TV News LIES

With the cost of fertilizer and energy inputs surging due to the war on Iran, Nebraska’s farming industry, always squeaking by on the thinnest of margins, is being thoroughly brutalized. The town of Lexington is in free fall amid the closure of a beef processing facility that served as the town’s foundation. And in Omaha, a city where AI severely threatens employees in the primary industry of insurance, anxiety is at an all time high.

It’s not a great time to be a politician who’s the son of a billionaire celebrating the virtues of the free market, but such is the fate of Nebraska’s Republican senator, Pete Ricketts, who faces a surprisingly robust challenge from independent Dan Osborn, a mechanic who rose to prominence in the state leading a strike at a major Kellogg facility.

Ricketts, for his part, also claimed to have drawn a short straw when it came to one of the reporters assigned to this article, Drop Site’s new congressional reporter Julian Andreone. As a college student, Julian excitedly celebrated the launch of Osborn’s campaign, forecasting his victory. If I was Ricketts, I’d complain about Julian covering me too, but now that he’s out of school and working as a reporter, let’s judge him by his work rather than a past tweet.

They’re probably not super excited about my own involvement either, but Ricketts himself may find something valuable in what Julian found during his recent trip to Nebraska, and we present it below with neither fear nor favor, as they say. And we encourage Ricketts himself, of course, to take the same opportunity Osborn availed himself of to answer questions and make his case to voters. As you’ll see from his campaign spokesperson’s comments to us, that’s unlikely to come about, but the door remains open.

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Despite official Israeli denials and the refusal of some Lebanese to acknowledge the reality, the colonisation of south Lebanon is neither a myth nor a fantasy. It is a concrete and structured project.

On 14 May, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir revealed that Israel had a "settlement plan for Lebanon". The far-right minister made the statement on the very day Lebanon and Israel were due to resume direct negotiations in Washington under US auspices aimed at normalising relations and reaching a comprehensive agreement.

Several weeks earlier, on 26 March, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared that "the Litani must be our new border with the state of Lebanon, just like the 'Yellow Line' in Gaza and like the buffer zone and peak of the Hermon in Syria".

These statements are not merely rhetorical provocations. They accompany and support actions already taking place on the ground by Israeli civilians inside Lebanese territory.

On 12 February, weeks before the latest war broke out, dozens of settlers, including women and children, attempted to plant trees inside Lebanese territory in what appeared to be a staged demonstration promoting Israeli settlement expansion. Participants called for the alleged "resumption" of settlement activity in Lebanon, presenting it as a "historical correction".

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The U.S. military intercepted and shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones and struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Hill on Wednesday. 

Bandar Abbas is a port city on the southern coast of the nation, located on the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian drones posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway that the Iranian regime has effectively choked off.

“These actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” the U.S. official said. 

The strikes come as President Trump maintained on Wednesday that Iran wants to strike a deal but offered a few details of what’s in the potential deal to end the war in the Middle East.

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Israel has built more than 25 kilometers of earthen barriers inside Gaza since the “ceasefire,” according to an analysis by Forensic Architecture—physically dividing Gaza along the line of Israeli control and further corralling Palestinians into less than half of the enclave.

In the more than seven months since Hamas and Israel signed a ceasefire agreement that was supposed to end Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza and set the stage for a phased withdrawal of Israeli troops, Israel has instead been fortifying military bases in the eastern part of the territory it controls and constructing a physical barrier walling off Palestinians from most of the Gaza Strip, according to the research, which draws on satellite imagery and other data.

As part of the October 2025 deal, Israeli troops withdrew to the “yellow line” that runs roughly parallel to Gaza’s coastline and cuts off large chunks of territory at the northern and southern ends of the enclave, giving Israel control of 53% of the Gaza Strip. Since then, they have encroached further west and now effectively control over 60% of the territory. In January, Drop Site News first published findings by Forensic Architecture that showed Israel had begun constructing berms—large, raised mounds of earth—to create a physical separation between the area it controls and the area the Palestinian population has been forced into.

The latest findings show that the berms have been extended to create a mostly unbroken wall. Much of the berm runs west of the yellow line, going even deeper into Palestinian territory. In places like Jabaliya, the Israeli military has created a “buffer zone” along the yellow line, destroying everything in a 300 meter vicinity and creating an effective no man’s land west of the line.

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A senior Iranian official has explicitly denied that Tehran agreed to hand over or relocate its highly enriched uranium stockpiles as part of the pending diplomatic memorandum of understanding with the US. The revelation directly contradicts earlier assumptions surrounding the breakthrough truce announced by Donald Trump.

The sudden diplomatic breakthrough aimed at ending the military standoff in the Persian Gulf has hit a critical roadblock after a senior Iranian official explicitly rejected claims that Tehran has agreed to surrender its domestic stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.

The pushback, according to Reuters, introduces a sharp narrative divide between Washington and Tehran just hours before both administrations are scheduled to formally announce a finalized Memorandum of Understanding to halt the six-week-old war.

According to the high-ranking Iranian government official, the preliminary text hammered out during frantic weekend backchannel negotiations does not encompass any structural restrictions or removal mandates concerning the regime’s nuclear enrichment capabilities. Tehran asserts that the current diplomatic instrument functions strictly as a localized security framework to separate combat forces and restore maritime trade, rather than a comprehensive, permanent non-proliferation treaty.

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U.S. Central Command (Centcom) on Monday said U.S. forces fired “defensive strikes” in southern Iran amid discussions to bring the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Tehran to an end.

These strikes were intended “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces” — specifically boats attempting to lay mines and missile launch sites, Navy Capt. Tim Hawkins, a Centcom spokesperson, told The Hill.

“U.S. Central Command continues to defend our forces while using restraint during the ongoing ceasefire,” Hawkins said.

Earlier Monday, Reuters reported explosions in southern Iran in Bandar Abbas city and around coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. and Iran have held a ceasefire since April 7. The stalemate has seen few small attacks since last month, though none have violated the ceasefire’s terms.

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