TV News LIES

The U.N. said Thursday that a Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip drowned in floods that engulfed his tent camp, with videos showing rescuers trying to pry his body out of muddy waters by pulling him by the ankle. It was the latest sign of the miseries that winter is inflicting on the territory’s population, with many left homeless by the devastation from two years of war.

Health officials also reported the death of another 9 year-old boy in Gaza Thursday, but the circumstances were not clear.

As 2026 begins, the shaky 12-week-old ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has largely ended large-scale Israeli bombardment of Gaza. But Palestinians are still being killed almost daily by Israeli fire, and the humanitarian crisis shows no signs of abating. At least three Israeli soldiers have died in Gaza since the ceasefire came down, killed by militant attacks or explosive detonations.

UNICEF said Thursday that 7-year-old Ata Mai had drowned Saturday in severe flooding that engulfed his tent camp in Gaza City. Mai’s was the latest child death reported in Gaza as storms, cold weather and flooding worsen already brutal living conditions. Almost the entire population of more than 2 million people have lost their homes, and most are living in squalid tent camps with little protection from the weather.

UNICEF said Mai had been living with his younger siblings and family in a camp of around 40 tents. They lost their mother earlier in the war.

Video from Civil Defense teams, shown on Al Jazeera, showed rescue workers trying to get Mai’s body out of what appeared to be a pit filled with muddy water surrounded by wreckage of bombed buildings. The men waded into the water, pulling at the boy’s ankle, the only part of his body visible. Later, the body is shown wrapped in a muddy cloth being loaded into an ambulance.

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A federal judge on Tuesday blocked plans by the Trump administration to end temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to hundreds of South Sudanese nationals living in the United States.

US district judge Angel Kelley in Boston granted an emergency request by several South Sudanese nationals and an immigrant rights group to prevent the temporary protected status they had been granted from expiring as planned after 5 January.

The ruling is a temporary victory for immigrant advocates and a setback for the Trump administration’s broader effort to curtail the humanitarian program. It is the latest in a series of legal challenges to the administration’s moves to end similar protections for nationals from several other countries, including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.

Kelley, who was appointed by the Democratic former president Joe Biden, issued the order after four migrants from South Sudan along with African Communities Together, a non-profit group, sued. The lawsuit alleged that action by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was unlawful and exposed them to being deported to a country facing a series of humanitarian crises.

Kelley issued an administrative stay that temporarily blocks the policy pending further litigation.

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The Trump administration announced on Tuesday that it is freezing federal funding for childcare programs in Minnesota after allegations of fraud – first exposed and prosecuted during the Biden administration – recently became the focus of conservative influencers and media outlets.

Jim O’Neill, the deputy secretary of health and human services, said in a video statement that the funding freeze was in response to what he called “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country … We have turned off the money spigot and we are finding the fraud.”

The announcement comes one day after homeland security officials followed the new wave of attention generated by a rightwing influencer’s video dispatch from Minneapolis by going to businesses in the city to question workers over alleged fraud.

Despite claims by conservatives on social media that the allegations of fraud were ignored until now, there have been years of fraud investigations that began with the indictments in 2022 of 47 defendants for their alleged roles in a $250m scheme that exploited a federally funded child nutrition program during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Prosecutors eventually secured the conviction of 57 people who stole federal funds granted to the nonprofit Feeding Our Future.

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U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino said Tuesday federal immigration enforcement officers would remain in Chicago “for years,” even after months of controversy surrounding the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants in the Windy City. 

“If you think we’re done with Chicago, you’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself,” Bovino wrote in a statement on social platform X.

“Don’t call it a comeback; we’re gonna be here for years,” he added. 

The post included a video of immigration officers chasing, tackling and arresting people, with an overlay of the song “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J. 

In the clip, one officer could be seen waving his finger through the hole of his pants, mocking the Chicago arrests. Some Chicago residents strongly oppose the Trump administration’s immigration operations, leading to mass demonstrations.

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Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza, surrounded by tents and debris, are suffering through more winter rains after two years of Israeli bombardment destroyed much of the Strip.

A polar low-pressure system accompanied by heavy rain and strong winds swept across the Gaza Strip on Saturday. It is the third polar low to affect the Palestinian territory this winter, with a fourth low-pressure system forecast to hit the area starting on Monday, meteorologist Laith al-Allami told the Anadolu news agency.

Many families have been living in tents since late 2023, for most of the duration of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The enclave is imminently facing freezing temperatures, rain and strong winds, as the authorities warn the downpour could intensify into a full-blown storm.

Mohammed Maslah, a displaced Palestinian now in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera in his rugged tent that he did not have a choice but to stay there.

“I could not find anywhere to live in Gaza, except Gaza Port,” he told Al Jazeera. “I’m forced to stay here because my home is under Israeli control. After just a few hours of rain, we were soaked.”

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A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deporting a British man who was recently placed on a visa ban after U.S. officials accused him and four other Europeans of online censorship.

Center for Countering Digital Hate CEOfiled a complaint Thursday against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi to prevent “the imminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest,” the lawsuit reads.

“The government’s actions are the latest in a string of escalating and unjustifiable assaults on the First Amendment and other rights, one that cannot stand basic legal scrutiny,” it continues. “Simply put, immigration enforcement—here, immigration detention and threatened deportation — may not be used as a tool to punish noncitizen speakers who express views disfavored by the current administration.”

The suit adds that Ahmed is a lawful permanent resident with a wife and son who are U.S. citizens.

The complaint cites other recent cases where foreign nationals on student visas, including Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, were stripped of their documentation and faced with deportation as “part of a larger pattern of attempted repression of constitutionally protected speech.”

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