TV News LIES

She navigated segregation to become an esteemed mathematician — and today, her work helps billions of people navigate the world.

Gladys West, whose pioneering career contributed key elements to what became the GPS satellite system and was later acknowledged as a "hidden figure" of GPS, died Saturday at age 95.

West "passed peacefully alongside her family and friends and is now in heaven with her loved ones," her family said as they announced her death.

West is credited with astounding accomplishments in mathematics, playing pivotal roles in charting orbital trajectories and creating accurate mathematical models of the Earth's shape that would eventually be used by the GPS satellite orbit.

But, as West admitted to member station VPM in 2020, she did not really rely on the groundbreaking system she helped create.

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The temptation is strong to hope that the storm has passed. To believe that a week that began with a US threat to seize a European territory, whether by force or extortion, has ended with the promise of negotiation and therefore a return to normality. But that is a dangerous delusion.

There can be no return to normality. The world we thought we knew has gone. The only question now is what takes its place – a question that will affect us all, that is full of danger and that, perhaps unexpectedly, also carries a whisper of hope.

Forget that Donald Trump eventually backed down from his threats to conquer Greenland, re-holstering the economic gun he had put to the head of all those countries who stood in his way, the UK among them. The fact that he made the threat at all confirmed what should have been obvious since he returned to office a year ago: that, under him, the US has become an unreliable ally, if not an actual foe of its one-time friends.

That much was spelled out in ways both gross and insulting. In the second category comes his latest remark that Nato allies were “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan, a despicable affront to the families of the 457 British service personnel and their comrades from across the alliance who gave their lives in that conflict.

In the first category was the unveiling of his latest venture: having earlier told the Norwegian prime minister, who he falsely accused of denying him a Nobel medal, that he was becoming bored of peace, he came to Davos to launch his “board of peace”. Trump is the one book you can judge by its cover, and so the new body’s logo said it all: as one wit observed, it was basically the UN badge “except dipped in gold and edited so the world only includes America”.

That captured the essential points: that the “board of peace” is an attempt to supplant and monetise the post-1945 international architecture, replacing the UN with a Mar-a-Lago-style members’ club where a permanent seat costs $1bn and decision-making power lies in the hands of Trump himself, even after his presidential term expires. That Vladimir Putin has been invited, and Mark Carney shut out, tells you all you need to know.

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Video recorded by witnesses to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday shows that the 37-year-old registered nurse was holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot, directly contradicting the claims of senior Trump administration officials that he threatened to “massacre” officers.

In the aftermath of the killing, which was recorded by multiple witnesses, the Department of Homeland Security released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as “the gunman’s gun” in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”, though she later declined to say whether or not Pretti pulled the gun out.

Greg Bovino, a senior border patrol commander who was reprimanded by a federal judge last year for lying, also told reporters that Pretti had approached border patrol agents with the same gun.

“The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a border patrol agent fired defensive shots,” Bovino said. “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

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President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to impose a 100% tariff on goods imported from Canada if America’s northern neighbor went ahead with its China trade deal, intensifying a feud with Prime Minister Mark Carney, a rising voice in the West’s pushback to Trump’s new world order.

Trump said in a social media post that if Carney “thinks he is going to make Canada a ‘Drop Off Port’ for China to send goods and products into the United States, he is sorely mistaken.”

It was unclear when Trump might impose the threatened tariff. He said in the post it would happen “immediately” if Canada made a deal with China, which Carney did a week earlier, drawing initial praise from the president.

The White House did not offer any additional details.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney responded to U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s comment that “Canada lives because of the United States” on Thursday by saying Canada thrives because of Canadian values.

Carney said Canada can show the world that the future doesn’t have to be autocratic after returning from Davos, Switzerland, where he gave a speech that garnered widespread attention.

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President Trump appeared on Saturday to walk back comments he made earlier in the week, suggesting non-U.S. troops in NATO avoided the front lines in Afghanistan, following widespread anger from British political leaders and military families.

“The GREAT and very BRAVE soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America! In Afghanistan, 457 died, many were badly injured, and they were among the greatest of all warriors. It’s a bond too strong to ever be broken. The U.K. Military, with tremendous Heart and Soul, is second to none (except for the U.S.A.!). We love you all, and always will!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump remarked during an interview at the World Economic Forum on Thursday that the U.S. “never needed” non-U.S. troops.

“You know, they’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, or this or that, and they did – they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines,” Trump told Fox Business in Davos, Switzerland.

The assertion sparked outrage across the United Kingdom, where leaders spanning the political spectrum, along with former soldiers and parents of fallen military members, slammed Trump for doubting NATO’s commitment to its allies and diminishing the role of non-U.S. troops.

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An FBI agent in Minneapolis who attempted to probe the death of a 37-year-old woman killed by a federal immigration officer earlier this month has resigned.

A source familiar with the situation told NewsNation, The Hill’s sister channel, that agent Tracee Mergen resigned as a supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office following pressure from bureau leadership in Washington.

Mergen left her job after facing pressure to discontinue an inquiry into the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, Jonathan Ross, according to The New York Times, which first reported on Mergen’s resignation.

“It is FBI policy not to comment on personnel matters,” the FBI said in a statement to The Hill.

Mergen’s exit comes after the Justice Department (DOJ) said it sees “no basis” for a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good.

Good was fatally shot while in her SUV on Jan. 7 during an immigration operation in a Minneapolis neighborhood. A private autopsy revealed Good had gunshot wounds to her left forearm, right breast and head, and that a fourth bullet grazed her body.

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A Border Patrol officer fatally shot a man in Minneapolis on Saturday morning, igniting further tension between local leaders and the federal government over heightened immigration enforcement actions in the city.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the shooting occurred Saturday morning while Border Patrol officers were conducting an immigration enforcement operation. Federal officials said a man armed with a handgun approached the officers, who fired "defensive shots" after the man resisted an attempt to disarm him.

The person killed has been identified as Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis resident and VA nurse. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara confirmed he was a U.S. citizen with a permit to carry a firearm.

Several bystanders recorded videos of the encounter from different angles. Videos do not show Pretti wielding a gun.

This is the second fatal shooting in Minneapolis after Trump sent thousands of federal immigration officers to the city in what the administration says is the "largest immigration enforcement operation ever."

Officials have warned residents to avoid the area of Saturday's shooting as protesters clashed with federal agents still on scene. Gov. Tim Walz mobilized the Minnesota National Guard to protect a federal building in Minneapolis and the scene where the fatal shooting happened.

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Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has approved the issuance of gun licences to Israelis in 18 additional illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as the right-wing government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushes to expand illegal outposts that undermine prospects for a two-state solution.

“The importance of the decision lies in the fact that these settlements will now be able to submit applications for a personal weapon licence,” Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday, claiming that the efforts were to “enhance self-defence and increase personal security”.

Israeli settlers have been emboldened by a wide-scale armament programme spearheaded at the start of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip by Ben-Gvir, and the near-total impunity they enjoy when carrying out attacks.

Israelis living illegally in the occupied West Bank have been armed with military-grade weapons ranging from US-made M16s to pistols and drones. Israeli authorities maintain that holding arms is necessary for their safety, but local and international organisations have long documented the organised, forced displacement of Palestinians from their ancestral lands.

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