TV News LIES

During his briefing on the Iran war last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested that Americans take a knee and pray to Jesus for the success of U.S. forces in the Middle East. A few days later, he read out a sermon praying that “wicked souls” be “delivered to the eternal damnation” in the fight against Iran.

The Defense secretary has increasingly used his bully pulpit to promote his combative, controversial brand of Christianity. While the Pentagon says Hegseth is embracing America’s proud history as a Christian nation, some experts and veterans worry that Hegseth’s move to inject the military with more explicitly religious sentiments threatens to divide America’s forces.

“The ideological consolidation of the military is something that we have historically not wanted. We want the military to be diverse. We want the military representative of the American people,” he added.

“I think it’s extremely concerning the way that he is operating. It’s concerning to me as a Christian, and it’s concerning to me as an American,” said Matthew Taylor, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

Hegseth, who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan before becoming a Fox News host, has presided over prayer services in the building led by controversial Christian pastors and revamped the military’s Chaplain Corps, and official Defense Department social media posts often amplify ultraconservative Christian views.

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U.S.-Israeli airstrikes on a residential area in Isfahan in central Iran on Friday killed 26 people, including seven children, according to Press TV.

The Israeli military announced a broad wave of attacks targeting government infrastructure in the heart of Tehran, with Iranian state media and residents reporting explosions across the capital, including the Chitgar neighborhood in northwest Tehran.

At least seven people were killed in U.S.-Israeli strikes on residential units in the city of Urmia in northwestern Iran, near the borders with Turkey and Iraq, BBC reports.

Early Friday, Iranian Red Crescent teams were deployed after an airstrike struck a residential area in Qom, a central Iranian city south of Tehran, with crews carrying out search and rescue operations at the scene.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Friday that Israel will “escalate and expand” attacks on Iran. Iran “will pay heavy, increasing prices” for attacking Israeli civilians, Katz said in a televised statement.

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Residents of Israel's southern Negev region say they've been left defenceless against Iranian missile fire, and have called the government's response "a complete failure" rooted in years of policy neglect.

Avi Dabush, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, told Middle East Eye that Saturday's deadly strikes on Dimona, a city known for its proximity to Israeli nuclear facilities, and the nearby city of Arad, exposed deep gaps in civilian protection.

"The government's response to the missile fire is a complete failure," Dabush said.

"The state spends hundreds of billions on various things, but not on protection," he said, adding: "action should have been taken long ago".

His comments come after one of the heaviest rounds of Iranian missile strikes on Israeli territory since the start of the US and Israeli war on Iran, with around 30 people injured in Dimona and 115 in Arad.

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Yemen’s Houthis fired missiles at Israel on Saturday for the first time since the war on Iran broke out a month ago. 

In a video statement, military spokesperson Yahya Saree said the group had launched ballistic missiles at Israeli military sites. 

“[We] have carried out the first military operation using a barrage of ballistic missiles targeting sensitive Israeli military sites in southern occupied Palestine,” Saree said.

Israel’s military said it had "identified the launch of a missile from Yemen toward Israeli territory, aerial defence systems are operating to intercept the threat".

There were no reports of any casualties or damage in Israel.

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A federal judge ruled on Friday that officials at Florida’s state-run immigration jail, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz”, must give attorneys better access to their detained clients.

The order by federal judge Sheri Polster Chappell, from the middle district of Florida, said facility officials must provide access to confidential, private, free and unmonitored outgoing legal telephone calls from people detained in the facility. Polster Chappell also ruled that attorneys are allowed to make unannounced visits to see their clients, bypassing the facility’s pre-scheduling requirement.

The state of Florida opened the detention center in summer 2025 to detain undocumented immigrants caught within the state. Since its opening, the facility has faced severe criticisms of the treatment of detainees.

Amnesty International, the human rights group, published a report in December detailing conditions inside, finding that “people arbitrarily detained in ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ are being held in inhuman and unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets with fecal matter seeping into where people are sleeping, limited access to showers, exposure to insects without protective measures, lights on 24 hours a day, poor quality food and water, and lack of privacy”.

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James Tolkan, known for his roles as an authoritarian figure in the Back to the Future and Top Gun films, has died. He was 94.

Tolkan died Thursday in Lake Placid, New York, where he lived, his booking agent, John Alcantar, said Saturday. A brief obituary published on the Back to the Future website said Tolkan died “peacefully”, but no cause of death was given.

In Back to the Future, Tolkan portrayed the bow tie-wearing vice-principal Gerald Strickland, who eyeballed students for trouble in the halls of the fictitious Hill Valley high school – in particular Marty McFly, played by Michael J Fox.

“You got a real attitude problem, McFly,” Tolkan’s character says in the 1985 film. “You’re a slacker. You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker, too.”

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A Palestinian middle school student in Michigan who was publicly admonished for refusing to stand for the pledge of allegiance as part of a personal protest against the war on Gaza has settled with her school district following a lawsuit around her first amendment free speech rights.

The teenager, identified as DK in court documents, said she faced racism from a teacher at the West Middle school in Canton, Michigan, after she did not participate in the pledge. The teacher reportedly told DK to “go back to her country”, Fox 2 Detroit reported.

In a statement following the settlement, DK called the ordeal “terrifying” and “overwhelming” at times.

“But it taught me the importance of speaking up for what I believe is right,” said DK. “I feel proud of the outcome and of being part of something that reinforces how important free speech is. I’ve learned that even when it feels uncomfortable or risky, speaking out can make a difference, not just for me, but for others as well.”

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As the calendar soon turns to April, it appears that we can finally shed all talk of the polar vortex until next winter as milder weather takes hold across much of the eastern U.S. and a cool-down ends the western heat wave.

A surge of warmth featuring temperatures above the historical average will impact the Southeast and parts of the eastern United States to start April, AccuWeather said in an online forecast. The pattern will support multiple days of temperatures in the 80s, with increasing risks for thunderstorms and heavy rainfall as a front advances later in the period.

Meanwhile, some good news is in the forecast for the drought- and heat-plagued West, as a cool, wet and even snowy pattern is forecast to bring some relief that's desperately needed across the region.

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