‘Manmohan Singh handled govt, I focused on party’: Sonia Gandhi recalls UPA years in memoir
In her memoir Belonging: A Journey of Love, Sonia Gandhi has said there was a clear division of responsibilities during the UPA years, with Manmohan Singh.
Mumbai: 16-year-old dies after firecracker explosions trigger shop slab collapse in Malad
A 16-year-old boy died after firecracker explosions triggered the collapse of a shop’s slab during a fire in Mumbai’s Malad-Malvani area on Monday night.
Mumbai local train murder: Accused Roshan Suvarna claims he tried to save Mayank Lohar, says real attacker escaped
Roshan Suvarna, arrested for allegedly stabbing 22-year-old Mayank Lohar to death inside a Mumbai local train, has sought bail, claiming he was injured while trying to save the victim.
Pawan Kalyan, wife Anna Konidala announce divorce
Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Pawan Kalyan and his wife Anna Konidala have decided to end their marriage by mutual consent, while continuing to prioritise their children’s happiness and well-being.
Did Sonia Gandhi really have little contact with PM Modi? Congress leader reveals in memoir Belonging
She admits that their ideologies and worldviews are different. “He was fighting for his vision of India, and I for mine: an India against hegemony, an India that stands for inclusiveness, secularism, and social justice. It wasn’t personal,” she writes.
Dana White takes questions at podium during White House briefing with Trump
UFC CEO Dana White joined President Donald Trump at a White House press briefing on Monday, where Trump clarified that his recent suggestion to appoint the fight executive as his press secretary was merely a joke. Trump made a surprise appearance at the briefing to address reports that he had reached out to White for the role following a difficult news cycle. “We were having a very bad press day, and I said: ‘I don’t know why I thought of his name. ‘ He’s been my friend for a long time. I said: ‘You know, I think I’m going to get Dana White to be my new press secretary,’” Trump told reporters. “I said it to a group of the press and that was it. I was sort of kidding, and then they wrote the story as though I wasn’t kidding.” TRUMP SAYS HE WAS ‘ONLY KIDDING’ ABOUT MAKING DANA WHITE PRESS SECRETARY White then took the podium to address reporters and shut down any rumors of entering government service. “I have zero political aspirations,” White said. “I was at a fight for Zuffa Boxing in London when he called me and told me that he had done this, and the last 24 hours of my life have been insane.” When asked by a reporter to break down a hypothetical UFC cage match between Trump and former President Joe Biden, White praised Trump’s toughness while dismissing the match up. FOLLOW US ON X “He’s the toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my entire life,” White said of Trump. “Many times during the last eight or 10 years, I have told him: ‘Why? Why do you keep doing this? ‘ But as tough and as resilient as I thought he was, after he got shot, he proved he is a one-of-one unique human being.” Regarding the hypothetical fight, White added: “It would be very bad. Yeah, I think it would be very bad… I can’t believe you actually have questions for me.” White added that he never explicitly told Trump “no” regarding the position. Before stepping away, the UFC chief was also asked what advice he would give Trump regarding a potential posthumous pardon for Pete Rose, the legendary baseball player who died in 2024. Rose was banned from MLB Hall of Fame eligibility due to betting on baseball games, including those involving his own team, the Cincinnati Reds. In 2025, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred removed Rose and 16 other deceased people from the permanently ineligible list. Trump reiterated during the briefing that he favors pardoning the hit king.
Jeffries vows Democrats won’t ‘give a dime’ to Trump’s deportation efforts
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries on Monday laid out an aggressive agenda for House Democrats as the party prepares to take control of the chamber following sweeping midterm election victories, declaring that Democrats will “not give a dime” toward funding the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. The House minority leader made the remarks during a press conference, one week before Democrats are set to vote on whether Jeffries should remain in his leadership position. “The American people clearly and decisively rejected MAGA extremism on Tuesday and voted for dramatic change,” Jeffries said. “House Democrats have taken the position that we’re not going to give a dime to the administration’s violent mass deportation machine,” he added. DEMS PIVOT FROM ‘AFFORDABILITY’ PITCH TO DHS PROBE THREATS AFTER MIDTERM WINS Jeffries also criticized the use of taxpayer dollars to support what he called “un-American” policies under President Donald Trump. “Taxpayer dollars should be used to make life more affordable for the American people, not brutalize or kill American citizens, and violently target law-abiding immigrant communities and families, which is what has happened over the last two years,” Jeffries said. TRUMP TELLS DHS CHIEF TO WORK WITH DEMOCRATS ON IMMIGRATION REFORM, BUT NO AMNESTY He added that he hopes to secure one additional signature on a discharge petition that would bypass House leadership and force a floor vote on the American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide permanent legal status and a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and recipients of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). “Hopefully some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will be willing to do that work, perhaps beginning with one additional signature that we need to force a vote on the Dream and Promise Act from a Republican,” he said. Among other priorities, Jeffries said Democrats want to pass legislation banning members of the House and Senate from trading stocks, an effort aimed at restoring public trust in government. He also voiced support for an impeachment resolution against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his handling of the war in Iran and alleged constitutional violations. “I’m a hard yes, as I’ve made clear, on the impeachment resolution. Pete Hegseth has abused his power, undermined America’s national security, and he’s the architect of the reckless and costly failed war of choice in Iran, which has skyrocketed gas prices on everyday Americans, made the country less safe,” Jeffries said. “Iran is stronger now than they were before,” he argued. As the Democratic caucus leadership vote approaches next Wednesday, reporters asked Jeffries whether he was concerned about progressive members who have criticized him for not taking a more aggressive approach during his tenure as leader. Jeffries said he plans to speak with every member of the caucus in an effort to retain his position. “I’m going to work hard to talk to every single member about what we’ve been able to do together over the last two years, and what the opportunities are for us to do together in the next two years,” he said.
Trump tells DHS chief to work with Democrats on immigration reform, but no amnesty
President Donald Trump has encouraged Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to work with Democrats who have reached out about immigration reform, but the administration has not discussed changing its enforcement policies and remains opposed to amnesty, Mullin reportedly said Monday. Mullin told reporters on the sidelines of a counter-drone conference in Maryland that “a lot of Democrats” have contacted him about working together on immigration legislation in the new Congress. “I’ve let the president know that those calls are coming in, and the president has said, ‘Let’s start working with them and then let’s meet at some point,’” Mullin said. WHITE HOUSE DOUBLES DOWN AFTER TRUMP ANGERS BASE BY FLOATING ILLEGAL ALIEN DEAL WITH DEMS However, Mullin emphasized that he and Trump have not discussed changing the administration’s immigration enforcement policies. “But has there been a conversation about changing the policy?” Mullin said of his discussions with Trump. “No, we haven’t had that conversation.” “We’re never going to allow amnesty to happen,” Mullin added. Mullin also suggested Congress could consider a pathway to permanent legal status for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to eligible immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. HOUSE GOP ERUPTS AT STEPHEN MILLER AS TRUMP ELEVATES HIM AFTER MIDTERM MASSACRE: ‘MEGALOMANIAC’ “If we want to have an immigration reform to where we can look at DACA and figure out a way that these individuals can become maybe legal permanent citizens or something like this, that’ll be up to Congress,” Mullin said. Mullin’s comments come after Trump signaled openness to working with Democrats on immigration following the 2026 midterm elections , even as the president named Stephen Miller , the architect of his administration’s hardline immigration policies, as his new White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles. Mullin’s willingness to consider a legislative pathway for DACA recipients marks a shift in tone from the department’s messaging earlier this year. In a March post on X, DHS stressed that DACA “does not confer any form of legal status in this country” and warned that recipients could be arrested and deported, including for criminal conduct. The post also included video of Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., questioning then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. Durbin asked whether Noem was aware that DACA immigrants must undergo criminal background checks. Noem responded that the agency follows the law in its detention and deportation decisions. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER DHS said in the post that ICE arrested 264 DACA recipients nationwide between Jan. 20 and Sept. 28, 2025, and that more than 92% had been charged with or convicted of a crime in the United States. Mullin’s comments Monday marked his first public suggestion that DACA recipients could gain permanent legal status through congressional action. DHS did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment by publication time.
Trump’s redistricting gamble faces reckoning as GOP holdouts claim vindication
Under intense pressure from the White House and conservative activists, Indiana Republicans resisted an effort to redraw the state’s congressional map to favor the GOP ahead of the midterms. Now, with Republicans reeling from major election losses, a state lawmaker who helped block the plan believes the opposition may have spared Indiana’s GOP delegation a political wipeout. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance pushed Republican-led states to redraw congressional maps mid-decade, but the strategy failed to deliver several anticipated pickups as Democrats flipped seats previously considered safely Republican. Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rod Bray, R-Martinsville, who helped lead opposition to the proposed redraw, told Fox News Digital that the plan could have devastated the state’s Republican congressional delegation. “[H]ad we made a change to redistricting, we’d’ve ended up with something like 8-1 or 7-2 [favoring Democrats] — I really do believe that,” Bray said. REDISTRICTING EFFORTS BLOW UP IN REPUBLICANS’ FACES AMID HISTORIC HOUSE LOSSES Vance personally pressed Indiana Republicans to redraw their congressional districts, visiting Indianapolis twice and meeting privately with lawmakers, including Bray. Trump also advocated for a redraw and singled out Bray while warning Republican holdouts that they could face MAGA-backed primary challengers. Fox News Digital contacted the White House and the vice president’s office for comment but did not receive a response before publication. North Carolina offered a prominent example of the risks Republican mapmakers faced as Democrats won districts the GOP had expected to hold. Former North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Kings Mountain, helped engineer the state’s Republican-friendly redistricting strategy, only to lose his own congressional seat to Democratic political newcomer LaKesha Womack. Moore did not respond to a request for comment. National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Richard Hudson, R-N.C., who led House Republicans’ campaign arm, also lost his Fort Bragg-area seat to former West Virginia state Sen. Richard Ojeda. Democratic Rep. Don Davis, meanwhile, survived despite the addition of Republican-leaning areas such as Emerald Isle and Down East to his district. Western Carolina University political scientist Chris Cooper warned before the election that North Carolina Republicans risked spreading their voters too thin. “They can’t spread too much thinner, or else they’ll be at risk of what folks call a dummymander, where you end up hurting yourself,” Cooper told Axios in April. In Florida, Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz and Lois Frankel, whose district includes Mar-a-Lago, survived despite redistricting efforts intended to improve Republican prospects. Democrat Pia Dandiya also won a redrawn district near Lake Okeechobee considered a “Trump +10” seat. In Texas, Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez also survived in districts along the U.S.-Mexico border that Republicans had sought to make more favorable to their candidates. Those results suggest that Republican redistricting failed to produce several anticipated pickups. Whether the strategy actually cost the party seats, however, remains a separate question from whether a broader Democratic wave overwhelmed districts that had become more Republican on paper. “Given how the newly proposed maps would have added even more Democratic voters in seemingly safe Republican districts, it is possible the redistricting, had it gone through, would backfire and actually would have given Democrats more seats,” University of Indianapolis political scientist Laura Merrifield Wilson told Fox News Digital. Wilson noted that Democrats flipped only one of Indiana’s nine congressional districts. “As it was, they did flip (Rep. Victoria Spartz’) IN-5 from red to blue and that was a district that was considered ‘solid Republican’ at the beginning of this election cycle,” Wilson said. “Adding more Democratic voters to those Republican districts could have actually tipped the scales in favor of the Democratic candidates.” Bray explained why he believed the rejected map would have put more Republican seats at risk. “If you take the Democrat strongholds in the state of Indiana that are Marion County and obviously Northwest Indiana, and then you spread those out amongst all the congressional districts among the state, by definition you’re going to weaken these other congressional districts,” Bray said. He added that redrawing district boundaries would also force Republican incumbents to campaign in unfamiliar territory, potentially weakening their existing fundraising and constituent networks. Resisting the White House came with political consequences for Indiana Republicans. Wilson noted that most Republican state senators who opposed the redraw and subsequently faced primary challenges lost their races, with Sens. Greg Goode, R-Terre Haute, and Spencer Deery, R-West Lafayette, among the exceptions. SIGN UP TO GET THE POLITICS NEWSLETTER “The redistricting debacle proved to be a waste of time, energy, and money,” she told Fox News Digital. Bray said he believed resisting the redraw was worthwhile. “There was an immense amount of political capital spent on both sides of this darn thing,” Bray said. “It was not a good idea to start, at least from my perspective.” “Indiana didn’t want it,” he added. “I think the results would have been far worse had we done it. So it was worthwhile. Yes.” The election leaves Republicans confronting two possible explanations: Their aggressive redistricting may have spread GOP voters too thin, exposing previously safe seats, or the Democratic wave may simply have been too powerful for even Republican-friendly maps to withstand. For Indiana Republicans who resisted Trump’s demands, the results offer a measure of vindication, though the consequences of adopting the rejected map remain uncertain. “You can get far too cute with redistricting if you want to, and some folks think that they have the means or the science to just draw maps and come up with a result that they can guarantee,” Bray said. “That is not the case.” “We continue to hold elections for a reason. Because sometimes the results are not exactly what we expect.”
ASRA NOMANI: El-Sayed glides into role as rock star of the hard left’s red-green alliance
CHANTILLY, Va. — Three days after Abdul El-Sayed won a historic election as America’s first Muslim senator, a driver navigating a black luxury GMC Yukon Denali SUV pulled into a parking space beside a side security entrance of an upscale Marriott conference center here in this suburb of Washington, D.C., at 7:39 p.m. on Friday. A man jumped out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear door, from which El-Sayed emerged for an appearance at the Arab America Foundation’s “CONNECT Empowerment Summit,” hosted by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose leaders had supported his election. As the man extended an arm to shield El-Sayed, the senator-elect dipped out of the SUV, slipping on a jacket as he climbed the steps toward the entrance. The Democratic Party’s newly minted rock star had arrived, in more ways than one. ABDUL EL-SAYED DELIVERS MAJOR BLOW TO GOP IN MICHIGAN AFTER BRUISING SENATE RACE The ensuing 45 minutes offered a window into some of the activists, organizations, political rhetoric and cultural forces surrounding the El-Sayed’s dramatic rise, buoyed by an increasingly powerful coalition that includes many disaffected Democrats, but also outright Islamists and communists in an unlikely alliance. Inside, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of CodePink, a far-left nonprofit, paced in the hallway in a fuchsia tunic over leggings and white boots. CodePink is a pro-communist, pro-China nonprofit funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American-born, Shanghai-based tycoon whose financing of left-wing nonprofits has drawn congressional and prosecutorial scrutiny. CodePink’s other co-founder, Jodie Evans, is married to Singham. Nearby, Benjamin’s husband and fellow CodePink activist, Tighe Barry, wore a traditional Chinese jacket under a khaki Mao-style cap emblazoned with a five-point star associated with communist iconography. He carried a backpack patterned with a keffiyeh pattern and watermelons, symbols adopted by pro-Palestinian activists. Benjamin and Barry weren’t political outliers in El-Sayed’s orbit. His political rise has been supported by prominent anti-Israel activists including Linda Sarsour and left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who has called Hamas “1,000 times better” than Israel, a remark he later described as intentionally provocative. Friday night provided a firsthand view of another part of that coalition. They were among activists and representatives of organizations from different ideological traditions that have converged around El-Sayed — part of what Fox News Digital has examined as a “red-green” network linking elements of the socialist and communist hard-left with Muslim and Arab advocacy organizations. The gathering itself didn’t fit neatly into a fundamentalist religious mold, amid questions about Islamism, or political Islam, and the Muslim Brotherhood that have followed El-Sayed. He has denied being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, although his family reportedly has ties to the organization and he himself has written favorably about the organization’s leaders. Women danced and sang with bare shoulders and flowing hair, underscoring the secular and openly cultural character of much of the celebration. A table for Jinba Village and School outside Hebron in the West Bank displayed a flyer reading, “End Settler Outposts: Make Palestinian Villages Safe. Email Congress.” Another table offered keffiyehs with designs replacing the traditional fishbone pattern with the outlines of Palestinian territory. Along the far corner of the ballroom, a collection of gifts for a fundraiser included a handcrafted wooden “silhouette of Palestine, painted in the iconic colors of the Palestinian flag” by artist Hasan Munem. Opening bid: $100. ABDUL EL-SAYED’S ALLEGED FAMILY TIES TO MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD SURFACE AFTER DENYING ANY LINK DURING NBC INTERVIEW Benjamin eventually took a seat beside Hazami Barmada, a prominent Syrian American anti-Israel activist who has deployed political theater and demonstrations across Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., storming the offices of Palantir Technologies, Lockheed-Martin and PETA, the animal rights advocates, and confronting Biden and Trump administration officials to cut ties with Israel. Barmada wore a keffiyeh over her hair like a turban. Benjamin, Barry and Barmada declined to answer questions from Fox News Digital. Their presence put figures from different wings of the political coalition around El-Sayed in the same room: activists from the socialist, pro-communist Left alongside Arab, Muslim and pro-Palestinian activists and organizations that supported his candidacy. Fox News Digital has tracked the intersection of those movements as a “red-green” network — the “red” referring to socialist and communist organizations and “green” to Muslim and Arab political organizations. The groups don’t share a single ideology or formal organizational structure but have converged around causes including opposition to Israel and U.S. foreign policy. Friday night, those relationships weren’t nodes on an organizational chart. They were in the room. Co-founders Warren David and Dr. Amal David started the Arab America Foundation as an educational and cultural organization dedicated to promoting Arab heritage and connecting and empowering Arab Americans nationwide. Now they were waiting to greet the country’s first Muslim senator. The foundation describes itself as nonpartisan, but political participation features prominently in its programming. The next morning, the summit’s “Leading from the Front,” included Abbas Alawieh and Layla Elabed, co-chairs of the Uncommitted National Movement, which organized Democratic voters in 2024 to cast “uncommitted” ballots in protest of the Biden administration’s policies toward Israel and the war in Gaza. El-Sayed supported the Uncommitted effort. Also on the roster was Anas Shallal, CEO of the Washington, D.C., restaurant and bookstore, Bus Boys and Poets, which has hosted events involving left-wing organizations, including groups in the Singham network such as CodePink, on issues ranging from Israel and the Trump administration and Israel to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The summit also included Arab American Institute founder James Zogby among dozens of artists, musicians and business, government and community leaders. But Friday night, El-Sayed was the celebrity guest. ‘DESTROYING THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE’: EL-SAYED’S POLITICAL ORBIT COMPLICATES EFFORT TO MODERATE HIS IMAGE Benjamin, Barry and Barmada rushed into one hallway before being directed back toward another as organizers and supporters tried to determine where El-Sayed would enter. Supporters eventually gathered near a doorway beside displays depicting Israel and the Palestinian territories as a single state of Palestine. At 7:51 p.m., El-Sayed finally appeared through