Union Budget 2024: Vishnupad, Mahabodhi temples in Bihar will be developed; know their history, significance and more
In her address, she also made announcements for development of Rajgir and Nalanda in Bihar.
Union Budget 2024: Nitin Gadkari, Rajnath Singh, or Amit Shah, which minister got highest share of budget?
The budget has allocated the maximum amount to the Defence Ministry. The Defence Ministry of Rajnath Singh has been given Rs 4 lakh 54 thousand 773 crore by the Centre.
J-K: Encounter breaks out between security forces and terrorists in Kupwara
The Trumkhan area of Lolab, in the border district of Kupwara in north Kashmir, is where the people say that on Tuesday there was a confrontation between terrorists and members of the joint armed forces.
Kamala Harris to skip Netanyahu’s address to Congress, while top Dem senator boycotts altogether
Vice President Kamala Harris declined to preside over a Wednesday joint address to Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because she will be in Indiana for an event that was previously scheduled, per an aide. Harris, who on Monday became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president following President Biden’s campaign suspension, will not be in attendance at the address and will not preside. With Harris’s absence, the task ordinarily would fall to Senate President pro tempore Patty Murray, D-Wash., but Murray reportedly refused to do so – and will instead be boycotting the address. KAMALA HARRIS PRAISES BIDEN’S ‘UNMATCHED’ LEGACY IN FIRST REMARKS SINCE ANNOUNCING 2024 BID Efforts made to reach Murray’s office for comment were unsuccessful. When Harris’s office was asked if she would have agreed to preside over Netanyahu’s address if she were going to be in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, an aide to the vice president said they would not answer hypothetical questions. Netanyahu will be speaking to members of Congress during a joint address on Wednesday after being invited by the bipartisan leaders of both chambers back in May. WES MOORE, CONSIDERED A RISING STAR AMONG DEMOCRATIC GOVERNORS, ENDORSES KAMALA HARRIS In the absence of both Harris and Murray, the session will instead be presided over by Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., who is retiring after this Congress. During the time of Netanyahu’s address, Harris will be attending the Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Grand Boule in Indianapolis, Ind., which is a biennial international conference, per a White House official. KAMALA HARRIS SPENT MONTHS SHOOTING DOWN CONCERNS OVER BIDEN’S MENTAL COMPETENCY While she won’t be there, an aide emphasized that Harris’ absence and refusal to preside shouldn’t be considered a change to her stance on Israel. An aide to the vice president told Fox News Digital that she would be meeting with Netanyahu at the White House this week while he is in Washington, D.C. They noted that the meeting is separate from Biden’s planned meeting with the prime minister. Harris is expected to reiterate her commitment to Israel’s ability to defend itself from Iran and militias that are backed by the country, such as terrorist groups Hizbullah and Hamas. According to the aide, Harris will once again condemn the Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israeli civilians by Hamas, as well as the sexual violence that took place. The vice president will also express her already stated concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where most of the war is taking place. Harris is expected to further convey that the war should end soon and in a way that allows for a secure Israel, the release of all hostages and the restoration of the rights of civilians in Gaza. She will specifically discuss with Netanyahu efforts to reach a deal for a ceasefire. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
DOJ reveals it has Biden transcripts at issue in classified docs case after initial denial
The Justice Department revealed late Monday in a court filing that it does in fact have transcripts of President Biden’s interviews with a biographer after initially having denied possessing the documents. While juggling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to former special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents following his departure as vice president in the Obama administration, DOJ attorneys said it would be time-consuming to process audio files into transcripts related to the president’s conversations with biographer Mark Zwonitzer. “We don’t have some transcript that’s been created by the special counsel that we can attest to its accuracy,” DOJ lawyer Cameron Silverberg told U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich last month. That changed Monday evening, when Silverberg told Friedrich in a new court filing that Hur’s office did in fact have transcripts of some of Biden’s conversations with Zwonitzer. The biographer worked with Biden in 2007 and 2017 to compile memoirs, Politico reported. BIDEN ASSERTS EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE OVER RECORDINGS FROM CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS PROBE “In the past few days, in the course of processing the portions of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings that the parties agreed to (see June 25, 2024 Joint Status Report at 2-3, ECF No. 20), the Department located six electronic files, consisting of a total of 117 pages, that appeared to be verbatim transcripts of a small subset of the Biden-Zwonitzer audio recordings created for the SCO by a court-reporting service,” a court filing late Monday evening reviewed by Fox News Digital states. JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REBUKED FOR DELAY TACTICS IN BIDEN-HUR TAPES The specific FOIA request related to the Biden-Zwonitzer transcripts was filed by the Heritage Foundation. The court filing Monday evening also revealed that while fielding the various FOIA requests related to the bombshell Hur report, DOJ officials contacted an unnamed person with knowledge of the transcripts, but the individual was unable to weigh in. After resisting reaching out to Hur directly for information pertaining to what documents he relied upon for his final report, the DOJ did in fact reach out to Hur. Hur confirmed the Biden-Zwonitzer transcripts and said he relied on the documents, as well as a note handwritten by Biden related to Afghanistan, for his final report. HOUSE REPUBLICANS SUBPOENA DOJ MATERIALS RELATED TO SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR INTERVIEW WITH BIDEN Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified materials after his eight years as vice president was released in February, and stated Hur would not recommend criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials after his vice presidency, calling Biden “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness,” Hur wrote in his report. BIDEN, NOT SPECIAL COUNSEL HUR, BROUGHT UP SON’S DEATH IN QUESTIONING The findings sparked widespread outrage that Biden was effectively deemed too cognitively impaired to be charged with a crime yet could still serve as president. In May, the White House asserted executive privilege over audio and video recordings related to Hur’s investigation, including the interviews between Biden and Zwonitzer. “The audio recordings of your interview and Mr. Zwonitzer’s interview fall within the scope of executive privilege. Production of these recordings to the Committees would raise an unacceptable risk of undermining the Department’s ability to conduct similar high-profile criminal investigations–in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly important,” Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote to Biden in a letter obtained by Fox News at the time. FOREIGN OUTLETS PULL NO PUNCHES OVER BIDEN ‘CONFUSION’ AND ‘RAGE’ AFTER SURPRISE PRESS CONFERENCE Silverberg said in his Monday court filing that he will confer with the relevant parties regarding processing the documents for potential release. The court filing comes one day after Biden dropped out of the presidential race following mounting pressure from Democrats to bow out and let another candidate take the mantle to run against former President Trump. The pressure was amplified following Biden’s botched debate performance, which opened the floodgates to criticism and concern surrounding the president’s mental fitness and age. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Vice President Kamala Harris is now the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 election following Biden’s departure from the race. Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
House GOP panel holds emergency session to advance bill blasting Harris’ handling of border crisis
A key House panel is convening an emergency session to advance a resolution condemning Vice President Kamala Harris’ handling of the border on Tuesday. The announcement came Monday night, just a day after Harris announced she would run for the White House in President Biden’s place. The 81-year-old leader shocked the world on Sunday afternoon when he revealed he would not seek re-election, after mounting pressure from members of his own party to step aside. The resolution is likely to pass the House Rules Committee along party lines on Tuesday afternoon. That committee is the final hurdle for legislation before it hits the House floor for a chamber-wide vote. HOW WOULD A PRESIDENT HARRIS HANDLE IMMIGRATION, BORDER CRISIS? House Rules Committee Chairman Michael Burgess, R-Texas, conceded that the timing of the resolution did come off at least somewhat political, but defended it as a necessary condemnation of the vice president’s failings on the border. Republicans have for years accused Harris of failing her job as “border czar” after Biden handed her the task of mitigating the “root causes” of illegal immigration after they took office in 2021. “Everything’s gonna be political this year,” Burgess told a small group of reporters on Tuesday morning. “I wouldn’t know that I spent too much time worrying about something might be political, because that is – that’s the world we live in.” CREATOR OF IMMIGRATION CHART THAT ‘SAVED’ TRUMP’S LIFE FROM WOULD BE ASSASSIN CREDITS ‘PROVIDENCE’ When pressed by Fox News Digital on whether that undercuts Republicans’ message on the border, he said, “In June, when those six Americans were murdered by people who are in this country who had no business being here – maybe we should have done this resolution in the middle of June. But nevertheless, we are where we are, and I don’t think it’s any less important now than it would have been then. Fact of the matter is, this is an Article II responsibility to defend our borders.” The resolution is being led by House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y. Republicans have signaled that Harris’ handling of the border crisis would be a significant point of attack for them as she takes over Biden’s mantle. FLASHBACK: KAMALA HARRIS COMPARED ICE TO KKK IN SENATE HEARING She has visited Latin America twice as vice president, the last time being a trip to Honduras in 2022. Sources familiar confirmed to Fox News that Harris has not spoken to Border Patrol Chief Jason Owens, who became chief last year amid a raging crisis at the border which is now into its third year. Fox News’ Griff Jenkins contributed to this report
Clooney, Hollywood line up behind Harris as celebrity endorsements and cash pour in
Hollywood Democrats have opened a floodgate of donations to Vice President Kamala Harris as her presidential campaign picks up steam with a string of celebrity endorsements. Actor George Clooney, a Democratic fundraiser who had called on President Biden to step aside from the 2024 campaign in a July 10 op-ed in The New York Times, threw his support to Harris on Tuesday morning after Biden dropped out over the weekend. “President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest,” Clooney said in a statement to CNN’s Jake Tapper. “Lost” producer Damon Lindelof said Monday his call for a so-called “Dembargo” on Hollywood donations to Democrats had been lifted since Biden passed the torch. ‘EXTREME AGENDA’: HARRIS’ PAST RECORD ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION RESURFACES AFTER BIDEN DROPS OUT In an Instagram post, Lindelof said he felt “profound relief, gratitude… and then, for the first time, genuine EXCITEMENT for the election ahead” after Biden’s decision. “Suffice to say, the DEMBARGO is lifted. And here. We. GOOOOOOOOOOO!” Lindelof added. With Biden out of the race, Hollywood heavyweights, including rapper Cardi B, Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, TV producer Shonda Rhimes and others, offered glowing endorsements of Harris. “We are all in for Kamala Harris! Started to work on her behalf the moment she announced,” Andy Spahn, a Democratic fundraiser in Hollywood and president of consulting firm Gonring, Lin, Spahn, told Reuters. NICK SABAN RECEIVES ODDS FOR KAMALA HARRIS’ VP NOMINATION The vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee made her first official visit to her campaign headquarters on Monday evening, walking out to Beyoncé’s song “Freedom.” CNN reported that Harris’ team got approval from Beyoncé’s representatives to use the song. A June fundraiser hosted by Clooney and actress Julia Roberts raised more than $30 million in what the Biden campaign said was the largest Democratic fundraiser in history. However, after Biden’s halting performance at the June 27 presidential debate against Republican candidate former President Trump, Clooney and others publicly called for the president to end his campaign. Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who had said “Democrats will lose” with Biden atop the ticket, told CNBC that Harris would be an excellent candidate and said she has resumed her donations to Democrats. “I’m with her,” actor Bradley Whitford posted on X. Whitford played a fictional White House staffer on “The West Wing.” KAMALA HARRIS PRAISES BIDEN’S ‘UNMATCHED’ LEGACY IN FIRST REMARKS SINCE ANNOUNCING 2024 BID Curtis, who won an Oscar for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” said she supported Biden’s decision to endorse Harris. Singer Barbra Streisand said Harris “will continue Joe Biden’s work and will be a great president.” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal” creator Rhimes posted a photo of her standing with Harris and offered her endorsement. “I stood behind her in 2016 when she ran for Senate, I was behind her when she ran as [vice president] and I continue to stand behind her today,” Rhimes wrote on Instagram. Still more celebrities gave their endorsements, including “The Woman King” actress Viola Davis, “Abbott Elementary” actress Sheryl Lee Ralph and Beyoncé’s mother, Tina Knowles. Cardi B proudly proclaimed that she had called for Harris to replace Biden shortly after the June 27 presidential debate. “AHAHAHAHA LETS GOOOOO I TOLD YALLL KAMALA WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE 2024 candidate,” the musician wrote on X. Reuters contributed to this report.
Harris’ impact on race with Trump revealed in new poll
The race between former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is too close to call in the aftermath of President Biden’s decision to drop out. Trump garnered the support of 49% of voters compared to 47% who prefer Harris, according to the results of a new Quinnipiac University poll released Monday. The former president takes a slightly larger lead in a hypothetical six-way race that includes other candidates such as independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with Trump coming in as the preference of 45% of voters and Harris garnering the support of 41%. Kennedy Jr. received the most support of independent or third party candidates, coming in with the support of 6% of voters, the poll found. AFTER BIDEN DROPS OUT OF RACE, DOCTORS REVEAL WHY THE DECISION MAY HAVE BEEN BEST FOR HIS HEALTH “The dramatic reset at the top of the Democratic ticket does little to move the race as Vice President Harris enters the fray with numbers similar to President Biden,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a news release on the poll’s findings. The poll is one of the first to be released since Biden’s decision to drop out of the race Sunday, which the president said was “in the best interest of my party and the country.” Pressure on the president to drop out of the race among his fellow Democrats had continued to intensify in the weeks after a disastrous debate performance left many questioning his ability to defeat Trump in November. BIDEN MAKES BIZARRE CALL IN TO HARRIS HEADQUARTERS HOURS AFTER DROPPING OUT OF RACE Biden was quick to endorse Harris in the minutes after announcing his decision on X, noting in a subsequent post that his “very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President.” “And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” Biden continued. “Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.” Harris will now look to solidify support for her candidacy ahead of the Democratic National Convention next month and take on Trump in November. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP For his part, the poll found that Trump enjoys his best approval rating in the history of the poll, with 46% of respondents expressing a favorable view of the former president and 49% expressing an unfavorable view. The Quinnipiac University poll first began asking registered voters for their feelings about Trump in May 2015. The Quinnipiac University poll surveyed 1,257 registered voters nationwide between July 19-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
Biden returning to White House for first time since ending presidential bid, COVID diagnosis
President Biden is scheduled to return to the White House for the first time since ending his re-election campaign. Biden tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday while campaigning in Nevada and has since been isolated at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home. Just days later, Biden made a sudden withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race via a written statement. The president has not made any public appearances since both his diagnosis and suspending his re-election bid despite growing concerns over his fitness to serve. After staying out of the public eye for almost a week, the president will reportedly travel from Delaware to Washington, D.C., on Tuesday afternoon, according to the White House daily press schedule. BIDEN MAKES BIZARRE CALL IN TO HARRIS HEADQUARTERS HOURS AFTER DROPPING OUT OF RACE The White House physician gave an update on the president’s health on Monday, sharing that his symptoms have “almost resolved completely” and that Biden “continues to perform all of his presidential duties.” BEFORE BIDEN, THESE 5 PAST PRESIDENTS FACES HEALTH ISSUES AMID RE-ELECTION Biden called in to the recently revamped Vice President Kamala Harris campaign headquarters on Monday, making his first public comments since dropping out of the race. “I know yesterday’s news is surprising, and it’s hard for you to hear, but it was the right thing to do,” Biden told his former campaign staffers. “I know it’s hard because you have poured your heart and soul into me to help us win this thing, help me get this nomination, help me win the nomination and then go on to win the presidency.” In less than two days since Biden dropped out of the race, the campaign was renamed to “Harris for President,” and the vice president has already reportedly gained the support of enough delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, according to The Associated Press.
‘Extreme agenda’: Harris’ past record on illegal immigration resurfaces after Biden drops out
Vice President Kamala Harris will face increased scrutiny in the months ahead after becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee on Sunday — with conservative critics already zeroing in on past comments she has made about immigration and the border crisis. Harris was thrust into the spotlight on Sunday after President Biden said he would not seek re-election in November and endorsed his vice president. Harris’s most high-profile role on immigration came when she was tasked by President Biden in 2021 with leading the diplomatic outreach to tackle the “root causes” of migration in the Northern Triangle countries. It led to her being dubbed the “border czar” by Republicans, although the White House has rejected that description. HARRIS NOT SPOKEN TO BORDER PATROL CHIEF DESPITE ONGOING MIGRANT CRISIS, ‘ROOT CAUSES’ PUSH Harris would visit Mexico and Guatemala in 2021 as part of that assignment, and she also paid a visit to the southern border in El Paso, Texas. A project to rally private-sector investment in the region via a call to action has seen more than $5.2 billion committed since May 2021 from over 50 companies and organizations. The number of encounters from those three countries has since fallen from over 700,000 in FY 21 to over 330,000 this fiscal year so far, although it is not clear to what extent it is connected to her efforts. However, with the crisis at the border still an ongoing issue, Republicans and conservatives have already resurfaced Harris’ broader stances on immigration outside of her role as vice president. The Republican National Committee, within an hour of Biden stepping aside, posted a clip of Harris talking in 2018 about considering abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “I think there’s no question that we’ve got to critically re-examine ICE and its role and the way that it is being administered and the work it is doing,” she told MSNBC. “And we need to probably think about starting from scratch.” The National Republican Senatorial Committee, in a memo obtained by Fox News, pointed to those remarks, as well as a previous pledge to decriminalize border crossings. It also described her as the “border czar” and pointed also to her past support of the Biden administration’s efforts to create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The Biden-Harris campaign did not respond to questions about her record. “Candidates should not be shy about aggressively tying their opponents to Kamala Harris’ extreme agenda,” the memo said. Former acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf tied her record to that of the Biden administration in general. “Important to remember that VP Harris has only visited the border one time in the last 3.5 years. The Biden-Harris Administration does not take this issue seriously and their policies have left the American people less secure and more vulnerable,” he said in a post on X. FLASHBACK: KAMALA HARRIS COMPARED ICE TO KKK IN SENATE HEARING Others pointed to a testy exchange in the November 2018 confirmation hearing of Ronald Vitiello — who was President Trump’s nominee to lead the agency — if he was “aware of the perception” of a similarity between ICE and the Ku Klux Klan. “Are you aware of the perception of many about how the power and the discretion at ICE is being used to enforce the laws and do you see any parallels?” she asked. Vitiello pushed back, saying “I do not see any parallels” between the immigration enforcement agency and the White supremacist group. During her presidential campaign, Harris had also promised to “shut down all government contracts with private prisons” for ICE enforcement. Numbers USA, a group which calls for lower levels of immigration overall, highlighted that it had given Harris an F- as a grade on her immigration voting record as a California senator. “Kamala Harris was put in charge of the destruction of immigration enforcement. She has worked to abolish ICE since her first day in office,” RJ Hauman, president of the National Immigration Center for Enforcement and a visiting fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told Fox News Digital. “Everything Kamala Harris has said and done in her career proves that she bows to the demands of far left, open-borders activists. The American people will have a clear choice in November — mass deportation or mass release of illegal aliens and violent criminals into American communities.” The scrutiny of Harris comes a week after Republicans took an aggressive stance toward immigration enforcement at the RNC, with attendees wielding placards declaring “Mass Deportation Now!” Fox News’ Tyler Olson contributed to this report.