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Year: 2025

House GOP campaign chair wants Trump ‘out there on the trail’ in midterm battle for majority

House GOP campaign chair wants Trump ‘out there on the trail’ in midterm battle for majority

EXCLUSIVE: The chair of the House Republican campaign arm says the Democrats’ sweeping victories in this month’s 2025 elections are a “wake-up call” for GOP voters. And Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who’s chairing the National Republican Congressional Committee for a second straight election cycle, said in an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital that he wants President Donald Trump “out there on the trail” in next year’s midterm elections, when the party defends its razor-thin House majority. Democrats won the only two races for governor this year, in New Jersey and Virginia, by double digits, and also scored big wins in ballot box showdowns in battlegrounds Georgia and Pennsylvania and left-tilting New York City and California. Plenty of Republicans have discounted the Democrats’ high-profile victories, since they mostly occurred in blue-leaning states, since they mostly occurred in blue-leaning states. KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE 2025 ELECTIONS Hudson noted the top elections took place in “Democrat states,” but added, “I think our big takeaway as Republicans is the Democrats were energized. They turned out at record levels. Republicans turned out in normal levels.” “I think there’s a wake-up call there to conservatives and Republicans who are happy with the direction of the country. They’re glad President Trump’s back in the White House. But if they want to keep this momentum going, they’ve got to show up and vote,” he emphasized. Many of Trump’s MAGA supporters are considered low-propensity voters, who head to the polls only when Trump is on the ballot. But Trump won’t be on the ballot in the 2026 midterms. SETTING THE STAGE: WHAT THE 2025 ELECTIONS SIGNAL FOR NEXT YEAR’S MIDTERM SHOWDOWNS Hudson, who noted that “House Republicans are very closely aligned with President Trump, and we’re supporting his agenda,” said that “we want him out there on the trail, campaigning with our candidates. I think he brings a lot of energy.” Pointing to “a lot of folks who don’t vote when he’s not on the ballot,” Hudson said, “I don’t need all of them to show up, but I need some of them. And so having President Trump out there will be a big benefit for us.” Those requests for the MAGA motivator are already coming in to the president’s political team. Matt Van Epps, the Republican nominee in next month’s special congressional election for a vacant GOP-held House seat in Tennessee, has asked for Trump to campaign in person with him ahead of the Dec. 2 election. Democrats were laser-focused on affordability on the 2025 campaign trail. Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said his party’s candidates met “voters at the kitchen table. . . . From New Jersey and Virginia and New York, to Georgia and beyond, Democrats ran campaigns relentlessly focused on costs and affordability.” And Martin emphasized the 2025 elections were a preview of things to come in next year’s midterms. “In ‘26, we’ll do it again. We’ll run a National Coordinated Campaign to win races up and down the ballot to provide a check on the out-of-control Trump administration and its Republican rubber stamps,” he argued. DEMOCRATS SEE MANDATE AFTER 2025 WINS — REPUBLICANS SAY IT’S A MIRAGE Hudson, pointing to former President Joe Biden, said “there are challenges out there with the economy, because Biden broke it, and House Republicans, working with President Trump, are going to fix it, and we’re working very hard to do that. “ “Certainly, we could always improve the way we communicate with our voters about it,” he added. “But we are laser focused on the issues that matter to them. You know, it’s the cost of things, it’s the security in their neighborhood, it’s a secure border. We are very focused on that, and we’ve delivered a lot of things that are going to make their lives better.” And looking ahead to next year, he added, “come tax season, a lot of families are going to be really happy to see they’ve got a lot more take-home pay, and that’s because of Donald Trump and House Republicans.” Hudson, in step with fellow Republicans, aimed to link Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, a socialist who pushed a far-left platform on the campaign trail this year, to House Democrats who may face challenging re-elections next year. “The entire Democrat Party has shifted to the left. This is Mamdani’s party now,” Hudson charged. “And every single House Democrat needs to answer for his policies, and they need to let their constituents know, do they stand with Mamdani or not?” The power in power, which nowadays is clearly the Republicans, traditionally faces political headwinds in the midterm elections. And Hudson was interviewed as two new national polls indicated Democrats with the upper hand in the 2026 battle for the House majority. But Hudson said: “The only number I’m concerned about is three. We have three Republicans in seats Kamala Harris carried.” And he highlighted that Democrats have “thirteen sitting in seats Donald Trump won. They’ve got 21 more sitting in seats that Donald Trump barely lost. So there, there are only a few seats up for grabs this time, most of them are Democrat seats.”

More details of US plan for Ukraine emerge, sees territory ceded to Russia

More details of US plan for Ukraine emerge, sees territory ceded to Russia

More details are emerging from a 28-point peace plan backed by United States President Donald Trump aimed at ending Russia’s four-year war on Ukraine, with several media outlets and officials confirming that the plan, which has yet to be officially published, appears to favour Russia. Details of the plan also come after US ambassador to the United Nations, Mike Waltz, told the UN Security Council on Thursday afternoon that the US had offered “generous terms for Russia, including sanctions relief”. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list “The United States has invested at the highest levels, the president of the United States personally, to end this war,” Waltz told the council. The AFP news agency reported on Friday that the plan, which the US views as a “working document”, says that “Crimea, Lugansk [Luhansk] and Donetsk will be recognised as de facto Russian, including by the United States”. This corresponds with an earlier report from US media outlet Axios. The Associated Press (AP) news agency also reported on Friday that the plan would require Ukraine to surrender the Donbas, which includes the Luhansk and Donetsk regions that Ukraine currently partly holds. Under the draft, Moscow would hold all the eastern Donbas region, even though approximately 14 percent still remains in Ukrainian hands, AP reported. AFP and AP also confirmed Axios’s earlier report that the plan would require Ukraine to limit the size of its military. According to AFP, the plan specifically says that the army would be limited to 600,000 personnel. Ukraine is estimated to currently have just under 900,000 active duty military staff. Two Ukrainian soldiers check the scopes of their anti-aircraft systems to ensure they are working properly before heading out on a mission in the Donetsk region of Ukraine in October 2024 [File: Fermin Torrano/Anadolu] ‘A neutral demilitarised buffer zone’ Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksiy Goncharenko shared a document showing what appeared to be the full 28-point peace plan with his 223,000 followers on the Telegram messaging app, late on Thursday, Ukraine time. Advertisement Russia’s state TASS news agency also reported on details included in the document shared by Goncharenko, saying it “purportedly represents a Ukrainian translation of 28 points of the new American plan for a peace settlement in Ukraine”. New details included in the document shared by Goncharenko include that “Ukraine has the right to EU [European Union] membership” and that the “United States will work with Ukraine to jointly restore, develop, modernise, and operate Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, including pipelines and storage facilities”. The document also states that Ukraine’s “Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant will be commissioned under [UN nuclear agency] IAEA supervision, and the electricity generated will be shared equally between Russia and Ukraine in a 50:50 ratio”. The text of the document shared by Goncharenko also states that “Ukrainian forces withdraw from the part of the Donetsk region that they currently control, and this withdrawal zone will be considered a neutral demilitarised buffer zone”. Handing over territory to Russia would be deeply unpopular in Ukraine and would also be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly ruled out such a possibility. No NATO membership for Ukraine The AFP news agency also reported that, according to the plan, European fighter jets would be based in Poland specifically to protect Ukraine. However, Kyiv would have to concede that no NATO troops would be stationed in Ukraine and that it would agree never to join the military alliance. Additional details reported by AP include that Russia would commit to making no future attacks on Ukraine, something the White House views as a concession by Moscow. In addition, $100bn in frozen Russian assets would be dedicated to rebuilding Ukraine, AP reported. Russia would also be re-admitted to the G8 group of nations and be integrated back into the global economy under the plan, according to AFP. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that both Ukrainians and Russians have had input into the plan, which she said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US special envoy Steve Witkoff have been quietly working on for a month. Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, welcomes US special envoy Steve Witkoff to their talks at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on April 25, 2025 [Kristina Kormilitsyna/Sputnik/Pool via AP Photo] Adblock test (Why?)

Frida Kahlo painting sells for $54.7m, breaking record for female artists

Frida Kahlo painting sells for .7m, breaking record for female artists

A 1940 self-portrait by Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m and made auction history at Sotheby’s in New York. A haunting 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo has sold for $54.7m, making it the most expensive work by a female artist to sell at auction. The painting of Kahlo asleep in a bed, titled El sueno (La cama) – or in English, The Dream (The Bed) – surpassed the record held by Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1, which sold for $44.4m in 2014. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list The sale at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday evening also topped Kahlo’s own auction record for a work by a Latin American artist. The 1949 painting, Diego and I, depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, went for $34.9m in 2021. Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more. The self-portrait that broke records on Thursday is among the few Kahlo pieces that have remained in private hands outside Mexico, where her body of work has been declared an artistic monument. Kahlo’s works in both public and private collections within Mexico cannot be sold abroad or destroyed. Because the painting sold on Thursday comes from a private collection, it is legally eligible for international sale. Sotheby’s said the owner who put the painting up for auction – and whose identity has not been disclosed – “astutely” purchased the piece also at auction in New York in 1980. The buyer’s identity was also not disclosed. ‘El sueño (La cama)’ by Frida Kahlo soars to $54.7 million, becoming the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction. Painted in 1940 during a pivotal decade in her career, marked by her turbulent relationship with Diego Rivera. pic.twitter.com/t6Sni7fIKT — Sotheby’s (@Sothebys) November 21, 2025 Some art historians had scrutinised the sale for cultural reasons, while others had raised concerns that the painting, which was last exhibited publicly in the late 1990s, could again disappear from public view after the auction. Advertisement It has already been requested for upcoming exhibitions in cities including New York, London and Brussels. The piece depicts Kahlo asleep in a wooden, colonial-style bed that floats in the clouds. She is draped in a golden blanket and entangled in crawling vines and leaves. Above the bed lies a skeleton figure wrapped in dynamite. Kahlo vibrantly and unsparingly depicted herself and events from her life, which was altered by a bus accident at 18. She started to paint while bedridden, underwent a series of painful surgeries on her damaged spine and pelvis, and then wore casts until her death in 1954 at age 47. During the years Kahlo was confined to her bed, she came to view painting as a bridge between worlds as she explored her mortality. “I’m very proud that she’s one of the most valued women, because really, what woman doesn’t identify with Frida, or what person doesn’t?” her great-niece, Mara Romeo Kahlo, told The Associated Press news agency before the auction. “I think everyone carries a little piece of my aunt in their heart.” Kahlo resisted being labelled a surrealist painter, a style of art that is dreamlike and centres on a fascination with the unconscious mind. “I never painted dreams,” she once said. “I painted my own reality.” The new record for Kahlo’s painting came hours after a Gustav Klimt portrait sold for $236.4m, setting a new record for a modern art piece. Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer sold after a 20-minute bidding war, also at Sotheby’s in New York, on Tuesday. Adblock test (Why?)

Fugees rapper sentenced to 14 years in prison over illegal Obama donations

Fugees rapper sentenced to 14 years in prison over illegal Obama donations

Justice Department prosecutors accused Grammy-winning rapper Pras Michel of betraying his country for money. A United States district judge has sentenced Prakazrel “Pras” Michel, a member of 1990s hip-hop group the Fugees, to 14 years in prison for illegally funnelling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former US President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Michel declined to address the court before Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him on Thursday. The trial in Washington, DC, included testimony from former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list This week’s sentencing came after a federal jury convicted Michel on 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, in April 2023. Michel obtained more than $120m from fugitive Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho – also known as Jho Low – and steered some of that money through straw donors to Obama’s campaign. Low is wanted for his leading role in the 1MDB scandal, in which billions of dollars were pilfered from Malaysia’s state investment fund in one of the largest financial frauds in history. Several senior financial figures and members of Malaysia’s government have been convicted for their role in the scandal, including disgraced former Prime Minister Najib Razak, who was handed a 12-year prison sentence in 2022, which was later halved. Court documents, filed by Justice Department prosecutors on Thursday, said the 52-year-old Grammy-winning rapper “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes” as he syphoned illegal payments from Low to the Obama campaign. Advertisement It is illegal in the US for foreigners to donate to election campaigns, as well as to pay someone else to make a campaign contribution. “Prakazrel Michel betrayed his country for money. He funnelled millions of dollars in prohibited foreign contributions into a United States presidential election and attempted to manipulate a sitting president to serve a foreign criminal and a foreign power,” prosecutors said. Prosecutors also said Michel had attempted to end a Justice Department investigation into Low and the 1MDB scandal, as well as “tampered with witnesses and then perjured himself at trial”. Judge Kollar-Kotelly was advised by prosecutors that federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for such crimes, urging her to take into account the “breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed”. Michel’s lawyers downplayed the extent of his crimes, saying Low’s motivation for donating money was not to “achieve some policy objective”. “Instead, Low simply wanted to obtain a photograph with himself and then-President Obama,” Michel’s lawyers wrote. Low – who remains in hiding and claims innocence – courted America’s rich and famous during a years-long spending spree allegedly financed by funds stolen from 1MDB. Notably, he was one of the primary financiers of the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street, starring DiCaprio. Defence lawyer Peter Zeidenberg said Michel will appeal. He labelled his client’s 14-year sentence “completely disproportionate to the offence” and “absurdly high” given such terms are typically reserved for deadly terrorists and drug cartel leaders. Instead, Zeidenberg recommended a three-year prison sentence for Michel. Michel, a Brooklyn native whose parents immigrated to the US from Haiti, was a founding member of the Fugees along with childhood friends Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean. The group won two Grammy Awards during their peak in the 1990s and sold tens of millions of albums. Adblock test (Why?)

Missouri attorney general takes new legal aim at mail-order abortion pills over safety concerns

Missouri attorney general takes new legal aim at mail-order abortion pills over safety concerns

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announced Thursday she is expanding the state’s fight against mail-order abortion pills, targeting a recently approved generic version of mifepristone that she argues sends women to hospitals with “life-threatening complications” and is being pushed into the marketplace without “basic medical safeguards.” The filing challenges the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Sept. 30 approval of a generic mifepristone produced by Evita Solutions, arguing that the drug’s risks are “well-documented and worsening with further study.” The lawsuit alleges manufacturers have relied on “weakened safety standards” that were “originally designed to catch dangerous conditions such as ectopic pregnancies,” which can only be identified through an in-person medical exam. “Mifepristone is sending women to the hospital with life-threatening complications, and yet drug companies continue pushing new versions of it into the market without basic medical safeguards,” Hanaway said. “Mail-order abortion drugs are dangerous when taken without in-person care, and Missouri will not stand by while manufacturers gamble with women’s lives.” HAWLEY BLASTS FDA APPROVAL OF NEW ABORTION DRUG, CITES SAFETY AND TRUST CONCERNS The case builds on Missouri’s multi-state challenge to what officials allege is the FDA’s “dismantling of critical safety protections” surrounding mifepristone. Federal law has long banned the mailing of abortion drugs, yet distributors and telehealth networks have built a nationwide system that delivers the pills to women in every state, often without in-person medical screenings or follow-up care. Missouri, joined by Kansas and Idaho, is asking the court to block the new approval, restore pre-2016 safety standards that required in-person medical evaluations and stop drugmakers and distributors from mailing abortion pills nationwide in violation of federal law. FLORIDA CITES MAFIA LAW, HITS PLANNED PARENTHOOD WITH SUIT OVER CLAIM ABORTION PILL ‘SAFER THAN TYLENOL’ Hanaway pointed to the drug’s labeling, which notes that roughly 1 in 25 women who take chemical abortion drugs end up in the emergency room and many suffer hemorrhaging, infection or require surgery. She said complications are even more common when the pills come through the mail without medical oversight. “No caring physician would call mifepristone ‘as safe as Tylenol,’” she said. “That claim was always false. Women are ending up in emergency rooms, and manufacturers know it. If the FDA is reevaluating the brand-name drug’s safety, then it needs to stop rubber-stamping new mail-order generic versions before more women are hurt.” Hanaway’s filing comes as Republican lawmakers in Washington continue pressing the FDA to tighten oversight of abortion pills and restore safety guardrails rolled back in recent years. ARREST WARRANT ISSUED FOR CALIFORNIA DOCTOR IN LOUISIANA ABORTION PILL CASE During a recent press call, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., urged the FDA to “follow the science to put back safety guardrails” and questioned the agency’s partnerships with abortion-pill manufacturers, including Evita Solutions, the company behind the generic drug targeted in Hanaway’s lawsuit. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said he and other Republican senators have demanded answers from the FDA about its decision to approve the new drug but have yet to receive a response. Evita Solutions did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Fox News Digital’s Leo Briceno contributed to this report.