It's Monday. Welcome to the Pdney-Novee on the

afternoon afternoon bulletin. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage.

All right. Let's get briefed.

First up, a stunning breach of Iran's propaganda machine.

Iranian state TV is hacked to broadcast the exiled crown prince, Reza Palavi,

along with images that the regime has tried desperately to erase.

I'll have those details.

Later in the show,

CIA director John Ratcliffe flies to Venezuela to meet newly named President Delci Rodriguez in the highest level U.S. engagement since Maduro's capture. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.

For years, the Iranian regime has relied on one tool above almost all

others to maintain control, total dominance of information. State television is not just media

in Iran, of course, it's an integral part of the regime's ability to control the population,

a carefully managed pipeline of propaganda meant

to project strength and unity and inevitability. But that pipeline sprung a leak over the weekend.

Multiple Iranian state television channels were abruptly hijacked in a coordinated cyber attack,

interrupting regular programming to broadcast footage of

Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shaw, along with images of anti-government protests

that the regime has been working relentlessly to suppress. This breach came amid a near total

internet shutdown inside Iran, which remains in place after weeks of nationwide

protests challenging the authority of the Mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard Corps. With social

media blocked, messaging apps crippled and outside communication severely restricted, the regime

believed it had sealed the information battlefield. The cyber attack proved otherwise.

...