TV News LIES

President Donald Trump on Friday cast himself as the ultimate arbiter of any peace deal between Ukraine and Russia, in an exclusive conversation with POLITICO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to meet with Trump in Florida on Sunday and told reporters he’s bringing with him a new 20-point plan for peace. The framework includes a proposed demilitarized zone and the meeting is expected to focus on U.S. security guarantees.

But in an interview, Trump appeared lukewarm to Zelenskyy’s latest overture and in no rush to endorse the Ukrainian president’s proposal.

“He doesn’t have anything until I approve it,” Trump said. “So we’ll see what he’s got.”

The president’s comments underscore the degree to which Ukraine’s fate rests on convincing Trump that it is conceding enough to satisfy a president who, at times, has appeared inclined to lean toward Russia if it means an end to the war. Russia has moved very little from its maximalist position and has not reacted to the latest proposal. The U.S., meanwhile, has pushed Zelenskyy to move off his original demands and Trump has often seemed to lose patience with the haggling.

Still, Trump believed he could have a productive meeting this weekend.

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President Donald Trump urged the Justice Department to release the names of any Democrats in the Epstein files, saying the agency should “embarrass them,” even as he questioned the amount of time being spent on the issue.

Trump signed legislation Nov. 19 requiring the release of the federal government’s records related to Jeffrey Epstein, who committed suicide in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The legislation set a 30-day deadline for the records to be released, and the Justice Department began making them public on Dec. 19. Hundreds of thousands of documents have been made available, but many more have yet to come out, prompting some lawmakers to accuse the Trump administration of violating the law.

The Justice Department said on Dec. 24 that the FBI and federal prosecutors found more than a million additional Epstein-related documents and that it would take weeks to review them.

“Now 1,000,000 more pages on Epstein are found,” Trump said in a Dec. 26 social media post. “DOJ is being forced to spend all of its time on this Democrat inspired Hoax. When do they say NO MORE.”

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A new year means a new parade of classic characters and works entering the public domain.

Under U.S. law, the copyright on thousands of creations from 1930 — including films, books, musical compositions and more — will expire at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2026, meaning they will be free to use, share and adapt after nearly a century.

"I think this is my favorite crop of works yet, which is saying a lot," says Jennifer Jenkins, the director of Duke University Law School's Center for the Study of the Public Domain, who has compiled an annual list of public domain entrants for over a decade.

This year's treasure trove features famous faces like the original Betty Boop — whose iconic hoop earrings originally took the form of floppy dog ears — and the initial version of Disney's Pluto, who first went by the name Rover.

"That's not only exciting in itself, but it's really an opportunity to look back at the history of these two incredible animation studios, Fleischer and Disney, and how their styles are imprinted in the DNA of today's cartoons," Jenkins says. "That's just a fun rabbit hole."

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Whatever the worst-case scenario, Janessa Goldbeck has probably imagined it. In 2023 the US marine veteran consulted on a documentary that war-gamed a presidential candidate staging a military coup. Last year she advised local leaders on the hypothetical of troops being deployed to their streets for immigration enforcement.

Then Donald Trump won and Goldbeck’s nightmare came true.

“It’s a little surreal to see something that we’ve been talking about and thinking about and stressing out about,” the chief executive of Vet Voice Foundation, a non-profit advocacy organisation, says via Zoom from her home in San Diego, California. “When we first did War Game, the film, some folks would ask during our press tour, ‘Do you think you’re scaring people? This feels a little hyperbolic?’ It doesn’t feel good to say I told you so in this moment.”

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has sought to politicise the military like no other commander-in-chief before him and use it as a cudgel against Democratic-led states and cities. He has deployed thousands of national guard troops to Chicago, Los Angeles, Memphis, New Orleans and Washington DC, triggering protests from local officials and residents.

Having read the Project 2025 policy document, Goldbeck saw this coming. Last year Vet Voice Foundation, which mobilises veterans and military families to defend US democracy, ran exercises with local elected officials, activists and journalists to prepare for a second Trump administration conducting aggressive immigration enforcement. It has now become a vital resource for governors, state attorneys general and mayors trying to weather the storm.

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Mudslides buried cars and homes up to their windows in a California mountain town as a powerful storm system brought the wettest Christmas in decades to the southern part of the state.

As much as 12in of rain fell across the area on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service, triggering flooding and washing out roads.

Local authorities issued an evacuation warning for Wrightwood, California, a town of just under 5,000 people around 80 miles (130km) north-east of Los Angeles, as images showed mud and debris engulfing homes and vehicles. The San Bernardino county fire department on Thursday night stated that one person was injured in the slide, but that weather conditions were expected to improve and there was no ongoing safety threat.

The town remained under an evacuation warning on Friday morning with some surrounding roads closed, according to the county’s emergency service system.

There was still a risk of more flash flooding and mudslides on Friday around Los Angeles, the National Weather Service warned, even as the rain began to ease up.

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A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deporting a British man who was recently placed on a visa ban after U.S. officials accused him and four other Europeans of online censorship.

Center for Countering Digital Hate CEOfiled a complaint Thursday against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi to prevent “the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest,” the lawsuit reads.

“The government’s actions are the latest in a string of escalating and unjustifiable assaults on the First Amendment and other rights, one that cannot stand basic legal scrutiny,” it continues. “Simply put, immigration enforcement—here, immigration detention and threatened deportation — may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express views disfavored by the current administration.”

The suit adds that Ahmed is a lawful permanent resident with a wife and son who are U.S. citizens.

The complaint cites other recent cases where foreign nationals on student visas, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, were stripped of their documentation and faced with deportation as “part of a larger pattern of attempted repression of constitutionally protected speech.”

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Pope Leo decried conditions for Palestinians in Gaza in his Christmas sermon, in an unusually direct appeal during what is normally a solemn, spiritual service on the day Christians across the globe celebrate the birth of Jesus.

Leo, the first U.S. pope, said the story of Jesus being born in a stable showed that God had "pitched his fragile tent" among the people of the world.

Leo, celebrating his first Christmas after being elected in May by the world's cardinals to succeed the late Pope Francis, has a more quiet, diplomatic style than his predecessor and usually refrains from making political references in his sermons.

"How, then, can we not think of the tents in Gaza, exposed for weeks to rain, wind and cold?" he asked.

Leo, celebrating his first Christmas after being elected in May by the world's cardinals to succeed the late Pope Francis, has a more quiet, diplomatic style than his predecessor and usually refrains from making political references in his sermons.

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Israel is working to gain as much independence as possible in its weapons production, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Wednesday, in a development he said was the result of the lessons learned during the past two years of war on multiple fronts.

“I approved, along with the defense minister and finance minister, a sum of NIS 350 billion [$108 billion] over the next decade to build an independent Israeli munitions industry,” Netanyahu said in an address at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots.

The move, he said, stemmed from a desire to “reduce our dependence on all players, including friends,” after allies including the US, UK, and Germany all imposed various restrictions on weapons sales to Israel since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Still, he noted, many countries around the world, including Germany, “want to buy from us more and more systems.”

The premier has long been calling for Israel to develop its own self-reliant military industry, and in January 2024 announced that the government would invest in a “multi-year plan to free Israel from dependence on external purchases.”

TVNL Comment:  Why has the US given billions of dollars to Israel every single year?  It's a rhetorical question. It's also insane.

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