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中国国家发改委原副主任徐宪平一审获刑15年

2026年7月30日 07:39 / 联合早报

中国国家发展和改革委员会原中共党组成员、副主任徐宪平因受贿，一审被判刑15年。 （互联网）

中国国家发展和改革委员会原中共党组成员、副主任徐宪平因受贿，一审被判刑15年。

据中新社报道，记者从中国最高人民法院获悉，内蒙古自治区赤峰市中级人民法院星期三（7月29日）一审公开宣判徐宪平受贿一案。

法院对被告人徐宪平以受贿罪判处有期徒刑15年，并处罚金人民币500万元（约95万新元）；对徐宪平犯罪所得财物依法予以追缴，上缴国库。

法院经审理查明，2001年至2021年，徐宪平利用担任湖南省人民政府党组成员、副省长，湖南省委常委、副省长，国家发展和改革委员会副部级干部、国务院参事等职务上的便利，为有关单位和个人在企业经营、项目承揽、职务调整等事项上提供帮助，非法收受上述单位和个人给予的财物共计折合人民币6253万余元。

法院认为，徐宪平的行为构成受贿罪，且受贿数额特别巨大，应依法惩处。鉴于徐宪平到案后如实供述罪行，主动交代办案机关尚未掌握的部分受贿事实，认罪悔罪，积极退赃，涉案赃款已全部追缴，具有法定、酌定从宽处罚情节，可对其依法从轻处罚。法庭遂作出上述判决。

公开资料显示，徐宪平生于1954年10月，湖南隆回人。2025年3月，官方通报其被查。同年11月，中央纪委国家监委通报徐宪平严重违纪违法被开除党籍，他被指“对抗组织审查”“大搞权钱交易”等。赤峰市中级人民法院于今年5月15日公开开庭审理了此案，徐宪平当庭表示认罪悔罪。

Trump taps veterans to fix illegal alien trucking problem plaguing US roadways

2026-07-29 7:06pm EDT / Fox News

The program expands CDL eligibility for veterans while removing over 24,000 licenses under English proficiency rules

By Ashley J. DiMella Fox News

Published July 29, 2026 7:06pm EDT

DHS, DOT probe truck driver schools for fraudulent licenses

Fox News’ Kevin Corke reports on a joint investigation by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Transportation targeting truck driver schools. The probe addresses improper certifications and falsified records, especially concerning the issuance of commercial driver’s licenses to non-citizens. This initiative comes after multiple fatal truck accidents involving illegal immigrants, underscoring significant safety concerns for American roads.

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FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump will launch the White House’s new “Freedom Haulers” initiative Thursday, Fox News Digital has exclusively learned, opening new pathways for military veterans to become commercial truck drivers while intensifying the administration’s crackdown on illegal immigrant and non-English-speaking truckers.

“President Trump’s administration has made our roads safer by taking illegal alien, non-English speaking truck drivers off America’s highways. Now, through the Freedom Haulers initiative, the President is expanding opportunities for our veterans by making it easier to obtain commercial driver’s licenses once they conclude their service,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told Fox News Digital.

The Trump administration is pairing its crackdown on illegal immigrant and non-English-speaking commercial drivers with a new effort to recruit military veterans into the trucking industry. Trump, along with Department of Transportation (DOT) Secretary Sean Duffy, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and Acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling, will welcome a truck on West Executive Avenue to announce the initiative.

JOE BIDEN MANDATED ALL NEW VEHICLES COME INSTALLED WITH A ‘KILL SWITCH.’ THIS REPUBLICAN WANTS TO REPEAL IT

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump holds a press conference from inside trash hauler at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport on October 30, 2024.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“By leading a multi-agency process spanning the Departments of Transportation, Labor, Veterans Affairs, and War, President Trump is bolstering America’s trucking industry, which is crucial to strong supply chains, while helping our nation’s heroes transition to civilian life with quality, good-paying jobs,” Kelly added.

The Department of Transportation will expand eligibility for veterans to receive expedited commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), extending the waiver period from 12 months to 24 months after active-duty service.

For veterans who have never driven a heavy commercial vehicle during their military service, CDL training will be offered.

ILLEGAL TRUCKER CASES FUEL GOP PUSH TO CRACK DOWN ON CDL MILLS AS DEMS LARGELY SILENT

Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump holds a press conference from inside trash hauler at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport on October 30, 2024.(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Indiana and Wyoming will also join the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s “Even Exchange” program, allowing military truck drivers to more easily transition into civilian CDLs.

Werner Enterprises, an Omaha, Nebraska-based trucking company attending Thursday’s event, will announce plans to hire 1,400 new veteran drivers.

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The administration is also highlighting its ongoing crackdown on commercial drivers who fail to meet English-language proficiency requirements or were improperly licensed.

VIRGINIA BUS CRASH THAT KILLED FIVE INVOLVED DRIVER WHO DOESN’T SPEAK ENGLISH, SEAN DUFFY SAYS

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In an aerial view, trucks drive on Interstate 80 on Nov. 14, 2025, in Albany, Calif.(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Department of Transportation says it has removed more than 24,000 commercial driver’s licenses from the nation’s highways under stricter English-language proficiency enforcement.

More than 28,000 CDLs were also canceled after officials determined they had been improperly issued to non-citizen truck drivers.

The White House says the initiative is aimed at improving highway safety while strengthening the nation’s trucking workforce.

The announcement comes after a series of fatal crashes involving illegal immigrant truck drivers in states including Florida, California, Indiana and Pennsylvania.

Earlier this month, a Pennsylvania State Police trooper was killed during a roadside inspection when a semitruck driven by a Haitian national struck him. Authorities say the driver had obtained a non-domiciled CDL before the administration’s rule changes.

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Truck drivers have seen a 7.42% increase in real wages during the Trump administration, compared to a 3% decline in real wages under President Biden, according to DOT.

DOT also says veteran truck drivers experience 42% fewer accidents and cover 98% more miles than non-veteran drivers, arguing the initiative will both improve highway safety and help strengthen America’s supply chains.

Ashley J. DiMella reports on politics for Fox News Digital.

DOJ seeks to empower immigration judges to hold lawyers and their clients in contempt

July 29, 2026 / 6:17 PM EDT / CBS News
By Ashley Burkett

The Justice Department is proposing a new rule to empower federal immigration judges to hold attorneys, their clients and witnesses in contempt if they violate court orders, in a move that departs from historical practice and which legal experts warn could be unconstitutional.

The regulatory proposal by the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an office of the DOJ that runs the immigration court system, would allow immigration judges for the very first time to impose fines ranging from $1,000 up to as much as $3,500 if an attorney or other individual continues to defy court orders.

“It is crucial for immigration judges to have every tool available—including the authority to impose civil money penalties—to control the proceedings before them,” the Justice Department wrote in its proposal.

The proposal notably exempts federal government employees, such as Department of Homeland Security attorneys, from being subject to any contempt order by an immigration judge — in what critics say represents a lopsided and unfair scenario that would allow potential government misconduct to go unchecked.

In federal district courts, by contrast, Article III judges have the power to hold all attorneys who appear before the court in criminal or civil contempt, if warranted. In its proposal, the Justice Department argues that giving immigration judges the power to sanction government lawyers is not necessary because DHS attorneys can be disciplined by the Office of the Inspector General or the Office of Professional Responsibility.

“By proposing a completely skewed regulation that empowers judges to hold in contempt only the attorneys for immigrants but not ICE attorneys, the Administration has revealed that its goal has nothing to do with the just and balanced rule of law. Instead, this rule is another effort to target immigration attorneys that falls in line with the President’s intimidation tactics,” said Gregory Chen, senior director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

The new proposal marks the latest in a series of efforts by the Trump administration to more readily crack down on immigration and carry out President Trump’s mass deportation policies.

At the Executive Office for Immigration Review, hundreds of longtime federal immigration judges have left since last year, many of whom were fired abruptly without warning or cause. In 2025, EOIR lost 370 attorneys, according to government data analyzed and published by a former FBI analyst.

At the same time it has lost so many judges, the immigration court system is facing a current backlog of more than 3.5 million cases, according to the proposed rule.

Many former immigration judges have spoken publicly about pressures they faced to expedite deportations or detain people without bond. In ads seeking to hire replacement judges, the DOJ has referred to the role as being that of a “deportation judge.”

The new proposal that would allow immigration judges to hold noncitizens or their lawyers in contempt “ties into the culture of fear,” said Karen Donoso Stevens, a former longtime immigration judge. “First, scare the judges. Then the judges will scare the attorneys.”

The proposed rule, published in the Federal Register, states immigration judges would be allowed to sanction lawyers or their clients for a variety of offenses, from repeatedly failing to appear on time or failing to follow orders, up to disorderly conduct or making false statements.

Several legal experts who spoke with CBS News said the proposal is potentially unlawful because immigration courts are part of the executive branch and fall under Article II of the Constitution, which states that the executive branch has no contempt authority. That power belongs exclusively to the judicial and legislative branches.

The proposal is “constitutionally flawed,” Chen said.

The public will have 60 days to review the proposal and submit comments.

From bad to worse for Trump and his base

2026-07-29T22:04:31.265Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/politics/maga-trump-midterms

Republicans are starting to fret about their base’s lack of enthusiasm ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Those voters were already disproportionately less likely to vote in elections not featuring Donald Trump, and now the GOP has to contend with the president being more unpopular than ever.

And a new CNN poll drives home the problem: Large portions of Trump’s base are feeling disillusioned over more than a few of his choices lately.

Across a bevy of questions — on subjects ranging from the economy to the Iran war to Trump’s self-enrichment and efforts to makeover Washington — large percentages of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents are registering discontent. As in, often 30%, 40%, 50% or more.

Overall, the CNN poll shows 30% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents disapprove of Trump.

That number is rather high in and of itself. But it actually might undersell the level of disillusionment on some fronts.

Without question, the most troubling numbers for Trump and the GOP concern the economy.

Not only is the economy generally voters’ biggest concern; it also features Trump’s worst numbers.

To wit, among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents in the poll:

• 64% say high gas prices have caused at least a “moderate” hardship for them
• 56% say the economy is very or somewhat poor
• 56% say Trump hasn’t gone far enough to reduce the price of everyday goods
• 56% disapprove of Trump’s performance on gas prices
• 51% say Trump doesn’t have a clear plan on gas prices
• 50% say Trump’s policies haven’t improved economic conditions (with 31% saying his policies have actually made things worse)
• 47% disapprove of Trump on inflation

That’s around half or more of what should be Trump’s own supporters that have a lot of gripes about the economy and his handling of it right now.

The numbers are slightly less grim on Iran, but still pretty grim.

Again, among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents:

• 64% think a long-term war with Iran is likely
• 45% say the toll of the war — in lives and money — hasn’t been worth it
• 45% say Trump doesn’t have a clear plan for Iran
• 40% disapprove of Trump overall on Iran
• 39% say his decisions about military action in Iran have hurt the US (versus 44% who say it has helped, with the rest being neutral)

And Trump’s trend line on Iran continues to be bad. Trump’s disapproval on Iran among these groups has increased from 30% in March to 40% today.

The poll also shows many members of Trump’s base simply don’t like what he’s focused on — including his personal finances and projects like the White House ballroom and Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Among these groups:

• 45% say Trump isn’t “in touch with the problems ordinary Americans face in their daily lives” — up from 34% in January
• 39% say he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems — up from 25% in January
• Around 3 in 10 say he’s “gone too far” in changing institutions like the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center (which Trump put his name on before a judge removed it), remodeling the White House and other Washington landmarks and pursuing personal business interests while in the White House
• 30% say Trump doesn’t put the good of the country over his personal gain
• 26% say they’re angry or dissatisfied about the ballroom and the reflecting pool (compared to just 39% who are positive about these projects)

It would be bad enough for Trump if the economy were suboptimal and people didn’t think the things he did were working.

But these numbers — combined with the majority of Trump’s base that says he’s neglected inflation — make clear many of his backers think he’s preoccupied with things that either aren’t worth focusing on or are actively unpopular.

When many of these questions were asked in Trump’s first months back in office, there was a palpable sense of enthusiasm with his base.

When asked to describe their feelings looking ahead to the rest of Trump’s second term, nearly nine in 10 of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said they were “enthusiastic” or “optimistic.”

Now, that number has dropped all the way to 70%.

And 30% say they’re either “pessimistic” or “afraid.”

That 30% who have a negative outlook is pretty remarkable. Shortly after former President Barack Obama was reelected in 2012, just 8% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they felt pessimistic or afraid. And just before former President George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004, only 5% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents said the same about him.

Then there’s the findings of a recent Pew Research Center poll.

That poll showed 81% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said their midterm vote would be a vote against Trump, compared to just 44% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents who said theirs would be a vote for Trump.

There have been signs of this kind of malaise dating back a year, when the Jeffrey Epstein saga exploded. The latest numbers suggest it’s now taken hold in large swaths of the GOP base — at a very inopportune time for the party.

Sen. Paul says there’s a “very real chance” Fauci could be prosecuted after taking the 5th in Senate hearing

July 29, 2026 / 7:11 PM EDT / CBS News

Hours after Dr. Anthony Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to all questions during a Senate hearing, Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told CBS News he believes the former infectious disease official could be prosecuted for not answering questions.

The testimony followed years of fiery disputes between Paul and Fauci — both medical doctors — over the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the origins of the virus that caused it. Fauci has long defended his handling of both issues, and Paul has repeatedly accused him of lying. Last weekend, Paul’s office released a trove of journal entries penned by Fauci.

In a brief opening statement in Wednesday’s hearing, Fauci said he planned to assert the Fifth Amendment, arguing that Paul has an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution” and has made “slanderous comments” about him. He then invoked the Fifth Amendment for several hours as Paul and other Republicans criticized him and Democrats defended him.

In an interview later Wednesday on CBS News’ “The Takeout with Major Garrett,” Paul argued Fauci’s lack of answers could lead to federal criminal charges for contempt of Congress or obstructing a congressional proceeding.

“I think there is a very real chance that he could be prosecuted for that,” Paul said.

The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants people the right not to incriminate themselves, which generally allows them to decline to answer questions.

But in this case, Paul argues, a preemptive pardon that former President Joe Biden issued to Fauci just hours before leaving office could prevent Fauci from invoking the Fifth Amendment since he cannot be prosecuted for any of the issues that lawmakers asked about.

Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler, pushed back in an email to CBS News.

“We are completely confident that Dr. Fauci has a valid Fifth Amendment privilege here and is on solid legal ground in asserting it,” he said. “Rand Paul may be a doctor, but he is not a lawyer.”

Paul called it an unsettled legal question.

“I don’t think this has ever been truly and fully adjudicated. There aren’t that many people with pardons who have come before a congressional committee and refuse to testify,” Paul told CBS News. “A court ultimately would have to determine: Does the Fifth Amendment apply to someone who already has a pardon?”

A federal law often cited in contempt-of-Congress proceedings makes it a crime for witnesses to “willfully” refuse to answer questions when called to testify before Congress. Another law bars obstructing an investigation by a congressional committee.

Paul has said the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which he chairs, will hold a vote next week on whether to recommend holding Fauci in contempt of Congress. If the majority-GOP committee votes in favor, the matter would head to the full Senate for a vote. Final adoption of that measure would require a simple majority, but ending debate might need 60 votes, which would require some Democrats to vote in favor.

After that, whether to pursue criminal charges against Fauci would be up to the Justice Department. The department has chosen to charge people referred by Congress for contempt in a handful of cases — most recently, under the Biden administration, Trump advisers Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro — but it has declined to bring charges in other cases.

Senators spent Wednesday’s hearing raising some of the most controversial elements of the federal government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including recommendations around mask-wearing, social distancing and closures of schools and businesses. But some of the most contentious moments involved the debate over the origins of the coronavirus.

Paul backs the theory that the virus emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than naturally jumping from animals to humans in a wet market in that city, and he has long accused Fauci and other top health officials of downplaying the possibility of a lab leak.

The senator has also focused on whether the virus was manipulated in the lab through “gain-of-function” research, typically defined as modifying or enhancing viruses to study how they evolve. He has accused Fauci of lying to Congress about whether such research took place in Wuhan with U.S. government-funded grants. Paul argued on CBS News that the coronavirus may have been “adapted in the lab to be very transmissible.”

Fauci has denied that he rejected or downplayed the lab leak theory, insisting that he always kept an open mind about the origins of the coronavirus, though he has asserted at times that the evidence suggests a natural spillover was more likely.

He has also denied lying about the research in Wuhan, arguing the studies Paul cited did not constitute gain-of-function research under federal definitions.

Fauci has also said it would be “molecularly impossible” for the bat viruses at the center of that research to be linked to the virus that causes COVID-19.

Some entries in Fauci’s diaries that were released by Paul last weekend reflect scientists’ early efforts to understand how the virus emerged. In January 2020, he wrote that “we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier,” though he added that “somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” About a week later, he described a conference call with a dozen infectious disease experts, most of whom felt it was “possible” that mutations to the virus were inserted by humans.

无人机袭击埃及港口天然气储运船 中东局势恐升级

2026年7月30日 07:12 / 联合早报

社媒视频截图显示，7月29日，埃及达米埃塔港一艘遭无人机袭击的天然气储运船正在接受水炮喷射救援。 （路透社）

英国海事安全公司安布雷周三报告，一架无人机击中了位于埃及地中海港口达米埃塔的一艘美资天然气储运船。与此同时，美国总统特朗普誓言将对伊朗的夜间袭击展开报复，中东冲突面临重大升级。

埃及石油部周三三（7月29日）发表声明证实，达米埃塔港（Damietta）发生火灾，但未说明起火原因，也未提及无人机袭击。

据三名知情贸易消息人士透露，无人机击中了浮式储运船“Energos Winter”并引发火灾，火势随后蔓延至另一艘船只。

埃及石油部称，火势已在第一时间被扑灭，未造成人员伤亡。特朗普称已听取相关简报。

此次事件发生之际，中东冲突正急剧升级。伊朗向驻约旦美军发射导弹，美国和沙特阿拉伯则打击了伊拉克境内受伊朗支持的武装组织。

除了也门胡塞武装宣布对沙特实施海上封锁外，这一连串最新的交火表明，冲突的波及范围已进一步扩大，超出了自2月美以两国开始轰炸伊朗以来的态势。

在叫停空袭数日后，特朗普誓言要就伊朗袭击美军展开报复。他周三在白宫对记者说：“现在轮到我们了。”

特朗普称，美国将视情况而定，看未来是否能与伊朗达成协议，“但我们会给予他们沉重打击。”

伊朗周三晚证实，已向驻约旦美军基地及霍尔木兹海峡船只开火，并拒绝了阿曼联合管理海峡的提议。

周三国际原油价格应声暴涨，创下这场持续五个月冲突以来最大的单日涨幅之一。布伦特原油期货大涨逾8%，推动基准油价突破每桶90美元，几乎抹平了本周早些时候的所有跌幅。此前由于特朗普上周末意外暂停空袭，曾导致油价一度大幅回落。

DHS eviscerates media for ‘absolute absurdity’ over concern about ‘worst of the worst’ activist judges list

July 29, 2026 5:02pm EDT / Fox News

James Percival said legitimate fact-based critiques of judges and their rulings are ‘fair game in a free society’

By Peter Pinedo Fox News

Jonathan Turley: Left demonizes Supreme Court to ‘gut the court’

Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley claims organized protests outside Supreme Court justices’ homes are part of a political movement to ‘gut the court’ and influence judicial decisions. He criticizes the rhetoric aimed at demonizing judges, citing incidents like the attempted assassination of Justice Kavanaugh and demonstrations with ‘bloody dolls’ at Justice Barrett’s home in June 2022.

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A high-ranking Trump Department of Homeland Security official called out the “liberal media” for what he referred to as the “absolute absurdity” of its response to his series criticizing activist judges.

James Percival, general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, posted a series on X last week, “Worst of the Worst, District Judge Edition.”

In his posts, Percival pointed to the risks that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents face while enforcing the law, saying some judges are working to “sabotage” those operations and put officers “at risk.”

GOP SENATOR UNVEILS BOASBERG ACT TO STOP ‘ROGUE’ JUDGES FROM HANDPICKING TRUMP CASES

After his posts, Percival said DHS was contacted by a Chicago Sun-Times reporter about whether “a social media post like this risk[s] additional threats” in the context of “ongoing threats to federal judges.”

In response, Percival blasted the outlet in an X post in which he told followers, “Witness the absolute absurdity of the liberal media response to my new series, Worst of the Worst, District Judges.”

ICE agents knock on the door of a residence during a multi-agency targeted enforcement operation in Chicago Jan. 26, 2025.(Bloomberg)

Percival emphasized that “legitimate fact based critiques of judges and their rulings is fair game in a free society.” He also noted that “the media has no issue with it if the judge is conservative.”

Notably, conservative judges, including Supreme Court justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, have been the target of intense criticism from the left and, in some cases, violence. In 2022, Kavanaugh was the target of an assassination plot after an armed California man traveled to his home with a pistol, ammunition, zip ties, pepper spray, duct tape and burglary tools. Further, Barrett testified in a recent congressional hearing that she has had to wear a bulletproof vest in response to threats.

In his Worst of the Worst activist judges series, Percival called out district judges in the sanctuary jurisdictions of Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland and California.

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH BREAKS SILENCE ON VIOLENT THREATS AGAINST JUDICIARY, SUPREME COURT LEAKS

ICE agents stand guard in front of protesters outside the federal immigration center at Delaney Hall in Newark, where ICE is housing detained immigrants, May 26, 2026, in Newark, N.J.(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Percival said that, earlier this month, Northern District of Illinois Judge Matthew Kennelly, a Clinton appointee, ordered a nationwide pause on the termination of temporary protected status for migrants from Burma.

Percival wrote that Kennelly ordered the stay “even though these decisions are not subject to judicial review, even though we have been vindicated by the Supreme Court on TPS four times, and even though the Seventh Circuit summarily reversed him on the same issue only days before.

“This is judicial sabotage.”

Percival wrote that Central District of California Judge Hernán Vera, a Biden appointee, recently “entered an order micromanaging DHS’s use of force policy with respect to violent anti-ICE agitators in Los Angeles.”

Percival noted that the judge “described the agitators as ‘protesters’ and ‘legal observers,’ while describing DHS’s actions defending its personnel and property as ‘violent.’”

SUPREME COURT WEIGHS TRUMP EFFORT TO TERMINATE TEMPORARY PROTECTIONS FOR HAITIAN, SYRIAN MIGRANTS

Homeland Security General Counsel James Percival(DHS official portrait)

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Percival noted, “Agitators in Los Angeles have assaulted DHS employees, thrown objects at them, engaged in arson, and even tried to breech [sic] a federal facility.

“Judicial micromanagement of use of force in these contexts puts our officers at risk.”

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In response, Sean Lewis, a spokesperson for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, told Fox News Digital that “the Code of Conduct calls on federal judges not to comment publicly on pending cases. It also requires them to decide each matter independently, based on the law and the facts — not political pressure, public reaction, partisan interests or fear of criticism.”

Lewis added that “when someone disagrees with a ruling, the appropriate way to challenge it is through the appellate process.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Chicago Sun-Times and the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California for comment.

Peter Pinedo is a politics writer for Fox News Digital.

Trump unveils another project as polling shows his DC construction is unpopular

2026-07-29T21:04:28.069Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/29/politics/trump-dulles-airport-renovation

It’s been many years since President Donald Trump flew commercial. But on Wednesday, he unveiled major renovations to a key Washington-area airport — his latest effort to shape infrastructure around the nation’s capital.

Trump oversaw proposals for a massive, $22.5 billion project at Dulles International Airport, the Northern Virginia air travel hub with direct flights to more than 50 countries.

“This is very exciting to me as a builder — somebody that builds lots of big, nice projects before I got here, and we’re doing some of the best in the world right now,” Trump said in the Oval Office Wednesday, seated before a large model of the newly imagined airport that covered his desk. He gestured enthusiastically at renderings of the plans that sources say he personally reviewed and approved, using a laser pointer to highlight new parking areas closer to the main terminal.

Throughout his second term, the president has often used the Oval Office to debut proposals for building and repairing — not just at the White House, but across the city and surrounding region.

He’s tried to renovate the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, build a new triumphal arch and National Garden of American Heroes, restore fountains across town and slapped his name — with limited enduring success — on prominent institutions. And while some of those projects may be more popular than others among DC residents, a 58% majority of Americans say they feel dissatisfied or angry about his construction projects in DC, according to a new CNN poll released Wednesday.

“You know, it’s a great thrill,” Trump said Wednesday when asked why he’s so focused on transforming the Washington, DC, area.

Dulles has been on Trump’s mind for months.

“Whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, you don’t want to go and be subjected to this airport,” Trump said in the Oval Office, echoing his comments from a December Cabinet meeting that Dulles is a “terrible” airport.

Operational for 60 years, Dulles regularly appears on lists of the worst airports, largely due to one of its most unusual features: the so-called people movers, more formally known as “mobile lounges,” which are used to ferry passengers between gates and planes.

The phased renovation plan, which was first reported by CBS News, will be implemented over eight to 10 years and eliminate the people movers for good, according to multiple sources familiar with the project.

Funding is coming through the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority and airlines. “It’s going to be bonded for $22.5 billion. United is going to partake in part of the payment, but the airlines who participate in the project are going to pay for it,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.

Trump, however, suggested there could still be a role for Congress to play.

“It’s largely financed, and yeah, we need some approvals from Congress probably. But generally speaking, it’s been very bipartisan,” he said.

The project is expected to bolster parking and check-in facilities, modernize concourses — including United’s C and D concourses, which were built as a temporary facility in 1985 — create a new tunnel that will eliminate the need for the people movers and add new concessions and lounges, according to United.

The airport’s Eero Saarinen-designed main terminal is expected to be preserved, according to a White House official.

Duffy on Wednesday called the airport renovations the “cherry on top” of Trump’s efforts to “make DC safe and beautiful.”

“We we had multiple architects come in and present to the president, and we are blessed that not only does he give his time to really important matters, but he gave his building skill to take the best of all the designs and come up with this concept,” he added.

For the president, a former real estate developer, construction across the Washington area isn’t just a side project — he believes it’s the foundation of his legacy.

“I’m a really good builder. The thing I do best in life is build,” Trump told reporters on a May tour of the 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom construction project.

His efforts started with gilding the Oval Office, a design choice that crept into the Roosevelt Room.

The Rose Garden has been paved with stone and reconfigured in the image of his Mar-a-Lago patio. The tongue-in-cheek “Presidential Walk of Fame,” with biographies of his predecessors written in Trump’s voice, has been installed along the West Colonnade, plus new granite pavers. Giant new flagpoles and a helipad have been added to the lawn. And the Palm Room flooring and the storied Lincoln Bedroom bathroom have been redone in marble.

Nearby, Trump’s building new sidewalks for Lafayette Square, overseeing a new visitors’ center complex, and pushing a coat of white “magic paint” for the neighboring Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

His ambitions haven’t been limited to the White House. Across town, the Kennedy Center, where Trump is chairman of the board, is expected to undergo a sweeping renovation, even after the board was forced to remove his name to comply with a federal judge’s order. The president is also overseeing plans to place a massive arch atop a traffic circle. Sculptures along the National Mall have been newly re-embellished with gold, and his Reflecting Pool renovation — to the tune of $14 million — has become a key, albeit deeply controversial, pet project.

Trump has also floated the idea of a pedestrian promenade connecting the Lincoln Memorial to the Potomac River and has resurrected a plan for a “Garden of American Heroes,” which was proposed during his first term and scrapped by the Biden administration. Nearby, he’s forging ahead with plans to turn the East Potomac Park public golf course into a championship course.

While Trump has spent more time reflecting on his legacy during his second term, and sources say he sees many projects as part of that, the new CNN poll suggests voters may be more skeptical of Trump’s local focus. A record-high 73% of US adults said he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems.

CNN’s Alexandra Skores contributed to this report.

US strikes $58.6 billion Patriot missile deal amid rising stockpile concerns

2026-07-29T22:24:51.095Z / Reuters

WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Army awarded Lockheed Martin
LMT.N
a contract worth up to $58.6 billion to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, the Pentagon ​said on Wednesday, as conflicts in Iran and Ukraine strain U.S. weapons stockpiles.

The U.S. ‌has supplied large quantities of weapons to allies while also using munitions in its own military operations in Iran, raising concerns about inventories of key air defense and precision-guided weapons.

The Reuters Iran Briefing newsletter keeps you informed with the latest developments and analysis of the Iran war. Sign up here.

The Lockheed award converts a previous one-year deal worth $4.7 ​billion awarded in April into a seven-year draft agreement, creating a multiyear procurement plan ​for the interceptors from fiscal 2026 through 2032, the Army said.

Pentagon negotiators are ⁠pressing contractors to move much faster, with tentative production agreements struck earlier this year at the center of ​efforts to increase missile output. The administration of President Donald Trump has also steadily increased pressure on ​defense contractors to prioritize production over shareholder payouts. Trump signed an executive order in January to identify contractors deemed to be underperforming on government contracts while continuing to distribute profits to shareholders.

Industry executives have welcomed the production agreements, but said ​Congress must first appropriate funding before companies can invest more heavily in components and production capacity.

Exact ​terms and delivery dates for many Pentagon munitions deals are still under negotiation.

A similar framework deal had been struck ‌with ⁠Raytheon’s parent company RTX
RTX.N
to boost production of Tomahawk cruise missiles from the current rate of about 60 per year for the U.S. to eventually 1,000 units annually.

Lockheed, a Bethesda, Maryland-based defense contractor, said the funding would allow it to follow through on a promise to triple PAC-3 MSE production capacity ​by the end of ​2030 and increase jobs ⁠at its Camden, Arkansas, plant by 50%, to about 1,850 from 1,200. Lockheed previously announced Patriot PAC-3 missile interceptor production would go to 2,000 units ​annually.

Lockheed Martin said it is investing $8 billion to $9 billion through 2030 to ​modernize more than ⁠20 U.S. facilities, including new munitions centers in Alabama and Arkansas.

PAC-3 MSE is a hit-to-kill interceptor used within the Patriot air defense system to counter ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and aircraft.

The Center for Strategic and ⁠International ​Studies, a Washington-based think tank, estimated this week that the ​U.S. military has fewer than 1,000 Patriot interceptors on hand and fewer than 250 THAAD interceptors — two key air defense systems. Both have ​seen recent heavy use in the Middle East.

Reporting by Mike Stone in Washington; editing by Chris Sanders

Dr. Deborah Birx says Fauci hearing shows there’s still “persistent anger” over government’s handling of COVID

July 29, 2026 / 7:46 PM EDT / CBS News

The former White House coordinator of the COVID Task Force says the contentious Senate hearing that put Dr. Anthony Fauci and his diary under scrutiny shows there is still “persistent anger” over the government’s handling of the pandemic.

In an interview on CBS News’ “The Takeout,” Dr. Deborah Birx said she thought Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who was Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor during the pandemic, “got it the most right for all of us.” He wondered, she said, “Did I get the balance right between saving lives and preserving people’s livelihoods?”

“That is a very deep question, and I think what you heard today is still persistent anger over that question not being answered adequately for most Americans,” Birx told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett.

“We’ve got to get to that answer, and we have to have a better way forward than this,” Birx said.

And Fauci, she said, is probably at the center of questions about this because he served during both the Trump and Biden administrations, and people on the left and right still harbor deep disagreements about how each side addressed COVID.

Six years after the pandemic, one of the enduring questions is whether the coronavirus originated in an animal in a wet market in Wuhan, China, or emerged from a lab there. Senators asked Fauci repeatedly about this Wednesday, but he invoked the Fifth Amendment in response to all questions during the hearing.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, subpoenaed Fauci to appear before the committee as part of the panel’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.

Paul backs the theory that the virus emerged from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than spilling over from animals to humans naturally in a wet market in that city, and he has long accused Fauci and other top health officials of downplaying the possibility of a lab leak and misleading the public.

Fauci has denied that he rejected or downplayed the lab leak theory, insisting that he always kept an open mind about the origins of the coronavirus, though he has asserted at times that the evidence suggests a natural spillover was more likely.

Fauci said during his opening statement Wednesday that he planned to assert the Fifth Amendment, arguing that Paul has an “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution” and has made “slanderous comments” about him. He then invoked the Fifth Amendment for several hours as Paul and other Republicans criticized him and Democrats defended him.

Birx didn’t express an opinion, but she did say that it’s an important question because “we do need additional guardrails” and “additional policy around these issues.”

“We all know that there have been lab accidents,” she said, adding, “I’m hoping that going forward, we really look at these and have good policies that protect the lab workers, that protect the American public, and really get us ready with trust with the American people.”

She also told Garrett, “All of us need to be quite honest with ourselves,” not only about how information about the coronavirus evolved, but also how countermeasures “should have also evolved.”

Birx pointed out that early in the pandemic, “We didn’t have enough testing out there. We couldn’t stop the spread in any way. Hospitals were being overrun. We didn’t have a supply chain that matched the need.” The first few months “were a crisis,” she said.

Then, additional therapies like monoclonal antibodies and remdesivir enabled the government to “pull back on some of the mitigation,” Birx said.

“But because it was an election year, there were states that persisted in their very tight mitigations, and others that showed us a way that you could open K-12 and higher ed,” Birx said. Tests “really prevented spread,” she said.

She called for a dialogue to figure out “how are we going to do this next time?” Birx said she wants to figure out, how will the U.S. prevent spread, keep schools open, keep businesses open?

“There’s a way to do it,” she said. “And then we have that roadmap, but we need to get that down in real concrete terms, and have both the right and the left agree that that’s the best way forward.”

Garrett also asked Birx about Fauci’s diaries and the idea that he appeared “captivated by his rising international fame.”

She told him, “Well, have you been to his office, you can see that he has a lot of photos of his dealing with high-level influencers and presidents. That is something that means something to him.” But she added, “I don’t think that that clouded his judgment on what he was trying to do for the American people. We all are human, and I hope we step back and allow Dr. Fauci that humanness, at the same time, holding Dr. Fauci, myself and others accountable to really make this a better response next time.”

Dr. Deborah Birx on combative Fauci hearing
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/deborah-birx-combative-fauci-hearing-have-to-have-better-way-forward/

Dr. Deborah Birx on combative Fauci hearing: “We have to have a better way forward than this”

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