TV News LIES

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly blocked the promotion of two Black and two female Army officers to be one-star generals.

The New York Times reported Friday that Hegseth for months pressed senior Army leaders, including Secretary Dan Driscoll, to remove the officers’ names but was repeatedly refused. Then earlier this month, Hegseth struck the names from the list, which is being reviewed by the White House before being sent to the Senate for final approval.

Asked about the report, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell called it “full of fake news from anonymous sources who have no idea what they’re talking about and are far removed from actual decision-makers within the Pentagon.”

He did not address Hegseth’s decision to pull the four officers from the promotion list, only saying that promotions “are given to those who have earned them.”

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A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from designating Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security and cutting off the AI company’s work with federal agencies.

Anthropic sued the Defense Department and other federal agencies this month after the Pentagon labeled it a "supply-chain risk to national security." President Donald Trump said he would also ban the use of Anthropic’s products across other federal agencies.

“Defendants’ designation of Anthropic as a 'supply chain risk' is likely both contrary to law and arbitrary and capricious,” U.S. District Judge Rita Lin of Northern California wrote in her order Thursday night. “The Department of War provides no legitimate basis to infer from Anthropic’s forthright insistence on usage restrictions that it might become a saboteur.”

Lin paused her order for a week to allow the administration time to appeal.

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The US has launched another strike on a vessel in the Caribbean, killing four people, the US Southern Command said.

The command, which oversees combatant operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, announced on X that it had conducted a “lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations”.

Wednesday’s strikes brings the total number of deaths to at least 163 people since the defense department began attacking alleged “narco-terrorists” last September in more than 45 strikes.

Without including evidence, the US Southern Command said that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

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The U.S. war in Iran is taking a mounting toll on America’s military, with rising casualties, dwindling munitions stockpiles, a sidelined aircraft carrier and numerous downed aircraft just three weeks into the conflict.

At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed, while another 232 have been injured since the U.S.-Israeli war against Tehran began on Feb. 28. In addition, some 16 American aircraft have been destroyed, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was damaged in a laundry room fire earlier this month and American forces are quickly blowing through stocks of air defense and long-range munitions.

Now, with reports that Pentagon officials have made detailed preparations for deploying U.S. ground forces into Iran — a move that is almost sure to be met by fierce retaliation from Tehran — those losses could quickly increase. Experts say the developments in the Middle East threaten U.S. security in other areas of the world, namely the Indo-Pacific.

“The problem, I think, is several-fold,” said Seth Jones, a former Pentagon official now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “You’re taking an area that is not your top priority, and you’re now sort of blown through readiness and maintenance issues with aircraft and ships that will be important for a China contingency operation.”

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Britain was an active participant in some Israeli war crimes in Gaza, a tribunal chaired by Your Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and two international law specialists has found.

The highly publicised Gaza Tribunal was held last September and its findings were published in a report on Monday.

It was held after the Labour government blocked a bill put forward by former Labour leader Corbyn for a public Chilcot-style inquiry into Britain's military cooperation with Ihttps://www.middleeasteye.net/news/uk-was-active-participant-israeli-war-crimes-corbyn-tribunal-findssrael.

The Gaza Tribunal took evidence from eyewitnesses, UN rapporteurs, journalists, medics and academics.

Monday's report concludes that Britain has "failed in its fundamental obligation to prevent genocide, has been complicit in atrocity crimes, and in some instances has even been an active participant in these crimes".

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At least 200 US troops have been injured in the US-Israeli war on Iran, a US military spokesperson said on Monday.

“Since the start of Operation Epic Fury, approximately 200 US service members have been wounded,” US Central Command spokesperson Cpt Tim Hawkins told the Guardian via email.

“The vast majority of these injuries have been minor,” said Hawkins, adding that 180 troops have since returned to duty. He did not elaborate when asked follow-up questions about what types of injuries service members sustained or their causes.

ABC News previously reported that injuries included burns, shrapnel wound, and traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), citing an unnamed US official. Out of the 200 injured, at least 10 military personnel have been “seriously wounded”, Hawkins previously told the outlet.

As of Monday, 13 service members have been killed in the US war with Iran. Six crew members died last week when a US military refuelling plane crashed in western Iraq.

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