TV News LIES

The Trump administration has decided to destroy $9.7m worth of contraceptives rather than send them abroad to women in need.

A state department spokesperson confirmed that the decision had been made – a move that will cost US taxpayers $167,000. The contraceptives are primarily long-acting, such as IUDs and birth control implants, and were almost certainly intended for women in Africa, according to two senior congressional aides, one of whom visited a warehouse in Belgium that housed the contraceptives. It is not clear to the aides whether the destruction has already been carried out, but said they had been told that it was set to occur by the end of July.

“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” Jeanne Shaheen, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, said in a statement. Shaheen and Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator from Hawaii, have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.

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An Israeli shell slammed into the compound of the only Catholic church in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing three people and wounding 10 others, including the parish priest, according to church officials. The late Pope Francis, who died in April, had regularly spoken to the priest about the situation in the war-ravaged territory.

The church compound was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including a number of children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the casualties.

The shelling of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza also damaged the church compound, where hundreds of Palestinians have been sheltering from the 21-month Israel-Hamas war. Israel issued a rare apology and said it was investigating.

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire in response to the attack.

In a telegram of condolences for the victims, Leo expressed “his profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region.” The pope said he was “deeply saddened to learn of the loss of life and injury caused by the military attack,” and expressed his closeness to the wounded priest, Rev. Gabriel Romanelli, and the entire parish.

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The United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, on Tuesday called on the Israeli authorities to “aggressively investigate” the death of a 20-year-old Palestinian-American citizen in a clash on Friday with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling his killing a “murder” and a “criminal and terrorist act.”

Mr. Huckabee, who has been vocal about his support for settlement in the occupied West Bank — which is widely viewed as illegal in the international community — used uncharacteristically strong language in his statement condemning the death of Sayfollah Musallet, a young Floridian who had been visiting his family in the area.

The ambassador’s demand comes amid a rise in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank during the war with Hamas in Gaza.

TVNL Comment: For  greater clarity:  This innocent 17-year-old was mercilessly beaten to death, while other settlers prevented an ambulance from coming to his aid for three horrific hours.

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Twenty Palestinians were killed Wednesday in the crush of a crowd at a food distribution site run by an Israeli-backed American organization in the Gaza Strip, the group said, the first time it has acknowledged deadly violence at its operations. The deaths came as Israeli strikes killed 41 others, including 11 children, according to hospital officials.

The Gaza Humanitarian Fund accused the Hamas militant group of fomenting panic and spreading misinformation that led to the violence, though it provided no evidence to support the claim.

It said 19 people were trampled in a stampede and one person was fatally stabbed at a hub in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said GHF workers used tear gas against the crowd, inciting a panic. The ministry said that it was the first time people have been killed by a stampede at the aid sites.

It was also the first time that GHF has confirmed deaths at one of its distribution sites, although Palestinian witnesses, health officials and U.N. agencies say hundreds of people have been killed while heading to the hubs to get food.

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Ukraine’s prime minister announced his resignation Tuesday in the first formal step of what is expected to be a significant reshuffle of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government, which could also see the country’s ambassador to Washington replaced.

“I am tendering my resignation from the post of the Prime Minister of Ukraine,” Denys Shmyhal wrote in a letter posted on his Telegram page.

Zelenskyy said Monday that he has offered Shmyhal’s job to 39-year-old Yuliia Svyrydenko, who is currently deputy prime minister and the country’s first female economy minister.

Svyrydenko played a key role in negotiating a U.S.–Ukraine mineral agreement. She has frequently represented Ukraine in high-level talks with Western partners, focusing on defense cooperation, economic recovery and reconstruction.

It wasn’t immediately clear how the reshuffle will play out in coming days, as the Ukrainian parliament must schedule a vote on Zelenskyy’s proposed changes amid the all-out war launched by Russia on Feb. 24, 2022.

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United Nations Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese is calling for concrete action on what she described as Israel's "genocidal" occupation of Gaza.

Albanese was speaking to delegates from 30 countries at a conference in Colombia on the Israel-Hamas war and ways that nations can try to stop Israel’s military More...offensive in the territory.

Many of the participating nations have descMore...ribed the violence as genocide against the Palestinians. Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic “blood libel.”

"Each state must immediately review and suspend all ties with the State of Israel, military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic relations, imports and exports," Albanese said on Tuesday, "and make sure that their private sectors, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities and other good and service providers in the supply chain do the same."

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