TV News LIES

The Illinois Supreme Court has overturned actor Jussie Smollett's conviction for staging a fake hate crime against himself.

In a decision issued Thursday, the court said the "Empire" actor, 42, should not have been charged for the same incident a second time after the original charges brought against him were dropped in 2019. Smollett was alleged to have falsely reported to police that he was the victim of a hate crime. He was found guilty in 2021 on five counts of disorderly conduct.

"Because the initial charges were dismissed as part of an agreement" with Smollett and he "performed his part of the agreement, the second prosecution was barred," the ruling said.

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An ancient cat was found almost perfectly preserved in Siberia's permafrost.

Researchers found the mummy of a 35,000-year-old saber-toothed cub in what is now Russia's northeastern Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, in 2020. A study published this past week in the journal Scientific Reports shows that the cat was just three weeks old when it died, but its cause of death is unknown.

The kitten still had its whiskers and claws attached when it was pulled out of the permafrost, and was covered in a coat of "short, thick, soft, dark brown fur." Its hair was about 20 to 30 millimeters long, according to researchers.

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Arizona remained in a tense waiting game on Saturday for its election results, even as neighboring Nevada declared for Donald Trump overnight, giving the president-elect six out of seven swing states after election day on 5 November.

In Arizona, official tallies were 83% complete by mid-morning on Saturday with Trump leading at 52.7% and Harris at 46%, or about 180,000 votes ahead. But enough ballots remain uncounted – 602,000 as of late Friday night – for the state to remain undeclared. The state sensationally flipped to Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2020.

In the key US Senate race there between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Ruben Gallego, Lake, who always denied that Biden won the White House fairly in 2020, was trailing the Democrat 48.5% to 49.5%, or by around 33,000 votes, mid-morning on Saturday.

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Phoenix police are facing widespread criticism following the release of body camera footage that showed two white officers violently using a stun gun on and punching a deaf Black man with cerebral palsy.

On Monday, attorneys for 34-year-old Tyron McAlpin, who has been charged with resisting arrest and two counts of aggravated assault on a police officer, released body camera footage of McAlpin’s arrest on 19 August outside a Circle K convenience store in Phoenix, Arizona.

According to a police incident report, officers responded to a call about a fight in the store. ABC15 reports that the 911 caller said a white man was causing a disturbance in the store. The police officers, Benjamin Harris and Kyle Sue, approached the man who claimed that he was assaulted while trying to stop someone from stealing a bike. The man proceeded to point to McAlpin, who was walking nearby, as the aggressor.

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The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Los Angeles has agreed to pay $880m to 1,353 people who alleged that they were sexually abused as children by Catholic priests, in the largest settlement by a US diocese over decades-old abuse claims.

Archbishop Jose H Gomez expressed sorrow for the abuse in announcing the settlement on Wednesday.

“I am sorry for every one of these incidents, from the bottom of my heart,” Gomez said in a statement. “My hope is that this settlement will provide some measure of healing for what these men and women have suffered.”

The archdiocese began mediating the abuse claims after California enacted a law that allowed new lawsuits to be based on past instances of sexual abuse involving minors.

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One minute, Haya Shabaka was brewing tea in her sister Abeer’s Gaza City home. The next, she and her relatives were plunged into darkness, said Abeer Shabaka, who was in the other room when an Israeli strike hit their building on Dec. 6.

“I felt that we were all underground,” Abeer recounted. “I heard my mother scream, but I did not know where she was. I saw Haya. She looked like she was asleep.”

Abeer said she screamed and screamed until help came, and was eventually pulled from the rubble. Her mother and sister are still buried underneath.

“I wish I had been killed with them,” Abeer said. The Israeli military said it was targeting a gathering of militants.

Without their bodies, or confirmation of their deaths, their family was unable to register them with Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

They remain uncounted.

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Israel launched a wave of airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Sunday while continuing to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the Lebanese health ministry said 105 people had been killed and another 359 injured. The fresh assaults on Iran-backed proxies across the Middle East risk accelerating a slide towards a devastating regional conflict on multiple fronts.

The attack on the port of Hodeidah in Yemen involved dozens of Israeli planes and appears to have targeted fuel facilities, power plants and docks at the Ras Issa and Hodeidah ports. It one of the biggest such operations yet seen in the near year-long crisis in the region. Houthi media reports said the strikes had killed four people and wounded 33. Residents said the strikes caused power cuts in most parts of Hodeidah. Israeli military officials said the raid targeted the Houthis, an armed Iranian-backed group that controls most of Yemen.

They have fired at Israeli targets for months in what they say is solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. They have also targeted international shipping in the Red Sea. On Saturday, they launched a ballistic missile attack on Israel’s main international airport when Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was arriving.

TVNL Comment:  Wake up, America!  Your tax dollars are paying for all of this horror.

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As the war in Ukraine enters a critical period, the European Union has decided it must take responsibility for what it sees as a security threat in its own neighborhood, and it’s preparing to tackle some of the financial burden, perhaps even without the United States.

The EU rarely moves ahead on international matters without the U.S., particularly involving major conflicts, but it hopes this decision will encourage others to come forward.

EU envoys have been working this week on a proposal to provide Ukraine with a loan package worth up to 35 billion euros ($39 billion).

“Crucially, this loan will flow straight into your national budget,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv last week. “It will provide you with significant and much-needed fiscal space. You will decide how best to use the funds, giving you maximum flexibility to meet your needs.”

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