TV News LIES

A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing sanctions against Francesa Albanese, a United Nations human rights investigator whose recent work has focused on the Israeli military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon found the Trump administration likely violated Albanese’s First Amendment rights when it imposed sanctions on her in July 2025 because the measures appeared to directly target her speech criticizing Israel.

The State Department did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment but previously defended the sanctions as “legal and appropriate.”

“The United States will continue to condemn and oppose her biased and malicious activities, which have long made her unfit for her role,” a spokesperson said in February. “This lawsuit itself is baseless lawfare, and Albanese is a disgrace.”

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Murdaugh, a prominent South Carolina attorney whose case garnered national attention, was found guilty in 2023 of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon in the deaths of his wife and son.

The South Carolina Supreme Court on May 13 overturned two consecutive life prison sentences for Alex Murdaugh, saying his conviction in a 2023 murder trial was marred by the "improper" influence of a county clerk and calling the official's actions "shocking jury interference."

Murdaugh, a prominent former South Carolina lawyer whose case has garnered nationalrr attention for years, was found guilty of two counts of murder in the deaths of his wife and son, as well as weapons charges.

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Mounted by dogs, penetrated by carrots, and rectums torn by batons. 

These are just some of the harrowing testimonies of the rape of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers, detailed by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in a landmark piece published on Monday.

None of it is new.

Middle East Eye revealed similar testimonies last month, from a report titled “Sexual violence and forcible transfer in the West Bank: How the exploitation of gender dynamics drives displacement,” by the West Bank Protection Consortium.

The group documented at least 16 cases involving sexual crimes perpetrated by Israeli settlers and soldiers.

And in March, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, said in her report to the UN Human Rights Council that "the Israeli prison system has degenerated into a laboratory of calculated cruelty" with acts that include rape of Palestinians with bottles, metal rods and knives.

But for a corporate media giant like the NYT, which has often overlooked and doubted Palestinian narratives, such storytelling is novel, and the Israeli government immediately slammed the decision to run it.

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Pointing to the corner where he once shared tea with his mother, Fakhri Abu Diab stands amid the ruins of his demolished home in anguish.

“I remember as a child going out with my mother to tend the land, then coming back to this spot to share a cup of tea,” the Palestinian father of five said, gesturing towards the shattered remains of what was once his family home.

Located in occupied East Jerusalem's al-Bustan neighbourhood, the house was demolished by Israeli authorities in 2024.

It was one of dozens of Palestinian homes razed in the area south of Al-Aqsa Mosque as part of plans to expand Israeli settler projects and biblical-themed parks. 

“They demolished my childhood, my memories, and even the scent of my mother,” Abu Diab, a long-time anti-occupation activist, told Middle East Eye.

Al-Bustan is one of the three main sections of Silwan, a Palestinian district bordering the southern walls of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City.

For decades, Silwan and other Palestinian neighbourhoods surrounding the Old City have been at the centre of Israeli demolition campaigns and displacement efforts.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s latest attack against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is underscoring the alarm over the state of the U.S. military’s weapons stockpiles more than two months into the war with Iran.

Hegseth accused Kelly, a Navy veteran and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), of divulging classified information regarding key U.S. munitions during his appearance on a Sunday news show, putting a spotlight not only on his ongoing feud with the Arizona Republican but also on the high-usage rate of premier munitions against Tehran and the time it will take to replenish them.

“Let’s put aside that the general thrust of munition depletion is not classified, and Kelly did not go near the details. For Hegseth to bicker over classification rather than address the core argument Kelly makes suggests Hegseth simply can’t argue on the facts,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official who is now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It’s the national security equivalent of going ad hominem on a debate opponent when you’re poorly matched on knowledge, ability and content.”

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Jimmy Kimmel is making sure Stephen Colbert has the spotlight as CBS' "The Late Show" wraps.

The late-night comedian will show his respect for Colbert by not airing a new episode of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" on Thursday, May 21, the day of Colbert's final "Late Show," USA TODAY has learned.

The news was first reported by LateNighter. Kimmel told the outlet he isn't going on the air that night out of deference to Colbert. The comic is not otherwise on hiatus from "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" that week, as new episodes are still scheduled for May 18 through May 20 on ABC.

Kimmel made a similar decision in 2015, deciding not to air a new episode opposite David Letterman's final "Late Show" on CBS. "I have too much respect for Dave to do anything that would distract viewers from watching his final show," Kimmel told The New York Times. "Plus, I'll probably be crying all day, which makes it hard to work."

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Jose Espinoza, public information officer with the Laredo Police Department, told USA TODAY that just after 3 p.m. on May 10, a Union Pacific worker called the police department after finding sixindividuals in a boxcar.

Upon arrival, police requested local fire and EMS to assist with the individuals, but all six were confirmed dead on scene.

Espinoza said the investigation is ongoing pending an autopsy from the medical examiner's office, and the identities of the individuals are not going to be released until the next of kin are informed.

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Robert was at work when the call came.

It was his wife, and she was frantic. She said she'd just hung up with their daughter's therapist at Asheville Academy, the residential treatment center where they had sent their 14-year-old to live four months earlier. 

The program was shutting down, she told him. They had 24 hours to pick her up.

The family, based in Texas, dropped everything. Within hours, Robert’s wife purchased a plane ticket to North Carolina, then drove from Charlotte through a storm to reach the campus in Weaverville.

“We just packed her up and headed home, not knowing why we had to come get her,” says Robert, who stayed in Texas to prepare the house for his daughter's return. “All of a sudden, she's home, and it's like radio silence. We're not hearing anything from Asheville.”

It was May 31, 2025, and everything was unraveling. 

Two days earlier, a 12-year-old girl at Asheville Academy had died by suicide. It was the second such death that month; a 13-year-old died on May 3. The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services had suspended further admissions on May 27 as it began investigating. Then, the program shuttered.

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