TV News LIES

Senate Democrats called BS, literally, on Donald Trump’s claim that the war in Iran is over, in a formal letter the president sent on Friday to Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the president pro tempore of the Senate.

“There has been no exchange of fire between United States Forces and Iran since April 7, 2026. The hostilities that began on February 28, 2026 have been terminated,” Trump wrote, as the ongoing war he claimed the US won in the first hour of combat continues with competing Iranian and US blockades of the Persian gulf.

“That’s bullshit,” Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, posted in response to the news. “This is an illegal war and every day Republicans remain complicit and allow it to continue is another day lives are endangered, chaos erupts, and prices increase, all while Americans foot the bill.”

More...

On 28 February 2026, the first day of the war, the US and Israel launched a joint strike on the office of Iran's Supreme Leader. It resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several senior government officials. 

The neighbourhood where the Supreme Leader’s headquarters are located is known as Pasteur. It is named after the Pasteur Institute of Iran, one of the Middle East’s most prestigious and oldest scientific research centres, which predated most of the governmental facilities, including the Presidential Office, the Supreme National Security Council, and the Assembly of Experts.

On 28 February, the medical centre was left unscathed by the massive bombing in the Pasteur neighbourhood. However, a month later, on 1 April and 2 April, US-Israeli bombing hit the Institute, levelling its headquarters and 13 source laboratories.

Founded in 1920, following a diplomatic agreement between the French and Iranian government, the Pasteur Institute of Iran is part of 33 institutes worldwide at the forefront of the fight against infectious diseases, named after the French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur (1822-85), father of the germ theory and microbiology. 

"The main building is older than Israel," one of the Institute’s top scientists, who asked the name be withheld as scientists have been targeted by the US and Israel, wrote to me, adding "how dare they destroy such a piece of history?"

The 120-year-old building was on Waqf land, a religious endowment offered by the Qajar Prince and short-lived Prime Minister of Persia Abdol-Hossein Farman-Farma. It was a gift in the project to modernise Iran’s public health, which had been devastated in the first two decades of the 20th century by a great famine, the Spanish flu, and recurrent cholera and typhoid epidemics.

More...

Israel has continued its attacks on southern Lebanon, hours after ceasefire between the two countries was extended for a further three weeks.

The Israeli military on Friday said it had “eliminated” six Hezbollah fighters in an exchange of fire in the area of Bint Jbeil, southern Lebanon. The Lebanese Health Ministry also reported that two people were killed in an Israeli air strike in the southern area of Touline.

The attacks mark the latest violations of a ceasefire that began on April 16 after weeks of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese armed group.

Israeli forces also remain stationed in southern Lebanon, after establishing a so-called “yellow line” in the region, similar to an Israeli military measure in the besieged Gaza Strip.

More...

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei on Wednesday said his country has not decided whether to join another round of negotiations with the U.S., after President Donald Trump extended the ceasefire between the two countries indefinitely.

Baghaei blamed the Trump administration, saying "Washington keeps changing its stance hour by hour and lacks consistency and a unified approach in its decisions," according to Iranian state television.

Iranian and U.S. officials were expected to begin a second round of peace talks on Wednesday, but the trip was delayed as Iran had not agreed to participate. Trump then announced that he was extending the ceasefire until Iran's leaders can "come up with a unified proposal."

More...

In his strongest words yet, Pope Leo XIV on Saturday denounced the "delusion of omnipotence" that is fueling the U.S.-Israel war in Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace.

Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter's Basilica on the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan and as a fragile ceasefire held.

History's first U.S.-born pope didn't mention the United States or President Donald Trump in his prayer, which was planned before the talks were announced. But Leo's tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials, who have boasted of U.S. military superiority and justified war in religious terms.

"Enough of the idolatry of self and money!" Leo said. "Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!"

More...

US vice-president JD Vance left Islamabad on Sunday after failing to reach a deal with Iran after a marathon 21 hours of negotiations.

Vance cited shortcomings in the talks, saying that Iran had chosen not to accept American terms, including to not build nuclear weapons.

“The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement, and I think that’s bad news for Iran much more than it’s bad news for the United States of America,” Vance said.

“So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We’ve made very clear what our red lines are.”

Vance said he spoke with US president Donald Trump at least half a dozen times during the talks, and one of the most significant points of difference between the two sides had been around the development of nuclear weapons.

More...