Senate candidate James Talarico, D-Texas, has been facing an intense online firestorm after a resurfaced video showed him calling on Texans to ditch meat to fight climate change.

Republicans and conservative influencers have widely panned the remark as a potentially fatal blow to his Senate bid and suggested his anti-meat stance could dog him on the campaign trail. 

“Democrats are trying to fool Texans into believing James Talarico isn’t some whacked out lib, but the clips keep coming,” Andrew Kolvet, Turning Point USA spokesman, wrote on X. “In 2022, Talarico, wearing a mask, scolded Texans about going meat-free (!!) to stop climate change. This is TEXAS. This will haunt him in the general.”

“That just isn’t poor taste, it’s political poison,” Lawrence Jones said on “The Will Cain Show” on Thursday.

Talarico, a three-term state legislator and self-described Presbyterian seminarian, is seeking to unseat Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is facing an insurgent primary challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Talarico defeated Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, in a primary battle earlier this month.

TALARICO REPORTEDLY KNEW COLBERT INTERVIEW WOULDN’T AIR ON TV BEFORE HE LEFT TO FILM IT

Talarico’s anti-meat remarks stem from a speech he delivered in April 2022 to the Texas Humane Legislation Network, during which he said his re-election bid was a “non-meat” campaign.

“We have, I think, heard more and more issues of animal welfare,” Talarico said while wearing a mask. “I think, not just because it’s the right thing to do and the moral thing to do, but also, it’s, as all of you know, necessary to fight climate change. It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption and that we try to respect animals in all aspects of society.”

“So, I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign,” Talarico continued. “So, we are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses.”

Amid the backlash, the Talarico campaign blasted out a photo of the candidate wearing a Texas flag shirt and taking a large bite out of a turkey leg.

“Official Statement from James Talarico on Vegan Accusations,” the campaign wrote.

‘OPEN BORDERS TRUMP-HATING RADICAL’: GOP UNLEASHES EARLY BLITZ ON TEXAS DEMOCRAT TALARICO

Still, the hits against Talarico from Republicans over his anti-meat stance keep coming. 

“Who wants to tell him that cattle is the #1 commodity in Texas?” the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, wrote on X.

“Vote Republican this November. The steaks couldn’t be higher,” Cornyn wrote in response to the viral clip. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also labeled Talarico a “freak” who wants to “ban BBQ.”

Fox News Digital reached out to Talarico’s campaign for comment.

Republicans have also spotlighted Talarico’s past remarks when discussing religion and transgender issues.

In 2021, he claimed “God is non-binary” when debating a bill to ban men from women’s sports on the Texas House floor. Talarico doubled down on that statement during an interview with The Bulwark on Thursday, arguing it was “provocative” but theologically correct.

In an interview with an Austin-based Fox affiliate in 2021, Talarico called concern over biological males in women’s sports a part of “far-right conspiracy theories.” 

In 2023, when Talarico was asked on the “A Superbloom Podcast” about “something that you love, other than family and friends,” the candidate discussed “trans children.”

Though Democrats have not won a Senate seat in Texas since the 1980s, Talarico is arguing that he is well-positioned to end that trend. His campaign published an internal poll on Friday showing him leading Cornyn and Paxton in head-to-head match-ups. 

A startup putting high-tech collars on cows could soon be worth more than $2 billion, as investors bet the technology could help farmers cut costs and cope with labor shortages.

Halter, a New Zealand-based company, is in talks to raise new funding in a deal expected to be led by billionaire Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, according to a Bloomberg report. The round is attracting heavy investor interest and is close to being filled, though final details are still being negotiated.

THE SINGLE CRUSHING PROBLEM AMERICAN CATTLE RANCHERS WISH TRUMP WOULD FIX INSTEAD

Farmers are increasingly looking for ways to lower expenses and boost efficiency — changes that could eventually affect food prices for consumers.

Beef prices are already soaring, and economists warn Americans shouldn’t expect relief anytime soon as the U.S. cattle herd has shrunk to its smallest size in 75 years.

The decline has been driven by years of drought, rising costs and an aging ranching workforce. Experts say rebuilding herds will take years, meaning beef prices are likely to remain elevated. 

According to U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the average price of beef in grocery stores climbed from about $8.60 per pound in February 2025 to $10.12 per pound a year later — a roughly 18% increase.

THE COST OF THIS GROCERY STAPLE IS NEARING RECORD HIGHS — AND AMERICANS CAN’T GET ENOUGH

Against that backdrop, Halter is pitching technology aimed at helping farmers do more with less.

The company’s solar-powered, artificial intelligence-driven collars let ranchers herd cattle without fences, using GPS, sound and vibration signals controlled through a smartphone app. The system also tracks livestock health and movement in real time, giving farmers a way to manage herds remotely.

The goal is straightforward — fewer workers, lower costs and more efficient land use.

THE SURPRISING REASON WHY AMERICANS COULD FACE HIGH BEEF PRICES FOR YEARS

Halter is part of a broader push toward “precision agriculture,” where technology is used to modernize farming. But that sector has struggled in recent years, with a wave of startups collapsing and investors pulling back amid high costs and slow adoption.

The company has also expanded into the U.S., opening an office in Colorado and targeting American ranchers as a key growth market.

If the latest round closes as expected, it would signal renewed confidence that AI can succeed in farming — an industry where many tech bets have fallen short.

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

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., condemned President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to U.S. airports on Sunday.

Schumer made the comments while speaking on the Senate floor Sunday, saying Trump’s decision is “impulsive” and could make the situation at airports worse.

“Today, Donald Trump and [Tom] Homan are saying they will deploy ICE agents to airports starting on Monday. This is really disturbing. ICE agents who are untrained and have caused problems everywhere they’ve gone lurking at our airports. That’s asking for trouble, and it will certainly make the chaos at the airports even worse,” Schumer said.

“No one has any faith in ICE agents. They haven’t received training. They don’t know what it is to be a TSA person and do what you need to do,” he continued. “And the real problem here is they have no plan for using these ICE agents. Trump says, send them there. They send them there. And Homan says they’re still drawing up plans with less than a day’s notice. What is this? We know what it is. It’s another impulsive action by Donald Trump.”

SCHUMER GAMBIT FAILS AS DHS SHUTDOWN HITS 36 DAYS AND AIRPORT LINES GROW

“Some idea pops into his head and he announces it. And then the people working for him, a few of whom do have some degree of talent and ability. Not many underlings. They have to rush to try and implement what they know is an idiotic plan,” he said.

The ICE deployment is Trump’s latest move in the battle with Democrats over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. 

Schumer also used his time on the Senate floor Sunday to criticize Trump’s actions in Iran. 

“Donald Trump said, ‘you know, I may have a plan or I may not for a war,’” Schumer said. “There’s people’s lives are at stake. Billions are being spent on an almost daily basis. And he says, you know, ‘I may have a plan or I may not.’ These are the words of the commander in chief in the middle of a war involving one of the most dangerous regimes on Earth. ‘I have a plan, or I may not.’”

“That’s unhinged and dangerous. Lives are on the line. The president says he may not even have a plan. Tens of billions are being wasted. No plan. Troops being killed and injured, no plan. Civilians being killed and injured. No plan. Gasoline costs $3.94 a gallon on average. And Trump, ‘I have no plan’,” Schumer said.

Meanwhile, Schumer and his allies have refused to approve DHS funding without reforms to immigration enforcement.

TSA agents across the country have gone more than a month without a paycheck, with no clear end in sight.

Trump first threatened to deploy ICE to airports on Saturday, demanding that Democrats “immediately sign an agreement” to fund DHS.

DHS SHUTDOWN TRIGGERS TSA ‘EMERGENCY MEASURES’ AS LAWMAKER WARNS AIRPORTS COULD FEEL ECONOMIC PAIN

Airports across the country have reported huge numbers of employees calling out sick or not showing up for work. More than 400 TSA employees have quit their jobs.

“On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard-line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all,” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social.

Trump also predicted blowback from Democrats, saying they would complain “no matter how great a job ICE does.”

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is under fire for backing a plan that would slash New York’s estate tax exemption by nearly 90%, a move opponents say could drag middle-class families into a tax burden long aimed at the rich.

New York is one of the states that imposes its own estate tax in addition to the federal levy, and the proposed changes would dramatically expand its reach—potentially sweeping in not just the wealthy, but families whose primary asset is a home they hoped to pass on to their children.

MAMDANI’S RENT FREEZE, TAX HIKES A ‘ONE-TWO WEALTH DESTRUCTION PUNCH,’ ECONOMISTS WARN

The plan would sharply reduce how much of an estate can be passed on tax-free, cutting the threshold from $7.35 million to just $750,000, among the lowest in the country, meaning far more estates would be subject to taxation.

In addition, Mamdani is proposing to more than triple the state’s top estate tax rate, raising it from 16% to 50%, a combination that could generate billions in new revenue for New York.

Edward Pinto, a senior fellow and co-director of the AEI Housing Center at the American Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital the proposal could push residents and their wealth out of New York.

“This proposal would destroy NYC’s wealth in a different manner,” Pinto said.

“This estate tax proposal will mistreat capital and result in the voluntary exodus of NYC residents and their wealth to places like Florida and Tennessee,” he added.

FROM FREE BUSES TO CITY-OWNED GROCERY STORES, HERE ARE MAMDANI’S KEY ECONOMIC PROMISES

Others echoed similar concerns, pointing to the potential impact on families and long-term financial planning.

Joshua Rowley, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, said estate taxes can force families to liquidate assets and increasingly reach beyond the wealthy.

“Estate taxes force citizens to liquidate assets to pay taxes on previously taxed assets—putting homes, retirement accounts, and businesses in the crosshairs,” Rowley said. “It would also discourage responsible retirement planning and punish parents for the sole crime of wanting to leave their children better off.”

He added that proposals aimed at taxing the wealthy often expand over time.

“But the Mamdani proposal also pulls back the curtain on all tax-the-rich solutions. What starts off as an exclusive tax on the rich invariably gets expanded to lower income groups to satisfy the government’s spending addiction,” Rowley said.

The estate tax proposal is just one piece of Mamdani’s wider policy push.

His housing plan, a campaign promise aimed at addressing affordability, includes an immediate freeze on roughly 2 million rent-stabilized apartments. 

Separately, his broader $127 billion budget agenda calls for higher taxes on wealthy residents and corporations, as well as a potential 9.5% property tax increase if state lawmakers decline to act.

In the nation’s largest city and a global financial center, the outcome of Mamdani’s proposals could shape not only the future of New York’s housing market, but also broader debates over regulation, taxation and urban policy.

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

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s repeated claims in recent weeks promoting his state as more tax-friendly than Florida and Texas don’t add up, according to an expert who ran the numbers.

“Texas and Florida are the REAL high-tax states,” Newsom recently posted on X, explaining onstage at SXSW in Austin, Texas that California has the most “progressive tax rates in America” while taking shots at the tax burden in Florida and Texas.

“Your middle class pays more taxes in Texas than our middle class in California,” Newsom said in Texas. “It’s a great mythology, it’s just ‘the richest of the rich come here because they can avoid paying a damn penny.’”

The comments drew pushback from conservatives on social media, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and from Just Facts President James Agresti, who says he looked into a “number of different angles” to determine the “validity” of Newsom’s claims.

FROM ‘JUMP ON A BUS’ TO TAX CRACKDOWNS: BLUE STATES CHASE WEALTHY RESIDENTS FLEEING TO RED HAVENS

“I looked at how much is each state taxing each of its citizens on average? So if you look at California, they collect about $10,000 a year in taxes for every person in the state, whereas the figures for Texas and Florida are only about $5,000, or about half as much,” Agresti told Fox News Digital.

“However, California is a higher-income state, so I also looked at it as a percentage of the states’ economies and what I found is that California taxes about 14% of its economy, as opposed to 9% for Texas and Florida.”

Just Facts broke those taxes down in a recent study and found that California imposes some of the highest taxes in the nation, with a top personal income tax rate of 13.3%, while both Texas and Florida have no state income tax.

Property taxes in California account for about 2.8% of personal income, slightly lower than Texas at 3.6% and close to Florida’s 2.6%, though measured as a share of home values, California’s rates are generally lower than both states, but in other tax areas, California is largely more burdensome.

The state’s unemployment insurance tax rate matches Texas at 6.2%, but is higher than Florida’s 5.4%. California also has a higher statewide sales tax at 7.2%, compared to 6.2% in Texas and 6.0% in Florida. Drivers in California face significantly higher gas taxes as well, paying 70.9 cents per gallon, more than triple Texas’ 20 cents and well above Florida’s 40.3 cents.

PROPOSED CALIFORNIA WEALTH TAX DRIVES BILLIONAIRE EXODUS TO FLORIDA REAL ESTATE, LOCALS CONFIRM

A Wallethub 2025 analysis ranking U.S. states by overall tax burden showed California coming in at 4th overall, behind Vermont, New York and Hawaii. On a per-capita basis, California also collects significantly more in state and local taxes than either state, according to data from the Tax Foundation. 

At the heart of the issue is the data, Agresti says, making the case that Newsom is likely pulling from the Institute On Taxation & Economic Policy (ITEP) which Agresti said is widely used by mainstream news outlets and experts but is “fatally flawed” because “it does not account for all forms of income or all taxes.”

Agresti has been speaking out against ITEP’s methodology for over a decade, explaining in a 2015 post that the group “uses a partial measure of income in virtually all of its studies” and is “based on calculations that exclude certain taxes.”

CALIFORNIA BILLIONAIRES FLEE STATE’S WEALTH TAX IN THE MOST-PREDICTABLE RESULT EVER

ITEP’s analysis focuses on how tax burdens are distributed across income groups rather than overall tax levels. The group argues that states such as Texas and Florida look “low tax” largely because they do not levy a broad-based personal income tax, a structure that disproportionately benefits high earners.

To make up the difference, those states rely more heavily on sales, excise and property taxes, which tend to take a larger share of income from lower-income households. California, by contrast, uses a highly progressive income tax system that places more of the burden on top earners and helps offset regressive taxes lower down the income ladder.

Critics, however, say that framing captures only part of the picture because it focuses on tax burden by income group rather than overall tax climate, where California remains far more burdensome for top earners, investors and many businesses.

“It’s information from this group and others like it, by the way, that have misled people to believe that middle-income folks in the United States pay a higher federal tax rate than upper-income folks,” Agresti said. 

“In fact, a survey done by Just Facts found that about 80% of America’s voters believe this fiction, even though the Congressional Budget Office, the U.S. Treasury, and the center-left Tax Policy Center all say that middle-income Americans pay an average effective federal tax rate of about 15% while upper income, or the top 1%, pay a rate of about 30%. And by the way, that includes all taxes and all income, all tax loopholes, it’s basically all taxes paid divided by all income earned or received.”

Fox News Digital reached out to ITEP for comment.

Agresti said Newsom is a “master of twisting statistics to paint a picture that is the exact inverse of reality” and pointed to the governor’s claim that the exodus of residents due to high taxes is a “myth.”

“Here’s the facts: According to his own Secretary of State, every year of Newsom’s governorship, more people have moved out of California into other states than have moved from other states into California,” Agresti, who has posted the data on his website, said. “In fact, over the time of his governorship, about 1.5 more million people have left California than moved in.”

“So how does Newsom get his claim, his evidence? Well, he looks at total population growth, which is dominated by immigrants moving in from other countries. The issue is not whether people would rather live in California than Mexico, but whether they would rather live in California than other states. And the data clearly show they do not.”

Newsom has also been touting data showing California now has the fourth-largest economy in the world, just surpassing Japan’s, which Agresti also took issue with and described as “fiction” according to his examination of the numbers.

“Here’s the fatal flaw in what he’s doing there,” Agresti said. “He is converting Japanese yen into U.S. dollars using a highly deceptive measure called foreign currency exchange rates. Scholars in this field warn explicitly: You are not to convert GDPs using exchange rates because it inflates the relative sizes of economies that have high prices, as California does. When you actually look at the proper way to transfer these exchange rates and account for them, Japan’s GDP is 56% larger than California’s.”

Additionally, Agresti pointed to data that shows California has a greater rate of poverty than any other state in the nation, as well as electricity prices that are more than twice the national average.

“When you look at California as a whole, it is one of the highest-tax states in the nation, and also there’s a lot of fallout from Newsom’s policies that make it one of the most expensive places to live in the entire United States,” Agresti said.

Fox News Digital reached out to Newsom’s office for comment.

Fox News Digital’s Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., survived a key test vote on Sunday on his way to becoming the next Homeland Security chief. 

Mullin, who was tapped by President Donald Trump to be the next Department of Homeland Security secretary, still has one more vote to go, and likely won’t be confirmed until Monday evening.

Should he survive the final confirmation vote on Monday, he will replace DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who Trump fired following explosive hearings on the Hill and after the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti during immigration operations in Minnesota. 

SCHUMER GAMBIT FAILS AS DHS SHUTDOWN HITS 36 DAYS AND AIRPORT LINES GROW

Sunday’s 54 to 37 test vote, which was largely party-line save for Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., who was the key vote to move his colleague out of committee earlier in the week, comes after his explosive confirmation hearing earlier in the week.

Mullin was grilled by both Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who Mullin once called a “snake” and charged that his 2017 assault was “justified.” During the hearing, Mullin didn’t back down from his prior remarks. 

“I’m not perfect. I don’t claim to be perfect,” Mullin said. “I make mistakes just like anybody else. But mistakes, if you own them, you can learn from them and you can move ahead. And I’ll make that commitment to you.”

GOP SENATOR’S GAMBIT EXPOSES FALSE DEM CLAIMS ABOUT SUPPORTING VOTER ID

If successful on Monday, Mullin will take the reins of an agency that is currently shut down. Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have blocked DHS funding five times in their quest to get stringent reforms to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Mullin appeared amicable to making changes at the agency during his hearing. 

Congressional Democrats have demanded, among other things, that ICE agents get judicial warrants to enter a home or business in the field rather than administrative warrants. And when asked by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., whether he would commit to requiring judicial warrants for ICE agents to search homes and businesses, Mullin appeared to give ground to the demand. 

“Judicial warrants will be used to go into houses, into place of businesses, unless we’re pursuing someone that enters in that place,” Mullin said. “I have not mixed words with that, and I haven’t changed my opinion about that.”

Meanwhile, what was a shutdown stalemate thawed over earlier this week, when Senate Democrats made a counter offer of DHS demands to the White House after over two weeks of radio silence. 

MULLIN FACES DEMOCRAT GRILLING IN FIRST HURDLE TO LEAD DHS AMID SHUTDOWN FIGHT

That spurred back-to-back meetings on the Hill, with Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Katie Britt, R-Ala., along with border czar Tom Homan, sitting down with a cohort of Senate Democrats. A third meeting was slated for Saturday, but was canceled at the last minute. 

The shutdown is currently on its way to becoming the longest in history, unless either side can lock in a deal to fund the agency. Mullin’s nomination to lead DHS has so far not swayed Senate Democrats, either, despite their demands the Noem be booted. 

Whether both sides meet again over the weekend remains in the air.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., accused Senate Democrats of believing that the shutdown “politically good for them.” 

“It’s not politically good for anybody to have literally tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people out of work and important functions of our government not being carried out on a daily basis and functions that are important to our homeland security and our national security,” Thune said.

President Donald Trump mocked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for a near gaffe Saturday on the Senate floor.

“Schumer got ‘discombobulated’ in the Senate yesterday, and said, ‘WE MUST FUND ICE,’ prior to correcting himself,” Trump wrote Sunday morning on Truth Social. “Thank you Chuck, I agree!”

Schumer and Senate Democrats are filibustering the SAVE America Act — an election integrity bill — but the minority leader was arguing the Republicans are responsible for the government shutdown that has left American airline passengers frustrated with long TSA wait times at airports across the country.

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER WARNS DEMS ARE PUTTING CYBER OPERATIONS AT RISK AS IRAN THREAT LOOMS

Schumer did quickly correct himself by saying, “We must fund TSA now,” but the irony was not lost on Trump, who has long reminded Americans that the government shutdown of Department of Homeland Security funding does not impact Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in real time, because ICE was fully funded in last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Schumer’s call to “fund TSA now” was related to the Senate Democrats’ failed effort to isolate a funding package solely for TSA, but Republicans blocked that effort, noting the rest of DHS funding that is on hold due to the shutdown is vital to American national security amid strikes on Iran, too.

Republicans negotiating on DHS, including Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Homeland Security Subcommittee Chair Katie Britt, R-Ala., are meeting Sunday.

“There are lots of ideas swirling right now, some of which you know my colleagues are talking about, but obviously what my sense is at least the good news, and all that is people realizing this has to get fixed,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters on his walk off the Senate floor Sunday morning. 

“It has to get solved and but the best way again, to solve it is to get Democrats to support funding the entire Department of Homeland Security, you know, not picking and choosing certain aspects of it,” he said. “So we’ll see where the discussions go today.”

THUNE REVEALS REASON DEMOCRATS ARE ‘SCARED’ TO REOPEN DHS

Democrats in Congress in February agreed to fund most of the government in exchange for withholding funds from DHS following the fatal shootings of ​two anti-ICE agitators in Minnesota by immigration ​authorities.

The Senate failed to get the 60-vote supermajority needed to advance a Republican proposal to fund the entire DHS earlier in March, after Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, objected to an earlier Democratic proposal to separately fund the TSA earlier.

Moreno separately proposed a two-week DHS funding extension, but Democrats blocked that.

Absences by TSA airport officers have already disrupted travel at some major airports over the last week, raising alarm among airlines as the busy spring break travel season peaks. DHS funding lapsed Feb. 13.

Airlines are expecting a record-breaking spring travel period, with 171 million passengers expected ‌to ⁠fly, up 4% over the same two-month period last year.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Far-left activist groups and personalities flocked to Havana, Cuba, this week in an effort to protest the economic sanctions imposed on the country by President Donald Trump‘s administration.

The far-left group CodePink sponsored flights to the communist-led island, and the group was joined by Isra Hirsi, the daughter of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and left-wing Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, an ally of democratic socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The group has faced heavy backlash for staying in expensive hotels to meet with government officials even as Cuban residents go without electricity.

Trump imposed an oil blockade on Cuba earlier this year after the U.S. captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Some delegates in the “Nuestra America Convoy,” including Piker, were staying at the 5-star Gran Hotel Bristol Meliá Collection and similar resorts. Piker defended the move on social media, saying U.S. law required that they stay at the ritzy hotels.

CUBAN EXILES IN MIAMI SAY ‘THIS IS THE END’ FOR COMMUNISM AS ISLAND TEETERS ON COLLAPSE

“The American government makes it illegal for Americans to stay wherever they want when they’re in Cuba,” Piker told his followers. “They have to stay in what they’ve declared as 5-star hotels.”

The claim received swift pushback on social media, with an X Community Note saying that U.S. law only prevents Americans from staying at venues owned by the Cuban government or its officials.

CodePink says it delivered thousands of pounds of aid to Cuba as part of the trip, which was organized by Cuban politician Mariela Castro and a nonprofit called Progressive International, according to the New York Post.

TRUMP TOUTS US HAS ‘TREMENDOUS’ AMOUNT OF VENEZUELAN OIL, VOWS TO ‘TAKE CARE’ OF CUBA AFTER IRAN FOCUS

The group’s arrival to Cuba, and subsequent flood of social media videos, came the same weekend that The Cuban Electric Union announced a total blackout across the island on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, made comments about the island, saying “they have to get new people in charge” in Havana. 

Meanwhile, Pentagon officials told lawmakers there are no plans to invade Cuba, even as they described it as a long-standing security concern.

Cuban officials have continued to blame U.S. sanctions for the country’s economic hardships, while analysts say the government is facing mounting pressure from ongoing blackouts, shortages of basic goods and growing public frustration.

Fox News’ Amy Galo contributed to this report.

A California sheriff and top Republican candidate for governor seized over 650,000 votes from the state’s November elections this weekend.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco launched an investigation into the state’s November 2025 special election on Proposition 50 after a third-party organization, the Riverside Election Integrity Team, claimed it found roughly 45,000 excess votes. California elections officials have dismissed the team’s findings, but Bianco says his office will conduct another count.

“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes recorded,” Bianco told reporters at a Friday press conference.

Proposition 50 was a key proposal seeking to reform California’s congressional districts. It was designed to favor Democrats in response to a similar effort by Republicans in Texas.

BIANCO SAYS ‘DEMOCRAT POLICY IS INDEFENSIBLE’ AS GOP CANDIDATES TOP CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR POLLING

Secretary of State Shirley Weber has argued Bianco has no authority to carry out a recount.

“The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office has taken actions based on allegations that lack credible evidence and risk undermining public confidence in our elections,” Weber told City News Service. “The sheriff’s assertion that his deputies know how to count is admirable. The fact remains that he and his deputies are not elections officials, and they do not have expertise in election administration.”

Riverside elections official Art Tinoco rejected the Riverside Election Integrity Team’s findings earlier this month, saying the group had misinterpreted how votes are counted on Election Day.

GOP SHERIFF LEADING CALIFORNIA POLL RIPS NEWSOM’S ‘LOVE AFFAIR’ WITH CRIMINALS

Tinoco told county supervisors earlier this year that the initial intake logs by polling workers are meant to be estimates rather than exact tallies of how many votes were cast. Even so, he said the final tally was within 0.16%, or 103 votes, of the original estimate.

The Elections Integrity Team maintains their math is correct, however, and it was this disagreement that led Bianco to open an investigation of his own.

Bianco accused California Attorney General Bob Bonta, a Democrat, of intervening in the investigation. Bonta, however, says his office only sought to learn the basis of the probe.

“We have attempted to work cooperatively with the Sheriff’s Office in order to better understand the basis for their investigation, including by reviewing the warrants themselves and by requesting the Sheriff’s complete investigative file,” Bonta’s office told Fox News Digital on Sunday. “We made these requests pursuant to the Attorney General’s supervisory authority over county sheriffs.”

“During this time, the Sheriff has delayed, stonewalled, and otherwise refused to work with us in good faith. To date, the Sheriff has failed to provide most of the requested documentation. But, what we have been able to learn raises serious questions about the merits of this investigation. We are especially concerned with legal deficiencies in the affidavits underlying the warrants, including the omission of material facts,” his office added.

Bianco has also clashed on social media with Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who is running for California governor as well.

Bianco said Friday that his office had received multiple letters from Bonta ordering him to cease the investigation, according to the Desert Sun.

“The outrage that an investigation was happening was extremely concerning to me, especially coming from someone who claims to be a law enforcement officer that is, I’ve said this a minimum of a thousand times, he’s an embarrassment to law enforcement,” Bianco said.

Bonta and Weber did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents will begin assisting TSA agents at airports across the country on Monday, President Donald Trump says.

The move comes as Trump and Republicans battle with Democrats over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. TSA agents across the country have gone more than a month without a paycheck as Democrats hold up funding in hopes of securing immigration reforms.

“On Monday, ICE will be going to airports to help our wonderful TSA Agents who have stayed on the job despite the fact that the Radical Left Democrats, who are only focused on protecting hard line criminals who have entered our Country illegally, are endangering the USA by holding back the money that was long ago agreed to with signed and sealed contracts, and all,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“But watch, no matter how great a job ICE does, the Lunatics leading the incompetent Dems will be highly critical of their work. THEY WILL DO A FANTASTIC JOB. The great Tom Homan is in charge!” he added.

AIR TRAVELERS ARE HACKING TSA LINES DURING HOURS-LONG MAJOR AIRPORT WAITS

Trump first threatened to deploy ICE to airports on Saturday, demanding that Democrats “immediately sign an agreement” to fund DHS.

TSA WARNS OF SECURITY ‘THREAT’ AS AIRPORT CHECKPOINT CLOSURES TRIGGER MORE TRAVEL DELAYS

TSA officers are considered essential employees and are required to report to work even during a shutdown, though pay can be delayed.

Airports across the country have reported huge numbers of employees calling out sick or not showing up for work. More than 400 TSA employees have quit their jobs.

Earlier Saturday, Elon Musk offered to cover the salaries of TSA personnel during the ongoing government funding standoff.

VIDEO CAPTURES CRAZY AIRPORT CROWDS AS PASSENGERS POUR INTO TERMINAL AFTER SECURITY CHECKPOINTS CLOSE

“I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country,” Musk wrote on X.

Major U.S. airports have experienced severe delays, with security wait times exceeding three hours in some cases, due to high TSA officer absenteeism. Hardest-hit airports include Houston (HOU, IAH), Atlanta (ATL), New Orleans (MSY), and Philadelphia (PHL).

Footage from PHL, shot early Thursday morning, showed hundreds of passengers waiting on elevators and escalators to clear a security checkpoint.

Fox News’ Michael Dorgan contributed to this report.