TV News LIES

Two children were killed Wednesday and at least 17 people were injured when a gunman fired through the windows of a Minneapolis Catholic church toward young people worshipping at Mass, authorities said.

The shooting occurred at Annunciation Church, which also houses a school, just before 8:30 a.m., authorities said. The gunman approached the outside of the church building and fired inside toward the children sitting in pews, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said.

The gunman then took his own life at the rear of the church, O'Hara said.

"Children are dead," Mayor Jacob Frey said. "Those families are suffering immense pain right now. Think of this as if it were your own. Every one of us needs to be wrapping our arms around these families, giving them every ounce that we can muster."

More...

Israeli forces carried out a rare daytime raid on Tuesday in the heart of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered. Dozens of Palestinians were wounded, according to local medics, as people throwing stones scattered after gunfire and tear gas.

Israel said it targeted money exchanges linked to Hamas. But the raid was likely to further undermine the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority as it seeks to capitalize on the recent decision by some major Western countries to recognize Palestinian statehood.

The Palestinian Authority, which is led by rivals of Hamas, did not immediately comment on the raid. It cooperates with Israel on security matters and exercises limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank. Many Palestinians view it as a corrupt and autocratic entity.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said 58 people were wounded in the raid, eight of them by live fire and 14 by rubber-coated bullets. A few dozen people hurled rocks at a line of Israeli armored vehicles as they rolled into the city center. The military said it detained five people “suspected of terrorist activity.”

More...

Israel has carried out intensified attacks across Gaza, including a strike on a popular market east of Gaza City, killing at least five Palestinians and injuring many others.

Videos verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad fact-checking agency show Palestinians fleeing the as-Saftawi area north of Gaza City as Israel pushes ahead with its plans to seize the city.

The Palestinian Authority has condemned what it calls a “dangerous escalation” by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank after a raid in Ramallah injured dozens of Palestinians.

Several Palestinians and international activists have been wounded after a group of Israeli settlers attacked residents in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the West Bank, the Wafa news agency reports.

US special envoy Tom Barrack has triggered a storm of criticism after scolding reporters during a news conference in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, telling them to “act civilised” and saying their conduct reflected the regional turmoil.

More...

Ukraine acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that Russia’s army had entered the Dnipropetrovsk region, a central administrative area previously spared from intense fighting.

“Yes, they have entered, and fighting is ongoing as of now,” said Viktor Tregubov, a spokesperson for Ukrainian forces in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city. Russian forces have slowly gained ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and southern Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Separately, Ukraine’s military general staff rejected Moscow’s claims to have fully captured the villages of Zaporizke and Novogeorgiivka just inside Dnipropetrovsk oblast.

More...

More than 80 years after it was looted by the Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Amsterdam, a portrait by an Italian master has been spotted on the website of an estate agent advertising a house for sale in Argentina.

A photo shows the painting, Portrait of a Lady (Contessa Colleoni) by the late-baroque portraitist Giuseppe Ghislandi, also known as Fra’ Galgario, hanging above a sofa in the living room of the property, in a seaside town near Buenos Aires.

The Dutch newspaper AD said it had traced the work, which features in a database of lost art and is listed by the Dutch culture ministry as “unreturned” after the second world war, after a long investigation – and with the unwitting help of the estate agent.

Portrait of a Lady belonged to Jacques Goudstikker, a leading Dutch art dealer who fled the Netherlands in mid-May 1940 to escape the invading Nazis but died after falling in the hold of the vessel carrying him to safety and breaking his neck.

Within weeks, Goudstikker’s entire collection of more than 1,100 artworks, including numerous paintings catalogued as old masters, had been bought up, in a forced sale and for a small fraction of its true value, by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring.

More...

A powerful storm kicked up a towering wall of dust that rolled through the city of Phoenix, Arizona, on Monday, darkening the sky, blinding drivers, knocking out power and damaging one of the nation’s busiest airports.

The dust storm, known as a haboob, is pushed by the wind and produced by a weather front or thunderstorm. It typically occurs in flat, arid areas. The storm came from the south-east, and was followed by heavy rain, wind and lightning.

Bernae Boykin Hitesman was driving her son and daughter, ages nine and 11, home from school when the storm arrived late in the afternoon in Arizona City, about 60 miles (95km) south-east of Phoenix.

She had to quickly pull over as the storm engulfed her car. “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face if I put my hand outside,” she said.

More...

At least two current and three former Microsoft employees – as well as two other tech workers – were arrested at the company’s headquarters after staging a sit-in demonstration at the company president’s office urging that Microsoft cut ties with the Israeli government.

Police placed the protesters in full-body harnesses and carried them out of the building, according to Abdo Mohamed, a former Microsoft worker and who helped organize the demonstration. “No arrests, no violence, will deter us from continuing to speak up,” he said.

At least two current and three former Microsoft employees – as well as two other tech workers – were arrested at the company’s headquarters after staging a sit-in demonstration at the company president’s office urging that Microsoft cut ties with the Israeli government.

Police placed the protesters in full-body harnesses and carried them out of the building, according to Abdo Mohamed, a former Microsoft worker and who helped organize the demonstration. “No arrests, no violence, will deter us from continuing to speak up,” he said.

In addition to the protesters who staged a sit-in at Microsoft president Brad Smith’s office, other employees, former staff and supporters had gathered outside the headquarters.

The demonstration on Tuesday was part of a series of actions organized by current and former staff over Microsoft’s cloud contracts with the Israeli government. Twenty activists were arrested at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington last week.

More...

Since the White House press office selected reporters from five pro-Trump, partisan news outlets to ask the president questions during his televised cabinet meeting on Tuesday, readers will not be shocked to learn that they largely avoided subjects he would prefer not to talk about.

In fact, two of them went even further than that, using the opportunity to help Trump make his point about crime in Washington DC by sharing their own stories of being assaulted or harassed.

The first to speak, in what was obviously a pre-planned moment, was Iris Tao of the conspiratorial Epoch Times.

Tao’s outlet, which was founded by Chinese exiles affiliated with the Falun Gong spiritual movement that is repressed as a cult in China, has heavily promoted Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that China was responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I want to mention, you know about crime… we have a young lady here, Iris of Epoch Times,” Trump said, looked down at his briefing notes, where her name was written in large letters. “I heard you were very savagely mugged. Would you like to mention what happened?” he asked.

Tao then described the harrowing experience of being mugged at gunpoint outside her apartment building in January 2023, and struck in the face with a pistol by her attacker when she refused to hand over her phone.

More...