Chinese spy tech is endangering US hospitals. Texas is trying to shut that down

Millions of Americans depend on medical devices — pacemakers, infusion pumps and patient monitors — to stay alive. But some of that equipment is made in China and it may be spying on us – or worse.

In January 2025, the Food and Drug Administration and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a stark joint warning: patient monitors made by Contec Medical Systems, a Chinese company based in Qinhuangdao, contain a hidden backdoor. These devices, used in hospitals across the United States, can transmit sensitive patient data to a hard-coded IP address in China. Even more troubling, the backdoor allows remote code execution, potentially letting an adversary manipulate displayed vital signs and trigger dangerous clinical decisions.

There is no patch to fix it. For China, it’s a feature, not a bug.

China’s 2017 National Intelligence Law requires every Chinese company to assist state intelligence operations on demand. When Beijing says open the door, the company complies. The implications for any Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked device in America’s health care system are clear and unacceptable.

SENATE GOP WARNS CHINESE VAPES COULD BE USED BY CCP TO SPY ON AMERICANS, LAUNDER CARTEL CASH

President Donald Trump recognized the danger early. In September 2025, his administration launched a Section 232 national security investigation into medical equipment imports, citing the risk that foreign powers could weaponize supply chains. Investigators discovered CCP-linked devices even in U.S. government-funded research labs.

Dependence on an adversarial foreign supplier using state subsidies to dominate American competitors is bad enough. But add to that, the threat of sudden export cutoffs in a crisis as we saw during COVID-19 and the peril is heightened. If hospitals rely on compromised supply chains, patients could be left without lifesaving technology when it matters most.

Thankfully, Texas is not waiting on Washington for further needed action. While congressional gridlock has stalled federal progress, the Lone Star State acted.

EX-TRUMP DHS OFFICIAL SOUNDS ALARM OVER NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT WITHIN CRITICAL US INDUSTRY

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott banned CCP-affiliated technologies from state government systems and, in June 2025, signed legislation creating the Texas Cyber Command to hunt down and eliminate threats from hostile foreign nations. Late last year, the governor expanded the state’s prohibited technology list to include 26 more China-linked companies — hardware makers and AI platforms with direct CCP ties. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed multiple lawsuits against these firms operating inside our borders.

The public supports this stand. Texans understand that national security doesn’t stop at the border or the battlefield — it extends to the devices monitoring our loved ones in the hospital.

Statutory tools already exist. What’s needed now is to extend those protections directly into state health care procurement. That’s exactly where Texas Republicans are stepping up.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

In recent days, the Texas Public Policy Foundation — where we work — sent a letter to state leaders urging further action. The letter, cosigned by 53 members of the legislature, calls for commonsense measures: direct state health agencies to adopt procurement standards barring medical devices from CCP-linked companies; establish a review process for existing contracts and equipment to root out vulnerabilities; and partner with lawmakers to offer grants and preferences that incentivize American-made medical devices.

Texans understand that national security doesn’t stop at the border or the battlefield — it extends to the devices monitoring our loved ones in the hospital.

In our Army careers, one of us was an intelligence officer and the other, a doctor. We spent years studying national security threats and this fight is personal. Critical infrastructure — including health care — must never become the soft underbelly of America’s defenses. No Texas patient should have their medical data transmitted to a server in China, or potentially their medical care disrupted or held hostage by the CCP. No Texas hospital should remain one firmware update away from undetected interference. And no state that has already confronted CCP aggression should leave its medical infrastructure as the last open door.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Texas is once again showing the nation how to lead. We have the framework. We have the public mandate. We have the resolve. Now we must finish the job — before a crisis forces our hand.

The rest of America is watching. Let’s show them what real action looks like.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM CHUCK DEVORE

Iran war success gives president a Trump card to play in China meeting

When President Donald Trump arrives in Beijing later this March for his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the official agenda will read like every other U.S.–China meeting in recent memory: tariffs, trade balances, supply chains, Taiwan.

The real story walking through the door with him will be Iran.

On Feb. 28, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury, a sweeping joint campaign targeting Iran’s military, nuclear and command infrastructure. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes — a seismic blow to a regime that had terrorized the region for nearly five decades. Within days, his son Mojtaba was elevated as successor, a dynastic transfer inside a theocracy that once claimed to reject hereditary rule.

The war grinds on — and its consequences are landing on Beijing harder than Xi Jinping ever planned.

STEVE MOORE: FIVE ENERGY TRUTHS THE MEDIA IGNORE AS AMERICA’S OIL BOOM BLUNTS THE IRAN WAR’S IMPACT

Russia and China: not bystanders

Both Moscow and Beijing are actively helping Iran fight this war. That needs to be said plainly, because the administration’s public messaging has been too cautious on this point.

Multiple U.S. officials have confirmed that Russia has been sharing satellite and targeting intelligence with Tehran — including the locations of American warships and aircraft across the Middle East. That information has a cost. Seven U.S. service members have now been killed in Iranian attacks. Iran’s own ISR capability has been largely degraded by our strikes. The precision of the missile and drone attacks that have gotten through owes something to Moscow’s overhead constellation.

TRUMP IS REALIGNING WORLD ENERGY MARKETS AND THE IRAN STRIKES ARE ACTUALLY HELPING

Retired four-star Gen. David Petraeus told Fox News that Russian intelligence support likely explains “some of the accuracy of the missiles and drone strikes.” He called on Trump to push South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey is Graham’s Russia sanctions legislation, which has more than 90 senators behind it. Iran’s own foreign minister did not deny the arrangement, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the Iran-Russia military partnership “is still there and will continue.”

An adversary coalition actively helping kill American troops deserves discussion at the table in Beijing.

China’s role is less direct, but no less consequential.

TRUMP SUDDENLY SEEMS ANXIOUS TO END THE WAR AS AMERICAN CASUALTIES MOUNT AND IRAN FINDS WAYS TO HIT BACK

For years, U.S. officials have warned that Chinese firms have funneled technology into Iran’s missile and weapons programs. The Treasury Department has sanctioned Chinese companies repeatedly for supplying missile-related materials to Tehran.

Analysts have also flagged Iran’s interest in the Chinese CM-302 supersonic anti-ship cruise missile — a weapon designed to threaten major naval vessels — which has surfaced in Iranian procurement discussions. Chinese technology already runs through portions of Iran’s missile infrastructure, from electronics to propellant components.

Denial and innocence are not the same thing.

IRAN WAR JEOPARDIZES TRUMP ECONOMIC BOOM BEFORE KEY MIDTERM ELECTIONS

China’s energy vulnerability

For all of Beijing’s public posturing, the Iran war is costing China real money — and Xi knows it.

China built its manufacturing economy on reliable access to cheap energy, including deeply discounted crude from sanctioned states. Iran has been a critical piece of that equation. According to data from Kpler analytics and other tracking firms, China was importing approximately 1.38 million barrels per day of Iranian crude in 2025 — roughly 13% of its total seaborne oil imports, with nearly all of it routed through shadowy intermediaries to evade U.S. sanctions.

IRAN DIDN’T ADAPT TO AMERICA’S PLAYBOOK. RUSSIA AND CHINA ALREADY HAVE

That flow now runs directly through a war zone. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s seaborne oil passes, sits at the center of the conflict. As of this writing, the strait is effectively closed to tanker traffic. For Beijing, that means rising energy costs, supply chain disruption and the loss of one of its most important discounted suppliers — all at once.

The shadow fleet is being dismantled

Compounding the pressure on Beijing is Washington’s intensifying crackdown on the “shadow fleet” — the network of obscurely flagged tankers used to move sanctioned Iranian and Russian crude into Chinese refineries. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has sanctioned dozens of shipping companies, vessels and intermediaries tied to Iranian oil smuggling. Much of that crude terminates in China.

The war grinds on — and its consequences are landing on Beijing harder than Xi Jinping ever planned.

SUSTAINED WAR WITH IRAN COULD DRAIN US MISSILE STOCKPILES, TEST ESCALATION CONTROL

If sanctions enforcement continues tightening — and there is every reason to press harder right now — the gray market that has allowed Beijing to secure cheap energy from sanctioned regimes will shrink. The bill for China’s energy dependency will come due.

Xi’s bind

Xi publicly condemns the war. Privately, Chinese energy firms have been pressing Tehran not to strike Qatari liquid natural gas (LNG) facilities — because China sources roughly 28% of its LNG from Qatar. Defending Iran on the world stage while quietly begging it not to torch your fuel supply is not a position of strength.

IRAN WAR, 11 DAYS IN: US CONTROLS SKIES, OIL SURGES AND THE REGION BRACES FOR WHAT’S NEXT

Xi cannot replace discounted Iranian oil overnight. He cannot rehabilitate a dead supreme leader. And he cannot absorb a prolonged energy shock while his GDP growth target sits at a humbling 4.5% — China’s lowest target in over three decades. Every one of those pressures is leverage Trump should use. This is not the time for diplomatic niceties.

What Trump should demand

The Beijing summit is not a trade negotiation. It is a strategic confrontation, and Trump should walk in knowing exactly what he wants.

TRUMP’S STRIKE ON IRAN DEALS A MAJOR BLOW TO PUTIN’S WAR MACHINE IN UKRAINE

First, Xi must use his documented leverage over Moscow to halt Russian intelligence support for Iranian attacks on American forces. Gen. Petraeus is right that sanctions on Russia are long overdue. But China’s economic exposure to this war gives Washington a second lever — and Trump should pull it simultaneously.

Second, China must shut down the missile technology pipeline to Tehran. Treasury Secretary Bessent is already weighing pressing Beijing on sanctioned oil purchases in his pre-summit talks with Vice Premier He Lifeng in Paris. That pressure must extend explicitly to weapons transfers — the CM-302 deal, propellant shipments, dual-use components. Washington is tracking all of it.

Third, Beijing’s rare earth export restrictions — imposed in retaliation for U.S. tariffs and designed to complicate American weapons replenishment — need to be called what they are: economic warfare. The tightening energy markets created by this conflict give Washington leverage it has not held in years. Expanded U.S. LNG exports and Gulf energy cooperation are available — but only for real concessions, not diplomatic theater.

For years, U.S. officials have warned that Chinese firms have funneled technology into Iran’s missile and weapons programs. 

The real question in Beijing

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

For years, Beijing methodically cultivated an authoritarian axis with Iran, Russia and Venezuela as a hedge against American power. Iran is now destabilized. Venezuela is out of Beijing’s orbit. Russia is exposed. The axis that gathered in Beijing last September brimming with confidence looks considerably more fragile today.

Xi will arrive at this summit hoping to stabilize the relationship and project strength on his own soil. Trump should arrive knowing that the Iran war has handed Washington something genuinely rare in the long history of U.S.–China diplomacy.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Leverage.

The card is in Washington’s hand. The question is whether Trump plays it.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ROBERT MAGINNES

Foreigners are snapping up US homes and stealing the American dream out from under families

President Donald Trump is pushing hard for Congress to ban Wall Street firms from buying single-family homes. He’s rightly worried that financial tycoons are crowding out younger and middle-class homebuyers, especially in fast-growing Southern cities. But there’s another kind of homebuyer the president and Congress should cut off at the pass: foreigners who are blocking our own citizens from the American Dream.

In a new paper, I show that foreign homebuyers are far more common than most people realize. Between April 2024 and March 2025 alone, foreigners purchased more than 78,000 American homes.  And foreign homebuying is becoming more common with every passing year. Between 2024 and 2025 alone, foreign buyers spent 33% more on U.S. homes than they did in the previous year.

Each home bought by someone from outside the U.S. leaves one fewer home for Americans to buy. That fact alone raises prices for first-time homebuyers — it’s Economics 101. But the situation is even worse when you account for the fact that nearly half of foreigners paid all cash. Younger Americans and middle-class families simply can’t compete with all-cash offers — certainly not if they’re buying their first home. The playing field is tilted against them, and it’s tilted in favor of people who may have never set foot in America at all.

But who, exactly, are these foreign homebuyers?

HOUSE PASSES BIPARTISAN HOUSING BILL AS TRUMP ZEROES IN ON AFFORDABILITY CRISIS

Shockingly, a huge number of them are from economic and strategic rival nations. The most foreign homebuyers come from communist China. They purchase about one out of every six foreign-bought homes, and in 2025 alone, they dropped $13.7 billion on American homes.

Tellingly, nearly half of these Chinese buyers intend to use their new home as a way to gain permanent residence in the United States, giving them preferential access to things like a college education for their children. In other words, not only are Chinese citizens crowding Americans out of homes — they’re pushing Americans out of other U.S. institutions, as well.

Whether they’re from China or anywhere else, it’s important to note that these foreigners aren’t simply buying condos or townhomes. They’re overwhelmingly buying the single-family detached homes that Americans want most. Nearly two out of every three foreign home purchases are in that category. So foreign homebuyers are dimming the heart of the American Dream itself.

No matter where they’re from or what kind of home they get, foreign homebuyers are standing in the way of American citizens. But other countries don’t make this mistake. They’ve enacted heavy restrictions on foreign homebuyers precisely because they want to put their own people first.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Canada is a case in point. While Canadian citizens are some of the most common buyers of American property, their own country bans most foreign purchases of homes. Many foreign purchases that are still allowed are hit with heavy taxes in order to deter them.

Each home bought by someone from outside the U.S. leaves one fewer home for Americans to buy.

Similarly, China severely limits foreign homebuying, even as many of its citizens buy homes in America. The double standard is clear — and so is the harm to America’s people and interests. Our citizens are waiting in line behind homebuyers from our country’s top strategic and economic rival. In what world does that make sense?

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The problem is obvious — but so is the solution. Congress should restrict foreigners from buying American homes, either with an outright ban or heavy taxes that discourage purchases. The Republican Study Committee has already laid out a plan to significantly raise taxes on homebuyers from overseas. Such innovative ideas deserve attention and action in the coming months.

This isn’t a matter of sticking it to foreigners. It’s about standing up for our own citizens. The American Dream is for the American people, and young professionals and middle-class families urgently need it brought within their reach.

Veteran ’60 Minutes’ reporter says the network ‘crumbled’ under Trump’s pressure

A veteran “60 Minutes” journalist slammed the previous owners of his parent network, CBS, for settling an election interference lawsuit with President Donald Trump.

“Our previous owners at CBS faced political pressure and crumbled‚” Scott Pelley said, according to The Guardian’s Jeremy Barr, referencing the fallout over the legal dispute between Trump and CBS. Pelley was introducing former “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens at the National Press Foundation Annual Journalism Awards Dinner last week. 

Pelley was referencing former CBS parent company, Paramount Global, before it was merged with Skydance Media, run by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison.

CBS NEWS IN TRANSITION: WHO’S IN AND WHO’S OUT AFTER A TUMULTUOUS YEAR AT THE NETWORK

In the days leading up to the 2024 presidential election, CBS News aired its “60 Minutes” interview featuring then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Critics at the time noticed that an answer she gave to a question about Israel that first aired in a preview clip on “Face the Nation,” which was mocked by conservatives for her “word salad” comments, appeared to have been swapped with a different answer that aired during the primetime election special the next evening.

Trump accused the network of election interference and filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the company. 

After months of contentious mediation, Paramount and CBS settled Trump’s lawsuit for a sum expected to be north of $30 million, including $16 million upfront for Trump’s presidential library.

CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT ANNOUNCES SUDDEN EXIT FROM NETWORK, SAYS HE’S SEEKING ‘SOME INDEPENDENCE’

Barr also posted on X that veteran “60 Minutes” journalist Lesley Stahl claimed she would have followed former executive producer of the show Bill Owens in resigning during the company’s contentious legal battle with Trump. 

“We would have followed him off the cliff, but he urged us not to,” Stahl reportedly said. 

Owens, who told his colleagues in April of last year that corporate overreach impacted his ability to maintain an independent newsroom. 

When he resigned, he told his colleagues in a memo, “over the past months, it has become clear that I would not be allowed to run the show as I have always run it, to make independent decisions based on what was right for 60 Minutes, right for the audience.” 

CRONKITE-ERA PRODUCER EXITS CBS NEWS IN DRAMATIC FASHION AFTER 46 YEARS AT NETWORK

A representative from CBS did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

DAVID MARCUS: Can John Fetterman save the Democratic Party from itself?

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman is the most anomalous politician in America today. Often willing to buck his fellow Democrats, he appears to be a one of a kind on Capitol Hill, even though his ideas are shared by the majority of Americans, including a lot of Democrats.

It is not entirely clear how Fetterman went from being a progressive, and failed, candidate for Senate in 2016 to winning in 2022 and becoming the moderate thorn in the side of the ever-left lurching Democrats. Some believe his medical issues changed him, but the answer might be far more simple.

In fact, it may not be so much that Fetterman moved away from his party, but that his party moved away from Fetterman.

One glaring example is Israel. Even five years ago, support for the Jewish state was as widespread among elected Democrats as E-Z Pass is on American highways. But today, the absurd and fabulist consensus in the party is that Israel has committed genocide.

JOHN FETTERMAN SLAMS ANTI-ISRAEL ‘ROT’ IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY, REJECTS AOC CLAIMS OF GAZA ‘GENOCIDE’

Fetterman, along with a few others like Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., have fought back hard against these anti-Israeli narratives, even as nominally pro-Israel voices, like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have shamefully kept their heads down on the issue.

More recently, on the current shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, Fetterman is once again sticking it to his own party leadership by insisting that the agency should be funded full stop, without any conditions.

He is the only Democrat in the upper chamber taking this sensible stand.

FETTERMAN’S FORMER PROGRESSIVE BACKER SAYS HE ‘SOLD US OUT,’ ESCALATES EFFORTS TO PRIMARY DEMOCRAT SENATOR

Fetterman is also pretty much the only Democrat who is willing to cheer the deaths of the brutal regime leaders in Iran as the rest of his party all but undermines the war effort with nonsensical attacks against Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the communist mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, one of the most popular figures in Democratic polling, Fetterman said of him last year, “Everything that I’ve read on him, I don’t really agree with virtually any of it, politically. That’s just where I’m at as a Democrat. He’s not even a Democrat, honestly.”

But here Fetterman appears to be wrong. In fact, Democrats lined up to support and endorse Madman Mamdani and his merry band of capitalism-hating DSA darlings, and it is Fetterman who is losing support among party voters.

FETTERMAN’S NEW BOOK DETAILS EXPLOSIVE FEUD WITH GOV JOSH SHAPIRO OVER PAROLE BOARD DISPUTE

But he isn’t losing support among all voters.

According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, a whopping 72% of Republican voters in the Keystone state approve of Fetterman, while a mere 22% of Democrats do, with independents split about 50/50.

This is the strange place where we have found ourselves, more Republican voters in Pennsylvania approve of Democratic Sen. Fetterman than Republican voters in Texas do of Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

JOHN FETTERMAN SIDES WITH GOP IN SENATE VOTE, SAYS DEMOCRATS ‘CROSSED A LINE’ PUTTING POLITICS OVER COUNTRY

This has all led to speculation that the hoodie-wearing maverick might switch parties and run for his seat as a Republican in 2028. But that is not the sense that I get from Fetterman’s words and actions.

Fetterman wants to save the Democratic Party, not to abandon it. 

The best way for Fetterman to achieve this goal is not by defending his Senate seat two years from now, but by running for president.

FETTERMAN OPPOSES SHUTDOWN EFFORTS AS DEMOCRATIC COLLEAGUES MOVE TO BLOCK ICE FUNDING BILL

Recently I have been polling some insiders I know on both sides of the aisle, asking if Fetterman really has a chance to win the presidency in 2028. The most usual answer has been, “yes,” with a smattering of “absolutelies.”

The logic here is that every other potential Democrat who could stand on a presidential primary debate stage is in lockstep favoring the loony leftist ideas that Fetterman stands athwart.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Especially now that sports media celebrity Stephen A. Smith has announced he will not be running, owing to the financial hit he would take, Fetterman would be the only Democrat in the field offering a way back to centrist politics.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The odds are firmly against Fetterman in his quixotic mission to restore sanity to America’s oldest political party, but then again, what were the odds of this guy ever being a senator in the first place?

All Americans should be glad to have this single senator who speaks plain sense regardless of party talking points, marching orders or the flickering winds of public opinion. Maybe it is naive to believe these qualities still matter to voters, but if so, then call me naive.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS

I was a doctor caring for Alzheimer’s patients. At 57, I became one. Here’s what’s next

As an internal medicine doctor, I used to care for Alzheimer’s patients. Now, at just 60 years old, I am one. My diagnosis is not the future most people hope for — but there is finally a generation of Alzheimer’s treatments that work for many patients, and I am one of them.

Before my diagnosis, I was a busy, high-performing physician and a present husband and father. Over my career, I completed an internal medicine fellowship at Johns Hopkins, oversaw a medical practice and ran an academic clinic, where I taught residents and medical students. I coached my kids’ basketball teams and served as a deacon at my church.

I was someone who helped others, not someone who needed help myself. Then, three years ago, everything changed.

ALZHEIMER’S SCIENTISTS FIND KEY TO HALTING BRAIN DECLINE BEFORE SYMPTOMS

One afternoon, my supervisor called me into her office and fired me for fumbling tasks I used to handle with ease, asking emphatically, “What is wrong with you?!” Suddenly, I was out of a job, had no health insurance and still needed answers. What was wrong with me?

My family noticed my cognitive decline, too. I couldn’t keep up during a game night, put dishes back in the wrong place, lost track of my phone and repeated questions my wife had already answered.

I was only 57 — younger than most people associate with Alzheimer’s disease — but testing soon revealed the truth. A novel blood test measuring p-Tau217, a biomarker strongly associated with Alzheimer’s, came back abnormal. Further imaging confirmed what I feared most: I had Alzheimer’s disease.

As a doctor, I knew what this diagnosis usually meant. For years, our treatment tools were limited. We prescribed medications that tried to “juice up” the brain. But mostly, we watched patients’ slow demise until they struggled to speak and eventually became unable to swallow. Then we’d call in hospice. Alzheimer’s care was a slog that was hard on families. It was a long goodbye.

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE COULD BE REVERSED BY RESTORING BRAIN BALANCE, STUDY SUGGESTS

But my wife, my superhero, wasn’t going to let me go without a fight. She knew I still had so much to offer my family, my community and my church.

My neurologist, Dr. Jeff Burns, who runs the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, suggested that I would be a candidate for a new monoclonal antibody treatment designed to clear abnormal plaques from the brain. I began regular infusions that have slowed my decline and improved my cognition.

I still have Alzheimer’s — but treatment has given me back the life I feared I was losing.

HIDDEN BRAIN CONDITION MAY QUADRUPLE DEMENTIA RISK IN OLDER ADULTS, STUDY SUGGESTS

Before treatment, I struggled to remember my cues while serving at the altar as a deacon; after the treatment took hold, I had a service where I was able to hit every mark once again.

I’m able to babysit my 2-year-old grandson, Frank, twice a week. I’ve been enlisted to teach medical students how to deliver bad news to patients, which I treat as a solemn duty.

I go on bike rides, which remind me of what it was like to be a kid. I spend precious time with my children and grandchildren. I take three-mile walks with my dog. I write.

CANCER MAY TRIGGER UNEXPECTED DEFENSE AGAINST ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE, RESEARCHERS SAY

You would think that a treatment capable of restoring someone’s life would be readily available to others like me. But our health care system is still built for late-stage Alzheimer’s, not early intervention. Too often, cognitive decline is dismissed as normal aging, or patients are referred to specialists with long wait times. By the time answers arrive, the window for effective treatment has closed.

What helped me may not work for everyone. But even if a breakthrough Alzheimer’s therapy were to emerge tomorrow that works in every case, the same structural failures would persist: People would still be diagnosed too late, priced out of testing and treatment, and blocked from timely care.

That must change.

LURKING DEMENTIA RISK EXPOSED BY BREAKTHROUGH TEST 25 YEARS BEFORE SYMPTOMS

Early Alzheimer’s detection should become routine in primary care, using modern tools like blood-based biomarkers to identify the disease early and validated cognitive assessments to detect meaningful changes. While some assessments can now be administered digitally outside specialty care, patients are still funneled to neurologists, creating six-month- to year-long delays that cost critical treatment time. These tests should be accessible and covered, not limited to academic centers or those who can afford to pay out of pocket.

My family noticed my cognitive decline, too. I couldn’t keep up during a game night, put dishes back in the wrong place, lost track of my phone and repeated questions my wife had already answered.

Once patients qualify for an FDA-approved therapy, insurance rules should not stand in the way. Ongoing administrative hurdles and repeated coverage denials disrupt care and force families into constant appeals.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

My wife, Cindy, has spent countless hours fighting insurers to maintain the treatment that has kept me alert, engaged and functioning. At times, those denials have forced me off treatment long enough to lose ground before we could begin again.

A current proposal sponsored by Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., would extend Medicare coverage to people 65 and under who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. This legislation, called the BRIDGE Act, would ensure people in my situation don’t face the coverage denials and access interruptions that I did.

Primary care providers — often overworked and running behind — are equipped to spot cognitive decline and can administer cognitive assessments, make timely diagnoses and counsel patients on evidence-based lifestyle interventions such as regular physical activity, sleep optimization and social engagement. These interventions matter and can help slow cognitive decline for some patients.

Finally, caregivers must be recognized as essential partners in care. Cindy made it possible for me to get treatment, stay organized and keep living my life. Supporting families is one of the most effective ways to keep people with Alzheimer’s at home, engaged and connected.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Alzheimer’s science has moved forward. Policy has not.

If we want today’s breakthroughs to improve lives for patients like me, families and future generations, we must build a system that finds the disease early and delivers care in time.

JONATHAN TURLEY: How Gov Shapiro became a squatter and got sued by his neighbors

The poet Robert Frost once said that “good fences make good neighbors.” He apparently never met Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is being sued by his neighbors for effectively squatting on their land and then seizing it to install a fence along his $830,500 private residence in suburban Philadelphia. The litigation is likely to put Shapiro in a much different light for many who think of him as a 2028 contender.

The irony of the case is crushing. Shapiro opposed Trump’s plan to build a wall along the southern border, declaring that he would sue before a dime of Pennsylvania money would go to pay for it. He apparently adopted a similar approach to his neighbors in Pennsylvania. The difference is that he built the wall, but without giving his neighbors a dime.

Shapiro has long wanted a 2,900-square-foot parcel of land located between the two homes in Abington, Montgomery County. The problem is that his neighbors like their land and want to keep it. They turned down multiple offers from Shapiro.

That is when the governor decided to build it anyway.

GIVE THE GOVERNMENT AN INCH AND THEY’LL SEIZE YOUR $200K HOME FOR A $2K DEBT

Jeremy and Simone Mock allege that Shapiro effectively became a squatter by using the state police to bar them from their own property and then building an eight-foot security fence.

After the Mocks sued, Shapiro countersued, claiming that the land was now his through “adverse possession.” He basically claimed that they abandoned the land despite their repeatedly trying to gain entry and repeatedly turning down his offers to buy it.

Welcome to the world of adverse possession. It is a doctrine dating back to 2000 B.C., and the Code of Hammurabi, allowing people to acquire title to land abandoned by owners over a long period of time. A really long time.

From the Romans to the British to the earliest days of the American Republic, adverse possession has been recognized as a valid means of acquiring title. It was particularly valuable in the early years of the United States, where people acquired or claimed vast tracts of land out West, only to leave them undeveloped and unoccupied. As settlers moved West, they often cultivated the land, built structures and lived openly for years before the original owners reclaimed it. Adverse possession was an efficient rule that allowed land to be put to productive use.

Under Pennsylvania law, you must prove actual, continuous, exclusive, visible, notorious, distinct and hostile possession of the land for 21 years. Shapiro clearly has the hostile part down, but the Mocks are claiming that he effectively used state police to bar them from their land and then claimed that they abandoned it.

Each side is portraying the other as dishonest and opportunistic.

In their complaint, the Mocks allege that the Shapiros made “previous acknowledgments that the Mock Property was owned by no one other than the Mocks.” They document that the Shapiros did not want to pay the asking price, so the Mocks offered to lease the land to them. The Shapiros allegedly agreed but then backed out.

MICHIGAN FAMILY SAYS COUNTY SEIZED HOME OVER TAX BILL THEY DIDN’T OWE — CASE NOW HEADS TO THE SUPREME COURT

The Mocks declare, “what followed was an outrageous abuse of power by the sitting Governor of Pennsylvania and its former Attorney General.” Shapiro declared the property was his.

The Mocks objected that they had been paying taxes to the state on the disputed property for nine years.

The Shapiros claim that from 2003 to 2025, they mowed the lawn, cleared leaves, and removed other debris from the land as if it were their own. Accordingly, they claim that the 21-year period has passed and with it the title to the land. They further allege that, after buying the property in April 2017, the Mocks did not claim the land or challenge the location of an existing fence. However, they did so in October 2025.

Shapiro maintains that the Mocks never even knew the property was theirs until he informed them of the results of a recent survey.

The fascinating element is the use of state troopers to keep the Mocks off their land. The complaint even shows a picture of two troopers, stating, “these members of the State Police are on the Mock Property. Behind the officers are the arborvitae that the Shapiros planted on the Mock Property without permission and over the Mocks’ express objections.”

With the required 21 years only barely passed, any period in which the Mocks were to contest the possession could unravel the adverse possession claim. In the meantime, few people are likely to be sympathetic with the Shapiros taking property from a neighbor. Adverse possession rarely sits well with people, but it is more palatable when the owner has been absent and dilatory.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Here, the owners are very much present and vocal.

The optics are also worsened by the fact that the state has been struggling to address a squatting crisis where people occupy other people’s homes and then refuse to leave during years of litigation. Shapiro is accused of being a squatter with a state trooper contingent to back him up. It is not clear what would be worse for Shapiro — to lose or to win in taking his neighbor’s property without compensation.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The dispute has already made its way into the political arena, where Shapiro is running for re-election. One of his opponents, Stacy Garrity, posted a Valentine’s Day message on social media with Shapiro’s face that said: “I love you more than I love my neighbor’s yard.”

The fact is that there are credible arguments on both sides of this dispute. For Shapiro, the question is whether he can afford to win.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM JONATHAN TURLEY

BROADCAST BIAS: Networks hide the ‘M’ word after Muslim terror attack

Journalists inside our broadcast networks have a sensitivity to any criticism of radical Islam, bred by their loathing of conservatives. The term “Islamophobia” is on their lips when anyone recalls anything from 9/11 to people chanting, “Death to America.” When a violent or potentially event unfolds, they’re hoping the assailant isn’t Muslim, as happened after an attempted terror attack this week.

When Muslim Army doctor Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood in 2009, killing 13, Newsweek’s Evan Thomas proclaimed on televised pundit roundtable: “I cringe that he’s a Muslim. I mean, because it inflames all the fears. I think he’s probably just a nut case. But with that label attached to him, it will get the right wing going.” NPR’s Nina Totenberg chimed in: “It really is tragic that he was a Muslim.”

That reflex certainly applied to the March 7 protests outside Gracie Mansion, where New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani lives. Two Muslim teenagers turned up at an anti-Islam protest with homemade bombs, and the broadcast networks were extremely reluctant to describe them with the “M word.”

On Saturday’s “World News Tonight,” on ABC, anchor Linsey Davis was brief, describing “two people arrested after a suspicious device went off during an anti-Muslim protest here in New York. The protests outside Gracie Mansion, the mayor’s residence, prompting counter-protesters to show up as well. Two were arrested for allegedly throwing what is believed to be a smoke bomb. No injuries reported.” Thrown by whom? The anchor didn’t specify. And it certainly didn’t turn out to be a “smoke bomb.” It was a potential mass casualty event.

CNN BOTCHES NEW YORK TERRORIST ATTACK COVERAGE, FORCED TO ISSUE MULTIPLE CORRECTIONS

On Sunday morning, ABC’s “Good Morning America” was even vaguer, with Gio Benitez reporting, “the FBI’s joint terrorism task force is now investigating suspicious devices thrown during a protest as possible acts of terrorism.” Here again, it’s a maddeningly passive phrasing of “devices thrown.” Thrown by whom?

Later in the show, ABC’s Janai Norman recounted: “Police say two suspicious devices were found. Jars filled with nuts, bolts and screws, and a hobby fuse. They say one protest of about twenty people was organized by far-right, anti-immigrant figure Jake Lang. About 125 people were part of the counter-protest.”

So, one side is “far-right” and “anti-immigrant,” and the other can’t be identified with an ideological or religious affiliation. That report was so vague you might think the Lang group threw the bombs.

SOCIAL MEDIA ERUPTS ON MAMDANI OVER REPORTS HIS WIFE LIKED PRO-OCTOBER 7TH POSTS: ‘THIS IS WHO THEY ARE’

NBC “Sunday Today” host Willie Geist at least seemed to get the targeting right: The “incendiary devices” had been thrown “towards a small group of anti-Islam protesters led by a right-wing influencer.”

On Sunday night’s “CBS Evening News,” anchor Jericka Duncan again meandered around it: “Tonight, the FBI is investigating two men after an explosive device with bolts and screws was thrown into a crowd. It happened in New York City on Saturday during a protest that turned violent outside the mayor’s official residence.” Who turned it violent?

CBS reporter Shanelle Kaul identified Mamdani as a Muslim, but not the assailants. They were just “two men,” she repeated.  Viewers could get a clue when the teens were identified as Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi, but Kaul blamed the incident on the “anti-Islam demonstration led by Jake Lang … a pardoned U.S. Capitol insurrectionist who has frequently sought out political confrontations in the months after President Trump gave him clemency.” Lang served four years in prison after wielding a baseball bat on January 6.

SUSPECT IN NYC TERROR PROBE PLANNED ATTACK ‘BIGGER THAN THE BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING,’ PROSECUTORS SAY

On Monday morning, ABC’s Aaron Katersky again tagged right-wing extremists. The bombs were thrown “during the chaotic, dueling protests that were started by far-right provocateur Jake Lang under the banner, ‘Stop the Islamic takeover of New York City’ that Mamdani denounced as ‘rooted in bigotry and racism.’” Katersky then added the bomb plotters “told investigators they had watched ISIS propaganda videos and were there to defend Muslims.”

On Monday’s “Today” program on NBC, reporter Sam Brock relayed that “both men allegedly made pro-ISIS statements during their arrest,” but Brock tied the crowds to WABC’s “polarizing talk show host” Sid Rosenberg for calling Mamdani “a jihadist, before later apologizing.” So, it’s not “polarizing” or “bigoted” to favor ISIS and want Jews dead?

So, one side is “far-right” and “anti-immigrant,” and the other can’t be identified with an ideological or religious affiliation. 

It didn’t improve as the story unfolded. CNN had to pull down a ludicrously florid tweet on Monday about the bomb-plotters, that “Two Pennsylvania teenagers” could have come to New York “for a normal day enjoying the city’s abnormally warm weather.” This inspired a wave of satires.

On Tuesday night, CNN primetime host Abby Phillip — followed minutes later by commentator Ana Navarro — wrongly suggested the target of the bombs was Mayor Mamdani. CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere also wrongly tweeted Mamdani was a target. So much for “Facts First” CNN.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

By Wednesday night, Phillip offered a rare on-air correction. On Wednesday’s “CBS Evening News,” anchor Tony Dokoupil offered a story on “two heroic New York City Police officers who were just steps away from a smoking improvised bomb on Saturday, an attempted terror attack, according to the FBI.” Jericka Duncan told the story of Aaron Edwards and Luis Navarro jumping into the breach to prevent a deadly bomb explosion.

Duncan explained, “Chief Edwards says the path to this moment started with the 9/11 attacks.” Edwards said, “I saw just police and first responders rushing to save people, and that inspired me to take the test.” But even in this cop-honoring story, the angle of Islamic radicalism just hung in the background. The “M-Word” didn’t emerge.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

These cringing journalists have long assumed that Americans (and especially conservatives) aren’t bright enough to think with nuance, that there are many innocent Muslim Americans who have no motivation toward or connection to terrorism. That’s why they have to skip over troubling facts.

That bias by omission extends to Mayor Mamdani’s record of extremist sentiments on Israel, and recent reports that Mamdani’s wife Rama Duwaji “liked” social-media posts celebrating the slaughter of innocent civilians by Hamas on October 7, 2023. The broadcast networks skipped that, endorsing the mayor’s spin that she’s a “private person.” These two are somehow not “far-left” or “bigoted” or extremist.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM TIM GRAHAM

Give the government an inch and they’ll seize your $200k home for a $2k debt

Local governments have a nasty habit of taking everything you’ve got and leaving you dry. That’s how Isabella County, Mich., treated the Pung family, whose case was heard on Wednesday, March 11, by the United States Supreme Court. The county foreclosed on the Pung family home for a tax debt of only $2,000. The kicker? Both the state’s Tax Tribunal and its Court of Appeals ruled that the Pungs didn’t even owe that tax in the first place. The response from the local tax assessor: “I don’t care.” The county took title to the Pungs’ home and auctioned it off for a fraction of its full value.

The Pungs’ lawsuit doesn’t focus on whether the tax was actually owed. Instead, the case addresses what the county must do after it takes someone’s entire house over a paltry 2,000 bucks. The home itself was worth about $200,000 — 100 times the amount of the tax debt. But the county hawked the property at a fire-sale auction for just $76,000, deducted the $2,000 debt, and returned the excess $74,000 to the Pungs. That means that about $118,000 of the Pungs’ equity was just wiped out.

Well — not quite. The auction purchaser quickly flipped the property for the $195,000 it was actually worth. For those keeping score: The government gets its $2,000, some private investor gets windfall profits, and the Pungs get shafted.

At oral argument, several justices expressed incredulity about the fairness of taking an entire home over such a trivial debt. But this is not the first time Michigan counties have taken the whole farm over small potatoes.

JACKSON-KAVANAUGH TENSIONS SURFACE IN CANDID EXCHANGE OVER SUPREME COURT ‘SHADOW DOCKET’

For example, Wayne County took a home owned by Erica Perez after she accidentally underpaid her 2014 property taxes by $144. Other than that one minor oversight, the Perez family had paid their taxes in full every year from when they purchased the property in 2013 until the county foreclosed on it in 2017. They even tried to pay their 2018 taxes, only to be told they no longer owned the home. They hadn’t realized that, because the government sent notice to the wrong address. The county then sold the property for $110,000 and kept every penny. The Perezes were left with nothing.

Oakland County took Uri Rafaeli’s rental property after a slight miscalculation resulted in his underpayment of $8.41. That is not a misprint: his home was seized over a debt of eight dollars and 41 cents. That’s less than the price of a Chipotle burrito.

When Rafaeli’s case reached the Michigan Supreme Court in 2019, Justice Richard Bernstein could hardly believe his ears: “You have a situation where people owed eight dollars, and they lost their house. How is that equitable?”

MICHIGAN FAMILY SAYS COUNTY SEIZED HOME OVER TAX BILL THEY DIDN’T OWE — CASE NOW HEADS TO THE SUPREME COURT

In another case, Sixth Circuit Judge Raymond Kethledge put an even finer point on it: “In some legal precincts, that sort of behavior is called theft.”

Rafaeli’s case was a landmark in Michigan. The state Supreme Court ruled, as a matter of state law, that the government’s confiscation of surplus equity after a tax sale violates the Takings Clause of the Michigan Constitution. Like its federal counterpart, that provision guarantees that the government cannot take property without paying just compensation.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

It would take nearly four more years before federal law would catch up. In the 2023 decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, as in Michigan, so it is everywhere: when the government takes more property than it is owed, it has to pay back the surplus — just like in every other debt collection context (imagine if the bank repossessed your car over eight bucks). 

But in Tyler, the court did not consider what exactly must be paid back. The Constitution requires “just compensation,” which usually means the fair market value of the property at the time it was taken. But some courts have measured the value of the property by whatever the government manages to get from selling it, even if the sale price is far below the property’s actual value. That’s the question at issue in the Pung case.

Oakland County took Uri Rafaeli’s rental property after a slight miscalculation resulted in his underpayment of $8.41. 

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The government has a legitimate interest in levying taxes. And when taxes go unpaid, it has several tools available to collect. But there is simply no reason why property owners should lose the equity in their homes over a small, simple mistake. As the Supreme Court said in Tyler, taxpayers must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s — but no more.

The Constitution is ill-served by any rule that lets the government off the hook for reimbursing the full value of the property they’ve taken. And any regime that permits windfall profits to governments or investors creates a perverse incentive for tax collectors to maximize their bounty at the expense of homeowners. Again and again, local governments have proven that if you give them an inch, they’ll take your home.

DAVID MARCUS: Craven politics is the only excuse left for Dems refusing to fund DHS

When it comes to striking a deal to pay the people who keep us safe, congressional Democrats just won’t take yes for an answer.

Just a month ago, they were demanding that ICE pull out of Minnesota and that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem be fired before they could vote to fund the agency. Now, with Noem gone and ICE pulling back from Minneapolis, Democrats would seem to have gotten what they wanted. So why are Senate Minority Chuck Schumer and his House counterpart Hakeem Jeffries continuing to punish their constituents through this lingering partial government shutdown?

In particular, how can refusing to pay the people who keep our airports safe be justified when we are at war with Iran, the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world?

Sadly, though not surprisingly, the answer is pure politics.

DHS SHUTDOWN MAY DELAY US TERROR RESPONSE AMID IRAN CONFLICT, EXPERT WARNS

Make no mistake, the removal of Noem was a serious concession from President Donald Trump. This is, after all, the woman who spearheaded the almost total shutdown of the southern border, arguably, the president’s top achievement.

As to the aggressive ICE tactics used in Minneapolis, while they were generally unpopular, a strong number of voters in the MAGA base didn’t think they went far enough. So yes, Noem’s scalp was, in some ways, a peace offering.

You would think that Democratic leadership would be doing a choreographed end zone dance on the National Mall over this victory, but instead, they are still telling TSA agents, “Sorry, you can’t get paid yet, we like how things are trending.”

TWO SHOOTINGS INTENSIFY DHS STANDOFF AS GOP WARNS OF RISING TERROR THREATS

The only relatively serious demand that Democrats have left, and I’m stretching the term to its limit here, is to have agents unmasked. This can’t happen, because of documented incidents of doxxing, but offers have been made to use ID numbers.

In short, the only real obstacle that the Democrats can point to on the way to restoring funding is themselves.

As to why the Democrats are so intransigent in the face of growing calls to open up the government and more security lines at our airports, I regret to inform you that the answer is nothing but craven politics.

STEVE SCALISE RIPS DEMOCRATS FOR ‘PLAYING POLITICAL GAMES’ WITH DHS SHUTDOWN AMID IRAN THREAT

A year ago, Schumer made clear that his goal was to get Trump’s approval under 42% by the midterms. It’s almost there, and the reason why remains the shutdown of last year, which was a major success for Democrats.

On Oct. 1, when the shutdown started Trump’s approval was at 46%. By the end of the shutdown, it was down to 43%, and he had gone from a net of -6 to -12. With a few chutes and ladders along the way, that number has never recovered.

Meanwhile, Democrats netted governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, while installing a communist as mayor of New York City. So yes, Democrats and the far Left won the last shutdown, decisively.

TSA WORKERS BRACE FOR MISSED PAYCHECKS AS DEMOCRATS HOLD FIRM ON DHS FUNDING

The difference today, obviously, is that we are now at war, and have, in just the past week, seen no fewer than four suspected radical Muslim terror attacks in our nation, at least since the last time I checked.

Let’s go back to some basics for a moment. The agency whose funding is being held up here is quite literally called the “Department of Homeland Security.” It’s right there in the name. Not paying them is like playing in the Super Bowl and not funding your offensive line.

It seems pretty clear that congressional Democrats don’t care if a few Americans wind up dying in preventable terror attacks. After all, they know that most of the media will just blame Trump anyway.

COAST GUARD CAUGHT AS ‘COLLATERAL DAMAGE’ IN DEMOCRATS’ DHS SHUTDOWN AS CHINA, RUSSIA PRESS US WATERS

Democrats’ obstinance here should also be considered in regard to the other great debate in Congress, whether to break the Senate filibuster to pass the Save America Act, as Trump is demanding.

If Democrats won’t take the win on DHS, if they are willing to punish TSA agents and put the nation at risk to score political points there, then how can they be trusted partners in a filibuster process?

The filibuster assumes, and only works if, senators are acting in good faith. But Schumer and his radicals are not doing that. They are using it like sand thrown in the gears of government to sabotage any and all progress.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

For Trump’s part, what the White House needs to continue to point out is that Democrats got what they wanted and are still willing to harm the country in the hopes of a demoralized American electorate handing them power in November.

What Democrats are doing is despicable, dishonest and dishonorable. What’s even worse is that it just might be working.

LABOR SEC CHAVEZ-DEREMER: Our plan to rescind the Biden independent contractor rule

Since President Donald Trump took back the White House just over a year ago, the Department of Labor has followed his leadership with a singular vision: Put American workers first in everything we do. 

As a small business owner who has traveled the country on my 50-state listening tour, I can say confidently that our nation’s labor force is the envy of the world, and workers are thriving under the return of America First leadership. In this fast-changing global landscape, the Trump administration is committed to ensuring our workers have the tools and opportunities they need to compete and earn a good, honest living without unnecessary government intrusion.

In that spirit, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division released a proposed rule that provides clarity to help workers and employers alike determine when a worker is properly classified as an independent contractor and when that worker is an employee owed rigorous protections under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In proposing this rule, we celebrate the decisions of Americans who choose to test their entrepreneurial spirit — the same spirit on which our country was founded 250 years ago.

I HAD TO LEAVE CALIFORNIA TO SAVE MY BUSINESS. NOW THERE’S HOPE

The way Americans work is rapidly changing, and several states are responding by restricting opportunities for workers to choose independent work in the name of reducing worker misclassification. Eliminating worker misclassification is necessary to ensure workers receive what they are owed. But doing so in a way that severely restricts Americans’ freedom to work as they choose stifles ambition, betrays our foundational values as a nation and harms our economy.

The way Americans work is rapidly changing, and several states are responding by restricting opportunities for workers to choose independent work in the name of reducing worker misclassification. 

Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Labor is taking a better approach. By providing American workers and employers with clear guidance within the confines of longstanding legal precedent, my department balances the need to give independent workers and entrepreneurs the flexibility they want with our mandate to preserve the robust legal protections owed to true FLSA employees.

To that end, our proposed rule would rescind the Biden administration’s 2024 independent contractor rule, which made it harder to work as an independent contractor and led to more confusion than clarity. If left in place, the Biden rule would continue to produce unpredictable results that harm workers and employers alike.

To provide much-needed clarity and help employers comply with the FLSA, our proposed rule would:

1. Use the longstanding “economic reality” test adopted by federal courts to determine a worker’s proper classification.
2. Identify two “core” factors most useful in determining a worker’s classification: the nature and degree of control the worker has over the work and the worker’s opportunity for profit or loss.
3. Advise that three additional factors — skill, permanence, and whether the work is part of an integrated unit of production — have value in this analysis but are typically less useful in determining classification.
4. Clarify that the actual practice of a work arrangement — the on-the-ground reality between worker and employer — is more relevant than what is contractually or theoretically possible.
5. Provide eight concrete examples of how the factors would apply in real-world circumstances.

No matter the complexity or scope of the work arrangement — whether it involves a rideshare driver, an independent trucker or a freelance writer — the proposed rule will make it easier to define work roles with greater predictability. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

By grounding this classification structure in longstanding legal principles and offering illustrative examples of real-world applications, the proposed rule will deliver tangible benefits for independent workers and employees alike. 

These changes will also empower employers by reducing the risk of FLSA misclassification violations, which hurt workers and employers who are playing by the rules.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

I encourage all interested parties to submit public comments to the department during the 60-day comment period, which is set to end April 28. 

With your help, and under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Labor will continue to fight for American workers every day to ensure their rights and needs come first.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM LABOR SECRETARY LORI CHAVEZ-DEREMER

VICTORY GARDEN: Cut grocery bills and healthcare costs with one simple backyard habit

Walk through any grocery store in America right now, and you’ll see the same thing in every aisle. People staring at prices like they’re reading a foreign language.

A box of cereal at $8. A bag of chips for $6. Eggs and ground beef feel like luxuries. A simple couple of bags of groceries easily top $150. Washington politicians argue about inflation, supply chains and corporate profits. But there’s one obvious solution nobody seems to talk about anymore.

What if Americans had a mandate to grow their own food again?

BROOKE ROLLINS: YOUR THANKSGIVING DINNER COSTS LESS AND THAT’S A REASON TO GIVE THANKS

That’s not a radical idea. It’s actually how this country operated for most of its history.

Today, many middle and high school students graduate without knowing the most basic food skills, including how to plant a tomato, grow lettuce, compost soil or understand how long it actually takes food to grow.

We teach calculus, Shakespeare and trigonometry. All valuable subjects, but they won’t lower grocery prices. But somehow we’ve decided that food literacy and survival — meaning the ability to grow and understand food is simply neglected.

In an era of rising grocery prices that won’t go backwards no matter who is in the White House, that’s a huge mistake for America.

A single tomato plant can produce 20 to 30 pounds of tomatoes in one season. Don’t like tomatoes? Too bad. A modest backyard garden can generate hundreds of dollars of vegetables each year, including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, herbs and squash. There are systems today that can be used in apartments and townhomes that don’t have land to grow lettuce, herbs and more.

Multiply that across millions of American households, and you suddenly start reducing pressure on the grocery system itself. But the real benefit goes far beyond cheaper tomatoes.

Teaching kids how to grow food teaches them something our current education system struggles to deliver by explaining real-world economics. When a student plants seeds, tends soil, waters plants and waits weeks for the harvest, they learn lessons that no textbook can replicate.

SEC BROOKE ROLLINS: TRUMP BRINGS WHOLE MILK BACK TO SCHOOLS, UNDOING OBAMA’S WAR ON REAL FOOD

They learn to live off the land.

They learn effort equals reward.

They learn that food has value because it takes time and work to produce.

They also learn something else that’s increasingly rare in modern America. It’s where food actually comes from.

Ask a group of kids where carrots come from, and you’ll hear answers like “Publix” or “the grocery store.”

That disconnect from agriculture would have baffled earlier generations of Americans.

RICK PERRY: WHERE’S THE BEEF? TRUMP KNOWS AND HE’S TRYING TO MAKE IT AFFORDABLE

During World War II, Americans created what were known as Victory Gardens. More than 20 million households planted gardens in backyards, empty lots and community spaces. At one point, those gardens produced roughly 40% of the vegetables consumed in the United States. Let that sink in for a moment.

Nearly half of the country’s vegetables came from everyday citizens growing food themselves.

It wasn’t just patriotic. It was practical.

Today, we’re far more dependent on complex supply chains that stretch across continents. Fertilizer prices, transportation costs, labor shortages and global conflicts all ripple through the grocery store.

But a tomato plant in your backyard doesn’t care about global shipping routes.

That’s why every middle and high school in America should include a simple but powerful program: food literacy and school gardens.

It doesn’t require acres of farmland. Many schools already have unused green space. Raised beds, small gardens and seasonal planting programs could teach students:

• How soil works • How seeds grow • Seasonal food cycles • Composting and sustainability • Water conservation • Basic food preservation

The harvest could even go back into school cafeterias or local food banks.

AMERICA’S SMALLEST CATTLE HERD IN 70 YEARS MEANS REBUILDING WILL TAKE YEARS AND BEEF PRICES COULD STAY HIGH

And here’s where the idea becomes even more powerful.

Americans wouldn’t just save money. They would become healthier instead of getting addicted to processed foods.

Fresh vegetables grown in gardens are often more nutrient-rich than produce that travels thousands of miles through a national distribution chain. When families have easy access to fresh tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers and herbs, they naturally eat more whole foods and fewer ultra-processed ones.

And that matters because America’s healthcare crisis is increasingly tied to diet.

According to the CDC, roughly 6 in 10 Americans live with at least one chronic disease such as heart disease, diabetes or obesity. Many of these conditions are heavily influenced by diet and lifestyle.

Healthcare costs tied to chronic disease now run into trillions of dollars annually.

Think about this connective tissue. If more Americans eat fresh food and fewer processed foods, long-term medical costs fall.

Gardening also encourages something else the country desperately needs, which is physical activity. Digging soil, planting beds, watering plants and maintaining a garden gets people outside and moving instead of sitting indoors. Heck, I made a ton as a kid raking leaves and now all people want to do is blow them.

In other words, growing food improves both sides of the family budget:

PRESIDENT TRUMP IS TAKING IMPORTANT, STRATEGIC STEPS TO PROTECT AMERICAN CONSUMERS

Lower grocery bills. Lower medical bills. That’s a powerful one-two punch solution for American households. The biggest benefit might be something less measurable.

It restores a sense of independence.

Americans are used to solving problems with bigger government programs, more subsidies or more regulations. Sometimes the solution is simpler.

Give people knowledge and tools.

A generation that knows how to grow food is a generation that is less vulnerable to price shocks, supply disruptions and inflation. You may not be able to grow everything you eat. But even producing a portion of your food creates resilience.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

And maybe, just maybe it teaches the next generation something deeper about self-reliance, responsibility and the value of hard work.

Because the cheapest vegetables you’ll ever buy…are the ones you grow yourself.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM TED JENKIN

I served with my dog Dasty in Afghanistan. Dogs are man’s best friend on the battlefield

America is celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, a milestone made possible by the service members who have answered the call of duty since 1776. But the story of our country — and how we got here — is incomplete without including the contributions of the four-legged heroes who have served alongside our brave men and women in uniform. 

These dogs deserve an extra treat and belly rub this Canine Veterans Day (March 13) — especially my Dutch Shepherd, Dasty.

Courageous canines have fought alongside U.S. troops since the Revolutionary War, helping guard munitions stockpiles and serving as battlefield messengers. Fast-forward more than 150 years, and the K-9 Corps was officially formed during World War II, with roughly 1,600 working dogs now serving in our armed forces.

Whether as bomb sniffers, trackers or assault support units, the American soldier has no better ally than man’s best friend. My four-legged sidekick is part of this patriotic legacy.

VANCE FIRES UP MARINES ON MILITARY BRANCH’S 250TH BIRTHDAY: ‘KICK THE ENEMY’S A– AND COME HOME SAFE’

Our story began in 2018 when I was paired with Dasty — 3 years old at the time — at Fort Huachuca out west. Although we initially worked alongside the base police department, we were soon sent to Missouri for explosive detection training, a 60-day course that taught us to work as a team to uncover deadly weapons. From there, we deployed to Afghanistan. 

Dasty and I shared a modest tent at Forward Operating Base Dahlke in the Logar Province, where twin-sized mattresses awaited both of us. My canine partner provided a huge morale boost on base and, as you can imagine, was quite popular among the service members. Other soldiers frequented our tent just to spend time with Dasty — petting sessions that I can assure you he enjoyed just as much as they did. 

Beyond bringing comfort to soldiers far from home, Dasty also saved lives. He located enemy IEDs and weapons, which too often prove deadly to American service members, and performed admirably in combat situations. While under enemy contact, Dasty stayed calm and focused.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

After the deployment ended, we returned to the states and were stationed at a military base in Northern Virginia, where Dasty’s important work continued. We participated in multiple Secret Service missions for both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and we also helped train other military canine teams. It was gratifying to see others form such strong bonds with their dogs — a type of relationship that I had come to treasure in my own life.

Finally, in 2022, I said goodbye to the Army to pursue a new career in Wisconsin and spend more time with my family. While I was looking forward to the next phase of my life, the change meant I had to part ways with Dasty, who would remain in the military — a heartbreaking separation that I hoped would not last forever. Thankfully, we had one final chapter.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

When it was time for Dasty to retire two years later, I contacted the American Humane Society — which my wife had heard about — to see if they could help reunite us. The organization stepped up in a big way by flying Dasty from Arlington, Va., to my home in Green Bay, Wisc., and pledging to cover any future veterinary bills. The financial support proved invaluable just a few months ago when the nonprofit paid for a spinal surgery that restored Dasty’s ability to walk. 

U.S. military dogs are paws-on-the-ground all around the world — helping safeguard American lives and advance strategic national security interests as we mark 250 years of independence. Dasty is one of these loyal and patriotic heroes who deserves recognition. Now, finally off duty, he can fetch some well-earned rest — and a chew toy. 

Trump’s Operation Epic Fury proves Reagan-style peace through strength is back

In just a few days, Operation Epic Fury has eliminated Iran’s leadership, degraded its capacity to terrorize the West, and — for the moment — united the Middle East and most of the world around a vital American interest.

It’s still early, of course. But so far, President Donald Trump has achieved a strategic masterstroke. He has done so by reviving America’s oldest, simplest and best national security policy: peace through strength.

Yet Washington Democrats are blasting the president for ordering the attacks at all. They still cling, bitterly, to President Barack Obama’s delusion of pacifying the ayatollahs through diplomacy and appeasement, not only lifting sanctions but literally delivering pallets of cash to one of America’s most dangerous enemies. On the other side of the aisle, some principled MAGA conservatives are understandably wary of another forever war in the Middle East.

TRUMP’S STRIKE ON IRAN DEALS A MAJOR BLOW TO PUTIN’S WAR MACHINE IN UKRAINE

But both critiques misapprehend this mission, this commander in chief, and his national security strategy.

First, the president’s Go order Friday morning was not a rejection of diplomacy. It was an acknowledgment that diplomacy with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was impossible. Eight American presidents have tried to deal with Iran since the 1979 revolution. After 47 years of theft, murder and terror, even Donald Trump was forced to acknowledge there was no deal there for America to make.

Diplomacy that isn’t ultimately backstopped by force isn’t diplomacy. It’s weakness — the kind that invites rather than prevents wars.

Once Trump decided to act, he ensured our troops would work hand-in-glove with the region’s most lethal military and best intelligence, courtesy of our friends in Israel.

MICHAEL OREN: IRAN HAS WAGED WAR ON AMERICA FOR 47 YEARS — TIME TO END IT

Second, Donald Trump is neither a Messianic crusader nor a naive nation-builder. He has been president for five years, and the closest thing to a “forever war” he has ever started was his boycott of the White House Correspondents Dinner – and even that is coming to an end. Trump has been a peaceable president and, indeed, a peacemaker. His military interventions have been uniformly swift, decisive and effective.

Peace through strength is most associated with Ronald Reagan’s approach during the Cold War. But its principles can be seen in the foreign policies — however diverse in application — of Richard Nixon, Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt, and the Founding generation.

George Washington said, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” So is applying overwhelming force to quickly resolve discrete, urgent national threats diplomacy cannot. Trump has hewn closer to both rules than any president in a generation.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

As the Heritage Foundation documents in our new 2026 Index of Military Strength, President Trump has built his administration, our armed forces, and his global strategy around the defense of America’s vital interests. Remnants of his predecessors’ globalism and politicization still rattle around the federal budget and nat-sec bureaucracy. But Trump is reforming our military more rapidly and comprehensively than most experts give him credit for.

It’s not luck.

Trump’s pragmatic peace-through-strength approach protects himself, our troops, and our nation from potential quagmires. Even as spirits are running high this week, Trump speaks humbly about the narrow, modest goals of the Iran war: decapitate and defang the regime and then hand the country over to the Iranian people.

GREGG JARRETT: DEMOCRAT WAR POWERS VOTE WAS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL WAY TO HALT IRAN STRIKES

No chest-thumping about a New World Order. No cringy, “Islam means peace” pandering. No “cakewalk” hubris. Just a straightforward settling of accounts with the beating heart of global terrorism and the oil-rich co-conspirator in Russian and Chinese mischief.

In a just world, Epic Fury would put an end to the GOP Establishment’s habit of smearing the America First Right as “isolationist.” Conservative critics of Bush-era adventurism were never any such thing. That is why most of us are cheering Trump’s leadership in Iran today.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

A targeted, overwhelming military response to decades of violent aggression and years of diplomatic stonewalling is what peace through strength looks like. So do President Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s reforms of the Pentagon budget. So do Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s frank, but friendly speeches, at the last two Munich Security Conferences.

Operation Epic Fury, like President Trump’s prior interventions in Iran and Venezuela, do not contradict his peace-brokering in Russia, Ukraine and elsewhere. They are all applications of peace through strength, the only American foreign policy that has ever really worked.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KEVIN ROBERTS

DAVID MARCUS: The more America gives Mamdani, Khalil and the mad bombers, the more they hate us

Zohran Mamdani is the first Muslim mayor of New York City, activist Mahmoud Khalil is a graduate of two great American universities and the Pennsylvania alleged ISIS-inspired bomb throwers come from wealthy suburbs most people can only dream of, so why on Earth do these privileged people hate America so much?

Seriously, what has America done to Mamdani other than provide him with limitless opportunity? How can he and his supporters have such disdain for the capitalist culture and country that opened so many doors for them?

And Khalil is a man who was educated at the American University in Lebanon, and then at Columbia University, the alma mater of Alexander Hamilton. How does he express his gratitude? By leading riots in New York, calling for the end of Western civilization and threatening the safety of Jewish students, of course.

Speaking of Jews, we have learned that Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, who was seen in a photo this week serving Khalil a meal in Gracie Mansion, liked a tweet saying the brutal Hamas attack on Israel on 10/7 was a hoax.

20% OF NYC MAYOR-ELECT MAMDANI TRANSITION APPOINTEES HAVE ANTI-ZIONIST TIES: ADL

It’s interesting how often disdain for America and hatred of Jews are two sides of the same coin. Big Satan, little Satan and all that.

Hizzoner says that his wife is not a public figure and refuses to address the matter, but Rama sure seems like a public figure when she is posing for glossy magazine spreads.

Then we have the hapless alleged bomb tossers from tony Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The parents of one of them own a Popeye’s franchise. The kid is rich and has unlimited access to fried chicken, so what would make him and his buddy want to destroy America and establish a global Islamic caliphate?

THE US GOVERNMENT TARGETED ME FOR MY POLITICAL SPEECH. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU, TOO

This is where the conversation gets a little uncomfortable.

All week, we have been seeing images coming out of Gracie Mansion, home of Gotham’s mayor, of Mamdani and guests breaking their Ramadan fasts, shoes off, sitting on Persian carpets on the floor. It is all very much pushed in our faces.

Meanwhile, Mamdani seems to constantly appear at Islamic houses of worship and recently cheered the growth of Islam in the city, saying, “Mosques popping up all over New York. It’s beautiful. It’s a sign of our community growing stronger every day.”

ISRAEL ACCUSES MAMDANI OF POURING ‘ANTISEMITIC GASOLINE’ AFTER HE REVOKES ADAMS EXECUTIVE ORDERS

In 1960, when John F. Kennedy broke the ultimate religious barrier in Amercian politcs, he did so by basically saying, “You won’t even know I’m Catholic, because it has nothing to do with the job.” This is decidedly not the style of Mamdani, who has made himself a poster child of his faith.

Of course, the progressives who cheer on the rise of Islam in our cities understand the trap they are laying. Anyone who dares to question one of the most famous public buildings in New York turning into the set of “Sinbad the Sailor” is a bigot.

The problem is that when that public celebration of Ramadan includes Khalil, who would welcome the overthrow not just of Israel but of the United States, it isn’t just a holiday Hallmark card anymore, it’s a dangerous political statement.

‘THE PEOPLE’S QUR’AN’: MAMDANI ANNOUNCES NYC QUR’AN EXHIBIT WITH BOOK BELONGING TO REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVIST

Furthermore, as we know from the allegiance to ISIS sworn by the alleged would-be bombers, Islam is not some small, marginalized faith group, it’s the world’s largest at 2 billion people. It runs more countries than any other religion on the planet.

This brings us back to our original question, why do Mamdani and Duwaji, and Khalil and the bombers want to tear down the nation that gave them so much opportunity?

Increasingly, it looks like they object to the fact that our American, capitalist system is not Muslim.

MAMDANI SPARKS VIRAL OUTRAGE OVER DINNER PHOTO WITH MAHMOUD KHALIL INSIDE GRACIE MANSION: ‘DISGRACEFUL’

This is why there are concerns about places like Cedar Riverside in Minneapolis, where the Muslim Somali community makes no effort to assimilate, but rather exists as its own quasi-Muslim, fraud-funded state.

This is why Texans are worried about plans to create Islamic communities in the state that exist all but independently from everything else.

It is not unreasonable for people to look at figures like newly minted multi-millionaire Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who owe everything they have to this country and the enormous generosity of its people, and find the utter lack of gratitude absolutely galling.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Everyone mentioned above, and frankly almost everyone in Mamdani’s Gen Z band of illiterate communists, comes from privilege and luxury that most of my neighbors in West Virginia will never know, even though they probably pay for some of it.

The American people are waking up, they have seen what has happened in the U.K. and Canada. To be a Muslim American is great, just like any other faith, but to be a Muslim who wishes to overthrow America and its culture is another matter, and increasingly, Mamdani and his coterie look an awful lot like the latter.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS

Iran war jeopardizes Trump economic boom before key midterm elections

Will the Iran war turn President Donald Trump’s 1980s boom into a 1970s stagflation? Only if it drags out, which the president says he plans to avoid. But the enemy gets a vote too, as the saying goes, so what if it’s a long conflict?

As soon as Trump started bombing Iran, markets fell – especially growth stocks like AI. Silver plunged. Bonds fell. Even gold is now down nearly 3%, having replaced its initial war pop with an ominous flight to dollars you see in recessions.

Oil jumped 10% in two days, from $67 to $74 per barrel on the way to $86 as of writing.

Markets always react fast – and they can overreact. The question for the wider economy is how long the war disrupts Middle East oil exports.

SCHUMER ONCE BLOCKED TRUMP’S MOVE TO FILL THE NATION’S OIL RESERVES, NOW HE WANTS THEM OPENED

About 20% of global oil exports pass the narrow Strait of Hormuz that is next to Iran. Another 30% are in range of Iranian missiles in the Gulf of Oman and Red Sea.

The U.S. actually imports almost none of this – Middle East oil is just 2% of American oil consumption. But oil markets are global, so Middle East disruption drives prices up worldwide.

On the initial attack, ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz plunged by 70%, according to MarineTraffic. By March 3, it ground to a “total halt,” according to Lloyd’s List.

THE WAR HITS HOME: WHY FINANCIAL PAIN AND ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY THREATEN TRUMP’S DRIVE TO TOPPLE IRAN’S REGIME

Trump then ordered the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to provide political risk insurance and financial guarantees for maritime trade through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

This will help by removing risk to shippers. But traffic is unlikely to fully recover until the campaign ends.

Trump is currently suggesting the war might take just four weeks. But the administration is also messaging the war will go “as long as it takes.”

EX-NAVY SEAL WARNS WITHDRAWING FROM IRAN NOW WOULD HAND ‘VICTORY’ TO REGIME

Promising a long war could be tactical, to demoralize the Iranian regime. But opinion polls show the American people have very little appetite for a long war.

A recent CBS poll found a war lasting fewer than eight weeks is +52 in the polls, while a war that lasts longer than that is -8. Polling would likely get worse if American casualties mount.

On the initial attack, ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz plunged by 70%, according to MarineTraffic. By March 3, it ground to a “total halt,” according to Lloyd’s List.

In terms of the economy, there will only be real fallout if the war drags on. And that falls into three baskets: growth, jobs and inflation.

US DESTROYS 16 IRANIAN MINE BOATS AS STRAIT OF HORMUZ OIL SHOWDOWN ESCALATES

Historically, every $10 rise in oil knocks about two-tenths of a percent off economic growth. That’s small in an economy that’s growing over 3%, according to the Fed’s GDPNow. It might lower annual wage growth by about $300, given the $19 oil has already risen.

Still, that goes on top of expensive oil to heat your home or gas your car. AAA says gasoline prices have already jumped nearly 20%, from $2.98 to $3.56. Between gasoline, transport costs and utilities, that might bump inflation another six-tenths of a percent – translating into another $500 in household costs.

Meanwhile, higher oil prices and slower growth both hit job creation – given the move we’ve already seen, they might drop job creation by 15,000 to 20,000 per month.

TED CRUZ SHUTS DOWN EXTENDED IRAN WAR TALK, SAYS IT’S ‘NOT IRAQ’ AMID OIL PRICE SPIKE

So it’s painful. But it’s not a recession.

What would put us in recession is a long war. A recent study by Deutsche Bank looked at historic oil shocks, concluding you need a 50% to 100% sustained jump in oil to set off a recession.

This would imply oil prices between $100 and $150 that remained high.

Even then, according to Deutsche, oil only causes recession when the economy is already limping. For example, the 1970s is the poster child for an oil crash. But the U.S. economy was already stagflationary because of Washington’s so-called guns and butter policy of fighting Vietnam while building a trillion-dollar welfare state. This drove the “Nixon Shock,” which pre-dated the oil embargo by several years.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

In contrast, when the bombs started, the Fed’s GDPNow was at a healthy 3% on GDP growth and the most recent productivity was 4.9% – one of the highest since the Reagan boom.

This means $100 oil could knock us into the 1% area on growth. But it’s unlikely to spark a recession unless the Fed panics on oil inflation and hikes rates. Which could mow down enough jobs to tip us over the edge.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

For now, the biggest war impact is oil prices. But if the war keeps going, oil trickles down to growth, jobs, consumer spending and inflation that could set off a Fed hike doom loop.

If that happens, Trump could be throwing away his hard-won boom just in time for midterm elections that hand Congress to Democrats. They will take us on a two-year journey of paralysis, congressional hearings and repeated impeachments.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM PETER ST. ONGE

STEVE MOORE: Five energy truths the media ignore as America’s oil boom blunts the Iran war’s impact

Given the energy disruptions in the Middle East since the start of the war with Iran and the topsy-turvy fluctuations in the price of crude oil ever since, here are five facts Americans should be aware of regarding the geopolitics of energy.

First, America is now producing more oil and gas than ever. Since 2022, we’ve produced more than any other nation, including Saudi Arabia. The best way to inoculate ourselves from foreign supply disruptions is to generate every barrel of oil we can here at home.

Second, the Green New Deal was and continues to be an energy belly flop. Even after spending $400 billion in taxpayer subsidies on wind and solar power, these remain fringe and non-scalable forms of energy. We get 80% of our power from fossil fuels. The same as it ever was.

TANKERS TO RESUME NORMAL MOVEMENT IN MIDDLE EAST IN ‘A FEW WEEKS’ AT WORST, ENERGY SEC SAYS, ENDING OIL SURGE

Third, the Middle East has always been an unreliable source of energy for the U.S. Since the 1970s, prices have spiked whenever there is turmoil in the region — which has occurred roughly once a decade.

Fourth, the U.S. is now a net exporter of oil and gas, with by far the largest increases in production. The U.S. is far less reliant on Middle East oil than it has been in decades.

The Department of Energy reports:

America leads the world in oil and natural gas production, producing at all-time highs.

• U.S. crude oil production reached record-high output in 2025, at more than 13.6 million barrels per day. • The U.S. is currently producing 24 million barrels per day of oil and liquid fuels — more than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined. • The U.S. is producing nearly as much natural gas as Russia, Iran and China combined, at 110 billion cubic feet per day.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Fifth, higher oil prices drive overall inflation because oil is a primary input into everything we produce and consume — from housing to groceries to healthcare to technology. If we want to keep the inflation rate down, we need energy prices to be falling or at least stable.

What all of this means is that “Drill, baby, drill” is the best strategy for restoring a strong economy. This also underscores why “net-zero fossil fuels” was a fool’s errand.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

If Donald Trump is right that the Iranian oil supply-chain disruptions are temporary, the oil price will head back to the $40-to-$60 range almost assuredly, and the great 2026 economic boom will be right around the corner.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM STEPHEN “STEVE” MOORE

MORNING GLORY: President Trump and the US are waging a righteous battle — and winning

The United States and Israel are winning this battle with the Islamic Republic of Iran — decisively. Our Gulf allies are standing strong. The cost has already been high, with seven U.S. service members dead and many wounded, some seriously. Soldiers of the Israeli Defense Forces have been killed and civilians in Israel and among the Gulf states murdered by the lashing out at every country in the region by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

But of course, some hard-left partisans hate the prospect of either President Donald Trump or the United States winning an important, indeed crucial battle.  That includes, shockingly, Catholic cardinals in the U.S. These cardinals are putting politics ahead of faith and demonstrating deep ignorance of national security affairs combined with indifference to the patriotism of their parishioners — many of whom with family on the front lines — who can be expected to at least stop giving to an anti-American church if not leave it.

For anyone who, out of ignorance, real or feigned, does not understand the nature of the regime atop the 91 million innocent people of Iran: These fanatics murdered 35,000 of their own people in two days and nights of terror in January in Tehran and across other cities in the vast country. 35,000!

HEGSETH BLASTS BRITS, SAYS IRAN’S CHAOTIC RETALIATION HAS DRIVEN ITS OWN ALLIES ‘INTO THE AMERICAN ORBIT’

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps numbers between 150,000 and 200,000 and their street thugs, the Basij, between four and five times that. So a million of Iran’s people cruelly repress the other 91.

The left in America refuses to come to grips with how evil the Iranian regime is and for how long it has been so. They seem to have forgotten the original hostage crisis, the murder of our Marines in Beirut in 1983, the destruction of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and countless other acts of assassination and mass terrorism since the regime seized power in 1979. They do not know that we know for a certainty that Iran murdered and maimed thousands of our troops in Iraq in the war that began there in 2003. Our political left is defeatist and in the grip of their appeasers and anti-Israel caucus. That left now includes at least three high-profile Catholic cardinals.

The Senate and House GOP should stand proudly behind President Trump and proclaim the Islamic Republic of Iran as the evil and malignant terrorist regime run by theocratic fanatics that it has been for 47 years; that the cause of destroying the regime’s ability to threaten the region and the world is just; and that President Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Caine are conducting the war in remarkable fashion because the American military has no peer.

I hope House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune persuade the caucuses they lead to agree to bring forward a second reconciliation process to quickly resupply the military with the funds to replenish the ordinance expended and, indeed, to go further: To fully fund the next three years of spending necessary to the rapid build-out of the Golden Dome and the Golden Fleet, while also making sure the equal of any of our allies — Israel — has the funding and hardware we can provide to assist them on all of their fronts. The righteous battle with Iran and its proxies needs to be proclaimed and explained and cannot be done too often or too loudly.

MICHAEL OREN: IRAN HAS WAGED WAR ON AMERICA FOR 47 YEARS — TIME TO END IT

And, as a Roman Catholic, I hope some of our braver and certainly better informed cardinals stand up and address the brothers in red who have flown off the rails of national security reality.

Democrats who are defeatist, appeasers, antisemitic or simply deranged by their hatred of President Trump: You keep speaking up too. History will record your positions.

The region and the whole world is far better off already because of the crushing of Iran’s striking capability and will be immeasurably blessed by the collapse of this insidious regime.

What we have witnessed by the “Yosemite Sam” response of Iran to the attacks by the U.S. and Israel should have awakened even the least observant consumer of news to the nature of the regime. The mullahs ordered everything in their arsenal fired at all of their neighbors, none of whom other than the U.S. and Israel were involved in the conflict. In this respect, Iran acted as Hitler’s Germany did after Imperial Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941: Germany unilaterally declared war on the United States four days after the “day that will live in infamy.”

While Iran has been in conflict with Israel and the United States since the Islamic Revolution culminated in the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran on February 1, 1979, Iran was not at war with the Gulf States. That Iran attacked everyone it could hit should tell you why the regime was so dangerous. It is an unhinged and revolutionary power. It does not abide by anything remotely like the rules of civilized nation states. Its “threat” was not merely imminent, but ongoing and never ceasing. Its hideousness appeared unveiled on Oct. 7, 2023 in Israel when its puppet Hamas invaded Israel to kill, kidnap and maim. Iran could never be trusted with nuclear weaponry or the sort of forest of missiles it was aiming to assemble in order to blackmail the world into acquiescence to its nuclear ambitions.

President after president of both parties vowed that Iran would never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. President Trump made good on that vow with the order to conduct Operation Midnight Hammer last June, which obliterated the ongoing enrichment and weaponization programs inside Iran.

74 RETIRED US GENERALS, ADMIRALS BACK IRAN STRIKES, WARN TEHRAN SEEKS TO ‘SPILL AMERICAN BLOOD’

At that point, Iran could have taken the off-ramp, recognized that the U.S. and Israel had reached the point at which no further provocation or prevarication would be tolerated. Indeed, President Trump made repeated efforts to offer terms to the ayatollahs.

They refused. They obfuscated, playing for time, and always refusing to negotiate as their missile arsenal accumulated. President Trump then did what every American president of both parties pledged to do: He stopped them. And he ordered the military to prevent the next attempt to rebuild.

Stunningly ignorant clerics and critics have damned the United States for breaching international law. Some have incredibly turned their backs not only on the growing, ongoing and imminent threats posed by the fanatics, but also on the mountain of corpses the IRGC piled up in the streets of Iran in January. Catholics: Stop giving money to those dioceses that are putting our troops at risk, and make no mistake, some cardinals are doing just that. They are the modern but left-wing versions of Father Coughlin of the 1930s. Their infamy will be as enduring as his.

Cardinal Cupich of Chicago joined Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, in co-authoring an incoherent statement titled “Charting a Moral Vision of American Foreign Policy” that ignores the massive evils perpetrated by the IRGC this year and over the decades. Politicians shouldn’t advise priests on their religious doctrine and priests should not demonstrate their lack of knowledge about basic national security.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The cardinals are not alone, however, as the upside-down view of this battle has a grip on the Democratic Party. For the first time in my life, the partisanship that marks elections now defines a conflict in which American servicemen and women are on the front lines. We can perhaps excuse clerics for their ignorance of the world. The Catholic bishops of America presumed to lecture Ronald Reagan in the 1980s with lengthy letters on war and peace as well as on economic growth, and conveniently forgot how wrong they were when the policies of Reagan and President George H.W. Bush brought down the Soviet Union and freed much of Eastern Europe and even Russia for a time.

But now the American left, both in elected office and in pulpits high and low, have wholly lost their way. To repeat: The Iranian regime murdered 35,000 of its own people two months ago. Its proxy, Hamas, invaded Israel and slaughtered 1,200 on Oct. 7 while starting a war that devastated Gaza. Two other of Iran’s proxies — Hezbollah and the Houthis — also attacked Israel in the months after Oct. 7, as did Iran. Where were the cardinals then? Hiding, of course.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

The collapse of moral clarity among American elites on the left is complete, and it has even made inroads on the fringes of the right. The Republican Party should boldly proclaim that, even after 250 years, our country still knows right from wrong and will defend the right.

President Trump is leading a winning campaign to rid the world of as malign an actor as there is. The region and the world will be so much better off if the president perseveres. Pray he does, because it is obvious that many who should be doing so lack the wisdom and/or the courage to do so.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT

BRETT VELICOVICH: Iran built a drone terror machine — America just hacked it

As coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran continue, one thing is clear: this is not the kind of war we have spent decades planning for. There are no massed formations or carrier battle groups trading salvos. This conflict is being fought with swarms of relatively inexpensive, one-way drones. Adaptation and rapid innovation now determine how conflicts are fought.

Iran has spent years perfecting saturation warfare. The concept is straightforward: flood the sky with enough drones and missiles to exhaust the enemy’s interceptors, force impossible triage decisions and eventually break through. Iran has targeted hotels, tourist centers and locations without hardened counter-drone systems. Iran’s kamikaze drones, called Shaheds, are low, slow and persistent. They aren’t technically sophisticated, but they are difficult to stop in large numbers. This isn’t a failure of U.S. technology. It’s a logistics and economics problem that we need to solve and adapt to. And we’re already doing that.

For the first time, the U.S. has deployed the LUCAS system — a one-way attack drone modeled directly on Iran’s own Shahed design — in combat. The system was developed by reverse-engineering downed Iranian drone systems in Ukraine and rebuilding them with American guidance systems, hardened navigation and real-time targeting integration into our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) networks. Then we sent them back to Iran to destroy their infrastructure.

KEANE WARNS IRAN STRIKE BECOMING ‘REGIONAL WAR,’ SAYS THREE GULF STATES PREPARING FOR COMBAT

LUCAS was used in the opening strike, hitting Iranian drone manufacturing sites and other weapons infrastructure before advanced fighters followed. These drones aren’t just munitions; they’re nodes in a combat cloud, receiving real-time targeting updates and networked with intelligence assets in ways Iran’s drones cannot match.

While Iran is building volume, the U.S. is building systems. This distinction matters.

This operation has also marked the largest-scale deployment of AI models across the U.S. Department of War in history. From intelligence assessments to target identification to battle scenario simulation, AI has been part of the decision cycle at every level. This precision has been another point of delineation between the two sides. While Tehran responds with indiscriminate barrages hitting civilian areas, U.S. strikes are being driven by layered intelligence, refined targeting and a disciplined operational picture. That gap in approach is not only strategic but ethical.

This conflict with Iran will be decided by the side that adapts fastest, identifying problems and finding solutions on a compressed timeline.

But there are still areas where we’re adapting. The cost dynamics of this new approach remain unresolved. The U.S. has traditionally favored high-tech, expensive weapons systems requiring extensive training and planning. But when the adversary has more drones than you have interceptors, the math turns against you fast.

CARGO SHIP HIT BY PROJECTILE IN STRAIT OF HORMUZ WHILE IRAN LAUNCHES FRESH ATTACKS ON MIDDLE EAST

Relying on high-cost interceptors to counter cheap, easy-to-produce drones is not a sustainable equation. The answer isn’t to outgun; it’s to intelligently adapt — and to do so quickly. Lower-cost, high-speed, combat-proven intercept platforms designed to counter one-way attack drones, including the Shahed-136, Geran-2 and other Group 3-class unmanned threats, are what this new battlefield demands.

That’s the lesson Ukraine has been teaching for years — and one this conflict is reinforcing in real time: no military in the world is adequately prepared to stop cheap, mass-produced one-way drones at scale. Not yet. The U.S. industrial base has the capacity to change that. The constraint is understanding the new reality and deciding to move on it.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Iran spent years developing and proliferating the Shahed as a tool of destabilization, deploying it in Yemen, Iraq and Ukraine, and against American forces across the region. Now, a version of that same weapon has been turned against the factories that produce it.

As of today, the Islamic Republic is in unprecedented internal chaos. Leadership is scrambling, and the regime’s command-and-control picture is unclear even to those inside it. That uncertainty creates both opportunity and risk. Precision matters more — not less — in these moments.

This conflict will be decided by the side that adapts fastest, identifying problems and finding solutions on a compressed timeline. Though the U.S. drone industry isn’t where it needs to be, real-world, battle-tested deployment is how capability gaps get closed. What we learn here will shape doctrine, acquisition and industrial strategy for the next decade.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

America just delivered one of the most significant demonstrations of adaptive military capability in modern history. The question isn’t whether we can innovate — it’s whether we’re prepared to build the industrial and defensive infrastructure at the scale and speed this new era demands. 

The answer to that question isn’t decided on a battlefield. It’s decided here at home — where we invest and how seriously we take the threat. The conflict with Iran has made that choice unavoidable.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM BRETT VELICOVICH

SEN CYNTHIA LUMMIS: Don’t hand China the nuclear future — build it here at home

Wyoming has been powering this country for over a century. If you look at the Wyoming state flag, specifically the seal in the middle of the bison, there is a miner pictured to represent the priority we have long placed on powering the country. Most people think of coal, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources when they think about our state. But Wyoming is also leading the way when it comes to the nuclear energy industry.

The incredible demand for energy, both here at home and worldwide, driven by the artificial intelligence boom, is not slowing down anytime soon. This industry requires vast amounts of reliable baseload power, and the countries that can deliver it will control the next era of economic and technological leadership. 

For more than a decade, America’s electricity demand barely budged. That era is completely over. Demand jumped 3% in 2024 alone, and in the coming years, the EIA predicts we will need close to a trillion more kilowatt-hours than we use today. To put that in perspective, that’s roughly equivalent to powering every home in America twice. Wyoming has the uranium, the workforce and the next-generation technology to help meet that moment. 

TRUMP ADMIN RELAUNCHES KEY COUNCIL AFTER BIDEN ADMIN SHUTTERED IT: ‘IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE’

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) approval last week of a construction permit for TerraPower’s Kemmerer Power Station, a sodium-cooled advanced nuclear reactor to be built in western Wyoming, is a big deal for our state. The approval of this permit is proof that when industry and government operate with focus, efficiency and integrity, America can build tomorrow’s technologies right here at home in a reasonable regulatory timeframe. The NRC, under President Trump’s leadership, has delivered on this approval ahead of its own timeline, demonstrating that America is serious about leading in this industry.

Wyoming sits atop the largest uranium deposits in the country. During the Cold War, Wyoming was one of the nation’s top uranium producers — a legacy that didn’t disappear, it’s been waiting for the right moment to return. With the right regulatory framework and private sector investment, that moment is now. Wyoming miners and energy workers have the experience and the tools to extract these resources responsibly, and to help safely expand nuclear power across the country.

This policy fight is larger than one single community or facility. It is about reclaiming America’s nuclear fuel supply chain from our adversaries and restoring next-generation nuclear energy production here at home. For decades, we made the costly mistake of purchasing uranium from Russia. I proudly led the successful congressional effort to ban that practice, and today President Trump, Interior Secretary Burgum and Energy Secretary Wright are working to rebuild America’s uranium and nuclear supply chain from the ground up. We cannot afford to depend on foreign powers for any resources fundamental to our energy security. 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Both China and Russia have rapidly boosted nuclear energy production in the last 10 years and are aggressively working to export their own nuclear technology. Countries around the world are interested in embracing nuclear energy, and it is vital that Wyoming and the United States lead the way instead of surrendering that economic opportunity, technology and mining dominance to our competitors. China leads the world in nuclear reactor construction, with over 30 new plants underway. But they aren’t just building them for themselves. Beijing desperately wants to export their nuclear technology around the world, and tie other countries to Chinese designs and Chinese supply chains for decades to come.

Wyoming isn’t going to let that happen without a fight. The Kemmerer Power Station puts us at the front of this race. It will power our communities, put Wyoming workers to work, and show the rest of the world how next-generation nuclear energy actually gets done.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Wyoming has always been, and will always be, an energy state. It’s what we do, it’s our expertise, and we are proud of it. As America’s energy and electricity needs grow, Wyoming must be the state to meet the demand and provide it at a price that American families and companies can afford. I believe that nuclear power will be a critical component of the baseload playbook for the future.

The Trump administration has worked extremely hard to ensure that our energy grid will continue to be secure and loaded. Wyoming is not just ready for the energy future; we are leading it.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM SEN CYNTHIA LUMMIS

DAVID MARCUS: Sen Thune has no idea how mad the GOP base is at him

About 60% of Texas Republicans voted last Tuesday to end John Cornyn’s career in the Senate, but it wasn’t really Cornyn they were rejecting. It was the feckless, do-nothing GOP Senate leadership that makes “Waiting for Godot” look like a “Fast and Furious.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wound up in a virtual tie with Cornyn, and headed to a runoff precisely because Republican voters, not just in Texas, but across the country, are incandescently angry at the GOP-controlled Senate’s inability to do, well, much of anything.

This righteous fury is why Paxton’s political play in the face of a runoff was so brilliant. He said that if the Senate would pass the Save America Act, and its voter ID provisions, he would drop out, saving President Donald Trump from having to swoop in with a decisive endorsement.

For Cornyn, and more importantly for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., this occasioned a crisis, a much-needed one, in fact, as GOP voters stare across the desk at Senate leadership, like the Bobs in “Office Space,” asking, if they can’t pass a bill with massive public support, what would they say they do there?

DAVID MARCUS: KEN PAXTON DEVOURS JOHN CORNYN AS TEXAS GOP CRAVES A FIGHTER IN SENATE PRIMARY SHOWDOWN

Thune responded Monday to growing public calls to pass the Save America Act in the stupidest, most infuriating way possible, by asserting that voters aren’t really angry, and the furor is all just a campaign by paid influencers.

The fact that Thune has not apologized for this yet is incredible. It is as condescending to working-class voters as anything a politician has ever said.

Does Thune think that 60% of Republicans in Texas voting against the Senate status quo is a sign that they think he’s doing a great job?

HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH JOHNSON TO GO TO WAR WITH SENATE OVER SAVE ACT

It is not.

All across the country, Republican voters tell me that they are apoplectic about the Senate. Yes, they understand the arcane 60-vote filibuster stuff. They just don’t care. They want and need action from a body that refuses to act.

And it isn’t just Paxton who knows in his bones how vitally GOP voters need a win on the Save America Act, it is also Trump, who has shown a rare amount of patience with Thune’s ineptitude and incalcitrance. At least so far.

MORNING GLORY: TEXAS MIGHT BE THE KEY TO SAVING TRUMP’S SECOND TERM AGENDA

Even Cornyn has come around, if only in the face of his own potential political demise, penning a column in the New York Post calling for the filibuster to be abandoned and the act to be passed.

But Thune, with his long, sad face and low mournful voice like Eeyore the donkey, just keeps saying, “We don’t have the votes to break the filibuster.”

Ok, John, then how about this: Any Republican senator who refuses to vote to break the filibuster loses their committee assignments, gets no money from the party and is promised a primary.

GOP REACHES KEY 50-VOTE THRESHOLD FOR TRUMP-BACKED VOTER ID BILL AS SENATE FIGHT LOOMS

The most dangerous thing I heard from GOP voters in Texas, and I heard it from plenty, is that they are starting to think their vote just doesn’t matter, that nothing can change anyway. And right now, who would argue with them?

I don’t know who Thune surrounds himself with who told him that the anger I see everywhere from Republican voters is just a paid influencer campaign, but I would urge him to go talk to some actual voters instead of his K Street cronies.

It was an ominous sign that more Democrats than Republicans voted in last week’s deep-red Texas primary, but not a surprise, because the demoralized aren’t eager voters. And if the Save America Act dies on the vine, even fewer will feel compelled to cast a ballot.

HARDLINE CONSERVATIVES DOUBLE DOWN TO SAVE THE SAVE ACT

In the final moments of “Waiting for Godot,” Vladimir says, “Well? Shall we go?” To which Estragon replies, “Yes, let’s go.” And then the famous stage direction, (They do not move.).

There is no direct evidence to show that Samuel Beckett was inspired by Senate Republican leadership when he wrote this, but he could have been, because it is the same old scene, over and over.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

If nothing else, Thune needs to look GOP voters in the eye and say, directly, “We hear you. We know you are angry. We see it in the primary results and we will listen to what you want and try to do better.”

Right now, Thune and Senate Republicans are like the inattentive husband who doesn’t know the divorce papers have already been filed. It may not be too late to work it out with voters, but it’s getting pretty close.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM DAVID MARCUS

Trump delivered for tipped workers. Why do Democratic governors hate them?

It’s never easy working for tips. For eight years, from 2014 to 2022, I did just that. I was a server at a Maine hotel, taking orders at the restaurant and bringing customers their food. Some nights, I’d make $200 or even $300. Other nights, I’d make half that, or less. The pandemic was especially rough. We had no inside dining — just six outside tents, and a lot fewer diners. It was tough to pay bills for a couple of years.

I got married to a coworker I met on the job, and before leaving the dining room, we had two kids. I had to bring home the bacon, but it was hard to estimate how much I’d make in a given year. And every year, come April 15th, I had a choice to make. Would I report my tip income on my taxes? Or would I keep it off the books and keep more money in my pocket?

I always made the lawful choice. But it was tough. The Census Bureau estimates that about a third of tipped income went unreported between 2005 and 2018 — about $8 billion a year. I don’t support it, but I understand it. A lot of my coworkers were just starting their careers or had young families. They had a strong incentive to make a bad choice.

TREASURY DEPARTMENT REVEALS WHICH JOBS COULD SECURE A MAJOR TAX BREAK FROM TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

But this year is different. Thanks to the tax-cut bill that President Donald Trump signed last year, most tipped income up to $25,000 isn’t subject to federal taxes for the 2025 through 2028 filing years. There’s much less reason for tipped workers to hide a big part of their income from the government. It’s a win for working families and the rule of law. Not only do families legally keep more money in their pocket, but with higher reported incomes, it’s easier to qualify for the credit they need to buy a car or a first home.

But the job’s not done. States still have the power to levy taxes on tips, and just over half do. So long as the government is grabbing for this money, tipped workers still have a reason to hide much of their income. It would be better for everyone if all states followed President Trump’s lead.

Some have shown common sense. Seven states automatically follow federal policy, so when the federal taxes ended, theirs did, too. Several others have proactively changed their policies. Notably, the list includes Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who signed a no-tax-on-tips law in October. As a Democrat with likely hopes for higher office, her support of a tax cut is refreshing indeed.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

But other blue-state governors — including my own — show no signs of giving workers relief. Gov. Janet Mills has called on the Maine legislature to conform state law to most of what’s in the federal tax-cut law, but she excluded no taxes on tips. Fiscally, that makes little sense. Maine would lose an estimated $9.2 million in annual tax revenue, a drop in the bucket in a state that spends $14.5 billion a year.

Yet while the numbers are minor for state revenue, they’re major for tipped workers. Every dollar they pay to Augusta is a dollar they can’t spend on their families and futures. Continued taxation isn’t just politicians thumbing their noses at the Trump administration. They’re giving a middle finger to workers who want and need relief.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

Gov. Mills isn’t the only one sending that ugly signal. In January, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill to conform state policy with federal law. Bizarrely, she announced her veto flanked by signs that read “middle class tax cuts now.” Wisconsin Republicans sent a similar bill to Gov. Tony Evers shortly after the start of the year. He hasn’t indicated what he’ll do, but given his general opposition to state Republicans, a veto seems likely any day.

I wish more governors and state lawmakers — Republicans as well as Democrats — would see the light across the country. Ending taxes on tips won’t help me anymore, but it would help millions of workers dealing with the legacy of inflation and a consumer-spending slowdown. President Trump has done his part to deliver for tipped workers. Now state leaders should stop stiffing them.

The US government targeted me for my political speech. It could happen to you, too

Three years ago, I came to the United States as a graduate student with the intention of studying public and international affairs at Columbia University, with a focus on public service. Like many who come here from across the world, I had a vision of the United States as the land of the free, a place where freedom of speech was cherished and where I could study freely. I thought it was a place where I could stand up for what I believed in without fear of retaliation from the government.

On March 8, 2025, that vision shattered. Multiple plainclothes ICE agents in unmarked cars grabbed me, without a warrant, from the lobby of my apartment building in New York and threw me on a plane to a federal detention center in Louisiana. As a green card holder with a U.S. citizen wife — who was 8 months pregnant at the time — I couldn’t believe what was happening. I had been targeted by the government because of my lawful speech in support of Palestinian rights, for protesting the use of my tax dollars and tuition fees to support the Israeli occupation.

Throughout my 104 days in federal detention, during which I missed the birth of my first child, I considered myself a political prisoner. The government had deprived me of my liberty, not because I had broken any laws, but because it didn’t like what I had to say.

MAMDANI TELLS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ANTI-ISRAEL ACTIVIST SHOULD ‘REMAIN IN NEW YORK CITY’ AMID DEPORTATION CASE

Once I challenged my detention and Secretary Rubio’s determination that my political views posed a foreign policy threat, the government scrambled to add new accusations. They alleged, baselessly, that I had committed fraud on my green card application. Claims invented not out of evidence, but out of retaliation. Recent evidence in federal court revealed that DHS itself acknowledged, a day before my arrest, that there were no issues with the information I provided on my green card application because everything was complete, true, and correct. Yet I was arrested anyway.

I was not alone. Other students and scholars with valid immigration status were similarly targeted for detention and deportation despite having committed no crime. They were pulled off streets by masked agents, targeted outside of their homes, and tricked into arrests during citizenship appointments. What happened to us is exactly what the First Amendment is designed to prevent: the government deciding which speech is acceptable and which is not. Once that protection is weakened, everyone is at risk.

The Supreme Court recognized eighty years ago that the First Amendment protects all of us in the United States — citizens and noncitizens alike — from government persecution for our beliefs. If we allow that boundary to be violated for noncitizens, or when the government claims a foreign policy concern, a precedent is created that can be used against all of us. Even citizens. Even people who disagree with me vehemently about Palestine.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

The government has argued that federal courts must let people sit in immigration detention for months or years before reviewing allegations of constitutional violations. They have argued that Pro-Palestine speech constitutes a foreign policy threat. They have argued that I deserve to be deported because they dislike my ideas. If they can do this to a lawful permanent resident with a U.S. citizen wife and newborn U.S. citizen child, there’s no telling who else they will come for.

The government isn’t allowed to control how we can speak and think. Attorneys representing me in my case, and others like me in similar cases, argued this point in court and secured our release from detention. But my case is still ongoing, and the executive branch’s immigration agency may soon order my deportation. So, I ask Americans directly: do you want to live in a country where you can be snatched off the street by plainclothes agents for your thoughts?

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

In Assad’s Syria, where I grew up in a Palestinian refugee camp, that was routine. Since the beginning of 2025, the United States, a country whose Constitution protects freedom of speech, has seen an increase in these actions that I once associated with Assad: abductions by plainclothes officers without warrants, forced detention of people who express views the government doesn’t like, and the targeted silencing of dissent.

I will continue to use my platform to advocate for human rights in Palestine. But I ask each and every person reading this to use their voice to defend our First Amendment rights. The right to speak our minds, no matter who holds power, is the foundation of our democracy, and it is in peril. Whatever you may think of me or my views, that foundation belongs to all of us.

The next head of Homeland Security needs to do a lot more to live up to Trump’s promises

A change in leadership at the Department of Homeland Security is a good time to assess what should change and what shouldn’t when it comes to two of President Donald Trump’s top campaign promises: border security and mass deportations.

The Trump administration very quickly and successfully secured the border in its first year. Maintaining this is imperative to prevent additional national security, public safety and economic threats from entering the U.S.

With new DHS leadership, however, the administration can better pursue mass deportations. Limiting them to “the worst of the worst” results in only hundreds of thousands of deportations, when at least 20 million deportable aliens were residing in the U.S. at the start of Trump’s second term. In this Phase 2, the administration should open the aperture to significantly increase deportation numbers.

Candidate Trump promised the largest mass deportation effort in American history, not just the worst criminal aliens. America needs the administration to carry out that promise to restore the rule of law, relieve American taxpayers from unsustainable welfare, education, healthcare and other costs, and open college and job opportunities for American students, graduates and employees shut out by foreign students, cheaper labor and fraud.

NOEM DEPLOYS TO BOTH BORDERS, SAYS ICE WON’T BE DETERRED BY SANCTUARY OFFICIALS WHO ‘WANT TO CREATE CONFLICT’

Following the bombings in Iran, Americans now wonder whether Iranian and other terrorist sleeper cells, who faced no obstacles entering the country during President Joe Biden’s four years of open borders, may activate and carry out terrorism in the U.S.

It is important to note that known and suspected terrorists often do not have a criminal history. In fact, they are often chosen because of their “clean” background. So, DHS will need to use other tools to identify and locate national security threats, including worksite enforcement, scrutinizing immigration and other government benefit applications, as well as financial accounts.

These and other tools should likewise be used with respect to all deportable aliens to achieve the promised and necessary mass deportations. While self-deportation is a valuable tool, deportable aliens without rap sheets will not opt to leave on their own if they do not see a risk of DHS deporting them. So long as remaining in the U.S. illegally is low risk, high reward, deportable aliens will continue to stay here.

As such, DHS under new leadership should change that risk calculus to make continued stays high-risk, low-reward. To do so requires removing work authorization from deportable aliens and enforcing the law against unauthorized workers and their employers, as well as preventing remittances from such ill-gotten work leaving the country.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

Conducting mass deportations will draw more bogus claims from the left against ICE. During Trump’s second term, both DHS and the White House have consistently and effectively refuted the left’s false ICE allegations, which whither under scrutiny. It is important that DHS continue to shoot down such false claims with the critical facts the left intentionally omits.

But we also need much more transparency from DHS regarding ICE deportation numbers. ICE used to report such data monthly but has not done so since the Trump administration began in January 2025. Nor has DHS reported how many aliens have used the CBP Home app to self deport.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

To give the American public confidence that DHS is indeed conducting mass deportations, the department should regularly report the number of removals from the interior of the U.S. versus border turnbacks and maritime interdictions, as well as self-departures, including timely and untimely departures, and use of the CBP Home app.

The government, over the course of several administrations, has used different components and definitions to calculate removal numbers. It is important to understand this administration’s methodology to determine how well it is pursuing President Trump’s signature campaign promise and legacy-defining policy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM LORA RIES

BRUCE PEARL: When a team keeps losing, you make changes — look beyond the Palestinian Authority for peace

Anyone who has coached for a living knows you’re judged by results, not excuses. When the results aren’t there, the coach is out the door. Healthy governments work the same way. Political authorities exist to deliver outcomes. When they fail over time, consequences follow.

We are certainly seeing that play out in Iran, where tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to protest their failed leadership and where they are today blessing and praising America and Israel for the military operation that may bring their freedom.

Unfortunately, no global expectation exists for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to deliver positive outcomes for their people. They continue to teach antisemitism in their classrooms and lionize terrorists while largely ignoring the needs of ordinary Palestinians, who have paid the price for decades.

PARENTS ARE FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THE SYSTEMIC ANTISEMITISM POISONING CLASSROOMS

Don’t take my word for it. Listen to Tawfik Tirawi, a former Palestinian intelligence chief who recently issued an open letter describing systemic corruption inside the Palestinian Authority.

Officials act with impunity. Land is seized under political protection. Elections haven’t been held in years. Mahmoud Abbas is now in the 20th year of a four-year presidential term and governs largely by decree.

Tirawi is not an opposition figure or a critic from outside. He is someone from inside the locker room, describing the internal failure of the team he once served.

The PA’s corruption involves violence, too. The U.S. State Department has reported that the Palestinian Authority paid more than $200 million in 2025 to terrorists [who killed or injured Israelis in attacks] and their families, despite earlier promises to end the pay-for-slay program. They simply shifted the money to a different account.

In sports, that’s called cheating. Yet Western governments still tolerate it, fearing pressure on Abbas will allow Hamas to take over, and that’s worse.

That logic gets it backward. When failure is tolerated, the worst outcome becomes reality. Gaza is the proof. Hamas won the 2006 elections by campaigning against corruption and promising action. And the result was a violent, terrorist mini-state that indoctrinated Gazans to hate Israel and Jews.

Now it’s happening in Judea and Samaria, also referred to by many as the West Bank. A 2024 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research found Hamas far more popular than Fatah, the movement tied to the Palestinian Authority.

In recent years, I have had the opportunity to speak directly with Palestinian business and community leaders, and they are sick and tired of the PA’s corruption. If we want to avoid Hamas rule in Judea and Samaria, at least two changes are needed.

SIGN UP FOR ANTISEMITISM EXPOSED NEWSLETTER

First, abandon the failed gameplan. The two-state model entrenched a corrupt and unaccountable Palestinian Authority with little need for public legitimacy. Preserving it out of fear only sustains the conditions that empower radicals.

There is a viable alternative. A decentralized model of local governance — often called the eight-state or local-emirate approach — offers a more realistic path forward. It replaces a single failing center with multiple centers of responsibility.

Power would rest with municipal and tribal authorities that already command local loyalty. This limits systemic corruption and reduces the risk of state collapse. It also makes it harder for any single faction to seize everything at once.

In Hebron, the al-Jaabari family is already pursuing this approach with Israeli Minister of the Economy Nir Barkat. They are seeking to leave the PA, establish local autonomy and join the Abraham Accords.

This matters because Palestinian politics has long been shaped by the elimination of moderates. The result has been a recurring pattern in Palestinian Arab governance: corrupt strongmen on one side and violent theocrats on the other. Notably absent have been serious efforts to protect or empower local moderation, like the initiative in Hebron.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINION

That failure leads directly to the second required change. Palestinian education must be deradicalized. Independent reviews of Palestinian Authority textbooks and teacher guides show systematic incitement against Israel and Jews.

Violent “resistance” is celebrated. Israel is erased from maps. Hostility toward Jews appears across subjects, including math, science and grammar. These materials corrupt the next generation and undermine any hope for future coexistence between Jews and Arabs.

Under a decentralized eight-state framework, educational reform becomes possible and enforceable. Local governments that embrace pluralism gain aid and regional partners, while those that choose militancy cut themselves off from the international community and Arab states unwilling to relive Gaza’s failure.

As former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has pointed out, human flourishing in Judea and Samaria depends less on abstract statehood than on local autonomy and economic integration.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

These two reforms — empowering local governance and educational deradicalization — offer a way out of dead-end thinking. 

In sports, if you’re losing, you change the strategy and the personnel. That is what is required in Judea and Samaria.