Global Entry suspended as Senate Democrats dig in on DHS shutdown fight
Senate Democrats again blocked Republicans’ attempt to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as Congress gears up for President Donald Trump’s primetime address.
The largely party-line vote Tuesday was the first action in the Senate since lawmakers returned from a weeklong break. It’s also the second time Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., forced Senate Democrats to decide whether to reopen the agency.
Failure to advance the full-year funding bill ensured that the partial government shutdown, which is only affecting DHS, would stretch into its 12th day.
For now, there’s no clear sign that a compromise deal will be reached. The White House and Senate Democrats have sent counteroffer after counteroffer, but neither side has agreed to the other’s pitch.
And talks between both parties appeared to have petered out during the break.
A source familiar with negotiations told Fox News Digital negotiations had largely stalled and are expected to resume next week.
DHS SHUTDOWN EXPLAINED: WHO WORKS WITHOUT PAY, WHAT HAPPENS TO AIRPORTS AND DISASTER RESPONSE
“Dems were holding out for [the State of the Union],” they said.
The failed vote also comes after the Trump administration took its first steps to put external pressure on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and his caucus to agree to a compromise deal to reopen the agency.
But Schumer charged that the White House is not playing ball with Democrats and their list of reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And whether Trump brings up the ongoing negotiations during his State of the Union address could alter Democrats’ calculations going forward.
DHS SHUTDOWN DRAGS INTO WEEK TWO AS IRAN THREAT, SOTU CLASH COMPLICATE HILL TALKS
“So far, they have not budged on the key issues, like masks, like warrants, like oversight from state authorities,” Schumer said. “It depends what he says. So far, we’ve heard crickets from them. Nothing. They’re not negotiating. They’re just trying to pass paper back and forth with no real changes.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced several emergency measures over the weekend as the agency meanders through its second week of lapsed funding.
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Courtesy escorts for members of Congress have been suspended, and global entry at airports has been suspended because Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have been diverted to process travelers.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has also stopped all public assistance for ongoing disasters, paused non-emergency work, halted non-disaster-related activities and restricted personnel travel to activities “strictly necessary to respond to active disasters and life-safety emergencies,” according to the agency.
Lawmaker says Spanberger’s major flip landed her State of the Union response gig
EXCLUSIVE: Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger would never have been given airtime in the Democrats’ official response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union if it weren’t for her support of the commonwealth’s controversial redistricting and adherence to the party line, a top Republican said.
A new congressional map credited to Virginia Senate Leader L. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, would eliminate Virginia’s 6–5 Republican-to-Democrat congressional ratio and leave only southwestern Virginia Republican Rep. Morgan Griffith in a favorable seat if a constitutional amendment to redraw the maps passes in April.
Lucas and House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, have spearheaded the redistricting plan, while also facing headwinds from a Tazewell County lawsuit supported by the Republican minority.
Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., whose district runs from the Roanoke suburbs along U.S. 11 and Interstate 81 to the West Virginia line near Berryville, would be one of the Republicans likely unseated by sheer math if Democrats have their way.
Cline told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview that Spanberger’s support for redistricting belies her prior public comments lambasting the idea of gerrymandering or redistricting in a partisan way.
He added that it is Spanberger’s current support that has made her a darling of her national party to the point they are showcasing her as the State of the Union respondent.
“Governor Spanberger is trying to play the national Democrats to raise her profile and try and get on the national scene on the agenda by acquiescing to this partisan gerrymandering of the Virginia legislature,” Cline said.
“She campaigned on not gerrymandering; on saying that gerrymandering was wrong, and that flips when push comes to shove and she gets a chance to reward those leaders in the national party like Barack Obama and Hakeem Jeffries.”
Cline said he’s not surprised by the news, adding that Spanberger also made “misstatements” about key issues during her campaign against former Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears last year.
Cline said he recalls working with then-Rep. Spanberger in Congress – and that the two of them were often united in support of key Virginia industries like agriculture – but that he no longer recognizes the governor in that light.
“Abigail Spanberger was on the House Agriculture Committee and loved to talk about her connection to Virginia agriculture. But my district is currently the most agriculture-based district in Virginia and she has chopped it into five different districts and parceled it out to Northern Virginia Democrats to use to make their numbers work,” he said.
Cline said the move is offensive to Virginia farmers, as the new map strips them of a collective voice in Washington and instead forces them to lobby whichever liberal-suburb-sourced district their community falls into.
SPANBERGER SIGNALS LEFT BENT AFTER CENTRIST CAMPAIGN; GOP LEADER WARNS OF ‘FAIRFAXING THE REST OF VA’
“She should be ashamed of herself,” Cline said, adding that if Spanberger had kept to her pre-governorship position that gerrymandering is wrong, “the Democrats wouldn’t have given her a second look, because she wouldn’t have been playing along with a plan that they have for actually seizing the House majority through this gerrymandering effort.”
Instead, she’s being “rewarded” for pivoting to the party line, he said.
People in his district are also sounding the alarm about Spanberger beyond the gerrymandering plans, citing affordability commentary and other promises as well.
DEMOCRATS SAY TRUMP REDISTRICTING PUSH BACKFIRING AS VIRGINIA ADVANCES NEW HOUSE MAPS
“They’re very upset with the way she’s flipped from her campaign pledges to the way she’s actually governing. And I don’t think they’re going to respond well on April 21. I think they are going to vote down this effort to gerrymander Virginia.”
Concerns also arose over the legislature-approved language of the amendment — set to go before voters April 21 — which asks if they want to “restore fairness,” a phrase Cline and other opponents, including Del. Wren Williams, R-Stuart, have said is misleading and essentially benefits partisan Democratic politicians.
Cline said the redistricting is the marquee of Spanberger and Richmond Democrats’ efforts to radically change election laws, economic policy, taxation, cooperation agreements with federal immigration authorities and more.
“What Governor Spanberger did by withdrawing from our 287-G agreement with the state police is unacceptable. It makes us a sanctuary state for violent, illegal immigrants who are trying to escape being held accountable for their crimes. They come to Virginia, and Governor Spanberger refuses to allow state police to work with ICE,” he said.
“And so this type of reckless behavior, not only by Governor Spanberger but also the state assembly, is definitely having an impact out here in the western part of Virginia,” he said.
Under the new map, Cline’s current 6th district would be divided between the new 10th, 11th, 7th, 6th and 9th district, with the 9th being Griffith’s.
Instead of one southwest to northeast oval following the general path of the Colonial-era “Valley Pike” — Cline, who lives in Botetourt County, would find himself in the 6th or 9th.
The 10th, near Winchester, would be connected to liberal Washington suburbs like Reston, the 11th would serpentine from Luray to Washington, leaving room for the “scorpion” 7th jutting in two “pincers” toward Mount Sidney in the west and Powhatan in the east, and the 6th connecting blue cities in the rural interior like Charlottesville, Harrisonburg and Roanoke.
Heavily-populated, liberal Fairfax County will have a piece of five different districts extending into less-populated, conservative areas.
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The new 2nd District, currently comprising Cape Charles, Accomac and Virginia Beach, will shift just westward enough to slice off dense, Democrat-friendly parts of the city of Chesapeake.
Critics have also compared it to the former Maryland 3rd – a district one federal judge denounced as a “pterodactyl” shape that relied upon the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay rather than land to connect its several disjointed sections between Annapolis and Baltimore.
A new, slightly more streamlined district is currently represented by Rep. Sarah Elfreth, an Elkridge Democrat.
Fox News Digital reached out to Spanberger for comment.
Mamdani adds insult to injury after snowball mob attacks NYPD
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday downplayed Monday’s snow-throwing attack on New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers, calling the Washington Square Park incident a “snowball fight,” despite multiple hospitalizations for facial lacerations.
Several NYPD officers were struck in the head with snowballs while responding to a call about a large, disorderly group at the park, according to a spokesperson for the NYPD.
Following the assault, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch released a statement saying the behavior was “disgraceful” and “criminal,” noting detectives are investigating.
However, when asked about the incident at a news conference on Tuesday, Mamdani told reporters he saw videos of the incident and “it looked like kids at a snowball fight.”
The mayor added he does not believe any of the suspects should face charges for assault on a police officer.
No arrests have been made in connection with the snowball attacks, according to officials.
The Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) told Fox News Digital that while “some people” may attempt to dismiss the incident as “college hijinks or harmless kids throwing snowballs,” the deliberate targeting of uniformed police officers while they perform their lawful duties constitutes assault.
“We cannot condemn strongly enough the recent disgraceful and dangerous attacks on NYPD Police Officers while responding to a 911 call in Washington Square Park,” SBA president Vincent Vallelong wrote in a statement. “The behavior of the people throwing the snowballs, many of whom are believed to be NYU students, was reckless and unlawful, and put the lives and safety of others at risk.”
Vallelong added those who tossed snow and ice at officers “cross[ed] a clear line.”
“[Officers] are tasked with maintaining public safety in crowded public spaces, often while facing hostility simply for wearing the uniform,” he wrote. “When individuals choose to turn a park into a launching ground for attacks on police, they cross a clear line. Today it is snowballs. Tomorrow it could be rocks, bottles, or worse.
“No worker in this city should be subjected to having objects thrown at them while they do their job — least of all the men and women who run toward danger to protect others. This conduct emboldens further disorder and undermines respect for the rule of law.”
Vallelong specifically addressed officials’ response, questioning why the mayor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and NYU did not condemn the attack.
“We call on city leadership, prosecutors, and the courts to treat these incidents with the seriousness they deserve,” he wrote. “… The members of the NYPD will continue to serve and protect every New Yorker — even those who show them disrespect. But they deserve the full support of city officials and the public when they are so brazenly attacked.”
MICHAEL RAPAPORT BLASTS NYC AS ‘DIRTY SNOW COVERED DUMP’ AS CELEBS CALL OUT MAYOR MAMDANI OVER SLOW CLEANUP
The Police Benevolent Association of the City of New York called the incident “unacceptable and outrageous.”
“This is the environment that NYC police officers are up against,” the association wrote in a statement. “Our police officers are being treated for their injuries, but the case CANNOT end there. The individuals involved must be identified, arrested and charged with assault on a police officer. And all of our city leaders must speak up to condemn this despicable attack.”
Another labor union, the Detectives’ Endowment Association, also denounced the group who threw snowballs at officers.
“What we saw in Washington Square Park today was not harmless fun — it was a deliberate, outrageous, and dangerous attack on uniformed police officers,” the group’s President Scott Munro wrote in an X post. “The Detectives’ Endowment Association is calling on Mayor Mamdani and District Attorney Bragg to ensure every individual responsible for this illegal behavior is prosecuted. No free pass. No get out of jail free card.”
“Make no mistake: detectives will do what they always do,” he added. “They will identify those involved and they will apprehend them. Our men and women in blue deserve to be safe. They deserve to be protected. And they deserve to be respected. They earn it every single day.”
While Mamdani failed to comment on the backlash to the attack being “an overreaction,” during the news conference Tuesday, he released a statement on social media calling for New Yorkers to treat officers with “respect.”
“I’ve seen the videos of kids throwing snowballs at NYPD officers in Washington Square Park. Officers, like all city workers, have been out in a historic blizzard, keeping New Yorkers safe and cars moving. Treat them with respect. If anyone’s catching a snowball, it’s me,” Mamdani wrote.
Leaders including Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pressured the mayor to denounce the assault.
“This is disgraceful,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., wrote on X. “@NYCMayor and every elected official in our city should denounce this juvenile attack on our #NYPD. Back the blue and hold those who disrespect them accountable.”
FORMER NYPD CHIEF CALLS POLICE CUTS ‘RECIPE FOR DISASTER’ AS MAMDANI THREATENS TAX HIKES
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who also ran for New York City mayor last year, added that Mamdani, “who has a history of calling the police ‘racist, evil, wicked and corrupt’” had “set the tone.”
“Words have consequences,” Cuomo wrote on social media. “We are seeing that in the growing disrespect for law enforcement — just as we’ve seen it in the rise in antisemitism. Real leaders understand that. This mayor does not. @NYCMayor must denounce this at once.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Mamdani’s office for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
Former NYPD Chief of Department John Chell criticized the snowball incident as a “f—ing disgrace,” adding that the officers “were outnumbered — yet stood tall the best they could.”
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He also said he expects a “strong condemnation” from the mayor.
“Tomorrow morning at about 0800 hours the @NYPDnews better be in full force in Washington Square Park and other parks in full force,” he said in another post. “Let me be clear — if one snowball hits a cop, there should be very forceful arrests – make it legally painful.”
Olympic hockey hero offers to trade gold medal for presidential pen in Oval Office
President Donald Trump and U.S. men’s hockey gold medalist Matthew Tkachuk had a lighthearted interaction in the Oval Office Tuesday ahead of the State of the Union address.
Tkachuk was with several members of the team, taking pictures and showing off their medals after defeating Canada in overtime on the final day of the Winter Olympics.
The Florida Panthers star asked the president if he wanted to wear the medal.
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“Yeah, absolutely. I’m not giving it back,” Trump joked.
Tkachuk replied, “I’ll trade you that for a pen.”
Trump said it was “cool” to wear the medal, adding, “I never thought I’d have this on me.”
Dylan Larkin and Jack Hughes then posed for a photo behind Trump at his desk.
The group of players at the White House to meet with the president will attend the State of the Union speech later Tuesday night. Trump invited the team to the event as they celebrated their gold medal win in Milan.
The players’ excitement appeared to miff critics of Trump. But while talking to reporters outside the E11EVEN nightclub in Miami on Monday night, Hughes said meeting the president is a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
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“Everything is so political. We’re athletes. We’re so proud to represent the U.S., and when you get the chance to go to the White House, meet the president, you know, we’re proud to be Americans, that’s so patriotic. No matter what your views are, we’re super excited to go to the White House and just be part of that,” he said.
Law enforcement sources reveal results of DNA from inside Nancy Guthrie’s home
TUCSON, Ariz. — DNA leads appear to be cooling in the Nancy Guthrie disappearance investigation.
The DNA samples recovered from inside Nancy Guthrie’s home mainly came back to people who had a reason to be there, two federal law enforcement sources tell Fox News Digital. One unknown sample yielded only a partial profile that could not be checked against the FBI’s CODIS database.
Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos previously said DNA recovered from the scene had not yet led police to a suspect in the kidnapping of the mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie.
In a previous interview with her network, NBC, he said a mixed sample could take weeks, months or up to a year to unravel at the Florida lab where he sent the evidence.
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Other DNA has already been processed. Blood on the front porch traced back to Guthrie. The lab also tested a suspicious glove recovered about two miles from her home, which authorities said appeared similar to those worn by a masked suspect on Guthrie’s Nest doorbell camera.
The glove provided no answers — it did not match any known criminals in the FBI’s CODIS database and did not match any other samples recovered inside the home.
Sources told Fox News Digital over the weekend that the mixed DNA inside Guthrie’s home has so far provided only a partial profile, which was insufficient to check against CODIS.
However, genealogy experts tell Fox News Digital that investigative genetic genealogy, another tool in the DNA toolbox, relies on different genetic information and may still be viable from the same piece of evidence.
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CODIS relies on short tandem repeat (STR) testing, which compares 20 genetic markers against the federal database to seek a direct match. IGG, also known as FGG or forensic genetic genealogy, tests for hundreds of thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP or “snip”) markers, a completely different aspect of DNA to find ancestral ties.
“It is possible to deconvolute a mixed sample and get a profile, but it’s really hard to get a profile into CODIS,” said CeCe Moore, the chief genetic genealogist at Parabon Nanolabs and a leading expert in the field. “It has to be practically perfect.”
If the sample doesn’t have a complete STR profile, there may be no CODIS hit. As a result, SNP sequencing is more effective on degraded or incomplete samples.
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“You could absolutely use that same sample to create a snip profile,” Moore told Fox News Digital.
And while SNP profiles have only recently been accepted in court, partial STR profiles can be used to get an arrest warrant, even when they are not eligible for CODIS, she said.
“If you’re comparing 13 markers, or just 10 markers, you can still compare them,” she said.
NANCY GUTHRIE CASE: RING’S ‘NEIGHBORS’ APP BECOMES TOOL IN SEARCH FOR MISSING 84-YEAR-OLD, EXPERT SAYS
With few official updates, volunteers have stepped out to take the search into their own hands. Among the items they found were a black glove, possibly similar to others found in the case, and a backpack that did not match the description of what authorities say a suspect was wearing.
A little over a dozen volunteers met over the weekend, broke up into groups of two to four and split up into different parts of the neighborhood. Organizers declined to let Fox News Digital see the map they’d marked up.
“I just feel like if it was my mom or anybody in my family that was missing, I’d want somebody to come out and search and try to help find her and bring her home,” said Christi Wiggins, a volunteer who drove in from Phoenix Sunday morning to help out.
INTERNET USER SEARCHED FOR NANCY GUTHRIE’S ADDRESS AND DAUGHTER’S SALARY BEFORE ‘TODAY’ HOST’S MOTHER VANISHED
The volunteers were looking for clues tied to a masked suspect, who may or may not have acted alone. Earlier in the investigation, the FBI released doorbell camera video showing a masked man on her front porch. Notably, according to the bureau, he was wearing a black Ozark Trail-branded hiking backpack.
“I’m nervous, I’m kind of scared, I am unsure, but I’m also, I have a lot of energy to get out there and hopefully, you know, help locate anything to help find her,” said Katherine Montanez, another searcher.
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Volunteers found a SwissGear brand backpack Sunday, about 2.8 miles from Guthrie’s home, which a Pima County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson said appeared unconnected to the case.
The glove was closer to Guthrie’s address, around 2.3 miles away at the intersection of First Avenue and East Camino Alberca. But the spokesperson said search crews had not reported it as of early Sunday evening.
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Organizers did not respond to an email about the search Monday morning.
The glove turned up near the home where a search warrant had been served on Feb. 13 in connection with the case. That warrant did not result in any charges, however.
A woman living across the street told reporters that police had already canvassed her neighborhood for Ring camera video. She said she turned over what she had but did not believe it showed anything significant.
Sheriff Nanos said over the weekend that investigators were working to confirm the other items the suspect was seen wearing.
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Back at Guthrie’s home, a pair of women from a group called Madres Sonoras Desaparecida, or Sonoran Mothers of the Missing, went onto the property briefly with a shovel and a length of rebar.
Several streamers taking video with their phones followed them onto the grounds before a deputy asked them all to leave.
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Anyone with information is asked to dial 1-800-CALL-FBI.
New report raises alarm over Iran’s opaque chemical weapons activity
A new report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) raises concerns about Iran’s opaque chemical weapons program, which argues policymakers have paid little attention to compared with Iran’s more scrutinized nuclear weapons program.
The FDD report outlines how the Iranian regime may have resorted to the unconventional use of chemical weapons while it faced an unprecedented uprising beginning in December 2025, a wave of unrest Tehran has not seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Any use of chemical weapons by Iran would be in defiance of their obligations under the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
“The United States, its allies and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) should investigate credible claims that Iran’s regime used chemical weapons against its own people,” Andrea Stricker, deputy director of FDD’s nonproliferation program and author of the report, told Fox News Digital.
Iran’s illicit chemical weapons program is under renewed scrutiny as the Trump administration appears closer to taking military action against Iran and its nuclear weapons program.
While the U.S. has been engaged in indirect talks with Iranian officials mediated by Oman in Geneva, the U.S. has increased its military presence in the Persian Gulf, sending the USS Gerald R. Ford to join dozens of other warships to the region.
On Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi posted on X that “Iran will resume talks with the U.S. in Geneva with a determination to achieve a fair and equitable deal—in the shortest possible time.”
The foreign minister claimed that Iran will not pursue nuclear weapons under any circumstances but emphasized that Iran will not forgo its right to harness peaceful nuclear technology.
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“A deal is within reach, but only if diplomacy is given priority,” he added.
Despite the optimism and push for continued talks, there remain fears that Iran will not make any meaningful concessions on their nuclear program, which could lead to U.S. military strikes on the nation.
A broader regime change campaign to topple the Islamic republic’s government, led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is also not off the table, according to some reports.
“If Washington launches strikes against Iran, it should give serious consideration to targeting the regime’s chemical weapons research and production facilities. Such action would help halt further development and potential use of these weapons while sending a clear message that the regime cannot commit atrocities with impunity,” Stricker said.
The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which Iran is party to, upholds the norms against state-held chemical weapons, specifically, banning states’ development, stockpiling, production and use of chemical weapons, even for retaliatory reasons, as well as their receipt from or transfer to anyone.
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Israel’s deputy ambassador to the Netherlands, Yaron Wax, said in July 2025 before a special meeting of the OPCW that “over the past two decades Iran has been developing a chemical weapons program based on weaponized pharmaceutical agents.”
These agents, Wax said, impact the central nervous system and can be fatal even in small doses.
The ambassador said at the Shahid Meisami Research Complex, destroyed by Israel in June 2025, Iran’s Shahid Meisami Group (SMG) was working on fentanyl opioid-derived tactical munitions for military use. Israel believes the pharmaceutical-based agents were transferred to Syria’s longtime and now deposed dictator, Bashar al-Assad, and Iraqi Shia militias as well.
Iran began developing its chemical weapons program in 1983 during its war with Iraq in response to chemical attacks from the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to the U.S. Intelligence Community.
As recently as 2024, the U.S. has repeatedly found Iran in noncompliance with its obligations under the CWC.
In a post on X in November 2024, the Iranian mission to the United Nations pushed back on the charges against it. “A victim of Western-donated chemical weapons employed by the Saddam regime, Iran stands as a responsible member of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Over the past several decades, not a single instance of Iranian violation has been recorded. The current unfounded reports are merely an outgrowth of psychological warfare propagated by the Zionist regime in the wake of its recent defeat on the Lebanese front.”
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Stricker says the U.S. and international community have failed to hold Iran accountable for its illegal chemical weapons program, and meaningful action must be taken to prevent Iran from transporting banned substances to Iran’s nefarious proxy actors in the Middle East.
The report notes that the U.S. and OPCW should launch a pressure campaign against Iran, calling out the regime and publicizing any violations. The Trump administration, the report recommends, should demand a formal ultimatum to demonstrate compliance with the convention and accept monitoring and verification mechanisms.
FDD also suggests Israel should ratify the CWC and work within the OPCW, which would give Israel more credibility in combating Iranian violations.
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The report says that, as a last resort, the U.S. should consider launching strikes targeting regime chemical weapons facilities, or support Israeli efforts, if actionable intelligence indicates movement on Iran’s chemical weapons efforts or a renewed push by the regime to use such illegal weapons to crack down on anti-government protests.
“The only solution to Iran’s persistent WMD threat is for the United States and Israel to undermine the regime’s grip on power. Until then, the two nations will periodically be forced to play whack-a-mole with Tehran’s capabilities whenever they endanger regional peace,” Stricker said.
Martin Short’s 42-year-old daughter Katherine passes away in devastating family loss
Martin Short’s oldest child, Katherine Short, died Monday, Fox News Digital confirmed. She was 42.
Circumstances surrounding her death were not immediately known.
“It is with profound grief that we confirm the passing of Katherine Hartley Short,” a family representative shared in a statement with Fox News Digital.
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“The Short family is devastated by this loss, and asks for privacy at this time. Katherine was beloved by all and will be remembered for the light and joy she brought into the world.”
Katherine was the oldest of three children Martin adopted with his late wife, Nancy Dolman.
The couple had been married for 30 years prior to Dolman’s death in 2010 from ovarian cancer.
The “Father of the Bride” star reflected on the challenges his kids endured shortly after the death of his wife.
“It’s been a tough two years for my children,” Martin told The Guardian in October 2012.
“This is the thing of life that we live in denial about, that it will ever happen to us or our loved ones, and when it does you gain a little and you suffer a little. There’s no big surprise.”
The “Only Murders in the Building” actor admitted grief wasn’t linear and he still has a way of staying connected to his late wife nearly 10 years after her death.
“It’s tough,” he told AARP in 2019. “I still communicate with her all the time. It’s ‘Hey, Nan,’ you know?”
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He added, “I believe that when people die, they zoom into the people that love them. This idea that it just ends, and don’t speak of them — that’s wrong. That’s based on denial that we’re all going to die. So to me, she’s still here.”
Team USA’s Alysa Liu crushes Eileen Gu on Instagram after choosing America over China
Move over Eileen Gu, there’s a new California-born Chinese-American Winter Olympic gold medalist queen of Instagram. And this one represents the red, white and blue.
Team USA’s Alysa Liu reached 5.3 million followers on Instagram on Tuesday, just one week after winning the first individual Olympic gold medal in women’s figure skating in 24 years.
Liu instantly became a global sensation and fan favorite among loyal Team USA fans of all backgrounds and beliefs.
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Prior to the start of the Olympics, Liu had less than 300,000 followers on Instagram. But her performance in the women’s final propelled her to worldwide superstardom, as arguably the biggest story of this year’s entire Winter Games.
Meanwhile, Gu, a skiing star who competes for Team China despite being born and raised in the U.S., won a gold medal herself and two silvers. It brought her total Olympic medal tally to six with three golds, making her the most decorated women’s freeskier in the sport’s history.
However, Gu now sits well below Liu in terms of Instagram followers with just 3.7 million. Liu is on pace to potentially double that number.
Prior to the start of the Olympics, Gu had over 2.1 million followers, so she did see a bump. But it could not compare to the meteoric surge for Liu, who is one of the most ascendant figures in all of sports at the moment.
Even Gu herself got involved in the hype over Liu. Gu commented on Liu’s post celebrating the gold medal, cheering her on.
“YESSSSSS,” Gu wrote in the comment section.
The two Chinese-American stars have been relentlessly compared and contrasted on social media this Olympics.
Both athletes are the children of immigrants who came to the U.S. from China. But many fans and critics have been quick to point out the contrast between Liu’s story, a tale of American loyalty by an immigrant’s child, and Gu, who chose to compete for Team China when she was 15 years old despite living in California.
Arthur Liu raised Alysa and her siblings in Oakland. Yan Gu raised Eileen just across the bay in San Francisco.
Their paths diverged in 2019.
The Chinese government launched a program to recruit foreign-born athletes, primarily with Chinese heritage, to boost competitiveness, notably for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and soccer, according to The China Project.
Gu and Liu were top recruiting targets.
Gu traded in her red, white and blue for red and gold. Just months after competing in her first Freestyle Ski World Cup for the U.S. in January 2019, she competed for China for the first time in June of that year after requesting a change of nation with the International Ski Federation.
The Lius remained loyal to Team USA.
Arthur was reportedly “not open to persuasion” to having Alysa compete for China, according to The Economist.
Liu and her family then found themselves in the crosshairs of China’s government ahead of the 2022 Beijing Games amid her father’s past and her own refusal to compete for China.
Before her appearance in the 2022 Beijing games, she and her father were the alleged targets of a spying operation by the Chinese government.
Liu called the experience “a little bit freaky and exciting.”
“You know what I mean? It’s so … unbelievable. You know what I mean like, that’s crazy,” Liu previously told Fox News Digital at a roundtable interview at the USOPC Media Summit in October.
“Like, imagine finding that out at such a young age, I mean, like In a weird way, I was like, ‘Am I like in some prank show?’ Like, is this world real. Like, I must be some movie character. But, I mean, it was like it made sense to me, you know, from like everything my dad did back in his activist days.”
Both athletes then competed at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Gu representing China and Liu representing the U.S.
Gu won two gold medals and one silver in freeskiing and went home to California as a new global household name for her success.
Liu finished in sixth place in women’s singles figure skating, then went into a temporary early retirement, before returning to the sport in 2024.
Now, after a successful 2026, Liu has emerged as the more popular figure among the Western world, especially among Americans, and particularly among conservatives.
Many high-profile conservative influencers on social media showered Liu in praising for bringing the historic gold to the U.S., including Megyn Kelly, Clay Travis, Dave Portnoy, and others.
Gu broke down in tears after winning gold in the women’s halfpipe final on Sunday, revealing that her grandmother had died prior to the competition.
It concluded an Olympics in which she had to compete under the pressure of immense global scrutiny in response to her decision to compete for China seven years ago.
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Gu was asked if she feels “like a bit of a punching bag for a certain strand of American politics.”
“I do,” she said, according to USA Today. “So many athletes compete for a different country. … People only have a problem with me doing it because they kind of lump China into this monolithic entity, and they just hate China. So, it’s not really about what they think it’s about.
“And also, because I win. Like, if I wasn’t doing well, I think that they probably wouldn’t care as much, and that’s OK for me. People are entitled to their opinions.”