Fox News 2024-10-19 00:08:52


Chilling drone video shows Hamas terror leader’s last movements before death

Hamas on Friday is admitting to suffering “very painful and distressing” losses following the killing of its leader Yahya Sinwar as the Israeli military has released new drone video capturing the final moments of the terrorist’s life. 

Footage taken of a wounded Sinwar shows him throwing a wooden board at a drone that was surveying damage inside of a building that the Israel Defense Forces targeted in Rafah, according to IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. Sinwar was later found dead with a gun and nearly $11,000 in his possession, he added. 

“Yes it’s very painful and distressing to lose beloved people, especially extraordinary leaders like ours, but what we are sure of is that we are eventually victorious; this is the outcome for all people who fought for their liberty,” senior Hamas official Basem Naim said Friday. 

“It seems that Israel believes that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people. They can believe what they want, and this is not the first time they said that,” he continued. 

IRAN REMEMBERS OCT. 7 MASTERMIND YAHYA SINWAR AS A ‘MARTYR’ AND ‘MODEL FOR THE YOUTH AND CHILDREN’ 

Naim added that despite the past killings of Hamas’ founders the first commander of its military wing, the terrorist group “each time became stronger and more popular, and these leaders became an icon for future generations to continue the journey towards a free Palestine.” 

“Hamas is a liberation movement led by people looking for freedom and dignity, and this cannot be eliminated,” he also said. 

ELIMINATION OF SINWAR IS ‘SIGNIFICANT AND PRESENTS OPPORTUNITY FOR CEASE-FIRE, STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said Thursday following the announcement of Sinwar’s death in the southern Gaza Strip that “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza” and “this is the beginning of the day after Hamas, and this is an opportunity for you, the residents of Gaza, to finally break free from its tyranny.” 

An Israel Army Radio report said Thursday that Sinwar was killed during a battle with Israeli soldiers.  

The soldiers had spotted suspected terrorists in Gaza and opened fire before the individuals fled into a building, according to the report. It added that a tank then fired a shell at the building, causing it to collapse. 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

When the soldiers went inside to examine the aftermath, they found three bodies — one of which ultimately was identified as Sinwar. 

Bill Maher questions why allegations about the second gentleman are being ignored

“Real Time” host Bill Maher questioned whether it was wise for the liberal media to continue avoiding the growing controversies surrounding Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

“There’s a lot of scuttlebutt in the news this week about Doug,” Maher said in a panel discussion on Friday’s “Overtime” online segment of his HBO show. “If people don’t know what’s going on, the Daily Mail is reporting that three women [Emhoff’s ex-girlfriend] talked to contemporaneously, which has been the standard very often in these cases, that she said back in, I think, 2011 or something, they were at the Cannes Film Festival. He slapped her. He thought she was flirting with the valet.”

“He knocked up the nanny, right? That’s confirmed,” conservative radio host Buck Sexton chimed in.

MAHER SAYS ELECTION ‘NOT LOOKING THAT GREAT’ FOR HARRIS, MOCKS NEED TO HAVE OBAMA ‘SCOLD’ BLACK MEN ON VOTING

“That’s confirmed. He definitely knocked up the nanny,” Maher responded with a chuckle. “What I’m saying is, if this becomes more credible- and we don’t know yet. I mean, a lot of the conservative outlets still aren’t reporting it, so I wouldn’t go after anybody for not reporting it yet because these things have to be checked out. But if it becomes more credible, certainly on the level of Brett Kavanaugh, which was that kind of thing was reported by everybody pretty quickly. Does the liberal media keep ignoring it?”

“Yes, they will. Absolutely,” Sexton answered. 

“Wouldn’t that make it look worse?” Maher then asked. 

CNN anchor Laura Coates responded by saying it is “prudent” for the media to be “cautious” about such serious allegations like the ones facing Emhoff “until you have the supporting details,” adding that it’s “fair” to look into the claims. 

“What I don’t think is fair is to, and I’m consistent on this on all accounts, is to tar and feather without more,” Coates said. “I think you have to give information to people, and you have to actually do your homework and background. I don’t think by not reporting- and again, I’m not familiar with all of the allegations that are involved here, but I think it is appropriate to investigate as it is appropriate to be cautious before you simply put something into the ether that has those substantiations.”

DOUG EMHOFF DOESN’T DENY REPORT HE SLAPPED EX-GIRLFRIEND OUTSIDE OVERSEAS MOVIE EVENT

The Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta called the Emhoff controversy “a problem” for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign that is “going to have to deal with now.”

“Regardless of what’s confirmed or not confirmed, I think that there is now a little bit of blood in the water. The nanny thing was the first drop. And now there’s some more,” Alberta said. “And it’s not gonna be long now. I can guarantee you that there are investigative teams at The Times and The Post and elsewhere that are looking into it.”

KAMALA HARRIS’ HUSBAND DOUG EMHOFF ADMITS TO EXTRAMARITAL AFFAIR THAT LED TO BREAKUP OF FIRST MARRIAGE

Emhoff, who was heralded by the media as a positive figure of masculinity, has been engulfed in controversy in recent weeks. Emhoff confirmed he had an extramarital affair with the family nanny and got her pregnant, which resulted in the ending of his marriage to his first wife, Kerstin Emhoff.

“During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions,” Emhoff said in a statement. “I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side.” 

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The Daily Mail then followed with reports laying out damning allegations, including him “forcefully slapping” his then-girlfriend in 2012 as well as him engaging in “inappropriate” and “misogynistic” office behavior during his tenure leading the LA law firm Venable from 2006 to 2017. 

Nearly every media interviewer has avoided the subject entirely while sitting down with Emhoff since the controversies broke, but when MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough broadly invoked “tabloid stories” about him, the second gentleman did not deny the allegations. 

“We don’t have time to be pissed off. We don’t have time to focus on it. It’s all a distraction. It’s designed to try to get us off our game,” Emhoff told Scarborough last week.

Harris can no longer hide from her dangerous stance on men playing in girls’ sports

For over a decade now, the issue of trangenderism has gained increasing prominence in American politics, which is natural when personal choices begin to intersect with public policy, and for Kamala Harris it has risen above the surface at the worst possible time.

There have always been policy concerns around the idea that men can simply decide they are women. There were questions about women’s shelters and prisons, locker rooms and bathrooms, but nothing puts quite as fine a point on the issue as men competing in women’s sports.

FEMALE ATHLETE INJURED BY TRANSGENDER COMPETITOR SLAMS DEMOCRATS WHO DISMISSED DANGERS

For his part, Donald Trump has a clear and concise answer to the troubling phenomenon, telling a Fox News town hall this week, “It’s such an easy question. Everybody in the room and you know that – we’re not going to let it happen.”

And of course, he’s right. Very few people can see pictures of male swimmer Lea Thomas towering over her female competition, or watch men in volleyball matches slamming the ball into women’s faces without instinctively seeing that it is wrong and unfair.

But unfortunately for Kamala Harris and the Democrats, neither she nor they can say that, as glaringly obvious as it is.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is now calling this a sleeper issue in the 2024 race, for Harris as well as senate candidates such as Ohio’s Sherrod Brown and Montana’s Jon Tester who have voted in the past to secure transgender rights.

For her part, Vice President Harris has come under fire for her role as Attorney General of California in ensuring prisoners and illegal aliens had access to taxpayer-funded transition surgery.

HARRIS DODGES QUESTION ON TAXPAYER-FUNDER TRANSGENDER SURGERY FOR PRISONERS

I brought that up recently to a Virginia Harris voter in his 60s in Staunton, and he was shocked, “is that true?” he asked?  

Yes, it’s true.

The implacable conundrum that Democrats face on this issue is that in order to come to the conclusion that men who identify as trans should not be competing against women, you have to acknowledge that they are not actually women, and according to the left, that makes one a horrible bigot.

There is no way around this. Whether gender is a decision or a biological reality is a binary choice, and Democrats made their choice at a time when they thought there was a political advantage to painting Republicans who defend biological reality as intolerant.

This ain’t fracking or Medicare for all. Harris is not in a position to “evolve” on the trans issue without alienating the left of her party irrevocably. She can’t simply say, “I was wrong, gender is determined by biology,” any more than Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson can define the word woman.

With three weeks left until Election Day, Republicans up and down the ballot are inundating football games with ads showing the unfair and dangerous nature of men in women’s sports, and more and more women are speaking up.

Dan, in Fredericksburg, is in his 40s and also leans Democratic, but he told me, “Yeah, it’s obviously a problem and shouldn’t be happening.”

I bring up Virginia voters in particular because that blue-bending commonwealth has a Republican governor in Glenn Youngkin, in large part because of his reasonable stances on cultural issues like this.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The Trump campaign and Republicans writ large know they have a winner on this issue. They also know, as does the news media, that Harris has left herself no wiggle room. This is a candidate who just five years ago at a CNN town hall introduced herself by saying, “my pronouns are she, her, and hers.”

It’s tough to walk that back.

No, Kamala Harris and the Democrats will have to sleep in this bed that they made for themselves, even as more and more voters realize that this absurd notion that gender is a choice has serious real world implications.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The transgender charade is coming to an end. Everyone has the right to dress how they want, call themselves what they want, but they do not have the right to insist that everybody else deny reality to suit their preferences.

This issue isn’t going away, not in the next three weeks or after. The American people will protect girls and women in sports, whether Kamala Harris likes it or not.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS

Police forced to take action as crime overwhelms streets of AOC’s ‘Third World’ district

New York state troopers have been deployed to help clean up a crime-infested seedy strip in Queens, part of which encompasses “defund the police” advocate Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district, where prostitution, illegal vendors and robberies are rampant.

Some residents compare it to a Third World country. 

The troopers arrived as part of a multi-agency crackdown spearheaded by embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams called “Operation Restore Roosevelt,” which aims to crack down on miscreant behavior over the next 90 days and bring back law and order to the commercial strip, which one Democratic politician described as “having more brothels than bodegas.” 

The operation covers a nearly two-mile stretch along Roosevelt Avenue in the migrant-heavy neighborhoods of Elmhurst, North Corona and Jackson Heights, which has become known as a red-light district where those described as scantily dressed migrant prostitutes solicit sex during all hours of the day and night.

AOC’S ‘RED LIGHT’ DISTRICT OVERRUN WITH PROSTITUTES AS LOCALS CALL OUT MIA ‘SQUAD’ MEMBER

Illegal street vendors clog the sidewalks to cook hot food in the open as other vendors push everything from used clothes to pots and pans or tools.

Last month, Fox News Digital cameras recorded a line of no less than 19 alleged sex workers on a sidewalk on one block along Roosevelt Avenue. Around the corner, there were at least seven more, and a woman on the next block was witnessed offering sex for $60. Fox News Digital even recorded an alleged sex worker and her client emerging from a well-known brothel that was raided the night before and raided again just last week.

Known to locals as the “Avenue of the Sweethearts,” the area has become an epicenter of vice, and parents have raised the alarm about sex workers operating in the open near schools and local taekwondo centers.

“We will end sex trafficking in this area. We are not here for one day and go away. We’re here for the problem to go away,” Adams said at a press conference late Tuesday announcing the strategy while flanked by top NYPD brass, including NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry. Council Member Francisco Moya, a Democrat, also attended. 

Adams said the beefed-up presence will consist of nine lieutenants, 42 sergeants and 176 police officers who bring together more than a dozen city agencies with state troopers.

Residents have been calling for the area to be cleaned up for years. Brothel raids attended by Adams in January seemed to have little impact on the dire situation, and residents told Fox News Digital this summer was worse than ever.

Earlier Tuesday, a large gathering of around 200 NYPD officers and state troopers gathered at Roosevelt Avenue near 83rd and 84th streets, according to Democratic politician Hiram Monserrate, who describes the area as an “urban crime zone.” He said about 50 state troopers were in attendance. A spokesperson for the New York State Police did not say how many troopers were deployed Tuesday but told Fox News Digital the day-to-day numbers throughout the operation will fluctuate. 

The boots on the ground were welcomed by Monserrate, who last week told Fox News Digital he had urged Gov. Kathy Hochul to intervene. He said the troop deployment was a victory for grassroots groups of citizens who have held countless rallies advocating for change. 

“Today, true leadership stood up and began the process of taking Roosevelt Avenue back from the street gangs, cartels, human traffickers, street walkers and other criminal operations,” Monserrate said in a statement. “We support our police, and the community is looking forward to seeing positive results. We need public safety and quality of life returned … and we will remain vigilant.”

Monserrate, a former New York state senator and council member, said the police patrol in the area had been slashed by around one-third in recent years, which partly led to the area becoming a haven for crime.

“You got cartels, you got good street gangs, you got drug gangs, human trafficking rings. And they’re running the whole operation,” Monserrate told Fox News Digital. “We just don’t have enough of a police force.”

Monserrate, who is running for state assembly next year, said a lack of enforcement by police is also partly to blame for the dire conditions along the strip.  

This isn’t just the guys snatching chains. These are organized operations. That’s what we’re confronting, and they’ve all descended on the Roosevelt Avenue corridor. But the fact remains, there are so many criminal elements there you just need more officers, and you can’t do it without them.”

Monserrate and the Let’s Improve Roosevelt Avenue Coalition, a local advocacy group he co-founded, wrote to Hochul earlier this month calling for more police and slammed other elected officials representing the area who they say have advocated for legalizing prostitution and defunding the police. 

Monserrate also wants New York’s controversial bail laws backed by Democrats in the state capital of Albany to be fully reversed. The law ended the use of cash bail and jail for most cases involving misdemeanors and lower-level felonies.

VIDEO: Curtis Sliwa, local activist blast rampant prostitution on NYC streets, AOC’s district:

AOC DISTRICT NEIGHBORHOOD LABELED ‘THIRD WORLD’ AS MIGRANTS CLOG STREETS AND PROSTITUTES OVERRUN EVERY BLOCK

So the cops are not arresting the shoplifters,” Monserrate said. “They’re not getting bail, so they keep shoplifting, and they steal them. And they come right back to Roosevelt Avenue, and they sell the stolen items. [So], we see our shops and our pharmacies closing down. … [I]t’s a vicious cycle of criminality, it really is. It has become an urban crime zone.”

While police have been raiding brothels in the area, residents say few are ever prosecuted and some even reopen within hours.

Police say they raided a well-known suspected brothel off Roosevelt Avenue on Case Street Oct. 9 and arrested three women. But the same brothel was raided Sept. 18, when three arrests were made. When Fox News Digital arrived the following day, a sex worker and her client appeared to emerge from the premises. One 21-year-old woman was arrested on both occasions.

Earlier Tuesday, police said they raided a suspected brothel on the third floor of a building at 95th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Cortez’s district.

This month, a suspected member of the notorious MS-13 street gang who lived in the “Squad” member’s district pleaded guilty to sex trafficking a 17-year-old migrant girl he recruited out of a Queens shelter. 

WATCH: Alleged sex worker, client leave NYC brothel, 24 hours after police raided it:

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Cortez has yet to respond to several Fox News Digital requests for comment regarding the situation along Roosevelt Avenue. Rep. Grace Meng, whose district also includes the neighborhood, told Fox News Digital she shares the community’s concerns and thanks city officials and local law enforcement for their “ongoing work to curb illegal operations throughout the neighborhood.”

Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

State sues doctor for providing transgender hormones to kids in first of its kind lawsuit

A Dallas doctor faces legal action from Texas over accusations of unlawfully providing cross-sex hormones to transgender youths. 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a lawsuit against Dr. May Lau on Thursday, alleging that the physician provided prohibited “gender transition” hormones to over 20 adolescents in violation of a Republican-backed ban that took effect in Texas last year.

This case is the first time a state has attempted to enforce laws that ban transgender medical procedures for minors, the Associated Press reported. 

“Today, enforcement begins against those who have violated the law,” the attorney general’s office said in the lawsuit, which was filed in suburban Collin County. 

TRANSGENDER ATHLETE DEFEATED BY WOMAN COMPETITOR AT MAJOR UK COMPETITION CHAMPIONSHIP IN EPIC COMEBACK

Under Texas law, doctors are not permitted to provide surgery, puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to children for the purpose of affirming their self-professed gender identity in a way that is inconsistent with their biological sex. 

The lawsuit alleges that Lau, a professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a specialist in adolescent medicine, illegally prescribed testosterone to at least 21 biological females between the ages of 14 and 17 to transition to male or affirm their gender identity. It refers to Lau as a “scofflaw” and “radical gender activist.” 

TRUMP CALLS TRANSGENDER INCLUSION IN WOMEN’S SPORTS POLICIES ‘SO FAR OUT’

Lau is accused of “falsifying medical records, prescriptions, and billing records to represent that her testosterone prescriptions are for something other than transitioning a child’s biological sex or affirming a child’s belief that their gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex.”

The state of Texas has asked a court for an injunction that would block Lau from prescribing testosterone and estrogen to minors for the purpose of gender transition, as well as writing prescriptions and billing for gender transition treatments “under false diagnoses, such as endocrine disorder.” Lau faces fines of up to $10,000 per violation. 

TRANSGENDER BACKLASH PROMPTS PRO WOMEN’S SOCCER TEAM TO APOLOGIZE FOR ‘TOO MANY BALLS’ BRANDING ANNOUNCEMENT

Dr. Lau and UT Southwestern did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

“Texas passed a law to protect children from these dangerous unscientific medical interventions that have irreversible and damaging effects,” Paxton said in a statement. “Doctors who continue to provide these harmful ‘gender transition’ drugs and treatments will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

At least 26 states have adopted laws restricting or banning transgender medical procedures for transgender minors, and most of those states face lawsuits. Federal judges have struck down the bans in Arkansas and Florida as unconstitutional, though a federal appeals court has stayed the Florida ruling. A judge’s orders are in place to temporarily block enforcement of the ban in Montana. New Hampshire restrictions are to take effect in January.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

The lawsuit comes just weeks before an election in which Republicans have attacked Democrats for supporting transgender hormone therapies and sex-change surgery for minors. GOP Sen. Ted Cruz has repeatedly blasted his Democratic challenger, Rep. Colin Allred, for his support of transgender rights.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed the transgender medical procedure ban. He is also the first governor to order investigations of parents who seek transgender procedures for their children.

FCC commissioner explains if CBS could be in hot water over controversial ’60 Minutes’ edit

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) commissioner Nathan Simington said his priority is making sure the public was not misled after an accusation of “significant and intentional news distortion” in a formal complaint regarding the “60 Minutes” interview last week with Vice President Kamala Harris

“This complaint might come before the commission for adjudication,” Simington told Fox News Digital

CBS News has taken heat in recent days for airing two different answers to the same question in its “60 Minutes” interview last week with the Democratic nominee. Harris was mocked by conservatives when footage of her offering a lengthy “word salad” was aired by CBS’ “Face the Nation” to promote the “60 Minutes” sit-down, when Bill Whitaker asked why it seemed like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn’t listening to the U.S. 

However, the vice president’s lengthy answer didn’t make the version that aired on Monday night on “60 Minutes” and a shorter Harris answer to the same question was shown instead. The Center for American Rights, also known as CAR, argued that the discrepancies “amount to deliberate news distortion — a violation of FCC rules governing broadcasters’ public interest obligations” and formally complained to the FCC on Wednesday.

CBS ACCUSED OF ‘SIGNIFICANT AND INTENTIONAL NEWS DISTORTION’ IN FCC COMPLAINT OVER ’60 MINUTES’ EDIT

Simington walked Fox News Digital through the process that could land CBS in hot water, although it’s unlikely the network will be punished. 

“The commission acts on complaints about distortion, not complaints about editorial positions. And so, what this claim is alleging is that an act of distortion took place. And so, if you look at the FCC statute — Section 326 of our statute says that the commission doesn’t have the power of censorship over broadcast signals and the commission has generally summarized its own position as saying that we need documentary evidence of deliberate distortion that would be sufficiently strong to require an inquiry,” Simington said. 

“And in fact, in a prior proceeding on this matter, we gave the example of substituting a yes answer to one question or a no answer to an entirely different question,” he continued. “So, the Commission has certainly contemplated the possibility of distortionary reporting taking place via splicing. That’s one reason I don’t think that this complaint is facially ridiculous, and it would not be inappropriate for the commission to take it up.” 

Simington, who was appointed by former President Trump in 2020 and confirmed by the Senate, explained that “the United States is a little bit unique among the industrialized democracies” because it doesn’t have a media regulator with general power to say what can be said or written. Instead, the United States has the First Amendment that offers broad protections for freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

CBS ‘60 MINUTES’ AIRS TWO DIFFERENT ANSWERS FROM VP HARRIS TO THE SAME QUESTION

However, when it comes to television, the FCC’s view is that the airwaves are a “public trust” and any broadcasting over those airwaves is an exclusion of other parties from broadcasting over those airwaves on that frequency, so the government has a “heightened interest in the content of speech” when it occupies the airwaves that others cannot. 

Simington, who is one of two Republicans among five FCC commissioners, said the “FCC will never be an arbiter of the truth of earnestly presented political speech, even if most Americans think it’s false,” but if the network’s licensee goes out of its way to alter reporting in a way that shows bad conscience or deliberate dishonesty, the “abuse of public trust” will be examined. 

The licensee named in the complaint is WCBS TV in New York, which is not an “affiliate,” but actually owned and operated by CBS Corporation. FCC insiders believe the complaint was filed against WCBS because it is owned by CBS itself, whereas other CBS affiliates across America may not have been aware of any intentional distortion if it occurred. 

“The reason that we care about news distortion at all at the FCC and the reason that we’re willing to explore this possibility, even conceptually, given the strong First Amendment protections for broadcasters’ speech, is precisely because of this concern that we don’t want the public to be misled,” Simington said. 

“I think everyone agrees that deliberately misleading the public is a bad idea. And if there’s some possibility that that’s what took place here, then obviously we should all be upset because people go to the news in order to learn about things that they would never be able to learn about themselves,” Simington continued. “In other words, going to the news is an act of extending trust. Now, the thing about trust is that once it’s lost, it’s very difficult to regain.”

Essentially, it all comes down to whether the licensee – in this case, WCBS TV in New York – participated in, or acquiesced in, a pattern of news distortion. Then the allegation has to be deemed substantial and deliberately intended to mislead or slant the news. 

“And in all of these cases, I don’t think it would be wrong at all for the Commission to reach the conclusion that this matter is something that we should look into further,” Simington said.

CBS NEWS IN TURMOIL AS MULTIPLE CONTROVERSIES ERUPT AT THE NETWORK

Simington said that if a licensee ordered an interview to be edited in a misleading fashion to deliberately promote a particular political candidate, it could possibly breach the news distortion threshold. However, the actions of a rogue employee wouldn’t rise to that level. 

“The licensee would have to have had participated in or at least had knowledge of and acquiesced to this distortionary act. But if that happens, then, well, there’s a conduct standard for holding a license. And if you are habitually misrepresenting information to the public or engaging in other inappropriate behavior by a licensee, then you may wind up in trouble,” he said, such as a fine or conditions upon a license renewal.

CBS News did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

CBS News has not offered an on-the-record explanation or responded to requests to release the unedited video of the Harris interview.

The Center for American Rights describes itself as a “nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to protecting Americans’ most fundamental, constitutional rights,” according to its website

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP