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Pat McAfee endorses Saints' rookie wide receiver for WWE shot after training camp brawl

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 07:20:08 -0400

Who needs the WWE Performance Center when you’re at training camp launching players with German suplexes?

New Orleans Saints rookie Brock Rechsteiner was involved in a training camp brawl with the Dallas Cowboys earlier this week. Rechsteiner, the son of WWE Hall of Famer Scott Steiner and nephew of Rick Steiner, was seen putting on pro wrestling moves to some of his opponents.

A MASSIVE BRAWL AT COWBOYS AND SAINTS JOINT PRACTICE INCLUDES PUNCHES AND HELMETS THROWN AND WWE MOVES

Rechsteiner’s involvement caught the eye of Pat McAfee, who used to be on the WWE commentary team with Michael Cole before stepping away thanks to Randy Orton’s loss to Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship at WrestleMania 42 earlier this year.

"This is Scott Steiner’s boy doing Rick Steiner’s German suplex and three, two and one, boom! He needs to just head to NXT right now and join Bron (Breakker) as the Steiner Brothers could return in this whole thing," McAfee said on his show on Wednesday.

Rechsteiner’s cousin, Bron Breakker, is one of the fastest-rising stars in WWE. Breakker is set to face off against Oba Femi at Sunday Night’s Main Event on Sept. 6.

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Meanwhile, the Saints rookie was suspended for the first six games of the NFL season for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy.

The former Jacksonville State wide receiver had 53 catches for 629 yards and seven touchdowns from 2023 to 2025. In his final year with the Gamecocks, he had 36 catches for 383 yards and five touchdowns.

Rechsteiner, and his brother Brandon, previously signed NIL deals with WWE last year. Brandon Rechsteiner was a guard for the Colorado State Rams men’s basketball team. He averaged 12 points per game with the Rams during the 2025-26 season and announced he was transferring to Kansas State.

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He initially signed with the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent before moving to New Orleans.

Cancer doctor reveals 5 habits that may reduce disease risk and improve outcomes

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 07:00:59 -0400

Even as new data shows cancer’s continuing toll in the U.S., a surgical oncologist says some simple lifestyle measures could help lower the likelihood of developing the disease.

An estimated 2,114,850 new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2026 — about 5,800 per day, according to the American Cancer Society.

Dr. Loren Rourke, a Texas-based breast surgical oncologist and author of "Real Talk, Real Hope: Breast Cancer Your Way," emphasized that while no lifestyle choice can guarantee cancer prevention, healthy habits can help reduce certain risk factors.

LEADING ONCOLOGIST REVEALS 6 HABITS THAT COULD PROMOTE LONGEVITY AND REDUCE YOUR RISK OF CHRONIC ILLNESS

From maintaining a healthy weight to staying active, Rourke shared the following five everyday strategies that support the body and improve overall health.

No. 1: Maintain a healthy weight

Being obese or overweight is associated with an increased risk of at least 13 types of cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Rourke estimates that excess body weight is likely the third-biggest risk factor for breast cancer, after female gender and aging.

OZEMPIC-STYLE DRUGS LINKED TO MAJOR SLOWDOWN IN CANCER SPREAD, NEW STUDY FINDS

Growing research suggests glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medications — including Ozempic and Wegovy — may be associated with a lower risk of cancer diagnoses and recurrence.

Rourke said one possible reason GLP-1s could prove beneficial for cancer risk is that the drugs promote weight loss and reduce chronic inflammation.

"We know that a lower BMI equals a better prognosis with breast cancer," she told Fox News Digital. "So if the secondary effect of taking a GLP-1 means that you’re going to lose weight, that’s a benefit, because we know you’re going to do better with breast cancer."

GLP-1 drugs are not yet approved to prevent cancer, and more research is needed to determine whether they independently reduce disease risk.

No. 2: Stay physically active and fit

The American Cancer Society states that physical activity is linked to a lower risk of several cancers.

The official guideline recommend 150–300 minutes of moderate activity or 75–150 minutes of vigorous activity per week for adults.

DOCTORS SAY 8 FORGOTTEN HABITS COULD HELP FIGHT STRESS, OBESITY AND CHRONIC DISEASE

"I think people underestimate overall fitness," Rourke said. "We tend to think about it for heart health, but it’s not just heart health — it’s mental health and reducing your risk of having lots of chronic medical problems that span from one end to the other, in addition to other cancers."

Even if staying physically fit doesn’t keep cancer at bay, it may help improve outcomes if the disease develops, she noted.

"One in eight women get breast cancer. So if it comes knocking, you want to be ready," she said.

"Women come to me and say, ‘I’ve done everything. I’ve exercised every day. I’ve eaten a healthy diet, and here I am sitting in your office.’ And I say, ‘Well, that healthy body is now ready for this fight.’"

"If you can bring a healthy body and a healthy mind to the disease, you are going to do better."

No. 3: Eat a balanced diet and limit processed foods

To lower the risk of cancer and premature death, the American Cancer Society recommends sticking to a diet rich in vegetables, whole fruits, whole grains and legumes, while limiting red/processed meats, sugary drinks and highly processed foods.

Rourke agrees with these guidelines, but noted that even people who follow healthy eating patterns can face cancer diagnoses.

CANCER SURVIVORS SAW MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN SLEEP AND WELL-BEING WITH ONE WEEKLY PRACTICE

"I have vegans sitting in my office. I have people who don’t eat any sugar in my office. They’re all getting breast cancer," she said.

"What I say is, [eat] a healthy, balanced diet, limited processed foods, as close to farm-to-table as you can get," the doctor advised. "Just healthy eating, reasonable portions … nothing in excess."

"If you practice that, that’s going to suit you for so many things in your future."

The doctor added that it’s not necessary to take an extreme approach to dietary choices: "Do you need to give up all sugar? No. Do you need to go to the extreme? No."

No. 4: Limit alcohol and avoid tobacco

Cigarette smoking is responsible for about 20% of all cancers and about 30% of cancer deaths in the U.S., according to the American Cancer Society. The habit can cause cancer in numerous parts of the body, and quitting can reduce cancer risk at any age, experts say.

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Meanwhile, alcohol consumption has been linked to an estimated 5% of U.S. cancer cases and 4% of cancer deaths in 2019, according to the National Cancer Institute.

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The U.S. surgeon general issued guidance last year following research that linked alcohol to at least seven types of cancer, naming it as the "third leading preventable cause of cancer" in the country, after tobacco and obesity.

Rourke advised that alcohol should only be consumed in moderation, although even light drinking has been shown to raise the risk of certain cancers.

"Too many Americans are living with an outdated assumption that some amount of alcohol is not only harmless, but also good for you," Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel previously told Fox News Digital. "Increasing evidence shows that isn't true."

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ

"Even though traditional advice has been up to one drink a day for women and two drinks per day for men, in fact, no amount of alcohol is healthy," he added.

No. 5: Keep up with screening and investigate concerning changes

Early detection programs have enabled doctors and patients to detect disease earlier than ever before, which increases survival rates, Rourke noted.

"I think now there’s more awareness," she said. "People know if they have someone in their family and what kind of cancer they had."

"I think people are much more educated in general, and that is promoting wellness, health, early detection and screening."

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Rourke also expressed concern about relying too heavily on artificial intelligence when investigating possible symptoms.

"If you are worried about something, call your primary care doctor [or] gynecologist," she advised. "If you feel like something’s wrong, follow through with it and get it checked out. Never ignore your inner voice."

Is this 'lust-free' Christian gym the final battlefield for the gender wars?

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 07:00:57 -0400

Surrounded by the loud clunks of iron, a multitude of machines and the smell of sweat are millions of Americans working out in gyms across the country, and while most tolerate the crowded ebbs and flows of co-ed commercial gyms, some men who find this setup distracting are seeking out "lust-free" gym alternatives.

"[The] lust side, that’s just a small piece of what the gym does," Jeff Hambrecht, owner of Proverbs 27:17, a Christian men’s-only gym in Oklahoma City, told Fox News Digital.

"The idea of a lust-free gym, it's not like we're a bunch of guys who can't control ourselves and we stay indoors. If you're an alcoholic… and you're trying to get out of that circle, you're probably going to avoid drugs and alcohol. So why would lust be any different? If you're struggling with pornography and lust and women, why would you keep going to a place over and over and where you're going to keep getting yourself in trouble? So I just eliminated that," he continued.

DOES POT MAKE YOU A BETTER PARENT? THIS 'GARDEN MOM' SAYS YES, BUT THE REALITY IS HAZY

EX-PRISONER WHO BECAME MAYOR AND PASTOR CREDITS FAITH-BASED PROGRAM WITH GIVING HIM SECOND CHANCE

Hambrecht, an addict who recovered from his battles with drugs, alcohol and pornography through repairing his relationship with Christ, says his gym is an attempt to help men find community, remove stigmas and open up conversations around mental health and other struggles for modern men.

"I just saw this gap of there's no place for guys to go and just be vulnerable and get closer to God with other men chasing that same thing," he added.

"We're taking away the temptation of, hey, you're coming to a gym, whether you're single or married, and you're going to focus on what needs to be focused on. And then, yeah, obviously you're going to go out in the world and there's going to be females. That's part of the deal. But the goal is you start re-looking at relationships and women and females and life in general from more of a biblical sense… that's my goal in a nutshell," he continued.

TALARICO BLASTS 'INSIDIOUS' BIBLE-RELATED EDUCATION PROGRAM AS 'PROPAGANDA'

Kim Abt, the owner of PWRGRLS gym in Sherman Oaks, California, a women-only gym decked out in a neon pink color scheme with palm trees reminiscent of the 80s, said that men wanting gender-secluded gyms is "fair."

"[I] never thought about it, but I do hear it all the time. Guys complaining about, you know, being distracted by [women in particular workout clothes]. So I respect it," she added.

Abt said that most of her classes were filled within a year, and that 80–90% of her clients sign up because they feel intimidated walking into a regular gym. She also noted that past harassment is another "main reason" women join PWRGRLS gym, citing that "the community aspect is huge" for most members.

WASHINGTON MOTHER SAYS SHE FOUND ADULT MALE SHOWERING IN WOMEN'S LOCKER ROOM DURING CHILDREN'S SWIM MEET

Brad Jensen, better known online as "thesoberbodybuilder" with decades of experience in the fitness industry, weighed in on the discourse surrounding Proverbs 27:17 gym.

"I've seen the pushback, I've also seen the praise of it. I actually understand more and have more empathy why women would want a women-only gym," Jensen said.

"I would almost understand more if they said, hey, we're going to create a Christian gym where there's a little bit of a dress code, but we're all going to bond together… Where maybe they do create a dress code, and they have Christian values for this gym, but they don't exclude the women who also might want to work out in an environment with like-minded people… I can see that making more sense," he continued.

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"There is a fine line sometimes. There ha[ve] been some outfits where I've seen people wearing where it's probably a little too far on the other side," he added.

"I've also seen a rise of people on social media that do ‘Only Fans’, promoting that at public gyms in really, really wrong ways. That's absolutely going too far," he continued.

"I think there's a line that we can cross where it's disrespectful to the other people. And if we're making people feel uncomfortable… by our action [and] it's very obvious that we're making half the gym feel uncomfortable. I think that's where we're crossing a line too far," Jensen said.

Want to strengthen America's economy? The key investment is hiding in plain sight

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 07:00:56 -0400

Picture the morning your technicians don’t show up. Your flight never leaves the gate because there is no one to solve the maintenance issue. Your car sits in the shop for three weeks because the service bay has a lift and the necessary tools, but no one is there to utilize any of it. A factory line goes down and stays down. The trucks behind it don’t roll, the supply chain stalls, the packages never arrive. A data center overheats. A fire truck won’t start.

None of that is hypothetical. It’s the direction we’re heading. The U.S. economy faces a massive shortage of skilled technical talent. Across 10 critical sectors (like automotive, aviation and HVAC), industry supply meets barely 42% of the total demand. This tech shortage drains $7.42 billion in wage-based economic output from the U.S. economy every single year.

What makes this shortage so puzzling is that America is talking about the skilled trades.

INNOVATION IS KEY TO AMERICA STAYING A SUPERPOWER. BUT IT IS MISSING AN ESSENTIAL PIECE

Skilled technicians are exactly the high-skill, high-wage, in-demand jobs Americans increasingly say they want, and that employers, policymakers and philanthropists increasingly say they want to support. Most open jobs start at $50,000 to $80,000, require no four-year degree and pay at or above the national median. The top techs can clear six figures. A modern vehicle is a computer on wheels. A modern aircraft is a data center with wings.

Employers have started responding. Ford, Carrier and Snap-on have invested in scholarships, grants and workforce training to help build the next generation of technicians. This year alone, employers and foundations have pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to the skilled trades, which is welcome, overdue news.

So, if interest and investment in the skilled trades are rising, why is the technician shortage still so severe?

Part of the answer is surprisingly basic: We don't actually see technicians as a workforce.

When people think of skilled labor, they often think of construction workers or plumbers. (Spoiler alert: So do the government and funders.) A "technician" is an automotive, diesel and aircraft tech; a collision and ADAS calibration specialist; an HVAC tech keeping both your home and a hyperscale data center from overheating; an industrial machinery mechanic keeping the robots running; a wind and solar tech keeping the grid alive.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts close to 6 million in its maintenance-and-repair workforce — and that leaves out welders and excludes the self-employed entirely. Independent shops handle most of the nation’s vehicle repairs, and at TechForce, owning a shop is the dream for roughly seven in 10 of the thousands of technicians we serve.

When you account for the full ecosystem — from automotive and aviation to HVAC, industrial machinery, energy and beyond — America’s technician workforce is roughly 7 million strong, collectively earning more than $375 billion a year. Yet the size and economic power of that workforce is obscured by the way our labor data categorizes it.

Instead, they're scattered across dozens of occupational codes, making one of America's largest essential workforces effectively invisible. Viewed separately, their shortages can look like isolated problems facing individual industries.

Taken together, they reveal something much bigger: an economy-wide shortage of the technicians who keep America running. And money follows the data. The attention and investment flow toward the trades the system can see, while an enormous swath of the skilled workforce remains fragmented across categories.

Follow that to the bottom line. Americans will spend $435 billion this year just maintaining and repairing their vehicles. Airlines spend roughly $120 billion a year keeping aircraft airworthy. Ford CEO Jim Farley calls blue-collar work the "essential economy" and warns we aren’t building the workforce to sustain it, describing the shortage as "a bay with a lift and tools and no one to work in it."

And lately it’s become bigger than any balance sheet. As the country reshores manufacturing, powers AI data centers that can’t be allowed to overheat and rebuilds its defense base, the people who keep those systems running are a strategic asset. Carolyn Lee, president of the Manufacturing Institute, warns that the coming shortfall of 1.9 million manufacturing workers by 2033 is "not just a workforce issue — it’s an economic and national security issue."

America cannot invest trillions in new physical and technological infrastructure without investing in the human infrastructure required to maintain it. And doing that starts with making this workforce visible. We need the Bureau of Labor Statistics to stop fragmenting these jobs under dozens of separate codes, so policymakers and funders can see the true size, demand and economic value of the full technician workforce.

TRUMP TAPS VETERANS TO FIX ILLEGAL ALIEN TRUCKING PROBLEM PLAGUING US ROADWAYS

Then we need to build pathways that match the demand. Workforce dollars, scholarships, apprenticeships and career-and-technical education should reach roles like automotive, HVAC and industrial machinery technicians, not just the handful of skilled trades Americans already know by name. At TechForce, we see firsthand what happens when those pathways exist: students are eager to enter these careers, but demand for support far outpaces the resources available to help them get there.

And companies investing billions in manufacturing, AI, energy, transportation and defense should treat the technician pipeline as part of that investment. New factories, data centers, fleets and advanced machines are only as valuable as our ability to keep them running.

Technicians are the hidden force behind America's economy and investing in them is one of the most strategic ways to strengthen communities, rebuild the middle class and secure the country's future.

America spends an immense amount of energy searching for the next breakthrough technology, but technologies don't maintain themselves. Every plane, server, wind turbine, factory robot, hospital MRI machine and delivery truck eventually needs someone who knows how to keep it working. Every major investment America is making has a technician workforce behind it.

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Maybe the highest-return investment is in the people who keep every machine moving.

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The next time your car starts, your flight lands, or your lights stay on through a heat wave — thank a tech. Better yet, help us build the next one.

Christian Zionists take on anti-Israel ‘propaganda’ from biblical heartland

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:55:46 -0400

A major visitors center in the West Bank town of Har Bracha in Samaria was inaugurated last month by The Israel Guys, a Christian Zionist organization that has spent nearly two decades bringing more than 5,000 volunteers from 35 countries to help develop the Land of Israel.

Joshua Waller, CEO of The Israel Guys, originally established as HaYovel, said the organization’s mission is to bring people to see for themselves how the biblical heartland is flourishing, despite what he says are media narratives portraying the area as beset by conflict.

"We live here, we see the people who live here, and then we tell everyone what is actually happening. Our role is to expand that and bring thousands of internationals to come and see for themselves," he told Fox News Digital.

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"You may love the Jewish people but be unsure how to deal with the propaganda, specifically the term ‘settler violence.’ Jews in Judea and Samaria have been branded as a radical group that would probably be dangerous to encounter. Well, come to the visitor center, and you will see the exact opposite," he said.

"You will see that it is a fake narrative built by the international community … it is a straight-up war against the Jewish [people]," he added.

The organization’s volunteer programs include the Heartland Experience, a 10-day trip to Israel combining touring, volunteer work and interaction with local residents; the Grape Harvest trip, a two-week program held in late summer and early fall that focuses on helping farmers with the harvest; and the Men’s Pruning trip, a two-week program in early spring focused on pruning vineyards.

Other programs include Zion Ops, a four-week program for young adults ages 18 to 30, and Day Visits, which offer two-hour visits to Har Bracha.

ISRAEL LAUNCHES 'BIBLICAL HIGHWAY' AMID CAMPAIGN TO ERASE JEWISH HISTORY

In 2004, Tommy Waller, Joshua Waller’s father, traveled to Israel for the first time, where he met Nir Lavi, founder of Har Bracha Winery. Lavi shared his plan to fulfill the vision of the Prophet Jeremiah: "You shall again plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and eat them as ordinary food" (Jeremiah 31:5).

Waller Sr. asked how he could help.

In 2007, after moving with his wife, Sherri, and their 11 children from Tennessee to Har Bracha, Waller Sr. established HaYovel, a U.S. nonprofit that provides Christian volunteers with an opportunity to work the land alongside Israeli farmers.

In 2013, the organization sought to counter anti-Israel rhetoric by launching The Joshua & Caleb Report TV show, its first dedicated pro-Israel media project, which in 2018 transitioned into a weekly podcast. Five years ago, the organization rebranded as The Israel Guys and stepped up its advocacy efforts.

CHRISTIAN LEADERS HOLD EMERGENCY SUMMIT IN JERUSALEM TO CONFRONT GLOBAL RISE IN ANTISEMITISM

The Israel Guys currently counts more than 20 team members and, since its founding, has helped develop some 120 farms. Volunteers who come to Judea and Samaria work alongside local farmers, planting trees, erecting fences, harvesting crops and assisting with infrastructure projects.

In the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Israelis, The Israel Guys launched Operation Ittai and raised $3.85 million to provide tactical supplies to communities in the area and strengthen their defenses against possible terrorist attacks.

The group went viral at the time after bringing American cowboys to Israel to help farmers whose workers had been called up as reservists.

Addressing media coverage of recent incidents involving Christians in Israel, Waller said the narrative that they are no longer welcome in the country is false.

AMBASSADOR GEORGE DEEK: THE CHRISTIAN ISRAEL YOU ARE NOT BEING SHOWN

"People put a lot of money into trying to make it seem as though Christians would somehow be better off living in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan or other Arab countries surrounding Israel. Factually, that is completely wrong," he told Fox News Digital.

"I know Christians living in those places, and I even know Christians living in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and they suffer immensely. The fact is that Israel is the safest place for Christians in the entire Middle East. It is the only place where the Christian population is growing," he added.

Volunteers, Waller explained, have come from a wide range of Christian denominations, including Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, Mormons, Amish and Mennonites.

He emphasized that Israel is a partner for peace and urged nations to align themselves with biblical values, which he said could pave the way for "some incredible days ahead."

If antisemitism leads to efforts to destroy Israel, he added, "that’s not an option," saying Israel would have to fight that war while The Israel Guys would continue to "help on the information side."

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"The Bible says that this land that was desolate will become like the Garden of Eden. We are literally seeing it happen. It’s beautiful to see volunteers participate in the fulfillment of that prophecy and witness the ancient words of the Bible come back to life," Waller said.

Drew Brees feels Tyler Shough has everything needed with Saints to succeed in 2026: 'Unbelievable situation'

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:43:12 -0400

The New Orleans Saints were quick to give Tyler Shough, their second-round pick from the 2025 NFL Draft, their vote of confidence as the team’s starting quarterback heading into the 2026 season.

Shough, who sat as a backup to start the 2025 season, gets an entire offseason and training camp to prepare for the starting role compared to a full quarterback battle this time last year.

Fox News Digital spoke to Shough during Super Bowl week in February, when he expressed his excitement about having more time to develop and learn head coach Kellen Moore’s offense. He also mentioned an "incredible mentor" that has helped him since he was drafted by New Orleans.

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Drew Brees, the Saints' legendary quarterback who was just inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, gave words of advice to Shough, and loved what he saw from him when Moore turned the offensive keys over to him last season.

"I think Shough is in an unbelievable situation," Brees told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. "He showed a ton of leadership traits this offseason. Gathering the guys together, structuring offseason workouts, getting them ready for camp."

Shough was 25 years old when he came out of Louisville last year, playing for three different programs across seven years. While some viewed this as a crutch for Shough to break into the NFL, Brees viewed it differently.

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"First off, Tyler Shough is a guy mature beyond his years," Brees explained. "I think he spent seven years in college — three at [Texas] Tech, three at Oregon and one at Louisville. He battled through his own fair share of injuries and adversity. Just having to overcome. So again, I think you learn a lot, develop a lot of gratitude. I think he was at a point in his career where he didn’t think the NFL was going to be an option. I think going to Louisville and being with Jeff Brohm, who I know really well — former coach at Purdue and former NFL quarterback. Really helped develop him and get him to the next level of, ‘Man, you can do this. You can play at a very high level.’"

The Saints also went with Spencer Rattler as their starting quarterback to begin the 2025 season, but by Week 9, Moore turned the job over to Shough. He finished 5-4 in those starts, including a four-game win streak that had New Orleans feeling great about the future.

Brees believes that time sitting and observing helped Shough.

"I think him coming in last year, sitting for half the season, you observe so much when you do that. When you step in, it’s like, ‘You’ve earned this. It’s my time. Here we go,’" Brees said. "He just got incrementally better every week. He’s super talented. He’s big, strong, can throw the ball. Very good athlete, so you can do a lot in the run game with him. He has a lot of Josh Allen qualities in that way — running with the size and athleticism."

And the Saints clearly saw everything they needed to start loading up on offense.

"Man, they’ve built some pieces around him. They sign Chris Olave to a long-term deal. They draft Jordyn Tyson. Unfortunately, I know he’s got the hamstring now for two months. Nonetheless, he’s got these playmakers around him," Brees said. "They sign [Travis] Etienne [Jr.], you got Alvin Kamara, you got Juwan Johnson. You got a really good O-line. You drafted right tackle, left tackle in the first round the two years previous. And Kellen Moore, right? A very talented play-caller and developer of quarterbacks.

"For all those reasons, I think he’s poised to continue to go in this upwards trajectory."

SPORTS ALL IN ONE PLACE

Outside of football, Brees is also a businessman, being a co-owner and partner in Walk-on’s Sports Bistreaux, one of the fastest-growing sports bar franchise concepts in the country. It began in Louisiana, has grown to 80-plus units, and it continues to pave its way through the country.

As a sports bar concept, there’s nothing that matters more than having any game, any time, for customers walking into the establishment.

Football is king in the Southeast, as well as throughout the rest of the country, and DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS makes it easy for those like Brees to bring together live TV and streaming networks all in one place. More than 300,000 bars and restaurants have access to local, national, college and pro games for fans to watch through DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS, which includes NFL Sunday Ticket.

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"We pride ourselves on Louisiana-inspired cuisine. It's unbelievable food," Brees said of Walk-on’s Sports Bistreaux. "My kids crave it all the time. But like a really family-friendly atmosphere, you know, whether it's date night, bring the family, bring the little league after the game — something for everybody. Obviously, it’s sports, and high energy, and excitement on the TV all the time.

"Thanks to our partnership with DirecTV for Business, that's what allows us to basically have access to every college and pro game around the country. And that's not just football. We're talking basketball, baseball, hockey, soccer. So big events like March Madness and the Kentucky Derby, Masters — you name it. So, we're really appreciative of that DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS partnership. It allows us to help create that energy and excitement around our establishments.

"And for the fans themselves, sportsbarfinder.com allows them to find those sports from DIRECTV FOR BUSINESS at their local spot anywhere in the country, which Brees loved to see.

"There's a saying: fans have more friends. You know, they really do. You step into your local sports bar wearing the local jersey. Man, all of a sudden, next thing you know, you're high-fiving everybody, and you just made 100 more friends. That's the kind of atmosphere and that's what sports does, it brings people together," he said.

Lynx, Valkyries coaches rip 'Save Women's Sports' movement as pro-trans mob rocks 1st rally at non-Fever game

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:40:33 -0400

The WNBA's dealings with the "Save Women's Sports" movement expanded beyond Indiana Fever games.

A rally to support the protection of women's sports was held outside the Chase Center in San Francisco ahead of Wednesday's game between the Golden State Valkyries and the Minnesota Lynx, and a mob of pro-trans activists aggressively descended on it.

But before the game, the head coaches of both teams appeared to criticize the movement as a whole when asked about the rally.

VALKYRIES COACH NATALIE NAKASE DEFENDS TRANS ATHLETES IN WOMEN'S SPORTS AS CULTURE WAR ENGULFS WNBA

Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve said that "people are buying into" the movement but dismissed it as political talking point.

"I have said this before, trans kids belong. And I think, as we're seeing sort of politically, in this country, they've found a talking point that people are buying into, and the only thing I ask is that people educate themselves further on these issues and what we're capable of doing together. And that something is not used just to marginalize a community," Reeve told reporters at a pregame press conference when asked about her stance on the issue.

Valkyries head coach Natalie Nakase was asked about the rally, and insisted that there is too much "hate speech" going on in sports.

"In the world and just in sports right now, there's too much hate that's going on. Too much hate speech. I would highly suggest people lead with love. I love to lead with love," Nakase said.

CHERYL REEVE SENDS CLEAR MESSAGE TO SOPHIE CUNNINGHAM WITH ‘TRANS KIDS BELONG’ SHIRT DURING FEVER-LYNX GAME

Both coaches had previously expressed support for trans athletes, and Reeve wore a "trans kids belong" shirt during a game against Sophie Cunningham and the Fever on Aug. 2.

Meanwhile, outside the arena, a horde of pro-transgender counterprotesters swarmed the rally and outnumbered the women's sports activists, multiple attendees told Fox News Digital. The pro-trans crowd wielded signs and chanted loudly in unison in support of trans rights.

Family rights attorney Erin Friday told Fox News Digital the opposition shouted obscenities at her and other women's sports advocates.

"We were outside of this Chase Center holding signs peacefully. There were about eight to nine women, majority are lesbians, majority are Democrats or former Democrats, and the crowd came by us yelling profanities, telling us to get out," Friday said.

"They would start, maybe with rational discussion, and then it would quickly divulge into name calling... We were surrounded for a while with a group of women holding signs who were knocking into us, quite agitated."

Arianne Gieringer, the vice president of LGB Alliance USA, told Fox News Digital a counterprotester told her she "didn't belong" there.

"One of the counter protesters kept shouting at us that we don't belong here because this is San Francisco," Gieringer said.

"I just brought up was I was born and raised and spent my entire life in the San Francisco Bay Area. I told her that. This is my home. I have been here my entire life. Are you telling a lifelong San Francisco Bay Area resident that I don't belong there?"

WNBA WON'T NAME PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR SECURITY INCIDENT OVER FANS' SHIRTS, AS DREAM BLAME LEAGUE

Footage obtained by Fox News Digital showed a security representative telling the women's sports activists not to bring their signs into the arena, but also telling them that their XX-XY Athletics shirts were fine and "not offensive."

Fox News Digital has reached out to the Golden State Warriors, parent organization of the Valkyries and owners of the Chase Center, for a response.

The verbal acceptance of the shirts comes just days after a national controversy when a WNBA security representative told a mom and daughter to cover their XX-XY Athletics shirts at Sunday's game between the Fever and Dream in Atlanta. The mom and daughter alleged the man told them the shirts were "offensive." The WNBA and Dream have since addressed the incident and said it should not have happened.

The Lynx went on to beat the Valkyries 77-66 to improve to 30-7 and cement their spot at the top of the WNBA standings.

The rally marked the third organized "Save Women's Sports" demonstration at a WNBA game this week alone, with two more planned before the week's end.

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Rallies in support of Cunningham followed the Fever to their Sunday game in Atlanta and Tuesday game in Toronto. Similar rallies are now set to also take place outside the Fever's game in Dallas on Thursday and New York on Saturday.

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If those two rallies go off as expected, it will mark 10 total rallies at WNBA games in support of protecting women's sports in the span of 26 days.

Luxury travel, shopping, six-figure income: Battleground Dems ripped for 'phony' working-class narrative

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:44 -0400

Several battleground Democrats running in competitive House races have leaned on working-class, blue-collar biographies to connect with voters’ economic anxieties, but financial records and other materials reviewed by Fox News Digital complicate the images they have presented on the campaign trail.

In New Jersey, for example, Democratic Party candidate Rebecca Bennett has pitched herself as a parent with firsthand understanding of the "rising costs and economic uncertainty" facing American families, but financial records show she collected a combined salary of nearly $250,000 in 2024 and holds an extensive investment portfolio with assets potentially worth nearly $1.8 million and no reportable liabilities.

In New Mexico, Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., has said he "never had the luxury of financial wealth," argued voters are drawn to candidates who do not "come from wealth," and described his mother as working long hours in Mexico’s "maquiladora industry" to make ends meet. But records reviewed by Fox News Digital show his mother held corporate finance roles at GE, including as a finance manager and comptroller in Mexico and later as a senior finance analyst in Indiana, while social media screenshots shared with Fox News Digital show repeated European travel, luxury shopping and other upscale family photos.

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Meanwhile, in Washington State, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., has built part of her blue-collar image around her time working in an auto shop and her Reed College history, saying she worked three jobs and paid for the private liberal arts school "by the credit hour" after her parents stopped paying tuition. But financial disclosures reviewed by Fox News Digital did not list reportable student-loan debt, while critics familiar with her time at Reed College have questioned whether jobs Gluesenkamp Perez cited, including as a nanny, campus barista and at an "iPhone case factory," could have plausibly covered the school’s cost.

"Voters can see through the phony double-talk easier than politicians ever realize. It’s far better to be who you are and offer a compelling vision to make voters’ lives better than contort your own biography and background into something it’s not," Republican strategist Colin Reed told Fox News Digital. "Under normal circumstances, financial success and upward mobility would be attributes to lean into as selling points on the campaign trail. But with socialism ascendant and the demonization of wealth not far behind, these are far from normal times."

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Bennett, who is running in New Jersey’s competitive 7th Congressional District, disclosed dozens of investments, retirement accounts and other assets in an amended candidate financial disclosure filed with the House on May 15 and reviewed by Fox News Digital. Based on the value ranges listed in the disclosure, her reported assets could be worth as much as roughly $1.8 million. The filing listed no reportable liabilities.

Among the holdings were three valued between $50,001 and $100,000 apiece and 17 more valued between $15,001 and $50,000. Because the disclosure reports assets in broad value ranges rather than exact amounts, Bennett’s reported holdings total roughly $447,000 at the low end and nearly $1.8 million at the high end. Using the midpoint of each disclosed range puts their estimated value at roughly $1.12 million.

The disclosure also showed that Bennett received nearly $200,000 in salary from Noom in 2024 and nearly $46,000 from Oshi Health that year, for more than $242,000 combined.

The financial picture contrasts with the economic message Bennett has emphasized on the campaign trail, where she has repeatedly invoked her own family's finances and experience as a mother of two. In a June 18 campaign post titled "My 2010 Honda Accord," Bennett said she and her husband still drove the 16-year-old car because "it’s what we can afford," arguing Washington needs more "regular people" who understand families’ financial pressures firsthand.

In the post, Bennett specifically pointed to childcare, writing, "I know what it’s like to worry about childcare costs," while also citing rising grocery bills and difficult financial decisions because there is not "an unlimited amount of money sitting in the bank account." Months earlier, she similarly said she was, "like so many of you," navigating the "astronomical" costs of food, education, childcare and healthcare.

Those comments also come as FEC records show Bennett’s campaign has paid $21,250 since June 2025 to cover her childcare expenses. Federal election rules permit campaign funds to cover a candidate’s childcare expenses when they are incurred as a direct result of campaign activity.

"After serving our country for 15 years as a Navy helicopter pilot, Rebecca swapped her MH-60 Seahawk for the 2010 Honda Accord she uses to drop off her two young children at daycare and public school. Rebecca knows firsthand how much childcare costs, and it’s critical that we have people in Congress that understand the challenges New Jersey families are facing," campaign spokesperson Carly Jones told Fox News Digital. "While Tom Kean Jr. plays the stock market in Congress, Rebecca is going to fight to lower costs and end Washington corruption."

Meanwhile, Vasquez has also been explicit in casting his background in working-class and blue-collar terms. In his first House floor speech in March 2023, the New Mexico Democrat said, "I’ve never had the luxury of financial wealth," and during his 2022 campaign argued that voters were drawn to a candidate who "doesn’t come from wealth" or money.

DSA CO-CHAIR STRUGGLES TO EXPLAIN MILLIONAIRE TAX POLICY

Vasquez has also repeatedly pointed to his mother’s work in Mexico’s "maquiladora industry" as part of his family’s working-class story. In an October 2025 La Opinión op-ed, he wrote that his mother, Hortencia Banuelos, "worked long hours in the maquiladora industry working to make ends meet," describing her story as one of "sacrifice, resilience, and hope." In a 2023 interview, Vasquez similarly said his parents worked in the maquiladora industry, including assembling aerospace parts and building sensors for refrigerators and washing machines in Ciudad Juárez.

But Banuelos’ own professional profile and other publicly available records reviewed by Fox News Digital show she held senior finance roles at GE during much of Vasquez’s childhood. Her LinkedIn profile lists her as a "Finance Manager/Comptroller" for GE in Mexico from December 1985 to March 1994, overseeing accounting, finance, payroll, accounts payable, IT and customs. She was promoted in 1994 to senior finance analyst at a GE operation in Bloomington, Indiana, where the profile says she analyzed a manufacturing plant with $800 million in revenue and 3,000 employees.

A 2020 profile of Banuelos in Hispanic Executive separately reported that GE hired her in Mexico in the 1980s and selected her for a two-year training program geared almost exclusively toward Ivy League graduates before she later moved to Indiana.

The professional record is also accompanied by social media material showing a more affluent family lifestyle. Posts from Banuelos’ Facebook and Instagram accounts, screenshots of which were shared and reviewed by Fox News Digital, showed repeated European travel, including a three-month stay in France, while other posts showed Banuelos and Vasquez’s sister shopping at luxury brands. Several photos from upscale locations also included Vasquez himself, including one in which he posed with a Corvette.

Vasquez has faced scrutiny over a lavish 2018 ceremony he held with a former fiancée at Akiin Beach Tulum in Mexico as well. The Daily Mail reported in June that events at the beachfront wedding venue can cost between $30,000 and $90,000. Vasquez’s campaign told the outlet that the pair "participated in a private commitment ceremony but were never legally married and eventually separated."

DAN BONGINO CALLS SOCIALISM 'BUMPER STICKER POLITICS' AS IT SURGES IN POPULARITY AMONG YOUTH

Asked about Vasquez’s characterization of his family background and his mother’s professional record, campaign manager Patricia Socarras Santiago defended Banuelos’ story.

"It’s pathetic that, as Americans face Trump’s disastrous economy, Republicans attack Gabe’s mom, who has worked incredibly hard, starting from the maquiladoras in Mexico, in pursuit of her American Dream," Socarras Santiago told Fox News Digital. "Gabe is incredibly proud of his mom and will work to ensure everyone can access the American Dream and reverse the impacts of Trump’s tanking economy."

Gluesenkamp Perez has similarly made her own financial struggles and experience in the trades central to her political biography. In a 2023 interview with Reed Magazine, her alma mater's alumni publication, she said her parents stopped paying her tuition after she stopped attending church.

"Afterwards, I worked three jobs and paid for Reed by the credit hour," Gluesenkamp Perez said, identifying the jobs as working as a nanny, a barista and "in an iPhone case factory."

Reed’s own historical records show tuition was $39,440 for the 2010-2011 academic year, with a per-credit tuition charge of $1,625, before rising to $40,940 and $1,750 per credit the following year.

Meanwhile, Gluesenkamp Perez’s latest House financial disclosure, filed May 15, lists two commercial-property notes and a mortgage on her residence but no reportable student-loan debt.

Additionally, some of Gluesenkamp Perez’s former Reed classmates have publicly questioned her account of paying for the private college through those jobs. On a Jan. 29 episode of the NOEXIST INC podcast titled "Absolutely Sweet Marie Gluesenkamp Perez," former roommate Isaac Eger said the "iPhone case factory" was actually Grove, now Grovemade, a small Portland company that made bamboo iPhone cases by hand, and recalled that Gluesenkamp Perez did not begin working there until around 2010 or 2011, late in her time at Reed. He also noted the factory was closer to a small handmade bamboo case business that made its products by hand.

Eger added on the podcast that Gluesenkamp Perez worked as a barista at Reed’s on-campus Paradox coffee shop and recalled that she did not begin that job until around her senior year. Another former roommate, identified during the episode as Sam and described by Eger as the person who hired Gluesenkamp Perez at the coffee shop, argued that the barista wages were nowhere near sufficient to cover Reed’s tuition, saying even the combined earnings of all the shop’s baristas during his four years at the school would not have paid for one student’s semester.

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Questions have also been raised about the hands-on mechanic image Gluesenkamp Perez has used throughout her political career. Her campaign continues to describe her as a "small business owner in the trades," and campaign materials have featured her working on cars and turning wrenches.

But the Washington Free Beacon reported in 2024 that an archived 2018 biography on Dean’s Car Care’s website described Gluesenkamp Perez as working "mostly behind the scenes managing the business side" of the shop, which was cited for multiple workplace-safety violations during a 2017 Oregon OSHA inspection.

Her campaign pushed back on the broader criticism of Gluesenkamp Perez’s working-class credentials.

"Marie is fighting every day for families in Southwest Washington. She and her husband built their small business from the ground up — not with family money but with grit and determination," campaign manager Tim Gowen told Fox News Digital. "She knows what it's like to fill out a phone book-sized SBA loan and what it takes to make payroll. She's working to address the affordability crisis affecting folks in her community by clawing back power and giving real economic agency to regular people: the right to repair what you own, homes young people can actually afford, and a family farm you can pass to your kids. She'll keep doing that work because that's what Southwest Washington needs, not another career politician controlled by corporate interests in Washington or Olympia."

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The scrutiny over Democrats’ working-class branding has extended beyond those three battleground Democrats.

Fox News Digital reported last month that Montana Democratic House nominee Sam Forstag, who has campaigned as a blue-collar smokejumper who knows how to "swing a tool," previously spent years as a registered lobbyist for groups including the ACLU and Planned Parenthood.

In May, ahead of the Democratic primary for the same seat, Fox News Digital reported that Forstag rival Ryan Busse also faced authenticity questions in the battleground district after he filmed a campaign ad about fighting for working people in what appeared to be a staffer’s modest townhome rather than his own four-acre property, which real estate websites valued at roughly $1.6 million.

Busse ultimately lost the primary to Forstag.

"Only a rich liberal can afford to be a socialist in this day and age," Matt Gorman, chief communications officer at Targeted Victory, a Republican communications firm, told Fox News Digital.

"These Democrats represent a trend of the downwardly mobile who make up the base of the Democratic Party. They have the highest percentage of secondary degrees, yet the lowest income. These candidates don't mind walking around with their hands out expecting more of your money, while they hoard their own."

Trump urged to stop targeting fellow Republicans as GOP fights to keep majority

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:30:46 -0400

FIRST ON FOX: Some Senate Republicans worry that their secret weapon on the campaign trail, President Donald Trump, isn’t making a strong enough case to voters that there needs to be more Republicans in the upper chamber.

There are only a handful of primary races left between now and November, when the balance of power in the Senate could slip from the GOP’s grasp, with several seats on the line and Senate Democrats hungry to regain control.

And there’s a major issue bogging Republicans down that has spurred internal animosity: the SAVE America Act. Trump’s pressure to pass the election integrity measure and his tendency to bash Republicans for not getting it done has placed vulnerable incumbents in between a rock and a hard place.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital in an interview that while some Republicans are making promises to voters that the bill could pass right now, the better tact would be to push why more Republicans are needed in the Senate.

INSIDE THE SENATE'S CHAOTIC ALL-NIGHTER THAT LEFT TRUMP'S SAVE AMERICA ACT ON THE SHELF

"The president made the argument, ‘Well, pass the Save America Act, it will motivate our base,’" Thune said. "Yeah, but I think the base can be plenty motivated by other issues, and particularly by the president getting out there on the campaign trail and telling them why it's important that they elect Republicans to the Senate."

"Everybody has their own ideas about how best to communicate our message, but I think our message between now and November ought to be why the Democrats are completely out of step with the American people and why we need to elect more Republicans so we can do things like the SAVE America Act," he continued.

Anxious Republicans hope to see a shift in messaging from shooting inward at their own to turning their fire on Democrats, who themselves are undergoing a messy ideological change on the campaign trail. Republicans see prime messaging targets with candidates like Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota pushing left-leaning policies.

SCHUMER SAID ‘DEMOCRATS SUPPORT VOTER ID’ — THEN EVERY SENATE DEMOCRAT VOTED AGAINST GOP BILL

But the SAVE America Act has consumed much of the oxygen heading into the penultimate stretch of the election cycle.

The legislation has produced an online dogma that punishes any Republican, including Thune, who tries to convey the political reality in the Senate that Democrats continue to block the bill, and there just aren’t enough Republican votes to pass it as is.

It’s caused private disagreements to take a new life on social media, where proponents, like Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, are sniping at their colleagues for the bill’s failure to launch, despite five attempts at trying to pass it throughout the year in various iterations.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC), warned that division would sow disaster for the GOP heading into November.

"There's no doubt that the road to socialism runs right through a divided Republican Party," Scott told Fox News Digital. "I hope every American understands that, remembers that, and hears it several times between now and Election Day."

And with a Senate midterm map with more vulnerable Republicans in play than Democrats, it will be a difficult task for the GOP to maintain and grow their thin, 53-seat majority in the upper chamber.

TRUMP KEEPS CALLING THUNE DESPITE PUBLIC FIGHT OVER SAVE AMERICA ACT

Republicans know that Trump will be the key to motivating their base, just as he’s motivated voters in years past, and some hope he’ll stop dragging Republicans through the mud. Thune isn’t the only one that wants to see Trump push more on the road.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., reportedly questioned members of Trump’s political operation during a closed-door meeting last week on when the president would start attacking Democrats instead of members of his own party.

Daines, who helmed the Senate GOP’s campaign arm before Scott in 2024 when they flipped the upper chamber, told Fox News Digital that Trump would be "one of the most important voices in the 2026 election."

He contended that Trump would be a powerful influence on showing the contrast between "common sense versus crazy" that’s been developing in the Democratic Party.

"We’re seeing the Democrats are just running so far to the left that it's frightening where the center of gravity is now a Democrat Party," Daines said. "And this has been one of the more compelling arguments for ‘26, and the president can make that as well as anybody."

When pressed on Trump’s involvement on the campaign trail, Daines noted that midterm election cycles tend to boil down to complacency versus motivation.

"I think he's a very important voice here, because in midterm elections, it's about turning out your base. In midterm elections, the party that's not in power tends to be angry, and they're motivated, and they do vote," Daines said. "The party that is in powers base tends to be a bit more complacent. We've got to get our happy, complacent Republican voters out to the polls, because we cannot allow Democrats to take control."

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Meanwhile, Thune said, "Why not turn [the SAVE America Act] into a campaign issue," and argued that the key to winning out this cycle will be independent voters who aren’t moored to either party.

But the Beltway issues, like nuking the filibuster and squabbling over legislation that has stalled since March, aren’t helping make the case to those voters, for now, that Republicans should be in charge.

"If you look at Maine, in North Carolina, in Ohio, in Iowa, in Alaska, you know, it's the Indy voters, it is the middle of the electorate, and we are not talking to them when we are arguing with each other over whether or not to eliminate the filibuster," Thune said.

"I mean, that's just not an issue that's going to win the hearts and minds of the American people in November," he continued. "So, I'd turn my fire on the Democrats, attack them for being against something that is fundamentally straightforward, simple to understand for the American people, and realize that the best way to get the SAVE Act across the finish line is to elect more Republican senators."

Sports cartoons of the day

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 11:08:52 -0400

Biden admin released illegal immigrant accused of fatally stabbing Fairfax County mother

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:59 -0400

The man allegedly behind the stabbing death of a Virginia mother in Fairfax County is an immigrant in the country illegally who was admitted by the Biden administration, a federal source tells Fox News.

Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos, a 19-year-old Salvadoran national, was caught and released at the southern border during the Biden administration. The source said Cedillos-Campos was allowed into the U.S. in El Paso, Texas, in April 2024.

"[Former President Joe] Biden and [former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro] Mayorkas hand-delivered alleged killer Cedillos-Campos to the streets of Fairfax County. They recklessly unleashed millions of unvetted illegal aliens into American communities and abused the law to do so," DHS said in a statement to Fox News. "President [Donald] Trump and [DHS] Secretary Markwayne Mullin are now enforcing the law, arresting illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country — and have reversed Biden's deadly catch and release policy."

Fairfax County Police arrested Cedillos-Campos Wednesday on charges in connection with Monday's stabbing death of 42-year-old Carmen Lizet Puch. He is being held in the Prince George's County jail pending extradition to Fairfax County, where he faces a second-degree murder charge, according to police.

FIRST ON FOX: MAN FOUND DEAD ON STREET TRIGGERS ICE ACTION AFTER SHOCKING HIT-AND-RUN

A jogger spotted Puch unconscious just off a popular trail in the affluent Northern Virginia suburb. She had trauma to her upper body and was pronounced dead at the scene, Fairfax County Police Capt. Jason Chandler said during a news conference.

Fairfax County, one of the most affluent counties in America, has seen a series of violent and sexual crimes involving immigrants in the country illegally, including several who were admitted under the Biden administration.

Puch was from Reston, a suburb of Washington, D.C. She was the mother of a young daughter and worked at a nearby restaurant, according to NBC Washington. The outlet reported that "people who knew her … said she was soft-spoken and worked hard to support her young daughter."

After a jogger called police at about 6:45 a.m. Monday, officers found Puch lying beside her vehicle. NBC Washington reported that sources familiar with the investigation said she was stabbed inside the vehicle.

Puch is not the only Fairfax County victim of violent crime involving an immigrant in the country illegally who was admitted under the Biden administration.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ISRAEL FLORES ORTIZ GETS 360 DAYS FOR GROPING GIRLS AT FAIRFAX COUNTY VA. HIGH SCHOOL

One case involved 18-year-old Salvadoran immigrant Israel Flores Ortiz, who entered the country illegally in 2024, and was convicted this year of assault and battery involving the groping of several underage girls at Fairfax High School.

Fox News Digital also reported on several homicides and other violent crimes involving immigrants in the country illegally in Fairfax County earlier this year.

Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger has faced criticism over her handling of crime involving immigrants in the country illegally.

ICE CALLS OUT ‘DEPRAVED FREAK’ ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT DEPORTED AFTER HEINOUS CRIME IN DEM-RUN STATE

On her first day in office, Spanberger rescinded an executive order by her predecessor, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, that directed state law enforcement agencies to assist federal immigration authorities. She also ordered state and local law enforcement agencies to terminate all 287(g) agreements with ICE and signed an order prohibiting ICE from using state property as a staging area, processing location or operations base for federal civil immigration enforcement activities.

On Wednesday, the White House blamed the Biden administration's immigration policies for Cedillos-Campos' presence in the country.

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"This brutal killing of this mother was 100% preventable," White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told Fox News. "The Biden administration released this illegal alien MURDERER into our country."

Bis added that "extreme Democrat politicians' open border policies have consequences," pointing to murders, rapes and other violent crimes committed against Americans.

Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and Spanberger for comment.

How one NYC suburb could decide which party controls the House

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:49 -0400

The question of which party controls the House majority for the latter half of President Donald Trump's term could come down to a group of suburbs just north of New York City.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., the first Republican to represent the area in roughly 40 years, is facing off against Democrat Army veteran Cait Conley in his bid for a third term in New York's 17th Congressional District.

The expected close margins and dwindling number of battleground districts mean the race has garnered national attention, but Lawler is accusing Conley of ducking national-level debates.

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"It is, you know, vitally important for the voters in my district to hear from us — and I think, frankly, nationally, folks would benefit from it because it's one of a handful of seats that really is going to make the difference and decide control of Congress," Lawler told Fox News Digital.

"So, to me, if you're running for public office, you should be able to stand on your own two feet and answer the questions from reporters, but moreover, make the direct and compelling case to voters about why you should be elected."

Lawler said he challenged Conley to six debates after she won the primary to take him on, but that she has so far agreed to only two that are hosted by local networks.

When reached by Fox News Digital for comment, Conley's campaign confirmed that she agreed to two debates with Lawler and accused him of running cover for fellow Republicans.

"Mike Lawler will do anything to avoid delivering for his constituents, like last week, when he went on CNN to defend domestic abuser Max Miller. While he continues to act like a spoiled brat begging for more national air time to lie about his record, Cait is focused on hearing directly from voters, who are sick of being represented by a career political hack and ready for someone who puts country over party," Conley's communications director, Maddy Rosen, said.

"Cait looks forward to their two scheduled televised debates where she will hold Mike Lawler accountable for failing the Hudson Valley, voting with Trump 100% of the time, and being a spineless, self-serving politician."

Lawler said her refusal to agree to more debates showed that Conley was "not prepared" for the House and accused her of not even residing in the district she's running to represent.

Conley's communications director did not address the claims of her residency, but the candidate's website touts her as a "fourth-generation Hudson Valley native." Lawler was born and raised in the district.

Tying the GOP lawmaker to Trump is likely to be an oft-used attack by Democrats as the election season wears on, with Lawler being one of three House Republicans in the entire country who won their seats despite their districts voting for Kamala Harris in 2024.

But Lawler, who has sought to forge a reputation as a moderate, is in turn accusing Conley of pushing the same ideological issues as the far-left reaches of her party, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

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"The fact is, she can try to obfuscate here, and she can try and hide, but she stands shoulder to shoulder with them, and she refuses to denounce any of them," Lawler said, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). "In fact, she praised Zohran Mamdani throughout the primary campaign. So to me, at the end of the day, whatever she calls herself doesn't really matter. It's the policies."

Republicans are pointing to Mamdani and other DSA figures as a warning sign of where the Democratic Party is headed, arguing they'll push the country further left if they win in the midterms.

In Lawler's district just outside the Big Apple, that warning could be critical to his keeping the seat red.

Lawler defeated former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., to win the seat in 2022. He then defended it against former Rep. Mondaire Jones, D-N.Y. With just a handful of swing districts on either side, the race for the House majority is almost guaranteed to be close.

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Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to win the majority back from Republicans in November.

Texas mom backs Ten Commandments in classrooms as legal battle reaches Supreme Court

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:47 -0400

As roughly two dozen Texas families fight to keep the Ten Commandments off public school walls, one Austin-area mom is making no apologies for wanting them in her kindergartner's classroom.

Brittany McFarland, a Christian mother whose 5-year-old daughter attends public school in Texas, told Fox News Digital she was "pleasantly surprised" by the new classroom displays and said the fierce backlash over them reflects a much bigger battle over faith, values and religious liberty in America's public schools.

"I feel like our country, we've been kind of forced to erase religion and discussion of religion in schools in general," McFarland said. "Almost to the point where the topic is taboo, and our children are afraid and uncomfortable to mention their faith or talk anything about it."

McFarland said she and her husband had weighed whether public school was still the right choice for their daughter but said learning about the Ten Commandments law gave her a "sense of hope" about the direction of public education.

TEXAS DEM JAMES TALARICO RIPS 'UN-CHRISTIAN' COURT DECISION ON WHAT'S ALLOWED IN CLASSROOMS

"It gave me a renewed sense of hope in our school systems," she said.

The fight is straightforward. Texas requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, and roughly two dozen families want the Supreme Court to block the law.

The families, represented by groups including the ACLU, argue the state is crossing a constitutional line by putting a religious text in public school classrooms. They say decisions about a child's religious upbringing should be left to parents and faith communities, not the government, and warn the displays could make students from other religious or nonreligious backgrounds feel excluded or pressured.

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Texas has defended the law, and a federal appeals court upheld it, reasoning that students are not required to recite the Ten Commandments, believe them or affirm their religious origins.

Now the families are asking the Supreme Court to step in. The justices have not yet agreed to hear the case. If they do, the dispute could become a major test of how the First Amendment applies to religious expression in public schools.

McFarland rejects the characterization that simply displaying the Ten Commandments amounts to imposing Christianity on students.

"I look at the Ten Commandments as a reminder to do the right thing," she told Fox News Digital. "They're good standards for children to be exposed to."

McFarland pointed to commandments against stealing and the instruction to honor one's father and mother as examples of principles she believes have value for children.

"These are things that we should be talking about in our homes and in our classrooms," she said.

McFarland also stressed that, based on what she has seen in her daughter's classroom and others, the Ten Commandments are not being presented as something students must recite or affirm.

"It's not like you're walking to the classroom, and you're seeing a five-by-six poster with it in huge font, right, front and center. That's not what's happening," she said.

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"I don't see this posting historically significant religious text as imposing religion at all. It's not like the children are having to recite it. It's not like they're standing up and giving a Pledge of Allegiance to it. It's nothing of that sort."

McFarland said her school district recently informed parents that teachers are instructed to tell students who ask about the poster that it is displayed because of Texas law. According to the message McFarland read to Fox News Digital, teachers would contact parents if students asked specific questions about its contents rather than providing religious instruction themselves.

TRUMP DOJ EXPANDS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROTECTIONS AFTER MAJOR SUPREME COURT RULINGS

"To me, that's not imposing religion upon anyone," McFarland said. "That's giving them the opportunity to go home and talk about it. It's opening up conversation that can occur within the home and the walls of your home."

Opponents, however, said the fact that students are not required to recite the text does not resolve their concerns. The ACLU has described the displays as government-imposed religion and argues they could lead to religious coercion, bullying or stigmatization. Some parents involved in the challenge said the mandate could make children who follow other faiths or no faith at all feel that the state favors one set of beliefs over their own.

An Austin interfaith couple involved in the case has also argued that parents, rather than politicians, should decide how their children receive religious education.

McFarland said she actually agrees with that principle, but disputes that a classroom display constitutes religious instruction.

"I would actually tend to agree with the family that politicians shouldn't have a role in how teachers are specifically teaching religion to our children or trying to influence them on religion," McFarland said. "However, I see this very differently."

"To me, having a poster up is not teaching your child that religion," she added.

McFarland compared the distinction to a student seeing a human anatomy poster hanging in a health classroom, arguing that the presence of the material does not mean the child is being forced to receive instruction about everything depicted on it.

She also pushed back on concerns that young children could feel pressured to adopt the religious beliefs contained in the Ten Commandments.

"Five-year-olds can't read, for the most part," McFarland said, adding that she does not believe her daughter is entering the classroom, reading the poster and feeling pressure to embrace a particular faith.

"Religion should not be taught from the teachers or enforced by the teachers, but this isn't that," she said.

McFarland said she believes the controversy has become about something larger than the physical display itself.

"I don't think that this fight is really a poster in the classroom," she said. "I think it's about religious liberties."

At the same time, McFarland said she believes students would benefit from learning more about faith traditions beyond their own.

"I think this is where our country could do a lot better, actually," she said. "If we took more time to learn about other faiths and other religions, we could see the good in other people and respect them, even though we have differences."

McFarland said Americans should be able to acknowledge those differences without treating them as inherently threatening.

"We need to stop finding so many differences, and we need to see the good in our differences," she said.

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For McFarland, the debate ultimately comes back to what she wants her daughters to learn about expressing their own beliefs.

"I want my daughters to stand up for what's right," McFarland said. "I teach my family that if you stand for nothing, you're gonna fall for anything."

"Don't be embarrassed or ashamed to stand up for your religious beliefs," she continued. "We just need to stand up and use our voices."

Fox News' Shannon Bream and Bill Mears contributed to this report.

Trump reveals exact number of North Korea's nuclear weapons

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:34 -0400

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that North Korea possesses 57 nuclear weapons as he previewed a possible meeting with leader Kim Jong Un later this year.

Trump made the remark while defending his relationship with Kim, arguing that his rapport with the North Korean leader is "a good thing," not a bad one.

Trump’s unusually precise figure appears to be the first time a U.S. official has publicly put an exact number on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Public assessments have generally estimated that Pyongyang has roughly 50 to 60 assembled warheads, while warning that the country’s secretive program makes a definitive count impossible. It was not immediately clear whether Trump’s specific figure was based on a classified U.S. intelligence assessment.

TRUMP ORDERS MAJOR CUT TO US-SOUTH KOREA DRILLS AS NORTH KOREA RAMPS UP MISSILE TESTS

Trump said Kim is "a very powerful player" and blamed prior administrations for allowing North Korea to develop a nuclear arsenal.

"The fact that I get along with him, that’s a good thing," Trump said. "You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he’s going to be fine as long as we have a smart president."

Trump said he expected to meet with Kim later this year, though he did not provide a date or location.

NORTH KOREA EXPERT WARNS US CAN 'NEVER TAKE THEIR EYE OFF' KIM JONG UN FOLLOWING MISSILE TEST DURING IRAN WAR

North Korea’s nuclear stockpile is closely guarded, and public estimates vary. The Federation of American Scientists estimated in 2024 that Pyongyang may have assembled roughly 50 nuclear warheads, while possessing enough fissile material for up to 90.

Trump’s comment came after he ordered War Secretary Pete Hegseth this week to substantially scale back the annual U.S.-South Korea Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, arguing that the drills were costly and sent an "inappropriate and hostile" signal to North Korea. The U.S. and South Korean militaries said Wednesday they would shorten the exercises and end them Friday.

The decision is one of several overtures Trump has made toward Kim as he seeks to revive diplomacy with Pyongyang. Trump has said he expects to meet with Kim later this year, potentially during a planned November trip to Asia, though no summit has been announced.

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Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, dismissed the reduction in drills as insufficient, saying Washington’s policy toward North Korea remains hostile. Trump and Kim met three times during Trump’s first term, but their negotiations broke down in 2019 without an agreement to curb North Korea’s nuclear program.

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North Korea’s arsenal remains far smaller than those of the world’s two largest nuclear powers. Russia has about 4,400 nuclear warheads in its military stockpile, while the United States has 3,700, according to January estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. China has 620, followed by France with 290, the United Kingdom with 225, India with 190, Pakistan with 170 and Israel with 90. SIPRI estimated North Korea has about 60 assembled warheads — broadly in line with Trump’s figure — while cautioning that the secrecy surrounding Pyongyang’s program makes precise counts uncertain.

Retro Pizza Hut draws customers from hours away as 1980s nostalgia sends sales soaring

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:33 -0400

Florida's only Pizza Hut Classic, featuring the nostalgic red plastic cups, vinyl booths, Tiffany-style lamps and checkerboard tablecloths reminiscent of the 1980s, has become so popular that employees from other locations have been brought in to help accommodate the influx of guests at the Homosassa Springs restaurant.

"We have a big responsibility," Tim Sparks, president of Wichita, Kansas-based Daland Corp., which operates 82 dine-in Pizza Huts, told Fox News Digital.

"We always want to provide great service, and we always want to provide a great product. But when you get put under a spotlight like this, and people are coming from two or three hours away, you've got to deliver on that expectation."

PIZZA HUT BRINGS BACK VINTAGE VIBES AS FRANCHISEES EMBRACE NOSTALGIC MAKEOVERS

Pizza Hut started the Classic initiative around 2017, according to Sparks.

"They approached a few franchisees and said, 'Hey, we're thinking about doing this retro look. Do you guys want to participate in the test?' So I jumped at that opportunity," he said.

The first Pizza Hut Classic that Daland opened was in Dahlonega, Georgia.

"We flew out to see it once it was finished, and as soon as I walked through the door, it just really struck me," Sparks said. "I was super excited. I thought I was going to like it. I didn't know I was going to like it as much as I did. For me personally, it hit home."

Leadership changes at Pizza Hut eventually led the brand to move away from the Classic remodels, Sparks said, but Daland was allowed to continue with them.

"We did eventually run into a problem where we actually bought all the Tiffany lights that we could find," he said. "The brand quit producing them for us because … there just wasn't a big enough commitment from people to buy them."

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Some of Daland's Pizza Hut Classic locations still don't have the distinctive lamps, but renewed interest in the retro restaurants could soon change that.

"Now, because of the attention, we have five different vendors bidding to build those lights for us again," Sparks said.

Customer feedback showed that the throwback styling "really resonated with everybody," Sparks said. Daland currently operates 39 Pizza Hut Classic locations.

Since the Homosassa Springs restaurant was converted, dine-in sales have more than doubled, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported.

"Tons of people" travel from well over an hour away to visit the Pizza Hut Classic that Daland operates in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, which has attracted significant attention on social media, according to Sparks.

"There's only 1,700 people in that town, and they will almost double the national average of Pizza Hut this year in sales," he said.

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Older generations with fond memories of Pizza Hut aren't the only ones drawn to the retro restaurants. Sparks said he encountered skepticism early on from those who believed the concept would primarily cater to baby boomers.

"That's where they were dramatically wrong," he said. "When we started to get a lot of traction with social media, these weren't 50- and 60-year-olds coming in and doing TikToks, right? These were [people in their] teens and 20s coming in and doing them."

As a kid, Sparks said, he was drawn to the music, diners and drive-ins of his parents' generation in the 1950s and 1960s.

"It wasn't something I ever experienced because it was gone by the time I became a teenager, but it was something I always saw in pictures and really wished I had," he said.

He believes younger generations may feel a similar pull toward the Pizza Hut Classics.

"I think it does take them back to a little clip of time and an era where, in their minds, things weren't as hectic," Sparks said. "It was a little simpler time."

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Sparks has also noticed another phenomenon when customers visit the Classic restaurants.

"People put their phones down," Sparks said.

"Once they're over the excitement, and they're taking pictures of the Pac-Man machine and the salad bar and the Tiffany lights … they set it down, and they start having conversation," he said. "I can't explain it, but it's super cool to watch."

While Daland won't necessarily convert all of its Pizza Huts into full Classic restaurants, Sparks said the company plans to introduce retro elements — including Tiffany-style lamps and red cups — at its locations. He also plans to bring back the old red curtains at the Tunkhannock location.

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"That would really take it all the way back," Sparks said.

Princess Diana could have survived fatal Paris crash if she made one simple choice, investigator says

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 06:00:10 -0400

One small decision before Princess Diana’s 1997 crash could have saved her life and changed history.

On Aug. 31, 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed alongside her companion, Dodi Fayed, and their driver, Henri Paul, when their Mercedes crashed at high speed in a Paris tunnel while paparazzi pursued them. The mother of two was just 36.

The tragedy is getting a fresh examination in FOX’s new special, "Celebrity Crime Scene: Princess Diana," which airs Aug. 20. Using modern recreation technology to reconstruct the events surrounding the crash, host and investigative crime journalist Jakson Buhaj joins British forensic psychologist Kerry Daynes and former U.S. Secret Service agent Rich Staropoli to revisit the evidence, scrutinize the theories and explore what really happened that night in Paris.

INSIDE PRINCESS DIANA AND JFK JR'S SECRET MEETING THAT FUELED ROMANCE RUMORS FOR DECADES

Buhaj told Fox News Digital that knowing one simple thing might have saved the princess makes her death all the more haunting.

"It's very odd that no one was wearing a seat belt," he said. "You would think that [Dodi Fayed's bodyguard] Trevor Rees-Jones, who was sitting in the front seat directly ahead of Diana ... would caution her that she should definitely put a seat belt on, considering the car is driving way over the speed limit. ... Yet no one thinks to do that."

Rees-Jones accompanied Diana and Fayed on their final trip, but he worked as a bodyguard for Fayed's family, not as Diana's official protection officer.

WATCH: PRINCESS DIANA'S FINAL MOMENTS: WHAT COULD HAVE SAVED HER?

"What I think is the most tragic thing about this is that had everyone been wearing their seat belt, unfortunately, Henri Paul and Dodi Fayed probably would’ve passed away, but Diana most likely still would’ve been with us," Buhaj said.

"And I think that’s something that really stuck with me after we wrapped filming, that there is a whole other timeline out there where a seat belt could have saved Princess Diana."

For years, one detail about the crash was widely repeated: Rees-Jones survived because he was the only person in the Mercedes wearing a seat belt. Investigators later determined that wasn't true. The official British inquiry concluded that no one in the car was wearing a seat belt when it crashed.

After the official British police inquiry concluded in 2006, Lord Stevens said Diana, Fayed and Paul might not have died had they been wearing seat belts, The Guardian reported.

Paul was scheduled to be off duty that night. His blood alcohol level was later found to be more than three times the French legal limit, People magazine reported. Surveillance video did not show obvious signs that Paul was intoxicated, and several witnesses said they noticed nothing unusual about his behavior.

People magazine reported that Paul taunted photographers by announcing, "You won’t catch up with us." As he picked up speed, he couldn't shake the paparazzi chasing the Mercedes, including several photographers traveling on motorcycles and scooters.

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"There are many, many things that could have prevented the death of Princess Diana," Buhaj said. "I think getting into that car with Henri Paul was a death sentence for Princess Diana. ... And had she not done that, she could still be with us today."

The Mercedes slammed into the 13th concrete pillar of Paris’ Pont de l’Alma underpass shortly after midnight. The car then rebounded and struck the tunnel wall before coming to a stop. In the front seat, airbags were sprayed with blood, and Paul’s body pressed on the horn, People reported.

Paul and Fayed died at the scene, while Rees-Jones suffered critical injuries. Diana was found on the floor of the mangled car, severely injured. Photographers descended on the crash scene and began taking pictures.

Buhaj also found it alarming that about an hour and 40 minutes passed between the crash and Diana's arrival at the hospital. It's noted that French emergency teams followed an approach to trauma care that emphasized treating and stabilizing critically injured patients at the scene before transporting them. Diana also had to be freed from the wreckage and went into cardiac arrest before she was placed in the ambulance.

Even after the ambulance left, the driver was instructed to proceed slowly because Diana's condition was so unstable. At one point, the ambulance stopped when her blood pressure dropped.

Diana, whose heart had been restarted once, was treated by a team of about 20 doctors and nurses, People reported. She again went into cardiac arrest. In surgery, physicians discovered a ruptured pulmonary vein and massive internal bleeding. Doctors tried to repair the torn vein and stop the bleeding, but they were unable to restart Diana’s heart. She was pronounced dead at 4 a.m.

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In the years before her death, Diana had expressed concerns about her safety. She believed she was being watched and that her phones could be tapped. She also wrote privately about fears that she could be harmed in a car crash.

"People in her close circle described her as quite paranoid," Buhaj said. "... She is the most famous person on the planet. ... So not only are billions of people across the world glued to the screen whenever she appears on it, but she’s also constantly having to look over her shoulder out of fear."

"I think what I learned about her paranoia coming away from the special was that she had an extremely strained relationship, not just with her husband, but with the entire royal family. And I think that played a huge role in that paranoia."

According to the Operation Paget investigation, several people close to Diana said she did not appear anxious about her safety in the weeks before the crash.

Still, some of Diana’s earlier fears were revisited after her death. In one account, she had warned years earlier that someone might try to harm her in a staged car crash. In a handwritten note, Diana alleged that then-Prince Charles was planning an accident involving her car.

The note was written during a turbulent period in Diana’s life, amid her separation and divorce from Charles. The Guardian reported that there were also false rumors circulating at the time that the prince and their children's nanny were having an affair.

Charles later told Operation Paget investigators he had not known about the note and did not understand why Diana had expressed those fears, the outlet reported. British investigators ultimately found no evidence that Diana's death was part of a deliberate plot.

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Decades after her death, Buhaj said one thing is clear: Diana continues to be "the people’s princess."

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"... Princess Diana had this way of effortlessly merging with the people, walking through that minefield in Angola, going and reaching out and touching children suffering from AIDS, which is something that the royal family would never even dream of doing," he insisted. "But it put her in a different light. It immortalized her in a way where she was this polarizing figure who was one of the people. And I don’t think that will ever change."

Top Dem group reveals new congressional targets in bid to flip House: 'Proven fighters'

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:15:32 -0400

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is adding five new races to its Red to Blue list, a program that looks to equip candidates in particularly competitive districts.

The Red to Blue program is backing Tom Perriello in Virginia, Nancy Lacore in South Carolina, Matt Dunlap in Maine, Zach Dembo in Kentucky and Leela Gray in Florida, bringing the program’s designated races to a total of 37.

The additions indicate a growing number of seats the party’s House campaign arm believes it can win as they try to retake the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority. The announcement also telegraphs further investment in those particular races.

DEMOCRATS TARGET MORE GOP HOUSE SEATS AFTER SOCIALIST VICTORIES ROCK LEFT-WING PRIMARIES

"All of these candidates are proven fighters who are running strong campaigns, talking to every voter, and building coalitions across the ideological spectrum to power their victories in November," DCCC Chair Rep. Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., said in a statement.

The five new candidates can expect to receive strategic guidance, staff resources, training and fundraising support "to ensure they are in the best possible position to win in November," Red to Blue stated in a press release.

Notably, all five candidates have some record of prior public or military service.

Leela Gray, running in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, captured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday evening, highlighting her 30-year Army career, during which she rose to the rank of brigadier general.

Her record is similar to that of Nancy Lacore, the Democratic candidate in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, and her story as a former three-star Navy admiral.

HOUSE DEMOCRATS' CAMPAIGN ARM DRAWS PROGRESSIVE FURY FOR TRYING TO 'TIP THE SCALES' IN KEY HOUSE PRIMARY

Similarly, Zach Dembo, who is trying to flip Kentucky’s 6th District, served as a Navy JAG officer and DOJ prosecutor.

The remaining two candidates — Matt Dunlap in Maine’s 2nd District and Tom Perriello, the Democratic nominee in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District — both have held public office before.

Dunlap served as Maine Secretary of State, while Perriello is a former congressman.

Despite the additional focus, most of the districts are relatively safe for Republicans. Three of them, VA-05, S.C.-01 and KY-06, were all won by the GOP by an average 19.3% margin of victory.

Only two of them, FL-13 and ME-02, were decided by less than 10%.

Notably, the Maine race is the most competitive out of the group, having been decided by just 0.6% in 2024 in a narrow win for Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine. Golden is not pursuing re-election.

In addition to their service backgrounds, DelBene, the DCCC chair, said the candidates would stress areas where voters might feel like Republicans have overpromised and underdelivered.

REPUBLICAN MOVES CLOSER TO REPLACING NANCY MACE AS GOP LOOKS TO HOLD COASTAL SOUTH CAROLINA SEAT

"American families are struggling under the broken promises and higher costs caused by House Republicans, and they’re eager for leaders who will always put the well-being of their communities first, not rubber-stamp Trump’s failed agenda," DelBene said.

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Having cleared their respective primaries, all five candidates are now headed to their general elections on Nov. 3.

Idaho coffee shop owner defends ejecting pro-life group from his business after backlash

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:30:00 -0400

An Idaho coffee shop owner says he and his wife have received "nonstop death threats" following a viral confrontation in which he demanded a pro-life group leave his business and compared them to the Ku Klux Klan.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, posted a video to social media on Monday alleging that she and her group were ousted from Wydaho Roasters in Driggs after owner Jim Sheehan learned they were holding a pro-life meeting.

Hawkins told Fox News Digital a group of about 15 people had gathered at the café to discuss a prospective ballot measure that would legalize abortion up to 24 weeks in Idaho, where most abortions are currently illegal. Her 16-year-old son, Bear, a fellow with Students for Life, organized the gathering to recruit local volunteers. They also planned to discuss ways to help support moms and families in need in their rural neighborhood, Hawkins said.

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According to Hawkins, group members ordered food and drinks before sitting down, at which point Sheehan approached them and said they were not welcome to host their meeting there. Video footage shows Sheehan telling the group to meet at the public library instead.

"This is my place of business," Sheehan says in the video. "I did a lot of work to get people on the ballot so women would have the right to choose in the state of Idaho, and this is something I do not support, nor does my wife, and it's our business. So we have that choice."

When Hawkins asked if he was kicking them out, Sheehan replied, "Did I make it very clear that I did not want you here?"

"It's like, if the KKK asked to meet here, I would say 'no,'" Sheehan explained in the recording. "In my world, it's the same sort of concept."

SOCIAL MEDIA ERUPTS OVER MAMDANI'S SILENCE AFTER BROOKLYN COFFEE SHOP BANS JEWISH CONGRESSMAN

Sheehan disputed claims that he "kicked out" the group, telling Fox News Digital the video posted online was misleading. He said he had politely asked the group on Facebook the day prior not to use his business for their meeting.

"Sunday she announced on a local community page they were holding this meeting at our business, naming it — I responded to the post politely asking them not to use our business as the agenda of the organization does not align with us," Sheehan told Fox News Digital. "They showed up anyway."

Hawkins told Fox News Digital they had not seen the social media reply from Sheehan before holding the meeting.

In an interview with Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday, Sheehan acknowledged the KKK comparison was a mistake, stating he "didn't think through that analogy."

Sheehan said he and his wife have received "nonstop death threats" since the incident. He defended his right to host groups at his choice and said he objected to his business being associated with a cause that he and his wife adamantly opposed.

"I figured they would respect my wishes and not hold it there," he told the outlet.

SIX TRANSGENDER IDAHO RESIDENTS FILE LAWSUIT TO BLOCK NEW BATHROOM LAW

Sheehan said his coffee shop is openly liberal, flies the pride flag and hosts LGBTQ coffee meet-ups.

"It's not a surprise where my stance is on something like that," he said, adding that promoting a pro-life meeting would go against his fundamental values. "This is one of those black-and-white issues for me," he said.

Students for Life maintained to Fox News Digital that Sheehan's actions amounted to an ejection, alleging he turned up the café's music after the interaction to prevent them from speaking.

Hawkins said though the community in Driggs, Idaho, leans liberal, her neighbors are welcoming and friendly regardless of differences in politics, so she said she was shocked by the confrontation.

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"I think it was shocking to see somebody who had obviously said multiple times and in social media posts and has been out the community saying that they were a community organization, coffee shop ... you know, everyone's welcome sign and his rainbow flag is not welcoming to anyone who is a Christian or who is pro-life," she told Fox News Digital.

El-Sayed's agenda puts ‘permanently’ changed America on the line in Michigan Senate race, GOP firebrand warns

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:00:56 -0400

Former GOP gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon is sounding the alarm on her belief that Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed’s opposition to Sharia law bans, association with far-left streamer Hasan Piker and progressive policies will "permanently" change America.

"This is not, if this person gets in, how much damage can they do in six years?" Dixon told Fox News Digital.

"This is someone who fundamentally disagrees with the Constitution and the founding of this country and has come out and said the founding of this was wrong and he disagrees with this. This is somebody who wants to go into government to permanently change America."

Dixon highlighted El-Sayed’s past opposition to Sharia law bans, saying Americans need to know where he stands.

DEM ATTORNEY BACKS GOP HOPEFUL IN MICHIGAN RACE AGAINST EL-SAYED, 'JUMPING SHIP' FROM HIS PARTY'S 'LUNATICS'

"This is a guy who has gone out, and he's done speeches on why it is a terrible thing to ban Sharia law. That, to me, the average American is terrified of the idea of groups coming in and taking over our culture and saying that they are going to change how we live and how women are treated," she said.

During a 2022 speech to the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Oklahoma chapter, El-Sayed said efforts to ban Sharia law were rooted in white supremacy and driven by "the same exact forces" behind the forced removal of Native Americans and the destruction of Black Wall Street.

"That comparison, to me, is something that the American people, and certainly the people of Michigan, need to know that that's how closely aligned he is with the Islamist values and the fact that he would bring Sharia law into our lives and defend it in that way," Dixon said.

Sharia law is a body of Islamic religious principles governing personal, family and financial matters, with interpretations varying on issues including child marriage, women’s rights and criminal penalties.

Turning to El-Sayed’s recent campaign appearances with Piker, Dixon took aim at El-Sayed for refusing to distance himself from the popular streamer.

Piker, who has about 10 million social media followers, has faced backlash for saying that "America deserved 9/11," as well as for controversial comments about Hamas and the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and for recently wearing an outfit resembling that of former communist dictator Mao Zedong.

"At the same time, [he is] campaigning with a man who says America deserved 9/11 and refusing to back down on that," Dixon said.

HASAN PIKER CALLS FOR DEMOCRATS WHO OPPOSE ABDUL EL-SAYED TO BE 'PUNISHED'

El-Sayed pushed back on criticism of his association with Piker during an April "Fox & Friends" appearance, saying, "[Just] because you appear with somebody, doesn't mean you agree with them on everything."

But Dixon said El-Sayed’s ties to Piker and stance on Sharia law remain issues that "you can’t ignore."

"Everybody I've talked to, I've said, this is about whether or not we preserve America, or we have somebody who's completely against everything that we are, and it goes well beyond what we've seen with Democrat and Republican," she said.

Looking back at El-Sayed’s 2007 University of Michigan commencement speech, where he served as the student speaker alongside former President Bill Clinton and told the crowd they must have "the audacity to believe we can change the world," Dixon said. "What he really meant was destroy America."

The concerns over El-Sayed’s candidacy also extend to his policies, with Dixon arguing that his economic agenda goes "beyond socialism." She said the Democratic Party has "openly embraced" socialism, adding that El-Sayed "wants government that will take over people."

"You won't thrive," Dixon said. "Everybody will be equally suffering."

Dixon said El-Sayed will struggle to unite a divided Democratic Party and appeal to working-class Michigan voters.

DAVID MARCUS: IN BOOMING DETROIT, VOTERS SKEPTICAL OF SOCIALISM SNAKE OIL

"The working-class Democrats are not socialists," Dixon said. El-Sayed has previously denied being a socialist, saying, "I believe in capitalism, I just believe that capitalism has to be regulated."

Dixon cautioned that Democrats who opposed El-Sayed in the primary could back him through straight-ticket voting in November, which lets voters select one party’s candidates with a single choice.

"The question that you're really asking is, will people hold their nose and straight-ticket vote?" Dixon said.

But Dixon said some voters could "cross over" to support Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers.

"It's going to be an interesting dynamic. It means the Republicans have to work very hard," she said.

El-Sayed is facing Rogers in November for the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, a race that could help determine control of the Senate.

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Fox News Digital reached out to El-Sayed’s campaign for comment.

MORNING GLORY: Alaska’s 'real' Senator Dan Sullivan stood up over challenger

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:00:56 -0400

Alaska U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan moved on to the general election following Tuesday’s primary, handily outpolling — though not eliminating — "dirty trick" Dan Sullivan. The challenger, a retired federal employee and teacher (of the sort who attends "No Kings" rallies) is suspected by most observers of being a "confusion candidate" meant to siphon votes in Alaska’s open primary, finished third. Because state rules send the top four vote-getters to the general election, both candidates will appear on the ranked-choice ballot in November.

At this writing, Senator Dan Sullivan is a close second to Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola in the primary voting and the other Dan Sullivan is a very distant third.

Why conclude the second Dan Sullivan is a dirty trick candidate, as described by Senator Dan Sullivan and others?

ALASKA'S BLOCKBUSTER SENATE RACE THROWN INTO CHAOS AS SAME-NAME CHALLENGER FIGHTS DISQUALIFICATION IN COURT

According to Alaska election officials, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. initially sought ballot access as "Dan Sullivan," although his voter-registration records identified him as Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. The Division of Elections regarded that as evidence that he wanted voters to mistake him for the incumbent. He also changed his party affiliation to Republican immediately before filing and had never before been registered as a Republican.

"Dirty Trick" Dan Sullivan’s campaign also had connections to a Democratic political consultant, one whose work history included supporting Democrats. Alaska election officials actually tried to remove "Dirty Trick" Dan Sullivan from the ballot, but the state Supreme Court ruled he could be on the ballot. This week, Reuters reported that the United States Department of Justice is investigating the campaign of the second Dan Sullivan and has issued Grand Jury subpoenas as part of a federal probe into what could be shenanigans.

ALASKA’S DAN SULLIVAN TELLS 'RUTHLESS' HE WILL OVERCOME DEM EFFORT TO ‘STEAL’ HIS NAME

Senator Dan Sullivan should be in good shape for the fall runoff as he is a relentless campaigner and a very effective senator who will run hard through the tape in a state President Trump carried by 13% two years ago, and do so with a general election voter turnout expected to more than double Tuesday’s vote.

Voting numbers from the past year demonstrate that general election turnout can and does soar over the August primary totals, even in mid-term elections.

The current statewide count in Tuesday’s primary was around 109,000 ballots when this column filed, and the final number should rise as absentee ballots are counted.

In the 2024 general, 340,981 Alaskans voted after 108,906 voted in the primary.

In the 2022 general, 267,047 voted after roughly 190,000 participated. That year, the Senate and gubernatorial races generated unusually high primary interest.

Much attention focused on the suspected dirty trick in recent weeks on the second Dan Sullivan and that focus will continue through the fall. The Alaskans I know are completely up to speed on the suspected bluff and the general electorate should decide on the merits, though the ranked choice rules are never well understood, even by long-term Alaskans.

JUDGE RULES REPUBLICAN WITH SAME NAME AS SEN DAN SULLIVAN CAN STAY ON ALASKA PRIMARY BALLOT

Senator Sullivan is a patriot and well known to his fellow Alaskans. Senator Sullivan joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1993, serving on active duty and subsequently in the Marine Corps Reserve, retiring with the rank of colonel.

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Senator Sullivan’s service included a short-term deployment in Afghanistan as a reservist, (he remained in the Marine Corps Reserve for many years while pursuing his civilian career) and his extended active-duty deployment was from 2004-06, with substantial time in the Middle East, Horn of Africa and Central Asia. His military background has strongly influenced his Senate work, particularly on defense, Arctic security and veterans’ issues.

TWO ICEBREAKERS HEADED TO ALASKA AS US COMBATS RUSSIAN, CHINESE INFLUENCE IN ARCTIC

Senator Sullivan attended Harvard College and Georgetown University Law School, clerked for federal and state judges and worked as an attorney in Alaska before joining President George W. Bush’s administration, Security Council staff, before becoming W’s Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Energy and Business Affairs, serving in that job from 2006 to 2009.

Senator Sullivan then served as Alaska’s Natural Resource Commissioner and as its Attorney General before successfully running for the Senate in 2014. At 61, Sullivan has entered his prime as a senator with the sort of Senate seniority that allows him to serve Alaska’s citizenry very well. Alaska’s most important economic issues — oil and gas development, mining, federal lands, resource management and Arctic development as well as the U.S. military presence in the Arctic state — depend on their Senate duo having the clout that comes with seniority. Sullivan, along with Senator Lisa Murkowski, have that.

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Senator Dan Sullivan will be on the November ballot with a ballot designation "Republican incumbent," backed by a major campaign effort across every media platform with a seasoned GOTV team turning out every voter. Alaskans who know the stakes for their state, and they know too the deep downside for the Alaska economy when Democrats control the upper chamber in D.C. They won’t get fooled by a faux Senate candidate working the weird rule set up north.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show" heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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One monthly bill Americans can’t avoid is quietly surging thanks to emerging industry: data

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:00:39 -0400

Americans could soon feel the artificial intelligence boom in an unavoidable place — their monthly electric bills.

Research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas finds that the rapid growth of AI data centers could make electricity more expensive for households in the coming years.

And researchers estimate existing data centers that have popped up all over the country in recent years have already pushed average wholesale electricity prices 2% to 6% higher nationwide, with even larger surges in areas where these facilities are concentrated.

The issue is sure to take even more prominence as affordability, emerging technology and the future of energy-sucking data centers becomes central to many Americans' sentiments at the ballot box.

A SOUTHERN STATE JUST TOOK THE TOP SPOT IN ONE OF THE WORLD’S FASTEST-GROWING INDUSTRIES

The pressure in monthly bills could grow in conjunction with the AI boom. The preferred middle-range scenario for researchers shows the cost increases of generating electricity could be 20% to 30% higher by 2028 compared to what it would be without new data centers.

That does not mean a family's electric bill will jump 20% to 30% — that figure is much more nuanced.

Depending on its size, a single large data center can use as much electricity as a small city, according to estimates compiled by Fed researchers.

Wholesale electricity is only one part of what consumers pay for, alongside costs such as transmission and distribution.

The researchers at the Dallas Fed estimate energy costs make up roughly half of a typical retail electricity price, and wholesale increases generally take time to work their way into household rates. In short – the future of electricity bills is unclear, but is likely to steadily rise over the next two years.

AMERICANS HIT WITH SOARING ELECTRICITY BILLS AS PRICE HIKES OUTPACE INFLATION NATIONWIDE

At its core, the explanation is straightforward, though the implications are more complex. Data centers need enormous amounts of electricity to run the computers behind AI.

As more data centers connect to the grid, utilities may need additional power plants, transmission lines, substations and other infrastructure to serve them.

Who ultimately pays for those upgrades depends in part on how regulators and utilities divide the costs between data centers and other customers.

The growing strain has is at the center of many political debates.

President Donald Trump has pushed to expand America's AI infrastructure while backing a voluntary pledge aimed at preventing data centers from driving up household utility bills.

TRUMP HEADS TOWARD UNLIKELY CLASH WITH CLOSE ALLY OVER FUTURE OF MULTIBILLION-DOLLAR INDUSTRY

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has ordered regulators to halt data center projects seeking to connect to the state's main power grid until they undergo a comprehensive audit.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has also moved to tighten oversight of large-scale data center development as the state weighs how to balance new investment with rising electricity demand.

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Other governors have gone further, including Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who imposed a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data centers.

States continue to grapple with concerns over electricity costs, grid reliability and the rapid pace of development.

When AI tests cause damage, we need stronger safeguards and real accountability

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:00:28 -0400

When a cybersecurity experiment goes wrong, the public response is predictable: Find out who is responsible, punish them, compensate the victims and make sure it never happens again.

That instinct is understandable. But imagine if automakers tested every vehicle at only 20 miles per hour because they feared a crash-test car might escape the warehouse. The public might be protected from a runaway test vehicle, but manufacturers would learn little about how cars perform under dangerous real-world conditions.

Artificial-intelligence testing presents a similar dilemma. When powerful artificial-intelligence (AI) systems escape controlled testing environments and gain unauthorized access to outside organizations, punishment alone may create more problems than it solves.

REP. TED LIEU: AI IS ALREADY TOO POWERFUL. WE NEED A KILL SWITCH BEFORE DISASTER STRIKES

Recent disclosures have revealed that advanced AI models breached third-party systems during their cybersecurity evaluations. In some cases, the organizations conducting the tests did not immediately realize what had happened. Experts warn that other unintended intrusions may have occurred without ever being detected and commentators were quick to point the finger.

The obvious response is to throw the book at the AI developers responsible. But there is a catch. If the penalties are too severe, that may deter AI labs from conducting similar research or make them even less transparent about how, when and to what ends they are evaluating their models.

AI safety testing is not an exact science.

Even the world’s leading researchers struggle to build the perfect environments to elicit as much information about their models as possible without also introducing some risk of harm to third parties. Best practices can reduce the danger, but recent incidents demonstrate that even the leaders in the field may not always properly implement those safeguards and that even when they do so risks may still remain.

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Ultimately, excessive punishment may deter labs from performing this societally important research or from doing so in a way that’s likely to demonstrate a model’s full capabilities.

Researchers must push advanced systems hard enough to expose their weaknesses before foreign adversaries or criminals do. At the same time, innocent businesses should not be forced to pay the price when those tests escape the lab.

That means that we need a smarter answer than simply "punish the lab."

Some argue that access to the most powerful AI tools should be restricted to a small group of government-approved partners. Under the status quo, the most advanced tools are first offered to "trusted partners," as established by a combination of the labs and the U.S. government. If you’re off that list, then you may find yourself particularly vulnerable to such incidents.

FROM NEW YORK TO TEXAS, STATES SHOULD RESPECT LOCAL CONTROL ON DATA CENTERS

America’s response should focus on strengthening cyber defenses across critical infrastructure, the private sector and civil society — not merely compensating victims after the damage is done. Nor can the United States solve the problem by bringing AI development to a halt. America is competing with hostile foreign powers to shape the future of this technology. Unilateral surrender would not make AI disappear. It would simply allow our adversaries to take the lead.

The better path is to continue advancing American AI while requiring developers to bear the risks their most dangerous tests create, conducting the R&D necessary to design more robust testing environments and develop more steerable AI tools.

Congress already has a model for balancing technological progress with potentially catastrophic consequences: the Price-Anderson framework for nuclear accidents. Under that system, nuclear operators carry insurance and can be required to contribute to a broader industry compensation pool when an accident exceeds ordinary coverage. Congress should consider applying the same basic framework to frontier AI or state-of-the-art models that are highly capable across most domains.

Frontier labs would pay a base assessment into a national cyber-resilience account, which would help civil-society organizations and critical-infrastructure operators shore up their defenses before an incident occurs. Those fees would be reduced when a developer follows verified containment standards, submits to independent review, maintains complete testing logs and cooperates fully with monitoring and incident investigations. In other words, responsible behavior should cost less. Reckless behavior should cost more.

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Americans are right to demand accountability when an AI test goes off the rails. But accountability should do more than satisfy the desire to point fingers. It should make the country safer. The program should not shield labs from lawsuits based on gross negligence, willful misconduct or concealment of evidence.

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Washington should allow American developers to conduct the demanding tests necessary to expose AI’s most dangerous capabilities. But when those experiments escape into the real world, the costs should not fall on innocent Americans who never agreed to become test subjects.

Want to stop socialism? A modern civic education needs a lot more than you'd think

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 05:00:25 -0400

The recent election victories of socialist and progressive candidates in New York, Michigan and Minnesota, along with Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong’s narrow loss in Wisconsin, highlight the changing political and economic attitudes of a growing segment of Americans. Perhaps most surprising is the constituency driving this movement: younger, college-educated voters.

Recent analysis shows support for Democratic Socialist candidates particularly strong among highly educated younger voters. By contrast, support among working-class voters without a college degree is weaker, despite these candidates’ emphasis on policies intended to benefit working-class households.

There is no shortage of explanations for the recent rise in support for socialism among young college graduates. Conservatives emphasize ideological capture within universities. Progressives emphasize housing affordability and economic insecurity. Both likely play a role, but these results raise a more fundamental issue. Higher education has spent decades encouraging students to engage in political and economic debates without first ensuring that they possess the foundational knowledge to adequately evaluate those debates. Hence, before students decide what they believe about capitalism and socialism or vote to reform America's political and economic systems, they should first understand how our systems actually work.

FOX NEWS POLL: FAITH IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE US IS COLLAPSING

One promising response has been the emergence of schools devoted to civic education. These schools seek to restore serious study of history, constitutional government, economics and the traditions of self-government to undergraduate education. Their main purpose is not to produce historians, political scientists, philosophers or economists. Rather, they seek to prepare graduates for lives of informed citizenship and responsible leadership. Graduates will go into numerous fields, including business, medicine, law and politics. Regardless of their career choices, these students will be equipped to help shape America’s future.

The renewal of civic education reflects a broader question confronting higher education as a whole: What knowledge should every educated citizen possess?

Among these new schools, the School of Civic Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin illustrates one approach. As my dean, Justin Dyer, has argued, civic education should be pre-partisan: "Before we can develop a reasonable outlook on the policy issues of the day, we must first acquire knowledge of the character and basis of the political institutions we have inherited and must now steward as Americans. Civic education gives us this knowledge and in so doing prepares us for liberty."

This vision rests on three pillars: history, constitutionalism and economics. History teaches students how the ideas and events that came before us shaped the American experiment. Constitutionalism teaches students how our institutions operate in a democratic republic. Economics teaches students how incentives, markets and institutions shape prosperity and public policy. Together, these three disciplines provide students with the intellectual foundation necessary to understand and steward our country, regardless of the profession they ultimately pursue.

CAPITALISM IS ABOUT INCENTIVES. STOPPING THE STUPIDITY OF SOCIALISM IS A BIG INCENTIVE

In practice, however, economics has often occupied a less prominent place in civic education compared to history and constitutional government.

At its best, economic reasoning provides a pre-partisan framework for analyzing public policy. When applied properly, economic analysis does not begin with a predetermined policy outcome. Rather, it begins by examining costs, benefits, incentives and unintended consequences.

Notably, economic analysis seeks to examine two important questions related to public policy: causality and efficiency. Causality tells us which policies achieve a desired outcome. Efficiency asks how to achieve that outcome at the lowest cost to society.

Importantly, when taught correctly, economics doesn't tell students how to vote or which candidates to support. Rather, it provides a common analytical framework to teach students how to evaluate competing claims and consider tradeoffs. That shared framework, not agreement on political outcomes, is what makes economics uniquely suited to a pre-partisan civic education.

COLLEGE STUDENTS EXPRESS STRONG TRUST IN SCHOOL LEADERS DESPITE BROADER PUBLIC CYNICISM: GALLUP

Every citizen can vote or borrow money, and all of us have to pay taxes. And we have to live with the consequences of the economic policies enacted by our elected officials. Yet among students who began college in 2012, only about one-quarter received any college-level economics instruction. Citizens cannot meaningfully participate in those debates without first understanding basic economic principles. A civic education that omits economic reasoning is incomplete.

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If one purpose of higher education is to prepare graduates for the responsibilities of citizenship, then economics cannot remain peripheral. The resurgence of civic education has rightly restored emphasis on the study of America’s history and constitutional systems.

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However, we must also ensure every graduate understands the economic system that has helped make America the most prosperous nation in human history. Before Americans vote to reform or replace our economic and political institutions, they must first understand how those institutions actually work.

The family group chat is a goldmine for scammers

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 04:57:44 -0400

The last message in your family group chat may have seemed completely harmless. It could have been a beach photo, a flight arrival time, a dentist appointment or an update about Dad's cardiologist.

These are the everyday details that keep families connected. They can also give scammers the information they need to impersonate someone you love.

A criminal may already know your relatives' names, phone numbers and addresses before making contact. Your family group chat can supply the current details that make the scam believable.

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YOUR SENIOR PARENTS ARE EASIER TO IMPERSONATE THAN YOU ARE

What scammers may already know about your family

Scammers do not always need to hack an account. Instead, they may need only a few minutes and access to a data broker site. Sites such as Spokeo, Whitepages and BeenVerified may reveal your name, address history and phone number. They may also list your relatives, including your spouse, adult children, grandchildren and siblings. That information gives a scammer the outline of your family. Meanwhile, your family group chat can fill in the missing details.

For example, you might post that you just returned from Florida. Your daughter may mention that your grandson is backpacking through Europe. You might also share Dad's next doctor's appointment or the date the grandkids start at a new school. Those updates may feel private. However, they can become exposed if someone shares them elsewhere, posts similar details on social media or loses control of an account.

The FBI has explained how criminals use this information in grandparent scams. A scammer may learn that a grandson is a photographer who often travels to Mexico. Then the caller claims to be stranded there after losing his passport and camera equipment. The story sounds believable because it includes real details. The FTC warns that scammers "may know your name, where you live, and other information they could have found on social media." In other words, criminals can combine public records with personal updates to create a convincing lie.

The numbers behind family impersonation scams are not small

In 2025, Americans age 60 and older reported $7.7 billion in losses to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, with more than 201,000 complaints filed. Here is the number that should stop you. A data removal service analysis of FBI data found that 72% of elder fraud cases in 2024 were enabled by victims' personal data being available online. Those cases accounted for $4.2 billion in losses, or 86% of the total amount stolen.

An 86-year-old woman named Joyce received a call about her real grandson, Grant. The caller reportedly knew he wore glasses, worked as a teacher and was in his mid-20s. Her daughter-in-law later recalled, "There were comments like, 'He's such a nice young man. I love the glasses he wears.'"

Gary Schildhorn told the U.S. Senate Aging Committee about receiving a call from what sounded exactly like his son's voice. The caller asked for nearly $9,000 in bail money. "There was no doubt in my mind that it was his voice on the phone," he said. It was an AI-generated voice clone.

Security researchers say criminals may need only a short audio clip to reproduce someone's voice. That is the type of clip families share in group chats every day. In August 2025, federal prosecutors in Massachusetts charged 13 people in a ring accused of stealing more than $5 million from over 400 victims across five states. The victims' average age was 84. The U.S. Attorney's summary was blunt: "Their goal was to trick our parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends into handing over their life savings under false pretenses, and they succeeded."

Your group chat can also be hijacked outright

Scammers do not always rely on information posted outside the group. Sometimes they take over the chat itself. One common WhatsApp takeover trick starts with a message claiming that a verification code was sent to you by mistake. The sender asks you to forward it. That code is actually your registration code. Forwarding it may allow someone to register your number on another phone. The criminal could then lock you out, create a new PIN and start messaging your family while pretending to be you.

Facebook Messenger accounts can also be cloned or hijacked. With iMessage scams, criminals may try to persuade you to respond to a disabled scam link so that the link becomes active again. SIM swapping presents another threat. A criminal who convinces your carrier to transfer your phone number to a different device may gain access without asking you to forward a code. Once that happens, the scammer no longer needs to guess your relatives' names. The criminal may be inside the group chat using them.

HI MOM TEXT SCAM: HOW TO SPOT FAKE EMERGENCY TEXTS

"But I'm not going to stop talking to my grandkids to be safe"

Good. You should not. Nobody is asking you to leave the family group chat. Disappearing from it would take away one of the best parts of getting older: staying close to your family every day. This isn’t about talking less. It is about making a few five-minute security changes that can close the doors scammers use while preserving the connection your family values.

Lock down the group chat without losing the fun

A few changes can strengthen your account security and help your family respond safely when a suspicious message appears.

1) Turn on two-step verification

Two-step verification adds another layer of protection to your accounts. Therefore, turn it on for every messaging, social media and email account that supports it.

WhatsApp: Open Settings > Account > Two-step verification.

Facebook: Open Accounts Center > Password and security > Two-factor authentication.

Apple Account: Open Settings > [your name] > Sign-In & Security > Two-Factor Authentication.

This extra security step can help block an account takeover, even if a scammer steals your password or tries to register your account on another device.

2) Never forward a verification code

Create a family rule that nobody forwards a verification code received by text, email or an authentication app. A legitimate platform will not ask you to send your private login code to another person. A real family member should not need it either. Even when the request appears to come from your child or grandchild, call that person using a phone number you already have before taking action.

3) Create a family codeword

Choose a word, phrase or question that only your real family knows. Before anyone sends money or responds to an emergency request, ask for the codeword. Apply the rule every time, even when the person's voice sounds convincing. Do not place the codeword in the same group chat you are trying to protect. Share it by phone or in person.

YOUR FAMILY COULD BE ONE PHONE CALL FROM A BANK SCAM

4) Wait until you are home to share travel photos

Post beach photos after you return home rather than while you are still traveling. Real-time travel posts may reveal that your home is empty. They can also give scammers a believable opening line about where you are, where you have been or when you are expected to return. You can still share every great photo. A short delay makes the information less useful to someone watching your activity.

5) Tighten your group chat privacy settings

On WhatsApp, review who can see your profile photo, last seen status and About information. Consider limiting those details to your contacts. You can also restrict who is allowed to add you to groups. For conversations containing addresses, appointments or routines, consider enabling Advanced Chat Privacy when it is available. Review similar privacy settings on Facebook, Instagram and any other service your family uses.

6) Verify strange messages by phone

Treat an account as untrusted when a family member suddenly asks you to forward a code, send money, buy gift cards or keep an emergency secret. Getting logged out unexpectedly can also indicate that someone is attempting to take over your account. Stop responding in the chat and call the family member directly using a phone number you already had. Do not call a new number provided in the suspicious message.

7) Protect every account with a password manager

Use a password manager to create and store a different strong password for every messaging, email and social media account. Reusing the same password gives criminals more opportunities. If one service suffers a breach, the stolen password may be tested against your other accounts. A password manager also reduces the temptation to choose short passwords based on birthdays, pets or family names that a scammer could discover online.

8) Close the door the scam actually walks through

There is one problem these security settings cannot solve: the data broker profile that may have made the scam believable in the first place.

Search for your name on sites such as Spokeo or Whitepages. You may find your address, phone number and relatives listed by name. That is the information a scammer can see before making contact.

Meanwhile, your group chat supplies the current details that make the eventual call or message convincing. The data broker profile may have helped identify your family as a possible target.

You can request removal from data broker sites yourself. However, the process can take time, and your information may reappear later.

For ongoing help, consider using a reputable data removal service. These services send removal requests to data brokers on your behalf and continue checking whether your personal information returns.

No service can remove every trace of your data from the internet. Still, reducing the number of sites that display your address, phone number and family connections can make it harder for scammers to build a convincing profile around you.

Check out my top picks for data removal services and get a free scan to find out if your personal information is already out on the web by visiting Cyberguy.com.

Kurt's key takeaways

The family group chat may feel like the safest room in your digital life, but the information shared there can become valuable to criminals. Data brokers may already have your relatives mapped out by name, while travel plans, appointments and everyday updates give scammers the current details they need to create a convincing story. Real families have lost thousands of dollars to callers who appeared to know everything about them. Messaging accounts can also be hijacked through stolen verification codes, weak passwords, phishing attempts or SIM-swapping attacks. You do not need to leave the family group chat. Turn on two-step verification, use unique passwords stored in a password manager, create a family codeword and wait until you return home before sharing travel updates. Those precautions can protect your accounts, but they cannot remove information that is already sitting on data broker sites. Reducing that exposure requires regularly checking what is public and requesting that your information be removed. Stay close to your family. Just make it harder for someone else to use that closeness against you.

Has a scammer ever contacted you or a relative using real names, travel details or other personal information that made the story feel convincing? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com.

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CBP officers seize nearly 850 pounds of khat packed into 12 suitcases after flight from London

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 03:39:28 -0400

Two travelers arriving from London allegedly packed nearly 850 pounds of khat into 12 suitcases before the massive haul was uncovered by customs officers at a Maryland airport.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said the two U.S. citizens from New York arrived at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on Aug. 13 and were referred for secondary inspection.

During a subsequent baggage examination, officers discovered what appeared to be a large quantity of tea leaves, which later tested positive for khat, or Catha edulis, according to CBP.

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Authorities said each traveler had six soft-sided suitcases filled with khat. The seized material weighed approximately 847 pounds and had an estimated street value of about $100,000.

The men were released pending further investigation, CBP said.

Khat, also known as Abyssinian tea and African salad, is typically grown in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula and is chewed for its amphetamine-like effects, according to CBP. Dried khat leaves can also be boiled to make a stimulant tea.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), khat contains two central nervous system stimulants — cathinone, a Schedule I controlled substance, and cathine, a Schedule IV controlled substance.

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Symptoms of khat toxicity can include delusions, loss of appetite, difficulty breathing and increased blood pressure and heart rate, according to the DEA.

The World Health Organization classified khat as a drug of abuse in 1980.

The discovery came just days after CBP officers seized another 412 pounds of khat from unclaimed traveler baggage at the same airport.

In that case, CBP said officers "spooked" a suspected smuggler, who fled the inspection station and left the khat behind.

CBP SEIZES MASSIVE METH HAUL WORTH MILLIONS STASHED IN SECRET TILE SHIPMENT

"Customs and Border Protection officers have observed substantial quantities of khat being smuggled in commercial shipments, but smuggling loads of this volume inside traveler baggage is a bit unusual, and not any more successful," CBP's Baltimore Area Port Director Adam Rottman said in a statement.

"Khat is illegal and poses severe health risks to users," Rottman continued. "CBP will continue to seize khat and other dangerous drugs when we encounter it and we will work with our law enforcement partners to hold smugglers accountable."

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CBP officers seized roughly 46,000 pounds of khat last fiscal year and nearly 20,000 pounds during the current fiscal year so far, according to the agency.