EXCLUSIVE: A conservative legal group urged the U.S. Postal Service this week to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail-in ballots, saying the USPS has an obligation to block possible “fraudulent ballots” ahead of this year’s midterms.

America First Legal laid out in a petition filed with the USPS and obtained by Fox News Digital that the postal service has the independent authority to impose restrictions on mail-in ballots, including by requiring barcode tracking on ballot envelopes and cross-checking ballot recipients against federally-approved voter registration lists.

The petition comes as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to tighten election security rules over concerns about ineligible voters casting ballots. It aims to ramp up pressure on the postal service to use its regulatory authority to unilaterally advance those efforts as the president’s executive order faces multiple lawsuits brought by blue states and voting rights groups.

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“Federal law gives every interested individual the right to file a petition for rulemaking with federal agencies,” America First Legal senior counsel James Rogers said in a statement. “Our petition gives the Postal Service the authority to implement these common-sense reforms, even in the face of this frivolous litigation against President Trump.”

AFL’s petition came after Trump issued an executive order last month directing the USPS to work with states on mail-ballot procedures tied to state-submitted voter eligibility lists, while separately calling on DHS and the Social Security Administration to help states verify citizenship data.

The executive order, titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” also required the Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to coordinate with states to create a master list of registered voters. The order has become the subject of intense litigation.

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Voting rights groups immediately sued, calling it “an extraordinary and abusive assertion of executive power over the administration of federal elections” and arguing that the Constitution gives states, not the president, authority over federal election administration.

While the White House has framed the executive order as an effort to bolster election integrity, other lawsuits, brought by a coalition of blue states led by California, Democratic lawmakers and national Democratic campaign committees, accused Trump of attempting to reduce mail-in voting. Voting by mail has become more prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, when states expanded voters’ ability to cast ballots by mail because of what they said was a public health emergency. Trump called the policy changes an effort to “rig” the 2020 election, which he lost to former President Joe Biden.

“President Trump has tried again and again to rewrite election rules for his own perceived partisan advantage. If only he could ban mail voting—a favorite scapegoat for his 2020 electoral defeat—and impose other voting restrictions, he has proclaimed, Republicans will ‘never lose a race—for 50 years,’” one of the lawsuits, led by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, read.

Trump and Republicans have zeroed in on noncitizen voting, which is illegal, and have long argued it is a widespread problem. In addition to his executive order, Trump has been urging Congress to pass the SAVE Act before the 2026 midterms to impose a physical identification requirement on people registering to vote, though the bill lacks the needed support from Democratic senators to advance.

Fox News Digital reached out to the USPS press office for comment on AFL’s petition.

Graham Platner, the frontrunner for the Maine Senate Democratic primary, said he would push to subpoena a wide swath of White House officials and to impeach Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito during a recent interview with NBC News.

“I want to shut the White House down,” he told NBC in an interview released Wednesday. “I want us to, for the next two years, be dragging every single person in the White House, every single person in all these agencies that have been conducting themselves in illegal and unconstitutional ways. They need to be dragged by subpoena in front of Senate committees over and over and over again.”

Among those he claimed were committing crimes or acting unconstitutionally were officials involved in deploying U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to U.S. cities and those involved in bombing campaigns in the Caribbean against alleged narcoterrorists, operations he referred to as “murder.”

He also said there is a “compelling case” to impeach both Thomas and Alito.

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“The relationship between Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow is not hard to see as clearly corrupt, and Justice Thomas doesn’t even recuse himself from cases that impact Crow’s businesses,” he said. “These are absolutely reasons for removal.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, the Supreme Court and the Department of Homeland Security, which houses ICE, for comment.

In 2024, Justice Thomas amended his 2019 financial disclosure after a ProPublica report revealed that he had received gifts in the form of travel and lodging from GOP mega-donor Harlan Crow. The report revealed that Crow had paid for lodging and transit on his private plane for trips to Bali, Indonesia and Sonoma County, California.

Thomas claimed he originally omitted the meals and rides from reports because he believed they fell under the personal hospitality exemption. The exemption stems from Judicial Conference guidance which states that “personal hospitality” from a friend does not need to be reported if the friend did not have business before the court.

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“Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years,” Thomas said in a statement at the time.

“As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them. Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable,” he wrote.

The report also revealed that Thomas sold a trio of Savannah, Georgia, homes to Crow for $133,000 in 2014. Thomas said he did not list the sales because, after spending over $50,000 on renovations to one of the homes, the sale amounted to a financial loss.

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Platner did not specify in the interview what he believed Alito should be impeached for.

In 2023, Alito defended himself from criticisms over a 2009 trip he took on a private jet paid for by billionaire Paul Singer. Alito did not disclose the trip or recuse himself from future business Singer had in front of the Supreme Court. Alito argued that the trip “would not cause a reasonable and unbiased person to doubt my ability to decide the matters in question impartially.”

Thomas is not the only Supreme Court Justice to amend his financial disclosures.

In 2021, Justice Sonia Sotomayor updated her 2016 disclosure to include six trips to public universities paid for by the schools that she’d previously omitted. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also updated a decade’s worth of disclosures during her nomination process. Omissions included her husband’s consulting income, her teacher’s salary and a gift she incurred from giving a speech.

Fox News Digital asked Platner’s campaign if he would support impeaching other justices, including Sotomayor and Jackson, but did not immediately receive a response.

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Platner also echoed an increasingly popular view on the left that the Democrats should support an expansion of the Supreme Court, telling NBC that he’s “definitely open to doing more, including to adding seats.”

While stating he supported the judicial impeachments, Platner added that the Democrats should not waste their time on impeaching President Donald Trump.

“If we don’t have the votes in the Senate to convict, I don’t think we should waste our time with it,” he told the outlet.

He also said that he does not want to see Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., repeat his term as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate. Schumer has publicly backed Maine Gov. Janet Mills, Platner’s primary opponent.

Platner floated four names to replace Schumer: Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

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Platner, a self-described progressive, is backed by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. He’s a combat veteran who did three tours in Iraq as a Marine and a tour in Afghanistan with the Maine National Guard.

He’s currently leading in the polls against both his Democratic primary opponent Mills and the incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins. But his campaign has not been entirely smooth sailing.

He’s had to confront numerous controversies in recent months, most notably perhaps the revelation that he once sported a large chest tattoo that resembled Nazi iconography.

In October, Platner covered up a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest that strongly resembled the Totenkopf symbol used by Hitler’s SS forces. Platner claimed he got the tattoo as a veteran while drunk in Croatia and didn’t know it was akin to the Nazi symbol until media reports in 2024. He says he plans to remove it.

Platner also fessed up to running an edgy Reddit account that reportedly disparaged Black people and police and praised a raid executed by Hamas terrorists.

U.S. Rep. David Scott, D-Ga., has died, Fox News learned Wednesday. He was aged 80.

Multiple sources confirmed Scott’s death to Fox News. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Scott, a longtime lawmaker, has represented Georgia’s 13th district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003. He previously served as a state senator for Georgia’s 36th district from 1983 to 2003 and as a state representative for the 37th district from 1975 to 1983.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., presided over the House on Wednesday afternoon and formally announced Scott’s death to the chamber.

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“The House will be in order,” Foxx said. “The chair announces to the House that, in light of the passing of the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. David Scott, the whole number of the house is 430.”

Scott had been, until the beginning of this Congress, the leading Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, acting as a prominent voice for his party on issues related to farm aid policy and food aid for consumers. He was also a prominent Black member of the party’s moderate Blue Dog caucus.

House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig, D-Minn., shared a statement following Scott’s death.

“He was a strong voice for Georgia’s farmers, hungry veterans and young people – who he helped shape into the next generation of agricultural leaders through his fierce advocacy for the 1980’s Scholarship Program at historically Black colleges and universities,” Craig said. “The House Agriculture Committee will remember him for his strong faith, kindness and dedication to our nation’s farmers and working people. May his memory be a blessing.”

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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters on Capitol Hill that the “news of Congressman Scott’s passing is deeply sad.”

“David Scott was a trailblazer who served district that he represented admirably, rose up from humble beginnings to become the first African American ever to chair the House Ag Committee,” Jeffries said. “He cared about the people that he represented. He was fiercely committed to getting things done for the people of the great state of Georgia, and he’ll be deeply missed.”

Scott is the 8th member of the House to die in less than two years, and the second this year alone. Seven of the eight legislators were Democrats, with three of the four Democrats having been ranking Democrats on their committees. 

Scott was seeking his 13th term in Congress despite challenges from within his party. He faced criticism and concerns in recent years because of declining health, enduring a primary challenge in 2024 and facing another one at the time of his death.

Scott’s death slightly widens Republicans’ narrow House majority going into the thick of this midterm election year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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.”

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.

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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.

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.

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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. 

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.

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.”

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“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.

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. 

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.