TV News LIES

The US is tracking nearly 54,000 immigrants through GPS-enabled ankle monitors as part of a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) electronic surveillance program, according to private prison corporation The Geo Group. Early last year, just 17,000 immigrants were wearing the devices..

The Geo Group owns BI Inc, the company that runs ICE’s intensive supervision appearance program (ISAP), and reported the numbers in its earnings call on Thursday.

The overall number of immigrants enrolled in the surveillance program remained flat at about 184,000. Geo Group executives said that a large number of participants were shifted from less intensive forms of surveillance, such as phone check-ins, to ankle monitors.

The shift to ankle monitors, which the company pitches as a “high-security level of monitoring”, has increased revenues for Geo Group . Ankle monitors cost ICE more than most of the other surveillance technologies administered by BI Inc. The company charges ICE a little more than $2 a day per monitor, while the SmartLink app – a facial recognition and location tracking smart phone app – costs about $0.96 for each immigrant enrolled, according to publicly available ICE statistics. At last count, more than 127,000 immigrants are required to check in using SmartLink.

More...

A dramatic increase in immigration enforcement at US airports has reportedly placed the airline industry at odds with the Trump administration as workers decline to help federal officials arrest their targets – many of whom have pending applications for visas, asylum or green cards.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) – both part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – have expanded their collaboration to make as many as three dozen daily arrests at US airports last month, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Some of the people who have been taken into federal immigration custody include a former au pair, an asylum seeker with sickle cell anemia who uses a wheelchair, and women who are married to US citizens and in the process of applying for lawful permanent residency, according to the New York Times.

“It’s not people with criminal records,” said Ghassan Shamieh, a San Francisco-based immigration lawyer who had four clients detained at airports over 10 days. “You are talking about people with legitimate pending applications.”

More...

Senate Democrats introduced a new bill on Thursday to roll back Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s news media restrictions at the Pentagon, stating that those are suppressing independent reporting at the department.

The legislation, called the Protecting Pentagon Press Access Act, was introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) that would restore journalists’ access within the Pentagon that was available before the new measures imposed by Hegseth, including the “Correspondents’ Corridor,” a decades-old workspace inside the building that national security reporters utilized.

The bill, which will have a hard time getting traction in the GOP-controlled Senate, would also restore unescorted access to reporters to areas of the department that were accessible without an escort before the late 2025 Trump administration restriction went into effect.

“At a time of war, transparency and independent, accurate reporting matter more than ever,” Schatz said in a statement. “Our bill will reverse the Pentagon’s effort to shut out the free press and make sure the public gets the information it deserves.”

More...

Israeli forces launched a large-scale operation in the Qalandiya refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem on Wednesday.

The Jerusalem Governorate said dozens of military vehicles stormed the camp before dawn, carrying boxes, equipment and maps.

Soldiers deployed across several neighbourhoods as home raids and searches continued.

Palestinian sources said troops raided the headquarters of the camp's Popular Committee and forcibly removed several residents from their homes.

One family was ordered to evacuate its house completely, while dawn prayers were prevented in all of the camp's mosques.

A Palestinian man was wounded after being struck by a military vehicle near the camp, suffering leg injuries. Soldiers also severely beat journalist Muhammad Sumrin while he was covering the raid and fired stun grenades at other journalists.

More...

President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Wednesday to press for urgently needed air defense interceptors after a devastating Russian missile and drone attack killed 17 people and wounded more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region.

The high-level call came just hours after Ukrainian air defenses failed to intercept any of the missiles Russia launched overnight – exposing one of the most dangerous gaps in the country’s defenses as Moscow intensifies ballistic attacks against Ukrainian cities.

“Today, I spoke with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte about the overall situation,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“Mark is well-informed about the threats, and we coordinated our efforts regarding countries that have the necessary missiles and the capacity to help.”

“It is important to cut through all red tape and make the necessary political decisions,” he wrote.

More...

Stephanie Grisham, the White House communications director during President Trump’s first term, filed a restraining order against Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) on Monday, amid allegations that Miller abused his ex-wife.

Grisham’s counsel, Mark S. Zaid, announced on social platform X that they filed for a temporary restraining order against Miller as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

The case began with an op-ed Grisham wrote in 2021 in the Washington Post that described an abusive relationship with an unnamed man. Miller filed a defamation suit against her shortly after the article was published, but the case was eventually dropped as both parties signed a nondisclosure agreement to not publicly disparage one another.

Grisham filed her new lawsuit after Miller said in a June interview with Spectrum News that any allegations should be taken seriously and it “should be noted” that an allegation against him “came out on the same day as somebody’s book launch and the other part.”

More...

Gas prices are up almost a dollar a gallon since the day Donald Trump took office; mortgage rates just hit their highest level in nearly a year, and over the weekend a prominent economist said the Iran war is costing the average US household more than $1,200.

Americans are struggling through a deepening affordability crisis caused largely by Trump’s ill-fated war against Iran. They are in need of a boost, something to lift the spirits. Perhaps the president could give a speech, letting the people know that we are all in this together.

Or, he could give a speech announcing that the White House has just ordered 250 brand new Cadillac Escalades, giant SUVs which have a suggested retail price of more than $90,000 each and cost significantly more to customize for secure uses.

“We ordered 250 Escalades. That’s how we look sharp in those cavalcades, you know,” Trump said during a rambling, hour-long address at a General Motors facility in Michigan.

More...

One of the nation’s largest broadcasters is accusing the Trump administration of retaliation, alleging the Federal Communications Commission is unfairly policing ABC and ABC-owned stations by conducting an unprecedented early review of its broadcast licenses because the president personally dislikes its programming.

“The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: accommodate the Administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price,” lawyers for the network said in a Wednesday filing.

Disney-owned ABC has found itself a target of the administration’s attacks on the press as President Donald Trump tests his power to weaponize government agencies in an effort to intimidate and deter the media from covering him in a negative light.

During his second term, the president has repeatedly demanded the network have its licenses revoked and called for the firing of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over political remarks he made. The FCC announced the early review of ABC’s broadcast licenses earlier this year, along with a number of other investigations into the network.

Most recently, the president demanded ABC — and any other network that refused to air his July 16 primetime speech — have its licenses revoked.

More...