Category: USA Politics

President Donald Trump said Iran is “starving for cash” after extending the ceasefire deadline, arguing that the regime is losing hundreds of millions of dollar a day due to the U.S.-enforced blockade.

Trump claims that that the foreign nation is “collapsing financially.”

“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day (which is, therefore, what they are losing if it is closed!). They only say they want it closed because I have it totally BLOCKADED (CLOSED!), so they merely want to ‘save face.’ People approached me four days ago, saying, ‘Sir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately.’ But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!” he declared in a Tuesday night Truth Social post.

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“Iran is collapsing financially! They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately- Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day. Military and Police complaining that they are not getting paid. SOS!!!” the president claimed in another Tuesday night post.

Trump had indicated in a Tuesday afternoon Truth Social post that he would extend the ceasefire.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump declared in the post.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he added.

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Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had declared in a post on X that “Blockading Iranian ports is an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire. Striking a commercial vessel and taking its crew hostage is an even greater violation. Iran knows how to neutralize restrictions, how to defend its interests, and how to resist bullying.”

Iran reportedly fired upon three ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report

OUTnewcomers, an LGBTQ group in Boston, announced it returned city grant funding to the mayor’s office after its plans to offer LGBTQ migrants up to $500 in “wellness” perks, such as yoga classes and massages, clashed with local government’s expectations for the funding.

“OUTnewcomers will be ceasing all related programming and will return any funds received for this initiative,” the group said in a Friday press release.

The purpose and scope of the program, called “Belonging Matters,” clashed with statements from city officials about their expectations for the grant, prompting questions about how Boston distributes and oversees grants to outside advocacy groups.

“No funds have been distributed or directed for these purposes,” a city spokesperson told Fox News Digital in response to inquiries about the program.

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“This organization received a $7,500 grant through a city program to support mental health services. Those funds were not designated for and may not be used for the voucher program referenced,” the spokesperson said.

OUTnewcomers had been listed as one of 45 recipients of a larger $200,000 push to support LGBTQ communities in Boston. The $200,000 figure was approved by Wu last year as a part of the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ+ Advancement (MOLA).

According to Boston officials, OUTnewcomers was awarded a $7,500 mini-grant allocated from the 2026 budget.

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“These investments represent our continued dedication to uplifting LGBTQ+ Bostonians by putting resources directly into the hands of trusted community organizations,” Wu said in a press release at the time.

The mayor’s office declined to answer questions about the funds’ initial approval.

The registration form for Belonging Matters offered applicants yoga, breathwork and meditation, gym memberships, creative arts, peer support, storytelling, nature-based wellness and hairstyling. If approved, the program promised applicants $250 to $500 in “wellness allowances” evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

But the organization later described the program as offering vouchers of $50 or less, creating a discrepancy between how the initiative was initially presented and how it was later characterized.

Even before returning the city’s grant funding, OUTnewcomers announced that it has paused Belonging Matters, citing “security concerns.”

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“This is an incredibly difficult decision,” said Sal Khan, Founder of OUTnewcomers.

“Our work has always been rooted in care, dignity, and community support. However, the severity of the threats we have received has made it impossible to continue this program safely. The safety of our team and community members must come first,” OUTnewcomers wrote in a press release.

Khan did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

Iran seized two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz hours after President Donald Trump extended a ceasefire, as confrontations at sea continued under the truce.

Both ships were managed by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC).

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said the vessels, identified as the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, were operating without proper authorization and had tampered with navigation systems, accusations that could not be independently verified. The ships had earlier reported coming under fire near the strait, underscoring the increasingly volatile conditions in one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.

The Guard attacked a third ship, identified as the Euphoria, which had become “stranded” on the Iranian coast, Iranian media reported.

IRAN FIRES LIVE MISSILES INTO STRAIT OF HORMUZ AS TRUMP ENVOYS ARRIVE FOR NUCLEAR TALKS

In a turn of events Tuesday, Trump announced he would extend the two-week ceasefire with Iran. For how long is unclear, but a White House official told Fox News it would be several days. 

Despite heavy U.S. strikes that officials say severely degraded Iran’s conventional navy, Tehran maintains maritime capability through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ fleet of fast-attack boats used for harassment and boarding operations in the narrow strait.

“We should think in the thousands,” Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Fox News Digital. “If you include very small boats up to more capable fast-attack craft, the total could reach 3,000 to 4,000 vessels.”

Those forces have been used to harass commercial ships, force them to stop, and take them into custody. Iranian state media said similar tactics were used when Revolutionary Guard units attacked multiple vessels before escorting at least two into Iranian waters.

The continued attacks highlight a gap between battlefield claims and reality.

In a Truth Social post April 13, Trump said, “Iran’s Navy is obliterated. It is laying at the bottom of the sea,” adding that U.S. forces did not need to target Iran’s “little fast-attack boats” because they were not a threat.

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But those smaller vessels, long a cornerstone of Iran’s asymmetric strategy, are now central to its ability to disrupt shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

The seizures mark the latest escalation in a widening maritime standoff between Iran and Washington. 

Both sides have targeted commercial and cargo vessels as part of a broader pressure campaign tied to stalled negotiations. U.S. forces have also moved to seize at least one Iranian-linked vessel in the region, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of a fragile ceasefire.

The Strait of Hormuz is a vital artery for global oil shipments, with roughly 20% of the world’s supply passing through it. Traffic has slowed dramatically as ships reroute or avoid the area amid gunfire, seizures and conflicting directives from both militaries.

In a series of Truth Social posts Tuesday night, Trump claimed Iran privately wants the Strait of Hormuz reopened despite public threats to close it.

“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day (which is, therefore, what they are losing if it is closed!),” he wrote.

“But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!”

Trump said he agreed to extend the ceasefire at the request of Pakistani officials while waiting for Iran’s leadership to present a unified position in negotiations.

“Based on the fact that the Government of Iran is seriously fractured, not unexpectedly so and, upon the request of Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, of Pakistan, we have been asked to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“I have therefore directed our Military to continue the Blockade and, in all other respects, remain ready and able, and will therefore extend the Ceasefire until such time as their proposal is submitted, and discussions are concluded, one way or the other,” he added.

Plans for renewed peace talks remain in limbo, with Iran signaling it may not participate in a second round of negotiations while the U.S. maintains its naval blockade. The blockade remains a key sticking point driving the confrontation at sea.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi called the naval blockade an “act of war,” accusing Washington of violating the ceasefire.

“Blockading Iranian ports is an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire. Striking a commercial vessel and taking its crew hostage is an even greater violation,” he wrote on X.

The comments came after U.S. forces moved to seize Iran’s M/V Touska vessel Monday, which Araghchi described as “an act of piracy.”

The seizures come as U.S.-Iran diplomacy appears increasingly uncertain, with a planned second round of talks in Islamabad thrown into doubt. Vice President JD Vance, who had been expected to lead the U.S. delegation, remained in Washington after Iran signaled it would not participate, scrapping plans for the delegation to travel to Pakistan.

The abrupt shift followed a day of mixed signals from Trump, who said Tuesday morning he did not want to extend the ceasefire as its deadline approached, warning time for negotiations was running out. By the afternoon, however, he reversed course and announced he would extend the truce to allow more time for diplomacy.

The reversal has further clouded fragile negotiations. 

No date has been set for renewed talks, and Iranian officials continue to insist they will not engage while the U.S. maintains its naval blockade. The confrontation has increasingly shifted from the negotiating table to the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, where the risk of miscalculation is rising.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment. 

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report. 

Republicans are pointing fingers after their narrow loss in Virginia’s high-stakes congressional redistricting referendum, which could give Democrats a significant boost in the battle for the House of Representatives majority in this year’s midterm elections.

Even though they were outraised and outspent by Democrats by a nearly three-to-one margin, Republicans came close to sinking the ballot initiative, which gives the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election.

Tuesday’s passage of the referendum could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge. The referendum, which follows President Donald Trump‘s push for rare but not unheard-of mid-decade redistricting in Republican-led states over the past year, still faces a challenge in the state Supreme Court. But if it survives the legal hurdles, Democrats could gain four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms as they try to win back control of the chamber from the GOP, which currently holds a razor-thin majority.

“We didn’t get the help we needed to sink the referendum,” a Virginia based Republican strategist who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely told Fox News Digital. “National Republicans could have and should have done more.”

DEMOCRATS NARROWLY WIN CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING SHOWDOWN IN VIRGINIA

Another Virginia-based Republican consultant, who was also granted anonymity, said, “It is bit shocking that there wasn’t a little bit more money spent earlier because once you peel back the top layer of the ballot language and stop Trump, the ‘yes’ campaign had nothing.”

“If we had a bit more money to educate, I think we could have won more of the persuasion bucket. And then for sure, if we have very well-funded ballot chase program to go turnout low proposition voters in southwest Virginia, a combination of aggressive field, text, and mail, we might have won.”

While Trump headlined a tele-rally on the eve of the referendum election, some fingers were also pointed towards the president and his political team.

“Victory has a thousand fathers and defeat is an orphan. So there’s going to be plenty of finger pointing and plenty of blame being assigned why this didn’t work out,” another GOP strategist who also asked for anonymity to speak candidly.

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The strategist emphasized that “ultimately, if you’re the White House, you started this redistricting fight last year and you better be sure that you’re giving all the people out there on your side the resources they need to finish the battle if this is going to be such a centerpiece of your historically narrow House majority.”

But a strategist with ties to the Republican team in Virginia that fought to sink the referendum disagreed, telling Fox News Digital “we got a lot of help from the Republican ecosystem… we received help from all corners.”

And the strategist shot down the idea that if Republicans had spent more money, it could have sunk the referendum. Referring to the team that pushed the referendum to victory, the strategist said “they’re just going to find more money. Democrats always do.”

And pointing to Trump, the strategist said “if the president had engaged right away, that would have made the entire debate about the president in a state that he lost in 2024….Our goal was to make this as much about Virginia as possible. Democrats tried to make it as much about the president as possible.”

Virginia was the battlefield in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP versus Democrats over congressional redistricting.

Aiming to prevent what happened during his first term in the White House, when Democrats reclaimed the House majority in the 2018 midterms, Trump a year ago first floated the idea of rare, but not unheard-of, mid-decade congressional redistricting.

Texas and California were the first major showdowns over redistricting, with Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Indiana, and Utah also getting into the scrum.

HEAD HERE FOR LIVE UPDATES ON THE CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING BATTLE

Now the spotlight turns to Florida.

Matt Gorman, a veteran Republican strategist based in Virginia, told Fox News Digital that pointing fingers is absolutely useless. “The fact of the matter is we have to fight the next battle, and that’s in Florida.”

Two-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers in the GOP-dominated legislature are hoping to pick up an additional three to five right-leaning seats through a redistricting push during a special legislative session that kicks off next week.

And with the Democrats’ victory in Virginia, pressure is growing on DeSantis to deliver.

A chaotic situation unfolded on Tuesday night in Los Angeles as far-left activists and students disrupted and chastised a Department of Homeland Security attorney who was speaking to law students at a conservative group’s event at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

The incident took place at a speech hosted by the Federalist Society’s UCLA chapter, where James Percival, general counsel of the DHS, was speaking to law students. Over 150 protesters gathered outside the event chanting criticisms of the Trump administration, including “No ICE, No KKK, No Fascist U.S.A.” 

Inside the event, students booed Percival throughout his talk, and many held profane signs while he spoke. One sign read, “F— you loser.” The students also set off different sounds on their phones as part of the disruption, and at different points, yelled out the word “Nazi.” 

The event culminated in a question and answer session, for which most of the disruptors walked out in protest.

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“Yesterday, DHS General Counsel James Percival came to UCLA School of Law for a good-faith academic discussion and was met with personal attacks, repeated interruptions, and organized disruption that prevented him from speaking,” UCLA FedSoc chapter president Matthew Weinberg told Fox News Digital. 

“As President of the UCLA Law Federalist Society and the event organizer, I saw students who came to hear and question a senior federal official denied that opportunity. If this is what it looks like for conservative law students trying to host a speaker at an American law school in 2026, we are not staying silent about it.”

After the event was announced, left-wing campus groups circulated posts and online petitions containing rhetoric described as “threatening.” One of those radical leftist groups was By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), which on its website calls for a “militant new civil rights and immigrant rights movement,” posted a flyer on Instagram promoting a picketing event outside the law school.

 “UCLA must not give representatives of ICE and the Trump Administration a base to organize Trump’s campaign of racist ethnic cleansing of the U.S. and the Middle East,” the flyer said. 

“Stop the fascist takeover of the American federal government! Stop the Trump police state!” the caption on the social media post said. 

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The UCLE Latine Law Students Association also stoked hysteria around the event.

 “Many students at UCLA and UCLA Law have been impacted by ICE’s practice of stalking, kidnapping, and profiling individuals whom they suspect to be in the United States without authorization, primarily based on ethnicity,” the group said, later adding that inviting Percival to speak “utterly disregards the safety of our undocumented students and minimizes the great harm and trauma that has been inflicted on our communities over the decades.”

“By giving Mr. Percival a platform, The Federalist Society and UCLA Law are legitimizing and normalizing racially discriminatory policies that are actively harming both UCLA students and our broader community,” the group said. 

Video of the incident quickly made waves on social media after it was posted by recent UCLA law school graduate Yitzy Frankel and even got the attention of a top Justice Department official.

“Oh, @UCLA,” DOJ assistant attorney general for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon posted on X. “… Adding To The List …. And it’s the wrong list.”

“Some little punks tried this when I went to speak at UVA Law FedSoc, but school security cooperated with me in shutting down disruption during Q&A,” Dhillon added in another post. “Conservative campus speakers must sadly now expect this nonsense, and prepare accordingly.”

“When you don’t discipline this kind of behavior you get more of it,” Manhattan Institute’s Ilya Shapiro posted on X. “This isn’t hard.”

“So much for the ‘diversity of thought’ that the university says it ‘values,’” Judicial Network President Carrie Severino posted on X.  “That tolerance doesn’t extend to conservative legal arguments. It’s hard to imagine these students will be committed to the rule of law and upholding judicial independence.”

Fox News Digital reached out to UCLA for comment.

The incident highlights an ongoing trend of far-left students and activists disrupting conservative events and harassing conservative students on college campuses.

“FIRE’s 2026 college free speech survey shows that 91% of students now self-censor at least some of the time in conversations with classmates,” Fox News contributor William J. Bennett wrote in a recent Fox News op-ed discussing how conservatives don’t feel comfortable expressing themselves on college campuses. “Israel and Palestine are the most feared topics for open dissent, just ahead of abortion and transgender rights. At two prominent universities, 88% of students now pretend to be more progressive than they really are.”

Soros-backed Democratic prosecutor Steve Descano has been hit with a formal federal complaint alleging that his lenient policies led to the “preventable” murder of a woman who was stabbed to death by an illegal alien in Virginia’s most populous county.

This comes as Descano, Fairfax County’s commonwealth attorney, faces mounting criticism and pressure over his handling of a spate of illegal immigrant crime in the area. Descano rose to power with heavy financial backing from the Soros family’s Justice and Public Safety PAC. Three of the four murders actively being investigated by authorities in Fairfax County were committed by illegal aliens, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The debate mirrors broader national scrutiny of how sanctuary leaders handle migrant crime in their jurisdictions.

Victims Rights Reform Council (VRRC), an advocacy group for victims of violent crimes, filed a federal civil rights complaint against Descano this week on behalf of Cheryl Minter. Minter’s 41-year-old daughter, Stephanie Minter, was fatally stabbed at a bus stop earlier this year, allegedly by Abdul Jalloh, a 32-year-old illegal alien from Sierra Leone. Jalloh is now being held without bond and charged with second-degree murder.

In a Tuesday statement, Minter remarked that her daughter “should be alive today,” saying, “She was taken because the system chose to release a violent offender again and again.”

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This particular killing has caused significant national outrage, as Jalloh entered the country illegally under the Obama administration in 2012 and has had a final deportation order since 2020. He has a lengthy criminal history, including more than 30 arrests for charges of rape, malicious wounding, assault, drug possession, identity theft and other offenses. In 2023, he was convicted of malicious wounding and sentenced to seven years in prison, with five years suspended. He only ended up serving about seven months in prison, according to local outlet WUSA9.

Minter asserted that “had I murdered someone, I would be doing life in jail.”

She suggested that “it seems that citizens are doing a lot more time and receive a lot more punishment for the same crimes than the illegals are.”

VRRC is requesting that the Trump Department of Justice conduct a federal pattern-or-practice investigation into policies and practices it alleges resulted in the “preventable murder” of Minter’s daughter.

In its complaint, VRRC alleges that systemic failures in Descano’s office include discriminatory prosecutorial practices, including policies that consider and seek to mitigate immigration consequences in criminal cases. It also alleges that Descano’s office shows deliberate indifference to public safety by “repeatedly releasing a known violent offender despite clear warnings and a broader pattern of leniency toward repeat and violent offenders.”

Additionally, it alleges that Descano’s office has “potential outside influence on prosecutorial policy.”

Descano’s entry into political office was propelled by a massive $627,653 donation from the Soros family’s Justice and Public Safety PAC, which made up roughly 70% of his 2019 campaign budget. 

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In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, Jennifer Harrison, executive director of VRRC, explained the group is “demanding accountability for a system that failed Stephanie and too many others.”

“When known violent offenders are repeatedly released despite clear warnings, and policies yield unequal outcomes, the federal government must act,” she went on. “Equal justice means protecting innocent people — not prioritizing ideology over safety,”

In response, Descano’s office shared a statement from the commonwealth attorney who said, “I can’t speak to any individual lawsuit, but I can tell you that the idea that we favor one group over another is completely wrong.”

Descano said that the idea his office favors certain groups “has been fed by, in my opinion, purposeful misreporting and people taking things out of context for political gain.”

“I can tell you that my job and our office’s job is to keep us safe,” he added.

Descano delivered these remarks outside the Fairfax County Courthouse on Tuesday, following the sentencing of 18-year-old illegal immigrant Israel Flores Ortiz to 360 days of incarceration for assault by groping of several teenage girls. Descano said after the press conference that his office is “happy” with the sentence. Flores Ortiz is expected to serve about 135 days of his 360-day sentence.

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Meanwhile, Sean Kennedy, president of Virginians for Safe Communities, remarked that the DOJ “should heed Cheryl Minter’s warning,” because “Descano’s discriminatory policies are deadly.”

“Stephanie Minter would be alive today if Fairfax’s top prosecutor treated everyone equally and obeyed the law,” alleged Kennedy in a statement to Fox News Digital.

“DOJ must act now before another parent buries a child because Descano decided to protect an illegal alien instead of the public,” said Kennedy.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared victory for Democrats on Tuesday after Virginia voters approved a redistricting referendum that could reshape the House battlefield ahead of the 2026 midterms, warning the Trump administration that Democrats aim to drive a stake through its power by reclaiming Congress.

“We are winning all across the United States and state houses in courthouses and now in the court of public opinion,” said Newsom in a video posted to X. “But what is at stake is putting a stake in the heart of the Trump administration by taking back the House of Representatives and taking it back to the United States Senate.”

The ballot measure, passed on Tuesday, grants the Democratic-controlled Virginia legislature temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election, replacing the state’s current bipartisan commission — a shift that could bolster Democrats’ position in the fight for House control ahead of the 2026 midterms and broader national power.

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Newsom has been positioning himself as a leader of the Democratic Party as his national profile builds ahead of a possible 2028 presidential run.

“MAGA dare I say they’re losing at their own game. They’re on the defense and they’re scared,” the California governor added. 

High-profile Democrats, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama, touted the referendum results as a midterm boost and celebrated on social media.

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“Donald Trump and Republicans have tried to rig the 2026 midterms,” Kamala Harris wrote in a post on X. “Today in Virginia, voters sent them a clear message: The power is with the people,” she continued.

Obama congratulated Virginia after voters approved a redistricting referendum, saying residents of the commonwealth showed what it looks like to “stand up for our democracy” and “fight back.”

“Congratulations, Virginia! Republicans are trying to tilt the midterm elections in their favor, but they haven’t done it yet,” Obama wrote on X. “Thanks for showing us what it looks like to stand up for our democracy and fight back.”

FOX NEWS VOTER POLL: CALIFORNIA VOTERS OK CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING PLAN

“Donald Trump wants to stay in power at all costs. And his biggest obstacle is the midterm elections,” wrote possible presidential hopeful Gov. J.B. Pritzker on X.

“House Democrats have crushed Donald Trump’s national gerrymandering scheme,” wrote Democrat House leader Hakeem Jeffries on X. “Maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”

The referendum could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge. Democrats could add four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms as the party looks to reclaim control of the chamber from the GOP’s slim majority.

Democrats have long treated redistricting as a strategic power fight, pouring resources into map battles, litigation and organizations like the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in an effort to shape congressional lines and the House battlefield before the Trump era. 

The Supreme Court of Virginia allowed the referendum to move forward after a lower court struck it down.

But legal challenges to the referendum, filed in part by the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the state GOP, remain unresolved and are still before Virginia’s highest court.

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Republicans are fighting back with former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin calling on the Supreme Court to weigh in. Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II said there will be three challenges to the amendment process itself.

Cuccinelli argued that the referendum’s first passage was invalid, that an election must intervene between the first and second passage of the measure, and that insufficient time elapsed between final passage and the vote on Tuesday.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Office of Gavin Newsom and the Republican National Committee for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion, Paul Steinhauser, Jasmine Baehr, and Charles Creitz contributed to this report.

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed a lawsuit brought by a U.S. Army veteran injured in a Taliban suicide bombing to proceed, vacating a lower court ruling that had dismissed it. 

Winston Tyler Hencely, a former U.S. Army specialist, suffered a fractured skull and brain injuries when a Taliban operative working for a military contractor blew up a suicide vest at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan in 2016.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, rejected a broad “battlefield preemption” theory that would have blocked state-law claims tied to combat activities. Thomas — joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wrote that military contractors are not automatically shielded from liability when their conduct was not authorized by the military — even in war zones.

“We vacate the judgment of the Fourth Circuit and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion,” Wednesday’s decision says.

“In 2016, a Taliban operative working for respondent Fluor Corporation, a military contractor, carried out a suicide-bomb attack at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. After then-Army Specialist Winston T. Hencely confronted him, the bomber detonated his suicide vest,” the opinion explains. “As a result of the injuries he received, Hencely is now permanently disabled.”

 “In an effort to recover damages for his injuries, Hencely sued Fluor, bringing state-law tort claims for negligently retaining and supervising the attacker. According to Hencely and the United States military, Fluor’s conduct was not authorized by the military and even violated instructions the military had given it as a condition of operating on the base,” the opinion notes.

Justice Samuel Alito, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

One of Anthropic’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) philosophy architects argued that intentional discrimination could be a way to combat stigmas on topics of race and gender.

In a 2023 paper authored alongside a number of other AI researchers, Amanda Askell, a philosopher hired by Anthropic to develop their AI’s moral compass, argued companies might benefit from a kind of overcorrection toward stereotypes.

But, the paper explained, that would require human input on how to modify its answers.

“Larger models can over-correct, especially as the amount of [human input] training increases. This may be desirable in certain contexts, such as those in which decisions attempt to correct for historical injustices against marginalized groups, if doing so is in accordance with local laws,” Askell wrote.

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The comment referred to an experiment on how Anthropic’s models dealt with the race of students.

“In the discrimination experiment, the 175B parameter model discriminates against Black versus White students by 3% in the Q condition and discriminates in favor of Black students by 7% in the Q+IF+CoT condition,” the paper notes, referring to one AI trained without human corrections and a second one trained with the help of input.

Askell was joined by four other authors: Deep Ganguli, Nicholas Schiefer, Thomas Kiao and Kamilė Lukošiūtė.

The paper’s contents have surfaced as AI companies increasingly wrestle with the ethics their models are trained on — the presuppositions and moral determinations that inform its outputs. It also highlights the challenges engineers face in training models on human content while simultaneously trying to leave behind certain human behaviors.

The question of ethics has forced Anthropic in particular into the spotlight in recent weeks.

The company made headlines earlier this year for clashing with the Department of War over restrictions that prevent its technology from being deployed to conduct lethal operations.

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It also comes as Anthropic decided to withhold its latest model, Mythos, citing fears that the model proved too effective at finding cyber vulnerabilities that could wreak havoc in the hands of hackers.

Amid questions of AI application, Anthropic has marketed its flagship AI, Claude, as the “ethical” AI choice.

“Our central aim is for Claude to be a good, wise and virtuous agent, exhibiting skill, judgment(sic), nuance and sensitivity in handling real-world decision-making,” Claude’s constitution reads.

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To get a better sense of what that means in practice, companies like Anthropic have turned to researchers like Askell.

On her website, Askell described her role as refining the way an AI thinks.

“I’m a philosopher working on finetuning and AI alignment at Anthropic. My team trains models to be more honest and to have good character traits and works on developing new finetuning techniques so that our interventions can scale to more capable models,” Askell wrote.

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She previously held a similar position at OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, focusing on AI safety.

The 2023 paper, written two years after she joined Anthropic, noted that encountering discrimination in AI models shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“In some ways, our findings are unsurprising. Language models are trained on text generated by humans, and this text presumably includes many examples of humans exhibiting harmful stereotypes and discrimination,” the paper reads.

But it noted that AIs seem to be able to adjust their outputs even without clarification of what discrimination means.

“Our results are surprising in that they show we can steer models to avoid bias and discrimination by requesting an unbiased or non-discriminatory response in natural language.”

Askell and Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Sparks flew on Capitol Hill as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., accused Federal Reserve nominee Kevin Warsh of being a potential “sock puppet” for President Donald Trump.

Warsh, tapped by Trump in January to lead the Federal Reserve, faced a two-and-a-half-hour confirmation hearing before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee.

If confirmed, he would take the helm of the world’s most powerful central bank, shaping interest rates, borrowing costs and the financial outlook for millions of American households for the next four years.

WHO IS KEVIN WARSH, TRUMP’S PICK TO SUCCEED JEROME POWELL AS FED CHAIR?

In her opening remarks, Warren sharply criticized Warsh’s record and questioned his independence, arguing he is “uniquely ill-suited for the job as Fed chair” and warning he could give Trump influence over the central bank.

She accused Warsh of enabling Wall Street during the 2008 financial crisis, which fell during his tenure as a Federal Reserve governor when he served from 2006 to 2011.

“In our meeting last week, we discussed the 2008 financial crash, where 8 million people lost their jobs, 10 million people lost their homes and millions more lost their life savings,” Warren said. “Giant banks, however, got hundreds of billions of dollars in bailouts… and he said to me that he has no regrets about anything he did.”

She added that Warsh “worked tirelessly to arrange multibillion-dollar bailouts” for Wall Street CEOs, with nothing for American families.

The hearing grew more tense as Warren pivoted to ethics concerns, pressing Warsh over his undisclosed financial holdings and questioning him over links to business dealings connected to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The two spoke over each other and raised their voices in a heated exchange on Capitol Hill.

WARSH’S $226 MILLION FORTUNE UNDER SCRUTINY AS FED NOMINEE FACES SENATE CONFIRMATION

Sen. Elizabeth Warren: The Fed has been plagued by deeply disturbing ethics scandals in recent years. It’s critical that the next chair have no financial conflicts — none. You have more than $100 million in investments that you have refused to disclose. So let me ask: do the Juggernaut Fund or THSDFS LLC invest in companies affiliated with President Trump or his family, companies tied to money laundering, Chinese-controlled firms, or financing vehicles linked to Jeffrey Epstein?

Kevin Warsh: Senator, I’ve worked closely with the Office of Government Ethics and agreed to divest all of my financial assets.

Warren: Could you answer my question, please? You have more than $100 million in undisclosed assets. Are any of those investments tied to the entities I just mentioned? It’s a yes-or-no question.

Warsh: I have worked tirelessly with ethics officials and agreed to sell all of my assets before taking the oath of office.

Warren: Are you refusing to tell us if you have investments in vehicles linked to Jeffrey Epstein? You just won’t say?

Warsh: What I’m telling you is those assets will be sold if I’m confirmed.

Warren: Will you disclose how you plan to divest these assets? The public might question your motives if, for example, someone who profits from predicting Fed policy cuts you a $100 million check as you take office.

Warsh: I’ve reached a full agreement with the Office of Government Ethics and will divest those assets before taking the oath.

Warren: I’m asking a very straightforward question. Will you disclose how you divest those assets?

Warsh: As I’ve said, I’ve worked with ethics officials.

Warren: I’ll take that as a no.

In a separate exchange, Warren invoked Trump’s past statements about the Fed and challenged Warsh to prove his independence in real time.

She insisted that Warsh answer whether he believes Trump won the 2020 presidential election and if he would name policies of the president with which he disagrees. The hopeful future Fed chair dodged the question and said he would remain apolitical, if confirmed.

THE ONE LINE IN WARSH’S TESTIMONY SIGNALING A BREAK FROM THE FED’S STATUS QUO

Warren: Donald Trump has made clear he does not want an independent Fed. He has said, “Anybody that disagrees with me will never be Fed chairman.” He’s also said interest rates will drop “when Kevin gets in.” Let’s check out your independence and your courage. We’ll start easy. Mr. Warsh, did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Warsh: Senator, we should keep politics out of the Federal Reserve.

Warren: I’m asking a factual question.

Warsh: This body certified the election.

Warren: That’s not what I asked. Did Donald Trump lose in 2020?

Warsh: The Fed should stay out of politics.

Warren: In our meeting, you said you’re a “tough guy” who can stand up to President Trump. So name one aspect of his economic agenda you disagree with.

Warsh: That’s not something I’m prepared to do. The Fed should stay in its lane.

Warren: Just one place where you disagree.

Warsh: I do have one disagreement — he said I looked like I was out of central casting. I think I’d look older and grayer.

Warren: That’s adorable. But we need a Fed chair who is independent. If you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have the courage or the independence.