What’s going on in the occupied West Bank, and why now?
NewsFeed Almost as soon as Israeli leaders agreed to the Gaza ceasefire, they launched another assault in the occupied West Bank. Residents fear the occupied territory is being ‘Gazafied’ as part of a strategy towards annexation. Soraya Lennie explains. Published On 23 Jan 202523 Jan 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Palestinians clean up the rubble of their destroyed homes
[unable to retrieve full-text content] Palestinians returning to their destroyed homes in Gaza have begun to clean up the rubble.
As Trump turns to fossil fuels, Europe sprints ahead with renewables
Clean energy sources provided a record 47 percent of European electricity last year, powering ahead of fossil fuels. A new report from Ember, a London-based think tank, found that solar power achieved record growth to give Europe 11 percent of its electricity and overtook coal for the first time. Solar and wind power together surpassed gas, which has declined for the past five years. These are important milestones towards achieving a European goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent relative to 1990 levels by 2030. Europe’s power sector emissions have now fallen to less than half their 2007 levels, Ember found. This has happened because politicians of all stripes backed renewables, the report said. “Many national and European elections bred concerns that the transition to clean energy would lose support. On the contrary, progress continued at pace,” said the report. Some of that shared political impetus is economic. Since 2019, solar and wind power have saved Europeans 59 billion euros ($61bn) in fossil fuel imports, Ember found, most of it gas. Advertisement During those five years, fossil fuels’ share of the power sector fell to 29 percent, while renewables grew. ‘US risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution’ Europe has few resources of oil and gas and currently spends about half a trillion dollars a year importing fossil fuels. Its main hope for energy autonomy is in developing renewables. In contrast, the United States is the world’s largest oil producer and exporter of liquefied natural gas (LPG), and President Donald Trump wants to increase LPG production further. On Monday, his first day in office, he declared a national energy emergency that would fast-track drilling and pipeline construction permits. He also signed an executive order temporarily freezing all US onshore and offshore wind farms. Those policies signal differences between the US and Europe on energy. “The US is diverging from global trends on wind power,” said Dave Jones, insights director at Ember. “Major economies are embracing wind as a source of cheap, clean electricity. “The US risks being left behind in the clean industrial revolution.” The US produced just 10 percent of its electricity from wind energy last year, compared to 17 percent in Europe and 29 percent in the UK, Ember found. On January 7, Trump said leasing areas of ocean for wind farms destroyed their value because it put them out of reach of oil and gas producers. Hours before he signed the executive orders, during his inauguration, Trump said, “America will be a manufacturing nation once again, and we have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have: the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth.” Advertisement Kostis Stambolis, the head of the Athens-based Institute of Energy for Southeast Europe (IENE), told Al Jazeera, “The US is currently autonomous in oil and gas, producing 20mn barrels of oil-equivalent a day. “Trump wants to make it an export powerhouse in both.” The US is not the only country increasing energy supply. Several other nations, including Australia, Qatar and Mauritania, have announced new gas liquefaction trains, which will increase supply and lower prices. “We believe there’s going to be an LNG glut globally from 2026 to 2030, and that will lead to fierce competition and a fall in prices,” said Stambolis. “That will cover Europe’s needs more cheaply. What effect it will have on the development of renewables is very difficult to say.” Ember believes Europe will continue to invest in autonomy. “The EU is striding closer towards a clean energy future powered by homegrown wind and solar,” wrote Beatrice Petrovich, who co-authored the report. “This new energy system will reduce the bloc’s vulnerability to fossil price shocks, tackle the climate crisis and deliver affordable energy.” ‘Replacing fossil fuels in transport is harder’ Not every energy analyst is confident Europe will succeed. “Renewables in electricity are the ‘easy’ part of the transition, especially at a time of high fossil fuel prices. Replacing fossil fuels in transport is harder, and in the heat sector still harder,” Professor Jonathan Stern, who leads the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies, a think tank, told Al Jazeera. Advertisement Apart from Europe’s ambition to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, two things, in particular, have spurred its transformation. The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to the creation of a fund designed to pull Europe out of recession. The Recovery and Resilience Fund, as it was called, fertilised 1.8 trillion euros ($1.87 trillion) in investments, a third of them in green energy. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 further accelerated Europe’s flight from fossil fuels as Russia cut pipeline gas flows to the continent in an apparent effort to blackmail Europe into stopping military assistance to Kyiv. Previous Ember reports have found that Europe’s solar and wind energy sectors grew at record rates of 5 percent in 2022 and again in 2023. Meanwhile, Europe switched to buying liquefied natural gas (LNG) from other producers, such as the US, Australia and Qatar. Russia has got in on the act, investing in liquefaction and shipping its gas in LNG carriers to disguise its origin as Russian. Stern warned that these transformations in the gas market have given renewables a boost that may be temporary. “Gas prices have been extremely high in 2024 because of the transition from Russian gas to LNG where we are in a tight global market. This hugely benefitted renewables,” he said. Adblock test (Why?)
Maharashtra minister’s shocking statement over Saif Ali Khan’s stabbing incident: ‘He was really attacked or..’
Maharashtra minister and BJP leader Nitesh Rane sparked a controversy on Thursday after he raised questions over the knife attack on Bollywood star Saif Ali Khan wondering if the Bollywood star was “really attacked or if he was acting”.
VA Dems reject Youngkin’s antisemitism expert pick from George Mason Univ board amid troubling incidents
As George Mason University grapples with the latest incident of antisemitism linked to its Fairfax, Virginia, campus, Democrats in the Virginia State Senate rejected Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s nomination of one of the nation’s preeminent antisemitism scholars to its Board of Visitors. Kenneth Marcus, the Brandeis Center’s founder and a former undersecretary in the Education Department’s civil rights division, was one of a few Youngkin nominees who were struck from consideration by the Senate Privileges & Elections Committee on a party-line vote. Marcus has been described by The New York Times as “the man who helped redefine campus antisemitism,” and told Fox News Digital in a Wednesday interview he had hoped to continue that work at GMU. “It was disappointing to see Democratic senators moving to block my nomination at precisely the same time that we were achieving a fairly significant victory over antisemitism in our Harvard University case,” Marcus said, noting he had served without incident on the GMU board since mid-2024. HARVARD SETTLES TWO LAWSUITS DEALING WITH ALLEGATIONS OF ANTISEMITISM “There’s really nothing that I can think of that I have done that would stir any controversy other than working to protect George Mason students from antisemitism,” he said, noting the school has struggled with the issue as of late. A GMU freshman IT major and Egyptian national is being investigated by the FBI on charges of distributing information on weapons in furtherance of a violent crime and threats against a foreign official, according to NBC News. Abdullah Ezzeldin Taha Mohamed Hassan, 18, of Falls Church, Virginia, was allegedly trying to orchestrate a bombing of the Israeli Consulate in New York City. Leaders from Students for Justice in Palestine were also banned from campus after police found “Death to Jews” and “Death to America” signage along with firearms. “This is a huge issue right now at George Mason with some very disturbing high-profile issues happening,” Marcus said. A person familiar with Youngkin’s thoughts on the situation said the governor has “kept his cool” and is not engaging publicly but is incensed about the Democrats’ move. “He is quietly working in hopes Democratic senators are seeing the error of their ways,” the person told Fox News Digital. YOUNGKIN ‘PERSONALLY INVITES’ NEW TRUMP ADMIN WORKERS TO SETTLE IN VA OVER DC, MD Marcus said he worked hard to combat antisemitism on campus in the seven months he has been on campus. “I have been very pleased to have the opportunity to work with the administration and board of that institution to address a very serious problem going on here.” Marcus said one item he had been working on was incorporating antisemitism definitions into GMU’s anti-discrimination policy. “Since I joined the board, the most significant thing I’ve done has been to work with the administration to incorporate the idea of a working definition of antisemitism into George Mason’s anti-discrimination policy. That was a huge advance, and it’s been very influential. It was disappointing to see members of the General Assembly respond as they have,” he said. GMU has also been subject to anti-Zionist vandalism. As of last February, GMU President Gregory Washington said there had been at least 70 antisemitism incident reports to administrators and acknowledged a federal probe into reported malign activity. “I have been asked on numerous occasions to stop the student protests. Even when you’re protesting against me, I still support it because I support freedom of speech,” Washington told the Fourth Estate student newspaper. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP The Senate P&E Committee also removed nominations for former Vice President Mike Pence Chief of Staff Marc Short and Nina Rees, a senior official for the George W. Bush Presidential Library, as well as an education attorney from the Richmond firm McGuire-Woods. Richmond Republicans are hoping to add Marcus’ name back to the legislation listing confirmed nominees on Thursday, but a source suggested their path remains unlikely without any Democrat defections in the 21-19 Senate. Fox News Digital reached out to both Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, D-Alexandria, and Senate P&E Committee Chair Aaron Rouse, D-Virginia Beach, about Marcus’ rejection.
Top 5 moments from Trump’s ‘Hannity’ interview
President Donald Trump sat down for an exclusive interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, his first since returning to the White House. Trump has routinely answered questions from reporters during his first week in office, including from Hannity. In front of a primetime audience, Trump reflected on his return to the White House four years after his loss to former President Joe Biden, threatened a reckoning with FEMA, shared his view on TikTok’s future and discussed Biden’s preemptive pardons for officials and family members. Here are the standout moments. TRUMP’S ‘SHOCK AND AWE’: FORGET FIRST 100 DAYS, NEW PRESIDENT SHOWS OFF FRENETIC PACE IN FIRST 100 HOURS Trump looked back on his historic return to the White House in his interview with Hannity, saying his political comeback proves the policies and philosophies of the “radical left” throughout the past four years are “horrible” and “don’t work.” The 47th president lamented the Biden administration’s policies, once again targeting inflation, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the onset of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars. “With all that being said, I think it’s bigger. It’s bigger than if it were more traditional,” he said on “Hannity,” referring to his two nonconsecutive terms. “I think we got there just in the nick of time.” Hannity revealed he told Trump after the 2020 election that a return to the White House four years after the Biden administration would be “bigger” than a consecutive win, comparing it to Winston Churchill’s return as prime minister following World War II. “Maybe I shouldn’t disclose this, but I will, and it was after the 2020 election, and you asked me a question. And we’ve known each other for 30 years, so we have a friendship, and we have a professional relationship,” Hannity said in his exclusive interview with Trump on Wednesday. “And the question you asked me, ‘maybe in the end, it will be better that if I came back in four years.’ And we talked about history. After World War II, Winston Churchill was thrown out, but they brought him back. Grover Cleveland, the only other American president that did not serve consecutive terms,” he continued. TRUMP WARNS FEMA FACES A RECKONING AFTER BIDEN ADMIN: ‘NOT DONE THEIR JOB’ Churchill served as prime minister twice, from 1940-1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Trump is the second U.S. president to serve two, non-consecutive terms behind President Grover Cleveland, the nation’s 22nd and 24th president. Hannity explained that he believed “it would be bigger if you came back.” Trump agreed that it is already shaping up that way after three days in office. “It’s turning out to be bigger. And I think one thing is happening is people are learning that they can’t govern and that their policies are terrible. I mean, they don’t want to see a woman get pummeled by a man in a boxing ring?” he said. Trump warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is set to face a reckoning following four years under the Biden administration, arguing the emergency agency has “not done their job.” “FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida. We had Alabama tornadoes. But unless you have certain types of leadership, it’s really, it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly, because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,” Trump said. FEMA came under the nation’s microscope last year when Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina, devastating residents as it wiped out homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people. FEMA and the Biden administration faced fierce backlash for its handling of the emergency, while Trump accused the agency of obstructing relief efforts in Republican areas. ‘TOTALLY PREPARED’: TRUMP ALLIES SAY HE’S BETTER POSITIONED THAN EVER TO ENACT AGENDA “The Democrats don’t care about North Carolina. What they’ve done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole ‘nother discussion, because all it does is complicate everything,” he said. “So I’m stopping on Friday. I’m stopping in North Carolina, first stop, because those people were treated very badly by Democrats. And I’m stopping there. We’re going to get that thing straightened out because they’re still suffering from a hurricane from months ago,” Trump said. Trump will visit North Carolina on Friday, his first trip as president, where he is expected to tour and meet with residents who were left devastated by the hurricane in September. He will also visit California that same day, where wildfires have ripped through the Los Angeles area this month. Trump credited his campaign’s decision to go on TikTok with his strong 2024 election performance with youth voters, though he told Hannity the short form video platform must be sold by its Chinese owners to continue to operate in the U.S. “I think TikTok ought to be sold,” Trump said. “People want to buy it.” On his first day in office Monday, Trump issued an executive order granting TikTok more time to operate and work toward compliance with a law forcing the platform’s Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, to either divest the app to an American buyer or shut the platform down in the U.S. He has stated that the U.S. should own half of TikTok and suggested that billionaire Elon Musk or Oracle founder Larry Ellison should purchase the app. TRUMP’S 90-DAY TIKTOK EXTENSION COULD BE ‘LEGALLY INVALID,’ JONATHAN TURLEY WARNS In the interview, Trump seemed dismissive of Hannity’s concerns that TikTok is a “spying app for the communist Chinese.” “But you can say that about everything made in China. Look, we have our telephones made in China for the most part. We have so many things made in China. So why don’t they mention that, you know?” Trump said. “You’re dealing with a lot of young people,” he added. “So they love it. Is it that important for China to be spying
First images of ICE mass deportation efforts show arrests of MS-13 gang members, murder suspects
Fox News embedded exclusively with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Boston as the agency targeted egregious criminal aliens, including MS-13 gang members and murder suspects, as part of mass deportation efforts under President Donald Trump. Fox News witnessed ICE Boston make eight arrests, including multiple MS-13, Interpol Red Notices, murder and rape suspects, and a volatile Haitian gang member with 18 convictions in recent years who told our cameras that he “ain’t going back to Haiti” and “f— Trump, Biden forever!” ICE also made what is known as a “collateral” arrest, where ICE arrests an illegal alien who wasn’t their initial target. In that case, the illegal alien was with an MS-13 gang member who had been released by a sanctuary jurisdiction on Tuesday with an ICE detainer that was not honored. TRUMP’S ICE RACKS UP HUNDREDS OF ARRESTS, INCLUDING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARRESTED FOR HORROR CRIMES Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has previously warned that collateral arrests are something that would happen in sanctuary jurisdictions. As ICE Boston was arresting a violent illegal alien in one neighborhood, Fox News heard a woman yell out “thank you” to the agents. ‘PROMPT REMOVAL’: TRUMP DHS EXPANDS EXPEDITED DEPORTATION POWERS AS OPERATIONS RAMP UP The arrests come as the Trump administration moves rapidly to fulfill its promise to launch a historic mass deportation operation, which it has said will focus primarily – but not exclusively – on public safety threats. In the first days of the Trump administration, ICE has made more than 460 arrests of illegal immigrants, including those with criminal histories that include sexual assault, domestic violence and drugs and weapons crimes. Arrests took place across the U.S. including Illinois, Utah, California, Minnesota, New York, Florida and Maryland. Agents arrested nationals from a slew of countries, including Afghanistan, Angola, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Senegal and Venezuela. Fox News Digital’s Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
‘Stealing American jobs’: Anti-CCP group unleashes ad demanding GOP lawmakers back Trump on saving US farms
FIRST ON FOX: A group focused on combating the influence of China in the United States has launched a major ad buy to push state Republicans to move on President Trump’s agenda related to the threat China poses to U.S. agriculture. The Protecting America Initiative, which bills itself as a “coalition of concerned American citizens and public policy experts who are committed to stopping Chinese influence in the states,” launched a five-figure ad buy for the one-minute ad set to run in key agricultural states warning of China’s push to “control the U.S. agriculture industry.” “The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is buying up farmland across our country,” the ad says. “Stealing American jobs: Communist China is moving in to control the agricultural industry. This new war is happening right now without armies or any shots being fired. Who will dominate the world’s food supply? China is on the rise.” “We’re being ripped off at levels that nobody’s ever seen before,” Trump says in a clip in the ad before the narrator says, “Republicans in the states need to step up and help President Trump combat the CCP.” DAVID MARCUS: CHINA ALREADY PLAYED US WITH TIKTOK. LET’S NOT MAKE IT WORSE A farmer is featured in the ad with a clip from a Fox News interview in which he explains that “we all feel that we’ve been forgotten about here.” “We just want Trump to keep doing what he’s doing: Put America first,” the farmer, Pennsylvania GOP state Rep. Eric Davanzo, continues. “Make sure that America’s food is safe right here and make sure that we have the land and the opportunity to produce and grow our food here.” TRUMP WANTS TO VISIT CHINA AGAIN AFTER HE TAKES OFFICE: REPORT “Tell Republicans to stand with Trump and protect America’s food supply,” the closing line of the ad states. The ad will be placed on national cable channels, including Fox News, in the key agricultural states of Missouri, Iowa, Georgia and Idaho. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Last year, the Protecting America Initiative released polling it said demonstrated that the “overwhelming majority of Americans are concerned about the CCP’s threat to the United States’ national security, food security, infrastructure, and higher education, and influence over our elected officials.” Fox News Digital reported last year that the USDA’s most recent data suggests that, as of 2021, foreign investment in U.S. agricultural land grew to approximately 40 million acres. Additionally, Chinese agricultural investment in the U.S. increased tenfold between 2009 and 2016 alone. The increasing number of land purchases has sparked concern that foreign companies and investors, particularly those from China, may be establishing a stranglehold on key U.S. food and energy supplies. “The Chinese national government, or some people say the Chinese Communist Party, has been about acquiring all manner of assets, not just in the United States but around the world, to control all sorts of resources,” GOP Rep. Frank Lucas of Oklahoma told Fox News Digital in a 2023 interview. “I would argue that, in addition to the importance of national security – the guns and the bullets and the planes and the resources to defend ourselves – if we cannot feed ourselves, then we are lost.” Fox News Digital’s Thomas Catenacci contributed to this report.
Key Senate chairman criticizes ‘anonymous sources with ulterior motives,’ stands by Hegseth nomination
A key senator on the Armed Services Committee says he is standing by President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, pushing back on those he called “anonymous sources with ulterior motives” who are casting doubt on his character. Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., in a statement Wednesday criticized recent reports on a confidential briefing on the FBI background investigation of Hegseth as “starkly and factually inaccurate.” “It is disturbing that a sensitive, longstanding process used by committee leadership to vet presidential personnel is being litigated in the press by anonymous sources with ulterior motives,” Wicker said, adding that he’s received three separate, detailed briefings on the FBI’s background investigation. Wicker was responding to a CNN report that cited two sources familiar with the matter who claimed that Hegseth’s ex-wife, Samantha Hegseth, gave a statement to the FBI about Hegseth’s alleged alcohol use. The outlet said one of the sources said Samantha Hegseth told the FBI, “He drinks more often than he doesn’t.” HEGSETH LAWYER SLAMS ‘FLAWED AND QUESTIONABLE AFFIDAVIT’ FROM EX-SISTER-IN-LAW A source familiar with the FBI investigation confirmed the recent briefing and its contents to Fox News, saying “yes, Samantha provided a prepared statement to the FBI in which she said Pete Hegseth has had and continues to have a problem with alcohol abuse. That statement was communicated by the FBI to Senators Wicker and Reed.” Meanwhile, Wicker says that he continues to stand by Hegseth. “After this thorough review, I am ironclad in my assessment that the nominee, Mr. Hegseth, is prepared to be the next Secretary of Defense, and that the allegations unfairly impugning his character do not pass scrutiny,” the senator said. Wicker said that Hegseth has the confidence of Trump and the backing of Senate Republicans, and called on the Senate to confirm the nominee “as fast as possible” during this “precarious national security moment.” ‘DESPERATE ATTEMPT’: SENATORS RECEIVE AFFIDAVIT WITH ALLEGATIONS ABOUT HEGSETH’S PREVIOUS MARRIAGE A vote on the Defense Secretary nominee is expected to come this weekend if the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate do not come to a time agreement to expedite the process. Hegseth has faced controversy throughout his confirmation process. On Tuesday, Fox News obtained an affidavit from Hegseth’s former sister-in-law, Danielle Hegseth, which alleges he has an alcohol abuse problem and at times made his ex-wife, Samantha, fear for her safety. Danielle Hegseth was married to Pete Hegseth’s brother. She is not the sister of Samantha, Pete Hegseth’s second wife. But Danielle Hegseth added that she never witnessed any abuse herself, physical or sexual, from Pete against Samantha. Samantha Hegseth has also denied any physical abuse in a statement given to NBC News. “There was no physical abuse in my marriage. This is the only further statement I will make to you. I have let you know that I am not speaking and will not speak on my marriage to Pete. Please respect this decision,” she reportedly said. Fox News’ Tyler Olson, Kelly Phares and Daniel Scully contributed to this report.
School choice, vouchers and the future of Texas education
Everything you need to know about what they are and how they might change the state’s educational landscape.