TV News LIES

A fire in California’s Big Sur region doubled in size overnight, forcing the evacuation of nearby residents, in a coastal region where firefighters have battled another blaze for weeks.

The Plaskett fire, which sparked on Tuesday, had swept through more than 5,900 acres (2,400 hectares) in Monterey county as of Friday, and remained un-contained, according to Cal Fire. Its cause is under investigation.

Fire authorities have deployed helicopters and air tankers to suppress the flames with targeted water drops, but the remote area’s steep terrain and scarce roads have hindered ground crews’ ability to access the fire.

Meanwhile, to the north, the Timber fire continues to burn through more than 24,000 acres (9,700 acres), as authorities have it under 21% containment. The blaze broke past certain containment lines. Smoke from the fire and cloud cover prevented officials from mapping the fire’s expansion overnight.

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The Trump administration has been deploying an obscure legal maneuver to try to obtain private information on journalists, non-profits and unions, raising alarm over a power the government has asserted without judicial oversight.

In one instance, the government obtained six months of telephone records for Georgia Fort, a Minneapolis journalist. Fort was not notified of the request for her information, nor was she given a chance to contest the government’s effort to obtain them, her lawyers said in court papers.

In February of this year, federal prosecutors twice sought search warrants for account information for the YouTube channel of Fort and the journalist Don Lemon, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in connection to a protest at a Minneapolis church in January that they were covering. A judge twice rejected the request, writing that the government had failed to establish probable cause of a crime and that he wanted Lemon and Fort to be informed of the request so they could have a chance to challenge it. About a month after the judge’s ruling in late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request.

In February of this year, federal prosecutors twice sought search warrants for account information for the YouTube channel of Fort and the journalist Don Lemon, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in connection to a protest at a Minneapolis church in January that they were covering. A judge twice rejected the request, writing that the government had failed to establish probable cause of a crime and that he wanted Lemon and Fort to be informed of the request so they could have a chance to challenge it. About a month after the judge’s ruling in late February, the government said it was withdrawing the request.

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A federal judge has ruled in favor of artificial intelligence company Anthropic in its legal battle against the Pentagon after the government labeled the company as a supply chain risk earlier this year.

U.S. District Judge Rita Lin issued a written order Thursday night that the Pentagon acted illegally by punishing the AI company for its criticism of the Department of Defense's views on AI use. The government is expected to fight the ruling.

The dispute between the AI company and the government broke out in February when President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused Anthropic of endangering national security and designated the company a supply chain risk. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei refused to back down over concerns the company's products could be used for mass surveillance or autonomous armed drones.

Lin wrote that the government's actions "were based on a desire to make a public example out of Anthropic for its 'arrogance' in criticizing the government, not based on any articulable basis to believe that Anthropic would actually sabotage its model."

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The far-right British commentator Milo Yiannopoulos, who enthusiastically supported President Trump's immigration crackdown, has been arrested and deported for allegedly living in the U.S. illegally.

"On August 27, ICE arrested Milo Yiannopoulos, an illegal alien from the United Kingdom, at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport," the agency said in a post on X. He entered the country legally in 2019 according to ICE, but he then overstayed. "Yiannopoulos was issued a final order of removal by an Immigration Judge on July 22, after failing to show up for his immigration hearing," the agency said in its statement.

In a separate statement to NPR, the Department of Homeland Security said Yiannopoulos was deported back to the U.K. on Friday.

Yiannopoulos rose to prominence through his provocative statements criticizing political correctness, feminism and Islam. He also drew criticism for his alleged ties to white nationalists.

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Dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Qusra in the northern occupied West Bank on Saturday, residents and the military said, after nearly three weeks of tension in the area.

Earlier in August a group of rogue settlers began blocking supplies from entering Palestinian houses on the outskirts of the village near Nablus, trapping residents inside and drawing domestic and international condemnation.

For the latest updates on the Israel-Palestine conflict, visit our dedicated page.

Weeks later, Israeli forces continue to operate in the area while settlers still roam the surrounding hills.

On Saturday, Qusra resident Yussef Abdul Kareem Hassan told AFP that a handful of villagers were doing work on a house when they were approached by a small group of settlers.

The settlers then called for backup and returned with dozens more, Hassan said, adding that they had surrounded the Palestinians inside the house and began throwing stones.

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Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has announced a new plan to judaise the Negev, or Naqab in Arabic, and the Galilee, vowing to replicate in Israel policies that he has pursued in the occupied West Bank.

"Today I am presenting to you the Religious Zionism plan for the judaisation of the Negev and Galilee," Smotrich said on X on Thursday.

The Negev and Galilee are in the southern and northern parts of Israel and are home to the majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Smotrich said that the settlement expansion he has led in the West Bank in the past four years, would be repeated "on a massive scale" in the Negev and the Galilee as well.

"The goal: one million additional Jews in the Negev and Galilee, 40 new communities, dozens of farms, expansion of existing communities, and hundreds of thousands of housing solutions," he said.

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The universe is a strange place — filled with exploding stars, ancient galaxies, and unseen worlds. Now, astronomers are about to get a brand new tool to explore it.

The $4.3-billion Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled for launch Aug. 30. Named for NASA's first chief astronomer, the observatory is expected to reveal new information about the expansion of the universe and discover multitudes of planets orbiting distant stars.

Roman, as it is known to its friends, has an unusual history. About 15 years ago NASA was making plans to build a space telescope that could, among other things, search for exploding stars known as Type 1A supernovas. These supernovas were used as a kind of cosmological measuring stick to uncover a mysterious force called dark energy that was causing the universe to expand — a discovery that earned the Nobel Prize in 2011.

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Football in the occupied West Bank has been brought to a near standstill since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

Palestinian players struggle to reach training grounds, matches are routinely cancelled because of checkpoints and military closures, and hundreds of sports facilities have either been damaged or destroyed.

But in illegal Israeli settlements, Israeli football teams are thriving, with players continuing to train and compete while clubs expand their facilities.

An investigation by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and Bridges Investigations for Middle East Eye has found that illegal settlement-based clubs are participating in Israeli domestic competitions with the backing of the Israel Football Association (IFA), while Fifa and Uefa continue to recognise and financially support the IFA.

According to the investigation, Fifa, which formally says it is committed to respecting internationally recognised human rights through its statutes and strategic goals, has not only declined to take action against settlement clubs; its Fifa+ platform also broadcasts their matches.

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