After ‘no bindi, no tilak’ controversy, Lenskart’s old Pongal advertisement triggers another row, details here
This is Lenskart Pongal ad of 2025. The models are celebrating it without Bindi and with weird costumes.
Delhi CM Rekha Gupta takes major step, announces 200 more new EV buses, check details
They represent a planned transition to sustainable mobility, better regional connectivity, and a more consistent, comfortable everyday commute for citizens.
Women’s Reservation Bill defeated: Amit Shah warns Congress, allies of electoral backlash, ‘wrath of women’
A huge setback for the Narendra Modi-led government as the Women’s Reservation Bill fell short of a two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha on Friday, prompting uproar from the BJP government against the Opposition. Home Minister Amit Shah, who advocated for women’s empowerment with the Bill, lashed out at Congress, TMK, DMK, and Samajwadi Party, warning of the ‘wrath of women’ in the upcoming elections.
As Corpus Christi scrambles to find more water, nearby cities are facing their own water woes
Like their larger neighbor, small South Texas cities are drilling new water wells amid a stubborn drought. But experts say that could deplete local aquifers.
After conversion therapy ruling, therapists torn on future of Texas’ gender care ban
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled conversion therapy is free speech. Some LGBTQ+ advocates say the ruling applies to gender-affirming therapy, too, while others say the courts won’t protect them.
11th scientist death emerges in string of missing, dead officials with access to US secrets
Amy Eskridge, a Huntsville, Alabama–based researcher who died in 2022, is now being cited as the 11th case in a growing list of scientists who have died or disappeared under unusual circumstances. Her death has drawn renewed attention as at least 10 other recent cases involving individuals tied to U.S. military, nuclear and aerospace research have prompted questions about whether any pattern exists. President Donald Trump said Thursday he had “just left a meeting” on the issue and vowed answers within days, calling the situation “pretty serious.” “I hope it’s random, but we’re going to know in the next week and a half,” Trump told reporters. WHO WAS NUNO LOUREIRO? MIT PROFESSOR GUNNED DOWN IN APARTMENT NEAR UNIVERSITY While officials have not confirmed any connection between the cases, the overlap in timing and the individuals’ ties to advanced research fields has fueled growing public attention and speculation. Eskridge died June 11, 2022, in Huntsville, Alabama, at the age of 34, according to obituary records. Her death has been reported as a self-inflicted gunshot wound, though limited official details have been publicly released. Eskridge co-founded the Institute for Exotic Science and described her work as focused on experimental propulsion concepts, including what she referred to as “antigravity” research. “We discovered anti-gravity and our lives went to (expletive) and people started sabotaging us,” she said in a 2020 interview with Youtuber Jeremy Rys. “It’s harassment, threats. It’s awful.” “If you stick your neck out in public, at least someone notices if your head gets chopped off,” Eskridge said. “If you stick your neck out in private, they will bury you. They will burn down your house while you’re sleeping in your bed and it won’t even make the news.” In the same interview, she described what she characterized as escalating pressure surrounding her work. “I have to publish because it’s only going to get worse until I publish,” she said, adding that the situation was “getting more and more aggressive.” In presentations and interviews, Eskridge also suggested that researchers working on unconventional technologies could face pressure to move their work out of the public domain, describing what she saw as a pattern in which scientists who reported breakthroughs would “disappear” from public work or stop publishing. Eskridge’s death is being cited alongside cases involving retired Air Force Maj. Gen. William “Neil” McCasland, NASA scientist Monica Jacinto Reza, contractor Steven Garcia, astrophysicist Carl Grillmair, Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Nuno Loureiro, NASA engineer Frank Maiwald, Los Alamos–linked employees Melissa Casias and Anthony Chavez, NASA researcher Michael David Hicks and pharmaceutical scientist Jason Thomas. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) told Fox News Digital it is investigating the deaths and disappearances. “NNSA is aware of reports related to employees of our labs, plants, and sites and is looking into the matter,” a statement from the department said. At the same time, there is no publicly available evidence linking Eskridge’s death to those cases, and authorities have not indicated any connection between her work and the circumstances of her death. Her case has also become the subject of speculation in online and alternative technology communities, where some commentators have raised questions about the circumstances surrounding her death. Those claims, however, remain unverified and are not supported by official findings.
Meet Analilia Mejia, the Sanders-AOC backed progressive who just won election to Congress
Analilia Mejia, a one-time labor organizer backed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, is headed to Congress. Mejia, running on a platform that emphasized Medicare for All, a $25 minimum wage with the first $40,000 tax-free, a wealth tax, abolishing ICE and holding President Donald Trump and his administration accountable, convincingly defeated Republican candidate Joe Hathaway in Thursday’s special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District. With her nearly 20-point victory, Mejia will fill the final eight months of the term of Gov. Mikie Sherrill, the more moderate Democratic representative who stepped down from Congress in November after winning New Jersey’s gubernatorial election. Mejia, who is likely to align herself with the so-called “Squad” of younger, diverse and progressive House Democrats, called herself the “sassy new member of Congress” in her victory speech. DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB The special election came as the GOP clings to a fragile House majority. Republicans would have relished the opportunity to pick up the seat, but they faced a steep uphill climb to flip the suburban district Sherrill won by 15 points in her 2024 re-election and carried by roughly the same margin in last year’s gubernatorial election. Hathaway, a former Randolph Township mayor and current council member who was unopposed for the GOP congressional nomination, aimed to paint Mejia as too far to the left for the district. He told Fox News Digital the choice for voters was “between a common sense, practical independent leader who’s gotten things done at the local level in New Jersey and knows the issues, contrasted with someone who’s running on pure ideology, far left-wing ideology, Squad-backed ideology.” “I think we have the right math, the right bipartisan coalition to come together to win this thing on April 16,” an optimistic Hathaway predicted. But Hathaway came up far short, given the rough political climate facing Republicans and the traditional headwinds for the party in power. THIS PROGRESSIVE ORGANIZER WINS SPECIAL ELECTION, EARNING TICKET TO CONGRESS Mejia, on Thursday night, pushed back against the claims she’s a radical. “My opponent has spent his whole campaign calling me names and saying my ideas are too radical. But we know, that is a mind trick, on brand for a spin doctor, but easily countered if you just open your eyes,” Mejia said. “It is not radical to say that one of the wealthiest nations in the world should do more to protect the health of its people.” Here’s a closer look at Mejia and where she stands on the issues. Mejia was born in New Jersey and is the daughter of Colombian and Dominican immigrants. After working as a union organizer, Mejia served as national political director on the 2020 Sanders presidential campaign. She later worked in the Department of Labor in former President Joe Biden’s administration. Mejia pulled off an upset in the February Democratic primary, narrowly edging out a more moderate rival, former Rep. Tom Malinowski, in a field of 11 candidates. While Mejia was the clear choice of the party’s left flank, the rest of the field divided the moderate and center-left vote. Besides the backing of Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, Mejia was also endorsed by other top progressive leaders, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Reps. Ro Khanna of California, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. PROGRESSIVES NOTCH ANOTHER WIN OVER DEMOCRATIC MODERATES AS SANDERS-AOC ALLY NEARS CONGRESS Mejia’s nomination victory was another big boost for the left against the establishment since now-New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, sent shock waves across the nation with his Democratic primary victory in June 2025. Mejia repeatedly took aim at Trump’s unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration and called for scrapping Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal agency most visible in the aggressive tactics used in the administration’s massive deportation effort. REPUBLICAN SEEKS BLUE-STATE BREAKTHROUGH, DISTANCES FROM TRUMP WHILE TAKING AIM AT ‘SOCIALIST’ “I say abolish ICE now,” Mejia said on the campaign trail. “You can’t reform it. It’s not fixable. Get it out.” After her primary victory, Mejia gave credit to her stance on immigration in the wake of backlash against the Trump administration following the January fatal shootings in Minnesota by federal agents of two U.S. citizens protesting immigration operations. “I think the fact that I was bold and unafraid to speak the truth was incredibly important,” she told reporters. “I think voters feel that they want to have a representative that actually represents them, and they cannot watch what’s happening in Minnesota, what happened in Chicago, what happened in California, what happened in Morristown across this district.” Mejia, like many on the left, has railed against rulings by the conservative-dominated Supreme Court. “The Supreme Court has been captured by right-wing radicals who care more about doing Trump’s bidding than the rule of law,” Mejia charged on her campaign website. She supported “articles of impeachment against Justices Thomas and Alito” for what she says is “their corruption and conflicts of interest.” Mejia also backed “term limits for newly appointed Supreme Court justices, a binding code of ethics with real enforcement for all federal judges.” And Mejia said she would support “expanding the courts if necessary to restore balance.” On her campaign website, Mejia stated, “We’re going to cancel all student loan debt.” And she pledges that she’ll “fight to make college tuition free at community colleges and trade schools for everyone.” As part of her “economy for everyone agenda,” Mejia argued, “If you work 40 hours a week, you should make at least $40,000 a year, and you shouldn’t pay a dime in federal taxes on that first $40,000.” And she highlighted that she helped lead the fight in New Jersey to “win the $15 minimum wage.” “With the cost of living rising every day, it’s time to raise the minimum wage at the national
Senate temporarily extends nation’s controversial spying powers after House fumbles
The Senate quietly extended the nation’s spying powers Friday morning after the House failed to reauthorize the program before the fast-approaching deadline. The upper chamber’s unanimous vote to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) gives Congress a little more breathing room beyond the April 20 deadline but still leaves lawmakers in the same divided place they started. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had positioned the Senate to swiftly receive and possibly pass a FISA reauthorization, but after progress on the legislation blew up in the House, he’s eying putting the upper chamber in the driver’s seat. HOUSE PUNTS TRUMP SPY POWERS EXTENSION AFTER CONSERVATIVES BLOCK DEAL, FORCING END-OF-MONTH SHOWDOWN “We can’t go dark,” Thune said. “We just can’t afford to go dark, so we’ve got to figure it out. Hopefully, we can move a 10-day extension, and we’ll try and set things up to try and do something over here.” The original plan was derailed because of the controversial Section 702 of FISA. On the surface, it allows the government to spy on foreign nationals abroad, but nothing stops that law from collecting data on Americans if they happen to be involved in those communications. While FISA as a whole is a vital tool for the government, particularly as uncertainty swirls about the true end of the war in Iran, Congress still isn’t on the same page as the White House. DOZENS OF DEMS FLIP ON ISRAEL, VOTE TO BAN ARMS SALES IN PROTEST OF IRAN WAR President Donald Trump and the White House pushed lawmakers to pass a clean reauthorization of the program, which both Republicans and Democrats in both chambers have pushed back against. It’s a rare horseshoe issue in Washington, D.C., that draws opposite ends of the political spectrum — conservatives and progressives — together on privacy rights. Opponents of Section 702 want warrant requirements for the government to parse communications involving Americans. Congressional Democrats similarly demanded warrant requirements for immigration agents to enter people’s homes as part of their list of demands to reopen the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS SHUTDOWN ENTERS DAY 60 WITH ALL EYES ON HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO END IT Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has strongly pushed back against a clean reauthorization, arguing in a letter to his Democratic colleagues that leaps and bounds in AI are “supercharging how the government can surveil Americans.” And Wyden nearly derailed chances for the extension to pass in the upper chamber, but later argued it was the “right decision for today,” and that tacking on another few days would give more leverage to lawmakers wanting reforms. Wyden told Fox News Digital that “the focus here needs to be what Ben Franklin talked about.” “Anybody who gives up their liberty to have security really doesn’t deserve either,” Wyden said. “And I don’t buy the idea that liberty and security are mutually exclusive, and that’s what the proponents, who just want a straight across the board approach are calling for.” “They say, basically, ‘The sky’s gonna fall, unless you pass our bill right away,‘” he continued. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., tried and failed with two options for FISA. One route was a clean, 18-month extension. Another was a five-year extension with modest reforms. Conservatives joined the bulk of House Democrats to tank the latter. Lawmakers will return next week with a bevy of issues on their plates, including reopening DHS and sprinting to craft the framework for a party-line budget reconciliation package to fund immigration enforcement for the next three years. The FISA issue will linger until the next deadline at the end of the month.
Supreme Court reverses lower court ruling, hands Chevron victory in environmental lawsuit
The Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of Chevron in a case over whether a Louisiana environmental lawsuit can proceed in federal court. In Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, the justices held that the case falls within the federal officer removal statute, allowing Chevron to move the lawsuit from state to federal court. The justices vacated a lower court decision that had kept the case in state court and remanded for further proceedings. This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
School district’s trans policy blasted for fostering ‘deception’ under shadow of SCOTUS ruling
FIRST ON FOX: A conservative legal group called on the Trump administration on Friday to investigate an Alaska school district over a policy that withholds gender identity information from parents. America First Legal asked the Education and Justice departments to open inquiries into the school district, the latest to come under scrutiny for its transgender policies in the wake of a major Supreme Court ruling last month that sided with religious parents on the matter. The high court’s decision applied to California but has continued to affect school districts across the country. AFL’s complaint centers on a policy in Hoonah City School District, a small K-12 district in Alaska, that instructs school administrators to use a student’s legal name and pronouns when communicating with parents, even if the student is going by a different name and pronouns at school. VIRGINIA MOM PRAISES TRUMP FOR SHINING ‘A LIGHT’ ON DAUGHTER’S SCHOOL TRANSITION CASE DURING SOTU AFL argued that in practice, the policy “requires school staff to present one identity to parents while facilitating another at school, effectively directing them to deceive parents about their own children.” “Hoonah City School District’s nonsensical ‘gender identity’ policies strip parents of their rights, applaud deception, and brazenly violate federal law,” AFL senior counsel Ian Prior said in a statement. The DOJ Civil Rights Division has already signaled it is open to investigating such policies after recently opening a similar probe into Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district comprising more than half a million students. CALIFORNIA HIT WITH FRESH SETBACK IN FAILED GENDER SECRECY CASE COSTING TAXPAYERS MILLIONS AFL’s complaint mirrors a similar legal threat the conservative Thomas More Society made last month against the Westwood Regional School District in New Jersey. The legal group, which helped bring the California Supreme Court case, said it would initiate litigation if the school district did not rescind a policy that lets schools withhold students’ gender identity information from parents. The complaints and investigations come after the Supreme Court temporarily blocked California from enforcing a policy that prevents school staff from notifying parents if their child expresses a desire to engage in gender transitioning, unless the child consents to the parents finding out. The case, Mirabelli v. Bonta, was brought by parents who argued the policy encroached on their religious freedom. The California policy also required school staff to use students’ preferred names and pronouns regardless of the parents’ wishes. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit sided with the state in the case, but the high court temporarily vacated the 9th Circuit’s order 6-3, saying the state policy was likely unconstitutional. The three liberal justices dissented. SUPREME COURT RULING ON SECRETIVE CALIFORNIA GENDER POLICY COULD RESHAPE PARENT RIGHTS FIGHTS NATIONWIDE “The State argues that its policies advance a compelling interest in student safety and privacy,” the high court’s majority had written in the unsigned opinion. “But those policies cut out the primary protectors of children’s best interests: their parents.” California attorneys had argued that the state policy was designed to protect transgender children from allegedly abusive parents. Peter Breen, an executive vice president with the Thomas More Society, recently told Fox News Digital he had hoped the Supreme Court’s decision “would end the practice of secret gender transitions, but what’s becoming clear to us is this is just the beginning.” “We are already fielding requests from other parents across the country, and we anticipate sending a lot more demand letters, unfortunately,” Breen said. Fox News Digital reached out to the Hoonah City School District and the DOJ and Ed. Dept. for comment.