TV News LIES

New documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) reveal that a number of European officials had ties to Jeffrey Epstein, even after he was a convicted sex offender. 

Peter Mandelson, the former U.K. Ambassador to the U.S. who was sacked by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last September over his connection to the disgraced financier, resigned from the House of Lords on Tuesday after emails showed the two communicated in the years following Epstein pleading guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute in 2008.

In December 2009, Epstein asked Mandelson, at the time the first secretary of state, via email whether JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon should call Alistair Darling, then the U.K.’s chancellor of exchequer and head of the British treasury, to offer to contribute more money to a small business fund in exchange for a tax reduction during the global financial crisis.

Mandelson replied, “Yes and mildly threaten.”

Starmer said Thursday that Mandelson “portrayed Epstein as someone he barely knew” before he appointed him as ambassador to the U.S. But in a 10-page note Mandelson wrote to Epstein in 2003, he called the financier his “best pal.”

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The Trump administration on Thursday finalized a rule that gives it the power to more easily fire an estimated 50,000 federal workers who focus on policy, striking many civil service safeguards while also gutting their whistleblower protections.

The rule, dubbed Schedule Policy/Career, converts a wide swath of federal workers into a status similar to that of political appointees who can be fired at will.

Federal worker unions have staunchly opposed the switch, casting it as a way for President Trump to politicize a workforce tapped for its expertise to neutrally carry out their role across administrations.

The administration has been clear that the goal of the rule is to more easily fire workers it argues are hindering Trump policies — a nod to the president’s claims of a “Deep State” within the federal government trying to undermine him.

“This is not about people’s views or ideas. This is about whether they are refusing to actually affect their duties on behalf of the American people consistent with the objectives of this administration,” said Scott Kupor, director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which promulgated the rule.

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Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for her upcoming testimony before the House Oversight Committee to be made public in a congressional probe of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In a pair of social media posts on Feb. 5, the former first lady and Democratic presidential candidate railed against the committee and Republican lawmakers whom she said had "ignored" previous testimony by her and former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton said that they had engaged with the committee in "good faith," but the goalposts kept moving in what she called "an exercise in distraction."

"We told them what we know, under oath," Hillary Clinton said on X, alluding to their submitted sworn statements to the committee in January, mentioned in a widely circulated letter about the couple's initual refusal to testify in person. "They ignored all of it."

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The U.S. has yet to secure funding commitments for its Gaza reconstruction plan as potential donors voice concerns that disagreements over Hamas disarmament could lead Israel to resume full-scale war in the enclave, sources told Reuters.

Hamas laying down its weapons is a key requirement under Donald Trump's plan to end the Gaza war. It calls for Israel's military to withdraw troops as Hamas disarms and for Gaza's reconstruction to be overseen by a "Board of Peace" chaired by the U.S. President.

Funding withheld over fears of war restarting, sources say
Push for UN, not Board, to run Gaza funds, diplomats say
No major pledges; Gulf, West hesitate

Two sources with direct knowledge of the Board's planning said that countries were hesitant to commit funds to a rebuilding plan unveiled last month by Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, until Hamas disarms.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky made a rare reference to Ukraine’s casualty figures on Wednesday – revealing that 55,000 Ukrainian troops are officially listed as killed in action.

“In Ukraine, officially, on the battlefield, the number of soldiers killed is 55,000, including both professional soldiers and people who were mobilized,” he said in a pre-recorded interview with France 2, as per Le Monde.

A “great number of people” are also considered missing in action, Zelensky added.

This is the first time Zelensky has commented on Ukraine’s military death toll since February 2025, when he put the figure at 46,000.

On Jan. 27, the US Center for Strategic & International Studies think tank estimated that the total number of military deaths – including all the Ukrainian and Russian soldiers dead, injured, and missing – is approaching two million.

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Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 19 Palestinians, most of them women and children, by midday Wednesday, according to hospital officials. Israel pledged to continue strikes, saying that it was responding to a militant attack on Israeli soldiers that seriously wounded one.

Among the Palestinians killed were five children, including a 5-month-old and a baby just 10 days old; seven women; and a paramedic, said hospital officials. They are the latest Palestinians in Gaza to die since a ceasefire deal, which has been punctuated by deadly Israeli strikes, came into effect on Oct. 10, 2025. More than 530 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli in that time, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The escalating Palestinian death toll has rocked the U.S.-backed truce and caused Palestinians in the strip to say it does not feel like the war has ended.

"The genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip continues," said Dr. Mohamed Abu Selmiya, director of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital, in a Facebook post. "Where is the ceasefire? Where are the mediators?"

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Florida legislators are pushing to pass legislation that would ban the use of the term “West Bank” in K-12 public schools and state agencies, including public colleges and universities, and mandate use of the term “Judea and Samaria”.

The West Bank is the internationally recognized term for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River that was seized from Jordan by Israel in 1967. The rightwing Israeli government refers to the area as “Judea and Samaria” in reference to the biblical kingdoms of ancient Israel as part of broader efforts to bolster historical and religious claims to the land. The international community, on the other hand, broadly recognizes the West Bank as occupied land that must be part of a future Palestinian state.

Florida bill seeks to ban use of ‘West Bank’ in schools and state agencies

The bill would mandate use of the biblical term ‘Judea and Samaria’ after a similar effort passed in Arkansas.

Florida legislators are pushing to pass legislation that would ban the use of the term “West Bank” in K-12 public schools and state agencies, including public colleges and universities, and mandate use of the term “Judea and Samaria”.

The West Bank is the internationally recognized term for the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory west of the Jordan River that was seized from Jordan by Israel in 1967. The rightwing Israeli government refers to the area as “Judea and Samaria” in reference to the biblical kingdoms of ancient Israel as part of broader efforts to bolster historical and religious claims to the land. The international community, on the other hand, broadly recognizes the West Bank as occupied land that must be part of a future Palestinian state.

The term “Judea and Samaria” has been embraced by many US Republicans since the first Trump administration, including the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who Donald Trump appointed as ambassador to Israel last year. Arkansas became the first US state to mandate replacing references to the “West Bank” in state institutions with “Judea and Samaria” in April last year. Similar bills have been proposed in the US Congress but have not come up for vote.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) warned Tuesday that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos’s detention could be far from an isolated case.

“Here’s the thing, we don’t know how many others are in the same situation that didn’t get a photo that went viral,” Walz said during a Tuesday press conference as he denounced the ways ICE had targeted schools and students.

In a letter he sent this week, Walz also pressed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to reveal the number of children who’ve been detained in Minnesota.

“Incredibly, his case is only one of many. Each day brings new reports of children detained by ICE,” Walz wrote.

Walz’s statements underscore how the detention of children has skyrocketed under the Trump administration, and also point to how limited the oversight is of the treatment of kids in federal detention.

According to an analysis by The Marshall Project, ICE held roughly 170 children on an average day during President Donald Trump’s second term, a major uptick compared to the last year of former President Joe Biden’s administration. In the last 16 months of the Biden administration, ICE held about 25 children per day.

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