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Trump administration strikes deal with Ohio to clean up state voter rolls using federal database

Trump administration strikes deal with Ohio to clean up state voter rolls using federal database

Ohio elections officials reached a data sharing agreement with President Donald Trump‘s administration that will help clean up and maintain the state’s voter rolls. Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced the new agreement on Monday, saying it guarantees Ohio access to enhanced federal records for at least 20 years. The deal refers to the federal Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database, which previously had limited and costly availability to state election officials. LaRose says Monday’s agreement with the Department of Homeland Security guarantees Ohio the capability to obtain verifiable data supporting each citizen verification as well as the ability to perform bulk verification requests. “Ohio has a duty to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, and this agreement gives us the tools to do that job right,” LaRose said. “I appreciate the Trump administration for working with us to deliver long-term access to the federal data needed to protect election integrity.” TEXAS FINDS THOUSANDS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS REGISTERED TO VOTE ON STATE VOTER ROLLS The agreement concludes a lawsuit LaRose filed against the DHS under former President Joe Biden. The previous administration had withheld access to SAVE data and also charged states for access on a per-query basis. LaRose’s office has already removed tens of thousands of wrongful voter registrations in Ohio since before the 2024 election. He referred over 1,000 noncitizens to the DOJ for potential prosecution in October after determining that they “appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio.” OHIO LAWMAKER PUSHES BILL TO DEFUND SANCTUARY CITIES, BOOST ICE COOPERATION His office said that of the 1,084 cases, 167 of the individuals appeared to have cast a ballot in a federal election since 2018. LAWMAKER REVEALS HOW DES MOINES SCHOOLS CHIEF REGISTERED TO VOTE DESPITE ILLEGAL STATUS The cases included 99 individuals who appear to have voted in two states in the same federal election; 16 people who appear to have voted twice in Ohio in the same federal election; 14 who appear to have voted in a federal election after the date of their death; four who appear to have engaged in ballot harvesting and two who registered at an unlawful residence. LaRose’s office also removed over 155,000 voter registrations that were confirmed to be abandoned and inactive for at least four consecutive years.

Trump admin’s energy agenda hailed for crucial ‘wins’ as green activists lash out

Trump admin’s energy agenda hailed for crucial ‘wins’ as green activists lash out

FIRST ON FOX: A coalition of conservative groups representing the energy industry is hailing a list of ten regulatory and fiscal “wins” under the Trump administration’s new Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, which they say have “restored America’s path toward true energy dominance.”  “Secretary Chris Wright has delivered the boldest course correction in modern energy policy, and the results speak for themselves. He has led the largest deregulatory initiative in Department of Energy history, cut billions in wasteful green subsidies, and restored a clear path to American energy dominance,” Jason Isaac, CEO of one of the groups that signed on to the published list of Trump administration energy sector wins, wrote. “He halted dozens of harmful appliance rules, streamlined NEPA, canceled politically driven wind, solar, and carbon-capture spending, reignited U.S. LNG and nuclear development, and used emergency authority to keep critical coal capacity online, so the grid stays stable when it matters most,” he continued. “This is what it looks like when Washington finally puts consumers, reliability, and American workers first.”  TRUMP ADMIN ANNOUNCES BIG STEP TOWARD ‘ENERGY DOMINANCE’ WITH MASSIVE ALASKA LNG PROJECT ALLIANCE Groups from the letter include the Heartland Institute, the Energy and Environmental Legal Institute, Truth In Energy and Climate, the American Energy Institute, and others.  Several of the “wins” they touted focused on deregulation, such as the rescission or blocking of 47 specific regulations and standards for a variety of consumer appliances, reforms to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) aimed at reducing permitting delays for energy infrastructure, the cancellation of “billions of dollars” in funding for wind and solar projects, the fast-tracking of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) projects that the coalition says were “stymied” under the Biden administration, and an initiative to critically review the impact of greenhouse gasses on the U.S. climate, among a list of other reforms. However, environmental groups who spoke to Fox News Digital about the conservative coalition’s victory lap, argued the recent reforms actually serve to help big businesses and not the average person. They noted that the viewpoint that President Donald Trump’s environmental agenda is making the country stronger is also a facade.  “These policies might be good for Trump and Wright’s rich corporate buddies, but they are downright evil for working people,” Tim Donaghy, Greenpeace USA’s research director, told Fox News Digital. “The decisions made in the last nine months are literally sucking money out of Americans’ wallets and putting it into oil industry bank accounts, while pretending they’re making the country stronger.”  Donaghy said that President Trump’s plan to increase energy exports, for example, “will increase” costs for American families and exacerbate climate change, which he argued was another driver of increased housing insurance costs for families. CCP-LINKED FIRMS QUIETLY HOLD STAKES IN US SOLAR COMPANIES FUELING DEM’S GREEN PUSH  “The sad thing is that the Trump administration’s policies are creating more pollution that will make Americans sick. Every year 350,000 Americans die younger from being exposed to toxic air pollution from burning fossil fuels. We need that number to go down. These ‘wins’ all but guarantee it will go up,” Donaghy concluded.  The “wins” touted by the “American Energy Dominance Coalition” did not exclusively include deregulation efforts in the energy sector, but also featured increased investments in nuclear energy production. The list also praised Sec. Wright for launching a critical review earlier this summer looking into the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on the U.S. climate, as well as a study focused on identifying pipeline needs and potential permitting reforms that could be used to help speed up oil and gas production. Some of the additional deregulation ‘wins’ listed by the coalition include the termination of $3.7 billion in carbon-capture and decarbonization grants, the cancellation of “hundreds-of-millions” in electric-vehicle and battery manufacturing grants, and a push towards rescinding energy-efficiency standards for federal billions, which the conservative coalition argued could lead to saving millions of dollars in “unnecessary upgrades.”  “Chris Wright has done an amazing job of actually prioritizing American energy development and affordability rather than globalist misguided climate agendas,” Heartland Institute President James Taylor said. “American energy policy must continue to bolster affordable and reliable domestic energy sources rather than the agendas of foreign nations that are often hostile to American interests.” Meanwhile, Sal Nuzzo, Executive Director of Consumers Defense, also praised Sec. Wright and his administration’s “most sweeping de-regulatory initiative in U.S. history,” for overturning “burdensome regulations” that Nuzzo says hurt both consumers and businesses.  Nuzzo also pointed out that the Trump administration has taken a stand against “politically motivated” environmental, social, governance (ESG) “schemes,” which he said have been inflating energy costs and weakening U.S. independence while also undermining the free market system. But the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Bernadette Del Chiaro, who is EWG’s Senior Vice President for its California-based operations, dismissed that the policy “wins” touted by these conservative groups were actually “wins” for the American people. Instead, Del Chiaro described them as “giveaways” to the fossil fuel industry that will result in greater pollution, higher energy costs, and fewer choices for consumers. “Slashing support for wind and solar cripples U.S. leadership in the rapidly expanding clean-energy economy. These rollbacks kill jobs, strand private investment, and hand global economic advantage to China just as the rest of the world races toward cheaper, cleaner and more competitive energy sources,” Del Chiaro told Fox News Digital. “If the priority is affordability, the Administration is on the wrong track as there’s no cheaper energy resource than solar,” she added. “And if beefing up American energy independence is the goal, once again, we are veering off course because there is nothing more abundant than the sunshine that falls on our country ‘from sea to shining sea,’ or more homegrown than the wind that whips across our Great Plains.”

War Secretary Hegseth highlights US ‘Drone Dominance’ push for mass adoption in modern warfare

War Secretary Hegseth highlights US ‘Drone Dominance’ push for mass adoption in modern warfare

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth highlighted U.S. ambitions to acquire massive quantities of drones. Hegseth, who noted that he is focused on “rebuilding” the nation’s military, said in a video message that “Drone Dominance is a billion-dollar program funded by President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill.” “We cannot afford to shoot down cheap drones with $2 million dollar missiles. And we ourselves must be able to field large quantities of capable attack drones,” he said. A DRONE FOR EVERY SOLDIER IN ARMY OF THE FUTURE, DRISCOLL SAYS “Drone dominance will do two things: Drive costs down and capabilities up. We will deliver tens of thousands of small drones to our force in 2026, and hundreds of thousands of them by 2027. I will soon be meeting with the military services to discuss transformational changes in warfighting doctrine. We need to outfit our combat units with unmanned systems at scale,” Hegseth asserted. Business tycoon Elon Musk has repeatedly emphasized the importance of drones in war. ZELENSKYY GIVES STARK WARNING ON FUTURE OF DRONE WARFARE AT UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY “Drones are the future of warfare. Manned aircraft are not,” he declared in a post on X earlier this year.  “We better figure out how to build drones at scale fast or we are doomed to be a vassal state…,” he warned in another post. PENTAGON EXPLORING COUNTER-DRONE SYSTEMS TO PREVENT INCURSIONS OVER NATIONAL SECURITY FACILITIES CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP In a post last year he wrote, “Future wars are all about drones & hypersonic missiles. Fighter jets piloted by humans will be destroyed very quickly.”