TV News LIES

Sam Rasoul, the Virginia Democrat who is currently the longest-serving Muslim state lawmaker in the US and who faced accusations of antisemitism over language condemning Israel’s assault on Gaza as genocide, scored a resounding victory in Tuesday’s election that he believes shows voters are craving honesty from politicians.

Rasoul, an American Palestinian state legislator since 2014, strengthened his majority as he was re-elected to an area of Virginia where the city of Roanoke leans Democrat and the surrounding areas are deeply conservative. In an election seen as a referendum on Trump’s policies, which have disproportionately affected Virginia, Rasoul increased his vote share from four years ago by more than 5% as Democrats trounced Republicans from the legislature to the governor’s mansion.

“A 70% victory in the Bible belt of Virginia for a Palestinian Muslim is really a validation, beyond just Democrats winning, that you can be bold on the Gaza genocide and still be victorious,” Rasoul told the Guardian.

His win came despite months of attack ads and rebukes from other party leaders in the state. He was accused of hate speech and antisemitism by his opponent, a Jewish Republican party member who ran as an independent, pro-Israel groups and senior members of his own party after he called the killing of at least 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023 “the most evil cleansing in human history” and blamed Zionism, which he labelled “a supremacist ideology created to destroy and coronquer everything and everyone in its way”.

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The secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Kristi Noem, reportedly authorized the purchase of Spirit Airlines jets before discovering the airline didn’t actually own the planes – and that the aircraft lacked engines.

The bizarre anecdote was contained in a Wall Street Journal report released on Friday, which recounted how Noem and Corey Lewandowski – who managed Donald Trump’s first winning presidential campaign – had recently arranged to buy 10 Boeing 737 aircraft from Spirit Airlines. People familiar with the situation told the paper that the two intended to use the jets to expand deportation flights – and for personal travel.

Those sources also claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials had cautioned them that buying planes would be far more expensive than simply expanding existing flight contracts.

Complicating matters further, Spirit, which filed for bankruptcy protection for the second time, in August, did not own the jets and their engines would have had to be bought separately. The plan has since been paused, according to the Journal.

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Israeli settlers attacked a group of Palestinian villagers, activists and journalists on Saturday who had gathered during an attempt to harvest olives near a settler outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, witnesses said.

Two Reuters employees - a journalist and a security adviser accompanying her - were among those injured in the attack by the men who wielded sticks and clubs and hurled large rocks, in an area close to the Palestinian village of Beita.

The area, lying south of the West Bank city of Nablus, has in past years been a flashpoint for settler attacks, which increased across the West Bank after the war in Gaza began two years ago. Such attacks have escalated during this year’s olive harvest, which began in October.

As the number of such attacks has climbed, Israeli and other activists have often joined Palestinians to support them and their right to harvest their olive groves, while also documenting any violence. Activists or local Palestinians often inform journalists of harvesting plans, so they can attend to report, particularly in flashpoint areas, such as outposts.

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A federal judge ruled on Friday that the Trump administration violated the First Amendment by sending automated emails and messages blaming the government shutdown on Democrats.

In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the Department of Education (DOE) cannot compel federal workers to engage in partisan speech.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), represented by the Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group, previously sent a cease and desist letter and also filed a lawsuit against the Education Department over the political statement issued in staff email responses.

“Nonpartisanship is the bedrock of the federal civil service; it ensures that career government employees serve the public, not the politicians,” Cooper’s memorandum reads. “But by commandeering its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages, the Department chisels away at that foundation."re

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Israel is holding dozens of Palestinians from Gaza isolated in an underground jail where they never see daylight, are deprived of adequate food and barred from receiving news of their families or the outside world.

The detainees have included at least two civilians held for months without charge or trial: a nurse detained in his scrubs, and a young food seller, according to lawyers from the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) who represent both men.

The two men were transferred to the subterranean Rakefet complex in January, and described regular beatings andMore... violence consistent with well-documented torture in other Israeli detention centres.

Rakefet prison was opened in the early 1980s to house a handful of the most dangerous organised crime figures in Israel but closed a few years later on the grounds that it was inhumane. The far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered it back into service after the 7 October attacks in 2023.

Red-state America has been a big fan of Israel, according to Jackson Lahmeyer, an evangelical pastor in Oklahoma and founder of Pastors for Trump.

"Evangelical Christians in America for the most part, not always but generally speaking, have usually been very strong supporters of the nation of Israel and the Jewish people," Lahmeyer said in an interview with NPR.

That support is deeply rooted in their evangelical faith, he said. But recently, Lahmeyer has noticed the conversation around Israel is changing quite a bit — particularly online.

"Some very influential leaders, all of whom I like — Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene — have taken a very controversial stance in regards to the nation of Israel," he said.

Last week, Carlson hosted a prominent white nationalist named Nick Fuentes on his show. Although Carlson disagreed with Fuentes on his most antisemitic statements, such as American Jews are more faithful to Israel than they are to the United States, he did broadly align with Fuentes on his views about the country itself.

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NORTHERN GAZA STRIP — It is utterly quiet in a place once known as one of the most densely populated in the world.

The Israeli military took me and a small group of other international journalists inside Gaza on Wednesday, nearly one month into the ceasefire.

It was the first time I had entered Gaza after two years of war.

We stood at the edge of an Israeli military outpost, looking out at what used to be the bustling Shujaiya neighborhood outside Gaza City.

It was the scene of fierce fighting during the war. Now it is a wasteland of destruction.

The tall high-rise buildings not demolished in Gaza City are seen in the far distance. Around them is a vast monochrome expanse as far as the eye can see.

Piles of concrete that used to be homes. Skeletons of schools. Concrete beams standing in the dirt like tall tombstones.

For years before the war, I would enter Gaza every few months, to report for NPR. I remember driving through the Shujaiyeh neighborhood on my way to the center of Gaza City.

Now it is unrecognizable.

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Ukraine could be facing its biggest loss for months, if the key eastern city of Pokrovsk falls to Russian forces. The battle for this strategic point on a big road and rail artery in the Donetsk region has been going on for well over a year.

If Russia's Vladimir Putin were able to claim victory there, three years and 10 months into his full-scale war, he would be a step closer to his goal of controlling Ukraine's entire industrial east - the Donbas, made up of the neighbouring regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

How close is Pokrovsk to falling?

Claims and counter-claims abound, so it is difficult to say.

But we do know Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops in the area, and hundreds of its soldiers have infiltrated the city in the past few weeks, gradually taking over buildings and streets and overwhelming Ukrainian positions.

On Wednesday, Kyiv's General Staff denied its forces in and around the town had been encircled and maintained they were still involved in "active resistance" and blocking out Russian troops. One Ukrainian regiment said it had cleared the city council and posted a video of a Ukrainian flag hung on the building.

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