TV News LIES

10-day pause in hostilities in Lebanon began on Thursday last week. 

But since then, Israeli army commanders have told Haaretz that systematic destruction of civilian buildings in southern villages was continuing to take place. 

The commanders said civilian engineering tools had been brought into the area, including excavators, and were being operated by paid Israeli civilian contractors. 

Some of these contractors were receiving a daily wage, while others were paid based on the scope of work and the number of buildings they destroyed.

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The image of the female soldier smiling with ingredients spread across the table was shared on Sunday by Bint Jbeil News, a Lebanese publisher. 

The image was reportedly taken in Bint Jbeil, the town in the Nabatiye governorate of southern Lebanon. 

“Violation in its full ‘elegance’,” the publisher captioned the picture on Instagram. “When the killer and occupier cook in the kitchen of the land’s people.” 

Diana Moukalled, a Lebanese journalist and filmmaker, said the image was an insult “to people’s memory [and] dignity”.Here we're talking about a house that still has its greenery, still has the life of its family, but they alone are the forcibly absent ones,” she wrote on X. 

“They are forbidden from returning, while a soldier from the occupation army enters the place, picks the produce, cooks, and laughs as if the house has no owners.

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In recent months, European expressions of concern over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have regularly hardened into outright condemnation. Last September, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed horror and outrage at aid restrictions that she said created a “man-made famine” in Gaza. Brussels has inveighed against settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank, which undermine the possibility of a viable Palestinian state. Responding to the bombing of Lebanon following the US-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said: “Israel’s right to self-defence does not justify this destruction.”

The angry words and exhortations have achieved nothing. Mr Netanyahu and his ministers have generally treated European critics with barely concealed contempt, presumably reassured by the fact that their chief allies in the White House tend to behave in exactly the same fashion. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner, and the academic benefits it confers through Israeli participation in the Horizon research programme are considerable. But internal disunity, and an overoptimistic faith in the power of persuasion, have led to a reluctance by the bloc to use those relationships as leverage.

Belatedly, there are indications that a change in approach may be coming. The recent election humiliation for Hungary’s outgoing prime minister, Viktor Orbán, was also a bad result for Mr Netanyahu, who lost an invaluable far-right ally. In February, Hungary was the only EU country to vote against the adoption of sanctions against violent settlers in the West Bank, blocking a measure requiring unanimity. Once Mr Orbán’s successor is in office, it is expected that the proposal will come back to the table.

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A Pennsylvania court on Monday said that the state’s constitution guarantees a right to abortion while striking down a decades-long law banning the use of state Medicaid funds to cover abortion costs.

The ruling by a divided seven-judge panel of the appellate-level commonwealth court is a major victory for Planned Parenthood and abortion clinic operators who first sued Pennsylvania over its Medicaid funding restrictions in 2019.

While the case initially centered over state Medicaid limitations, the stakes significantly expanded after the US supreme court in 2022 ended nearly a half-century of federal abortion protections by overturning Roe v Wade.

The court’s finding on Monday marks the first time that the right to an abortion is protected by the Pennsylvania constitution, joining a handful of states where reproductive rights advocates have found success in protecting abortion access by pointing to state constitutions.

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Rep. Clay Fuller (R-Ga.), who recently won a special election to replace the departed Marjorie Taylor Greene, seems to have inherited her knack for making news. And not always the good kind. (Watch the video below.)

In a rant (or major trolling job) on X Sunday griping about an air conditioner that shut off at a Maryland hotel while he slept, the Donald Trump-endorsed lawmaker falsely asserted that Georgia is named for George Washington (it’s named for King George II) and that Atlanta Braves star Ronald Acuña Jr. was born there (he’s from Venezuela).

He also erroneously called Maryland “newer to the union” (it’s one of the 13 original colonies) and appeared to taunt the University of Maryland for never winning an SEC title (it’s a member of the Big Ten conference after being in the ACC for many years) and for not having a football team at all (it does).

He also said that if University of Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton were born in Maryland, “he’d play some fake sport like lacrosse.”

Fuller got agitated by waking up in a Maryland hotel room that he said was too hot. He said he was then informed by the front desk that the motion-sensor air conditioning was shut off at night “because of an AOC Green New Deal thing.” While there may be a hotel or regional policy in place, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s environmental initiative was never passed.

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Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on Monday introduced an immigration bill he dubbed the “MAMDANI Act.”

The Measures Against Marxism’s Dangerous Adherents and Noxious Islamists Act proposes amending the Immigration and Nationality Act, which dictates federal immigration law, to allow for the deportation, denaturalization, denial of citizenship or entry to any migrant that is a member of a socialist party, communist party, the Chinese Communist Party or Islamic fundamentalist party.

It also proposes imposing such restrictions on any migrant who “advocates” for socialism, communism, Marxism or Islamic fundamentalism, a sweeping term that includes “writing, districting, circulating, printing, displaying, possessing, or publishing any written, electronic, or printed matter” in support of those ideologies, according to the bill’s text.

The acronym for the bill is a reference to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), a democratic socialist who was born in Uganda and moved to the city as a child. Mamdani, who is Muslim, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2018. 

The Hill has reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment.

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President Donald Trump's behavior and comments have long led political opponents to question his mental health, but now, the accusation that he is unhinged is coming from more than the usual liberal suspects in the past few weeks.

Prominent conservative pundits − from former Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and podcaster Candace Owens − are suggesting the president is unwell.

"I really think that his mental capacity needs to be examined," Marjorie Taylor Greene said on an April 15 appearance on CNN International.

The former Republican congresswoman from Georgia said she's been "shocked and horrified" at the president's recent rhetoric, such as his warning that "a whole civilization will die" and Iranians will be "living in Hell" if his demands aren't met.

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Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is leaving the Trump administration, the White House announced on April 20.

She is the third Cabinet member to depart this year. All are women. Her exit comes amid allegations of misconduct and after multiple outlets reported that an investigation into her leadership was well underway.

White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said in an X post that Chavez-DeRemer would be leaving the administration to take a job in the private sector. He did not say where.

"She has done a phenomenal job in her role by protecting American workers, enacting fair labor practices, and helping Americans gain additional skills to improve their lives," Cheung wrote.

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