Air Force veteran jumps into key House race to unseat 22-term vulnerable Dem: ‘Time to pass the torch’
FIRST ON FOX: Longtime Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur is facing a new Republican challenger in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District in the form of Air Force veteran Alea Nadeem, who spoke exclusively to Fox News Digital about her campaign. “This country saved me, I owe my life to this country,” Nadeem, a northwest Ohio native, told Fox News Digital, recounting her harrowing life story of being kidnapped by her father and taken to Iraq, where she lived under the rule of Saddam Hussein before the U.S. government worked to bring her back. Nadeem joined the Air Force in response to the events of 9/11 and never planned on leaving the nonpartisan military world for politics until she spent time on Capitol Hill in recent years and realized that life for people in her district was not improving. “I got to see firsthand all the things that were happening, and I’ve got to tell you, my hometown where I grew up was not better off,” Nadeem said. “I was seeing the policies that people were voting on, and especially the current person, Marcy Kaptur, who’s been here for almost 43 years. I didn’t think they were voting in a way that actually helped the way I grew up, blue-collar families.” ‘NEW LOW’: LONGTIME HOUSE DEM RIPPED FOR ‘DISGUSTING’ QUESTIONING OF MUSK’S LOYALTY TO US AS AN IMMIGRANT Kaptur, who narrowly won re-election in 2024 by less than 1 percentage point, is widely considered one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the House. Her district will be home to one of the most highly watched races as Republicans attempt to hold a thin majority in the chamber. Cook Political Report ranks the race as a “Democrat toss up” in a state that Trump carried by over 10 points. Kaptur faced criticism during last year’s campaign for introducing only five bills that became law in 41 years. REPUBLICANS TROLL DEMS’ EL SALVADOR VISITS WITH OFFER TO FOOT TRAVEL BILL – IN EXCHANGE FOR ONE THING Nadeem told Fox News Digital that even people she talks to who “love” Kaptur agree that 22 terms in Congress is too much. “It’s time to pass the torch,” Nadeem said. “One of the things that they’ve all said to me is they were really scared to pass a torch the last two times. They didn’t feel like they had a candidate who could really step into her shoes. And so I’ve heard, I call it kitchen table talk. They haven’t found somebody worthy to pass the torch to, but they also fully understand it’s time. Everyone has been like, it’s enough. We get it, 43 years. So I think they’re looking for the next guardian to be able to do that. Someone they can trust. And I’m really hoping to step into that.” Nadeem spoke to Fox News Digital about the issues she plans to focus on during the campaign. At the top of the list are jobs and manufacturing. “This is near and dear to my heart,” Nadeem said, adding that making sure “we’re not hollowing out the northwest and these blue-collar jobs” is her “number one priority.” Nadeem said bringing fiscal responsibility to Washington, D.C., will be another priority. “I looked at 1983, when Marcy Kaptur was in office, I think the debt was around, that the United States debt was around like $1.6 trillion, and now it’s $36 trillion,” Nadeem said. “So you can just see like, under Democratic leadership, we have not done better. So we need to get our fiscal house in order because I know people in northwest Ohio really rely on Social Security and Medicare. And I call those earned benefits. And if we can’t balance our checkbook, we can’t pay for those things. And so I do think people deserve that.”
Family in Indonesia turns to mangrove trees to tackle climate change
Pasijah, a 55-year-old housewife in Indonesia’s Central Java province, wakes up every morning to the sound of the sea. If that sounds idyllic, it is anything but. Her home is the only one remaining in this part of Rejosari Senik, a small village on Java’s northern coast that was once on dry land but is now submerged in water. Over the past few years, Pasijah’s neighbours have abandoned their homes, vegetable plots and rice fields to the advancing sea, but she and her family have no plans to leave. “I do have every intention to stay here and my feelings for this house remain,” she said. Water laps around the walls of Pasijah’s house, where she has lived for 35 years, soaking her feet when she steps outside. The nearest land is two kilometres (1.24 miles) away, and the closest city, Demak, is further still at 19 kilometres (11.8 miles). The only way to get there is by boat. Indonesia, an archipelago of thousands of islands, has about 81,000 kilometres of coastline, making it particularly vulnerable to rising seas and erosion. Sea levels on the country’s coasts rose an average of 4.25 millimetres (0.16 inches) annually from 1992 to 2024, but the rate has accelerated in recent years, according to Kadarsah, a climate change official at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency. Advertisement “One of the signs of climate change is the rising sea levels,” he said, adding that some small islands had disappeared. Kadarsah also pointed to the increased pumping of groundwater that has exacerbated land subsidence along Java’s northern coast. The problem is particularly bad in Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, which is home to some 10 million people. Megaprojects Indonesian authorities have turned to megaprojects for a solution, including a 700-kilometre (434-mile) sea wall that would run along the northern coast between Banten and East Java provinces. Pasijah and her family, meanwhile, have turned to nature. She has planted about 15,000 mangrove trees a year over the past 20 years. Every day, she paddles out in a boat made from a blue plastic barrel to tend to the bushes and plant new saplings, lowering herself into the blue-grey water, which can be as high as her chest. “The floodwaters come in waves, gradually, not all at once,” Pasijah said. “I realised that after the waters began rising, I needed to plant mangrove trees so that they could spread and protect the house from the wind and the waves.” She and her family survive by selling the fish caught by her sons in the nearest market. They say they will stay as long as they can hold back the tides. “I’m no longer concerned about how I feel about the isolation here since I decided to stay, so we’ll take it one hurdle at a time,” Pasijah said. Adblock test (Why?)
DeepSeek transferred data without consent, South Korean watchdog says
Personal Information Protection Commission says AI model sent personal data to Beijing-based cloud service. South Korea’s data protection watchdog has accused DeepSeek, the Chinese start-up whose artificial intelligence-powered chatbot took the tech scene by storm earlier this year, of transferring personal data without users’ consent. The Personal Information Protection Commission said on Thursday that DeepSeek had been transferring information to several companies in China and the United States before its ChatGPT-like AI model was removed from app stores in February, pending a privacy review. Nam Seok, director of the commission’s investigation bureau, said during a news conference that the app had sent user prompts and device and network information to a Beijing-based cloud service called Volcano Engine. DeepSeek “acknowledged it had insufficiently considered Korea’s data protection laws” and “expressed its willingness to cooperate with the commission, and voluntarily suspended new downloads”, Nam said. DeepSeek did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Following the South Korean watchdog’s announcement, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it placed a high level of importance on data privacy and security. Advertisement “We have never – and will never – require companies or individuals to collect or store data through illegal means,” ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said during a regular news conference. DeepSeek’s R1 caused a sensation in January after its developers released a research paper claiming they spent less than $6m on computing power to train the model – a fraction of the multibillion-dollar AI budgets of US tech giants such as OpenAI and Google. The emergence of a Chinese startup capable of rivalling Silicon Valley’s leading players challenged assumptions about US dominance in AI and prompted scrutiny of the sky-high market valuations of companies such as Nvidia and Meta. Marc Andreessen, one of the most influential tech venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, hailed DeepSeek’s model as “AI’s Sputnik moment”. Adblock test (Why?)
China will talk trade, but US will need to make the first move, experts say
Taipei, Taiwan – As United States President Donald Trump plays up the prospects of a trade deal with China, experts say Beijing is unlikely to make the first move and may even demand preconditions before coming to the negotiating table. Trump has said he expects to see his 145 percent tariff on China “come down substantially” but that a lower rate would depend on Beijing’s next steps. “We’re going to have a fair deal with China,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday in his latest remarks, stirring hopes of a de-escalation in tensions between the sides. But given the high stakes in its standoff with the US, China “can’t afford to be the side that makes the first move because it can’t be viewed as capitulating to the Trump administration’s pressure campaign”, William Yang, a senior analyst on Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera. “As a result, China will firmly uphold its current position until it sees the US government make some credible concessions that can allow Beijing to consider coming to the negotiating table and claim victory.” Advertisement Beijing may even see Trump’s more optimistic rhetoric as a sign that “digging in its heels” is working, Yang said. US and Chinese officials have not formally announced the start of trade negotiations, though Trump said on Wednesday that his administration was “actively” negotiating with the Chinese side, without elaborating. On Thursday, China’s Ministry of Commerce rebuffed Trump’s remarks, saying there were no talks on trade taking place between the sides. “Any claims about the progress of China-US economic and trade negotiations are groundless and have no factual basis,” ministry spokesman He Yadong told a news conference. China has said the door is “wide open” to talks but insisted it will not shirk from a fight with the US if necessary. In contrast to Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks and vacillating statements on the possibility of relief from his tariffs, Beijing’s messaging, which has been largely communicated through the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has been tightly controlled and consistent. “I would say that, at least on the surface, China has the upper hand,” Zhiwu Chen, a professor of finance at the University of Hong Kong’s Business School, told Al Jazeera. “It’s more in control, whereas President Trump and Secretary Bessent have been signalling and doing things that further help to weaken their hand,” Chen said, referring to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “I think the statement really shows he is anxious and panicking, whereas China has been pretty quiet and muted,” Chen added, referring to Trump’s comments that he intends to lower his tariffs at some point. Advertisement China has slapped US exports with a 125 percent tariff in response to Trump’s trade salvoes, as well as announcing various other “countermeasures”, including restrictions on rare earth exports and limits on the number of Hollywood film releases in China. If tensions continue to escalate, Beijing could potentially halt cooperation on issues like controlling fentanyl exports. In theory, it could also inflict pain on the US economy by dumping its more than $760bn in US government debt – a move that economists view as unlikely given that it would have serious ramifications for the Chinese economy as well. Unlike Trump, who prefers to negotiate face-to-face with world leaders, Beijing will want to engage in preliminary meetings before any meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and the US president, said Tom Nunlist, an associate director of tech and data policy at Trivium China. “They will be looking to have secured a deal before the top leaders meet to confirm it. To reach out to Trump directly may look like Xi is caving to US pressure, and it also risks failure,” Nunlist told Al Jazeera. “Generally speaking, the US is the aggressor here, and China has calibrated its response to be forceful but avoid escalation,” Nunlist said. It is likely that discussions would address a wider array of concerns than just tariffs, according to analysts, especially now that Trump appears to have blinked first in the standoff. Potential areas for concessions include “tech export controls and Taiwan”, according to Dingli Shen, a Shanghai-based international relations scholar. Advertisement “Longstanding grievances about how China is treated within the global system” could be on the table, according to Marina Zhang, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney’s Australia-China Relations Institute. “In practice, it means no public humiliation, no unilateral ultimatums, and no compromises on four key ‘red lines’: Issues related to Taiwan, democracy and human rights, China’s political system, and its right to development,” Zhang told Al Jazeera. Zhang said US export controls on critical technology could be on the agenda, as well as the blacklisting of Chinese tech companies such as Huawei and Chinese chipmaker SMIC. “China may also push for the relaxation of investment screening rules, particularly in sensitive sectors like semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. Another likely ask is a degree of de-escalation over Taiwan,” she said. “While Beijing does not expect full concessions, it would welcome less overt political signalling from Washington – such as limits on high-level official visits and arms sales.” For Beijing, the wait could be worthwhile if it means achieving some of its longer-term goals, said the International Crisis Group’s Yang. “This is more than a pure trade negotiation for China at this point. It views the trajectory of this tariff standoff as a precursor to how bilateral relations with the US will develop over the next four years,” he said. “Beijing will want to see the Trump administration make the first move to reduce the tariffs imposed on imported Chinese products. The level of potential tariff reduction could potentially determine the Chinese government’s willingness to start high-level trade negotiation with the Trump administration.” Advertisement Adblock test (Why?)
‘Wehad only seen this happening in movies, but when we saw this in real life, it broke us…’: Shital Kalathiya, wife of Pahalgam victim recalls horror
“We had only seen this happening in movies, but when we saw this in real life, it broke us. What shocked us the most is that there was not a single security person present there. if they knew that such risks were present at that place, they shouldn’t have let anyone go up there…” she said.
Trump to hold rally Tuesday in celebration of first 100 days, Leavitt says
President Donald Trump is slated to hold a rally in Michigan next week in celebration of the first 100 days of his second term in office, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted in a post on X. “President Trump is excited to return to the great state of Michigan next Tuesday, where he will rally in Macomb County to celebrate the FIRST 100 DAYS!” Leavitt declared in the tweet. Trump, who was sworn in on Jan. 20, is the second U.S. president elected to two non-consecutive terms — the first was President Grover Cleveland in the 19th century. FOX NEWS POLL: THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SECOND TERM Trump won the state of Michigan in 2016 and 2024, but lost it in 2020. His 2016 win in the state snapped a lengthy Republican losing streak — the last time Michigan had gone to a Republican in a presidential contest was in 1988. REPUBLICAN REP. JOHN JAMES ANNOUNCES RUN FOR GOVERNOR: ‘MAKE MICHIGAN GREAT AGAIN’ “There is no better place to celebrate Day 100 than Macomb County,” House GOP conference chair Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Mich., declared in a post on X, adding, “Welcome, @POTUS! Rep. John James, R-Mich., said in a tweet, “Macomb County is honored to welcome President @realDonaldTrump back to MICHIGAN to celebrate the first 100 days of America’s New Golden Age. Together, we will Make Michigan Great Again.” TRUMP PRAISES DEM GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER AFTER SLAMMING HER LAST YEAR: ‘VERY GOOD PERSON’ James launched a gubernatorial bid earlier this month.
‘Where is Papa?’: 3-year-old child’s heart-wrenching question echoes in aftermath of Pahalgam terror
The three-year-old kid’s father Bitan Adhikari was gunned down by terrorists amidst the breathtaking beauty of Pahalgam, Kashmir.
Will punish Pahalgam terrorists, planners beyond their imagination: PM Modi
Before beginning his speech, Modi urged the gathering to observe silence as a mark of respect to “our family members” who lost their lives in Pahalgam.
Army soldier killed in encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur days after Pahalgam terror attack
An army soldier was killed in an encounter between security forces and militants following a search operation in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur district on Thursday (April 24).
Do you know who is known as the father of Indian Railways? Hint: It’s not an Indian!
Before the image of railway stations’ commotion became India’s reality, such a vast network of over 68,000 kilometers was unthinkable. Quite a herculean task if you think about it like that. Who could possibly dare to weave together deserts, deltas, and densely-packed cities?