TV News LIES

Thirty US universities could lose federal funding unless they review and cut foreign academic partnerships the Pentagon considers a national security risk within the next two weeks, under a Pentagon directive aimed largely at ties to Chinese institutions.

Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown and Cornell are among the institutions ordered to conduct and report the reviews – and end partnerships deemed problematic – by 31 August, according to a US official who provided the full list to the Guardian.

“The Department of War has zero tolerance for academic partnerships that compromise our national security,” Emil Michael, the Pentagon’s chief technology officer, said in a news release from Monday.

The Pentagon said the reviews are intended to protect taxpayer-funded research from unauthorized technology transfers, intellectual-property theft and exploitation by foreign adversaries.

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In an upset for the Democratic establishment, progressive Angie Nixon won the party’s US Senate primary in Florida, beating former army intelligence officer Alexander Vindman.

Nixon, a state representative and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, had significantly less funding going into the primary – with $975,000 to Vindman’s $16.3m at the end of July, according to Florida Politics.

Vindman served on the national security council in Donald Trump’s first term and became a well-known whistleblower and witness in the president’s first impeachment, centered on Trump pressuring Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, to investigate Joe Biden.

Democrats have their sights set on upsetting Republican Ashley Moody in the US Senate general election. Moody, picked by DeSantis to replace Marco Rubio when he became secretary of state last year, won what was almost a token primary election to run in November to serve the remaining two years of Rubio’s term.

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US President Donald Trump has threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of Washington’s efforts to reach a deal with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, according to Fox News.

Fox reporter Trey Yingst said he asked Trump about parallel talks between Iran and Oman over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

According to Yingst, Trump responded: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.”

The threat comes as Iran and Oman say they have reached an understanding on a maritime transit route through the Strait of Hormuz and are working to finalise details for a joint statement.

Iran and Oman continued talks on Monday, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said, adding that there had been security complications caused by US and Israeli military actions.

“Drawing up the maritime transit route plan with Oman has been time-consuming due to security complexities,” Baghaei said, adding that “the issue is inherently complex”.

Speaking on the proposed mechanism, Baghaei said it would aim to protect the sovereign rights and interests of both Iran and Oman while ensuring the safe passage of commercial vessels.

“This is the first time that a mechanism is being developed to simultaneously safeguard the sovereign rights of the two littoral states and ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels,” he said, adding that intensive talks to finalise a joint statement were continuing.

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Israeli authorities have formally allowed Jewish prayer for the first time inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, in an unprecedented violation of the site’s decades-old status quo.

Israeli police allowed settlers raiding the site on Sunday to bring in siddurim, or Jewish prayer books, and perform group prayers, according to a Palestinian source from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf.

While such practices have occurred in the past, they have largely been carried out without official approval. The decision to officially permit them marks a significant shift.

The source, who requested anonymity, said the move represented the latest breach of the site’s status quo.

“There is an important distinction between coming to visit the site and coming to pray there,” the source said.

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The White House launched a personal attack against a CNN reporter on Monday with a social media post that mentioned her children and accused her of asking a “disgusting and inhumane question”.

A White House post targeted Kristen Holmes, a senior White House correspondent for the network, after she asked Donald Trump to respond to a widely shared comment by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff in a speech on Sunday.

The Georgia senator told a crowd that Trump “doesn’t want to do the job” and instead “wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar”.

The comment was an apparent reference to Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant, fueling scrutiny of her perceived closeness to Trump.

When Holmes asked Trump in the Oval Office to respond to Ossoff’s remark, the president dismissed her, calling the senator a “Pee-wee Herman lookalike”.

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The Supreme Court rejected for the second time an effort by President Donald Trump to avoid paying more than $5.6 million to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexually abusing and defaming her.

The court on Aug. 17 declined to reconsider Trump’s appeal of a 2023 jury verdict in a civil suit brought by Carroll.

Trump had to pay Carroll the $5 million judgment plus interest after the court first rejected his appeal on June 29.

It’s rare for litigants to ask for a second look and even rarer for the court to grant one.

Trump’s lawyers said reconsideration was warranted because the case is connected to another appeal involving Carroll that they have asked the Supreme Court to hear.

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A US guided-missile destroyer reportedly spent four days adrift and without power in the South China Sea in July, furthering concerns about strain being placed on deployed military members.

The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer which had been sailing with the George Washington carrier strike group, was reported to have beMore...en towed to Subic Bay in the Philippines, according to the US Naval Institute News, an independent military publication.

The 10,000-ton destroyer lost power after what a spokesperson with the US seventh fleet called “an engineering casualty involving its generators”, resulting in a loss of power.

That loss of power meant sailors were without galley services, toilets and air conditioning, Commander Matthew Comer told USNI News in a statement. Another vessel, USS Robert Smalls, the cruiser attached to the strike group, had to help provide meals for the crew.

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A federal appeals court panel on Monday upheld an order that disqualified Sigal Chattah from the top federal prosecutorial job in Nevada, ruling that the Justice Department’s effort to sidestep Senate confirmation is unlawful. 

A three-judge panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed in a 36-page opinion that Chattah cannot continue to oversee criminal prosecutions for a group of defendants who challenged her appointment.

The ruling rejects the Trump administration’s legal maneuvers that attempted to keep Chattah in the job by leveraging vacancy rules for key government positions.  

Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, the first assistant to a Senate-confirmed officer assumes the acting role by default when a vacancy occurs.

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