TV News LIES

A hacking group aligned with Iran said it obtained at least 19,000 sensitive files after targeting the personal phone of former Israeli army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.

In a statement posted on its website on Thursday, the Handala Hack Team said it carried out a years-long operation against Halevi, gaining access to what it described as "more than 19,000 confidential images and videos from the most secret meetings".

"All your top-secret facilities, crisis rooms, maps, and even the tiniest details of your command centers have long been like an open book to us," the group said.

Marking what could be one of the most severe cyber incidents involving a senior figure in Israel's security establishment, the files, some of which were seen by Middle East Eye, showed Halevi meeting with Arab officials.

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Israel’s cabinet has secretly approved a record number of new settlements in the occupied West Bank, according to the Israeli news channel i24NEWS.

Amid the war on Iran, the government ratified 34 new settlements in a single decision – more than half the total approved during the previous record-setting year of 2025.

Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are widely regarded as illegal under international law.

Sources told i24NEWS that the Israeli army’s chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, who attended the meeting, did not explicitly oppose the plan but expressed concerns over limited personnel and suggested phasing the rollout to a smaller number of sites at a time.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a ceasefire with Ukraine for the duration of the Orthodox Easter holidays, the Kremlin said Thursday, after Kyiv also proposed a pause in hostilities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that he had passed a holiday truce proposal via the US, as talks to end the four-year conflict were derailed by the Middle East war.  

“A ceasefire is declared from 16:00 (13:00 GMT) on 11 April until the end of the day on 12 April 2026” by Putin, “in connection with the approaching Orthodox feast of Easter,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

The General Staff “have been instructed to cease combat operations in all directions for this period,” the Kremlin said, adding that troops were ready to “counter any possible provocations by the enemy.”

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Amber lava exploded over 200 meters into the air as Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, located on Hawaii’s Big Island, erupted on Thursday.

Lava fountains began to erupt from the volcano after 11 am local time, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). On Thursday evening, plumes of smoke and lava pouring downslope were observable on a livestream camera. So far, the episode has produced 3.6 million cubic yards of lava, USGS said.

The Hawaii Volcanoes national park, a popular tourist destination for those curious to spot volcanic activity, was closed on Thursday due to the eruption.

The National Park Service cautioned visitors to wear long sleeves, long pants and eye protection to minimize exposure to volcanic ash or tephra, small glassy volcanic fragments.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/09/hawaii-kilauea-volcano-eruption

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U.S. military survivors of an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait have accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of overstating how protected their unit was.

On March 1, six soldiers were killed and more than 20 wounded when an Iranian drone strike hit an operations center in the heart of a civilian port in Kuwait, miles away from the main Army base.

The Iranian attack was the deadliest suffered by the U.S. since the war began.

But one of the injured soldiers told CBS News that Hegseth's suggestion that the drone slipped through the defenses of a fortified position — an apparent "squirter" — was false.

They told the broadcaster the unit "was unprepared to provide any defense for itself. It was not a fortified position."

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A California philosophy lecturer accused of assaulting federal agents after removing a tear gas canister from a crowd — the same canister that a U.S. Border Patrol agent had thrown at protesters during an immigration raid — was found not guilty by a jury on Thursday.

Jonathan Caravello, 38, faced up to 20 years in prison if he was convicted of the charge. The verdict is the latest blow to the Trump administration, which has thrown baseless assault charges at people who protest its mass deportation operations — but has repeatedly failed to secure convictions.

By the government’s own admission, no federal agent was hit or harmed by the canister, which flew over the heads of agents and landed far behind them. Prosecutors argued instead that Caravello threatened and intended to harm agents, although they failed to identify a specific individual who was supposedly at risk of being harmed. Caravello’s attorney presented evidence that Border Patrol agents deployed tear gas indiscriminately at peaceful protesters and observers without reason or warning, and that Caravello was acting in self-defense when he threw the canister away from the crowd.

The jury returned their verdict after roughly two hours of deliberation.

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The Pentagon has denied threatening the Vatican during a late January meeting with the Holy See’s then-envoy to the U.S., as Pope Leo XIV has warned against the growing use of military action in recent months.

The Pentagon’s policy office head, Elbridge Colby, met with Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s former diplomat to the U.S., on Jan. 22 at the Pentagon, during which he warned the then-envoy that the U.S. military has the “power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side,” The Free Press reported Monday.

The outlet, citing unnamed sources, reported that a U.S. official raised the threat of the “Avignon Papacy,” referencing the period from 1309 to 1376, when France’s King Philip IV captured the Pope and subsequent popes resided in Avignon instead of Rome.

The Pentagon slammed the report as “grossly false and distorted,” saying that Colby had a “substantive, respectful and professional” meeting with Pierre and his team.

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The Pentagon is obstructing reporters and defying an earlier court order that required it to restore access to credentialed journalists covering the Department of Defense (DOD), a U.S. judge in Washington ruled Thursday — a blow to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s attempts to limit media access.

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said Defense officials must comply with his order from March 20 that sided with The New York Times and found the Pentagon’s press policy from last year to be unconstitutional, ordering Pentagon officials to reinstate the press credentials of Times reporters and all others who cover the U.S. military from the building.

The Pentagon said it plans to appeal Thursday’s ruling.

“The Department disagrees with the Court’s ruling and intends to appeal,” Pentagon chief spokesperson Sean Parnell said to The Hill’s partner NewsNation. “The Department has at all times complied with the Court’s Order — it reinstated the PFACs of every journalist identified in the Order and issued a materially revised policy that addressed every concern the Court identified in its March 20 Opinion. The Department remains committed to press access at the Pentagon while fulfilling its statutory obligation to ensure the safe and secure operation of the Pentagon Reservation.”

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