President Trump blasts Nobel Peace Prize snub with blistering list of accomplishments: ‘WOW!’
President Donald Trump on Saturday criticized the Norwegian Nobel Committee for not selecting him for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, citing a long list of accomplishments. “I settled 8 WARS, am close to ending or settling 2 more, got all of the Israeli hostages back, including the final 28, both living and dead, had hundreds of hostages, from countries all over the World, released and sent back home, won a war in Venezuela, and captured the violent dictator who so viciously ran that country, and stopped the number one state sponsor of terror, the Islamic Republic of Iran, from obtaining a Nuclear Weapon — AND MUCH MORE! Yet, with all of that I, or the United States of America, did not get the Noble Peace Prize. WOW!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Saturday morning. Trump has long openly pined for the prize, first receiving a nomination in 2018 from Norwegian lawmakers for diplomatic efforts involving North Korea and nuclear disarmament. In 2019, he told reporters during a news conference, “I think I’m going to get a Nobel Prize for a lot of things if they gave it out fairly, which they don’t.” TRUMP TEASES POTENTIAL KIM JONG UN MEETING LATER THIS YEAR While the Norwegian Nobel Committee does not publicly release a list of nominees for the Peace Prize, Trump has been nominated at least five times, according to the people who nominated him. That list includes former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, who nominated Trump in 2019, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who nominated him in 2025. NOBEL PEACE PRIZE AWARDED TO UN JURIST WHO ACCUSED ISRAEL OF COMMITTING GENOCIDE IN GAZA Despite being nominated again this year by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and others, Trump was passed over yet again, this time in favor of South African jurist Navi Pillay. The 85-year-old Pillay was the first non-White woman appointed to South Africa’s high court, and she later served as a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Court. TRUMP ADMINISTRATION SANCTIONS SITTING PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT FOR ‘ABUSES OF POWER’ She also served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. However, her nomination was not without controversy. The Nobel Committee’s announcement highlighted her work as the chair of the U.N.’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Palestinian Territory and Israel. Skeptics, however, claimed her work on the commission displayed anti-Israel bias. WAR CRIMES COURT TURNS ‘BLIND EYE’ TO TOP WORLD THREATS WHILE TARGETING AMERICANS, TRUMP ADMIN ACCUSES “Navi Pillay is indeed a world leader, an individual at the forefront of the international spread of the poisonous forms of antisemitism that beset the 21st century,” Anne Bayefsky, president of Human Rights Voices and director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights, told Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter. TRUMP TO ZERO-IN ON IRAN NUCLEAR THREAT, GAZA PLAN AND UN OVERHAUL IN WORLD STAGE SPEECH The U.N., however, praised her work and career as “steadfast.” “For decades, she has been a champion of international law and human rights and a steadfast, independent voice of justice amidst some of the most historic international legal cases of our time,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement Friday. Fox News Digital’s Efrat Lachter contributed to this report.
Judicial Watch’s Thomas Fitton slams FBI’s ‘drip-drip’ release of 75,000 pages of Trump Butler shooting files
Judicial Watch President Thomas Fitton slammed the FBI for slow-walking the release of documents related to Thomas Matthew Crooks’ 2024 assassination attempt on President Donald Trump during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital. “They are telling us that, at current processing rates, the process will take 12 years. Under the FBI’s timeline, we won’t even be able to challenge what they withheld until 12 years from now. That is obviously unacceptable, and I would like to know what leadership at the FBI and DOJ think about that position,” Fitton told Fox News Digital. Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2025 after the FBI initially rejected a July 2024 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the FBI investigation of Thomas Matthew Crooks’ assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. TRUMP’S ATTEMPTED ASSASSIN SENT MYSTERIOUS TEXTS ABOUT 3D PRINTER LEADING UP TO BUTLER, PA, SHOOTING: REPORT The lawsuit forced the release of multiple batches of documents to Judicial Watch, the most recent of which revealed a series of text messages Crooks sent to an unknown recipient, whose name the FBI redacted before sending to Judicial Watch. “We’re receiving these documents because they’re part of the investigation, yet we’re not being told who he was talking to,” Fitton told Fox News Digital. GOP LAWMAKERS BLINDSIDED BY NEW REVELATIONS ABOUT TRUMP BUTLER SHOOTER: ‘AWFULLY STRANGE’ “Withholding that information is a very concerning decision. The American people want to be certain this isn’t another JFK situation. By handling it this way, authorities are creating the appearance of a cover-up. In part, that’s true, because they aren’t providing details about who Crooks was talking to, who was texting him, what they were saying or who witnessed specific actions. It makes no sense to withhold this,” he said. The documents revealed a series of one- or two-word texts Crooks sent to the redacted recipient between May 2023 and January 2024. The words appear unrelated and somewhat nonsensical. WOULD-BE TRUMP ASSASSIN THOMAS CROOKS HAD SNAPCHAT, WHICH MAY HOLD EVIDENCE ‘TREASURE TROVE’: FORMER FBI AGENT “Hello … Hello red …Hello red … Hdudhdbdbbd … 7888ejdj … Yolo … Ddodjjf … 890 … Hdjd … Djdj … red … Yup red … Hello … Jhhhuuh … Hhdj … Jjjjjjjjjjjj … Hello red … Red red,” Crooks’ messages said. Fitton, acknowledging that any potential correspondents with Crooks have a reasonable expectation of privacy, argued that the FBI “must weigh that expectation of privacy against the public interest.” SECRET SERVICE MISSED ‘MULTIPLE OPPORTUNITIES’ TO PREVENT TRUMP ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: WATCHDOG “The public interest in understanding how a former president was nearly killed — and two American citizens were killed — outweighs the privacy interests of anyone being protected in these documents. Unless the court speeds up the process, all we can do is speak out publicly to pressure the FBI and the Department of Justice to take ownership and stop stringing the American people along regarding the Butler assassination investigation,” he told Fox News Digital. A previous batch of documents Judicial Watch obtained through FOIA also revealed that, shortly before Crooks climbed onto the roof of the AGR International building where he fired his weapon from, he engaged in a heated argument with rally attendees on the ground. TWO MEN SHOT AT TRUMP’S BUTLER RALLY SUE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OVER SECRET SERVICE ‘PREVENTABLE FAILURES’ “Thomas Crooks was behaving erratically in a very public way at the rally. This wasn’t a case of someone furtively running around; he was getting into a verbal altercation with individuals about Trump and then immediately went up onto the roof. That just blows my mind,” Fitton told Fox News Digital. Fitton complained that the shear numbers of the documents involved in the shooting call for a faster release process. “The entire release process involves approximately 75,000 pages. At 500 pages per month, it will take well over 12 years to review them all. To me, that is unacceptable,” he told Fox News Digital. “It isn’t that hard. I believe the president wants it done, and it’s frustrating that the FBI is taking its typical approach to transparency, which is to offer very little,” he said. Fox News Digital contacted the FBI and U.S. Secret Service for comment.
Who is Sally Yates? Cornell rape-review pick was fired by Trump after refusing to defend travel ban
Cornell University has tapped Sally Yates, a former Obama administration deputy attorney general fired by President Donald Trump during his first term, to lead an independent review of the Ivy League school’s handling of sexual assault allegations. Yates’ appointment comes as Cornell faces scrutiny over its response to an alleged gang rape at a fraternity house in October 2024. As part of the independent review, Yates and her employer, King & Spalding, will have access to Cornell’s internal documents, including case files, oversight records for Greek organizations, communications with law enforcement and disciplinary hearing records. Yates brings decades of Justice Department experience to Cornell’s review, along with a public profile shaped by her confrontation with Trump and subsequent involvement in the Russia investigation. President Barack Obama nominated Yates as deputy attorney general in January 2015, and the Senate confirmed her four months later in an 84-12 vote. She previously served as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, a position Obama appointed her to in 2010. CORNELL PRESIDENT SAYS UNIVERSITY ‘MUST DO BETTER’ ON HANDLING OF SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS During the presidential transition, Trump’s incoming administration asked Yates to remain as acting attorney general while his nominee, Jeff Sessions, awaited Senate confirmation. But her tenure lasted just 10 days. Trump fired Yates on Jan. 30, 2017, after she instructed Justice Department lawyers not to defend his executive order restricting travel and refugee admissions from seven predominantly Muslim countries. “The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States,” the White House said in a statement announcing her firing. Yates maintained that she was not convinced the directive was lawful. “My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts,” Yates said in a letter. “In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.” Yates returned to the national spotlight in May 2017, testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Her testimony detailed warnings she had given White House Counsel Don McGahn about Trump’s national security advisor at the time, Michael Flynn, shortly before her dismissal. CORNELL RAPE ALLEGATIONS PROMPT NY ATTORNEY GENERAL LETITIA JAMES TO OPEN ‘ACTIVE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION’ Flynn had discussed Obama administration sanctions against Russia with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016, despite Vice President-elect Mike Pence publicly denying that sanctions were discussed at the time. After reviewing FBI intelligence, Yates warned McGahn that Flynn had misled administration officials and could be vulnerable to Russian blackmail because Moscow knew what had actually been discussed. Flynn resigned in February 2017, 18 days after Yates’ initial warning. He later pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI about his conversations with Kislyak. Before her confrontation with Trump, Yates spent 27 years at the Justice Department, prosecuting white-collar fraud and public corruption cases. She also served as lead prosecutor in the case against Olympic Park bomber Eric Rudolph, a prosecution then-Attorney General Eric Holder highlighted when Obama selected her as deputy attorney general. Yates returned to King & Spalding as a partner in May 2018, later leading an independent investigation into sexual misconduct and abuse in the National Women’s Soccer League. Commissioned by the U.S. Soccer Federation in October 2021, the investigation included more than 200 interviews and uncovered widespread verbal and emotional abuse, sexual misconduct and repeated failures by teams and league officials to address complaints. The findings, released in October 2022, documented how coaches accused of misconduct continued working despite previous complaints. Yates’ report recommended stronger background checks, clearer reporting procedures and greater accountability for teams and league officials. Cornell said it selected Yates and her firm because of “their expertise in higher education and extensive experience conducting independent investigations for boards and institutions.” INSIDE EXPLOSIVE CORNELL RAPE ALLEGATIONS: 7 MEN ACCUSED, CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS AND A POLITICAL FIRESTORM Yates’ involvement in the case brings another prominent Trump adversary into the controversy, days after New York Attorney General Letitia James, who previously brought a civil fraud case against Trump and has faced his calls for her prosecution, was appointed to oversee a separate state investigation. Cornell previously investigated the alleged assault and imposed suspensions and expulsions on several students accused of involvement. A lawsuit filed against the university by the alleged victim has since brought renewed national attention to the case and raised questions about the school’s response. The two investigations have separate mandates. James’ investigation will examine the case at the center of the controversy, while Yates’ review will assess Cornell’s broader policies and handling of sexual assault and dating violence allegations. “As part of that broader mandate, Yates and her team will conduct a detailed review of the university’s response to the allegations involving Jane Doe and members of the Chi Phi fraternity in October 2024, including whether Cornell followed its policies and procedures in responding to the matter,” the school said in a statement. Fox News Digital reached out to Yates for comment.
Key American industry seeing blue-collar jobs boom as Trump’s re-shoring policies pay off
FIRST ON FOX: Critical blue collar manufacturing jobs in the U.S. are making inroads after years of Biden-era offshoring hollowed out the workforce, according to a new economic report. A Council of Economic Advisors (CEA) report says 72,000 manufacturing jobs have been added in 2026 alone, many of them due to a rise in the manufacturing of durable goods like metal and transportation equipment. The advisors say this is a reverse of a Biden-era trend that saw 200,000 manufacturing jobs disappear in the last two years of the former president’s administration. Not only is the current administration’s focus on re-shoring jobs contributing to the uptick, but so are his tariff policies, according to the CEA, a White House agency responsible for providing President Donald Trump with economic analysis. AMERICA’S NEW BLUE-COLLAR JOB BOOM IS ONE NOBODY SAW COMING — AND IT’S JUST GETTING STARTED In particular, Trump’s landmark One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) has laid the groundwork for American companies to expand in the United States, instead of shipping jobs overseas, according to the report. The bill’s provisions include allowing manufacturers an immediate 100% tax deduction on expenses related to new factory building, and purchasing machinery and equipment. The report highlights success stories from corporations that are reinvesting in Americans and expanding their businesses. LARGEST-EVER US STEEL PLANT IS COMING TO A KEY RED STATE AS TRUMP UNVEILS $15B INVESTMENT For example, the 100% expensing provision in the OBBB has helped Jergens, a manufacturing company based in Ohio, expand to Illinois. “Since the passage of the bill [OBBB], our employees are voluntarily working additional hours,” the company’s CEO, Jack Schron, said. “They are keeping more of what they earn, putting more money back into the American economy and Jergens has a ready workforce. It is a win-win-win: a win for the employee, for Jergens and for the United States economy.” BESSENT CREDITS TRUMP IMMIGRATION POLICIES WITH HELPING RETURN JOBS TO AMERICANS AS WAGE GAINS RESUME Schron added that 83% of his workers are picking up overtime after the OBBB provision established no taxes for overtime work. In another example touted in the CEA report, a company in North Carolina, Ketchie Inc., has expanded its workforce by 25% after taking advantage of the 100% expensing provision to purchase new machinery. The report says the company waited to buy the equipment until the OBBB passed. As for wages, manufacturing workers are seeing benefits, too, with their pay increasing by 7.9% since January 2025. “Adjusted for inflation, this means that blue-collar manufacturing workers are earning nearly $2,500 more per year, on average, since President Trump took office,” the report says. It also touts figures from the construction industry, including 100,000 construction jobs added since Trump took office. Semiconductor chip manufacturing, an industry in which the United States typically competes with China, is on the rise in the United States too. Micron is building memory chip plants in Idaho, Virginia and New York, which the report says is a $250 billion investment in the United States. Apple is investing $600 billion in American semiconductor production, too. The report also says that major pharmaceutical companies like GSK and Gilead are investing billions of dollars in the United States, along with automakers like Stellantis. PESSIMISTS SAY THE ECONOMY IS WEAK. THE GOOD NEWS IS, THEY ARE WRONG All told, the reshoring and tariff policies have resulted in $11 trillion in investments in the United States during Trump’s second term in office, according to the report. Meanwhile, the economy is on everyone’s mind with only a few weeks left until the midterm elections. Inflation, particularly high gas and grocery prices, continue to impact Americans before they head to the polls. According to a Fox News Poll, the cost of everyday items is a hardship for voters: 61% say gas prices are a major problem, up from 48% two years ago, while 52% say the same for healthcare costs, up from 44%. Majorities also view housing costs (54%, down from 60%) and grocery prices (62%, down from 66%) as major problems. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the economy is worse under the Trump administration than before.
Socialists set sights on the ground floor of government as GOP warns of bigger plan unfolding
FIRST ON FOX — Dozens of individuals backed by the Democratic Socialists of America are set to appear on ballots as candidates for state legislature seats on Election Day, something Republicans say could set in motion a trend that transforms the Democratic Party. At least 65 DSA-aligned candidates have advanced to contest state legislative seats in November’s general election. The Republican State Leadership Committee — the official GOP body responsible for ensuring state-level conservative victories — claimed that these races could very well determine the future of the Democratic Party, according to a memo obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital. “The statehouse trend is also relevant because several prominent DSA-aligned Congressional candidates in 2026 have emerged from state and local political organizing,” the memo reads. “These victories demonstrate one potential progression: movement organizations can help develop candidates locally and at the state level, provide them with political experience and organizational networks, and eventually support campaigns for Congress.” SOCIALISTS CHEER ‘SHOCKWAVE’ PRIMARY NIGHT AS DSA-BACKED CANDIDATES WIN, ADVANCE ACROSS THE MAP “The scale of that presence matters not only because DSA-aligned candidates could influence the direction of their state legislatures if elected, but because state legislative offices can provide a platform, governing experience, donor networks and organizational infrastructure for future campaigns for higher office,” it continues. The RSLC’s methodology included candidates who are DSA members, DSA endorsees or self-identified members of the organization. DSA-affiliated candidates identified by the RSLC take positions on a number of issues that crucial swing voters and independents may find extreme, including defunding or abolishing police departments, left-wing economic policies and demanding race-based reparations. Opposition to traditional policing has emerged as a prominent issue among some of the DSA-aligned state legislative candidates identified by Republicans. “As a State Senator I will continue to do everything I can to end policing and incarceration in New York State,” Democratic State Sen. Jabari Brisport’s campaign website reads. Brisport also supports decriminalizing prostitution, arguing that removing criminal penalties for sex workers while maintaining protections against trafficking and exploitation would help keep communities safe. TALARICO PUT ON DEFENSE AFTER 2020 COMMENTS ABOUT DEFUNDING POLICE RESURFACE: ‘WE MUST REPLACE’ Over in Wisconsin, Democratic State Rep. Ryan Clancy has stood by his statement that police work has “no dignity or value.” “It means that American policing has always been bad and it always will be,” Clancy told a local outlet in 2023, alleging that American police forces have their roots in slave patrols. “It’s not like we can get back to this to the early days… American policing… [is] epically racist and classist because that’s a dead end. That is the point of American policing.” Clancy told Fox News Digital that his comments concerned officers who abused their authority over sex workers, although his original remarks and subsequent 2023 interview criticized policing more broadly as an institution he argued was inherently racist and could not be reformed. He concurred with the RSLC’s assertion that DSA-aligned candidates are shaping the future of the Democratic Party. State Rep. Eleanor Chávez, running with the DSA’s backing in New Mexico, meanwhile has called Immigration and Customs Enforcement “fascist” and compared its agents to the KKK. Republicans in New Mexico have condemned such rhetoric, arguing that it could spur people to commit violence against law enforcement officers. Despite its propensity to draw attention to its stances on social issues, the DSA bills itself as an economically motivated organization. NEWSOM ADMITS DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST IDEAS ‘MAINSTREAM’ IN DEMOCRAT PARTY: ‘PRETTY ALIGNED’ To this end, some of its members running for state legislatures have called for reforms some have described as radical. New York Democratic Assemblywoman Sarahana Shrestha, who is running for re-election with the backing of the DSA, has pushed legislation that would allow the government to acquire the privately held Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp., potentially through eminent domain if a negotiated purchase cannot be reached.Dylan Wegela, a DSA-backed state house candidate in Michigan, has similarly pushed for state acquisitions of utility companies. Shrestha agrees with the RSLC’s assessment that DSA-aligned state lawmakers could influence the Democratic Party’s trajectory. “The things DSA-aligned state lawmakers are fighting for are things that are extremely popular with voters, and have been for a long time,” she told Fox News Digital. “A majority of our constituents believe the energy sector should not be for profit, healthcare should be single-payer and universal, the government should play a positive role in building necessary infrastructure such as permanently affordable housing and public transit, and so on.” The DSA-affiliated lawmaker also defended her plan to take over the Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp., citing a feasibility study commissioned by supporters of the bill that found it would lower costs for consumers. Sometimes, the stances of DSA clash with Democratic policy priorities. Gabriel Acevero, a DSA-backed lawmaker in Maryland, for instance, opposed a marijuana legalization measure he argued did not go far enough to address racial inequities, declaring that “cannabis legalization without reparations for communities harmed by the intentional drug war is not progressive policy.” Scores of DSA-affiliated candidates running in states such as New York, Minnesota and Massachusetts have thrown their support behind reparations for racial minorities. SOCIALISTS ARE HELPING GOP CAMPAIGNS HEADING INTO NOVEMBER Republicans have a vested interest in tying the mainstream Democratic Party to the DSA. A Fox News poll from September found that 55% of registered voters had an unfavorable opinion of the DSA. While some in the Democratic Party argue that Republican attempts to tie the Democratic Party to socialism are bad-faith campaign tricks, party leadership has recently made significant concessions to its left-wing flank. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer backed Abdul El-Sayed’s more moderate opponent in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, but a super PAC aligned with Schumer has since committed millions of dollars to supporting El-Sayed’s general-election campaign. El-Sayed is a progressive backed by prominent figures on the party’s left, but who has said he is not a socialist. Due to the disorganized nature of the DSA and the
Fetterman plays political maverick, but his voting record tells another story
The Senate’s most recognizable rogue Democrat has increasingly broken with his party since Republicans took control of the upper chamber, but he still votes with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a majority of the time. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., is the Senate’s biggest enigma during a time of hyper-partisanship — he bucks his party on key issues, like the war in Iran and immigration, but continues to vote with Democrats an overwhelming amount of the time. Since joining the Senate in 2023, Fetterman has voted with Senate Democrats nearly 90% of the time, a figure that stacks up closely to some of the most staunch party liners in the caucus. Still, speculation has swirled as to whether he’ll jump the political shark and become a Republican. MAVERICK DEMOCRAT SURGES WITH REPUBLICANS AS HIS OWN PARTY TURNS ON HIM, STOKING TALK OF GOP SWITCH Despite that, Fetterman has set the terms clearly this year, arguing that if Democrats continued to turn their backs on Israel, he would leave the party. But some in the GOP believe that no matter the swirl percolating in Washington, D.C., Fetterman isn’t swapping jerseys. He’s also keeping the speculation heavy about whether he will run for another term. “John Fetterman is a staunch Democrat that votes with his party 96% of the time, anybody who seriously believes that he is going to switch to the Republican Party is thinking wishfully,” a senior Republican aide told Fox News Digital. Fetterman’s national political career began as a politician armed with an endorsement for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., running in a pivotal race in 2022 against Dr. Mehmet Oz. SEN JOHN FETTERMAN PLEDGES TO BE ‘LAST MAN STANDING’ IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN SUPPORT OF ISRAEL Sanders told the Associated Press at the time that “if there’s any candidate who was running more than anybody else, who identified with the working class, who made it clear that he was going to Washington to represent working people, it was John Fetterman.” He flipped that seat, giving Democrats one of the slimmest majorities in history and cementing himself as a rock star in the party. Since then, he’s run away from Sanders’ ideals and often rejected Schumer and the caucus’ marching orders. But this year he’s leaned into that grey area, sometimes known as being a centrist, to support Republican ideals. During this session of Congress, Fetterman has broken from Democrats more than ever before, dropping to just under 81% along Democratic Party lines. And while that’s happening, Fetterman is reportedly using Republican fundraising platforms to soak up precious donor dollars, is close friends with one of the GOP’s own rock stars, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., made a video message introducing McCormick at the RNC and even accidentally called himself a lifelong Republican during an appearance at the Texas Tribune’s Tribfest last month. FETTERMAN TEASES WHERE HIS TRUE LOYALTY LIES AFTER SURPRISE APPEARANCE AT GOP CONVENTION But when asked about whether he’s considering leaving the party, even after drawing a line in the sand, he recoils — it’s become such a hot topic in the hallways of the Senate that Fetterman stopped taking questions. As to whether he would jump ship depending on the outcome of the upcoming election, Fetterman said during the event that “there are no Republicans with a 90% Democratic vote line. There are no pro-choice, there’s no pro-gay community, that does not exist in the Republican Party.” “How many times do I have to say it? And that’s the point. So wait until after the midterms and see what happens,” Fetterman said. “And now, if we do win, and I’m 51, people can remember, ‘hey, that’s why it’s mathematically possible to retain the majority,’ because I was able to win a state like Pennsylvania.” Fetterman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
America’s truckers issue dire warning as soaring diesel costs threaten ‘domino effect’
American truckers are warning that sky-high diesel prices are eating into their profits and putting pressure on trucking companies to cut routes, raising concerns that some drivers could be forced off the road and the pain could eventually reach Americans at the grocery store. “Fuel prices is going up, the rates are not going up,” Miami-based trucker Suave Dorsett told Fox News Digital. “So it’s hurting our pockets real bad.” The warnings come as the Iran war sends diesel prices soaring, squeezing American truckers even as President Donald Trump predicts oil prices will fall “like a stone” amid expectations that the conflict could soon end. Drivers told Fox News Digital the damage is already mounting, with routes being cut and smaller operators facing mounting financial pressure. Dorsett is among several truckers who told Fox News Digital that soaring fuel costs are cutting into their earnings and putting pressure on an industry responsible for moving goods across the country, with one driver reporting fewer routes and others warning that smaller operators could eventually be forced to park their rigs. THE OVERLOOKED WAY THE IRAN WAR IS MAKING GROCERIES, AMAZON PACKAGES AND NEW HOMES MORE EXPENSIVE The national average for diesel stood at roughly $6.32 per gallon Monday, according to AAA — up from about $3.69 at the same time last year, a jump of more than 70%. The surge has also eclipsed the previous record of $5.816 per gallon, set in June 2022 under former President Joe Biden as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global energy prices soaring. For Dorsett, who has been driving for nine years, the price at the pump was even steeper. He told Fox News Digital he was seeing diesel at $7.40 per gallon while traveling through Ohio. Dorsett said the fuel spike comes as truckers are already shouldering a long list of expenses, including diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), which helps reduce harmful emissions, parking, showers, weighing and reweighing loads, repairs and towing. And if diesel prices remain elevated, Dorsett predicted smaller operators will be the first to buckle. BIDEN-ERA ENVIRO RULE ACCUSED OF STRANGLING TRUCKERS, SQUEEZING AMERICANS LANDS ON TRUMP CHOPPING BLOCK “Some of the smaller companies, like the smaller owner ops, would slowly fall off and it’s going to create a chain effect,” Dorsett said, predicting a “domino effect” that could eventually put pressure on larger carriers. Tyler Rinaldi, a Louisiana trucker with about a decade of experience who transports hazardous materials and other freight for an LTL company, said he has already seen weekend routes scaled back at his company. “I’ve seen a lot of routes get cut,” Rinaldi told Fox News Digital. “They’re not really running like they want to on the weekends right now.” “I definitely see a lot change because of it at my company, slowly, but it’s starting to be more noticeable,” he added. TRUMP TAPS VETERANS TO FIX ILLEGAL ALIEN TRUCKING PROBLEM PLAGUING US ROADWAYS Rinaldi, who is married with two children, said fewer routes could eventually mean less money coming home. “When they start cutting routes and trying to limit the expenses on what routes they send out,” Rinaldi said, “that takes away from the people that work in the company’s pockets.” Avante Jackson, an 11-year trucking veteran from Charlotte, North Carolina, who transports steel and other construction materials, said rising diesel prices are forcing truckers to take a harder look at whether the money they bring in is enough to keep their businesses running. “If I’m putting all of my profit in the tank,” Jackson said, “at the end of the day, what do I have left to keep the doors open?” CUT THE BULL: THE REAL REASON BEEF COSTS SO MUCH — AND WHAT TRUMP IS TRYING TO DO Jackson cautioned against “fear-mongering” about potential shortages, but said a widespread loss of drivers could ultimately reach consumers. “It really could hit the community,” he said. The latest diesel spike echoes a similar crunch in 2022 under former President Joe Biden, when the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent fuel prices flying. Diesel reached a then-record national average of $5.82 per gallon that June, squeezing truckers as operating expenses climbed. According to the American Transportation Research Institute, trucking fuel costs surged 53.7% in 2022, helping drive a 21.3% jump in overall operating costs to a then-record $2.25 per mile. The latest spike threatens to revive those pressures, particularly for smaller operators with less room to absorb rising fuel bills. As the Trump administration pushes international partners to release emergency fuel reserves in an effort to bring prices down, the truckers had their own message for the president: don’t forget about the drivers absorbing the costs on the road. “My message to President Trump would just be to think about who’s keeping America moving,” Jackson told Fox News Digital. “Think about the little guys out here each and every day.” TRUMP JUST BROKERED A DEAL WITH THE COUNTRY SITTING ATOP THE WORLD’S LARGEST OIL RESERVES “We truly are the backbone of America, we keep America moving,” he added. “We just want you just to think about us and put yourself in our shoes…Let’s try to get the fuel prices down and let’s try to just make more of a change,” he said. “We know we can do better.” Trump defended higher fuel prices Thursday as a temporary sacrifice in the fight to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, saying on Truth Social that rising gasoline costs were “a small price to pay for Iran not having a Nuclear Weapon.” Trump said last week that European countries had agreed to release diesel from their stockpiles after he pressed them to put more supply on the market. The G7 subsequently agreed to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products from previously pledged emergency reserves over four months, including a substantial diesel release during the first 20 days, in an effort to ease pressure on global fuel markets. Trump also said his
Veteran shot 7 times in Fort Hood massacre has a warning for Americans planning to watch execution
On Dec. 3, 2026, the U.S. government intends to take Nidal Hasan to a firing range at Fort Hood and publicly execute him. Few condemned men could make a more difficult case for mercy. Seventeen years ago, Hasan, an Army psychiatrist at the time, walked into a soldier readiness center at the Texas Army post and opened fire, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Now, after years of appeals, the Army is preparing to execute him by firing squad. And Americans will be able to watch on live stream. That last detail has transformed what might otherwise have been the long-delayed conclusion of one of the darkest chapters in the Army’s history into a more uncomfortable question: How should a nation reckon with the gravity of taking a life, even when that life belongs to a mass murderer? For Alonzo Lunsford, a former Army staff sergeant who survived being shot seven times by Hasan, the answer is complicated. GOP GOV DEWINE URGES OHIO TO ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY, SAYS IT IS NO LONGER A DETERRENT Lunsford wants Hasan executed. He intends to witness it himself in December. He told Fox News Digital he would even prefer that one of Hasan’s surviving victims or the relatives of those he killed be allowed to pull the trigger. Despite that, Lunsford says he has forgiven Hasan. “The weird thing about it, I’ve forgiven him because my faith does not allow me to heal and continue unless I forgive that man,” Lunsford said. But forgiveness, for Lunsford, does not mean sparing Hasan from punishment. What troubles him is the prospect of turning that punishment into entertainment. “It’s not a spectacle,” he said. “There’s nothing glorified in the smell of human flesh, blood and gunpowder. It’s a smell you will never forget. It’s a taste that you will never forget.” “That’s not something you sit around and say, hey, let’s get some popcorn and look at this execution,” he continued. “We as a people, we’re better than that. This ain’t no country where we do public beheadings and stonings and think it’s fine.” ARMY SERGEANT SENTENCED AFTER SHOOTING 5 SOLDIERS AND HIS MALE FIANCÉ AT FORT STEWART Lunsford was working at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center on Nov. 5, 2009, when Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, opened fire. He recalled watching Hasan kill a colleague before turning the weapon on him. Lunsford was shot above his left eye, fell to the floor and played dead before eventually escaping outside, where Hasan shot him again. “I’ve accepted the fact I’m gonna live with the pain for the rest of my life,” Lunsford said. He has since found purpose in coaching basketball, mentoring young people and helping others struggling with their mental health. Lunsford said he doesn’t want children watching the livestream, though he believes adults can decide for themselves whether to tune in. “This is not somewhere you all start throwing some meat on the grill, get outside and say, hey, we’re gonna watch them unalive this guy by firing squad,” he said. “Don’t do that.” “Don’t do that because when you do that, you’re dishonoring those that made the supreme sacrifice, those who are no longer here. Those are heroes.” War Secretary Pete Hegseth has defended making the execution public, saying Americans should understand the consequences of Hasan’s crimes. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said in an interview this week. “Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” Vice President JD Vance cast doubt Friday on whether the Pentagon would follow through with its plans to livestream Hasan’s execution, saying he had no intention of watching it himself. “I see these announcements. I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” he told reporters Friday. The decision for the first U.S. Army death by firing squad in 86 years to be live streamed has drawn opposition even from Republicans who support putting Hasan to death. “I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., wrote on X. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., likewise said Hasan “should face the death penalty,” but called publicly streaming it “beyond disgusting.” “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis wrote. “It should not be happening in America.” The nation’s Catholic bishops have gone further, opposing both Hasan’s execution and the decision to make it public. “In no way can Hassan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Friday. “The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people.” The decision has also raised a more immediate national security concern. Hasan, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during the 2009 attack, has previously spoken about becoming a martyr. Matthew Levitt, a former Treasury counterterrorism official and director of the Washington Institute’s Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, warned that making footage of his death widely available could give terrorist groups material to exploit. “It seems like a poor decision to provide terrorist groups with a video clip they can effectively splice into radicalization propaganda,” Levitt told Fox News Digital. “There’s no tangible benefit to live streaming an execution, and it may, in fact, exacerbate the terrorist threat.” For Lunsford, however, the execution remains deeply personal. During Hasan’s 2013 court-martial, the two locked eyes. Lunsford wants Hasan to see him again before he dies. “I want to look at him in his eyes. I want him to see me — man to man,” Lunsford said. “My message to him: Dude, you failed.” “I go where I wanna go, when I wanna go, how I wanna go.
Former MN state trooper tears into Dems as Somali gang violence terrorizes Minnesota: ‘Where is Ilhan Omar?’
Former state trooper John Nagel pointed the finger at his opponent, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and the Democratic Party for allowing Somali-American gang-linked violence to escalate in the Twin Cities. Residents of Eden Prairie and surrounding Twin Cities suburbs have been left fearing for their safety after a string of gang-related incidents this month, including the shooting of two teens shot outside an Eden Prairie high school football game and more than 100 shell casings recovered in a Bloomington neighborhood. “Where is Ilhan Omar in all of this?” Nagel, a Minnesota native who spent 30 years as a state trooper, asked in an interview with Fox News Digital. “I would think that as a congressman that represents this particular area that she’d be at these meetings or she’d have a statement or she’d be sitting down and saying, ‘Hey, how can we help this? How could we stop this?’ And I don’t see her.” OMAR’S GOP CHALLENGER COMES OUT FIRING WITH VOW TO CLEAN UP ‘MESS’ IN DEEP BLUE DISTRICT: ‘PEOPLE ARE FED UP’ Nagel accused other Minnesota Democrats, including Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, of having their “heads in the sand” and preventing law enforcement from stopping the violence before it got out of control. “They’re being restrained by politicians, people that are trying soft on crime, people that’re trying to send somebody other than a police officer to take care of issues, and it’s not working,” Nagel said. Looking at the responses of statewide leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, Nagel said the majority of Democrats “don’t want enforcement.” “The people do,” he said. “They’re tired of it.” Democrats have been too lenient on crime for years, according to Nagel, which he said has “emboldened” gang members to break the law without serious consequences. “Because of how the Democrats have run Minnesota over the years, these gang members and then just crooks in general, they’re emboldened by this,” he said. ILHAN OMAR ON TRACK FOR FIFTH TERM AS MINNESOTA VOTERS MAINTAIN FAR-LEFT STREAK Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher spoke at a press conference this week, highlighting that a “big chunk of the problem” is failing to hold gang members accountable, saying Moriarty’s office needs to be more “aggressive” with prosecuting juveniles. In a statement to Fox News Digital, Daniel Borgertpoepping, a spokesperson for Moriarty’s office, said that no cases related to the Bloomington incident have been submitted for charging consideration, but “they’ll be thoroughly reviewed” if they are. Adam Abdihakeem Adam, 18, was charged on Friday in connection with the Eden Prairie homecoming football game shooting with two counts of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree riot. “Mr. Adam will be held accountable,” Moriarty said in a press release Friday. “Violence in our communities is completely unacceptable and it requires a professional, coordinated response, which happened here.” Fletcher also pushed back on “East African” being used to generalize the gang members’ ethnicity, adding that “98% of these gang members are Somali” and that the broader label isn’t “fair.” “I think we just have to say what it is and not run away from the term,” he said. AMY KLOBUCHAR CALLS FOR MAJOR ANTI-TERRORISM INVESTMENTS AFTER ALLEGED MALL OF AMERICA PLOT Nagel said people are afraid of being called “racist” for referring to the gangs as Somali, arguing that law enforcement is simply going after those committing the crimes rather than blaming an entire community. “I mean, we have Latino gangs and Asian gangs and Black gangs, and we have Somali gangs. This is not being prejudicial.” He said it’s a “Somali problem” because that’s “who’s showing up.” “It’s ridiculous,” he said. “I’m a police officer. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what color you are.” Nagel said a “gang task force” could be part of the solution and argued, “We don’t need to pass any more laws. We don’t need any more people asking for money to help their group. We need to take the laws that we have and prosecute people.” As gang violence spills into Minnesota communities, Nagel said it can’t continue to go on like it has. “We need enforcement, we need arrests, and we need incarceration,” he said. “Otherwise, this is going to continue to spiral.” Nagel will face off against Omar and Independent candidate DeVelle Jackson in the upcoming midterm elections for the U.S. House seat representing Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District. Fox News Digital reached out to Omar, Walz and Ellison’s offices for comment.
Plague mystery revives concerns over not-to-secret Russian bioweapons program
Marshall Billingslea was a Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer in the 1990s when he sat down with one of the highest-ranking defectors from the Soviet biological weapons program and began learning the extent of what Moscow had secretly built. And what he found out from Ken Alibek, the former No. 2 official in the Soviet biological weapons apparatus, is raising red flags for Billingslea over the Oct. 2, 2026, death linked to an anti-plague institute in Russia. “I think one of the most important things that Ken shed light on was the sheer scale of the Soviet program, which then Russia inherited,” Billingslea told Fox News Digital. “Just mammoth.” Three decades later, the mysterious death of a researcher at the Irkutsk Research Anti-Plague Institute of Siberia and the Far East has put new attention on what became of that program — and Billingslea argues the world should be demanding answers from Moscow. MYSTERY DEATH AT RUSSIAN PLAGUE LAB TRIGGERS SWEEPING PRECAUTIONS AS US WATCHES CLOSELY “It’s not acceptable in this day and age for the Russians to have a biological warfare program,” said Billingslea, who previously served as President Donald Trump’s special presidential envoy for arms control. “They need to cut it out, and they need to tell us. They need to come clean about what they’re doing at this lab and whether this lab is still involved in their warfare program.” The U.S. government says Russia’s offensive biological weapons program did not disappear with the Soviet Union. “Russia maintains an offensive biological weapons program and is in violation of its obligations under the BWC,” a State Department official told Fox News Digital this week. BWC, or Biological Weapons Convention, is an international treaty that prohibits the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons. State’s 2025 arms control compliance report assessed that the Soviet-era program was “absorbed, not dismantled” by Russia after the collapse and has “continued and evolved” since then. There is no evidence linking the Irkutsk researcher’s death to Russia’s biological weapons program, and Billingslea told Fox News Digital he has seen no evidence that the the institute remains involved in the program today. But the unexplained death has revived scrutiny of the Soviet program’s work and the network of ostensibly civilian laboratories that Billingslea said Alibek identified as also performing classified work. Alibek’s disclosures included Soviet efforts to alter pathogens to make them more lethal, transmissible or difficult to treat, Billingslea said, adding that some of the most troubling revelations involved plague. BIOWEAPON THREAT EXPOSED AS ANTHROPIC SOUNDS ALARM ON FOREIGN ACTORS PLOTTING VIRUS EXPERIMENTS “The goal was to render the plague bacteria far more resistant to antibiotics,” he said. Billingslea said Soviet researchers also experimented with combining plague with toxin-producing pathogens, with the aim of making infections even harder to treat. “They took the plague bacteria and they merged it with a non-dangerous bacteria,” Billingslea said. “The goal was to render the plague bacteria far more resistant to antibiotics.” According to Alibek’s account, researchers also worked on combining plague with toxin-producing pathogens so that treating an infected person with antibiotics could trigger the release of toxins. Billingslea said that U.S. officials were not relying solely on Alibek for their understanding of the program and that there were “multiple other sources of information” that made him “very confident in the basics” regarding the disclosures regarding Soviet-era research. “So this doesn’t all derive from Ken Alibek,” he insisted when speaking with Fox News Digital. By the time Billingslea was interviewing Alibek in the mid-1990s, he said, Washington had already confronted Moscow over its biological weapons work. “We knew about the plague programs, we knew what they were up to, and we knew where the sites were,” he said. Among the facilities Alibek identified were at least six Soviet Ministry of Health laboratories that had legitimate civilian public-health missions while also performing classified work connected to the biological weapons program, according to Billingslea. The Irkutsk institute was among the facilities Alibek identified, but Billingslea cautioned he does not recall the Soviet defector saying that antibiotic-resistant plague or plague chimeras were specifically developed there. That distinction has become particularly important following the unexplained death of a 28-year-old researcher at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute. Russian authorities have said they found no microorganism linked to the woman’s professional activities, while the World Health Organization has sought additional information from Moscow about what caused her fatal pneumonia. Billingslea said the pressure for answers — and for Russia to end its offensive biological weapons program — should not come from Washington alone. “It’s very, very important that this is not viewed as a U.S. versus Russia discussion,” he said. “This is a topic of grave concern to the entire international community.” He also said that Russia needs to release the genetic sequence of the pathogen that killed the researcher, along with information about contact testing, the timeline of her illness and the institute’s biosafety procedures. The genetic sequence could allow outside experts to determine “what it was and whether it was modified,” he said. Billingslea called on countries outside the traditional U.S. alliance system, including Brazil and Mexico, to press Moscow for greater transparency, and pointed to a December meeting of parties to the Biological Weapons Convention as an opportunity for countries to confront Russia over the program. “At the December meeting, Russia is going to get grilled,” he said. “And they should.”