Lucknow hit-and-run: Class 12 student, who mowed down 6-year-old, detained; CCTV footage emerges
In a horrific hit-and-run incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Lucknow, a speeding car driven by a minor mowed down pedestrians near a roadside food stall, killing a six-year-old child and leaving several others injured on Thursday evening. In the latest development, the driver, identified as Gaurav Singh, a Class-12 student, has been taken into custody.
Months after Karur stampede, man dies due to heatstroke at TVK chief Vijay’s rally in Salem
As per a report by news agency ANI, Salem police officials have identified the deceased man as Suraj, a 37-year-old from Maharashtra. “He had been residing in the Sevvaipettai area of Salem, where he was engaged in silver-related labour work,” officials said.
‘As two close neighbours…’: PM Modi speaks with Tarique Rahman after BNP’s Bangladesh election victory
On Thursday, parliamentary elections were held in Bangladesh for the first time since a youth-led uprising toppled the government of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has since been hiding in the Indian capital.
Texans are demanding their local governments push pause on data centers. Can they?
Texans from Waco to Harlingen are raising concerns over how much energy and water data centers are poised to use. Local officials, some enticed by a tax boon, say they have little power to stop the rush.
In Texas attorney general race, Mayes Middleton runs on conservative, not courtroom, record
Middleton has the money and the endorsements. But his primary opponents say he lacks key legal experience to be Texas’ top lawyer.
A federal tool to check voter citizenship keeps making mistakes. It led to confusion in Texas.
DHS rolled out the revamped tool while it was still adding data. That led to widespread misidentification, particularly for citizens born outside the U.S.
In Senate Democratic primary fraught with racial tensions, Black voters could be decisive
Jasmine Crockett has built enormous enthusiasm among Black voters based in part on her reputation as a fighter, while her opponent in the Texas primary, James Talarico, has struggled to win their support.
DHS shutdown explained: Who works without pay, what happens to airports and disaster response
A partial government shutdown is all but certain after Senate Democrats rejected attempts to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) offered by Republicans on Thursday afternoon. But it will not look like the record-long 43-day full shutdown that paralyzed Congress last year, nor will it look like the shorter four-day partial shutdown that hit Capitol Hill earlier this month. That’s because Congress has already funded roughly 97% of the government through the end of fiscal year (FY) 2026 on Sept. 30. When the clock strikes 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14, just DHS will be affected by a lapse in its federal funding. While it’s a vastly smaller scale than other recent fiscal fights, it will still have an impact on a broad range of issues given DHS’s wide jurisdiction. SCHUMER, DEMS CHOOSE PARTIAL SHUTDOWN AS NEGOTIATIONS HIT IMPASSE Disruptions to the TSA, whose agents are responsible for security checks at nearly 440 airports across the country, could perhaps be the most impactful part of the partial shutdown to Americans’ everyday lives. Acting Administrator Ha Nguyen McNeill told lawmakers at a hearing on Wednesday that around 95% of TSA employees — roughly 61,000 people — are deemed essential and will be forced to work without pay in the event of a shutdown. McNeill said many TSA agents were still recovering from the effects of the recent 43-day shutdown. “We heard reports of officers sleeping in their cars at airports to save money on gas, selling their blood and plasma, and taking on second jobs to make ends meet,” she said. TSA paychecks due to be issued on March 3 could see agents getting reduced pay depending on the length of the shutdown. Agents would not be at risk of missing a full paycheck until March 17. If that happens, however, Americans could see delays or even cancellations at the country’s busiest airports as TSA agents are forced to call out of work and get second jobs to make ends meet. SHUTDOWN CLOCK TICKS AS SCHUMER, DEMOCRATS DIG IN ON DHS FUNDING DEMANDS The U.S. Coast Guard is the only branch of the armed forces under DHS rather than the Department of War, and as such would likely see reduced operations during a shutdown. That includes a pause in training for pilots, air crews and boat crews until funding is restarted. Admiral Thomas Allan, Coast Guard Vice Commandant, warned lawmakers that it would have to “suspend all missions, except those for national security or the protection of life and property.” A lapse in its funding would also result in suspended pay for 56,000 active duty, reserve, and civilian personnel, which Allan warned would negatively affect morale and recruitment efforts. The U.S. Secret Service (USSS), which is critical to protecting the president and key members of the administration, is also under DHS’s purview. While its core functions would be largely unaffected by a shutdown, some 94% of the roughly 8,000 people the service employs would be forced to work without pay until the standoff is resolved. Deputy USSS Director Matthew Quinn also warned that a shutdown could also hurt the progress being made to improve the service in the wake of the July 2024 assassination attempt against President Donald Trump. “The assassination attempt on President Trump’s life brought forward hard truths for our agency and critical areas for improvement — air, space, security, communications and IT infrastructure, hiring and retention training, overarching technological improvements,” Quinn said. “We are today on the cusp of implementing generational change for our organization. A shutdown halts our reforms and undermines the momentum that we, including all of you, have worked so hard to build together.” ICE operations would largely go on unimpeded during a shutdown, despite Democrats’ outrage at the agency being the main driver of the current standoff. Nearly 20,000 of ICE’s roughly 21,000 employees are deemed “essential” and therefore must work without pay, according to DHS shutdown guidance issued in September 2025. But even though it’s the center of Democrats’ funding protest, ICE has already received an injection of some $75 billion over the course of four years from Trump’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). It means many of its core functions retain some level of funding even during a shutdown. CISA is responsible for defending critical U.S. sectors like transportation, healthcare, and energy from foreign and domestic threats. The agency would be forced to reduce operations to an active threat mitigation status and activities “essential to protecting and protecting life and property,” according to Acting CISA Director Madhu Gottumukkala. That means a shutdown would significantly reduce CISA’s capacity to proactively monitor for potential threats from foreign adversaries. “We will be on the defensive, reactive as opposed to being proactive, and strategic in terms of how we will be able to combat those adversaries,” Gottumukkala said. Operations like “cyber response, security assessments, stakeholder engagements, training, exercises, and special event planning” would all be impacted, he said. FEMA, one of the largest recipients of congressional funding under DHS, would also likely see reduced operations if a shutdown went on for long enough. The bright spot for the agency is that past congressional appropriations have left its Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), the main coffer used to respond to natural disasters throughout the U.S., with roughly $7 billion. The DRF could become a serious problem if the DHS shutdown goes on for more than a month, however, or in the event of an unforeseen “catastrophic disaster,” an official warned. FEMA is also currently working through a backlog of responses to past natural disasters, progress that Associate Administrator of the Office of Response and Recovery Gregg Phillips said could be interrupted during a shutdown. “In the 45 days I’ve been here…we have spent $3 billion in 45 days on 5,000 projects,” Phillips said. “We’re going as fast as we can. We’re committed to reducing the backlog. I can’t go any faster than we actually are. And if this lapses, that’s going to stop.”
Trump’s $12B rare earth plan targets China as experts warn US is ‘one crisis away’
EXCLUSIVE: Industry experts warn the United States is “one crisis away” from losing access to the rare earth elements that power everything from fighter jets to electric vehicles — a vulnerability President Donald Trump’s new $12 billion “Project Vault” aims to address. The initiative, backed by $1.67 billion in private seed money and a $10 billion loan from the Export-Import Bank, would create a federally supported stockpile of rare earth elements and other critical minerals. The U.S. currently imports much of those materials from China. Executives from Graphite One, one of the country’s largest critical mineral developers, told Fox News Digital the effort could mark a turning point in the battle over China’s dominance of global supply chains. “The Chinese are willing to weaponize access to … semiconductor materials like gallium and uranium,” Graphite One advisor Dan McGroarty said. “Then they turn off the tap and sort things out, give us a one-year reprieve, you know, it’s a leash, and they can yank that leash anytime they want.” TRUMP SAYS ‘YOU’LL SEE’ WHEN ASKED HOW FAR HE’LL GO ON GREENLAND TAKEOVER CEO Anthony Huston compared the concept to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, established after the 1970s oil crisis to safeguard U.S. energy security, arguing that critical minerals now play a similarly vital role in powering modern defense systems, advanced electronics and electric vehicles. “For years, American businesses have risked running out of critical minerals during market disruptions… Project Vault [will] ensure that American businesses and workers are never harmed by any shortage,” Trump said in his announcement last month. Graphite One recently made news with its “truly generational” Graphite Creek site in Alaska, which is the U.S.’ largest asset of that particular critical mineral, in Huston’s words. As of 2024, the U.S. was at least 93% import-dependent on rare earth elements and graphite, according to the International Energy Agency, and remains heavily reliant on foreign suppliers for dozens of other critical minerals. TRUMP KNOWS GOOD REAL ESTATE — AND HE KNOWS GREENLAND’S VALUE TO NATIONAL SECURITY “The United States really relies on China and Africa for graphite. China, as we understand, is our adversary,” Huston said. A buried lede in the Project Vault news, he added, is a little-reported counter-terror aspect. Huston said some African mineral deposits, including in parts of Mozambique, are located in areas where ISIS-linked groups have operated. By onshoring development of critical minerals, the U.S. will not only work to unseat Chinese dominance but also deal a blow to operations in areas run by people who want to kill us, he argued. McGroarty added that Project Vault reminds him of the idea of “dual-use technologies” during the Cold War, where computers of the time had technology that could not be exported – but could be used for both manufacturing and nuclear weapons design, for instance. “On another level, we’re going to have to balance it across 20, 30, 40 different metals, minerals, compounds, and composites, not just oil,” he said. TRUMP CHALLENGES CARNEY AT DAVOS, ASSERTS CANADA SHOULD BE ‘GRATEFUL’ FOR GOLDEN DOME MISSILE DEFENSE McGroarty said the U.S. is “one crisis away” from having REEs “cut-off” by adversaries like China. Huston also spoke of why Project Vault fits the 2020s more than any other time. In the prior century, there were no cell phones, no EVs and graphite and the like were being used in analog tools like pencils and primitive computers. The Graphite Creek site supplied materials for World War II-era steel production, a far cry from its potential role in today’s high-tech economy. Huston reiterated that the U.S. needs its own “strategic petroleum reserve” of critical minerals rather than relying on adversarial nations. “As they say when you’re flying, put the oxygen mask on yourself first before turning to help those around,” he said. TRUMP SAYS GREENLAND’S DEFENSE IS ‘TWO DOG SLEDS’ AS HE PUSHES FOR US ACQUISITION OF TERRITORY Asked about any nexus between Project Vault, the Senate’s renewed focus on Arctic national security amid foreign incursions and Trump’s overtures toward Greenland, McGroarty suggested there may be one — but it’s not yet clear. He quipped that sometimes it’s better to look at the globe from the top rather than the side, which places North America in the center of everything. “See what nations have a presence in the Arctic, you’ll see the importance of Greenland; you’ll also see that the U.S. is an Arctic nation only because of Alaska,” he said. Of the 60 critical minerals on the U.S. government’s official list, Alaska has known resources of at least 58, he added. “It’s the same sort of thing with Greenland. In the case of Greenland, I think there’s a phrase that I use from time to time: resource denial — That is to say, you might try not to be interested in Greenland’s resource potential in critical minerals. If you wake up one day, and the Chinese and the Russians are engaging in economic relationships in Greenland and directing those metals and minerals into their supply chains, you will have to be concerned about what goes on.” China-based experts, on the other hand, were dismissive of Project Vault, with rare-earths analyst Wu Chenhui telling the state-owned Global Times that while Trump’s move is novel, it “functions more as a short-term buffer than a fundamental solution,” and other officials in the Communist nation were similarly bearish on the news.
ICE arrests ‘worst of the worst’ criminal illegal immigrants including murderers and pedophiles
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Thursday the latest “worst of the worst” criminal illegal immigrants convicted of crimes nationwide, including murderers, pedophiles and drug traffickers. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) highlighted the convictions of five illegal immigrants from Vietnam, Honduras, Cuba and Mexico. “While sanctuary politicians release criminal illegal aliens from their jails to victimize more American families and children, our officers continue to arrest criminals,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. “Yesterday, ICE arrested criminal illegal aliens convicted for murder, sexual assault of a CHILD, and drug trafficking.” AFGHAN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT WHO STABBED SISTER FOR BEING ‘BAD MUSLIM GIRL’ ARRESTED BY ICE AGENTS IN NEW YORK McLaughlin added that nearly 70% of ICE arrests are of illegal immigrants charged or convicted of a crime. “This statistic does not even include foreign fugitives, gang members and terrorists who lack a rap sheet in the U.S.,” she said. Muoi Van Duong, an undocumented immigrant from Vietnam, was convicted of murder with a firearm in San Diego, California, according to DHS. SANCTUARY POLICIES LET ALLEGED CHILD PREDATOR ROAM FREE UNTIL DHS MADE PORTLAND, OREGON, AIRPORT ARREST DHS said that Roberto Xochimitl-Flores, a criminal illegal immigrant from Mexico, was found guilty of second-degree sexual abuse: sexual contact with a person less than 14 years old in New York City. Lisandro Omar Borjas-Aguirano, an illegal resident from Honduras, was convicted of sexual assault of a child in Collin County, Texas, according to DHS. DHS announced that Rigoberto Salvia-Ricardo, a Cuban national, was convicted of sexual battery of a juvenile in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Ricardo Rosas-Tapia, a criminal illegal immigrant from Mexico, was convicted of possession with intent to sell or distribute cocaine in Wake County, North Carolina.