TV News LIES

Weeks after the Civil War's guns fell silent and barely two months after President Abraham Lincoln's assassination, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas. They had come to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, an order freeing enslaved people in seceded Confederate states. And the date they arrived — June 19, 1865 — is now remembered as the first "Juneteenth."

The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued years earlier during the war, on Jan. 1, 1863. It's the version most commonly emphasized in history books: the executive order that Lincoln himself reportedly said was "the great event of the nineteenth century" and his lasting legacy.

But word of such an order had already been circulating throughout the South for months. A preliminary proclamation, which contained much the same wording as the historic order, was issued on Sept. 22, 1862, days after the Battle of Antietam — the single bloodiest day in American military history. The purpose of it was to "warn that if the Confederate states don't return to the Union by January 1st, [Lincoln] will in fact issue a final proclamation," according to Harold Holzer, a Lincoln historian.

Not all enslaved people immediately knew about Lincoln's orders, but many learned of it while the fighting was still raging. Rumors spread through informal networks, sometimes inadvertently from slaveholders themselves, says Holzer, who directs the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York.

Slaveholders would often discuss the proclamation right in front of the people they enslaved, he says. They wrongly assumed that since enslaved people were prohibited from reading and writing, they would be oblivious to discussion of events around them.

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The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem has denounced the “unlawful and illegitimate” Israeli seizure of its property in occupied East Jerusalem.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Patriarchate said that it "expressed grave concern over the Israeli raid and land grab targeting its Church property in Silwan".

During the operation, which took place on Monday, “the Patriarchate’s representative was forcibly removed, his equipment was confiscated, trees were uprooted, and the property was enclosed with fencing and gates”.

It said that the disputed land, which is adjacent to the Monastery of St Onuphrius, is registered under its ownership, and warned that this seizure “sets a dangerous precedent for Church rights in Jerusalem”.

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Republican governor Mike DeWine, the who co-wrote the bill to reinstate Ohio’s death penalty more than 45 years ago, has called for the state to abolish capital punishment, saying it did not improve public safety and could no longer be morally justified.

“I no longer believe the death penalty is a deterrent to murder,” DeWine said on Tuesday. “The moral justification I had for voting for the death penalty simply no longer exists.”

Tuesday’s announcement represents a change of heart for the 79-year-old governor. After Ohio’s reinstated death penalty law was stuck down in 1978, DeWine, then a newly minted state senator, was instrumental in crafting the 1981 law that survived court challenges and remains in effect. But DeWine has softened his stance in recent years, and repeatedly delayed executions throughout his nearly eight-year tenure as Ohio’s governor.

His call for abolition is consistent with the moderate approach to capital punishment that has defined his time as governor, and it puts him at odds with national Republican leaders like Donald Trump, who has sought to expand the death penalty in his second term.

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On Sunday, Israeli settlers torched vehicles and attempted to set fire to a mosque in the West Bank, prompting The Israeli military to deploy troops to quell riots described as violent acts by "Israeli civilians."

In the village of Burqa, settlers set fire to a car and broke down a mosque door, setting its entrance alight before fleeing, according to Wafa. In nearby Deir Dibwan, settlers torched two vehicles, the Palestinian news agency reported.

Security forces were dispatched to the Binyamin Brigade area to disperse riots and extinguish fires, the military said. The military stated forces "strongly condemn all acts of violence."

Days before these attacks, the United Nations warned settler violence in the West Bank had reached record levels, averaging six attacks daily. More than 2,200 Palestinians have been displaced this year due to such violence.

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The EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has privately compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to apartheid-era South Africa, exposing a sharp contrast between her closed-door remarks and her public support for Israel.

Euractiv reported that the EU foreign policy chief made the comparison during confidential talks with Mexican officials in Mexico City, where she travelled from May 20 to 22 as part of a senior EU delegation.

Officials and diplomats, including people present at the meeting, told Euractiv that Kallas spoke about a visit last year to South Africa and its apartheid museum in Johannesburg.

She reportedly linked Israel’s rule over Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to South Africa’s system of racial segregation, which lasted from 1948 until the early 1990s.

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Nearly 100 British MPs and peers have signed a letter calling for an upcoming London event advertising the sale of land in illegal Israeli settlements to be cancelled, warning that it could implicate the UK in international war crimes. 

The Great Israeli Real Estate Event is scheduled to be held in London this Sunday, but its location is being kept secret.

Andy McDonald, an MP for Middlesbrough and Thornaby East, published the statement on X on Friday, urging the UK government to prevent the Great Israeli Real Estate Event from taking place.

"The govt has an opportunity to uphold obligations under international law and take action against Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine," McDonald wrote. 

The letter, sent to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, described the event as "firmly embedded in Israel's project of colonial expansion" as it facilitates the sale of land seized from displaced Palestinians.

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