TV News LIES

If you only just started paying attention to the inner workings of the media industry, you might think America’s information environment transformed overnight.

In the past few months, a president extracted settlements from media giants as his apparatchiks vowed state retribution against his opponents – all as they defunded public media at a time when the president’s biggest boosters own the algorithms that decide what information is amplified and suppressed.

Meanwhile, media companies are merging into ever-larger behemoths, some have muzzled White House critics as their companies seek presidential favors, and the White House is reportedly brokering a deal to hand yet another social media platform over to his billionaire allies.

And now, a media industry billionaire has placed CBS News under the control of the conservative provocateur Bari Weiss, who is empowered to shroud her culture war and oligarch-friendly economics in what she calls “journalism that is fair, fearless, and factual”.

But as abrupt as this Orwellian turn may seem, it is no sudden pivot – it is instead the culmination of a scheme launched a half-century ago by some of America’s most influential power brokers, as our new book Master Plan exposes. Sketched out in never-before-reported documents, this plot aimed to destroy accountability journalism and make news outlets into champions rather than adversaries of power.

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Three Qatari officials have been killed in a car crash near the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, according to the Qatari Embassy in Cairo.

In a statement on Sunday, the diplomatic mission said that all three men worked for the Amiri Diwan, the administrative office of Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The embassy described the incident as a “tragic traffic accident” and said the three men were killed while performing their duties.

The accident also resulted in injuries to two others, it added.

Both of the injured officials are receiving medical care at a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh.

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President Trump’s plans to use the Justice Department to seek revenge against his perceived enemies may have just hit a major roadblock. Earlier this month, Memphis federal district court judge Waverly D. Crenshaw, Jr. issued an opinion in the criminal case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia in response to a motion to dismiss for vindictive and selective prosecution.

The judge found “that the totality of events” surrounding the bringing of the Abrego indictment “creates a sufficient evidentiary basis to conclude that there is a ‘realistic likelihood of vindictiveness,’” entitling him to discovery and an evidentiary hearing before his motion is decided.

This decision has wide-ranging ramifications. It is likely the death knell of the indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D), as well as other perceived enemies whom Trump has threatened for prosecution solely for political revenge. Trump’s enemies list includes Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former CIA Director John Brennan.

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Israel must allow tents and caravans to immediately be delivered to the Gaza Strip, a United Nations expert says, as displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the bombarded territory have found their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed.

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said people are finding nothing but rubble in areas from which Israeli forces have withdrawn in northern Gaza.

“The psychological impacts and trauma are profound, and that’s what we are seeing right now as people are returning to northern Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday.

The UN estimated that 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been streaming back into Gaza’s north after Israeli forces pulled back on Friday as part of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt the two-year conflict.

Palestinians across the coastal enclave have welcomed the suspension of Israel’s bombardment, which has killed more than 67,700 people since October 2023 and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.

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Overnight Russian missile and drone strikes have caused power cuts in large parts of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and eight other regions.

Kyiv's authorities said power was later restored to more than 540,000 consumers in the city - but many households are still without electricity.

Twelve people were injured in the city, said Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a seven-year-old boy was killed and seven others injured. Ten people were also injured in the central Cherkasy region.

Russia's defence ministry said its "massive" strike with high-precision weapons - including hypersonic missiles - targeted energy facilities used by Ukraine's "military-industrial complex".

Russia - which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - has escalated attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities as well as transport infrastructure as winter approaches.

Reacting to the latest Russian strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated calls for allies to act decisively to "defend people from this terror".

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Israel carried out intense airstrikes on southern Lebanon early Saturday, killing one person, wounding seven and briefly cutting a highway that links Beirut with parts of south Lebanon, the Health Ministry said.

The pre-dawn airstrikes on the village of Msayleh struck a place that sold heavy machinery, destroying a large number of vehicles.

A vehicle carrying vegetables that happened to be passing by at the time of the strikes was hit, killing one person and wounding another, according to Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV.

The Health Ministry later said that the one slain was a Syrian citizen, while the wounded were a Syrian national and six Lebanese, including two women.

The Israeli military said it struck a place where machinery was stored to be used to rebuild infrastructure for the militant Hezbollah group.

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As the government shutdown drags on, Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo and other facilities are the latest to be caught in the fray, with the federal trust announcing the closure of all of its sites beginning on Sunday.

"We will update our operating status as soon as the situation is resolved," the Smithsonian announced on social media. "We do not plan to update social media other than to inform you of changes to our operating status."

The closure affects all of the Smithsonian's 21 museums, its research centers and the National Zoo.

As worried social media users expressed concern about the well-being of the animals at the zoo, the Smithsonian assured its supporters that the animals would still be cared for during the zoo's closure.

"All the animals at the Zoo and at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Virginia, will continue to be fed and cared for," the Smithsonian said. "A shutdown will not affect our commitment to the safety of our staff and standard of excellence in animal care."

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