TV News LIES

The conviction in Texas of nine activists on terrorism and other charges earlier this month sets an alarming precedent: the Trump administration can crack down on leftwing groups and label them “domestic terrorists”.

The case was widely seen as a major test of the Trump administration’s efforts to punish protesters and leftwing views. The charges came after a protest outside of an ICE facility outside of Fort Worth last year. Activists planned to set off fireworks outside of the facility in solidarity with those detained inside, traveling with a cache of automatic weapons and body armor they said was for self-defense against counter-protesters.

Once they got there, a small group broke away and began vandalizing cars in the parking lot, spray painting graffiti, slashing tires on a government van, and breaking a security camera. A police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon at those in the parking lot, one of the activists opened fire with an AR-15 and hit the police officer in the shoulder. He ultimately survived.

Eight of the protesters were convicted of riot, explosive charges, and providing material support to terrorists. The shooter, Benjamin Song, was convicted of attempted murder and additional firearms charges. A ninth person who was not at the protest was convicted on charges related to moving a box of zines in the days after the protest.

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The abortion rate is holding steady in the US despite total and partial bans in some states – largely because of travel across state lines and a significant increase in telehealth appointments, a new report says.

US regulatory officials are weighing changes to the ways mifepristone, an abortion medication, may be dispensed, but they have reportedly pushed their review until after the midterm elections, given the widespread support for abortion across the US.

The number of abortions in the US increased slightly last year, from 1.124m to 1.126m, according to a Guttmacher Institute report. There’s also a shift away from traveling and toward telehealth, in which providers may prescribe mail-order pills.

One major change in this report is the provision of telehealth for patients in states with total bans – with clinicians in states such as New York or Massachusetts, which have shield laws to protect providers, seeing and prescribing remotely to patients living in states such as Texas or Alabama.

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Police arrested dozens of protesters and shot teargas into a crowd on Saturday night at a No Kings protest in Los Angeles.

The conflict is the latest of many that have taken place outside the Metropolitan detention center, which has become a focal point of protests since the Trump administration launched an immigration offense on Los Angeles last year.

More than 4o No Kings protests took place across southern California on Saturday – part of nationwide repudiation of Donald Trump’s chaotic second administration, the mass deportation campaign, the rising cost of living, and the Iran war.

Protests began earlier in the day with a march through downtown Los Angeles, where protesters brandished signs criticizing the US president and his hardline immigration crackdown.

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During his briefing on the Iran war last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that Americans take a knee and pray to Jesus for the success of U.S. forces in the Middle East. A few days later, he read out a sermon praying that “wicked souls” be “delivered to the eternal damnation” in the fight against Iran.

The Defense secretary has increasingly used his bully pulpit to promote his combative, controversial brand of Christianity. While the Pentagon says Hegseth is embracing America’s proud history as a Christian nation, some experts and veterans worry that Hegseth’s move to inject the military with more explicitly religious sentiments threatens to divide America’s forces.

“The ideological consolidation of the military is something that we have historically not wanted. We want the military to be diverse. We want the military representative of the American people,” he added.

“I think it’s extremely concerning the way that he is operating. It’s concerning to me as a Christian, and it’s concerning to me as an American,” said Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

Hegseth, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a Fox News host, has presided over prayer services in the building led by controversial Christian pastors and revamped the military’s Chaplain Corps, and official Defense Department social media posts often amplify ultraconservative Christian views.

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U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on a residential area in Isfahan in central Iran on Friday killed 26 people, including seven children, according to Press TV.

The Israeli military announced a broad wave of attacks targeting government infrastructure in the heart of Tehran, with Iranian state media and residents reporting explosions across the capital, including the Chitgar neighborhood in northwest Tehran.

At least seven people were killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes on residential units in the city of Urmia in northwestern Iran, near the borders with Turkey and Iraq, BBC reports.

Early Friday, Iranian Red Crescent teams were deployed after an airstrike struck a residential area in Qom, a central Iranian city south of Tehran, with crews carrying out search and rescue operations at the scene.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that Israel will “escalate and expand” attacks on Iran. Iran “will pay heavy, increasing prices” for attacking Israeli civilians, Katz said in a televised statement.

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Residents of Israel's southern Negev region say they've been left defenceless against Iranian missile fire, and have called the government's response "a complete failure" rooted in years of policy neglect.

Avi Dabush, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, told Middle East Eye that Saturday's deadly strikes on Dimona, a city known for its proximity to Israeli nuclear facilities, and the nearby city of Arad, exposed deep gaps in civilian protection.

"The government's response to the missile fire is a complete failure," Dabush said.

"The state spends hundreds of billions on various things, but not on protection," he said, adding: "action should have been taken long ago".

His comments come after one of the heaviest rounds of Iranian missile strikes on Israeli territory since the start of the US and Israeli war on Iran, with around 30 people injured in Dimona and 115 in Arad.

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Yemen’s Houthis fired missiles at Israel on Saturday for the first time since the war on Iran broke out a month ago. 

In a video statement, military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group had launched ballistic missiles at Israeli military sites. 

“[We] have carried out the first military operation using a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting sensitive Israeli military sites in southern occupied Palestine,” Saree said.

Israel’s military said it had "identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defence systems are operating to intercept the threat".

There were no reports of any casualties or damage in Israel.

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A federal judge ruled on Friday that officials at Florida’s state-run immigration jail, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, must give attorneys better access to their detained clients.

The order by federal judge Sheri Polster Chappell, from the middle district of Florida, said facility officials must provide access to confidential, private, free and unmonitored outgoing legal telephone calls from people detained in the facility. Polster Chappell also ruled that attorneys are allowed to make unannounced visits to see their clients, bypassing the facility’s pre-scheduling requirement.

The state of Florida opened the detention center in summer 2025 to detain undocumented immigrants caught within the state. Since its opening, the facility has faced severe criticisms of the treatment of detainees.

Amnesty International, the human rights group, published a report in December detailing conditions inside, finding that “people arbitrarily detained in ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ are being held in inhuman and unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy”.

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