TV News LIES

A US judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from setting up a nearly $1.8 billion fund to compensate victims of what Trump has called government “weaponization.”

The order by US District Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia blocks the Trump administration from “taking any further action” to set up or operate the fund while the judge hears additional legal arguments.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

The Justice Department announced the creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” last week as part of an agreement to settle Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax records.

It set up a $1.776 billion fund overseen by a five-member commission to dole out payments to those who they show they were victims of “lawfare” and “weaponization,” terms Trump and his allies have used to describe investigations and criminal cases against them.

Friday’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by a group who claimed to be targeted “by the Trump-Vance administration as ideological or political opponents” and alleged they would be ineligible for payouts from the fund.

The fund spurred a backlash, even from some lawmakers in Trump’s Republican Party, who expressed anger that some people who attacked the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, would receive taxpayer-funded payouts.

More...

The European Union has sanctioned four entities and three individuals it says are “extremist Israeli settlers” responsible for “serious” human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The EU said they had violated a range of rights, including the rights to physical and mental integrity, privacy and family life, freedom of religion and education.

The announcement on Thursday is part of an EU sanctions package agreed earlier this month to punish Israeli settlers and Hamas leaders.

The sanctions include the Nachala Settlement Movement and its director, Daniella Weiss. The EU says the group “encourages and facilitates coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians”.

Israeli NGO Regavim and its director, Meir Deutsch, are also on the sanctions list for lobbying “for the demolition of Palestinian property” in order to expand Israel’s control over the entirety of the West Bank, plus the demolition of an EU-funded Palestinian primary school.

More...

When the Israeli military repeated its displacement order for the entire city of Tyre (Sour) in southern Lebanon at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Ali Sleiman decided to head to the shore with his fishing poles to pass the time. Neither he nor his relatives and neighbors believed that their small corner of the city would be targeted by the Israeli military. A stretch of low-rise residential buildings that butt up against the Palestinian refugee camp of El-Buss, the area is primarily made up of working class residents, both Lebanese and Palestinian, along with displaced families from surrounding areas.

The airstrike came an hour later, shaking the earth and sending a thunderous boom throughout the city. Sleiman saw the cloud of smoke rise above his neighborhood and immediately left his supplies by the shore and sped home on his motorcycle. It was a direct hit on his family building. The strike had left a crater in the earth so deep that groundwater had begun to fill it. He screamed and dug through the rubble until he found his 82-year-old mother writhing in pain, her leg badly mangled. His brother’s lifeless body lay close by.

“I went crazy. I started shouting at the first responders, asking them where they were taking him,” Sleiman told Drop Site, his voice hoarse from breathing in the acrid smoke and fumes the day before. The airstrike killed three people, including his brother, Fadel, and injured at least 17 others. The entire residential block was destroyed.

More...

Despite Washington’s long-standing recognition of Jordan as the custodian of Muslim and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, Middle East Eye has reported that the US and Israel are “actively working” to dismantle this arrangement.

The failure of the war on Iran to achieve its goals, the upcoming US midterms this fall, and the Israeli legislative elections slated for October - which could take place even earlier if the coalition government falls - might be driving American and Israeli leaders to look for other “achievements”.

US President Donald Trump recently dangled another red herring, threatening not to sign a deal with Iran if Saudi Arabia and other countries do not join the Abraham Accords. 

Trump knows this is a no-go; it ignores the elephant in the room, addressed by the 2002 Saudi-led Arab Peace Initiative, which conditioned normalisation with Israel on a credible path to Palestinian statehood. Saudi Arabia has confirmed this position time and again.

More...

Israel’s plans to explore for gas off the coast of Gaza have drawn condemnation from rights groups and environmental advocates.

Since 2024, Israel has granted exploration licences for natural gas in areas considered part of Palestine’s maritime boundary off Gaza’s shores.

In February, energy minister Eli Cohen approved Israel’s fifth offshore gas licensing round in the Mediterranean.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, the plan would allow energy companies to explore around 8,600 square kilometres of sea, divided into six search zones.

Adalah, a Haifa-based legal centre focused on Palestinian rights, said two of the six zones fall within recognised Palestinian maritime territory off Gaza. The group said Israel’s previous offshore licensing round had also encroached on Palestinian waters.

In a letter sent last month to Cohen and Israel’s attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, Adalah argued the new licensing round was illegal because around 1,000 square kilometres of the designated area lie in waters claimed by the State of Palestine. The group urged the government to halt the exploration plans.

The letter, shared with Middle East Eye, said Israel “has no authority to operate” in Palestinian maritime areas, adding that exploration there would breach both Israeli and international law.

More...

US President Donald Trump has threatened or used force against countries representing roughly one in 11 people worldwide, according to a CNN analysis.

The report followed Trump’s remarks during a White House Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, where he warned Oman over tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route.

“Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ‘em up,” Trump said.

The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 20% of global oil shipments, has faced growing risks amid tensions in the Middle East.

According to The Guardian, the comments came amid reports that Iran and Oman have discussed possible arrangements involving control or fees for shipping through the strait.

“The Strait is going to be open to everybody,” Trump said while discussing regional tensions. “Nobody’s going to control it.”

CNN said US forces have conducted strikes in multiple countries during Trump’s presidency, including Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

Oman is at least the 15th country Trump has threatened, suggested he could attack, or targeted militarily during his time in office.

More...

Many people in the workplace struggle with expense reports and imposter syndrome. And then, according to the FBI, there is David J. Rush -- a former CIA official who is accused of taking gold bars and bulk cash to his Virginia home while also allegedly lying about his education and military service, according to federal court records.

Rush, a former senior executive service-level CIA employee in Virginia, was arrested on May 19, after FBI agents searching his home seized more than 300 1-kilogram gold bars valued at more than $40 million, according to an affidavit from FBI Special Agent Matthew T. Johnson, who works in the counterintelligence division of the FBI's Washington field office.

"FBI agents also seized approximately $2 million in United States currency," the document states. "Finally, FBI agents seized approximately 35 luxury watches, many of which were Rolex brand."

Rush, who is listed as living in Ashburn, Va., is charged with a felony count of theft of public money, according to court documents. He remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service after his request for release on bond was denied. He has not entered a plea.

More...

The White House is pushing Congress to approve a $250 bill bearing Donald Trump’s portrait, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said, which would require changing longstanding federal law that prohibits any living person from appearing on US currency.

Speaking from the White House at a news conference, Bessent said the bill would be in celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, and that the treasury has already started preparing for the possibility of the new currency.

“As treasury secretary, I have two mandates for US currency at present: that no living person can be on US currency, and the currency must say ‘In God we trust’,” Bessent said. “So, right now, there isproposed legislation in front of the House, in front of the Senate, to change the first requirement, so that a living person – Donald J Trump – could be on the $250 bill.”

The Washington Post reported that two of Trump’s political appointees at the treasury had pushed staff to start preparing prototypes of a $250 bill with Trump’s image, raising concerns that doing so would breach federal law.

More...