00:01Gaza burns. Israel launches a massive ground assault.
00:05Is this the final push, or just the next escalation?
00:09Plus, inside the courtroom, the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk faces a judge.
00:14Could this case go to the death penalty?
00:17And the clock starts now. The Fed meets today, and Trump wants interest rates slashed.
00:22Will they give in?
00:25The stories that matter, clear and credible, from across the country to around the world.
00:30These are your unbiased updates from Straight Arrow News.
00:36Good morning, I'm Craig DeGrelli.
00:38After weeks of threats, Israel has launched a full-scale ground incursion into Gaza City,
00:44calling it a final push to crush Hamas.
00:47Defense Minister Israel Katz says Gaza is burning, and the images prove it.
00:52Intense airstrikes overnight, leveling entire blocks, including the Al-Ghafri Tower.
00:58Seen here, right there, it was Gaza's tallest building.
01:02The Israeli military says this is a targeted operation.
01:05There it goes down, urging residents to flee south, but many are still trapped.
01:10At least 20 people were killed in one strike, dozens more injured.
01:14As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in court for his own corruption trial,
01:18families of hostages camped outside his home, pleading with him to call off the attack.
01:24Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, now in Qatar, warned time is running out for a negotiated ceasefire.
01:31Well, as you saw, the Israelis have begun to take operations there,
01:35so we think we have a very short window of time in which a deal could happen.
01:39We don't have months anymore, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks, so it's a key moment, an important moment.
01:46Egypt, Israel's longtime peace partner, escalated its rhetoric, now calling Israel the enemy for the first time in decades.
01:55The man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk is due in court today,
02:00but first he will be formally charged with aggravated murder, opening the door to a possible death penalty case.
02:0722-year-old Tyler Robinson is being held without bail, accused of shooting Kirk at an event in Utah, then sparking a two-day manhunt.
02:15He's expected to appear virtually in court after charges are filed.
02:19Investigators say Robinson is not cooperating and may have been radicalized online.
02:24They're looking into his, quote, leftist ideology and whether others knew he was planning an attack.
02:30There appear to have been multiple warning signs. You just laid out some of them.
02:34There were people in his network, friends and family, who had stated that he had become more political.
02:42Family members said he'd become more political, leading us to believe that this ideology had infected him and had taken over.
02:51FBI officials say Robinson left behind a written note stating his intent to kill Charlie Kirk.
02:57Here's what FBI Director Cash Patel told Fox News.
03:01The written note, we believe what did exist, and we have evidence to show what was in that note,
03:07which is, and I'm going to summarize, basically saying, the suspect wrote a note saying,
03:13I have the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it.
03:16That note was written before the shooting.
03:18Patel is also under fire for a post he made right after the shooting, suggesting a suspect had already been caught.
03:26Here's how he responded.
03:27The job of the FBI is not just to manhunt the actual suspect who did the killing or suspects,
03:32but it's also to eliminate targets and eliminate subjects who are not involved in the process.
03:37And that's what we were doing.
03:38Could I have worded it a little better in the heat of the moment? Sure.
03:41But do I regret putting it out? Absolutely not.
03:44Patel is set to testify before House and Senate Judiciary Committees today and tomorrow,
03:49defending both the FBI's response and his own leadership as the bureau faces escalating political pressure.
03:55You could say troops will soon be walking in Memphis.
03:59President Trump has announced a new Memphis Safe Task Force, a federal crime crackdown that includes National Guard deployment.
04:06The move mirrors what his administration did in the nation's capital.
04:10And Trump says Memphis is just the start.
04:13He told reporters in the Oval Office that Chicago would be next.
04:16Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee is backing the plan and praised the president for the partnership.
04:23When we come together, we can make significant change in our city.
04:27And I want to say thank you.
04:29This will be your proudest moment when we see you in four or five weeks, maybe sooner.
04:36You're going to see numbers that will drop and plummet like you have.
04:39It's just like we did in D.C.
04:41They plummeted. Nobody can even believe it.
04:43Memphis is not the first city in Trump's sights, and it may not be the last.
04:48Federal troops have already been deployed in Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.
04:52And as you just heard, Memphis and likely Chicago are next in line.
04:56This despite the fact that crime in Memphis has actually dropped this year to a 25-year low.
05:02But Trump says the city still needs help.
05:05Memphis Mayor Paul Young says he was blindsided by the announcement and says he doesn't want troops on the ground.
05:11I do not support the National Guard.
05:15However, they are coming.
05:17It's not the mayor's call.
05:19The mayor doesn't have a say or the authority to stop them from coming.
05:24And so my goal is to make sure that as they come that I have an opportunity to work with them to strategize on how they engage in this community.
05:33Shelby County's Democratic leaders called the move a militarized occupation, not a solution.
05:39No final word on when the troops will arrive.
05:42Tensions are escalating in the Caribbean, and so are the strikes.
05:46Just hours after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro called the earlier U.S. attack on a Venezuelan fishing boat a heinous crime,
05:54President Trump took to Truth Social to announce a second strike.
05:59He posted this video confirming the U.S. military killed three people in international waters Monday morning,
06:05targeting what he called narco-terrorists headed from Venezuela to the U.S. with deadly drugs on board.
06:12Trump defended the move, telling reporters it means fewer drugs coming into the U.S.
06:18But we have noticed that there are no ships in the ocean anymore.
06:22We're seeing that there's like no ships, no, you know, when the first one we went, there were hundreds of boats.
06:29Now there are no boats.
06:31I wonder why, meaning no drugs are coming across, probably stopping some fishermen, too.
06:37Maduro called the first strike, which killed 11 people earlier this month, a violation of international law,
06:43claiming the U.S. is trying to provoke a war under the guise of drug interdiction.
06:48The White House says both strikes were legal, targeted, and necessary to protect American lives from cartels and the poison they traffic.
06:56But critics call the evidence thin, and questions are mounting about whether these boats posed an imminent threat
07:02or if this marks a broader push toward conflict with Venezuela and the Maduro regime.
07:08All eyes are on the Federal Reserve over the next two days as governors kick off their policy meeting.
07:14The big question, will the board cut interest rates?
07:17Something President Trump has been pressuring them to do for months.
07:21Behind the scenes, a major shakeup in the room where the decision will be made.
07:25The Senate, by a slim 48 to 47 vote, has confirmed Steven Moran to the Fed's Board of Governors.
07:33Moran is one of Trump's closest economic advisors and now joins the Fed as one of 12 voting members.
07:39It marks a first in the Fed's 111-year history, a board member who is also technically an employee of the president.
07:46Critics say it's a power grab, arguing Trump is trying to exert control over what's long been an independent body.
07:53Meanwhile, a legal setback for Trump on the same front.
07:57A federal appeals court ruled that he cannot remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook, who he's accused of mortgage fraud.
08:04In a two-to-one ruling, the court said Cook was not given basic due process, including notice of the charges and a chance to respond.
08:12The result? Cook stays. She will be at the Fed meeting and will have a vote.
08:17Finally this morning, a Martian rock is raising some eyebrows and possibly some big questions.
08:24NASA says its Perseverance rover may have struck Red Planet Gold, if you will, discovering the clearest signs yet of ancient life on Mars.
08:33The find? A rock called Sapphire Canyon, dug up from a dried up riverbed where water once flowed, get this, some three billion years ago.
08:43The rock comes from the edge of a river valley near Mars' Jezero Crater, a region long believed to be a prime candidate for past life.
08:52NASA says the sample could preserve traces of microbial life.
08:56And for scientists on the mission, this was the one, the kind of rock they hoped to find from the very start.
09:02I mean, how cool is that, right? We used to get all excited about discoveries on the moon.
09:06Now we're way past that. We're making all these great finds on Mars. That is so neat.
09:11All right, before we head out, here's what we're tracking today.
09:14Voters in Minnesota will head to the polls to fill the seat left vacant after the assassination of State Representative Melissa Hortman.
09:21In New York, Luigi Mangione, the man accused of shooting and killing the United Health Care CEO right around Christmas time last year, is due in court.
09:30This afternoon, President Trump and First Lady Melania head to the UK for a second state visit.
09:35And at 5 Eastern, the suspect, accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk, makes his first court appearance in Utah to be formally charged.
09:44It's news you can bring up at brunch without embarrassing yourself.
09:47Sign up for our all-new Unbiased Newsletter. Go to san.com slash newsletters.
09:53Those are your Unbiased Updates for this Tuesday. We'll see you back here tomorrow.
09:57For all of us here at Straight Arrow News, I'm Craig DeGrelli. Have a great day.
Be the first to comment