TV News LIES

New details of an unverified ransom note previously sent to at least one news outlet following the alleged kidnapping of Savannah Guthrie's mom, Nancy Guthrie, are becoming public four months after her disappearance.

A second ransom note released shortly after the 84-year-old's suspected abduction in Tucson, Arizona, on Feb. 1 claimed that she was dead, NBC News, ABC News and CBS News reported on Monday, June 22. NBC and ABC cited unnamed people "familiar with" the case, while CBS referred to "sources who reviewed the notes."

After stepping back from the "Today" show in February, Savannah Guthrie returned to the program to resume anchoring duties in April. Sitting down with her longtime colleague Hoda Kotb in March, a tearful Guthrie said she and her siblings "are in agony" over her mother's disappearance, adding, "It is unbearable."

"There are a lot of different notes, I think that came. And I think most of them, it's my understanding, are not real," Guthrie told Kotb in a "Today" interview segment released March 26. "But I believe the two notes that we received that we responded to, I tend to believe those were real."

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A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from using a database of Americans’ Social Security numbers and citizenship status, saying the administration has knowingly given inaccurate data to states that are now “actively” and “haphazardly” purging purported non-citizens from voter rolls.

“The federal government has knowingly trampled on the privacy rights of American citizens in a manner that threatens the sacred right to vote,” U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan wrote in a 75-page ruling. “This Court cannot stand idly by while that happens.”

The White House referred USA TODAY to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Ruling in a lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters and other advocacy groups, Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, said the Trump administration’s newly modified Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system combines citizenship data and other sensitive data with information from the Social Security Administration to create a clearinghouse that Congress has expressly prohibited.

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US Vice President JD Vance said on Sunday that President Donald Trump had asked him to turn over "a new leaf" in American ties with the Iranian people.

But at the same time as the talks were occurring, Trump threatened to continue bombing Iran if it did not contain Hezbollah.

Vance arrived at the Burgenstock mountain resort in Switzerland on Sunday morning to join Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for technical thttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-hopes-turn-over-new-leaf-iran-trump-threatens-resume-bombingalks with Iranian officials following last week's signing of a memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran.

"This is a historic meeting," Vance said, adding that the goal was to "turn over a new leaf to transform our relationship with the people of Iran, and to extend an outstretched hand".

"The question before us now is how much more can we accomplish together? Can we turn over a new leaf? Can we change relations in the Middle East permanently?

"Or do we go back to doing things the old way, which is not our preference, but it's certainly very much something that can happen."

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When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu initiated the US-Israeli war on Iran at the end of February, Israel's objectives appeared clear: dismantling Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and bringing about the collapse of the Iranian government.

Now, following the signing of an agreement between Iran and the US, with negotiations between the two countries continuing in Switzerland, a new poll has found that 92 percent of Israelis believe Iran has won the war.

The survey, conducted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, found that Israelis overwhelmingly view the war and subsequent deal with the US in a negative way, with 83 percent of those polled saying the campaign has weakened Israel's long-term security and 86 percent feeling negatively about the outcome.

This public perception mirrors the feelings of Israel's political and military elite, many of whom see the end of the war on Iran as representing a turning point that could weaken Israel's regional influence.

The poll found that 72.5 perchttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ninety-two-percent-israelis-think-iran-has-won-war-new-poll-findsent of Israelis do not believe Netanyahu when he says Israel achieved significant gains and removed an existential threat, a feeling that also reflects the growing uncertainty around the prime minister's future.

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Authorities in France have placed more than a third of the country under a red heat alert, cancelled some outdoor sports events and restricted alcohol consumption at the nationwide Fête de la Musique event amid a brutal heatwave forecast to push temperatures above 40C.

Level 1 or 2 heat alerts were issued on Sunday for about 53 million people, just over 75% of the population. A record 35 of the country’s 96 mainland departments were put on danger-to-life red alert, with another 45 under an orange warning.

France’s ecology minister, Mathieu Lefèvre, said on Sunday that 14 more departments would be on red alert on Monday. “We do not see temperatures falling before the end of the week,” he said, demanding “great prudence and a great many precautions”.

The national meteorological service Météo-France said: “Very high temperatures are setting in for the long term,” with a heatwave of “exceptional severity and duration” likely to break monthly and possibly all-time records.

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One morning early last July, Micha Bitsinnie arrived at work to an onslaught of messages from confused families.

New Mexico’s governor Michelle Lujan Grisham had just issued a directive mandating the state’s child welfare department seek custody of all newborns who had been exposed to drugs and alcohol in utero. Some parents wondered whether medications that they were taking for addiction recovery, such as methadone, would flag their cases. Healthcare providers wondered whether the fentanyl in an epidural counted as a drug exposure.

Bitsinnie supports families as a policy manager at the non-profit organization Bold Futures, which advocates for policies that keep families together. Research shows that children prenatally exposed to substances do best when they can remain in their families and receive supportive services to treat any withdrawal symptoms they experience.

Bitsinnie is also a member of the Navajo nation, and she immediately noticed that the new directive appeared to be in tension with laws protecting the sovereignty of New Mexico’s Native tribes. Those laws stipulate that tribes must be immediately notified about a child welfare case involving a Native child so that they can take jurisdiction of cases involving their citizens.

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Everything modern civilization has built rests on two modest skills: Reading and arithmetic. America spent two centuries showing what they make possible. It is now showing what their absence does.

The news from American classrooms is, for lack of a better word, depressing. Reading and math scores have been declining for more than a decade. Some of the fall predated the pandemic, which made matters considerably worse. The latest chapter in the story is the strangest, and perhaps the most disturbing. Professors report freshmen who cannot read basic sentences, let alone finish books. They struggle to follow arguments from beginning to end, as though every paragraph should arrive with a skip button.

The usual suspects line up for blame. Smartphones capture attention before the day even starts. Social platforms tuned to drip-feed dopamine and keep users hooked. Academic standards lowered until failure itself becomes increasingly rare. Grades inflated until everyone graduates feeling truly exceptional. All of it matters, but none of it gets to the heart of the problem.

That’s because the problem in the classroom is civilizational. For most of the last century, IQ scores rose across the rich nations. Each generation outscored the one before. Researchers called it the Flynn effect, after the man who clocked it. Better food, more schooling, smaller families, and greater mental stimulation all contributed to the cumulative gains. The brain had a tailwind, but that tailwind has turned. Studies in the U.S. and beyond now show scores dropping among the young. For a century, the line went up. Now it goes down.

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New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) is looking to use his political power to reshape New York’s congressional delegation less than six months after taking office.

The popular mayor has made endorsements in multiple contests ahead of Tuesday’s House primaries in New York, including for progressive challengers to two sitting Democratic congressmen. One of these picks has even put him at odds with his fellow progressives on Capitol Hill.

The primaries will offer an early test of Mamdani’s influence after his historic rise to become the leader of the country’s largest city.

“His honeymoon period as mayor has continued. He’s doing well right now,” said New York Democratic strategist Trip Yang. “He’s taking risks intentionally.”

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