TV News LIES

The Brentano String Quartet had finished their performance when a special guest dropped in backstage: the US supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. “We thanked her for everything she had done for our country,” recalls violinist Mark Steinberg. “It was a nice moment.”

The year was 2016 and the place was the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. Fast forward a decade and old certainties have been shaken: Ginsburg is dead, Donald Trump is president and the Kennedy Center has become a case study in how a seemingly solid American institution can quickly unravel.

The Brentano String Quartet were due to perform there last week but cancelled their show, citing Trump’s hostile takeover of the complex. Steinberg explained: “I would have felt ashamed to walk out on stage there. I can’t quite bring myself to go into the building at this point.

“It would be such a luxury to make art in a vacuum and that’s what I yearn for but that’s not possible right now. Had we appeared there, in my eyes, that would be a way of condoning everything that’s happening and I couldn’t stomach that.”

As the US national capital Washington is first and foremost a politics town, forever in New York’s shadow as a hub of arts and culture. In a 1961 speech Kennedy observed: “Somebody once said that Washington was a city of northern charm and southern efficiency.”

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Noam Chomsky and his wife, Valeria, made a “grave mistake” and were “careless” not to thoroughly research the background of Jeffrey Epstein, Valeria Chomsky said in a lengthy statement on Saturday, adding also that Epstein had deceived them.

The relationship between Noam Chomsky, the 97-year-old linguist and philosopher, and Epstein has been under scrutiny after documents released by the justice department shed light on their friendship. As Epstein came under scrutiny for sex trafficking allegations in 2019, he asked Chomsky for advice on how to respond. “I’ve watched the horrible way you are being treated in the press and public. It’s painful to say, but I think the best way to proceed is to ignore it,” Chomsky wrote in a message signed “Noam” that Epstein shared in email with an associate.https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/08/noam-chomsky-epstein-ties-wife-apology

“What the vultures dearly want is a public response, which then provides a public opening for an onslaught of venomous attacks, many from just publicity seekers or cranks of all sorts,” Noam Chomsky wrote in the message. “That’s particularly true now with the hysteria that has developed about abuse of women, which has reached the point that even questioning a charge is a crime worse than murder.”

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington on Wednesday about the U.S. talks with Iran, his office said Saturday, as concerns remain high about possible regional conflict.

“The prime minister believes that all negotiations must include limiting the ballistic missiles and ending support for the Iranian axis,” Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement.

The U.S. and Iran held indirect talks on Friday in Oman that appeared to return to the starting point on how to approach discussions over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Trump said the United States had “very good” talks and said more were planned for early next week. The U.S. was represented by Mideast special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to use force to compel Iran to reach a deal on the nuclear program after earlier sending the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships to the region amid Tehran’s crackdown on nationwide protests that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands of others detained.

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Every morning, university professor Hassan El-Nabih straps his briefcase and laptop to his bicycle and rides out in search of a place with electricity and an internet connection, hoping to reach his students online.

Before Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, a professor on a bicycle was not a common sight. Today, it has become a reality imposed by the war – a practical option, one of the only options, given damaged infrastructure and decimated public transport.

“My car was severely damaged in December 2023 while it was parked in the Shujayea neighbourhood [of Gaza City],” El-Nabih said.

“I was visiting relatives when an Israeli air strike struck a nearby building … shattering both windscreens and crippling the engine. With my car unusable and fuel almost impossible to find, I had to adapt.”

The genocidal war has severely damaged the besieged enclave’s transport infrastructure, with total losses estimated at roughly $2.5bn. A joint report by the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations found that about 81 percent of Gaza’s road network has been damaged or destroyed, leaving many areas isolated and basic transport services largely suspended.

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Over the span of four years, 50-year-old Fidda Mohammad Naasan and her family have been violently uprooted from their homes and lands in the occupied West Bank, not once but twice. Now, after relocating for a second time they continue to face relentless, daily attacks and abuse from Israeli settlers and soldiers determined to force them off their lands yet again.

The most recent large-scale attack on Naasan’s family took place on December 7. Israelis raided Naasan’s current home in the al-Khalayel area on the edges of al-Mghayyer village in the central West Bank.

“I was sleeping in my room with my 13-year-old grandson next to me. At 1:30 a.m., a group of five settlers raided my room, all masked, carrying pipes. They beat me on my forehead until I lost consciousness,” Naasan told Drop Site News.

Naasan was hospitalized for two days and was forced to undergo cardiac catheterization surgery following heart complications and a severe rise in her blood pressure. Her nephew also suffered cuts to his head and required six stitches.

“While he was beating me, the settler kept shouting: ‘Don’t you want to leave? If you don’t leave we will kill you,’” she recalled. “I lied and told him I would leave just so he would stop beating me.”

Naasan and her family once lived on their ancestral lands in the Wadi Daliyeh area south of Fasayil village in the central Jordan Valley. With a water spring and vast grazing lands, the area is ideal for Palestinian Bedouins who depend on livestock for income. From there, they were driven off their land by settlers to an area near the village of Turmusayya in the central West Bank where they spent the next two years.

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Russia offered the US a $12 trillion economic cooperation package, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.

The offer, dubbed the “Dmitriev package” after Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, who also runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, was identified by Ukrainian intelligence, Zelensky told journalists during a closed-door briefing.

“Intelligence showed me the so-called ‘Dmitriev package’ that he presented in the US – it amounts to around $12 trillion,” the Ukrainian president said.

“It is supposedly a package of economic cooperation between America and Russia,” he added. “So we are hearing about the possibility of such or similar bilateral documents [to be signed] between America and Russia.”

The development points to a renewed push by Moscow to court US President Donald Trump, as Ukraine and Russia continue to vie for Washington’s support while the US presses for a diplomatic settlement.

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Foreign aid spending is back in the U.S. government's budget, after a year in which the Trump administration cut billions of dollars to global health and humanitarian assistance.

On Tuesday evening, President Trump signed the spending bill that would fund much of the government through September 30.

In that legislation, Congress has allocated $50 billion for foreign aid in 2026 — a 16% cut from 2025. Still, it's a lot more money than the administration had signaled it wants to spend on foreign aid in its proposed budget.

The foreign aid package includes funding for a variety of issues, such as military aid to Egypt, Israel and Taiwan. However, it also includes money for initiatives aimed at supporting democracy, scholarship programs, U.S. embassy operations and health and humanitarian programs around the world.

Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement that the bill advances the priorities of the American people. "This fiscally responsible package would realign U.S. foreign assistance and make America safer and stronger on the world stage."

Aid groups also welcomed the package, even as they noted the reduction in funding for humanitarian assistance compared to previous years.

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Attorneys for the Trump administration are aiming to deport Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old boy whose photograph in a bunny hat in snowy Minneapolis circulated globally after his detention last month by federal officials during the aggressive anti-immigration crackdown there.

The child, Liam, returned home to Minnesota earlier this week after being taken into custody alongside his father last month and transferred to a notorious family detention facility in Texas.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on Friday it is seeking a deportation order for the Ecuadorian boy.But the department has denied that it is seeking to expedite his and his father’s removal from the US after a lawyer for the family characterized the government’s action as such to the New York Times.

The lawyer, Danielle Molliver, described the move to the newspaper as “extraordinary” and possibly “retaliatory”.

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