TV News LIES

The family of Kayla Mueller, an American hostage of the Islamic State, has received confirmation that she is dead.

Mueller, 26, was captured in August 2013 while working as a humanitarian aide in Aleppo, Syria. The Islamic State demanded a $7 million ransom with a deadline of Aug. 13, 2014, but what happened to Mueller after the deadline is unknown.

A nationwide referendum on restricting gay rights in Slovakia has failed to produce a legally binding result after the required number of eligible voters did not turn out.

In Saturday's vote, Slovaks were asked whether they agree to three points: that marriage can only be called a union between a man and a woman; that same-sex partners must be barred from adopting children; and that it's up to parents to decide whether their children receive sex education.

The United Nations mission to Iraq said Sunday that violence in the country amid the war against the extremist Islamic State group killed at least 1,375 people in January.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq, known as UNAMI, put the number of civilians killed at 790, while identifying the rest as security forces members. It said at least 1,469 civilians and 771 security forces members were wounded.

It said the worst affected city was the capital, Baghdad, with 256 civilians killed and 758 wounded.

The Israeli government on Friday published tenders to build 450 settler homes in the West Bank, the head of an NGO that monitors settlement activity told AFP, in what a senior PLO official called a “war crime.” The Housing Ministry denied the tenders were new.

“It’s the opening of the settlement floodgates,” said Daniel Seidemann, head of the Terrestrial Jerusalem group, adding that the announcements were the first since October 2014 and unlikely to be the last before the March 17 general election.

An explosion ripped through a Shia mosque in Pakistan on Friday, just as worshippers were gathering for prayers. The blast killed 35 people and wounded dozens more, underscoring a growing tide of sectarian violence in the South Asian nation.

Attacks against religious minorities have been on the rise in Pakistan, where armed Sunni armed groups often target mosques frequented by Shia, whom the groups do not consider to be true Muslims.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has confirmed that the Palestinians will officially become a member of the International Criminal Court on April 1, the U.N. press office said on Wednesday.

On Friday the Palestinians delivered to U.N. headquarters documents on joining the Rome Statute of the ICC and other international treaties, in a move that has heightened tensions with Israel and could lead to cuts in U.S. aid.