Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas demanded Hamas disarm, relinquish power and release the hostages.

The Palestinian leader said that by letting the hostages go, Hamas would ‘shut down’ Israel’s ‘excuses’ to continue the war that began after the terror group’s massacre on Oct. 7, 2023.

‘The first priority is to stop the war of extermination in Gaza. It must be stopped – hundreds are being killed every day,’ Abbas said, according to the Times of Israel. ‘Why don’t you hand over the hostages?’ 

The Palestinian Authority president also apparently called Hamas ‘sons of dogs’ during his address.

Abbas was speaking at a meeting of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Central Council, which is expected to select a deputy who could be a successor to the 89-year-old PA president.

This marks the first time since the start of the war in Gaza that Abbas has called on Hamas to transfer its authority to the PA, according to Reuters, but he has done so in the past. 

It is unclear whether Hamas will comply with Abbas’ demand, despite his assertion that it could help end the war and save Palestinian lives in Gaza. Hamas and the PA have been at odds for nearly two decades, since the terror organization seized power in 2006 and pushed the PA out of Gaza.

The international community has pushed for the PA to play a role in a ‘day after’ plan for Gaza, but Israel has not been receptive to this idea.

The Israeli government and the Trump administration have long criticized the PA’s ‘pay for slay’ policy, which Abbas reformed in February of this year. The policy saw payments go to family members of Palestinians who were imprisoned, killed or injured in connection with attacks against Israelis.

‘This is a new fraudulent trick by the Palestinian Authority, which intends to continue making payments to terrorists and their families through other payment channels,’ the Israeli Foreign Ministry said at the time, according to Axios.

Deborah Lipstadt, who served as special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism during much of the Biden administration, has indicated that she is ‘pleased’ the Trump administration is seeking to tackle antisemitism.

‘I’m pleased that they’re addressing it, because that’s what I did for the past three years, which was to really push the Biden Administration to seriously address it. So I am very, very pleased that it’s on their agenda,’ she told the New Yorker. The outlet noted that the conversation with Lipstadt was edited for length and clarity.

Emory University announced in December that Lipstadt would return to the higher educational institution later in the academic year.

Fox News Digital attempted to reach to Lipstadt on Wednesday via the email and number listed on Emory University’s website, but did not receive a response to the comment request by the time of publication.

Lipstadt told the New Yorker that the Trump administration has been ‘calling universities to account.’ 

‘I also think there are many Jews, and some non-Jews, too, but many Jews who are disappointed by how universities have behaved since October 7th, and they see a strong – to use Passover terminology – a strong hand being used. Now, whether that hand is being used properly or not raises certain questions about what’s happening,’ she reportedly said, noting, ‘a lot of people were relieved to see this forceful approach. I think, in many respects, it’s going too far.’

She indicated that many colleges have fallen short in tackling antisemitism.

‘Look, the universities failed to address this seriously. And by failing to address this seriously, they failed the Jewish students on campus. They dismissed their grievances. They created an inhospitable atmosphere. We’re now seeing the fruits of that failure. What disturbs me so much is that the debate will now become over whether antisemitism is being used as a weapon to fight against people we don’t like. Antisemitism should not be a cudgel,’ she noted, according to the outlet.

‘The fight should be against antisemitism and not against the institutions. The institutions opened the door. Most universities failed miserably to address this, and we’re seeing the consequences of that now,’ she told the New Yorker.

President Donald Trump’s administration is firing or reassigning over 450 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency as part of a larger push to eliminate ‘environmental justice’ programs.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the employee moves on Monday, saying 280 staffers were being fired, and 175 others would be reassigned. The cut roles were in the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, the Office of Inclusive Excellence, and EPA regional offices.

‘EPA is taking the next step to terminate the Biden-Harris Administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Environmental Justice arms of the agency,’ a spokesperson told Axios.

Zeldin explained at a Monday press conference that tax dollars put toward environmental justice issues were widely misspent.

‘The problem is that, in the name of environmental justice, a dollar will get secured and not get spent on remediating that environmental issue,’ he said.

The firings come the same week that Zeldin launched talks with Mexico about eliminating sewage contamination that flows over the border from Tijuana to pollute California’s coastlines.

Zeldin visited San Diego to discuss the issue on Tuesday, noting that one of the affected areas is the training grounds for Navy SEALs.

‘The Americans on our side of the border who have been dealing with this… for decades, are out of patience,’ Zeldin said Tuesday. ‘There’s no way that we are going to stand before the people of California and ask them to have more patience and just bear with all of us as we go through the next 10 or 20 or 30 years of being stuck in 12 feet of raw sewage and not getting anywhere.’

‘So we are all out of patience,’ he continued. ‘There’s a very limited opportunity. We’re in good faith, both on the American side and also on the Mexican side, what’s being communicated by the new Mexican president is an intense desire to fully resolve this situation.’ 

Zeldin said that he met with Mexican officials for about 90 minutes Monday night to discuss the sewage spewing into U.S. waters — and relayed that the Mexican environmental secretary wants to have a ‘strong collaborative relationship’ with the U.S. to end the pollution. 

‘I will be speaking with the chief of staff to the Mexican environmental secretary to ensure that over the course of the coming days, over the course of the next couple weeks, that we are able to put together a specific statement from both countries on a mutual understanding of what Mexico is going to do to help resolve this issue,’ he said.

Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Several Supreme Court justices signaled sympathy Tuesday toward Maryland parents who are seeking to opt their children out of LGBTQ-themed classroom materials. One education expert said the case could lead to a ruling that expands parental rights in public schools nationwide. 

‘This looks pretty promising for the parent petitioners in this case,’ said Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow of the grassroots organization Defending Education. ‘I heard a lot of very aggressive questioning from the three liberal justices, but no matter how you slice this apple, it looks to be a very clear violation of the First Amendment, as exercised through the 14th Amendment’s right to direct a child’s religious upbringing.’

Perry previously served as the lead lawyer to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education from 2020 to 2021, where she drafted the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress.

‘They’re very malleable,’ Perry said of the 4-and 5-year-olds in the case. ‘They’re very much shaped by their environment, by what they’re exposed to, and they don’t have the meaningful agency to be able to opt out or object or push back. And so these individuals are learning their own familial values while being exposed to material that is, as Justice [Amy Coney] Barrett and Justice [Neil] Gorsuch pointed out, designed to influence their thinking.’

At the heart of Mahmoud v. Taylor is a lawsuit brought by religious parents—Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox—who argue that the school district’s policy violates their First Amendment rights by forcing their children to engage with instruction that contradicts their faith.

The Fourth Circuit Court, a federal appeals court, ruled last year that there was no violation of religious exercise rights, stating that the policy did not force parents to change their religious beliefs or conduct and that parents could still teach their children outside of school.

Several conservative justices, including Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, appeared sympathetic to the parents’ concerns during the two-and-a-half-hour oral debate. Alito questioned the moral messages conveyed by books like ‘Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,’ suggesting that such content might conflict with deeply held religious beliefs. Justice Brett Kavanaugh also pressed the school district’s attorneys on why opt-out provisions, similar to those in sex education, could not be extended to these storybooks.

Meanwhile, the liberal justices argued that mere exposure to these books may not constitute coercion or a violation of religious freedoms. The school district contended that the policy promotes inclusivity and exposure to LGBTQ viewpoints does not equate to forced belief changes.

‘I think it was highly sort of predictable,’ Perry said of the liberal justices’ arguments. ‘They are trying to prove that there is going to be too much of a burden on the school district to allow these children to opt out because the consequences could, for example, be catastrophic for the ability of a public school to manage its own affairs.’

‘The reason we see an issue like this at the Supreme Court is because these are issues directly related to religious liberty and directly related to the very early cognitive stages of development for minor children,’ Perry said. ‘And it’s very clear … that a burden of religious liberty within public education has to be treated quite seriously by the court and deference must be given to religious parents if the burden is very clear.’

‘I think in this instance, it is indeed crystal clear,’ she added. 

Among the storybooks at the center of the case is ‘Prince & Knight,’ a modern fairy tale aimed at children ages 4 to 8, which tells the story of two men who fall in love after joining forces to defeat a dragon and later marry. Another book frequently referenced during oral arguments was ‘Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,’ which follows a young girl processing her favorite uncle’s decision to marry another man.

‘Because parental rights have become sort of the cultural zeitgeist for where we are in this political day and age, I think we are certain to see more litigation, not less, and more pushback,’ Perry said. 

The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the case by late June.

Much remains unknown regarding the progress of Washington’s nuclear talks with Iran, but the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the international community must ‘trust but verify’ that Tehran is engaging in good-faith negotiations. 

The U.S. and Iran are set to hold a third round of discussions on Saturday, which will deal with the technical aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, as well as political negotiations, according to reports. 

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has applauded the U.S.-Iran negotiations mediated by Oman, but said the top nuclear agency has not yet been asked to assist in the negotiations, though he has been in communication with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. 

‘I think there’s a general expectation that this goes well, and that the agreement is verified by the IAEA,’ Grossi told reporters from Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. ‘It’s good the United States and Iran have a direct conversation. Of course, there are parallel processes.

‘We have to keep our eyes on the ball. We must avoid Iran or prevent Iran from getting weapons. This is the objective.’

Grossi said that from the perspective of not only the top nuclear agency, but from world leaders he has been in communication with, there is a ‘degree of expectation’ that after the political agreements are hashed out between Washington and Tehran, it will be the IAEA that makes the nuclear terms ‘credible’ and ‘verifiable.’

‘They all are expecting the IAEA to step in at the right time,’ he said. ‘We are at their service to support, to make this thing credible. In a certain sense, they may have a political agreement, but then we have to make it verifiable.’ 

Fox News Digital obtained a copy of an address Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi — who traveled to China on Wednesday to reportedly discuss progress in the nuclear negotiations — was set to give at the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference, though he never delivered the address due to format change requests by Tehran that were denied by the host. 

But in his address, he was set to position Iran as a proponent of nuclear non-proliferation and said Iran’s position had been ‘mischaracterized.’

Since the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran has argued made the deal mute, Iran has significantly advanced its programs by stockpiling near-weapons-grade-enriched uranium to levels that, if further enriched, could produce five nuclear warheads, as well as its centrifuges and missile capabilities. 

When asked by Fox News Digital if Grossi assessed the Islamic Republic’s position to be honest, he said, ‘Trust, but verify. We need to verify.’

‘We are inspectors — that’s the only way we build trust,’ he added. 

Grossi said the administration needs to identify what the end goals of this latest deal will be, as the framework of the JCPOA — widely criticized by Trump — is now very dated due to the advancements Iran has made. 

Issues like uranium stockpiles, inventories, centrifuge advances and weaponization capabilities are all on the table in the U.S.-Iran negotiations. 

‘We have a much more complex field in front of us,’ Grossi warned. ‘The good thing is we know what we need to look at. We have a unique perspective of that.’ 

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard referred two intelligence community professionals to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution Wednesday over alleged leaks of classified information, Fox News Digital has learned. 

An ODNI official told Fox News Digital that the intelligence community professionals allegedly leaked classified information to the Washington Post and the New York Times. A third criminal referral is ‘on its way’ to the DOJ. 

The official told Fox News Digital that intelligence community professionals should take the move ‘as a warning.’ 

‘Politicization of our intelligence and leaking classified information puts our nation’s security at risk and must end,’ Gabbard told Fox News Digital. ‘Those who leak classified information will be found and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.’ 

‘Today, I referred two intelligence community leakers to the Department of Justice for criminal referral, with a third criminal referral on its way, which includes the recent illegal leak to the Washington Post,’ Gabbard said. ‘These deep-state criminals leaked classified information for partisan political purposes to undermine President Trump’s agenda.’ 

Gabbard added: ‘I look forward to working with the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate, terminate and prosecute these criminals.’

An ODNI official said the move to refer for criminal prosecution is the first step in the process of ‘holding these individuals accountable.’ 

The official explained the process in their decision-making, telling Fox News Digital that they conducted an internal review and then sent the criminal referral to the Justice Department. The DOJ would then send the referral to the FBI to begin a formal, criminal investigation. 

‘We are aggressively investigating other leaks and will pursue further criminal referrals as warranted,’ the official told Fox News Digital. ‘Any intelligence community bureaucrat who is considering leaking to the media should take this as a warning.’ 

The official added that the Trump administration ‘will identify leakers and leakers will face legal consequences.’ 

Earlier this month, Gabbard established a new task force to restore transparency and accountability in the intelligence community. Fox News Digital first reported on the Director’s Initiative Group (DIG), which started by investigating weaponization within the intelligence community.

Officials said the group will also work to root out politicization and expose unauthorized disclosures of classified intelligence. In addition, it will work to declassify information ‘that serves a public interest.’ 

Gabbard also has held employees who participated in sexually explicit NSA chatrooms accountable, and is pursuing action on those who have made unauthorized leaks of classified information within the intelligence community. 

Elon Musk may be easing off his role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE ), but President Donald Trump isn’t easing off his praise. 

On Wednesday, Trump praised Musk’s smarts and patriotism during an executive order signing in the Oval Office, brushing off critics and defending the tech mogul’s work on federal reform.

‘He’s an incredible… brilliant guy,’ Trump said. ‘He was a tremendous help both in the campaign, and in what he’s done with DOGE.’

DOGE, launched in 2025, has served as a hallmark of Trump’s second-term agenda to cut waste, streamline federal agencies, and apply private-sector principles to federal operations. 

Musk’s informal advisory role in the effort has drawn both attention and criticism.

In an exchange with a reporter, Trump addressed what he described as unfair treatment of Musk and Tesla. ‘They took it out on Tesla, and I just thought it was so unfair because he’s trying to help the country, but he has helped the country… He didn’t need to do this. He did it,’ he said.

Trump’s remarks came as tensions have hit an all-time high for Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla. 

A Kansas City dealership was recently firebombed, causing over $200,000 in damage. In Europe, a Tesla executive canceled a scheduled appearance in Rome over reported security threats. These incidents have occurred alongside ongoing protests at Tesla’s Berlin gigafactory.

Trump continued his praise, referencing Musk’s aerospace work with SpaceX: ‘When you see those rockets go up and come back and land in the same gantry, nobody else can do that but this man. So he’s just an incredible person, and he’s a friend of mine as a nice person too, as a very nice person.’

He also noted Musk’s broad technological contributions. ‘He’s a great patriot… he makes a great product… it’s a great car. It’s [a] great everything. Starlink is great. What he does is good. He’s doing medical things that are amazing.’

A recent Fox News poll shows that while 49% of Americans think DOGE will make the government more efficient, 52% believe the Trump administration has not been ‘competent and effective’ in managing federal operations — a sentiment unchanged from 2017.