TV News LIES

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly blocked the promotion of two Black and two female Army officers to be one-star generals.

The New York Times reported Friday that Hegseth for months pressed senior Army leaders, including Secretary Dan Driscoll, to remove the officers’ names but was repeatedly refused. Then earlier this month, Hegseth struck the names from the list, which is being reviewed by the White House before being sent to the Senate for final approval.

Asked about the report, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell called it “full of fake news from anonymous sources who have no idea what they’re talking about and are far removed from actual decision-makers within the Pentagon.”

He did not address Hegseth’s decision to pull the four officers from the promotion list, only saying that promotions “are given to those who have earned them.”

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Pro-Iran hackers published more than 300 emails and photos Friday from what appears to be a personal email account for FBI Director Kash Patel.

In a statement, an FBI spokesman acknowledged the Iranian campaign. "The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information, and we have taken all necessary steps to mitigate potential risks associated with this activity. The information in question is historical in nature and involves no government information," the spokesman said.

The hacking group, called Handala, indicated on its website that the leak was in retaliation after the FBI and Justice Department seized several of its websites last week, accusing the group of “psychological operations” and saying it was a front for Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. The State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Iranian hackers threatening U.S. critical infrastructure.

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Over the past few days, amid the US-Israeli war on Iran, Israeli settlers are reported to have launched a wave of violence in the occupied West Bank.

Since the start of the war on February 28, masked settlers have allegedly killed at least five Palestinians, injured many residents, sexually assaulted and paraded one man, burned cars and homes, and rampaged through villages, according to Reuters reports citing eyewitnesses and rights groups.

While settler violence is hardly new in the West Bank, the latest surge has been enabled by the curbs on movement imposed during the war on Iran, with military roadblocks preventing ambulances from reaching victims quickly, Reuters said.

West Bank — located to the west of the Jordan river — is a part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories along with Gaza. The latest round of violence comes amid the Israeli government’s push for new settlements on the territory “as attention shifts to the Iran war”, according to an Associated Press report.

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A British judge has ordered the UK home secretary to “get on with” explaining her opposition to Hamas's appeal to be removed from the list of proscribed terrorist organisations.

Hamas, currently proscribed in the UK, is appealing against this designation before the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (POAC), an independent tribunal.

Last April, Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s foreign relations office, instructed British lawyers to appeal against the UK’s 2021 decision by former Home Secretary Priti Patel to designate the movement as a terrorist organisation.

Four months later, in August 2025, Hamas lodged a second appeal to POAC after former UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper rejected the group’s request to be taken off the list of banned groups.

During Thursday’s proceedings, Justice Jonathan Swift, the chair of POAC, told government lawyers to respond to Hamas's appeal and to “clearly explain any reasons for delay” by 20 May.

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Russia is reportedly completing a shipment of drones, medicine, and food to Iran, signaling a potential escalation in support for Tehran following recent US and Israeli strikes.

According to the Financial Times (FT), Russian and Iranian officials began secretly discussing drone deliveries days after US attacks on Tehran, with shipments already underway in early March and expected to be finalized by the end of the month.

If confirmed, the transfer of drones would mark the first known instance of Moscow providing lethal military support to Iran since the start of the conflict.

Western intelligence sources cited by the FT suggest Russia is aiming not only to bolster Iran’s battlefield capabilities but also to help stabilize the regime politically amid mounting pressure.

Publicly, Moscow says it is providing humanitarian support to Tehran, noting that more than 13 tonnes of medicine have already been delivered via Azerbaijan, with further shipments planned.

Privately, however, Russia has reportedly provided Tehran with satellite imagery, targeting data, and intelligence support, according to FT sources familiar with the matter.

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A new COVID-19 variant, BA.3.2, has been detected in 25 states, according to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new variant was first found in South Africa in November 2024 and has since spread to at least 23 countries; it accounts for 30% of current COVID-19 cases in certain parts of Europe.

BA.3.2 was first identified in the United States in January 2026 and currently makes up less than 1% of cases in the country, according to Dr. Abraar Karan, an instructor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California.

“In the U.S., it has been detected in wastewater across multiple states which suggests low-level spread, but it has not emerged as the dominant variant,” Dr. Syra Madad, an epidemiologist and author of the Substack Critical Health Voices, told HuffPost via email. (The current dominant variant in the U.S. is XFG, according to CDC data.)

While COVID-19 levels are low throughout most of the country, this variant is capturing researchers’ attention for a reason. Here’s what to know:

“BA.3.2 is a newer SARS-CoV-2 variant that public health officials are watching closely because it has a large number of spike protein mutations, which may help it partially evade immunity from prior infection or vaccination,” said Madad.

“It does have more mutations than some other variants ... in the spike protein, which is particularly relevant for various proxies of whether this could cause more problems to humans,” Karan said.

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A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security and cutting off the AI company’s work with federal agencies.

Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies this month after the Pentagon labeled it a "supply-chain risk to national security." President Donald Trump said he would also ban the use of Anthropic’s products across other federal agencies.

“Defendants’ designation of Anthropic as a 'supply chain risk' is likely both contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious,” U.S. District Judge Rita Lin of Northern California wrote in her order Thursday night. “The Department of War provides no legitimate basis to infer from Anthropic’s forthright insistence on usage restrictions that it might become a saboteur.”

Lin paused her order for a week to allow the administration time to appeal.

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A Democratic lawmaker has asked a federal judge to stop the Kennedy Center from sticking President Trump’s name on its building and other branding.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex officio member of the performing arts center’s board of trustees, argued in a motion filed Wednesday that Congress plainly established former President Kennedy as the center’s eponym.

“There is no clearer or more significant breach of fiduciary duty than the Board flouting the central purpose of the institution it is charged with protecting and which Congress enshrined into law: to maintain the Center as a memorial to John F. Kennedy — and to no one else,” her lawyers wrote in a motion for partial summary judgment.

Beatty sued Trump and other board members in December over efforts to “rename, shutter and gut” the Kennedy Center. Her lawsuit came days after the board, hand-picked by Trump, voted to change the institution’s name to include Trump’s, and the building’s signage was updated.

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