TV News LIES

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is standing by his top political adviser, Morris Katz, who is facing widespread criticism for his role in Democrat Graham Platner’s scandal-ridden campaign for U.S. Senate in Maine.

“ I will continue to work with Morris Katz. He remains a top advisor of mine,” Mamdani said Monday.

Mamdani’s declaration comes after The Intercept reported that members of the Democratic Socialists of America were circulating a letter calling on the mayor to cut ties with Katz and his political consulting firm, The Fight Agency, because of his role on Platner’s campaign leadership team.

Platner, an oyster farmer and combat veteran, suspended his Senate bid on Friday, four days after Politico reported that he allegedly raped a woman he once dated. Platner has denied the woman’s account.

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One of the strictest abortion bans in the country will be on the ballot this November after Idaho’s secretary of state certified a ballot measure on Monday that would reverse the state’s abortion ban that prohibits the procedure at all stages of pregnancy.

The ballot initiative was headed by a volunteer-run group called Idahoans United for Women & Families, which ran a petition drive to get the measure in front of voters this fall. They gathered more than 100,000 signatures, surpassing the required 70,725 to get on the ballot.

If approved by voters, the measure would create a law for “reproductive freedom”, rather than serve as an amendment to the state constitution.

The change would make Idaho’s law similar to what it was before the supreme court ruled to overturn Roe v Wade in 2022, allowing states to ban abortion. Idaho’s new law would allow abortion until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be after about 21 weeks into a pregnancy. It would also allow people to make their own choices for abortion, contraception and fertility treatment.

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Donald Trump has approved a sharp reduction in the size of two national monuments in Utah held sacred by many Native Americans, in the latest move to open US public land to corporate developers and the oil and gas industry.

The two monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, will see a reduction of “close to a million and a half acres each”, Trump said during an executive order signing event on Monday, undoing protections established by former presidents.

“They took the land from the people quite honestly,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’re giving it back.”

The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development.

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An ICE officer has fatally shot a man in Maine during what authorities described as a routine removal operation, the state’s attorney general’s office confirmed on Monday afternoon. Here’s what we know so far:

The shooting occurred as federal agents were carrying out an “enforcement operation related to a final order of removal”, the office of the Maine attorney general said.

The man who was killed around 7.20am had reportedly “attempted to flee in a vehicle in the direction of the officer”, the agency said, prompting the use of deadly force.

Senator Angus King said he spoke with homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin following the fatal shooting in Biddeford, Maine. King urged state and local officials to remain involved in the FBI-led investigation. He also raised concerns that ICE agents were not wearing body cameras.

The person who was killed during the altercation involving ICE is believed to be a 26-year-old man from Colombia, according to the Maine Immigrants’ Rights Coaliton and Presente! Maine. He has not been identified further.

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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday vowed to "dismantle" the International Criminal Court and urged other countries to join the effort as the Trump administration significantly escalates its campaign against the global institution.

Rubio accused the ICC of "waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles," but with "the force of so-called international law."

The administration's ire against the ICC goes back to President Donald Trump's first term, when it targeted the ICC for seeking to investigate alleged war crimes committed by US forces in Afghanistan. The second Trump administration has imposed a slew of sanctions against ICC officials for their attempts to investigate the US and Israel.

However, the State Department-led, "whole-of-government campaign" to dismantle the ICC is a significant escalation, particularly as it seeks to pressure countries around the world to join and threatens potential cuts to US assistance for those who don't.

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Donald Trump may have landed the biggest deal of his life.

In a controversial settlement which avoided a politically unpalatable transfer of Treasury funds into Trump's hands, the president and his family gained immunity from tax audits that could have cost $100 million, according to the New York Times.

The release from tax liability, authored by acting attorney Todd Blanche, who has served as Trump's personal attorney, came a day after the Department of Justice agreed to create a $1.8 billion fund which would benefit Trump's allies.

After political blowback, including from Republicans, Blanche said that the fund won't move forward, but continues to litigate lawsuits questioning its legality. Today, a judge in one of the lawsuits extended an indefinite block on the fund. But Trump's tax deal stood.

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One in four Israelis now engages in harmful substance use as the psychological fallout from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its expanding wars across the Middle East reshapes daily life, according to research cited by Haaretz.

The Israeli Centre for Addiction and Mental Health said substance misuse had risen sharply since October 2023, when Israel launched its war on Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, the rate stood at one in 10 Israelis. It climbed to one in seven during the pandemic before reaching about 25 percent after October 2023.

The centre found that sedative use had increased by 2.5 times, while the consumption of opiates ahttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/one-four-israelis-using-drugs-amid-gaza-genocide-and-regional-warsnd stimulants had almost doubled. Alcohol and cannabis use had also risen.

Among people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, the rate of substance misuse now stands at 54.2 percent.

Prof Shauli Lev-Ran, the centre’s founder, told Haaretz that repeated crises had entrenched habits formed during periods of extreme pressure.

“The more stress there is, the more people use,” he said, warning that consumption often continues even after immediate stress levels fall.

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Iran’s IRGC is now also claiming that it has attacked US military bases in Kuwait.

Meanwhile, sirens are sounding for a second time today in Bahrain.

Iran’s IRGC also claims it has hit a US base at Sheikh Isa in Bahrain in the second phase of retaliatory operation. The Guardian could not immediately confirm this claim.

Centcom said it struck Iranian military air-defense systems, coastal ‌radar sites, missile and ​drone capabilities, and small boats using US ⁠fighter aircraft, ​naval vessels, one-way ​attack aerial ​drones, ​and ‌one-way attack ​sea drones in its latest wave of attacks.

The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade,” CentcomCentcom says it has completed a new wave of offensive strikes against Iran, hitting dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions.. “Iran does not control it.”

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it had set fuel tanks and ammunition depots on fire at Prince Hassan airbase in Jordan by firing missiles and drones. The Guardian could immediately verify the IRGC’s claim.

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