TV News LIES

A Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chornobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, the plant’s director has told AFP.

Kyiv has accused Russia of repeatedly targeting the facility, the site of a 1986 meltdown that is still the world’s worst ever nuclear disaster, since Moscow invaded in February 2022.

In an interview with AFP, plant director Sergiy Tarakanov said fully restoring that shelter could take three to four years, and warned that another Russian hit could see the inner shell collapse.

“If a missile or drone hits it directly, or even falls somewhere nearby, for example, an Iskander, God forbid, it will cause a mini-earthquake in the area,” Tarakanov told AFP in an interview conducted last week.

The Iskander is Russia’s short-range ballistic missile system that can carry a variety of conventional warheads, including those to destroy bunkers.

“No one can guarantee that the shelter facility will remain standing after that. That is the main threat,” he added.

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The Trump administration will resume garnishing wages from student loan borrowers in default in early 2026, the U.S. Education Department confirmed to NPR.

The move comes after a years-long pause in wage garnishment due to the pandemic.

"We expect the first notices to be sent to approximately 1,000 defaulted borrowers the week of January 7," a department spokesperson told NPR. The spokesperson said wage garnishment notices are expected to increase on a monthly basis throughout the year.

A borrower is in default when they have not made loan payments in more than 270 days. Once that happens, the federal government can try to collect on the debt by seizing tax refunds and Social Security benefits, and also by ordering an employer to withhold up to 15% of a borrower's pay. Borrowers should receive a 30-day notice from the Education Department before this wage garnishment begins.

Betsy Mayotte, the president and founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, says even though borrowers have expected this, the timing is unfortunate.

"It will coincide with the increase in health care costs for many of these defaulted borrowers," she said, referring to the premium increases for Affordable Care Act health insurance that kick in in 2026. "The two will almost certainly put significant economic strain on low and middle income borrowers."

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People examining documents released by the Department of Justice in the Jeffrey Epstein case discovered that some of the file redaction can be undone with Photoshop techniques, or by simply highlighting text to paste into a word processing file.

Un-redacted text from these documents began circulating through social media on Monday evening. An exhibit in a civil case in the Virgin Islands against Darren K Indyke and Richard D Kahn, two executors of Epstein’s estate, contains redacted allegations explaining how Epstein and his associates had facilitated the sexual abuse of children. The exhibit was the second amended complaint in the state case against Indyke and Kahn.

In section 85, the redacted portion states: “Between September 2015 and June 2019, Indyke signed (FAC) for over $400,000 made payable to young female models and actresses, including a former Russian model who received over $380,000 through monthly payments of $8,333 made over a period of more than three and a half years until the middle of 2019.”

Prosecutors in the Virgin Islands settled its civil sex-trafficking case against Epstein’s estate, Indyke and Kahn in 2022 for $105m, plus one half of the proceeds from the sale of Little St James, the island on which Epstein resided and on which many of his crimes occurred. The justice department press release announcing the settlement did not include an admission of liability.

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The documents were released overnight on Tuesday and include a claim that Donald Trump was on a flight with Epstein and a 20-year-old woman in the 1990s. There is no indication that the woman was a victim of any crime and being included in the files does not indicate any criminal wrongdoing.

The files also include a series of emails between Ghislaine Maxwell and someone who signs himself as “A” and uses the alias “The Invisible Man”. In August 2001, “A” wrote to Maxwell: “I am up here at Balmoral Summer Camp for the Royal Family”.

Emails show Maxwell discussing arranging “girls” and “two-legged sight seeing” for a man identified in the correspondence as “The Invisible Man”, who is widely believed to be Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. In a February 2002 email exchange about a proposed trip to Peru, Maxwell forwards messages from Juan Estoban Ganoza outlining possible activities, including visiting the Nazca Lines.

The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley and the ex-US Treasury secretary Larry Summers were appointed as executors of Epstein’s estate, according to a newly released tranche of documents linked to the now-deceased child sex offender.

Included in the batch of files was a now-deleted fake video that appeared to depict Epstein attempting to end his life. Also in the trove are photos of the fake Austrian passport uncovered from a safe during a 2019 FBI raid of Epstein’s home in Manhattan. There is also a 2021 subpoena to the Mar-a-Lago Club relating to the federal investigation into Maxwell. Also revealed was that the FBI sought to question Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor about his links to a second millionaire sex offender, Peter Nygard.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs can no longer provide abortions to veterans, including in cases of rape or incest, following a Department of Justice memo that found last week that the practice was not legally sound.

The ban follows months of efforts by the Trump administration to roll back a Biden-era policy that, for the first time, permitted the VA to counsel veterans and their families about abortion, as well as offer the procedure in cases of rape or incest, or when a veteran’s pregnancy imperiled their health.

In August, the administration filed paperwork to officially roll back the policy, which had helped the VA’s network of 1,300-plus healthcare facilities – which treat nearly 10 million veterans each year – expand access to abortion, especially in the wake of the US supreme court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade.

That paperwork is still working its way through the lengthy rule-making process, a VA spokesperson confirmed.

“DOJ’s opinion states that VA is not legally authorized to provide abortions, and VA is complying with it immediately,” Peter Kasperowicz, VA press secretary, said in an emailed statement. “DOJ’s opinion is consistent with VA’s proposed rule.”

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An explosion at a nursing home just outside Philadelphia collapsed part of the building and has left at least two people dead, and five others unaccounted for. The exact number of those injured and trapped inside has yet to be announced, authorities said.

The electric company Peco said in a statement that crews responded to reports of a gas odor at the site around 2pm. “While crews were on site, an explosion occurred at the facility,” the statement said. “PECO crews shut off natural gas and electric service to the facility to ensure the safety of first responders and local residents.”

A plume of black smoke rose from Silver Lake healthcare center in Bristol Township as emergency responders across the region gathered there.

Police for Upper Makefield Township posted on social media that it was a “mass casualty incident” and warned people to avoid the area in Bristol, about 25 miles (40km) north-east of Philadelphia.

County officials said they received the report of an explosion at approximately 2.17pm and said a portion of the building was reported to have collapsed. Ruth Miller, a Pennsylvania emergency management agency spokesperson, said her agency had been informed that people were trapped inside.

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Former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) announced Tuesday he has been diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

The former two-term senator, 53, wrote in a lengthy social media post that he received the diagnosis last week.

“This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die,” Sasse continued. “Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.”

“I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, ‘Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.’ Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all,” he added.

The Nebraska Republican added, “I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight.”

“One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more,” he wrote near the end of the post. “Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.”

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The Supreme Court won’t let President Donald Trump deploy National Guard troops in Chicago for now, the first time the high court has weighed in on the president’s efforts to use the military to enforce immigration laws and fight crime in cities led by Democrats.

In a rare loss for Trump at the high court, the justices on Dec. 23 kept in place a hold that a lower court placed on the use of troops while litigation over the administration’s actions continues.

In an unsigned opinion, the court’s majority said the Trump administration “failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.”

And the president can’t rely on “inherent constitutional authority,” the majority said. Three of the court’s six conservatives – Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch – dissented.

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