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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Kyiv is nearly ready to present a refined peace plan to the United States after days of talks with European partners, even as he maintains that Ukraine cannot give up any territory to Russia.

Zelenskyy said he reviewed the results of negotiations held in London with European national security advisors and that Ukraine and its European partners had further developed their components of potential steps toward ending the war. He said Kyiv is prepared to share the updated documents with Washington and is in ‘constant contact’ with the United States as the process moves forward.

‘We are working very actively on all components of potential steps toward ending the war,’  Zelenskyy posted on X. ‘The Ukrainian and European components are now more developed, and we are ready to present them to our partners in the U.S. Together with the American side, we expect to swiftly make the potential steps as doable as possible.’ 

‘We are committed to a real peace and remain in constant contact with the United States,’ he wrote. ‘And, as our partners in the negotiating teams rightly note, everything depends on whether Russia is ready to take effective steps to stop the bloodshed and prevent the war from reigniting. In the near future, we will be ready to send the refined documents to the United States.’

The update came one day after Zelenskyy insisted his country cannot cede territory to Russia, complicating earlier peace proposals. 

‘Under our laws, under international law — and under moral law — we have no right to give anything away,’ Zelenskyy told reporters Monday, per The Washington Post. ‘That is what we are fighting for.’

Zelenskyy on Tuesday is in Brussels to meet with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, after meeting in London with British, French and German leaders.

The Ukrainian leader is under growing pressure from the U.S. to accept a framework to end the war after close to four years of fighting with Russia.

An initial draft of the 28-point plan, brokered by White House envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, spooked Ukrainian and European leaders who said it was too deferential to Russia’s demands. Ukrainian officials met with Witkoff and whittled the plan down. 

Zelenskyy told reporters that in European talks the ‘obvious anti-Ukrainian points were removed.’ 

Trump on Sunday accused Zelenskyy of not keeping up with the latest on peace talks.

‘I’m a little bit disappointed that President Zelenskyy hasn’t yet read the proposal, that was as of a few hours ago,’ Trump told reporters at the Kennedy Center in D.C. Sunday. ‘His people love it, but he hasn’t.’

‘Russia, I guess, would rather have the whole country when you think of it, but Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelenskyy is fine with it,’ Trump added.

Leaked versions of the initial deal had offered Russia swaths of Ukrainian territory, both lands it has occupied throughout the war and the Donbas region, which it has yet to seize in full.

It offered Ukraine no path to NATO but Europe and U.S.-backed security guarantees that were not definitive. 

Ukraine views NATO membership as essential to preventing a Russian attack — seeking a path to NATO is enshrined in its constitution. 

Ukraine is entering one of the hardest stretches of the nearly four-year war, giving new urgency to the negotiations. Russian troops are pushing forward in the east as Kyiv struggles with shortages of ammunition and manpower. Meanwhile, Moscow’s continued strikes on Ukraine’s power grid have left the country facing rolling blackouts and widespread outages at the start of the winter months. 

Zelenskyy said in the past week alone, Russia launched more than 1,600 drones, roughly 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and nearly 70 missiles of various types against Ukraine.

And talks are heating up in tandem with a brewing scandal in Ukraine that has already pushed out Andrii Yermak, Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff and powerful gatekeeper who was leading negotiations, along with his justice and energy ministers. 

Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, has taken over negotiations, but is rumored to be caught up in the corruption investigation. 

Fox News’ Ashley Carnahan contributed to this report. 

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Senate Republicans have finally landed on a plan to tackle expiring Obamacare subsidies to counter Senate Democrats, but both are likely to fail in a vote set for later this week. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., announced Tuesday that Republicans had coalesced around a proposal from Sens. Bill Cassidy, R-La., who chairs the Senate health panel, and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, to counter Democrats’ legislation. 

The Senate is set to vote on the dueling proposals on Thursday. 

Cassidy and Crapo’s plan was given the thumbs up by the majority of Republicans during the conference’s closed-door meeting Tuesday afternoon, Thune said. 

Their proposal, which was unveiled Monday night but has been in the works for weeks, would abandon the enhanced premium subsidies in favor of health savings accounts (HSAs), funneling the money that has gone directly to insurers through the program to consumers instead.

Thune argued that Senate Democrats’ plan, which was unveiled by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., last week and would extend the subsidies for three years, would do little to curb the cost of healthcare in the country, and instead benefit affluent Americans and insurance companies. 

‘This program desperately needs to be reformed,’ Thune said. ‘The Democrats have decided we’re not going to do anything to reform it. And so we’ll see where the votes are on Thursday. But we will have an alternative that we will put up that reflects the views of the Republicans here in the United States Senate about how to make health insurance more affordable in this country, how to ensure that it’s not the insurance companies that are getting enriched, that it’s actually benefiting the patient.’

Republicans’ decision comes as more and more proposals were pitched among their ranks, reaching nearly half a dozen plans on the table for lawmakers to choose from. 

Cassidy and Crapo’s plan would seed HSAs with $1,000 for people ages 18 to 49 and $1,500 for those 50 to 65 for people earning up to 700% of the poverty level. In order to get the pre-funded HSA, people would have to buy a bronze or catastrophic plan on an Obamacare exchange.

The bill also includes provisions reducing federal Medicaid funding to states that cover illegal immigrants, requirements that states verify citizenship or eligible immigration status before someone can get Medicaid, a ban on federal Medicaid funding for gender transition services and nixing those services from ‘essential health benefits’ for ACA exchange plans, and inclusion of Hyde Amendment provisions to prevent taxpayer dollars from funding abortions through the new HSAs.

Both plans are likely to fail, however, given that Senate Democrats have rejected doing away with the subsidies in favor of HSAs, and Republicans contend that reforms to the credits — like income caps and more stringent enforcement on taxpayer dollars funding abortions — are must-haves for their support. 

Schumer argued that the ‘only realist path’ to preventing premiums from hiking ahead of the end of the year deadline to extend the subsidies would be for Republicans to cross the aisle and vote for their plan. He charged that the GOP’s plan was a ‘phony proposal’ that did nothing to extend the sunsetting subsidies. 

‘That’s what’s driving the price up, and they’re doing nothing about it,’ Schumer said. ‘The bill not only fails to extend the tax credits, it increases costs, adds tons of new abortion restrictions for women, expands junk fees, and permanently funds the cost-sharing reductions. Their bill is junk insurance. It’s been repudiated in the past.’

Both sides face a math problem in mustering bipartisan support for their respective proposals. And it’s unlikely that lawmakers break ranks from their party’s position, meaning both bills are doomed to fail. For some, the debate has devolved into a finger-pointing contest on which side was actually serious about addressing the growing healthcare affordability issue. 

‘It’s not a realistic plan that the Democrats have,’ Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said. ‘If the Democrats were actually coming to the table, I’d say, yes, we need to, but what they’re doing isn’t realistic.’ 

Before Thune’s announcement, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said that Republicans were in charge, not Democrats. 

‘They’re in charge of putting together the votes to pass something,’ Murphy said. ‘And so far, they have done zero outreach on this issue of any significance to Democrats, as far as I can tell.’ 

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A biopic about Brazil’s jailed former president Jair Bolsonaro is in production, his son Carlos has confirmed.

In a post shared on X after his brother, Flavio, entered the country’s 2026 presidential race, Carlos lavished praise on American actor Jim Caviezel, who stars as the ex-president in the film.

‘Jim Caviezel, thank you for everything,’ Carlos wrote, describing the ‘Passion of the Christ’ actor as a figure whose legacy would be ‘admired by good people and envied by those who seek destruction.’

Carlos added that working with Caviezel had given him ‘one of the greatest gifts’ of his life, before closing with, ‘God, Jesus and Freedom.’

Caviezel has been linked to far-right conspiracy circles in the U.S. and has drawn scrutiny over the political messaging in some of his roles.

He also famously starred as Jesus in Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ’ and ‘The Sound of Freedom.’

According to The Guardian, the biopic, ‘Dark Horse,’ presents a heroic vision of Jair Bolsonaro and is based on Bolsonaro’s successful 2018 campaign for the presidency.

It is directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh and written by former Bolsonaro Culture Secretary Mário Frias.

Jair Bolsonaro remains in prison after receiving a 27-year sentence for attempting to overturn the 2022 election results.

Authorities said he orchestrated a plot to invalidate President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory, leading to his imprisonment in September.

In addition to his sentence, a separate ruling has barred him from holding office until 2030, effectively ending his political career.

From prison, the former president issued a rare public endorsement naming Flávio as his preferred successor.

According to The Associated Press, Flávio, 44, has confirmed through his Senate office that he will run in the October 2026 presidential election against the candidate of the Liberal Party.

Flávio, who is the eldest of the brothers, described his decision to run as ‘irreversible,’ setting up a direct challenge to President Lula, who is seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term.

‘It is with great responsibility that I confirm the decision of Brazil’s greatest political and moral leader, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, to entrust me with the mission of continuing our national project,’ Flávio wrote on X.

His office also confirmed he has visited his father in prison.

Production on ‘Dark Horse’ is expected to continue into 2026, with filming planned in both Brazil and Mexico.

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Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky announced on Tuesday that he had introduced a measure to remove the U.S. from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, arguing that the decades-old alliance is obsolete, has been costly for American taxpayers and puts the nation at risk of engagement in foreign wars.

‘NATO is a Cold War relic. The United States should withdraw from NATO and use that money to defend our country, not socialist countries. Today, I introduced HR 6508 to end our NATO membership,’ Massie said in a post on X.

GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida shared Massie’s post and wrote, ‘Co-sponsoring this.’

‘NATO was created to counter the Soviet Union, which collapsed over thirty years ago. Since then, U.S. participation has cost taxpayers trillions of dollars and continues to risk U.S. involvement in foreign wars. Our Constitution did not authorize permanent foreign entanglements, something our Founding Fathers explicitly warned us against. America should not be the world’s security blanket—especially when wealthy countries refuse to pay for their own defense,’ Massie said, according to a press release.

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah introduced the ‘Not a Trusted Organization Act,’ or ‘NATO Act’ in the Senate earlier this year — Massie is now fielding companion legislation in the House.

Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty stipulates that ‘After the Treaty has been in force for twenty years, any Party may cease to be a Party one year after its notice of denunciation has been given to the Government of the United States of America, which will inform the Governments of the other Parties of the deposit of each notice of denunciation.’

The proposal advanced by Lee and Massie would use this escape hatch to extract the U.S. from the longstanding NATO alliance.

‘Consistent with Article 13 of the North Atlantic Treaty, done at Washington April 4, 1949, not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President shall give notice of denunciation of the North Atlantic Treaty for purposes of withdrawing the United States from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,’ the proposal declares.

‘No funds authorized to be appropriated, appropriated, or otherwise made available by any Act may be used to fund, directly or indirectly, United States contributions to the common-funded budgets of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including the civil budget, the military budget, or the Security Investment Program,’ the text of the measure stipulates.

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On Friday, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear challenges to President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship. The Fourteenth Amendment automatically makes all babies born on American territory citizens. Trump’s effort to overturn the traditional reading of the constitutional text and history should not succeed.

Ratified in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment provided a constitutional definition of citizenship for the first time. It declares that ‘all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.’ In antebellum America, states granted citizenship: they all followed the British rule of jus soli (citizenship determined by place of birth) rather than the European rule of jus sanguinis (citizenship determined by parental lineage). As the 18th-century English jurist William Blackstone explained: ‘the children of aliens, born here in England, are, generally speaking, natural-born subjects, and entitled to all the privileges of such.’ Upon independence, the American states incorporated the British rule into their own laws.

Congress did not draft the Fourteenth Amendment to change this practice, but to affirm it in the face of the most grievous travesty in American constitutional history: slavery. In Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Chief Justice Roger Taney concluded that slaves — even those born in the United States — could never become American citizens. According to Taney, the Founders believed that Black Americans could never become equal, even though the Constitution did not exclude them from citizenship nor prevent Congress or the states from protecting their rights.

The Fourteenth Amendment directly overruled Dred Scott. It forever prevents the government from depriving any ethnic, religious or political group of citizenship.

The only way to avoid this clear reading of the constitutional text is to misread the phrase ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Claremont Institute scholars (many of whom I count as friends) laid the intellectual foundations for the Trump executive order; they argue that this phrase created an exception to jus soli. Claremont scholars Edward Erler and John Eastman argue that ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ requires that a citizen not only be born on American territory, but that his parents also be legally present. Because aliens owe allegiance to another nation, they maintain, they are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States.

The Claremont Institute reading implausibly holds that the Reconstruction Congress simultaneously narrowed citizenship for aliens even as it dramatically expanded citizenship for freed slaves. There is little reason to understand Reconstruction — which was responsible for the greatest expansion of constitutional rights since the Bill of Rights — in this way.

This argument also misreads the text of ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ Everyone on our territory, even aliens, falls under the jurisdiction of the United States. Imagine reading the rule differently. If aliens did not fall within our jurisdiction while on our territory, they could violate the law and claim that the government had no jurisdiction to arrest, try and punish them.

Critics, however, respond that ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ must refer to citizen parents or risk being redundant when being born on U.S. territory. But at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification, domestic and international law recognized that narrow categories of people could be within American territory but not under its laws. Foreign diplomats and enemy soldiers occupying U.S. territory, for example, are immune from our domestic laws even when present on our soil. A third important category demonstrates that ‘subject to the jurisdiction thereof’ was no mere surplusage. At the time of Reconstruction, American Indians residing on tribal lands were not considered subject to U.S. jurisdiction. Once the federal government reduced tribal sovereignty in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it extended birthright citizenship to Indians in 1924.

The Fourteenth Amendment’s drafting supports this straightforward reading. The 1866 Civil Rights Act, passed just two years before ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, extended birthright citizenship to those born in the U.S. except those ‘subject to any foreign power’ and ‘Indians not taxed.’ The Reconstruction Congress passed the Fourteenth Amendment because of uncertainty over federal power to enact the 1866 Act. If the Amendment’s drafters had wanted ‘jurisdiction’ to exclude children of aliens, they could have simply borrowed the exact language from the 1866 Act to extend citizenship only to those born to parents with no ‘allegiance to a foreign power.’

We have few records of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification debates in state legislatures, which is why constitutional practice and common-law history are of such central importance. But the few instances in which Congress addressed the issue appear to support birthright citizenship. When the Fourteenth Amendment came to the floor, for example, congressional critics recognized the broad sweep of the birthright citizenship language. Pennsylvania Sen. Edgar Cowan asked supporters of the amendment: ‘Is the child of the Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? Is the child born of a Gypsy born in Pennsylvania a citizen?’ California Sen. John Conness responded in the affirmative. Conness would lose re-election due to anti-Chinese sentiment in California.

Courts have never questioned this understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment. In United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898), the Supreme Court upheld the citizenship of a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents. The Chinese Exclusion Acts barred the parents from citizenship, but the government could not deny citizenship to the child. The Court declared that ‘the Fourteenth Amendment affirms the ancient and fundamental rule of citizenship by birth within the territory, in the allegiance and protection of the country, including all children here born of resident aliens.’ The Court rejected the claim that aliens are not within ‘the jurisdiction’ of the United States. Critics respond that Wong Kim Ark does not apply to illegal aliens because the parents were in the United States legally. But at the time, the federal government had yet to pass comprehensive immigration laws that distinguished between legal and illegal aliens. The parents’ legal status made no difference.

President Trump is entitled to ask the Court to overturn Wong Kim Ark. But his administration must persuade the justices to disregard the plain text of the Constitution, the weight of the historical evidence from the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification and more than 140 years of unbroken government practice and judicial interpretation. 

A conservative, originalist Supreme Court is unlikely to reject the traditional American understanding of citizenship held from the time of the Founding through Reconstruction to today.

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When the South Korean boy band/K-pop sensation BTS takes the stage in Seoul this June, ending a four-year touring hiatus, it will mark more than just a comeback — it will validate one of the shrewdest soft-power decisions in recent memory.  

In 2022, at the absolute apex of their global dominance, the group’s seven members chose to fulfill their mandatory military service rather than seek exemptions, which would almost certainly been granted. Their management company, HYBE, supported the decision. The world got a masterclass in how cultural power is created. 

The cynics predicted career suicide. Instead, BTS demonstrated that soft power isn’t built on avoiding obligations — it’s built on embracing them. When they reunite on stage, they’ll do so with enhanced credibility, having proven their success didn’t exempt them from the responsibilities of ordinary citizens. Americans remember Elvis taking a similar course at the height of his fame.  

The great thing about soft power is that, while generated by creative individuals and companies, it’s to the entire nation’s benefit. Like economic and martial power, soft power generates influence that can be used to bolster a nation’s standing. Examples of soft power abound from Britain’s cricket legacy and rock ’n’ roll ‘invasion’ of the 1960s to French and Italian cinema to America’s NBA, jazz music and Hollywood’s entertainment machine. Now, South Korea is stepping up.

Thus, it is almost tragic that while BTS was serving in the military, the ecosystem that made the band possible faces mounting scrutiny. South Korea has become expert at creating cultural phenomena that captivate the world — and equally expert at treating the architects of that success with suspicion once they achieve scale. This is a pattern South Korea cannot afford.   

South Korea’s cultural preeminence did not emerge from a government plan. It sprang from creative ambition, commercial ruthlessness, and just enough regulatory space for experimentation. The K-pop system requires massive capital investment, sophisticated global distribution and executives willing to bet nine figures on whether teenagers in Jakarta and São Paulo will stream the same songs. 

Yet, there’s a reflex in South Korean public life that treats popularity itself as evidence of wrongdoing. Bang Si-hyuk, the producer who built HYBE and shaped BTS into a global phenomenon, now faces legal scrutiny over stock transactions — the kind of corporate governance questions that seem to emerge almost inevitably once South Korean companies achieve sufficient scale.   

The particulars matter less than the pattern: bold risk-taking generates soft power, then invites investigation once it succeeds. 

Executives who might build the next BTS or international TV steaming sensation like, ‘Crash Landing on You,’ watch what happens to those who came before and recalibrate their ambition accordingly. In cultural soft power, this reflex is potentially fatal. 

South Korea’s competitors are watching. China has spent billions trying to manufacture soft power through state-directed enterprises. The PRC has largely failed — because audiences smell propaganda. South Korean free enterprise is succeeding in creating cultural exports that are simultaneously local and universal, specific enough to feel authentic in Seoul and accessible enough to travel across the globe.  

This is South Korea’s opportunity. Japan was given a similar window in the 1990s with anime and video games, but largely failed to capitalize on the trend because of governmental missteps. South Korea could easily repeat that mistake and lose the global influence that comes with serious national soft power. 

South Korea needs to recognize soft-power assets as strategic resources. France protects its luxury brands because Paris recognizes these companies project French taste globally in ways no government agency could. South Korea should ask: What institutional arrangements allow us to maintain standards while protecting our champions? 

South Korea’s cultural preeminence did not emerge from a government plan. It sprang from creative ambition, commercial ruthlessness, and just enough regulatory space for experimentation. 

BTS’s decision to fulfill their national military service obligations demonstrates what’s possible when artists, companies and national interest align voluntarily. HYBE supported that choice. But South Korea can’t count on such choices being made repeatedly if the system treats success as inherently suspect.

In June 2026, when BTS embarks on a global tour generating billions in economic impact and incalculable goodwill toward South Korea, remember this moment almost didn’t happen. The members could have sought exemptions. Instead, they chose service and came back stronger. 

But South Korea can’t count on such choices if the message to cultural entrepreneurs is that success invites scrutiny. The next generation is watching, deciding whether to aim for global impact or settle for domestic safety.

South Korea stumbled into becoming a cultural superpower. It doesn’t have to stumble out of it. But that requires recognizing that the bold, imperfect figures who build global cultural enterprises are assets to be protected, not problems to be managed. 

BTS made their choice — they bet on their country. Now, South Korea needs to decide if it’s going to bet on the people who create the next BTS, or put them under investigation instead. 

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A new bill could see part of the national capital renamed after slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, introduced three months after his assassination.

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., is introducing legislation to rename the area that until recently had been known as ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza,’ she first told Fox News Digital.

‘Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization that wants to defund the police and take your speech away,’ Mace argued. ‘And what I want to do on the three-month anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s political assassination is celebrate him and the First Amendment and freedom of speech by renaming the plaza after him.’

Black Lives Matter is a far-left activist group that gained traction after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a White police officer.

It is not designated as a terrorist organization, but people on the right and even some Democrats have criticized it for going too far with calls to ‘defund the police,’ while questions have also been raised in the past about how it spends its funding.

A two-block area of Washington, D.C., was renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza by the city’s government in June 2020 amid nationwide protests over Floyd’s killing.

It was marked by a massive mural depicting the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ in the middle of the street.

That was reversed in March of this year after pressure from Republicans, including President Donald Trump, amid a crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts across the country.

Mace suggested she was not optimistic that her bill would get a House-wide vote but said she would ‘fight like hell’ for it.

It comes three months after Kirk was assassinated while speaking at a college free-speech event in Utah. Both Republicans and Democrats have condemned the killing as a tragedy and an attack on free speech.

Prosecutors in Utah are seeking the death penalty against Tyler James Robinson, Kirk’s accused killer.

Mace’s bill is one of several pieces of legislation introduced to memorialize Kirk in the wake of his death.

‘I think members of Congress have done their part, rank-and-file members. But there’s still more to do yet. And we need to make sure that we continue his legacy forever,’ Mace said.

A resolution honoring Kirk passed the House of Representatives in September with support from all Republicans and 95 Democrats. Fifty-eight Democrats voted against it, while another 38 voted ‘present.’

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The Senate is readying for a vote on extending expiring Obamacare premium subsidies, but the proposal on the table is all but certain to fail.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., unveiled Senate Democrats’ long-awaited plan to prevent the subsidies from lapsing, which Senate Republicans nearly universally panned. A vote on the plan is expected on Thursday.

‘I mean, it’s obviously designed to fail,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Fox News Digital.

Schumer’s proposal would extend the subsidies for another three years without any of the reforms demanded by the GOP. And bipartisan talks that have been ongoing since the government shutdown ended have virtually ground to a halt.

Thune said when the proposal fails, ‘if they want to have a serious conversation about a real solution, that can get underway.’

‘But, you know, we haven’t decided yet exactly what we’re going to do. But what that signals, though, and evidences, is they’re just not serious,’ he said.

Senate Republicans have not landed on their own proposal and may not before the upper chamber leaves Washington, D.C., next week until the start of the New Year.

There are several plans circulating among Republicans to choose from, but none have gained enough traction or support to hit the floor in a possible side-by-side vote.

The subsidies, which were initially passed under former President Joe Biden during the COVID-19 pandemic and then enhanced to virtually remove any income caps — one of the many sticking points for Republicans — are set to expire by the end of the year.

While the Senate struggles to find a way forward, lawmakers are quick to point the finger at who would own the subsidies’ expiration.

Senate Republicans contend that it’s Schumer and Senate Democrats who are to blame, given that they set the subsidies to sunset by the end of this year when they controlled the Senate. And Senate Democrats argue that Republicans would own the issue since they have yet to produce their own proposal.

Schumer argued that Republicans have ‘chosen to do nothing, absolutely nothing,’ as the deadline creeps closer. And he believes that Senate Democrats’ plan could succeed, despite a likely insurmountable math problem.

‘It is not a nonstarter, 13 votes could solve the problem,’ Schumer said. ‘That’s where the onus should be.’

But the plan is a nonstarter for Republicans for several reasons, including the lack of reforms, the length and that it has no inclusion of Hyde Amendment language that would prevent taxpayer dollars from funding abortions — a tricky issue that has largely derailed bipartisan negotiations.

Meanwhile, Republicans are eyeing a proposal that would send the subsidy money directly to Americans in the form of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), a plan first pushed by Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., and then co-opted by President Donald Trump.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., has been working on an HSA plan that he presented, among other ideas, last week to Senate Republicans during their closed-door lunch. Still, lawmakers exited the meeting and left Washington by the end of the week, without a counteroffer to Senate Democrats’ dead-on-arrival proposal.

‘The president gave the marching orders. We’re working on it. We want to deliver it,’ Cassidy told Fox News’ Shannon Bream.

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The Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency have exposed what they describe as a secret Hamas money-exchange network operating in central Turkey ‘under Iran’s direction,’ according to documents and statements released this week.

According to the intelligence released by the IDF and ISA, exiled Gazans based in Turkey have used the country’s financial infrastructure to move large sums of money for Hamas, with transfers totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

The agencies say the network operates in cooperation with the Iranian regime, transferring funds to Hamas and its senior officials and, according to Israel, helping the group rebuild its capabilities outside Gaza.

The newly exposed documents include records of currency transfers amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, which officials say represent only a small portion of the overall activity.

According to the Israeli security agencies, the network receives, stores, and transfers Iranian funds from within Turkey.

The IDF and ISA identified three Gazan operatives working in Turkey whom they say are central to the network: Tamer Hassan, described as a senior official in Hamas’s finance office in Turkey operating directly under Khalil al-Hayya, and currency exchangers Khalil Farwana and Farid Abu Dair.

Israel says Iran’s backing has remained constant and that Hamas continues to rebuild its operational capabilities beyond the borders of the Gaza Strip.

The timing of the IDF and ISA revelations comes amid an ongoing U.S. debate over Turkey’s regional role and its relationship with Hamas. Fox News has previously reported that Turkey has hosted Hamas figures for years and has sought a leading role in postwar Gaza, even as the Trump administration weighs whether to allow Turkish troops to participate in a U.S.-backed stabilization mission.

Sinan Ciddi, a Turkey expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital that Ankara’s political protection of Hamas — paired with its hostility toward Israeli military actions — has created a permissive sanctuary that Israeli pressure alone cannot shut down. 

Ciddi argues the presence of Turkish-based operatives shows how Hamas has diversified its financial footprint to evade sanctions and border controls. Ciddi added that for Israel, ‘this is not just a financial concern but a strategic warning signal’, arguing that Iran is embedding itself deeper into Turkey’s economic ecosystem and enabling a regional proxy to regenerate and project forces. If left unchecked, he warned, ‘the network could fuel future attacks and expand Hamas’s influence across the region, undermining Israel’s war aims and long-term security.’

In a recent interview with Fox News Digital, Gonul Tol, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and author of ‘Erdoğan’s War: A Strongman’s Struggle at Home and in Syria,’ said Turkey’s aggressive Gaza posture is deeply tied to Erdoğan’s domestic political survival and his longstanding support for Islamist movements across the region.

‘The primary goal there is domestic politics,’ she said. ‘Erdoğan has always framed himself as the champion of the Palestinian cause, and by his most conservative constituency, he’s often pushed to take a strong stance against Israel.’

But Tol noted that Erdoğan has also been pragmatic behind the scenes, particularly in his dealings with Washington. ‘People in his circle say the Hamas leadership had been asked to leave Turkey quietly. They are doing everything not to anger the Trump administration,’ she said.

She added that Erdoğan even pushed Hamas to accept Trump’s Gaza proposal, noting that it included provisions that did not favor the organization.

Israeli officials have long argued that Turkey’s permissive environment has allowed Hamas to operate external networks, including financial arms backed by Iran, and say the newly released intelligence underscores the risks of allowing Turkey deeper involvement in Gaza’s future.

In announcing the findings, the IDF and ISA warned individuals and institutions against engaging with the exposed network or any other financial arms linked to Hamas, saying such interactions risk contributing to terrorist financing and aiding Hamas’s attempts to reconstitute its infrastructure abroad.

The Turkish Embassy did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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A co-founder of the House of Representatives’ DOGE Caucus is declaring that the movement for government efficiency is still alive and well, even if the surrounding furor has died down.

‘DOGE is alive. It certainly is not on the front burner as it needs to be. There’s still a lot of members of Congress that want to continue the battle [against] waste, fraud and abuse,’ Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., co-chair of the House DOGE Caucus, told Fox News Digital.

‘We’re still $38 trillion in debt, that’s growing. So anything we can possibly do — we’re still looking to continue the DOGE efforts.’

Bean said he was hoping to soon hold more caucus meetings ‘just to let everybody know DOGE is not dead.’

The concept of ‘DOGE’ took Washington — Republicans in particular — by storm earlier this year, when President Donald Trump tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead an initiative called the ‘Department of Government Efficiency.’

Musk said at the time that he was committed to finding as much as $2 trillion in savings for the federal government. That goal was not reached by the time Musk reached the end of his tenure, however.

The DOGE website, which has not been updated since early October, claims an estimated $214 billion in savings for the federal government.

But Bean and other Republicans have tried to keep it alive, celebrating that cutting bureaucratic red tape and bloated federal contracts was finally generating enthusiasm in the cultural zeitgeist.

Musk’s push spurred multiple similar efforts in Congress, including Bean’s caucus and a House Oversight subcommittee called ‘Delivering on Government Efficiency’ (DOGE).

The caucus, which is also co-chaired by Reps. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Blake Moore, R-Utah, had several meetings that saw Republicans and even some Democrats in attendance.

Those, too, have since wound down, but Bean told Fox News Digital that he’s looking to bring them back and could begin with a focus on unused office space owned by the U.S. government.

‘I’m not saying it’s mismanaged, I’m just saying it’s not the most efficient use of taxpayer dollars to maintain all this space where people still work from home or are working across the country,’ Bean said. ‘That’s something that I think we can coalesce around, save some money as well as get spending under control.’

He also said he hoped for more bipartisan participation going forward, telling Fox News Digital, ‘It shouldn’t be a partisan issue. Everybody should be on board.’

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