TV News LIES

Iran’s foreign minister returned to Pakistan on Sunday for peace talks, despite US President Donald Trump calling off his envoys’ planned trip to Islamabad. 

Abbas Araghchi will again meet Pakistani officials to convey "Iran's positions and views on the framework of any understanding to completely end the war".

Tehran's foreign minister was in Islamabad a day earlier, after which he travelled to Oman, while other Iranian envoys had headed back to Tehran "to consult and obtain the necessary instructions on issues related to ending the war", according to the Isna news agency.  

Before Saturday's Iran-Pakistan meetings in Islamabad, the White House had announced that Trump's Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner had planned to leave for Pakistan to engage in negotiations.

But Trump later told Fox News he had cancelled the trip, stating there was no point "sitting around talking about nothing".

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US naval forces intercepted a Russian “shadow fleet” vessel in the Arabian Sea on Saturday, April 25, as Washington intensifies its military enforcement of sanctions against Iranian energy exports.

The vessel, identified as the Sevan, was intercepted by a US Navy helicopter operating from the guided-missile destroyer USS Pinckney (DDG 91). According to US Central Command (CENTCOM), the Sevan is one of 19 shadow fleet vessels sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for transporting billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil, gas, propane, and butane to foreign markets.

The ship is currently under US military escort and is following instructions to return to Iran.

CENTCOM reaffirmed that the US military is fully implementing the blockade of all vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports. Since the start of the operation, US forces have successfully diverted 37 vessels.

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Police in Virginia used a technique called geofencing to tap into Google's databases to find out who was near the scene of a bank robbery in the town of Midlothian, where a robber pulled out a gun and subsequently fled with $195,000.

Geofencing allows the government to draw a virtual fence around a geographic area where a crime was committed. After that, the government seeks a warrant — not to search a home or office, but to require a tech company to search its data to identify any of its millions of users who were within the geofence line at the time of the crime.

The technique is under legal scrutiny because of the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches of people, their homes, papers, and effects, unless police obtain a warrant issued by a neutral magistrate, and unless the search is aimed at obtaining specific evidence of a crime.

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Two Israeli political heavyweights on Sunday said they would join forces in upcoming elections in a shared effort to unseat longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid served as prime ministers in a rotation agreement as part of a coalition government they formed in 2021. They now plan to merge their parties into single faction headed by Bennett.

“The move is intended to unite the bloc, put an end to internal divisions and focus all efforts on winning the critical upcoming elections,” Lapid’s Yesh Atid party said in a statement.

Bennett and Lapid scheduled a joint news conference later on Sunday.

The 2021 coalition agreement ended 12 years of Netanyahu rule. Bennett served as prime minister for the first year until their coalition fractured. Lapid then held the top job as caretaker prime minister for the final six months until new elections brought Netanyahu back to power.https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bennett-lapid-effort-to-unseat-netanyahu_n_69ee3933e4b0f3a433cb770b?origin=home-latest-news-unit

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President Trump on Sunday criticized CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell for reading the reported manifesto of the suspected gunman at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner, calling the veteran reporter a “disgrace.”

“I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump told O’Donnell in a “60 Minutes” interview taped Sunday afternoon, later calling her “disgraceful.”

Trump appeared on Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” to discuss Saturday’s shooting at the annual WHCA dinner. Shortly after the dinner began, a heavily armed man ran through security at the Washington Hilton, where he exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officials before being apprehended.

Trump, Cabinet members, lawmakers and other high-profile White House officials were evacuated from the ballroom, and the dinner was ultimately canceled.

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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.

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Iran has inflicted more “extensive” damage to US bases and equipment in the Middle East since the start of US and Israeli strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, NBC News reported on Saturday, citing sources.

The report said that the damages from Iran’s retaliatory strikes against US military bases in seven Middle Eastern countries were “far worse than publicly acknowledged and is expected to cost billions of dollars to repair.”

Iran has hit dozens of targets, including warehouses, command headquarters, aircraft hangars, satellite communications infrastructure, runways, high-end radar systems, and dozens of aircraft, the report said.

The Pentagon has not detailed the extent of the damage to US military bases publicly, according to the report, with US Central Command declining to comment on battle damage assessments.

According to the report, some Republican lawmakers privately expressed their dissatisfaction with senior Pentagon officials for refusing to provide information on the extent of the damage or a cost estimate for repairs.

“No one knows anything. And it’s not for lack of asking,” one congressional aide was quoted by NBC News as saying. “We have been asking for weeks and not getting specifics, even as the Pentagon is asking for a record high budget.”

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Palestinians began voting in local elections on Saturday, April 25, marking the first time in nearly two decades that the process has included the Gaza Strip since Hamas seized control in 2007, Reuters reported.

The vote is currently limited to the city of Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where voter turnout has been reported as active. The Palestinian Authority (PA), based in the West Bank, views the inclusion of the city as a symbolic step toward re-establishing its governance over the territory.

Western diplomats and regional governments, including European and Arab states, have expressed support for the PA’s return to Gaza as part of a broader path toward national elections and a future independent Palestinian state.

According to preliminary data, more than one million Palestinians are eligible to participate in the local elections across the territories, with approximately 70,000 registered voters in Gaza. The process is being monitored as a test for transparency and accountability reforms recently initiated by the PA.

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