TV News LIES

Charlie Kirk rejected an offer earlier this year from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrange a massive new infusion of Zionist money into his Turning Point USA (TPUSA) organization, America’s largest conservative youth association, according to a longtime friend of the slain commentator speaking on the condition of anonymity.

The source told The Grayzone that the late pro-Trump influencer believed Netanyahu was trying to cow him into silence as he began to publicly question Israel’s overwhelming influence in Washington and demanded more space to criticize it.

In the weeks leading up to his September 10 assassination, Kirk had come to loathe the Israeli leader, regarding him as a “bully,” the source said. Kirk was disgusted by what he witnessed inside the Trump administration, where Netanyahu sought to personally dictate the president’s personnel decisions, and weaponized Israeli assets like billionaire donor Miriam Adelson to keep the White House firmly under its thumb.

According to Kirk’s friend, who also enjoyed access to President Donald Trump and his inner circle, Kirk strongly warned Trump last June against bombing Iran on Israel’s behalf. “Charlie was the only person who did that,” they said, recalling how Trump “barked at him” in response and angrily shut down the conversation. The source believes the incident confirmed in Kirk’s mind that the president of the United States had fallen under the control of a malign foreign power, and was leading his own country into a series of disastrous conflicts.

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The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has fired another staffer: Kevin Struthers, a senior director of music programming who had been at the D.C. arts institution for 30 years. Struthers confirmed his termination to NPR on Thursday.

His dismissal is the latest upset in a line of firings and resignations at the Kennedy Center since President Trump became its chair in February and appointed Richard Grennell its new president. The Kennedy Center and NPR co-present the annual concert A Jazz Piano Christmas.

Their firings were first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday.

Struthers had been the administrative director of the Kennedy Center's jazz programming. Previously, the Kennedy Center had been celebrated for inviting a vibrant roster of established and emerging jazz artists. The only mainstage jazz performance still on the Kennedy Center's schedule is anOctober performance by The Glenn Miller Orchestra, a group which began recording in 1939.

One student has died and three others were injured in a shooting at Evergreen High School on Wednesday afternoon.

CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital confirmed the death but would not share any other details about the student who died, spokesperson Lindsay Radford said.

Three students — including the shooter — were being treated at the hospital for gunshot wounds. The fourth student took themselves to the hospital with injuries sustained while escaping the high school and fleeing to a nearby elementary school.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s office said the alleged shooter was a 16-year-old male and suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

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New Mexico will become the first state to offer free universal childcare, the governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced this week, an expansion of an existing program that has helped lift tens of thousands of people out of poverty.

Beginning 1 November, the state will guarantee no-cost childcare to all residents, regardless of their income level in what the governor’s office described as a “groundbreaking new initiative”.

“Child care is essential to family stability, workforce participation, and New Mexico’s future prosperity,” Lujan Grisham said in a statement. “By investing in universal child care, we are giving families financial relief, supporting our economy, and ensuring that every child has the opportunity to grow and thrive.”

In 2022, the state became the first to offer childcare at no cost to most families, making it free for those who earned up to 400% of the federal poverty level, which amounts to about $124,000 for a family of four. About half of the children in the state qualified.

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On a sunny day in Grapevine, Texas, three drones are buzzing around the head of a test dummy balanced on a pedestal. It's part of a demonstration outside the National School Safety Conference.

"We use drones to stop school shootings," says Justin Marston, the CEO of Campus Guardian Angel, the company selling the drones. In the event of a shooting, remote pilots fly the drones, housed at the school, at the shooter. They shoot pepper balls and run the drones into the shooter to debilitate them.

The technology is one example on a long list of products schools can buy to deter a shooter.

There have been more than 400 school shootings since Columbine in 1999, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The latest was last month, when a former student opened fire at a Catholic school in Minneapolis. Two students were killed and at least 18 others were wounded.

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Just as the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New Orleans was beginning to ask victims of clergy sexual abuse to approve a settlement plan assuring them of $180m, the church has now guaranteed $230m – enough to persuade certain attorneys who were opposed to striking a deal to instead favor settling.

The church’s largest insurer, Travelers, for now has evidently held out against a settlement. However, the Guardian and local reporting partner WWL Louisiana understand that the insurer is in active talks to contribute an amount of money that could substantially increase the worth of the proposed settlement.

Either way, Monday’s higher offer was a long-rumored move by the archdiocese to appease a sizable bloc of sexual abuse victims who had been advised by their attorneys to reject the smaller offer in a voting process that runs through 29 October.

Some of those attorneys issued a statement on Monday saying their “dogged efforts” had produced a “superior deal … to resolve this bankruptcy at long last”, and that they would be encouraging all of their clients “to vote in favor of this amended plan” thanks to the “current and certain funding now in place” for it.

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