TV News LIES

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said on Friday that an IAEA team is “crisscrossing” Ukraine to assess the security of the country’s nuclear substations, as Russia continues to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The visit, which began on Dec. 1, will last until Dec. 12 and focus on more than 10 substations (essential nodes in the electrical grid related to Ukraine’s nuclear power plants) across the country – assessing damage, reviewing repair efforts, and making recommendations to strengthen energy resilience.

“These substations are essential for nuclear safety and security. They are absolutely indispensable for providing the electricity all nuclear power plants need for reactor cooling and other safety systems. They are also needed to distribute the electricity that they produce to households and industry,” Grossi said in Friday’s statement.

The IAEA said that it had made several such expert missions to Ukraine since September 2024, when the substations became “increasingly affected by the military conflict.”

Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since its full-scale invasion, particularly in the cold season – regularly plunging thousands of people into freezing darkness.

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The Trump administration on Thursday announced new oil and gas drilling off California’s and Florida’s coasts, setting the stage for a political showdown – including with Sunshine state Republicans who have largely opposed petroleum development in the Gulf of Mexico.

This announcement comes as the US petroleum industry, despite contending with low crude prices, has been pushing for an entree to additional offshore drilling areas. The industry’s move for increased access also marks an effort to increase jobs and US energy independence, according to the Associated Press.

The federal government has prohibited offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which extends from Florida shores to portions of Alabama, since 1995. The ban stemmed from worries about potential oil spills.

While California does have some offshore oil development, there have not been new leases in federal waters for nearly 30 years, the AP said.

A proposed schedule for petroleum leasing in federal waters includes up to 34 auctions from 2026 to 2031; these auctions include up to six sales off California’s coastline, 21 off of Alaska’s coastline, and two in the Gulf of Mexico’s eastern portion, Politico said. The sales in Alaska would reportedly include a region that has never had oil drilling.

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There are now three remaining deceased hostages in Gaza, following Thursday's return of the body of Meni Goddard. Israeli authorities have been releasing the bodies of Palestinians in exchange for the return of hostage remains.

The ceasefire is broadly holding in Gaza. Elsewhere, Israel is continuing strikes on what it says are Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon. The Israel Defense Forces is also continuing raids in parts of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, last week that the war "has not ended," warning that "those who seek to do us harm are re-arming."

Netanyahu and other officials, meanwhile, have reiterated their intention to block future Palestinian statehood ahead of a planned United Nations Security Council vote on the U.S. plan for post-war Gaza.

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Russia bombarded Ukrainian cities with 705 missiles and drones overnight into Thursday, according to Ukraine's air force, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reporting strikes on civilian targets and energy infrastructure all across the country.

Russia launched 653 drones and 52 missiles of various types in its attack, Ukraine's air force said. Of those, 592 drones and 31 missiles were shot down or otherwise suppressed, the air force said. Sixteen missiles and 63 drones impacted across 20 locations, the air force said.

Wednesday night's attack was the second-largest Russian drone and missile barrage of the full-scale invasion to date, according to Ukrainian air force data analyzed by ABC News.Only the bombardment of the night of Sept. 6 to 7 -- in which Russia launched a combined total of 823 drones and missiles into Ukraine -- was larger.

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The fossil fuel industry funded some of the world’s most foundational climate science as early as 1954, newly unearthed documents have shown, including the early research of Charles Keeling, famous for the so-called “Keeling curve” that has charted the upward march of the Earth’s carbon dioxide levels.

A coalition of oil and car manufacturing interests provided $13,814 (about $158,000 in today’s money) in December 1954 to fund Keeling’s earliest work in measuring CO2 levels across the western US, the documents reveal.

Keeling would go on to establish the continuous measurement of global CO2 at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. This “Keeling curve” has tracked the steady increase of the atmospheric carbon that drives the climate crisis and has been hailed as one of the most important scientific works of modern times.

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