TV News LIES

Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said earlier this morning that the central bank would likely have already cut interest rates this year had it not been for the economic shock caused by Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

When asked if Trump’s tariffs on imported goods held up the Fed’s plan to cut interest rates, Powell replied:I  think that’s right.

Speaking at a central banking conference in Portugal, he went on:

In effect, we went on hold when we saw the size of the tariffs and essentially all inflation forecasts for the United States went up materially as a consequence of the tariffs.

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President Donald Trump has escalated his attacks on New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, and now Mamdani and New York Democrats are responding.

Trump threatened to arrest Mamdani if as mayor he follows through on pledges not to assist federal officials enforcing immigration laws.

“Well then, we’ll have to arrest him,” Trump told reporters on July 1 while visiting a detention center in Florida. Trump that he would “be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.”

Trump also said "a lot of people are saying he's here illegally," which is false. Mamdani is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Uganda, who immigrated to the United States with his parents − film director Mira Nair and Columbia University professor Mahmood Mamdani − at the age of seven.

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The Senate cleared President Donald Trump's domestic spending and tax cut bill that will enact steep cuts to the nation's safety-net health insurance program for low income families.

In addition to delivering tax cuts and increasing immigration enforcement, what Trump has called the "Big Beautiful Bill" would cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, the state-federal health program for low-income families and the disabled. The bill is projected to eliminate insurance coverage for 11.8 million people over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Another 5 million could lose coverage if Congress doesn't extend the COVID-19 pandemic-era tax credits that have made Affordable Care Act plans more affordable for consumers.

The legislation amounts to "the biggest rollback in health care coverage in the history of the United States," said Joan Alker, a research professor and executive director and co-founder of Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families.

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President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will transform taxes and other federal policies, is indeed big: 1,116 pages in the House version and 887 pages in the Senate. How attractive it is to you depends on largely on how big your paycheck will be in 2026.

The two bills are billions of dollars apart, but the general themes remain the same: Americans won't face bigger tax bills next year, and a portion of the deficit spending will be offset with cuts in health and food assistance programs, affecting the finances of lower-income Americans.

The U.S. Senate narrowly passed its bill with 50 votes on July 1—with Vice President JD Vance casting the deciding vote—after intense Republican negotiations for changes. It now heads back to the House to reconcile the differences with on another tight deadline so it can be on Trump's desk for signature into law by July 4.

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The Supreme Court on June 30 declined to to hear a censorship complaint brought by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former group against the owner of Facebook.

Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy before he joined President Donald Trump’s administration, argues its First Amendment rights were violated when Facebook restricted the group’s anti-vaccine posts.

Lower courts said Kennedy's group hadn’t shown that Facebook's parent company - Meta - was restricting the posts at the direction of the Biden administration. So they concluded Meta can’t be sued as a private business for restricting free speech.

As part of its "Vaccinate with Confidence" initiative, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention worked with social media companies "to promote trustworthy vaccine information."

But the California-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the evidence showed Meta and the government were often at odds.

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The head of a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid group has defended its work after repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid.

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) boss Johnnie Moore told the BBC World Service's Newshour he was not denying deaths near aid sites, but said "100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF" and that was "not true".

He accused the UN and other international organisations of spreading information they could not verify.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged more long-range drone attacks that have become a staple of the more than three-year war, officials said Friday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is ready for a fresh round of direct peace talks in Istanbul.

Russian and Ukrainian officials are discussing the timing of a potential new meeting, Putin said. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Belarus, he said that the terms of a potential ceasefire, which the Kremlin has so far effectively rejected, are expected to be on the agenda.

The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.

Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks after being subjected to air attacks, shootings and bombardments by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while waiting for food to be distributed or while making their way to distribution sites.

On Friday the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted unnamed Israeli soldiers as saying they had been told to fire at crowds near food distribution sites to keep them away from Israeli military positions. The soldiers said they had concerns about using unnecessary lethal force against people who appeared to pose no threat.

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