作者： root

Maine Democrats, rattled by Platner’s downfall, protest fatal ICE shooting

2026-07-14T23:23:27.768Z / Reuters

Summary

In Maine, immigration politics heat up selection process for Democratic Senate candidate
Voters direct frustration at Republican Susan Collins at rally after ICE shooting
Maine Democrats will choose replacement nominee for Platner at July 25 convention in Bangor

BIDDEFORD, Maine, July 14 (Reuters) – As bewildered Maine Democrats face a deadline to replace Graham Platner after his U.S. Senate campaign imploded, a fatal ICE shooting has ​raised the stakes.

Community organizers quickly assembled a rally near the site of the shooting, drawing scores of protesters who marched from City Hall and Republican Senator ​Susan Collins’ office, disrupting local traffic as they chanted for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to get out of Maine.

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Zach Heiden, chief counsel at the ACLU of Maine, told rallygoers that their small town had joined the likes of Houston, Minneapolis and other communities where encounters with federal immigration agents have been fatal. Investigations into the shooting are ongoing.

The killing has thrust immigration enforcement into sharper focus in Maine as Democrats grapple with selecting ​a new candidate to run for the Senate in November’s midterm elections. Platner, an oysterman and progressive outsider, formally withdrew his candidacy on Friday after hemorrhaging support amid sexual ​assault allegations, which he denies.

“I voted for her myself many years ago,” Carla Yount, a self-employed 63-year-old in South Portland, said of Collins. “I will ⁠never, ever vote for her again, and I don’t think I’m alone in that.”

DEMOCRATIC FIELD TAKES SHAPE

Seven candidates have already filed ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to declare their intent to seek ​the nomination, including former gubernatorial and congressional candidates who lost in last month’s primaries: Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, former Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention ​Director Nirav Shah, ex-congressional aide Jordan Wood and social worker Paige Loud.

Dan Kleban, co-founder of Maine Beer Company and a former Senate candidate, said he filed his paperwork on Monday.

Bellows, a former executive director of the ACLU of Maine who attended Monday’s protest and spoke at a vigil on Tuesday, recalled a time when ICE did not exist.

“Good people, regardless of what side they are on, should stand up for the principle that the ​government does not kill people in the streets,” she told Reuters.

Other top candidates, such as Jackson and Shah, have since called for abolishing ICE while criticizing Collins for helping fund the ​agency with nearly $70 billion.

Collins’ office did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement earlier on Tuesday, she said the shooting “raises sufficient critical questions” and that she urged Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin “to cease ‌all non-urgent ⁠vehicle stops.”

In interviews, voters who had supported Platner lamented that he is gone and said they miss his message focused on the working class.

Christine Huber, a 51-year-old appraiser in Saco, said Mainers “are so fed up right now that they’re just going to vote for the next Democrat available.”

“I’m looking forward to somebody like Platner because of him rooting for the average working person,” she said. “The Trump administration is all about creating billionaires and how much money he’s made so far.”

Platner volunteers

posted an open letter
calling on the next nominee to publicly and explicitly adopt his progressive policy platform, ​which includes supporting the Medicare for All public ​healthcare proposal, refusing corporate donations, and opposing ⁠protracted foreign wars and mass deportation drives.

“The volunteer infrastructure that this movement built — the organizers, the door-knockers, the small-dollar donors, the hosts, the people who will make phone calls and staff tables between now and November — does not transfer automatically to whoever the party selects,” they said.

The Maine ​Democratic Party has until July 27 to select a new nominee. The party will hold its nominating convention on July 25 in Bangor.

Chris ​Hourcle, a 50-year-old from Gorham, ⁠said it will be an uphill battle for Democrats to unseat Collins, who has held her seat since 1997. Hourcle said he was highly supportive of Platner but was less enthusiastic about the candidates vying to replace him.

“Um, excited?” he said, taking a beat to think. “There are some that I will accept.” Hourcle said that would include Jackson or Bellows.

Holly Culloton, director of Biddeford Community Gardens, described herself ⁠as a “diehard” supporter ​of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who was “really excited about Graham Platner.”

“I loved his message, but you know what? He ​really messed up,” said Culloton, 70. “If we don’t get on that bandwagon and find a suitable replacement candidate for him, we’re going to be in trouble.”

William Connolly, a 23-year-old from Scarborough who strained his voice leading protest chants, said ​he hopes Jackson, Bellows or Loud wins the nomination.

“I swear,” added Connolly, a democratic socialist, “all I want is something better than this.”

Reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill; Editing by Michael Learmonth and Edmund Klamann

Inside the 24-hour sprint to convince Trump to drop his plans to toll Strait of Hormuz

2026-07-14T20:41:44.144Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/politics/trump-toll-strait-of-hormuz

President Donald Trump shocked Gulf allies and many of his own aides with his plan to impose a toll on the Strait of Hormuz, touching off an international scramble to convince him to reverse course on his demand, several sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

The abrupt announcement on Monday came despite months of warnings from Trump’s own advisers not to pursue the idea, for fear it would undermine the US’ own war aims — as well as validate Iran’s purported plans to charge fees in the strait, which the administration repeatedly characterized as illegal.

But as he surveyed the intensifying struggle over the strait that had drawn the US back into full-fledged war, a frustrated Trump pressed ahead anyway.

“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’” he wrote on Truth Social Monday morning, vowing to charge a 20% toll on all cargo shipped through the strait.

The surprise directive sparked a 24-hour sprint within the administration and across the Middle East to decode the specifics of a proposal that Trump had seemingly come up with on the spot. And while he reversed his plans on Tuesday, the episode further underscored the freewheeling, transactional nature of Trump’s approach to foreign policy, even in the midst of a prolonged war that he has no clear idea how to bring to an end.

Inside the White House on Monday, aides rushed to flesh out the logistics for creating such an unprecedented tolling system, including determining who would pay the fees and how they would be collected. Many officials and outside analysts initially assumed shippers would foot the bill, but the effort was further complicated by another Trump declaration later on Monday that US allies in the Gulf would be paying instead.

Those same Gulf allies’ leaders, meanwhile, were working frantically to get Trump on the phone in time to talk him out of the idea altogether.

By Tuesday morning, the flurry of appeals from nations — including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar — had succeeded. Instead of the US collecting tolls, Trump announced that the countries had pledged to pour new, undefined sums into US investments.

The Gulf nations have already committed to invest trillions of dollars into the US, though it remains unclear how much of that they will actually spend over the next several years.

https://www.cnn.com/

“I put it out yesterday, I thought it was good,” Trump said Tuesday of his unprecedented tolling plan. “I was called by different people, different countries, kings and emirs, and all of the people that we all know and we all love. And they’ve been, frankly, they’ve been very strong partners. And they said we’d love to do it a different way.”

A White House official echoed Trump’s public remarks, saying that given Iran’s violations of the agreement to keep the strait open, the president “has always kept all options on the table, and he wisely determined that the United States should be reimbursed for our many years of protecting ships transiting this waterway. Ultimately, our Gulf allies offered to provide investments into the United States, which the President found preferable.”

Since returning the US to active conflict last week, Trump has asserted that the war is effectively won and that another intense-but-short bombing campaign is all it will take to bring Iran to heel. In the meantime, he’s insisted that access to the Strait of Hormuz remains free and open.

But those claims have so far been contradicted by the reality on the ground, including Iran’s continued ability to sufficiently threaten any vessels that attempt to traverse the strait. Shipping traffic through the key waterway has dropped sharply as a result, sending oil prices soaring to levels not reached since before the US and Iran’s peace agreement last month.

Trump had threatened to impose a toll on the strait at previous flashpoints in the war, amid frustration with the outsized importance of a shipping route that he’s complained about having to secure alone despite the US itself not relying on it for oil.

In April, he suggested the US should charge fees because “we’re the winner” in the war, only to later float the concept of a “joint venture” with Iran to control the strait. More recently, he threatened to establish tolls if Iran failed to reach a permanent peace deal, characterizing it as “reimbursement” for the costs of the war.

Yet those suggestions had prompted consistent pushback from Trump’s advisers, people familiar with the discussions said. They argued that new restrictions would only push oil and gas prices higher, adding to the political pressure on Republicans ahead of November’s midterm elections, which are already expected to hinge on affordability concerns.

Perhaps more immediately troublesome, they warned, it would contradict principles that the administration had laid out opposing the concept of any country imposing fees on a waterway.

“No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in late June, just before signing the US on to a joint statement rejecting “any tolls, fees or attempts to assert control” over the Strait of Hormuz. “That’s the way it is in international waterways all over the world, and that’s the way we expect it’ll be here.”

Confirming those fears, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quick to seize on Trump’s comments Monday, saying: “POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service.”

“20% is of course too much. We will be fair,” he concluded.

Elon Musk may have broken election law by offering $1 million checks to voters, Wisconsin board finds

July 14, 2026 / 7:05 PM EDT / CBS News

The Wisconsin Elections Commission found that billionaire Elon Musk may have violated the state’s election bribery law by offering $1 million checks to voters during a Wisconsin Supreme Court election that Musk’s political action committee spent heavily in.

The commission — which is made up of three Republicans and three Democrats — voted 5-1 last Thursday to refer two complaints filed by voters against Musk to the Brown County District Attorney’s office, commission Communications Director Emilee Miklas told CBS News.

A motion approved by the committee found “probable cause” that Musk violated a state law that makes it a crime to offer a person “anything of value” to induce them to vote.

It is unclear whether Brown County District Attorney David Lasee — the top prosecutor in the county that covers Green Bay — plans to pursue charges.

CBS News has reached out to Lasee and Musk for comment.

The legal complaint revolves around Musk’s controversial practice of offering cash giveaways to certain voters who sign his political group’s petitions — a practice that started when Musk backed President Trump’s 2024 campaign and continued during Wisconsin’s April 2025 judicial election.

In Wisconsin, Musk’s America PAC awarded $1 million checks early last year to three voters who signed a petition against “activist judges.” In that race, Musk and his group had spent millions backing GOP-endorsed Judge Brad Schimel’s campaign for a seat on the state Supreme Court, though Schimel lost to Democratic-endorsed Judge Susan Crawford.

At the time, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, sued to stop Musk from making the payments, accusing him of violating state law by offering people money to vote. Musk’s lawyers argued the billionaire was exercising his right to free speech. The state’s highest court ultimately declined to take up the issue, and at a rally several days before the election, Musk handed out giant novelty checks to a pair of voters who were dubbed spokespeople for his political action committee.

Elon Musk gives a $1 million check made to the order of Nicholas Jacobs during a town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin on March 30, 2025. ROBIN LEGRAND/AFP via Getty Images

After the election, an advocacy group sued Musk and America PAC in state court, arguing the cash giveaways violated the state’s election bribery statute and constituted an unauthorized lottery. Musk’s legal team has sought dismissal of the suit. It is still pending.

Musk also drew scrutiny for offering giveaways in multiple swing states during the 2024 presidential election. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a Democrat, sued Musk for offering daily $1 million checks to Pennsylvania voters, arguing they violated state election and lottery laws, though Musk’s lawyers argued the strategy was protected as “core political speech.” A judge allowed the payouts to continue.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/why-musk-is-pumping-millions-into-a-wisconsin-supreme-court-seat-election/

西班牙南部野火13死 12名死者为外国人

2026年7月15日 07:38 / 联合早报

西班牙南部安达卢西亚地区发生的一场致命野火造成13人死，其中12人为外国公民。 （法新社）

西班牙南部安达卢西亚地区发生的一场致命野火造成13人死亡，当局星期二在完成尸检后说，其中12人为外国公民。

法新社报道，西班牙官员星期二（7月14日）发布声明说，死者中有12人为外国公民，包括七名英国人、三名比利时人，以及一名法国人和一名美国人，另一人为西班牙公民。“这13名遇难者中，有八名女性和五名男性，均为成人。”

这场野火上星期四（9日）发生在西班牙东南部阿尔梅里亚省。当地位于地中海沿岸，风景优美，吸引不少外国居民定居。

在强风助推下，大火迅速蔓延，极端高温令森林和灌木丛异常干燥，多个乡村聚落遭火海吞噬。救援人员最初寻获12具严重烧毁的遗体，须通过脱氧核糖核酸（DNA）检测确认身份。

当局调查显示，这场大火由一条电缆坠落至道路上引发，烧毁约7000公顷土地，是西班牙近年来死伤最严重的火灾之一。

目前火势已受控，居民自星期天起陆续返回家园。

近年来，西班牙热浪持续时间越来越长、发生频率不断增加，气温经常超过40摄氏度，为野火提供有利条件。

NASA astronaut and 2 cosmonauts blast off for an 8-month stay in space

July 14, 2026 / 12:26 PM EDT / CBS News

Physician-astronaut Anil Menon, a former flight surgeon with NASA and then SpaceX who rejoined NASA as an astronaut along with his wife Anna, rocketed into space Tuesday with two Russian cosmonauts for an eight-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

Soyuz MS-29/75S commander Pyotr Dubrov, flanked on his left by cosmonaut Anna Kikina and on the right by Menon, blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 10:47 a.m. EDT.

Eight minutes and 46 seconds later, after a smooth climb to orbit, the Soyuz was released for a two-orbit rendezvous with the sprawling lab complex.

A Russian Soyuz rocket blasts off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying two veteran cosmonauts and a NASA rookie on a flight to the International Space Station. NASA/Roscosmos

While Menon is a space rookie, he’s no stranger to space operations. He met his wife, Anna, while both were working for NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, he as a flight surgeon and she as a biomedical engineer and flight controller. Both left NASA in 2018 and went to work for SpaceX.

Menon was the company’s first flight surgeon, helping establish astronaut medical protocols for commercial space flights. His wife worked as a senior engineer and was one of two SpaceX employees who flew to space in 2024 on a five-day Crew Dragon flight chartered by billionaire Jared Isaacman, now NASA’s administrator.

Menon left SpaceX and returned to NASA after applying and being selected to join the agency’s astronaut corps in 2021. Anna was selected to join the corps in 2025 and will be available for flight assignment after she completes two years of initial training.

NASA astronauts Anna and Anil Menon, posing with their two children. NASA

Menon’s family flew to Kazakhstan to attend the Soyuz launch as did Isaacman, his first visit to the complex since taking the reigns at NASA.

“In terms of me and Anna, I would say there was a zero percent chance we thought this would happen, but it does go to show that if you keep working at something, you should never count yourself out,” Anil Menon said.

“It also goes to show that if you’re interested in being a part of NASA, going to space, there’s a lot of different ways this could work out. There isn’t a set course. Sometimes … if you work hard and consistently over time, the results can be completely shocking. We’ve been absolutely shocked by this.”

The crew pauses for a traditional farewell wave to support crews before boarding their Soyuz rocket for launch. Top to bottom: Anna Kikina, NASA astronaut Anil Menon and commander Pyotr Dubrov. NASA/Bill Ingalls

Dubrov will monitor the Soyuz spacecraft’s automated approach to the station, ready to take over manual control if needed as the ship glides in for docking at the Earth-facing Prichal module three hours and nine minutes after launch.

Standing by to welcome them aboard were Crew 12 commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, along with Soyuz MS-28/74S commander Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, Andrey Mikaev and NASA astronaut Chris Williams.

Menon, Dubrov and Kikina are replacing the Soyuz MS-28/74S crew, who were launched to the space station last November. NASA plans to launch a replacement crew for Meir and her crewmates in September.

The fresh Soyuz crew is expected to remain aboard the station for about 260 days, returning to Earth next April. With a few exceptions, station flights have typically lasted for five to six months, but the Russians are now extending visits to eight months to reduce the amount of cargo that has to be shipped up.

And Menon is fine with that.

“We always walk into these missions somewhat prepared for any length of time,” he said before launch. “So I’m going into this willing and excited to spend more time there.”

But he will miss his wife and kids, ages 5 and 8.

“I’m looking for ways to connect with them, because when I Facetime with them, they would give me about five seconds of attention, and then they quickly start playing random things or messing with the phone,” Menon said. “So I’m bringing up some toys, some Lego figurines that will remind me of them, and maybe I can keep them engaged for 10 seconds. We’ll see.”

In an interview with CBS News, he said staying at home with the kids while his wife flew in space was more difficult than he expected. Now that their roles are reversed, both are gaining a better understanding of the challenges faced by both.

“When we talk about what it was like for her to launch and me to be on the ground, I think that was the harder job, and I found it really stressful,” he said. “I was worried about her and the kids, and there were certain challenges related to that.

“I’m able to share that perspective with her, so I’m like, hey, heads up, like it’s going to be a lot easier for me to do this launch.”

For her part, he added, “she’s got insight into what that’s like (to fly in space) and what the launch might be like, and how to make it meaningful. … We’ve talked a lot about that. I think, like, either side of this, my side and her side, hopefully we’re better off, and we understand each other a bit better.”

The Soyuz MS-29/75S crew poses for an official portrait. Left to right: NASA astronaut Anil Menon, Soyuz commander Pyotr Dubrov and cosmonaut Anna Kikina. NASA/Roscosmos

Menon is part of the Soyuz crew under an agreement between NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, that calls for at least one NASA astronaut to launch aboard each Soyuz and one cosmonaut to go up aboard each SpaceX Crew Dragon.

The agreement ensures at least one American and at least one Russian are always aboard the station to operate their respective systems in case a Soyuz or Dragon has to depart early because of a medical emergency or some other major problem.

Menon said he was lucky to be flying with space veterans like Dubrov and Kikina. He described his Soyuz commander as “kind of on the quieter side, really intellectual, really sharp.”

“He speaks incredibly good English, and he’s into Rubik’s cubes and esoteric science fiction. He’s read the Foundation series (by) Isaac Asimov, and Murderbot before the TV shows made those things popular. We really hit it off, because I love science fiction, too, and that’s super cool.”

As for Kikina, who first flew to space aboard a Crew Dragon in 2022, Menon described her as “100 percent full on energy, and really adds a lot to our team because me and Pyotr are a bit more quiet, and so it’s really cool to have her just like keep the engine running and moving us along.

“And she’s an athlete, like a rafter boater, she was on the Russian version of American Gladiator — it’s called Titan — and won that easily. And so it’s a cool crew, an interesting, fun crew to be a part of as well. They’ve also flown to space, so I got a lot to learn and pick up from them, and it’s a good spot to be in.”

Illegal alien ‘pirate’ who hijacked plane to US freed by Clinton-appointed judge

July 14, 2026 2:17pm EDT / Fox News

DHS blasts the Key West aircraft piracy case as an activist judge defying Trump’s deportation mandate

By Charles Creitz, Fox News

A Cuban national convicted of hijacking an airplane in the wake of 9/11 has been ordered released in Florida despite a standing order for his removal from the U.S.

Maikel Guerra Morales and several others assaulted a flight crew and hijacked a Cuban commuter airplane in 2003 and forced it to fly more than 100 miles north to Monroe County, Florida, where it eventually landed at Key West International Airport.

Morales was arrested that evening after U.S. Air Force jets scrambled from Homestead to intercept the plane, which originally took off from Nuevo Gerona on Cuba’s Isle of Youth.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS NEW ICE HOLDING FACILITY NEAR LOUISIANA DEPORTATION FLIGHT HUB

A courtroom gavel, left, is seen with an inset of Maikel Guerra Morales, right.(iStock; DHS)

Since then, he has been in U.S. custody, including for a 22-year sentence for “aircraft piracy.”

A federal immigration judge issued an order of removal against Morales in 2023, and he ultimately was transferred to ICE custody after completing his prison sentence in 2025.

But, Clinton-appointed Judge John Steele in Fort Myers ruled last week that Morales must be released, citing a Supreme Court ruling involving foreign nationals languishing in custody with no country to take them back.

DHS Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis called Morales’ case “yet another example of an activist judge trying to thwart President Trump’s mandate from the American people to remove criminal illegal aliens from our country.”

“Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, DHS will continue to fight for the detention and removal of criminal illegal aliens who have no right to be in our country,” Bis said in a statement.

BIDEN JUDGE REJECTS TRUMP’S SANCTUARY CITIES LAWSUIT, SAYS EVEN A WIN WOULDN’T SOLVE DOJ’S PROBLEM

Cuban President Fidel Castro, center, greets passengers and crew who were aboard a Cuban plane hijacked and flown to Florida.(Pablo Pildain/Getty Images)

Steele wrote that federal officials indicated their intention to deport him to Mexico, but instead found that there is no evidence of a “a significant likelihood that Guerra Morales will be removed in the reasonably foreseeable future.”

ALLEGED CUBAN INFLUENCE OPERATIVE, FAMILY IN FEDERAL CUSTODY AFTER RUBIO REVOKES LEGAL STATUS

“Therefore, he is entitled to release from detention under ‘Zadvydas’, but he remains subject to the terms of an order of supervision,” Steele wrote – relying on the case of Kestutis Zadvydas, an ethnic Lithuanian lawful permanent U.S. resident born in a German displaced-persons camp who had been ordered deported in 1994 due to a criminal record but had no receptive country to return to.

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Cuba lies 90 miles south of the Southernmost Point in the Continental United States, as marked by this buoy at the foot of Whitehead Street in Key West, Florida.(compassandcamera/iStock)

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An Associated Press report following the hijackers’ 2003 arrests in Key West said Cuban officials demanded the U.S. return the plane and all occupants, including those charged with piracy. Morales and the other suspects claimed at the time they hijacked the plane “for freedom.”

blob:https://www.foxnews.com/72e2141b-e6e1-4845-9e9b-f75814c03fe5

Insider shares story behind “The Wolf of Wall Street”: “My lifestyle was insane”

July 14, 2026 / 2:01 PM EDT / CBS News

A former partner at the scandal-ridden stock-trading firm that inspired the blockbuster movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” is speaking out as a new documentary about the firm premieres on Paramount+.

“My lifestyle was insane,” Howie Gelfand, who rose to become a partner at Stratton Oakmont, said in an interview on “CBS Mornings.”

The three-part docuseries “The Real Wolf of Wall Street” gives an inside look at the firm run by Jordan Belfort, who was portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio in the feature film.

Gelfand joined Stratton Oakmont when he was 19. He told “CBS Mornings” that within a year of starting he was making over $100,000 a month — far more than the $35,000 a year that he had been earning.

Eventually, he was making over $1.5 million a year. When he found out that what the firm was doing was illegal, he thought it was just business as usual for Wall Street.

But Gelfand learned that his fast-paced lifestyle came with a cost.

“I was the most miserable millionaire — 325 pounds, drugs, booze,” Gelfand said. “I couldn’t figure enough ways to subconsciously kill myself because what I was doing was horrible, so I had to anesthetize myself every day to do what I was doing.”

The docuseries includes new revelations from over 15,000 internal FBI and government documents obtained by investigative reporter and executive producer Jason Leopold using the Freedom of Information Act.

“The Real Wolf of Wall Street” is streaming now on Paramount+, a division of Paramount, the parent company of CBS News.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/ex-firm-partner-people-would-be-blown-away-real-story-the-wolf-of-wall-street/

Senate Dems draw rare line against must-pass Pentagon bill

July 14, 2026 3:38pm EDT / Fox News

Sen. Jim Banks said Democrats were playing games with troop support by blocking the defense bill

By Alex Miller, Fox News

Chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst reports President Donald Trump has declared Iran’s military capabilities are crippled, attributing it to the U.S. Armed Forces, while technical discussions for nuclear negotiations are set to resume.

Senate Democrats drew a rare line in the sand against a yearly, must-pass defense package in an act of rebellion against President Donald Trump.

Democrats blocked a procedural hurdle for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a perennial bill that opens up funding for the Pentagon and military. Many were already frustrated by the overall funding target of the package and pushed over the edge by the renewal of the Iran war.

“It’s very disappointing,” Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Digital.

REPUBLICANS BREAK WITH TRUMP TO REBUKE IRAN WAR — BUT IT WON’T CHANGE POLICY

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, speaks during a news conference following Senate Democratic policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 23, 2026.(Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“It’s about supporting our troops, supporting our military, and it’s disappointing when Democrats play games with that,” he continued.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., charged on the Senate floor that Republicans wanted the upper chamber to take up the bill “as though none of this is happening.”

“The president is waging an unauthorized war, defying bipartisan majorities in Congress, refusing to level with the American people at the cost of the mission or the endgame,” Schumer said. “The NDAA cannot become a permission slip for that recklessness that we see occurring in Iran.”

CLOSED-DOOR OUTBURST TURNS INTO VICTORY FOR TRUMP’S IRAN NEGOTIATIONS

https://www.foxnews.com/video/6399566398112

Early signs of trouble for this year’s NDAA first appeared during the Senate Armed Services Committee’s vote to advance the legislation. The majority of Democrats, nine out of 13 on the panel, voted against it.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., was one of the “no” votes, something he acknowledged was a rare move.

He said guardrails needed to be added to Trump’s war authorities in Iran and a deeper explanation provided of where exactly the where exactly the staggering $1.15 trillion authorized by the bill would come from.

IRAN WAR’S PRICE TAG HITS $80B — MORE THAN DOUBLE WHAT CONGRESS WAS TOLD

President Donald Trump speaks with the media aboard Air Force One shortly after departure from Mildenhall Air Force Base in the United Kingdom en route to Washington, on July 8, 2026.(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

“The Iran war issue is, I think, one of the major issues about the NDAA, but it’s not the only issue,” Kaine said. “The absence of knowing where this money is coming from to do this dramatic top-line increase? That still has to get resolved.”

Republicans, however, contended that taking the first step on the bill would allow for an amendment process to modify it.

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Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who also sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Digital, “It’s pretty frustrating, people need to come together and act in the best interest of the country.”

“We have to, you know, we have to have a strong military,” Scott said. “Whether we like it or not, people decide to be our enemies. They want to destroy us. So I think we ought to, you know, get on the bill and if we need to do amendments, let’s start amending it.”

Alex Miller is a writer for Fox News Digital covering the U.S. Senate.

Prominent American marine biologist shot dead, companion injured in the Philippines

July 14, 2026 1:41 PM EDT / CBS/AP

A distinguished American marine biologist has been shot dead by three men who entered his house in the central Philippines, police said on Tuesday.

Kent Carpenter, 73, was with his Filipina companion in a house in the coastal town of Sibulan, in Negros Oriental province, on Sunday night when the masked men forced their way in.

One drew a gun and shot Carpenter in the head, killing him instantly, police said his companion told them. The men took a laptop, an unspecified amount of cash and a backpack before fleeing, national police spokesperson Col. Allen Rae Co told reporters.

Regional police spokesperson Lt. Col. Joem Malong told The Associated Press that Carpenter’s companion sustained unspecified injuries and was being treated. Investigators were trying to determine the motive for the killing and identify the attackers.

Carpenter was a marine biologist who had worked as a lecturer at the Silliman University, in Dumaguete city, Negros Oriental, Malong said.

This 2023 photo provided by Old Dominion University shows Professor Kent Carpenter. Chuck Thomas/Old Dominion University via AP

The U.S. Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We assure the victim’s family, the community and our foreign visitors that this case is being treated with utmost urgency and no effort will be spared until justice is served,” regional police director Brig. Gen. Romano Cardiño said.

The most recent travel advisory from the U.S. State Department says Americans should “exercise increased caution in the Philippines due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, and kidnapping.

Carpenter had been a biological sciences professor at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, since 1996. His research — which focused on the Philippines and the Coral Triangle between the Indian and Pacific oceans — shaped conservation efforts around the world, university officials said. Carpenter studied biodiversity in the Philippines’ Verde Island Passage, and he advocated for its designation as a World Heritage Site.

Old Dominion said he was on an extended research assignment in the Philippines and planned to retire in September.

Last year, the university touted Carpenter’s research comparing museum specimens from 1907 to current populations of fish.

“He dedicated his career to expanding our understanding of the world’s bodies of water and protecting some of its most vulnerable ecosystems,” Old Dominion President Brian Hemphill said in a statement. He described Carpenter’s killing as sad and devastating. “His scholarship and passion impacted and inspired many individuals locally, nationally, and internationally.”

On his university webpage, Carpenter wrote that his research in marine conservation biology centered on assessing the extinction risks to fish species and plants. In 2010, he told the AP that unchecked global warming could lead to the extinction of all coral reefs on the planet within 100 years.

“You could argue that a complete collapse of the marine ecosystem would be one of the consequences of losing corals,” he said. “You’re going to have a tremendous cascade effect for all life in the oceans.”

Carpenter’s interest in the Philippines stemmed from his Peace Corps assignment there in the 1970s, according to a 2007 Old Dominion newsletter.

Several Philippine environment and biodiversity centers mourned Carpenter’s death. Silliman University said Carpenter was an exceptional scientist, who had collaborated with the university on marine research work and studies since 1976.

“Dr. Carpenter made ground-breaking contributions that transformed global understanding of Philippine marine biodiversity,” the university said in a social media post.

“We remain profoundly grateful for his decades of scholarship and service to the University,” the school continued. “His legacy will continue to inspire future generations of Sillimanians committed to the advancement of science and the conservation of our marine environment.”

US FDA sued for allowing unauthorized vaping products

2026-07-14 19:00:07 UTC / Reuters

By Reuters

July 14, 2026 7:00 PM UTC Updated 1 hour ago

Spree Bar which contains a new chemical that mimics nicotine, is pictured on the shelf at Sultans’ Smoke in Arvada, Colorado, U.S., May 21, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab

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July 14 (Reuters) – A coalition of public health organizations, pediatricians and parents sued the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, challenging a ​new policy that allow some manufacturers to sell vapes and ‌nicotine without the legally required license.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, targets FDA guidance issued in May. The guidance states the agency would ​not prioritize enforcement against certain unauthorized e-cigarettes and nicotine pouch ​products if the companies have marketing applications under review.

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• Plaintiffs ⁠include the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Academy of Pediatrics, ​the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, ​the American Lung Association, Truth Initiative and Parents Against Vaping, along with a pediatrician and a parent whose children became addicted to nicotine after using flavored ​e-cigarettes.
• Plaintiffs argue the policy unlawfully allows products to remain on ​the market without the marketing authorization required under the Tobacco Control Act.
• The group also ‌said ⁠the guidance could permit thousands of unauthorized products, including flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches popular with young people, to be sold indefinitely.
• They also contend the FDA bypassed required public notice and comment procedures ​under the Administrative ​Procedure Act ⁠and failed to justify the policy shift.
• The lawsuit also challenges the FDA’s plan to publish a list ​of products it does not intend to prioritize for ​enforcement, ⁠arguing it would facilitate sales of unauthorized products.
• The case will be heard in the same Maryland court that struck down an earlier FDA ⁠policy in ​2017 that had allowed many e-cigarettes ​to remain on the market without authorization.
• The FDA did not immediately respond to Reuters ​request for comment.

Reporting by Sanskriti Shekhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid

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