TV News LIES

In the past six months, two babies in Louisiana have died of pertussis, the disease commonly known as whooping cough.

Washington state recently announced its first confirmed death from pertussis in more than a decade.

Idaho and South Dakota each reported a death this year, and Oregon last year reported two as well as its highest number of cases since 1950.

While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year.

Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure.

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Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy confirmed for the first time on Monday that Ukrainian troops have been active in Russia's Belgorod region as they seek to protect Ukrainian towns near the border.

Ukrainian troops remain in parts of the neighbouring Russian region of Kursk eight months after a cross-border incursion, though Russian forces have recaptured much lost territory.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said Ukraine's top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, had presented a report "on the front line, our presence in the Kursk region and our presence in the Belgorod region."

"We continue active operations in the enemy's border areas and this is absolutely justified. The war must return to where it came from.

"Our main objective remains the same: to protect our land and our communities in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions from Russian occupiers."

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Los Angeles county has reached a $4bn agreement to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959, officials said Friday.

The agreement, which still needs approval from the Los Angeles county board of supervisors, would be the largest of its kind and have long-lasting financial effects for the county, officials said.

“On behalf of the county, I apologize wholeheartedly to everyone who was harmed by these reprehensible acts,” Fesia Davenport, the county’s chief executive, said in a statement.

A small plane crashed while taking off from the Honduran island of Roatan on Monday, leaving 12 people dead. Among the victims was prominent musician and Honduran politician Aurelio Martinez.

The civil aeronautics agency of Honduras said in a statement that the accident occurred on March 17 shortly after 6 p.m. local time at the Juan Manuel Gálvez International Airport when a Jetstream 32 carrying 15 passengers and two crew members attempted to depart for La Ceiba, a port city on the northern coast of Honduras.

Moments after takeoff, said the statement translated from Spanish, the aircraft plunged into the Caribbean Sea. Authorities have not yet confirmed what caused the crash.

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Biden pardoned former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley; Dr. Anthony Fauci; members and staffers of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; and Capitol and Washington police officers who testified before the committee.

The panel’s members were Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who was then a House member; former Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., Elaine Luria, D-Va., and Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla.; and current Reps. Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.

The police officers who testified before the committee included Harry Dunn, Aquilino Gonell, Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges.

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• Ukraine is to receive a new, rapidly developed bespoke air defence system called Gravehawk as part of the support announced by Keir Starmer as he visited Kyiv on Thursday. The system, roughly the size of a shipping container, has been developed by Britain and Denmark to allow the Ukrainians to shoot down aerial threats using retrofitted air-to-air missiles launched from the ground – meaning, according to the British government, that it can “use Ukrainian missiles already in their armed forces’ possession” to shoot down Russian missiles and drones. The British government revealed that two prototypes of Gravehawk were tested in Ukraine in September, with 15 to be sent this year.

• Ukraine’s military said on Thursday that it hit a large Russian depot for military fuel at Liskinska in the Voronezh region of Russia with drones, starting a “large-scale fire”. The governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, confirmed that several drones “sparked a fire at an oil depot”. Videos posted by witnesses showed a substantial blaze.