California governor embraces Trump after weeks of public feuding amid fire destruction
Gov. Gavin Newsom thanked President Donald Trump Friday for visiting Southern California to tour the devastation left by the fires this month, marking their first face-off since starting an ongoing online feud over the wildfire damage.
Trump traveled to Southern California Friday to see damage from the recent wildfires that destroyed thousands of acres and more than 10,000 buildings in the Los Angeles area and claimed the lives of nearly 30 people.
Newsom was waiting on the tarmac for Trump before the president exited Air Force One. The two shook hands, and Trump appeared to tug on Newsom’s arm, a power move he has been known to pull on world leaders.
“Thank you first for being here. It means a great deal to all of us,” Newsom told Trump after they met on the tarmac of LAX in Los Angeles just after 3 p.m. “We’re going to need your support. We’re going to need your help.”
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He added that Trump was with California “during COVID. I don’t forget that.”
The encounter marked the first face-to-face interaction Newsom and Trump have had since Trump was sworn in as president Monday.
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Trump said he appreciated Newsom greeting him after he arrived, adding, “I think you’re going to see some very good progress” on fire recovery.
“We want to get the problem fixed,” Trump said. “It’s like you got hit by a bomb.”
Making reference to some of the blame he had placed on Newsom and other California Democrats for not being properly prepared to handle the fires, he added, “We’ll get it permanently fixed so it can’t happen again.”
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Trump has spent the last several weeks blaming Newsom and Democratic leadership for the extent of the wildfire damage, citing fire management and water policies.
“Gavin Newscum should resign. This is all his fault!!!” Trump charged in a social media post Jan. 8.
Kristi Noem advances to final Senate vote for top Homeland Security role
The nomination of Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., to be the next Homeland Security secretary defeated a key hurdle in the confirmation process on Friday night, advancing to a final vote later this weekend.
Her confirmation vote is expected to take place early Sunday morning.
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If confirmed, Noem will become the fourth of President Donald Trump’s picks to be advanced out of the Senate, behind Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and incoming Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
Votes that are expected soon after Noem’s are those for Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Bessent, followed by Transportation Secretary pick Sean Duffy.
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The South Dakota governor is expected to receive bipartisan support for her confirmation to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Her nomination advanced out of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) by a vote of 13-2. Only two Democrats voted against her.
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“I was the first Governor to send National Guard troops to Texas when they were being overwhelmed by an unprecedented border crisis,” Noem told the committee during her confirmation hearing last week.
“If confirmed as Secretary, I will ensure that our exceptional, extraordinary border patrol agents have all the tools and resources and support they need to carry out their mission effectively.”
Rubio takes tough stance with Chinese official days into new job as secretary of state
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Chinese Foreign Minister and Director of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Commission Wang Yi that the Trump administration will put the “American people first” and advance U.S. interests in its relationship with China, according to a readout of the call from spokesperson Tammy Bruce.
The meeting was the first between Rubio and Wang since the former Florida senator was unanimously approved by the Senate this week to become President Donald Trump’s first Cabinet official following Monday’s inauguration.
“The Secretary also stressed the United States’ commitment to our allies in the region and serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan and in the South China Sea,” Bruce said. “The Secretary also discussed other issues of bilateral, regional, and global importance with his Chinese counterpart.”
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Wang told Rubio during the call that he hoped he would “conduct” himself well and “play a constructive role in the future of the Chinese and American people and in world peace and stability.”
He added that Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had already set the tone for U.S.-Chinese relations.
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“The teams of both sides should implement the important consensus of the two heads of state, maintain communication, manage differences, expand cooperation, promote the stable, healthy and sustainable development of China-U.S. relations, and find the right way for China and the United States to get along in the new era,” Wang said.
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Trump has threatened China with 10% tariffs on imports over its role in fentanyl trafficking, starting as early as Feb. 1, and Rubio called the country the gravest threat to the U.S. during his confirmation hearing.
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Trump n Thursday told the World Economic Forum virtually that he and Xi have “always had a great relationship,” and all his administration wants is “fairness. We just want a level playing field.”
Trump reinstates Mexico City Policy, separates taxpayer dollars and abortions
An executive order President Donald Trump signed Friday will overturn two Biden memorandums and reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which forbids using taxpayer dollars to fund nongovernmental organizations that perform or promote coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.
The Mexico City Policy, initiated by the Reagan administration, has been rescinded by every Democratic president and reinstated by every Republican president since its creation.
During the Biden administration, the Pentagon paid for service members to travel over state lines for abortions, and Veterans Affairs medical centers were allowed to offer abortion counseling and abortion procedures for service members and their beneficiaries, Fox News Digital previously reported.
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The administration also provided abortion access to migrants detained at the border, offering transport of unaccompanied pregnant children to states without abortion restrictions.
The White House said that, for nearly five decades, Congress annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent federal funding of elective abortion, “reflecting a longstanding consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice.”
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“However, the previous administration disregarded this established, commonsense policy by embedding forced taxpayer funding of elective abortions in a wide variety of Federal programs,” the White House wrote in a statement. “It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of Federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion.”
Biden’s Presidential Memorandum, Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad, was signed Jan. 28, 2021, and alleged the policy’s restrictions negatively affected women’s reproductive health and undermined U.S. partnerships in global health efforts.
Trump’s order rescinds two Biden executive actions that promoted access to abortions and included abortion in the definition of “reproductive healthcare.”
The language in the new order clarified the memorandum is “not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.”
The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) told Fox News Digital the policy “will decrease abortion access in countries around the world.”
“This far-reaching policy defunds health organizations in other countries that provide abortion services or information, even for victims of sexual assault,” CRR said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “Many of these critical organizations will likely shutter as a result or be forced to stop providing or even talking about abortion services.”
CRR representatives also referenced the administration’s Geneva Consensus Declaration Friday night, which is a joint initiative to “secure meaningful health and development gains for women; to protect life at all stages; to defend the family as the fundamental unit of society; and to work together across the UN system to realize these values,” according to a statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
The CRR called the declaration “an anti-reproductive rights and anti-LGBTQ political statement” that “intentionally misrepresents itself as an official international agreement, and attempts to undermine the broad legal basis for reproductive rights as human rights.”
“The reinstatement of President Trump’s Global Gag Rule (GGR) and rejoining of the Geneva Consensus are direct assaults on the health and human rights of millions of people around the world,” said Rachana Desai Martin, CRR chief government and external relations officer.
“We saw the devastating impact of the GGR during the last Trump administration when contraception and vital reproductive services were cut off,” Martin added. “There was a spike in pregnancy-related deaths, reproductive coercion and gender inequality worldwide. Many clinics and health programs shuttered, leaving vulnerable populations with nowhere to get birth control, pregnancy care and other vital health services.”
Live Action, a global human rights movement dedicated to ending abortion, posted on X after the order was signed.
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“The Mexico City policy which ensures American tax dollars do not fund killing children internationally through abortion has been reinstated by President Trump!” the post said.
Fox News Digital requested comment from Planned Parenthood and Physicians for Reproductive Health but did not immediately receive a response.
Ohio mom bombarded with death threats after Black neighbor’s video goes viral
An Ohio mother of two is speaking out after receiving vicious death threats both directly and on social media over a viral video that has caused some to smear her as “racist,” which she says is completely false and the result of a “massive misunderstanding.”
Michelle Bishop spoke to Fox News Digital about the situation involving her neighbor, DaMichael Jenkins, who posted Ring camera footage of her in a panic at his front doorstep, believing she was being inappropriately followed by Jenkins and not believing his claim that he lived at the house he had pulled into.
The exchange has gone viral on social media, with news reports labeling her as a “Karen” who assumed Jenkins was a threat simply because of his race, which Bishop vehemently disputes.
Bishop told Fox News Digital that the incident in question began on a cold November night in Delaware County, Ohio, when she took her young daughter and son with her on a jog to go look at Christmas lights and a car with its headlights on was slowly driving behind them as they walked down a poorly lit street in the dark.
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Bishop then explained that she moved her kids onto the sidewalk but that the car did not pass her “in a timely manner” and that the driver began asking her questions.
“I didn’t answer, I walked into— I told my daughter, ‘walk up this driveway, turn here, don’t look back at the truck,’ and so we went into the driveway, ended up on the porch, was ringing the doorbell,” Bishop said.
“Nobody was answering at that point. The truck was backing into the driveway. He stayed in his truck. I could not see him and I look out at the driveway at that point and I said, ‘Is this your home?’ And he said, ‘Yes. And I said, ’I don’t believe that’ and in that moment I was in, just, complete defense mode. I was challenging it. There was no way of changing my mind at that point. I was completely in panic and just trying to protect my kids.”
Bishop had, in fact, attempted to seek shelter in the home that belonged to Jenkins, and the Ring doorbell footage captures her telling Jenkins that she doesn’t believe he lives there before running to another nearby house and yelling for help.
Footage from later shows Bishop telling Jenkins that he had “scared the crap” out of her and that she was “caught off guard.” Jenkins told Bishop he was not following her and was just admiring Christmas lights.
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Bishop tells Fox News Digital she has apologized many times, which the Jenkins family would not accept, and thought the issue was resolved until the video was posted on a local neighborhood Facebook group and ultimately picked up by the media, causing a firestorm of hateful messages to come her way attacking her as a racist.
“It is causing massive devastation to our family in every way that you can possibly think,” she said. “Our family, our businesses. We are receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of threats at this point in our direct messages, to our phones, voicemails calling into stores. But some of the threats that we have received have become death threats.”
“You and your children deserve to die slow and you should kill yourself or it will be done for you,” Bishop was told in one message.
“We know who you are and where you live. Your husband is going to come home to being a single Dad. You should be hung in public,” another message said.
“There are multiple that are very graphic and violent in regards to our children that I do not want to share here,” she added. “Our businesses have seen massive devastation, one of them having to close temporarily due to death threats, calling into our shop, saying that they are going to kill every last one of the employees. So it is affecting us in massive ways.”
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Social media is littered with posts calling Bishop “racist,” including one post that said, “Michelle Bishop… count your f—ing days.”
Jenkins, a real estate developer, went on the “Nightcap” podcast with former NFL stars Shannon Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson earlier this week, a show with over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, and accused Bishop of racial profiling despite her claims that she did not know Jenkins’ race during the interaction.
Bishop told Fox News Digital that she “absolutely” did not know Jenkins was Black, and that she even told the neighbor at the house she ran to when she panicked that the person might have been White.
“The headlights were behind me and then the first time I looked out in the driveway at his truck, the headlights were there and I was not specifically trying to look at him,” Bishop said. “I was addressing the situation. I absolutely did not know what he looked like. Like I said, I thought he was a young White man. It was all a massive misunderstanding. That’s all that it was.”
Bishop has received some support on social media from prominent conservative accounts, including that of commentator and author Matt Walsh.
“I’m late to this but of course the internet outrage mob got this situation completely wrong,” Walsh posted on X. “The woman saw a truck following behind her slowly. She panicked about the truck before she ever saw who was inside it. Later that night she came back and apologized for the mistake.”
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Walsh continued, “That should have been the end of it. No harm, no foul, nobody was hurt. An innocent mistake. Instead this guy decides to put the footage online and shame her in front of the world. And unsurprisingly a bunch of slobbering idiots on social media ran with it uncritically and proceed to tear this woman’s life apart. Good job, everyone. Some of you will just never learn.”
Bishop told Fox News Digital that she hopes to reconcile with the Jenkins family.
I believe a love can cover a multitude of things and what happened that night was a massive misunderstanding,” she said. “We are lovers of all people, and if given the opportunity, like I said, I believe forgiveness should be given to all, and I would love to sit down with them.”
“I think what happened that night was a massive misunderstanding,” continued Bishop. “I do hold their heart, hearing their perspective on things. I’ve never been in their shoes. I don’t know what they’re up against. I can’t speak to that. So hearing their point of view and how he felt, I understand that. But it really was a massive misunderstanding. I really wish, I do hope and wish that they understand that on that night I was a mama bear trying to protect my kids. That is all that. It was a massive misunderstanding and if given the opportunity, like I said, I would love to reconcile that relationship.”
Jenkins did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Newly discovered asteroid turns out to be Tesla Roadster launched into space
Elon Musk’s sense of humor is out of this world.
Seven years after the SpaceX CEO launched a Tesla Roadster into orbit, astronomers from the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts confused it with an asteroid earlier this month.
A day after the astronomers with the Minor Planet Center registered 2018 CN41, it was deleted on Jan. 3 when they revealed that it was in fact Musk’s roadster.
The center said on its website that 2018 CN41’s registry was deleted after “it was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object, 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla Roadster. The designation2018 CN41 is being deleted and will be listed as omitted.”
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SpaceX launched the Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of SpaceX’s huge Falcon Heavy rocket in February 2018.
The roadster was expected to go into elliptical orbit around the sun, going a little beyond Mars and back toward Earth, but it apparently exceeded the orbit of Mars and kept going to the asteroid belt, according to Musk at the time.
When the roadster was mistaken for an asteroid earlier this month, it was less than 150,000 miles from Earth, which is closer than the moon’s orbit, according to Astronomy Magazine, meaning that astronomers would want to monitor how close it gets to Earth.
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Center for Astrophysics (CfA) astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell told Astronomy magazine that the mistake shows the issues with untracked objects.
“Worst case, you spend a billion launching a space probe to study an asteroid and only realize it’s not an asteroid when you get there,” he said.
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Fox News Digital has reached out to SpaceX for comment.
Nutritionists rank the top 5 healthiest fast-food burgers across America
As President Donald Trump settles into his second term in the White House, his love of burgers is well-known.
In Texas, a Trump-themed restaurant inspired by the president’s penchant for burgers opened on Election Day. And a post-election photo of Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. enjoying a McDonald’s meal went viral on social media.
Will these favorite meals be embraced as part of the Make America Healthy Again mission?
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The food website Delish recently highlighted some of its picks for the healthiest burger options in America.
To determine the “healthiest,” Delish focused on the nutritional facts, including calories, carbs, fat and sodium levels, of various burgers from more than 15 different menus.
“Burgers are not necessarily unhealthy,” Laura Manaker, a South Carolina-based dietitian and nutritionist who helped compile the Delish rankings, told Fox News Digital.
“Burgers can indeed be part of a balanced diet as they are a good source of protein and iron, which are essential nutrients for the body. The key lies in portion control and being mindful of what else you are eating with it.”
In descending order, here’s how Delish ranked the burgers.
5. Whataburger Jr.
The Texas-based fast-food restaurant chain Whataburger had the fifth-healthiest burger with its Whataburger Jr. product.
The Whataburger Jr. has 310 calories, 36 grams of carbs and only three grams of saturated fat – the lowest of any burger looked at by Delish.
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A Whataburger Jr. comes with tomato, lettuce, pickles, diced onions and mustard, according to the Whataburger website.
The sodium level of the Whataburger Jr., however, was the second-highest at 750 milligrams.
4. In-N-Out hamburger
A hamburger at In-N-Out is comparably not that bad, Delish said.
“The classic hamburger has 16 grams of protein, just 360 calories, 37 grams of carbs, 4.5 grams of saturated fat and 660 mg of sodium, which for us, gives it a slight edge over the Whataburger Jr.,” according to Delish.
The In-N-Out hamburger comes standard with onions, “spread,” tomatoes and lettuce – although as any In-N-Out lover knows, there’s much more to the menu than what is officially shown in the restaurant.
At In-N-Out, the California-based chain’s “secret” menu includes the option to make anything “protein style” – swapping out the bun for a lettuce wrap.
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Doing this slims the In-N-Out hamburger down to only 200 calories, 4.5 grams of saturated fat, 390 grams of sodium and eight grams of carbohydrates, Delish said.
3. McDonald’s classic hamburger
The classic hamburger at McDonald’s is a solid fast-food option, Delish said.
“The golden-arched fast food joint’s bare bones (but still delicious) classic burger has 13 grams of protein, 250 calories, 30 carbs, just 3.5 grams of saturated fat and 510 mg of sodium,” Delish said.
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A classic McDonald’s hamburger comes with “a tangy pickle, chopped onions, ketchup and mustard,” according to the Illinois-based chain’s website.
2. Burger King Whopper Jr.
A “slightly smaller” version of Burger King’s flagship Whopper sandwich, the Whopper Jr. was praised by Delish for its high protein content, low calories and low sodium.
The Whopper Jr. is topped with “fresh tomatoes, crisp lettuce, tangy pickles and crunchy onions,” according to Burger King’s website, as well as mayonnaise and ketchup.
“This option comes with slightly more protein than Micky D’s (15.2 grams), 310 calories, 27 grams of carbs and 5 grams of saturated fat. Plus, it has the lowest sodium content on our entire list at 390 mg,” Delish said.
1. Wendy’s Jr. hamburger
The Wendy’s Jr. hamburger was crowned the healthiest fast-food burger by Delish, thanks to its “impressively low calorie count” at just 280 calories.
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“At 440 mg, the sodium level is still comparatively pretty low, and this burger comes with 15 grams of protein and just 25 grams of carbs,” Delish said.
The Jr. hamburger at Wendy’s comes with pickles, onion, ketchup and mustard, according to the Ohio-based chain’s website.
Tips for a healthier fast-food trip
Regardless of the burger, there are some easy swaps to make a fast-food trip just a little bit healthier, two nutrition professionals told Fox News Digital.
One is to avoid a double meat patty and consider alternatives like a grilled chicken breast or veggie burger, Michael Garko told Fox News Digital.
Garko is a Florida-based nutrition advisor for Strauss Naturals, a supplement company based in Canada.
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“Grilled chicken or veggie patties are typically lower in saturated fat and calories compared to beef patties,” Garko said.
Also, don’t forget about the impact side dishes can have on a meal, Garko said. French fries, Garko said, “are high in trans fats, sodium and calories,” whereas a side salad – with a light dressing – contains vitamins and fiber.
If skipping the fries is simply not an option, Vanessa Rissetto, a registered dietitian and CEO of Culina Health, had another suggestion: Ditch the bun.
“If you want to have a burger with fries, my recommendation would be to eliminate the bun,” Rissetto, based in New York, told Fox News Digital.
“Not only does the bun add carbs and calories, but it also muddles all the flavor.”
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Sodas play a role too, Rissetto said. A person looking for the healthiest trip to a fast-food restaurant should “replace soda or sweetened beverages with water, unsweetened tea or sparkling water.”
“Sugary drinks contribute to empty calories and can lead to weight gain and insulin resistance,” she said.