Latest
Son of kidnapped CIA contractor alleges Iranian official tied to case attended US talks
The son of America’s longest-held hostage said an Iranian tied to his father’s kidnapping took part in the first round of peace talks.
Dan Levinson, son of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, argued it’s a “slap in the face” to his family to have the official involved in talks as the United States and Iran teeter on the edge of a fragile ceasefire.
“There’s only a few people in the world who know exactly what happened to my dad, who were involved in what happened to my dad. The FBI identified five of them,” Levinson said on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday.
“One of them was killed in the initial airstrikes at the start of this conflict. And another one is hiding in plain sight,” he added.
ONE AMERICAN’S DETENTION IN LEBANON EXPOSED A TRUTH THAT IS NOW DEVASTATING AN ENTIRE COUNTRY
Robert Levinson is the longest-held hostage in U.S. history after vanishing in 2007 on Kish Island. He was working as a CIA contractor at the time of his disappearance. In 2020, U.S. officials announced they believed he had died in Iranian custody, though his remains were never recovered.
EX-CIA OFFICIAL SAYS TRUMP’S ‘HANDSHAKE’ DEAL WITH CHINA COULD CUT OFF IRAN’S WEAPONS, END CONFLICT
Dan Levinson is now calling out Reza Amiri Moghadam, Iran’s current ambassador to Pakistan, who took part in the first round of high-level talks in Islamabad. Levinson said Amiri Moghadam was one of several individuals identified as having a direct role in his father’s abduction nearly two decades ago.
“It’s a slap in the face to our family, slap in the face to the United States of America,” Levinson said, adding, “It hurts their [Pakistan’s] credibility as an independent intermediary between the two countries because they’re allowing this man to take part in all of this.”
WIFE OF US HOSTAGE KEITH SIEGEL PLEADS FOR HOLIDAY MIRACLE: ‘WE NEED TO GET THEM BACK’
The two-week ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is due to expire this week. Representatives from both nations are expected to return to Islamabad for a new round of talks. Vice President JD Vance is set to lead the U.S. delegation in Pakistan Tuesday.
Levinson offered a warning for the negotiators, noting his family’s long history of dealing with the regime during his father’s captivity. He argued Iran only responds to “pressure” and “strength.”
“They don’t understand kindness. We learned that in almost two decades of dealing with the Iranians,” Levinson said, adding that the U.S. “need[s] to keep confronting them and calling them out on things like this.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by President Donald Trump during a recent interview with FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo. When asked why his voice was hoarse, Trump told Bartiromo it was because he had been “screaming at Iranians all day,” adding, “Because that’s the only thing they understand. They don’t understand being nice. They understand the way I have to do business.”
Latest
Trump DEI crackdown ‘misses core ideology’ and must target lingering danger on campuses, watchdog warns
FIRST ON FOX: Experts are calling on President Donald Trump to issue a new executive order to attack a “dominant” socialist-inspired ideology they say is the “foundation” of a growing domestic terrorist movement in the United States.
Fox News Digital exclusively reviewed a report that details how diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices have continued to thrive on hundreds of U.S. campuses through a more deeply rooted ideology, “intersectionality.” The Legal Insurrection Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies issued the report.
“Intersectionality’s toxic influence must be confronted head-on,” the report said, emphasizing, “The future of our education system and the safety of our nation depend upon it.”
Despite several executive orders by Trump banning DEI, the report found that progressive school administrators across the country continue to profile students by group identity and to teach students to view America and Western society as global oppressors. The result, the report says, is increasing social discord and even violence spreading across America.
WATCHDOG EXPOSES TAXPAYER-FUNDED TEACHER PROGRAM FOR BANNING WHITE APPLICANTS: ‘LIKELY ILLEGAL’
The report’s authors urge the president to take executive action to address intersectionality specifically by name, arguing that doing so will close a loophole that allows DEI practices to continue under the intersectionality banner. The report also calls on the administration to replace this school of thought with education programs that promote traditional American values.
Intersectionality has been advanced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Columbia Law School professor who developed the intersectional theoretical framework in the late 1980s, as a method of describing overlapping forms of discrimination. She argues that by treating race and gender as “mutually exclusive categories of experience and analysis,” society and the legal system distort and theoretically erase the multidimensional experiences of Black women.
The Legal Insurrection Foundation and the Defense of Freedom Institute’s report, however, cautions that intersectionality is “inherently socialist and collectivist,” as it “judges people based on group identity.” By emphasizing the “intersection” of perceived victimhood categories, the report says women are seen as preferable to men, “people of color” to Whites, homosexual or transgender-identifying people as preferable to heterosexuals, and Muslims as preferable to Jews or Christians.
While the report says the Trump administration’s efforts to address DEI thus far are “laudable,” these actions continue to be flouted so that the U.S. educational system remains “the mechanism for intersectionality to embed in the culture.”
According to the report, the groups have documented the propagation of intersectionality in more than 700 educational institutions, consisting primarily of college campuses but also K-12 schools.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Legal Insurrection founder William Jacobson cautioned that “as much as some of the problems have been recognized, the underlying ideological foundation has not been identified or understood.”
INSIDE ANTIFA-LINKED GROUP’S PLAN TO ‘STRUCTURALLY CHANGE’ THE US AS MAY DAY UNREST APPROACHES
He explained that intersectionality goes even deeper than DEI, saying that it is “in many ways, the mother’s milk of critical race theory, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and increasingly linked to violent domestic terrorism through anarchists and other groups.”
He described the ongoing movement as a “multi-billion-dollar industry” consisting of teachers, professors, administrators, consultants and philanthropies.
“It’s massive,” he explained, adding, “This was 30 years in the making. It’s not going to go away with a handful of executive orders.”
The report draws a line between the intersectional ideology being pushed in schools and recent domestic terror plots, including by the anti-capitalist student group “Turtle Island Liberation Front.” This December, five members of the group were indicted for allegedly plotting to simultaneously bomb multiple targets in California beginning on New Year’s Eve. The individuals are also accused of plotting to target U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers as well.
According to the report, “Turtle Island,” a term rooted in Native American lore, is the intersectional name being used for North America. Turtle Island Liberation Front’s call for decolonization and tribal sovereignty echoes intersectionality’s core message, says the report.
Both groups, as well as Jacobson, are calling on the president and Congress to take immediate action through executive orders and congressional hearings.
“We’re calling on the administration to update their executive orders [and] to issue a new executive order which includes intersectionality under the definitions of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” he said.
Jacobson emphasized that while any individual scholar or student can hold or advance intersectional beliefs, he said, “the question is, are federal funds being used to promote unlawful discrimination?”
“We are not calling for a ban on intersectionality as a theory,” he clarified. “What we are calling on the government to do is to make sure that federal funds are not used to promote racially and ethnically and religiously discriminatory activities that take place under the name of intersectionality.”
He put it in simple terms: “People may have a constitutional right to espouse intersectionality, but the government doesn’t have to pay for it.”
Beyond this, he also called on Congress to get involved.
“We’ve seen on many issues, including antisemitism, that congressional hearings have proven extremely informative and extremely effective at addressing the problems,” he said.
The report also calls for the administration to use every facet of the government to root out intersectionality. Other methods suggested include updating federal agency guidance regarding intersectional practices, pursuing litigation where it is being practiced, defunding those institutions, and instead funding research and civics education programs that promote American ideals.
“It’s hard to understand unless you live in that world, which I do, how pervasive and dominant these racial ideologies are on campuses,” he emphasized, adding, “It is the dominant ideology on campuses.”
“There are very few alternatives for students on most campuses,” he went on. “And that’s why we think the Trump administration, to the extent it is supporting various educational initiatives, should insist that schools, if they want federal money, have to have traditional American civics programming as an alternative to what is there now.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Crenshaw for comment.
Latest
US falls behind in hypersonic race as China, Russia gain edge
The U.S. has spent years racing to develop hypersonic weapons to compete with China and Russia, but delays, shifting programs and limited testing capacity are raising concerns that Washington remains in a catch-up phase in a technology that could reshape modern warfare.
Key programs have faced repeated delays, including setbacks in testing and development timelines, while others have been canceled and later revived as the Pentagon reassesses its approach.
At the same time, limited testing infrastructure has constrained how quickly new systems can be evaluated and refined, slowing the pace of development across multiple efforts.
That combination has heightened concern inside the Pentagon, particularly as China and Russia already have fielded hypersonic systems, potentially giving them an edge in a class of weapons that could compress decision-making timelines in a crisis and challenge U.S. defenses.
Hypersonic weapons are designed to travel at extremely high speeds while maneuvering in flight, making them far harder to detect and intercept than traditional missiles.
Unlike ballistic missiles, which follow a predictable path, hypersonic weapons can change direction mid-flight and fly at lower altitudes, reducing warning time and making them more difficult for existing missile defenses to track.
Russia already has used hypersonic-type weapons in its war against Ukraine, in some cases as a signal to Kyiv and its Western allies, underscoring how the technology is beginning to shape real-world conflict.
Inside the U.S. portfolio, however, progress has been uneven. Some programs are advancing toward deployment, others have been canceled and revived, and officials are increasingly balancing investments between building hypersonic weapons and defending against them.
Part of the challenge is technical. Hypersonic systems must survive extreme heat and pressure while traveling at high speeds through the atmosphere—making them more complex to design and build than traditional missiles.
US GENERAL WARNS RUSSIA MAY BE DEVELOPING NUCLEAR ANTI-SATELLITE WEAPON IN ORBIT
In some cases, the Pentagon also has pursued more advanced approaches, including highly maneuverable systems and precision conventional strike capabilities, adding further complexity.
Complicating that effort further is a basic constraint: testing capacity.
With only a limited number of facilities able to simulate or sustain hypersonic speeds, programs often face delays waiting for test opportunities, slowing development across multiple efforts.
Mark Bigham, vice president of defense programs at Longshot, a company that works on hypersonic launch and testing technologies, and a former Raytheon executive, said that constraint has become a key limiting factor.
“People can innovate and create really fast,” Bigham said. “And the only way you can sort them out is to actually test them.”
He added that only a handful of facilities can test systems at hypersonic speeds, making it difficult to increase the pace of development.
MISSILE DEFENSE RACE SHIFTS TO SPACE AS EXPERTS SAY REAL BATTLE IS IN FIRST MINUTES AFTER LAUNCH
“I would say the testing is probably the bottleneck right now,” he said.
Beyond engineering and testing challenges, the U.S. effort has also been shaped by years of shifting priorities.
After leading early hypersonic research in the 2000s, defense spending shifted toward counterterrorism operations and other capabilities, while funding for high-speed weapons remained inconsistent until more recently.
At the same time, strict safety and reliability requirements can slow the transition from testing to deployment, extending timelines compared to adversaries that may field less mature systems more quickly.
The Pentagon’s most advanced effort, the Army’s long-range hypersonic weapon — known as “Dark Eagle” — has made recent progress, including a successful joint Army–Navy test in March and continued fielding of its first operational unit.
That program is part of a broader push to streamline development, including the use of a shared glide body across Army and Navy systems.
Even so, the broader hypersonic portfolio remains in flux.
The Air Force has revived its air-launched rapid response weapon, or ARRW, after shelving the program following test setbacks, requesting roughly $387 million in fiscal 2026 to begin procurement.
The move reflects a reassessment inside the Pentagon, where officials now see a need for multiple types of hypersonic weapons for different missions.
At the same time, the U.S. increasingly is investing in ways to counter hypersonic threats.
In April, the Missile Defense Agency awarded roughly $475 million in additional funding to Northrop Grumman to accelerate development of the Glide Phase Interceptor, designed to destroy hypersonic weapons mid-flight.
The funding has pushed the program’s timeline forward, with initial operational capability now expected in the early 2030s after earlier delays.
The effort is part of a broader push to build defenses against hypersonic threats, including a space-based tracking network designed to detect and follow missiles traveling at extreme speeds—something current radar systems struggle to do reliably.
The urgency stems from the fact that China and Russia already have fielded hypersonic weapons, forcing the U.S. to both accelerate its own development and rethink how it defends against a new class of threats.
“My gut tells me that we need to step on the gas and move faster,” Bigham said.
Yet despite that urgency, the administration’s latest budget places greater emphasis on missile defense, drones and other capabilities, with hypersonic programs largely embedded within broader research and procurement accounts.
That disconnect — between the strategic importance of hypersonics and the pace of U.S. development — has fueled debate over whether the U.S. can scale these systems quickly enough to compete with its adversaries.
For now, the Pentagon’s hypersonic effort is moving forward — but with programs at different stages, revived initiatives and persistent constraints, the path to fully fielding these weapons remains uncertain.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A Government Accountability Office review found the Air Force’s Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile program fell about six months behind schedule on a key design milestone, pushing flight testing back by roughly a year and reducing the number of planned test flights. The findings highlight broader delays affecting U.S. hypersonic development.
Latest
Dark money floods Virginia ahead of redistricting vote that could hand Democrats House edge
Tens of millions of dollars — much of it dark money from undisclosed donors — poured into Virginia this year ahead of Tuesday’s vote on a congressional redistricting referendum that, if passed, could give Democrats a significant boost in the battle for the U.S. House majority in this year’s midterm elections.
If the ballot measure is successful, it would give the Democrat-controlled Virginia legislature — rather than the state’s current nonpartisan commission — temporary redistricting power through the 2030 election. It could result in a 10-1 advantage for Democrats in Virginia’s congressional delegation, up from their current 6-5 edge.
The referendum, which follows President Donald Trump’s push for rare but not unheard-of mid-decade redistricting in Republican-led states, could give Democrats an edge as they try to win back control of the House from Republicans, who are defending a fragile majority.
Supporters of redistricting have dramatically outraised and outspent groups opposed to the referendum, with Democrat-aligned Virginians for Fair Elections raising roughly three times as much as GOP-allied Virginians for Fair Maps. But despite the Democrats’ funding advantage, public opinion polling suggests support for the ballot initiative is only slightly ahead of opposition amid a surge in early voting, which ended Saturday.
SOROS-BACKED DARK MONEY GROUPS FUEL VIRGINIA REDISTRICTING PUSH
“They have outspent us three to one. They’ve raised over $70 million. And yet this is a close vote,” former Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, one of leaders of the GOP effort to defeat the referendum, told Fox News Digital on the eve of the election.
Much of the funding raised by both sides came from so-called “dark money” from nonprofit public policy groups known as 501(c)(4) organizations that are not required to disclose their donors. This according to a Fox News Digital review of state campaign finance records and records from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), which tracks public spending in Virginia..
“It points to the importance of this referendum,” David Richards, political science chair at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia, told Fox News Digital, as he highlighted the influx of outside money pouring into the state.
Richards said the funding “also shows how national money can cloud these statewide elections. Virginians need to decide what’s good for them and instead, it becomes a national issue that takes away from what is good for Virginia.”
REPUBLICANS SOUND ALARM ON DEMOCRATS’ ‘POWER GRAB’ IN CRUCIAL REDISTRICTING ELECTION
Given the green light from the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, nonprofit public policy groups can spend unlimited funds without disclosing their donors, which often masks large contributions from corporations or wealthy individuals.
But dark money has long come under attack over a lack of transparency, with voters not knowing who is funding the political messages they are seeing. It’s been criticized as a threat to democracy for allowing wealthy interests to influence elections and policy.
“it’s because you don’t actually know where the money is coming from,” Chris Galdieri, a professor in the political science department at Saint Anselm College, told Fox News Digital. “With dark money, it’s not even traceable to a particular interest…it means that voters don’t know what the motives of the donors are.”
DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB
On the “yes” side, House Majority Forward, which as the chief political nonprofit wing of House Democrats does not have to disclose its donors, has contributed nearly $40 million.
Other groups pumping big bucks into the Democrat effort to pass the referendum were fueled with millions of dollars from George Soros-backed dark money groups.
Meanwhile, the “no” effort has received $9 million from a group tied to tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a GOP megadonor and longtime Trump ally.
While often frowned upon, the use of dark money in politics is accelerating. Dark money groups shelled out more than $1.9 billion during the 2024 election cycle.
“Any rational person can look at the maps in Virginia and understand that this is a political game being played. It’s to benefit one party, not people,” veteran Republican strategist and communicator Ryan Williams argued. “What do they care if they finance their effort with dark money. It’s just another example of political gamesmanship in this process.”
Fox News’ Alec Schemmel and Leo Briceno contributed to this report.
-
Latest1 week agoVance Leaves Meeting, Looks Straight Into Camera, Announces Stunning Arrest
-
News2 weeks agoAll Hell Breaks Loose On Fox When Jesse Watters Asks Fetterman One Question
-
News5 days agoAdam Schiff Facing 30 Years In Prison After Bank Records Leak
-
News1 week agoNBC Stops LIVE Broadcast — Breaks Big Trump News
-
Latest7 days agoSupreme Curt Sides With Trump — He Can Remove The All
-
News7 days agoSwalwell Facing Jail Time After Sickening New Video Leaks
-
Latest2 weeks agoMelania Gets Huge Surprise 24 Hours After Making Epstein Announcement
-
News1 week agoFar Left Democrat ‘Squad’ Member LOSES — She’s Out
