TV News LIES

At least eight people were killed when a hot air balloon crashed in Brazil, authorities said on June 21.

The balloon was carrying 21 people and caught fire during its tourism flight in the early morning hours in the southern state of Santa Catarina, the local fire department said, according to Reuters. It crashed in the city of Praia Grande, Reuters reported. Thirteen survivors were taken to hospitals.

Santa Catarina Gov. Jorginho Mello said he was monitoring the situation and providing support for the victims and families, calling it a "tragedy" in a video posted to social media.

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Israel’s actions in Gaza may have violated the terms of the country’s agreement with the EU, the bloc’s diplomatic corps found.

“On the basis of the assessments made by the independent international ?institutions … there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations under Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement,” the European External Action Service (EEAS) concluded, according to a leaked document seen by POLITICO.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, was asked to lead a review after more than a dozen countries requested the European Commission look into the potential political and legal ramifications of the conflict.

TVNL Comment: Ya think? Killing more than 50,000 unarmed civilians might be in violation of human rights? Now, there's a thought.

Russian drones slammed into two Ukrainian cities, killing at least one person in nighttime attacks, authorities said Friday, as a Kremlin official said he expected an announcement next week on dates for a fresh round of direct peace talks.

Russia’s overnight drone assault targeted the southern Ukraine port city of Odesa and the northeastern city of Kharkiv, hitting apartment blocks, officials said.

The barrage of more than 20 drones injured almost two dozen civilians, including girls aged 17 and 12, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“Russia continues its tactics of targeted terror against our people,” Zelenskyy said on messaging app Telegram, urging the United States and the European Union to crank up economic pressure on Russia.

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Senior White House adviser Kari Lake issued mass layoff notices Friday to 639 employees of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the federal outlet which owns the Voice of America and through which Congress directs money for other government-funded international networks, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

The vast majority of the job cuts, intended to be a permanent reduction in the size of the workforce, affects Voice of America, the government-owned international network that has beamed news reports to countries under autocratic regimes since World War II.

In a press release, Lake called her action "part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy." She said 85% of jobs, or 1,400 positions, had been eliminated in total, in keeping with an executive order in mid-March from President Trump.

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A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to keep Harvard University from hosting international students.

An order from U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs preserves the ability of Harvard to host foreign students while the case is decided. It marks another victory for the Ivy League school as it challenges multiple government sanctions amid a battle with the White House.

Harvard sued the Department of Homeland Security in May after the agency withdrew the school’s certification to host foreign students and issue paperwork for their visas. The action would have forced Harvard’s roughly 7,000 foreign students to transfer or risk being in the U.S. illegally. New foreign students would have been barred from coming to Harvard.

The university called it illegal retaliation for rejecting the White House’s demands to overhaul Harvard policies around campus protests, admissions, hiring and other issues. Burroughs temporarily halted the action hours after Harvard sued.

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Nearly 1,000 ships have experienced “persistent and sometimes severe” GPS signal jams every day the past week near Iran as the country continues to face bombardment from Israel’s military, a French naval monitoring firm warned Friday.

The Maritime Information, Cooperation and Awareness (MICA) Center wrote in a post on the social platform X that the situation “makes it harder to navigate safely at night, in poor visibility and/or when traffic density is heavy.”

“[It] also can lead to accidental situations,” the group wrote.

The MICA Center said it’s possible the GPS issue may have contributed to the recent collision of two giant tankers, ADALYNN and Front Eagle, in the Gulf of Oman near the United Arab Emirates, but the organization cautioned that the crash remains under investigation.

Israel and Iran have been exchanging strikes for the past week, after Israel launched a surprise attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities and military sites.

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