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Year: 2026

Sanders-backed gubernatorial hopeful’s past pro-life views clash with current abortion stance

Sanders-backed gubernatorial hopeful’s past pro-life views clash with current abortion stance

A Democratic gubernatorial hopeful in Maine, who is scheduled to campaign with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sunday and Monday, has been pitching himself to voters as a pro-choice candidate for governor, but his track record indicates that wasn’t always his stance. As a state lawmaker, he received a 100% rating from the Maine Right to Life, a designation indicating a voting record wholly consistent with pro-life policies. Jackson’s reversal demonstrates the fallout of the Dobbs v. Jackson Supreme Court decision that ended a constitutional right to an abortion and made the issue, previously a federal debate, a state-driven consideration. In its 2022 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that no guarantee of a right to an abortion existed in the Constitution, meaning that individual states would have to decide on a case-by-case basis where to draw the line under which circumstances residents could legally end a pregnancy. TIM WALZ TALKS ABORTION DURING FINAL CAMPAIGN RALLY WITH MICHIGAN VOTERS: ‘EVERYTHING IS ON THE LINE’ Maine, with Jackson’s help, immediately passed expansions to abortion access, removing restrictions on late-term abortions. The move prompted praise for Jackson from Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider. “We applaud President Jackson and the 20 state senators and 76 representatives acting in the best interest of Mainers today,” Planned Parenthood said in a press release. Just 10 years earlier, Jackson had voted for a bill in 2011 that would have affirmed personhood in the womb. Two years later, in 2013, Jackson also voted to advance counseling requirements for women considering an abortion, providing them with second-opinion resources designed to explore alternatives to ending a pregnancy. Both of those efforts failed. PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR SIGNS LAW RECOGNIZING UNBORN BABIES AS HUMAN BEINGS Even so, they garnered enough attention to put Jackson on the radar of abortion rights groups — and not in a good way. In 2014, Emily’s List, a pro-abortion group, launched a six-figure TV ad campaign against Jackson, according to local reporting. “Politicians should not be involved in a woman’s personal medical decisions about her pregnancy. Period,” Emily Cain, Jackson’s primary opponent in 2014, told The Portland Press Herald. As recently as October 2022, just four months after the Dobbs decision, Jackson told local reporters he was struggling with the issue. Since declaring his candidacy for governor last May, Jackson seems to have left that struggle behind. “The right to decide if and when to start a family is fundamental to our freedom and to who we are as Americans. It is a deeply personal decision that should not be made by politicians or justices,” Jackson said in a post to Instagram last year. “On the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I will continue to fight back against efforts to undermine abortion rights and stand up for reproductive freedom in Maine,” Jackson wrote. Sanders, who has supported abortion and has run as a pro-choice candidate for decades, officially endorsed Jackson on Friday, calling him the governor “that working Mainers need.” “Troy is different,” Sanders said. “Fighting for the working class of Maine is not something new for Troy. That’s what he has done for his entire life as a logger and as a member of the Maine state legislature. Troy knows what’s going on with the working class of Maine because he’s part of that working class. ‘WE’VE INVITED YOU’: CHRIS WALLACE SPARS WITH GILLIBRAND OVER ABORTION CONTROVERSY “Troy has also been part of our progressive working-class movement from the beginning,” he continued. “He has always stood with those of us who understand that healthcare is a human right, that workers deserve a living wage and that we need a government that works for all, not just the ultra-wealthy and well-connected.” Notably, Jackson does not list abortion access as a top priority on his campaign website. In Maine, there is no strict cutoff that prevents abortion at any point in a pregnancy, although some protections apply after viability, around the 24 to 26 week mark. Late-term abortions are permissible with the approval of a licensed physician. Fox News Digital reached out to Sanders and Jackson’s campaign.

Military families want DOJ to distribute nearly $800M from French cement company found guilty of bribing ISIS

Military families want DOJ to distribute nearly 0M from French cement company found guilty of bribing ISIS

In November 2017, Chief Petty Officer Kenton Stacy was injured in Raqqa, Syria, while clearing the second floor of a hospital that ISIS had booby-trapped with explosives. Now a quadriplegic, Stacy, his wife Lindsey and their four children are part of a lawsuit brought by military families against the French cement company Lafarge recently found guilty by a French court of paying millions of dollars in bribes to ISIS to keep their factory open in ISIS-controlled territory in Syria. “I mean, they were essentially funneling money to fund terrorists and ISIS and all these heinous crimes and evil acts,” Lindsey Stacy told Fox News while standing by the side of her husband, the former Navy Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) specialist, who just had another surgery to deal with injuries sustained in Syria nine years ago. “It’s very overwhelming, Kenton struggles mentally and physically with his own battles and the kids and I, we have our own struggles,” she said. “It’s hard to juggle, especially when our oldest son has cerebral palsy and he requires his own 24-7 care.” President Donald Trump praised Stacy’s service to the nation in his 2018 State of the Union Address to Congress. Army Staff Sgt. Justin Peck bounded into a booby-trapped building to rescue Kenton and then gave him more than two hours of CPR while medics worked to save his life. 9/11 FAMILIES CELEBRATE ‘HISTORIC, LANDMARK DECISION’ IN LONG-RUNNING SAUDI ARABIA LAWSUIT “Kenton Stacy would have died if not for Justin’s selfless love for a fellow warrior. Tonight, Kenton is recovering in Texas. Raqqa is liberated… All of America salutes you,” Trump said. In a landmark ruling in April, a French court convicted Lafarge, the world’s largest cement manufacturer, of providing material support to a terror group and sentenced its former CEO to six years in prison. Eight former Lafarge employees were found guilty. Lafarge is appealing. The company acknowledged the court’s finding describing the issue as a “legacy matter,” which was “in flagrant violation of Lafarge’s Code of Conduct.” Nearly 1,000 plaintiffs, most of them military families, are part of earlier litigation in the Eastern District of New York. “They were killed, in Syria, by a gruesome terrorist organization that was funded in part by Lafarge. And that’s not an allegation. That is undisputed fact. Lafarge [pleaded] guilty to doing that in 2022,” said Todd Toral, the lawyer from Jenner & Block representing Stacy and about 25 other families. Toral, who is also a U.S. Marine, is seeking compensation for those families from the $777 million Lafarge paid to the Justice Department as part of the settlement. The Justice Department has had that money since October 2022. AMERICAN VICTIMS OF TERRORISM COULD SOON SUE INTERNATIONAL ORGS IF CRUZ’S BILL PASSES “I think the ruling by the court in France is significant generally, because it’s the first time in many, many years that a corporation, and not just the corporation, but executives at a corporation have been held to account for their misconduct in aiding terrorism,” Toral said in an interview with Fox News. In order to operate in ISIS-controlled areas of Syria, Lafarge paid more than $6.5 million to ISIS from 2013–2014 through its Syrian subsidiary to keep production facilities running. The cement produced at its factory in Jalabiya, a factory which was bought for $680 million months before the Syrian uprising began in 2011, was also used for tunnels and bunkers, which helped the terrorist group. The lawsuit is significant because it marks the first time a company has faced U.S. charges for supporting a terrorist group. In October 2022, Lafarge settled with the U.S. Justice Department before the French ruling, paying more than $777 million into an asset forfeiture fund currently controlled by the DOJ, funds which are supposed to compensate victims of the ISIS attacks, many of them American Gold Star families like Hailey Dayton, whose father was the first American killed by ISIS in Syria on Thanksgiving Day 2016. “I was 15 when my dad was killed,” Hailey Dayton told Fox News from her home in Florida. “I saw six guys in Navy white step out of the van. I got so excited because I thought my Dad came back to surprise us. I remember opening the door, huge smile on my face, and I was looking at the men, trying to find my dad and I didn’t find, I didn’t see him, but instead I saw six guys with tears in their eyes.” The Biden Justice Department denied requests to distribute the Lafarge funds while the case was still pending before a French court. Lafarge was found guilty by that court in April. In February, Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., pressed then-Attorney General Pam Bondi on when the DOJ planned to release the funds to the families. FEDERAL JUDGE ISSUES $20M VERDICT AGAINST SYRIA FOR TORTURE OF US CITIZEN TAKEN CAPTIVE IN 2019 “In February 2025, my colleagues and I sent you a letter urging the department to review the petitions for remission submitted by the families of those fallen service members, including several of my constituents. The previous administration ignored these victims and our requests and left their petitions unresolved,” Biggs said to Bondi during a congressional hearing. “Congressman, we are aware of that and we’re committed to doing everything we can to support the victims and work with you. Thank you for that question,” Bondi replied. That was more than a year ago and still DOJ has not distributed the compensation funds. Now the plaintiffs, most of them military families, say the decision to release the funds rests with Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche. “I don’t know why. I don’t know why they’re ignoring us. To me, it feels like being a pawn. My dad, he went in when he was 19, he served 23 years,” Dayton, the Gold Star daughter of Chief Petty Officer Scott Dayton, said. “To the current Department of Justice, I would, say, make things right.” Lindsey Stacy says she and her family

DOJ, Treasury investigate nonprofits and leaders allegedly coordinating with Cuba in influence campaign

DOJ, Treasury investigate nonprofits and leaders allegedly coordinating with Cuba in influence campaign

This article is Part I of a Fox News Digital investigative series examining allegations that the communist government of Cuba built an influence network inside the United States that federal authotiries are now investigating. Part I focuses on the network’s rapid response following the indictment of Cuban leader Raúl Castro. Just nine minutes after U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced murder charges against Cuban leader Raúl Castro for the 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft flown by exile group Brothers to the Rescue, a coordinated rapid response network was already mobilizing across the U.S. to defend Castro and the Communist Party of Cuba. At 1:54 p.m. on Wednesday, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Marxist political organization deeply embedded in a “Hands Off Cuba” campaign, published six pre-produced graphics denouncing the indictment as a “BASELESS INDICTMENT OF RAUL CASTRO” and “A PRETEXT FOR ANOTHER WAR.” Hours later, at 3:18 a.m. early Thursday morning, Vijay Prashad, executive director at Tricontinental, a Marxist think tank, wrote on X, “Cuba is not a menace to the world. The United States is a menace to the world. The world stands with Raúl Castro, hero of the Cuban Revolution. The world turns its back on Donald Trump, clown of human destruction.” Manolo De Los Santos, executive director of the People’s Forum, a New York-based nonprofit, shared the message without a word, as did leaders from CodePink, another leftist organization. Then, 24 hours after Blanche’s announcement, at 1:46 p.m. on Thursday, BreakThrough News, a media platform aligned with the same activist ecosystem, published a video featuring defiant Cubans, with one man declaring, “We won’t hand over Raúl.” Fox News Digital has learned that Justice and Treasury Department officials are investigating U.S. nonprofits and activist groups for allegedly coordinating lobbying, messaging, fundraising, delegations and political organizing efforts with Cuban government officials as part of a possible foreign influence campaign operating inside the United States. A Fox News Digital investigation has identified 145 nonprofits, labor groups, advocacy organizations and activist collectives across the U.S. that are mobilizing in support of the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba. Together, the organizations report about $1 billion in combined annual revenue. LAWMAKERS RAISE ALARM OVER NEVILLE ROY SINGHAM’S $278M NETWORK SPREADING CCP PROPAGANDA IN THE U.S. To U.S. national security officials examining the influence of foreign governments in the U.S., the rapid-response messaging campaign offers a striking example of how quickly the nationwide Cuba “solidarity” infrastructure synchronizes political messaging across nonprofits, media platforms, labor organizations and activist coalitions following major geopolitical developments involving the Cuban regime. Making the alleged influence campaign even more complicated, the ANSWER Coalition, Party for Socialism and Liberation, BreakThrough News, CodePink, People’s Forum and Tricontinental are all part of a network funded by American expatriate tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham, who lives in Shanghai, supporting the Chinese Communist Party and its global agenda, including its defense of the communist regime in Cuba. In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokeswoman for the Embassy of Cuba in Washington denied any improper activity and said the country’s diplomats operate within the bounds of the Vienna Convention, where Article 41 states that diplomats “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs” of a state. “Cuban diplomats strictly comply with the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the embassy spokeswoman said, noting that “part of diplomatic work” is to “promote friendly relations” and “interact with organizations and institutions of civil society in the State to which one is accredited.” The embassy added that “it is neither extraordinary, nor a violation of any international or U.S. law, for Cuban diplomats to engage with civil society,” and said it doesn’t encourage Americans “to overthrow or act against the constitutional order of the United States.” Sources familiar with the probe said investigators are also examining the activities of several prominent activists and organizers connected to the Cuba solidarity movement, including Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin and CodePink D.C. coordinator Olivia DiNucci. DHS, WAR DEPT JOIN PROBE INTO SINGHAM NETWORK ALLEGEDLY SOWING DISCORD IN US Federal investigators are also probing about 40 Americans who allegedly coordinated with Cuban government officials to bring goods and supplies to Cuba in “convoys” and “flotillas” earlier this year, sources told Fox News Digital. The organizations under scrutiny span labor unions, activist nonprofits, solidarity campaigns, travel networks, socialist political groups and media operations. The pro-communist Cuba ecosystem includes seven clear communities: 600 GROUPS WITH $2B IN REVENUE MOBILIZE 3,000 MAY DAY PROTESTS IN A ‘RED-BLUE’ ALLIANCE, PROBE FINDS Investigators are also scrutinizing travel and delegation infrastructure tied to the network, including organizations coordinating labor trips, educational exchanges, people-to-people tours, activist brigades and humanitarian convoys to Cuba. Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Americans who engage in political activities in the United States at the direction or control of a foreign government may be required to register with the Justice Department. Advocacy itself is protected under the First Amendment, and registration under FARA doesn’t prohibit political activity. Investigators are examining whether any organizations crossed the line from independent activism into coordinated activity directed by Cuban government officials. Investigators are examining whether some organizations and activists are coordinating lobbying, messaging, delegations, fundraising and political organizing efforts with Cuban government officials without registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA, according to sources familiar with the inquiry. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, enforces the decades-old U.S. sanctions regime against Cuba, including restrictions on financial transactions, material support, shipping and the transfer of goods and services to the island. While humanitarian exemptions and licensed travel categories exist, investigators are examining whether some activists and nonprofit groups coordinated shipments, fundraising, “convoys,” flotillas and aid campaigns in ways that may have violated sanctions regulations or evaded reporting requirements. CHINA SLAMS TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OVER US SANCTIONS ON CUBA Investigators are also scrutinizing whether organizations used intermediary nonprofits, fiscally sponsored projects or generic donation language in ways that obscured Cuba-related transactions that