TV News LIES

Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns said the American Revolution has been “sanitized,” calling the war “dark and bloody.”

More...“I think we have sanitized the war. And I — I think it’s out of an understandable fear that if somehow we reveal how dark and bloody it is, that it will somehow diminish those big ideas in Philadelphia in [1776] and then 11 years later in [1787], when they do the Constitution,” Burns told NBC News’s Kristen Welker in an interview that aired Sunday.

“It doesn’t. They’re made — those ideas are made even more impressive because of the improbability of the struggle, the odds against success, the time it took to do it, the — all of the problems, the winters at Valley Forge and Morristown in which people are dying of disease,” he added.

Burns’s comments come amid heated debates about how American history should be presented, with mMore...any pushing for American history’s darker aspects, including slavery and the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans, to be highlighted more often.

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Democrat Christian Menefee won a Texas U.S. House seat in a special election Saturday that will narrow Republicans' already-slim majority, telling President Trump that the Democratic district "topples corrupt presidencies." Menefee, the Harris County attorney, prevailed in a runoff against Amanda Edwards, a former Houston City Council member. He will replace the late Rep. Sylvester Turner, a former Houston mayor, who died in March 2025.

In addition to the Houston-area race, there was a special election in North Texas' Tarrant County for a state senate seat. In a major political upset, Democrat Taylor Rehmet defehttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrat-christian-menefee-wins-special-election-u-s-house-in-texas/ated Republican Leigh Wambsganss in that race in Tarrant County, the largest Republican county in the nation, according to complete but unofficial returns. 

The seat representing the heavily Democratic Houston-based district has been vacant for nearly a year.

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Several regions of Ukraine are out of power suddenly at 12:00 on Jan. 30.

Several sources among local authorities and energy companies confirmed to Kyiv Post that the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Zhytomyr and Odesa regions are without electricity.

According to sources, the energy grid is overloaded due to the low temperature extremes (down to -15°C). And this overload is extremely bad after the system was seriously damaged by the last russian missile strikes.

Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal wrote in his Telegram that the automatic system stopped the power because of sudden stop of the wo energy lines that connect Moldova and Ukraine and western regions and central regions of Ukraine. What the cause of this was is still unclear.

Meanwhile, the state agency “Ukrenergo” promises that the power will be restored in several hours

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Hospitals in Gaza said Israeli strikes killed at least 23 Palestinians Saturday, one of the highest tolls since the October ceasefire aimed at stopping the fighting.

A day after Israel accused Hamas of new ceasefire violations, strikes hit locations throughout Gaza, including lethal ones on an apartment building in Gaza City and a tent camp in Khan Younis, officials at hospitals that received the bodies said. The casualties included two women and six children from two different families. An airstrike also hit a police station in Gaza City, killing at least 11 and wounding others, Shifa Hospital director Mohamed Abu Selmiya said.

The series of strikes also came a day before the Rafah crossing along the border with Egypt is set to open in Gaza's southernmost city. All of the territory's border crossings have been closed throughout almost the entire war. Palestinians see Rafah as a lifeline for the tens of thousands in need of treatment outside the territory, where the majority of medical infrastructure has been destroyed.

The crossing's opening, limited at first, marks the first major step in the second phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Reopening borders is among the challenging issues on the agenda for the phase now underway, which also include demilitarizing the strip after nearly two decades of Hamas rule and installing a new government to oversee reconstruction.

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Hundreds of protesters gathered in a central square in Milan on Saturday, demanding that U.S. ICE agents assisting with security at the Winter Olympics leave Italy.

Many of the Italians who chanted and blew whistles near the grand stone arch in the Piazza XXV Aprile said they had been horrified and angered by images and videos on social media showing ICE agents operating violently in Minneapolis.

"All the videos are public and everyone can see what's happening," said Bruna Scanziani, age 18, who held up a sign with photographs of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, two American citizens killed by ICE agents. "The perception of America has changed."

With the opening ceremony taking place next Friday, Italy's government has scrambled to contain the growing political scandal over ICE's role at the Winter Games, holding high level cabinet meetings and offering public assurances that the role of ICE agents would be limited.

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Survivors, lawmakers and watchdog groups accused Donald Trump’s justice department of withholding records it is legally required to release following the disclosure of millions of files from the investigation into the disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The justice department on Friday released 3m pages of documents from its investigation into the millionaire financier’s sexual abuse of young girls and his interactions with wealthy and powerful figures, including Trump and former president Bill Clinton. The release was an effort to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and, according to US deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, includes more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, all subject to “extensive redactions”.

In a letter to Congress, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and Blanche indicated that Friday’s document “marks the end” of the government’s efforts to comply with the law, drawing sharp condemnation from Democrats and the bill’s authors.

Robert Garcia, the Democratic ranking member on the House oversight committee, which has taken a lead role in investigating the government’s handling of the files release, accused Bondi of breaking the law.

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Six people – including a child – were shot during a carnival parade in Louisiana on Saturday, leading authorities to take one person into custody, according to multiple reports.

The mass shooting occurred near a courthouse in Clinton, Louisiana, during the town’s “Mardi Gras in the Country” event, local news outlet WBRZ reported. The local sheriff told the local news outlet that the parade was immediately shut down.

One person is in custody, officials told the outlet – and investigators are searching for a vehicle suspected to have been used for the shooting.

The East Feliciana parish sheriff’s office, which oversees Clinton, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.

WBRZ reported that the Louisiana state police has taken over the investigation. Streets near the courthouse were reportedly blocked by state troopers and officials with the sheriff’s office.

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Donald Trump has instructed the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, not to intervene in protests occurring in cities led by Democrats unless local authorities ask for federal help amid mounting criticism of his administration’s immigration crackdown.

On his social media site, Trump posted that “under no circumstances are we going to participate in various poorly run Democrat Cities with regard to their Protests and/or Riots unless, and until, they ask us for help”.

He provided no further details on how his order would affect operations by US Customs and Immigration Enforcement and DHS personnel, or other federal agencies, but added: “We will, however, guard, and very powerfully so, any and all Federal Buildings that are being attacked by these highly paid Lunatics, Agitators, and Insurrectionists.”

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