TV News LIES

Since U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an executive order in January threatening tariffs on any country that ships fuel to Cuba, major media outlets have descended on the island to report on the resulting prolonged blackouts, collapsing hospitals, and piles of uncollected trash.

Far less attention has been paid to the rationale the administration offered for imposing the blockade in the first place.More...

The executive order states that Cuba represents a “national emergency” and poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States, stringing together a kitchen-sink list of familiar allegations, including accusations that Cuba sponsors terrorism and aligns itself with “dangerous adversaries” of the United States, such as Iran, Hamas, Russia, and China.

More specifically, the order claims that “Cuba hosts Russia’s largest overseas signals intelligence facility, which tries to steal sensitive national security information of the United States.”

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Earlier this month, Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir announced that Israel would use Nile crocodiles as prison guards for Palestinian political prisoners.

The programme will begin at Ketziot Prison, Israel's largest, in the Naqab (Negev) desert. The prison served as a concentration camp where thousands of Palestinians were incarcerated between 1988 and 1995 during the First Intifada. Palestinians knew Ketziot as Ansar III camp.

To facilitate this plan, Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman declared the crocodile a "cultivated wild animal". Under this new taxonomy, the reptiles will be released into moats around Israel's dungeons, where Palestinians are imprisoned and treated like animals.

Ben Gvir was inspired by the new Florida migrant detention centre, dubbed "Alligator Alcatraz", which US President Donald Trump toured last year. This prison of horrors "sits in a vast subtropical wetland filled with alligators, crocodiles and pythons".

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The father of a teenage student who killed two teachers and two classmates in a Georgia high school shooting two years ago was sentenced on Thursday to 15 years in prison for providing his son with the weapon used in the attack.

Colin Gray’s offenses, the judge Nicholas Primm said during the sentencing hearing in Winder, were crimes of negligence “tethered to the tragedy committed by his son” Colton, who was 14 when he entered Apalachee high school on 4 September 2024 and opened fire.

Primm said Gray, who was convicted in March on charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter, shared responsibility for the attack, having gifted his son the assault-style rifle as a Christmas present.

“My heart aches for everyone that was there that day, for all of you that have been impacted by it,” said Primm, a Barrow county superior court judge.

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Gas prices are up almost a dollar a gallon since the day Donald Trump took office; mortgage rates just hit their highest level in nearly a year, and over the weekend a prominent economist said the Iran war is costing the average US household more than $1,200.

Americans are struggling through a deepening affordability crisis caused largely by Trump’s ill-fated war against Iran. They are in need of a boost, something to lift the spirits. Perhaps the president could give a speech, letting the people know that we are all in this together.

Or, he could give a speech announcing that the White House has just ordered 250 brand new Cadillac Escalades, giant SUVs which have a suggested retail price of more than $90,000 each and cost significantly more to customize for secure uses.

“We ordered 250 Escalades. That’s how we look sharp in those cavalcades, you know,” Trump said during a rambling, hour-long address at a General Motors facility in Michigan.

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A US government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference in Brazil ⁠this week, ​causing a stir among attenders who took screenshots and posted them online.

Reuters viewed a video of the presentation given at the Aids 2026 conference in ⁠Rio de Janeiro, which shows the errant map displayed halfway during a presentation about the state department’s new health agreements.

A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included ⁠in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools. The ​company said it was investigating the report.

The state ‌department said it took “full responsibility” ‌for the confusion caused and that the map had been produced by a team member who hastily changed ‌the slide deck before the event.

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One of the nation’s largest broadcasters is accusing the Trump administration of retaliation, alleging the Federal Communications Commission is unfairly policing ABC and ABC-owned stations by conducting an unprecedented early review of its broadcast licenses because the president personally dislikes its programming.

“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” lawyers for the network said in a Wednesday filing.

Disney-owned ABC has found itself a target of the administration’s attacks on the press as President Donald Trump tests his power to weaponize government agencies in an effort to intimidate and deter the media from covering him in a negative light.

During his second term, the president has repeatedly demanded the network have its licenses revoked and called for the firing of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over political remarks he made. The FCC announced the early review of ABC’s broadcast licenses earlier this year, along with a number of other investigations into the network.

Most recently, the president demanded ABC — and any other network that refused to air his July 16 primetime speech — have its licenses revoked.

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Progressive Abdul El-Sayed is leading Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) by 15 points ahead of next week’s Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, according to a new poll.

An Emerson College Polling/WLNS/WOODTV survey released Thursday showed El-Sayed handily defeating Stevens in the primary with 54 percent support to Stevens’s 39 percent. A separate 6 percent of respondents said they were undecided while about 2 percent backed state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D), who dropped out of the race earlier this summer.

When factoring in undecided Democratic voters who were asked who they lean toward, El-Sayed rose to 57 percent support while Stevens sat at 41 percent. A separate 2 percent of respondents supported McMorrow.

El-Sayed and Stevens are running for the Democratic Senate nomination next Tuesday to take on former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). Although Peters, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) have backed Stevens, El-Sayed, a former Wayne County public health official, has held is own in the toss-up race.

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Only a day after Quinnipiac’s poll, an AP-NORC poll showed similar numbers, as only 33% of respondents approved of Trump’s performance, a drop of 4 percentage points from the last AP-NORC poll. Trump’s approval rating in the July 30 AP-NORC poll is the lowest recorded by the pollster since his return to the White House in 2025.

Quinnipiac University’s poll was conducted from July 23 to July 27 with 963 responses and a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. AP-NORC’s poll was also taken from July 23 to 27, but with 1,165 responses and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

This week has been historic for the president, but for all the wrong reasons.

Apart from reaching record lows in both Quinnipiac University and AP-NORC’s polls, the president has hit similar lows in two other surveys released earlier this week.

On July 28, a new Economist/YouGov poll found that 34% of Americans approved of Trump’s job performance, marking the president's lowest approval rating in YouGov’s tracking since he returned to the White House.

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