold bars and bulk cash to his Virginia home while also allegedly lying about his education and military service, according to federal court records.

Rush, a former senior executive service-level CIA employee in Virginia, was arrested on May 19, after FBI agents searching his home seized more than 300 1-kilogram gold bars valued at more than $40 million, according to an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Matthew T. Johnson, who works in the counterintelligence division of the FBI's Washington field office.

"FBI agents also seized approximately $2 million in United States currency," the document states. "Finally, FBI agents seized approximately 35 luxury watches, many of which were Rolex brand."

Rush, who is listed as living in Ashburn, Va., is charged with a felony count of theft of public money, according to court documents. He remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after his request for release on bond was denied. He has not entered a plea.

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The White House is pushing Congress to approve a $250 bill bearing Donald Trump’s portrait, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said, which would require changing longstanding federal law that prohibits any living person from appearing on US currency.

Speaking from the White House at a news conference, Bessent said the bill would be in celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, and that the treasury has already started preparing for the possibility of the new currency.

“As treasury secretary, I have two mandates for US currency at present: that no living person can be on US currency, and the currency must say ‘In God we trust’,” Bessent said. “So, right now, there isproposed legislation in front of the House, in front of the Senate, to change the first requirement, so that a living person – Donald J Trump – could be on the $250 bill.”

The Washington Post reported that two of Trump’s political appointees at the treasury had pushed staff to start preparing prototypes of a $250 bill with Trump’s image, raising concerns that doing so would breach federal law.

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At least six of the nine featured musical acts set to play in a concert series organized by the Trump administration to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary have dropped out, just one day after the lineup was announced.

The first to drop out, hours after Wednesday’s announcement, was Morris Day, who called his scheduled participation in the summer concert series on Washington DC’s National Mall a baseless “rumor”.

Later on Wednesday, Young MC posted a message that began: “I have informed my agents that I will not be performing at the Freedom 250 event.”

“The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he added, before casting doubt on the claim from Freedom 250, the group created by Donald Trump to organize the celebration of the US’s semiquincentennial, that the series was nonpartisan.

And on Thursday, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory, Martina McBride and Milli Vanilli all either dropped out or expressed surprise that they had ever been booked.

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When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism. 

The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no political favoritism.

But interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.’s.

Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering funding at the time, Vulcan’s was the only deal initiated by a top aide to the president, said an official at the Pentagon who was not authorized to speak publicly.

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) has reportedly launched a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, who accused President Trump of sexual assault, according to multiple reports.

CNN was the first to report Wednesday night that the DOJ’s probe focuses on whether Carroll committed perjury while speaking at a deposition as part of her two civil lawsuits against Trump.

A spokesperson for the DOJ told The Hill on Thursday that the department does not comment on investigations.

Prosecutors are reportedly focused on Carroll telling then-Trump attorney Alina Habba in a 2022 deposition that she received no outside funding for the lawsuit. However, two weeks before the trial, Carroll’s attorneys informed the judge and Trump’s legal team that billionaire Reid Hoffman’s nonprofit covered some of her legal fees and expenses.

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A company run by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, hired by the Israeli government to push pro-Israel views on a major conservative media network, has directed $13 million from Israel to several Republican digital strategy firms and allies, according to a previously unreported document filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. 

Parscale was hired in part to influence major right-wing Christian media company Salem Media Group, where he is also an executive. His firm spent hundreds of thousands on ads with a Salem subsidiary. As part of the contract, Parscale’s firm also sent millions to other firms run by some of his closest political allies.

The new filing sheds light on a more detailed web of interconnected companies and political operatives capitalizing on Parscale’s contract with the Israeli government. Many of the companies getting work as part of Parscale’s Israel contract are being reported here for the first time.

Among those that received millions of dollars’ worth of payments related to the contract are ventures like SparkFire, an AI chatbot company leading a mass texting campaign, and a shadowy firm run by longtime mainstream Republican strategist Mike Shields. (None of the figures or firms in this story responded to requests for comment.)

Israel initially directly hired Parscale’s firm, Clock Tower X, last September with a contract worth $6 million. The new filing reveals that his firm has received over $15 million from Havas Media Network, an international media company, on behalf of the Israeli state.

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