TV News LIES

The trajectories of Palestinian and Israeli cinema have diverged sharply since 7 October and the subsequent war in Gaza. 

While Palestinian stories have gained unprecedented global visibility, culminating in the Oscar win for No Other Land in 2025 and the nomination of The Voice of Hind Rajab this year, Israeli films have, by contrast, faced increasing barriers to circulation.

Many have been sidelined by festivals and distributors amid growing discontent that has, in some cases, taken the form of an informal boycott.

Films supported by state-backed institutions, such as the Israel Film Fund, have come under heightened scrutiny from international bodies, often wary of criticism from pro-Palestinian groups and human rights organisations.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the appointment of Yehuda Eliyahu on Monday.

A long-time associate of Smotrich, Eliyahu previously headed the Settlement Administration within the defence ministry, where he oversaw the largest Israeli land grab in the West Bank in recent memory.

His selection was approved last week by a public appointments committee, though not unanimously. 

The committee’s legal adviser opposed the move, arguing that Eliyahu’s decades-long personal relationship with Smotrich posed a conflict of interest.

The Israel Land Authority oversees around 92 percent of state land - roughly 20 million dunams - and manages a budget worth billions of shekels. It plays a central role in land allocation for housing, infrastructure and development projects, and is also involved in administering land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

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Russian attacks killed 22 people in cities across Ukraine on Tuesday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Moscow’s “utter cynicism” for launching deadly strikes while seeking a truce to stage its May 9 patriotic parade.

In Zaporizhzhia, a southern city close to the front line, 12 people were killed in what Zelensky described in the post as a guided aerial bomb attack with “absolutely no military justification.” Seven people remained hospitalized, while 37 people were affected overall.

“It was a guided aerial bomb attack that directly targeted the city’s civilian infrastructure. The Russians show no restraint in destroying human life,” he said.

Russian forces also struck Dnipro in the evening, killing four people, Zelensky confirmed.

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Democrat Chedrick Greene has won a special state Senate election in Michigan, NBC News projects, ensuring his party will keep control of the closely divided chamber.

Greene, a Marine veteran and firefighter, defeated Republican Jason Tunney, a former prosecutor, in the special election to replace Democratic U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet, who resigned from the state Senate after she was elected to Congress in 2024.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/democrats-keep-control-michigan-state-senate-special-election-win-rcna343690Greene’s victory means Democrats will hold a 20-18 majority in the Senate. Democrats also control the governorship in Michigan, a key battleground state, while Republicans have a 58-52 edge in the state House.

The result continues a special election trend during President Donald Trump’s second term of Democrats’ outperforming former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race.

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House Democrats have asked the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to publicly announce that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, arguing that Washington must end decades of ambiguity over the issue amid the conflict with Iran.

In a letter sent on Monday, 30 Democrats wrote that it was unsustainable for Donald Trump to collaborate with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on a military campaign against Iran – with the stated goal of preventing the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon – without publicly acknowledging the US ally’s possession of the bomb.

“We are, in the fullest sense, fighting this war side by side with a country whose potential nuclear weapons program the United States government officially refuses to acknowledge,” reads the letter, which was led by the Texas Democrat Joaquin Castro.

“Congress has a constitutional responsibility to be fully informed about the nuclear balance in the Middle East, the risk of escalation by any party to this conflict, and the administration’s planning and contingencies for such scenarios. We do not believe we have received that information.”

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The US military said on Tuesday it had struck a vessel in the eastern Pacific, killing three people, in the latest such attack that rights groups label as “extrajudicial killings” and Washington describes as targeting “narco-terrorists”.

US Southern Command posted about the strike on social media Tuesday evening, alleging that the vessel struck on Tuesday was operated by “Designated Terrorist Organizations” that it did not identify.

No US military forces were harmed, Southern Command said. It described those killed as “male narco-terrorists”, without offering details or evidence.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” the post read.

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President Donald Trump’s costly White House ballroom continues to stir outrage after a newly released proposal confirmed that Senate Republicans are seeking $1 billion from taxpayers for the project — despite prior claims that construction would be privately funded.

The reconciliation package that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released on Monday focuses on federal law enforcement, border security and the ballroom — which the White House said last year would cost $200 million to build.

Critics on social media blasted the project’s inflating cost.

“The ballroom went from $200 million & privately funded, to $300 million, to $400 million and taxpayers cover some of it, to MAGA trying to silently jam through $1 BILLION, 100% of which is our tax money, for this ballroom,” wrote one X user. “WASTE, FRAUD, AND ABUSE.”

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The State Department on Tuesday officially terminated the employment of approximately 200 foreign service members as part of a reduction in force (RIF), part of more than 1,300 layoffs at the agency over the past year.

State framed the layoffs as part of what the Trump administration describes as an “historic” reorganization at the agency.

But terminated foreign and civil service officers and their supporters – Democratic lawmakers in particular – allege that these firings are illegal because they targeted employees in their temporary positions.

Foreign Service Officers (FSO) are classified as commissioned officers, ranked in their experience and trained as a flexible, nonpartisan, world-wide workforce to address the needs of the department as they evolve, and when an administration changes.

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