Category: USA Politics

A Virginia judge expressed concern over the mental state of former Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax while ruling on a child custody case involving two teenage children, commenting on his behavior and isolation.

Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Timothy J. McEvoy detailed these concerns in a March 30 court order involving Fairfax, his estranged wife, and their two children, writing that Fairfax’s “isolation, drinking and lack of participation in family life are manifestations of what seems to be a sense of fatalism and hopelessness,” WTOP reported.

Fairfax killed his wife, Dr. Cerina Fairfax, and then himself in a shocking murder-suicide early Thursday morning. The two were living under the same roof during ongoing divorce proceedings.

The split followed sexual assault allegations made against Fairfax in 2019.

HAUNTING NOTE ON VEGAS HOTEL DOOR HINTED AT TRAGEDY BEFORE CHEER MOM, DAUGHTER FOUND DEAD

“At that time, [Fairfax] was the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia and was an ascendant political figure who was eyeing a run for Governor. The assault allegations deeply affected [him] and appear to have put an end to those plans,” court documents state.

Fairfax served as lieutenant governor from 2018 to 2022. In 2019, two women accused him of sexually assaulting them while they were students at Duke University.

The killing occurred just days before an April 21 divorce hearing and an April 30 court-ordered deadline for Fairfax to move out of the couple’s home. Authorities confirmed that Fairfax had recently been served with paperwork related to the upcoming court hearing.

EX-BIDEN STAFFER CLAIMS ACCIDENTAL SHOT KILLED GIRLFRIEND AS DAD BLASTS TOXIC, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP: REPORT

McEvoy’s order detailed a 2022 incident in which Fairfax purchased a handgun, which he possessed during a “kind of adverse psychological event.” The gun was allegedly purchased with money intended for his children’s horseback riding lessons.

At one point, he left his home with the weapon and was found by relatives in a nearby public park “after frantic searching.” Fairfax’s brother eventually called a mental health professional after being “unable to calm him down over the course of several hours,” the judge wrote.

According to the New York Post, Fairfax was drinking so heavily that he would lock himself in his home office, living among “empty wine bottles, trash and piles of dirty laundry.” The documents allege he would only emerge “long enough to get food or smoke cigarettes.”

McEvoy noted there was no evidence that Fairfax had sought professional help, but did not order psychological therapy.

The judge described the tension in the couple’s home life as “extremely high for an extended period of time,” noting that their living arrangements were exacerbating the situation. He had ordered Fairfax to move out of the home in Annandale, located outside Washington, D.C.

Authorities believe the acrimonious divorce likely played a role in Fairfax’s decision to kill his wife before taking his own life.

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University medical graduate student from Turkey whose charges were dropped after DHS detained her for allegedly “[engaging] in activities in support of Hamas,” has self-deported to Turkey, according to sources familiar with the matter. 

Ozturk self-deported from the U.S. late Thursday night on a flight to Istanbul, Turkey, according to sources familiar.

Ozturk was detained by ICE in Somerville, Massachusetts, in March 2025, sparking a battle between the Trump administration and a federal judge over her detainment.

The Tufts graduate student was living in the U.S. under an F-1 student visa, which the Trump administration revoked around March 21, 2025. At the time her visa was revoked, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration were cracking down on student visas for students who were involved in protests and demonstrations regarding Israel and Palestine.

JUDGE WHO BLASTED TRUMP AS ‘AUTHORITARIAN’ BLOCKS US FROM DEPORTING PRO-PALESTINIAN CAMPUS ACTIVISTS

“After 13 years of dedicated study, I am very proud to have completed my Ph.D. and to return home on my own timeline,” Ozturk said in a statement. “The time stolen from me by the U.S. government belongs not just to me, but to the children and youth I have dedicated my life to advocating for. With them in mind, I am choosing to return home as planned to continue my career as a woman scholar without losing more time to the state-imposed violence and hostility I have experienced in the United States – all for nothing more than co-signing an op-ed advocating for Palestinian rights.”

Ozturk co-authored an opinion piece on March 26, 2024 that was published in Tufts Daily, a student newspaper on campus.

“Credible accusations against Israel include accounts of deliberate starvation and indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians and plausible genocide,” the op-ed read. 

The authors, including Ozturk, were critical of the university’s response to anti-Israel protests, saying that the university should publicly acknowledge Palestinian suffering. 

Rubio specifically referenced opinion pieces in a statement surrounding the revoking of student visas, notably after the arrest of Ozturk on March 25, 2025.

DHS SAYS COLUMBIA STUDENT TAKEN INTO CUSTODY IS ILLEGAL ALIEN WHOSE VISA WAS TERMINATED UNDER OBAMA ADMIN

“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just because you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus — we’re not going to give you a visa,” Rubio said.

Trump’s Department of Justice also weighed in on Ozturk’s self-deportation.

“Attending elite colleges and universities in the United States is a privilege afforded to foreign students who respect our values and follow our laws,” a DOJ official told Fox News. “Rümeysa Öztürk chose not to abide by those simple conditions, and as a result left the United States – something the Administration sought to accomplish from the beginning. We will continue to seek the deportation of any foreign student who abuses their opportunity to study in America by engaging in vile antisemitism, harassment, or other illegal behavior.”

Following Ozturk’s arrest, she was transferred to Methuen, Mass., then Lebanon, New Hampshire, and Vermont before she was sent to the South Louisiana ICE processing facility, according to reports.  

Protests erupted at Tufts and across the country over her arrest, and two months later she was released on bail.

ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATOR MAHMOUD KHALIL ONE STEP CLOSER TO DEPORTATION WITH IMMIGRATION BOARD RULING

The legal battle continued between the Trump administration and Ozturk, who was legally represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), until Feb. 9 when Biden-appointed Boston immigration Judge Roopal Patel terminated deportation proceedings. 

Patel ruled that the Department of Homeland Security lacked the legal grounds to deport her. 

“I grieve for the many human beings who do not get to see the mistreatment they have faced brought into the light,” Ozturk said in a statement released by her attorneys after the ruling. “When we openly talk about the many injustices around us, including the treatment of immigrants and others who have been targeted and thrown in for-profit ICE prisons, as well as what is happening in Gaza, true justice will prevail.”

THE US GOVERNMENT TARGETED ME FOR MY POLITICAL SPEECH. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO

The Trump Department of Justice fired Patel, among other immigration judges, last week.

Since Patel ruled as an immigration judge and not a federal Article III judge, the Trump administration and the executive branch has authority over her tenure.

The White House issued a press release on April 9, titled: “Era of Amnesty Is Over: President Trump Restores Rule of Law to Immigration Courts,” in which the administration touted “the most aggressive and successful immigration enforcement overhaul in modern history.”

“President Trump promised to end the open borders nightmare — and he is delivering on that promise with unrelenting force. The era of catch-and-release, mass releases, and activist judicial amnesty is over,” the White House statement reads.

Former President Barack Obama is urging Virginians to vote in favor of a congressional redistricting ballot measure that if passed, could give Democrats a big boost in this year’s midterm elections.

“By voting yes, you have the chance to do something important — not just for the Commonwealth, but for our entire country,” Obama said in the video. “By voting yes, you can push back against the Republicans trying to give themselves an unfair advantage in the midterms.”

The video by the former president, who remains one of the most popular former presidents and whose favorable ratings among Democrats remain very high a decade after leaving the White House, was released Friday on the eve of the final day of early voting ahead of Tuesday’s statewide referendum.

If the ballot measure is successful, it would give the Democrat-controlled legislature — rather than the current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.

OBAMA ENDORSES VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT THAT COULD HELP DEMS GAIN 4 SEATS

That would give Democrats four additional left-leaning U.S. House seats ahead of the midterms, as the party tries to win back control of the chamber from the GOP, which currently holds a razor-thin majority.

“By voting yes, you can take a temporary step to level the playing field. And we’re counting on you,” Obama said in the video.

Republicans call the Democrats’ redistricting effort an “unconstitutional power grab.” Democrats counter that it’s a necessary step to balance out partisan gerrymandering already implemented by Republicans in other states under the urging of President Donald Trump.

The video by Obama is the former president’s latest effort tied to the referendum. He has previously appeared in ads released by Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-aligned group working to pass the ballot initiative.

Virginians For Fair Maps, the leading Republican-aligned group opposing redistricting, is using past comments by Obama against political gerrymandering in their ads opposing the referendum.

“Because of things like political gerrymandering, our parties have moved further and further apart, and it’s harder and harder to find common ground,” the former president says in a clip showcased in the spot.

A separate group that is also urging Virginians to vote no has sent mailers across the state featuring Obama’s image alongside a six-year-old quote from the former president saying, “For too long, gerrymandering has contributed to stalled progress and warped our representative government.”

Supporters of redistricting have dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum. But polling suggests support for the ballot initiative is only slightly ahead of opposition, amid a surge in early voting.

Virginia is the latest battleground in the high-stakes fight between Trump and the GOP versus Democrats over congressional redistricting.

BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE RUNS THROUGH VIRGINIA AS COURT OKS HIGH-STAKES REDISTRICTING VOTE

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

The mission was simple: redraw congressional district maps in red states to pad the GOP’s fragile House majority to keep control of the chamber in the midterms, when the party in power traditionally faces political headwinds and loses seats.

When asked by reporters last summer about his plan to add Republican-leaning House seats across the country, the president said, “Texas will be the biggest one. And that’ll be five.”

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called a special session of the GOP-dominated state legislature to pass the new map.

But Democratic state lawmakers, who broke quorum for two weeks as they fled Texas in a bid to delay the passage of the redistricting bill, energized Democrats across the country.

Among those leading the fight against Trump’s redistricting was Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.

REPUBLICANS TARGET VIRGINIA GOVERNOR IN BID TO DEFEAT DEMOCRAT-BACKED REDISTRICTING

California voters in November overwhelmingly passed Proposition 50, a ballot initiative that temporarily sidetracked the left-leaning state’s nonpartisan redistricting commission and returned the power to draw the congressional maps to the Democratic-dominated legislature.

That is expected to result in five more Democratic-leaning congressional districts in California, which aimed to counter the move by Texas to redraw their maps.

The fight quickly spread beyond Texas and California.

Republican-controlled Missouri and Ohio, and swing state North Carolina, where the GOP dominates the legislature, have drawn new maps as part of the president’s push.

In blows to Republicans, a Utah district judge late last year rejected a congressional district map drawn up by the state’s GOP-dominated legislature and instead approved an alternate that will create a Democratic-leaning district ahead of the midterms.

Meanwhile, Republicans in Indiana’s Senate in December defied Trump, shooting down a redistricting bill that had passed the state House. The showdown in the Indiana statehouse grabbed plenty of national attention.

Florida is next up.

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 on April 28.

Hovering over the redistricting wars is the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule in Louisiana v. Callais, a crucial case that may lead to the overturning of a key provision in the Voting Rights Act.

If the ruling goes the way of the conservatives on the high court, it could lead to the redrawing of a slew of majority-minority districts across the county, which would greatly favor Republicans.

But it is very much up in the air — when the court will rule, and what it will actually do.

Virginia voters are set to decide a redistricting referendum Tuesday, even as a high-stakes legal challenge before the state’s Supreme Court argues the amendment should be invalidated because it was pushed through an unlawfully extended legislative session.

The case centers on whether lawmakers violated the Virginia Constitution by keeping the special session open for nearly two years to pass the redistricting measure, a move critics say was an abuse of legislative authority. The measure, if it passes Tuesday and survives state Supreme Court scrutiny, would reshape the state’s congressional map so that Democrats have a 10-1 advantage in the upcoming midterms.

“The voters are the first hope that we have, and the best one,” Jason Snead, executive director of Honest Elections Project, told Fox News Digital, warning that if the referendum passes, the Supreme Court decision could be “the last chance” before the next census to challenge the map.

VIRGINIA DEM ADMITS REDISTRICTING PUSH AIMS TO ‘STOP TRUMP’, NOT ABOUT ‘FAIRNESS’

Snead’s group this week submitted a brief to Virginia’s highest court making the case that the legislative special session was improperly extended.

“If you look at what the Constitution of Virginia requires and what the law requires, it’s very clear that what happened here was an illegally extended special session that essentially turned a part-time legislature into a full-time one,” Snead said. “They kept it open for nearly two years and then used that to push through a constitutional amendment — and we think that’s a blatant violation of the limits the Constitution puts on legislative power.”

Virginia Democrats, led by Gov. Abigail Spanberger and House Speaker Don Scott, passed an amendment this year that they argued allowed them to bypass the typical redistricting process in the state to shift the current 6-5 map to 10-1. Scott told reporters in February the move was a direct response to national redistricting fights playing out across the country.

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“This is about leveling the playing field across the country. Republicans are gerrymandering maps to override the will of the voters,” Scott said. “We just saw it in Texas, North Carolina and Missouri. At Donald Trump’s direction they’re manipulating election maps because they know they can’t win on their agenda in 2026. … A 10-1 map levels the playing field.”

Democrats have argued to the Supreme Court that the General Assembly has broad constitutional authority to manage its own legislative sessions and procedures, including extending a special session, and that nothing in the Virginia Constitution explicitly prohibits how this particular session was handled. 

The Honest Elections Project’s brief argues otherwise.

“If you look at what the law requires, it’s very clear that Governor Spanberger and her allies are steamrolling the process to try to launch a power grab,” Snead said

SPANBERGER ONCE BLASTED GERRYMANDERING AND NOW BACKS AMENDMENT CRITICS SAY COULD ERASE VIRGINIA GOP

The Supreme Court decided in March to allow the referendum vote to move forward while it considers Republicans’ arguments challenging how the map amendment was passed by way of a special session.

“It is the process, not the outcome, of this effort that we may ultimately have to address,” the state’s highest court found. “Issuing an injunction to keep Virginians from the polls is not the proper way to make this decision.”

The state Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case April 27 and a decision could come anytime after that.

Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger’s and Scott’s offices for comment.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris this week blasted President Donald Trump for the surge in gas prices triggered by the U.S. war with Iran.

But four years ago, the then-vice president said that soaring gas prices sparked in part by the Russian invasion of Ukraine were the “price to pay for democracy.”

“Here in North Carolina and around the country, gas prices are too high,” Harris wrote this week in a social media post. “This is a direct result of Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran, and the American people are paying the price.”

The Wednesday post featured a video of Harris delivering remarks while standing outside in front of a sign displaying fuel prices at a gas station in North Carolina.

HARRIS STOPS IN KEY PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY STATE AFTER LEAVING DOOR WIDE OPEN TO 2028 RUN

“We’ve got a president who is paying more attention to what he thinks is in his best political interests and personal interests, as opposed to what is in the best interest of working people in America,” Harris declared at the end of the brief video.

The average price of regular gasoline surged to over $4 per gallon following the U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, which were launched on Feb. 28. Iran’s military has been decimated, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other top Iranian officials were killed during the month-and-a-half-long war.

In response, Iran targeted energy facilities with missile and drone attacks in a number of Persian Gulf nations. It has also made the Strait of Hormuz nearly impassable to commercial shipping, bringing roughly 20% of the world’s oil supply to a halt and sending global fuel prices sharply higher.

Trump’s attacks on Iran have provided Democrats with political ammunition amid their focus on affordability and persistent inflation. The issue has also boosted them to overperformance at the ballot box in two special congressional elections this month.

DEMOCRATS POUNCE ON $4 PER GALLON GAS – BLAME TRUMP’S IRAN WAR FOR ‘BROKEN PROMISE’

The attacks have also upset some in Trump’s MAGA base, who feel the president has broken his 2024 campaign promise to avoid foreign military entanglements.

The current gas prices in the U.S. are the highest in four years.

Speaking during a press conference in Bucharest, Romania during that gas price surge in 2022 during the early months of the Russia-Ukraine war, Harris said the U.S. was “committed in everything we are doing” in support of Ukraine.

“And yes, the president did say in the State of the Union, there is a price to pay for democracy — got to stand with your friends — and as everybody knows, even in your personal life, being loyal to those friendships based on common principles and values, sometimes, it’s difficult — often, it ain’t easy.” 

“But that is what the friendship is about — shared values,” Harris said. “So that’s what we’re doing.”

FOX BUSINESS: OIL PRICES PLUNGE AFTER STRAIGHT OF HORMUZ REOPENS

Republicans at the time blamed then-President Joe Biden‘s administration for the high gas prices, just as Democrats are now blaming Trump.

But a major difference in the two situations is that while Trump ordered the U.S. strikes on Iran, the Biden administration came to Ukraine’s aid after Russian launched a widescale military invasion.

The White House at the time repeatedly blamed Russian leader Vladimir Putin for record-high gas prices in the U.S., even coining the surge the “#PutinPriceHike” and vowing that Biden would do everything he could to shield Americans from “pain at the pump.”

But Trump and Republicans capitalized on inflation, using it as a key issue in the sweeping 2024 election victories, when they won back the White House and Senate and held their House majority.

Democrats are hoping to turn the tables in this year’s midterm elections by spotlighting affordability as they aim to flip the House and Senate.

And Harris, who lost to Trump in the 2024 election after replacing Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee, has left the door wide open to a 2028 White Houser run.

The White House pushed back against this week’s jab from Harris.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers argued, “No one cares or believes what Kamala Harris says because Americans remember the economic pain caused by the Biden-Harris administration’s very unpopular and costly Green New Scam. Kamala’s anti-energy dominance agenda sent electricity prices soaring more than 30 percent in just four years, and the average gas price across the country skyrocketed to $5 in just one year.”

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts on Thursday gave preliminary approval to President Donald Trump’s plan for a massive new triumphal arch monument in the nation’s capital, according to the New York Times.

The outlet reported that the body holds an advisory role regarding the project’s design, but does not wield enforcement authority.

The Associated Press reported that the commission approved the concept for several projects, including the arch. The federal agency next will review updated designs for all three projects at a future meeting before taking any final votes.

GOLDEN EAGLES, LIONS AND A WINGED LADY LIBERTY TOP TRUMP’S PROPOSED 250-FOOT DC TRIUMPHAL ARCH DESIGNS

The proposed monument features a giant arch topped with a winged Lady Liberty statue flanked by eagle statues.

Near the base of the arch there would be lion statues.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Friday.

The AP reported that White House spokesperson Davis Ingle indicated that the commission’s action is “another step in accomplishing President Trump’s promise to the American people from the campaign trail — to Make America Safe and Beautiful Again.”

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Reports indicate that commission vice chair James C. McCrery, II raised number of design notes, including the possibility of not including the statues atop the monument.

“And I wonder… if it’s not even a better, more Washingtonian design without the three finials,” he said.

LEAVITT SHOWS OFF US TRIUMPHAL ARCH, WITH PLANS TO BE RELEASED THURSDAY

“I’d say work on the lions and find replacements for them,” he said, noting that as he had indicated previously, “they’re not of this continent.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

The Senate quietly extended the nation’s spying powers Friday morning after the House failed to reauthorize the program before the fast-approaching deadline.

The upper chamber’s unanimous vote to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) gives Congress a little more breathing room beyond the April 20 deadline but still leaves lawmakers in the same divided place they started.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had positioned the Senate to swiftly receive and possibly pass a FISA reauthorization, but after progress on the legislation blew up in the House, he’s eying putting the upper chamber in the driver’s seat. 

HOUSE PUNTS TRUMP SPY POWERS EXTENSION AFTER CONSERVATIVES BLOCK DEAL, FORCING END-OF-MONTH SHOWDOWN

“We can’t go dark,” Thune said. “We just can’t afford to go dark, so we’ve got to figure it out. Hopefully, we can move a 10-day extension, and we’ll try and set things up to try and do something over here.” 

The original plan was derailed because of the controversial Section 702 of FISA. On the surface, it allows the government to spy on foreign nationals abroad, but nothing stops that law from collecting data on Americans if they happen to be involved in those communications.

While FISA as a whole is a vital tool for the government, particularly as uncertainty swirls about the true end of the war in Iran, Congress still isn’t on the same page as the White House.

DOZENS OF DEMS FLIP ON ISRAEL, VOTE TO BAN ARMS SALES IN PROTEST OF IRAN WAR

President Donald Trump and the White House pushed lawmakers to pass a clean reauthorization of the program, which both Republicans and Democrats in both chambers have pushed back against.

It’s a rare horseshoe issue in Washington, D.C., that draws opposite ends of the political spectrum — conservatives and progressives — together on privacy rights.

Opponents of Section 702 want warrant requirements for the government to parse communications involving Americans. Congressional Democrats similarly demanded warrant requirements for immigration agents to enter people’s homes as part of their list of demands to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

DHS SHUTDOWN ENTERS DAY 60 WITH ALL EYES ON HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO END IT

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has strongly pushed back against a clean reauthorization, arguing in a letter to his Democratic colleagues that leaps and bounds in AI are “supercharging how the government can surveil Americans.”

And Wyden nearly derailed chances for the extension to pass in the upper chamber, but later argued it was the “right decision for today,” and that tacking on another few days would give more leverage to lawmakers wanting reforms. 

Wyden told Fox News Digital that “the focus here needs to be what Ben Franklin talked about.”

“Anybody who gives up their liberty to have security really doesn’t deserve either,” Wyden said. “And I don’t buy the idea that liberty and security are mutually exclusive, and that’s what the proponents, who just want a straight across the board approach are calling for.”

“They say, basically, ‘The sky’s gonna fall, unless you pass our bill right away,‘” he continued.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., tried and failed with two options for FISA. One route was a clean, 18-month extension. Another was a five-year extension with modest reforms. Conservatives joined the bulk of House Democrats to tank the latter.

Lawmakers will return next week with a bevy of issues on their plates, including reopening DHS and sprinting to craft the framework for a party-line budget reconciliation package to fund immigration enforcement for the next three years.

The FISA issue will linger until the next deadline at the end of the month.

Analilia Mejia, a one-time labor organizer backed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, is headed to Congress.

Mejia, running on a platform that emphasized Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage with the first $40,000 tax-free, a wealth tax, abolishing ICE and holding President Donald Trump and his administration accountable, convincingly defeated Republican candidate Joe Hathaway in Thursday’s special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.

With her nearly 20-point victory, Mejia will fill the final eight months of the term of Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the more moderate Democratic representative who stepped down from Congress in November after winning New Jersey’s gubernatorial election.

Mejia, who is likely to align herself with the so-called “Squad” of younger, diverse and progressive House Democrats, called herself the “sassy new member of Congress” in her victory speech.

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The special election came as the GOP clings to a fragile House majority. Republicans would have relished the opportunity to pick up the seat, but they faced a steep uphill climb to flip the suburban district Sherrill won by 15 points in her 2024 re-election and carried by roughly the same margin in last year’s gubernatorial election.

Hathaway, a former Randolph Township mayor and current council member who was unopposed for the GOP congressional nomination, aimed to paint Mejia as too far to the left for the district. He told Fox News Digital the choice for voters was “between a common sense, practical independent leader who’s gotten things done at the local level in New Jersey and knows the issues, contrasted with someone who’s running on pure ideology, far left-wing ideology, Squad-backed ideology.”

“I think we have the right math, the right bipartisan coalition to come together to win this thing on April 16,” an optimistic Hathaway predicted.

But Hathaway came up far short, given the rough political climate facing Republicans and the traditional headwinds for the party in power.

THIS PROGRESSIVE ORGANIZER WINS SPECIAL ELECTION, EARNING TICKET TO CONGRESS

Mejia, on Thursday night, pushed back against the claims she’s a radical.

“My opponent has spent his whole campaign calling me names and saying my ideas are too radical. But we know, that is a mind trick, on brand for a spin doctor, but easily countered if you just open your eyes,” Mejia said. “It is not radical to say that one of the wealthiest nations in the world should do more to protect the health of its people.”

Here’s a closer look at Mejia and where she stands on the issues.

Mejia was born in New Jersey and is the daughter of Colombian and Dominican immigrants.

After working as a union organizer, Mejia served as national political director on the 2020 Sanders presidential campaign. She later worked in the Department of Labor in former President Joe Biden’s administration.

Mejia pulled off an upset in the February Democratic primary, narrowly edging out a more moderate rival, former Rep. Tom Malinowski, in a field of 11 candidates. While Mejia was the clear choice of the party’s left flank, the rest of the field divided the moderate and center-left vote.

Besides the backing of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, Mejia was also endorsed by other top progressive leaders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

PROGRESSIVES NOTCH ANOTHER WIN OVER DEMOCRATIC MODERATES AS SANDERS-AOC ALLY NEARS CONGRESS

Mejia’s nomination victory was another big boost for the left against the establishment since now-New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, sent shock waves across the nation with his Democratic primary victory in June 2025.

Mejia repeatedly took aim at Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration and called for scrapping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency most visible in the aggressive tactics used in the administration’s massive deportation effort.

REPUBLICAN SEEKS BLUE-STATE BREAKTHROUGH, DISTANCES FROM TRUMP WHILE TAKING AIM AT ‘SOCIALIST’

“I say abolish ICE now,” Mejia said on the campaign trail. “You can’t reform it. It’s not fixable. Get it out.” 

After her primary victory, Mejia gave credit to her stance on immigration in the wake of backlash against the Trump administration following the January fatal shootings in Minnesota by federal agents of two U.S. citizens protesting immigration operations.

“I think the fact that I was bold and unafraid to speak the truth was incredibly important,” she told reporters. “I think voters feel that they want to have a representative that actually represents them, and they cannot watch what’s happening in Minnesota, what happened in Chicago, what happened in California, what happened in Morristown across this district.”

Mejia, like many on the left, has railed against rulings by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court has been captured by right-wing radicals who care more about doing Trump’s bidding than the rule of law,” Mejia charged on her campaign website.

She supported “articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Alito” for what she says is “their corruption and conflicts of interest.”

Mejia also backed “term limits for newly appointed Supreme Court justices, a binding code of ethics with real enforcement for all federal judges.”

And Mejia said she would support “expanding the courts if necessary to restore balance.”

On her campaign website, Mejia stated, “We’re going to cancel all student loan debt.”

And she pledges that she’ll “fight to make college tuition free at community colleges and trade schools for everyone.”

As part of her “economy for everyone agenda,” Mejia argued, “If you work 40 hours a week, you should make at least $40,000 a year, and you shouldn’t pay a dime in federal taxes on that first $40,000.”

And she highlighted that she helped lead the fight in New Jersey to “win the $15 minimum wage.”

“With the cost of living rising every day, it’s time to raise the minimum wage at the national level to $25/hour,” Mejia emphasized on the campaign trail.

Malinowski, an assistant secretary of state in former President Barack Obama’s administration who later represented a neighboring congressional district in northern New Jersey from 2018 to 2022 before losing re-election, was considered the front-runner in the Democratic nomination race heading into primary day.

But Malinowski was the target of a slew of attack ads put out by a group affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which opposed Malinowski because he said he supports conditions on aid to Israel.

The AIPAC-aligned super PAC United Democracy Project dished out more than $2.3 million to take aim at Malinowski, even though AIPAC had previously supported Malinowski in his past congressional elections.

But the AIPAC strategy backfired, because Mejia is much tougher on Israel than Malinowski.

Mejia was the only candidate in the race who raised her hand at a forum in January when asked if they agreed with human rights groups who charge Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in its war with Hamas in Gaza.

Jewish voters make up a key part of the district’s electorate, and Hathaway, in the only debate in the general election, claimed Mejia was antisemitic, noting she has said Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

“She blamed Israel for the attacks by Hamas on Oct. 7,” Hathaway said. “I think Jewish individuals across this district, Republican or Democrat, are very afraid of this kind of rhetoric.”

Mejia pledged to “protect the rights of Jewish constituents” and said her criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza should not be conflated with antisemitism.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Mejia said, “Joe Hathaway’s inability to distinguish between criticism of a government or government official and bigotry is troubling and disgusting in equal measure.”

Mejia last week wrote that she was “honored” after being endorsed by the liberal pro-Israel political group J Street PAC. But her acceptance of the endorsement triggered pushback on the left, with the North Jersey Democratic Socialists of America calling her move a “heel turn.”

Hathaway told Fox News Digital, “I’ve spoken to more members of the Jewish community who have told me they’ve never voted for a Republican in their life, who are going to vote for me in this race. I mean, that shows you where the Jewish community is on the importance of this race and how they are not aligned with Mejia … and her platform.”

It appears Hathaway was right: Some towns with heavy Jewish populations swung significantly to the right in Thursday’s election.

But it wasn’t nearly enough to help Hathaway blunt Mejia’s overall support.

Amy Eskridge, a Huntsville, Alabama–based researcher who died in 2022, is now being cited as the 11th case in a growing list of scientists who have died or disappeared under unusual circumstances.

Her death has drawn renewed attention as at least 10 other recent cases involving individuals tied to U.S. military, nuclear and aerospace research have prompted questions about whether any pattern exists.

President Donald Trump said Thursday he had “just left a meeting” on the issue and vowed answers within days, calling the situation “pretty serious.”

“I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump told reporters.

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While officials have not confirmed any connection between the cases, the overlap in timing and the individuals’ ties to advanced research fields has fueled growing public attention and speculation.

Eskridge died June 11, 2022, in Huntsville, Alabama, at the age of 34, according to obituary records. Her death has been reported as a self-inflicted gunshot wound, though limited official details have been publicly released.

Eskridge co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and described her work as focused on experimental propulsion concepts, including what she referred to as “antigravity” research.

“We discovered anti-gravity and our lives went to (expletive) and people started sabotaging us,” she said in a 2020 interview with Youtuber Jeremy Rys. “It’s harassment, threats. It’s awful.” 

“If you stick your neck out in public, at least someone notices if your head gets chopped off,” Eskridge said. “If you stick your neck out in private, they will bury you. They will burn down your house while you’re sleeping in your bed and it won’t even make the news.” 

In the same interview, she described what she characterized as escalating pressure surrounding her work.

“I have to publish because it’s only going to get worse until I publish,” she said, adding that the situation was “getting more and more aggressive.”

In presentations and interviews, Eskridge also suggested that researchers working on unconventional technologies could face pressure to move their work out of the public domain, describing what she saw as a pattern in which scientists who reported breakthroughs would “disappear” from public work or stop publishing.

Eskridge’s death is being cited alongside cases involving retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, NASA scientist Monica Jacinto Reza, contractor Steven Garcia, astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Nuno Loureiro, NASA engineer Frank Maiwald, Los Alamos–linked employees Melissa Casias and Anthony Chavez, NASA researcher Michael David Hicks and pharmaceutical scientist Jason Thomas.

The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told Fox News Digital it is investigating the deaths and disappearances. 

“NNSA is aware of reports related to employees of our labs, plants, and sites and is looking into the matter,” a statement from the department said. 

At the same time, there is no publicly available evidence linking Eskridge’s death to those cases, and authorities have not indicated any connection between her work and the circumstances of her death.

Her case has also become the subject of speculation in online and alternative technology communities, where some commentators have raised questions about the circumstances surrounding her death. Those claims, however, remain unverified and are not supported by official findings.

A Democratic Senate candidate running in the battleground state of Michigan said the United States should try to understand why terrorists commit such “heinous acts,” suggesting those actions stem from a place of “pain and frustration and a level of lack of agency.”

Abdul El-Sayed, a medical doctor and former Wayne County health director, is vying for Michigan’s open Senate seat in the 2026 midterms. He is running on a platform that includes Medicare for All and free education, and has been critical of Israel.

In July 2025, El-Sayed held a town hall in South Haven, Michigan, where a constituent asked how he would address terrorism if elected to the Senate. The exchange was captured on video and first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

El-Sayed said that while the United States’ current approach to terror, which leverages U.S. military might against terrorist organizations, is “necessary,” he suggested that leaders must also try to “understand” where terrorists are coming from.

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“I also think we need to be curious about why those things happen in the first place, like, [what] drives somebody to want to commit such a heinous act,” El-Sayed said. “I have to be a student of people’s pain. Like, that’s, that’s what I did in medicine. That’s what I try to do in politics, like, what, what happens when people are in pain?”

El-Sayed said that terrorism is political violence committed in “pursuit of a political end.”

“There is a level of pain and frustration and a level of lack of agency that they have to feel to do something so insane and absurd, right?” El-Sayed said.

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He then said that the “heinous acts” of terrorists lead him to reflect on how “we’re behaving that may get somebody to think that we don’t see them.”

“And I think too often, the way we’ve engaged in the world has been that we set up this rules based international order, and then we break the rules of the rules based international order,” El-Sayed said. “And that creates a situation where there are a lot of people who look at us and say, that’s hypocritical, and that’s wrong.”

He said the United States should not respond in ways that don’t “inflame tensions” and that, if elected to the Senate, he would bring “empathy” to U.S. conversations about and responses to terror. He accused Americans of being “high and mighty” in their current views of global conflict.

“I think that for us, there is strength in wisdom and there is strength in empathy, and there is strength in justice, and there’s strength in consistency,” El-Sayed said.

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El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, has been highly critical of Israel’s actions during the Gaza War. He previously accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians, and he has campaigned with internet personality Hasan Parker, who has aligned himself with the terrorist group Hamas. Parker said he would vote for Hamas, saying it is a “thousand times better” than Israel and that he would vote for Hamas over Israel “every single time.”

In the Democratic primary, El-Sayed faces competition from Rep. Hayley Stevens, D-Mich., and Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMarrow.

Fox News Digital reached out to Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers and El-Sayed for comment.