Meerut woman, lover kill her husband, get snake to bite body to cover up murder; arrested
A man was allegedly killed by his wife and her lover who later placed a venomous snake near his body to cover up the crime, police said. The postmortem report blew the lid off their plot as it showed the man had been strangled to death.
‘Will marry him’: UP woman who eloped with daughter’s fiancé days before wedding
Rahul alleged Sapna’s husband and in-laws tortured her, but when asked if he’d marry Sapna, initially hesitated before saying yes. Sapna’s family, however, has disowned her, demanding she return the stolen money and jewellery.
Rubio announces closure of State Department effort that ‘was supposed to be dead already’
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced the closure of a State Department effort that he accused of spending millions on censorship. “I am announcing the closure of the State Department’s Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R/FIMI), formerly known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC),” Rubio said in a statement issued on Wednesday. “Under the previous administration, this office, which cost taxpayers more than $50 million per year, spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving,” Rubio asserted. STATE DEPARTMENT’S ‘GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT CENTER’ ACCUSED OF CENSORING AMERICANS SHUTS ITS DOORS The GEC closed in December, according to an archived State Department website content that is still viewable online. Rubio asserted in a piece published on The Federalist that the GEC had not actually ended, but was simply re-branded. TWITTER BOSS ELON MUSK ACCUSES GOVERNMENT AGENCY OF BEING ‘WORST OFFENDER IN US GOVERNMENT CENSORSHIP’ “When Republicans in Congress sunset GEC’s funding at the end of last year, the Biden State Department simply slapped on a new name. The GEC became the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (R-FIMI) office, with the same roster of employees. With this new name, they hoped to survive the transition to the new administration,” Rubio wrote. “Today, we are putting that to an end. Whatever name it goes by, GEC is dead. It will not return.” Former House lawmaker Dan Bishop, who is now serving as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, thanked Rubio. “This is the way,” the former congressman wrote in a post on X WHITE HOUSE PROPOSAL AXES UN, NATO FUNDS AND HALVES STATE DEPARTMENT BUDGET CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisc., responded to Rubio’s announcement, tweeting, “Excellent.”
Scoop: RNC shares first-quarter fundraising numbers, How it adds up
FIRST ON FOX: The Republican National Committee (RNC) is quickly coming out of the gate when it comes to fundraising. The RNC reports hauling in $56.1 million during the January-March first quarter of 2025 fundraising as the national party committee builds resources for next year’s midterm elections, when it will defend its majorities in the House and the Senate. The RNC, which shared its figures first with Fox News on Thursday, said the haul was a record for the first quarter of a non-election year. CASH DASH: HOUSE GOP CAMPAIGN ARM TOUTS ‘UNSTOPPABLE MOMENTUM’ “The RNC is working hand-in-glove with President Trump and the White House to replicate his historic success in 2024,” RNC Chair Michael Whatley said in a statement. POLL POSITION: WHERE TRUMP STANDS WITH AMERICANS 11 WEEKS INTO SECOND TOUR OF DUTY IN WHITE HOUSE And looking ahead to next year’s midterms, Whatley said that “we’re building up our war chest to expand Republican majorities in 2026 and ensure the President has all the tools he needs to Make America Great Again. I couldn’t be more excited to keep up what we’ve been doing with Vice President Vance as our finance chair.” As Fox News reported last month, Vance was named the RNC’s finance chair. Vance, who is seen as the front-runner for the 2028 GOP presidential nomination in the race to succeed the term-limited Trump, is the first sitting vice president to serve as the finance chair of a national party committee. Vance, in a statement, highlighted that “the RNC has already accomplished great work in its mission to build upon President Trump’s historic victory this past November.” WERE THIS MONTH’S ELECTIONS IN WISCONSIN AND FLORIDA A CRYSTAL BALL FOR THINGS TO COME IN NEXT YEAR’S MIDTERMS? “Republicans have an incredible opportunity looking to 2026, where we can continue on our strong momentum, further grow our majorities and advance President Trump’s America First agenda,” the vice president added. “I’m honored to help spearhead this effort and look forward to the work that lies ahead.” The rival Democratic National Committee had yet to announce its first-quarter fundraising figures at the time this story was posted. The DNC had raised $24.3 million through the end of February, compared to $35.2 hauled in by the RNC.
Dem senator says he will continue ‘fighting for the return’ of deported El Salvadoran man: ‘Won’t rest’
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said Wednesday during his trip to El Salvador that he “won’t rest” until Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a suspected MS-13 member who was deported to a mega prison in his home country, is brought back to the United States. Van Hollen has described the man as “wrongfully abducted” and traveled to El Salvador in an attempt to discuss efforts to bring the man back to Maryland, where he was living illegally. The senator was able to speak with Vice President Félix Augusto Antonio Ulloa Garay, but was not able to make contact with Abrego Garcia in person or via phone. “I’ve been in El Salvador all day fighting for the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” Van Hollen said in a caption to a video posted on X on Wednesday night. “The Trump Admin can lie all they want, but the Court said they failed to show he was part of MS-13. This is about bringing home a man they ADMIT should’ve never been abducted. I won’t rest until then.” BLUE STATE SENATOR FLIES TO EL SALVADOR TO VISIT DEPORTED MIGRANT IN PRISON, ONLY TO BE DENIED Van Hollen’s visit to El Salvador comes two days after an El Salvadoran illegal alien was convicted of raping and murdering Rachel Morin, a Maryland mom of five, on a trail in Bel Air. Morin’s mother, Patty, said Van Hollen has never reached out to her about her daughter’s violent murder in Maryland, yet he is prioritizing bringing a deported man back to the state. Van Hollen did release the following statement on his official Senate website shortly after Morin’s killer was convicted, writing that the “verdict brings a measure of justice that [Rachel’s family] so deserve[s].” “While the conviction of Rachel Morin’s killer will not return Rachel to her family where she rightfully belongs, this verdict brings a measure of justice that they so deserve. I’m grateful to the law enforcement officers who brought her killer into custody and for our legal process for delivering this justice. “As I have said in the past, the American people deserve meaningful action to reform our broken immigration system, improve public safety, and strengthen our border security. We can do this while also supporting our immigrant communities and respecting the rights of individuals who are here legally – I am committed to doing both, and I will continue pressing my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to move forward on this issue.” TOM HOMAN ‘DISGUSTED’ BY DEM SENATOR’S TRIP TO BRING HOME ALLEGED MS-13 GANG MEMBER During an appearance at a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Patty Morin called out Van Hollen for his visit to El Salvador. “And to have a senator from Maryland who didn’t even acknowledge or barely acknowledge my daughter, and the brutal death that she endured, leaving her five children without a mother and now a grand baby without a grandmother, so that he can use my taxpayer money to fly to El Salvador to bring back someone that’s not even an American citizen,” she said. “Why does that person have more rights than I do for my daughter? For my grandchildren?” While he did not address Patty Morin directly, Van Hollen said in a video posted to X later Wednesday evening that he cares “about every victim of crime.” He also said that America has a court system to make sure criminals are held accountable and “that people who have not committed crimes, or not been convicted of crimes, are not disappeared out of the United States and sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, like Abrego Garcia.” “This is simply about letting him have his day in court. We use the courts to make sure that we don’t convict people who are not guilty, and that we convict those who are,” he said, in part. ‘MARYLAND MAN’ KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA EXPOSED IN POLICE RECORDS AS ‘VIOLENT’ REPEAT WIFE BEATER Abrego Garcia is at the center of a controversial debate after he was deported to El Salvador’s “Terrorism Confinement Center” (CECOT) for his alleged gang affiliation, which his attorneys have denied. The Department of Homeland Security shared an interview sheet with Fox News from Prince George’s County police’s Gang Unit MS-13 Intelligence Squad that identified Abrego Garcia as an active member of MS-13’s “Westerns” clique in 2019, according to a “past proven and reliable source.” The source said he held the rank of “Chequeo” and the moniker of “Chele.” He was marked eligible for deportation in 2019 after he claimed that he illegally entered the U.S. near McAllen, Texas, on or about March 25, 2012, after he “walked across the desert for many days,” according to a 2019 DHS interview document shared with Fox News. Van Hollen is not the only Democrat lawmaker seeking to visit Abrego Garcia in El Salvador with the goal of bringing him back to the U.S. after the Supreme Court last week upheld a lower court’s decision ordering his return. The court required the “government to ‘facilitate’ Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” The Trump administration agreed to clear any administrative obstacles keeping Abrego Garcia from returning to the U.S., but Attorney General Pam Bondi has said that returning him is “up to El Salvador. If they want to return him. That’s not up to us.” Fox News Digital’s Peter Pinedo, Greg Wehner and Bill Melugin contributed to this report.
In historic first, Texas House approves private school voucher program
The bill would let families use taxpayer dollars for their children’s private schooling. Lawmakers also signed off on a sweeping $7.7 billion package to boost public school funding.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,148
These are the key events on day 1,148 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Here is where things stand on Thursday, 17 April: Fighting A Russian drone attack on the Black Sea port city of Odesa overnight injured three people, sparked fires and damaged homes and civilian infrastructure, regional governor Oleh Kiper said. Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its units destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones overnight. Nine of the drones were shot down over the southern Voronezh region, while eight were taken down over the border region of Belgorod. The remaining drones were downed over the Kursk, Lipetsk and Moscow regions, as well as over the Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula, the ministry said. The Defence Ministry also said Russia has taken control of Kalynove village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Moscow’s military further reported that it repelled seven Ukrainian drones over Russia’s Ivanovo region, the location of one of two Russian missile units that Kyiv accuses of launching a deadly attack on the city of Sumy which caused dozens of casualties last weekend. Kyiv’s air force said Russia launched almost 100 drones in overnight attacks on Ukraine, of which 57 were shot down and another 34 failed to reach their targets, likely due to electronic warfare measures. Advertisement Russian glide bombs and artillery struck the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, killing one person and wounding nine others, in what Ukrainian officials described as a timed “double-tap strike”. The region’s head, Oleksandr Prokudin, said it was a “deliberate tactic by Russia” to prevent rescuing victims and to harm medics, rescuers and police officers who rushed to the scene of the first attack only to then be caught in the second strike. A Russian mass drone attack killed two people and injured 16 in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. Five of the injured were hospitalised. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it detained nine people, including five teenagers, with more than 30kg (66 pounds) of explosives on suspicion of preparing sabotage attacks on behalf of Russia. Attacks on energy facilities Russia’s Defence Ministry said Ukraine carried out six attacks on Kremlin energy infrastructure despite a mutually agreed 30-day moratorium on energy strikes. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyi, told a news briefing that Russia carried out more than 30 attacks on its energy infrastructure since the two sides agreed in March to pause strikes on such targets. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would announce when the US-brokered moratorium on energy strikes would end. Politics and diplomacy United States President Donald Trump’s administration has reduced its estimate for the cost of US assistance provided to Kyiv since the start of Russia’s invasion to about $100bn from $300bn, Bloomberg news reports, citing people familiar with the matter. The US and Ukraine have made “substantial progress” in their talks on a minerals deal and will soon sign a memorandum, which would give Washington access to Ukraine’s rare earth deposits, Kyiv’s first deputy prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. Advertisement Kyiv’s parliament voted to extend martial law in Ukraine until 6 August. The decision was supported by an overwhelming 357 deputies, while one politician voted against the bill. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will discuss Ukraine among other issues during the emir’s visit to Moscow on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Peskov said. The former governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, was detained on Wednesday on suspicion of fraud, Russian state news agency TASS reported. Adblock test (Why?)
Big update on Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train: India to get E5, E3 Shinkansen trains by early 2026 free from…
India’s high-speed rail plans are poised to accelerate with Japan’s generous offer of Shinkansen technology. Japan is gifting high-speed Shinkansen trains to India for free, which will be used for testing and inspection on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project. The E5 and E3 series trains from East Japan Railway boast cutting-edge aerodynamic designs and advanced safety features.
Trump touts ‘progress’ in Japan trade talks, as uncertainty roils stocks
Wall Street closes sharply lower as US Federal Reserve chair warns tariffs could lead to slower growth, higher inflation. United States President Donald Trump has touted “big progress” in trade talks with Japan after making an unexpected intervention in the negotiations, as uncertainty caused by his sweeping tariffs continues to roil stock markets. Trump made his comments on Wednesday after making the surprise decision to sit in on negotiations between his administration and Japanese officials in Washington, DC. “A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!” Trump wrote on Truth Social after the talks, which included US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Economic Revitalization Minister Ryosei Akazawa. Akazawa said after the meeting that Trump wanted to reach a deal before the end of his 90-day pause on his “reciprocal” tariffs, with the Japanese hoping to see the agreement sealed “as soon as possible.” Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said the negotiations would not be easy, but the initial rounds of talks had “created a foundation for the next steps”. Advertisement Like dozens of other US trade partners, Japan has been hit with a 10 percent baseline tariff in addition to duties of 25 percent on cars, steel and aluminium, which rank among the East Asian country’s top exports. Japan, a top US security ally and its fourth-largest trade partner, is also facing a targeted 24 percent “reciprocal” tariff under Trump’s “liberation day” trade measures, nearly all of which have been paused until July 9. “Japan’s industry is so closely integrated in the US economy that everyone is very concerned about the trade talks,” Martin Schulz, chief policy economist at Fujitsu in Tokyo, told Al Jazeera. “Although there cannot be winners in a trade war, we are also quite optimistic that agreeable results can be achieved. Japan is the largest investor in the US and interested in investing more.” “If both economies can be kept on a growth track, higher imports from the US become possible,” Schulz added. The US-Japanese talks came as Wall Street racked up further heavy losses amid continuing uncertainty over Trump’s trade salvoes. The benchmark S&P 500 closed 2.24 percent lower on Wednesday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 3.07 percent. The losses followed a warning by US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell that Trump’s steep tariffs could leave the US economy grappling with weak growth, rising unemployment and higher inflation all at once. “We may find ourselves in the challenging scenario in which our dual-mandate goals are in tension,” Powell said in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago on Wednesday, referring to the US central bank’s twin goals of maximum employment and stable prices. Advertisement “If that were to occur, we would consider how far the economy is from each goal, and the potentially different time horizons over which those respective gaps would be anticipated to close.” US stocks have been on a rollercoaster ride since Trump’s inauguration in January, alternating between sharp dips and big jumps amid his back-and-forth tariff announcements. Financial markets and businesses have been on tenterhooks waiting for signs that the US president is open to watering down or scrapping many of his tariffs in exchange for concessions from US trading partners. Trump administration officials have said that more than 75 countries have reached out to begin negotiations on trade. After the latest losses on Wall Street, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq are down about 10 percent and 15 percent, respectively, since the start of the year. Asian stock markets got off to a better start on Thursday, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225, South Korea’s KOSPI and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index each rising more than 0.5 percent in early trading. Adblock test (Why?)
Harvard under fire as DHS secretary cuts $2.7M in grants, demands visa records: ‘America demands more’
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem canceled $2.7 million in DHS grants to Harvard University on Wednesday. In a statement, Noem announced the cancelation of two grants for the university, and declared the elite Massachusetts Ivy League institution “unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars.” The university has been ordered to submit records by April 30, or risk losing its certification to enroll international students under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP). “With anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology poisoning its campus and classrooms, Harvard’s position as a top institution of higher learning is a distant memory,” Noem said in the statement. “America demands more from universities entrusted with taxpayer dollars.” TRUMP ADMIN ASKS IRS TO REVOKE HARVARD’S TAX-EXEMPT STATUS The canceled grants include an $800,303 “Implementation Science for Targeted Violence Prevention” award, which DHS says classified conservatives as far-right extremists, and a $1,934,902 “Blue Campaign Program Evaluation and Violence Advisement” grant, which funded public health messaging that Noem’s office described as ideologically skewed. The move follows President Donald Trump‘s decision to freeze $2.2 billion in federal funding to Harvard and ask for the IRS to revoke its tax-exempt status. The IRS is currently reviewing the university’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit designation, according to sources within the Department of Justice (DOJ). A final decision has not yet been made. In a social media post, Trump criticized Harvard’s leadership and faculty, writing, “Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders.’” He continued, “Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.” STEFANIK SHREDS HARVARD OVER ‘COMPLETE MORAL FAILURE’ AFTER ALLOWING CLAUDINE GAY TO REMAIN PRESIDENT The DHS action comes amid a broader federal crackdown on campus antisemitism following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel. In the months since, Harvard has faced criticism over antisemitic rhetoric and protests involving students and faculty. Noem’s letter references “foreign visa-holding rioters” and calls for Harvard to provide documentation of their conduct. With a $53.2 billion endowment, Harvard is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world. DHS emphasized that the university can afford to fund its own programs and should not rely on taxpayer money if it is not meeting federal standards for student conduct and institutional accountability. Harvard has not yet publicly responded to the termination of the grants or the DHS demand for records. The Department of Education is also scrutinizing the university. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon recently launched a review of more than $255.6 million in federal contracts and nearly $9 billion in grants involving Harvard and its affiliates. “Harvard’s failure to protect students on campus from anti-Semitic discrimination — all while promoting divisive ideologies over free inquiry — has put its reputation in serious jeopardy,” McMahon said. This move comes shortly after similar action was taken against Columbia University, as the federal government steps up enforcement on institutions it says are failing to meet civil rights and national security obligations. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Noem’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. Fox News’ Andrea Margolis and Alexis McAdams contributed to this report.