Vice President JD Vance is poised to kick off a trip to Italy and India on Friday – marking his third international trip with the Trump administration. 

Vance and the second family are poised to meet with and ‘discuss shared economic and geopolitical priorities with leaders in each country,’ according to a statement from Vance’s office. 

When in Rome, Vance is scheduled to meet with Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. He will meet with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi while visiting New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra. 

Meanwhile, Meloni is also slated to visit the White House on Thursday in Washington. 

The vice president and the second family are also planning to conduct engagements at several unspecified cultural sites. 

The vice president’s office did not provide specifics regarding their trip.

It comes as the White House has said that more than 75 countries have reached out seeking to negotiate trade deals with the U.S., after the Trump administration unveiled historic tariffs on April 2. 

Both the European Union and India have signaled interest in brokering a deal with the U.S. on trade. Meloni has said Italy isn’t on board with the tariffs imposed on the EU, and is prepared to ‘deploy all tools’ to protect Italian businesses. 

The original tariff plan slapped 20% duties on goods from the European Union, as well as at least 26% duties on Indian goods. However, Trump announced on April 9 a 90-day pause on those tariffs where duties would be reduced to 10% as countries work to hash out trade deals with the U.S. 

Vance’s previous international trips include attending the Munich Security Conference in February, where he delivered remarks pushing Europe to ‘step up in a big way to provide for its own defense.’ He also warned that Russia and China don’t pose as great a threat to European nations as the ‘threat from within,’ concerning issues like censorship and illegal immigration.

In March, Vance visited Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, the Department of Defense’s northernmost military installation that houses Space Force’s 821st Space Base Group to conduct missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations.

In the wake of the arrest of two foreign nationals seeking to murder a U.S. journalist on behalf of the Iranian government, a bipartisan group of senators put forward a bill Tuesday to stiffen penalties on people who commit crimes in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries.

Sens. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., Jim Banks, R-Ind., Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., introduced the Deterring External Threats and Ensuring Robust Responses to Egregious and Nefarious Criminal Endeavors (DETERRENCE) Act.

The bill increases penalties on murder-for-hire schemers, those convicted of attempted murder or assassination of federal officials, as well as suspects allegedly involved in attempting to kill former officials because of their actions while in office.

Stalking and attempted kidnapping in the name of foreign governments would also lead to more serious charges for any offender. Many sentence enhancements fell at 10 additional years in prison.

‘If you commit crimes in America on behalf of foreign adversaries, you must face serious consequences,’ Slotkin said in a statement.

‘The bipartisan DETERRENCE Act helps strengthen penalties for these crimes and sends a clear message about how seriously we take our national security and how we will hold accountable those who commit crimes against our nation.’ 

In March, two foreigners appeared in New York federal court and pleaded not guilty to an alleged murder-for-hire plot against Masih Alinejad – an Iranian-born U.S. journalist.

Rafat Amirov of Iran and Polad Omarov of the Czech Republic and Slovenia were members of the Russian mob and were hired by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to kill the New York City resident, according to prosecutors.

‘Finally, I will face the men hired by the Islamic Republic to kill me, right here in New York,’ Alinejad said at the time.

‘I’m deeply grateful to my new country, the United States of America, for trying to keep me safe from the government of my birth country, Iran.’

Ernst said the U.S. cannot allow foreign adversaries like Iran to ‘fund crimes against Americans on our own soil.’

She called the DETERRENCE Act an example of Reagan-esque ‘peace through strength’ that puts foreign criminals ‘on notice’ and is a direct warning to anyone trying to act on Tehran’s motto of ‘Death to America.’

Meanwhile, Hassan said in a statement that Congress should pass the legislation as a clear message to foreign adversaries that they will face serious consequences if their criminal behavior crosses the U.S. border.

‘Foreign adversaries are working with gangs and criminals in the United States to try to kill people on our soil, which is a national security risk,’ she warned. 

Another reported foreign murder-for-hire plot was revealed last fall when an ex-Indian intelligence officer allegedly plotted to kill a U.S. citizen in New York who was a leader of a pro-Sikh independence movement.

Vikash Yadav’s October indictment reportedly laid out a connection to the Indian government, according to NPR.

While autism experts claim that the rise in cases stems from greater awareness and improved diagnostic testing, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shut down that idea Wednesday and, instead, attributed the rise in cases to environmental factors.

Those who discount that environmental exposure is a factor in rising autism cases are engaging in ‘epidemic denial,’ Kennedy told reporters Wednesday. 

Kennedy appeared at HHS’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., to discuss the latest findings on autism included in a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey released Tuesday. 

‘This is coming from an environmental toxin, and somebody made a profit by putting that environmental toxin into our air, our water, our medicines, our food,’ Kennedy said. ‘And it’s to their benefit to say ‘Oh, to normalize it, to say all this is all normal, it’s always been here.’ That’s not good for our country.’

Even so, the CDC’s own new survey Kennedy addressed found that autism prevalence is on the rise and said the increase ‘might be due to differences in availability of services for early detection and evaluation and diagnostic practices.’

Specifically, the survey found that one in 31 8-year-old children were diagnosed with autism in 2022 – up from one in 36 in 2000.

Additionally, the survey determined that autism rates were far more common for boys than girls. While one in 20 boys is diagnosed with autism, those numbers go down to one in 70 for girls. 

While Kennedy acknowledged Wednesday there may be some genetic vulnerabilities that could contribute to increased odds of an autism diagnosis, he said the autism rates spiked starting in 1989 and that some new environmental toxin must have been introduced around that time. 

‘Why are we not seeing it in older people? Why is this only happening in young people?’ Kennedy said. ‘Have you ever seen anybody our age – I’m 71 years old – with full blown autism? Head-banging, non-verbal, non-toilet-trained.’ 

As a result, Kennedy said HHS’ studies would examine toxins including mold, pesticides, air, water, different medications, as well as the age and obesity rates of parents, among other things. 

‘We’re going to look at all the potential culprits,’ Kennedy said. 

HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital regarding the apparent discrepancy between Kennedy’s remarks and the CDC survey. 

Kennedy signaled Thursday in a Cabinet meeting at the White House that the administration would kick off a massive research initiative to understand the cause of autism by September. 

The Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to policy and legal advocacy on behalf of those with autism, pushed back against Kennedy’s statements in the Cabinet meeting and claimed Kennedy refused to acknowledge studies that point to genes as the underlying cause of autism. 

‘There is no evidence that autism is actually becoming more common (rather, we as a society are getting better at identifying it, and diagnostic standards have appropriately been widened),’ the network said in a Thursday statement. ‘Even if it were, however, autistic and other disabled people belong in our society. To claim otherwise, and to speak as though our existence is some kind of calamity that must be eliminated, is a form of eugenics.’ 

A third high-level Pentagon staffer has been placed on administrative leave in two days as part of a probe into media leaks.

Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was escorted out of the building on Wednesday, following Dan Caldwell, senior advisor to Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, deputy chief of staff to Hegseth. 

‘We can confirm that Mr. Carroll has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation. We have nothing additional to provide at this time,’ a defense official told Fox News Digital. 

Carroll did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

The Pentagon has not provided specifics about what the three officials are accused of leaking. 

Last month Defense Department (DOD) announced it would launch a probe into ‘recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information’ and might employ the use of polygraphs to determine the source of the leaks. 

‘The use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation will be in accordance with applicable law and policy,’ DOD Chief of Staff Joe Kasper wrote in a memo. ‘This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense.’

He wrote that ‘information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure’ would be referred for criminal prosecution. 

The Trump administration has asked the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke Harvard University’s tax-exempt status, sources within the Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed to Fox News.

The Ivy League school’s failure to address antisemitism on campus is grounds for losing their 501(c)(3) status, Fox News’ sources said.

The IRS is expected to make a final decision soon on Harvard’s tax exemption, according to CNN, which was first to report the story. 

 In a recent social media post, President Donald Trump claimed that Harvard had ‘lost its way’ and didn’t deserve federal funding.

‘Harvard has been hiring almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots and ‘birdbrains’ who are only capable of teaching FAILURE to students and so-called ‘future leaders,” Trump wrote. ‘Look just to the recent past at their plagiarizing President, who so greatly embarrassed Harvard before the United States Congress.’

‘Many others, like these Leftist dopes, are teaching at Harvard, and because of that, Harvard can no longer be considered even a decent place of learning, and should not be considered on any list of the World’s Great Universities or Colleges,’ he continued. 

‘Harvard is a JOKE, teaches Hate and Stupidity, and should no longer receive Federal Funds.’

This is a breaking story. Check back with us for updates.

A third high-level Pentagon staffer has been placed on administrative leave in two days as part of a probe into media leaks.

Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was escorted out of the building on Wednesday, following Dan Caldwell, senior advisor to Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Darin Selnick, deputy chief of staff to Hegseth. 

‘We can confirm that Mr. Carroll has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation. We have nothing additional to provide at this time,’ a defense official told Fox News Digital. 

Carroll did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Last month Defense Department (DOD) announced it would launch a probe into ‘recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information’ and might employ the use of polygraphs to determine the source of the leaks. 

‘The use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation will be in accordance with applicable law and policy,’ DOD Chief of Staff Joe Kasper wrote in a memo. ‘This investigation will commence immediately and culminate in a report to the Secretary of Defense.’

He wrote that ‘information identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure’ would be referred for criminal prosecution. 

Caroll, a Marine Corps reservist, most recently worked at defense contractor Anduril, which develops autonomous weapons systems. Both Selnick and Caldwell worked at Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group once led by Hegseth. 

The Pentagon has not provided specifics about what the three officials are accused of leaking. An official told Politico that the leak concerned Panama Canal plans and Elon Musk’s visit to the Pentagon and a second aircraft carrier being deployed to the Red Sea. 

The DOD followed the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice in announcing it would use polygraphs to root out alleged leakers. But the DOD memo came after President Donald Trump pushed back on a New York Times report that Department of Government Efficiency leader Elon Musk would be briefed on ‘war plans’ with China during a visit to the Pentagon. Trump said he would not show such plans ‘to anybody.’