TV News LIES

Thick fog has enabled Russian troops to move further into the key strategic city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine's 7th Airborne Assault Corps says weather conditions, particularly dense fog, have prompted Moscow to intensify its bid to get increasing numbers into the ruined city and encircle Ukrainian forces.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx276px3280o
Russian forces have spent more than a year trying to seize the city. Ukraine's military says there may now be 300-500 Russians there and President Voloydymyr Zelensky says the situation remains difficult.

Meanwhile, army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi says the situation on the front line in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region has "significantly worsened", with the loss of three settlements.

Syrskyi said however that Russia was most active around Pokrovsk. A video has gone viral on social media showing Russian soldiers openly driving through a hazy road on civilian cars and motorbikes.

The BBC has verified the location where the video was filmed as the southern outskirts of the town on the Selidove-Pokrovsk highway.

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More than a thousand Starbucks workers have commenced a strike in more than 40 cities across the US on Thursday amid stagnant negotiations with the world’s largest coffee chain over a first union contract.

On the company’s annual “red cup day”, hailing the start of the lucrative holiday season, Starbucks Workers United is launching an unfair labor practice (ULP) strike, with rallies planned in locations including New York City; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Chicago, Illinois; Columbus, Ohio; and Anaheim, California.

About 65 stores are initially affected. Organizers plan to expand the strike to more locations should executives hold firm – and want customers to steer clear of the chain as part of a campaign dubbed “no contract, no coffee”.

Starbucks said it was “disappointed” that Workers United had voted to strike, rather than continue bargaining, but insisted the “vast majority” of stores would be unaffected by the action. The company stands accused of “stonewalling” at the table by union offiorecials.

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Seven people detained at California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center have sued the US government, alleging they have been denied essential medications, frequently go hungry and are housed in a “decrepit” facility.

The federal class-action complaint filed against ICE on Wednesday challenges the “inhumane conditions” at the California City detention center, which opened in late August inside a shuttered state prison. The suit alleges “life-threatening” medical neglect, with the plaintiffs saying they have been denied cancer treatment, basic disability accommodations and regular insulin for diabetes.

The facility is run by CoreCivic, a private prison corporation, which is not a named defendant.

Residents have raised alarms about the facility for two months, with some describing it as a “torture chamber” and “hell on earth” in interviews.

California City is located in the remote Mojave desert, 100 miles (160km) north-east of Los Angeles. It can hold more than 2,500 people, increasing ICE’s California detention capacity by 36%. It currently detains more than 800 people, lawyers say.

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The US state department has announced that it will designate four European self-described anti-fascist groups as Foreign Terrorist Organisations, as the Trump administration broadens its campaign against what it portrays as an international wave of leftist violence.

In a public statement on Thursday, the state department said it would designate Antifa Ost in Germany, the Italy-based International Revolutionary Front, and two organisations in Greece – Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self Defense – as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists … conspiring to undermine the foundations of Western Civilization through their brutal attacks”.

The designation was the first time that “antifa” groups had been deemed a foreign terrorist threat, allowing law enforcement to use more aggressive techniques to oppose them. It also could extend to those deemed leftist supporters of the groups in the United States, allowing federal authorities to use similar surveillance and financial oversight tools against US citizens.

“Groups affiliated with this movement ascribe to revolutionary anarchist or Marxist ideologies, including anti-Americanism, ‘anti-capitalism’ and anti-Christianity, using these to incite and justify violent assaults domestically and overseas,” the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said in a statement.

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In a social media post, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, just announced “Operation Southern Spear”, a new military mission apparently signaling that the war on drugs could soon be an actual war.

“President Trump ordered action — and the Department of War is delivering. Today, I’m announcing Operation SOUTHERN SPEAR. Led by Joint Task Force Southern Spear and [US Southern Command],” Hegseth wrote on X.

This mission, he added, “defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood – and we will protect it.”

He offered no other details, as strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and a massing of forces in the region have prompted widespread speculation that US military strikes on Venezuela are imminent.

The US Southern Command (Southcom) is the US military’s combatant command that encompasses 31 countries through South and Central America and the Caribbean.

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Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was hospitalized on Thursday after suffering facial injuries from a fall during a walk near his home in Western Pennsylvania.

According to a Fetterman spokesperson, the Pennsylvania Democrat was transported to a Pittsburgh hospital “out of an abundance of caution.”

“During an early morning walk, Senator Fetterman sustained a fall near his home in Braddock,” the spokesperson said.

“Upon evaluation, it was established he had a ventricular fibrillation flare-up that led to Senator Fetterman feeling light-headed, falling to the ground and hitting his face with minor injuries,” the spokesperson added. “He is doing well and receiving routine observation at the hospital. He has opted to stay so doctors can fine-tune his medication regimen.”

The spokesperson also noted that Fetterman made a self-deprecating joke about his face following the fall.

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Israel's president on Wednesday condemned what he called a “shocking and serious” attack by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, calling for an end to a growing wave of settler violence in the occupied territory.

President Isaac Herzog's comments added a powerful voice to what has been muted criticism by top Israeli officials of the settler violence. Herzog's position, while largely ceremonial, is meant to serve as a moral compass and unifying force for the country.

Herzog said the violence committed by a “handful” of perpetrators “crosses a red line," adding in a social media post that “all state authorities must act decisively to eradicate the phenomenon and to strengthen the IDF fighters and security forces who protect us day and night."

His remarks came after dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian villages of Beit Lid and Deir Sharaf in the West Bank on Tuesday, setting fire to vehicles and other property before clashing with Israeli soldiers.

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Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., a longtime civil rights leader and former U.S. presidential candidate, has been hospitalized, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition announced Nov. 12.

Jackson, 84, was admitted to a hospital on Nov. 12 and is under observation for progressive supranuclear palsy, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. The civil rights organization said Jackson has been managing the rare neurodegenerative disease for more than a decade. 

"The family appreciates all prayers at this time," the organization said in a news release.

Jackson was initially diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which he announced in a letter to his supporters in 2017, according to the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. But his diagnosis was confirmed to be progressive supranuclear palsy last April.

Jackson had previously been hospitalized in August 2021 after testing positive for COVID-19 and again in November 2021 after falling and hitting his head at Howard University, Reuters reported at the time.

The civil rights leader, who emerged from the Civil Rights Movement to fight for causes ranging from gender equality to economic and social justice, stepped down as president of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 2023. The organization had evolved from Operation PUSH, which Jackson founded in 1971.

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