In a win for Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) advocates, six more states have gotten waivers allowing them to ban soda, candy and other high-sugar junk foods from being purchased through the federally funded, but state-operated Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. 

The waivers, which amend the statutory definition of eligible food for purchase under SNAP, were granted to West Virginia, Florida, Colorado, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. The new restrictions on what can and cannot be purchased will go into effect in 2026.

The six new waivers bring the number of states that have sought to restrict SNAP purchases of junk food to 12. The other states who received waivers from the Trump administration earlier this year were Nebraska, Iowa, Indiana, Arkansas, Idaho and Utah.

‘For years, SNAP has used taxpayer dollars to fund soda and candy, products that fuel America’s diabetes and chronic disease epidemics,’ Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said

‘These waivers help put real food back at the center of the program and empower states to lead the charge in protecting public health.’

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has praised the historic efforts that states, mostly those with Republican leadership, have made to help improve the health and nutrition assistance provided through SNAP. 

On average, 42 million low-income Americans receive food stamp assistance each month, including one in five American children under 17, according to a report from the Trump administration released earlier this year.

‘It is incredible to see so many states take action at this critical moment in our nation’s history and do something to begin to address chronic health problems,’ Rollins said after the latest announcement of new waivers. ‘President Trump has changed the status quo, and the entire Cabinet is taking action to Make America Healthy Again. … These state waivers promote healthier options for families in need.’

Of the 12 states that have been granted SNAP waivers thus far, all of them will restrict SNAP funds from being used to purchase sugary drinks, including soda, while at least eight of the states have indicated plans to ban SNAP funds for candy purchases. Some states, such as Florida, Louisiana and Nebraska, will explicitly ban energy drinks as well, while others, like Arkansas, have indicated drinks with less than 50% natural juice will be banned. 

ABC News medical correspondent Darien Sutton argued the move, although pushed as an effort to improve health outcomes, lacks evidence.

‘There’s no evidence that taking away access to soda will actually fight these conditions,’ he said, according to ABC News. ‘Sugar is one of those culprits that you always have to be mindful of.’ 

Sutton pointed out that U.S. dietary guidelines recommend that men do not have more than 35 grams of sugar per day, while women are told to limit it to 25 grams per day. 

President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin appear to be on track to soon have their first meeting since Trump took office for his second term earlier this year.

‘As for Ukrainian affairs directly, at the suggestion of the American side, an agreement was agreed upon in principle to hold a bilateral meeting at the highest level in the coming days, that is, a meeting of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump,’ aide to the Russian president Yuri Ushakov noted, according to a Russian to English translation by Google Translate of Ushakov’s comments.

‘As for the option of a trilateral meeting, which for some reason was discussed yesterday in Washington, this option was simply mentioned by the American representative during the meeting in the Kremlin. But this option was not specifically discussed. The Russian side left this option completely, without comment,’ Ushakov noted. ‘We propose first of all to focus on preparing a bilateral meeting with D. Trump and we believe that the main thing is for this meeting to be successful and productive.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment early on Thursday morning.

The potential meeting would come as President Trump has been trying to help broker an end to the years-long Russia-Ukraine war.

‘My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made!’ Trump declared in a Wednesday post on Truth Social. 

‘Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt noted, ‘As President Trump said earlier today on TRUTH Social, great progress was made during Special Envoy Witkoff’s meeting with President Putin. The Russians expressed their desire to meet with President Trump, and the President is open to meeting with both President Putin and President Zelensky. President Trump wants this brutal war to end.’

Fox News Channel’s Peter Doocy contributed to this report

Veteran Democratic operative Anita Dunn will be on Capitol Hill on Thursday for a closed-door interview with House Oversight Committee investigators.

She is the tenth former White House official to appear before the panel’s lawyers, as Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., probes whether former President Joe Biden’s inner circle worked to cover up signs of mental decline in the elderly leader – and whether executive actions signed via autopen were done without his awareness.

Dunn is appearing voluntarily before the committee’s lawyers for a transcribed interview. It’s expected to begin around 10 a.m. and will likely last several hours into the afternoon.

Three of the 10 former Biden administration officials who have appeared so far have come under subpoena, and each pleaded the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering material questions.

Appearing voluntarily does not give people the ability to invoke the constitutional right against self-incrimination, but it’s possible Dunn will give House investigators little to work with.

The six former White House aides who appeared voluntarily before her have all defended Biden’s mental acuity and ability to serve as president, sources said, even as some, like ex-Chief of Staff Ron Klain, have conceded the 82-year-old’s age has worn on him over time.

Dunn, like those who appeared before her, has known Biden for years.

She’s been a key player in Democratic communications and public relations strategies for decades, and reportedly was a central figure in Biden’s messaging strategy both at the White House and during his short-lived 2024 campaign.

‘She’s running everything,’ one unnamed White House advisor told CNN in June 2023 while discussing Biden’s re-election bid.

A January 2023 report by NBC News described Dunn and her husband, former Obama administration White House counsel Robert Bauer, as central figures in Biden’s orbit. Bauer also reportedly served as Biden’s personal lawyer.

‘If it’s a room of five people, Anita and Bob are two of them,’ an unnamed former White House aide told the outlet.

Dunn was also a central figure amid the fallout after Biden’s disastrous June 2024 debate against then-candidate Donald Trump.

NBC News reported in July 2024 that Biden family members discussed whether he should fire Dunn and Bauer, though White House chief of staff Jeff Zients dismissed the reports as ‘unfounded and insulting rumors’ in a statement to the outlet at the time.

Dunn served as White House communications director under former President Barack Obama, and Biden brought her onto his 2020 campaign to help with his own communications strategy.

She also served as senior advisor to the president for communications in the Biden White House before playing a key role in his 2024 campaign.

Comer wrote in his letter summoning Dunn, ‘You served as former President Biden’s ‘most senior communications adviser.’ Former President Biden confided in you extensively over the past decade.’

‘The Committee seeks to understand your observations of former President Biden’s mental acuity and health as one of his closest advisors. If White House staff carried out a strategy lasting months or even years to hide the chief executive’s condition—or to perform his duties—Congress may need to consider a legislative response,’ Comer wrote.

The Supreme Court on Friday ordered additional arguments in a major case centered on whether race can factor into drawing congressional maps, a clear sign that redistricting remains top-of-mind for the justices ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Justices ordered both parties in Louisiana v. Callais to return for additional arguments next term. At issue is whether Louisiana’s latest congressional map — which includes the creation of a second, majority-Black district — should be considered an unconstitutional ‘illegal racial gerrymander.’ 

The Supreme Court order comes months after justices first heard oral arguments in the case in March. It requires both parties to file supplemental briefs by mid-September, outlining in further detail their view of whether Louisiana’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district ‘violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U. S. Constitution.’ 

Reply briefs should be filed no later than Oct. 3, the Supreme Court said in the unsigned, single-page order — just three days before the high court gavels in for the 2025-2026 session. 

The order comes after the Supreme Court in June said they would not decide the case this term as had been expected — punting it to the fall for further consideration. At the time, the justices said they needed more information before ruling on the case.

The issue underscores the challenges states face with congressional redistricting. 

Louisiana has revised its congressional map twice since the 2020 census. The first version, which included only one majority-Black district, was blocked by a federal court in 2022. The court sided with the Louisiana State Conference of the NAACP and other plaintiffs, ruling the map diluted Black voting power and ordering the state to redraw it by January 2024.

The new map, S.B. 8, created the second Black-majority district at the center of the Supreme Court case. However, S.B. 8 was almost immediately challenged by a group of non-Black plaintiffs in court, who took issue with a new district that stretched some 250 miles from Louisiana’s northwest corner of Shreveport to Baton Rouge, in the state’s southeast. 

They argued in the lawsuit that the state violated the equal protection clause by relying too heavily on race to draw the maps, and created a ‘sinuous and jagged second majority-Black district.’

That map remains in place for now, until the Supreme Court can hear the additional information submitted to the court this fall.  

Oral arguments in March focused heavily on whether Louisiana’s redistricting efforts were narrowly tailored enough to meet constitutional requirements and whether race was used in a way that violated the law, as appellees had alleged.

The high court’s request for additional information comes at a pivotal time for the U.S., as new and politically charged redistricting fights have popped up in other U.S. states ahead of next year’s midterm elections. 

In Texas, tensions reached a fever pitch this week after Democratic state legislators fled the Lone Star State to block Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s ability to convene a legislative quorum needed to pass the state’s aggressive new redistricting map, which would create five additional Republican-leaning districts. 

Under the state’s constitution, two-thirds of the House legislators must be present for the body to conduct business. With an eye to this rule, Democratic lawmakers fled the state to Chicago, New York and Boston — beyond the reach of Texas authorities and of Abbott, who has little power in the near-term to compel their returns.

The governor has, however, threatened to take them to court to have them removed from office altogether.

In a press conference Monday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stressed the magnitude of the redistricting efforts, and vowed to explore ‘every option’ in redrawing state lines.

‘We are at war,’ Hochul said, speaking alongside the six Texas Democrats who fled to her state.

 ‘And that’s why the gloves are off — and I say, bring it on,’ she added.

The move is part of a broader redistricting push aimed at helping Republicans defend their slim House majority. As with most midterms following a new president’s election, 2026 is expected to serve as a referendum on the White House — raising GOP concerns that they could lose control of the chamber.

Former first lady Michelle Obama praised former President Barack Obama as her ‘everything’ and the ‘coolest guy I know’ on his 64th birthday after the longtime couple joked about divorce rumors that have been swirling for months. 

‘Happy birthday to my love, my best friend, my everything! @BarackObama, even after all these years, you’re still the coolest guy I know,’ the former first lady posted to Instagram Monday afternoon, accompanied by a photo of the pair. 

The former president turned 64 Monday, with the former first lady sharing the birthday post on both Instagram and Facebook. Michelle Obama’s birthday message followed months of speculation that the couple’s more than 30-year marriage was on the rocks before the couple joked about the rumors during a July podcast. 

‘It’s my husband, ya’ll!’ Michelle Obama said jokingly at the start of a podcast of ‘IMO’ in July when the former president first joined the set. ‘When we aren’t (in the same room), folks think we’re divorced.’ 

The former first lady hosts ‘IMO’ with her brother Craig Robinson. 

‘She took me back!’ Barack Obama quipped during his appearance, joking, ‘It was touch and go for a while.’ 

Speculation had mounted for months that the presidential couple was headed to divorce, which heightened in January when the former first lady did not attend high-profile events such as President Donald Trump’s inauguration or President Jimmy Carter’s funeral. 

‘There hasn’t been one moment in our marriage where I’ve thought about quitting my man,’ Michelle Obama said during an ‘IMO’ podcast in July. ‘We’ve had some really hard times. We’ve had a lot of fun times, a lot of adventures, and I have become a better person because of the man I’m married to.’

‘Don’t make me cry now,’ Barack said. ‘Don’t let me start tearing up now.’

Michelle previously had dismissed divorce rumors, including in April when she addressed questions as to why she did not join the 44th president at Trump’s inauguration or Carter’s funeral. 

‘But the interesting thing is that when I say no, for the most part, people are like, ‘I get it, and I’m OK,’ right?’ she told podcast host Sophia Bush in April about how she spends her time. ‘And that’s the thing that we as women, I think we struggle with, like disappointing people. I mean so much so that this year people were, they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I are divorcing, you know? This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions herself, right? But that’s what society does to us.’

‘If it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labeled as something negative and horrible,’ Obama continued.

Fox News Digital reached out to Michelle Obama’s office for any additional comment Tuesday morning but did not immediately receive a reply. 

Fox News Digital’s David Rutz and Hannah Panreck contributed to this report. 

Senate Republicans are mulling whether to go nuclear after negotiations with Senate Democrats to ram through President Donald Trump’s nominees fell apart over the weekend.

The path to confirming dozens of Trump’s outstanding nominees was destroyed when the president accused Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., of ‘political extortion,’ and charged that the Democratic leader’s asking price for nominees was too high.

Now, lawmakers have left Washington without a deal to bundle dozens of nominees that made it through committee with bipartisan support, and a change to how the Senate handles the confirmation process is on the horizon.

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., berated Schumer and Senate Democrats for their ‘unprecedented’ blocks of the president’s nominees, and noted that every pick had been filibustered save for Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who glided through the Senate earlier this year.  

‘We have been working through the list, but there is still a large backlog because of the unprecedented filibuster by the Democrats of every nominee,’ Barrasso said. ‘And if they don’t change their behavior, we’re going to have to change how things are done here, because a president needs to have his or her team in place.’

Under normal circumstances, changing the rules in the Senate would require 67 votes, meaning that Senate Democrats would have to be on board with a change. However, there is a path that lawmakers refer to as the nuclear option, which allows for rules changes to only need a simple majority.

There is the political will among Republicans to change the rules, but doing so would open the door for Senate Democrats to do the same when they get into power once more.

‘I think that way is going to happen anyways, because of what Schumer has done. He’s forced this, and it’s ridiculous that he’s doing this,’ Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., said. ‘And so, whatever, we’re at this point, and we’ll do, you know what they say, every action requires an equal [reaction], and that’s what we’re at right now.’

Some of the options on the table include shortening the debate time for nominees, getting rid of procedural votes for some lower-level nominees, grouping certain civilian nominees ‘en bloc’ – something that is already done for military nominees – and, at the committee level, deciding whether to lower the number of nominees subject to the confirmation process.

Currently, over 1,200 positions go through Senate confirmation. Senate Republicans have been able to confirm over 130 of Trump’s picks so far, but had a loftier goal of doing at least 60 more before leaving town until September.

And there are over 140 nominees still pending on the Senate’s calendar. 

‘I think they’re desperately in need of change,’ Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters. ‘I think that the last six months have demonstrated that this process, nominations, is broken. And so I expect there will be some good robust conversations about that.’

As to when lawmakers will try to run with a rules change is still in the air. The Senate is gone from Washington until early September and will return to a looming deadline to avert a partial government shutdown.

Before leaving town, the Senate did advance a trio of spending bills – a first in the upper chamber since 2018 – but those same bills are unlikely to pass muster in the House, given that they spend at higher levels than the ones greenlit by the House GOP.

Ramming a rules change through without Democrats could also come at a price for government funding negotiations. Schumer said a possible rules change would be a ‘huge mistake’ for Republicans to do on their own.

‘Because when they go at it alone, they screw up for the American people and for themselves,’ he said.

When asked if there were any possible rule changes that he and Senate Democrats could agree to, Schumer said, ‘We should be working together on legislation to get things done for the American people.’

‘That’s the way to go, not changing the rules, because when they change the rules, they say, ‘Only we’re going to decide what’s good for the American people,’ and every time they do that, the American people lose,’ Schumer said.

Still, Republicans were unhappy with the way negotiations devolved after days of back and forth.

‘We actually, we wanted a deal,’ Mullin said. ‘And these people deserve to be put in position… they’re going to say that we’re trying to do a nuclear option. The fact is, they – Schumer – went nuclear a long time.’

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., is calling on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to revoke the nonprofit status of a Muslim advocacy group that he believes has ties to terror groups, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the letter, Cotton notes that ‘in the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history, [the Council on American-Islamic Relations] was listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee.’ CAIR was listed as an unindicted coconspirator in the infamous Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terrorism financing case. The organization later attempted, unsuccessfully, to have its name removed from the list.

The Justice Department found that HLF and five of its leaders had, while working together and with others, ‘provided material support to the Hamas movement.’ In total, the groups provided Hamas with approximately $12.4M, according to the DOJ.

HLF was convicted on ’10 counts of conspiracy to provide, and the provision of, material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization; 11 counts of conspiracy to provide, and the provision of, funds, goods and services to a Specially Designated Terrorist; and 10 counts of conspiracy to commit, and the commission of, money laundering.’

‘The IRS has broad authority to examine whether an entity’s operations align with its exempt purpose. Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right, and it should not subsidize organizations with links to terrorism,’ Cotton wrote.

CAIR characterized Cotton’s demand as being ‘based on debunked conspiracy theories,’ and likened the senator’s request to the IRS to the McCarthy era.

‘We are an independent American civil rights organization that has spent over thirty years defending the Constitution, countering anti-Muslim bigotry, and opposing injustice here and abroad, including discrimination, hate crimes, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide,’ CAIR said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

‘We specifically condemned the Oct. 7th attacks on civilians, just as we condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This is called moral consistency. Senator Cotton should try it,’ the organization added.

CAIR was disavowed by the Biden administration after the organization’s executive director appeared to praise Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. In November 2023, just weeks after the attacks, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said he was ‘happy to see’ Palestinians ‘breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.’ Additionally, in his remarks, Awad appeared to further justify the attacks, saying that ‘the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense’ and that Israel does not.

The New York Times quoted then-Biden spokesperson Andrew Bates as saying that the administration condemned the ‘shocking, antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.’

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) slammed Awad’s recent remarks about the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. The national executive director said that ‘Netanyahu calls the shots. Trump pretends to be in charge.’ Additionally, the ADL pointed out that Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR’s Los Angeles chapter, referred to Congress and the White House as ‘Israeli-occupied territories.’

A total of 22 mRNA vaccine development contracts totaling roughly $500 million have been canceled, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Tuesday.

The mRNA investments were part of the government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of HHS that drives some of the country’s most advanced scientific research, such as the development of vaccines, drugs and other tools to fight national health threats. The termination of the 22 BARDA contracts follows a several-weeks-long internal review to determine a path forward when it comes to these investments.

‘We reviewed the science, listened to the experts, and acted,’ HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Tuesday. ‘BARDA is terminating 22 mRNA vaccine development investments because the data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu. We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.’

In a short video explaining the move, Kennedy said the benefits simply do not outweigh the risks associated with mRNA vaccines. 

Kennedy went on to point out that not only do mRNA vaccines – as shown during the COVID-19 pandemic – not perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract, but they also do not defend against mutations of the viruses they are intended to go after.

‘This dynamic drives a phenomena called anogenic shift, meaning that the vaccine paradoxically encourages new mutations and can actually prolong pandemics as the virus constantly mutates to escape the protective effects of the vaccine,’ Kennedy said in the video.

For example, the HHS secretary pointed to the omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus, which infected many millions, including those who had been vaccinated against COVID. 

‘A single mutation can make mRNA vaccines ineffective,’ Kebbedy added, noting that the same risks also apply to the flu virus. 

The move to cancel the mRNA contracts under BARDA will not entirely cancel all mRNA vaccine research done by the government, a source familiar with the move indicated. In addition to allowing some final-stage contracts to run their course to completion in an effort to preserve prior taxpayer investments, ongoing mRNA research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will not be impacted by this latest move. 

Meanwhile, in lieu of the terminated mRNA research and investments at BARDA, HHS will focus on ‘safer, broader vaccine strategies,’ Kennedy indicated.

‘To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we’re prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies like whole virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate,’ Kennedy said in his video explanation about the terminated mRNA investments.

During the video, Kennedy reiterated his support for ‘safe, effective vaccines’ for any American who wants them.

‘That’s why we’re moving beyond the limitations of mRNA for respiratory viruses and investing in better solutions.’