An Israeli nongovernmental organization is working behind the scenes to provide a critical link between the Israeli military and international organizations with one goal in mind: Get humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

‘We really became this informal connector and facilitator between the Israeli authorities and the humanitarian community,’ IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer said.

IsraAID has worked in 64 countries and is currently the largest humanitarian organization based out of Israel. 

Polizer says there is broad consensus now that a concerning humanitarian level was reached in Gaza with pockets of malnutrition across the strip. He notes that it isn’t only food that is needed by the civilian population, but also medicine, water and nutritional provisions.

‘When we reach severe malnutrition levels, we know that just rice and flour is not going to solve the problem,’ Polizer added. ‘We need nutritional supplements, we need people to get protein.’ 

For nearly five months, there was no consistent flow of aid. That has changed in recent weeks with thousands of trucks being distributed along with airdrops of supplies to civilians. Recently, the entry of commercial trucks was partially approved.

‘The declared policy of Israel for two and a half months after the ceasefire collapsed was that nothing comes in,’ Polizer said. ‘That was the policy because the plan was to pressure Hamas.’

The IsraAID CEO says the focus must be on saving lives, not on playing the ‘blame game.’ He urges the United Nations, the Israel Defense Forces, the  Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and all humanitarian organizations to work together and find solutions.

‘As a humanitarian organization, the concept of ‘do no harm’ is really our Bible,’ Polizer added.

A few months after the war started, IsraAID started to receive requests from global humanitarian organizations they had worked with in Afghanistan and Ukraine, asking for help to facilitate aid deliveries to Gaza.

These groups had issues with customs clearance and approval from the Israeli military to deliver supplies to Palestinians in Gaza. These were problems IsraAID could help solve.

Despite the political and cultural differences, Polizer said the Jewish community of the United States is stepping up to donate and support finding solutions for the hunger crisis in Gaza.

‘You can support the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but it does not mean you are anti-Israel,’ he concluded.

The U.S. State Department’s annual human rights report delivered a grim assessment of conditions in Venezuela, declaring that human rights have fallen to a new low following reports of widespread abuses and state-sanctioned repression, particularly after the July 2024 presidential election when Nicolás Maduro clung to power. 

‘The human rights situation in Venezuela significantly worsened,’ the report reads. ‘Throughout the year, and particularly after the July 28 [2024] presidential election, Nicolás Maduro and his representatives engaged in serious human rights abuses, reaching a new milestone in the degradation of the rule of law’ after the election, according to the U.N. Independent International fact-finding mission on the country in September.

According to the most recent State Department report, credible evidence indicates a dramatic escalation in arbitrary or unlawful killings, disappearances, torture and harsh prison conditions. NGOs and U.N. observers documented extensive restrictions on freedom of expression, with journalists and human rights defenders facing arrests, harassment and censorship. The judiciary remained deeply compromised — unable or unwilling to hold perpetrators accountable for abuses.

The report noted that the United Nations International Fact Finding Mission stated at least 25 people were killed in the first days following the July 2024 elections, including two children. 

Pro-Maduro leaders ‘harassed and intimidated privately-owned and democratic opposition-oriented television stations, media outlets, and journalists’ through threats, property seizures and prosecutions.

The sweeping report, which will go public Tuesday afternoon, also calls out Brazil and South America for human rights abuses. 

In a parallel diplomatic maneuver, the U.S. Department of Justice, backed by the State Department, significantly increased the reward for Maduro’s capture from $25 million to $50 million. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused Maduro of leading one of the world’s most notorious narco-trafficking operations, including associations with the Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa cartel and the infamous Cartel of the Suns. The Drug Enforcement Administration has reportedly seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his allies, with nearly seven tons directly tied to him.

This nullified the previous reward levels — $15 million initially set during Trump’s first term, later raised to $25 million under the Biden administration. Venezuela’s foreign ministry dismissed the bounty as a ‘political propaganda operation.’

The State Department report highlights an alarming absence of credible efforts by Venezuelan authorities to investigate or prosecute those responsible for human rights violations. Security forces, including the military, police, and colectivos — pro-Maduro armed groups — were repeatedly implicated in abuses, yet the justice system remained ineffective, allowing a culture of impunity to flourish.

Maduro was indicted in Manhattan court in 2020, during the first Trump administration, on narco-terrorism charges. 

The dictatorial Venezuelan leader held onto power after the 2024 presidential election where the U.S. and much of Europe recognized his opposition as Venezuela’s duly elected president.

U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Tuesday announced an indictment in Washington, D.C., accusing Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier and Bazile Richardson, a naturalized U.S. citizen, of conspiring to send U.S. funds to finance Chérizier’s Haitian gang.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Chérizier is a fugitive and is believed to be in Haiti.

His co-defendant, Richardson, who also goes by ‘Fredo,’ ‘Fred Lion,’ ‘Leo Danger,’ and ‘Lepe Blode,’ was arrested in Pasadena, Texas on July 23. 

Pirro said Tuesday that Chérizier is a gang leader who orchestrated and committed various acts of violence against Haitians.

In 2020, the U.S. sanctioned Chérizier under the Magnitsky Act for his alleged human rights violations. His indictment makes it the first of its kind for an individual sanctioned under the international Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, Pirro added.

Richardson and Chérizier grew up together in Haiti, though the former later became a naturalized U.S. citizen and was living in North Carolina.

Richardson was indicted for allegedly sending money to Chérizier, knowing that he had been sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act.

‘I want to let the public know that anyone who was giving money to Chérizier, also known as Barbecue, because of his violent acts in his home country, cannot say ‘I didn’t know. I didn’t know that he was sanctioned by the U.S government,’’ Pirro said. ‘They will be prosecuted, and we will find them because they are supporting an individual who was committing human rights abuses. And we will not look the other way.’

The State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program announced Tuesday that it is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Chérizier. Anyone with information about his whereabouts is encouraged to contact the State Department.

‘There’s a good reason that there’s a $5 million reward for information leading to Chérizier’s arrest. He’s a gang leader responsible for heinous human rights abuses, including violence against American citizens in Haiti,’ Pirro said. ‘The U.S. government sanctioned Chérizier in 2020 because he was responsible for an ongoing campaign of violence, including the 2018 La Saline massacre, in which 71 people were killed, more than 400 houses were destroyed, and at least seven women raped by armed gangs.’

Court documents show that Chérizier is a former officer in the Haitian National Police and leader of a gang known as the Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, which helped create a gang alliance called Viv Ansanm. The alliance united many of Haiti’s criminal gangs in opposition to the legitimate government of Haiti.

The indictment alleges Chérizier and Richardson, after Chérizier was sanctioned, led a wide-ranging conspiracy with people in the U.S., Haiti and other places to raise money for Chérizier’s gang activities, in violation of the sanctions.

Specifically, the two men solicited money from members of the Haitian diaspora in the U.S.

‘After sending funds to intermediaries in Haiti for Chérizier’s benefit, the U.S. and Haitian co-conspirators would send Chérizier images of receipts from money transfers,’ the DOJ said. ‘Chérizier used these funds principally to pay salaries to the members of his gang and to acquire firearms from illicit firearms dealers in Haiti.’

The Trump administration, in May, designated Viv Ansanm and Gran Grif – two of Haiti’s most powerful gang networks – as foreign terrorist organizations and specifically designated terrorists.

The move was aimed at disrupting the gangs’ operations and supporting efforts to restore order in the troubled Caribbean nation.

The designations brought serious legal consequences. Individuals or entities that provide material support to Viv Ansanm or Gran Grif could face criminal charges, loss of immigration benefits or removal from the U.S.

Former first daughter Ashley Biden this week filed for divorce from her husband of 13 years, according to reports. 

The 44-year-old also posted an Instagram story on the same day with the song ‘Freedom’ by Beyonce. 

In her post, Biden walks through a park giving a thumbs up while the song plays, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported the filing first. 

She also posted the quote: ‘New life, new beginnings means new boundaries. New ways of being that won’t look or sound like they did before’ over ‘Freedom Time’ by Lauryn Hill. 

Biden has been married to plastic surgeon Howard Krein since 2012. 

The estranged couple were wed in Greenville, Delaware, in a ceremony that combined her Catholic faith and his Jewish roots, according to People magazine.

A reception was held at the Biden family’s Wilmington lake house.

‘I kept telling Ash, we’ve got to open up the church and practice walking up and down the aisle so I can handle it,’ former President Joe Biden, who was vice president at the time, told People, saying he expected to be emotional at the ceremony. 

‘This is the right guy. And he’s getting a helluva woman,’ the former president said at the time. Biden met her husband through her late brother Beau Biden and started dating him in 2010. 

She mentioned her wedding when she introduced the former president at the Democratic National Convention last year. 

‘At the time, my dad was vice president, but he was also that dad who literally set up the entire reception,’ she said. ‘He was riding around in his John Deere 4-wheeler, fixing the place settings, arranging the plants, and by the way, he was very emotional.’

She added, ‘Before he walked me down the aisle, he turned to me and said he would always be my best friend. All these years later, Dad, you are still my best friend.’

Fox News Digital has reached out to a rep for the former president for comment. 

More than 20 Republican attorneys general are demanding that the Trump administration reinstate safety protocols for the abortion drug mifepristone, saying it poses ‘serious risks to women.’

In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, 22 attorneys general called on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drugs Administration head Martin Makary to bring back safeguards for the pills that were scrapped by the Obama and Biden administrations.

‘Recent comprehensive studies of the real-world effects of the chemical abortion drug mifepristone report that serious adverse events occur 22 times more often than stated on the drug’s label, while the drug is less than half as effective as claimed. These facts directly contradict the drug’s primary marketing message of ‘safe’ and ‘effective,” the letter reads, citing studies published earlier this year by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPA), a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

The EPPA report claims the pill presents harm to women, causing 1 in 10 patients to experience a ‘serious adverse event,’ including hemorrhage, emergency room visits and ectopic pregnancy.

The letter, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, comes after Kennedy Jr. asked Makary to review the latest data on mifepristone and its safety.

‘Based on that review, the FDA should consider reinstating safety protocols that it identified as necessary as recently as 2011 in its issuance of a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) for mifepristone, but which were removed by the Obama and Biden administrations,’ the letter reads, adding that the drug should be taken off the market if safeguards cannot be put in place.

‘Alternatively, in light of the serious risks to women who are presently being prescribed this drug without crucial safeguards, and in the event the FDA is unable to reinstate the 2011 safety protocols for mifepristone, the FDA should consider withdrawing mifepristone from the market until it completes its review and can decide on a course of action based on objective safety and efficacy criteria,’ the attorneys general wrote.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., also sent a letter to Kennedy Jr. last month urging him to take immediate action to reinstate safety guardrails on mifepristone following the secretary’s commitment to conducting a safety review of the drug.

Makary had previously said that he had no plans to modify policies surrounding mifepristone but that the FDA would act if the data suggested there was a safety issue.

Mifepristone, which is taken with another drug called misoprostol to end an early pregnancy, was first approved by the FDA in 2000 after ‘a thorough and comprehensive review’ found it was safe and effective, according to the agency’s website, which noted that periodic reviews since its approval have not identified new safety concerns.

Last year, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge targeting the drug’s availability. The plaintiffs had sought to restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in Democrat-led states where abortion remains legal. The court did not rule on whether the FDA acted lawfully when it moved during the Obama and Biden administrations to ease the rules for mifepristone’s use that had been established during the Clinton administration.

Medication abortions made up more than half of all abortions in the U.S. health care system in 2023, according to a study by the Guttmacher Institute.

‘Currently, a woman can obtain a mifepristone abortion by participating in only one telehealth visit with any approved healthcare provider (not necessarily a physician), ordering the drugs through a mail-order pharmacy, and self-administering them,’ the attorneys general wrote. ‘And the prescriber is only required to report an adverse event if he or she becomes aware that the patient has died.’

‘The FDA’s removal of these crucial safety protocols in 2016 (and in 2023) that only five years before the FDA considered necessary begs the question of whether the removal was motivated by considerations other than the safety of patients … The current FDA’s dedication to the health and wellbeing of all Americans is encouraging, as is the much-needed review of mifepristone that Secretary Kennedy has promised,’ the letter concludes.

Former Navy SEAL and current GOP House lawmaker Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona delivered a pointed message to former President Barack Obama.

‘You’ve done enough damage. Probably best to sit this one out,’ the congressman told Obama in a post on X.

Crane made the comments in response to a post in which Obama declared, ‘Since we passed the Affordable Care Act, Republicans have tried over and over to repeal it. And over and over, they’ve failed — in part because millions of people now depend on the ACA for quality, affordable health care. Now Republicans are trying something different: quietly weakening the law and hoping you won’t notice. We can’t let them.’

GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah wrote in response to the Democrat’s post, ‘Obamacare was a great deal—for huge healthcare companies But it’s made healthcare less affordable for hardworking American families, who have seen their healthcare costs skyrocket—while a small handful of healthcare giants have reaped a windfall of billions of dollars a year.’

‘The worst part of Obamacare was putting able-bodied, working-age adults on government assistance instead of helping them find employment. I’ve been vocally against this since day one. Medicaid should be for needy children, families, and seniors. Not for those who can work!’ former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is now the president of the Young America’s Foundation, wrote.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment on Obama’s post.

Obama served two consecutive terms as president, with his White House tenure spanning from early 2009 through early 2017, when he was succeeded by President Donald Trump.

President Donald Trump is weighing whether to deploy up to 1,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., as early as this week, Fox News has learned, in an effort to help deal with what he characterized as a surge in violent crime. 

The plans come just one day after Trump vowed on Truth Social to evict homeless persons from that nation’s capital. ‘The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,’ Trump said on social media. ‘We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.’

Trump’s plans, which are expected to be detailed further at a 10 a.m. press conference Monday, would likely involve members of the D.C. National Guard, or the 2,700-member National Guard force that acts at the express authority of the commander in chief.

Unlike other branches, Trump would not have to get the sign off of local authorities to act — likely making their activation a tempting option.

When speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week, Trump railed against what he described as a ‘ridiculous’ level of crime in the nation’s capital, buffeted most recently by the assault on a former DOGE staffer earlier this month.

‘We want to have a great, safe capital,’ Trump said last week. ‘And we’re going to have it.’

Trump also told reporters that his White House lawyers are looking into ending the Home Rule Act, a law passed by Congress in 1973 that gave Washington, D.C., residents the right to elect their own mayor and local representatives. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also told reporters last week that Trump had ordered law enforcement personnel to increase their presence in the capital, though the additional details on the scope and timeframe of that presence remain unclear. 

Trump is expected to address those plans in a press conference Monday morning. 

However, for Trump, delivering on this promise could be fraught with long-term legal complications — in part, because crime in the city is actually down to its lowest point in nearly 30 years.

Violent crime in the first seven months of 2025 has dropped by roughly 26% compared to 2024, according to data compiled by the D.C. Police Department and released earlier this month. Overall, crime in the nation’s capital has dropped by roughly 7%.

On Sunday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said in an interview with NewsNation that Washington, D.C., ‘is more violent than Baghdad.’ 

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, for her part, told MSNBC in an interview Sunday that ‘Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.’

However, it’s not the first time Trump has sought to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital — an effort he has returned to frequently, including during his first term in office.

Trump in March signed an executive order, ‘Making DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force,’ designed to address issues with a city he has long derided as ‘filthy,’ ‘horribly run’ and ‘crime-ridden,’ among other things. ‘We want to have a great, safe capital,’ he told reporters. ‘And we’re going to have it. And that includes cleanliness and it includes other things.’

However, those powers aren’t indefinite, experts explained to Fox News Digital.

Trump does have the authority to activate the 2,700-member D.C. National Guard without the approval of local officials. Guard troops provide ‘mission-ready personnel and units for active duty in the armed services’ in Washington, D.C., according to their website.

Beyond that, Trump’s ability to exercise authority in the nation’s capital is bound by the Home Rule Act. 

In the more than 50 years since that law was passed, ‘there really hasn’t been a serious conversation about ending home rule governance,’ George Derek Musgrove, a history professor at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County, told Fox News in an interview.

‘And the problem with our federal system is that there are places where Trump really doesn’t have any supporters, and therefore, with the limits of executive power, really doesn’t have that much sway,’ Musgrove said. ‘And he’s constantly probing for ways around that.’

Other options available to Trump aren’t without their own limits. In order to call up the local police force for any meaningful length of time, as Trump has suggested, a president must be able to assert ‘special conditions of an emergency nature,’ according to the 1970s law.

‘If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take federal control,’ Trump said last week. 

However, that’s easier said than done, individuals familiar with the law told Fox News Digital.

‘DC is just a tempting target because there’s not even a lot of legal gymnastics you have to do in order to exert tremendous power [in a city with ]a 90% Democratic jurisdiction. He has it already,’ Musgrove said.

‘But it is morally questionable, I think, and violates democratic principles,’ he added.

President Donald Trump has renewed his call for Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, to undergo a cognitive test. 

”Congresswoman’ Jasmine Crockett is a Low (Very!!!) I.Q. Individual, much in the mold of the AOC Plus Three Gang of Country Destroying Morons – Only slightly dumber,’ Trump wrote on TRUTH Social on Monday. 

‘Each of these political hacks should be forced to take a Cognitive Exam, much like the one I recently took while getting my ‘physical’ at our GREAT Washington, D.C., Military Hospital (WR!),’ Trump said. ‘As the doctors said, ‘President Trump ACED it, something that is rarely seen!’ These Radical Left Lunatics would all fail this test in a spectacular show of stupidity and incompetence. TAKE THE TEST!!!

Trump previously said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., should take a cognitive test in June when the progressive ‘Squad’ leader demanded his impeachment over the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. 

Meanwhile, as the White House pushes Republican states to redistrict mid-cycle ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Crockett has accused Trump of pushing a ‘white supremacy agenda’ and ‘diluting the voices of people of color.’ The Trump administration asserts that Democratic states have engaged in ‘gerrymandering’ for years and encouraged illegal immigration to boost their congressional influence. 

In Texas, Democratic state lawmakers fled the state in an effort to stop the vote on a GOP redistricting plan that likely would have resulted in Republicans picking up five House seats. 

Crockett has accused Trump of hurling the low IQ insult as a racially-coded tactic to insult ‘people of color,’ including ‘The Breakfast Club’ host Charlamagne tha God. 

‘Newsflash, Wannabe Dictator: I don’t care how many times you shake the Etch A Sketch trying to redraw these lines,’ Crockett wrote on X last week. ‘I’m not disappearing. I’ll be back, still on your behind every step of the way. We’ve already been over this. I’ve got the degrees, the credentials, and the receipts. If you’re looking for ‘low IQ,’ try looking in the mirror – or at your own Cabinet.’ 

Despite the president describing her as having a low IQ, Crockett said Trump has the ‘most incompetent Cabinet in the history of this country,’ referring to the Signal-gate scandal earlier this year. 

Crockett has also dubbed Trump a ‘Temu dictator.’ At a progressive rally in Phoenix, Arizona, earlier this month, the congresswoman said on stage, ‘Donald Trump is a piece of sh–.’ 

‘This is a person who has a problem with people of color. Period,’ she told CNN. ‘I don’t care how many Black MAGA [are] out there with [their] hats, I want to be clear, when we look at who it is that he’s kicking out of this country, it’s people of color.’ 

President Donald Trump took aim at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a press event on Monday over his frustration with the Ukrainian leader’s objection to ‘land swapping.’

‘I get along with Zelenskyy, but, you know, I disagree with what he’s done, very, very severely, disagree. This is a war that should have never happened,’ Trump said, reiterating his belief that the Ukrainian president is in part at fault for Russia’s illegal 2022 invasion.

‘I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelensky was saying, ‘Well, I have to get constitutional approval’,’ Trump said. ‘I mean, he’s got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap, because there’ll be some land swapping going on.’

‘I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody,’ Trump added, noting it was ‘for the good of Ukraine.’

Zelenskyy – who did not declare war on Russia, as Moscow had already invaded, did declare Martial Law on Feb. 24, 2022 with the approval of Ukraine’s parliament, which gave him presidential powers to mobilize a military response — made clear over the weekend that he objected to Trump’s ‘land swapping’ proposal and has repeatedly said it would require a national referendum under the nation’s constitution, not a unilateral decision by him. 

Trump wouldn’t detail what exactly he hopes to get out of the meeting with Putin and described it as a ‘feel-out meeting,’ saying within ‘the first two minutes [he’ll] know exactly whether or not a deal can be made.’

‘I’m going in to speak to Vladimir Putin, and I’m going to be telling him, you got to end this war, you got to end it,’ Trump said, reiterating his belief that if he had won the 2020 election, Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine, saying ‘he wasn’t going to mess with me.’

‘I go into that thing fully loaded right up there, and we’re going to see what happens,’ he continued. ‘It could be a good meeting, and we’ll go a step further. We’ll get it done. 

‘I’d like to see a ceasefire very, very quickly, very quick,’ he continued. ‘And, we’re going to be dealing with the European leaders and, we’re going to be dealing with President Zelensky and hopefully we’re going to have a great success.’