The head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog warned Wednesday that a projectile strike near Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant risked crossing the “reddest line” of nuclear safety, as fighting between the U.S., Israel and Iran intensifies.

A direct hit on an operating nuclear reactor like Bushehr could trigger a severe radiological incident, even as a recent strike caused no apparent damage to the plant’s core systems, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said. 

“An accident on an operating nuclear power plant would be something very, very serious,” Grossi told Fox News Digital Wednesday. “This is the reddest line of all that you have in nuclear safety.”

“The possibility of dispersion in the atmosphere of radioactivity is very high if you get to the core of the reactor,” he added.

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A projectile struck part of the Bushehr nuclear power plant complex in recent days, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, marking the closest known impact on an operating reactor since the conflict began. It remains unclear what caused the strike or who was responsible.

Grossi said the impact appears to have hit a smaller structure within the facility’s broader premises — possibly a laboratory or auxiliary building — and did not affect the reactor itself or cause any reported casualties.

He noted that nuclear power plants are large compounds that include administrative buildings and support infrastructure beyond the reactor itself, increasing the likelihood that a strike could hit the site without directly damaging the core.

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Grossi said the agency has not conducted an on-site inspection, noting that “independent” verification would require being physically present, but said available imagery suggests the damage is not significant.

But he stressed the risks would be far more severe if the reactor were struck.

Unlike other nuclear facilities, an operating reactor contains a live core undergoing nuclear fission, meaning a direct strike could release large amounts of radioactive material into the environment.

Grossi said there is broad international understanding that nuclear power plants should not be targeted during conflict, even as recent strikes have come dangerously close to sensitive nuclear infrastructure.

Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the strike, though the claim has not been independently verified. 

U.S. officials have not confirmed involvement, and Israel’s military said it was not aware of any such strike.

EXCLUSIVE: A senior House GOP leader is accusing Democrats of reviving their controversial push to “defund the police” with their latest bid to circumvent funding for law enforcement under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., called the progressive slogan “one of the dumbest ideas in the history of politics” in an interview with Fox News Digital.

“The American people lambasted them, and they moved on for a little while, but they came back to it, and they’re trying it again,” Scalise said. “We’re not going to let them do it. And by the way, we’re at a heightened level of threat — this is when everybody should be coming together and making sure that the Department of Homeland Security has all the tools they need to keep Americans safe.”

Democratic leaders announced on Wednesday that they would move to force a vote on legislation to fund all of DHS except for agencies that aid in President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. It comes as the ongoing partial government shutdown, only affecting DHS, has gone on for over a month with no end in sight.

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“If you look, they fund everything except the law enforcement side, which is defunding the police. So here they go again. Democrats, for some reason, just hate law enforcement,” Scalise said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., announced Democrats are filing a discharge petition on a bill to fund all of DHS except immigration enforcement on Wednesday. A discharge petition is a mechanism to force a vote on legislation over the objections of House leadership, provided the measure in question has support from a majority of House lawmakers.

“We can fund [the Transportation Security Administration], fund the Coast Guard, fund our cybersecurity professionals or continue to allow ICE to brutalize and in some cases kill American citizens or to violently target law-abiding immigrant families,” Jeffries told reporters.

It would need some GOP support to reach that threshold under current numbers. Scalise would not say whether he anticipated it getting that support, but he was skeptical that it would unite all House Democrats.

“Frankly, there should be Democrats that don’t want to be a part of that, that don’t wanna be associated with defunding the police again. They touched the stove and got burned a few years ago. Are they really gonna be stupid enough to make that same mistake again?” he said.

The infamous three-word slogan made headlines in 2020 amid nationwide racial justice protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis.

Progressives across the country demanded that their governments withhold funding from police departments if they did not radically change their standards, while some on the far-left called to abolish law enforcement altogether.

But it quickly became unpopular with the majority of Americans, who were concerned it would lead to nationwide policies that led to more crime across towns and cities.

Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said the movement was “dead” in 2022 and said “defund the police” is “not the position of the Democratic Party.”

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Democrats faced significant losses in the midterms that year, with Republicans winning back control of the House of Representatives.

But Republicans are arguing that Democratic leaders are mounting that push once more in their efforts to partially fund DHS.

Their proposal would mean that both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are both left unfunded, agencies that Republicans argue are responsible for law enforcement that’s critical to national security.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pointed out during a Tuesday press conference that CBP is the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country.

“Customs and Border Protection plays an irreplaceable role in our national security framework. This is not a game. Our CBP agents stand on the front lines. They protect our nation against transnational crime, drug and child trafficking, and terrorist threats before they reach our communities,” Johnson said.

“The law enforcement agencies that are part of the Department of Homeland Security are what they’re targeting. Democrats refuse to reopen TSA and FEMA and the Coast Guard and these other critical functions of government unless they can reopen our borders to illegal aliens.”

Both ICE and CBP’s responsibilities extend beyond border security as well.

ICE is responsible for investigating transnational crimes, including terrorism, narcotics smuggling, and international gang activity. CBP also has its own counterterrorism responsibilities, along with its duties to facilitate lawful travel into the U.S. and combat transnational crime.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., grew emotional during his Senate Homeland Security nomination hearing as he described how President Donald Trump supported his family after Mullin’s son Jim suffered a severe brain injury in January 2020.

“I’m going to try getting through without crying. It’s not about President Trump. It’s about my son,” Mullin told Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., during what was otherwise a tense hearing, explaining why he is friends with the president who nominated him.

Fighting back tears, Mullin said his son, once a “world-class athlete,” was left unable to walk normally, control his muscles or handle basic tasks after a traumatic brain injury from wrestling. 

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He recalled that Trump called immediately after learning what had happened and stayed in close contact as the family sought treatment, even offering his private plane to travel for healthcare treatment.

“I mean, here’s the president of the United States, and he did it just because he cared,” Mullin told Johnson.

“And, so, when you want to say why he’s a friend. Yeah, we were acquaintances before that. We’ve been friends ever since.”

According to Mullin, Trump offered the use of his personal plane to help the family reach a California neurological rehabilitation center, then called almost daily for two weeks to check on Jim’s condition. Mullin said Trump later visited Jim in Bakersfield during the middle of the 2020 election campaign, spending time with him despite pressure from aides to leave.

“His team came to him twice and said, ‘Sir, we got to go; we got to go,’” Mullin said. “On the third time, they came over to him, he looked at them. He says, ‘Hey, I guarantee you that plane won’t leave without me for the next 15 minutes.’”

40-PLUS HOUSE REPUBLICANS RALLY BEHIND MARKWAYNE MULLIN FOR DHS, CALL IT A ‘CRITICAL MOMENT’ FOR BORDER SECURITY

“He did nothing but love on my son,” Mullin testified.

Trump spending time with Mullin’s son was credited with helping heal, including jump-starting his memory.

“That one incident jogged his memory, and, from then on, he started retaining things,” Mullin continued, sharing a story he had shared before.

“And Jim’s attitude went from this, ‘You know, we’re going to get through it to this.’ I’m going to get through it.”

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Mullin went from fearing the worst to getting on the road to recovery, thanks to his son meeting Trump and recognizing the sitting president of the U.S. over his own mother and father.

“We almost lost him, for 26 hours,” Mullin said. “He had an extremely low pulse. There was a time that they thought that they lost his pulse altogether. And when he woke up, he was just different.

“I mean, here you had a world-class athlete that wrestled all over the world since he was 12 years old, and he couldn’t touch his nose. He couldn’t walk without shuffling his feet. He had short-term memory loss. He couldn’t control his muscles. Couldn’t add five plus three. He was in high school at that time. Had to learn how to read, walk, everything.”

MULLIN WINS BACKING FROM CHINA, CUBA HAWKS — AND SOME DEMOCRATS — AS CRITICS QUESTION FITNESS TO LEAD DHS

Trump continued calling regularly to ask how Jim was doing and offered support without seeking publicity.

“And every week, if not most days, the president would call and ask how he could help,” Mullin said. “Ask what? How’s his buddy doing? How’s Jim doing? He didn’t do it for publicity. He didn’t do it for any show. He was running in one of the toughest elections he had been in, and the guy was still that concerned about my son.”

Mullin, a former wrestler himself, nearly broke down in tears during what was otherwise a fiery nomination hearing.

“I hate getting emotional,” Mullin said. “See, if I talk about my kids, I get emotional. Other than that, you can’t make me cry, but my kids …”

“That’s actually a good thing,” Johnson interjected, adding that “the American people need to hear that.”

Lone wolf attackers inspired by extremist ideologies pose the most likely terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland, according to the 2026 Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.

The 34-page document was released by Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard Wednesday. She testified at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats alongside other key military and Trump administration officials.

The 2025 threat assessment similarly warned that terrorist threats to the U.S. increasingly come from individuals acting alone or in small groups.

The new report says ISIS and al Qaeda remain intent on targeting the United States, but their ability to plan and execute complex attacks has been significantly degraded over time.

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Officials warn that individuals radicalized online are increasingly carrying out or attempting attacks with little direction, often using simple tactics and requiring minimal coordination.

“Jihadist narratives that address personal grievances may be attractive to individuals seeking validation of violent desires or moral clarity, even if they lack familiarity with Islam. Such content normalizes intolerance of other beliefs and persons and attracts followers to Islamism,” the threat report states. 

“Anti-Western and anti-Semitic narratives probably influence Muslim youths facing integration challenges or who are disaffected by the West’s role abroad, including with the Israel–HAMAS conflict.”

It notes that al Qaeda and ISIS have expanded in recent years primarily through local conflicts in Africa, where some of their largest and most violent affiliates are now based.

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The intelligence community is continuing to monitor developments in the Middle East, particularly how the terrorism landscape may evolve after Operation Epic Fury, according to the assessment.

DNI Gabbard told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that stricter border enforcement has helped limit terrorist access to the U.S. and lowered the risk of potential attacks.

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“Since January, U.S. officials have only had a handful of encounters at our borders with individuals associated with terrorist groups. This is a positive trend,” she said. “However, our Interagency coordinated efforts to continue to identify, locate and remove known or suspected terrorists who may already be in the United States continues with vigilance.

“In 2025, there were at least three Islamist terrorist attacks in the United States. Law enforcement disrupted at least 15 U.S.-based Islamist terrorist plotters. Roughly half of last year’s disrupted plotters had some online contact with Islamist terrorists.”

New York City has more than tripled spending on unsheltered homelessness since 2019, shelling out nearly $368 million even as the number of people living on the streets continued to rise, according to a state comptroller’s report.

The city’s own numbers show the unsheltered population grew from 3,588 in fiscal year 2019 to 4,504 in fiscal year 2025, a 26% increase from pre-pandemic levels. Over that same period, spending on services for the unsheltered jumped 262%, from $102 million to nearly $368 million. 

That works out to roughly $81,700 per unsheltered person in FY 2025 — slightly more than the city’s median household income, though the comparison is only a broad benchmark since public spending and household earnings are not directly comparable.

The numbers show the city is pouring in more money while the street homeless population continues to grow — and taxpayers are footing the bill.

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Still, the report notes that New York’s shelter system remains unusually large by national standards. 

Los Angeles, the city with the next-largest homeless population, has about 71,000 homeless people, roughly half of New York City’s 2024 total, and about 70% of them are unsheltered. In New York City, by contrast, nearly 97% of the homeless population is in shelters.

The findings are likely to add fuel to the broader debate over housing affordability, as soaring rents and a shortage of low-cost housing remain central to New York City’s homelessness crisis — and a key issue for Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

While Mamdani has proposed freezing rents on roughly 2 million stabilized apartments, many economists argue that rent freezes may shield current tenants in the short term while worsening the city’s long-term housing shortage — doing little to solve the supply crisis at the root of New York’s homelessness problem.

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More broadly, his $127 billion budget proposal calls for higher taxes on wealthy residents and corporations, along with a possible 9.5% property tax increase if state lawmakers decline to act.

Whether that approach will ease the affordability crunch or further disrupt the housing market remains an open question, with critics warning that rent freezes and higher taxes could discourage investment and strain supply.

In the nation’s largest city and a global financial capital, the stakes of Mamdani’s agenda extend far beyond local politics. The success or failure of his housing and tax proposals could shape not only the future of New York’s affordability crisis, but also the broader debate over regulation, taxation and progressive urban governance.

Mamdani’s office did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

A Democrat-backed Virginia law restricting how colleges review applicants’ criminal histories is facing renewed scrutiny after the Old Dominion University attack, with former Attorney General Jason Miyares calling it “Exhibit A” of policies he argues put public safety at risk.

Miyares, now a partner at Torridon Law, slammed so-called “ban-the-box” laws passed under then-Gov. Ralph Northam that were intended to remove workplace stigma associated with having a criminal record. The law says Virginia colleges can’t ask about an applicant’s criminal history on applications or reject someone just because they have a record.

“Governor Ralph Northam’s legacy,” Miyares tweeted. “[Shooter Mohamed] Jalloh was convicted of a terrorism felony, sentenced to 11 years in prison. Despite this felony, he applied and enrolled at ODU with the school having no idea his criminal history because of the 2019 ‘social justice’ law signed by Northam.”

In an interview with Fox News Digital on Monday, Miyares expanded on his concerns and said he views the Spanberger administration as continuing Northam’s progressive pattern.

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“I think this is Exhibit A of Democrats’ criminal-first, victim-last policies. This is exactly the type of policies [we’ve] warned if we implement this, this is going to create harm for innocent victims and, candidly, they don’t care.”

Miyares, who previously served in the state house, said that when the original “Ban the Box” package came to the floor, it was sponsored by now-Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, and passed despite warnings that it would make colleges and universities “ticking time bombs.”

“And that’s exactly what we saw [at ODU], with the idea that a university cannot be informed [or] even ask about someone’s prior terrorism charges while allowing them on campus.”

“Obviously, the police have to do the investigation, but if you’re an enrolled student, you have a student ID, and there’s really no place that you don’t have access to go … and in this case, use it to attack the innocent too.”

Miyares said Northam and Democrats “don’t care about the innocent [but] care about championing the rights of felons over the safety of everyday Virginians. And I think we saw tragic results.”

“Ralph Northam signed the law: a bill that made every college campus in Virginia less safe,” he said, connecting Northam to incumbent Gov. Abigail Spanberger and condemning her for appointing him to the historic Virginia Military Institute (VMI).

The imposing Lexington school has a storied history dating back to America’s early days and has employed or educated such military figures as CSA Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and President Donald Trump’s current Army chief, Gen. Dan “Raising” Caine.

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“Who did she appoint? She fired some of the Youngkin appointees … and [put] Ralph Northam on the board of one of Virginia’s great public universities — the man who has made our universities less safe, he is now helping to govern them.”

“Only in this world, in the left-wing worlds, do you do policy issues and legislation that actually makes the problem worse and you get a promotion,” he said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Northam, who declined formal comment and said he had returned to private life as a doctor. The Onancock native had been a pediatrician in that region prior to his governorship.

Miyares pivoted to Spanberger’s own record, saying that she advertised herself as a moderate but is governing to the far left when asked if she may seek correction of the policy.

“I think Abigail Spanberger is like a really bad used car salesman in that when she ran for office, she was saying, ‘look under the hood, we’re going to be focusing on affordability’. What they’ve done instead is add a carbon tax to your utility bill, raise multiple taxes from DoorDash to Netflix, even trying to tax your mattresses. I guess you’re going tax your pillow next.”

Miyares, who is also working to combat the implementation of the all-but-one Democrat congressional district map blessed by Spanberger and crafted by Senate President L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, said Richmond has sadly lurched far from the government he helped lead only months ago.

“I’m still waiting for the moderate Abigail Spanberger to make an appearance in Capitol Square. I am not hopeful. This is one of the great bait-and-switch in American politics. The way she campaign and the way she is governed is as different as night and day, and so I have no hope, and I think you’re going to have more tragedies like this in the days to come.”

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He also was asked about Attorney General Jay Jones ending his “Operation Ceasefire” anti-crime initiative, and said his scandal-plagued successor was very wrong on that account.

“It’s just another case of a bait-and-switch,” Miyares said. “They always try to claim they’re for police, they’re for victims, and they’re for law enforcement, and for public safety. And then they implement the very policies to do the opposite.”

He said murder had been at a 20-year high when he came into office after defeating Mark Herring in 2021, and that the “violence-reduction” Operation Ceasefire, which focused on repeat offenders and traffickers, itself reduced the crime rate.

“This is not a reorganization of resources. This is the deliberate dismantling of a proven, life-saving public safety initiative by the Democrats’ monopoly in Richmond,” Miyares said in a separate statement in February after Jones ended the program.

Jones, who remains under fire for controversial community service time following a reckless driving arrest on Interstate 64 in New Kent and wishing pain upon the family of former House Speaker Todd Gilbert of Shenandoah County, did not respond to a request for comment. Spanberger also declined comment on Miyares’ other criticisms.

Miyares was also asked about the firestorm in Fairfax surrounding Democratic Commonwealth’s Attorney Steven Descano.

“If you’re an illegal immigrant with the Virginia Department of Corrections, you are a convicted felon serving time in a Virginia prison. And even then, Governor Spanberger does not think that warrants notifying ICE. It is an absolute preventable tragedy,” he added.”If you’re an illegal immigrant with the Virginia Department Corrections, you are a convicted felon serving time in a Virginia prison. And even then, Governor Spanberger does not think that warrants notifying ICE. It is an absolute preventable tragedy,” he added.

Progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh closed out her failed Illinois congressional bid Tuesday night with an expletive-laced tirade against President Donald Trump and federal immigration authorities, telling supporters, “F— Trump, f— ICE, free Palestine.”

The comments came at the end of her concession speech after losing the Illinois 9th Congressional District Democratic primary on Tuesday.

“I don’t know if you heard, but we didn’t win, and it really f—— sucks. We came really close,” Abughazaleh told the crowd, adding that her campaign was “something that no one in power even expected would be possible at all.”

Abughazaleh lost the primary to Daniel Biss, the current mayor of Evanston, Illinois.

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She received about 26% of the vote, compared to Biss’s nearly 30% support, according to a report from The Associated Press. 

“There are progressives all over the country who are taking a chance just like we did, and we have to help them win,” Abughazaleh said. “No matter how hard it is, we have sent a message to this administration and anyone who enables it. … You and your jobs are not safe. This is the start and not the end.”

The Democrat, a Palestinian American, went on to claim the administration was “kidnap[ping] and kill[ing]” citizens, and “start[ing] illegal wars.”

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“When I said, when I said I would spend every single waking moment of the rest of my life to hold this administration accountable, win or lose, I f—— meant it,” Abughazaleh said. “I’m sorry that this sucks. But, f— Trump, f— ICE, free Palestine, I love you all.”

Biss will face Republican pastor John Elleson in November’s general election to replace Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Democrat who is retiring after nearly 30 years in office.

Abughazaleh is still facing federal charges after she was accused of interfering with ICE operations outside the Broadview, Illinois ICE processing center last fall.

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Federal prosecutors allege Abughazaleh and a group of others scratched the word “PIG” on an ICE agent’s vehicle. 

She pleaded not guilty and criticized the charges as an “attempt by the Trump administration to criminalize protest and punish those who dare to speak up.”

The influencer also went viral after video showed an agent throwing her to the ground during the incident, footage she later used in her campaign ads for Congress.

Abughazaleh’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday said the bureau thwarted four terrorist attacks across the U.S. last December — including three inspired by ISIS — by tracking suspects both online and in person.

Patel was testifying at the Senate Intelligence Worldwide Threats hearing on Capitol Hill when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked about what measures the FBI was taking to stop foreign terrorist organizations from recruiting and influencing Americans online.

Patel testified that foreign terrorist organizations, including ISIS, have become “all the more powerful” by moving their recruitment capabilities online.

“What we have done is extended and expanded resources to environments like the Threat Screening Center, which allows us to collect biometric capabilities from all over the world,” Patel said, noting double-digit increases in those resources and the bureau’s intelligence production.

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Patel said the FBI has also increased its manpower to detect such threats online.

“But what we’ve also done in the [counterterrorism] space specifically is expand the number of agents and intel analysts that go online and detect based on our biometric capabilities and intelligence that we have from the interagency,” he said.

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Patel said that led the bureau to foil four terrorist attacks in California, Texas, North Carolina and Pennsylvania in December. He said three of those attacks were inspired by ISIS.

“We were able to detect these individuals, both online and in person, using our covert platforms,” Patel said. “And we shuttered a bombing campaign in Southern California and two mass casualty events for New Year’s Eve.”

Patel testified at the Senate hearing alongside Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Adams, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Acting Commander of the U.S. Cyber Command William Hartman and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky asserted in a post on X that Joe Kent’s resignation letter was tainted by “virulent anti-Semitism.”

Kent posted the resignation letter on Tuesday, announcing that he was stepping down from the role of National Counterterrorism Center director.

“Joe Kent testified before the Senate one year ago that Iran and its terror proxies threatened U.S. servicemembers in the Middle East. He said it would be an honor to return to the fight against terrorism, and he pledged to lead with integrity and accountability,” McConnell declared in the post on X.

“The virulent anti-Semitism of his resignation letter makes it clear that Mr. Kent is incapable of upholding these pledges, and those who mistake its baseless and incendiary conspiracies for brave truth-telling are only fooling themselves. Isolationists and anti-Semites have no place in either party, and certainly do not deserve places of trust in our government,” the senator added.

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Kent explained in the resignation letter that he was leaving the job due to his opposition to the Iran war.

“I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby,” Kent wrote in the message directed toward President Donald Trump.

WHITE HOUSE, AFTER TOP COUNTERTERRORISM OFFICIAL QUITS, SAYS TRUMP HAD ‘STRONG’ EVIDENCE IRAN WOULD ATTACK US

“Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again,” he warned.

“As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives,” Kent declared in his resignation letter.

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McConnell, who has served in the U.S. Senate since early 1985, is not seeking another term this year.

FIRST ON FOX: The National Education Association, which — with 3 million members — is one of the largest teachers’ unions in the country, conducted a training session last month filled with far-left political messaging, a watchdog group has revealed. The revelation comes as the union continues to face criticism for prioritizing activism over student needs. 

The NEA event on Feb. 23, billed as an “Advocacy and Free Speech Rights for K-12 Educators” training, promoted a variety of leftist causes and criticisms of the Trump administration in slides obtained by Defending Education, a national organization that monitors political content in schools. 

The NEA training argues that the Department of Education is “now actively committed to violating civil rights,” and that educators need to protect “vulnerable students.”

In the slide presentation, the NEA claims that “Democracy itself is at stake” due to an “unprecedented push to criminalize speech and political opposition.”

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The teachers’ union appears to take issue with the Trump administration’s designation of Antifa as a terrorist organization given slides that show screenshots with the headlines: “Trump Signs Order Targeting Antifa Movement” and “White House Use of ‘Domestic Terrorist’ Doesn’t Match Legal Reality.”

The training made clear the importance of adhering to gender pronouns and the specified gender identity of K-12 students, saying that educators “can (and should address) students in the way they identify themselves,” regardless of whether the way they “identity” differs from school records.

The training also took aim at Republican-led states, saying, “It’s not just the Trump Administration… it’s Red State governments as well” in a slide with headlines lamenting banning DEI in schools, Texas wanting to “punish” students who protest ICE, and a headline that said, “Charlie Kirk’s death prompts Iowa bill revoking teacher licenses for celebrating political violence.”

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The presentation to members also includes a scenario providing potential responses to teachers who face backlash for displaying Black Lives Matter or Pride flags in their classrooms, instructing them to push back and ask questions like “was there a pre-existing policy?” and “is the policy viewpoint-neutral and applied in a neutral manner?”

Educators are told in the agenda for the training that they will learn about threats to educators’ voice and freedom, as well as guidance “for when legal protections will be more robust or when educators may be more at risk.”

“This is not, in any sense, a training on educator rights,” Chloe Hunt, investigative reporter for Defending Education, told Fox News Digital. “It is a political framing of the classroom, in which all Republicans are demonized and conservatives are portrayed as threats to education.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the NEA for comment. 

In recent months, the NEA has faced strong pushback from conservatives and parents’ rights activists over the millions of dollars it has funneled to left-wing groups, with critics pointing to the number of students struggling with poor test scores at the same time.

In January, an employee within the NEA, spoke out against the “toxic” politics inside the union’s headquarters.

“It’s a very liberal place. There’s only a handful of conservatives that work at NEA, and if you are, it’s like you just don’t say anything, because it’s a very toxic environment if you do say something,” an NEA employee, who is remaining anonymous due to concerns of retribution, told Fox News Digital. “It’s crazy, they’ll send out this weekly newsletter of ‘Trump’s a fascist’ and blast it to all the states.”

“It’s a cult. It’s 100% a cult and if you don’t have their mindset, you’re the enemy.”